Mumbai 26/11: Strategic Hostages?

by Swati Parashar

(December 08, London, Sri Lanka Guardian) It has been a week since the operations to flush out terrorists in Mumbai. We have precious little to show in terms of real and tangible actions on the ground.

A few pointers to the level of the preparedness:

1. On December 3, 2008, a week after the Mumbai terror attacks, two bags containing eight kilograms of explosive material were recovered from the Chhatrapati Shivaji Rail Terminus in Mumbai.

2. On December 5, 2008, in the early hours there was ‘reported’ firing at IGI Airport at New Delhi. There was no follow up investigation; only denials and cover ups.

3. On December 5, 2008, two CPI(M) MPs delayed an Air India domestic flight by almost four hours when they refused to de-board the aircraft which developed a technical problem. (This incident makes a mockery of Defence Minister A K Antony’s directive on December 3, 2008, which warned the armed forces of possible terror attacks from airborne platforms similar to the 9/11 attacks in the US. The Defence Minister asked them to be prepared to counter the threat of terrorists from the air and prevent a repeat of World Trade Centre-type of attacks carried out by the Al Qaeda.)

4. On December 6, 2008, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visits West Bengal; the state police deploy boys and men for surveillance of the area from tree tops as part of security measures! Some of these were school children who are paid Rs 120 to keep a watch from treetops and report any suspicious movements or objects.

These incidents reflect India’s preparedness to foil future terror attacks! India’s will to seek justice for the past terror attacks has been held hostage by various quarters inimical to India’s sovereignty. We, the people of India, must realise that we are held hostage to US interests in Afghanistan, ISI interests in Pakistan, nuclear deterrence, political interests of our own so-called leaders and worthless national security officialdom.

Our Prime Minister does not tire of telling us that his government is waiting for an effective ‘international response’ to the Mumbai terror attack. All the Prime Minister is interested in, is making a cheap spectacle of our tragedy. We are relying on the international community which in turn is guided by individual national interests of the constituent nation-states. The Indian Government looks for sympathy; therefore, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice gatecrashes into a grieving India and lulls this country into inaction instead of joining hands in giving a fitting reply to the state that sponsors such heinous acts. The Secretary of State achieves her only objective of sabotaging India’s strong response, in order to protect US geopolitical interests in the region. There are about 34,000 US troops (around 64,000 foreign forces) in Afghanistan fighting the ‘war on terror’. Pakistani armed forces supposedly provide security to the trucks carrying food, clothes, equipments etc into Afghanistan for these foreign forces. India’s response to the Mumbai carnage is held hostage to the supplies and logistics for the foreign troops in Afghanistan. It seems that the primary objective of the Pakistani forces fighting on their western frontiers is not to fight the Al Qaeda and Taliban terrorists but to ensure the logistic supply route to Afghanistan. (The Taliban leaders have expressed their willingness to fight alongside the Pakistani army should India take military action against Pakistan; so much for the ‘war on terror’!) The moot point is, will the US ever allow their ‘traffic police’ to be distracted by any thing else at this juncture?

Mumbai terror victims are, but, collateral damages in this great ‘war on terror’. Pakistan has been amply rewarded for the outsourced services; a staggering 10 billion USD since the day President Musharraf said ‘I do’ to his master in the White House. US has supplied military hardware, training and partnerships of an unprecedented scale to Pakistan, has sanctioned the worst nuclear offender Abdul Qadeer Khan to go scot free and most recently has permitted the generous IMF loan of 7.5 billion USD. In contrast the jihadi terrorists operating with impunity and state patronage in Pakistan have been India’s reward in this sham ‘war on terror’.

We, Indians, have been over-zealous to protect American interests even without being asked for it! Post 9/11 attacks on America we were too eager to allow Americans to use our territory to launch the attacks on Afghanistan, even before the Americans had put a formal request for it. In our overriding eagerness to be a part of US war efforts we did not even get our geography right (Afghanistan is not next door to us!). The duplicity in American policy is blatant; they ask us to collect all the evidence, compile them neatly, undertake national security audit and finally show restrain! What evidence and restraint did the US demonstrate when 9/11 happened? Where is our national interest? Realism in International Relations preaches that ‘national interest’ is the driving force for all state actors in every policy decision. I am yet to see any ‘national interest’ reflected in the responses of our government to the Mumbai attacks. We are worried about Pakistan, about America, about Bangladesh, about everyone but ourselves. For the audacious attack on our innocent people in Mumbai, we await the international community to tell us what to do, instead of informing the international community about our intentions and options in the pursuit of justice.

Indian response to the Mumbai attacks seems to be governed less by our ISI (Indian State Institutions) but more by Pakistani ISI. The bleeding hearts of this country and also of the world are so blinded by their love for the forever ‘nascent and fledging democracy’ of Pakistan that this ‘demon-cracy’ in India is quite acceptable to them. The body politic of Pakistan has the army as its body and the ISI as its soul while the civilian government is a convenient façade for the politically naive. The Pakistani Army Chief reprimanded the ‘Civilian President’ so severely that President Zardari lost his art of delicate diplomacy. The ‘Director General’ of ISI became the ‘Director’ of ISI. And of course the ever genteel Indian Prime Minister did not confront Zardari for his hearing problems when there is no possibility of any ‘lost in translation’! Furthermore, the Army Chief dispatched his own aircraft to abruptly fetch the Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, mid-way during his recent visit to India (coinciding with the Mumbai horror). The ever eloquent Qureshi has been fumbling for words ever since. Unfortunately, the ISI handlers did not brief some of their Hurriyat friends in Kashmir, such as Syed Ali Shah Geelani who attributed the unceremonious departure of Qureshi to India’s ‘intimidation’!

If the ex ISI Chief and presently Army Chief, Gen. Kayani, takes over power from the civilian government at least India can deal with a single agency which also happens to be the real rulers of the state as well as of the ‘non state actors’ based within Pakistan. India is neither responsible nor a sponsor of the ‘civilian’ government and democracy in Pakistan and this should never be allowed to hold India’s pursuit for justice to ransom.

There are numerous doom sayers in India who never tire of warning us about the nuclear capability of Pakistan and thereby dismissing any notion of hot pursuit of the offenders in Pakistani territory. Every time Pakistani jihadi groups have launched their atrocities in this country, the entire world goes ballistic in calling this region a ‘nuclear flashpoint’. It is time to ask fundamental questions. Has Pakistan acquired the nuclear umbrella to launch frequent terror attacks on India and then conveniently duck under the umbrella from any reprisal? Have we, in India, forfeited the right to pursue the terrorists and seek justice just because Pakistan has some nuclear arsenal of dubious nature? For how long do we tolerate the ‘Pakistani Nuclear Deterrent’ as an excuse to absolve it of the senseless murder of our citizens? There has to be a credible alternative to bring the culprits to the book other than engaging in this nuclear posturing. We can not allow our demands for justice to be held hostage to Pakistan’s military and nuclear capability.

The political class of our country seems to be working for the betterment of the global environment by recycling the waste. How else can we have Chhagan Bhujbal appointed as the Deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra again, after R R Patil became a casualty of his ‘conscience’? Mr. Sharad Pawar never stops springing surprises. His earlier nominee R R Patil could find his conscience only when his position became untenable and his eloquence became untreatable. Mr. Chhagan Bhujbal needs no introduction; he was forced to resign in 2003 as Deputy CM after the Telgi stamps scam was unearthed. The Telgi scam had multiple dimensions and funding of terrorist organisations was one of them! In all probabilities Mr. Chhagan Bhujbal will wrest the Home Ministry in Maharashtra. This does not seem to be a case of building confidence in the administration in fighting terror, unless rampant nepotism is the best way to fight terror. We all know Agriculture Minister, Mr. Sharad Pawar loves his cricket, his nephew Ajit Pawar, his daughter Supriya Sule and ruling his Maharashtra by proxy. For such a busy man how can farmer suicides be of any concern or for that matter fighting terror!

The fact that Mr. Vilas Rao Deshmukh ‘offered to resign’ to his party high command (like obeisance to a deity!) was a very small respite in the whole drama of the power hungry and morally bankrupt Congress Party. Narayan Rane is so furious at being denied the Chief Ministership that he is threatening to become a turncoat yet again. The point is, power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely! The Maharashtra Congress political soap opera has consumed some very important national resources at this precarious juncture. Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee and Defence Minister A K Antony happened to waste a lot of time in selecting some non entity as another Chief Minister in Mumbai. While we are told that our Government is engaging with the international community in exposing Pakistan’s heinous partnership with the terrorists, our Foreign and Defence Ministers have been busy hobnobbing with the MLAs over a petty provincial ‘problem’. Even at this critical hour if these two gentlemen put their political party before the country, hadn’t they better resign from the ministerships? The idea that these two vital ministries are without complete supervision is preposterous and speaks how unimportant national security is for our political ruling class.

The Prime Minister (after being properly secured by school children from the treetops!) finds the top of his voice in the serene Shantiniketan only to announce "tToday, we are witnessing an unacceptable rise in intolerance. Our society seems more divided, more angry, and, tragically, more violent". Imagine, our otherwise taciturn Prime Minister only has his own people to find fault with rather than provide them with succour and comfort at this hour. Mr. Prime Minster we are not more violent, rather, we have been subjected to more and more violence. Who were you addressing by the way: Indians or Pakistanis?

Counter terror responses of this country have been held hostage to the ambitions of these corrupt and unethical set of politicians. Incidentally, it seems most of us have forgotten this country has another constitutional head called the President. It seems that she did visit Mumbai but one has not heard her speak to the people. Who is in charge? Why does it seem like an institutional vacuum? How long can the government take public outrage for granted? We are tired of TV interviews where the likes of P. Chidambaram and Sharad Pawar read obituaries on the security and intelligence failures. We are tired of political theatrics. We are tired of our leaders assuring foreign countries of our inaction. We are tired of having our foreign policy run by foreign interests. A beleaguered nation awaits answers.

Fear has its use but cowardice has none. (Mahatma Gandhi)

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Swati Parashar is a PhD candidate at the Department of Politics and International Relations, Lancaster University, UK. She can be contacted at swatiparashar@hotmail.com - Sri Lanka Guardian