More interaction through the creation of ‘a dozen more crossing sites’ like the India-Pakistan gates would result in permanent migration as well as illegal immigration and the settlement of terrorist and fanatic elements. It will create havoc deep inside the Indian hinterland
Bruce Riedel, a former Central Intelligence Agency professional with almost three decades of experience, is well known. He also served as a senior advisor to four US Presidents on Middle East and South Asian issues. Further, as an author of several high profile and much publicised books on Al Qaeda, Pakistan and jihad, his views and comments are noted. Hence his recent edit-page publication in an Indian daily, titled, ‘let there be more Wagahs’, advising (from an American’s global perspective) the people of India in general, and the Government of India in particular, deserves close scrutiny, especially from an Indian’s point of view, which, understandably, may be a regional, (rather South Asian), and not necessarily, assessment from global angle.
Mr Riedel’s advisory to India follows the fidayeen bomb attack of November 2 inside Pakistan’s Punjab Province, which incidentally is not far from the Indo-Pak international border. The US advisor-author’s writing starts with ominous confession, bordering on a warning, that “the terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan is audacious”. He reiterates what is in the realm of open source information, known to, and acknowledged by, the world — that the “terror groups are patronised by the Pakistan Army, like the lashkar-e-Tayyeba and Jaish-e-Mohammed”; that “Ayman al-Zawahiri is....living in Pakistan....announcing the formation of a new Al-Qaeda organisation, renamed, Jamaat Qaedat al-Jihad fi’shibhi al-qarrat al-Hindiya or the Organisation of The Base of Jihad in the Indian Sub-Continent” which is to ‘return Islam’s rule’ to the Indian subcontinent....and “threatens a wave of jihadist attacks in India”.
Asim Umar, the reported new leader, further “reminded Muslims in India that they ruled India for 800 years and that it was time to return to Islamic rule and law in the sub-continent”. In this connection, US national David Headley’s contribution, connivance and collusion with the Pakistani murderers of the Mumbai mayhem is also mentioned in the despatches of Mr Riedel. That is not all; Mr Riedel finds a common thread between the Mumbai attack in 2008, plot to attack Copenhagen in 2009, Gujarat riots in 2002, attack on India’s Herat mission in 2014, the suicide attack near Wagah in November 2014 and the most “fantastical” of all, the Al Qaeda attack on Karachi naval base of Pakistan on September 2014 which according to Mr Riedel would have “to use the PNS frigate Zulfiqar’s cruise missiles to attack US navy ships working in the multi-national counter-piracy operation in the Gulf of Aden and the Arabian Sea.” Assuming without conceding, what Mr Riedel says could be correct, one finds his last point, on hijacked PNS Zulfiqar being used by the Pakistani and Al Qaeda terrorists, navigating the warship, all the way, more than 500 nautical miles to attack the all powerful American fleet, far-fetched, to say the least. With advanced space technology to identify, detect, track and destroy an hostile ship with rogue elements steering the vessel, is the US that incapable or incompetentIJ I certainly do not believe that. Mr Riedel is needlessly trying to portray his own country’s naval and defence capability in poor light, and also spreading fear psychosis on the mind of the universally perceived “weak” Indian establishment, perhaps on the basis of his past experience.
The CIA officer-turned-scholar-author’s points that “the extremists in Al Qaeda, the lashkar-e-Tayyeba and other jihadi groups are shifting their focus to the east after years of fighting in Afghanistan, the drawdown of North Atlantic Treaty Organisation forces” .......and makes India their favourite target. Hence, India and Pakistan “urgently need a dozen more crossing sites like Wagah”. The logic is the age-old, but futile and non-applicable, external formula-cum-suggestion to India, that the “more interaction between average Indians and Pakistanis, the less likely that another terror attack could create confrontation and war.”
One is indeed surprised by such formula-fixed-ideas and assertions by a reputed Western scholar-author. It clearly shows that either the author has not perceived the existing ground reality or he is inclined not to see innumerable direct, circumstantial and credible evidence, witness, writings and assessments by and from across the globe which would run contrary to what has been suggested.
In fact, one does not have to go far. Mr Riedel himself had written in his book, Armageddon, in 2013 thus: “Washington should quietly and forcefully encourage New Delhi to be more flexible on Kashmir. It is clearly in the American interest...” Again, Mr Riedel had rightly identified the core India-Pakistan problem in the same book: Pakistani terror outfits “seek the creation of Muslim caliphate over the entire subcontinent. The role model is the old Mughal Empire of the 17th and 18th centuries, under which a Muslim minority ruled the Hindu majority and dominated most of the subcontinent. The vision is the destruction of India as a state as the stated goal is not to rest until the whole of India is dissolved into Pakistan.”
Needless to state that, after this two contrasting scenario which has been drawn in 2013 and now in 2014, one wonders as to how will India be safer or more secure with an advisory like “let there be more Wagahs”IJ Does the advisor sincerely mean what he saysIJ Or has he only his own country’s (America) national interest in mind without taking into any consideration the actual and real threat scenario which India is facing since 1947 from across the north-western frontier when invasion of India began October 1947IJ
let us face it. More interaction through creation of “a dozen more crossing sites” like the India-Pakistan gates would result in permanent migration as well as illegal immigration and settlement of terrorist, militant and religious fanatic elements creating havoc deep inside Indian hinterland. As it is, India is facing uninterrupted and ceaseless demographic invasion from the eastern front since 1947. First came the genuine and bona fide Hindu Bengali refugees from the Islamic State of Pakistan with no reciprocal/matching migration from India. And post-1971, the Muslims are coming in hordes, after tasting the liberal and free environment of India thereby dis-balancing the demography, polity as well as economics of the Hindu majority, non-Muslim, India.
Hence, further migration from the east and fresh penetration from several points from the west will inevitably turn India into something which happens to be the cherished goal of the Pakistan and the various Islamic fundamental and militant groups (created and nurtured by them) about which and whom Mr Riedel has so lucidly written in Armageddon.
A question crosses one’s mind. Today are we to follow the concept of nation-state as was envisaged in 1648 by the Treaty of Westphalia or does Mr Riedel want India to take cue from “Schengen” type “free-movement and settlement” Europe of the present era in which an East European prefers to migrate to England but an Englishman is not interested to settle anywhere beyond the Alps! Indeed it is difficult to fathom as to what the implication of the western advisory to India could be. One burning issue (of the West) could be referred to perhaps. Unlike the unfriendly India and Pakistan, the US and Mexico are friendly neighbours, both being Christian majority states. Yet, they have a regular international borderIJ And cross-border migration is disallowed without valid documentsIJ Still, the US is facing massive illegal migration from across the border by non-adultsIJ In fact migration is a subject of raging debate thereIJ Similarly, migration within the European Union is a point of serious discussion and disputeIJ Then, why this advisory to India, which, unlike the USA-Mexico or ‘one Europe’, is facing a life-and-death scenario from its eternally hostile neighbourhood the foundation of which is based on murder, religion and hatredIJ The advisory is misplaced and is not in India’s national interest.