The Diplomatic Game and Its Implications

What was interesting about yesterday's news headline about India seeking a ban on the Jamaat-ud-Dawa is what was not mentioned. China which is reported elsewhere to have blocked three past attempts to proscribe the organization.

The media is already going gaga over the steps Pakistan is said to have taken - ban the organization, seal their offices and detain their leaders. All of these steps were also done in 2002 when the Lashkar-e-Taiba was officially banned. Masood Azhar and Hafiz Saeed have been detained in the past just as now only to be quietly released several months later. They are similarly under house arrest now, a punishment usually reserved for high ranking officials and senior political leaders, not terrorist kingpins. Their assets are also said to have been frozen. How true that is will be known in the days to come.

But it is an understatement to say that I am skeptical. For one thing, Geo TV reports that the detention of Saeed is for three months. If that is supposed to be the end of the matter for a man responsible for thousands of lives, that is quite a joke. Of course, we do not know what the deal is with Lakhvi and Zarar Shah. It is highly doubtful that international resolutions and sanctions including that of the UN Security Council are of much value in containing these elements. Saeed has already been on a US terror list since May but it does not appear to have had much effect on his activities. All the Jamaat institutions including its schools and hospitals are said to have been closed now but it is doubtful that the Pakistani government would have done that at one go if it believed that this would be anything more than a temporary thing (humanitarian efforts which have garnered the organization a considerable degree of popular support will be hit considerably which means one can expect a backlash).

Most importantly the Pakistani government has rejected India's extradition request and India has apparently not responded to that country's latest suggestion for a joint investigation (previously the same suggestion has been rejected - with good reason says B.Raman). That implies a deadlock which, unless resolved, is only a matter of time before these detainees will be released and it is back to business as usual. We will have to wait and watch what happens on this score in the days to come.

Today's statement by Pranab Mukherjee all but ruling out war gave India's game away completely. Not that there was ever much of a chance of military action but prematurely declaring that India will only plead with Pakistan but do nothing more suggests that the Indian government has put all its eggs in the diplomatic basket. The strategy, as CNN-IBN Live points out, is to drive a wedge between the civilian and military establishments in Pakistan through this effort. By ruling out war and respectfully requesting (Mukherjee said 'please') the Pakistani government to shut down the terrorist infrastructure, it can strengthen the hands of the civilian government and isolate the military-ISI hardliners. To the contrary, a military response, it is argued, would have strengthened the hands of the Pakistani military and weakened the civilians. The big assumption here is that the civilian government can effectively deliver. There is no guarantee that that is indeed going to be the case. On the contrary, definitively ruling out a military response can equally well strengthen the hardliners who can sabotage any crackdown knowing fully well that the price to be paid is small if any.

It must also be borne in mind clearly that the success of the diplomatic strategy hinges entirely on the US. None of Pakistan's moves are being made to please us. Nor is the successful effort at the UN Security Council which materialized owing to strong American backing. The silver lining for India's strategy is that the killing of Americans and Israelis has given this incident unprecedented international coverage and there is a much better recognition now of the danger of LeT in the US than there was before. Whether that will lead to sustained pressure on Pakistan from the US remains however to be seen. There is good reason to be skeptical on this score particularly as later outrages on the Afghan front can deflect attention in the days to come.

There is no question that this incident has caused acute embarassment to the Pakistani military and the ISI. They are certainly anxious to find a way out of this with the least amount of damage. But American efforts to reorient the Pakistani military into an anti-terrorist outfit whose focus is to combat domestic terrorists rather than India has so far not come to fruition. Gen.Kayani has reportedly rejected an offer purportedly made by the US to retrain combat units to that end. That suggests that the organization continues to place considerable importance on its traditional anti-India orientation. There is also considerable American suspicion that the Pakistani army is selectively fighting only those Taliban who pose a threat to their country while letting the Afghan Taliban run their show freely. There is good reason to suspect that such a strategy has indeed been put into effect by the Pakistani military which again goes to suggest that the idea of using jihadis continues to be central to their strategy to extend their influence in Afghanistan. That being the case, the obvious goal of their military now in light of this controversy will be to take some cosmetic measures now, ask their cadres to lie low for a while and then perhaps reorient them once more to an India-centric agenda restricted to killing Indians rather than going after the 'Americans, Jews and Crusaders', the larger goal of the Al-Qaeda sponsored jihad. After all, when only Indians were dying the world did not care much and was happy to look away. If the LeT can be put on such a tight leash once more, it would not only head off a confrontation with their cadres in the Punjab but also serve their long term strategic interest against India by keeping the jihad going without much fuss from the Americans - in other words, business as usual. That, I suspect, is the most natural goal of the Pakistani military and being the eight hundred pound guerrilla in that country, may well succeed.

In the Aftermath of the Mumbai Attacks

The mind-numbing carnage has finally ended. Heads have begun to roll. But little else has changed and how much the few things the government has promised actually mean is uncertain at best. It is by now a cliche to say that the great tragedy of our time remains the stupendous failure of the present government to take the threat to India's very existence seriously. Will anything change now following this so-called mumbai's 9/11? So far, the signs have not been very encouraging to say the least. As Jaitirth Rao mentioned in the Indian Express a couple of days ago, we all know in our hearts that this will not be the last of the attacks we face. Now that they have, by gaining global attention, spectacularly succeeded in their objectives, rest assured that there will be attempts to replicate them in myriad forms in mumbai and other cities in the country. None of them has anything more than the most rudimentary security infrastructure which means future carnages are likely to occur on a matching scale even if the number of foreigners killed is fewer.

In fairness, few modern day socities can completely preempt attacks of this sort especially after fully prepared terrorists have arrived at their doorstep. Many of us work not in fields but in institutions housed in concrete buildings - hospitals, schools, colleges, companies, hotels, shops, restaurants, theatres etc. - few of which have either the means or the ability to protect themselves from such fidayeen strikes. It is extremely difficult if not impossible to protect all of these places and in any case, neither the government nor civil society is even looking at this prospect let alone comprehend the humongous nature of such a task. That means we remain at the mercy of these organizations which remain fully at liberty to choose their targets and to kill at will living in the fond hope that they will not choose us simply for self-serving tactical or strategic reasons, i.e., the cost of preparation and attack is not justified by the impact that the panic and fear the expected publicity will generate.

As for internal security, the few measures the government has announced seem to be hardly measure up to our needs. The country needs both a short term and a long term plan with the former aimed at mitigating risk of future attacks and the latter aimed at formulating an more enduring solution to this problem. What we have instead seen is simply a patchwork of proposals whose efficacy is unclear. The coast guard and navy have been put on alert but since we do not know how the hijacked fishing trawler evaded detection in the first place, what exactly will have to change to prevent this is not known. Four NSG units stationed in different cities have been promised by the PM to ensure timely intervention. For one thing, India now has six major cities - not just four. So, are Bangalore and Hyderabad to be left to their own devices then? We do not know yet but I would not be surprised if that is the case. Secondly, this will take many months if not years to execute which means this will be of little help in the immediate future when given the current trend over the last year, additional attacks may be expected. Thirdly, one of the major criticisms has been the delayed arrival of the NSG at the scene of all the action because of difficulties in finding transportation. There is no word on whether anything if any will be done to fix this before the next attack.

Local police have not only been woefully inadequate in numbers but poorly equipped or trained to handle situations of this kind. At the railway station (VT/CST), they have been alleged to have run away from the scene when the shooting began. There has so far been no mention of what if anything is to be done to train these first responders to deal with a situation of this kind. As Ajay Sahni points out in Outlook today, they are the ones who can make a real difference to outcome by limiting the initial damage but there is no word of how their capabilities will be augmented in light of this threat. The Karnataka government has announced that it will set up a commando force of 30 people to respond to such an attack. If it took 200 NSG commandos three days for their operation, one is left to wonder what a small force of 30 can do in response to a multipoint attack of this kind.

As for going after those responsible for these attacks, there are few good options and the GoI will have to review the very same ones that the NDA government looked at in 2001 following the parliamentary attacks. Our own diplomacy is a joke and the latest demarche to hand over the 20 most wanted men suggests exactly that. The Pakistani government will surely not hand over those who are likely to expose the ISI's culpability in all the past attacks which means that absolutely nothing will come out of it (I cannot believe that the GoI even seriously expects this). India may score a few political points in the diplomatic world but it will effectively change nothing on the ground. The LeT will continue to go about its murderous business as usual with at best a few token arrests and detention of their top leadership for a few days till the storm abates. As Ajai Sahni again points out, Pakistan has weathered many a storm of this kind and there is absolutely no reason to think that the current round will be any different from the past ones.

The only other option to this utterly ineffective and useless line of action is war. Apart from the huge cost and the dangerous consequences of a war between two nuclear powers, the consequence might turn out to be a weakening of the civilian dispensation in Pakistan which is still finding its feet. But is our inaction going to strengthen the civilian leadership there? There is little reason to believe so. Is it not going to embolden the intelligence and military elements who aided and abetted this attack not to mention the LeT itself? Very likely. Needless to say, India's inability to impose any cost for these ever more provocative attacks is simply to invite more of them. However, war cannot be an immediate step. India would have to first complete the investigation and lay out the evidence all the while pursuing diplomacy. When the time comes, we would have built up international opinion sufficiently in our favor to justify the action we take.

Pranab Mukherjee appears to have already ruled out war which in effect is telling Pakistan that there will be no punishment for its inaction. This is not surprising given that he similarly counseled against war even in 2001 following the attack on parliament. But by boxing itself into such a position, the GoI has left itself with little wiggle room if the diplomatic offensive goes nowhere (as everyone expects).

There is some reason to think that this attack may have been orchestrated by those in the Pakistani agencies who are opposed to the ongoing war against the Taliban so as to divert attention and to end the effort which their government is half-heartedly pursuing under intense American pressure. This report shows how early efforts are being made at a rapproachment between the Army and the Taliban in the name of fighting the common enemy India. The GoI might be calculating that a military attack on Pakistan will be playing right into their hands. Even if that is so, the question is whether not playing into their hands entails any real benefit to us. The benefits of such restraint are clearly becoming less and less tangible as the cost mounts.

Despite the scale of these attacks and the affront to the Indian state (as The Hindu called it), India's day of reckoning has not arrived. That means more attacks, more killings and more destruction........all in the near future. Till our leadership accords security the primacy it presently requires and summons the courage to take daring and bold action, blood and gore will remain an integral part of front page reporting.And if not acted upon quickly, the very idea of India, as Chidambaram called it, will soon come to evoke ridicule and contempt, not pride.