Dec 26, 2024
Dec 26, 2024
The Indian Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh on many an occasion has asserted that India and Pakistan share common terrorism threats. Nothing could be farthest from the truth when India is bracketed with Pakistan in terms of commonality of terrorism threats. It is surprising that none of his advisors on the subject should have advised him that the terrorism threats faced by India and Pakistan in terms of origination, organizations, sponsors and targeting and objectives are different. India is the victim of Pakistan state-sponsored terrorism whereas Pakistan now faces retribution from within from the Jihadi terrorist organizations that the Pakistan Army spawned all these years as a policy instrument against India and Afghanistan too.
It needs to be recognized by one and all in India that the Islamist terrorism sponsored by Pakistan Army against India has the larger aim of eating into India's strategic entrails and those of Pakistan Army's affiliated Islamist organizations is to convert India into an Islamic State. Contrastingly the terrorism that Pakistan is now facing after 9/11 is aimed at the Pakistan Army for becoming America's lap-dogs in the American global war on terrorism. Hence there is a marked difference between the terrorist threat to India and what the Pakistan Army is facing today. Pakistan Army's sins are visiting it today.
Statements like this of the Indian Prime Minister tend to whitewash Pakistan's complicity in the state-sponsored terrorism and proxy war that Pakistan has indulged in for two decades now. The international community thus gets prompted to dilute their approaches in calling into question Pakistan's accountability for its misdemeanors, and who in any case all these years soft-pedaled Pakistan's terrorism to suit their own policy ends.
The Indian Prime Minister's faulty perceptions of Pakistan's state-sponsored terrorism against India prompted him to sign the Havana Accord with General Musharraf envisaging a joint India-Pakistan effort to combat terrorism.. This Columnist on another website had then condemned the Indian approach as it amounted to co-opting the Devil to undo his devilish acts.
Such statements also adversely affect India's internal security management in dealing with the hydra-headed monster of Islamist terrorism which has now engulfed India in a devastating manner. The latest are the blasts in Assam yesterday As is the wont of all government organs who take the cue from the political masters, the intelligence agencies and the security agencies tend to approach their counter-terrorism responsibilities in the spirit of their political masters.
If one is to believe Government sources reports projected by the Indian electronic media of Hindu terrorism surfacing now in India then only two conclusions come to one's mind on analysis. The first is that the Government by such inspired reports wants to deflect and divert attention from its inability or worse reluctance to face head-on the Islamist terrorism that is now spreading all across India aided by modules and sleeper cells within Indian Muslim neighborhoods.
The second conclusion that strikes the mind is that the Congress Government's reluctance and paralysis to deal with Islamist terrorism due to vote-bank politics is pushing the Hindu majority in India to a corner where some elements feel that the only way in view of Governmental apathy to deal with terrorism is to take the matter in their own hands.
Both of the above are dangerous for India's future and its emergence as a major player in global affairs. Both tend also to arrest India's economic resurgence as foreign investors confidence in India is eroded due to such divisive tendencies.
The blame for the spread of such divisive tendencies tends to lie squarely with the Congress President who determines the Congress Government's policies and the Prime Minister foe not feeding the Congress President with the appropriate inputs which could bring about more assertive Indian counter-terrorism responses.
The blame needs to be shared by the main Opposition Party, the BJP also because when they were in power, the then Prime Minister Vajpayee's Government after maintaining for a number of years that India would not enter into a peace dialogue with Pakistan until Pakistan gives up state- sponsored terrorism made a volte-face and invited Musharraf for the Agra Summit under external pressure and probably prompted by his advisors that a Nobel Peace Prize may follow in its wake. At that time too this Columnist had written elsewhere that the Agra Summit was a policy blunder.
India's political parties should therefore desist from politicizing terrorism threat to India and form a bi-partisan strategy to deal with this monstrous Islamist terrorism threat instigated by Pakistan which if not addressed effectively may spawn an equally dangerous response from Hindu fringe elements cashing on nationalistic impulses.
India needs to be united in formulating its counter-terrorism responses to safeguard India's national cohesiveness which is one of the essential prerequisites of a great power.
02-Nov-2008
More by : Dr. Subhash Kapila
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