The Hindu : A year after December 13

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Dec 12, 2002

Opinion

Opinion - Leader Page Articles

A year after December 13

By Harish Khare

The danger is that when we postpone the task of making a coherent intellectual effort to understand the nature of threats to our internal security, our policy choices may be made for us.

IT IS most ironic that despite the presence of a self-certified deshbakht in North Block for more than four years now, the nation finds itself less and less secure internally. Kaluchaak, Akshardham, Ansal Plaza, Raghunath Temple are only a few of the reminders of Lal Krishna Advani's failure as Home Minister to evolve a strategy of internal security, even after the December 13 outrage. One has only to recall the mind-boggling security bandobust during the last Independence Day celebrations to understand the nature and extent of vulnerability. So much so, even the strong-man himself has to have 2,000 policemen out to protect him every time he steps out of his office. The nation feels less internally secure than it did four years ago; the terrorist has moved from the periphery — the northeast and Kashmir — to the heartland.

Except raising more police battalions, earmarking more budgetary allocations for "police modernisation", we continue to reiterate, to quote from Mr. Advani's November 25 statement in the Lok Sabha, "the country's resolve to take all possible steps to combat and to defeat the scourge of cross-border terrorism in all its forms". This is fine; it is the responsibility of leaders to keep the citizens' morale high. But there has been no sincere effort to put in place a doctrine of internal security, even a year after "December 13"; the result is that we continue to do more of the same, with the same clumsiness and the same muddled intellectual thinking.

It is because of muddled thinking (primarily on the part of the political leadership) that our national security establishment has not been able to go about the business of making us less vulnerable. In recent debates at least three different theses about what and why our designated enemy, Pakistan, is doing what it is allegedly said to be doing are introduced to make us feel internally insecure. One view, favourite with the intelligence crowd, is of the "a thousand cuts" policy put in place by the Zia regime. The second view, increasingly discernible in Mr. Advani's pronouncements, holds that Pakistan is out to avenge the humiliation of its defeat in the 1971 war. And, the third view talks of a globalised "jehadi Islam", especially after "September 11". Each view carries with it a set of assumptions which, in turn, prescribe a different category of possible solutions to the problem.

If pressed for a definite view, our wise internal security bureaucrat, ever ready to juggle contradictions, would answer that it is a mix of all three theses. All he would predict is that there would be more threats to our security. His political master would cynically choose one over the other, depending upon the political calculations of the moment. Mr. Advani's new fascination for the "Pakistan wants to avenge the 1971 defeat" thesis absolves the successive Congress Governments of all the ill-advised policies just as it allows the Abdullah dynasty to emerge blameless for its corrupt and corrupting habits. Similarly, the Narendra Modi/Praveen Togadia emphasis on "jehadi Islam", so vehemently being stressed currently in Gujarat, ignores the obligation of good governance. The debate has to move beyond political convenience.

A doctrine of internal security has to necessarily identify: (a) who is the enemy and what are his objectives (b) consequently, what then are the sources of threat to our internal security; (c) instruments that would be needed to neutralise the identified threats; (d) the changes, legal and administrative, needed to give the instruments the requisite teeth to deal with threats; and, (e) what, if anything, needs to be done to ensure maximum cooperation between the state and the citizens for securing ourselves at home by denying the enemy potential advantages; this primarily includes choices in resolution of political disputes at home. Muddling through is no option; though admittedly in these times of political instability and governmental drift this is perhaps the only workable option. The danger is that when we postpone the task of making a coherent intellectual effort to understand the nature of threats to our internal security, our policy choices may be made for us. And, these may not be the optimal or the wisest of the choices. After all, like all modern societies, we too live in psychologically vulnerable times. The instant availability of information and images of terrorist attacks create an emotional overload, making the decision-makers' task unenviable.

In a democratic polity, the delineation of a doctrine, primarily, is the prerogative of the political leadership. The assumption is that ideally the political leadership of the day would be sufficiently mindful of the lasting national interests in its approach. The task has become decidedly more complicated after Godhra. In Gujarat, the country's ruling party has invited the voters to subscribe to the Modi/Togadia diagnosis of "terrorism and security". And, whatever the outcome of the Gujarat poll, the likes of Mr. Advani and Arun Jaitely and Venkaiah Naidu will continue for some time to have a say in how we define the problem and its possible solutions.

The career bureaucrats in our security establishment, too, have been assigned an institutionalised partnership, but they have been happy to pander to the political masters' predilections. The dominant inclination is to believe that aberrations such as Gujarat, even if politically inspired, do not change the nature of the game and that in any case there is inherent confidence in the professional competence of our security instruments to outmanoeuvre the "enemy". Rather touching. Intellectual laziness and career calculations have hampered the intelligence agencies' professional performance. Nor, for that matter, has the so-called "security community" been able to come up with the critical imagination that would help us think through in our presumed war against terrorism. Pamphleteering is often confused with reasoned policy prescriptions.

A mature polity and its institutions are enjoined to mobilise our collective resources — administrative, political and intellectual — to defeat all those who would deny us peace at home. A mature polity also goes about this task in a calm and systemic manner, avoiding hysterical preoccupations of the day. In our case, particularly after the Gujarat votes get counted, the policy-makers, elected and bureaucratic, would be enjoined to find the answer to one basic question: if Pakistan is the designated "enemy", then do we regard the Muslims as intrinsically fifth columnists? If we are to opt for the "jehadi Islam" theory, as enunciated by the Narendra Modi/Praveen Togadia school, then the answer suggests itself. That answer begs the question: what is to be done with the 100 million Muslims? If we decide to conclude that the 100 million Muslims are willing accomplices in the alleged international jehadi Islamic conspiracy, then are we to purge, to begin with, our administrative cadres, police and armed forces, of all Muslim presence? More importantly, we may be forced to re-write our constitutional arrangements. It is possible to re-orient all the coercive instruments of the Indian state to deal with a vast segment of potential enemy-agents. The cost would be high, bitter and bloody; but, at least, everyone would know the lay of the land, as it were.

On the other hand, if we do decide that the 100 million Muslims are as much Indian as the Hindus, then the obligations of administrative fairness and neutrality become obvious in coping with threats to internal security. Also, we shall be obliged to so conduct our political disputes and electoral competitions in a manner that would promote reconciliation and civic harmony. Because of the absence of an internal security doctrine a year after "December 13" we find ourselves on the verge of a self-inflicted civil war. The Gujarat verdict should help us in our quest for security at home.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Opinion

Stories in this Section

Anees Ibrahim's arrest

Uncertainty in global economy

Reject the poisoned chalice

A year after December 13

The Naga peace moves

Lack of political will