The Joint Anti-Terror Mess

The key outcome at the recently concluded NAM summit Havana, Cuba, at least the one generating maximum interest in India, was the meeting between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf. Their subsequent joint statement and the setting up of the Joint Anti Terrorism Mechanism also raised the importance of their summit meet. The ambitious programme will soon see Indian and Pakistani intelligence agencies and other key players in defense and internal security ‘jointly’ manage terror and share its pre-attack intelligence to safeguard on both sides. The move marks a paradigm shift in India’s approach to terror and more specifically towards the Pakistan sponsored variety of cross border terror.

In committing to this one mechanism we have virtually given the General the carte blanche he so desired to declare and prove to the world that he is indeed a victim of terror rather than the propagator – as is conventional wisdom of the day. What better opportunity to show himself as a man of peace than show up for a photo-op with the premier of Pakistan’s arch nemesis and that too conveniently days before meeting the most important man on the planet President Bush. The obvious questions that come to mind are – whether India really thinks that this new initiative will change anything considering years of talks followed closely by failures? Or more pertinently has India lost out on its most dependable weapon against Pakistan – branding it as a sponsor of state terror and global jihad.Empirical wisdom would suggest that this sort of a terror mechanism is advisable with more friendly countries rather than those with which a state has active hostilities. To draw a parallel it is impossible for the Israeli army to share intelligence with say Lebanese or Syrian intelligence for fear of the fallout it may have on its own troops and citizens.

The prime minister has taken a rather lenient attitude towards the Pakistan. He commented that even if this mechanism fails, it would still be worth a try. While no Indian in his right mind would oppose such overtures by their prime minister to look at ways to solve the long standing dispute with its neighbour, it is debatable how easy it would be for India to pull out of such an agreement and also what would define it as a failure. Is the success of the proposed mechanism time-bound with a certain “ all deals are off” after a fixed expiry date or will India retract in case of another terror atrocity that may bear the fingerprints of Pakistan or the ISI? These questions or what are the finer details of this arrangement have not been spelt out by the prime minister or his special representatives and they do need immediate attention. More clarity and a debate to trash out a consensus would have been prudent and quite frankly credible rather than pursuing a change in the government’s foreign policy, which clearly caught the nation’s polity off guard. One hopes and shares the debatable optimism of the PM in wanting this mechanism to prevent terror attacks, but a more nuanced look does unfortunately favour cautious optimism at best currently.The potential to gain politically and diplomatically from this peace initiative seems to benefit Pakistan more – at least on the face of it. The General has finally gotten around to dealing with India on the single most contentious issue by being on the negotiating table as an equal rather than from apposition of having to constantly prove his anti-terror credentials. The mechanism assists Pakistan in multiple ways. First, with the ISI and RAW sharing the same intelligence or the lack of it, will give Pakistan some knowledge of what we know and what we don’t. Secondly, by implementing such a mechanism Pakistan can for the first time raise the issue of alleged state sponsored terrorism by India legitimately to the world. Islamabad’s constant pandering to the world that India is fuelling the uprising and separatists in Balochistan have been received the world over with a generous pinch of salt. But the current proposed mechanism allows Pakistan to raise the issue, albeit a rather non-existent one at that, to us and to the world, thereby, painting both nations with the same terror brush. Thirdly, comments from Musharraf and the former cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan have raised the question of separating religion from extremism. They argue that if terror acts carried out by Muslims can be type-cast as Islamic fundamentalism or the jihad, then surely the terror activities of the LTTE in Sri Lanka should be branded as Hindu terrorism. This rather clever ploy by Musharraf indicates his insistence on separating religion from terrorism so that he can re-jig the terror activities in Jammu and Kashmir as a freedom struggle, rather than the now accepted view that Jammu and Kashmir is a front line against Islamic fundamentalists.

But the more pressing repercussions of this arrangement needs to be addressed to the prime minister and the foreign office mandarins in South Block. What has significantly changed on the ground that the Indian establishment suddenly feels it’s ok to talk intelligence with Pakistan? Barely months after the dastardly and terribly devastating 7/11 bombings of Mumbai, has Pakistan really changed? The often referred to trust deficit between the countries still remains, so what are the merits of committing to Pakistan with a lack of deliverables being demanded from Pakistan? The prime minister has dismissed aspersions on the mechanism as “rumours”, but then what are the real facts have not been spelt out by him in his recent press meet in Nainital. If, as the PM suggests, this mechanism is actually a “test” for Pakistan, then why does the Indian side not have a clear roadmap towards its early implementation. Also, as discussed, the most important aspect of setting up this mechanism is when to claim it to be a qualified success or a failure.

Doubts will remain in this latest confidence building measure which follows after a longish gap from the previous set of CBM’s involving people to people contact across the border. With the government under pressure from the opposition and foreign policy gurus alike, it seems like the government has to lay down a credible road map soon. Whether Musharraf will be able to walk away with more than he bargained for remains to be seen, but more significantly, this mechanism may just prove to be the litmus test for the success or failure of the prime minister’s policy on Pakistan. Importantly, it will also determine his future legacy as prime minister and as the leader who finally made peace or the one who let the general off the hook.