VIEW: Your turn, Mr Pillai —Naeem Tahir

Mr Pillai must have yielded to the Hindutva pressure. He rushed to embarrass his own external affairs minister by blaming Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence of being behind the Mumbai terror attacks

This comes as no surprise for those who have studied the strategies of the Indian Sangh Parivar. Once again India and Pakistan wanted to talk sense, look at ways to improve relations and behave as civilised neighbours. But would the Hindutva groups let it happen? Of course not! Their agendas have nothing to do with those of the foreign ministers. They have perfected the technique of blowing away goodwill efforts. Thus something had to be done and this time G K Pillai, secretary ‘interior’, chose to meddle in the affairs of the ‘exterior’.

It appears that considerable and sincere efforts had preceded the meeting between Shah Mehmood and S M Krishna. A smiling Nirupama Rao visited Islamabad, finalised the agenda, and left in an optimistic mood. When the Indian external affairs minister arrived, and as the receptions and other goodies were continuing, one noticed that something was going wrong. A damper from Mr Pillai had worked. While the favourite whip (the Mumbai attacks) of the Indian administration was beginning to fade and both governments were cooperating in bringing the culprits to book, something new had to be brought to the surface. Mr Pillai decided to leak the contents of the so-called ‘interrogation’ of David Headley. He even took the risk of violating diplomatic norms by making statements about a sub judice case in the US. Mr Pillai must have yielded to the Hindutva pressure. He rushed to embarrass his own external affairs minister by blaming Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence of being behind the Mumbai terror attacks. Obviously he showed a lack of confidence in Mr Krishna and made sure that the environment during the talks was disturbed.

If Mr Pillai was to be fair, honest, and interested in determining all the facts of the Mumbai carnage, then he should have also acknowledged the covert involvement of the Indian Intelligence Bureau (IB). He should have asked for an investigation as to why did the IB let the attack happen when they had clear, credible and actionable intelligence available (at least four days before the onslaught began) about the movement of the terrorists towards the coast of Mumbai. Stopping the terrorists would have been no problem because the Indian navy was already deployed in that part of the sea and was carrying out exercises. The information was also not made available to the city police, which could have made checks even when the terrorists reached the coast. Why did Secretary Pillai not refer to the books and investigative material contained in publications like Who Killed Karkare? by a former inspector general of the Maharashtra Police? Or why did he not bother to check Vinita Kamte’s To The Last Bullet? He had probably ignored the July issue of Outlook magazine as well. It is hard to believe that he is not aware of all this. He cannot be so naïve; after all, he is a very senior civil servant. It had to be intentional because if he had shown knowledge of these, then India would have had to share the onus of responsibility for the happening. But, of course, the government wants to appear totally ‘kosher’. The Hidutva/Pillai move seems to have been well thought out in order to derive maximum benefit.

There are several precedents for such sabotage. The Sangh Parivar and Hindutva terror mechanism, with the support of IB, had done it during former Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri’s visit to India by blowing up the Samjhota Express in 2007, and then squarely putting the blame on Pakistan. The investigation revealed that one of the accused had been dead for over a decade and the other one had been in police custody for several days before the incident! At this stage, the IB quickly had the Samjhota investigation stopped. It was much later that Anti-Terrorist Squad Chief Hemant Karkare uncovered Abhinav Bharat’s involvement. One is also reminded of President Pervez Musharraf’s bold initiatives to settle disputes amicably. When everything seemed to be working well during his visit to India and the two countries were close to make a historic breakthrough, the Bharatiya Janata Party-run government pressurised Prime Minister Atal Vajpayee to back out of signing the document.

This time around, the two governments had openly discussed and agreed to deal with the terrorists and hold the talks, and so the old tactics were hard to follow. A new way had to be discovered in order to sabotage the negotiations. Mr Pillai rose to the occasion and dug out the dead horse of the Mumbai attacks and flogged it. It was the first time perhaps that instead of a covert action, the interior secretary played a role in an official capacity. He stepped in and gave his own version of Headley’s statements, embarrassed Mr Krishna, and spoiled the mood of the talks. The Hindutva supporters and the Sangh Parivar combined must be preparing for the next round as well. Beware!

David Headley is as much a criminal for Pakistan as he is for India or the US. It may be advisable that Pakistani investigators also grill him and find out his contacts in the Indian IB. There are questions about his association with US secret agencies. How could he operate so freely while being under constant surveillance by multiple US agencies? It should also be investigated who was communicating with the Indian IB and updating it with the movements of the Mumbai terrorists while they were at sea.

Mr Pillai got no appreciation from his government but did get a pat on the back from the BJP. They have prevented the normalisation of relations by the skin of their teeth. One hopes that the Sangh Parivar/Hindutva group will run out of tactics and the will of the sensible and peaceful people of the two countries will ultimately prevail.

Naeem Tahir is a culture and media management specialist, a researcher, author, director and actor