09-08-2006, 12:41 AM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Combating terror </b>
The Pioneer Edit Desk
<b>So it's official now. After trying to play down National Security Adviser MK Narayanan's alarming disclosures during the course of a television programme about how terrorists are planning spectacular attacks in India by targeting high profile targets, including nuclear power plants, the UPA Government has owned up to as much</b>. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, while addressing Chief Ministers who had been summoned to Delhi to discuss the national security scenario, has not only painted a dismal picture of how vulnerable we are to jihadi strikes, but also reiterated his National Security Adviser's grim prognosis that we cannot rule out attacks by suicide bombers on vital installations, especially nuclear facilities. Obviously, there is a huge deficit between the Government's claim inside Parliament and admission outside: For all its brave talk, this regime, more so the Prime Minister, is clueless about how to go about protecting India and its citizens. What highlights this simple fact is the inability of the Ministry of Home Affairs, which is supposed to be the nodal agency to prepare, implement and coordinate an effective internal security blueprint, to grasp the true dimension of the terror threat that looms large and menacingly over India. Nothing exemplifies this better than Home Minister Shivraj Patil's public utterances that run contrary to mounting evidence of the price we are paying for the absence of a counter-terrorism strategy, leave alone a policy or law to deal with the situation. With Mr Narayanan usurping the Home Ministry's role and making intelligence agencies directly accountable to him, it would be apt to quote Milton to describe the prevailing situation of utter flux: "With ruin upon ruin, rout on rout / Confusion worse confounded". At whose table does the buck stop? The Prime Minister's, of course. As the head of the Government, he cannot claim such knowledge of the dark days ahead and, at the same time, convey a sense of helplessness or, worse, make the State's responsible for the terrible rot that infests our national security framework that has been enfeebled by maudlin sentiments which have no place in a nation fighting terrorists across its length and breadth.
The Prime Minister has warned of "decentralised micro-terrorist outfits" that are waiting for an opportune moment to strike terror. What he means is sleeper cells waiting for the call to move into action mode. But what he and the Congress are not yet willing to accept is that the threat to India emanates more from homegrown terrorists than their masters hiding in caves in Waziristan. At Tuesday's meeting, Mr Manmohan Singh waxed eloquent on how it is wrong to target the entire Muslim community of India for a "few individual acts". He need not state the obvious: There is no merit in tarnishing every Muslim for the misdeeds of a handful of his or her co-religionists. Nor is any purpose served by not conceding the social and economic backwardness of the Muslim community as a whole. But surely the Prime Minister does not believe that jihad is fuelled by "legitimate grievances"? Imagined victimhood, manufactured rage and pan-Islamism have nothing to do with the social and economic development indices of the Muslim community, neither in India, nor elsewhere. If he must look for causative factors, he could begin with his Government's policy of minority appeasement and pandering to those who believe jihad is "holy war".
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The Pioneer Edit Desk
<b>So it's official now. After trying to play down National Security Adviser MK Narayanan's alarming disclosures during the course of a television programme about how terrorists are planning spectacular attacks in India by targeting high profile targets, including nuclear power plants, the UPA Government has owned up to as much</b>. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, while addressing Chief Ministers who had been summoned to Delhi to discuss the national security scenario, has not only painted a dismal picture of how vulnerable we are to jihadi strikes, but also reiterated his National Security Adviser's grim prognosis that we cannot rule out attacks by suicide bombers on vital installations, especially nuclear facilities. Obviously, there is a huge deficit between the Government's claim inside Parliament and admission outside: For all its brave talk, this regime, more so the Prime Minister, is clueless about how to go about protecting India and its citizens. What highlights this simple fact is the inability of the Ministry of Home Affairs, which is supposed to be the nodal agency to prepare, implement and coordinate an effective internal security blueprint, to grasp the true dimension of the terror threat that looms large and menacingly over India. Nothing exemplifies this better than Home Minister Shivraj Patil's public utterances that run contrary to mounting evidence of the price we are paying for the absence of a counter-terrorism strategy, leave alone a policy or law to deal with the situation. With Mr Narayanan usurping the Home Ministry's role and making intelligence agencies directly accountable to him, it would be apt to quote Milton to describe the prevailing situation of utter flux: "With ruin upon ruin, rout on rout / Confusion worse confounded". At whose table does the buck stop? The Prime Minister's, of course. As the head of the Government, he cannot claim such knowledge of the dark days ahead and, at the same time, convey a sense of helplessness or, worse, make the State's responsible for the terrible rot that infests our national security framework that has been enfeebled by maudlin sentiments which have no place in a nation fighting terrorists across its length and breadth.
The Prime Minister has warned of "decentralised micro-terrorist outfits" that are waiting for an opportune moment to strike terror. What he means is sleeper cells waiting for the call to move into action mode. But what he and the Congress are not yet willing to accept is that the threat to India emanates more from homegrown terrorists than their masters hiding in caves in Waziristan. At Tuesday's meeting, Mr Manmohan Singh waxed eloquent on how it is wrong to target the entire Muslim community of India for a "few individual acts". He need not state the obvious: There is no merit in tarnishing every Muslim for the misdeeds of a handful of his or her co-religionists. Nor is any purpose served by not conceding the social and economic backwardness of the Muslim community as a whole. But surely the Prime Minister does not believe that jihad is fuelled by "legitimate grievances"? Imagined victimhood, manufactured rage and pan-Islamism have nothing to do with the social and economic development indices of the Muslim community, neither in India, nor elsewhere. If he must look for causative factors, he could begin with his Government's policy of minority appeasement and pandering to those who believe jihad is "holy war".
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