Book review: 'Storming the World Stage'

Book: Storming the World Stage: The Story of Lashkar-e-Taiba
Stephen Tankel
Hachette
352 pages
Rs550

Most Indian prime ministers seem to get lost in terms of their Pakistan policy, thanks to their ostensible quest to find lasting peace with Islamabad, and in the bargain earn not just the Peace Nobel, but also an indestructible place in the subcontinent’s history.

Just to name the last two, AB Vajpayee attempted it, and in return got egg aplenty on his face — and a bit of blood too — in the form of Agra and Kargil. The incumbent is now at it again, recently calling his Pakistani counterpart a ‘man of peace’ (he has as of now managed to keep his job, unlike his challenger in 2009 who lost his for calling Jinnah secular.) His comments came days after Pakistan removed the Jamaat-ud-Dawa — the Lashkar-e-Taiba’s front organisation and benign face in society — from its list of banned outfits.

Storming The World Stage — The Story Of Lashkar-e-Taiba is a timely reminder about why our PMs are wrong. The book explains how, first, what Pakistan’s civilian establishment does or says doesn’t matter one bit.

Second, the army and ISI pull the levers of power, and the third, the kind of leverage that the Lashkar has over not just the Pakistani establishment but also the Pakistani people. To understand the power and reach of LeT, the book says, you don’t need to look any further than how the outfit employs its two-pronged strategy — Jihad and Dawa — which dictates that it is a twin responsibility to wage jihad and to serve the community.

This is far removed from the ideology of the other mujahideen outfits that mushroomed during the Afghan war and also during the heights of militancy in Kashmir, which were focussed solely on waging war. But the manner in which Lashkar has touched the common Pakistani (the most significant being the manner in which it unleashed its social infrastructure to reach where the state could not in the aftermath of the 2005 earthquake that devastated PoK) is what sets it apart, according to the book.

And by clearly stating that India is its prime enemy, the outfit has become the ISI’s darling. Citing past instances and well-backed arguments, Stephen Tankel asks the alarming questions: How long will LeT remain ISI’s subsidiary? What happens if it decides to take things in its own hands?

This is the same outfit that had defied the ISI’s diktats during the Afghan jihad by supporting the mujahideen when the Pakistani state was trying to look like it was reining them in. And there are more alarm bells that should ring equally loud for India, the rest of the world and Pakistan itself.

India because, the book traces Lashkar’s origins in the Kashmir theatre and explains how it gets a free hand to operate in the valley even while other outfits are restrained; the world because, it may most likely replace the al-Qaeda. And most importantly Pakistan because, the Lashkar’s ambitions outweigh the ISI’s strategic goals. If there are any problems with the book it is that it gets a bit repetitive with placing organisations and situations with every mention and it does read a bit dry. But then, that comes with the territory for a book as academically sound as this is. At best, they are minor irritants and wouldn’t prevent you from wanting to plough your way through till the end.