Chilling reverberations
A thaw in relations between India and Pakistan is threatened by reactions to two blasts in Mumbai, reports Iffat Idris from Islamabad
The immediate impact of two bomb blasts Monday, 25 August in Mumbai included the death and injury of dozens. The reactions and rhetoric emanating from these blasts may exacerbate Hindu-Muslim tensions inside India and halt the recent thawing of relations between India and Pakistan.
The first bomb exploded just after 1.00pm in the crowded Zaveri Bazaar, Mumbai's gold and diamond market. The blast ripped apart a taxi in which the bomb was concealed and tore through the crowded market, killing some 30 people. Just four minutes later a second bomb went off in a car park yards from the five-star Taj Hotel and the Gateway to India, Mumbai's biggest tourist attraction. That blast shattered windows in the Taj and claimed a further 20 lives. The death toll from the day's carnage was put at well over 50.
After eight months of periodic bombings in Mumbai that have put the city increasingly on edge, the government's reactions to the most recent blasts indicate its reluctance to see a replay of the kind of inter-communal violence that has occasionally punctuated Hindu- Muslim tension since the 1992 Ayodhya incident. While checkpoints were immediately established to capture the perpetrators, measures were also taken to prevent possible rioting in Mumbai (formerly Bombay) and in Ahmadabad, the main city in the neighbouring state of Gujarat. Though no serious suspects were apprehended, nor did the streets turn riotous as they have in several infamous incidents.
In 1992, 2,000 people, mostly Muslims, were killed by Hindu mobs in Mumbai following the destruction of the disputed Babri Masjid at Ayodhya. The next year, bombs in Mumbai killed over 300 people. Last year Gujarat saw communal violence of a similar scale. Sparked by the burning of a train carrying Hindu pilgrims, most of the subsequent victims were Muslim.
Even as fear of Ayodhya-like communal rioting motivated the government to secure the city after the latest blasts, explanations for these blasts were also motivated by the Ayodhya incident -- specifically debates about provenance of the site on which the demolished Babri Masjid was built. Just hours before the blasts, a report released by Indian archaeologists stated that remains of a Hindu temple predating the mosque had been found there. This has always been the basis of the Hindu demand for the Babri Masjid to be razed and a temple built in its place. If true, the archaeological findings would boost the campaign to build a temple at Ayodhya.
However, the report's findings are strongly disputed and -- regardless of their veracity -- are unlikely to have caused the Mumbai attacks due to the extremely short time between their release and the attacks.
Revenge for last year's Gujarat rioting, which claimed hundreds of mainly Muslim lives, is a more likely motivation. If investigation proves vengeance to have been a factor, Hindu sentiment will harden, making India's minority Muslim population even weaker in the upcoming Maharashtra state elections.
"The strategy of hitting Hindu-dominated areas by so-called radical Islamic groups is going to play into the hands of the Shiv Sena who will reap benefit from these sentiments," claimed one political analyst, referring to the hard-line Hindu party that is dominant in Mumbai.
The secular Congress Party currently forms the government in Mumbai's state of Maharashtra, but the Shiv Sena holds 120 seats in the state assembly. It is already using the attacks to whip up Hindu sentiment and -- it hopes -- votes in the election. In his weekly newspaper column, Shiv Sena leader Bal Thackeray lashed out at the Congress Party's security failures. "There are so many deaths happening under the present government that even the sniffer dogs have stopped smelling," he said.
In previous terrorist attacks in India, the finger of blame has generally been pointed to Pakistan. The assault on the Lok Sabha in 2001, for example, almost led to India waging war against its neighbour. Pakistan, which condemned the attacks, has again been singled out for responsibility for the blasts. Thackeray called for volunteers to launch "terrorism" in Pakistan to "avenge" the car bombs in Mumbai. His were perhaps the most inflammatory comments, but senior figures in the Indian government also made comments which will neither ease Hindu-Muslim tension in India nor assuage Pakistani defensiveness.
Lal K Advani, the deputy prime minister of India and home minister, was the most outspoken. He indicated suspicion of the Indian- banned Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) and the militant Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba group that had operated in Kashmir before being renounced by Pakistan last year.
"SIMI has been acting in conjunction with the Lashkar-e-Taiba and whether today's blast is also the handiwork of the same organisations will depend on the outcome of the investigations going on," he said.
Advani dismissed Islamabad's condemnation of the blasts as a formality. He demanded the extradition of 19 terror suspects that India accuses Pakistan of harbouring in exchange for an acknowledgment of the sincerity of Pakistan's condemnation of terror on Indian soil.
"The progress made by India in the past 50 years is hurting Pakistan and because of this they have waged this war of terrorism against us," he continued.
Pakistan's government angrily dismissed the Indian allegations as "baseless and irresponsible". A foreign office spokesman said Pakistan's condemnation was not a formality, and added that "blaming Pakistan for all wrongs in India is a familiar refrain that only tends to vitiate the atmosphere." He stated that India had not proven the presence of the 19 suspects in Pakistan, rendering the question of extradition meaningless.
Reaction from Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee was more moderate than that of his deputy, but on Friday, 29 August he ruled out the immediate resumption of dialogue with Pakistan in light of the blasts.
"We would like to have meaningful talks but, if terrorist activity continues, that will not be possible," he said.
His remarks will disappoint many, who had hoped that the recent thawing in relations between the two neighbours could lead to full normalisation and, eventually, to peaceful settlement of the Kashmir dispute. All that now appears to be on indefinite hold.
So often in the past, Indo-Pakistani normalisation and peace overtures have been derailed by domestic politics. Pakistan's Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmood urged against such a result, as the reverberations of the Mumbai blasts radiate from several political loci.
"I hope Pakistan-India relations are not held hostage to Indian internal politics and the Indian elections," he said.
Unfortunately, on the Indian sub-continent, where communal identity and electoral politics are increasingly indistinguishable, that is precisely what is happening.
