India's Choice: Taming Terror

Mumbai attacks an 'act of war' by Pakistan: Rushdie

It takes an author to cut through rigmarole and long-winded diplomatese and calls a spade a spade. Salman Rushdie, the iconoclastic author of contemporary classics like Midnight’s Children and The Satanic Verses, has described the recent terrorist attacks in Mumbai as an “act of war” by Pakistan and made a compelling argument for a fundamental change in the way the West deals with terrorism.

In a recent interview published on the 20th anniversary of global protests over his novel "The Satanic Verses" that forced him to go underground for long, the Indian-born author also criticised “liberal opinion” in Britain for ignoring the problem of terrorism.

“There is no question that this was Pakistan. You could see it as an act of war,” Rushdie told The Times newspaper.

“The West should be tougher on Pakistan. It is trying to play both ends against the middle - to look like the friend of the revolutionaries on the one hand and a friend of the West in the fight against terrorism. It can't be both things. This country should make clear that as long as Pakistan harbours terrorists it's not going to get any Western aid.”

Rushdie, who was forced to go into hiding after the late Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini called for his execution in 1989, said successive governments in Britain had been complacent about the rise of extremism.

“Both (ex-prime ministers) Thatcher and Blair made the same mistake, which was the so-called Londonistan policy where you allow these [Islamist] groups to set up shop here in the belief that if you do that they won't attack this country and that you can monitor them.”

About Britain's post-9/11 response, which has been criticised by some human rights groups, Rushdie said, “The War on Terror was always a terrible phrase. You are never going to defeat terror. But I sometimes think that liberal opinion in this country doesn't see that there actually are enemies.

“We just saw in Mumbai a demonstration of the extraordinary barbarism that people are prepared to unleash on the world. How many of these attacks do we need before we understand what's going on?”

Rushdie said he watched with horror as the Nov 26 Mumbai attacks unfolded.

“Those are the streets I grew up on. Two of the characters in my novel 'Midnight's Children' consummate their love affair in the [Taj] Palace, as so many of us did.

“It is strange that the three cities in my life that I have loved [London, New York, Mumbai] have all been subjected to terrorist attack in the last ten years.”

"I do think of Bombay as my hometown," he told the Daily Telegraph in an interview.

"Those are the streets I walked when I was learning to walk. And it's the place that my imagination has returned to more than anywhere else.

"So, of course, I have been desperately upset by what has happened there. It's very strange that the three cities I have loved most - London, New York and Bombay - have been subject to major terrorists attacks in the last decade."

Rushdie strongly disagreed with the view expressed by the departing British commander in Afghanistan, Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith, who says Taliban could play a part in a future Afghan government.

"That is not my view," Rushdie told the paper, repeating with added emphasis: "That Is Not My View.

"What, these are the people you are going to make peace with? The people who have just burnt my hometown? No, thank you. It seems to me beyond moronic to think of such a thing. There are people in the world you have to defeat. And these are those people, in our time."

The CIA-ISI axis: India Should have no illusions of US support (Comment)

By C. Uday Bhaskar

India is maintaining politico-diplomatic pressure on Pakistan to comply with its international obligations apropos the Mumbai terror attack of Nov 26. Home Minister P. Chidambaram would visit the US in the course of this week with a detailed dossier that would include “irrefutable evidence” about the involvement of Pakistan-based terrorists in the Mumbai attacks.

External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee added that India would share the evidence with other nations and exhort them to prevail upon Islamabad to comply. It is understood that the evidence to be so shared includes records of logbook recovered from the vessel in which the 10 terrorists came from Karachi ; records of the satellite phone used by the attackers ; and intercepted transcripts of the conversations between the attackers and their handlers in Pakistan. The dossier, it is reported, also includes the corroborative evidence tracking the journey of the attackers from Karachi to Mumbai, as also evidence to show that the terrorists, who struck at the Taj Hotel, Trident-Oberoi Hotel and Nariman House, were in touch with their handlers in Karachi even during their three-day engagement with Indian security forces. Significantly, apart from Pakistan, the US and the UK, this evidence will also be shared with China which has considerable influence on the Pakistani military leadership.

The moot question is whether Islamabad, which has been consistently denying any linkage with the terrorists - and rejected the evidence produced by India till now - will change its stance. The answer to this will depend on the kind of pressure that Washington is prepared to apply on Islamabad at this point in time. The temporal dimension is critical, for Washington DC is preparing to install a new president, Barack Obama, in the White House on Jan 20 and the transition period is not conducive for any major or radical change in existing American policies. More so when they affect Pakistan, with which the White House and US intelligence agencies have had a complex, contradictory and opaque relationship which dates back to the Eisenhower years of the late 1950's.

The US and Pakistan have a long history of engaging in covert operations together - and this goes back to the use of Pakistani territory and assets during the early phase of the Cold War. During that period, the US co-opted Pakistan in its security initiatives against the former USSR and China. Subsequently during the latter phase of the Cold war, when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan - Pakistan under General Zia ul Haq became a frontline state for the US and the Pak military as represented by the ISI became the conduit for nurturing the mujahedin in Afghanistan.

This period from 1980 till the final Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989 was one of intense intelligence co-operation between the CIA and the ISI. The latter created various militant groups fired by distorted Islamic religious extremism which were the forerunners of the Lashkar e Taiba (LeT).

In that decade, between the CIA and the ISI, vast amounts of drug money was laundered through banks of convenience and gradually the Southern Asian internal security fabric was irreparably eroded. A distortion of the tenets of the Quran and the lethality of the Kalashnikov became a deadly cocktail and very soon the median of militancy, with a specific political objective, transmuted into ruthless terrorism that was motivated by a supra-national theological objective.

The LeT is a product of this covert Pakistan-US support structure and consequently the linkages between the intelligence agencies is deep and abiding. Given the turbulence that engulfed Afghanistan soon after the Soviet withdrawal and the end of the Cold War, it was evident that many of the earlier covert linkages that had official state sanction became non-state operations with tacit state support.

It was this pattern that was exploited by the Pakistan military against India, when terrorism became the preferred Rawalpindi stratagem and the early 1990's were a period when India was successfully “bled by a thousand cuts”. The instructive part is that the US and its intelligence services were more than aware of the proxy war unleashed against India - but chose to turn a blind eye. Terrorism was not a US security concern - for Sep 11, 2001 was still a decade away. Indian intelligence was often frustrated and blunted by their US counterparts empathy with the ISI and this was part of the “estrangement” between India and the US.

This US ambivalence persists and it is my contention that the reason why General Pervez Musharraf could get away with his running-with-the-hare-hunting-with-the-hound policy was due to this systemic trait within the US establishment. It is instructive that a very insightful article in the forthright US web publication - Foreign Policy Journal - titled: 'Role of Alleged CIA Asset in Mumbai Attacks Being Downplayed', authored by the editor Jeremy Hammond, draws attention to Dawood Ibrahim and the D-Company in relation to the Mumbai terror outrage. Hammond adds: "Yoichi Shimatsu, former editor of the Japan Times, wrote last month after the Mumbai attacks that Ibrahim had worked with the US to help finance the mujahideen during the 1980s and that because he knows too much about the US' 'darker secrets' in the region, he could never be allowed to be turned over to India."

Intelligence operations and covert support to terrorism is the seamy side of state policy and South Asia is particularly blighted. While India seeks to bring the perpetrators of the Mumbai carnage to book, there should be no illusions about the degree to which other nations will whole-heartedly support the Indian expectation from Islamabad. The US dependence on the Pakistani military goes well beyond the presence of its troops in Afghanistan and the proposed 'surge' strategy in the Obama watch. The CIA-ISI linkages are embedded in a murky past and Indian expectations from the US will have to be tempered accordingly.

A strong pro-democracy message from Kashmir

At a time of gloom in India, the poll outcome in Kashmir has been like a ray of sunlight breaking through the dark clouds. One reason for the high hopes generated by the contest was the large turnout of voters, which was nothing other than a slap in the face of the separatists.

The latter had gained a fresh lease of life during the Amarnath land transfer row when they organised large demonstrations and shouted pro-independence and pro-Pakistan slogans.

It was feared, therefore, that their election boycott call would receive a better response in the valley than in the past. As a result, there was even speculation of the poll being postponed on the plea of wintry conditions.

But the politicians and the bureaucrats evidently could not gauge the popular mood. There might have been unease in the valley about entrusting an official organisation with providing the necessary facilities to Hindu pilgrims to the Amarnath shrine, thereby depriving the local Muslims of their traditional role in this regard.

But such adverse sentiments against the official move did not mean that the voters would not exercise their franchise. On the other hand, they turned out in large numbers - the percentage was above 60 - to send out what can only be regarded as a strong pro-democracy message.

Not surprisingly, the beneficiaries from the land transfer row have been in accordance with the unfortunate Hindu-Muslim and Jammu-valley polarisation which took place during the agitation.

So, while the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has gained in the Hindu-majority Jammu region to raise its tally of seats in the assembly from one to 11, the People's Democratic Party (PDP), with its "soft" separatist image and base in the Muslim-dominated valley, has also raised its number of seats from 16 to 21.

However, their gains do not provide anything more substantial than a boost to their morale since the government will be formed by the two middle-of-the-road parties - the National Conference (NC) and the Congress.

Herein lies the maturity of the voters who were clearly not swayed by the fiery rhetoric of either the BJP or the separatists (including the "soft" ones) to fall entirely in their trap. They ensured that the moderates would not lose any ground to the firebrands. Notwithstanding the drop in their percentages of votes, the National Conference and the Congress remained a potent force, much to the PDP's distress which was apparently hoping for another stint in power in alliance with the Congress.

The agitation can be seen in retrospect, therefore, as a blessing in disguise, for it helped the two centrist parties - the pan-Indian Congress and the secular-minded National Conference, famous for its "dynasty" of Sheikh Abdullah, the Lion of Kashmir - to come together after a long gap.

It is Sheikh Abdullah's grandson, Omar, who will now be the third chief minister from the family, after his father, Farooq Abdullah, and his grandfather. The 38-year-old Omar's accession is another matter of satisfaction because he marks the arrival of GenNext in the state's politics.

As always, the rise of a personable young man with an evidently modern mind is cause for at least two cheers. Since Omar is also a personal friend of another 38-year-old, Rahul Gandhi of the Congress and scion of the Nehru-Gandhi "dynasty", the fallout from the elections will not be confined to Kashmir alone.

If the Congress and the National Conference can rebuild their partnership, which goes back (notwithstanding intermittent rocky periods) to the days of Jawaharlal Nehru and Sheikh Abdullah, then India as a whole will benefit if only because both the parties tend to shun extremism of either the parochial or religious variety.

Since development is the new buzzword in Indian politics with even a Marxist leader of Kerala praising Narendra Modi's Gujarat model of industrialisation, it is not surprising that Omar Abdullah has said that his first priority will be on the bijli-sadak-pani factor to eradicate the state's power, road and drinking water problems and improve employment opportunities. That he is banking on the private sector to provide jobs is a sign that he does not have the socialist hangover of an earlier generation.

But his real mettle will be tested by the challenge posed by the secessionists in conjunction with the insurgents sneaking in from Pakistan-administered Kashmir. It is also undeniable that a sense of alienation persists in the valley mainly because of the intimidating presence of gun-toting security forces.

What is more, the current tense relations between India and Pakistan rule out the possibility of any immediate measures to further ease travel and trade restrictions to fulfil Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's promise of gradually making the international border irrelevant.

The new government will also have to ensure that the longstanding grievances of the Jammu region about being discriminated against vis-à-vis the valley is suitably addressed, especially now when a stronger BJP is likely to raise a hue and cry about this sense of division, which it has always tried to exploit.

Questions have been raised about Omar Abdullah's youth and inexperience, but anyone who heard his impassioned speech during the trust vote in parliament on the nuclear deal last July would know about the earnestness of his convictions. If he can control his impetuosity, perhaps with a word of advice from his father, Farooq Abdullah, who has replaced him as the party president, the state is bound to have a bright future.

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