Maybe only two monks were injured in Sunday’s Bodh Gaya bombings, but its impact is far more serious than the government is willing to accept. Nor does the media which treats the politicking over the tragedy as routine tamasha
In November 1997, gunmen belonging to a still unclear group and ideology attacked the 4,000-year-old luxor temple in Egypt and massacred 64 international tourists. like our Bodh Gaya, the luxor
temple is one of the leading symbols of the ancient world and it’s clear that terrorists, whatever their hue, thought up the ideas to bomb it out of desperation for maximum publicity for their cause, only to balk from owning up to its authorship.
Two Islamic terror groups were thought to have been involved in luxor, but neither’s role has been quite confirmed. It could well be that their reticence was born of the anticipation that the sky would come down in terms of global rage. Similarly, the Bodh Gaya bombings have no claimant. It seems to carry the signature of the shadowy “home-grown” group which the intelligence agencies call “Indian Mujahideen” (IM).
But ‘signatures’ can easily be forged in this business. To this day the UPA government and its various arms have not come up with much credible proof of the existence of the IM, leading many to opine, albeit privately, that the IM could be a creation of the intelligence agencies. Much is made of the point that only the IM uses
low-intensity bombs which are intended more for bang than fire and that only its operatives manifest the kind of brazenness that we saw in the latest operation where you had nine bombs going off, two of them planted using step ladders at a height of 18 feet. All said, it was (if you are a terrorism supporter) a supremely successful strike using all the classical elements of a post-9/11 urban operation. Few, if any, in the Indian
security establishment have realised how this latest terrorist incident has embarrassed India in the community of nations claiming to be on the front line of terrorism. Bodh Gaya may be located in India, but it is a global heritage monument which ought to have been protected with as much zeal as the Taj Mahal or Red Fort. It was perhaps selected as a target to undermine India’s image as a soft target which refuses to draw lessons.
Tip off, doze off
The terrorists made a conscious choice to avoid a high body count. Not only was this ensured through the choice of bombs, but also the hour of the operation. It appears that they were out to send a signal and part of that objective was achieved by getting a Burmese national as one of the victims, the other being a Tibetan. Here lies the genesis of the speculation that the persecution of the ethnic Bengali Rohingyas in Myamar could be the root cause.
After every terrorist strike, elements in the federal counter-terrorism establishment rush to plant stories in the hyperbolic media about how they had “warned” authorities of the
concerned State about an impending bombing. The all-too-familiar pattern puts a strain on the national polity’s resolve to keep a unified stance — to send a message, as it were, to the terrorists that all their efforts at ‘dividing India’ led to nothing — and soon you have the old Indian tu-tu-mein-mein tradition breaking out. What
completes the ridiculous circle is the media’s overnight change of role from town crier to pontific adjudicator of the need to avoid “politicisation” of a tragedy.
The truth about ‘alerts’ sent from Delhi to state capitals always come with a tale attached. To justify their existence and big budgets, the many splendored intelligence establishment of India literally mass produces scares which they pass on to the Joint Intelligence Committee and forget about. Twice in recent memory - the Hyderabad bombing of February 2013 and Bodh Gaya - this bogey about
‘specific intelligence’ was generated by Delhi, but in doing so the Home Ministry exposed its own weakness. In intelligence organisations all over the world — and especially in the post-9/11 world — nobody sits back contended that a tip-off will be taken care of by the last link (in India’s case, agency) in the chain. A great number of resources is employed to ensure that the scare passes off without a hitch.
Blaming a state government, particularly if it is ruled by a party unfriendly to the one in Delhi, offers the easiest escape route. India’s counter-terrorism responses need to be checked out on the record of responses of the Central Government in New Delhi and not on the performance of a particular State Government where a
terrorist attack occurs. The reason is simple and basic. India’s counter-terrorism strategy is basically national in character, counter-terrorism intelligence is only within the means of the intelligence agencies at the command of the Central Government, and the
procurement of specialised weapons and equipment and sophisticated communication equipment is routed through and controlled by the Union Home Ministry. The State Governments have virtually no say except for local intelligence.
One is reminded in this context of the Purulia arms drop of December 1995 when a foreign plane flew in from Pakistan and dropped arms and explosives on the paddy fields of Purulia district of West Bengal before refueling at Calcutta airport and heading off to Thailand. It turned out that the central government had indeed alerted its counterpart in Calcutta, warning of a coming arms drop. But what kind of an alert was itIJ A
letter sent by registered post which arrived five days after the incident. And, wonder of wonders, the Joint Secretary in the union home ministry responsible for this
spectacular act of non-coordination not only kept his job, but went on to become chief secretary of a north-eastern State and continued getting government jobs after retirement.
UPA’s chicanery
One can understand the UPA government’s eagerness to pass the buck. Having thoroughly politicised its response system to terrorism (the Ishrat Jahan maelstrom is a case in point) it is confirming the worst fears of observers that there is nothing left of the post-26/11 resolve for “never again.”Gone is the urgency for correcting the slippages which Ajmal Kasab and his team exploited. The enthusiasm for change seems to have been limited to creating more and more institutions like NCTC, NIA, NSA hubs, coastal police stations, etc. but nothing much in terms of augmenting SIGINT and developing coordination between the centre and the states. While some states have shown willingness to improve their policing and intelligence systems and to integrating them effectively with the national effort, the vast majority continues to languish in
hopelessness. Says Ajai Sahni, a distinguished expert on terrorism, “The unfortunate reality is that 26/11 and the rising threats of terrorism, insurgency and political violence across the country, has only
provoked small elements in the Indian political system to a sense of urgency. Much of the remaining system remains trapped in indifference, ritualism and corruption — but most crucially, also in ignorance. Such a patchy response, what is often, at best, no more than “a hurried rearrangement of the security furniture”, can hardly be relied upon to secure the country against the relentlessness of contemporary terrorism and the unwavering intent of its State sponsors, or against the rising tide of violent internal discontent.”
The tendency to apportion political blame adds substance to the perception that India’s counter-terrorism failings are rooted in not only the crippling and cumulative deficits in its institutional and human capacities, but also in the very nature of its democracy.
(The writer is Senior Editor, The Pioneer)