Thankfully, the turn from belligerency towards relative de-escalation seems to have set in between Pakistan and India. The current crisis in relations between the two South Asian neighbours was triggered by the Pulwama suicide attack that killed 44 Indian Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel. Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) claimed responsibility for the incident. The crisis then escalated via an air strike claimed by India on an alleged JeM training camp in Balakot in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), just across the line dividing KP from Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK). Claims of 300 or more JeM fighters being killed, along with their commander, flew thick and fast on the Indian mainstream and social media. However, no evidence of such deaths was available on the ground. Pakistan felt obliged to retaliate to discourage any further adventurism by India. The shooting down of two Indian jets, one of which fell in Indian territory and the other's pilot being captured, punctured Indian triumphalism and jingoism. The seal was put on it by the release of the Indian pilot.
Exaggerated claims of a 'surgical strike 2.0' and the clamour of hyper nationalism on the Indian media and from Modi and the BJP soon ran into trouble domestically. First and foremost, the opposition, led by the Congress Party, started to question Modi's claims and interrogate his strategy for dealing with Pakistan and the Kashmir issue. In contrast on our side, there was rare unanimity between the government and the opposition in defence of the country's sovereignty and territorial integrity. Our media too, despite being subject to 'official' control, or perhaps because of it, was relatively restrained. Pakistan's government, opposition, civil society and the establishment came across as united on essentials if not every detail. This was in sharp contrast to the political and other divisions in India.
The elephant in the room as far as Pakistan's otherwise moderate, rational and restrained response was why, despite having been banned since 2002, the JeM and Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD, the reincarnation under a new name of the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba) found it possible to continue to operate more or less openly in Pakistan and (presumably) outside. The JeM and Lashkar-e-Tayyaba were blamed for the 2001 attack on the Indian parliament that almost triggered a war between Pakistan and India. The JeM stands accused of an assassination attempt against then president Pervez Musharraf in 2003. The Lashkar-e-Tayyaba or JuD stands accused of responsibility for the Mumbai attack of 2008. When Pakistan pleads its case that it is no longer a supporter of proxy war in Indian Held Kashmir (IHK) or indeed inside India and that this is all in the past, the world looks askance at the presence of groups like JeM, JuD, the Afghan Taliban and Haqqani Network inside Pakistan.
Now reports reveal that the government (not without the blessings of the creator of such proxy warrior groups - the establishment) has decided to carry out a decisive crackdown on groups such as JeM and JuD. This turn has been prompted by at least three factors. One, the cost-benefit of allowing if not supporting these groups has now become negative if the Pulwama incident and subsequent events are taken into account. Two, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) is poised to relegate Pakistan to its black list of states not doing enough against money laundering for terrorist purposes unless Pakistan pulls up its socks in this respect. The fresh bans on JeM, the JuD and its charity wing Falah-i-Insaniat and the takeover by the government of the JeM's headquarters in a mosque and attached madrassa in Bahawalpur can be traced to the authorities waking up to the risk. Three, Pakistan's Achilles heel is its struggling economy. The establishment's own budget is threatened by the economic drag. Hence a 'peace' offensive was launched towards India in the shape of the Kartarpur Corridor to improve Pakistan's standing as peaceful and open to investment, foreign and domestic, to boost its flagging growth rate. It is important to note that in all the three instances of attacks quoted above - the Indian parliament 2001, the assassination attempt on Musharraf in 2003, and the Mumbai attack in 2008 - the common thread appears to be the role of 'spoilers' to pre-empt and prevent any move towards normalisation and peace between Pakistan and India. The 'spoilers' such as JeM and JuD fear any such development would negate their 'usefulness' and drive them out of business. In this respect, our proxies are following the same inevitable trajectory of all proxies to eventually slip off their master's leash. The interests of the state of Pakistan, especially its critical need for economic revival in a globalised world, are no longer compatible (if they ever were) with the interests of these rogue proxies. It is therefore imperative for Pakistan to get rid of this Frankenstein's monster.
This 'purge' of proxy warriors created, nurtured and mollycoddled over the years by our establishment cannot be confined to JeM and JuD. Pakistan by now finds itself embroiled in three proxy wars with all its neighbours except China. The oldest of course is Afghanistan, where the Americans have finally tired of an unwinnable war due in no small measure to Pakistan providing sanctuaries and safe havens to the Afghan Taliban. The second is in IHK and against India, in which 'spoilers' so far have held the upper hand at crucial moments of impending or hoped for breakthroughs in relations between Pakistan and India. The third, so far incipient proxy war is against Iran. Jaish-e-Adl, the reincarnation of Jundullah after its leader Reqi was taken off an international flight in Iranian airspace and subsequently executed in 2010, is operating from bases on the Pakistan-Iran border in Balochistan. It is a fundamentalist Sunni group waging attacks on the Iranian Revolutionary Guards in Sistan-Balochistan province of Iran. We have so far been long on promises and woefully short on action to quell this group that is part of a US-Saudi Arabia plan to destabilise the Iranian regime by stoking rebellion amongst its purportedly persecuted non-Shia minorities, including the Baloch, Arabs, Kurds, Turkmens, Azerbaijanis et al.
The shelf life of proxy warriors is over. Even tolerating their existence on our soil can only reap negative returns for Pakistan's status as a responsible, nuclear-armed state. And the fallout for our beleaguered economy, if nothing else, should give pause for thought, followed by credible moves to uproot the proxy phenomenon for good.
As for India, the wisdom holds that it must embrace, like Pakistan, a historic compromise in settling matters with the Kashmiri people through negotiations, not extreme repression, paving the path thereby to a negotiated settlement of the Kashmir issue with Pakistan. It may be impossible for any of the three parties to the dispute to get all they want, but even without a change in boundaries, an internal and external solution to Kashmir will immeasurably advance the cause of peace in South Asia.
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