Mumbai Attacks Still Overshadow Indo-Pakistani Relations

It took weeks after the Mumbai attacks for Pakistan to admit they had been planned there, and that the terrorists came from Pakistan. New Delhi keeps accusing Islamabad that not enough has been done to ensure that similar incidents don't happen again. India has, therefore, suspended its "composite dialogue" process with Pakistan.

No crackdown on Lashkar-e-Taiba

India's concerns are less with the judicial proceedings against the Mumbai masterminds and more with how Pakistan has dealt with the group responsible for the carnage, Lashkar-e-Taiba or LeT. It is well known that Pakistan's army and security agencies trained Islamist LeT fighters in the past to fight India, particularly in Kashmir. Meanwhile, official Pakistan has disowned LeT, but the organization's structure seems more or less intact.

Some have argued that Islamabad cannot afford to alienate another Islamist group when it is already under attack by the Taliban and other militants all over the country. Stephen Tankel, an LeT expert based in Washington, DC, agrees that the Pakistani state needs to be careful about cracking down on the group.

"I think there are legitimate concerns about driving the group underground and not wanting to fragment it", says Tankel. "On the flip side, I think beyond being a question of political capability or military capability, this is a question of military and political will. Lashkar-e-Taiba had been Pakistan's historically most reliable proxy against India. Whether or not it is currently using LeT as a proxy is hotly debated; but I think there is very little doubt that it wants to maintain that capability."

Vested interests against peace

Sundeep Waslekar of the Strategic Foresight Group in Mumbai, a think tank which has been studying the Indo-Pakistani conflict and possible solutions, says this attitude reflects a more fundamental problem in Pakistan. He says the civilian government is too weak:

"The structural problem is that Pakistan is ruled by the military. And the military has a vested interest in creating a context of confrontation, because military, by definition, thrives on confrontation. Now in addition to the military, terrorist groups have also become part of Pakistan’s governance structure in the last 10-15 years. And they also have a vested interest in creating an atmosphere of conflict, because terrorism, by definition, thrives on violence."

Waslekar calls on the international community to re-orient its policy towards Pakistan: "I think democracy is the foundation of any kind of a potential peace between India and Pakistan specifically and in South Asia generally. So we should really engage with the nation of Pakistan, with the people of Pakistan. And the world should stop underwriting the military of Pakistan! So long as the decision-makers in the United States, particularly, but also elsewhere keep looking at Pakistan’s military as a part of the solution, we are not going to reach anywhere!"

In the end, it is the people in South Asia who are paying dearly for the deadlock: Waslekar's institute has calculated that the ongoing tension between both countries has cost India one per cent in GDP growth each year, and Pakistan even 1.5 per cent.

Author: Thomas Bärthlein
Editor: Grahame Lucas