India Has Been Outmaneuvered By Pakistan

At the risk of sounding unpatriotic, I cannot help feeling that India has been outmaneuvered by Pakistan with relation to the Mumbai terror attacks, on both diplomatic and military fronts. Right from the start of the Mumbai crisis, the Indian government has put all its eggs in one basket – and paid the price for it. It relied on international pressure to bring Pakistan to heel.

This has failed miserably. Pakistan has skillfully diverted world attention towards a potential conflict between itself and India. The Mumbai attacks have been relegated to little more than a footnote. This loss of initiative can be blamed to a large extent on the Indian authorities. The perennial ailment of our ministers and bureaucrats is procrastination. The saying "strike while the iron is hot" is alien to them.

Consider the facts. In the immediate aftermath of the attacks, international support was solidly behind India. World leaders were shocked and outraged – particularly because their nationals were among the victims. There was tremendous pressure on Pakistan to take urgent action against the terror camps inside their country. The FBI and Interpol landed on our doorstep, eager to help.

And what did India do? Our Foreign Minister made a belligerent speech in Parliament, at the same time that the Prime Minister was assuring the world community that India was not contemplating military action against Pakistan. India wanted the United States to reprimand its client state. In other words, we acted like a child who has been slapped and runs to his mother for succor. While the US Secretary of State was talking tough to Pakistan, in truth America was terribly worried that Indian saber rattling would give Pakistan an excuse to pull troops away from the Afghanistan border which, in turn, would be a big blow in the fight against the Taliban and Al Qaeda. The Indian government obligingly reassured America that it need not worry.

India’s leaders will no doubt justify their dithering on the grounds that their nation behaved like a mature democracy. They are too naïve to appreciate that in the real world, diplomatic niceties will always take a back seat to national interest. Pakistan, of course, had no such compunctions. By ratcheting up the war hysteria, it cleverly played upon American apprehensions. The end result is there for all to see. The Mumbai attacks have all been taken off the agenda; and the entire focus is on preventing an India-Pakistan conflict. And now that that Pakistan has achieved its objective, it is toning down the rhetoric.

So what could India have done differently? One option would have been to launch an immediate air strike on a known Lashkar-e-Toiba terror camp in Pakistan. It would have made a powerful statement; and we would probably have got away with it. There would have been some condemnation from the international community, of course, but at a time when its anger was focused solely on Pakistan, the criticism would have been muted. What India did instead was issue vague statements about "keeping all options open;" and let Pakistan off the hook.

In this era of 24 hours news coverage, perception is often as important as the reality – and here, too, the Indian authorities were outplayed. One example: it is well known that in a crime scene investigation, time is of the essence. An FBI team was rushed to Mumbai, but was kept waiting for several hours at the airport because "official" permission for bringing in their weapons was not forthcoming. It was a scene out of the Keystone cops.

Secondly, the Indian authorities loudly proclaimed to the world that the terrorists were Pakistanis – which they undoubtedly are. When the Pakistan government kept clamouring for proof, the Indians held back. This give the impression that perhaps they were not as confident as they sounded. The Indians were equally lackadaisical about passing on information to Interpol. Pakistan exploited this by making the Interpol chief admit on live television that Interpol was no further along in its investigation because information had not been received by the Indian authorities. It was a real public relations coup for the Pakistanis.

It is already a matter of national shame that our woeful intelligence gathering could not prevent the Mumbai carnage. Even after the attack started, the lack of foresight and coordination among the Indian security forces resulted in a greater number of casualties than justified. And a month later, India is no further along in getting Pakistan to own up responsibility. Our government continues to make belligerent noises, but the reality is that they have missed the bus. In the world of real-politick, the Indian authorities are rank amateurs.