Hafiz Saeed, and the perils of Indo-Pak ‘tandoor’ diplomacy

Among the constituency of the liberal peaceniks, there is a wistful longing for India to break bread (or, more appropriately, tandoori roti) with Pakistan at whatever cost. The ISI and the Pakistani military may be waging proxy war in Kashmir and elsewhere, but these bleeding hearts will hold candle-light vigils at Wagah and let out soulful sighs over what might have been. And, worse, they will blame Indian officialdom for failing to make the effort to make magnanimous peace with the “younger brother”. The news that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will host visiting Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari for lunch on Sunday has given cause for yet more misplaced bhai-bhai bonhomie. In their exuberance, they have overlooked the fact that even as the lunch menu is being drawn up, everyone from Pakistan’s Prime Minister to its opposition leaders is speaking up in defence and borderline praise of Hafiz Saeed, the Lashkar-e-Taiba chief who masterminded the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks along with his Pakistani handlers. [caption id=“attachment_103787” align=“alignright” width=“380” caption=“Lasting peace must await a time when Pakistan stops sponsoring jihadi snakes like Hafiz Saeed.”]  [/caption] Their defence comes in the context of the US announcement of a $10 million bounty for information that will lead to the trial and conviction of Saeed, which came barely days ahead of Zardari’s visit. That US announcement was, of course, inconvenient for peaceniks, but it didn’t take the bounty offer to show up the Pakistani establishment’s double dealing on terrorism, particularly in relation to the LeT and Saeed. Saeed is, as commentator Sadanand Dhume observes in the Wall Street Journal, the Pakistan army’s favourite jihadist. Retired officers of elite Pakistani army units, including the Special Services Group, train LeT, who is prized as an “asset” in Pakistan’s proxy war on India. LeT training camps are located near Pakistan army bases, and both the Army and the LeT recruit from pretty much the same villages. India has long sought the arrest and trial of Saeed for his role in the Mumbai attacks, but Pakistani authorities have resisted anything but the most cosmetic – and fleeting – action, which mostly manifested itself in periodic bouts of showpiece house arrests. If there is one hurdle to normalisation of relations between India and Pakistan, it is the latter’s cussed and continued support for terror groups directed at India. The near-unanimity of political support within Pakistan for Saeed, who only on Friday gave a call for jihad against America, establishes that anti-Indian sentiment runs deep. Ironically, even leaders of the party of Imran Khan, the man whom Indian peaceniks see as the Great Hope for Indo-Pak reconciliation, have come out in support of Saeed. “If anything happens to Saeed (arising from the US bounty offer), every Pakistani will become a Saeed,” one thundered on Friday. It is doubtless true that in recent years, the Pakistani civilian administration, which is waging its own battle with the ISI and the military establishment at home, has toned down its rhetoric on Kashmir in international fora - much to the agony of secessionist leaders like Syed Ali Shah Geelani (he of the “ Hum Pakistani hai, Pakistan hamara hai ” fame). Yet, so long as Pakistani leaders, from the Prime Minister downward, speak up in defence of venomous jihadi terrorists like Saeed – and the Pakistani military-ISI establishment breeds terrorists for use against India – any talk of peace in the near term is reckless. Writing in the Indian Express on Friday, Sanjaya Baru, who served as media advisor to Manmohan Singh for four years from 2004, recalls how his intervention in 2005 changed the government’s mind on inviting President Pervez Musharraf (who was angling for an invitation to witness a cricket match in Delhi). Baru’s point – on the need to downplay the importance of visits by the leaders of both India and Pakistan – is well made. But when he cites the example of Europe, where heads of government travel to each other’s capital without too much protocol, he oversimplifies the problem. Indicatively, if any of those European states were actively sponsoring terrorist groups to carry out attacks on another’s territory and people, it would hardly create an atmosphere conducive for congenial visits. The John Lennon-esque “imagine there’s no country” sentiment for peace has a certain romantic quality to it. But the yearning for lasting peace must await a time when, at the very least, Pakistan no longer spawns terrorist snakes like Hafiz Saeed in its backyard - and slips them across the border. When Manmohan Singh hosts Zardari for lunch on Sunday, one hopes that in his eagerness to secure his legacy as a peacemaker, he doesn’t overreach himself - in the way he did at Sharm-el-Sheikh. If he would only spare a thought for the victims of the Mumbai attacks and other jihadi monstrosities that Pakistan has unleashed in India, he would surely choke on his tandoori roti.