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Strategic Analysis Vol. 33, No. 3, May 2009, 319 323 RSAN 0970-0161 1754-0054 Strategic Analysis, Vol. 33, No. 3, February 2009, pp. 0 0 Strategic Analysis COMMENTARY India Pakistan Relations After the Mumbai Terror Attacks: What Should India Do? Arvind Gupta, S. Kalyanaraman, and Ashok K. Behuria I ndia Pakistan relations have been on a roller coaster. They reached a new low after the Mumbai terror attacks of November 26, 2008. Tensions increased to such an extent that the possibility of a war was openly talked about on both sides. However, only a couple of hours before the attacks, the foreign ministers of the two countries had appeared upbeat about the state of the peace process and the composite dialogue which had started in January 2004. The post-mumbai situation brings to mind the Kargil episode of May 1999. A few months before units of Pakistan s Northern Light Infanty were discovered in the icy heights of Kargil, India and Pakistan were enjoying the honeymoon that had begun with Prime Minister Vajpayee s visit to Lahore. Vajpayee s visit to Lahore, also known as the Lahore Bus Yatra, was an attempt by the two sides to normalize the bilateral relationship after the May 1998 nuclear weapons tests. Even as the Prime Ministers of India and Pakistan were signing documents to normalize the relationship, the Pakistan Army was planning intrusions into Indian territory. After the Pakistan Army was forced to withdraw from the Kargil heights by Indian military operations and international condemnation and pressure, the elected civilian government was overthrown by the then Army Chief, General Parvez Musharraf, who ruled the country for the next nine years. Before the Mumbai terror attacks, India Pakistan relations had shown signs of normalcy. The ceasefire along the Line of Control (LoC) had held since 2004. The composite dialogue on critical issues had gone on more or less smoothly for five rounds. People-to-people contact had increased considerably. An elected civilian government had been restored in Pakistan. There was hope that the Pakistan Army, after becoming unpopular during the last year of Musharraf s rule, had receded into the background and that under the new civilian government, India Pakistan relations would improve further. In fact, on the day of the Mumbai terror attacks, Pakistan s Foreign Minister was in Delhi signing bilateral agreements, and the home secretarylevel talks were being held in Islamabad. During the previous few weeks, Pakistan s newly elected President, Asif Ali Zardari, had stated that India has never been a threat to Pakistan, that the militant Islamic groups operating in Kashmir are terrorists, and Arvind Gupta holds the Lal Bahadur Shastri Chair at IDSA, and is Managing Editor of Strategic Analysis. S. Kalyanaraman is Research Fellow at IDSA. Ashok K. Behuria is Editor of International Studies, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. The views expressed above are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses or the Government of India. ISSN 0970-0161 print/issn 1754-0054 online 2009 Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses DOI: 10.1080/09700160902789896 http://www.informaworld.com
320 Arvind Gupta et al. that he envisions Pakistani cement factories being constructed to provide for India s huge infrastructure needs, Pakistani textile mills meeting Indian demand for blue jeans, Pakistani ports being used to relieve the congestion at Indian ones. The Mumbai terror attacks threatened to unravel this fragile rapprochement. Subsequent investigations into the attacks established that the attackers were all Pakistanis, and that they were linked to the Lashkar-e-Taiba/Jamaat-ud-Dawaa (LeT/ JuD), which has a sizeable presence in Pakistan, is known to be patronized by the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), and is linked with Al Qaida. The lone terrorist who was taken alive by the Indian security forces confessed to being a Pakistani and sought legal assistance from his country to fight his case in Indian courts. The UN Security Council passed a resolution declaring the JuD to be a terrorist organization and asked member states to ban the organization. India was convinced that it had a foolproof case nailing elements within Pakistan squarely for the Mumbai terror attacks, and presented a dossier containing the evidence on the attacks to Pakistan as well as to all major countries. To India s chagrin, however, Pakistan went into denial mode, though after an initial statement by Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani condemning the attacks and offering to cooperate in the investigation into the attacks including sending to India the Director General of the ISI. Subsequently, it continued to deny that the terrorists came from Pakistan or that they were Pakistanis. When Pakistan s National Security Adviser, Mehmud Ali Durrani, admitted on January 7, 2009 that the lone surviving terrorist Ajmal Kasab was indeed a Pakistani, he was sacked by Prime Minister Gilani. Gilani also later referred to the evidence provided by India as mere information. Despite overwhelming international sympathy for India and despite the strongest possible exhortations by the United States, the United Kingdom, and other Western countries that Pakistan needed to respond properly to Indian concerns, Islamabad refused to accept any responsibility for the attacks. This led to escalation of tensions, with the Indian side saying that it would use all possible options to ensure that there are no further attacks on India from Pakistani soil. However, despite overwhelming public pressure to take hard action against Pakistan, the Indian Government acted with a great deal of restraint. No surgical strikes were carried out on the known terror camps in Pakistan. Unlike in 2002, India did not mobilize its forces on the border. The High Commissioner was not recalled. The composite dialogue was not suspended. Air links were not discontinued. The government instead relied on the United States and the international community to convince Pakistan to respond to Indian concerns. On the Pakistani side, the reaction was entirely different. Pakistan s staunch denial was accompanied by the threat to redeploy forces from the east to the west, thereby telling the West that it would withdraw its assistance to the US war on terror on the Pak-Afghan border. The Pakistan Army whipped up war hysteria within the country. Relishing the prospect of an India Pakistan war, the Pakistani Taliban came out in support of the government by declaring that they would press suicide bombers into service to help the Pakistan Army fight the Indian Army. What did the Mumbai episode say about a situation in which war could have been triggered directly by a terrorist episode and not any territorial dispute? The terrorists were capable of perpetrating major regional and global security crises. India s immediate options, despite its being a superior military power, were limited. India was hesitant to use the military option, which in any event would not have ended terrorism.
Strategic Analysis 321 Pakistan wanted to underline its indispensability to the West in the war against terror. It may end up getting more Western civilian and military aid. The international community was unable to stand up to the prospect of Pakistan s threat of withdrawal, which could potentially undermine NATO/US military efforts in Afghanistan. In Pakistan, the Army remained supreme despite the return of civilian rule. President Zardari had little or no power on issues that actually mattered. The Indian Government s patience could well eventually wear out, given the popular outrage caused by the Mumbai attacks. With elections around the corner, the government would be under pressure to act resolutely in case another such terrorist attack was to occur. The nuclear factor was important. While Pakistan used it to stand up to India, India was constrained by the same. The Mumbai terror attacks exposed the fragile nature of any India Pakistan peace process. There has been intense public debate in India on how it should respond to the crisis caused by the Mumbai attacks. There is considerable public opinion holding the view that India cannot depend on the United States to take its chestnuts out of the fire and that it has to act in a way that deters Pakistan from letting its soil be used for terror against India. The implication is that India should not be deterred by the nuclear factor and, if necessary, should take recourse to the military option to defend itself against terrorist attacks from Pakistani territory. Others argue that India lost the chance of exercising its military option after the first few days, with the surprise element gone and international opinion decidedly against an India Pakistan military stand-off. In any case, India is not in a position to wipe out terrorism from Pakistani soil. The United States has not been able to do it either from Pakistan or Afghanistan or anywhere despite its superior military power and its covert and overt operations. On the contrary, it is hopelessly bogged down along with NATO in Afghanistan. Israel, the ultimate hard state, has also not been able to wipe out terrorism. Another category of opinion, though somewhat muted, argues that India should think long term, avoid knee-jerk reactions, and try to reach out to the minority in Pakistan which wants good relations with India. Thus, people-to-people contact should continue, and India should try and strengthen the Zardari Government and not let it come under the sway of the hard-line Pakistani military. However, there was no appetite within India for continued full-scale cooperation with Pakistan. The composite dialogue could not continue as before in the changed mood after the Mumbai attacks. Some analysts point out the less than optimal results of the options India had exercised after the 2001 parliament attacks, including the mobilization of the army and the withdrawal of the High Commissioner. None of these measures had any impact on lessening terrorism from Pakistan. However, India s attempt at coercive diplomacy in 2001 2002 did force Pakistan and the international community to recognize and acknowledge the fact that India is also a victim of terrorism, that such terrorism emanates from Pakistan, and that Islamabad should curb the activities of terrorist groups operating from its soil. The Mumbai attacks provided India a further opportunity to not only drive home this point, but also to convince Pakistan which claims that it is also a victim of terrorism to take action against these groups, not just for the sake of regional peace but also for the very survival of a stable Pakistan.
322 Arvind Gupta et al. So, what are the options before India in dealing with Pakistan? There is a strong case for India to take tough action against Pakistan if there is a further terrorist attack from Pakistani soil. However, such an option should be taken with care and diligence, and adequate preparations must be made beforehand. Firstly, international opinion has to be mobilized in favour of India adopting hard options. Secondly, India also needs to gear itself up on the domestic front to be able to exercise these options quickly and decisively in the wake of a similar terrorist attack in future. This option needs to be strongly conveyed to Pakistan. Even if it were to be merely symbolic, a quick and declared limited response against the terrorist infrastructure within Pakistan would serve the purpose of warning Islamabad and informing the international community that India s patience is not endless and that it means business. This option, however, has to be pursued with caution, given the likely adverse fallout within Pakistan, the setback to India Pakistan relations, as well as adverse international reactions. In addition, India also needs to gear itself up to diplomatically and militarily face the persistent challenge posed by Pakistan at every turn. The near-term goal should be to keep international focus pointed like a laser beam on the connections between terrorist groups and elements within the Pakistan establishment. It is also necessary to impress upon Pakistan and the international community the imperative of Islamabad acting against these groups in its own long-term interests, as well as for the success of the international mission to stabilize Afghanistan. A tactically agile diplomatic offensive is necessary to put this into practice. This offensive should also encompass the Track-II realm, where the services of retired government officials as well as that of academics and think-tanks could be utilized. This will not be easy given that the West is prone to treat Pakistan softly due to the ongoing war in Afghanistan. But India has a great deal of evidence which it should share with the international community. The various counter-terror mechanisms that have been set up with other countries should be utilized for this purpose. Special envoys should be sent all over the world to put forward India s case. Think-tanks should be used to uncover the involvement of Pakistan in terrorist activities. India also has considerable soft power. Let us not forget that the United States used its soft power along with hard power to deftly undo the Soviet Union. Can India do this as well? Should New Delhi not try and build and reach out to the constituency in Pakistan which talks about good relations with India? Admittedly, there may not be many in the Pakistani establishment who are in favour of good relations with India. However, at the popular level, there is a sense of warmth and goodwill, as can be seen in the long queues for Indian visas. There is a liberal constituency in Pakistan that respects Indian democracy and pluralism. India s cultural attraction through its film and television industry serves as a magnet for many in Pakistan. Indian success on the economic front is also admired. The attitude of Pakistani businessmen on trade with India has changed considerably during the last few years. India has also been the destination for Pakistanis to obtain medical treatment. The constituency that has benefited from contacts with India is likely to be less hostile towards India. Can India s soft power not be used to cultivate and expand this constituency within Pakistan? Of course, no amount of soft power is useful unless it is used in combination with hard power. India has enough capabilities in this regard. But it should use these only when it is likely to have the maximum impact. At other times, soft power should be at the forefront of the Indian strategy in dealing with Pakistan. The Indus Water Treaty has been quite negative to the people of Kashmir, as it puts severe restrictions on the use of the waters of the western rivers of Sutlej, Jhelum
Strategic Analysis 323 and Chenab, for the people of Kashmir. Should India not ask for renegotiation of this treaty? Should India not resume the construction of the various projects that have been held up by Pakistan s intransigence? There is a need to take a long-term view of Pakistan. India can do little to make Pakistan stable or unstable and should be prepared for all scenarios. If Pakistan goes down-hill, there is very little New Delhi can do about it. India can afford to wait, while external and internal factors play out in that country. It needs to improve its security machinery to deal with terrorists targeting India from Pakistani territory with or without official sponsorship. At the same time, Indian policy should be sophisticated enough to differentiate between the liberal and hard-line constituencies within Pakistan, the goal being to strengthen the liberals and weaken the hardliners.