Khuda Hafiz

HAFIZ Saeed, the man accused by India to be the mastermind behind the 26/11 Mumbai carnage, has walked out of his house arrest in Pakistan.  The man has earned a  well-deserved  notoriety with India as well as many other Western countries as an undesirable prophet of terror. The Pakistani judicial system, on the other hand, found no substantial evidence to deny the Lashkar-e-Taiba ideologue his freedom. Predictably, after his release, he made familiar incendiary speeches, spewing venom against India and part of the Pakistani political establishment. New Delhi has rightly expressed its indignation and disapproval that a self-confessed terrorist has been allowed to walk free. The United States has demanded, somewhat perfunctorily, that he be rearrested. All this is part of a familiar pattern.  

Hafiz Saeed is an albatross around Islamabad’s neck; the “deep state” and its security establishment can neither own nor disown him. He is a relatively cost-free bogeyman who can be used at Pakistan’s convenience to give New Delhi pinpricks, just as he can be rounded up whenever the Americans make their periodic tut-tutting noises. The Pakistani foreign office seems to have made a fairly correct assessment of the Trump administration’s geostrategic needs and compulsions in this region and seemed to have concluded that it is business as usual in Washington. Pakistani politicians and generals find themselves stuck with the Islamic fundamentalist forces they have encouraged all these years. The violence in the streets of Islamabad over the weekend was yet another reminder of the swamp the scheming generals have created in Pakistan.

 Hafiz Saeed is a minor, though not entirely inconsequential, symbol of Pakistan’s entrenched malevolence towards India. On our part, we have not been able to evolve a narrative that would minimise this evil man’s importance without diluting our determined fight against terrorism. Our competitive domestic discourse does not permit an attitude of “benign neglect”. It is now the BJP’s turn, as a ruling party, to find itself taunted by the Congress leader, Rahul Gandhi, over Hafiz Saeed’s release. Boys will be boys. The challenge before successive governments remains how not to end up according an exaggerated space and importance to this evil man.