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Why India can't back off now

Can India go on drawing a fresh line in the sand after each major terrorist attack without undermining its credibility? Also, can India continue to gear up for war and yet achieve its objectives merely by the threat to use military force? These two key questions are connected and need to be examined carefully.

Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee has vowed to retaliate against the May 14 terrorist attack by Pakistani infiltrators on women and children inside a camp of the Indian Army's Tiger Division. However, after the October 1 terrorist strike at the Jammu and Kashmir legislature, Vajpayee had told US President George W Bush by a letter that India's restraint will go if there were another major attack by a Pakistani militant group. In fact, Vajpayee told Bush, 'Pakistan must understand that there is a limit to the patience of the people of India.'

When five Pakistani gunmen attempted to storm the Indian Parliament on December 13 and kill the country's elected leadership, Vajpayee drew a new line in the sand. In doing so, he exercised an important military option -- mobilising Indian forces at land and sea for possible war against Pakistan. He also carried out two rounds of diplomatic sanctions against Islamabad.

Five months later, with Pakistani military dictator Pervez Musharraf moving backwards on his terrorism pledges and the level of Pakistan-linked terrorist violence rising in J&K, the question arises whether India has crossed the threshold of its patience or is trying to yet again draw a fresh line in the sand. As part of the new flurry of activity, India has expelled the Pakistani high commissioner months after it should have, and put its paramilitary troops along the land border and the coast guard under the command of the army and navy respectively.

India's frustration is understandable. Although Musharraf has gone from being an international pariah to being the West's golden boy, this has brought no respite to India from Pakistani terrorism. The reasons are twofold: India joined the West's war on terrorism, but the West has not joined India's battle against terrorism; and Pakistan's reluctance to match its anti-terrorism words with deeds has been compounded by India's failure to match its threats of counteraction with actual action. It is thus not a surprise that the level of terrorist-related killings in J&K during March to May, according to government figures, shows an increase in violence as compared to the same period last year.

The Vajpayee government has to recognise that a willing-to-wound-but-afraid-to-strike posture can be counterproductive. All talk and no action emboldens the enemy because it conveys a message that India is gutless and can continue to be masochistically bled by its much-smaller adversary.

In answering the question whether India can continue to gear up for war when its intent is only to use the threat of force to achieve its objectives, a central truth has to be borne in mind. In inter-state relations, a threat to use force can achieve the same results as actually employing force, but only if the country concerned is prepared to carry through on that threat. In other words, the threat to use force has to be credible in the eyes of the adversary.

The problem for India is that Musharraf and his fellow generals see its threat to use force as a bluff, believing India has no nerve to carry through on its threat. This is evident not only from Musharraf's mocking comments that the Indians want his help to rescue their troops along the border from being seared by the intense heat, but also by his actions of the past three months.

In this quarter, Musharraf has gone back on his January 12 promises -- made under India's threat of war -- to clamp down on Pakistani terrorist networks. Having concluded that the Indians were bluffing, Musharraf has quietly released most of the 2,000 militants he arrested as part of his much-publicised anti-terrorist crackdown. They include leaders of two Pakistani terrorist outfits tied to Al Qaeda -- Lashkar-e-Tayiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed. Not one of those he detained has been charged.

Musharraf has also allowed the terrorist outfits he banned in January to regroup under new names. For example, Lashkar-e-Tayiba, or Army of the Righteous, has changed its name to Jamaat-ad-Dawa, or the Party of Preachers. The terrorists' publications, although not banned, have followed their parent organisations in changing names -- the magazine, Jaish-e-Muhammad [Soldiers of the Prophet], now goes by al-Islah [Reform], while Weekly Jihad has been renamed Ghazwa [Battle].

Against this background, it is apparent that India has a credibility problem on hand in relation to Pakistan. To top it, Vajpayee has a credibility problem at home, with his handling of Gujarat, Kashmir, Pakistan and the economy raising questions about his leadership qualities.

Given this double credibility problem, Indians as much as Pakistanis are waiting to see if Vajpayee will carry through on his threat to retaliate against Pakistan. But with each additional step it takes to be ready for war, including placing the paramilitary forces and coast guard under military command, the government is putting itself on the path towards the actual use of force.

Consequently, India finds itself today in a military position from which it cannot back off. The logic of the events seems to be compelling India towards openly joining the undeclared, one-sided war being pursued against it by Pakistan for years.

The time limit in which India may be forced to join this war, however, remains unclear. This is because the decision on when to join the battle may not be made by the Vajpayee government but be imposed on it by Pakistani terrorists who carry out more macabre killings in India.

The irony is that these terrorists, although linked to Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency, may not all be under the control of Musharraf and his Cabinet. But by failing to clamp down on terrorist groups based in Pakistan, Musharraf is inviting India to hit back. In fact, in the run-up to the sham referendum he held on his self-declared presidency, Musharraf openly mollycoddled Islamists in an effort to buy their support, freeing from custody many extremists.

Is a full-blown war, therefore, inevitable? By pampering rather than containing the viper that he and his fellow generals reared against India, Musharraf has made Indian military counteraction likely in the coming months. Only one thing can avert an Indian military riposte -- if even now the United States, Britain and other Western powers can compel Musharraf to begin fulfilling his January 12 anti-terrorism pledges.

In recent days, international pressure on Musharraf has begun to mount, with Western interlocutors delivering blunt messages to him. This pressure will rise further when British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and US Undersecretary of State Richard Armitage visit Islamabad in the coming days.

A genuine crackdown on Pakistani terrorist groups could dramatically disperse the war clouds even at this late stage.

India cannot indefinitely stay stuck in a position in which it can neither wage war nor pursue peace. To put a halt to Pakistan's undeclared war, India will have to stay the present course, even if means open war.

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