Synopsis Of Debates in Rajya Sabha by Arun
Jaitely
Monday, November 27, 2006
Shri Arun Jaitely, initiating the discussion,
said: The UPA Government now has been in power for almost two-and-a-half years.
There are several fronts on which the Government has certainly not lived up
to the popular expectations. We have seen in the last two-and-a-half years
gross Constitutional improprieties committed for partisan reasons in Jharkhand,
Goa and Bihar. We have seen the dilution of the Prime Ministerial authority
and the criminalization of the Council of Ministers. We have also seen the
abrogation of an effort to pursue an independent foreign policy. These are
the broad heads which have disappointed the whole country. But, certainly
the management of the country's internal security is the largest single failure
of this Government. Now, the challenge to internal security is not limited
to areas which were traditionally infested with terrorism, but it has extended
even in other parts of the country also. The question is whether India is
safe in the hands of the UPA? Every time any major incident of sabotage or
attack or terrorist violence takes place, the Hon'ble Prime Minister and the
Hon'ble Home Minister utter the usual kind of templates that this is condemnable;
the Government and the country will have zero-tolerance to terrorism. But,
after this exercise, this Government sits back and waits for the next attack
to take place. This has been the history of the last two-and-a-half years.
Even the latest document circulated by them has nothing which inspires real
confidence among the people.
The 24-page document of NCMP virtually makes
no reference to the management of the country's internal security. The management
of the internal security in this country is not a UPA priority. There is no
mention of what the national strategy has to be to deal with terrorism in
Jammu and Kashmir and how the left wing extremism has to be combated. Our
intelligence agencies have been keeping the highest functionaries of the Government
well informed as to what the ground-level situation today in the country is.
But, the real problem is the own approach of the UPA . If hard decisions are
not to be taken, if terrorism and the deteriorating internal security situation
is to be dealt with by kid gloves, this Government will never be able to effectively
tackle the internal security of the country. Internal security has to be tackled
on security considerations. But the approach of the UPA is that they make
political capital out of it and use it into an instrument of vote bank politics?
It is for the first time in the 59 years of
Indian Independence that the Director of IB, chose a public platform to deliver
his views. Before the entire country, and television and media the Government
is to be advised that all your existing traditional legal architectures for
dealing with terrorism have failed and, therefore, think of a solution, which
is commensurate to the problem that we are seeking to tackle. But then this
would have no effect on a Government whose priority is not national security
but, whose priority is vote bank politics. We had a situation 17 or 18 years
ago where Pakistan realized very clearly that in conventional warfare it has
not succeeded and therefore, it resorted to an alternative tactic. Today incidents
of sabotage and terrorist attack are not merely confined to Jammu and Kashmir.
Today, ISI modules have been expanding along the length and breadth of this
country. Huge quantities of arms and explosives recovered from Maharashtra,
Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Gujarat, Goa, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and
West Bengal clearly project the magnitude of the problem.
The targets of principle terrorist attacks
are chosen very carefully so as to destroy the Indian economic, religious
and social fabric of the Indian society. Terrorist attack made in Ayodhya,
Delhi, Bangalore, Varanasi, Nagpur, Mumbai and Malegaon are believed to be
attacks inspired and planned across the border. The network and the art of
violence is now spreading. Most of these are even, today, planned across the
border. But now you have to face an unfortunate reality that these cross border
attacks are also being supported at places by home-grown terrorists. The centre
of activities has also shifted. The fencing across the border has made it
little difficult on our Western border to have infiltration. Therefore, a
large amount of infiltration is taking place from the open borders of Nepal
and Bangladesh. From Nepal, it is of both kind not only the ISI but also the
leftwing extremists. In Bangladesh you have open border. If you have 20 million
illegal migrant population, it is possible for these miscreants, these terrorists,
to come and mix with the local population. So, detection becomes extremely
difficult.
The security response has been very poor in
case of Mumbai blast on 11th July, 2006.In 1993, when Mumbai was attacked,
the case was cracked up within days. When this Parliament was attacked, the
investigation response was that within 48 hours the response started coming
out who were the possible and what was the manner in which the attack had
been planned. But when the political executive of the day treats this as a
non-priority item, does it inflict upon our intelligence agencies and our
security responses also. The Government by its inadequate response, by its
negative response has lowered the national morale as far as the fight against
terror is concerned.
You repealed the POTA. It was a law that was
intended against terrorists, but it was campaigned that it was against a particular
community. The two significant points in POTA were: one, it had special bail
provisions, which made bail extremely difficult, if not impossible. The second
aspect was that confessions made to a police officer of high rank were admissible
as evidence. Several State Governments said that POTA deals with terrorism,
and then wanted the same power to deal with organized crime. Karnataka, Andhra
Pradesh, Maharashtra asked for the same permission. The Government gave them
permission. So, you had the same law not for terrorists, but for organized
mafia. The Rajasthan and the Gujarat have passed the same law as MCOCA, But
these two States have not been permitted even to enact these laws against
organised crimes. Without the benefit of the evidence provisions in TADA,
many of the accused have gone scot-free. You opposed POTA for political reasons,
so you cannot bring POTA back. Ordinary law will be insufficient to deal with
them. So, now, there is a localized law of POTA called MCOCA which is not
meant against terrorists, but it is meant to be used against organised mafia.
This is the real dichotomy in the approach
as far as this Government is concerned, that as a Government it does not want
to have all the powers as to how to fight terrorism itself. Most of the agencies
such as Intelligence Coordination Group and the National Technology Research
Organisation have really become non-functional. The Central Government appears
to be virtually clueless on how to deal with the situation in Jammu and Kashmir
except for making formal announcements from time to time.
When you had the round table conference, you
started announcing groups, which is more dangerous. One of the groups is to
deal with the Centre-State constitutional relationship. It is not going to
resolve the problem. This not the problem of Kashmir that within the valley,
the Assembly has inadequate powers. But problem is terrorism, the problem
is cross-border terrorism; the problem is economic. Instead of addressing
that problem, you set up only groups.
Indian diplomacy was at its peak when it said
that globally, if there was one issue of internationalization between India
and Pakistan, it was cross-border terrorism. Pakistan wanted to internationalization
Kashmir while we wanted to internationalise Cross-border terrorism; and the
world started listening to us during those six years.
The second difficult area other than Kashmir
is Assam. In the talks with the people's consultation group in Assam not even
the lowest rung of Ulfa leadership participated. When we speak in terms of
internal security, one case of Afzal Guru reflect the attitude of the Government.
There have been cases which the Government may go on considering indefinitely
but there are cases where the Governments in the past disposed off the case
within hours. In the case of the assassins of Gen. Vaidya the clemency application
was disposed off within hours.
Let us now just consider where do we stand
as far as Left-Wing extremism or Maoism, is concerned. Today, right from the
border of Assam till down deep South, you have 40 per cent of India's geographical
area, 35 per cent of population, whose habitable areas are directly or indirectly
affected by Naxalism. These are the areas in which parallel Governments are
running or their primacies are being established. The Maoist use the phrase
"Creation of a Compact Revolutionary Zone." These Compact Revolutionary
Zones from the border of Nepal cover Jharkhand, Bihar, parts of Madhya Pradesh,
Orissa, Chhaattisgarh, parts of Karnataka and a lot of Andhra Pradesh
One police station was captured in Naxalbadi
and a movement had begun and we thought that through the 70s, we had been
able to finish off the movement. Today, in East Champaran in Madhuban, you
had this case. There is a high level of militarisation of this movement which
has taken place. The quality of weapons they have, undoubtedly, can face the
best of security forces. In areas, where they have been able to establish
control, where they levy taxes, where they run parallel Governments, usual
security agencies and Government agencies are reluctant to interfere. They
do it in the name of human rights and various other names and start rationalising
this kind of violence. How is the Government going to deal with all this?
The problem is immense and the Government seems to be working in the opposite
direction.
The Supreme Court says that the IMDT Act was
really enacted for the purpose of legitimatising infiltration. It created
a complicated procedure by which infiltration could be legitimatised and,
therefore, it is unconstitutional. I would like to ask from the hon. Home
Minister as to what happened to the multipurpose national identity cards scheme.
You may require social solutions but, at the same time, the security situations
really cannot be ignored. From the approach of the Government, it is very
clear that we are not safe in the hands of the UPA Government. Our boundaries
are not safe, our borders are not safe and our people are not safe. As far
as the Maoists threat is concerned, before it is too late, the Government
needs to wake up.
