POLITICS-INDIA: Talk of War Drowns Out Peace Calls, Say Activists

By Ranjit Devraj Reprint | | Print |

Ranjit Devraj

NEW DELHI, Dec 26 2001 (IPS) - Peace activists in India are urging the government not to allow an aborted attack on Parliament on Dec. 13, which New Delhi blames on Pakistani ‘jihadists’, to become cause for a third war between the two nuclear-armed neighbours.

“Nobody on the sub-continent wants war,” said former prime minister Inder Kumar Gujral, who has been active in trying to promote people-to-people contacts between the warring South Asian rivals.

India and Pakistan, which were created out of British India in 1947, fought two wars in 1965 and in 1971. They fought an undeclared war in the summer of 1999 on the Line of Control (LoC), which runs through the disputed territory of Kashmir.

“We are trying to tell the government that 80 percent of Indians are concerned about food and shelter rather than a war,” said Saeeda Hameed, former Member of the National Commission for Women (NCW), a statutory body.

Hameeda, among those who participated in a Christmas Day peace rally, the first in a series planned by peace groups, said saner voices are being drowned out by a dangerous mood of war hysteria building up since the Dec 13 suicide attack against Parliament.

Since then, India and Pakistan have been trading barbs. Last week, India recalled its high commissioner in Islamabad and suspended bus and train services between the two countries, to protest what it calls Pakistan’s links to the groups behind the attack.

It also warned that these were only the first in a series of planned diplomatic measures.

Pakistan has meantime called New Delhi “very arrogant”. Both countries have beefed up troops by their border, raising fears about military confrontation ahead.

Indian officials identified all five ‘fedayeen’ (members of suicide squad) in the Parliament attack as Pakistan nationals. They said they had proof that the attack was carried out by the Lashkar-e-Toiba (Soldiers of God) and the Jaish-e-Mohammed (Army of God) militants, with the backing of Pakistan’s shadowy Inter Services Intelligence (ISI).

The five ‘fedayeen’ were among the 14 people who died in the Dec. 13 attack.

Meantime, India’s demands for action against the two ‘jihadist’ groups and their leaders have triggered international pressure, forcing Pakistan to announce the freezing of the bank accounts of the two organisations and the arrest of Maulana Masood Azhar, chief of the Jaish-e-Mohammed. The leader of the Lashkar-e-Toiba has also been replaced.

But these moves have not satisfied New Delhi, which wants Azhar sent to India to stand trial.

Arriving in New Delhi this week, Vijay Nambiar, India’s High Commissioner in Islamabad, told reporters that his recall was “a signal meant to convey the seriousness of the present situation to Pakistan and to establish the gravity vis-a-vis the terrorist attack on Parliament.”

The Indian government said it was prepared for a military showdown while the high-powered Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) went into session to consider a slew of diplomatic measures designed to step up pressure on Pakistan.

Responding to press reports that Pakistan had deployed missiles along the border, India’s Defence Minister George Fernandes said Wednesday that India’s “missile systems were in position”.

A further sign that military options are being seriously considered was the announcement by an army spokesman of the unprecedented canceling of the annual Army Day parade on Jan. 15 — to accommodate troop and armour deployment elsewhere in the country.

Diplomatic options being weighed by the Cabinet Committee on Security, headed by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, are said to include further downgrading the diplomatic missions in the two capitals and the withdrawal of the Most Favoured Nation (MFN) trade status unilaterally given by India to Pakistan.

Also under review is a treaty on the sharing of the waters from the Indus river, considered favourable to Pakistan, and the grant of overflight facilities for civilian aircraft, said an official.

But peace activists say these measures that are not likely to affect the military regime in Pakistan, and would just cause immense hardship to ordinary citizens. “It is ordinary people who are getting hurt by such hardened actions as the suspension of bus and train services and the banning of overflights,” Hameeda said.

According to Kamal Mitra Chenoy, who teaches international relations at the prestigious Jawharalal Nehru University, Pakistan’s military ruler Pervez Musharraf has already done enough given the difficult circumstances and pressure from extremist groups he has to face at home.

Urging stepped up dialogue rather than the downgrading of diplomatic missions, Chenoy pointed out that Musharraf has condemned the ‘jihadis’, taken action against them and arrested Maulana Azhar. “No military ruler in the history of Pakistan has done as much,” Chenoy argued.

He also noted that Musharraf, at a public gathering in the port city of Karachi on Wednesday, had bitterly criticised Islamic fundamentalism in his country. “We have come to be identified in the world with illiteracy, obscurantism and militancy,” the general was quoted as saying at the rally.

But Musharraf has also warned that his country was armed with nuclear weapons and ready for military action.

Peace activists in both countries are now planning to lead peace marches to the border crossing at Atari on New Year’s Eve to persuade the governments of both countries to desist from action that could precipitate a third war.

The Citizens Peace Committee (CPC) based in Islamabad has proposed “joint steps to press for de-escalation, restraint, dialogue, firm action against terrorists, cessation of acts of state oppression and resolution of problems between the two neighbours.”