Threshold of tolerance

Correcting Perspective

February 2010

Pune blasts have brought  to the fore the glaring contradictions of the perspective of the Government of India on National Security. Immediately after the blasts the concerned quarters in Government of India started a concerted campaign of diversion to prevent the derailment of its forthcoming dialogue with Pakistan. No time was wasted in concluding that the attack was an act of Indian Mujahideen from within India, even without a comprehensive investigation. Although many security experts opined that the attack had a typical texture and hue which the ISI or LeT operations have, yet Government of India went with a politically expedient premise.

The Foreign Minister of Pakistan had claimed that it was India which was seeking for a dialogue and not Pakistan. He virtually presented a scenario in which India had no choice but to come to the table and continue the dialogue process inspite of terrorism conducted and orchestrated from the soil of Pakistan.

Indian Diplomatic response to Pune blasts, like many other such acts after the Islamabad declaration which Vajpayee Government claimed to be a high achievement of its diplomacy, have once again underlined that terrorism and dialogue have to go hand in hand. Indian claim of not talking under the shadow of terrorist blackmail has once again been put to abject ridicule.

Robert Gates, the Defence Secretary  of Government of USA, must be eating his words when he claimed in India that Indian restraint against Pakistan was not unlimited. He must have based his conclusions on unequivocal statements by none other than Union Home Minister, many times in recent past, that India will strike back in case of a repetition of 26/11.

The Union Home Minister has also suffered a setback to his prestige after Pune blast because Government of India has responded in the same way as it has done to so many gruesome Jihadi terrorist assaults during more than last two decades.

India always appealed in the international fora for a comprehensive delegitimisation of Terrorism whatever its motivation and value basis. Yet India has continuously legitimised terrorism by engaging with it and according it political legitimacy. India has always wanted the West and USA to recognise Pakistan as the main epicentre of international terrorism and pleaded to declare it as a rogue state. Yet India has never discontinued the most favoured nation status to Pakistan.

India has always held that all terrorism is same and cannot be compartmentalised. Yet India has always differentiated between indigenous terrorism and Pakistan based terrorism, between the terrorism of JKLF and Hizbul Mujahideen, between the terrorism of LeT and Hizbul Mujahideen or Indian Mujahideen. These contradictions and the brazen display of diplomacy of mendicancy has put India in a very weak position if it decides to continue its ongoing dialogue with Pakistan. India has responded to Jihadi terrorism by dissolving its threshold of tolerance. There is no perspective of deterence and hence no effective doctrine of defeating terrorism.

It is high time the Indian State resolves the contradictions in its National Security doctrine. If Indian state wants the International Community to take its resolve on tackling terrorism seriously then it has to cultivate a consistency in its outlook. It is also imperative that India clearly declares its threshold of tolerance and demonstrates a firm commitment to adhere to it.