People's Democracy

YECHURY'S SPEECH IN RAJYA SABHA ON TERRORISM

'This Is An Attack On India, Let Us Combat It Unitedly As Indians'

Below we give excerpts from the speech delivered by CPI(M) parliamentary party leader, Sitaram Yechury, in Rajya Sabha on December 11, 2008 while intervening in the debate on terrorism.

I RISE today with a deep sense of anguish over the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, and I am only reminded of the powerful lines of Rabindranath Tagore, which he wrote after the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre: "Give me a voice of thunder/ that I may hurl implications upon this cannibal/ whose gruesome hunger/ spares neither the mother nor the child."

These lines, I am actually recollecting to express the gravity of the attacks that have continuously taken place in our country for the past few months, and using this discussion on the Mumbai attacks I propose to discuss the issue of terrorism in general, and of the attacks that have taken place in various parts of the country, in particular. We have had attacks in Assam. We have had attacks in Hyderabad and Jaipur. We have had attacks in Ahmedabad. You had a series of attacks which number about 48 in the last one year. Now, these sort of terrorist attacks that are continuing with an alarming regularity is something that a country like ours cannot afford to live with. And these are not merely attacks of one nature. There have been attacks which are as diverse as the diversity that we have in India. In fact, since we have become independent, you lost the Mahatma to the bullets of a Hindu fanatic; you lost an incumbent prime minister, Mrs Indira Gandhi, at the hands of Sikh militants; you lost a former prime minister at the hands of terrorists of LTTE variety. You have various types of terrorists in North-East by various outfits. You have a spread of Naxalite violence and activities that are conducted by these forces. So, the diversity of terrorist attacks in our country must be recognised; otherwise, we cannot succeed in the fight against terror. And in recognising this diversity, whether it is the question of attacks on North Indians in Mumbai or whether it is the question of spreading communal poison and hatred, and sharpening of communal polarisation, all these attribute to an atmosphere where terrorism strikes very, very deep roots.

TERROR HAS NO RELIGION

And if you are really interested in fighting terrorism, it is time that we recognise one fundamental fact that a terrorist in India, knows no religion, knows no caste, knows no region. He is simply anti-national. Any attempt to try and straitjacket them into one particular community or the other is the surest recipe for the success of terrorist forces and it is not an answer to resolve terrorism. This is the spirit of the discussion that took place here today and I would like to appeal that we should not resort to such bracketisation or such compartmentalisation, and you can't have a situation like a United States humorist, a Muslim by birth, has recently said, "I am always chosen for random checks at the airport". "Random checks" by definition means "random". But because he belongs to a particular community he has always been chosen. That sort of a witch-hunting against a community in the name of fighting terrorism will only breed terrorism further. So, that is something we will have to avoid.

Since both the earlier speakers have quoted some couplets of Urdu poets, I am also tempted, with your permission, to invoke Firaq Gorakhpuri. The reason why I want to invoke him is also due to the diversity that I was speaking about. All of us know that he, in fact, symbolises it. He was born into an upper caste Hindu family. His original name was Raghupathy Sahay. But he was an Urdu poet. And that is why he adopted the name Firaq. He was a resident of Gorakhpur and that is how he became Firaq Gorakhpuri. He used to teach English in the university! At a time when the conditions in the country were worse with riots happening in many places and widespread tension prevailing, Firaq had attended a poetry session. There was talk of beauty and love in the session and Firaq was also asked to recite a couplet. I will recite what he had recited then: Haasil-e-Husn-e-Ishq Bas Itna, Aadmi-Aadmi ko Pehchaane (Beauty and love have any gist only if Man knows Man � rough translation)

If we have to fight against terrorism then we have to identify terrorism, do not drag an entire community into it. We have to be clear that terrorism has no religion. If we want to fight terror in the name of religion then we are definitely not going to succeed.

NEED FOR ACCOUNTABILITY

The earlier speakers have also highlighted the failures of our intelligence and security apparatus. Some heads have rolled. I think only one head has rolled. My esteemed colleague in this House, the former home minister, is not here. Only that has happened. Beyond that, I entirely agree with the leader of the Congress Party who spoke earlier by saying that there had to be accountability of the various officers and various people in charge of the various departments.

There is an old English saying and this comes from the time of David Livingstone. The saying is, "Mayors may come, Mayors may go; but the Town Clerk remains". Here it is being said that the ministers have resigned. Okay, because they are responsible for that. But what about others who are heading all these agencies? What is happening to that? Is there any sense of accountability? You have a National Security Advisor and a whole set-up. Is there any accountability of that to the Executive so that the Executive will share the accountability with the Legislature? These are issues which we have to take seriously if we are serious in combating terrorism.

Having said this, I want to emphasise the need to create a new security architecture in our country. You have the existing set-up. You have the RAW; you have the Intelligence Bureau; you have other intelligence agencies like the Military Intelligence, and you have various other agencies that contribute in the process of information gathering. But you see how the heads of the various agencies have gone to the media and passing the buck saying, "We passed on the information but the information was not taken seriously". We don't know whether the information was passed or not. What is worse is that the chief of the Naval Staff of the country informs us that he learnt that the Coast Guard had actually intercepted the vessel in which these terrorists landed in Mumbai, but let it off because it had some documentation. He says, "Television informed us". The Coast Guard does not inform the Navy. It informs the media. Then the media tells the Naval Chief. This is a very sorry state of affairs and this will have to be plugged.

NDA REGIME'S FAILURES

I heard my learned colleague, Arun Shourie, very attentively. But the question is, we all would have been very enlightened if he could have told us why all the proposals that you had suggested could not be implemented when you were in office for six years. That may give us some insight as to where we are failing. That is the experience which we would like to know from you. All of us know, after the Kargil war, you had the RAW chief of that time heading a committee set up by the then NDA government, which included the present National Security Advisor. They gave a series of recommendations. You had a proposal for a multi agency centre; a MAC was proposed. This MAC and a Joint Task Force on Intelligence, these two proposals were accepted by a Group of Ministers headed by the then home minister and deputy prime minister, L K Advani. I am reading out the recommendations of this Group of Ministers. This was in 2003. The report says, "Dispersal of the NSG units at strategic parts across the country". I am happy that the government has now announced that it is going to do that and have various centers where the NSG would be there. But that was not done. The report further says, "The NSG should not be deployed for duties beyond its original mandate". How it is being deployed, all of us know now. It is for the security of the VIPs and VVIPs. That is not their job. But that has not been implemented. It goes on to say, "Lack of institutionalised arrangement for sharing and coordination of Intelligence at various levels and particularly at the field level." That is what we are talking about today that there should be coordination among intelligence gathering agencies. But that has not happened despite the GoM's recommendations five years ago. It further says, "An apex body for management of maritime affairs for institutionalised linkages between the Navy, the Coast Guard and the concerned ministries of the central and state governments." This has not happened. We have heard how the terrorists have used the sea route. It is not that we were not aware. It is not that these were not apprehended. But the point is, in spite of all these recommendations why was it not implemented? Now you are telling the government what you are deciding, please implement. Unless we know why the earlier decisions taken could not be implemented, there is no guarantee to ensure that the decision taken now will be implemented. We would have been grateful if you could have actually enlightened us as to what prevented the implementation of decisions taken by your own government at the highest level from being implemented while you were in office. That would enlighten the entire House to make sure that such mistakes are not repeated.

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO POLICE REFORMS

Secondly, we agree that there should be a coordination mechanism among Intelligence agencies. But in this entire arrangement that you have, the weakest link in our security apparatus is the bottom rung of the ladder which is your police force. Yes, we have all seen the images of how the policemen who were hiding behind pillars at the CST Station in Mumbai. By the time he could open and put the spring back in his 303 ancient rifle, he had a barrage of bullets coming out of automatic weapons of the terrorists. Unless you strengthen this at the bottom level, there is nothing that can be done to improve the situation. That is where this question comes as to what has happened to all these police reforms that you have been talking about. What has happened to the various Commissions that have talked about the modernisation of the police force? As a person, who is born after Independence, I still cannot reconcile to the fact that our police and the law and order establishment functions under the Indian Police Act enacted in 1861, to subjugate the natives. That is the law under which we are functioning. So, it is the Indian Police Act of 1861!

Then we had various commissions since independence, say, the National Police Commission, the Law Commission, Ribeiro Commission, Padmanabaiah Commission, Soli Sorabjee Commission, Malimath Commission, and all these Commissions have made various recommendations which have never been put into force. And this has led to a situation where you have absolutely inadequate policemen. The United Nations norm is to have 222 policemen for every lakh of population. Now the all-India average is 126; and, in many states, it is much less. While the United Nations recommends 222 policemen for 1 lakh of population, we have an all-India average of 126. And, in some of the states, where law and order is more fragile, we know it is much less than that. Now why has this not been corrected? In 2003, the Group of Ministers, headed by Advani, decided to recommend an additional 3000 Intelligence Bureau personnel. It was a decision taken by the government of the day. Now what has happened? Five years down the line, the information that I have is that only 1400 posts have been sanctioned, and they have not yet been filled up. You take a decision to increase this force by 3000 in 2003. Now, you sanction 1400 posts. And I do not know how many are implemented. Maybe, the home minister will be able to enlighten us. But why is this happening? Why is it that we are not

able to implement what has been decided in the past? And, if that is not going to be done, as is the apprehension which has been raised here, then, the matter is very, very serious.

DO NOT VIOLATE FEDERAL STRUCTURE

What we are now suggesting, therefore, is a proposal for a federal investigative agency on the lines, I suppose, of the FBI in the United States of America. We are not against borrowing good things from anywhere, including the US. But what we are saying here is, it has to have two objectives. One objective is to strengthen and improve the coordination between the various intelligence gathering agencies that we have, and that coordination improvement is absolutely necessary. And, as far as terrorism is concerned, many a time, it moves beyond the border of any individual state. So, the question of coordinating the security agencies of these various states will also be necessary. We recognise, and we agree that there should be a coordination mechanism. But while meeting this objective, there is another objective that cannot be violated, and that is the federal content of the Indian Constitution and the powers of the states. This has to be done without infringing on the powers of the states and without violating the federal principles of the Indian Constitution. It is not that we are not concerned with the gravity of the situation. I have listened to your appeal saying, "Sometimes, you will be in power and, sometimes, we will be in power." Now, the issue is not of which party is in power or not. The issue is the entire structure of the federal content of the Constitution. And, in our constitutional scheme of things, the power and the rights of the states and the States' Lists, that we have, is something, we think, cannot be encroached upon. So, what is the way out? The way out is to have a federal agency which will be able to do this coordination, which will also involve the state governments, the concerned state governments. It cannot be that you have an agency at the top bypassing the state governments. That is a mechanism which cannot work in our country. So, we think, we will wait for the new proposal that the government would bring, and we will see the fine-print and then take a decision. I think both these objectives will have to be met, namely, improved coordination and greater effectiveness of your security apparatus as well as the inviolable content of the federal structure of the Indian Constitution. Maintaining both these, this new agency will have to be created.

Then, the question that comes up is that of a new law. We have had this debate in this House many a time in the past. Honestly, I think, it is not because of the inadequacy of law that these terrorist attacks took place. You had the POTA on our statute books. You had this attack on our Parliament, you had the attack on Akshardharm Temple in Gujarat, you had the Raghunath Temple in Jammu and Kashmir attacked twice, you had the attack on Red Fort. The POTA did not prevent these. It is not the inadequacy of law, for heaven's sake. Only yesterday was the International Human Rights Day, and all of us say that we respect human rights, but you cannot have draconian laws that can violate human rights. But, if there is inadequacy in the existing laws which need to be repaired, which need to be strengthened, yes, come with concrete proposals. But, don't use that as the excuse to say that because of that these terrorist attacks have happened. Let us recognise the fact that India today is in the frontline of terrorist attacks. You are living in the midst of what, I do not like the term, but this is what Henry Kissinger once called them, the Failed States. Look all around you. Look at Afghanistan; look at Pakistan; look at our neighbours in the East; look at Bangladesh; look at Nepal; look at Sri Lanka. What is the situation in which India is? And in that sort of a situation we are in, we have to recognise that we are vulnerable to such attacks from any of these quarters. So, do not again compartmentalise, like a horse with the blinkers look only in one direction, and that unidirectional thing, which has its own politics, will not help us in combating terrorism in our country. This is a point that I think we must today recognise with all its gravity, and, therefore, pursue terrorists and terrorism uncompromisingly, irrespective of which religion they belong to, which caste they belong to, which region they belong to.

Hemant Karkare, a martyr, in my opinion, of modern India, when he was pursuing the Malegaon cases, you saw him with a tainted glass. When he gives up his life in Mumbai against these terrorists, he is a martyr, for whom you have offered compensation! Now, these double-standards will only help terrorists. Whether it is Malegaon, whether it is Bhonsale Military Academy, whether it is the Mumbai attacks, whether it is the attacks at the Mecca Masjid in Hyderabad, all these are terrorist attacks, and all of them have to be pursued without any compromise. And the moment you try to give a blinkered coloured vision to this, saying, 'Hindus cannot be terrorists, only the others can be terrorists', I am sorry, then, we are not winning this battle against terrorism. And, if you want to win this battle against terrorism, let us maintain the spirit that was initiated this morning, and take up this fight in right earnest and not try to compartmentalise it in anyway.

REPLICATE BETTER ASPECTS OF 9/11 RESPONSE

Further, various comparisons have been drawn between the 9/11 of USA and how USA went about protecting itself and how we are failing. Now, our situations, number one, are entirely different. But, what was the USA's response to the 9/11? Invasion of Iraq. None of the terrorist attackers came from Iraq. They came from the countries which are the closest allies of the USA in the region. But, you go, militarily invade and occupy Iraq, and you bring terrorism in that country, where it was not known earlier. Is that the response you want from India? You want India's response to be like Israel? There have been such suggestions. And what is there? For fifty years, the country is in a siege; and there is all the bravado that you talk about fighting terrorism, etc.

Where is the peace in that region? So, it is not a question of being compromising on this issue in the fight against terrorism, but actually trying to understand how this terrorism can be combated in our Indian conditions. State-sponsored terrorism and individual terrorism only feed each other, and it is the lesson from 9/11 that we must understand. It is, therefore, not at all in the line of our thinking that it should be replicated by us in India.

Yes, if there is anything that needs to be replicated from the U.S. after the 9/11, it is the manner in which the media there reported on 9/11. After the second plane that was shown live crashing into the twin tower, the next image the whole world saw was that of ground zero. There was no dead body shown, no blood shown, no mayhem shown, no officer came before the media to give some information, and there was no 'live' competition between channels creating news, breaking news -- actually breaking the unity of our country in that sense I would say, in many cases. Even the fiercest champion of freedom of expression cannot condone the fact that you show live footage of how the NSG commandos were landing and that live footage was seen by terrorists who take the counter offensive against them. It was shown how they were landing on the ceiling of the Mayo hospital in Mumbai. Now, all of us know that there was a coordinator who was keeping in touch with all the ten terrorists and even if the television was not seen by the terrorists themselves, the information was passed on by this coordinator. Is it not the time for us to put our heads together without infringing on the freedom of expression, in the interest of national security? In the interest of national security some things will have to be done where we cannot aid and abet terrorism to succeed by allowing this flow of information. So, we will have to seriously think about this issue and I would want the government also to pay sufficient attention to this and then come up with something which all of us agree, the manner in which such information sharing will have to be done with the public.

SEEK INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION

Further, the question that has been raised earlier here is again to look at it with the-horse-with-blinkers approach, that this problem has come to us only from Pakistan, only from one religious community. Yes, there is no doubt, it originated in Pakistan. On that, we are absolutely uncompromising and it is not negotiable that any foreign land can be used for terrorist activities in India, that is something we cannot permit, we will not accept, we will have to take all measures to protect ourselves. Then how do we go about doing it? The way we should go about it, and this is our suggestion to the government, is by mustering international cooperation. Out of the people who died in Mumbai, many are foreign nationals. Almost all the G-7 nationals have died in this attack in Mumbai. All these countries have rallied with us against this terror attack. The best course to do that would be to take up this matter with the United Nations. After 9/11, the United Nations Security Council adopted a unanimous Resolution No. 1373 which states, "All countries are obliged to deny safe havens to those who finance, plan, support or commit terrorist acts." The United Nations Security Council also created a committee to monitor the implementation of this resolution.

The decision that all countries are obliged to prevent those who commit terrorist acts from using their respective territories against other countries and citizens must now be invoked by India. This is required for marshalling international support to advance our struggle against terrorism. We are fully conscious that taking this issue to the United Nations Security Council, as some fear, may legitimately open the door for internationalising the Kashmir dispute, because Pakistan can use that as an excuse saying that Kashmir is not resolved and, therefore, that is the cause for these terrorist attacks, and therefore will be opening another Pandora's box. But, in our assessment, all the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council have all gone on record to state that the Kashmir dispute is a bilateral India-Pakistan issue. So, I do not see that danger. But the main point I would like to make here is, India will have to marshall international support much more than what we are doing now in order to combat and fight this terrorism, and in that direction, this is one course of action that must be explored of using and invoking United Nations Security Council's Resolution No. 1373 and asking for its implementation as far as we are concerned.

EXPOSING THE NATION  TO NEW THREATS

But, the most important point here that comes again is that whether we have by some of our own actions created a situation where we have called the Al Qaeda and Taliban to our shores. There was a time when in 2005 the prime minister paid his first visit to the United States of America, the Guardian newspaper of the UK reported soon after terrorist attacks, the failed terrorist attacks in Glasgow, and I am quoting from it, "George Bush reportedly introduced Manmohan Singh to his wife Laura as the prime minister of India, a democracy which does not have a single Al Qaeda member in a population of more than 150 million Muslims." We are all proud of it, we are all proud of the fact that despite more than 150 million Muslims here, nobody is a member of the Al Qaeda and this is what even George Bush admits. And the patriotism that we have seen after the Mumbai attack, we have seen that earlier in Deoband, the most respected of the Islamic institutions issuing a fatwa against terrorism. We have seen the Jamaite- ulma e-Hind rally in Hyderabad, which denounced terrorism as anti-Islam. You have seen yesterday on the occasion of Eid, in every single Masjid in our country, beginning with the Jama Masjid in Delhi where the namaaz ended by paying homage to those who died in the terror attack and denouncing terrorism. Do not question the patriotism in any sense of any community living in our country. We had warned at that time with the India-US nuclear deal, with the strategic partnership that you are building with the United States of America, are you prepared to face the threats of Taliban and Al Qaeda reaching our shores? Not that Indian Muslims will be converted but the attacks will come from outside India because you are seen as a strategic ally of the USA. Are we prepared to face that situation? Have we taken measures to strengthen our security in the light of that? Has this even entered our radar of thinking that because of this nuclear deal and the strategic relationship we are exposing ourselves to new types of terrorist threats, which did not exist in India earlier? I am afraid there was a total lack of appreciation of this reality and it is this which led, I think, to a certain degree of complacency that you did not anticipate these sorts of attacks in spite of intelligence information that sea route will be used, in spite of intelligence information that have come from various quarters and various countries that there was an imminent attack and even the location of Mumbai was pinpointed. In spite of all that, I think, there was a degree of complacency because you did not take into account this new factor, you did not factor in the fact that with a strategic relationship between India and USA that you are exposing yourself to new threats and new dangers.

I think this correction will have to be made and even now recognise multilateralism is India's bedrock in terms of foreign policy and relations with other countries. Let that not be replaced by unilateralism. Being an ally, a strategic ally, of the USA and being perceived like that by others invites further dangers and threats on us and this is an issue we should take cognizance of.

Finally, I would only like to appeal to everybody here that all factors that go into creating a fertile soil for terrorism to thrive on must be abjured and abandoned. Here my sincere appeal to the country as a whole is that please do not target a single community in the name of fighting terrorism, because in the final analysis communalism and terrorism only feed each other. It was the same Lashkar-e-Toiba's spokesman on the eve of the 1999 elections, when he was asked as to who should win in the country, he said and I quote from Hindustan Times, "The BJP suits us. Within a year they have made us into a nuclear and a missile power. Lashkar-e-Toiba is getting good response because of the BJP statements. It is much better than before. We pray to God that they come to power again. Then, we will emerge even stronger."

This is the LeT saying. Even a vulture will swoop down on a carcass only when it smells blood. The more we do the internal bloodletting, the greater is the opportunity for the vulture to swoop on us and it is this internal bloodletting that we should abjure. Otherwise, I think, while fighting terrorism, we will only end up in a failure and that it is not in the interest of my country or the people and that is something which can not accepted. Finally, let me tell you, what are the symbols used by those who attacked Mumbai ? Taj Mahal hotel, owned by a Parsi, one hospital owned by another Parsi, Oberoi hotel owned by a Sardar, Nariman House, owned by a Jew. They attacked on whom? This is an attack on India. This is neither on Hindus nor by Muslims but this is an attack on India. We will only succeed against this attack on India when we fight against terrorism as Indians, not like Hindus fighting against Muslims. Now if India has to fight against terrorism, then the government has to provide all the logistics and help. That is the responsibility of the government. Whatever the failures of this government in case of internal security in this year, these failures can only be overcome when it initiates steps which include improving the work of security forces, improving the intelligence gathering efforts, coordination, modernisation of police forces. At least keep a modern weapon in the hands of our police.

What I am finally appealing to you, therefore, is that please understand one fact which I want to beseech this august House that the problem of terrorism in India is as diverse as the diversity of our society. So, let us combat it unitedly as Indians and for that, strengthen our security apparatus, strengthen our intelligence gathering apparatus, strengthen our coordination and at the same time, maintain the federal character of our Constitution and towards that end the measures the government will have to undertake is to pull up its socks now and marshall international support and only then we will succeed. I urge upon this government to take the necessary measures to do that.