Pakistan and India need to seize chance to shape ties

Nations tend to have a defining moment. It isn’t always necessarily for their good. That’s why India and Pakistan need to get out of the partition straight jacket.

Nearly three weeks after gunmen attacked Mumbai, India’s Foreign minister Pranab Mukherjee added a tentative step toward squeezing out of the jacket last Thursday. Both nations have worn it since the 1947 independence from Britain and partition.

Confront it

“We shall have to patiently confront it.” By “it” Mr Mukherjee meant terrorism. “We have no intention to be provoked.” It is most likely that had it not been for external calls for restraint, notably from the United States, India would have carried out some form of military action against Pakistan.

The attack by at least 10 men killed 179 and injured more than 300 people. Granted the targets were soft, but at best, Indian security apparatus emerged inept in the three-day siege.

India immediately said the attackers came from Pakistan and were members of an Islamist group Lashkar-e-Taiba. Pakistan intelligence formed the outfit in 1980s for a proxy war with India in Kashmir. The government outlawed the group in 1991 but its infrastructure remains.

Published names

Without mentioning Pakistan, India’s Prime Minister Manohan Singh said neighbouring countries had better understand the use of their territory “for launching attacks against us will not be tolerated. Last Tuesday, India published the names and photographs of the raiders, all from Punjab.

Initially, Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari sounded ridiculous, saying the attackers couldn’t have come from his country. It didn’t take long for Pakistani to arrest suspects in the plot. Last week, Mr Zardari redeemed himself in an article The New York Times published: “Pakistan is committed to the pursuit, arrest, trial and punishment of anyone involved in these heinous attacks.”

In addition to deaths in the attacks, the other casualty was talks began four years ago to normalise relations between the two countries. They had born fruits. In September, the two countries allowed freight trains to carry goods between them.

The list of allowed goods faced expansion from 13 to 1,938. Next month, both countries’ commerce secretaries were to meet. In February, New Delhi was to host a “Made in Pakistan” trade fair. Unless tempers cool, all this will be on hold.

India’s anger is understandable. Pakistan has been too tolerant of militant Islamist groups, some of which have attacked India in the past. At the same time, India needs to take note of a few things. Pakistan is in a bad shape and the current leadership isn’t to blame.

To begin with, the country is financially in hard times. Last month, the International Monetary Fund provided a bailout package of US$7.6 billion. The country’s foreign reserves stood at $US$3.45 billion.

Additionally, the country is battling extremist Islamists not just in the so-called tribal regions, but elsewhere. Moreover, United States attacks against the Taliban and al-Qaeda along Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan makes India a target just because of its current close ties with Washington.

Many observers have pointed out that a conflict between India and Pakistan would force the latter to pull their forces from the regions the Taliban, al-Qaeda and their Pakistan sympathizers are. In this scenario, only the extremists win.

Both India and Pakistan are nuclear armed. That means they can’t fight a war to dominate the other because of the mutual destruction capability. Their only option is rapprochement. They should seize the Mumbai attacks as an opportunity to define their future relationship—cooperation.

Genuine joint investigations of Mumbai attacks are a good option. Negotiations under way should not only resume but be speeded. Both countries have a common enemy. Moreover, both have only folly to show for 60 years of being suspicions of other.