Trust deficit

The explosions have come ahead of an important punctuation mark in the India-Pakistan composite dialogue process.

NIRUPAMA SUBRAMANIAN in Islamabad

ALTHOUGH investigators in the Mumbai serial blasts have refused to say if a Pakistan-based group was behind the horrific attack, the question once again being asked is: what steps, if any, has Pakistan taken to eliminate terrorist groups operating on its territory? In media speculation in India, the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), an armed militant group waging jehad against India in Kashmir, has figured extensively as the number one suspect, perhaps because it has been named in all the recent terrorist attacks in India - in Delhi, Bangalore and Varanasi.

Pakistan did ban the LeT in January 2002 along with the Jaish-e-Mohammed and froze the assets of both organisations. But two months ahead of the ban, the LeT's parent organisation, the Jamaat-ud-Daawa (JuD), had announced that its militant wing would withdraw from Pakistan and confine its activities to Kashmir. According to reports, it now functions out of Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (POK).

The JuD had changed its name from Markaaz-ud-daawa-wal-Irshaad (MuDI), after the United States banned the MuDI in October 2001 in the aftermath of the September 11 bombing on its soil. Its leader, Hafiz Saeed, once taught Islamic Studies at Lahore University. He headed both the MuDI and the LeT. But in the run-up to the Pakistan ban, he handed over the leadership of the armed wing to Maulana Abdul Wahid Kashmiri. The former professor said he and the JuD would now concentrate on preaching Islam across Pakistan and engage in charitable works. Following the ban, Pakistan arrested Hafiz Saeed in May 2002 but released him in October the same year.

The JuD, which is headquartered in Muridke near Lahore, has been on what Pakistan calls a "watch-list" since November 2003, but it is not clear exactly what it means by that. In the months since the October 2005 earthquake in POK, the JuD has been allowed to emerge as an important organisation engaged in relief and reconstruction activity.

In April 2006, the U.S. banned the JuD, putting it on its Specially Designated Global Terrorist List, saying that it was the LeT under a different name. Pakistan, a frontline ally of the Bush administration in its "war on terror", said it was not required to follow suit because the listing was under a U.S. domestic law.

Given that the LeT is the most well-organised group waging jehad in Jammu and Kashmir, with the ability to extend its operations to other parts of the country, India has repeatedly questioned Pakistan's commitment to eliminating cross-border terrorism. Speaking from several platforms, including most recently at a Rotary Conference in Islamabad, Indian High Commissioner Shiv Shankar Menon has sent out strong messages of New Delhi's dissatisfaction on this count.

"Despite some variations in infiltration patterns, terrorist trainings, communications and support continue, waxing and waning with the seasons and the political climate. Worse, since the October earthquake we have seen the public rehabilitation of terrorist organisations and their increasing public prominence," he told the conference delegates, who included those from India as well.

In Pakistan, commentators agree that whether it is the JuD or the LeT or any other jehadi group, the government's apparent accommodative attitude does not add up to General Pervez Musharraf's pronouncements on eliminating such groups.

But they also point out that this cannot be seen in isolation from the failure of the two countries to make progress on the Kashmir issue. For President Musharraf, getting a result on Kashmir is important especially at this time when there are questions about his political survival. Even those known to have a moderate position on Kashmir say this. "The government of Pakistan is not in a position to fully curb militancy unless there is genuine progress on Kashmir," said Talat Masood, a retired general of the Pakistan Army who now heads Pugwash and was instrumental in arranging the visit of the National Conference leader Omar Abdullah to Pakistan for a conference on Kashmir earlier this year.

Masood said that without progress on the issue of Kashmir, which is the central or "core" issue for Pakistan, no leadership could rein in jehad, unless of course the economic and political situation in the country progressed so dramatically that it gave the government more space and time to tackle the Kashmir issue in a leisurely way.

Others say that retaining the jehadi card is a "strategic option" for Musharraf in case the talks are perceived as not heading anywhere.

"Islamabad is interested in negotiations. But if the suspicion or fear is that India does not have the right attitude to talk to a smaller neighbour, then unconventional military methods might always be considered an option," said Ayesha Siddiqua, a defence and strategic issues analyst.

And in Pakistan, the suspicion does seem to be growing that India is not interested in the resolution of the Kashmir issue and is using the process and the confidence-building measures to strengthen the geographical status quo.

Writing in The Nation, Tayyab Siddiqui, a former diplomat, had this to say:

"The process has simultaneously moved so far on two tracks - confidence-building measures and dispute resolution. The first was supposed to help the second objective, but India's shrewd manipulation has rendered the first into an end in itself, without any movement on dispute resolution."

Masood warned that with such suspicions, the moderate voices in Pakistan were getting increasingly marginalised: "Every government - the U.S., Afghanistan, India - wants Pakistan to do more. But what about yourself, what is your government doing to improve the situation so that it becomes easier for Pakistan to do more?" he asked.

But it is obvious that there is a gap between the expectations of both sides from the peace process. Pakistan wants a "result-oriented process" and believes that Musharraf's proposals for demilitarisation and joint management of Kashmir contain the key; for India, which has not responded to that proposal yet, the process is a "step-by-step" approach towards a "practical and pragmatic" solution, focussing first on "people's welfare".

The Mumbai blasts came ahead of an important punctuation mark in the India-Pakistan composite dialogue process. The Foreign Secretaries of the two countries are scheduled to meet on July 20 and 21 to review the just-concluded third round of Secretary-level talks on eight issues included in the composite dialogue process. They are to fix a schedule for the fourth round of talks. But the trust deficit between the two sides even after three rounds of the composite dialogue process was evident in the hot exchange of words over a statement by Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri that seemed to link the Mumbai terrorist attacks and resolution of disputes between the two countries. India reacted with a strongly worded statement of its own, and the Pakistan Foreign Ministry had to clarify that Kasuri's remarks were "misreported", and to emphasise that he and the Pakistan government condemned the Mumbai blasts unreservedly.

How do the two countries address this trust deficit? Indian newspapers were the first to point a finger at Pakistan for the Mumbai attacks, which shows that despite the expanded people-to-people contacts, there is mistrust even in civil society.

Said Masood: "This mistrust is not going away unless our whole societies can become clean and transparent to each other. For that, the peace process has to move forward."