Behind the Headlines

Published on Wednesday 7 January 2009 20:57

LAST month's terrorist assault in Mumbai targeted not only India's economy and sense of security.

Its broader goal was to smash the India-Pakistan dtente that has been taking shape since 2004. The attackers did not hide their faces or blow themselves up with suicide jackets. Anonymity was not their goal. They wanted to be identified as defenders of a cause. Unless this cause is fully understood, and its roots revealed across the region, this attack may prove to be the beginning of the unmaking of South Asia.

Regional conflict, involving all states and growing numbers of non-state actors, produces large numbers of trained fighters, waiting for the call to glory. Within both India and Pakistan, economic disparities and a sense of social injustice have created fertile ground for conflict. The use and abuse of religious fervour, whether "jihadi" or "Hindu fundamentalist", are striking at the roots of communal harmony across South Asia.

Much of the current trouble can be traced to Afghanistan, whose tragedy could never have remained confined within its borders. The dynamics of the region changed when the Afghan freedom fighters of the Eighties were converted into "mujahideen" through a criminal enterprise in which both the West and the Muslim world happily participated. Pakistan, always insecure about India, became the hub of this transformation.

The ills of two decades in South Asia can be attributed to the Afghan jihad years: the rise of the Taleban, the dominance of Pakistani-sponsored religious fanatics within the Kashmir freedom movement and eventual spread of sectarian conflict in Pakistan. In Afghanistan, Pakistan's military and intelligence agencies sought "strategic depth" against India. Moreover, they wanted payback for India's role in supporting the revolt in the Sixties and Seventies that led to Bangladeshi independence.

India is not blameless. It pursued a two-pronged strategy – making the argument that all was well in Kashmir (a blatant lie) and supporting ethnic confrontation in Pakistan.

Lashkar-e-Taiba (LET) – Army of the Pure – a Pakistan-based group supporting insurgency on the Indian side of Kashmir, was a product of these years. According to Indian investigators, this group is implicated in the Mumbai attacks. Pakistan's clampdown on its offices essentially confirms this conclusion. LET was the armed wing of an Ahle-Hadith organisation, a South Asian version of Saudi-style fundamentalism, whose purpose was to hit Indian forces in Kashmir. Though the group was banned by former Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf after 9/11, some operators went underground and others joined Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD, Party of Proselytising) – an organisation that runs religious educational centres and charities. Given its established linkages with Pakistan's intelligence outfits, the group was never targeted strongly.

What Pakistan's military strategists failed to realise was that groups like LET and JuD had local agendas as well – converting Pakistan into a theocracy. JuD, along with many other like-minded groups, radicalised thousands of young Pakistanis.

Even while demanding strong action against JuD, India must see Pakistan is itself a victim of terror. Any military confrontation with Pakistan will only empower Pakistani radicals. For Pakistan, a concerted and sustained effort against all extremist groups operating in the country is necessary.

&#149 Hassan Abbas is author of Pakistan's Drift into Extremism: Allah, the Army and America's War on Terror.