Author: G Parthasarathy
Publication: Deccan Herald
Date: August 3, 2006
URL: http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/aug32006/editpage144619200682.asp
The Government has no clearcut policies to
fight terrorism sponsored by neighbouring nations.
If there is one thing that is clear about
the policies and strategies of our present Government, it is that this Government
has no clearly defined policies or strategies to deal with terrorism sponsored
by Pakistan and Bangladesh. On January 6, 2004 Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf
assured Prime Minister A B Vajpayee that he would not allow territory under
Pakistan's control to be used for terrorist activities. This assurance was
followed by a reduction in infiltration and terrorist violence in Jammu and
Kashmir and by an end to terrorist attacks on civilians.
As normalcy returned to Jammu and Kashmir
and tourist traffic to the state grew rapidly, the security establishment
in the Government evidently developed a sense of complacency, with the Prime
Minister proclaiming that his dialogue process with Pakistan was "irreversible"
and that he could "trust" General Musharraf. This false sense of
security went so far that the Prime Minister wanted to implement "out
of the box" proposals to pull our troops out of Siachen, without guarantees
that Pakistan would not occupy areas vacated by us.
It is evident that in July 2005 there was
a marked change in Pakistan's approach to international terrorism. The London
bomb attacks were carried out in July 2005 by young men of Pakistani origin
trained in camps of the Lashkar-e-Taiba in Pakistan. This was followed by
the terrorist attack in Ayodhya in July 2005, the Delhi bomb blasts on the
eve of Diwali in October 2005, the attack on scientists in Bangalore in December
2005, the attack on the temple in Varanasi in March 2006 and the July 11 bomb
blasts in Mumbai. Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai then bitterly complained
to US President George Bush that Pakistan was arming and training the Taliban
in Baluchistan and the Northwest Frontier Province. Ignoring these developments
preceding the Mumbai bomb blasts, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh blandly went
ahead with the "peace process" with plans to even visit Pakistan.
Meanwhile, proposals to revamp and modernise
the intelligence agencies, the Defence Ministry and armed forces establishment,
put forward, following the Kargil conflict, were not processed, with the files
gathering dust in the National Security Council Secretariat and the Defence
Ministry. It is no secret that even as vast resources are expended for internal
"political intelligence" there is no similar effort to gear up our
intelligence agencies to deal with terrorism.
In political terms, the Government went into
overdrive to establish its "secular" credentials by choosing to
ignore the fact that growing sections of Muslim youth in India were getting
radicalised and associating with groups like the SIMI and the Lashkar-e-Taiba.
The implications of the growing sense of insecurity in the minority community
following the Babri Masjid destruction in 1992 and the communal violence unleashed
in Gujarat after the Godhra massacre were not studied.
Every political party sought to use these
developments merely to build up "vote banks" rather than tackle
the issues transparently and with the participation of those affected. Sadly,
national security and foreign policy are today influenced more by considerations
of domestic vote banks than by national interest. The nation is today paying
the price for this political shortsightedness.
The ISI has established modules comprising
its agents and radicalised Indian Muslim youths across India-modules that
have links with terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir and with ISI agents in Pakistan,
Bangladesh and Nepal. This is a challenge we cannot ignore.
There should be no doubt in anyone's mind
that the military establishment in Pakistan is determined to destabilise India
and weaken India by exploiting communal differences. The first and foremost
need is to recognise this problem clearly and then fashion our domestic and
foreign policy responses. Domestically, the intelligence machinery needs to
be modernised and made more professional. Military modernisation has to go
hand in hand with this. India should retain a decisive qualitative edge by
its armed forces in its neighbourhood. Diplomatically, we need to engage Pakistan
bilaterally in a firm but reasonable and transparent manner, once the dialogue
process recommences.
Finally, we should spare no effort to mobilise
world public opinion about the fact that Pakistan is today the epicentre of
global terrorism. The Manmohan Singh Government has been slow and indeed reluctant
to call a spade a spade and vigorously expose Pakistan's involvement in global
terrorism with the international community, though a belated attempt was made
at the recent G 8 Summit meeting in St Petersburg. But all this necessarily
has to be combined with strengthening our covert intelligence capabilities
in order to raise the costs for Pakistan, if it persists with its present
policies.
