The spectre of 26/11

No matter how much progress Pakistan, India make in improving relations, spectre of 26/11 will hang over the countries

No matter how much progress Pakistan and India make in improving relations — a visa agreement here, a cricket tour there — the spectre of 26/11 will always hang over the two countries. As long as Hafiz Saeed is roaming free and the Jamaatud Dawa (JuD) is allowed to operate, India will continue to mistrust us. That much was made clear recently by Indian External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid, who declared Pakistan’s response to the 26/11 attacks unsatisfactory. Matters weren’t helped by Interior Minister Rehman Malik, who once again placed his foot firmly in his mouth and declared there wasn’t all that much difference between the Mumbai attacks and the destruction of the Babri mosque. He also claimed that a Lashkar-e-Taiba militant, Abu Jandal, had worked for Indian intelligence, thereby reviving the canard that a foreign country, usually referring to one of the US, India or Israel, is behind the Taliban and its affiliates.



To smooth things over with India, the one obvious step the government needs to take is to stop indulging in conspiracy theorising. Once this basic criterion is met, we should move forward on a long overdue mission to finally declare the JuD a terrorist organisation, seize its money and track down its donors and operatives. The half-hearted attempt to hold Saeed under house arrest after the Mumbai attacks seemed to be a public relations ploy and not a serious attempt to hold accountable the mastermind of the attacks.

India, for its part, should not let its concerns over terrorism completely derail the peace process. Increased trade, for example, is mutually beneficial, quite apart from the normalisation in relations that it represents. Allowing blinkered generals in Pakistan and the religious right in India from scuttling these deals for the sake of patriotic fervour would represent a grave setback. The civilian government here should finally grant India most-favoured nation status so that we can demonstrate our commitment to peace. We may not be able to bury 26/11 forever but we can certainly try to dull its impact through goodwill gestures and continued contact.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 8^th, 2013.