A former under secretary at India’s Interior Ministry has made the startling and rather embarrassing revelation that the largest democracy in the world bought the world to the brink of nuclear holocaust by bombing its own Parliament. That is precisely what he alleges India did when it engineered an attack on its Parliament in December 2001 and rushed its troops to the borders, where they stayed in battle readiness for 10 long months. The anti-Pakistan fulminations reached a crescendo that posed risk of a nuclear war, as US Secretary of State Colin Powell later revealed. The same whistleblower also elaborated that not just the attack on Parliament, apparently motivated by the desire to push through anti-terrorist legislation in the country, but also Mumbai was a home-cultivated affair. If the Indian officers revelation of his country’s dramatic self-victimisation are true, in the process not just Pakistan’s good name was besmirched, but also many innocent Indian and foreign visitors to the country wre also unfortunately targeted. Mr Mani is supposed to have deposed before a court of law that a member of the investigation team of CBI and IST, Satish Verma, has told him that both these terrorist acts were pre-planned by the Indian government with the aim of strengthening the black laws, POTA and UAPA by introducing harsher amendments. Afzal Guru, a university student from Kashmir, became a convenient target for his freedom-from-India stance. This was no doubt considered a triumph by the Indian establishment, in finding a scapegoat and simultaneously silencing a nuisance in favour of Kashmiri liberation. Indian efforts to discredit the Kashmir freedom struggle have been continuing unabated and with great energy for the last many decades.
Unfortunately, the resistance to composite dialogue and a negotiated solution to bilateral issues simply cements India’s outdated stance against engaging in diplomatic efforts to resolve the long-standing tensions between the two neighbours. Unless India displays a willingness to discuss all issues, especially Kashmir, it will find that it’s efforts to project itself as dominant in the region will ring hollow. It’s own officers are now casting suspicion on the wheels within wheels of the Indian establishment’s thinking, which convey no reassurance for Pakistan, given that it has long suffered being treated as a punching bag in Indian blame games. One can only hope that India does not turn the wrath of its embarrassment onto its officer Mr Mani, who only reported what he was told by an intelligence officer, nothing more.