Third-class governance can�t give first-class response

[Pradip Kumar Datta]

http://www.indianexpress.com/story/9720.html

  Third-class governance can’t give first-class response
to terrorism
- Arun Shourie

In the concluding part of his analysis, Arun Shourie
details how a weak-kneed government response, in terms
of both administration and diplomacy, has cost India
the momentum and the edge in the Kashmir issue


By the end of 2003, we were being told that our
agencies had neutralised over 160 ISI modules —
counting only those outside Jammu and Kashmir and the
Northeast. Since then, up to July 11, 2006, again
counting only those outside Jammu and Kashmir and the
Northeast, another 75 modules are reported to have
been neutralized.

These are substantial achievements — we can imagine
how many more deaths and how much more dislocation
would have been caused if these had not been got at
and the persons caught or killed. But the figures have
another side to them.

First, that there were that many cells to be
neutralized shows that ISI had been able to set them
up. Second, the cells that have been unearthed were
found to exist across the entire country.

Going by the tabulation of the cells that have been
located and finished just since January 2004, we see
them having been found in state after state, town
after town. In Andhra: Hyderabad (several), including
one at the Begumpet airport, Nalgonda; in Karnataka:
Alamati, Hesaraghatta on the outskirts of Bangalore,
Jelenabad area in Gulbarga district; Delhi (several
separate ones in several localities across the city);
in Bengal and neighbouring regions: Ghosepur,
Darjeeling district, Rishra, Hooghly district,
Chowgacha village, Nadia district, Kaliachak, Malda,
Kolkata; in Uttaranchal: Dehra Dun; in Maharashtra:
Mumbai, Aurangabad, Manmad, Malegaon; in Rajasthan:
Jaipur, Ajmer, Jodhpur; in Punjab, where a serious
effort is being made to stoke up Sikh militancy:
Jalandhar, Amritsar, Nawanshehar, Ropar, Hoshiarpur,
Batala, Malerkotla; in UP: NOIDA, Lucknow, Hardoi,
Lalkurti; Goa; in MP: Gwalior; Faridabad; in Gujarat:
Ahmedabad; and so on.

The list of these 75 modules apart, just look at the
far-flung places from which suspects of the July train
blasts in Mumbai are being picked up — that itself
shows the long reach of the ISI and its terrorist
limbs within India, of the faraway places at which
they have been able to set up sanctuaries.

Finally, that the blasts and other terrorist
operations have continued unabated shows that the
cells which have been located are but a fraction of
the ones that have been set up. Several factors have
afforded such easy access for the ISI. The principal
one is the near collapse of law enforcement — from
intelligence to investigation to combat to the courts.


As is well said, you cannot have a first class
response to terrorism in a third class system of
governance. Why should anyone be deterred from
executing another round of blasts in Mumbai trains
when he sees that those caught for the blasts executed
13 years ago are well and kicking; when he sees that
their lawyers have been able, and with such ease, to
ensnare Government prosecutors in the courts?

But the evaporation of governance and of the
law-enforcement mechanisms is just one aspect, indeed
it is in large part a consequence of complicity. In
particular, of the perversion of pubic discourse — by
which every action against terrorists, their sponsors
and their collaborators is called into question and
the national resolve dissipated; second, by the
ever-strengthening nexus of rulers and criminal
elements. And by the permissive atmosphere that has
been fomented by these factors.

Which terrorist group, which potential recruit to
terrorism will be deterred when he sees the solicitude
with which the prime suspect of the blasts in
Coimbatore, Abdul Nasser Mahdani, is being looked
after? When he sees, as The Indian Express has
reported (July 24-25, 2006) the comforts that the DMK
Government has arranged for him, including Ayurvedic
massages — with 10 masseurs and a senior physician
labouring over him; and that too at the tax-payers’
expense? When he sees that even the elementary
restrictions on Mahdani’s moving about in the prison
have been cancelled in the face of opposition from
security services?

When he sees that the representatives of the CPI(M)
come calling on him in jail to seek his help in
fighting elections? When he sees the Kerala Assembly
pass a unanimous resolution on his behalf — and sees
that that Assembly has not passed any comparable
resolution for any other individual?

When he sees how doggedly the Government of Karnataka
holds up the investigation into Telgi’s doings? When
he sees a Chief Minister defend SIMI, an organization
that has been banned for secessionist and
anti-national activities? When he sees what happens in
our Parliament — how members shout each other down and
cannot speak in one voice even while discussing the
blasts in Mumbai? When he sees how, even after the
Supreme Court has struck down the IMDT Act as
unconstitutional and as a threat to national security,
the Government, the principal party of which depends
on votes of illegal infiltrators from Bangladesh,
incorporates those very provisions in the Foreigners’
Act? Who would not feel emboldened to sign up for the
greater glory of jihad and shahadat?

THE FATAL CONCESSION

Nor is it just the terrorist module that is
encouraged. The organisers and controllers of these
modules are given a free hand. In the statement that
Mr Vajpayee and General Musharraf issued on 6 January,
2004, the words that Pakistan was made to agree to
were very, very carefully chosen. There was great
resistance from Pakistan. But, in the end, it had to
agree to those words. By that declaration, Pakistan
was made to commit that for sustaining the dialogue it
would stop cross-border violence, and ensure that no
part of the territory under its control — that is,
including PoK — shall be used for terrorism.

By contrast, in the statement that Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh signed with General Musharraf in April
2005, India agreed that to ensure that terrorism will
not be allowed to thwart the ‘‘peace process’’. This
was a fatal concession — for by it Pakistan was in
effect enabled to continue terrorist activities at
will. The onus would henceforth be on India to
continue the ‘‘peace process’’ and the ‘‘dialogue’’ in
spite of the terrorist attacks.

The result has been dramatically brought home in the
wake of the Mumbai train blasts. The Prime Minister’s
address to the nation was anaemic. Perhaps that
registered even in the Government. The second
statement had a hue of firmness. And with much
background briefing — ‘‘we won’t put up with this
nonsense forever’’ — the Foreign Secretaries’ meeting
was called off.

And then? The Prime Minister goes to Moscow. Meets
Bush. And suddenly, the official line becomes, ‘‘We
won’t let the terrorists succeed in their design to
halt the peace process’’!

So, Pakistan can pursue both limbs — talk peace, wage
war! And all we can do is to go through the ritual
again.

Blasts in Mumbai. Blasts in Srinagar. Another debate
in Parliament. Another slew of statements — ‘‘We
resolutely/ strongly/unequivocally condemn this
dastardly/ cowardly/treacherous/barbaric act... It
shows their desperation... Government remains
committed to fighting terrorism in all its forms... We
will not allow them to disturb communal harmony
 We
will not allow them to derail the peace process...’’

The Home Minister repeated all the standard phrases in
his statement to Parliament last week. He also implied
that his ministry had done its job. ‘‘The Central
Government has been sensitising the state
governments/UTs about the plans and designs of
terrorist outfits. They were asked to streamline
physical and protective security of vital
institutions...’’

And the Government is on the job even now, he assured.
“The Government has made an assessment of the
situation following these blasts,” he told Parliament.
And what did the assessment yield? “The security
apparatus has to focus greater attention and improve
intelligence-gathering capabilities particularly at
the local level to collect actionable intelligence...
There is also a need to further enhance physical
security and access control at airports, metros, vital
installations... besides accelerated border fencing,
overall coastal security... State Governments have
been asked to improve coordination between the Railway
Police Force and the Government Railway Police to
enhance security of trains and railway stations...’’

Should he not have said, “The Government has made yet
another assessment of the situation following these
blasts”? And did we really need yet another
“assessment of the situation”? After all, what is new
in this list? And what happened to that claim of 100
per cent of the recommendations of those Task Forces
having been implemented?

THEIR SUCCESS

But while we keep repeating, “Terrorists will not be
allowed to succeed,” the fact is that through them
Pakistan has already succeeded in several respects:

• It has succeeded in creating the impression — I dare
say, in India too — that the status of Kashmir vis a
vis India is not a settled issue. Indeed, that what
will happen in the future, what some Government of
India will do is an open question. When it is asked in
Parliament, “Does the Government stand by the
unanimous Resolution which Parliament had passed,
namely that the only unfinished business relating to
J&K is that we have to get back the parts of the state
that Pakistan has usurped?,” the Government remains
silent.

• Pakistan has succeeded in establishing that it shall
have an equal say in what the final solution shall be.


• It has succeeded in establishing that the
secessionists it has been patronising, arming,
financing are the representatives of the Kashmiris,
and so they are the ones to whom the Indian
authorities must talk.

• And the Indian authorities must talk to them without
the secessionists agreeing to anything in advance — in
the Rajya Sabha, on July 26, the Home Minister was
specifically asked by Yashwant Sinha, “Has Hurriyat
agreed to give up violence?”; all he could claim was
that they are giving the impression that they are
willing to do so! As for their avowed goal of taking
Kashmir out of India, they are not even giving any
impression that they have diluted that goal one whit.

• Pakistan and its local agents have already
accomplished the “ethnic cleansing” of the Valley,
having driven the Hindus out. They are now
systematically driving them out of Doda.

Equally ominous is the fact that, while India has
always maintained that issues between Pakistan and
India shall be dealt with bilaterally, that we will
not agree to any third party mediation, now the US is
the very visible third party in everything. Recall the
change in the Prime Minister’s tenor after he met Bush
in Moscow.

Moreover, the initiative has by now passed completely
into the hands of Musharraf. He is the one who is
forever proposing formulae, and we are put to
reacting. Worse, he has succeeded in bringing the
various political groups in Kashmir to talking his
language. Omar Abdullah, the PDP leaders as well as
the Mirwaiz are now lauding Musharraf’s formulations,
and proclaiming that these — “Self Rule,” division
into Regions — are the ones that show the way forward.


FUNDAMENTALISATION OF DISCOURSE

It is because our media is so preoccupied with the
“controversy” of the day, it is because it is so
preoccupied with “life-style” journalism, it is
because there is the censorship of “political
correctness” that we do not realise how fundamentalist
the discourse has become in Kashmir. We keep repeating
nonsense about the great tolerant traditions of
Kashmir, about the “Sufi Islam” of Kashmir, about the
unique catholicity of “Kashmiriat”, about the
incomparable blend of Shaivism and “liberal Islam” in
Kashmir.

In fact, the very persons who are “people like us” are
now taking positions that cannot but shock every
Indian, and cannot but wreak a terrible outcome. Hari
Parbat is sacred to every Kashmiri Hindu: how do you
feel when Hindu refugees hear it being referred to in
speeches and publications as Kohi Maaran — the hill of
evil? Can you imagine a person who has held high
office in the state telling Kashmiris that hey must
learn from Hamas? Can you imagine his leading
associate denouncing the Amarnath yatra as “a cultural
intrusion”? Can you imagine a situation, when persons
holding a peaceful observance against the massacres in
Doda are killed, the Chief Minister proclaims in
effect that the protestors invited the deaths upon
themselves? Can you imagine a person who was till the
other day Chief Minister telling the second “Round
Table Conference” that we must accept “One country,
two systems”? Can you imagine a leading political
light of the Valley tell the same conference that the
Kashmir Constituent Assembly was a “sovereign body”,
that Article 370 was a “treaty between two sovereign
bodies”?

How do you feel as you see the glee with which a
Pakistani website reports a mainstream, “nationalist”
Kashmiri politician proclaim that New Delhi “is
responsible for the volatile situation in Kashmir,
where its troops are killing Kashmiris unjustifiably
and forcing them to take up arms”? How do you feel
when you read him demanding to know, “Why is India
killing innocents?,” and declaring, “By these evil
designs, India forces our youth to take the gun and
sacrifice their lives”? When he declares that the
Indian Army has been given “a free hand to kill
innocent people”? When you see that his charge against
his political rivals, that is the current Government
in the state, is that it is “in league with the
occupation authorities to run a campaign of terror
against Kashmiris”?

Such rhetoric is the staple today. And the results are
brought home every other day. When a Lashkar man is
killed these days, four to five thousand turn up for
an ostentatious demonstration in his honour. The
counter-insurgency groups which had been built up with
such great effort have all been abandoned by Delhi.
The killings by the terrorist bands become more and
more brutal by the week — corpses are left with their
heads hacked off, people are sent back to their homes
with their limbs and parts sawn off... New
technologies are introduced — car bombs; grenades —
the man who throws it is paid when he produces the
pin...

Has Pakistan not succeeded? Has its instrument,
terrorism, not succeeded? And our Government applies
itself to organizing yet another “assessment of the
situation.” Actually, it does more. It is only by a
hair’s breadth, it is only at the very last minute
that the decision that had been taken — namely, to
agree in the Indo-Pak meeting of May 21, 2006 to
withdraw troops from Siachin — was abandoned.

The terrorist infrastructure remains intact in
Pakistan, and securely in the hands of ISI and the
Army. Lashkar-e-Tayyaba and other such groups have
been allowed a free field to operate in POK after the
earthquake — to organise relief, to open “educational
institutions”. A better opportunity to pick up
recruits for jihad and shahadat could not have been
provided. Musharraf remains set in his singular aim.

HENCE

The first thing that is required for standing up to
what is in store can be put in the words that were
used by a high-up in the present Government itself:

• The PM and others must see that this Government does
not have the mandate to make any fundamental changes
in our foreign policy, certainly not in our defence
policy; that it does not have the mandate to take
decisions that will jeopardise our country’s
territory;

• They must give up the delusion that problems that it
has not been possible to solve in 55 years can be
solved by “out-of-the-box thinking” in five weeks;

• Individuals must give up the delusions of what has
been rightly called “the Gujranwala School of Foreign
Policy” — the delusion, namely, that while others have
failed, I will succeed because I am manifestly more
sincere, because I am from that part of the
sub-continent.

Next, the Government must spell out what the ultimate
solution is that it has in mind for Kashmir. It must
share with the people and Parliament what is happening
in talks around Round and other tables.

In the alternate, Parliament must insist that it be
taken into confdence. Once the deed is done, it will
be too late.

Parliament must also get Government to specify what it
understands by “Self Rule”; by “making borders
irrelevant”; by “autonomy” - is “the sky the limit”
still?; by the proposals that are being bandied about
— joint management for power, tourism, horticulture...


Most important, it must rescind the fatal concession
it made in the April 2005 statement — that we will
continue the “peace process” irrespective of
terrorism.

And a final plea — to the media: report in detail what
the “nationalist”, mainstream political leaders of J&K
are saying in the Valley. Unless the country is
alerted now, obituaries will be all that will be left
to pen.





 		
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