It has so far been conclusively established that ten Pakistani nationals, described initially as “stateless actors” by President Asif Ali Zardari were involved in the attack that led to the death of at least 174 persons and injured more than 300 persons. The lone terrorist, Mohammad Ajmal Amir Iman alias Kasab arrested during the attack is a Pakistani national. Interestingly, as the Zardari regime kept on denying the Pakistani nationality of the involved terrorists, Pakistan opposition leader Nawaz Sharif and the National Security Advisor (NSA) of Pakistan admitted that the terrorists were indeed Pakistani citizens. The NSA was quickly dismissed from service for his statement. The investigators to the Mumbai attacks have said that Kasab has provided a lot of details of the planning leading to the attack including the training programme, his journey along with nine other terrorists from Karachi in Pakistan to Mumbai and also some details of their ‘handlers’ in Pakistan. Kasab has also denied any local (Indian) assistance that the group of terrorists received during their operation, putting to rest several theories which put part of the blame for terrorist attack on India’s internal problems.

Although some indirect references have been made, what has not been possible for the investigators so far is to establish a direct link between the attackers and the Pakistani regime, or even some of the renegade elements within the Pakistani Army or the Intelligence unit. That, however, has not stopped India from asking for Pakistan’s accountability, given the fact that a lot of India’s terrorism woes have been traced to its western neighbour. Calls, in some quarters, have indeed been made to the effect of “pursuing the terrorists” or even “teaching Pakistan a lesson”.

What exactly are India’s options in Pakistan? Obviously, attacking a nuclear State is not one among them. It is useful to recollect the Indian response after the terrorist attack on Indian Parliament on December 16, 2001. The then National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government of which the right wing

“We not only suspect but we have a fair amount of intelligence [on the involvement of Pakistan].”

- R. K. Narayanan

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was the primary constituent, had launched Operation Parakram, a massive and yet purposeless massing of troops along India’s western borders with Pakistan costing almost Rupees 60 billion (US$1.5 billions). Not a single bullet was fired, yet 680 soldiers perished during the march to the frontiers and their return after 10 months. A similar ‘march on’- exercise, this time around, would be equally fruitless.

Even a limited military campaign, purely targeting the terrorist installations within Pakistan, mostly within the Pakistan-held Kashmir areas, is doubtful. Except for a broad description of the camps that are said to be operating within the area, Indian intelligence on the exact locations of these terror camps is limited and air raids can not be an effective mode of neutralising these. Facilities that the terrorists involved in the Mumbai operations used, such as the Lashkar-e-Toiba headquarters at Muridke are intermingled with civilian areas within Pakistani cities and country sides and an air raid is certainly not the best of tactics to end their effectiveness.

Moreover, analysts have pointed out that the Indian military, in spite of established superiority vis-à-vis its Pakistani counterpart, is simply not prepared for a military campaign. A column in the weekly Outlook painted a rather grim picture of the military preparedness. It wrote, “Our air force, sanctioned 39.5 combat squadrons, is down to 30 off squadrons, our armoured corps doesn’t have the tanks to roll in, our infantry is horribly tied up in counter-insurgency operations, while we talk about ‘bombing Islamabad’.”

It is also useful to call to mind the Congress Party-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government’s response to the suicide attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul in July 2008. The Indian government described the attack that killed almost 50 persons including two senior Indian diplomats as a handiwork of the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), a claim which was supported subsequently by the United States. India’s National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan had then said in categorical terms, “We not only suspect but we have a fair amount of intelligence [on the involvement of Pakistan].” He further went on to say, “The ISI needs to be destroyed. We made this point, whenever we have had a chance, to interlocutors across the world... there might have been some tactical restraint for some time, obviously that restraint is no longer present.” Nothing suggests that Narayanan’s assertion was put to action in the following days.

The government’s anti-Pakistan posturing this time that included steps like summoning the ISI chief to India, which Pakistan turned down after its initial nod, has a lot to do with the impending general elections, just three months away. Indeed, the blasts could not have come at a worse time for the UPA. The UPA’s past electoral performance in a number of legislative assembly polls for the federal units (States) has been poor and its alleged soft policy on terrorism has been exploited by the BJP to score victories in various States. Investigations to a number of recent terrorist attacks in Indian urban centres have reached no conclusion. Congress is wary of a rising BJP and is seeking to convince the electorate that it is capable of sending a strong message to Pakistan.

Although the Congress party managed to secure moral boosting victories in the elections in New Delhi and Rajasthan, terrorism will continue to be a factor which will influence the voters during the parliamentary elections. The replacement of Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil with P Chidambaram, the constitution of the National Investigative Agency and a host of other measures are in a way to convince the voters that the Congress party is indeed serious about tackling terror.

The Indian posturing on Pakistan, considered to be ineffective and unnecessary by many analysts, is in albeit a small way, also an attempt to deflect the scathing criticism on the gross failure of intelligence that led to the attack. The Indian Government is said to have initiated measures including a revamp of the intelligence system and security along the 7500 kilometre long coastline. But the fact remains that the successive Governments in New Delhi had chosen to sit over several such proposals in the past, even after a number of terrorist attacks on various urban centres.

It has also been said that this time around that India has the support of a number of countries, at least those whose nationals have been killed in the attacks. However, there is very little possibility that any of these countries, probably barring Israel, would actually support an Indian military campaign inside Pakistan, which will certainly degenerate into a full scale war. Pakistan has indicated that any aggressive Indian military posture would force it to divert its force from its western border with Afghanistan to the eastern borders with India. With the Taliban and Al Qaeda combine’s campaign from Pakistan’s western tribal areas being the source of Afghanistan’s continuing instability, the US and NATO would not seek a dilution of Pakistani troop presence in that area, even with its limited influence on the nuisance value of the insurgents.

Moreover, it is also acknowledged that the writ of the Pakistan government does not run in vast stretches of the country’s territory. Thus, while many Indian analysts maintain that it will not be easy for Pakistan to get away this time around, Pakistan can cite its helplessness to its advantage to get away. In such a scenario, there is very little that India possibly can do, except for choosing to opt for a long and arduous process of building evidence against the perpetrators and their sponsors in Pakistan. To be fair, its past records at such exercises have been far from perfect.

What remains crucial as far as reigning in States promoting terror in this part of this world is that a broad, multilateral and coordinated effort must be initiated against terrorism in South Asia and also globally. However tragic and destabilizing, the Mumbai attacks have injected an important sense of urgency into regional deliberations by showing that terrorism in any of its variants cannot be tolerated by civilised nations and that a platform for multilateral engagement must be put in place.

Operation Parakram, a massive and yet purposeless massing of troops along India’s western borders with Pakistan costing almost Rupees 60 billion (US$1.5 billions). Not a single bullet was fired, yet 680 soldiers perished during the march to the frontiers and their return after 10 months. A similar ‘march on’- exercise, this time around, would be equally fruitless.