Fight terror with Islamabad
Pak's initial decision to send ISI chief to India was significant.
By ET Bureau |
Globalised problems require globalised solutions. To that extent, Islamabad���s initial decision to respond positively to PM Manmohan Singh���s request to send the ISI chief to India to help in tackling the Mumbai terror crisis was significant.
That it has partly gone back on that decision by promising cooperation instead ��� which might include a visit by ISI personnel ��� diminishes this significance. But it does not entirely undermine it.
The character of terrorism Mumbai has been subjected to suggests India is now a target of global jihad. New Delhi must leverage the ISI visit to evolve a bilateral security-intelligence mechanism that enables the state apparatuses of the two nations to work in tandem while responding to terror attacks in the region.
It is nobody���s case that what the country faced in Mumbai was not an act of external aggression. Majority of the terror operatives were Pakistani nationals. And yet it would be utterly misplaced to respond to it as if it were a ���Pakistani attack on India���.
Interrogation of a captured militant has conclusively proved it was an act of global jihad, which does not distinguish between India and Pakistan when it comes to perpetrating horrific carnage. The bombing of the JW Marriot hotel in Islamabad a few moths ago is a case in point.
Some powerful sections of the Pakistani polity and state, especially its military-intelligence wing, are in sync with the Pan-Islamist jihad project. What is equally indisputable is that the Pakistani polity is, on the whole, engaged in a struggle to militarily contain such elements and politically stamp them out. The incipient attempts of the current political leadership of the country to subordinate its army-intelligence apparatus to civilian will underscores that.
This can, however, be fully accomplished only when the highly inequitable Pakistani polity transforms to align more with the modern liberal order. New Delhi must patiently aid such a process through a calibrated mix of pressure and cooperation.
Any Indian measure that is perceived by Pakistani society and polity to be overbearing and arrogant would serve to increase the purchase Pan-Islamism has in that country and only compound the crisis.
That it has partly gone back on that decision by promising cooperation instead ��� which might include a visit by ISI personnel ��� diminishes this significance. But it does not entirely undermine it.
The character of terrorism Mumbai has been subjected to suggests India is now a target of global jihad. New Delhi must leverage the ISI visit to evolve a bilateral security-intelligence mechanism that enables the state apparatuses of the two nations to work in tandem while responding to terror attacks in the region.
It is nobody���s case that what the country faced in Mumbai was not an act of external aggression. Majority of the terror operatives were Pakistani nationals. And yet it would be utterly misplaced to respond to it as if it were a ���Pakistani attack on India���.
Interrogation of a captured militant has conclusively proved it was an act of global jihad, which does not distinguish between India and Pakistan when it comes to perpetrating horrific carnage. The bombing of the JW Marriot hotel in Islamabad a few moths ago is a case in point.
Some powerful sections of the Pakistani polity and state, especially its military-intelligence wing, are in sync with the Pan-Islamist jihad project. What is equally indisputable is that the Pakistani polity is, on the whole, engaged in a struggle to militarily contain such elements and politically stamp them out. The incipient attempts of the current political leadership of the country to subordinate its army-intelligence apparatus to civilian will underscores that.
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This can, however, be fully accomplished only when the highly inequitable Pakistani polity transforms to align more with the modern liberal order. New Delhi must patiently aid such a process through a calibrated mix of pressure and cooperation.
Any Indian measure that is perceived by Pakistani society and polity to be overbearing and arrogant would serve to increase the purchase Pan-Islamism has in that country and only compound the crisis.
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