http://www.newindianexpress.com/columns/karamatullah_k_ghori/Are-We-Hostage-to-A-Terrorist-Agenda/2016/01/12/article3223224.ece
So the jinxes doesn’t go away. Like a visitation that can’t be wished away they keep haunting both India and Pakistan and the peace narrative the two neighbours take periodical pains to construct.
What a difference one week can make in the political calculus between India and Pakistan.
December 25 was a D-Day for all those peaceniks who refused to lose their quantum of hope even in the darkest of times. That was the day PM Modi landed, impromptu and previously-unannounced, in Lahore to give Nawaz Sharif and his clan the Christmas gift of a life-time. It all looked so hunky-dory, so impeccable and spic-span for the India-Pakistan bilateral scenario in the New Year, 2016.
But on January 2, the vaulting momentum was violently arrested in its tracks by a bunch of terrorists. Their assault against the Indian Air Force base at Pathankot, within hailing distance of the Pakistan border, blighted the political landscape like a blast from the blue. Suddenly, all bets were off; the rosy prospects of a week ago wilted under shadows of gloom. It seemed like a solar eclipse snuffing all the light out of the political landscape.
But for a very welcome change, the Indian news media didn’t lose its poise under the unexpected strain. It didn’t take the hackneyed line of instantly pointing the finger at Pakistan. That befuddled the Pakistani pundits. It was something novel, something totally different from the temptation to plunge into instantaneous denunciation of Pakistan for its presumed involvement in yet another episode of terrorism on Indian soil.
No doubt the media restraint was taking its cue from the measured and carefully calibrated stance of the Indian government. Delhi didn’t point the accusing finger at Islamabad either. Instead, it dignified its response to the tragedy by insisting that it was too early to know the perpetrators of the dastardly crime.
Delhi’s message between the lines was none other than a signal to Islamabad that, buoyed by the salutary impact of Modi’s masterly Santa-diplomacy, it was ready to give Pakistan the benefit of doubt. ‘Come clean,’ the message seemed to suggest, ‘either prove your innocence or if we furnish you evidence of imprints of Pakistani non-state actors in the crime then bring them to book.’
Nawaz & Co heaved a sigh of relief. It was heartening for the vexed Pakistani leader to know that Modi wasn’t going to go off the handle, as before, and was prepared to work with him if the evidence traced the footprints of terrorism back to Pakistani soil. So relieved did Nawaz feel that he went ahead on a previously-arranged official visit to Sri Lanka. But he did leave instructions for his Foreign Office spokesman to publicly commiserate with the families of the victims of Pathankot. The briefing from FO was laced with sympathy for the victims and the “pain of many families”.
By the time Nawaz got back home from Colombo, the chips had fallen in place, with India sharing a dossier with Pakistan containing “leads” on the Pathankot attack. Intercepts of telephonic conversations between the terrorists and their mentors, in Pakistan, were also shared.
The boastful, bragging, public confession by the terrorist outfit, United Jihad Council, based in the Pakistan-controlled part of Kashmir, left little to doubt about the provenance of the criminals. UJC is a new template or façade of the notorious Jamaat-ud-Dawa, a splinter group of Lashkar-e-Taeba (LeT), the masterminds of the 2008 mayhem in Mumbai.
The Indian official and media stance in the episode has thus far been exemplary, astute, and correct. Rather than reacting in a knee-jerk manner, as before, it has held its horses and restrained its response. In doing so, India, as of now, has the moral high ground in its corner. The ball, as Indian Foreign Ministry spokesman articulated, is proverbially in Pakistan’s court.
Nawaz Sharif, too, seems ready to play his part in demonstrating to the benefit of India and the world that he is not going to shirk his responsibility or take the easy way out by sluffing the issue. The alacrity with which India has collated the evidence of a Pakistan-based terror outfit authoring the grisly episode may have unnerved the Pakistani Prime Minister but he isn’t showing any symptoms of being caught on the wrong foot.
On the contrary, Nawaz got his entire national security phalanx around a table to task them with responsibility to suggest a way to deal with the terrorists involved if India can come up with concrete and hard evidence of their fingerprints in the bloody episode of Pathankot.
The stakes involved in the Pathankot incident are of such import that Nawaz can’t afford to be dragging his feet on a quick and satisfactory response to the Indian complaint.
In fact, the Pakistani establishment, the deep state, has this burden weighing on its shoulders to prove that the avowed mission to uproot the home-based terrorist network, completely and comprehensively — warts and all — also includes a credible assurance to India that those exporting their lust for blood-letting to its soil will not be spared or allowed to go scot-free.
For far too long, the civil and military leadership in Pakistan has been guilty of sweeping under the rug the issue of its home-based terror networks poaching on the Indian turf with impunity. Yes, it may be true that Pakistan itself has paid a colossal price in blood at the hands of these terrorists. But, then, not being able, thus far, to tame them is evidence enough of the lack of success on this front. By the same stroke, it is an absolutely unacceptable alibi for not checking their ingress into India.
But the Pathankot episode poses a challenge to both countries: would they be able to see through the insidious terrorist agenda and refuse to become party to its nefarious objective? Or will they be tempted to swallow the terrorists’ bait and surrender the advantage to rogues whose mission is to foil and sabotage the building momentum for peace in South Asia?
John Kerry has joined those well-wishers of India and Pakistan who can see through the diabolical end-game of the terrorists; he has pleaded with both to not bungle the advantage of keeping their bilateral dialogue alive and kicking.
The maturity and calibration of leadership of both India and Pakistan thus far in the episode gives no indication of their surrendering Lahore-induced Santa- spirit to the terrorist petty shenanigans. The Foreign Secretary-level talks, scheduled earlier for Islamabad on January 15, may be temporarily on hold till the mist of confusion is lifted, and India can’t be blamed for it. Pakistan has no choice but to come clean. However, the dialogue mustn’t be placed on ice for long, or else the terrorists will have won.
For Pakistan, in particular, it’s testing time, with another hot potato on its hand because of the latest spat between Saudi Arabia and Iran. But peace with India has its own unrivalled primacy.
Nadu Educationists Welcome
So the jinxes doesn’t go away. Like a visitation that can’t be wished away they keep haunting both India and Pakistan and the peace narrative the two neighbours take periodical pains to construct.
What a difference one week can make in the political calculus between India and Pakistan.
December 25 was a D-Day for all those peaceniks who refused to lose their quantum of hope even in the darkest of times. That was the day PM Modi landed, impromptu and previously-unannounced, in Lahore to give Nawaz Sharif and his clan the Christmas gift of a life-time. It all looked so hunky-dory, so impeccable and spic-span for the India-Pakistan bilateral scenario in the New Year, 2016.
But on January 2, the vaulting momentum was violently arrested in its tracks by a bunch of terrorists. Their assault against the Indian Air Force base at Pathankot, within hailing distance of the Pakistan border, blighted the political landscape like a blast from the blue. Suddenly, all bets were off; the rosy prospects of a week ago wilted under shadows of gloom. It seemed like a solar eclipse snuffing all the light out of the political landscape.
But for a very welcome change, the Indian news media didn’t lose its poise under the unexpected strain. It didn’t take the hackneyed line of instantly pointing the finger at Pakistan. That befuddled the Pakistani pundits. It was something novel, something totally different from the temptation to plunge into instantaneous denunciation of Pakistan for its presumed involvement in yet another episode of terrorism on Indian soil.
No doubt the media restraint was taking its cue from the measured and carefully calibrated stance of the Indian government. Delhi didn’t point the accusing finger at Islamabad either. Instead, it dignified its response to the tragedy by insisting that it was too early to know the perpetrators of the dastardly crime.
Delhi’s message between the lines was none other than a signal to Islamabad that, buoyed by the salutary impact of Modi’s masterly Santa-diplomacy, it was ready to give Pakistan the benefit of doubt. ‘Come clean,’ the message seemed to suggest, ‘either prove your innocence or if we furnish you evidence of imprints of Pakistani non-state actors in the crime then bring them to book.’
Nawaz & Co heaved a sigh of relief. It was heartening for the vexed Pakistani leader to know that Modi wasn’t going to go off the handle, as before, and was prepared to work with him if the evidence traced the footprints of terrorism back to Pakistani soil. So relieved did Nawaz feel that he went ahead on a previously-arranged official visit to Sri Lanka. But he did leave instructions for his Foreign Office spokesman to publicly commiserate with the families of the victims of Pathankot. The briefing from FO was laced with sympathy for the victims and the “pain of many families”.
By the time Nawaz got back home from Colombo, the chips had fallen in place, with India sharing a dossier with Pakistan containing “leads” on the Pathankot attack. Intercepts of telephonic conversations between the terrorists and their mentors, in Pakistan, were also shared.
The boastful, bragging, public confession by the terrorist outfit, United Jihad Council, based in the Pakistan-controlled part of Kashmir, left little to doubt about the provenance of the criminals. UJC is a new template or façade of the notorious Jamaat-ud-Dawa, a splinter group of Lashkar-e-Taeba (LeT), the masterminds of the 2008 mayhem in Mumbai.
The Indian official and media stance in the episode has thus far been exemplary, astute, and correct. Rather than reacting in a knee-jerk manner, as before, it has held its horses and restrained its response. In doing so, India, as of now, has the moral high ground in its corner. The ball, as Indian Foreign Ministry spokesman articulated, is proverbially in Pakistan’s court.
Nawaz Sharif, too, seems ready to play his part in demonstrating to the benefit of India and the world that he is not going to shirk his responsibility or take the easy way out by sluffing the issue. The alacrity with which India has collated the evidence of a Pakistan-based terror outfit authoring the grisly episode may have unnerved the Pakistani Prime Minister but he isn’t showing any symptoms of being caught on the wrong foot.
On the contrary, Nawaz got his entire national security phalanx around a table to task them with responsibility to suggest a way to deal with the terrorists involved if India can come up with concrete and hard evidence of their fingerprints in the bloody episode of Pathankot.
The stakes involved in the Pathankot incident are of such import that Nawaz can’t afford to be dragging his feet on a quick and satisfactory response to the Indian complaint.
In fact, the Pakistani establishment, the deep state, has this burden weighing on its shoulders to prove that the avowed mission to uproot the home-based terrorist network, completely and comprehensively — warts and all — also includes a credible assurance to India that those exporting their lust for blood-letting to its soil will not be spared or allowed to go scot-free.
For far too long, the civil and military leadership in Pakistan has been guilty of sweeping under the rug the issue of its home-based terror networks poaching on the Indian turf with impunity. Yes, it may be true that Pakistan itself has paid a colossal price in blood at the hands of these terrorists. But, then, not being able, thus far, to tame them is evidence enough of the lack of success on this front. By the same stroke, it is an absolutely unacceptable alibi for not checking their ingress into India.
But the Pathankot episode poses a challenge to both countries: would they be able to see through the insidious terrorist agenda and refuse to become party to its nefarious objective? Or will they be tempted to swallow the terrorists’ bait and surrender the advantage to rogues whose mission is to foil and sabotage the building momentum for peace in South Asia?
John Kerry has joined those well-wishers of India and Pakistan who can see through the diabolical end-game of the terrorists; he has pleaded with both to not bungle the advantage of keeping their bilateral dialogue alive and kicking.
The maturity and calibration of leadership of both India and Pakistan thus far in the episode gives no indication of their surrendering Lahore-induced Santa- spirit to the terrorist petty shenanigans. The Foreign Secretary-level talks, scheduled earlier for Islamabad on January 15, may be temporarily on hold till the mist of confusion is lifted, and India can’t be blamed for it. Pakistan has no choice but to come clean. However, the dialogue mustn’t be placed on ice for long, or else the terrorists will have won.
For Pakistan, in particular, it’s testing time, with another hot potato on its hand because of the latest spat between Saudi Arabia and Iran. But peace with India has its own unrivalled primacy.
Nadu Educationists Welcome
No comments:
Post a Comment