Lay off? Look who’s talking!

Don’t re-hyphenate US-India-Pak ties, but US must play ball too

Sanjaya Baru

Faced with a barrage of criticism, both from the opposition and his own party, Dr Manmohan Singh once lamented to this writer, circa 1993 when he was still finance minister, that the biggest problem our policymakers face does not arise so much out of the so-called divide between the demands of ‘India’ and ‘Bharat’ but the intellectual divisions and the disarray within the ‘elite’. When there is no consensus at the top, Dr Singh used to say, how do you build consensus below?

All democracies are characterised by a difference of opinion between the majority and the minority, between the elite and the masses, and so on, but how does a government formulate and implement tough-minded policy when the elite is itself so divided and has no sense of direction or purpose? Economic policymakers have had to grapple with this problem for some time now, but for the first time in the last three years we are facing a new dilemma, a division within the elite on the very fundamentals of our foreign policy and national security policy.

Be it the debate on the nuclear tests in 1998, the Kargil war in 1999, the handling of the hostage crisis the same year or now, our response to the new security situation triggered off by the terrorist attacks in the United States, the political and intellectual elite of this country is often found battling itself rather than the enemy.

When a senior editor of the largest circulating financial daily declares that India’s fight against terrorism is somehow different from that of the US, implying that ours is not a ‘just’ battle against bigotry and terror but an unjust one against an “occupied people”, equating Kashmir with Palestine, there is something profoundly wrong with the ideological moorings and in the understanding of our history by sections of our elite.

Consider the manner in which the media of another diverse, pluralistic democracy like the US has responded to a crisis facing the “Nation”, and compare the manner in which we debate the policy options before our government in dealing with a hugely complex security challenge. Even this pales into insignificance when contrasted with the utter political bankruptcy of some sections of the ruling coalition which have questioned the government’s offer of logistical support to the US in its campaign against terrorist groups in our neighbourhood.

It is these intellectual divisions and the ideological confusion within the policy-making and policy-analysing community that Pakistan’s President, General Pervez Musharraf is once again using to gain diplomatically. Lay off, says the General to India! Hello? Who should be saying that to whom? It is our unwillingness and our leadership’s inability to say precisely that to Pakistan that emboldens the Pakistan army, its Inter-services Intelligence and the many Pakistani-aided jihadi terrorist outfits in our neighbourhood to wage a proxy war against us.

There is overwhelming evidence of Pakistan’s official involvement in the campaign of terror in India, not just in Kashmir but across the country, and yet the Indian elite remains ideologically confused about the nature of the threat facing this country and our struggle against terrorism. So why get all shirty when some of the “Cold War” dinosaurs around President George Bush continue to encourage him to view this part of the world through antediluvian Cold War prisms?

Many have questioned the Indian government’s decision to offer assistance to the US in battling terrorist outfits in the sub-continent. This is absurd. The least our government can do is to offer our facilities, provided of course that the US also joins us in addressing the problem of terrorism in this region with a common perspective. As yet there is no reason to doubt US commitment to this. President Bush has spoken about “delinking” terrorist groups in this region from the “states that have sponsored them”. It is an objective that should serve Indian national interests too.

More to the point, in the manner in which the critics of the government are addressing the issue of Indo-US cooperation and US-Pakistan cooperation in dealing with terrorism and the Taliban, they are once again needlessly “re-hyphenating” the bilateral relationship with the US. It used to be our complaint that the US never looks at India without thinking about Pakistan. Now the US is looking to Pakistan for help without as yet involving India. Why should we object? Rather, we must deal with that reality as best as we can by ensuring that the Indo-US relationship remains un-hyphenated, to use a term that has gained currency as a reference to US maintaining good relations with both India and Pakistan.

We must constantly remind the people of America that the sources of terrorism which now threaten them so overtly are the same as those which have tormented us for so long. That is not to demand that the US choose between India or Pakistan. That would be silly. Rather, we should offer to be on General Musharraf’s side as he helps the US battle the Frankenstein that elements in Pakistan have helped create. If Mr Musharraf succeeds in rooting out terrorism from Afghanistan and Pakistan he not only makes these two countries safer places to live in, he also helps the US and India live more peacefully.

But the General wants immunity in continuing the terror campaign in Kashmir and across India as a quid pro quo for hunting bin Laden down. Surely the US is too wise and proud a global power to succumb to such petty blackmail by a military dictator. Hopefully sense would prevail on the ‘wise’ General, who has eschewed ‘passion’ in the conduct of the affairs of state, and he too will realise that battling terrorism is a good idea in itself and not just a means of scoring debating points against India, or getting a few dollars out of the US. Hopefully, the US will also realise that being dismissive of Indian concerns about terrorism in the region is not going to strengthen its own campaign against this scourge. In short, a global battle against terrorism can be a win-win process for the world, the US, India and Pakistan and one should not view it as a zero-sum game.