 |
| Image: Marcin Bondarowicz |
In the immediate aftermath of Osama bin Laden’s death in Abbottabad, a familiar gaggle of Indian nationalists quickly took charge of the television news channels. For days on end, they relentlessly tickled the jingoist bone of India’s middle classes with calls to hunt down an assortment of alleged terrorists and underworld dons in their Pakistani lairs. Defence analyst Maroof Raza, for instance, advocated a stealth operation if a surgical strike was not feasible to take out Mumbai underworld don Dawood Ibrahim, whom India accuses Pakistan of sheltering in Karachi. B Raman, a former official with the Research & Analysis Wing (RAW) advised New Delhi to display its military ‘capabilities’, even if it chose not to test them for the moment.
A former Indian Army commando who had served in Kashmir and Arunachal Pradesh, however, was more realistic. In a private conversation, he laughed at the idea that some of his countrymen were canvassing for crossborder raids to capture or kill suspected jihadis. ‘Buddy’, he said, shaking his head, ‘we don’t have 12 satellites to focus on a single compound to enable an Abbottabad-type operation. We have a satellite or two that can give one swipe of a particular place in a day, and then one has to wait for the next day.’
That bin Laden’s death was a much larger game-changer for the world’s ‘Af-Pak’ strategy seemed to be too fine a point for many of India’s self-obsessed analysts to grasp. The army chief, V K Singh, did not help matters much when he chimed in to declare that India was quite capable of carrying out an Abbottabad-style raid. The Hindutva brigade went further still. Writing in The Organiser, the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) mouthpiece, ideologue Pravin Togadia suggested that military confrontation would be an acceptable price to pay for capturing Dawood Ibrahim in his suspected Karachi hideout. He further noted that allegations of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq had led to that country’s invasion by US-led forces, and ‘The same should be done to Pak for People of Mass Destruction.’
Even within individual political groupings the reaction has been confused. Former national security adviser and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Brajesh Mishra offered a blunt response. ‘India should keep out of it,’ he said. ‘Let the Pakistanis and Americans settle it among themselves.’ But his fellow BJP leader Yashwant Sinha thought otherwise: ‘India has two options. First, plead with Pakistan, which is bound to fall on deaf ears. The other is to take firm action … There is only one international law – there cannot be two, one for the US and another for India.’
Pakistani peace activist Karamat Ali, who was in India after the Abbottabad raid, offered some perspective on these responses. ‘When the Mumbai attack was staged by Pakistan-based terrorists, there was some justification when people [in India] wanted to suspend all ties with Islamabad,’ he said. ‘Now someone has killed a terrorist, but once again they want all ties to be suspended. Does that make sense?’
The breadth of India, of course, saw a much wider spectrum of reactions. At one extreme, hardline Kashmiri separatist Syed Ali Shah Geelani led prayers at an Islamic funeral-in-absentia for the erstwhile al-Qaeda leader. In his view, bin Laden had fought imperialism and should be lauded. On the other hand, while Muslim clerics in Lucknow welcomed the death, they expressed their concern that bin Laden had been turned into an iconic figure by the Western media.
The Home Ministry, for its part, responded first by ad-libbing. On 11 May, it released a list of 50 ‘most-wanted fugitives’ whom India said were hiding in Pakistan – including, for the first time, five officers of the Pakistan Army. This list had been given to Islamabad in confidence in March, and its sudden public release just days after bin Laden’s death raised many eyebrows. Serious embarrassment followed, however, when it was revealed that one of those on the list, Wazhul Kamar Khan, was actually living in Thane, adjoining Mumbai. According to police sources, Khan, who had been arrested last year for his alleged role in the 2003 Mulund train bombing, had been living in Thane since he was released on bail in August. The list was eventually ‘withdrawn’ when a second wanted man was also found not in Pakistan, but in Mumbai.
Owning the policy
In this atmosphere, an angry Pakistan, already miffed by American taunts of being an untrustworthy ally, perhaps inevitably vented on India. The ISI chief, General Ahmed Shuja Pasha, reportedly affirmed to Pakistan’s Parliament that ‘the army had identified its targets in India, should there be an attempt by Delhi to repeat an American-style raid.’ Indeed, that bogey, of the ‘American-style raid’, seems to have added a new dimension to the India-Pakistan relationship. That list of ‘most-wanted fugitives’, of course, could be read as offering fuel for that fire.
Eventually, India did come up with an official response, and it proved to be sober and far removed from the irresponsibleness of the country’s media. Indeed, respected foreign-policy analyst M Bhadrakumar has celebrated the idea that India’s diplomatic establishment had ‘blithely outstripped the ill-informed media honchos in Delhi in thinking through the issues involved.’ In his view, the Indian establishment unambiguously viewed the killing of bin Laden as a watershed event in the struggle against terrorism, and the official response has been duly calibrated. Official Indian statements have neatly sidestepped the issue of the propriety of the US operation in Abbottabad, Bhadrakumar pointed out, while, importantly, not displaying any air of gratification – despite the fact that Pakistan’s image today lies in tatters.
Ultimately, it took Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s intervention to limit the damage that the jingoistic popular response could have caused. During his visit to Kabul in mid-May, delayed by a week due to the Abbottabad operation, Prime Minister Singh was asked whether New Delhi would adopt a US-like approach to its problems with Pakistan. Initially, the prime minister responded by saying that he could not discuss sensitive strategies in press conferences. Sensing that his words could be misinterpreted, however, he quickly added that while his experience with Pakistan had been frustrating, he had not lost hope. Then, in a single sentence, in words that could not have gone down well with the hawks in his establishment, Prime Minister Singh spelled out his core policy: ‘I would like to say one thing: India is not like the United States.’
The prime minister’s response was of a piece with what seems like his unremitting faith in peaceful ways to solve problems with a nuclear-armed and troubled neighbour. Taking the cue from him, senior officials gently admonished the media for its freewheeling rhetoric. What the government did instead was instructive: It went ahead with a scheduled bilateral meeting of water-sharing talks, while also holding a discussion (albeit inconclusive) over the disputed estuary of Sir Creek. From all accounts, a foreign minister-level meeting scheduled in New Delhi for July is very much on. It was thus that the brazen attack on the naval base in Karachi, on 22 May, found New Delhi not rubbing its hands with glee, but expressing deep sadness over the spiral of violence gripping its neighbour. Thus, weeks after the bin Laden’s dead, there is currently nothing to indicate that the incident has derailed the agenda for peace between the
two countries.
~ Jawed Naqvi is the Delhi-based columnist for Dawn.
More From Jawed Naqvi
|
Southasian mea culpa 9 December 2008
|
|
|
|
Self-criticism came more readily to our forebears.
|
|
Who hijacked whom? 18 December 2008
|
|
|
|
Aircraft hijackings took place for a long time in India...
|
|
The stranded cyclist 1 August 2008
|
|
|
|
Real regional connectivity will come about when the unofficial cyclist beats...
|
Featured Articles
|
People versus wildlife 17 May 2013
|
|
 |
Reassessing wildlife conservation policies in India.
|
|
After the flood 7 May 2013
|
|
.jpg) |
The new realities of life for villagers in Hunza Valley who lost their homes and lands to a natural lake following a 2010...
|
|
Disappearing foods 25 April 2013
|
|
 |
A collection of recipes that are fading from the Southasian palette.
|
|
Eat, drink, write 23 April 2013
|
|
 |
A food writer dishes on the ins and outs of her profession.
|
|
Brideprice 22 April 2013
|
|
 |
A new translation of Manik Bandopadhyay's ‘Namuna’ by Madhusree Mukerjee.
|
|
Among the believers 19 April 2013
|
|
 |
An account from Varanasi, where bhang and thandai struggle to survive the onslaught of LSD and Coca-Cola.
|
|
Behind the crystals 18 April 2013
|
|
 |
Capturing the lives of Marakkanam’s salt pan workers
|
|
In search of food sovereignty 17 April 2013
|
|
.jpg) |
Shifting the debate on the Public Distribution System.
|
|
Farms, Feasts, Famines: web-exclusive package 17 April 2013
|
|
 |
|
|
Missing connections 8 April 2013
|
|
 |
Girja Kumar’s book on the Indus and the cultures tied to it obscures a tremendous wealth of interconnected histories and...
|
|
No place for picnics 4 April 2013
|
|
 |
Kashmiri women tell their stories of the conflict.
|
|
'I bowled left-arm chinaman' 28 March 2013
|
|
 |
Shehan Karunatilaka speaks about winning awards, spin bowling, italics in fiction, and much more.
|
.jpg)
Youtube channel
|
Romila Thapar addresses invitees at the Southasian relaunch of Himal Southasian, IIC, New Delhi, January 2013. |
The archive: 25 years of Southasia
 |
|
China, Southasia and India
On May 19 2013, newly appointed Chinese Premier Li Keqiang arrived in New Delhi for a series of meetings with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. The visit is Keqiang's first outside of China since assuming power in March.
From our archive: Purna Basnet discusses Chinese engagement in Nepal vis-a-vis security issues in Tibet and broader geo-strategic plans in Southasia (April 2011).
.
Fatima Chowdury relates the story of Calcutta's Indian Chinese community through the lens of political and economic upheavals in Southasia and China (May 2009).
Simon Long notes the importance of the Sino-Indian relationship for the rest of Southasia (September 2006).
J.N Dixit ruminates on the strategic concerns of the 'Middle Kingdom' in the wake of India's 1998 nuclear tests (June 1998).
|
Comments