The Mumbai carnage: Time to go to the roots

THE carnage in Mumbai is a shocking reminder once again of the fear that few non-state actors can cause, which only full scale wars between nations could in the past. In 9/11 acts of terrorism, it was one score; in the Mumbai massacre, the perpetrators were fewer who actually caused the carnage and mayhem. There are of course many more involved in organizing and executing these acts such as terrorist organizations and nation-states. Pursuing them to root out terrorism has so far been futile as these terrorists and their groups keep on changing strategies as they have done in the Mumbai carnage to escape detection. The Mumbai terrorist attacks, the tragedy and carnage notwithstanding, should therefore lead those pursuing the war on terror to make a strategic shift and deal with the causes as much as the perpetrators. So far, at least since 9/11, the objective has been to pursue the perpetrators with little attention to the causes that breed terrorism. The events surrounding the Mumbai carnage are still murky. It is evident nevertheless that the attackers came from the high seas after off loading from a larger ship in the Arabian Sea and landing in Mumbai in water rafts. The way they carried the operations at 10 different locations and the ease with which they did so is another mystery for Mumbai has been subjected to terror attacks before and has an advanced security net. It is therefore quite possible that domestic terror organizations and perhaps the infamous Mumbai underworld may have been involved in assisting the foreign terrorists. India is near another general election. The Mumbai carnage is not good news for the ruling Congress party. There has obviously been a massive failure of security. To counteract political damage, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh took the first lead, blaming “foreign hand” for the carnage. Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee made that explicit by naming Pakistan and Pakistan backed terrorist organization Laskar-i-Taiyyba. Indian Home Minister Shivraj Patel has resigned that brought an instant negative reaction from BJP that said it was “too little too late”. P. Chidambaram, widely regarded as one of the architects of India's economic miracle, has been shifted from the Finance portfolio to Home. Initial Government responses in dealing with the carnage have thus been political; aimed at containing the negative fallout of the carnage on the Congress' electoral fortunes. The opposition BJP has likewise responded politically, emphasizing that they had better protected India while they were in power. The two major parties are using the carnage to drum up nationalism and the Pakistan card to appeal to the masses for votes. India, as victim of the carnage, must have everybody's support to deal with the issue but has to act with wisdom and its leadership, on both sides of the aisle, must leave aside politics and rhetoric and deal with the root causes of terrorism. The goal of the war on terror must not be a military solution or in this case must not end at putting Pakistan on dock. The goal should be to focus on the causes the terrorists use for their acts. Finger pointing and politics aside, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has called for creating an agency similar to the Homeland Security in USA, hoping that like the latter has been able to stop terrorist attacks after 9/11, this new agency in India would succeed likewise. It may not work that way in India for one reason: India has a large sprinkling of home grown terrorist organizations that are Muslim, Hindu and region based where USA has only external terrorists to handle. Without taking away her justified accusation of Pakistan for assisting terrorists against her sovereignty; India has to accept responsibility for not addressing the problems that have given rise to home grown terrorism. The Kashmir issue is on top of the list of the problems, created in 1947 when the 77% Muslim majority princely state acceded to India against the agreed principles of accession because of its Hindu Maharaja. Instead of resolving the Kashmir problem politically, all Indian Governments subsequently have alienated the majority Kashmiri Muslims from the rest of India. Human rights violation there has been recorded by organizations such as Amnesty International. India's treatment of Muslims in rest of India also has left a lot to be desired. Frequent riots targeting Muslims are both communal and political. The rise of Hindu fundamentalism in India often escapes serious attention, as is the case of violence against other Minorities such as the Christians. In February 2002, the massacre of over 2000 Muslims in Gujarat where the BJP led state government actively abetted the Hindu fundamentalists, has been labeled by independent investigators as genocide. In fact, because of his role in the riots, Chief Minister Narendra Modi was denied US visa after the riots and denied again in 2008, with the Coalition for Genocide urging the US State Department for a lifetime ban on him. As a power now emerging on the world scene among the top few, India needs to show political wisdom in dealing with her minorities to contain widespread home grown terrorist groups whose causes, unless resolved, will continue to draw overseas terror groups like pins to magnet as well as create home grown terrorist groups. Blaming Pakistan, even when correctly blamed, will appease the masses and win votes but will not even scratch the problem of terrorism. Pakistan's denial on involvement has serious flaws. With exception of perhaps one, all those who perpetrated the Mumbai carnage are Pakistanis and concrete evidence is coming out about involvement of Laskar-i-Taiyyba that operated legally in Pakistan till it was banned after 9/11. President Asif Zardari's offer to send his ISI Chief has been downgraded, suggesting that he is not fully in control of either his military or his intelligence. His hold on power is tenuous and he needs USA's full support to hold on to power. It is therefore unlikely that he would sanction a terrorist attack in which his ISI would have a major planning role, leaving implementation to a terrorist outfit like the Laskar-i-Taiyyba. That would suggest, given the evidence piling up, that Pakistan's ISI may have been involved behind the back of the President or that within the ISI; there are rogue elements that may have helped plan such an operation. The Indian Government has done the correct thing by handing an official note of protest to the Pakistan High Commissioner in India. India has also asked that Pakistan should hand over 20 most wanted fugitives hiding in India including the Mumbai underworld don Dawood Ibrahim. Pakistan has offered a joint probe. These leads must be allowed to bring India and Pakistan into serious contact to establish the truth behind the Mumbai carnage to pinpoint responsibility. Given the history of distrust between the two, where they have fought full-scale wars, it is not conceivable that they would be serious to establish the truth. In this instance, with Pakistan's complicity rather obvious in a prima facae way, it would require serious encouragement and pressure. Here the US and particularly the new administration can make the qualitative change. With Barak Obama in charge, expectations are high that the war on terror would be fought unitedly and not by dividing the world into “you are either with us or against us”, or into “axis of evil”. World opinion is firmly and unequivocally against terrorism and a lot of what good eventually comes out of the Mumbai carnage will depend on how the new President of US deals with India and Pakistan in the context of the Mumbai carnage. In his efforts, he should keep a few things in mind. First, the US has tremendous leverage over both. Second, the Mumbai carnage can bring India and Pakistan to the table to resolve the causes of terrorism in South Asia given the right motivation. Pakistan's President Zardari's position vis-à-vis the US is palpably evident, having just been given a US$ 7 billion life support by the IMF. India after signing the civil-nuclear deal needs the US to achieve its economic goals together with a host of other reasons. Third, despite all the blame game, the two sides have not moved towards a crisis situation such as an India-Pakistan war as happened in 2001 after the attack on the Indian parliament. Finally the carnage did not provoke a Hindu-Muslim riot as many apprehended. The doomsday predictions in the media over the Mumbai carnage seem to have dissipated paving way for India and Pakistan to deal the terrorism issue seriously. The ground is now favourable for US to use her considerable influence on the Pakistan Government and her intelligence to delink from any sponsorship of terror groups and then to isolate and obliterate such groups, urge India to consider the grievances of the minorities, particularly the Muslims, and rising Hindu fundamentalism to deal with domestic terrorism in the country. India will soon start to build dozens of nuclear reactors for power generation that would be very vulnerable to terrorist attacks. This should be an additional motivation for India to contain her homegrown terrorism. Condolizza Rice could start this process during her current visit to India and pave the ground for the new administration to deal with it later. The writer is a former Ambassador to Japan and Executive Director, Southeast Bank.