Unfortunately, I have come across only a few Indians on social media who are questioning the Modi government narrative of making Pakistan responsible for Pahalgam. Public figures, be they artists, journalists or people one can respect – generally speaking, have fallen in line.
If it helps, I wanted to put some facts straight about Pakistan’s involvement in militancy in Kashmir, since this is central to India’s case for military action against Pakistan.
There is no doubt that the militancy there was started by Pakistan as an off-shoot of their success and experience in the Afghan Jihad. That project was put to an end by the US invasion of Afghanistan. Pakistan wanted assurances from the US that its eastern border will be safe before it can divert attention and resources to the western one. That assurance came after a Pakistani guarantee of dismantling of the militant infrastructure, and allowing fencing of the Line of Control (LoC). India hadn’t been able to fence the LoC in more than 50 years. But then, all of a sudden, they were able to proceed on the fencing, with all contentment of their hearts.
Pakistan’s ban on militant organizations was certainly not a farce. It was quite real, and Pakistan suffered at the hands of militants it had trained to fight in Kashmir. In fact, strongman Pervez Musharraf who spearheaded this new policy on militants, was attacked a few times. The masterminds behind the attacks were, in fact, the Pakistani-trained militants who were meant for Kashmir.
The reader can find a long list of militants who turned on Pakistan. I will briefly mention four.
Ilyas Kashmiri was a prized militant in the Kashmiri Jihad. His adventures were many. But then he turned on Pakistan after all the years of Musharraf’s crackdown, Laal Masjid and other such watershed moments. He founded the ‘313 Brigade’ within Al-Qaeda and was believed to be the successor to Osama bin Laden. The list of his militant activities in Pakistan is difficult to count.
Take Mast Gul, who was born in Kurram. He came into the spotlight after the siege of Charrar Sharif in 1995, which was a 66-day stand-off. He was also involved in the siege of Dargaah Hazrat Bal in 1993. He was allowed a safe exit to Pakistan, where he was paraded all over the country. Thereafter, he was quiet for long years but he re-appeared in 2014 as a commander of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and became a headache for the Pakistani forces for a while.
I will give two examples of my own neighbourhood. Wali-ur-Rehman was trained by Harkat-ul-Mujahideen and he fought for many years in Kashmir. Later, he turned on Pakistan and joined the Taliban in Swat. Many believed that he is in-charge of the training of the local Taliban there, because of his militancy experience. He is nowhere to be found now.
Another was “Pir” Ihsanullah, who was the son of the Imam of our neighbourhood mosque. He was trained by Hizb-ul-Mujahideen but he didn’t fight in Kashmir. He became a big name among the Taliban in Swat. Long after the operation in Swat was over, he was found out to have slipped back into Swat and was carrying out attacks on army. The empty house that he was hiding in was blown up after he was surrounded by the Pakistan Army and his half body was then dragged throughout our town.
Yes, the people wanted by India for their past activities in India are shielded by Pakistan, but that is more of an ego phenomenon, rather than serving some strategic purpose against India
Many other such examples can be given which prove that at one point, Pakistan did actively support, recruit and train militants in Kashmir – but then, because of its volte-face, it suffered at their hands.
One can point to the Mumbai attacks where there was a clear involvement of Pakistani officials. But for that, too, one has to understand that it was an operation carried out by mid-ranking operatives of the intelligence agencies who were busy in the Kashmir “Jihad”. The Kashmir Jihad was a decentralized affair, and mid-ranking officers had total operational and strategic control. The fact that the Mumbai attacks were carried out by such disgruntled officers was also proven by the testimony of David Headley. Other examples of such officers, who were once active in handling jihadi activity and then turned on the state, can be found in Saleem Shahzad’s book Inside Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
One can blame Pakistan for every militant activity inside Kashmir and India, and take the two countries to the precipice of war every few years, but will that solve the militancy problem there? This assumption that there are now training and recruitment centres in Pakistan, where planning for attacks on India happens, is a lie – one that is very masterly created by India and which a predominant majority of the Indian population has bought.
To put it simply, those training and recruitment centres have long been closed. Yes, the people wanted by India for their past activities in India are shielded by Pakistan, but that is more of an ego phenomenon, rather than serving some strategic purpose against India.
They are also used as ploys to appeal domestically to rally anti-India sentiment for the purposes of the legitimacy of the security establishment. But to point to the presence of Masood Azhar and Hafiz Mohammad Saeed as the whole proof for any militant activity happening in India being planned in Pakistan is to ignore the real causes of the militancy there. As for India’s bombing of mosques and seminaries run by Masood Azhar or Hafiz Saeed, that is tantamount to declaring anyone a terrorist who is in the vast ‘welfare’ networks run by these ex-Kashmiri militant organizations, which, again, are needed by the Pakistani establishment domestically.
Should those people who were involved in militant activity in Kashmir be brought to justice? Absolutely. But is taking both the countries to the precipice of war sane or effective from a security perspective? Absolutely not.