It happens in every cricket match, in every peace conference, in every controversial movie release, and in every military move either party makes…
Either Pakistan or India is blaming each other for their problems yet again.
The rivalry between India and Pakistan has existed since 1947, when Pakistan split from India to form its own Muslim state. Since then, both countries have shared a burning hatred for each other, intensified by their disputes about Kashmir.
On the surface, both countries have peaceful relations—they promise in UN meetings, SAARC conferences, and to all other global leaders that they will initiate peace talks to resolve their conflicts. But such resolutions hardly ever amount to anything as the next crisis comes along, and the decades of hatred are let loose.
This hatred, which has thrived for around 60 years, has been unleashed again due to the recent Mumbai terrorist attacks.
Foreign involvement in this issue is useless. Genuine talks between India and Pakistan, the concerned parties, is the only way the centuries-old rivalry can be resolved.
The attack on the Indian city of Mumbai, which occurred on November 26th, killed around 170 people and injured several others. The shootings mainly occurred around opulent hotels like the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel and the Oberoi Trident, along with minor explosions around town. These attacks have shaken the Indian government, which has taken several measures to quell the outpouring of hate among the citizens. One such measure was ordering TV stations to project the news as less depressing to show that India is ‘not demoralized’ by these attacks.
As always, the first suspect of the Indian government was a Pakistani terrorist organization named Lashkar-i-Taiba. This organization was also blamed for the 2001 attack on the Indian Parliament too, which led to both countries almost escalating to war.
This attack has provoked strong reactions from the Indian citizens. In general, they feel a sense of hatred towards Pakistan for having organized these attacks, as the media holds Pakistan accountable for majority of terrorist attacks in India. But aside from this resentment, people have been facing political turmoil also. The current ruling party, Congress, has called for unity and has accused the terrorists of ‘denouncing democracy’, while the opposition party, the BJP, is holding Congress accountable for the security lapses that caused the Mumbai attacks.
So, whose fault was it? The first and most obvious scapegoat is Pakistan. And India has reason to believe Pakistani terrorists have caused these attacks. Pakistan, historically, has remained silent on Indian extradition demands for underworld dons like Dawood Ibrahim, and has often made no substantial effort to track down accused terrorists in the country. This time, Pakistan assures it will try the 20 suspects in the attacks on Pakistani soil if it can see proof that they were involved in the attacks, proving that Pakistan is not willing to give in to such demands until all alternatives have been exhausted.
But is it rational to blame everything that goes wrong on Pakistan? Indian Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram has said, “I would be less than truthful if I said there were no lapses,” assuring that security breaches would be looked into. The police have also uncovered an Indian suspect named Faim Ansari, who was carrying maps and other materials that planned out the Mumbai attacks. The Indian police has indicated that there might be more Indian accomplices other than Ansari alone. Attacks like this are not uncommon in a country where religious fanatics, tribal Communist organizations, and Naxalite attacks occur on an almost-daily basis. Although Pakistan seems to be the root of these attacks, they’re not the only ones to be blamed for Mumbai. India is to be equally blamed for its security lapses and its intelligence errors.
Foreign involvement in this issue is useless. Despite Condoleezza Rice’s urges towards a peaceful relationship, both countries will agree to it on paper and go back to attacking each other again. The issue is just a continuation of the decades-old rivalry between India and Pakistan, and both parties will never chose to resolve it because each is the other’s scapegoat for everything that’s wrong. If anything, both groups involved must talk to each other without intermediaries, as both leaders comprehend the historical opposition better than any foreign entity could understand. But the impetus for this must come from genuine concern, not begrudging responses to foreign pressure. They must hold honest peace talks that don’t involve empty promises and actually try to work on issues like terrorism that are tearing their foreign relations apart before the hatred fuels a full-scale war.
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