Pakistan, India and terrorism

Only one way forward

It is with good reason that the working of security agencies, etc, is covert in nature. Once elected governments start toeing agency lines you have pretty much the mudslinging that New Delhi and Islamabad are caught in at the moment. And since both countries are clearly victims of terrorism, it helps neither that one always holds the other responsible for its misfortunes – not to mention intelligence oversights. India’s always resorted to knee-jerk Pakistan bashing – to the point of hysteria – whenever there is an incident inside its territory. And lately we have, finally, started flashing the RAW card rather too often.

To be fair, it is in the nature of security agencies to keep a check outside a country’s boundaries. The Americans didn’t create the CIA because they needed a welfare organisation, for example. That is precisely why it is important for governments to point the direction that the entire setup is going to take. And to give Nawaz Sharif due credit, he did genuinely try to improve relations with India. If only Modi had reciprocated his goodwill, we would not be locked in counter accusations, not to mention alleged counter espionage. Rather, trade and commerce would have been more widely discussed. But the BJP had a far more conservative agenda which soon became crystal clear.

Going forward, though, it is difficult to see a thaw, given that Islamabad seems to have found a pretty clear RAW footprint in Balochistan (and elsewhere). And, for whatever purpose, this time the government has gone public with the finding. And the Indians don’t really mean they want both countries to work together, especially when their defence minister talks about using terrorism to defeat terrorism – a loaded enough statement – and the home minister follows it up with ‘the entire world knows who is promoting terrorism’. If it’s about diplomatic jabs and crosses, there can be little hope of intrinsic progress anytime soon. Both countries are advised to shed this stance of confrontation immediately and find ways of cooperation not just on security, but also trade and finance. That is the only viable and do-able strategy that the two countries can adopt.