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Some positives amid death and destruction

In recent times, India has been second only to Iraq as the scene of terrorist outrages, averaging over a thousand terrorist killings annually in the last four years. Even by these dismal standards of a well established front line state in the fight against terrorism, the carnage in Mumbai stands out for several new features.

It was startling in its audacity and savagery. The terrorists came across the seas using a mother ship, a hijacked boat and then smaller but faster speedboats for the final landings. There were multiple attacks across the length and breadth of the city by a well organised, well trained and disciplined group of tough and determined fighters using sophisticated handguns and grenades: a small army with ammunition and orders to kill randomly, in large numbers, for as long as possible. The previous modus operandi had been to use remote controlled or timed devices. For the first time in India, luxury hotels, whose main clientele constitute Indians with a smattering of foreigners, as well as hospitals and a Jewish centre, were the objects of attack. And for the first time, foreigners were directly targeted, with Americans, Britons and Jews specifically singled out.

Yet, even as the ashes smoulder and answers are sought about the identity and motives of the terrorists, some positive features are worth accentuating.

To begin with and most crucially, there has been no outbreak of anti-Muslim riots anywhere else in the country. Given how inflammable this particular tinderbox is and how easily Hindu-Muslim riots seem to break out at the smallest of provocations, this gives no small sense of satisfaction. Instead, the first reactions of Indians has been stunned outrage and a sense of coming together, a people united in horror and tragedy at acts of evil beyond human comprehension.

Related to this, at least initially the political leaders and parties eschewed their traditional rivalry of competitive demagoguery that mobilises competing Hindu and Muslim bases by pointing the finger of criminality at Muslims (“Not all Muslims are terrorists but all terrorists are Muslims” – a thesis negated by the Hindu terrorists responsible for the Malegaon blasts in September) and the demonisation of a whole community for the sins of a tiny radicalised faction.

Commendably, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and opposition leader L.K. Advani shelved their differences, joined forces with all other political parties, and scheduled trips to Mumbai in a show of resolute solidarity. (I would have liked the Prime Minister to have overridden security advice, gone immediately to Mumbai, and given a televised live address to the nation from the precincts of the Oberoi-Trident even while the battles were still being fought. I am even more surprised that the President did not immediately cut short her tour of South East Asia. But we cannot have everything.) This is a welcome first in Indian politics. Although it did not survive for more than a day, hopefully it will prove a harbinger of future reactions to similar outrages. Politics resumes its normal course, as it rightly should, but neither during nor in the immediate aftermath of a national crisis of this gravity.

Similarly, for the first time India has implemented the policy of not negotiating with terrorists. Officials were ready to talk to the terrorists, but not negotiate with them. This is a welcome contrast from past practice. In 1989, the daughter of the Union Home Minister was taken hostage; the government capitulated to the kidnappers’ demands and released several terror suspects who were in police custody. In 1999, in order to secure the release of passengers and crew on the Indian Airlines flight that was hijacked and taken to Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, not only were demands met; the released terrorists, two of whom were implicated later for 9/11 and the murder of U.S. journalist Daniel Pearl, were personally escorted to Kandahar by the Foreign Minister. The new Indian policy of no negotiations brings it closer in line with the dominant international norm.

Indian officials instinctively and habitually blame Pakistan for all terrorist incidents (and sometimes Bangladesh for incidents in North East India). Since the siege ended, Indians seem as angry and disgusted with their own politicians as with Pakistani perfidy. Manmohan Singh himself has been far more reticent and reserved in jumping to conclusions. Yet in this instance he too joined in the public identification of Pakistani links, suggesting that circumstantial evidence of such links may be strong. Follow-up investigations, for example going over mobile and satellite phone logs, will be able to establish some of the terrorists’ origins, links and connections in due course. In the meantime, government leaders have parsed their words carefully, pointing to “elements” inside Pakistan.

This is a recognition of rogue elements within Pakistan’s notorious Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and an implicit recognition too of President Asif Ali Zardari’s unprecedented overtures to India. The careful formulation allows India not to jeopardise the gestures of goodwill. Indeed, India requested and Pakistan agreed that the new head of the ISI would travel to India to help coordinate the investigation. Previously, India had dismissed offers of Pakistani help, saying thieves do not assist cops in conducting investigations. To the extent that terror networks are regionalised across South Asia, so should counter-terrorism networks. Pakistan scored an international own goal in reneging on this.

Because Westerners were killed and taken hostage in large numbers, Western forensic specialists, for example from Scotland Yard in the U.K. and the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the U.S. (and less publicly probably Israeli experts too), also were sent to India to aid and assist in the investigation. This too is a first, and should have a doubly beneficial effect. It will help calm India-Pakistan tensions. If rogue Pakistani complicity is established, it will be easier for the people and government of Pakistan to acknowledge and confront this ugly reality if independent outside specialists confirm it rather than simply Indian agencies alleging it. And foreign governments too will find it easier to accept and acknowledge Pakistani complicity if the world’s leading intelligence experts say so: think of the international reactions to U.S. intelligence confirming ISI complicity in the attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul in July.

This is also the first major terrorist attack in India that has received saturation coverage by the world’s leading media, motivated of course by the fate of Westerners trapped in the crossfire. On the one hand, for the first time this brought home to Western audiences the fact that India is indeed a front line state against terrorism and that its fight within the constraints of democratic governance and the rule of law is also their fight.

On the other side, it should ease lingering concerns among Indians about the entry of international media. It was good for the world to see that after the initial delays, confusion and chaos, professionalism took over as India’s commando and military forces methodically set about regaining control of the situation and the city, rescuing hostages and flushing out terrorists, while avoiding any serious collateral damage that we know of. And it was good to see them being cheered spontaneously and generously by the crowds on the streets for having risked their lives in the line of public duty and having lost so many colleagues.

Having said that, finally, the events underline the importance of the Indian security forces investing in professional public diplomacy as the face of such operations in addressing the media, local as well as international, and reassuring the people through calm, authoritative, regularly updated and full accounts of the unfolding situation without compromising on security and intelligence requirements. The Americans and the British do this so much better. Indian officialdom simply does not have the culture of accessibility to the media and the public. This is a professional skill and it is increasingly indispensable in the modern age.

And governments need to answer some fundamental questions on the massive failure of intelligence (for which, frankly, not enough heads have rolled), and why commando units are not already stationed in the major metropolitan cities in order to reduce the response time to such attacks. It took the National Security Guards nine and a half hours to get to the scene of the Mumbai attacks, when the terrorists could begin to assume strongly defensive positions in 30 minutes or so of having gained entry. Moreover, why did not the contingency plans include making available detailed maps of the layouts of all luxury hotels to the anti-terrorist forces: it is not as if luxury hotels have not been the target of attacks all over the world already.

(Ramesh Thakur is the founding director the Balsillie School of International Affairs in Waterloo, Ontario.)

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