Author: Editorial
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: July 13, 2006
From Israel, lessons for Mumbai ---- Facetious
as it may sound, weeks like this one are ripe for bemoaning the limits to
outsourcing, and the fact that the mandate for India's internal security cannot
be contracted out to the iron-willed consciousness of Israel. In the past
two days, Israel has bombed Beirut airport and begun a naval blockade of Lebanon,
aimed at disrupting the supply lines of Hizbullah terrorists and weaponry.
It has refused to negotiate following Hizbullah's kidnapping of two Israeli
soldiers, recognised that outrage for what it is - an act of war - and gone
on the offensive, determined to uproot the sources of terror. In the past
fortnight, Israel has also moved its soldiers into Gaza, after fresh attacks
from there - even as the rogue "Government of Palestine" looked
on encouragingly - and the abduction of a military officer. It is impossible
not to contrast these tough and unambiguous measures with the pusillanimity
and squeamishness of the UPA Government after the Mumbai train blasts or,
indeed, the relentless cycle of terrorist assaults that began almost exactly
one year ago, in Ayodhya. There is denial about home-grown terrorism - UPA
Ministers never tire of claiming that no Indian is a member of Al Qaeda, ignoring
the growing number of non-Kashmiri recruits in the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba, with
cells uncovered in, at least, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra.
There is praise for Mumbai's "resilience" and "spirit",
as if these were substitutes for concrete Government action. No country suffers
the frequency of bomb attacks that Israel does - in markets, discotheques,
restaurants, everyday places. Ordinary Israelis get up, dust themselves and
go on with life. They display the remarkable human ability to bounce back
that, on the morning of July 12, brought Mumbai back on track. Yet the Government
in Tel Aviv doesn't take solace from this, wring its hands, sit down and do
nothing. It salutes its brave citizens by destroying - or pre-empting - those
who mean them harm.
It is nobody's suggestion that the UPA Government
should immediately begin bombing terrorist camps across the Line of Control
- though that eventuality is a compelling and perhaps inevitable option -
but what of action against indigenous bastions of terrorists and their logistical
support structures, against institutions and groups known to be hand in glove
with Laskhar, Jaish-e-Mohammed and their sister organisations, a crackdown
on jihadi fifth columnists within India? This is a national imperative, however
much "secular" UPA allies may protest. The post-bombing arrest of
200 people in Mumbai is a case in point. It is unlikely these people were
actually involved in the suburban train strikes. They are probably SIMI/Islamist
sympathisers whose names have long appeared in police records but who have
never been questioned, let alone taken into custody, as the Congress and its
allies went looking for their votes and repealed POTA. If hard steps had been
taken a year ago, Mumbai's trains would probably still have been safe. The
terrorists would have been warned: Governments change, but this is a country
you don't mess with. In the summer of 2006 those messages are being delivered
loud and clear - as it happens, by Israel. Meanwhile, Mr Manmohan Singh can
go back to his fiddle.
