Time for joint Indo-Pak action against terrorism

 There is some truth in this even today. Likewise, Islamabad would have known by now that its route to Kabul lies through New Delhi.

This is not to suggest that India is helping Afghanistan in its armed struggle against the Taliban and their supporters in Pakistan.

What it means is that New Delhi can wield influence over Kabul. The hospital it has built in Kabul and the roads and power transmission lines it has laid there, despite the killings of Indian engineers and workers, have earned the Manmohan Singh government the trust of an average Afghan who sees in India a friend. This goodwill can benefit Islamabad if it can have even a workable relationship with New Delhi.

Another attack on India's embassy at Kabul last week is nothing new from the point of view of the Taliban who regard India as their enemy and economic development an anti-war measure. But the role of the ISI in such attacks is difficult to comprehend. An average Indian believes that it must be the handiwork of the ISI. It is the same old mistrust between the two countries that clouds the judgment.

Yet, both have known to their cost that the Taliban consider them their enemy. The attack on the Army headquarters at Rawalpindi last week reconfirms the fact that when it comes to causing harm, the Taliban make no distinction between Islamic Pakistan and secular India.

Why have not New Delhi and Islamabad sat together to plan a common strategy? Kashmir does not have to be sorted out before solving other problems.

Just as the stability of Pakistan is essential for the stability of India, Afghanistan's viability is necessary for Pakistan's viability. Essentially, the fight against the Taliban is the fight for the free world. But the most important step for India and Pakistan is a joint, concerted action against the Taliban.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said at a press conference in Mumbai recently: "If we work together to deal with this menace [terrorism], a larger good can come out of it." Patronisation of militants by Pakistan, he has said, "has done a great harm to South Asia."

Not helpful

Pakistan's Interior Minister Rahman Malek's allegation that India was trying to export terrorism does not help the situation. When Manmohan Singh charactersies it "a false accusation", that should set the doubts in Pakistan to rest. Manmohan Singh has seldom personally rubbished a statement. The release of Hafeez Saeed may further delay the composite dialogue.

The real problem is General Stanley A. McChrystal's assessment. He is America's new commander of operations in Afghanistan. He has said India was "exacerbating regional tensions" and encouraging "Pakistan's countermeasures" by increasing political and economic influence in Afghanistan. At the same time, he has said, Indian activities "largely benefit the Afghan people."

The economic measures which New Delhi has undertaken in Afghanistan are bound to endear India in the eyes of the Afghans. Even otherwise, the latter has been at loggerheads with Pakistan for ages.

The American commander's assessment can be a talking point between New Delhi and Islamabad. When both agree that the Taliban are the biggest menace they can surely find a common strategy for joint action. They can adopt different ways, economic or military, but they should have one policy to tackle the Taliban.

Pakistan's reluctance to move troops from the Indian border to Afghanistan is understandable. Islamabad is making the same point which New Delhi was making when it was in the midst of a war with China in 1962. In 1962, both US president John F. Kennedy and British prime minister Maurice Harold Macmillan had told Gen eral Ayoub Khan, then heading Pakistan, not to take such steps as would in any way distract New Delhi's attention from fighting against China. Jawaharlal Nehru's fear was that Ayoub would march into Kashmir once India was to withdraw its forces from the border with Pakistan. Washington and London talked to Islamabad and assured New Delhi on Pakistan's behalf that it would not attack India. Only then did India withdraw one division from the Pakistan border.

President Asif Ali Zardari, like Nehru, has conveyed more or less the same fears in similar words to President Barack Obama and other visiting senior US officials. He has asked them to give a guarantee that New Delhi would do nothing if Pak-istan were to withdraw troops from the border with India. Islamabad is far from satisfied by mere statements that there was no question of India attacking Pakistan. Still, with all the assurances given by America, Islamabad has withdrawn only a brigade and has kept back all the forces on the border with India intact.

The inevitable conclusion is that there is no alternative to rapprochement between India and Pakistan. Obama once talked about a regional solution to Afghanistan and other problems between the countries. There is still no go from it.

 Kuldip Nayar is a former Indian High Commissioner to the United Kingdom and a former Rajya Sabha member.