We cannot afford to talk of war

Anger caused by violence is not new to India. Anger was felt during Partition, then during the three wars that the country fought with its neighbours in 1962, 1965 and 1971 and anger has been felt later in the numerous terrorist attacks that have killed and maimed thousands of our countrymen and women over the years.

Perhaps India has not been as angry as it is now, during and after the terrorist attacks in Mumbai on November 26 this year. The anger, maybe, is more visible now because of the proliferation of media houses and media reportage – television reportage in particular, offering us real-time and blow-by-blow accounts of all that happened. Anger is perhaps also more pronounced now as the elite class was hit along with a number of important and well-to-do overseas tourists and business people. Anger has brought change. Change in government, change in the way politicians are talking and acknowledging their mistakes, change in the seriousness with which we assess and view our internal security and change in the way citizens fearlessly express themselves on television and on the internet.

But anger needs to be controlled, it cannot be unbridled and it should not call for war. Because war we cannot afford, not earlier and more so now.

The dynamics of the world changed when terror attacked the
U.S. on September 11, 2001, and with the subsequent invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan. Allies became detractors and hatred knew no bounds. The Christian and Muslim worlds and peoples drifted further apart and emboldened fanatics to become even more ruthless and bloodier in their ways. September 11 gave U.S. militarists an opportunity of pursuing militaristic solutions rather than carefully exploring and patiently pursuing bi-lateral means and international community pressure, and the blundering of the U.S. confrontation in both countries lent misplaced credibility to Islamic extremists for their cause.

Today, wrongful actions of a few countries have led to chaos of frightful proportions. Iraq has been on the brink of civil war and Afghanistan and Pakistan have become the breeding grounds for terror groups of varied ideologies. Take the U.S. and Pakistan for instance. People they befriended, and used, to carry forward their own ideological wars with other nations have become enemies. The CIA mobilised Afghan tribal fighters to fight the Russians and the Taliban has turned against the U.S. Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI) supported terror groups to spread mayhem and violence in India and those groups have turned to create ethnic friction, fear and cause bloodshed in Pakistan as well. Incidents of suicide bombings are perhaps the highest in Pakistan after Iraq.

There may be relative peace in the developed geographies of the world because of better internal security measures. But there are tensions in those geographies which are developing because of weaker governments and internal security apparatuses and, more so, because of vested interests and myopic actions of the developed world.

The U.S. war on terror has made the geo-political scenario in South and Central Asia very fragile. Terror groups and their ideologies as well as terrorism have created an unprecedented negative interconnectedness among countries in South and Central Asia. Cross border terrorist bases and terror attacks have heightened suspicion and animosity among governments leading to constant finger-pointing. A terror attack on the embassy of one nation in another country immediately draws attention to the perpetrators’ origins in a third country. Instability can be quickened and enhanced with every wrong word or knee-jerked action by one country against another, giving terrorists new fodder to feed the minds of the thousands that they possess to carry out their perversions which they present as glorious causes.

India has to be careful and act responsibly in its reactions to the terror attacks in Mumbai vis-à-vis the findings of its investigations which have been reported as being planned by unscrupulous elements within Pakistan. Yes there is tremendous frustration in India with many people criticising the country’s passivity, over the years, in its approach with Pakistan. There are those who will also ask why we should be bothered about what is happening in Pakistan.

It is very obvious that there are elements in Pakistan, which include the ISI as well as leaders of terror groups, that want to bring friction into the closeness that was being forged between the two countries after the newly elected civilian government led by President Asif Zardari. The positive statements that were being made by him, in the HT leadership summit held in New Delhi some time ago, for instance, were a big departure from the vitriolic statements of Pakistani leaders in the past.

Zardari and his family, we should not forget, became victims of terror when his wife and mother of his children, Benazir Bhutto, was assassinated by a terror group in Pakistan. The democratic government of the country, which replaced General Musharraf’s regime, had a very challenging task from the day it took over. President Zardari is in a delicate situation. We could see that he is not entirely in control at the moment when he retracted his offer to send the ISI chief to India after the Mumbai attacks. While Zardari needs to show his nation that his government has its best interest in mind, he is faced with terror inside and near the borders of his country which he has to curb. He is obviously going to have to work very hard to reign in the army (and the ISI) and the fundamentalist religious factions.

Zardari faces a dilemma where he needs to keep the U.S. appeased because of the funding support that Pakistan receives to keep its economy functioning as well as the armament that its armed forces get, but at the same time has to contend with U.S. drone strikes within the country’s territory.

Democracy has always been evasive for Pakistan. Power has constantly been juggled between the political class and the army’s generals, and the interference by religious radicals has not made the situation any better.

However, after all the cycles of power, held sometimes by the army and at times by civilian rulers, it is certain that democracy and democratic ways will be the only answer to the country’s travails. What it needs at this hour is a strong statesman to bring credibility to the civilian government there, as also stability; a statesman who will be strong enough to bring in the rule of law and not pervert it for his (or his political party’s) vested interests.

Further instability in Pakistan will not only impact the country terribly but will drastically affect Afghanistan, India and surrounding countries as well. How? The mountains of Afghanistan are a safe haven for militant fundamentalists and despite the severe bombings during the initial days of the U.S. invasion and the on-going military campaigns by NATO forces, a sizeable number of militants remain. They have been causing terror within the country and have been a thorn for the Hamid Karzai-led government.

The U.S. needs Pakistan in its war on terror in Afghanistan but that war on terror has reached Pakistan’s geography affecting both the U.S. as well as the Zardari-led government. Not that the U.S. war on terror needs to be condoned. But until a better solution can be found, unfortunately, the fire that has been started by such a war will have to continue to be quenched militaristically.

Afghanistan’s disunity and warring ethnic and extremist factions are largely responsible for the abyss in which the country finds itself despite the strenuous efforts being made by President Karzai to keep his nation together and bring it stability and prosperity.

Does India and the rest of the world want another Afghanistan, in Pakistan, on its hands? The possibility of that happening is very real and something that needs to be uppermost in our minds if we do not want that to happen.

It is therefore in everyone’s interest that the democratic and economic position of Pakistan should be strong, that there should be stability and hence the civilian government will have to be given a chance.

War-mongering and war, if God forbid it takes place, will be detrimental in a situation where nations are presently reeling under either a recession or an economic slowdown. Economically, we cannot afford to have a war on our hands in this scenario and when people are even losing their jobs. There is no doubt that war does affect some sectors positively and offers employment, as we have read and heard so many times about the boost the U.S. armaments industries have received from the Gulf war onwards, but this does not justify war.

India has been forging ahead in signing free trade agreements with countries and trade blocs including one such agreement to be signed with the ASEAN. It is doing this with the mindset that lesser trade barriers will bring prosperity and healthy competition between economies and industries and positively impact the people of the signatory nations on the whole. In a war like situation, or war itself, trade and the efforts being made for enhancing trade will be severely hit. Sociologists constantly point out, as even those who study terrorism, that eventually the prosperity of people is critical to curtailing the making of terrorists. Revelations from the captured terrorist of the recent Mumbai terror attacks about his family’s modest background and penury is a pointer for the need to quickly eradicate poverty in countries like India, Pakistan and Bangladesh and bridge the gap between the rich and the poor.

Having said all this it does not mean that India continue to be passive. India has already begun taking steps by putting on hold most of the forays it was making towards Pakistan through trade, the mobility of peoples of both countries and in sport. India will need to work closely and frenetically with the international community in getting the Pakistani government to act swiftly and ruthlessly not just for the sake of containing terrorist attacks in India but to safeguard the liberty, equality and fraternity of the Pakistani people.

Finally, it is easy for people who are within the comfort of their homes to talk about war however angry or passionate they may be about the attacks and destruction that took place in Mumbai. We should not forget that wars are not fought by us but by our armed forces which is comprised not by science fiction robots like those seen in Steven Spielberg’s movie, War of the Worlds, but by human beings who have families too.

If we feel so strongly of not becoming victims of repeated terror attacks or about the deaths and injuries of the hundreds in Mumbai, we should first focus on internalising and making our country and our apparatuses stronger than in externalising and calling for war and attacks on the soil of another nation.

We are currently living in what could be a defining moment for India, and believe it or not, for Pakistan as well, to lead to bring peace not only in their region but perhaps achieve what the Western world, led by the U.S., could not do.

Copyright © Taarun Dalaya