Author:
Publication: Newsinsight.net
Date: July 12, 2006
URL: http://www.newsinsight.net/archivedebates/nat2.asp?recno=1436#
We, you and I, have become cannon fodder for
terrorists.
By now, we have become predictable in our
responses to terrorist outrages, and it is no different with the Bombay serial
bombings, which have killed nearly two hundred people since yesterday, and
injured more than three times the number. The media leads the act in playing
down the terrorist attack, by painting up a perfectly fraudulent picture of
a city hurtling back to normalcy within hours if not minutes, and the more
pseudo-secular, pseudo-liberal of the papers come out with absolutely crummy
headlines. Just as the politicians ordered. When has tearing into the authorities
for their inability to preempt such terrorist acts become non-secular? And
why mustn't the horror of it be fully published or telecast, without attempting
to make it a routine violent incident, no more worse than a train disaster
or airplane crash? Although with airplane crashes probably, India's nouveau
media would go aggressive. Those who get bombed in trains, or while shopping
happily on Diwali eve, or sightseeing around Srinagar, are obviously lesser
people, to become statistics at the soonest. It is nauseating. Followed by
the media, comes the charade of the political establishment. The President
and the PM's condolences are dutifully reproduced, as though they can speak
to the contrary, Sonia Gandhi, after expressing the routine commiseration,
dashes off to the tragedy site, if the death toll is high enough to give her
political mileage. Once she lands, of course everybody forgets the relief
work and serves her, from the chief minister down. Incidentally, we have a
grotesquely incompetent Maharashtra CM, Vilasrao Deshmukh, under his charge,
Bombay shuts down in two consecutive monsoons, a record number of farmers
- nearly seven hundred, would you believe it? - commit suicide in Vidharba,
he and his officials thoroughly and cynically mislead the PM when he visits
there, and now this catastrophe. Followed by these worthies and the condolences
and ill-timed visits, condolences pour from abroad. Previously, the occasions
were probably famine deaths, or natural disasters, tsunami and their lesser
cousins, or assassinations, now, they are terrorist attacks. We sort of get
a grim pleasure, a masochistic pleasure, in publishing these condolences,
from the US and the rest, as if almost glad that they have remembered us,
even if at a time of the wanton massacre of our people. Not to forget, because
it is politically convenient now, Pakistan wires in its own sorry message,
while congratulating whoever masterminded the terrorism on their side, and
it looks a clear giveaway on the Lashkar-e-Toiba. Less publicly, the agency
"responsible" for counter-terrorism, the IB, sends its fattened,
over-the-hill, retiring officials to make the investigations, and in a couple
of days, their consolidated report will be read by the PM - and dumped. And,
meanwhile, since scapegoats have to be found, a committee has been set up,
our PM, ever an official, loving committees, and this will seek to neatly
place the blame on the junior partner in the Maharashtra government, the NCP,
which has the home portfolio. Not directly, but through leaks to the press,
all attempts would be made to divert attention for intelligence failure from
the Congress-led Central government and the Congress-led Maharashtra government.
In about a week, the Bombay blasts would be forgotten - until another serial
explosion rocks the country. History repeating itself as farce. We have become
a soft state, and our rapid regression should bring us in serious competition
with Pakistan and the other failed states in some years. The Bombay blasts
are the result of systems failure, and the entire political-government establishment
at the Centre and in Maharashtra must take blame, and not one or two individuals,
although they may happen to be in the line of fire. While at some level, it
is the obvious failure of the Centre and the state governments, the PM and
CM, and the Central and Maharashtra home ministers, the rot lies deeper. Officials
say prime minister Manmohan Singh takes more interest in intelligence matters
than his predecessor, A.B.Vajpayee, who left them to his principal secretary
and national security advisor (NSA), Brajesh Mishra. Mishra was an official,
and like most officials, he could not think more than two days into the future.
Vajpayee, a politician, on the rare occasions he pursued security issues,
gave visionary direction. Manmohan Singh's problem is that though he is the
PM, he remains an official, and therefore is able to add little to intelligence
briefs. His home minister, Shivraj Patil, though a politician, is not attuned
to his portfolio, he would be a fit where personal intelligence is not a consideration,
and action is discouraged. Now why do we have a PM who is weak because he
is not a politician, and therefore lacks insight? Because Sonia Gandhi wants
him there, she wants a weak PM (Commentary, "Election mode," 11
July 2006). And just in case the PM wants a half-decent home minister, who
would say no? The Congress president, of course. So if you have a collapsing
state, a soft Centre making way for a soft state, well, you know whom to blame.
And now, the Intelligence Bureau is infected by this ever-growing softness,
and that can be traced to another Sonia fixture in the PMO, the PM's national
security advisor, M.K.Narayanan. If Narayanan were to be NSA alone, that would
be tolerable, although he neither understands strategic issues nor foreign
relations, but he also functions as Sonia Gandhi's eyes and ears. From his
official perch, he tasks the IB with such political intelligence demands,
spying on the NDA, spying on Mulayam Singh Yadav, Mayawati, Laloo Prasad Yadav,
the Left, now M.Karunanidhi, that the agency is shorthanded for and neglectful
of operations, its core works of counter-intelligence and counter-terrorism.
With political intelligence-gathering privileged over counter-terrorism and
counter-intelligence, the result is disastrous. The National Security Council
secretariat is penetrated, and we come to know too late. Terrorists plan the
Bombay serial blasts with precision, and we come to know after two hundred
people die. The PM says this "won't scare us", but he can say that
from the absolute security of 5 and 7 Race Course Road. What about the rest
of us? And while terrorists between nineteen and twenty-four blow us up with
insouciance, our near and dear ones, wherever and however, the IB officers
charged with countering them rank in their mid-fifties, planning their post-retirement
future and the careers of their children, pushing files. Such is the political
establishment, and these are the men, who will fight the terrorists. Is there
any hope of winning?
