Two Wrongs...

We have had enquiries in the past into national security lapses and disasterssuch as our humiliation at the hands of China in 1962, intelligence failuresduring the Indo-Pak war of 1965 and  the revolt in Mizoram in 1966, thesecurity failures resulting in the assassinations of Indira Gandhi inOctober,1984 and  Rajiv Gandhi in May, 1991, and our being taken bysurprise by the Pakistan Army in the Kargil heights in 1999.

The report of  the enquiry into the Chinese occupation of our territorywas never released to the public, but we do know that many of the actions takenby the Government of India post-1962 for revamping our national securitymanagement were the result of the deficiencies identified during the enquiry.Similarly, the report of the enquiries into the lapses during the 1965 war andthe Mizo uprising was not released to the public, but we do know that thecreation of the Research & Analysis Wing (R&AW) was a result of theseenquiries. The reports of the other enquiries were released to the public by theGovernments of Rajiv Gandhi, Narasimha Rao and Atal Behari Vajpayee. Whatever bethe merits of the follow-up action, no attempt was made by any of thosegovernments to cover up the failures and deficiencies.

Since 2000 the world has seen a series of major terrorist strikes -- theattack on the US naval ship USS Cole off Aden in October,2000, 9/11 in the US,the explosion in Bali in October 2002, the Madrid explosions in March 2004 andthe London explosions in July,2005. Each and every one of those terroriststrikes was followed by a detailed enquiry ordered by the Government in power inorder to identify deficiencies and faults, which enabled the terrorists tosucceed. No attempt was made by any of those Governments to cover up the sins ofomission and commission, which made those terrorist strikes possible. Follow-upaction was taken to see that similar acts of negligence were not repeated infuture and that identified deficiencies were rectified. The conclusions of theenquiries were made known to the public and were discussed by their respectivelegislatures.

On February 27,2008, Mas Selamat Kastari, said to be a leader of theSingapore branch of  Jemaah Islamiyah (JI),  escaped from a highsecurity  detention centre of Singapore. The escape of this dreadedterrorist created alarm and concern in Singapore about the state of theirsecurity agencies. Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong gave his word of honour to theParliament and the public that he would see that a thorough enquiry would beheld to find out how he escaped, to identify the acts of negligence and takenecessary follow-up action. He promised that there would be no cover-up and thatthe enquiry report would be released to the public and discussed in Parliament.He kept his word of honour.

Between November 26 and 28, 2008, Mumbai witnessed  what has beendescribed by many international terrorism experts as the most daring terroriststrike anywhere in the world since the 9/11 terrorist strikes in the US. Nearly170 persons, the majority of them civilians, including some foreigners ofdifferent nationalities and some brave police officers, were killed. Theterrorists had virtual control of two leading hotels of Mumbai and a Jewishreligious-cum-cultural centre for three days.

The terrorist strike, which was seen by the entire world on TV, caused suchan alarm that some leading think-tanks of the world such as the Rand Corporationhave already brought out detailed studies on the incident. The Homeland SecurityCommittees of the US Congress  held detailed sessions on the incident forwhich they invited leading experts to give their assessment of the incident.

The conclusion of some of these studies was that India neither had therequired preventive capability nor the retaliatory capability to dealsatisfactorily with incidents of this nature and hence, one cannot rule outrepeats of Mumbai style attacks.

The terrorist strike took place in our territory. Our people were killed. Anattempt was made tro shake the confidence of foreigners--specially businessmen--about the security of life and property in India. We should have been the mostconcerned to find out what happened so that we can see that this does not happenagain.

One would have expected the Governments of India and Maharashtra to order ajoint comprehensive and independent enquiry similar to the enquiries held in ourown country in the past and similar to those held in other countries since 2000to identify the sins of commission and omission and the weak points in ourcounter-terrorism management and to take follow-up action. Unfortunately, theGovernment of India  focussed largely on Pakistan's involvement in thestrike and avoided any independent enquiry into its own responsibility and thatof the Government of Maharashtra, which made the Inter-Services Intelligence andthe Lashkar-e-Toiba succeed in such a spectacular manner.

The Government of India was successful in its cover-up exercise becauseneither the  Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leadership nor the otheropposition parties, whose responsibility it was to see that there was nocover-up, failed to exercise this responsibility. By their confused inaction,the BJP and other opposition parties played into the hands of the Government andunwittingly facilitated its cover-up exercise.  Nobody asked questionsabout our own failures at New Delhi as well as in Mumbai.

While the Government of India successfully avoided any enquiry, theGovernment of Maharashtra did order an  enquiry into the role of the Mumbaipolice. It set up a two-member  enquiry commiittee consisting of R.D.Pradhan, an officer of the IAS cadre of Maharashtra, who had served as the UnionHome Secretary, and V.Balachandran, an officer of the IPS cadre of Maharashtra,who had served for two decades in the R&AW and retired in June,1995, as aSpecial Secretary. The enquiry committee has completed its work and submittedits report to the Government. The Government of Maharashtra has reportedlypromised to lay the report on the table of the State Assembly along with anaction taken report.

This was what the Vajpayee government did in respect of the enquiry report bythe Kargil Review Committee, headed by K.Subramanyam, the strategic analyst, whowas at that time Convenor of the National Security Advisory Board. While therewas a wide dissemination of the report and its critical findings, the onlysubstantial discussion of the report was in the media. As a follow-up, the governmentalso set up a number of Special Task Forces to look into various aspects ofnational security management such as internal security, border securitymanagement, higher defence management and the revamping of the intelligenceset-up. An exercise for strengthening national security management on the basisof the recommendations of these task forces was undertaken. Details of therecommendations of all the task forces except the one on the intelligence set-upwere released to the public.

Anybody who had watched the TV during those three horrible days and readeverything that was available to read about the terrorist strike would havenoticed that there were apparent  lapses  which made the strikepossible. According to  sections of the New Delhi-based nationalnewspapers, intelligence was available, but not complete and continuous. Tworeports in September, none in October and one just before the strike. Thefollow-up action even on the available intelligence was ill-co-ordinated.Emergency response after the strike left much to be desired. There werecomplaints about inadequate and unsatisfactory protective equipment. The qualityof the  operational leadership at the counter-terrorism nodal points wascriticised. There was an  inadequate  culture of joint action  byvarious agencies responsible for counter-terrorism.

In his statement to the Lok Sabha after taking over as the Home Ministerafter the Mumbai attack, Shri P.Chidambaram admitted that the responsibility forfollow-up action on even the available intelligence was diffused. It must besaid to his credit that even though a formal enquiry of an independent naturewas not held, he  apparently made his own in-house enquiry to determine thedeficiencies and correct them. He has tightened up  our internal securitymanagement system and has been taking active interest in ensuring  that thesystem would function as it should. The fact that an independent  enquirywas not held does not mean that a comprehensive in-house exercise was notundertaken to identify and correct deficiencies.

But the public of this country and its legislators have a right to know whatwent wrong and why. The national security management system is funded by thetax-payers' money. When a terrorist strike takes place, it is their lives andthose of their relatives that are affected. By denying the public knowledge of the acts of commission and omission,  the political leadership is denyingthe public and the opposition an opportunity to judge whether the tax-payers'money allocated for counter-terrorism is being spent efficiently. The successfulfunctioning of the national security management system depends not only on thequality of the various components of the system, but also on the co-operationwhich it is able to get from the public. The readiness of the public toco-operate will depend on  the system's credibility in the eyes of thepublic. If the public is kept in the dark, how can it have the requiredconfidence in the system? Today's terrorism is trans-national. Our ability todeal with it depends not only on our capabilities, but also on the co-operation received from other countries. If the others find that we do not have the moralcourage to look into our deficiencies and admit them, what incentive they willhave to improve their co-operation with us?

In the light of this, we should have followed the example of other countriesand held a comprehensive and independent  enquiry, different from anin-house enquiry. One was surprised to note that Shri Chidambaram  firmlyrejected on June 5,2009, the demand of Shri L.K.Advani, the leader of theopposition, for such an enquiry. In an interview to some journalists, he gavethe following reasons for his rejecting the demand: Firstly, the demand isbelated as it came six months after the terrorist attack. Secondly, the VajpayeeGovernment did not hold an enquiry into the hijacking of an aircraft of theIndian Airlines by some terrorists to Kandahar in December 1999 and into theattempted attack on the Indian Parliament in December,2001.

The attack on the Parliament was not an instance of security failure. It wasan instance of security success. That was why the terrorists did not succeed.Kandahar was an instance of  failure by the then government. An enquiryshould have been held, but the fact that no enquiry was held by the BJP-led governmentshould not be cited as a ground for not holding an independent enquiry into theMumbai attack.

Shri Chidambaram is right in pointing out the belated nature of the BJPdemand, but this should not be allowed to stand in the way of a comprehensiveand independent  enquiry, which would be in the national interest. I havebeen pointing out since 2004 that one of the reasons for things going wrong incounter-terrorism management in our country  is the lack of activism by therelatives of the victims of terrorist strikes. It was the activism of  therelatives of the victims which ensured a thorough enquiry in the US, the UK andother countries. One saw on the TV the way the relatives of the victims byrotation attended the hearings of the Congressional committees on the 9/11strikes and the interest which they took in ensuring that the recommendations of the National Commission were implemented. Unfortunately, in our country, thatkind of activism is not there. The Governments are consequently  able toget away with their stonewalling.

B. Raman is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. ofIndia, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute for Topical Studies,Chennai.