What Mumbai Means for Pakistan

India has demanded that Pakistan hand over 20 fugitives.  Or else.  Or else what, exactly?  War?  If India's government accepts that Pakistan's government was not responsible for the attack (that is after all not the same thing as saying that the attackers came from, or were trained in, a "foreign country"), then this is to say the least unhelpful.  Pakistan is facing a terrorism problem more severe than India's and more complicated; this kind of rhetoric handicaps the Pakistani government -- just as Obama's rhetoric, during the campaign -- when it needs a full spectrum strategy to deal with a terrible and tremendous threat to its stability and sovereignty. 

Rightfully, India and Indians are angry at the vile attacks in Mumbai, but a response must consider the long-term consequences of further destabilizing Pakistan -- not only for the Pakistani population, which has also been savaged by this disgusting violence, but for the chaos it would unleash on India and Indians.

India's exaggerated claims aside, India cannot militarily, financially or politically contain a fragmented Pakistan, and would face, potentially, a serious wave of violence that would try the state and perhaps handicap it severely.  This is a worst-case scenario, but when dealing with two nuclear powers, side by side, with a history of violence internally and externally, it is good to consider worst-case scenarios.

Simultaneously, Pankaj Mishra has chimed in, speaking of a Kashmir connection.  He also notes the rhetorical side of the militants' attacks:

MIDWAY through last week’s murderous rampage in Mumbai, one of the suspected gunmen at the besieged Jewish center called a popular Indian TV channel. Speaking in Urdu (the primary language of Pakistan and many Indian Muslims), he ranted against the recent visit of an Israeli general to the Indian-ruled section of the Kashmir Valley. Referring to the Pakistan-backed insurgency in the valley, and the Indian military response to it, he asked, “Are you aware how many people have been killed in Kashmir?”

In a separate phone call, another gunman invoked the oppression of Muslims by Hindu nationalists and the destruction of the Babri Mosque in Ayodhya in 1992. Such calls were the only occasions on which the militants, whom initial reports have tied to the Pakistani jihadist group Lashkar-e-Taiba, offered a likely motive for their indiscriminate slaughter. Their rhetoric seems all too familiar. Nevertheless, it shows how older political conflicts in South Asia have been rendered more noxious by the fallout from the “war on terror” and the rise of international jihadism.

We should, at the least, now what is being said, and about what, and why.  This especially is key:

Pakistan’s new civilian government is too weak to control either the extremist groups within the country or the various rogue elements within its military and intelligence. The American military was reported to have started bombing supposed terrorist hideouts inside Pakistan’s borders even as General Musharraf stumbled to the exit. As its increasingly desperate pleas to the Bush administration to stop the attacks go unheeded, Pakistan’s government appears pathetically helpless to its own citizens.

Juan Cole cites reports that Mumbai's Muslim community has refused to bury the militants responsible.  There's a short but interesting debate in the comments section.

Comments

[Mezba]

I find it amusing that people think India cannot contain a fragmented Pakistan as they don't see history. Pakistani WAS divided once before - 1971 - and India had no resulting spike in violence or whatever.

[Which Main? What Cross?]

With a nuclear deterrent in place, a full scale war is unlikely. India's posing is just a way to put pressure on the Pakistan Govt. to fight the terrorists.