A dialogue for peace cannot be built on whims and wishes. It must be based on mutual trust and confidence. The result, otherwise, would be counterproductive, setting off another cycle of violence and bitterness as India-Pakistan relationship have been witnessing since 2004.
This time also, 15 months after the Mumbai attack, there is a sudden, irrational urge in New Delhi to embrace Islamabad. It is indeed in the strategic interest of India to have a `peaceful periphery`. India has always strived for a stable neighbourhood. Even with Pakistan, it has been extra accommodating, going the extra-length, in 2004, to call for a dialogue and then setting a more expansive agenda for dialogue than it should have at that time, given Pakistan’s historical recalcitrance towards overtures of friendship since 1947.
India, by all means, has an enormous stake in peace and stability in the region. The question is: Does Pakistan have a similar strategic vision of peace? Facts belie a positive response. There are no events or developments or statements in the past or present which show that Pakistan too is interested in peace with India or in the region.
For instance, Pakistan’s Afghanistan policy singularly relies upon the instrument of violence, the Taliban and its many off-shoots, to further its interests by denying space for India and other stabilizing presence in the country. Since 2001, it has systematically created and encouraged various groupings of violent groups to aid and abet the Taliban and al Qaida fighting the US-led forces in Afghanistan.
A similar strategy has been in place for India since 1948 when Major General Akbar Khan put together a tribal militia to launch an attack on Kashmir. Although the militia, protected by Pakistan Army, was pushed back by the Indian Army, Pakistan continued with the policy of using terrorist and extremist groups as instruments of strategic influence in India ever since then.
Even in the present atmosphere of seemingly cordial overtures, there is no sign on the ground that Pakistan has given up the option of violence against India. The starkest symbol of violence in Pakistan today is Lashkar-e-Tayyeba (LeT) and its network of support among the civil society and in the security agencies. Barring half-a-dozen leaders of the group, every one else in the leadership is free. The infrastructure of the group is more or less in tact with only few minor signs of State action. For instance, the Baitul Mujahideen complex, where the Mumbai attackers were trained, is occupied by the security forces. But a few kilometres away, LeT has opened a new campus under the command of Muzzamil Yousuf, who was second-in-command to Zaki-ur Rahman Lakhvi, the operational commander of the terrorist group.
Almost all the offices which the group used to run prior to 26/11 are open and active. Its Muridke headquarters is operational with madrasas and other units within the campus working as usual. The group’s new command headquarters at Lahore, Jamia al-Qadsia, hosts most of the jihadi speakers even today, including terrorist mastermind Hafiz Saeed, his son, Talha Saeed, his son-in-law Khalid Waleed and brother-in-law Abdur Rahman Makki.
The most recent instance of the group’s presence and the support it has from the establishment were the rallies it took out in Lahore and Islamabad on February 5, 2010. While the Lahore rally was led by Hafiz Saeed, the Islamabad one saw Abdur Rahman Makki spewing venom on India. He called his followers to “fill Ravi (river) with blood“. He said `Delhi, Pune and Kanpur` were the next targets of the group, a week before a bomb blew up an eating joint in Pune, killing nine people. On top of it, the group did not even pretend to be anyone else but Jamaat-ud Dawa, the name it acquired in 2002 to create a smokescreen.
The impunity with which the terrorist group continues to operate in cities like Lahore and Islamabad is a clear sign of Pakistan’s complicity with such groups to cause maximum harm to India and its interests. A dialogue with such a country is bound to be suicidal.
