Rajiv Dogra: India remains a punching bag for terror

Post 9/11, we thought we could ‘outsource’ our terror related problems to America. It had already come to our help politically during the Kargil war.

Now, as a fellow victim, it should have even greater empathy with our plight as the world’s single largest sufferer from terror. So we naively assumed that in a reverse ‘BPO’ operation, America would put its brains and brawn to our benefit too when it takes on the Af-Pak terror machine.

We weren’t the only ones to blunder on a monumental scale. Look at what Tony Blair told the Labour Party Conference soon after 9/11; “This is a moment to seize. The kaleidoscope has been shaken. The pieces are in flux. Soon, they will settle again. Before they do, let us reorder the world around us.”

Nothing of what Blair said has come about. The kaleidoscope is still spinning crazily. The pieces remain strewn on the global chess board and the approaching recession does not augur an ordered world. Still Blair should be given credit for his soaring rhetoric; it reflected the spirit of the times. Alas, in India, Nehru was the last great leader to enthuse people with rhetorical flourishes. He had a way with words, even if his ideas and beliefs were flawed sometimes.

Since then we have lost the art of dreaming big.

Post 9/11 there was an opportunity. As major victims ourselves, we could have led the world in the realm of ideas, at least, in fighting terror. Instead, we decided to rent out our responsibilities to America.

After every terror strike we beseeched it to intercede on our behalf with Pakistan. The Gandhian principles of self reliance and self respect belonged, perhaps, to another age. But let us see look at what shape the West was in, before and after 9/11.

Prior to 9/11, the West was in a jaunty state. The dotcom-bubble burst had been overcome. Oil price was a low $28 per barrel.

America was the sole super power; its word was law in international affairs. It was running budget surpluses and a rising economy. Its allies in Europe were exulting after the introduction of a strong Euro. The West, in sum, was confident that it could continue to shape the world.

Nothing, therefore, had prepared it for 9/11. Ten years later America looks worn out. It is running huge budgetary deficits. The expenditure of nearly four trillion dollars on ill conceived and badly managed wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has drained its economy.

The American army is increasingly risk averse; preferring drones to fight its wars. Its allies in Europe are a dispirited lot, with an ageing population and a botched experiment with the common currency.      

For the first time in 400 years, the West can no longer order the world. Even Osama couldn’t have imagined that he might succeed to such an extent. Meanwhile, China lurks in the wings as a challenger. But what about us?  Have we become any safer since 9/11?

Sadly, no. Diplomatic disasters like Sharm-el-Sheikh have reinforced the image of weakness. There is also the mysterious folly of starting negotiations with Pakistan, though it hasn’t helped us in combating terror. This policy of peace at any cost is completely out of tune with the national mood.

Our national calendar has been scarred regularly by terror attacks. Our response, each time, has been predictably staid and similar: hand-wringing and lament, nothing more.  Doesn’t that embolden the terrorists further?

Ten years after 9/11, the West is a safer place. But it is in a military and economic decline. Economically, we had a chance on the global stage. Instead, we may be clinging precariously to a slippery pole. There are reports that even as we promise everlasting fraternity to Pakistan, it is reinvigorating the Lashkar and Jaish cadres to bleed us further.

If these reports are even marginally correct, then the coming months and years would be of considerable trial for us. In the last ten years, Indians have done well to put the economy on an ascending track. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about our strategic environment. China hovers threateningly to the north. Pakistan gloats over our timid response to terror.

The Pakistani army and the ISI must be befuddled by the Indian government’s infinite capacity for losing human lives to terror. Fed up by this, it is quite possible that in the coming months and years, their aim might be to cripple us economically by attacking our industrial complexes as well.

The writer is a former diplomat, and novelist