Opinion - Editorials

A show of anger

INDIA'S DECISION TO expel Pakistan's High Commissioner, Ashraf Jehangir Qazi, in the context of the latest terrorist strike at an Army camp near Jammu appears to reflect cascading anger and a strong sense of frustration rather than imaginative statesmanship. The people and Government of India are enormously indignant, and rightly so, over the outrageous attack. By deductive logic, the carnage in Kaluchak appeared to have been the handiwork of one or more Pakistan-based terrorist groups with extra-territorial tendencies to intervene in Jammu and Kashmir. However, neither the reasons cited in justification of the expulsion of Pakistan's top professional diplomat nor indeed the political logic of this ill-conceived move can really serve India's anti-terror cause. When India recalled its High Commissioner to Pakistan, Vijay Nambiar, in one of several acts of retaliation for the heinous terrorist attack on the Parliament House complex in New Delhi last December, it remained obvious that the Vajpayee administration did not wish to reach a point of no return in bilateral ties. By deciding not to snap diplomatic relations with Islamabad, New Delhi had on that occasion seemed to be not averse to the idea of keeping the door ajar for a realistic engagement with Pakistan in course of time. Viewed in this limited perspective, New Delhi can even now claim to have kept alive the overall diplomatic link with Islamabad. The grim reality, however, is that this bilateral relationship, utterly fragile even in better times, will require massive doses of artificial respiration to be meaningful at all. Now, to advocate the necessity of sustaining a channel of communication with Islamabad, at the highest levels of plenipotentiary diplomacy, is not to be insensitive to India's anguished concerns about cross-border terrorism that can be traced to groups and agencies operating on Pakistan's territory. India can suitably address the issues of incendiary cross-border terrorism itself in creative diplomatic exchanges with Pakistan.

The political logic of New Delhi's order expelling Mr. Qazi appears anchored to a reasoning that the action will be a dramatic way of not only expressing India's displeasure over the unabated cross-border terrorism but also dealing with the diabolical menace itself. Nothing can be more fallacious than facile assumptions of this kind. Apparently aware of the need for a hard-sell in this situation, the External Affairs Minister, Jaswant Singh, has made it known that Mr. Qazi's expulsion could be seen as an aspect of bringing about "parity" between the diplomatic missions of India and Pakistan in each other's capital at this volatile moment. However, the diversionary argument about such "parity" does not explain how a diplomat's expulsion in a highly interactive and globalised world can help India reduce or roll back cross-border terrorism. Nor can there be a military solution, given the nuclear-weapon cards of both India and Pakistan as also the complexities and contradictions of today's anti-terror campaign on the wider international stage.

New Delhi should guard against looking at Pakistan and the cross-border terror issues in the manner of a proverbial frog in the well. For a variety of reasons over a long period in the past, India still finds itself quite isolated on the global stage in fighting terror. Being short on genuine or strategic friends in the international arena, India can ill afford to opt for casual or cavalier steps such as the expulsion of Pakistan's top envoy, especially so at this time when the U.S. in particular is eager to goad India and Pakistan towards a resumption of dialogue. It will be a grave error of judgment on New Delhi's part to think that it can deal with the Pakistanis on its own steam in the light of the reports about emerging tensions in the strategic equation between the U.S. and Islamabad in respect of issues concerning the Al-Qaeda.

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