Don’t feed fundamentalism

EVERY time India and Pakistan face a problem, they tend to look towards America as if its nod is all that matters. This has been particularly so after the end of the Cold War. The approach is demeaning and smacks of servility. Yet, for illusory gains, the two countries try to catch Washington’s eye.

The carnage in the US was an opportunity for both Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and President Pervez Musharraf to have discussed common dangers. They should have been on the hotline. The theatre of war was going to be this part of the world and we, the two countries, will be hit directly, without knowing for how long and to what extent. But the reaction of both has, however, been otherwise. New Delhi and Islamabad have been vying with each other in offering assistance to Washington. The manner in which Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh has been going about the task — a foreign TV network even cut him short in his entreaties to support the US — gives the impression that New Delhi seems to be feeling left out. Jaswant Singh is still at it, persuading the US to use India.

Yet, initially, India did not figure among the countries President Bush feelingly thanked for their prompt and generous assistance. It was obvious that Washington did not want to give India precedence over Pakistan or say something which would make Islamabad feel that it came next to New Delhi. Of course, Washington’s main consideration in getting Pakistan on its side was the location of the country: a state bordering Afghanistan. The American administration has always felt happier with military dictatorships than democracies which have to think about people’s sentiments and parliament’s endorsements. Since Pakistan took time to throw its weight behind America, US secretary of state was late in attending to Jaswant Singh’s injured feelings over the fact that it was not asking India for any assistance.

Islamabad’s response has been along expected lines. It has taken no time in siding with Washington but has staged a drama for the public of being on the horns of a dilemma. Whether it has brought in Kashmir or not hardly matters. The problem is terrorism, not any territorial discussion. If Kashmir has any relevance at all, it is on the basis that terrorism in the state is financed, sustained and exported by Pakistan. Musharraf should have known by this time that the solution of Kashmir has to be found by the two countries, not a third party. From Tashkent to Lahore, all declarations and agreements speak about the principle of bilateralism and even the international community has accepted it.

In any case, the war declared against terrorism is not on the basis of principles. Had it been so, Washington would have helped New Delhi long ago when it had provided it with documentary evidence to prove that terrorists were trained, armed and sheltered by Pakistan. America woke up only when the fire of terrorism began to engulf it. Not long ago, India, Russia and USA had announced their resolve to combat terrorism jointly. Washington established an FBI office in New Delhi. But all that was a mere exercise. Washington did not show any real interest. Several US think-tanks, conscious of India’s travails, also gave perfunctory sympathy. Now all of them are vociferous against terrorism. But they still do not point their finger at Musharraf who has given the name of jehad to terrorism.

As in the past, Islamabad has come to believe that the war against terrorism has given it a chance to extract the maximum military and economic assistance from America. General Zia-ul Haq did the same thing during the Soviet Union’s attack on Afghanistan. India knows only too well how those arms reached the hands of jehadis and others who are still using them in their killings in Kashmir. America should realise that terrorism will continue to thrive if politics is the criterion to select the enemy. It has taken several years but many in Pakistan have begun to realise how terrorists, primarily fundamentalists, have contaminated their society. And they feel that Pakistan has been playing with fire. But they have little choice. Rulers have been injecting more and more of Islam so as to be less and less answerable to the nation. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto declared the Ahmedias as non-Muslims and Friday as the weekly off in the country. Zia-ul Haq started paying salary to the maulvis and Musharraf has termed terrorism as ‘‘jehad’’. Fanaticism has become the creed. As one editor told me in Lahore a few months ago, ‘‘Our society has become prey to the Tulba and we do not know how to cope with the situation.’’

Musharraf has unleashed the usual anti-India tirade. One, he has to feed the fundamentalist lobby with something that would reflect the hate-India sentiment. This is what the rulers have done for decades and this is what gives ethos to Pakistan. Two, he has to assure his supporters in Kashmir, the Hurriyat and some other organisations, that what insurgency and cross-border terrorism could not achieve, an all-out assistance to America would in the longer run.

Washington, in the grip of revenge, has no time or inclination to adopt a long-term perspective. Democracy means America these days. It talks about removing terrorism from the world without not even knowing how to go about it. Talibanisation is a symptom, not the disease. The disease is fundamentalism. It is inculcated into the minds of people who are made to believe that their religion, or their cause or their thinking is the just one and must prevail. The fanatics are only a handful compared to the millions believing in the interplay of ideas and opinions as in the democratic, open countries of the world. But since they are in a minority, they resort to such terrorist methods — as they have done in America. Their purpose is not to convert but to create terror in the ordinary person who wants to be left alone to lead his life in his own way. Terrorism is the antithesis of all that peace stands for.

India has lived with the barbs of fanaticism. It has lost thousands of people and there is yet no end to the attack it has faced again and again, some time in the shape of a plane hijacking, the destruction of a train or the explosion of bombs — as the Mumbai blasts testify to. The culprits may be from the underworld or from a particular community, but it indicates the translation of fundamentalist ideas: murder and destruction of those who have another point of view.

The international community did little when fundamentalism reared its ugly head. Now it has grown into a giant. It is still possible to kill it if the US or, for that matter, the West, does not drag politics into the project. But then they have done nothing else so far.

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