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Writing at a time when the great
euphoria generated during the Vajpayee-Musharraf Summit at Agra
had wilted into the disappointment of its eventual outcome, it
is necessary to restore a balance in the suddenly destabilized
perspectives on various conflicts in India. The uncritical hysteria
of expectations and the almost delusional character of 'analyses'
that dominated the media reportage and subsequent discourse on
the 'peace initiative', had pushed the ground realities of the
conflicts, both in Kashmir and in other theatres, into the far
background, infinitely distanced from the events in the shadow
of the Taj Mahal.
The truth is, even as the Indian
Prime Minister and the Pakistan President-cum-CEO-cum-COAS met,
border skirmishes were escalating along the LoC and international
border in Kashmir, as was terrorist and counter-terrorist operations,
and just during the three days on which the two leaders met, a
total of 87 persons were killed in J&K. In the first 16 days of
July alone - and including the days over which the Musharraf-Vajpayee
Talks were held, 256 persons were killed. Even by the extraordinary
standards of the preceding month of June, when total casualties
rose to 320 (against an average of 274 each month through the
year 2000, the bloodiest year in 12 years of terrorism in J&K),
this was an unacceptable scenario as a backdrop to 'negotiations
for peace'. Clearly, neither leader saw fit to de-escalate violence
in order to create an atmosphere conducive to resolution and there
appears, in fact, to have been a certain intensification of offensive
operations by both sides in order to secure a 'negotiating advantage'
at the talks. A realistic assessment of the situation in Kashmir
would easily have predicted both such a trend and the eventual
outcome of the negotiations.1
The crucial point here is that
'peace processes' and 'agreements' themselves do not make peace.
This truth was brought home with brutal force by events in another,
relatively distant theatre, when the 'extension of ceasefire'
agreement between the Centre and the NSCN-IM in Nagaland, set
neighboring Manipur aflame, undermining the tenuous stability
that appeared to be emerging in other States of the region.
It is not possible here to enter
into an enumeration of the flaws of these various processes, but
these reflect, in the main, a failure to understand or come to
terms with the real character and magnitude of terrorism, and
of those who resort to, or support and sponsor, terrorist movements.
The result is a complex and destructive dynamic of fragmented
and unimaginative state responses confronting the endless flexibility
of constantly mutating terrorist organizations. The papers in
this volume look at various aspects of the inadequacy, the arbitrariness
and the failure of state responses, and at some of the 'adaptive
mechanisms' displayed by terrorist groups. The increasing criminalization
and the progressive dilution of the ideological or political basis
of anti-state violence, and the inability of the state to define
a coherent response to these trends - indeed, the proclivity of
state policies to worsen the situation through discriminatory
incentives in favor of criminalized terrorist groupings - is one
of the major concerns addressed. The actual impact of the initial
phases of the 'peace process' in Kashmir is also assessed, as
are the challenges and complexities of multi-Force counter-terrorism
operations. Finally, the importance of a more rigorous approach
that seeks to marry the perspectives of policy makers and field
operative to the methodologies evolved in contemporary social
sciences, is emphasized in an effort to create an effective and
creative symbiosis between two fields, theory and practice, that
are integrally linked. Such a cooperative enterprise is necessary
now, if counter-terrorism and security policy and strategy are
to be constructed on a more consistent and principled basis.
Ajai Sahni
July 15, 2001
- See. for instance,
K.P.S. Gill, "Time to stand up to, not for, Pakistan," The Pioneer.
New Delhi. July 14. 2001; K.P.S. Gill. "Not
Another Kargil, Please".
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