It's because we are occupied with the irrelevant, like, whether Sanjay Dutt should be pardoned, that the relevant escapes our attention. This is the main reason why the terrorists get to attack us repeatedly
Ever since the Supreme Court pronounced its verdict on March 21 in the 1993 Mumbai blasts case, media space has been occupied by strident calls for pardon to film star Sanjay Dutt. There has been an equally vociferous demand that he must undergo the punishment. The obsession with his case is understandable because he is a celebrity with a larger-than-life image. But it’s disappointing that little attention has been paid to one of the most critical observations of the apex court. It’s to do with the functioning of state agencies, whose blunders contributed to the terrorist attack.
The apex court has, inter alia, said: “It will not be an overstatement to state that, if not for the help of the Customs officials, they (convicts) would not have been in a position to smuggle the weapons required for the blasts… Corruption among public servants indicates a failure of our system where personal gratification subdues the public interest.” They also observed that “all grades of Customs officers, including Commissioners of Customs, played an active role as members of conspiracy and implemented the plan.”
The two-judge Bench of Justices P Sathasivam and BS Chauhan also spoke of the failure of the Coast Guard and rapped Mumbai Police. The judges remarked, “Unfortunately, in the present case the police officers themselves have taken active part in smuggling and transportation of arms and explosives in Bombay…”
These are strong words indeed, and our policy makers must heed them rather than allow their energy to be sapped in a senseless exercise of defending or castigating an individual. But it’s precisely because we are occupied with irrelevance that the relevant escapes our attention. This is the main reason why we continue to be attacked. The failure of various state agencies, besides the actions of those who play politics with terror, has contributed to India’s image of being a soft target. Few senior officials have been punished for such lapses, whether in the 1993 case or in connection with terrorist strikes thereafter.
The other unfortunate thing is that our intelligence agencies have become subservient to the parochial interests of the politicians in power, serving more the cause of the latter’s vote-bank than the security of the country. Worse, these officials are then rewarded for their inefficiency. In his book, Indian Mujahideen, Shishir Gupta speaks of many intelligence failures and the complete lack of accountability for these lapses on the part of the officials concerned. He writes about the change (for the worse) after the Congress-led UPA Government took charge, MK Narayanan became the National Security Adviser after the demise of MN Dixit, and ESl Narasimhan became director, R&AW. Gupta comments on the changes, “Narayanan and Narasimhan were more comfortable with party politics and the need to protect the left-supported UPA Government… From February 2005 to November 2008, the internal security establishment was more focused on collecting political intelligence rather than uprooting the jihadist modules in India.”
The result of this approach, as we all know, was 26/11, when our security and intelligence establishment was caught off-guard. Gupta then adds how the regime responded to this failure: “(Then Union Minister for Home Affairs) Shivraj Patil and MK Narayanan were ‘reassigned’ after 26/11, and made Governors of Punjab and West Bengal respectively for their loyal work in the past.” So much for accountability!
But it was not that the UPA Government merely rewarded criminal non-performance; it was also extra-soft on Islamist fundamentalists. The author observes, “Preparing to win back Uttar Pradesh from the minority-supported Samajwadi Party in the 2007 Assembly elections, New Delhi’s message down the line was to not adopt a proactive stance against rising Islamic fundamentalism.” We are seeing the result.
The Congress-led regime had initially rubbished the rise of home-grown terror and what we now know as the ‘Indian Mujahideen’, comprising members who have been fed and brainwashed by their handlers living in Pakistan, with a militant version of Islam and hatred for India. The shocking support by some prominent members of the Congress for the terrorists involved in the Batla House encounter where a brave Delhi Police officer lost his life fighting militants was just one of the many instances of the mindset that prevails among members of the ruling combine towards home-grown terror. The more recent ones include the outpouring of sympathy for Afzal Guru from members of the UPA.
It’s then no wonder that state agencies have lost the appetite to be tough or vigilant. The book, Headley and I, offers many shocking accounts of the indifference to national security. Co-authored by S Hussain Zaidi and Rahul Bhatt (film-maker Mahesh Bhatt’s son; he had the misfortune of coming in close contact with David Coleman Headley who prepared the ground for the 26/11 carnage and the German Bakery attack in Pune), it offers an insight into the contempt that enemies of India hold for the country’s inefficient state apparatus. While responding to Indian intelligence sleuths who had gone to the US to interrogate him, the Pakistani-American Headley spoke of how easily he came to India without anyone at the airport counters or elsewhere noticing the glaring errors on his travel documents. He had discarded his earlier name, Daood Gilani, rechristened himself to avoid arousing suspicion, and was armed with a new passport. According to the book, he told the interrogators, “Surprisingly, there were quite a few errors in my passport and visa that nobody noticed, certainly not the Indian agencies. My father’s name was not mentioned in the passport, and the visa in the name of David Coleman Headley had the father’s name as Salim Gilani. But nobody questioned this. That’s why I say that Indians are chu****s.” Headley also told them about the contempt with which Pakistani state and non-state actors held Indian intelligence.
Coleman was naturally thrilled to recount the lapse. If only the Indian agencies had looked a little more closely at the travel documents and cross-checked with the US — as they should have done — they would have discovered that even the social security number of Headley matched with that of Daood Gilani. Had the errors been noticed, had he been detained and questioned thereafter, we could have pre-empted the 26/11 strikes in Mumbai — and many other terrorist attacks. We would have had Headley in our custody and secured far more information than we now have. But we don’t seem to have learnt the lesson that our state agencies must become professional and remain constantly on alert.
In the midst of this national obsession, we have yet another reminder that something is deeply rotten with the functioning of our security set-up. Two State police forces are locked in a confrontation on whether one liaquat Ali Shah, a militant nabbed in Gorakhpur, had come to execute terror attacks or to surrender! If this is the state of affairs, we can only brace for another terror attack. The last happened very recently in Hyderabad.
Because, all that we are occupied with, is: Should Sanjay Dutt be pardoned or sent to jailIJ