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Positives from the peace process

Nirupama Subramanian

Some time ago, an incident like the Samjhauta Express tragedy would have seen the two sides trading charges.

A woman welcomes her husband who survived Sunday's attack on the Samjhauta Express, at Hyderabad railway station in Pakistan, on Tuesday. — PHOTO: AP

"YOU GUYS killed a whole bunch of our guys today," was the remark of a Pakistani friend as news came in about the attack on the Samjhauta Express. Thankfully, that notion has not yet entered the realm of public discourse on Sunday's terrible incident.

On the contrary, Pakistan's reactions have been the most remarkable part of the whole grisly affair, the silver lining in the cloud. This, more than anything else, has shown how even the process of finding peace has wrought positive changes in us while the two nations work towards that goal.

Some time ago, an incident like this would have been an opportunity for scoring points. Pakistan could have gone that route, had it so chosen. The first question of the morning was: will Foreign Minister Khursheed Kasuri put off his trip to India? Foreign Ministry officials were flooded with callers asking this question, and to his credit, Mr. Kasuri immediately put the rumours to rest with a categorical assertion that there was going to be no cancellation, and that doing so would only hand a victory to those who wanted to destroy the peace process.

President Pervez Musharraf's reaction gave more encouragement, as did the statements from politicians of the two main Opposition parties, that this incident must not be allowed to derail the India-Pakistan dialogue. No blame game, no harsh words that we failed to look after theirs, aside from that small reminder from the Foreign Office that security to the train was India's responsibility.

The Monday Foreign Office briefing can sometimes turn into an arena where the Pakistani press shadow boxes with the Indian Government on issues close to its heart. But this time, even the most artful of leading questioners at that weekly scrum remained restrained, and the afternoon quickly turned to Afghanistan, Iran, and the President's Middle East initiative. Barring a couple of exceptions, Tuesday's newspapers too — the Urdu press included — largely reflected that restraint.

Questions remain

This does not mean that Pakistan or Pakistanis do not have questions about the incident on the Samjhauta Express. Were the coaches locked from the outside, as the Pakistan Railways Minister has alleged? If they were not, was the train in such poor condition that the doors were jammed from the inside? Why, as one Indian writer on chowk.com has pointed out, are conditions on the "international platform" in Old Delhi railway station from where the train departs, so abysmal? Is this the best we can do for visitors from a neighbouring country? Do we treat this train badly because it is used by Pakistanis or do we do it because they are poor?

There is no escape from these questions and others too — about the security on the train, where did it slip, and who could have been behind it. Indeed, there is an air of expectancy about who India might name for carrying out the attack, and whether there will be any "finger-pointing." The Nation newspaper asked India not do anything "anything stupid" such as blaming jihadi outfits, because "for all we know, Hindu fundamentalists might be behind the incident." The paper said even if, "for argument's sake," Islamist jihadi groups were behind the attack, the onus was still on India.

"It was their job to make their railway network more safe and secure, specially for services like the high-profile Samjhauta Express, which are more likely to be targeted by such groups," the paper said. The News, another daily, raised all possibilities, from jihadi groups opposed to the peace process, to Hindu extremists, whose agenda was to "rid India of its Muslims." The newspaper commented that even the Indian army, whose top brass had made statements about the Siachen dispute, was an opponent of the peace process.

The "communal angle" too and comparisons with the Godhra incident five years ago, following which there were anti-Muslim riots in Gujarat, surfaced on a couple of television channel talk shows. Why, asked the anchor of a popular television programme, was Pakistan's reaction to the loss of so many Pakistani lives so muted? He provided part of the answer himself when he said that it could be due to the peace process with India.

The other part of the answer may lie in the unexpected and unique way that the attack on the Samjhauta Express joins the two countries. Until now, there were terrorist attacks in India, and terrorist attacks in Pakistan.

That made both countries victims but in different ways. It is only this attack, on a train carrying mostly Pakistani passengers in Indian territory, that has shown starkly how true it is that both countries have to battle the same enemies.

While India has some important questions to answer for Panipat, for once, the two countries find themselves on the same side of the fence.

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