Post 26/11 : What India Needs to Do

THE MUMBAI TERROR ATTACK was no proxy war, but an all-out assault on the Indian state. Pakistan should not be allowed to get away with the impression that India will not react for fear of a nuclear reaction

In the introduction to her book “What Terrorists Want”, Louise Richardson explains why she studied terrorism “to try to establish why an otherwise responsible parent, student or teacher would chose to join a terrorist movement and remain in one and why a group of people would collectively choose to kill innocent people they do not know in order to advance some goal unlikely t o be achieved in their lifetime.” What happened in Mumbai on November 26 for three days raises just these and several other questions. And what we have seen is no longer proxy war but an all out assault on the Indian state. It is an attack on all Indians and all Indians will have to be prepared to fight this one. It is far too serious to be left to politicians.

It may be state policy in Pakistan to use jehad as a deadly instrument of foreign policy and as a force equaliser against the superior Indian military but then that state has the manpower willing to act as its emissaries in this bloody game virtually sure that they will die. There is a terrorist rationality in this seeming irrationality – of dying unsung for a cause unfulfilled. Perhaps the incident itself is the rationale. Perhaps the incident coverage by the media provides the narrative and renown for the future. Or perhaps the debate that ensues with the pseudo-liberal platitudes provides some justification.

The Mumbai terrorists were seeking a global audience for their expression of hatred and the spectacular act was part of their psychological warfare. Their inspiration may be the desire of their leaders and ideologues– like Syed Qutb, Osama bin Laden, Abdullah Azzam, Ibn Taymiyah and even Hafeez Saeed to return to the glory of 7th century Islam. This would inevitable put them into conflict with the 21st century world including a large percentage of Muslims. Pakistani rulers have used Kashmir as glue for organising groups like Lashkar-e-Tayyaba (LeT) as a policy instrument against India. It may now be getting out of control.

WHY NOW?

The question that many ask is that given Pakistan’s present political uncertainties, an economic crisis despite having just received an IMF bailout, and a security predicament in the NWFP and US pressure to co-operate, given the kinds of peace overtures coming from the President, why did it feel necessary to indulge in this kind of adventurism. Maybe these are the very reasons why this adventure was necessary. All this is part of a devious plot, to create a crisis on the eastern frontier by having this terrorist act which is difficult for the Indians to ignore, then move troops away from the FATA and NWFP which would alarm the US/NATO in their battles against the Taliban in Afghanistan. The ensuing tension on the eastern frontier would absolve Pakistan of having to fight America’s war in the west unless the US is able to assure Pakistan that its eastern flank is not endangered by the Indians.

A major terrorist incident in Mumbai would provoke an Indian reaction, raise tension and alarm the US. Kashmir would be back on the radar screen of the new President. So if India could be made to see reason on this, Pakistan would be able to help the American cause in Afghanistan. There is considerable writing in the US precisely on these lines and a major terrorist action would be useful in impressing the new President anxious to find a different path to solving the Afghanistan imbroglio. The hope would be that the Americans would be able to leave Afghanistan with Pakistani assistance, Pakistan would have access to Afghanistan and Kashmir and, finally, the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba would be the heroes.

As it is, the Pakistan army has been fighting its FATA campaign very half heartedly and has been more interested in obtaining a steady cash inflow of money from the US. The Pakistanis do not want to eliminate the Taliban as they would have future uses for it in Afghanistan and Kashmir in a post-US phase. Sushant Sareen feels that there will be immense US political, military and economic pressure on Pakistan to prevent it from entering into a deal with the Islamists. If the Pakistanis defy the Americans, then they risk economic collapse and military confrontation with the US. On the other hand, acceptance of US demands will cause public outrage as the US and Pakistani forces take on the Taliban and the Taliban retaliate by hitting in major towns and cities. In this context, the Mumbai plot was a way to pre-empt this pressure.

Over time the Pakistani Taliban have been able to or been allowed to take control of large chunks of territory in FATA and Swat. The startling disclosure that Baitullah Mehsud, till recently accused of assassinating Benazir Bhutto, had now been declared a Pakistani patriot who would allow the Army to pull out and concentrate on the Indian frontier could be an indicator of the shape of things to come. It is possible that there is a strong difference of opinion in the Pak Army about priorities – whether Pakistan should be fighting America’s war in the NWFP and killing their own Muslim brothers in the province or fighting its own war in Kashmir and against India. Possibly, there are those in the Pak Army who feel that Pakistan must not be seen to be fighting its own people – although that never bothered the Pak armed forces whenever they have had to tackle the Baloch. Maybe this is a victory for the Islamists inside the Pak Army.

The Pak Army’s badge of professionalism is heavily imbued with Islamic overtones. The Pakistani soldier and officer are different from the officers who graduate from Khadakvasla, Sandhurst or West Point. The man from Kakul trains under the motto ‘Jihad fi’isbillah’ – Jihad in the name of God. He leads a modern Islamic Army and genuinely believes that he is the protector of the Faith and the Defender of the Realm. And this Army is steadily losing control of parts of its territory in the northwest as the Taliban spread deeper into Pakistan.

PAKISTAN ARMY’S GUIDED MISSILE

The Lashkar-e- Tayyaba (Army of Pure) whose involvement in the Mumbai attacks is now established is an Islamic terrorist force in Asia with links to Al Qaeda. Its network extends across South Asia, has links in Afghanistan, has received generous donations from the Middle East especially Saudi Arabia and has the support of the Pak Army and the ISI. Seed money came from Osama bin Laden and there have been generous donations from rich Pakistani businessmen. Saudi Arabia has sustained this outfit with considerable funding. The political wing of the LeT, the Markaz Dawa Irshad, (renamed Jamaat ut Dawa renamed Idara Khidmat e Khalq) today runs 200 mainstream Dawa schools, 11 madrassas, two science colleges, an ambulance service, mobile clinics and blood banks. Its recruits are not ill-educated madrassa students but also well educated and educationally qualified urban professionals.

The Lashkar continues to have training camps in Muridke, its headquarters near Lahore. The LeT has conducted operations in Chechnya, Bosnia Iraq and SE Asia. The Lashkar is an invaluable asset to the Pak authorities as it enables it to keep the Kashmir option open even while supporting the US campaign in Afghanistan.

It is sometimes assumed, incorrectly, that the LeT is a Kashmiri outfit. It is a purely Punjabi Pakistani group. As an associate of Osama bin Laden’s International Islamic Front for Jihad Against Crusaders and Jews and then later to include Hindus, its scope of activity is beyond Kashmir. As Wilson John of the Observer Research Foundation points out Hafeez Saeed’s favourite verse from the Quran is Wajahidu fi Sabilallah (Wage a holy war in the name of God). It was not too long ago when the LeT chief Hafiz Saeed told his followers in Lahore from where he usually doles out inflammatory sermons against India when he said “India understands only one language – the language of Jehad.” This was on October 13, 2008, a few weeks before the Mumbai attacks were launched or as one can suspect, maybe by then the operation had already begun.

US REACTIONS

The Indians got angry after the Mumbai attacks and demanded retribution .In response the Pakistanis announced ordered troop mobilisation on their eastern front. The US predictably sent in Condoleezza Rice on another mission to hold and stay India’s hand. Presidential candidate McCain had preceded her and Adm. Mullen did the same circuit later. Their immediate purpose has been served in as much as the Indians did not go in for reprisals.

At the same time there is a distinct toughening of the US posture. The usual US reaction in the past has been to first contain the immediate crisis and then begin backtracking on various issues that there is not enough evidence about the Pakistani involvement, and that these were the acts of non-state actors. This time the terrorists have not been described as freedom fighters but if the past is any guide attempts to say that there were some elements acting on their own and that there may be renegade elements in the ISI are untenable. The US cannot expect India to restrain itself and then do nothing to restrict Pakistan. There is thus still hope that this time it would be different.

The truth is that the ISI and the LeT have been planning joint operations for long. Saleem Shahzad, in his latest article in the Asia Times online, said that an old ISI-LeT plan has been dusted off the shelves and put into operation. This is more or less similar to what Musharraf did in Kargil in 1998. This is as plausible as it is difficult to believe that in a country where the Army is supreme there would be such renegade elements who can carry out a major operation of this magnitude without the Army at least encouraging this or looking the other way. No Army worth its name will have an intelligence agency run amok in this fashion and no intelligence agency will allow such renegade elements to exist.

If we assume that the Pakistan army has lost control of what it has created then it has to be assumed that it is losing control of the country. Pakistan today looks more and more like a vast real estate where the Islamists have a free run and the dwindling free society cowers in fear. If that be so, then there is every danger that some time in the future there could be a terrorist group armed with a WMD or at least a dirty bomb. The time for coddling Pakistan has gone.

Successive US administrations have opted for the policy that merely seemed to reward Pakistan’s rulers for each delinquency. There was more aid each time they blackmailed and raised the stakes. This policy has not worked. Unending military and economic supplies have only emboldened the military rulers to greater adventurism. This flawed policy has always upset India as it felt deprived of its good boy bonus for being a ‘responsible’ democracy even when under stress with no punishment to the delinquent. Possibly we are seeing a change in this approach. A good deal would depend on how volatile the NWFP becomes in the days ahead.

Robert Kagan of the Carnegie Endowment is right when he says in a recent article ‘The Sovereignty Dodge’ that ... “In Pakistan's case, the continuing complicity of the military and intelligence services with terrorist groups pretty much shreds any claim to sovereign protection. The Bush administration has tried for years to work with both the military and the civilian governments, providing billions of dollars in aid and advanced weaponry. But as my Carnegie endowment colleague Ashley Tellis has observed this strategy has not worked.” Kagan has suggested that there should be an international force that takes out the terrorist camps in Pakistan as only this would convince the Indians that the rest of the world takes attacks on India seriously. His argument is very persuasive when he says that nations should not be able to claim sovereign rights when they cannot control territory from which terrorist attacks are launched. This rebuts the argument of governments when they talk about non-state or stateless actors or rogue elements.

WHAT NEXT

The main fears would now be - how many were they and have we accounted for all of them. The fear is that some may have escaped and may have gone into hiding in India with their local support. The other worry would be that if they could move into Mumbai with such ease they could have occupied any one of our uninhabited islands in the Arabian Sea or the Bay of Bengal from where to launch more attacks. They could slip into India along the vast and unguarded coastline and then disappear into the hinterland.

The Mumbai attack has been followed by a massive attack on the transport depots of the NATO in Peshawar where the terrorists burnt 160 transport vehicles. It is too early to say that this was a coincidence but there is also an uneasy feeling that this could be a reaction to the hardening US stance in Pakistan. It has come a day after Senator McCain threatened the Pakistanis with joint action by India and the US. The attack was also on the day there were raids on two LeT facilities in Muzzafarabad (Pak Occupied Kashmir).

The continuing violence with the almost daily bombings in NWFP the retreat of the Pakistani state, the Kabul bombings of the Indian Embassy and the Marriott bombings against the US, are part of a larger battle. It is a battle between the ambitions of some seeking to impose their creed globally against a power striving to retain its declining global supremacy.

DEALING WITH PAKISTAN

Internationally we need to show the world that the danger from Pakistan is now global. The LeT uses the diaspora in the UK, has links in the US and operates indirectly in Europe. In Afghanistan terrorists have run autonomous private enterprises that a weak government has been unable to control. In Pakistan, the state has been actively involved in this enterprise. The LeT is thus better equipped, controlled and direction comes from the Centre which for form’s sake may be Muridke, the LeT headquarters but in reality is Rawalpindi the Army headquarters and Islamabad from where the ISI executes these orders.

Meanwhile, as they say, get real. Pakistan has always played for high stakes and understands the language of strength. It should not be allowed to get away with the impression that India will not retaliate for fear of a nuclear reaction. It is true that the US would be extremely concerned about an India-Pakistan confrontation with its troops deployed in the region and this would have been one of the calculations in the timing of the Mumbai attack. But an immediate reprisal strike should always be an option and the US must accept this possibility. India must revive its covert capabilities and be able to take deniable covert actions inside Pakistan. India needs to step up its psy-war capabilities that target Pakistan as well as the rest of the world

At the same time, dealing with Pakistan today also means dealing with this phenomenon of international jehad emanating from Pakistan. It may not be enough to detect, deter and destroy terrorism. It is no longer a purely intelligence-military-counter terror solution. A truly global approach where the earlier principle of - my terrorist is more important than yours, has to be abandoned. The moderates must be given a voice. The sponsors of terrorism have to be punished; their financiers, in many cases States and their front organisations, singled out and ostracised. Terrorists have to be denied access to territory, sanctuaries and the media.

Terrorists went global a long time ago. It is time the rest of the world took this on as a truly global challenge.

Source : India and Global Affairs , January-March 2009 Issue

Can Pakistan Survive ?

This essay begins with quotations from essentially non-Indian sources to buttress the arguments that follow and assert that these arguments do not reflect a preconceived notion about Pakistan but depict a stark reality that many perceptive Pakistanis also see today. And they worry about the future of their country. We too should be concerned about the fate of a neighbour who has been consistently hostile to India, has been internationally delinquent and in the process has become economically weak, with a weak middle class a polity in disarray and now has a highly Islamised Army in control not only of the country but also the nuclear button. The mosaic of quotations from Pakistani, American and British authors will indicate the problems that confront Pakistan and its neighbours.

"If the British Commonwealth and the USA are to be in a position to defend their vital interests in the Middle East, then the best and most stable area from which to conduct this defence is from Pakistan territory. Pakistan is the keystone of the strategic arch of the wide and vulnerable waters of the Indian Ocean." Cited by Narendra Singh Sarila in his book 'The Untold Story of India's Partition' from an unsigned British memorandum dated May 19 1948 – 'The Strategic and Political Importance of Pakistan in the Event of a War with the USSR'. (These were from Mountbatten Papers, Hartley Library, Southampton).

Commenting on Pakistan's early days, Owen Bennett Jones in his book "Pakistan-Eye of the Storm " (2002) said "Even if the vast majority of Pakistan's first generation of politicians were firmly in the modernist camp it is significant that they tried to avoid a direct confrontation with the Islamic radicals. Faced with growing challenges from Baloch, Sindhi, Pukhtoon and Bengali nationalists, even the most secular leaders found it was expedient to appeal to Islam so as to foster a sense of Pakistani unity. In doing so, the politicians established a trend which has been a feature of Pakistani politics ever since." "The fate of Pakistan will affect the entire world. Will Pakistan's military continue to use the mullahs to achieve its short term political and military goals? Will the sectarian killers – created by the ISI – get involved in sectarian crimes in other countries, for example in Iraq, further destabilising the country? Will terrorists continue to see Pakistan as a hospitable place of refuge? If Pakistan is to be saved from a Taliban-like future, and the rest of the world saved from future Dr Khans, it will have to make accommodations with India on Kashmir and stop flirting with the mullahs. It will have to spend less of its national income on defence and more on educating its youth. It will require that a true democracy take hold. But none of this will happen, Abbas warns, without the assistance of the United States. After all, the U. S. government helped to design and fund the strategy of employing violent Islamist cadres to serve as "volunteer" fighters in a war that seemed critically important at that time, but left those cadres to their own devices once they were no longer important for achieving U. S. strategic goals. The idea of international jihad – which was promoted by the United States and Pakistan when it was expedient, took hold and spread, ultimately resulting in deadly terrorist crimes throughout Asia as well as the September 11 strikes.....Mr Abbas warns of a frightening future – one in which extremists gain more military support and more military might; and tensions between India and Pakistan continue to rise...." Jessica Stern, in her foreword to Hassan Abbas's book 'Pakistan Drift into Extremism – Allah, the Army and America's War on Terror' 2005.

Abbas himself sounds rather concerned when he says in the concluding chapter of this book, "The Pakistan Army dare not confront them, [Islamists] knowing their strength and suspecting that they have many sympathisers, if not supporters, within its own ranks. It was therefore considered more feasible for the Army to continue to direct its energies in the battle zone of Kashmir rather than to face the jihadis.......No one knows has a clear idea about the exact numbers, but their potential capability resides in the subconscious of those in authority, and this stays there because the reality of it is too hard to confront. Their funding will not dry up because thousands of Pakistanis and Arabs believe in them and contribute to them."

Former adviser to Benazir Bhutto and the present Pak Ambassador to the U.S. Hussain Haqqani had made some very perceptive comments in his book 'Pakistan-Between the Mosque and Military' (2005). Haqqani observed "Pakistan's military historically has been willing to adjust its priorities to fit within the parameters of immediate U. S. global concerns. It has done this to ensure the flow of military and economic aid from the United States, which Pakistan considers necessary for its struggle for survival and its competition with India. Pakistan's relations with the United States have been part of the Pakistani military's policy tripod that emphasises Islam as a national unifier, rivalry with India as the principal objective of the state's foreign policy and an alliance with the United States as a means to defray the costs of Pakistan's massive military expenditures. These policy precepts have served to encourage extremist Islamism, which in the past few years have been a source of threat to both U.S. interests and global security."

Haqqani adds "America's alliance with Pakistan, or rather with the Pakistani military, has had three significant consequences for Pakistan. First, because the U.S. military sees Pakistan in the context of its Middle East strategy, Pakistan has become more oriented toward the Middle East even though it is geographically and historically a part of South Asia. Second, the intermittent flow of U.S. military and economic assistance has encouraged Pakistan's military leaders to overestimate their power potential. This in turn has contributed to their reluctance to accept normal relations with India even after learning through repeated misadventures that Pakistan can, at best hold India to a draw in military conflict and cannot defeat it. Third, the ability to secure military and economic aid by fitting into the current paradigm of American policy has made Pakistan into a rentier state, albeit one that lives off the rents for its strategic location."

Two other observations by Haqqani are important. He says, "Contrary to the U.S. assumption that aid translates into leverage, Pakistan's military has always managed to take the aid without ever fully giving the United States what it desires." Further, "Unless Islamabad's objectives are redefined to focus on economic prosperity and popular participation in governance – which the military as an institution remains reluctant to do – the state will continue to turn to Islam as a national unifier."

Amir Mir, in his book 'The True Face of the Jihadis', (2004) writes "The Pakistani Army became a politicised army in the very first decade of the creation of Pakistan.....The politicisation of the Pakistan Army has led to a further spread of Islamic fundamentalism --- a phenomenon that has found fertile ground in Pakistan primarily due to socio-economic reasons. Large masses of the urban and rural poor, with no avenues for economic advancement, are being drawn to fundamentalism. As the soldiery of the army is largely drawn from the rural and urban masses, it would be well nigh impossible for it not to be infected with the virus of Islamic fundamentalism being propagated thousands of deeni madrassas across Pakistan. During the Zia ul Haq regime, the composition of the Pakistan Army was changed at the expense of the urbanised, Westernised looking middle class and upper class elite and preference in officers' commissions was given to the rural educated generation with strong leanings towards conservative Islam. This large body of Islamist officers, commissioned during the Zia ul Haq regime, forms the backbone of the present day Pakistan Army, and its members have since moved up the ranks....The resentment within the Army is believed to be two levels: among junior officers who view with contempt General Musharraf's attempts at getting the army to combat rather than abet Islamic militancy, and among the upper echelons where Musharraf finds himself pitted against a few of his senior generals."

Later in the book, Mir says, "While the US may feel that it has achieved a great success in convincing Musharraf to make a U-turn on the Taliban, and on stopping the inexorable tide of hate-filled messages put out by the Deobandhi and Ahle Hadith seminaries, the real question is whether the Pakistan government will change its long term policy and stop supporting jihad. The Pakistan defence for its slow progress is that madrassa reform is difficult and dangerous, so it may take a while. The problem with that argument is that the longer the madrassas operate as they do, the fewer people there will be in Pakistan who would support such a change."

Shuja Nawaz, author of the book "Crossed Swords: Pakistan Army and the Wars Within" while on a visit to the Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi in May 2008 said "The young officer cadre in Pakistan army today is conservative and ritualistic, not necessarily radical. But the influences of Zia's Islamisation continue to bedevil the armed forces."

In his book 'Gateway to Terrorism' (2003), Mohammed Amir Rana describes the jihadi culture "During the course of the last two decades, thirty thousand Pakistani youth have died in Afghanistan and Kashmir, two thousand sectarian clashes have taken place and twelve lakh youth have taken part in the activities of jihadi and religious organisations.....In consequence, Pakistan got neither Kabul nor Srinagar, but was itself saddled with terrorism." Rana adds, "During the first phase of her rule, when Benazir Bhutto had visited Muzaffarabad, ISI briefed her about the Hurriyat movement in Occupied Kashmir and recommended status quo in the Kashmir policy. Benazir Bhutto approved of the policy and the future plan. No one ever thought of changing the character and style of ISI before 11 September 2001. ISI and the governments working under its influence gave a fillip to the jihadi culture. The raw material(s) for jihad were collected from two sources: religious madrassas (and) students of government colleges and schools."

"Lashkar-e-Tayyaba will ultimately plant the flag of Islam on Delhi, Tell Aviv and Washington,' according to Lashkar leader Hafiz Saeed speaking in 1998. Ten years later in October 2008 the same Hafiz Saeed said "India understands only the language of jihad."

In a subsequent book 'The Seeds of Terrorism' published in 2005, Rana says "In an interview in Newsweek in March 2000, the President of Pakistan General Pervez Musharraf, said: "I cannot pressurise the Taliban to arrest Osama bin Laden. The Taliban lead a free country." The jihadi weekly, Zarb-e-Momin (Karachi) published an extract from that interview. It quoted the president as saying "No jihadi organisation in Pakistan is involved in terrorism. They are now working against India in occupied Kashmir after completing their jihad against Russia in Afghanistan."

The Daily Times in its edition of March 6 2004 quotes former ISI Chief Javed Ashraf Qazi as saying "We must not be afraid of admitting that Jaish (-e-Mohammed) was involved in the deaths of thousands of innocent Kashmiris, bombing the Indian Parliament, Daniel Pearl's murder and attempts on President Musharraf's life." And the talkative General Musharraf's pronouncement that "If we find a solution on Kashmir with India, all jehadi organisations have to pack up" (The News August 10, 2004) was in effect an admission of Pakistani involvement in the violence in Kashmir.

The concluding sentences of Owen Bennett Jones book are even more telling "If General Musharraf is to transform his vision of Pakistani society into a reality he will need great reserves of political will and a more effective bureaucracy. He has neither. And while he still believes that the Pakistan army is the solution to the country's problems, he shows no signs of accepting that, in fact, it is part of the problem."

Dr Ayesha Siddiqa in her book "Military Inc-Inside Pakistan's Military Economy" (2007) describes the Pak Army's hold the best. "The fragility of Pakistan's political system, however, cannot be understood without probing into the military's political stakes. The fundamental question here is whether the Army will ever withdraw from power. Why would Pakistan's armed forces, or for that matter any military that has developed deep economic stakes, transfer real power to the political class? The country is representative of states where politically powerful militaries exercise control of the state and society through establishing their hegemony. This is done through penetrating the state, the society and the economy. The penetration into the society and economy establishes the defence establishment's hegemonic control of the state. Financial autonomy, economic penetration and political power ae interrelated and are part of a vicious cycle.

She goes on, "Today the Pakistan military's internal economy is extensive, and has turned the armed forces into one of the dominant economic players. The most noticeable and popular component of Milbus relates to the business of the four welfare foundations: the Fauji Foundation, the Army Welfare Trust, Shaheen Foundation, and Bahria Foundation. These foundations are subsidiaries of the defence establishment, employing both military and civilian personnel. The businesses are very diverse in nature, ranging from smaller scale ventures such as bakeries, farms, schools and private security firms to corporate enterprises such as commercial banks, insurance companies, radio and television channels, fertiliser, cement and cereal manufacturing plants and insurance businesses. Operations vary from toll collecting on highways to gas stations, shopping malls and to other similar ventures." Further, .... "there are a variety of benefits provided to retired personnel in the form of urban and rural land or employment and business openings. The grant of state land is a case of diverting the country's resources to individuals for profit."..... "Over the past 59 years of the state's history, the army has experienced direct power four times, and learnt to negotiate authority when not directly in control of the government.... As a result the political and civil society institutions remain weak."

Dr Siddiqa also says, "Stephen P Cohen also mentions an elite partnership in his latest 'The Idea of Pakistan.' He is of the view that the country is basically controlled by a small but 'culturally and socially intertwined elite', comprising about 500 people who form part of the establishment. Belonging to different subgroups, these people are known for their loyalty to the 'core principles' of a central state. These key principles include safeguarding the interests of the dominant classes."

This is the most telling commentary "Today no other country on earth is arguably more dangerous than Pakistan. It has everything Osama bin Laden could ask for: political instability, a crusted network of radical Islamists, an abundance of angry young anti-western recruits, secluded training areas, access to state of the art electronic technology regular air service to the west and security services that don't always do what they are supposed to do." Newsweek, January 2008.

This is the mosaic as seen by Pakistani, British and US commentators. Now the narrative of what has happened and what might happen next.

Pakistan's problems began in the beginning. The country was created by a group of elitists on behalf of Muslims who eventually did not leave India for the new homeland and was formed for a people that did not really ask for a new homeland. From its early days, Pakistani rulers denied their new country's Indo-Gangetic past and promised its people a glorious Islamic future with its moorings away from 'Hindu' India. Fearful of being dominated or of being overpowered by a larger India seen as irreconciled to the partition, Pakistan's leaders relied on Islam and an image of non-India to try and establish an identity. Pakistan's population had to be cleansed of everything Indian and hatred and fear of the Hindu was the common idiom. Being non-Indian was being a Pakistani and soon being Islamic was being a good Pakistani.

Governance was first taken away from the educated migrants from UP and Bihar by the Punjabi feudals who came with a particular Islamic mindset from eastern Punjab and their feelings of insecurity. Eventually this was taken over by the Punjabi army with a special vehemence and tenacity. Over time, Pakistan's USP became its ability to be a nuisance in the neighbourhood while being a client-state of distant powers. It was this military and economic sustenance from friends that gave Pakistani rulers a false sense of power and invincibility backed by their religion.

While the Indian leadership of the day set about giving its people a written Constitution, in Pakistan the twin pillars of governance were the Army and Islam. Punjabi feudalism to the exclusion of almost everyone else did not help either. Over the years this problem has only accentuated with the mullah, intolerant of any deviation today, interprets the Islamic tenets in a narrow sectarian sense that excludes women – half the country's population -- from equal treatment. He also seeks to exclude other sects from similar benefits, earthly or otherworldly. The Army by training treats any adherence to alternative opinion as disobedience at best and treason most of the time. Equality and dissent are the essential ingredients of democracy but Pakistan's twin pillars discouraged both. Protection and military assistance was sought from the US by being rendering assistance for its strategic goals.

With all its institutions of legitimate governance trampled beyond recognition, Pakistan today is a country with a murky past and uncertain future. There are many in India who still believe that Pakistan has changed and that there is a genuine desire for peace and that India should now sit down and solve all problems with Pakistan. The truth is that the change in Pakistan has been towards more and not less, Islamisation. Pakistan is not a moderate Islamic state. It is ruled by the mullah-military alliance neither of who understand secularism or democracy. From early days Islam was a higher ideal than nationalism. Created in the name of Islam, Pakistani leaders took recourse to Islam in danger almost from the very beginning. Even the Bengali language riots of 1952 were countered with Islamic slogans and stress on their Islamic identity. From then it was an incremental move which after 1971 became a common goal for the Army and the mullahs. The former wanted to balkanise in India as revenge and the latter wanted to establish caliphates in Hindu India.

However, Pakistan today is facing a bigger crisis than it did in 1971. At that time, Pakistan could blame its predicament on enemy India and this acted as a unifying factor. There was a fall back in West Pakistan and Z. A. Bhutto was able to consolidate the fragmented country. In 1971, the Pak Army had not been Islamised; it was only Punjabised. Today's Pakistan Army is Islamised and its motto Iman (faith), taqwa (piety), Jehad fis'billah (Jehad in the Name of Allah) is intact. Today, Pakistan cannot blame India for its multiple sclerosis and it has no fall back. And that is the danger.

The blow back then, is in Pakistan. The concentration on jehad and military rule has cost that country enormously in economic terms. The pursuit of jihad has damaged its already weak civil society, irreparably hurt generations of bright young men and women who have had to go without a reasonable education or hope for a respectable employment opportunity in a country where science and humanities have been subverted to Islamic teachings. The country now lives perpetually on the dole and handouts from the IMF; there is no industry worth the name.

In today's Pakistan there are other fault lines too. The Baloch struggle continues. It is not about preserving the Sardari system of the Bugtis, Marris and the Mengals. The struggle is about basic rights — economic and political — because the revolt is all over Balochistan and not restricted to these three tribal areas. The second reality is that FATA , which was the launching pad for many of the campaigns in the jehad against the Soviets in Afghanistan, is today prime Taliban country — and continuing to grow in depth and area. This would be of considerable concern to persons like Gen Mahmud Ali Durrani, the Pak NSA who is credited to have remarked "I hope the Taliban and Pushtun nationalism don't merge. If that happens, we've had it and we're on the verge of it." Third, Pakistan is now 'jehadised'.

There was a time when the jehadis and the fundamentalists were the fringe elements and the civil society of Lahore and Karachi was the mainstream. The fear is that this may not be so any more. It is the civil society that has increasingly become the fringe and jehadi mindset now the mainstream. Gen Zia is considered the father of Pakistani Islamisation but it must be remembered that Islamisation was possible because there was receptivity to the idea. Every setback that the Pakistan Army had at the hands of the Indians was interpreted to mean that Islamic tenets were not being properly followed. Every defeat for the Army also meant that it was strengthened further. Thus both Islam and the Army grew stronger together. Jihad became a favourite weapon of the Pak Army who did not have to fight the Indian enemy themselves and let the jihadis do this fighting at much lower rates. The only problem now is that, as Sushant Sareen says, "The bottom line is that instead of the Pakistan Army exercising control over its jihadist assets, the army itself has become an asset of the jihadis." The Pakistani Army can hardly say it is fighting for the defence of Islam against those every Islamists who are also defending Islam.

Pakistan is a country that has been run by a self-seeking warrior class that has always felt that it has been ordained as Protectors of the Realm and Defenders of the Faith. They have been helped by a pliable and self-serving elite consisting of the bureaucracy and judiciary, the feudals of the Punjab, and most of the politicians. The corporate interests of the Pakistan Army cover almost every activity of the country's economy. The Pak Army, for instance, runs the Fauji Foundation, established as a charity for retired military personnel. Over time it has become a mammoth organisation with multiple interests and worth about Rs (Pak) 9000 crores a few years ago and growing. In addition, the Army Welfare Trust deals dabbles and controls varied economic and financial interests including the Askari Commercial Bank, which has been run by a very understanding kind of management many of whom had earlier served in the Bank of Credit and Commerce International. The Trust's assets are estimated to be about Rs 18000 crores. Apart from this, the National Logistics Cell and the Frontier Works Organisation which monopolise government contracts in the transport and construction sectors. Accounting rules are flexible and transfer of funds from the defence budget quite routine. It is the collective corporate interest of the Armed Forces that is at stake in any arrangement that appears to diminish the role of the Army. A peace deal with India threatens to do precisely that.

There are many in India, Pakistan and the West who remain in a state of denial about the march of Islamic forces in Pakistan. The manner in which various issues involving the Islamists have been handled in Pakistan by Pakistanis -- with hesitation and extreme circumspection and under compulsion are some of the symptoms of the disease and of what is happening in Pakistan. Islamic radicalism is today backed by the gun of both the radicals and the Army. There are believed to be 18 million unlicensed weapons in the country and the estimates of possible extremists trained in extremist universities vary from 225,000 to 650,000. It is apparent that the Army cannot take action against the very fundamentalists and extremists and also rely on them for survival. Yet unless the Pakistan Army moves beyond looking for patchwork solutions to ensure its own primacy and decides to eradicate this menace, a spectre of total radicalism haunts Pakistan.

The Taliban takeover in the FATA is now being replicated in the rest of the NWFP. Large tracts the valley of Swat, Pakistan's idyllic tourist spot, are today under Taliban control. There are reports of other districts of NWFP like Dir coming increasingly under Taliban dominance. The Army's attempts to oust them have failed. It is obvious that in the eyes of many especially the Pushtuns, the Pakistan army has been fighting an unpopular war in FATA against the Taliban. It was far easier for the Pakistan establishment to switch the mood and generate an anti-India fever following the Mumbai massacres. The manner in which the hunted Baitullah Mehsud became a patriot was alarmingly easy. This only underscores the fact that it is easier in Pakistan to be anti-Indian than being anti-Taliban.

Tribal loyalties, which are quite often trans-border, the Pushtun code of conduct and religious sentiments have become intertwined in the province. Recruitment among the devoutly religious locals is easy for the Taliban. The morale of the government forces is low and they are unwilling to fight fellow Muslims. There have been desertions. The Pakistani army brought up on a single threat perception, is ill-equipped to play a counter-insurgency role. Besides, it would need local intelligence which will not be available to Punjabi troops operating in the absence of Pushtun troops. It will take years for the Pakistan army to cover this gap and, meanwhile, a Punjabi-Pushtun animus could set in.

The manner in which Pakistan was allowed to go nuclear, acquire warheads and trade in nuclear technologies by successive regimes is a tragic testimony to failure of policy or mindless pursuit of self-interest. And almost simultaneously, Pakistan was allowed or even encouraged to become jehadi. Pakistan's hopelessly misconstrued policies have only converted the unemployed young of Pakistan into terrorists who have now returned as unemployable jehadis to haunt their former masters.

This now leaves the world petrified about Islamist terrorists armed with nuclear weapons. Statements from Washington and Islamabad have tried to assuage this fear. This evades the larger issue that the Pakistani state has systematically proliferated for decades which constitutes by far the bigger danger. Pakistan has continued to harbour criminals like Dawood Ibrahim, Masood Akhtar, Omar Sheikh and has denied their presence is indicative of a criminal and irresponsible mindset.

There is more to follow with an impatient Washington unable to control Afghanistan now contemplates active intervention in Pakistan, something that will further inflame passion in the country. Yet the Taliban advance eastward into the NWFP and beyond must be rolled back but how does Islamabad organise retreat from a mindset that is far more pervasive than is imagined.

The entire episode of the Mumbai massacres and the manner in which the Pakistani leadership has behaved only indicates the extent to which that state can act without any responsibility. The extent of state involvement in this terror attack is obvious. This means that the state of Pakistan, despite being a basket economic case and dependent on doles, is either consciously willing to be the delinquent or is unable to control elements within its own apparatus. This leads to the conclusion that if this is so then the state, which in Pakistan is the Army, has lost control. Therefore, it follows that if the state has lost control over parts of its territory and has also begun to lose control of its instruments, then the state is spinning out of control. It is a failing state.

This is not going to happen in isolation. The US and China have huge real estate interests in Pakistan. The US has its energy security interests as well as strategic interests of keeping the Russians and Iran in check. Supplies to Afghanistan in the current war have been through Pakistan and should that need to change then the alternative routes lie through the Caspian Sea running overland via Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. This would naturally bring in greater American presence into Central Asia and add to Russian discomfiture. China remains interested in Pakistan as a means of access to the Arabian Sea through Gwadar, to outflank India and ultimately to be able to take on the Americans in the region.

It increasingly appears that the Pakistan Army that is not going to be able to solve the problem and, paradoxically, the longer it lasts the more it hurts that country. The core issue in Pakistan today is not India or Kashmir. The core issue is the collective corporate interest of the Pakistani Army derived as a war dividend. The arrival of Zardari as a civilian president on the scene has not changed the basic reality.

Unfortunately, if neither the Army nor the Taliban retreat, we are staring at an abyss as Pakistan is consumed by its own creations – jehad and Taliban.

Source : Eternal India , January 2009 Issue

Jihadi social base growing ominously

Pakistan today gives the impression of being a nation at war with itself not only in FATA but in the rest of the country. Muharram was commemorated under the protection of the gun and prohibitory orders. Hundreds of ulema - Shia and Sunni - were barred entry into several districts for fear that they would incite sectarian hatred in the days preceding Muharram.

Cities and towns were declared no go areas. As many as 30,000 places in 28 districts of the Punjab were declared sensitive and 58 ulema were banned from Attock district.

This, in a country which proclaims itself to be the home of all Muslims of the sub- continent, is a reflection of the state of affairs prevailing there.

Even otherwise, a strong Sunni hurricane is sweeping through Pakistan.

Originating in its current phase from FATA, it has spread outwards into NWFP and has reached Punjab and parts of Balochistan and even Karachi. The year that has gone by has been the most violent in Balochistan with more than 250 incidents.

Senator Sanaullah Baloch has alleged that the Pak Army is allowing the Taliban to settle in the province. Three Baloch groups fighting for Baloch rights have called off the ceasefire.

FATA

An estimated half million Pushtoon refugees have moved out of FATA and NWFP to safer havens in other parts of Pakistan. Refugees bring their own problems of demographic and social pressures; they become centres of rage and extremism, crime and extortion.

For years Pakistan followed the principle of conducting jihad first in Afghanistan and then in Kashmir by splitting the jihadis to control the jihad. The result is that today we have a situation where the jihadis seem uncontrollable. A competitive jihad has set in with different groups operating together, or independently.

As Jessica Stern described them, " A kind of ' victimisation Olympics' often takes hold, with each side demonstrating through statistics or photographs or refugee flows that it is the aggrieved party and in need of international assistance, including in the form of terrorist volunteers." There is a confused picture in the FATA and NWFP with the Pakistani Taliban seemingly in greater control not only in FATA but also parts of NWFP, with other groups like the Jaish- e- Mohammed also operating there.

Interestingly, FATA went out of control when Gen Kiyani headed the ISI. Soon after the Mumbai attacks the present ISI chief, Gen Ahmed Shuja Pasha, described Baitullah Mehsud, the Tehrik- e- Taliban leader whom the Pakistan Army was supposedly battling, as a true patriot.

It is quite apparent that the Pakistan Army has a problem handling the situation there with its Pushtoon elements reluctant to fight fellow Pushtoons. There were large scale desertions from the Frontier Corps in 2007 when they refused to fight fellow Pushtoons in Waziristan.

A far worse situation could develop in the Punjab where groups like the Lashkar- e- Taiba operate not only as a force that is willing to fight India in Kashmir but also as a desirable and a necessary social alternative.

The LeT today fills a void in the country by providing schooling and health facilities that the state is unable to do. This wide acceptability among the middle class and the working class would make it extremely difficult for the essentially Punjabi Army to take on the jihadis in the Punjab.

Punjab

Any attempt by the authorities to curb its activities would be resisted. At the same time for the Army, the LeT remains the most effective and friendly ally in pursuing its policy objectives in India.

In addition the present economic crisis in Pakistan reduces investment opportunities in the social sector of the country. The $ 7 billion IMF dole has come with conditions that demand reduction in subsidies for the social sector.

The burgeoning population, especially the youth (over 50 per cent of the population will be below 18 in the next few years), will then get attracted to the facilities offered by the LeT and the Jamaat- e- Islami.

The education curriculum in many of the Dawa schools includes subjects like computer science, mathematics and English. It is not a jihadi curriculum and the students are from the middle class who will then form the backbone of the bureaucracy, politics and the military.

Even today the recruitment source for the Army and the various jihadi groups operating from Punjab is the same. There is thus a much bigger cohesion of the mindsets of the jihadis and the Army. Just as in the NWFP, the Pakistan Army is going to find it extremely difficult to control the jihad in the Punjab should it get out of hand.

This has immediate and long term implications for us. For one, we have not listened carefully and long enough to what the Pak Army's surrogates have been saying in different words at different places.

The message is - we will defeat you, we will annihilate you, because you are evil and you are not our God's men. Soon after the September 11 attacks, Fazlur Rahman Khalili, the Harkat ul Mujahedeen chief, told a press conference that "Osama's mission is our mission. It is a mission of the whole Islamic world." This sentiment is all pervasive. The jihadis want caliphates in India and the Army wants a revenge for 1971.

The important message is not that this will happen but that the mindset remains and the medium of the message is Mumbai.

Mumbai happened for two basic reasons: The mindset that prevails in Pakistan and insists that India must be bled, and the other, that it can be bled. The mastermind knew how we would react and gambled on this. For them it was a win- win situation either way.

India

Since the menace that has emerged has taken a new dimension there is need to counter it. Not doing anything is no longer an option. It is good to be reasonable and perhaps reasonable to be good but the adversary does not understand this. He sees this as a sign of weakness. Our friends, such as we have, will help us up to a point and that too only if we are willing to do something ourselves.

Merely because the US has begun to understand the magnitude and the source of the problem does not mean that we can beguile ourselves into assuming that they will fight our battles.

The threat has to be countered in every possible way. Continuing to show restraint may be in keeping with our self- image of an emerging global power but magnanimity follows respect and fear that a state induces.

The terrorist must know that he can be hurt. More than that, his controllers must know that they too can be hurt. Since organisations like the LeT draw their financial sustenance to a great extent from outside Pakistan, there has to be a global campaign to stop this.

Material and financial aid to Pakistan must be made conditional to an effective and verifiable winding down of the jihad apparatus. Equipping the Pakistan Army with weaponry only emboldens it further in its intransigence towards India. This has been a skewed policy that has been followed for decades and is largely responsible for the repeated adventurism by that country.

Pakistan has to be saved from itself and cleansed of the terrorist groups.

No single country can do this alone and unless checked in time collectively this danger will assume graver proportions.

Source : Mail Today , 9th January 2009

The Covert Option

India should build up its psychological and cyber warfare to thwart terrorism

This time, in Mumbai, the enormity of the ongoing tragedy really hit ‘us’. The debate about the how and why and what to do next has been on for a month now, unlike in the past when bomb blasts and killings were about ‘them’ and handled by the ‘others’. Shaken from the secure comfort of our opulence and tearful of the loss of fancy places to eat, few of us realise that in the year that has gone by, 1,007 civilians and 368 security forces personnel were killed in terrorist-related violence all over the country. There are a few important lessons from this and one can only hope that the extreme anger of November will translate into cold determination for the future.

One has also to be realistic about countering terrorism. Like crime, it will never disappear completely, no matter what laws and agencies we have. It can only be deterred and contained. The Mumbai massacres are undoubtedly a lesson about our vulnerabilities, our huge security gaps, our disjointed reaction, our media hype and our weak response to Pakistan. As a result, we are today seeing the unfortunate spectacle of Pakistan, the obvious suspect in this case and many others that have preceded this, stealing the ground from under us and screaming that Islam and Pakistan are under threat from India. The suspect has changed the rules of the debate and smuggled in Kashmir into the equation.

Mumbai happened even though there was a semblance of some intelligence, but no one connected the dots. We may not be lucky next time, and there will be a next time unless we do several things in the short term and others in the long term. Every terrorist attack is a learning experience for the terrorist and he comes back stronger and deadlier. Unfortunately, the State learns less.

We must also admit that quite a few of the things that happen or do not happen do so because of the way we are. The contempt the citizen has for the law in India is visible on our streets all over the country, and the state shows its indifference when it fails to correct this. It is a sad reflection on our polity that promises bijli, sadak and paani (electricity, roads and water) as an election slogan 60 years after Independence. Obviously, the State has receded when we find that those who have the means no longer depend upon it. They get themselves a generator when the State does not supply electricity, dig tube wells when there is no water, and hire private guards when there is no security.

Tata Group Chairman Ratan Tata’s comment — “We will protect ourselves and we will try to deter such activities again and we will seek external expertise for the same’’ — has a significance that may have escaped many. What he is saying in effect is that India will have to move up from the present system of merely gated communities with unarmed guards to a system where the corporate sector must learn to anticipate and protect itself against lethal attacks. In a sense it means that the State will not or cannot protect or provide security to all its national assets. Possibly this means entering into the sphere of corporate warriors where each big corporate house has its own security apparatus more in the style of Blackwater, Dyncorp or Vinnel of the US. It was Dyncorp personnel who provided security to Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai in the initial days. Considerable security work has been outsourced in Iraq and Saudi Arabia to private warriors. Maybe that is the need of the hour because the first thing that we need to do in the short term is to protect ourselves and to make our vulnerable national assets invulnerable.
This would leave the State free to handle those responsible for spreading terror. This means taking on Pakistan differently from the way we have in recent years. Talking peace with Pakistan may be necessary, but we should not delude ourselves into assuming that Pakistan’s attitude will change. With a 7,500-km sea frontier and porous land borders, we will always be vulnerable to terrorist attacks launched by an implacable foe. They cannot be guarded by good intentions and fond hopes. Pakistan has been fighting a proxy war especially after 1971 at places and times of its choosing. It is a total war against India and we must treat it so. Other than adopting defensive postures, we have done precious little to teach the perpetrator a lesson.
Getting ready for Pakistan and its terrorists extends beyond modernising the armed forces with the latest aircraft, tanks or submarines. It means above all ensuring a highly professional and sharp intelligence capability. It means equipping our specialised forces with the most lethal and suitable equipment, and keeping them agile, trained and mobile for all times. It means empowering the local state units adequately in every sense of the word to be the first respondents in a crisis. It means developing a covert option.

This probably sounds sinister, but a country’s national interests are protected by hard-nosed realism and not by soft options. A State is respected by others only if it is able to protect its interests and project its power. If India is seen to be soft and weak by our neighbours, we will lose respect even here. The covert option is something many States have and they use it, too. The Americans are quite free and easy in announcing that they have set aside funds to destabilise an unfriendly regime. The same rules do not apply to us but the principles of trade craft are usable.

Covert action can be of various kinds. One is the paramilitary option, which is what the Pakistanis have been using against us. It is meant to hurt, destabilise or retaliate. The second is the psychological war option, which is a very potent and unseen force. It is an all weather option and constitutes essentially changing perceptions of friends and foes alike. The media is a favourite instrument, provided it is not left to the bureaucrats because then we will end up with some clumsy and implausible propaganda effort. More than the electronic and print media, it is now the internet and YouTube that can be the next-generation weapons of psychological war. Terrorists use these liberally and so should those required to counter terrorism.
The third weapon in the covert option is the use of cyber techniques. This is an ability to intercept cyber networks and communications, cripple systems and carry out counter attacks on the enemy’s systems. In a country that boasts its brain power, it should not be difficult to find such expertise.

Despite the latest drama on our borders, future wars are unlikely to engage massive armies locked in prolonged battle for real estate. Attacks could be of the Mumbai kind or come by stealth, master-minded by some computer whiz kid and the targets are our ways of life. Unless the State learns to be flexible and agile, and unless there is full international cooperation, it will always be an uphill struggle with the peak never really visible. The covert option is more than just blowing bridges and killing innocents. At all times, it should form part of a State’s armoury. It takes years to build this capability and just a few weeks to destroy this.

Source : Business World , Issue ( 6-12th January 2009 )