February 24, 2007
All well-wishers of the India-Pakistan peace
process must breathe a sigh of relief that the
gruesome and condemnable bomb explosions on
the Samjhauta Express near Panipat haven't disrupted
the bilateral dialogue or led to mutual recrimination
and finger-pointing by the leaders and officials
of the two countries. As such, the attackers'
principal objective has been soundly defeated.
There can be little doubt that the bomb attack
was motivated by a terrorist design to torpedo
the ongoing India-Pakistan dialogue. Nothing
else can better explain its timing, which in
all probability was calculated to coincide with
Pakistan Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmood Kasuri's
visit to India.
This fits into a well-established pattern of
terrorists timing their acts to coincide with
foreign dignitaries' visits. For instance, 35
Sikhs were massacred at Chittisinghpura in Kashmir
just before President Clinton's visit to India
in 2000. And in 2002, Kashmiri leader Abdul
Ghani Lone was assassinated a day ahead of Prime
Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's visit to Islamabad.
Three things make the Samjhota Express bombings
special. First, like in Malegaon last year,
a rare instance, a majority of those killed
in the terrorist attack on Indian soil were
Muslims. Second, this is the first time that
Indian and Pakistani citizens have been attacked
together. Third, it's no longer India alone
that can raise questions about terrorism. Pakistan
too can legitimately ask questions about terrorism
against its citizens and about the adequacy
of safety measures on the train.
Unfortunate as it was, the incident compelled
the two governments to respond quickly. And
respond they did--positively and remarkably
maturely. Both condemned the attack sincerely
and spontaneously. India set up a counter at
Lahore to issue special visas to the victims'
relatives. Although the Indian response in furnishing
the
victims' names was slow, its pace wasn't determined
by bad faith.
Despite some unfortunate bickering over airlifting
the injured, and disputes about the Indian authorities'
access to the injured survivors, the two governments'
overall conduct stands in sharp contrast to
how they behaved after last July's bombings
in Mumbai.
Kasuri's visit succeeded in kicking off the
fourth round of the "composite dialogue"
between the two foreign secretaries, starting
March 13 and 14. Besides the nuclear risk-reduction
agreement, there was also some progress in resolving
the issue of prisoners, and in putting diverse
issues on the agenda, including visa liberalisation
and cooperation in education, information technology,
tourism and telecommunications.
However, perhaps even more important than such
incremental progress was the confident optimism
exuded by both sides about a possible resolution
of the Kashmir issue. Kasuri emphasised the
importance of building a strong consensus on
the contours of a likely solution. At a reception
at the Pakistan high commissioner's residence,
he appealed to the media to help build such
a consensus.
"There is no way that an issue as important
as Jammu and Kashmir can be resolved by the
prime minister of India and the president of
Pakistan unless we can carry the opposition,
the media and the people with us", he said.
Kasuri also told Hurriyat leaders that India
and Pakistan were on "the same wavelength"
on Kashmir. To a group of journalists, he said,
"the only reason" why the two governments
have not made the outline of a likely solution
public is that "we have to struggle hard
to reach some sort of conclusion before we can
sell it to our respective countries? it will
be a very hard sell."
The two countries' leaders should soon start
consultations with diverse political groups
to generate a working consensus on a Kashmir
solution. This won't be easy. There are groups
in both which oppose the dialogue process and
any resolution of the Kashmir issue that involves
give-and-take. Among them are terrorists driven
by religious fanaticism.
Pakistan's jihadi militants regard both President
Pervez Musharraf and Indian leaders as "enemies".
They have repeatedly targeted Pakistani leaders,
including Musharraf, in as-yet-unsuccessful
assassination attempts.
In India, a fanatical fringe of Hindu nationalists
allied to the Bharatiya Janata Party also opposes
the peace process. Among them is the notoriously
communal Bajrang Dal. The Dal recently announced
the formation of a "suicide squad",
which would target "jihadi terrorists".
In general, the sangh parivar remains lukewarm
to India-Pakistan reconciliation.
Extremist groups external to South Asia may
also play an aggravating role. The subcontinent
has recently become more vulnerable to terrorism
because of growing volatility in Afghanistan
and rising tensions in West Asia, in particular,
the stepping up of the United States' offensive
against Iran and Iraq's insurgents.
However, a major advance could have been made
in promoting a climate conducive to such a breakthrough
had India and Pakistan agreed to a joint investigation
of the Panipat attack. This was indeed the sense
and the mandate of their Havana declaration
of last September: to create an "institutional
mechanism to identify and implement counter-terrorism
initiatives and investigations."
India for the moment has ruled this out. It
will investigate the crime "as per the
law of the land". However, it will share
the information it unearths through the Joint
Mechanism against Terrorism, for which a meeting
has been set for March 6.
This need not be the end of the story. It is
in India's own interest to investigate the Panipat
episode and other terrorist attacks jointly
with Pakistan. It should pursue this in the
coming weeks and months.
Despite their differences, both India and Pakistan
have a stake in taking on fanatical groups.
If their leaders are wise, they would stop looking
for villains exclusively across the border and
treating each other's agencies as the prime
suspects in any terrorist attack, unless they
have hard evidence.
Instead, they should look for ways of working
together against terrorist groups. Such cooperation
will be far more valuable than incremental confidence-building
measures. There are two areas where cooperation
would be especially fruitful: beefing up security
arrangements at the air, road and rail transportation
facilities that link the two countries, and
exchanging intelligence on terrorist groups.
Last Sunday's train attack exposed major flaws
in the security arrangements at the Old Delhi
railway station, from where the Samjhauta Express
runs non-stop to the border. India has done
well to urgently institute 10 different measures
to beef up security at Old Delhi, with thorough
baggage checks, secure gates at the platform,
dog squads, etc.
An impartial and comprehensive probe into the
train bombings will lay the basis for future
cooperation on anti-terrorism operations through
exchange of intelligence on different organisations
active on both sides of the border.
However, this will demand a paradigm shift in
the way India and Pakistan look at security
and conceptualise terrorism. They will have
to view each other in fundamentally different,
non-adversarial, ways. India will have to abandon
the Islamophobic view its core security establishment
takes of terrorism. And Pakistan must rein in
its secret agencies and end covert support for
jihadi militants.
Such a paradigm shift will be stiffly resisted
by the security establishments in both countries.
But their political leaders must seize the initiative
and move from evidence-sharing to substantive
cooperation. One can only hope they muster the
courage to turn the tragic bombing episode into
an opportunity for peace.
