Uncertain alliances

I HAVE been travelling in the United States for the last three weeks. What strikes me most are the complex undercurrents of reactions in US public opinion towards South Asia. ‘‘Are you gonna go to war with Pakistan?’’ The question was asked of me at the Buena Vista Bar near the Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco on New Year’s Eve. I answered: ‘‘I hope not, I don’t think so.’’ Catherine Scott the barmaid, a little over 30 years old, responded: ‘‘I also think so. I think it is the US which would have to go to war with those folks in Pakistan. It is they who backed the terrorists and now are pretending to be our allies with the eye on the main chance.’’

My primary instinct as I reached the US on December 15 was to assess how the government and people of this country are reacting to the terrorist attack on Parliament on December 13. American reactions to the trauma we went through that day were varied. There were formal statements from the State Department and the Defence Department condemning the terrorist attack on the Indian Parliament; the US government froze the assets of the Lashkar-e-Toiba and the Jaish-e-Mohammed, formally including them in the list of terrorist organisations. There were telephone calls from President Bush and Colin Powell, conveying sympathy and general support. These conversations included general condemnation of terrorist organisations responsible for the attack.

Nuances in US policy statements, however, must not go unnoticed. There was no acknowledgement of links between these terrorist organisations and the government of Pakistan. India was also insistently advised to react with caution and restraint in relation to Pakistan. The quid pro quo from the US was their offer to generate pressure on Musharraf to act against these terrorists groups and their leaders. Such pressure from the US has apparently resulted in Musharraf putting restraints on the leaders of the Jaish and the Lashkar and initiating some action to freeze their financial assets in Pakistan. It is worthwhile to note that the US government while welcoming these steps has generally supported the Pakistani demand that India should provide hard evidence about these terrorist organisations having been involved in the attack on the Indian Parliament. One wonders whether the same detached meticulousness for hard evidence would have underpinned US reactions had the US Capitol been attacked.

The media coverage in the US on Indo-Pak relations post-December 13 left one bemused, given the contrast with the manner in which the US media reacted to September 11. The attack on Parliament was consistently described as an attack by ‘‘militants from Kashmir who India claims operated with the support of Pakistan’’. Pakistani denial of links with this attack and Musharraf’s messages of sympathy to India were given high prominence. Then there was the projection that India had yet to come up with hard evidence about Pakistani involvement in the terrorist attacks.

Following this analysis came the prognosis on rising Indo-Pak tensions. Armchair American experts in the audio-visual media, instead of taking note of the terrorist strike as an act of terrorism needing an appropriate punitive response, proceeded to theorise on Kashmir being a disputed territory and this unresolved dispute being the cause of the violence in New Delhi in December. These pundits were then critical of India for having deployed troops on the Pakistan border and for announcing the intention of taking decisive action. The American public was reminded that any military confrontation between India and Pakistan could lead to a nuclear war.

Everybody was also informed that Pakistan is a close ally operationally important to the US in its anti-terrorist war in Afghanistan. Then came the articulation of the primary American concern: by generating military and diplomatic pressure on Pakistan, India would compel Pakistan to focus political attention on India and divert Pakistani troops from the Pak-Afghan border to the Indo-Pak border. This was followed by the advocacy that India has a particular responsibility to act with restraint and not put a spanner in the works of the campaign against the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. There is general sympathy regarding terrorism which India faces but America’s primary concern is to complete its own terrorist campaign.

What interested me, however, were reactions I discerned in my personal interactions with ordinary Americans, with acquaintances and academics. Catherine Scott’s comment was reflected in the views conveyed to me at the personal level. There is a general awareness about Pakistan’s two-decade-long involvement and links with pan-Islamic militancy and cross-border terrorism. Nor is there any amnesia about the US government’s support to Islamic militancy to serve its broader strategic interests. There is a greater acknowledgement of India being not only a committed democracy but a strategic entity supportive of the forces of democracy, human rights and plurality in the international order. These perceptions of the American people, one hopes, will balance off the somewhat self-centered orientations articulated by the US media which underpin US policies.

It is against this background that India should anticipate US policies toward our region. America’s first priority would remain the destruction of the international Islamic terrorist networks threatening its own security and then the security of western democracies. Its second priority would be to eradicate the resources of these networks in terms of narcotics smuggling and illegal acquisition of arms. This campaign will not be limited to Afghanistan but will expand to other countries in the coming months. India can expect general political support in its anti-terrorist campaign as far as it remains confined within Indian territory, in response to specific incidents of terrorism. The US will not countenance any punitive action by us against Pakistan across the border or the Line of Control.

In fact, there are clear enough indications that the US would be inclined to intervene more actively in the subcontinent to prevent an Indo-Pak conflict. Secretary of Defence Donald Ru- msfeld stated in the last week of December that apart from being in constant touch with the leaders of India and Pakistan, the US is considering contingency options to prevent an Indo-Pak conflict. It is obvious, therefore, that if India refuses to abide by the advice for restraint given by the US, the new beginnings made in Indo-US relations will be negatively affected. It is equally obvious that India would have to fight its own battles against terrorism in the foreseeable future in the context of US perceptions of its own interests and Musharraf’s adroitly cosmetic gestures to remain on the right side of the US.

India has to conduct this struggle not only in terms of carefully structured anti-terrorist operations but, more importantly, by engaging in an intense publicity and diplomatic campaign to make the US and world public opinion aware of our concerns and the linkage of these concerns with issues of global security which interest the US and the major powers of the world.

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