The reality after Mumbai

GIVEN the scale of the recent tragedy and the importance of Mumbai as their country’s financial capital, it was inevitable that the Indians would react with shock and anger to the carnage unleashed on the city. Most Pakistanis, too, were disgusted with the terrorist attack and genuinely sympathetic to the suffering of the Indians.

This explains the near unanimity with which all political parties in Pakistan condemned the Mumbai blasts and supported the government’s offer of full cooperation to India, including information and intelligence sharing, in an effort to unearth the perpetrators of this crime.

However, the intensity of Indian charges and accusations, especially the belligerent media coverage, surprised and disappointed many in this country. Whether a bid to cover-up serious security and intelligence lapses or on account of electoral considerations or a desire to capitalise on the tragedy to extract concessions that Pakistan was otherwise unwilling to offer, the whole exercise was inexplicable and deeply disappointing.

It even appeared as if India was engaged in an effort to claim for itself the same right of pre-emption that the Bush administration had arrogated to itself in the wake of 9/11. That it did not was not for lack of wanting but because saner heads at home realised the grave consequences of such action especially after no international support was forthcoming for this approach. This led some of us to wonder whether Delhi could not have been a little more circumspect in its response to the Mumbai tragedy.

Thereafter, Delhi’s approach became more subtle and skilful. It made no effort to deny or dampen speculative reports that Indian anger was so intense that the country could have considered some kind of military action, whether surgical strikes on suspected terrorist centres or a naval blockade of Karachi port. There were also reports of troop mobilisation and ‘inadvertent’ air violations. But Delhi held in check its risk-fraught inclinations, ostensibly at US urging but more likely because it knew that Pakistan’s reaction would be equally forceful, which could lead both into uncharted territory.

Moreover, the Indians could not have forgotten the lesson of Operation Parakram. Nevertheless, India gained greatly by embracing the far more advantageous diplomatic route, reinforcing its image as a mature nation that showed patience and forbearance, in the face of extreme provocation. And, by letting the major powers, particularly the US and UK, take up the cudgels on its behalf (tabling the resolution in the UN sanctions committee), it earned their gratitude and succeeded in getting the world community to join it in pressuring Pakistan to do its bidding — or face isolation. Delhi would much rather have the international community breathing down Pakistan’s neck than be the one threatening it.

Consequently, Pakistan not only stands isolated in the dock of international opinion, its image and reputation lie in tatters. Manmohan Singh is not the first to describe Pakistan as the epicentre of global terrorism; he is only echoing what Bush administration officials and US security experts have been saying for years.

According to ‘Global trends 2025’ issued by the National Intelligence Council, Pakistan has been called a “wild card”, whose northwestern territories will remain “poorly governed”. Even more damaging is the report ‘World at risk’, prepared by a bipartisan congressional-funded commission. It warns that “were one to map terrorism and weapons of mass destruction today, all roads would intersect in Pakistan”. It has led Senator Bob Graham to call Pakistan the “intersection of the perfect storm”, remarks that provide grist to the Indian propaganda machine.

India must, however, recognise that separatist movements and violent insurgencies stalk the land and Muslims are not the only ones to have been bitten by the bug of militancy. Large numbers of Hindus have also fallen prey to extreme right-wing Hindutva ideology that preaches a philosophy of hatred against all minorities. These movements are likely to exert tremendous pressure on state institutions.

Delhi cannot continue indefinitely to hold Pakistan responsible for all its failures and shortcomings. It will have to acknowledge the evil that is eating into its vitals. Nor should India ignore the increasingly peaceful and assertive freedom movement in Kashmir, without whose resolution India cannot expect to play the global role that it aspires to. But in the meantime, it is more than likely that India will want to maintain pressure on Pakistan, so that the world is convinced that terror emanates only from the soil of this country.

The incoming Obama administration should not be deterred by Indian anger over Mumbai. If anything, Mumbai has proven the importance and urgency of an early resolution of Kashmir, as articulated by Obama. In fact, the US needs to adopt policies that recognise the regional dimension of Pakistan’s security concerns. India, Pakistan and Afghanistan have to be viewed as inextricably linked to ensure peace and security in the region.

Pakistan too faces the hour of reckoning. We can no longer drag our feet on this issue. Admittedly, there is a history of major powers’ involvement and our own foreign policy objectives in the growth of extremist organisations and they (including the US) have to acknowledge their share of the blame. But this is a different time, with a radically different set of considerations at play. These new realities have to be recognised. There is no tolerance for any state that harbours terrorists or acquiesces in their activities. States that do open themselves to international opprobrium, even intervention.

In the case of Pakistan, extremist organisations need to be tackled, not as a favour to the international community or as a concession to India or the US, but because it is essential for our own security and well-being.

India may see short-term advantage in placing Pakistan in the doghouse but it must recognise that the normalisation process has been beneficial to both. It has reduced tension and opened up the prospect of genuine peace and meaningful economic cooperation that could improve the lives of over one billion people. Nevertheless, peace remains an extremely fragile plant. India’s effort to browbeat Pakistan or to use the US to extract concessions from it will be counterproductive in the long term.

In fact, if Islamabad were to take on the terrorists under international pressure, it would discredit the elected government and make its task so much more difficult. Instead, the Indians would do themselves and the region a lot of good if they were to react positively to Pakistan’s offer of cooperation and work in a meaningful manner to tackle what is undeniably a common problem for both.

Test of statesmanship

APART from anything else, the terrorist outrage in Mumbai put Pakistan and India to a grim test. They have not failed — so far at any rate. That is the gratifying part of the story. The regrettable part is that the South Asian twins do not seem to have struck the path of success either. As a result, the huge population of the subcontinent is in the grip of fear or anger, both antithetical to rational thinking.

Whether so designed or not, the events of Nov 26 had the potential, at the very least, to derail the process of normalisation of relations between the two neighbours and for precipitating an armed conflict between them, at the worst. The movement for a comprehensive India-Pakistan accord has no doubt suffered a setback but both sides have expressed a keenness to reduce the damage to the minimum. And they have been quite forthright in ruling out war.

However, in this state of suspended hostility the threat to regional peace will remain alive. Sadly enough, India and Pakistan are still engaged in a dangerous debate regarding the identity of the perpetrators of the horrible massacre of nearly 200 innocent people, and their sponsors. Necessary though such a probe is, total concentration on this point amounts to taking a narrow view of the matter and entertaining the illusion that the monster of terrorism can be overcome by catching and hanging a few culprits and punishing their patrons. Anyone opting for this course will be guilty of a costly failure to learn from the disastrous consequences of the Bush wars.

What is more important than the identity and parentage of the Mumbai killers is the fact that they were enemies of the peoples of India and Pakistan — they damned the Indians by killing many of them and wounding their government’s pride and they damned Pakistanis by putting them in the dock.

Without minimising the enormous hurt to the people of India it can be demonstrated that the Mumbai terrorists caused much greater harm to the world’s Muslims, including those living in Pakistan and India, just as Muslims the world over have been more the victims of 9/11 than the Americans.

The foremost task before the governments and the peoples of India and Pakistan is to make every effort to deny the terrorists success in their criminal undertaking. The assault on Mumbai was obviously a means to an end and not an end in itself.

Since the attack on Mumbai must have been planned many months earlier it is not easy to pinpoint the objectives of those who made the plot, except for a bid to pre-empt the new Pakistan government’s attempts to normalise ties with India. This should have been the overriding goal in November too when a couple of other factors — state and union elections in India and the Kashmiri people’s shift away from violent struggle — might have influenced the terrorists’ planning.

It should not be difficult to recognise the terrorists’ (regardless of their parentage) interest in helping India’s communal factions in both state and union elections, as similar to their preferences among Pakistani political formations. Terrorists everywhere like to see in power parties that are committed to the politics of exclusion, because of their common roots in intolerance. Likewise, the prospect of the Kashmiri people’s return to a non-violent political struggle for their rights cannot be welcome to all those who have thrived on conflict and confrontation between India and Pakistan, and such elements can be found in both countries. This reading of the situation offers a fair indication of the course India and Pakistan need to follow jointly and severally.

The wave of anger in India is understandable and the emotions of a large number of Indians have been whipped up to the extent of making them impervious to friendly counsel from abroad. However, India is fortunate in having a sizeable community of peace-lovers that must not surrender to the jingoism of hate-preachers. Apart from the fact that peace is the highest moral ideal for entire humankind, the Indian people must be enabled to take into account the prohibitive cost of confrontation with any neighbour not only in economic terms but also in those of an increase in intolerance of differences based on belief, ethnicity or social status.

The people of Pakistan, on their part, have to conduct an honest self-appraisal, however agonising it may be. The question whether Pakistan has fostered terrorism beyond its frontiers has become irrelevant. What is relevant today is that the world is not convinced of its disclaimers despite the fact that militants have forced a civil war on it. Now it is the international community’s perception that Pakistan is up against — and perception is often more effective than the truth. Pakistan can escape being branded an international pariah only if it undertakes a sincere and concerted campaign against extremist elements whose existence cannot be denied.

The question of seeking foreign help in the fight against terrorists that are threatening Pakistan’s very existence also needs to be studied dispassionately. A state that has no qualms about begging for aid to buy palm oil or to keep the administration running should not feel shy about asking for help to ward off the terrorists’ challenge. It is perhaps necessary to realise that the plea that Pakistan itself is a victim of terrorism, though true, could become self-incriminatory if it does not produce the required zeal in combating terrorism.

Efforts by India and Pakistan to deal with terrorism separately will not bear fruit unless they stop demonising each other and start acting in concert. Unfortunately, both countries have become prisoners of confrontationist forces they have thoughtlessly nourished for six decades and more. The leaders of both countries appear to be so helpless in the face of these forces that they may be afraid of thinking of a summit meeting right now. Such fears will be the undoing of the subcontinent as the situation demands boldness in the pursuit of peace and goodwill instead of proficiency in sabre-rattling or diplomatic sophistry.

The governments of Pakistan and India will not be able to seize the present opportunity to close the chapter of adversarial relations without the active backing of their respective civil societies. The latter alone have possibilities of silencing extremist elements in their populations and weaning their media away from their habit of fuelling tensions.

In any case both countries should make the fullest possible use of the Track-II channels to evolve an agreed approach to terrorism. The starting point has to be the realisation that terrorism is not a transitional law and order problem, that the roots of the threat to both India and Pakistan lie in the pre-Partition communal politics and that their future lies in burying that hateful legacy of religion-based politics.

Dark side of fairytales

AT London’s Royal Opera House, Hansel and Gretel have fallen into the hands of a serial killer whose larder is full of oven-ready children. At the city’s Barbican in London, another version of Hansel and Gretel takes the audience into a forest filled with skulls and dead-eyed dolls.

At the Lyric Hammersmith, also in London, Cinderella’s sisters mutilate their feet in a vain attempt to wear the glass slipper, and later have their eyes pecked out by birds.

In recent years, Christmas shows have been getting ever more terrifying. And in this year’s crop, there are horrible witches, murderous mums and dads, and hordes of cannibalistic monsters with a craving for human flesh — and that’s just the children. Stephen Sharkey’s Hansel and Gretel at the Northern Stage in Newcastle, northeast England, begins with the famished youngsters, poised with knife and fork, as if about to dine on their sleeping, pregnant stepmother. Later, Hansel himself is eaten and graphically digested by the witch.Is all this familial violence a reflection of an increasingly violent society? Possibly. But it’s also a reflection of a pre-modern Europe, when life was nasty, brutish and often very short. Many of the original versions of these stories — anthologised by the Brothers Grimm in the early 19th century, but existing in many variations all over the world — deal with famine and cannibalism. In the Grimms’ original Hansel and Grettel, the children really are starving. In their story The Children of the Famine, a mother tries to eat her daughters, while in How Children Played at Slaughtering the kids butcher each other after watching their father kill a pig. Both these tales appeared in the first edition of the Grimms’ Nursery and Household Tales, but were later excised.

These stories have not yet reached the stage, but dramatists are becoming increasingly brave about reclaiming fairytales that were originally intended for adult consumption. These stories were prettified in the late 17th century, as they began to be collected into books and read to children. Out went the raunchy Red Riding Hood, who did a striptease for the wolf and devoured him after cooking him alive, and in came a pious homily teaching us that good girls should never stray from the straight and narrow path. Sleeping Beauty got a makeover, too, and was woken with a chaste kiss from a handsome prince. (In one traditional version, she wakes to discover that she has been raped, and has given birth to twins. As if that wasn’t bad enough, she then gets her arms chopped off.)

Mothers are often absent from these stories, which again reflects a stark historical reality — if famine didn’t get you, childbirth would. One of the pleasures of Told By an Idiot’s Beauty and the Beast, currently at Warwick Arts Centre in Coventry, central England, is the way Beauty’s sisters blame her for the death of their mother. Stepmothers, meanwhile, abound. Hence the wicked queen in Snow White, who is forced to dance herself to death in red-hot iron boots, and the stepmother in The Juniper Tree, who decapitates her stepson, serves his flesh up to his dad for tea (a la Titus Andronicus) and buries his bones under a tree. Last Christmas, two adaptations of this horror-fest made it to the stage.

Of course, stage versions of these stories run the risk of terrifying children, but they do so within the controlled conditions of a theatre. Are there any fairytales that should be strictly off limits? Perhaps The Maiden with No Hands, in which a father with incestuous desires chops off his daughter’s hands and tongue. Or another story in the vein of Cinderella, known as Catskin or Donkey Skin, in which a princess flees the sexual advances of her father, and ends up as a maid in a prince’s castle.

I doubted I would ever see the latter on stage. But four years ago, having already successfully reinvented Hans Christian Andersen’s The Red Shoes, the Kneehigh theatre company in Cornwall, southwest England, transformed it into The Wooden Frock, a tale of acute psychological cruelty and pain. Like the best of these ancient stories, it reminded us that while “happy ever after” is the stuff of fairytales, growing up and surviving our parents — and their parenting — is something we all have to do. — The Guardian, London