Opinion A chance for peace?

The hijacking of IC-814 was a shameful moment for India. Not only were we forced to release evil men in exchange for the passengers on that luckless flight,we did nothing to punish them afterwards. Why were they not hunted down and killed before they could go on to organise an attack on our Parliament and other horrible crimes? The short answer is that it was because India does not have the ability to conduct the sort of operation we saw last week. So,the first lesson we need to learn from Abbottabad is that the Indian Army must adjust to the new realities of war. Instead of silly bragging from the Army Chief,we need to hear from him how many units in his army have been trained to confront the new tactics of our old enemy.

The second lesson,and possibly the most important one,is that we need to acknowledge that we are not fighting nebulous groups of jihadis but a rogue army equipped with nuclear weapons. The real leader of the worldwide jihad is General Ashfaq Kayani because without the backing of the Pakistani army,there would be no Lashkar-e-Toiba,no Jamaat-ud-Dawa and no Hizbul Mujahideen. Thanks to David Headley,we now know that there would not have been the 26/11 attack either without logistical support from the Pakistani Army. According to him,the attack was organised from beginning to end by the ISI. We already know that among the faceless handlers who used satellite phones to conduct the operation from Pakistan were serving army officers. So dependent on their instructions were the men who came to Mumbai that they asked what they should eat and drink,who to kill and when to die.

The Prime Minister’s attempts to make peace with Pakistan through cricket matches and dinner parties seem pointless in view of all this. After Abbottabad,it has become blindingly clear that the people we should be talking peace to are Pakistan’s Generals not their civilian proxies. So totally in charge of foreign policy and defence are the Generals that it seems more than likely that the civilian government was kept in the dark about the high walled house in Abbottabad and its mysterious occupant.

The problem with talking peace to Pakistan’s military men is that peace on the sub-continent is the last thing they want. They derive enormous power and appropriate a vast portion of Pakistan’s national wealth by perpetuating the myth that India is a threat to Pakistan’s very existence. A permanent and existential threat as General Pervez Musharraf said in a recent interview.

Until Osama was unearthed in Abbottabad,Pakistan’s Generals managed to convince powerful Western countries of the Indian threat and persuaded them even that Pakistan needed to control Afghanistan to use it for ‘strategic depth’ against India. Another myth that Pakistan’s Generals have successfully propagated is that a solution in Kashmir will end hostilities with India. Kashmir has become almost irrelevant to what is now happening.

Our government’s reaction to the events of last week has been,as usual,namby-pamby and confused. This is bad because this could be India’s moment to play a leading role. Pakistan’s cover has been blown for the first time since the global war on terror began and this might make it easier to convince its Generals that they can no longer play their double game. With their visceral hatred of India,they are unlikely to listen to anything we say but what about an international conference on peace in the sub-continent? Since Pakistan’s main financier,the United States,has its own problems with its old ally,Washington might be a good location. Let the initiative come from India.