How India tripped on the Pakistan front

If Pakistan has won round one in the eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation following the Mumbai terror attacks, India has only its own poorly-thought-out strategy to blame.

The worldwide outrage following the Mumbai carnage and strident calls for action against terror outfits based in Pakistan appear to have fizzled out, with the international community shifting focus from terror to stopping a military escalation on the India-Pakistan border.

So where did India go wrong? Could the government have played its cards differently? The answer is both yes and no, say strategic analysts.

The main goof-up from India’s side was in not realising the extent to which the US and Nato depend on Pakistan for their own war on terror being fought in Afghanistan. Thus when India shifted its focus from the need to act against terror groups in Pakistan and began muttering darkly about keeping “all options open,” Pakistan seized its chance and began talking of a war threat.

The repeated statements of Pranab Mukherjee about keeping all options open allowed Pakistan to interpret it as a military threat and create its own war hysteria. Once the Pakistan army managed to label India’s pronouncements as an existential threat, all Pakistani politicians had to fall in line. As the tension was escalated by border movements, the world started worrying about a nuclear fallout between the two countries.

The US and Nato were also worried about the implications of Pakistan’s movement of troops from the Afghan border, where it was battling the jihadis, to the Indian border. “Pakistan's military have deep linkages with the US, China and Saudi Arabia and these connections were revived by the saber-rattling from both sides. The Americans, too, want to push only up to a point,” says analyst C Uday Bhaskar. “The best way to hit Pakistan where it hurts is through the IMF, World Bank and stopping all financial help to Pakistan, but is the US ready for this?'” Uday Bhaskar wonders.

Some analysts believe that India should have anticipated the Pakistani response and curtailed the war talk.  Insiders in the government, said in the beginning New Delhi’s response was ambiguous, hinting at the possibility of military action. Even if the government did not spell this out, there were enough leaks to the media to suggest that either a precision strike on terror camps, or all out war, might be in the offing. This played right into the hands of the Pakistani military, which used this to hype up the border tension. It took quite some time for India to clarify its stance. But by then the damage had been done.

However, some analysts feel that India may have lost a battle, but not the war. “By mobilising troops, Pakistan was able to introduce a different element into the post-Mumbai terror diplomacy. But to conclude that Pakistan is out of the woods is not right. The international community knows who is responsible for the attacks. Pakistan will have to pay a price,” said former foreign secretary Salman Haider.