Terrorism recognises no borders

The latest terrorist attacks in Mumbai provide India and Pakistan with both a threat and an opportunity.

The threat is not hard to see.

New Delhi and Islamabad have already activated the reverse gear in their attempts at normalisation, and are trading accusations. India, rattled by the event, has reverted to the traditional policy of pointing the finger at Pakistan. For its part, the Pakistani government has reacted by reviving its litany of woes about Kashmir and the treatment of Indian Muslims.

If the current propaganda war heats up further, the two may see the results of years of détente evaporate in a few weeks.

This is where the opportunities that the Mumbai attacks provide should be recognised in the service of the broader war on terror.

Coming soon after a similar attack on the Marriot Hotel in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad, the Mumbai attacks showed that terrorism is no longer a card that Pakistan could use against India with impunity.

Until the early 1990s, Pakistan was able to play the card of terror against India without great risks to itself. The procedure was simple: The country's military intelligence, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) would recruit just the right number of terrorists needed to wage low intensity war in Indian-controlled Kashmir.

Status quo

The low intensity war would do nothing to alter the status quo. However, it served a key purpose: it kept alive the myth of liberating "Muslim Kashmir" from Hindu domination thus reinforcing Pakistan's legitimacy, indeed its raison d'etre, as a state of Muslims of the subcontinent.

Paradoxically, the Indian ruling elite was not unhappy about the situation either. The myth of a Pakistani-Islamic threat to India's existence as a secular republic enabled the elite to justify hefty defence expenditure, more than a fifth of the national budget, and the development of a nuclear arsenal. Over the years, the two sides learned to use the terror war in Kashmir as a medium of communication, a system of signalling that enabled them to understand each other at any given time.

Whenever there was calm and détente, the ISI would put its terrorist genies back into their bottles, while India would reciprocate by reducing the number of troops in its part of Kashmir.

When either side was unhappy with the other, one would immediately find out by looking at Kashmir. An unhappy Pakistan would unleash the terrorists, while an unhappy India would loosen its military might against Kashmiri villages.

Low intensity conflict

Outrageous though this may sound, one could argue that the low intensity conflict in Kashmir had a useful aspect: it allowed the two neighbours to set geographic limits to their enmity, thus avoiding all-out war.

The problem today is that Pakistan and India are no longer capable of controlling the situation.

The larger terrorist outfits such as the Jaish-e-Mohammad (Army of Mohammad) and the Lashkar-e-Toiba (The Army of the Pure) no longer need their creator. They have developed their own sources of funding through international rings plus racketeering in India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and other countries.

They do their own recruiting by appealing to "Volunteers for Martyrdom" from many lands beyond Kashmir. They have also created a network of training bases and safe havens in areas of Pakistan that the ISI does not control, and built a web of sympathisers in many countries, including India and several European nations.

More importantly, perhaps, they have expanded their ideology beyond the cause of "liberating" Kashmir. Now, they want to re-conquer all lands once ruled by Muslims. Their new ideology also includes a commitment to overthrowing "impious" Muslim regimes, including that of Pakistan.

These genies no longer listen to Aladdin. In fact, they now want to kill the erstwhile master who let them out of the bottle.

Many experts believe that the terror unleashed by the vested agencies is more of a threat to Pakistan than India. The Jihadis may make life difficult in parts of India.

However, they have no chance of overthrowing the Indian state. Even if all Indian Muslims sympathised with the Jihadists, something that is unlikely, they would still be no more than 15 per cent of the population scattered in the vast subcontinent.

The overwhelming majority of Indians, including most Indian Muslims, are attached to their secular democracy. Even in Kashmir, those who might sympathise with Jihadis represent no more than three to four per cent of the population.

In Pakistan, however, the Jihadi discourse of global re-conquest may find greater resonance. And, even if it does not, a majority of Pakistanis would be prepared to listen to the Jihadi discourse, especially the criticism of Pakistan's corrupt political elite and repressive security apparatus.

Jihadi terrorism recognises no borders. Any state trying to use it against others is likely to end up among the victims. This is why India and Pakistan must seize the opportunity to develop a common front to fight terror, rather than reviving their Cold War that allowed terrorism to flourish in the first place.

Amir Taheri is an Iranian writer based in Europe.