POLICY RECOIL ON PAK

Pakistan’s flip-flop on the nationality of Ajmal Amir Kasab, the lone terrorist arrested in Mumbai during attacks, does not come as a surprise to those who have watched the South Asian security scenario for long. It stems out of that nation’s policy of denial – a policy that Pakistan has lived with from its very inception. This policy possibly emanated from the rigours of partition when its very raison d’etre, namely of the division of the Indian sub-continent along religious lines, turned out to be non-starter. More Muslims remained in India than migrated to the newly created state of Pakistan. Faced with irritants like the Kashmir imbroglio with its much bigger neighbour, Pakistan opted for a policy of “subversive denial”, which it has carried on over the years.
It started with the 1947-48 Kashmir operations when Pakistan regular troops joined the irregulars and tribesmen in their effort to wrest the Kashmir Valley. Although an UN-brokered cease-fire came about in early 1949, the sore has continued to fester, manifesting in numerous ways since then. India's defeat at the hands of China in 1962 emboldened Pakistan to again launch its “irregulars” in Kashmir in early August 1965, in what was called Operation Gibraltar. However, the effort soon petered out and came to a naught when India decided to escalate the conflict from the cease-fire line to across the international border further south. In 1971, India turned the tables on Pakistan by means of a brilliantly planned subversive action by the Mukti Bahini, which was aided and abetted by the Indian Army. Pakistan was sliced in two even before it could react effectively on the western front. That Pakistan learnt no lessons from 1948 and 1965 was evident in Kargil when it again played the mujahideen ruse, although it is well known that its regular troops were engaged in occupying strategic heights across the LOC.
Of course, the US can’t absolve itself of its role in allowing Pakistan to institutionalize the mujahideen elements in its war machine. Faced with the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, it aided, armed and abetted these elements in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In the name of providing moral support to the Kashmir “cause”, Pakistan allowed unlimited militant groups to mushroom, operate and propagate violence, not only at their bases and camps in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK) but also in various parts of Punjab. One remembers how in 1991 while working for India Today magazine, I along with the photographer, Pramod Pushkarna, were led to house in a residential colony in Rawalpindi by elements inimical to the JKLF leader, Ammanullah Khan. In what was apparently a safe-house belonging to JKLF cadre on the outskirts of Rawalpindi, at least two-dozen Kalashnikov-wielding militants had no qualms in getting photographed with Indian journalists. Obviously, the existence of such safe houses with official patronage would not have been oblivious to the US and other western nations. It is only when such elements have become a threat to their interests and citizens and have become a worldwide nuisance that these nations have woken up to the menace.
For Pakistan, literally, the chickens have come home to roost. The “irregulars” in the form of tribesmen or mujahids are not only acting as fifth columnists against their own people (as indicated by terror attacks in various parts of Pakistan) but have come to be a major embarrassment internationally. As the Union Home Minister, P. Chidambaram said, there is no way non-state actors can operate on such scale without official complicity. Pakistan got off the hook during the Indian Parliament attack in 2001, but in Mumbai, where foreigners were among those killed, it obviously shot itself in the foot. The outright denial immediately after Mumbai attacks, followed by hairsplitting and partial acceptance subsequently point to the bind that Pakistan finds itself in.
Yet, it must be accepted that since subversion as a means of furthering its interests has not only been a part of Pakistan’s state policy and accepted even by the US, albeit in pursuit of its own interests, there is no way the policy can be jettisoned overnight by its rulers without the risk of being overthrown. Elements believing in this form of warfare would be deeply entrenched in various echelons of the Pakistan establishment. An honest introspection would show that in adopting the policy of irregular warfare, Pakistan miscalculated two important factors: mass support and the need to maintain momentum. In fact this explains why India succeeded in erstwhile East Pakistan and Pakistan came a cropper repeatedly. It is for exactly the same reasons (besides the added element of international pressure) why its latest policy of escalating terror strikes from Kashmir valley to other parts of India has little chance of success. The pressure must continue to be mounted so that the Pak Establishment is forced to see reason and treat the Mumbai incidents as a watershed and adopt de novo policy of straight talk and action – for its own good and for co-existence in the region.