07-12-2006, 10:43 PM
<b>Soft Centre </b> <i>We, you and I, have become cannon fodder for terrorists.</i>
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--> 12 July 2006: By now, we have become predictable in our responses to terrorist outrages, and it is no different with the Bombay serial bombings, which have killed nearly two hundred people since yesterday, and injured more than three times the number.
<b>The media leads the act in playing down the terrorist attack, by painting up a perfectly fraudulent picture of a city hurtling back to normalcy within hours if not minutes, and the more pseudo-secular, pseudo-liberal of the papers come out with absolutely crummy headlines. Just as the politicians ordered. When has tearing into the authorities for their inability to preempt such terrorist acts become non-secular? And why mustnât the horror of it be fully published or telecast, without attempting to make it a routine violent incident, no more worse than a train disaster or airplane crash? Although with airplane crashes probably, Indiaâs nouveau media would go aggressive. Those who get bombed in trains, or while shopping happily on Diwali eve, or sightseeing around Srinagar, are obviously lesser people, to become statistics at the soonest. It is nauseating. </b>
<b>Followed by the media, comes the charade of the political establishment. The President and the PMâs condolences are dutifully reproduced, as though they can speak to the contrary, Sonia Gandhi, after expressing the routine commiseration, dashes off to the tragedy site, if the death toll is high enough to give her political mileage. Once she lands, of course everybody forgets the relief work and serves her, from the chief minister down. Incidentally, we have a grotesquely incompetent Maharashtra CM, Vilasrao Deshmukh, under his charge, Bombay shuts down in two consecutive monsoons, a record number of farmers â nearly seven hundred, would you believe it? â commit suicide in Vidharba, he and his officials thoroughly and cynically mislead the PM when he visits there, and now this catastrophe.</b>
Followed by these worthies and the condolences and ill-timed visits, condolences pour from abroad. Previously, the occasions were probably famine deaths, or natural disasters, tsunami and their lesser cousins, or assassinations, now, they are terrorist attacks. <b>We sort of get a grim pleasure, a masochistic pleasure, in publishing these condolences, from the US and the rest, as if almost glad that they have remembered us, even if at a time of the wanton massacre of our people. Not to forget, because it is politically convenient now, Pakistan wires in its own sorry message, while congratulating whoever masterminded the terrorism on their side, and it looks a clear giveaway on the Lashkar-e-Toiba. </b>.
<b>Less publicly, the agency âresponsibleâ for counter-terrorism, the IB, sends its fattened, over-the-hill, retiring officials to make the investigations, and in a couple of days, their consolidated report will be read by the PM â and dumped</b>. And, meanwhile, since scapegoats have to be found, a committee has been set up, our <b>PM, ever an official, loving committees, and this will seek to neatly place the blame on the junior partner in the Maharashtra government, the NCP, which has the home portfolio. Not directly, but through leaks to the press, all attempts would be made to divert attention for intelligence failure from the Congress-led Central government and the Congress-led Maharashtra government</b>.
In about a week, the Bombay blasts would be forgotten â until another serial explosion rocks the country.
History repeating itself as farce.
We have become a soft state, and our rapid regression should bring us in serious competition with Pakistan and the other failed states in some years. <b>The Bombay blasts are the result of systems failure, and the entire political-government establishment at the Centre and in Maharashtra must take blame, and not one or two individuals, although they may happen to be in the line of fire</b>.
While at some level, it is the obvious failure of the Centre and the state governments, the PM and CM, and the Central and Maharashtra home ministers, the rot lies deeper. <b>Officials say prime minister Manmohan Singh takes more interest in intelligence matters than his predecessor, A.B.Vajpayee, who left them to his principal secretary and national security advisor (NSA), Brajesh Mishra. Mishra was an official, and like most officials, he could not think more than two days into the future. Vajpayee, a politician, on the rare occasions he pursued security issues, gave visionary direction.</b>
Manmohan Singhâs problem is that though he is the PM, he remains an official, and therefore is able to add little to intelligence briefs. His home minister, Shivraj <b>Patil, though a politician, is not attuned to his portfolio, he would be a fit where personal intelligence is not a consideration, and action is discouraged. Now why do we have a PM who is weak because he is not a politician, and therefore lacks insight?</b> Because Sonia Gandhi wants him there, she wants a weak PM (Commentary, âElection mode,â 11 July 2006). And just in case the PM wants a half-decent home minister, who would say no? The Congress president, of course. <b>So if you have a collapsing state, a soft Centre making way for a soft state, well, you know whom to blame</b>.
And now, the Intelligence Bureau is infected by this ever-growing softness, and that can be traced to another Sonia fixture in the PMO, the PMâs national security advisor, M.K.Narayanan. If Narayanan were to be NSA alone, that would be tolerable, although he neither understands strategic issues nor foreign relations, but he also functions as Sonia Gandhiâs eyes and ears. From his official perch, he tasks the IB with such political intelligence demands, spying on the NDA, spying on Mulayam Singh Yadav, Mayawati, Laloo Prasad Yadav, the Left, now M.Karunanidhi, that the agency is shorthanded for and neglectful of operations, its core works of counter-intelligence and counter-terrorism.
<span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'>With political intelligence-gathering privileged over counter-terrorism and counter-intelligence, the result is disastrous. </span>The National Security Council secretariat is penetrated, and we come to know too late. Terrorists plan the Bombay serial blasts with precision, and we come to know after two hundred people die. <b>The PM says this âwonât scare usâ, but he can say that from the absolute security of 5 and 7 Race Course Road. What about the rest of us? </b>And while terrorists between nineteen and twenty-four blow us up with insouciance, our near and dear ones, wherever and however, the IB officers charged with countering them rank in their mid-fifties, planning their post-retirement future and the careers of their children, pushing files.
Such is the political establishment, and these are the men, who will fight the terrorists.
<b>Is there any hope of winning?</b> <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--> 12 July 2006: By now, we have become predictable in our responses to terrorist outrages, and it is no different with the Bombay serial bombings, which have killed nearly two hundred people since yesterday, and injured more than three times the number.
<b>The media leads the act in playing down the terrorist attack, by painting up a perfectly fraudulent picture of a city hurtling back to normalcy within hours if not minutes, and the more pseudo-secular, pseudo-liberal of the papers come out with absolutely crummy headlines. Just as the politicians ordered. When has tearing into the authorities for their inability to preempt such terrorist acts become non-secular? And why mustnât the horror of it be fully published or telecast, without attempting to make it a routine violent incident, no more worse than a train disaster or airplane crash? Although with airplane crashes probably, Indiaâs nouveau media would go aggressive. Those who get bombed in trains, or while shopping happily on Diwali eve, or sightseeing around Srinagar, are obviously lesser people, to become statistics at the soonest. It is nauseating. </b>
<b>Followed by the media, comes the charade of the political establishment. The President and the PMâs condolences are dutifully reproduced, as though they can speak to the contrary, Sonia Gandhi, after expressing the routine commiseration, dashes off to the tragedy site, if the death toll is high enough to give her political mileage. Once she lands, of course everybody forgets the relief work and serves her, from the chief minister down. Incidentally, we have a grotesquely incompetent Maharashtra CM, Vilasrao Deshmukh, under his charge, Bombay shuts down in two consecutive monsoons, a record number of farmers â nearly seven hundred, would you believe it? â commit suicide in Vidharba, he and his officials thoroughly and cynically mislead the PM when he visits there, and now this catastrophe.</b>
Followed by these worthies and the condolences and ill-timed visits, condolences pour from abroad. Previously, the occasions were probably famine deaths, or natural disasters, tsunami and their lesser cousins, or assassinations, now, they are terrorist attacks. <b>We sort of get a grim pleasure, a masochistic pleasure, in publishing these condolences, from the US and the rest, as if almost glad that they have remembered us, even if at a time of the wanton massacre of our people. Not to forget, because it is politically convenient now, Pakistan wires in its own sorry message, while congratulating whoever masterminded the terrorism on their side, and it looks a clear giveaway on the Lashkar-e-Toiba. </b>.
<b>Less publicly, the agency âresponsibleâ for counter-terrorism, the IB, sends its fattened, over-the-hill, retiring officials to make the investigations, and in a couple of days, their consolidated report will be read by the PM â and dumped</b>. And, meanwhile, since scapegoats have to be found, a committee has been set up, our <b>PM, ever an official, loving committees, and this will seek to neatly place the blame on the junior partner in the Maharashtra government, the NCP, which has the home portfolio. Not directly, but through leaks to the press, all attempts would be made to divert attention for intelligence failure from the Congress-led Central government and the Congress-led Maharashtra government</b>.
In about a week, the Bombay blasts would be forgotten â until another serial explosion rocks the country.
History repeating itself as farce.
We have become a soft state, and our rapid regression should bring us in serious competition with Pakistan and the other failed states in some years. <b>The Bombay blasts are the result of systems failure, and the entire political-government establishment at the Centre and in Maharashtra must take blame, and not one or two individuals, although they may happen to be in the line of fire</b>.
While at some level, it is the obvious failure of the Centre and the state governments, the PM and CM, and the Central and Maharashtra home ministers, the rot lies deeper. <b>Officials say prime minister Manmohan Singh takes more interest in intelligence matters than his predecessor, A.B.Vajpayee, who left them to his principal secretary and national security advisor (NSA), Brajesh Mishra. Mishra was an official, and like most officials, he could not think more than two days into the future. Vajpayee, a politician, on the rare occasions he pursued security issues, gave visionary direction.</b>
Manmohan Singhâs problem is that though he is the PM, he remains an official, and therefore is able to add little to intelligence briefs. His home minister, Shivraj <b>Patil, though a politician, is not attuned to his portfolio, he would be a fit where personal intelligence is not a consideration, and action is discouraged. Now why do we have a PM who is weak because he is not a politician, and therefore lacks insight?</b> Because Sonia Gandhi wants him there, she wants a weak PM (Commentary, âElection mode,â 11 July 2006). And just in case the PM wants a half-decent home minister, who would say no? The Congress president, of course. <b>So if you have a collapsing state, a soft Centre making way for a soft state, well, you know whom to blame</b>.
And now, the Intelligence Bureau is infected by this ever-growing softness, and that can be traced to another Sonia fixture in the PMO, the PMâs national security advisor, M.K.Narayanan. If Narayanan were to be NSA alone, that would be tolerable, although he neither understands strategic issues nor foreign relations, but he also functions as Sonia Gandhiâs eyes and ears. From his official perch, he tasks the IB with such political intelligence demands, spying on the NDA, spying on Mulayam Singh Yadav, Mayawati, Laloo Prasad Yadav, the Left, now M.Karunanidhi, that the agency is shorthanded for and neglectful of operations, its core works of counter-intelligence and counter-terrorism.
<span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'>With political intelligence-gathering privileged over counter-terrorism and counter-intelligence, the result is disastrous. </span>The National Security Council secretariat is penetrated, and we come to know too late. Terrorists plan the Bombay serial blasts with precision, and we come to know after two hundred people die. <b>The PM says this âwonât scare usâ, but he can say that from the absolute security of 5 and 7 Race Course Road. What about the rest of us? </b>And while terrorists between nineteen and twenty-four blow us up with insouciance, our near and dear ones, wherever and however, the IB officers charged with countering them rank in their mid-fifties, planning their post-retirement future and the careers of their children, pushing files.
Such is the political establishment, and these are the men, who will fight the terrorists.
<b>Is there any hope of winning?</b> <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->