a) The attack was carried out in Mumbai signifies that the country was the target and it’s not the local/state specific issues that are involved here.
b) Security arrangements in Mumbai increased a lot after 26/11, so carrying this out was more difficult than the previous one, means that it’s done by thorough professionals, another point to be noted is that all the mistakes that were committed during 26/11 like tell tale signs of communication with the handlers have been rectified this time.
c) The scale of attack is smaller than 26/11, that is because they wanted this attack to succeed so it was confined to what was possible by a small group, and perhaps they wanted the impact to be big enough to serve their purpose but not so big that India is forced to suspend the dialogue like it did after 26/11.
Coming to the objective behind the attack, there could be many, primary among them the forthcoming visit of US Sec. of state Hillary Clinton’s visit and dictating the agenda of that meet. The agenda of that meet doesn’t appear to be economic, that may be an additional issue that gets discussed but US interest in the region right now is it’s withdrawal from Af Pak region and bring a closure to it’s war against terrorism, many analysts consider this withdrawal as overdue. Another objective could be to divert attention from the mess Pakistan finds itself in right now and perhaps also to remind the jehadis their raison d'etre.What can be done?
That our police is woefully ill prepared to handle such situation has amply been demonstrated in numerous terror attacks. After 26/11 some, even all of the shortcomings may have been identified, but apparently huge gaps still exists and with the kind of bureaucracy and political compulsions there are, that is asking for too much.
It would make a huge difference if they focus on the actions taken post attack. The culprits of ’93 terror attacks have gone scot free, investigations into dozens of other such incidents have reached nowhere, some we have no clue about at all and even the convicts have remained unpunished. All these facts have lowered the “deterrence bar” for the terrorists and an invitation to try out their designs. Needless to say the deterrence needs to be restored, the perpetrators have to feel the heat, investigations have to be pursued relentlessly till it’s logical conclusion. Diplomatic pressure has to be sustained. If we don’t place a high value on our own lives they will certainly not.
(Picture courtesy BDINN.com)
1. Terror attacks will not cease to happen despite improving relationships and security mechanisms. Attacks will continue to occur till the time the perceived or actual differences remain in the economic / religious / regional / ethnic and national issues.
ReplyDelete2. Pointing fingers towards Pak is the easiest thing to do for the Indian THINKING class (this does't give a clean chit to Pak establishment), however, there needs to be some soul searching done to arrive at the reasons for repeated occurrence of these incidents.
3. Mumbai (though I would still prefer to call it BOMBAY)is the soft target with it's important geographical location and cosmopolitan nature. Incident at any lesser known city will not draw any attention leave alone the MONOTONOUS remark by Barak Hussain Obama. However, it becomes the obvious choice for terrorists for whatever reason, either to stop talks or to incite war feelings (which, some of our TV channels are better at).
4. One cannot say that the security situation or preparedness increased after 26/11 (I hate this aping of American way of referring to dates). I have serious doubts about the professionalism of our system as a whole, with twin ills of "CHALTA HAI" & "JUGADU" attitudes. One experiences this each day as we commute in the city or any place of our choosing.
5. More so the security can't be provided everywhere. It's like expecting Army/BSF/Para military to occupy each and every inch of our borders. A county of BILLIONS has to be self vigilant. Awareness and information/intelligence sharing both parallel and vertical is the only way to reduce if not prevent these occurring in future.
6. IED is the cowardice act of the terrorists, if they resort to human bombs one can do nothing as is the case in the Middle-East. The situation may reach that stage if individuals or communities are pushed to wall and the society as a whole remain insensitive to the root causes of the terrorism. Professional & career terrorists need to be tackled separately.
7. Objective / Motive. Postmortem can arrive at any one or any number of objectives or motives of the incident. However, the real one will come to the fore if we manage to catch hold of the real perpetrator. With our appalling criminal & forensic investigation system, I have serious doubts of this happening in near future.
8. What to do?
a. Make Police system strong - implement long pending reforms at once.
b. Stop blame game be it Political, Administrative or Diplomatic - go to the root causes.
c. Economics pinch more than war - become a strong economy & strong industrial base(will also reduce dependence on defence imports) and strangle Pak / terror groups if required.
d. Diplomacy is like a cat on the wall, can jump on either side depending on the situation - Formulate long term National policies in all related issues.
e. Keep America away & out from everything.
Good views, and as mentioned a LOT of things need to be done and politicians and policy makers already know about the things to be done. If done (Implemented) in time it will be good. Still most of the constables in India (except Kashmir) still carry a lathi only. Why can't they get more sophisticated weapons and self protecting gear. Well there needs to be a stronger political will to make it happen. I really wish for an another attack on parliament, only ONLY then politicians will realise the importance and need to protect them self and will implement the measures to safe guard them.
ReplyDelete-- Little brother
@Hementh,
ReplyDeleteYes attacks won’t cease if the so called "non state actors" are truly independent of the state, in that case any carrot & stick policy against the state may not yield the desired result. Of course Pak would want everyone to believe that it has no say in the matters of non state actors perpetrating the acts of terrorism, but I’ll take it with a pinch of salt that terror attacks in India are done exclusively by the non state actors.
I am not pointing fingers towards Pak because its “easy”, the real perpetrators (not the cannon fodders) behind this act can only be confirmed with certitude only when they themselves confess along with the evidence, that won’t happen. But status-quo cannot be a solution to a recurring problem, the response as well as determining the motive will have to make certain presumptions and for now there doesn’t seem to be a more convincing basis.
Security forces, given the resource crunch, have their limitations, but a low deterrence bar does even more damage. The real perpetrators know that the chances of investigations reaching anywhere, anytime soon is next to nil and even if it does, they are out of harm’s way. War is not the only option, may be not even “an” option, diplomatic pressure can still be sustained.
Not that nothing can be done against suicide attacks, do read Kanchan Gupta’s piece on Israel’s response to such attacks http://is.gd/MDLwiS of course expecting this kind of response from Indian establishment would be asking for too much.
Coming to the root causes, much has been written. It appears that part of our intelligentsia/establishment doesn't even want a debate on this or accept state funded religious extremism based organisations as the cause behind terrorism let alone articulating/initiating a debate on the response.
The present terrorism in the world is a result of religious fanaticism. This had been tolerated and encouraged by the USA for its vested interests. Its aim was to transact and to improve its arms business by selling its arms and ammunition to the terrorists and to the nations fighting each other. (The USA was even creating wars among many nations)Terrorism by Pak based terrorists had been tolerated by USA in order to get Pak's support to control Afghanistan and Iran. Pak permitted USA to establish US Army bases in Pak along Afghanistan borders. In turn Pak received huge amounts of financial help from USA. Indirectly USA had been helping Pak to train terrorists in Pak. Pak directly and indirectly helped terrorists to deploy their trained forces against India.
ReplyDeleteUSA, the international police and the head of the unipolar universe should commit itself wholeheartedly and politically to control terrorism by stopping all its dual practices.
India should strongly convey its dissatisfaction in more practical terms to both USA and Pak about their toleration and encouragement of terrorism in India.
People in India should be vigilant about the events happening in the society. They should dispense their passive behavior and should adopt proactive attitude.
There had been terrorist activities in Pak also. The people of Pak also should raise to the occasion by pressurizing Pak Government not to encourage terrorist activities in Pak.
The UNO also should play its due role, without biases and prejudices to any country, to control terrorism.
The religious heads and their blind followers should be educated about the bad effects of religious fanaticism, superstitious beliefs, scientific temper, humanity, international brotherhood etc.
True, every nation state builds up reactions to any serious situation based on it's strengths & weaknesses. The problem here is India doesn't actually see the issue through this perspective. People are plenty, hence, can become canon fodder without even raising an eye brow. Few people/soldiers dying doesn't become an issue at all. India is not Israel and the situation is not similar. However, India too has it's share of those measures in place (Border fence along Pak & Bangladesh and the fence along LoC, are examples).
ReplyDeleteA society has to set a point of saturation after which zero tolerance and graduated path of response has to be adopted. I say again that we neither have conceived nor show intent to set that TIPPING POINT.