Hijacking, OIC and Security Council

By Kuldip Nayar
DAWN (Opinion)



MUSLIM nations all over the world have constituted a body, Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC), where they discuss problems facing Muslims living in other countries and pass lengthy resolutions. India, with 120 million Muslims, is OIC's whipping boy.

Even though most Muslim nations swear friendship to India when they talk to New Delhi separately, they heap strong words on it when they meet collectively at the OIC. Strange, they have never discussed how terrorism is tarnishing their image and that of the religion to which they belong.

Whether the hijackers of Indian Airlines plane were Pakistanis or Afghans, there is no doubt that they are from an Islamic militant group. They are the ones who are giving a bad name to Islam. Even the hijackers are reported to have observed that they were not bothered about Kashmir but they were concerned about the Ummah (Muslim brothers). How have they helped the Ummah by hijacking innocent men, women and children is not understandable.

The OIC should convene an urgent meeting of its members to discuss the specific instance of the Indian plane's hijacking. Since Pakistan is its member, it should explain its conduct because the plane was taken to Lahore from Amritsar. Islamabad's hostility towards New Delhi is nothing new. But the issue was that of human rights. Instead of appreciating that point, Pakistan Foreign Minister Abdus Sattar began abusing India when the plane was still on the Lahore airport tarmac. How could anyone, much less the foreign minister, say that Indians had themselves planned the hijacking and exposed some 160 of their nationals, including women and children, to the dangers of crash or death to malign Pakistan?

From Delhi it looks as if Islamabad's efforts are directed towards sustaining tension in the neighbouring country by one method or the other. As if it has no other programme. This way, it believes, it can keep people occupied in its own country. They have been asking questions about why both military and civilian governments have failed to tackle the basic problem of want and hunger. India is not better off but it has at least a democratic system which is accountable to the elected parliament. And it does not use religion to justify its existence.

Still, the hijacking has strained our secular polity as the intrusion at Kargil did. Whenever there is anti-Pakistan feeling in India, there is always a danger of its taking anti-Muslim shape. Any Hindu fundamentalist group can put the haystack of anger to fire. People have seen through the game and the BJP-led government has maintained the inter-community peace. Yet it cannot be said with certainty that we have turned the corner. There are people who equate Muslims with Pakistan.

One wonders whether Pakistan is determined to disturb the Hindu-Muslim harmony in India. No doubt, it would like it to be a Hindu republic as Pakistan is an Islamic republic. It would want to prove to the world that there was no alternative to the two-nation theory. So far India has proved Pakistan wrong and established that religion is not the basis for nationality. But it is time Pakistan ended its inimical activities. The Muslims in India have paid enough price for the partition.

There is no love lost between New Delhi and the All-Party Hurriyat Conference. It is engaged in a struggle for Kashmir's independence. Still, when some of us approached officiating chairman Moulvi Umar Farooq, the organization issued a strong statement and called the hijacking an inhuman act, "detrimental to the cause of the freedom movement of Kashmir." In fact, the Hurriyat Conference held a special meeting to discuss the hijacking and its repercussions on their movement and condemned it outright once again.

The reaction of the West was really slow and disappointing. For three days there was not even a murmur of protest. At the request of Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh, some powers spoke, more to go on record than to condemn the hijacking. None of the leaders, neither President Clinton nor British Prime Minister Tony Blair, spoke or rang up the Indian prime minister. They were celebrating the last Christmas of the millennium. In fact, such an attitude should make it clear to Pakistan, if it needs to be told, that the Third World problem would have to be sorted out by the countries comprising it. The West has no altruistic interest in the problems we face.

Human rights organizations and groups were too conspicuous by their silence. The biggest let-down was by the Pakistan human rights activists who, no doubt, overawed by the military regime at Islamabad, could not speak out to condemn the happening and to express sympathy with the passengers and the crew, who were treated most inhumanly. Indian human rights organizations, as many as 13 of them, issued a joint statement within 24 hours of the hijacking. But no frontline newspaper printed it. This shows the mindset of the media. One representative of a Hindi daily rang me up to complain why human rights activists were quiet. When told about the statement, he said he had not seen it.

If anyone has to be singled out for real criticism it is New Delhi. It did not show the agility or alacrity the hijacking demanded. The cabinet and the top bureaucrats were in session practically all the time. For the first three days, they seem to have done nothing except dotting the i's and crossing the t's. They had no idea what to do. The UN Security Council should have been requested to meet within hours of the hijacking. Russia would have been willing to initiate the move if the West was dragging its feet.

Our National Security Commission mouths the right types of cliches on nuclear weapons but has neither the vision nor the intelligence to deal with real problems requiring immediate action. The three service chiefs were quite justified in complaining that they had not been associated with the hijacking issue from day one. Their role may be the most crucial in the long run.

That the prime minister, the foreign minister and the civil aviation minister did not have the full picture for the first hour of the hijacking is not surprising because the right hand of the government dose not know what the left is doing. Deputy Minister Chamanlal Gupta was speaking all the time, without any information. He was a disaster. Criminal lapses have taken place, particularly the one at Amritsar. One hopes some heads will roll.