New Delhi, November 24
India’s Pakistan policy is coming apart and the killing of M.R. Kutty in Afghanistan has the potential of proving to be the proverbial last straw on the camel’s back.
It is being felt in certain responsible quarters that the UPA Government cannot go on smoking the peace pipe with Pakistan indefinitely when terrorism remains unchecked. A country which keeps thundering its so-called “zero-tolerance” to terrorism is practising quake diplomacy.
The contrast is stunning. On the one hand, India has despatched 1,300 tonnes of earthquake relief material to Pakistan and pledged on October 26 at the International Donors’ Conference in Geneva $ 25 million to Pakistan. Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh is leading a 1600-member strong Sikh jatha next week to Nankana Sahib where he would present a “palaki” made of gold.
On the other hand, terrorist activities are peaking by the day. Three days after India’s pledge of $ 25 million the Lashkar-e-Toiba, a Pakistan-supported terrorist outfit, struck in a big way in the Indian capital, killing 67 and injuring hundreds in three serial blasts.
What is more, India has announced a $ 25 million donation even after knowing that Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has made the Pakistan Army in charge of quake relief distribution. The army-jihadi nexus in Pakistan is an open secret. The Indian largesse of $ 25 million (about Rs 115 crore) can be enough to run 115 jihadi camps for one full year.
Even as the relief supplies were being sent to Pakistan and the Line of Control (LoC) was being opened to facilitate five crossing points, terrorists were busy in bloodletting in Jammu and Kashmir. The swearing-in ceremony of Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad in Srinagar on November 2 was also
targeted by terrorists, though the operation floundered.
What were subdued whispers a week or ten days ago in diplomatic circles have now become subject matter of discussions: that it is high time India reviewed its Pakistan policy and tethered Islamabad to its bilateral and international commitments of not allowing any territory under its control to be used for fomenting terrorism in India.
The M.R. Kutty episode is the latest irritant which is bound to lash Indo-Pak relations with Arctic winds.
The Taliban, which beheaded Kutty, is still close to the Pakistani establishment and concerns to this effect have been voiced by none other than Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Taliban was created by the then Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and her Interior Minister Nasrullah Babar took personal interest in raising the monster.
During the five-year Taliban rule in Afghanistan (1996-2001), Pakistan treated Afghanistan virtually as its fifth province and looked upon this backyard as a provider of strategic depth. Today, it is Pakistan which stands to suffer the most if India is able to turn the tables on Pakistan vis-a-vis Afghanistan.
The Zaranch-Delaram road project, where Kutty was working, is already one-fourth completed and after it is fully completed it will obviate the need for India to reach across to Afghanistan through Pakistan. India will be reaching Afghanistan through Iran and Chabahar port in Iran is also being upgraded for the purpose.
This will be a strategic loss to Pakistan. Every Pakistan policy-maker in India is aware that the Taliban cannot survive without support from Pakistan, overt or covert.
Against this backdrop, the Manmohan Singh government is bound to come under pressure from within and outside to have a re-look at New Delhi’s quake diplomacy, if not the Indo-Pak peace process on the whole.
