For us, once is not enough

by Maj. Gen. Ashok Mehta

(August 09, New Delhi, Sri Lanka Guardian) Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is good with words. At the recently concluded SAARC summit he said: "Terrorism remains the single biggest threat to the stability of South Asia." Twice earlier he had categorised Maoism as the single biggest threat to India's internal security. On several occasions in the past he has condemned the terrorist attacks in India with fulsome resolve to meet the challenge. It is clear that after Kabul, Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Surat -- you could go on adding places -- the time has come for action not words.

It is embarrassing, even shameful to claim India is the oldest victim of terrorism. People outside marvel at our tolerance and high octane debates on law and order being a state subject. Both the print and electronic media this time have not disconnected from the aftermath of bombings and instead maintained pressure on Government and civil society to act. Disparaging comments like India is a soft and fatalistic state, hopelessly unstrategic, woefully woolly and horribly inept in handling internal security have been freely tossed around.

Surprisingly, the Home Minister and the bureaucracy have escaped unscathed from the bombings. Sample this gruesome terrorist toll. Between January 2004 and March 2007, the Washington-based National Counterterrorism Centre figure is 3,674; between October 2005 and today 12 major attacks have occurred in 34 months; overall since 1989, 36 major and minor attacks have accounted for 5,650 victims outside Jammu & Kashmir. Yet, not a single head in the Home Ministry has rolled.

On one of the TV channels a hapless Indian citizen stated: "Only when some politicians are killed will something happen", and added ruefully, "but they have special guards". Times Now attributed to Home Minister Shivraj Patil this statistical gem: "10,000 terrorists in a country of one billion is no big deal." One newspaper demanded: "Mr Patil, Go Home". All the events of the last 10 days were encapsulated in a column with the headline: "National Insecurity".

The primary task of any elected Government is to protect its citizens at home and abroad. The failure to provide internal security -- human security, if you like -- and be seen to be doing nothing about it is the ultimate electoral sin. The fear, panic and insecurity the bombings have generated among "unintended victims" can no longer be wished away. It is a mystery why absolutely zero effort has been shown in tackling this menace by means other than words.

Social scientists, internal security experts and legal luminaries have been suggesting measures to combat what has become a home grown terrorist menace. But as is any Indian Government's wont, it will act only when the threat has turned into a crisis. Travel advisories by many countries have eroded the credibility of the state. The Government must act to meet the challenge of terrorism with the same resolve it displayed in promoting the 123 India US Nuclear Agreement. Mrs Margaret Thatcher used to say, "If there is a will, there is a way."

Here is a checklist of what Government, civil society and ordinary people need to do. First, take politics out of national security; instead create a national consensus on internal security to protect citizens of the country. Heed the latest Supreme Court judgement which rules that terrorism is not a law and order issue as it transcends State and national borders. Ideally, an act of terrorism must be pre-empted and prevented through actionable intelligence collated top down and vice-versa. As this may not always be feasible in the messy geostrategic space that India occupies, the potential terrorists must know that they will not get away after the crime. Inherent in this deterrence is effective policing, investigation and conviction.

The current debate seems to be fixated on a federal investigating agency and whether the Constitution has to be amended for empowering the CBI or a mere amendment to its charter will do. Though currently understaffed, its charter is mainly political intelligence. For a country ridden with Maoism, separatism and terrorism, only a national counter-terrorism grid, locked within a central internal security mechanism preferably under the PMO, will serve a nation aspiring to grow at nine to 10 per cent annually. In 2001, the Kargil Review Committee had recommended the establishment of a central mechanism for dealing with threats to internal security under a unified command. Citizens have to be sensitised to the various threats as they will be the first to encounter the different faces of terrorism.

Any mechanism is only as good as the parts that make it. Policing constitutes the basics of any counter-terrorism or internal security apparatus. The police-population ratio in India is 126 for 100,000 whereas the global average varies from 250 to 500 per 100,000. The paucity of funding relevant equipment and trained manpower is a big problem. Money gets used in establishment costs leaving little for intelligence and surveillance. For a population of one billion, IB has only 30,000 field personnel with few focussed on counter-terrorism.

Besides sharpening policing, intelligence, investigation, the legal framework has to be tightened too. We have moved a long way from TADA to POTA to PTA to UAA, MCOCA in some States, that few alphabets are left to coin an effective counter-terrorism acronym. A special bench of the Supreme Court must come up with appropriate laws to deal with threats to internal security which are insulated from political mischief. Laws must be buttressed by fast track courts to dispense justice speedily.

How ill-equipped India is in dealing with the growing challenge of terrorism can be gauged by the absence of any comprehensive database on terrorist networks operating in India, the lack of a unified command and a networked communication set-up between the Centre and the States. India really shines when a Bangladeshi national with a Pakistani passport can contest elections in Assam.

The pointsperson on internal and external security -- NSA -- is a former policeman and a former IB Director. He seems focussed almost entirely on fixing parliamentary arithmetic and big ticket issues like the 123, not hands on on national security, especially internal security which is his forte. One hopes he will kickstart a counter-terrorism mechanism culminating in a National Internal Security Agency to stop the quarterly strikes by terrorists in the heart of India.

The US was attacked once on 9/11; it has since invested political resolve and enormous resources to create a Department of Homeland Security to avoid a repeat. And it has. The UK, the world's oldest democracy, has introduced draconian laws enmeshed in an internal security network to stamp out terrorist attacks. After the Madrid bombings, Spain spruced up counter-terrorism measures. For them, once is enough.
- Sri Lanka Guardian