Click to play videoAs evidence of Pakistan connection to the Mumbai attacks piles up, India is hardening its stance. The Indian External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee has said that all options are now open, including a military one against Pakistan's terrorist strongholds. Meanwhile, the Pakistan government says it is open to a joint investigation into the attacks.
CNN-IBN debated on Face the Nation if India should target terror camps in Pakistan.
On the panel of experts to try and answer the question were former secretary to the Ministry of External Affairs and former ambassador to UAE and Iran, K C Singh; Senior International Correspondent CNN, Nic Robertson; Pakistani author of A Case of Exploding Mangoes fame, Mohammed Hanif; and Pakistani journalist Naseem Zehra.
At the beginning of the show, 90 per cent of those who voted in said yes, India should target terror camps in Pakistan while a minority 10 per cent disagreed.
UNREALISTIC OPTION
K C Singh said that this was not a realistic option for India, but as far as the Government is concerned he said that all options are on the table as of now.
"The time is there for us to exert pressure on other countries, get international public opinion on our side. However, we must remember that Pakistan is a nuclear weapons' state and any attack inside Pakistan is inviting war. The question really is, is that what the Pakistani military wants? Are they trying to disengage from the western side and bring their troops to the eastern side? I think we should put everything in a larger context and not be drawn emotionally into anything the Pakistani army is looking forward to," Singh cautioned.
Mohammed Hanif entered the debate at this point saying that there were parts of Pakistan which were completely lawless and where the writ of the government just did not work but they were not Muzzaffarabad - which was devastated by an earthquake - or Muridke - which is a thickly populated, struggling town in Pakistan's Punjab.
However, he conceded that there were indeed areas in Pakistan where the government was trying very hard to establish its writ.
"The Hotel Marriot blasts and the assassination of Benazir Bhutto show that Pakistan was is as much a target of terror as India, but the government of Pakistan is trying very hard. President Asif Ali Zardari has come into power less than a year ago after a very traumatic experience and he is struggling with the same issues that India is including riots, lawlessness and terrorism," said Hanif.
Hanif disagreed that former president Musharraf was effective against terrorism. "See the Pakistan he has left us," he said.
"We are at a stage where we tend to forget what is happening in our own backyard - India for us and Pakistan for you. We don't really know who is in charge," Hanif said, striking an ominous note.
WILL PAK SHIFT FOCUS?
Nic Robertson said that Pakistan seemed to be in state where it did not get affected by what has been happening anywhere in its neighbourhood. However, he disagreed that it was a tactic by Pakistan to take the focus off the western war and bring the spotlight on the east.
"What has been happening on the Afghanistan border is a situation that is very troubling and problematic for them. People are suffering and their own people are dying. Earlier they were looking at a possibility of a need to perhaps shift troops to the border with India, but subsequently backtracked from this move. It appears they don't want to escalate any notions of tension at the moment because that is counter-productive to what everyone in the region is trying to achieve - a lasting peace and stability," he said.
If Pakistan shifts focus to the east, it has a lot to lose said Robertson. "The government as well as the people will suffer a lot if that were the case," he stated.
IS INDIA OBSESSED WITH PAK?
During the Mumbai terror strikes, there were talk shows in Pakistan where journalists like Naseem Zehra said things like Hindu extremists may be behind the attacks, India has no evidence and India should not blame Pakistan.
Hanif said that all TV presenters on both sides of the border were engaging in jingoism and urging their respective governments to get more tough.
"For the last four to five years, whatever has happened in Pakistan, no common citizen has ever even thought of blaming India. Common people realise Pakistan has its own problems which it has to deal with. No one really points fingers at India and Pakistan in a way has gotten over its India obsession. But on the other hand, while India seems to have gotten over all its problems, it does not seem to be getting over its Pakistan obsession," he said.
"The only people who can combat the jihadis is the political government. Every honest citizen in India and Pakistan both faces a risk from these jihadis and the civil society needs to come together to fight this common enemy. We all need to calm down and mourn a bit for something very bad has happened. People in my neighbourhood in Karachi were horrified at the Mumbai terror strikes," he added.
K C Singh however, said that Indo-Pak relations were not going to take a turn for the worse and public figures who support Indo-Pak relations will still have that momentum anymore.
"We have very short memories. In the last six to eight years, there has been the Parliament attack, Mumbai train bombings, the bombing of the Indian embassy in Kabul and now the Mumbai terror strike, but after each one of them we again start trusting. We don't draw the line and we don't affix responsibility," he said.
"After the Parliament attack, when military action was taken by the then government, the present government (which was the Opposition then) was very critical of it. When they came to power, they said that there should not be kneejerk reactions. This gave hope to the other side that it could carry on with terrorism as well as dialogue at the same time. The red line should have been defined when Indian diplomats were killed in Kabul and there was very clear evidence endorsed by the US and the Afghan government," he added.
He said that there should have been no further dialogue with Pakistan at that time till Pakistan arrested the ISI officiers responsible for the bombing of the Indian embassy in Kabul.
US PRESSURE ON PAK
Nic Robertson said American diplomats were very concerned about the rising tension they see at the moment. President-elect Barack Obama is not going to see the temperature in this region rise.
"They have seen the dialogue that has been happening over the past few years as an improvement and the new administration wants to encourage that. They want it to be expanded upon and I would suspect that this is the message India would be hearing from Condoleezza Rice when she visits in a few hours' time," he said, concluding the debate.
FINAL SMS POLL:
Should India target terror camps in Pakistan?
Yes: 91 per cent
No: 9 per cent
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