I’ve tried hard to understand the Pakistani response. After all, only a week before the Bombay incidents, we were talking about a no-first-use nuclear commitment from Islamabad and were hopeful that President Asif Zardari’s friendly statements marked the beginning of a new era in India-Pakistan ties.
Could it be, I wondered, that in our anger over Bombay we were being unreasonable in our demands? Were we expecting too much of Pakistan? Otherwise, why is it that even the so-called Pakistani thinkers and intellectuals who regularly appear at peace seminars and Track Two meetings are being so unsympathetic to India’s complaints?
The Pakistani position, insofar that I can understand it, has two primary components. The first comes from government sources and goes something like this.
Of course there are terrorists in Pakistan. But they are not part of the State machinery. Rather they are freelance jihadis who target Pakistan even more than they target India. Yes, Kasab is a Pakistani and so perhaps were many of the other Bombay attackers. But this, by itself, proves nothing. The 9/11 terrorists who brought down the World Trade Center towers were Saudi Arabians. Nonetheless, the United States did not take the attitude that this meant that the attacks had the support of the Saudi government. It recognised that the terrorists were as much against the Saudi regime as they were against the US administration.
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3:49 AM
Moderate Islamist here
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