The Single Lesson of Mumbai

Altaf Qadri / AP After the Mumbai attacks the Indian and Pakistani governments moved to the brink of nuclear war. But only cooperation to defeat terrorism will offer the peace they both crave.

Mumbai – Pakistanis woke up to fighter jets circling their cities last month. There were reports of troops being hastily moved to the India-Pakistan border. Gallows humor about nuclear fry-ups over Christmas started up, even as world leaders made urgent phone calls to try to get tempers under control.

It is now a full month since Mumbai came under attack and the mood in the subcontinent has shifted somewhat. What might have resulted in a joint effort by India and Pakistan to root out terror networks has turned into mutual recrimination.

Nothing would surprise those who sponsored the Mumbai attacks more than if the governments in Delhi and Islamabad worked together to defeat terrorism.

Each country feels persecuted. Each believes the other to be a serious threat. Each nation, armed with nukes and prodded by extreme views that spew venom and vengeance, remains at risk of being forced into hard line positions, even full scale war.

The Mumbai attacks were so well planned and so coolly carried out that it felt like a military operation. As the assaults were brought under control, allegations soon emerged that the perpetrators belonged to the Pakistan based Lashkar-e-Toiba, a terrorist organisation banned in 2002 but which has continued to operate openly (such as after the 2006 Kashmir earthquake, when it mounted a large domestic relief operation under a new name, the religious charity Jamaat-ud-Dawa).

At first, Pakistan accepted that some of its citizens may have been involved in the Mumbai outrages and promised action if evidence was provided. The government even promised to send the head of its Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency – long accused of supporting the Taliban in Afghanistan, as well as terrorists in Kashmir and in other parts of India -- to help with the investigation. But, as if to make clear who really holds power in Pakistan, the ISI and the Pakistan army vetoed the suggestion and the Pakistan government quickly reversed its decision.

Pakistan continues to say it will act against terrorists in their midst if provided with convincing evidence, but it asserts it has yet to be given such information either by India or the US. Nevertheless, once the United Nations Security Council listed Jamaat-ud-Dawa as a terrorist organization, the Pakistani government did launch operations against some terrorist groups based in Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

As pressure mounted on Pakistan, sympathy for the Mumbai victims in Pakistan turned to anger. President Asif Zardari’s government, at risk of being accused of being CIA or Indian puppets for cooperating with the investigation, changed their statements to denial and warned an edgy population to brace for war.

There is a lot of history and mutual distrust to cut through to end this cycle of mutual suspicion and blame. Pakistan accuses India of backing terrorist groups in its Balochistan province. It says India always blames Pakistan when attacks take place on its soil, forgetting that Pakistan has been an even bigger victim of terrorism and that some attacks in India have been carried out by Hindu nationalist groups. Then there are the repeated attacks on Indian Muslims, such as the notorious 2002 government-sponsored carnage in Gujarat.

India, for its part, counter-charges that many attacks within its borders emanate from Pakistan. It is beyond dispute that some in the Pakistan security establishment have sponsored attacks in Kashmir and in other parts of India. India says it does not want war, but it needs to be given reason to believe that the Pakistani government – and, more importantly, the army and ISI – will dismantle terror groups and put an end to cross-border attacks.