India, Pakistan And Terror From Across The Border- Why Isnt War An
Option? – Analysis By Vikram Sood*
BY OBSERVER
RESEARCH FOUNDATION FEBRUARY 8, 2016
The terrorist attack
on Pathankot airbase despite early intelligence warning (a five day lead as per
some reports) has once again revealed gaps in our internal security grid. It
has also been reported that the thermal imagery system between two posts at the
border had broken down in July 2015. This had enabled an infiltration by the
Lashkar-e-Taiba and the Gurdaspur attack.
In the present case, well-armed terrorists had a free run to Pathankot. More
than that, they seem to have a fair knowledge of the layout of the airbase.
A new pattern is
discernible in recent attacks. Terrorists are being sent in to Punjab to see if
the state has become soft and penetrable. In the bargain, there is not even a
pretence that this is about Kashmir anymore. It is about India, make no
mistake.
Reports clearly point
out that Pakistan has spread its intelligence agents all over the country. India
is an easy country to move around, settle, acquire identity and vocation and
they have assessed that it is easy to carry on with their assignments. For
every terrorist cell located, for every intelligence agent picked up, there
must be 10 others not found. The nexus between heroin and drug smugglers,
terrorists, local police, money launderers and politicians is weakening the
system.
The war of perceptions
Why do we have to say
war is not an option even as they send terrorists across or flash their nuclear
arsenal at us? They have opened a second simultaneous front against India in
Afghanistan. We should do likewise. We should not forget we have a war on our
hands. It may be proxy war, or whatever else we may choose to call it, but it
is war by stealth launched by an army which has a Ghazwa-e-Hind (the final
battle for India) mindset. It is not a war just with guns and bullets but a war
of perceptions as well. We have to win both. The enemy has to win just one.
They know that India
will only do so much (when Mumbai 2008 happened we did not even recall our High
Commissioner, nor call off talks) and US will only say so much, usually some
anodyne, limp and preachy statement as they have done again on Monday.
Pakistan can happily live with this arrangement.
A country can afford
to be magnanimous when it is the stronger but some countries do not do that.
The United States never forgave Cuba or Iran and it has taken decades for the
US to try reconciliation. At this juncture, in Pakistan’s ruling circles, any
conciliatory move by India is seen as appeasement. No self-respecting country,
in their view, indulges in this kind of come-and-hit-me-again pleading.
Media coverage
Why show the photo of
a grieving widow on our front pages? This is exactly what Pakistan wants to see
and celebrate – a grieving helpless nation. Why not show a commando in action?
Similarly, this universal desire to rush to interview families, widows and
parents of the dead remains inexplicable. We would honour the dead better by
letting the families grieve in privacy.
We invite their
so-called experts on our prime time television shows, probably pay them
handsomely and thus give them lucrative airtime to bad-mouth us and produce all
sorts of alibis. A fine example of self-flagellation. Do we seriously expect
them to join us in condemning these attacks?
Our editorials the
next morning are very erudite and dispassionate as they advocate the big
picture of continuing talks with terrorists. It is perhaps easy to be
dispassionate when we do not quite know how it is to sit alone crouched behind
a bush on a dark cold winter’s night waiting for the unseen terrorist. At least
for the present we could have spared a thought for those young men who died for
us and put some fire and anger in our editorials.
Apart from the
editorials, take the reportage in the press: On January 4, the Times of
India referred to the terrorists as fidayeen five
times in one report. Have the reporters not been told that terrorists on
suicide missions use this term to glorify themselves in the name of Allah while
on suicide missions? Why do we want to give them this honour when they are
brutal murderers? So is the expression mujahedeen. Let’s get it
right: They are all terrorists, bar none.
The Indian
Express report freely cites a senior officer’s comments and those of a
military officer. Is there no gag order? There is an imaginative report of how
the Research and Analysis Wing or R&AW was able to identify five
terrorists. How does the reporter know this? Has some one told him? Has he seen
the report? Is it necessary to disclose this? Would it not be better to keep
the opposition guessing? It is also described how the terrorists, after
entering India, changed into military fatigues. Where and when did they do
this? Who saw them? Or is this deduction? Did they really use this route that
evening or had they slipped in even earlier? Who escorted them? It should be
easy to confirm.
Taking stock
One hears that
government would now be conducting an enquiry into this episode to determine
how we suffered fatalities and how the terrorists penetrated thus far despite
some early warnings. Depending on the source of intelligence, the timing of the
report and its accuracy, it can be said that had this intelligence not been
received and some measures taken, the attack on the Pathankot Airbase would
have been a major disaster. It must also be said that the airbase is huge and
it takes time to clear such an area. Having said that, it is important to
address our shortcomings.
Our first line of
defence at the border had some gaps and weaknesses. The opposition knew about
this and, quite possibly, there was complicity as well. The local police should
be the first point of call for any such terrorist incident after the border
crossing. It should be a well-equipped mobile force which is familiar with its
area of operation and able to reach the spot before specialised reinforcements
arrive. In India, local police deployments are numerically low (one of the
lowest globally as a ratio to population), they are thus thinly spread out.
What makes it worse is that the quality of training, equipment and morale are
equally low. Over time, police and counter-terror policies have been
politicised. For decades now there have been commissions that have urged police
reforms. These have been promised but never delivered. Prakash Singh, former
chief of the Uttar Pradesh Police and Border Security Force, went to the extent
of seeking legal redress for this, but nothing has happened so far.
Terrorists and their
mentors use each terror attack also as a probing mission to test defences,
reactions and about lessons learnt for the future. The adversary hopes to learn
more about abilities not just of the security forces but the administration,
politicians and media. There are thus two important issues in such situations.
One is the functioning of the command and control of the state. The state must
be seen to react with speed and efficiency, to be in charge all the time and on
top of the situation. The citizen and the forces want to see that there is no
panic or confusion. In the past there used to be meetings of the Cabinet
Committee on Security, although this did not guarantee that the image portrayed
was that of a state in charge. Secondly, terrain knowledge and target
familiarity enables quick and appropriate action. The National Security Guard
or the NSG is a fine force but it is unfair to push it into this kind of a
situation unless it has performed dry runs. Perhaps Army commandos could have
been used.
It is going to be
same old story again, I fear. We have had 30 years to put our counter terror
practices in position and for a while we succeeded in Punjab, but the last two
decades have pushed all these measures away. In the end, it seems like we have
been here before as we wait for the next terror attack.
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