People's Democracy

LOK SABHA DEBATE ON TERRORISM

�We Have To Protect Our Cultural Ethos, Secular Fabric.�

ONCE or twice every year since 2004, we have discussed in this house terror attacks, blasts, the consequent deaths etc, and have talked of the steps required to curb this menace. In the aftermath of the recent Mumbai attacks, some quarters have been propagating that the parliament, its members, politicians and political parties have not been doing anything while innocent people are being massacred. I am not defending anybody and we have to admit that there are certain weaknesses and shortcomings in our work, which must be overcome in order to effectively curb the menace. But we have also to increase our competency level, because those who are launching attacks against us are getting heavily armed, getting trained, planning attacks, while our security apparatus is proving inadequate at every juncture.

First of all I would welcome the statement the new home minister has made regarding the ministry�s responsibility. Whenever we discussed the issue in this house, the then home minister only replied that the issue was not addressed properly. I also welcome the spirit displayed by the leader of opposition after the new home minister�s statement in the house.

This is a big achievement of the debate here --- the message has gone out that we all are one. When this issue first discussed the issue on December 5, 2004, first time after the UPA government came to power, there was a lot of acrimony between various sides, and less important issues were also dragged in. But now everybody has condemned the Mumbai attacks in one voice, and this is welcome. Yet we have to raise certain questions to be able to diagnose the problem correctly, and not to justify somebody.

On behalf of my party, I take this opportunity to express our solidarity with the ATS and other security personnel, as well as civilians and foreigners, who have lost their lives in these attacks. We will always cherish the memory of the security personnel who courageously faced the terrorist bullets. We also extend our solidarity with the residents of Mumbai who were the targets of these attacks.

In the context of these attacks, I think the discussion has highlighted the need of streamlining our intelligence. The issue of coordination between various agencies, of coordination between military and civilian agencies, of inter-ministerial coordination has been raised and discussed several times, and it is still pending. We have also talked about how we can protect our three and a half thousand kilometres long coastline, and the issue is pending since 2003. For four years we have been telling the government that we have to assess the threat perception for the country, just as we do in case of the individuals, of politicians and other bigwigs. It is good that, for the first time, a home minister talked of the need to pay attention to maritime and coastline security, adding that otherwise all our joint exercises from Malacca to Suez would be in vain. But what took place during the days preceding the Mumbai attacks was that we were getting intelligence inputs regarding the possibility of an LeT attack and, yet, various agencies kept blaming one another for the lapses.

We also know that we have a Multi-Agency Coordination Committee but we have to see how it is working and how far it is effective. Intelligence does not mean hard facts only; we have to analyse the facts and we have to cross-examine the evidence to extract some actionable points. But we have not been properly using national security index. We are not worried about the rise and fall of this index in various parts of the country at various periods of time --- when it goes up in the North East, when in Kashmir, when in Mumbai or West Coast area, etc.

I do not want to blame everybody, but there should not be media trial either. For the last 10 to 12 years, we have been witnessing that on the very next day of an attack or explosion, some individuals are arrested, a press conference is held and claims are made that some gang or its hideout has been busted, so and so have been arrested and the commander-in-chief of such and such an outfit has been killed. It is a very big country, and it is not easy for a home ministry official or a state�s police commissioner to claim, on the very next day of an attack, that everything has been solved. It is only later that we find that much of the claim was hype.

This is a new trend being set up. Instead, in case of any attack, we must concentrate on collecting hard evidence and then ask the other country, whether it is Pakistan or any other country, to compel it to act. But this is what we are not doing. You have various security agencies, you have formed a National Security Council, you have created a secretariat, you appointed somebody your national security adviser, and yet you gave the marching order to your home minister only! Let me be more specific. Several times in the last four years, our national security adviser did talk of foreign policy and other issues, or briefed political parties, but spoke very little on the security issues. Then, why don�t we make him our foreign policy adviser? We need an establishment that may correctly advise and adequately assist the prime minister to make the country securer. Accountability of this establishment must also be established, otherwise it won�t be able to go very far.

This time, the attackers came via the sea route while the earlier ones came via the land route. There was Pakistani infiltration in Kargil and a committee was formed to establish accountability. Whenever there is what we call human failure, we punish some small guy. But no human face is seen when there is a systemic failure in our country, we never tell the parliament what steps we have taken to improve the system. Sometimes we form a body after an event takes place; later we form another body; a third after that, and so on. This soon involves a feudal mentality; every organisation creates a bamboo wall around itself, and thus there is no coordination between various organisations that we have created.

We have another issue here. After such attacks, we come to know from the government the attackers received training, arms, financial help and other things from Pakistan. Then the talk of a war starts. After the attack on December 13, 2001, the government of India embarked on the Operation Parakram, and we saw on TV the army units coming out of the Meerut Cant. They were seen being garlanded, and then they did go to the border. Underground mines were planted in the border areas and they created problems for the peasants there; some of them lost their own lives or their cattle, and had to be paid compensations. I am not a military strategist, but I feel it very odd that the media were taping everything when the military was continuing its operations. This time it is as if the media had declared a war --- we are going to fight a war; you come along! Though it is a matter of international relations, of relations between two countries, somebody suggested that we must start carpet-bombing in the other country�s area. Obviously, the fellow knew carpet and knew the bombing, but did not know what carpet-bombing is. It is good that we were not swayed by such irresponsible talks.

But if we have to fight terrorism, we cannot afford to view it from a religious angle, or from the angle of a caste, linguistic group, state or country. There is no doubt that the soil of Pakistan is being used to launch error attacks against India, and the Security Council resolution number 1373, passed soon after the 9/11, says that the country whose soil is being used for such an attack is bound to act against the culprits. Moreover, the Security Council has recently asked Pakistan to act against the terror network operating from its soil. So we are not asking for a new initiative.

Here I beg to differ from the leader of opposition who wonder why we should refer the issue to the Security Council. In his speech, he talked of Kashmir, Nehru, etc, and thus came to his party�s pet agenda. But I think the whole world is in favour of eradication of terrorism, only that this fight must not remain confined to paper. So the world community has to be activated and we cannot get anything if we put all our eggs in the American basket instead of getting the world community activated. We cannot afford to have Ms Condolizza Rice mediating between India and Pakistan; we have to tell the supreme multilateral agency, the United Nations, to act against a member country which is not acting in accordance with the Security Council resolutions on terrorism. At the same time, the people and politicians of Pakistan too have to understand that they cannot hope to be spared if the terror network grows and strengthens on its soil. A message must go to the peace-loving people of Pakistan that they need to compel their government to act.

Yet we cannot but remember that the menace is the brainchild of US imperialism, which, just as they do in case of businesses, outsourced terrorism to us, and now this has become a big headache for South Asia. We know that it was the US which created the terror network to get the PDPA government of Afghanistan dislodged and to fight the Soviet forces defending that country from imperialist machinations. Religion was misused for the purpose, the slogan of �Islam in danger� was given, President Najibullah was dragged from the UN security camp and hanged from a pole, and let�s not forget that several members of our parliament then applauded this hanging. We had then told that the Afghanistan affair would not remain confined to that country but spill over to Pakistan, and this has indeed spilled over. Indeed, the people of Pakistan are today paying the price for the role of their military rulers in this game.

The imperialist game has to be understood. At one time, they made the mujahideen cry �Islam in danger, today they are talking of danger in Islam,� of the so-called �clash of civilisations� which is a new element and has grown up un the last one decade or so. But if we allow the misuse of religion for political mobilisation, it cannot but extract its price.

As for us, we have to understand that prevention is always better than cure. Getting armed with more powers, with more weapons is not a true solution of the problem. Making the country a military state is no solution. Pakistan has been a military state for long, but it s not a secure state. Let�s not forget that we have not secured the people�s human rights or civil rights. Our concept of national security needs a review and revision. We have to secure our cultural ethos that spans over thousands of years. The problem with Pakistan was that it deviated from the basic values that constituted India. We cannot afford any such deviation. We have to protect and preserve our secular fabric, our secular institutions; only then would we be able to meet this challenge. The central government is talking of creating a National Investigative Agency, but it has to get the states onboard. We have to put aside the issues of conflict and take up such issues as may strengthen our unity. There undoubtedly exists a national consensus on the issue of eradication of terrorism, and we hope this would send a message to Pakistan and the whole world that we are dead serious about meeting this challenge head on.