JEDDAH, 8 April 2005 — That peace is anathema to the people on the lunatic fringe was amply demonstrated by Wednesday’s attack on the sprawling tourist reception center in Srinagar — the very place from where Kashmiris in India were to take a historic new bus service to visit their relatives across the border.
It was sheer luck that they all survived the attack. The bus service, small gesture though it may seem, is the first tangible move since India and Pakistan decided to give peace a chance. And the decision to start it after so many years was a bold move on the part of both India and Pakistan. It spoke highly of the leadership in the two countries, as did the statements that ensued after the attack — a sign of a new maturity in relations between the nuclear rivals. Pakistani Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri was quick to condemn the attack and so was India’s Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh.
The people who perpetrated this vile attack do not deserve to call themselves jihadists even by the depths to which the term has been degraded. What they did has nothing to do with war, holy or otherwise. It was terror — plain and simple — designed to kill as many tourists as possible. And who are these tourists? The very ones who have borne the brunt of Kashmir’s separation. They have been cut off from their brothers and sisters on the other side of the Line of Control for decades. Why should they now be punished yet again? The so-called jihadists and obscurantists have no idea of the hardships that ordinary Kashmiris have been enduring for all these decades at the hands of the Indian Army.
The world at large and the Indian leadership both in the state of Jammu and Kashmir and in New Delhi acknowledge that excesses were committed by Indian security forces. Efforts are being made to apply a healing touch. The Congress leadership, under the guidance of Sonia Gandhi, and a visionary in Dr. Manmohan Singh are doing all they can to apply that healing touch. They also are getting an equally good response from Pakistan’s President Gen. Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz.
But ever since peace efforts were launched between the two countries, the extremists have been feeling isolated. They need disasters to survive; they thrive on carnage.
Everybody now acknowledges that Kashmir is a problem that needs to be resolved. But it would be idiotic for the extremists to think a country of India’s size and power can be cowed down by such attacks. There are many possible resolutions to the Kashmir problem, but, if anything, extremist attacks weaken the bargaining power of the Kashmiris, and now is certainly not the time to weaken that position on the world stage.
At the beginning of the bus journey in Srinagar yesterday, Dr. Manmohan Singh said: “The caravan of peace has started. Nothing can stop it.” The best policy would be to sit across the table, give up the gun and join that caravan of peace. If they miss this bus, so to speak, they will be left very far behind indeed with no one to blame but themselves. Already, they have only strengthened the resolve of Kashmiris on both sides to climb aboard, in both senses, and take the first ride across the border in nearly 60 years.
