‘Act on terror, don’t distract with war talk’

With Pakistan whipping up a war hysteria in a bid to divert international attention and escape culpability for the Mumbai attack, India today sought to bring the focus back on terrorism by making it clear that “nobody wants war”.

With Pakistan whipping up a war hysteria in a bid to divert international attention and escape culpability for the Mumbai attack, India today sought to bring the focus back on terrorism by making it clear that “nobody wants war”. However, New Delhi also pointed out that “state establishments” in India’s neighbourhood were aiding terror.

Speaking to reporters outside Parliament, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said: “What we want from Pakistan is to dismantle the terror machine. That is the one demand. This is in the interest of the people of India and Pakistan. The terror machine should be dismantled without any further loss. The issue is not war. The issue is terror and territory in Pakistan being used to promote, aid and abet terror here. I think that is the issue. Nobody wants war.”

Earlier, in his address to the Heads of Missions conference, Singh said: “Non-state actors were practising terrorism aided and abetted by state establishments. The Mumbai terrorist attacks were an attack on India’s ambitions to emerge as an economic power.”

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India views the reactions from Pakistan, defined by war propaganda, as confirmation of its assessment that there was a strategic objective to the November 26-29 attack, aimed at convincing the international community of the need to focus on the “threat” from India. More importantly, sources said, it points to the Lashkar-e-Toiba being used by elements in the Pakistani state with considerable command-and-control mechanisms in place.

External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Tuesday echoed this: “The issue is not creating war hysteria. Everybody in Pakistan is talking about war. The issue is not war, but fighting terrorism.”

Later, the MEA spokesperson said: “The talk of war or creating war hysteria is diversionary. The issue is not defence of Pakistan but a terrorist attack on India from Pakistan.” Such has been the orchestrated hysteria in Pakistan that nationalistic songs played during the 1965 Indo-Pak war have returned to Pakistani television channels. The Pakistan Air Force has been flying fighters over Pakistani cities in the name of security drills.

In a development that has generated a deep worry in India, defending the UN-proscribed Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) is becoming a sort of Pakistani national duty, with political processions being taken out. It is learnt that when a EU delegation asked Pakistan PM Yousaf Raza Gilani about taking action against the JuD, he told them that the JuD was essentially a Punjabi organisation that has done philanthropic work in Punjab, and that it was politically difficult for his government to act against it in the way it could act against outfits in FATA and NWFP.

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The limitations of the civilian government compare with the resurgence of the Pakistan Army, which is drawing on the hysteria to improve its image. It is believed that General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani personally turned down the proposal to send the D-G of the ISI to India, even after the civilian government had made a commitment. The Pakistan Foreign Ministry later came around to his view.

There is wide agreement among Indian officials that the role of the Pakistani Army has been questionable, going by the almost tailored response based on an assumption that Mumbai would provoke India to build troops on the border. Once that did not happen, the next plan was to start a disinformation campaign that would change the prevalent impression from India being the victim and Pakistan the perpetrator, to an Indo-Pak flashpoint issue. The hoax threat call to President Zardari, claimed by Pakistan to have been made from Pranab Mukherjee’s office, is also a part of this elaborate exercise.