pioneer: India under siege

jan 21st

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: M


India is under siege

Sunanda K Datta-Ray

The economy may be booming - albeit with areas of
darkness and deprivation - but, politically and
psychologically, India is under siege. The aggravation
of such episodes in places like Bangalore, far from
the epicentre of previous disturbances, and the choice
of target (an institution of educational excellence)
suggests that terrorist attacks may not be unconnected
with economic achievement. The challenge being both
foreign and domestic demands responses on both fronts,
taking care not to exacerbate the communal situation.




Small, landlocked and vulnerable Bhutan is probably
the only South Asian country whose territory is not
used to launch assaults of one kind or another against
India. All the other neighbours are somehow complicit
in actions that seek to undermine Indian confidence.
The conspiracy theory can be overdone of course. There
was no reason in the seventies for Indira Gandhi and
her advisers to scream of "encirclement". India was
too inconsequential then, and it was the Soviet Union
that the United States and China were targeting. But
if India has always been paranoid, as Henry Kissinger
famously said, even paranoiacs have enemies.



That is no longer a matter for conjecture as ancient
hostility links with modern rivalry in trying to tie
down a rising power in a domestic morass. As a New
York Times writer put it recently, "the great race of
the 21st century is under way between China and India
to see which will be the leading power in the world in
the year 2100." That is one aspect of the foreign
challenge. The more obvious menace is Pakistan whose
entire existence is predicated now, as in 1947, on
contradistinction to India. It is the Other because
apart from the eroded claim of providing a homeland
for all the subcontinent's Muslims, it still has no
raison d'être as a nation.



Military and nuclear collusion between the two was
acknowledged even by the American Central Intelligence
Agency. If Pakistan sought the great equaliser against
India, China found it expedient to further that aim
with help in missile development and reactor equipment
and technology. No wonder Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto called
the agreement with China his "greatest achievement and
contribution to the survival of our people and our
nation."



Even Gary Milhollin, director of Wisconsin's project
on nuclear arms control and not noticeably well
disposed towards India, conceded that if Chinese
assistance were removed Pakistan was left with no
nuclear programme. The Khushab nuclear reactor,
Farahjung missile plant and Shaheen missile owed
everything to China.



China's interest was not only philanthropic. An India
with pressing threats in its immediate neighbourhood
would be less of a player in the global great game
that the New York Times describes. There is less
evidence of China's involvement in current terrorist
attacks, but the attacks may not be unwelcome to a
power that has set up a ring of military posts in the
seas surrounding India, from the Coco Islands leased
from Myanmar to Gwadar in Balochistan.



True, terrorism is a worldwide phenomenon. But just as
the Clinton Administration persistently chose to
ignore Sino-Pakistani missile and nuclear collusion in
violation of international treaties and bilateral
assurances, the Bush Administration's "war on terror"
pays scant attention to Pakistan's pre-eminent role in
this field.



According to the Strategic Foresight Group, there are
between 40,000 and 50,000 madarsas in Pakistan, with
two million students from whom about 15,000 join
terrorist organisations every year. The US commission
set up after the Twin Tower attack acknowledged that
"some of the madarsas have been used as incubators for
violent extremism."



Pakistan has responded to American and British
pressure by taking some measures to curb
fundamentalism. All madarsas must now be registered
and account for donations. Foreign pupils who do not
fulfil the prescribed conditions are supposed to leave
the country. The United Nations Security Council's
anti-terror resolution of September 2005 obliged
Pervez Musharraf to promise tighter measures,
especially of fiscal control. India often leans
backwards to pay tribute to the effectiveness of these
measures, Pranab Mukherjee recently testifying to a
supposed decline in terrorist activity.



What placation overlooks is the greater sophistication
of Pakistani tactics. The hijacking of IC 814
confirmed the abuse of Nepalese territory - and its
1,850-km open border with India - for sabotage and
subversion. Recent reports in this newspaper confirmed
the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence Bureau's
plans to extend operations to Sri Lanka. Bangladesh's
rampant fundamentalists already threaten eastern and
northeastern India. The agents who have been caught
can represent only the tip of the iceberg. The
4,095-km open border presents no obstacle to saboteurs
and political infiltrators among thousands of economic
refugees.



A delegation of Bangladeshi Hindus that visited India
soon after Begum Khaleda Zia's election to warn of
dangers that were building up was given short shrift:
New Delhi did not want to rock the gas pipeline boat.
Similarly, India is anxious not to jeopardise the
so-called peace process with Pakistan. But goodwill
gestures have only encouraged Gen Musharraf to seek
the withdrawal of Indian troops from Kupwara and
Baramula districts.



India's many mistakes in handling Jammu & Kashmir need
not be discussed in the context of the threat, direct
and insidious, that Pakistan poses. What should be
clear by now is that for all its flattering rhetoric,
the US will not help to contain the problem. Partly,
this is because, now as before, Pakistan is too
valuable an ally to be alienated. Partly, too, deep
down, Americans like the British, believe that "Muslim
Kashmir" belongs to Islamic Pakistan. We have not been
able to convince the West otherwise in 48 years and
will not do so now.



Our security is, therefore, in our hands. India cannot
afford to be mealy-mouthed with Nepal, Sri Lanka or
Bangladesh. They must be told to expect the
consequences if they allow their territory and
facilities to be used to India's disadvantage.
Firmness with Pakistan must take the form of refusing
to fraternise whether in the negotiating room, the
cricket field or bogies of the Samjhauta Express
unless there is a complete end to all forms of
invidious activity. That will offend the Americans,
but so did Pokharan II.



There remains the problem of infiltrators and the even
more serious matter of those who give them asylum. It
is a daunting and delicate challenge illustrating the
extent to which the enemy without and the enemy within
are sometimes one and the same. No other country in
the world is similarly threatened. India must handle
the task with the utmost circumspection, remembering
always the pride it takes in demographic diversity and
the dangerous communal implications here of Sartre's
pertinent warning that France's Jewish problem was
ultimately a Gentile one.