Black Tuesday, Grey Sunday

THERE was no doubt that America would one day avenge the carnage at New York and Washington. What was uncertain was how long would it take the US to string together a coalition of nations, other than those in the West. The ultimatum to hand over Osama bin Laden was a ploy to gain time and to pacify restive domestic public opinion. The US knew all along that Kabul would never turn its back on Osama since he is the one who helped them dream of a utopian Islamic world. Therefore, when Washington demanded Osama’s head, the fundamentalists made it look like a struggle for Islam’s greatness, prestige, honour and glory.

The attack, furious in intensity, is designed to end quickly. There are dangers in its continuation because the Taliban’s call for jehad can arouse religious sentiments which the frontline states like Pakistan may find it difficult to suppress. Notwithstanding General Pervez Musharraf’s feigning of supreme confidence it is serious matter that on the eve of the attack on Afghanistan, he had to replace his pro-Taliban ISI chief Lt Gen Mahmood Ahmed with corps commander of Peshawar Lt Gen Eshan-ul Haq. The three million Afghan refugees in Pakistan and the local Pathan population can easily get roused when the bombing will inevitably lead to the death of innocents along with the guilty. Even as the strikes have begun a simmering unrest is already visible in certain parts of the Pakistan.

After all, the creation of a fundamentalist Afghanistan was the brainchild of General Zia-ul-Haq, Benazir Bhutto’s predecessor. He started supporting the mujahideen fighting against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. Zia’s pushed back the south-bound Russian forces close to the Pakistan border. As the Soviet withdrawal became a real possibility, Zia’s ambitions expanded. He saw for the first time since 1947, the possibility of an Afghan regime genuinely friendly to Pakistan. This provided Islamabad the ‘strategic depth’ against India, a goal the Pakistani military planners pursued with vigour. Zia also ensured that the new government in Kabul reflected his Islamic leanings far more than any previous Afghan regime and surely more than he had been able to impose on his own country.

Zia’s successors were happy with a Kabul under Islamabad’s grip. The ISI used the distant Afghanistan, away from the gaze of the world, as a training ground for terrorists. They came in handy both in Chechenya, while confronting Russia, and also while bleeding India, in Kashmir. Most people in Pakistan only woke up to the danger when the tide of fundamentalism began to flow into their own homes. The increasing talibanisation in Pakistan worried the middle class and the liberals alike. Yet they never dared challenge the maulvis and the mullahs.

Where one can fault America is that it cared little about acts of terrorism elsewhere in the world. Washington did not take it seriously when New Delhi pointed out that terrorism committed in India today would be committed elsewhere tomorrow. It was considered India’s internal problem. New Delhi vainly argued that the entire world should fight against terrorism unitedly and methodically. Unfortunately the US has promised to do so only after Black Tuesday.

This is not the time to settle individual scores. It is time to analyse what breeds fanaticism and how countries which get involved in it, for pecuniary or political gains, can either be made to see reason or punished. There should, however, be no victimisation. Otherwise we shall give them the rationale to evoke sympathy. Washington must not pick friends or foes on political grounds. Despite a world of varied national interests, the concern today should be global.

The attack has, however, evoked different expectations in different countries. Pakistan believes — it says it has assurances to that effect — that America will intervene in Kashmir. I can see at best a few rounds of talks on the lines held after the 1962 war between India and China. This was the price Washington exacted for the military assistance it gave to India. Foreign ministers of India and Pakistan, Swaran Singh and Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto respectively, met five or six times but nothing came out of it.

India is confident that the end of war will bring an end to terrorism from across the border. New Delhi expects the US to ensure that the terrorist organisations operating from Pakistan are wound up. As for Kashmir, India expects that there may be an effort to covert the LoC into an international border. After all Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, the then prime minister, promised at the Simla conference but did not keep his promise.

Whatever their perceptions on Kashmir, both New Delhi and Islamabad have agreed to have a broad-based government under King Zahir Shah, who was ousted in 1973. Once the Taliban is unseated, India’s gain will be that an unfriendly government at Kabul will be out. The Northern Alliance is friendly to New Delhi. Pakistan can take satisfaction from the fact that the Taliban is not likely to be replaced by a hostile government. However, Islamabad cannot run away from questions like the status of the Durand Line and the demand for a Pushtomistan autonomous state. Afghanistan, after all, has a 40-per cent Pushtu-speaking population.

It is too early to talk about the post-war scenario. I recall the Gulf crisis when I was India’s High Commissioner to London. When Saddam Hussein’s forces swept across Kuwait, the entire world was caught unawares. Inder Kumar Gujral, the then foreign minister, asked me how New Delhi should react? ‘Not too harshly’, I replied. At the back of my mind, like that of a number of Indians, was the impression that Saddam Hussein was comparatively secular in that part of the world. His unflinching support of India on Kashmir, even at the Islamic summits, influenced the Indian stand. I must admit I was torn between Kuwait’s agony in the wake of its subjugation and Saddam Hussein’s possible annoyance if India raised its voice, which could spell ruin for thousands of Indians who were trapped in Kuwait and Iraq.

New Delhi’s reaction was mild and somewhat equivocal. We neither condemned Saddam Hussein nor condoned his aggression. However, we did ask for the withdrawal of Iraqi troops. Both Baghdad and Washington were satisfied: Iraq because we did not use the word ‘condemn’, which most countries had done, and the US, because we had demanded that Iraq must quit Kuwait.

Ultimately, Iraq quit Kuwait. In a similar way, the Taliban will have to go from Afghanistan. But can the elimination of the Taliban mean the end of talibanisation? Even communist Moscow, in its effort to woo the Afghans, saw to it that Kabul TV would commence its programmes with a mullah sporting a flowing beard reading from the Koran.

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