'Are We Ready To Win The War?'

First of all, I would like to express my condolences to thebereaved families of those persons who have actually saved us in many ways. While talking about this attack and the origin of this attack, I am taken backto the days before Partition when we were in colleges.  At that time, onething that worried us the most was the 'Quit India Movement'.  But in thedeep South, there were groups of people who used to believe that Partition ofthe country was only temporary and that they would come back and take power inIndia again.  I think it is this kind of restricted attitude that peoplestill have in the neighbouring country which makes them believe that they cancome back through terrorism and  take back power again. 

It is not a trivial statement I am making.  It issomething which is deeply buried in the minds of the people who at the time ofPartition were a bit unhappy and felt that the Partition was moth-eaten and thatthe Partition programme has not been fulfilled and that they have to come backto take power again. This is my view.  Otherwise, such intensity of use ofweapons and planning that has been shown cannot be explained easily.  Butmy purpose of speaking today is not to talk about what has already happened butto know how we have to face the future in the months to come.  I am sure,there will be attacks again.  How do we prepare ourselves for that? We have to take a lesson from the war that has taken place in Afghanistan. The Talibans were defeated very easily.  They could not have been defeatedeasily by the Northern Alliance but for the support of the American and theEuropean forces.  It means we have got to find out if a conflagration takesplace, are we ready to win the war.

What made the Taliban collapse that way?  It isessentially the automation, the air activity, the super-bombing of places, thelarge scale attacks, which frightened the people.  After all, the Afghansare not ordinary people.  They are known for their great courage and greatperformance levels.  But the fact that they just disappeared, though theyhad tanks and such other hardware, was because of automation and air activities. Perhaps, we should make sure that we have pilotless aircraft in case of airattacks;  I know, I am going one step far by even suggesting the equipmentthat is necessary in case of an attack. 

But what we should really look at is the fact that a nationis respected if there is the necessary defence structure within the country. I have always wondered how, in spite of many defeats that Pakistan has had, theystill try to worry us, and, now, with the terrorist activity of a type which isquite unbelievable. 

Now, another weakness which we have on our side is thatwhile in the case of the Afghan war, the U.S. and the U.K. took part in theactual fighting, in our case, I don't know whether they are with us even purelyfrom the point of analysing the entire problem that faces us.  They havebeen telling us, "Be patient; take it calmly", as if the terroristattack here was a minor affair.  In fact, even the reportings in theirmedia were only sketchy. 

In the last few days when I was in Delhi, my hon. friend,Mr. Ojha, took me to a place, Buxar, in Bihar.  Now, I learnt a lesson fromthis visit because that is where India really lost its independence once and forall in as early as 1764.  Why was that so?  It is so clearly evidentfrom the history that there was no unity among the Indian people and with just2,000 soldiers on the British side, the whole power of Bengal, Uttar Pradesh,Bihar, going right up to Delhi, was destroyed in a matter of two-and-a-halfhours.  But it is a lesson from which we have to learn a lot. 

I do, of course, believe that we have solved the problem ofunity in this country especially after the linguistic riots and all that whichtook place; and, therefore, we are really strong.  But there is the feelingthat I get -- I may be wrong -- that in times of crisis, we should have beenmuch closer than was exhibited this morning.  I may be wrong, but I wouldstill like to say that immediately after the terrorist attack on our Parliament,we still have reservation about what one man has said to the other and how oneinterprets a certain action. 

The people are watching us; the TVs are all operating; andwith the morale of the country involved, it is of great importance and all thesewill play an important part in planning for the future as to how we are going toface the next crisis.  There will always be another crisis, I am sure. In the last many years, we have not solved the problem of terrorism in theworld, and we have not really convinced the people that we really are a greatpower that we should be. And having achieved that status, we are finding faultswith the details, rather than taking care of the bigger affair of telling thepeople what we are capable of. 

I cannot but make a reference to the use of big arms. I know this country developed nuclear weapons and I know that they are theultimate in all weaponry; but in such instances, it is not possible to use thembecause, anyway, we have taken a vow that we will not be the first to usenuclear weapons.  It is a good thing because the spread of nuclear weaponswill, in the end, gobble up all of us.  It was used fifty years ago inHiroshima.  We know now that it is a deterrence weapon.  We must doeverything politically to avoid such a use.  But I do not know whether ourneighbours will follow any particular pattern; if, of course, other than thepresent Government in Pakistan there comes a terrorist Government, they will useit, whether it is the first use or the second use.  We must take thenecessary precautions of what we will do under such a circumstance. 

I have said enough purely from the point of view of defenceof the country in case of future attacks.  But what is most essential isthe media supporting all this programme that we have.  The media oftenconfuses people, and what I have heard here and what we read in differentnewspapers is so varied that, as many people said here, we do not know what isactually happening or what actually happened nor is there a good analysis of thefoundations of this hatred that keeps carrying on over the years.

But I am sure, after this debate, we will be betterinformed and we can predict events in a much more effective way than it has beendone.  What has been done is quite remarkable; we will never forget thereaction here, the quick reaction which protected this great institution. But this is not sufficient.  It is clearly not sufficient and a tremendousamount of new and technical ideas have to be brought in for which I request theGovernment to use the scientists a little more than just using the very oldfashioned police methods of keeping the terrorists away. The communicationsystems are much better. They are much more advanced. Satellite communicationscan be used for many more details about the movement of arms and prediction ofbombs or bomb-materials, or RDX in a car at a reasonable distance away from it,and all this must be activated much more than simply having large police forceswhich are operated on outmoded methods.