Opinion

The pain, the panic and the anger in India immediately after the Mumbai carnage were almost inevitable. A stunned India, and indeed the rest of the television-accessing world, witnessed the unfolding nightmare of innocent people brutally killed while Indian commandoes, security services and in fact the entire State apparatus bogged down for three days by a few terrorists. Correspondingly in Pakistan there was widespread sympathy and apprehension. Soon and sadly the Pakistan-India antagonism replaced the human tragedy of Mumbai.
Indian response to the carnage was not entirely unexpected. Even before the saga ended Pakistan was vociferously blamed, Delhi demanded that Pakistan handover to India 40 terrorists, and the international community was warned and mobilized into diplomatic action against Pakistan.
Pakistan's government under tremendous pressure did well on domestic political front by uniting Pakistan's entire political spectrum. On actual policy it opted to concede to US pressure as 'lesser of the evils.' For example when the US Secretary of State Condolessa Rice had demanded that the leadership common to LeT and Jamaat-ud-Dawa be arrested and the organization be banned and the alleged LeT training camps be shut down. Pakistan complied when the UNSC Anti-Terrorism Committee put these individuals and organizations on its list. China's help was not sought to object to the inclusion of these names on the watch list. Individualized responses, as opposed to institutional responses, created problems like the ISI Chief Delhi visit, the hoax phone call problems and the Prime Minister and President's loose statements over India's December 13 violation of Pakistani airspace.
However three weeks past the tragedy there is some introspection in both the countries. There is no doubt that the worst within the Pakistan-Indian context is behind us. India, supported by the international community will continue to demand more 'action' from Pakistan.
In Delhi its Foreign Minister has publicly acknowledged that the Mumbai investigation is not yet over and so no information has yet been provided to Pakistan. Also the war talk has been replaced by the demand that Pakistan must take 'more action.' Talk of attacking alleged sanctuaries has also reduced. The December 13 intrusion by Indian Air-force fighter planes was clearly an element of India's current coercive diplomacy. The time factor, UN action and Pakistan's steps against JUD have helped calm down India.
Meanwhile in Islamabad action has combined with some 'line drawing.' The policy of 'in-house cleaning,' i.e. dealing with groups with verifiable links to terrorism, is in place. Internal investigation has already started. Action reportedly against a few training camps in AJK and Punjab have been taken. However Pakistan has drawn some lines in how it will respond to the aftermath of Mumbai.

One, India must provide evidence against those it claims are involved in terrorism in India. Pakistani officials maintain none has been provided. Two, no foreign country will be allowed to interrogate any Pakistani nationals. The UK Prime Minister had requested that Britain be allowed access to Pakistanis. Three, that no Pakistanis will be handed over to any other country outside an extradition treaty framework.
In the coming weeks Pakistan-India engagement will be resumed. However for the engagement to be genuinely meaningful the governments and the policy- influencing and opinion-making communities must be mindful of some broad emerging realities within South Asia.
The cause-effect relationship between policy options that a State exercises and the functioning of a society is hard to ignore. The expanding public spaces of chaos, communalism and sectarianism testify this fact. The impact spreads at a galloping speed. This is an era of technological revolution with real time information dissemination taking place nationally and globally. Media's commercial competitiveness ensures that all dimensions of a story are publicized. The State can no longer manipulate the truth; even if it does it gets exposed pretty fast. The boundary-free flow of information also undercuts self-imposed 'patriotic silence' of the media as many on the international media scene would break the 'patriotic silence' by raising the uncomfortable questions. Hence the interconnectedness is established. 'Holy cows' exist no more. In the interconnectedness lie the limits to what conventional security paradigms and adversarial inter-state relations, the likes of Pakistan and India can produce. The uncomfortable linkages are no longer ignored. If the Pakistani State learnt it the hard way for the Indian State the learning too has begun. Delayed acknowledgment and response by the Indian State will be at its own peril.
It is not alone the raised level of public awareness of government policy alone that creates a formidable context for the government and the ruling elite. There is also the clash of contesting narratives that shapes peoples' consciousness, the greater consciousness of 'right' and 'wrong' of the 'fair and unfair', the recourse of the 'wronged' to force, the stark facts about double standards of the ruling elite nationally and internationally and indeed the State's continued attempt to proceed ahead with the old force-loaded security paradigms.
In the South Asian region security is interconnected. Reasons abound; the historical linkages, the cross-border covert wars, the unresolved inter-State and Kashmiri centered Kashmir dispute, the patronage of militia and sectarian forces in the nineties by Pakistani State institutions, the early signs of communalism within India's security and law enforcement institutions, the Indian supported birth of the LTTE, the political and militarized fragmentation of Afghanistan, Pakistan-Indian expanded battleground in Afghanistan, the birth of internationalist militia forces during the internationally supported Afghan jihad, the rising communalism in India and the potential marginalization and victimization of India sizeable minority.
In South Asia the two strands of the security challenge, the domestic and the inter-state strands, are deeply connected; especially within Pakistan and India. The historical past of the two countries and the use of the religion card at varying degrees in both the countries by the State and the political class for domestic and the bilateral context reinforce the security connection between the two countries. Without genuine cooperation in the security arena between Islamabad and Delhi neither will be able to begin to arrest the deteriorating security situation in their respective countries.
The tools of sabotage, covert wars, encirclement, surgical strikes and coercive diplomacy may only bring temporary respite to either country. With such policy tools at work genuine peace and security will elude South Asia. The cancer of terrorism will spread since in times of anger and hopelessness and leadership vacuum the prophets of doom and of hate win great followings.
While India must get to the core of the truth about Mumbai and ensure that the masterminds and the perpetrators of the carnage be punished, India and Pakistan must not ignore the greater imperative that flows from the carnage in Mumbai. Neither Pakistan nor India can fight the monster of terrorism without genuine cooperation; cooperation to destroy the physical 'infrastructure' of fast spreading terrorism. Also recognize and begin to resolve the root causes of terrorism to destroy the mental and emotional infrastructure of terrorism rooted in the hearts and minds of those who resort to violence and terror.