Poonam I Kaushish
The more things change, the more they remain the same. If we wished that India has the wherewithal to neutralise terror post 26/11 we got a rude shock as terror struck Gurdaspur’s Dinanagar police station early morning July 29. It took 12 hours to kill three terrorists, underscoring yet again that at best measures to strengthen deterrents against terror strikes has been under-executed and at worst India’s counter-terrorism response consists mainly of tall talk. The country is as vulnerable as it was five years ago and our leaders are clueless about remedying this.
The government’s response was pathetic. Union home minister Rajnath Singh mouthed the country’s ‘resolve’ to defeat terror and asserted ‘zero tolerance’, even as he accused the UPA government of “weakening India’s fight against terror by coining the term Hindu terror”. Predictably, the Opposition came down like a ton of bricks indicting the NDA government with dereliction of duty.
Each terror attack elicits a predictable and misdirected state response. Our polity cocoons itself in the mistaken belief that terrorism has seeped into our psyche so deeply that it no longer scares. The response is reduced to becoming an inane excuse for incompetence, with governments terming the incidents as intelligence failures.
The Centre and the affected state conveniently pass off the responsibility to each other. A ritual drama with an identical script takes place and draws the same cynical reaction notwithstanding the guns that send a chilling reminder that all is not well with India.
Fire-fighting measures and quick-fix solutions are put into force without understanding the issues involved. Myopic in its introspection, the Centre unfortunately ends up mostly reacting instead of looking ahead and acting. Once the crisis is past, it is forgotten like a bad dream till another crisis erupts, thus merely curing the symptoms and not the disease.
A terrorist is faceless, casteless and creedless, an enemy whose whereabouts are unknown and who subscribes to only one religion: Kill and perpetrate maximum damage at minimum cost. Adept in exploiting the latest technologies, he identifies and exploits our weaknesses. His sophistication keeps him miles ahead of the security forces. While we talk, he acts. Of 670 districts as many as 270 are terror-prone. Of this, 70 have already been ravaged by militants. Terror has already cost India more than 82,000 civilians and 13,000 security personnel. In fact, since 2004 the country has lost more lives to terrorist incidents than North, South and Central America, Europe and Eurasia put together. So much for fighting terror! From Kargil to Gurdaspur, the story, comments and diagnoses have been heard before.
Why has no attack taken place in the US since 2001 or the UK after 2005? Simply because its leaders and police concentrate on fighting the ‘terror enemy’ and not each other. Put bluntly, the terrorists know that they would have to pay in double measure. We need to learn from them. Till India gets serious about tacking terror it will continue to be under assault as not only is our security infrastructure abysmal, but also we are known to be a “soft” state.
Interestingly, Ajit Doval before becoming Prime Minister Modi’s National Security Advisor in various articles had blasted as “a myth the widespread belief that the terrorists strike anywhere, at any time and any target”. In his view, they strike where their intentions and capabilities meet the opportunities. Hence, the success of counter-terrorism lay in degrading their capabilities, forcing them to change their intentions and denying them opportunities to strike. New Delhi, he felt needs to think of ways to neutralise their fast-growing domestic base, availability of hardware and human resource, collaborative linkages with organised crime, gun runners, drug syndicates, hawala operators and subversive groups.
Doval spelt out what he believed should be the broad approach: “For any anti-terrorist operation to succeed one needs to be focused on the vitals, keep a watch on the essentials and leave the desirables till the vitals have been achieved and essentials addressed.” He also had a timely message for India’s polity. “For those who govern, let political interests, at best, fall in the category of desirables.”
Doval was dead on. The tragedy of India is that we have our priorities badly mixed up. Today what may be viewed by some as “desirable” has become vital and essential and what should be “vital and essential” has been relegated to merely desirable. Over the years we have politicised terror to such an extent that it has become the biggest hurdle to crafting a uniform approach to security and fighting terror. If the battle against terror has to be won, terrorism will have to be de-communalised. Political considerations, communal pressures, administrative and police lethargy and a weak legal-judicial regime will have to be negated. New Delhi must realise that normal deterrence doesn’t work against a faceless and fearless enemy. Especially when terror comes packaged as a suicide bomber.
What next? In a milieu where tensions on the Line of Control are rising, terrorists across the border are resurgent and fissures within are throwing up vicious challenges to the state and civil society, the breathing space to address these challenges diminishes. Clearly, the time has come for the government to wake up. The Prime Minister needs to urgently pick up the gauntlet. It is not enough to make fiery speeches of pro-activeness. When push comes to shove one has to display that power.
Our security forces need a clear chain of command because anti-terror squads in states are not fully equipped vis-à-vis wherewithal as well as mindset to combat terror. Alongside, a policy document to guide police modernisation, a road map for intelligence reform and capacity-building is also needed. Terror strikes are carried out suddenly to inflict maximum damage, both physical, psychological. Preparedness is vital to counter this.
In the ultimate analysis, our polity should have a single united approach to fight the scourge of terror. Else, India will remain at the mercy of terrorist organisations which will always have the upper hand in choosing the time and place of the next attack. We need to stop this terror dance. Else we will continue to be
remain the same, even post 26/11 — sitting ducks. —infa