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| Mechanism to fight terrorism | | | It will help in testing Pakistan’s commitment
by Sushant Sareen
The decision “to put in place an India-Pakistan anti-terrorism institutional mechanism to identify and implement counter-terrorism initiatives and investigations” is by all means a “bold and new beginning” in Indo-Pak relations. If it works, it holds the potential for effecting a paradigm change in the security relations between the two neighbours. But it could quite easily also amount to no more than what the main opposition party, the BJP, calls “a fig-leaf for the resumption of dialogue”.
Frankly, as “fig-leaves” go, this one is not so bad especially when we consider the fact that not only is India incapable, ill-equipped or unwilling to exercise any of the hard options on Pakistan, it also has a fairly good thing going as far as the composite dialogue with Pakistan is concerned.
The deep scepticism with which the joint anti-terror mechanism has been greeted in India is perfectly understandable. After all, Pakistan has been the source of much of the terrorism that India has faced for nearly 30 years now. Even today, the signals emerging from Pakistan are quite ambiguous as far its commitment to eliminate “all forms of terrorism” is concerned.
For one, there is a definitional problem regarding terrorism. What India considers terrorism and the people in India call terrorists are seen as “mujahideen” and “freedom-fighters” in Pakistan. For another, terrorism has been used quite effectively by Pakistan to keep India unsettled, and strategically it remains a low-cost option for Pakistan to address the asymmetry in power between the two countries. Third, it is still not clear whether Pakistan and its “friends and masters” (read the US and the UK) will continue to differentiate between “good” terrorists and “bad” terrorists, the former being those who follow orders and strike where they are ordered (against India and Shia Iran) and the latter being the “free-lance” or recalcitrant elements who are opposed to the US and its local allies, namely the Pakistan army.
Finally, the continued patronage of jihadi organisations like the Jamaatud Dawa, the Jaish-e-Mohammad and the Hizbul Mujahideen, the sanctuary provided to international terrorists like Dawood Ibrahim, and the facilitation of terrorism in India through Bangladesh and Nepal continue to raise doubts whether Pakistan has indeed forsaken the use of terrorism as an instrument of foreign policy.
Therefore, criticism of the new initiative is quite natural, and to impute motives and make political insinuations against former officials is not only distasteful but also smacks of intolerance for any counter-view. In fact, this is exactly the kind of intolerance that prevents serving officials from giving professional advice to political masters. In private, senior officials often admit that they try and gauge what the political master wants to hear and give advice accordingly; otherwise they fear they might be victimised and sidelined.
The “Yes, Prime Minister” culture that has seeped into the serving officials is precisely the reason why the note of caution sounded by retired officials, whose patriotism and service to the country is above doubt, needs to be taken more seriously.
Having said this, the issue remains whether or not to try the joint anti-terror mechanism with Pakistan. While the nay-sayers have a point when they say that this is akin to asking Dawood to investigate the 1993 Mumbai blasts case, the fact remains that police officers often use criminals to catch criminals. Therefore, it would be a mistake to write off this new initiative without first giving it a good try. This mechanism can be an excellent tool in testing the commitment of Pakistan against terrorism. If nothing else, the joint anti-terror mechanism will call Pakistan’s bluff on the issue of terrorism and expose it, especially since the eyes of the security community around the world will be focused on how effectively this mechanism works.
Of course, it is important to be careful while sharing information or cooperating with the other side. This is so because of some past experiences when Pakistan used information that was given to plug holes in its operational strategy and tactics so that it could continue to maintain “plausible deniability”. Pakistani academic Hussain Haqqani has, in his excellent book, highlighted how the ISI would ask the Americans for proof only to try and figure out the their source of information and then plug those leaking holes. There have also been cases, especially in dealing with Bangladesh, where information regarding the whereabouts of wanted terrorists was exchanged and this was used by the Bangladeshi intelligence to clean up the place so that nothing incriminating was found.
Ultimately, however, the proof of the pudding will lie in its eating. If both India and Pakistan are genuinely serious and sincere about making this initiative work, then there is no reason why it will not work. Of course, expectations must be kept low, at least for the first few months, if not years. India should not expect that this mechanism will lead to the handing over of the most wanted terrorists. This will not happen, not now, not in the future. This is so for two reasons: one, unlike India, Pakistan doesn’t forsake its friends, allies and proxies easily; and second, because handing these criminals will be diplomatically and politically disastrous for Pakistan. It would be akin to Mullah Omar and Osama bin Laden being discovered from one corner of Army House in Rawalpindi. But what can happen is that if there is any “freelance” terrorist activity, it can be either pre-empted or efforts can be made to bring the perpetrators of freelance terrorist acts to justice. In this the handling of the Mumbai train blasts (7/11) will be critical.
Again, it is extremely important that both sides avoid any grand-standing on intelligence cooperation or even joint operations and investigations. They must also resist the temptation of political and diplomatic point-scoring. This mechanism can work only behind the scenes because any publicity will only end up killing it. Equally important will be the structure and scope of this institutional mechanism. Replicating the mechanisms that exist with other countries and which are generally dysfunctional will most certainly fail in the Indo-Pak case. Therefore, careful thought will have to be given to the structure of the mechanism, and its mandate will have to be well-defined if it has to work effectively.
While there are no guarantees that can be given as far as this new and quite revolutionary institutional mechanism is concerned, if it works it can prove to be the beginning of a joint Indo-Pak cooperative security mechanism which could ultimately set the foundation for some sort of a joint defence and security framework between the two countries. However, if this initiative fails, then India will have been no worse off for it, provided it has not compromised its intelligence gathering systems, investigative techniques and security structures.
Indeed, if the mechanism fails, then it will provide India a lever at the international stage (for whatever that is worth) to press its case against Pakistan’s perfidy on the issue of terrorism. This will leave India to exercise whatever other options it wishes to combat cross-border terrorism. But this will also confront India with the basic question: does India have what it takes to eliminate terrorism, because if it does then what is the need to enter into such an agreement with Pakistan in the first place unless, of course, the entire scheme is part of a grand reconciliation strategy, something that seems quite unlikely?
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