Miliband in India: adult supervision needed at Foreign Office

In 1997, the year India and Pakistan celebrated the 50th anniversary of their Independence from Britain, the former British foreign secretary, the late Robin Cook, made some ill-judged remarks about Kashmir, saying: "We realise it is our responsibility to resolve this dispute in view of its historical perspective. The Labour Party wishes to solve this problem according to the aspirations of the people of Kashmir, and, therefore, the two parties should accept her role in this regard." Then Indian Prime Minister Inder Kumar Gujral responded by calling Britain "a third rate power" which should mind its own business. Diplomats quickly tried to row back, but the damage had been done.

Odd, then, that history would repeat itself so quickly— when David Milliband, on his recent visit to India, linked the November Mumbai terror attacks with Kashmir. He did not say so explicitly, but his intention seemed clear: if only India settled the problem in the north, the outrage in India's commercial capital would have been avoided. Maybe his briefing papers did not include the Cook-Gujral kerfuffle, but Milliband's statement – which angered the Indian establishment – was wrong on four counts...



First, what really happened: the terrorists who attacked two of Mumbai's premier hotels and its main railway station claimed to be justified by the destruction by Hindu nationalists of Babri Masjid, a 16th century mosque in Ayodhya, in 1992, and the mass violence against Muslims that followed the burning of a train compartment in Godhra in Gujarat in 2002. But, while mentioning Kashmir, their grievances were general, and not specific to Kashmir.

Milliband was wrong, too, for failing to see the regional dimension to terror. While many Indians are convinced that terrorism in India is an entirely Pakistani-controlled operation, they fail to see that Pakistan is a victim, too, of terror attacks, and thousands of its civilians, police force, and soldiers, have died at terrorists' hands, in the past decade. In India, the Taj Mahal hotel was attacked; in Pakistan it was the Marriott. Surely the terrorists in the sub-continent who are closely linked, are not attacking Pakistan over the Kashmir issue.

Milliband also fell into the trap implied in the logic that if only governments address some "root" cause of terror – poverty, dispossession – then the problem will go away. Terrorism has no single "root" cause; it thrives for a range of reasons, including selective reading of history, propaganda, perceived grievances, disregard for the value of human life, and a desire to focus attention on a discredited cause which cannot win the argument through the processes of democracy.

And finally, Milliband's logic showed poor analysis. If India must sort out Kashmir to prevent terror, surely British troops should pull out of Afghanistan and Iraq, and maybe July 7 would not have happened? Or, acquiesced with the most extreme demands in Northern Ireland, to prevent bombs from going off at peak hours in British city centres?

Maybe it is time for some adult supervision at the Foreign Office. This is not to defend India's terrible record in protecting Muslims, but to point out that problems in intra-communal relations in India have complex origins, and the Kashmir issue should be settled for its own good reasons, and even if it is settled to the separatists' satisfaction, it would not prevent further attacks in India.