Daily Times

As argued in these pages last week, there can be mainly three scenarios that predict the actors behind the Pathankot airbase attack in the first week of January. Since the Indian media, which has a habit of extra-highlighting anti-Pakistan rhetoric, started alleging that the banned Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) planned and carried out the airbase attack, the Indian government too believed this line of reasoning and provided the government of Pakistan with “actionable intelligence” that, broadly, included the origin, communication and celebration of the successful act of sabotage. It not still clear whether the act has indeed been carried out by JeM or any other Pakistan-based militant organisations. The fact of the matter is both India and Pakistan states have, quite uniquely, worked out a semblance of stratagem to share information and investigation in order to reach a conclusive analysis of the perpetrators and their objectives.

It is healthy to notice that Pakistan has shown intent reflected in action to trace the alleged elements of that banned organisation so as not to provide India with an iota of excuse to derail the ongoing peace process that is central to the foreign policy of regional and international powers such as China and the US. Had Pakistan not responded through action and instead delved in age old rhetoric, the world would have blamed Pakistan for causing ruptures in peacemaking and, more importantly, harbouring state-sponsored terrorism. It is indeed a positive move on the part of the Pakistani military and civil leadership to cooperate with Delhi in a joint venture to curb terrorism. As discussed previously, such a bilateral cooperation will help build confidence between state bureaucracies and the civil-military leadership to move in the direction of sustained dialogue to discuss core and non-core issues. Mutual cooperation over Pathankot has allowed the two countries to reschedule the foreign secretaries’ talks to be held in the “very near future”. The Indian side has behaved maturely this time in not derailing the peace process by accusing Pakistan of involvement in the attack. Rather, more focus is put on mutual understating and accommodating each other’s sensibilities. This has implicitly helped policy areas to buy time to set the modalities of future high level negotiations. However, in order to make the Pathankot cooperation more productive and future talks fruitful, both India and Pakistan will have to take certain procedural and strategic measures.

India, for example, needs to avoid accusing the Pakistani state of any terror-related activities without providing the latter with documented evidence. This will help reduce the atmosphere of fear, hatred and suspicion. Moreover, India needs to take into account the fact that though Pakistan nurtured certain militant organisations grounded in Jihadism — and some of those organisations were indeed India-centric — these very organisations have attacked the hand that fed them post-9/11 with fatalities crossing 60,000. Pakistan is struggling to make a strategy to deal with such militant forces. In addition, Delhi must understand the regional dynamics of economic opportunities that demand regional cooperation for peace and stability. The latter cannot be realised until Delhi and Islamabad talk meaningfully. The meaningfulness can be measured in terms of progress over Kashmir, which has consumed the energies of the two countries’ economies, militaries and people. A realistic solution to Jammu and Kashmir is to be sought, given the complicated set of legalities. Perhaps it is no longer possible for India to annex Azad Kashmir militarily or for Pakistan to get Occupied Kashmir. Given the nuclear capability of the two states, such a solution will be annihilating. Similarly, there is need on the part of the Indian state to get rid of its condescending attitude towards Pakistan. The latter is a sovereign and independent state that cannot be taken over by any means. Hence the RSS or Bajrang Dal’s idea of a United India is only a utopia. If such utopianism is implemented on Pakistan, it will backfire for Pakistan is, at least with respect to India, an egoistic state with bitter memories of bifurcation in 1971.

Pakistan, on its part, has more moral and strategic obligations to fulfil. Foremost is to realise the fact that Pakistan is no small state. It is a moderate sized state with modern institutions of the state that need to be consolidated. We need to get rid of any fear that India will one day eat away Pakistan. This is another form of strategic utopia. It is not in India’s interest to occupy Pakistan nor can the former afford to destabilise Pakistan for a variety of reasons. Nor can Pakistan be military taken over. Secondly, Pakistan’s security establishment should understand the changing strategic dynamics at the regional level where the US, Russia and China are pursuing alliances for economic cooperation and growth. Pakistan ought not to miss such opportunities. The one afforded in terms of TAPI is welcome. Third, militarily Pakistan ought to revisit its policy of ‘force multiplication’ by nourishing Jihadi organisations. Such a policy was fallacious from day one, religiously and strategically. Religiously, it is the state that has the moral and legal authority to use military means (qital). Strategically, we are paying a heavy price. Even Islam, the religion of peace, has been negatively labelled. It is time for Pakistan to disown all militant organisations legally, socio-economically and strategically. The use of proxies will not be in favour of Pakistan in the future and the same goes for India. Both must abandon such a policy course. Finally, there is always an India-Pakistan way forward if the leadership of the two is forward, not backward looking.

The writer is a political scientist by
training and professor by profession. He
is a DAAD fellow and the author of Military Agency, Politics and the State in Pakistan.
He tweets @ejazbhatty