[Reader-list] TERRIFYING SAMENESS: AN OPEN LETTER TO VINOD MEHTA

[Pawan Durani]

TERRIFYING SAMENESS: AN OPEN LETTER TO VINOD
MEHTA<http://ramansterrorismanalysis.blogspot.com/2008/09/terrifying-sameness-open-letter-to.html>
<http://ramansterrorismanalysis.blogspot.com/2008/09/terrifying-sameness-open-letter-to.html>
B.RAMAN
"The discourse on our 24-hour news channels is even more predictable. The
usual suspects are rounded up to provide insight andcorrective action.
Experts like B. Raman, Ajit Doval and Julio Ribeiro, alas, provide no cure.
Police reform always gets roped into thediscussion and we are reminded of
Supreme Court orders which have been studiously ignored. There is an element
of farce in the wholeexercise. When the next terrorist outrage happens, as
it will, we will go over the rigmarole once more. I don't have any solutions
to a verycomplex problem but I do know that the present strategy is a total
failure. Let me correct that because I believe no one in the
countryunderstands or is aware that a strategy exists—except to condemn
terrorism and terrorists. As the Indian Mujahideen in their e-mailboasted:
they can strike anywhere, anytime."
Extract from the "Delhi Diary" of Shri Vinod Mehta, Editor, "Outlook"
available at http://www.outlookindia.com/diary.asp?fodname=20081006
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Dear Shri Vinod Mehta,

I read with interest your above-quoted observations in the issue of
"Outlook" dated October 6,2008. A major problem one faces in India
inpromoting an adequate understanding of the problem of terrorism is that
most of us have little time or patience for facts and figures and
fordetails. We have our idees fixes and come to conclusions, which are often
superficial, on the basis of such idees fixes. That is one of thereasons for
the image of helplessness in dealing with terrorism which we project of
ourselves to our own people and to the rest of the world.

2. Our record in dealing with terrorism and insurgency is not as negative as
it is often projected to be. We have had a successful record inPunjab,
Nagaland (partial), Mizoram, Tripura and in Tamil Nadu in dealing with
terrorism of Al Umma. Even in Jammu & Kashmir, the groundsituation was
showing signs of definite improvement till the recent avoidable controversy
over facilities for the Amarnath pilgrims.

3.There are two kinds of terrorism/insurgency where our record has been poor
till now---- the jihadi kind, which is essentially an urbanphenomenon
outside J&K, and the Maoist (Naxalite) kind, which is essentially a rural
phenomenon. If one compares these two kinds ofterrorism with the instances
where we were not without success, one would find a striking difference. We
have succeeded where theterrorism or insurgency was a regional phenomenon
and was confined to a narrow area. We have not succeeded where the threat
waspan-Indian in nature with the network extending its presence to many
States in the North and the South.

4. A pan-Indian threat requires a co-ordinated pan-Indian response at the
political and professional levels. Unfortunastely, we do not have it.The
multiplicity of political parties, the era of coalition and the tendency in
our country to over-politicise the problem of terrorism come inthe way of a
pan-Indian political response. The tendency of the intelligence agencies and
the police of different States to keep each other inthe dark about what they
know and not to admit to each other as to what they do not know come in the
way of a pan-Indian professionalresponse.

5. There has been a plethora of reports and recommendations on the need for
better sharing and co-ordination, but without any effect onour agencies and
the police. I was talking to a recently-retired Police chief on the present
state of co-ordination and sharing. He admittedthat there has been no
noticeable improvement. He added:" The agencies and the police show a
greater readiness to share theirinformation with Praveen Swami, the
journalist of "The Hindu", than with each other. We all wait for his columns
in "The Hindu" to know whatinformation other agencies and the police of
other States have."

6.The agencies and the Police are largely responsible for the absence of a
co-ordinated professional response, but the political leadershipat the
Centre and in different States cannot escape their share of responsibility.A
determined political leader, who has the national interestsin mind, can use
a whip and make the agencies and the police co-operate. We saw it in the
case of Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi andNarasimha Rao at the Centre and Beant
Singh,former Chief Minister, in the case of Punjab, and Sharad Pawar in the
case of Maharashtra. Apolitical leader whose policies and actions are
motivated by partisan and not national interests will come in the way of
professionalco-operation. We saw it in the case of Mulayam Singh Yadav and
Mayawati in Uttar Pradesh.

7. Any cure to the problem of jihadi and Maoist terrorism has to start at
the political level. A political leader has to play a dual role. He has
tohelp the professionals in taking firm action against the
terrorists---whatever be their community and ideology.He has to give them
whatevertools they need. At the same time, he has to identify the
circumstances and perceptions which drive young Muslims to take to
jihaditerrorism and young tribals to take to Maoist terrorism. Anger is one
of the common root causes of all terrorism. Unless this anger isaddressed,
professional handling of the threat alone, however effective, cannot bring
about an enduring end to this threat.

8. An effective political handling has to start with a detailed analysis of
the causes of anger and action to deal with them. Our youngMuslims, who are
taking to jihadi terrorism, are not bothered by issues such as lack of
education and unemployment, reservation forMuslims etc . They are angry at
what they consider to be the unfairness to the Muslims, which, according to
them, is widely prevalent inIndia. They are angry with the Bharatiya Janata
Party (BJP) for destroying the Babri Masjid and with the Congress (I) for
not preventing it.They are angry with both for not implementing the Sri
Krishna Commission report on alleged excesses commited by the Mumbai Police
indealing with the riots by some Muslims after the Babri Masjid demolition.
They are angry with the BJP for what happened in Gujarat in 2002.They are
angry with both the BJP and the Congress (I) for their studied silence on
the alleged violations of the human rights of theirco-religionists in
Afghanistan and Iraq. They are angry with our political
class----particularly the BJP and the Congress (I)--- for not utteringone
word of criticism about the special detention centres for Muslim suspects
set up by the US in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and in Bagramin Afghanistan. Even
Tony Blair, who was widely perceived as an American poodle, criticised the
Guantanamo Bay detention centre througha statement by his Attorney-General
in 2006 before he left office, but none of our leaders has uttered a word on
this subject. ManmohanSingh claims himself to be secular at home, but he
profusely praises President George Bush, who is strongly disliked by large
sections ofthe Muslims of the world. His unfortunate statement that the
people of India like Bush is not shared by the 160 million Muslims of India
andmany others.

9. Unsatisfactory political handling of the Muslim youth by all political
parties is an aggravating cause of the threat from jihadi terrorism.
Thepolitical class is not prepared to mend its ways and play its role in
dealing with this problem. How can they expect the professional class
toproduce a miracle cure?

10. Similarly, it is the absence of meaningful land reforms and perceptions
of suppression of the tribals by the so-called upper caste Hindus ,which is
an important cause of the tribal anger in Central India. It is the
responsibility of the political class and the society as a whole toaddress
this. They do not do so and keep nursing an illusion that more and more
money, men and equipment for the agencies and the policewill end this
problem. It won't.

11. The way we kick around the problem of terrorism like a football blaming
everybodyelse except ourselves can be seen in the TV debatesand media
columns. The same arguments are repeated without worrying over their
validity. The Congress (I) and the analysts supporting itridicule the BJPs
demand for the revival of the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) by pointing
out that despite the introduction of the POTAby the BJP-led Government,
major acts of terrorism took place during its tenure. The BJP attributes the
increase in jihadi terrorism since thepresent Government assumed office in
2004 to its abolition of the POTA.

12. Both the arguments are partly correct and partly wrong. Yes, it is
correct that despite the POTA major terrorist strikes took place during the
BJP regime. So too, in Western countries, despite special powers given to
the agencies and the police major incidents ofterrorism took place. The
Madrid blasts of March,2004, the London blasts of July,2005, and the Glasgow
incident of June 2007, took placeafter special powers were given. Nobody in
the West uses these incidents as an argument against special powers.

13. Similarly, an increase in attacks on soft targets has been faced by many
countries of the world after the Bali explosion of October,2002.So too
India. This is due to the tightening of physical security for hard targets
after 9/11. The new focus of the jihadi terrorists on softtargets has meant
more terrorist strikes and more casualties. The undoubted fact that
casualties due to jihadi terrorism have more thandoubled since the Manmohan
Singh Government came to power cannot be solely attributed to its abolition
of the POTA.

14.Effective intelligence and physical security and a modern legal
architecture are the three essential components of any
counter-terrorismstrategy.Intelligence and physical security help in
preventing acts of terrorism. Successful investigation and prosecution deter
the flow ofnew recruits to terrorist organisations.If only we had a federal
agency solely for the investigation and prosecution of terrorism cases,
wewill not be facing the kind of messy situation we are facing today----
with the Gujarat police under a BJP Government giving one version ofthe
so-called Indian Mujahideen (IM) and the Police in Congress (I) ruled Delhi
and Maharashtra giving a different version.

15.Flow of human intelligence about jihadi terrorism is weak because of the
post-9/11 phenomenon of global Islamic solidarity and theadversarial
relationship between the agencies and the police on the one side and the
Muslim community on the other.Feelings of Islamicsolidarity prevent even
law-abiding Muslims from volunteering to the agencies and the police
information about their co-religionists, whohave taken to terrorism and from
assisting the police in their investigation. The adversarial relationship
has resulted in mutualdemonisation. How to come out of this syndrome is a
matter for serious consideration not only by the police and the agencies,
but also bythe political class and the civil society, including the media.

16. Once we allow terrorism and insurgencies of different kinds to make
their appearance in our society it takes a long time to deal withthem. We
took 19 years to deal with the Naga insurgency, another 19 years to deal
with the Mizo insurgency, 14 years to deal withKhalistani terrorism and
about 10 years to deal with Al Umma. The French took 19 years to deal with
the terrorism of Carlos and his group.Even after 41 years of vigorous
implementation of a no-holds-barred counter-terrorism strategy, Israel is
still grappling with the terrorism ofthe Palestinians and the Hezbollah. The
British took over 20 years to bring the Irish Republican Army under control.

17. The jihadi terrorism in the Indian territory outside J&K is a post-Babri
Masjid demolition phenomenon. This has been rendered moredifficult to handle
by the post-9/11 emergence of the concept of a global jihad. Our jihadi
terrorism is still only a pan-Indian phenomenon, butit has not yet become a
part of the global jihadi phenomenon. Preventing it from happening is the
responsibility of the political leadershipand containing and rooting it out
is the responsibility of the professional class. The two have to work
together, with understanding and support from the civil society. The
attitude of our political class to terrorism is ambivalent. On the one hand,
it is worried---rightly---over thisgrowing threat. On the other, it
continues to view this as a vote-catcher. Every political party has been
firm in demanding action againstterrorism when it is out of power. It
becomes soft when it comes to power. That is the bane of our
counter-terrorism. Only voter pressure canforce the political class to stop
exploiting terrorism as an electoral weapon and to start dealing with it as
a major threat to national security,which should unite the political class
and the civil society. (29-9-08)

(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of
India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For TopicalStudies,
Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2 at gmail.com )