Attack in Mumbai -2

[Guest]

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Congress buries 26/11 truth</b>
pioneer.com
Balbir Punj
The ruling Congress claims credit for introducing the Right To Information Act and transparency in governance. It also claims to be close to the set of jholahwallahs who clamour for the protection of ‘human rights’, never mind all those people whom terrorists and ‘revolutionaries’ kill and maim.

<b>Surprisingly, the same jholahwallahs are silent after the Congress-led Government of Maharashtra decided to suppress the RD Pradhan Committee report on the 26/11 fidayeen attack on Mumbai. The reason given for not releasing the report is that its contents could ‘jeopardise’ national security</b>.

The Government’s claim has been rubbished by the author of the report, Mr RD Pradhan, a former Governor and Union Home Secretary. Another member of the committee headed by him was Mr V Balachandran, who worked with R&AW. Both of them should know what national security means. <b>Mr Pradhan himself told a television channel that his report has been written in a way to keep out any national security secrets. Thus, the State Government’s argument that the report will compromise national security has no basis whatsoever</b>.

The Pradhan Committee report, or whatever is known of it, exposes the lack of leadership and command in the police. To side-step any demand after publication of the report, the State Government has already shown the door to the Mumbai Police chief. We do not know what the committee has said about the performance of the Government itself. Was the Chief Minister in command and in touch with the ground situation as the horrific events were unfolding? We know that both then Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh and his deputy RR Patil had initially dismissed the fidayeen attack as a ‘minor incident’.

<b>The Union Government says that the Pradhan Committee report has endorsed that there was a great deal of intelligence input on the possibility of an attack. But the truth is that the Congress-led UPA Government had failed to grasp the enormity of the terrorist strike. The Pradhan Committee has revealed a lot of desultory responses, some bravado and individual courage on the part of police officers. Surely, it must have exposed mistakes at the political level — the reason why the Congress and NCP do not want the report to be published. </b>

Even as the State Government seeks to withhold the report from the people, it is amusing to note that the well-heeled men and women who had gathered between November 26 and 30 at the Gateway of India with candles and placards have gone back to their cushy lives. They had railed against politicians after the attack. But their silence today is both indicative of support for the Congress and inability to sustain a struggle against Government apathy.

Before we go into the political aspect of it, the committee’s revelation about the obsolete weapons that police have to make do with, their unpreparedness despite advance intimation, the lack of a command-and-control structure, etc, exposes the state of governance in Maharashtra under the Congress-NCP regime.

More importantly, the Government’s refusal to publish the Pradhan Committee report is a confirmation of the culture that the Congress follows. It is a culture of secrecy as event after event in the last 60 years prove. Have we forgotten the suppression of the Henderson-Brooks report on the 1962 debacle on our Himalayan border?

This report was kept under wraps for decades even after the Chinese aggression and our incompetent response to it became a part of history. Over 5,000 Indian soldiers perished, many because of the severe cold they had to face without even a blanket to cover themselves and the obsolete weapons given to them. The fatalities would not have been so high but for the incompetent command both at the political level and in the Army — the man promoted to be the commander was a favourite of then Defence Minister VK Krishna Menon, a crypto-Communist who would not believe that China would attack India.

Then there is the report of the parliamentary committee on the infamous Pondicherry licence scandal involving former Congress Union Minister LN Mishra. Despite the Opposition’s unanimous demand in the Lok Sabha to let the MPs see the report, the Government, headed by Mrs Indira Gandhi, refused to relent. Soon after this LN Mishra died in an accident; curiously, his brother, Mr Jagannath Mishra, was made the Bihar Chief Minister. The inquiry committee report on the liquor licence scandal was never released.

There are numerous such scandals whose facts remain suppressed. There is the Bofors scandal which saw the then Congress Government raising all sorts of objections against any parliamentary inquiry. Ultimately when a parliamentary inquiry was ordered, the demand for an Opposition leader to head the inquiry committee was not met. The Shankaranand Committee that inquired into the scandal expectedly whitewashed it.

It is true that the Congress-led UPA implemented the RTI Act and any citizen can now get access to most Government files. But despite this claimed commitment to openness the State Government in Maharashtra has sought refuge behind the veil of national security. It remains to be seen whether the Central Information Commission will allow citizens access to the Pradhan Committee report.

<b>It is possible that the report is being kept a secret because making it public could affect the Congress’s prospects in the coming Maharashtra Assembly election</b>. If this is true, then it’s a sad comment on the Congress and its allies, not least because it holds up its claimed transparency in governance to ridicule. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->