Once again he is trying to befuddle the world by talking about stern measures such as round up of hate-spewing clerics, packing off foreign students from Madrassas and closing down Madrassas that allegedly breed terrorists to end the long rule of terrorism and religious fanaticism in his country---without the ability or the will to do so.

Perhaps inadvertently, he has made the long overdue public acknowledgement that the world thinks Pakistan is the prime nursery for terrorism. His so-called crackdown on seminaries has contributed to strengthen the belief in the West that these religious schools in Pakistan are indeed the nurseries for jehadi terrorists who are exported to different corners of the world, including the neighbouring Kashmir. However, the latest efforts at ‘spin’ by Musharraf will give little comfort to India, if not the rest of the world. Musharraf’s words cannot be taken seriously unless proven by action.

Quite apart from his (in)famous habit of first denying and then accepting his acts of omission and commission (such as the spread of extremism and Islamic militancy in Pakistan), the General has offered some incredulous reasons for the failure of his earlier measures against religious extremism and militancy in his country. Musharraf made an ingenuous comparison between the Pakistan of 2002 and 2005, suggesting that he was now in a better position to redeem his pledge on eliminating terrorism and religious extremism.

His explanation for the failure of his 2002 steps is misleading and sounds more like a justification, mainly because the hold of religious fanatics in Pakistan has increased, not decreased, during these three years. Besides, when he says that he was not in a position to do what he said in 2002 it is naturally tempting to confront him with the question, “Sir, if you were not in a position to execute your writ, why did you make those high-sounding promises? Do you ever speak what you mean and mean what you say?”

The least that New Delhi can do is to expose Musharraf’s latest bluff is to seek an immediate response from Islamabad about the word the General gave to India--twice in the last one year to the two different regimes in New Delhi--on not allowing the use of any territory under Pakistan’s control for carrying out acts of terrorism against India. Have the circumstances under which he gave the earlier assurances to India changed sufficiently to enable him to fulfil his promise? No. Pakistan still believes that minus its terrorist option, it cannot even remotely think of ‘subduing’ India and eventually annexe Kashmir.

In fact, few in India believed that the General ever intended to stick to the promise he made to India in 2002 or later. He arrests preachers of hate and merchants of fanaticism but releases them after keeping them in ‘custody’—in the luxury of state guesthouses. He may have arrested and handed over to the US ‘hundreds’ of al-Qaeda operatives; but he will not touch the fugitive Taliban or the terrorists whose ‘karma bhoomi’ is Kashmir and other parts of India. That belief has been reinforced by the recent spurt in acts of terrorism in Kashmir and growing evidence of militant camps in Pakistan becoming fully operational again.

While he might find it easy to fool his Western patrons because of their notions about his indispensability in the war on terror, Musharraf should not be allowed to pull wool over the Indian eyes. He has clearly failed to keep the two previous written assurances on stamping out India-specific terrorism in his country and has now allowed the militant training camps to mushroom all over. Every now and then he issues direct or indirect threat to India that Kashmir problem must be resolved within a short time-frame or else.

Perhaps next year the General will go on the air again or corner foreign correspondents camping in his land to come out with another set of reasons for the failure of his latest (July 2005) announcements for curbing militancy and fanaticism in his country. For very few in his own country believe that the General has the will to enforce strict measures against militancy and religious extremism because his military and intelligence agencies are in cahoots with the religious fundamentalists. This tie was firmed up 26 years ago when the Western world decided to use Pakistan for its proxy war against the then Soviet Union in Afghanistan.

Large sections in Pakistan have expressed the opinion that Musharraf’s latest ‘crackdown’ on militants and religious extremists would boomerang, as it would further boost the very elements he allegedly wants to wipe out. Almost everyone in Pakistan seems to believe that the ‘hard’ decisions announced by Musharraf are aimed to please the Americans and the West—they may ultimately prove to be empty words. Many have also warned Musharraf against blindly launching a crackdown on Madrassas. According to various estimates, there are 10,000 or 12,000 Madrassas with over a million pupils.

Those who run the Madrassas have openly said they would defy the General’s orders to close shop. They have also threatened to walkout of the dialogue they had started with the government on introducing reforms in Madrassas

Musharraf might not like that to happen because in the name of reforms in Madrassas and the general education system in Pakistan he has been collecting handsome bounties from the West, with assurances of plenty of more dollars in the pipeline. He can’t be even serious because most religious leaders who till recently were firmly in Musharraf’s camp as he sought their help to consolidate his position are also tied to Madrassas. He can hardly afford to earn their hostility and alienate them because his attempts to build bridges with the mainstream ‘secular’ parties have failed, as they were bound to because of his refusal to doff his uniform.


Courtesy : Syndicate Features

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