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India is a reckless state actor

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Sajjad Shaukat

In wake of a continued debate and rising tension between the two South Asian nuclear states in connection with the culprits of Mumbai tragedy, Pakistan has proved itself as a responsible state actor. On February 12, 2009, Islamabad not only submitted its report to India after lodging FIR against the nine suspects and taking six accused persons into custody, but also admitted that Mumbai attacks were “partially planned in Pakistan” as Advisor to the Interior Ministry, Rehman Malik stated in a press conference. Pakistan’s positive behaviour was greatly appreciated by the foreign officials and media, while on the other side, New Delhi alongwith its media anchors took it as a surprise because India has, itself, been acting upon a reckless policy regarding Pakistan which is still being pursued through a threatening style under the cover of self-fabricated evidence with a view to showing official backing of our country in the Mumbai carnage.

Indian perennial careless attitude coupled with self-contradictory diplomacy could be judged from the statement of its Minister of External Affairs, Pranab Mukerjee who, while praising Islamabad’s positive response in relation to the investigation of Mumbai catastrophe, insisted upon Pakistan on February 13 that Islamabad should move to “dismantle the terror infrastructure on its territory,” describing the threat, emanating from Pakistan as a global cancer. He further said, “The primary responsibility for eradicating this threat lay with the government in Islamabad.”

However, since November 26, last year when the Mumbai mayhem occurred, setting aside our ruler’s views that non-state actors are linked to the mishappening, Indian blindly rejection of Islamabad’s offer of joint investigation, various contradictory statements of Indian military and civilian leadership such as calling Pakistan the epicenter of terrorism, emphasizing to hand over the fugitives to New Delhi, take action against them inside Pakistan, terrorism is state policy of Islamabad and all options are open for India including military one—deployment of Indian military troops across the international border have shown that India is an irresponsible and a reckless state actor. Despite Islamabad’s optimistic reaction, India, which has not still ruled out surgical strikes on selective targets of our country, its Presedent Pratibha Patil Lamented remarked on February 12 that terrorists from Pakistan continue to allow its territory to be used for terrorism in any manner against India, further adding, “Pakistan poses a threat to the South Asian region and the world.”

The fact of the matter is that now Islamabad’s realistic reply has proved, without any doubt, that some non-sovereign entities in Pakistan, India and even in some western countries had planed Mumbai catastrophe, but New Delhi wants to unilaterally blame our country in this respect in order to conceal Indian culprits because its real anti-Pakistan designs will be exposed through a genuine probe.

In this regard, Islamabad also raised 30 questions in the report, reciprocally seeking information about Indian officials involved in Malay villages and Samjotha Express blasts in which Indian mastermind Lt. Col Srikant Purohit was found guilty in targeting Muslims, details on the death of Indian Anti-terrorist Squad chief Hemant Karkare during Mumbai tragedy etc. It is of particular attention that on February 8, Indian Gujrat Chief Minister Narendra Singh Modi revealed that the Mumbai terror attacks could not have been carried out without internal help. On February 12, the Mumbai police chief Hassan Ghafoor also admitted that two Indians who were arrested by the Indian police had been involved in the Mumbai terror attacks. Their comments are in sharp contrast with claims of other Indian high officials who hold Pakistan solely responsible for the carnage.

On February 14, Rehman Malik made it clear that Pakistan might seek to hand over Ajmal Kasab, the lone terrorist captured during Mumbai attacks to further proceed the investigations as he is Pakistani national and a case is registered in this country. But India flatly refuses to deliver Kasab to Islamabad. Nevertheless, it is logical stance of Pakistan if it will demand that India should also hand over Lt. Col Purohit and some other fugitives to Islamabad, but New Delhi is not going to do it owing to its elusive policy which is displaying India as a careless sovereign entity. Pakistan’s right decision of replying to the Indian dossier has exposed the hollowness of Indian undue pressure, followed by a self-concocted story to distort the image of a responsible state actor. US-led some western countries forced Pakistan to implement New Delhi’s demands by taking advantage of our multiple crises.

Nonetheless, our elected government did the same by taking actions against the non-sovereign militants whom Indians accused in connection with the Mumbai tragedy. Although some responsible states like Germany, France, China, Saudi Arabia etc. refused to follow Indian rhetoric that Islamabad or some of its secret agency was officially guilty in this context, yet New Delhi has not investigated the involvement of its homegrown terrorists. Question arises as to why there is no international pressure by the sole superpower or UN on Indian government to handing over Lt. Col. Purohit, other similar criminals and especially Ajmal Kasab to Pakistan. And why India avoids joint probe in this serious matter. In fact, India has only been exploiting the Mumbai events to fulfill some covert aims against our country. First, New Delhi wants to divert the attention of new US President Barack Obama from the thorny issue of Kashmir as he recognises an inter-relationship between war against terrorism in Afghanistan and this dispute. In this respect, during the recent visit of Richard Holbrooke, special envoy of the US new Administration on Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, the latter made it clear that no country can interfere in Kashmir issue. Although Holbrooke also pointed out that he had no mandate on this dispute, yet it might be part of some secret diplomacy of US-led west to emphasise New Delhi to settle this old dispute, which has become root cause of terrorism in the region. Second, India wants to keep the composite dialogue in suspension as part of its delaying tactics in resolving any issue with Pakistan. Third, New Delhi intends to continue creating unrest in Pakistan by supporting insurgency in Balochistan and FATA regions from Afghanistan where it has established a terror-structure with the help of Indian army and intelligence agency, RAW. Fourth, India, with the backing of America, wants to contain a peace-loving China with a view to thwarting Sino-Pak cooperation, especially in relation to Gwadar seaport. Fifth, Indian ruling party, Congress and fundamentalist parties such as BJP, RSS, Shiv Sena etc., entailing other Hindu non-state actors want to use the Mumbai card in the forthcoming elections for increasing anti-Pakistan jubilation to attract the voters.

The most alarming point, however, is that Indian all clandestine designs are not only destabilising Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, but will also ultimately weaken the federation of India itself as non-state actors are present almost in every country of the region. Nevertheless such a rash approach of New Delhi will further embolden Hindu terrorists who already keep on massacring Muslims and Christians intermittently. Assaults on Churches and mosques, and renowned extremist BJP leader, L.K. Advani’s statement to construct Ram Mandir on the place where Babri Masjid was destroyed in 1992 with the state-backing have given impetus to Hindu terrorism.

Now, it is beyond any doubt that Indian sinister aims emanate from the ideology of Hindutva (Hindu nationalism) based upon centuries old enmity, especially against Muslims. In this connection, New Delhi’s irresponsible attitude by unilaterally alleging Pakistan for Mumbai mayhem has further encouraged both Indian fundamentalist sovereign and non-sovereign actors. Logically speaking, confused and failed in its blame game in distorting the image of Pakistan under the mask of Mumbai episode which was, in fact, prepared by the non-state actors of the two countries alongwith some militants of other states, New Delhi, however, intends to achieve nefarious designs by manipulating the Mumbai drama.

After learning positive lessons from the past conflicts, especially World War1 and World War 11, in the modern era of new trends like renunciation of war as a state policy, peaceful settlement of disputes and economic development through cooperation on regional and global level, it is expected that unlike the non-state actors, state actors will behave with responsibility when controversy arises between them or two countries over any issue. Quite contrarily, Indian irresponsible leaders are still displaying bizarre approach towards Pakistan. No doubt, India is a reckless state actor.

World News | Pakistan Observer Newspaper online edition
 
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EDITORIAL (June 22 2009): As probe into the Mumbai carnage progressed it became increasingly clear that New Delhi was grossly mistaken in pointing the accusatory finger at the Pakistani authorities. Gradually the reality was taking hold that Pakistan is as much a victim of international terrorism, if not more, as India.

If India has not yet conceded this reality the world has. Quite expectedly, therefore, the Zardari-Singh meeting on the sidelines of the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation summit in Russia last week has been dubbed as the thaw and widely welcomed. Pakistan and India are not two querulous tin pot entities in some corner of the world that their unending bickering can be ignored. They are nuclear-weapon states with large standing armies which makes their peaceful coexistence crucial to the global peace.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was quite in sync with this reality when she told US-India Business Council in Washington the other day that these two South Asian powers face a number of common challenges and "we welcome a dialogue between them".

No wonder, the Obama administration had recently dispatched two of its senior most diplomats to the region, sent in to 'fix up' the meeting between the Pakistani president and Indian prime minister in Russia. The Secretary of State herself would be here next month, almost coincidental to a meeting of foreign secretaries of Pakistan and India, for which date has not been set as yet. India is at pains denying that the forthcoming foreign secretaries meeting would be the resumption of the stalled Composite Dialogue. But if it is an issue of ego with New Delhi it is not so with Islamabad.

Nor with Washington which believes that what is important are the talks between Pakistan and India irrespective of the rubric under which these take place. This process is expected to culminate in a Pak-India summit at Sharm-el-Skaikh, Egypt, later in July when Prime Minister Gilani would meet his Indian counterpart. Gilani is as much part of the process now underway to defuse tensions in the region as President Zardari - although one would think that the Indian leader could resist the temptation of being impolite. He uttered the duly rehearsed words under full media glare that is unfortunate.

As against the erstwhile Bush presidency the Obama administration tends to look at this region quite differently, the main difference being to graduate from destruction to construction. Exhibiting a strong sense of history President Obama feels that the United States need to engage itself intensely and meaningfully with the regional powers to obtain an overall environment of constructive peace.

He is conscious of the fact that extremism spawning the Muslim world is as much the consequence of injustices perpetrated on the people of Islamic faith as any other cause - something that clearly comes out from his epic speech in Cairo and his refusal to take sides in the ongoing post-electoral Iranian imbroglio.

But what seems to be the immediate trigger for the stepped-up US moves to nudge India into a co-operative mode with Pakistan is Pakistan Army's decisive action against the Taliban. Secretary of State Clinton acknowledged this in her speech saying "as Pakistan now works to take on the challenge of terrorists in its own country I am confident that India as well as the United States will support those efforts".

Being the prime victim of terrorism Pakistan is not greatly upset at New Delhi's spin that the SCO sidelines meeting was terrorism-specific. "We are not averse to discussing terrorism; in fact we would like to discuss terrorism because we are affected by it," the Foreign Office spokesman said on Thursday. But, "having said that, we are looking forward to the resumption of bilateral dialogue that covers other aspects including Siachin, Sir Creek and other issues," he added. Of course, terrorism is a serious threat to the regional security and must be eliminated.

But it should not be forgotten that roots of terrorism go very deep as it grows out of the issues that remain unresolved. The American pressure that is said to be nudging India to coming to the negotiating table should not end with a battle victory over the Taliban; it should persist till genuine peace is obtained in South Asia by resolving all principal disputes for which the Composite Dialogue is the appropriate forum.
 
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