Lessons from Lahore

Hours ago, a bus carrying members of the Sri Lankan cricket team from their hotel to the Gaddafi stadium in Lahore was ambushed by militants. They had AK-47 rifles, grenades and rocket launchers with them. A 25-minute-long encounter ensued. Eight brave policemen laid down their lives to protect the visiting sportsmen.

Our enterprising news channels continue to broadcast the events even as I type this. None of the cricketers are seriously injured and a helicopter is taking them to Dubai right now. Sri Lankan authorities have officially called off the cricket tour.

The Indian Home Minister Mr. P Chidambaram has gone on record and said that security arrangements for the players were “hopelessly inadequate”. Pakistan’s ISI chief Hamid Gul “has quickly blamed the Indian external intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing for the attack” (see end of this article).

As you might imagine, apart from guesswork, a lot of things remain unclear about the attack. So let me just comment on the things that ARE clear.

I am not a cricket fan by any stretch of imagination. But I do know that cricketers are practically gods in the sub-continent. The game’s following transcends politics and ethnicity. This attack happened in Pakistan and the only people who actually died in it are Pakistanis. But more important than that is the fact that it was an attack ON cricket.

The message that these so-called terrorists want to send out, said one of the many talking heads on my TV set some time ago, is that they own Pakistan now and the rest of the world should stay away.

Messages are tricky little things. It doesn’t matter what you write in your message. What matters is who reads it and what he or she reads into it. It all boils down to one question – what are you looking for?

The animals who attacked the bus came with a lot of plans. They came to either blow up the bus (they lobbed grenades and had rocket launchers) or hijack it (packets of dry fruits, similar to what the Mumbai attackers survived on for nearly three days, have been retrieved from the bags they dropped while fleeing).

What did they achieve? Not much. They couldn’t kill a single Sri Lankan cricketer. Their grenades missed the bus. They were faced with men who would rather die than run away (like they did) and let them win.

This was, in more ways than one, a FAILED mission. That’s what their message means and that’s what it must be read as.