In his breathtaking account of The Last Battle for Berlin in 1945, published some four decades ago, Cornelius Ryan narrated the story of how one Berliner tried to anticipate the course of the war. Each morning while walking to work, he would look sideways into the living room of a prominent Nazi official. His eyes would focus on the large portrait of Adolf Hitler that dominated the room. The removal of the portrait, he had decided in his mind, would be the signal that the fall of the city was imminent.
For the past week, diplomats, spooks and assorted international busybodies have been working overtime to gauge the imminence or otherwise of a retaliatory Indian attack on terror camps in Pakistan. Logically speaking, their sense of anticipation was not unfounded. A beleaguered government, caught with its pants down and confronted by possible electoral reverses, was under tremendous pressure to “do something” to avenge the attack on Mumbai. With nerves firmly on edge, it was feared that a knee-jerk bid to placate angry public opinion would trigger brinkmanship and lead to events spinning out of control. Those with a sense of history recalled that it was literally one wrong turn in Sarajevo and a fluke shot by a fringe sect that triggered World War I.
The international crisis managers need not have feared. A casual perusal of “open sources” spook-speak for information in the public domain would have alerted them to the fact that, public anger notwithstanding, it was business as usual for the rulers. Last Saturday evening, even as the full horror of the Mumbai carnage was sinking in, the heir apparent was busy partying till 5 am. Three days later his entire family was celebrating the wedding of the son of a loyal courtier and a Congress MP in the full gaze of the society paparazzi. There was no visible sign of restraint.
The Delhi edition of Times of India did the nation a seminal service by publishing two pages of photographs of the post-Mumbai celebrations. Those photographs did what thousands of candles, text messages and a trillion words of indignation failed to achieve: expose the callousness of the cabal that is governing India. What war are we talking about? In the immortal words of John McEnroe, “You cannot be serious!” Left to himself President Asif Zardari and, maybe, the soft underbelly of the Clifton elite and the Aitchison College alumni would have readily agreed to send all jihadis to a UN-run Guantanamo Bay . After the devastation of the Marriott in Islamabad, there is a greater awareness of the jihadi blowback within Pakistan than ever before. Beautiful Pakistanis hate visa denials, that extra scrutiny at international airports and being dubbed a global migraine.
Unfortunately when it comes to India there is a blind spot. Islamabad has despatched innumerable of its wild Islamists to US custody in unknown destinations without any concern for the due process of law. However any attempt to emulate the process to India’s satisfaction will lead to a national uprising that could lead to Zardari making London his permanent residence. Egged on by the global fraternity of deranged liberalism, Pakistan has concluded that the discrimination and persecution of the Muslim minority lie at the heart of India’s terrorist problem. The thread that binds the conspiracy theorists, the jihadis and the India-watchers who have been prolific in shedding tears for Indian Muslim in the op-ed pages of western publications is the belief that India had it coming.
The Mumbai operation is an unqualified jihadi victory. Using the cover of a fledgling democracy and its nuclear assets, the jihadis have taunted India and mocked an America that is dithering on its global entanglements. In the aftermath of Mumbai, the LeT has made itself synonymous with Pakistan’s honour and negated the possibility of any effective international puni tive action against those who organised the butchery . It has invoked the fear of unilateral Indian action to underline the West’s dependence on Pakistan in the pacification of Afghanistan.
There is an eerie similarity between how Pakistan moved after 9/11 and how it has moved after Mumbai. There is, however, one monumental difference. In 2001 the world was still dealing with a single entity called Pakistan, governed by a military dictator who attempted to balance Pakistan’s jihadi imperatives in Afghanistan with a modernising agenda at home; in 2008, India is confronted with a fractured Pakistan where a weak civilian authority has to dance to the tune of a sullen army and a much more potent jihadi force internally. In seven years, the balance has tilted more decisively in favour of the Islamists in Pakistan and the US is in the throes of a profound existential crisis.
The Mumbai attack has exposed the crisis within India. On the security front, India was callously unprepared; on the diplomatic plane, it has little room for manoeuvre. The Government was guilty of a total lack of foresight; it is paralysed by the vulnerabilities of a weak and dithering leadership. If Pakistan is in wilful denial of its complicity in the attack, the Indian Government is denial of its vulnerability and helplessness.
Yet there are small signs of hope. For the first time since the country encountered jihadi terrorism, there is an outburst of visceral anger directed at those who secured themselves but left ordinary people vulnerable. Media organisations will try to channel this anger for commercial advantage but the rage can’t be allowed to be blunted by the burning of candles. It is necessary to be viciously angry at those who don’t even have the humanity to stop partying while India mourns. It is time to design an alternative that puts Indian interests above family interests. It’s time to change the portraits on the wall.
Islamabad has despatched innumerable of its wild Islamists to US custody in unknown destinations without any concern for the due process of law. However, any attempt to emulate the process to India’s favour will lead to a national uprising that could lead to Zardari making London his permanent residence.