Needed diplomacy
ULTIMATELY, it wasn't superior firepower, sophisticated interception methods or commando training that helped arrest one of the Mumbai attackers. It was the courage of the policemen in overpowering Ajmal Amir Iman (Kasab) with nothing more than lathis.
Assistant Sub-Inspector Tukaram Ombale pounced on Kasab even as he took a burst of fire, allowing his colleagues to arrest him. Ombale died, but his bravery ensured that a key attacker would live to tell the tale.
Kasab's interrogation has produced evidence about the preparation for and execution of the attack. He must be tried following the highest norms of criminal law and with scrupulous respect for his right to legal defence. His conviction cannot be a foregone conclusion merely because of the attack's barbarity.
After Kasab's disclosures to the police, there's little doubt that Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba carried out the attack. The UN Security Council has confirmed LeT's involvement through the ban imposed on Jamaat-ud-Dawa under Resolution 1267.
LeT had a special relationship with Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency. LeT is Salafist, and doesn't believe in fighting "Islamic" governments. LeT doesn't actively oppose the army's anti-Taliban-al-Qaeda operations.
It's not clear if the ISI or its "rogue" elements logistically supported the Mumbai attack. But it's reasonably plain that the attackers' main motive was to provoke a military response from India at Pakistan's eastern border.
This would create a rationale for redeploying Pakistani troops from the western border and allow al-Qaeda-Taliban fighters to regroup and overrun the area.
The attackers' motive was to increase disaffection among Indian Muslims and provoke a backlash. Mercifully, this hasn't happened -- despite the Sangh Parivar.
The attacks have triggered unprecedented Hindu-Muslim unity and a spirited condemnation of terrorism by many of the Muslim organisations.
Military retaliation would play straight into LeT's hands, further destabilising an already precarious Pakistan -- with disastrous consequences for the whole region.
The Indian government has acted with restraint, using diplomatic, not military, means. Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee strongly rejected a demand for attacking Pakistan: "That is not the point […] I am making it quite clear that that is not the solution. Let us be very clear and frank that that is no solution."
The meaning of the military option, advocated stridently by hawkish "experts" and by Bharatiya Janata Party MPs like Arun Shourie, should be plain. Shourie wants overwhelming retaliation: "Not an eye for an eye; but for an eye, both eyes. For a tooth, (the) whole jaw."
Any India-Pakistan conflict is liable to escalate into nuclear war. In Nuclear Armageddon, there are no winners -- only mega-deaths. Even a limited nuclear exchange will kill millions.
An India-Pakistan conflict has one inevitable outcome: full-scale war, in which Pakistan will use nuclear weapons if it fears loss of territory. This will invite nuclear retaliation from India, with consequences too horrifying even to contemplate.
The idea of "surgical strikes" against terrorist training camps is equally harebrained. LeT camps are makeshift affairs, and poor targets for strikes. Any strike, however "limited," will invite armed conflict.
Pakistan isn't Saddam Hussein's Iraq, which America could attack without fear of resistance. Even covert action, requiring the creation of a new monster -- "India's own ISI" -- will trigger escalation.
Dr. Manmohan Singh outlined a two-pronged approach: galvanising international opinion for effective action against terrorism, and diplomatic pressure on Pakistan. Domestically, he promised reform of internal security arrangements.
US and UK pressure has been useful. But India must develop a broader multilateral approach to avoid getting drawn into Washington's parochial plans for the region.
It would be best to press Pakistan through UN Security Council Resolution 1373, which mandates sanctions on a state that fails to "deny safe haven to those who finance, plan, support, or commit terrorist acts […]" and violates its duty to "refrain from providing […] support […] to entities or persons involved in terrorist acts […]."
India can achieve much by sharing evidence of LeT's role in the attacks with Pakistan, and acting demonstrably to defuse suspicions about its covert operations in Balochistan and Afghanistan.
While revamping India's security system, the Singh government should have followed the advice of Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan against using "questionable methods" such as "indefinite detention of terror suspects […] coercive interrogation techniques and the denial of the right to fair trial".
The government has done the opposite by having a law passed which replicates all the obnoxious provisions of the discredited Prevention of Terrorism Act -- except for making police confessions admissible as evidence.
The National Investigative Agency Act, too, has flaws, including over-centralisation of powers, and their illegitimate extension to areas affected by insurgency and Left-wing extremism.
These Acts must be undone.
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