Terrorists fail to scuttle India-Pakistan peace process

Terrorists fail to scuttle India-Pakistan peace process

Siddhartha Kumar, Guardian News Service, New Delhi

Even fire-crackers ignited by children ahead of the Hindu
festival Diwali are now enough to make Delhi residents' heart
skip a beat.

A rude reminder of the powerful blasts that ripped through the
city's marketplaces Saturday, making the busy Indian capital
lapse into a grim, melancholy silence seen only in the aftermath
of a such an attack.

One of the chief aims behind the terrorist attacks - which
struck with "maximum impact" in two coordinated blasts in busy
shopping areas in the heart of the Indian capital - was to
jettison the India- Pakistan peace process.

While such attacks in India in the past invariably put a
question mark over the fate of the India-Pakistan peace process,
it was not the case this time.

Soon after Delhi's worst-ever terror attack, the regional
neighbors displayed the political will to take a landmark step to
improve relations, rendering futile efforts by militants to
scuttle the peace process, analysts said.

In an unprecedented move, Pakistani and Indian diplomats
successfully concluded negotiations to open points along the de
facto border or Line of Control (LoC) to facilitate relief in
wake of the devastating earthquake that claimed thousands of
lives in the Kashmir region.

Indian media also reported that terrorist organizations who
planned the blasts in New Delhi were incensed at the progress in
the peace process, particularly as discussions to open the LoC
were perceived as a signal towards bilateral ties.

The nuclear-armed neighbors with a history of hostile
relations thus consolidated the peace process they embarked on
last year.

"Notwithstanding the fact that the terrorists are linked or
not linked to Pakistan, as that is yet unclear, India-Pakistan
relations have acquired a certain resilience whereby they can
sustain and are not changed by Saturday's attack," said Commodore
Uday Bhaskar, deputy director of Institute of Defense Studies and
Analyses.

New Delhi has long accused Pakistan of training and aiding
terrorists who carry out attacks in India, particularly in the
Kashmir region over which the two neighbors have fought two of
three wars since independence.

Kashmir and terrorism are the two main elements in the peace-
process between the neighbors. India has on several occasions
asked Pakistan to rein in terrorists and dismantle the terror
infrastructure on its soil. Pakistan calls the militants in
Kashmir, freedom-fighters, but has banned some groups based on
its soil.

The current equation between the neighbors is even more
significant, if the role played by militants in upsetting India-
Pakistan ties is considered.

Pakistan-based Moslem terrorist organizations Lashkar-e-Toiba
(LeT) and Jaish-E-Mohammed (JeM) which are suspected by the
Indian police of being behind the Delhi attacks, carried out an
attack on the Indian parliament in 2001, bringing the neighbors
to the brink of a full-scale war.

LeT which is fighting to end Delhi's control over Kashmir has
been blamed for several attacks in Indian-administered Kashmir
and other parts of India.

LeT chose sensitive places like places of worship, like the
Swami Narayan Temple or just before Diwali, to spark communal
strife in India that would disrupt daily life and thus affect the
peace dialogue with Pakistan.

In July this year, LeT was believed to be involved in the
attack on India's best-known communal tinderbox, the Ram
Janambhoomi Babri Masjid complex in the northern Indian town of
Ayodhya. The site is disputed between Hindus and Moslems.

Soon after the attack, Indian Premier Manmohan Singh calling
it a "major incident" expressed concern that "these incidents...
have the potential to disrupt" the India Pakistan peace process.
But the atmosphere in the India-Pakistan dialogue have clearly
changed since then.

"It is a positive augury ... the dialogue process has acquired
such resilience," Bhaskar said. "That is demonstrated by the fact
that Islamabad was quick to lend its voice in the international
condemnation of the attacks in India. Also, India didn't jump the
gun in pointing its finger towards Pakistan."