Jairam Ramesh the Congress Party’s Coordinator for Election Related Affairs for the Lok Sabha 2009 polls made public a document released earlier in the week by Home Minister Chidambaram on the Congres Party’s pledge on protecting India from Terror.
In his e-mail Mr. Ramesh lists a number of measures taken after the Mumbai 26/11 attacks like the NIA and the UAPA. Mr. Ramesh however fails to mention any measures taken by the UPA between 2004 and November of 2008.
Mr. Ramesh’s email is also conspicuous in its silence on the ill-famed India Pakistan Joint Anti-Terrorism Institutional Mechanism, that was announced by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh after the deadly 7/11 serial train blasts of 2006 in Mumbai.
Mr. Ramesh’s email claims the Congress will not waste a single day in fighting terror while being woefully silent on the period since the scrapping of POTA in 2004 and the deadly attacks in Mumbai in November of 2008.
The document also makes it a point to highlight that “Religious Polarization” is inimical to the fight on terror, a strange comment after having scrapped POTA on grounds of Muslim sensititvities and not replaced it with any new law for 5 years till 26/11.
The document is not short on scoring political points with references to Kargil, Kandahar, Prakram and the allegation that IPS recruitment suffered between 1998 and 2004.
Nevertheless the Congress Party’s promise on Terror must be dissected and analysed for its worthiness. The document is 13 pages long and begins with a Section titled “Context” which interestingly enough carries a tacit admission of guilt by the Congress that the document only lists measures taken after 26/11.
It lays out five tenets as the foundation for the Congress Party’s anti-terror strategy but only talks of preparedness and response to threats after they manifest. The strategy is silent on pre-empting threats before they manifest.
The most significant aspect lacuna in the strategy is it doesnt highlight capabilities needed to eliminate threats that manifest outside the borders of India and capabilities needed to root out sponsors of Terror who are sheltered by sympathetic foreign governments.
The section on Human Assets focuses more on scoring political points against the BJP while explaining little on what was done to rectify IPS recruitment between 2004 and 2009. It only talks of plans to improve recruitment post 2009.
The much maligned 100 day roadmap makes an appearance after complete silence from the Government ever since it was announced. More promises are made on plans to come including review of VVIP security.
The most glaring gap in the section on Human Assets is no talk of how external Intelligence will be revamped to infiltrate networks of terror outside Indian borders. With most Terror in India manifesting outside our borders it is strange that the Congress Party’s strategy is silent on how it will learn of new threats to come and how it will anticipate new modus operandi.
The section on Actionable Intelligence and Cutting edge Analytics sounds more like a commercial for Oracle BI with more talk on Databases like the NATGRID and the CCTNS.
It also curiously includes a treatise on the National ID Card Project. The document makes it a point to say ID Card project was not pursued by NDA but fails to explain what the UPA did for 5 years on the ID Card project.
This section has more technology jargon on what tools the Congress intends to develop to make intelligence actionable but it fails to explain how the Intelligence will be acquired in the first place.
A closer look at the technology jargon used in this section is a must for it sounds more like a listing of Graduate School project topics
Threat Assessment Modeling, Artificial Neural Networks and Three Dimensional Modeling of Critical Infrastructure
Another curious and out of place proposal is a Citizen’s Campaign with no explanation of what it has to do with Actionable Intelligence or Advanced Analytics.
The section on empowered and coordinated Security Agencies is vague on what new Command and Control structures will be in place and how they will be empowered on decision making. The lone exception is the recent decision on the Indian Navy being the nodal authority on Coastal Security.
The second pillar on Rapid Response is again woefully lacking on the National Security Architecture to respond to acts of terror. It instead passes the buck to the States by disposing off the subject with adequate support shall be given to the States.
It goes further to explain how mistakes and lessons from the last terror strike will be addressed like the non-availability of aircraft while demonstrating little imagination on anticipating likely future needs and how they will be provided for.
The Permanent Crisis Management Group (War Room) and a Standard Operating Procedure with a U.S. like color coded threat level scheme are promised for the future. It doesnt however explain how the War Room will be empowered to make decisions within the National Security Architecture with the buck being passed to the States on response to threats.
The rest of the document describes how the Congress will bring Terrorists to justice while failing to explain how it will address the unique problem facing India where the key conspirators and sponsors of Terror reside outside India.
In conclusion it is fair to say that the Congress’ anti-terror strategy rests on dealing with Terror threats on Indian soil after they have manifested rather than pre-empting and preventing them from manifesting before they reach Indian soil.
In fact the entire 13 page document stands out for making zero mention of safe havens for terrorists outside Indian borders in Pakistan and elswewhere which makes this whole exercise highly questionable.
Any credible anti-terror strategy must first begin by articulating the nature of terror threat faced by India.
It must go on to outlining the National Security Architecture needed to deal with that threat before spelling out the different Protocols and Command/Control structures needed to deal with terror threats pre-emptively and after the fact.
It must then specify the necessary tools from a surveillance, intelligence acquisition, analysis and dissemination standpoint to aid in real time decision making
Finally it must outline the legislative framework necessary to bring the terrorists and their sponsors to justice irrespective of where they are.
On all of these counts the Congress Party’s Anti-Terror strategy is woefully inadequate.
In closing it must be said that rather than view National Security wholistically the Congress Party continues to view the Terror threat from the narrow lens of the Union Home Ministry, thus leaving unstated where finally the buck will stop in protecting India from the Terror threat.
Filed under: Chattisgarh Polls 2008, Chhattisgarh Polls 2008, Delhi Polls 2008, DesiPundit, Dharma-debates, Dharmayudh-2009, Gujarat Polls 2007, India Elections 2009, Karnataka Polls 2008, Lok Sabha Polls 2008-2009, Madhya Pradesh Polls 2008, Rajasthan Polls 2008, War on Mumbai, War on Terror, betrayal of aam admi, jeetega-bharat
[...] India Elections 2009 – Congress wakes up to Terror threat Jairam Ramesh the Congress Party’s Coordinator for Election Related Affairs for the Lok Sabha 2009 polls made public a document released earlier in the week by Home Minister Chidambaram on the Congres Party’s pledge on protecting India from Terror. [...]
Yoss , did you just read the news about the SITs report investigating the Gujarat riots ????
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/NGOs-Teesta-spiced-up-Gujarat-riot-incidents-SIT/articleshow/4396986.cms
read this , & for yourself !!!!!
If Congress’s Anti-Terror approach is not good enough, BJP’s approach is even more appalling ! They have a single point agenda to takle terror – POTA…
Terrorist activies peaked during the NDA rule. Now hiding behind Chidambaram’s remarks on Kandahar is poor showing – after a complete surrender to Pakistani Terrorists and utter humiliation of Foreign Minister escorting these grand thugs to their base.
It is a triffle surprising that Advani and BJP are unable to stomach critisim from Manmohan and other Congress leaders after dising out non-sense to him for a prolonged period. Advani should not be surprised at the taste of his own medicine that he has got !
Yes i agree with ROW that with media playing wrong headlines it seems as if Advaniji is not able to take the retorts in his stride.
Media does not however mention that these statements of Manmohan Singh came from press conference with a written script in front of him , so basically he is just parroting words ; else why is he not ready to face him in a TV debate.
The basic point is that we cannot stop terrorism unless there is of course an efficient system with enough recruits and infrastructure / equipment to handle it , and also most importantly complete cooperation of the citizens of our country ; as Mr Modi says we need pro active governance which means the state and also the citizens work together responsibly not only to provide security to all but also in all other aspects of goverance .This aspect on security has been covered by Mr Modi in his website when questioned on it.
That terrorist activities started becoming active during NDA govt is true but it has become worse during Congress rule ; we cannot justify our wrongs by pointing to the others ; in fact Congress woke up only after 26/11 , that too because there were other nationalities affected by it ;before that it seemed to be a routine affair.yes it may take time to react , but not after 41/2 years in power . And even in case of 26/11 what is the status , instead of getting replies from Pakistan , and curbing the activities in their state ; they are questioning us.
Also with America giving aid to pakistan and Swat Valley being Sharia rule how safe are our borders? the defence expenditure had been cut down drastically by Congress in the last 5 years .Why?
obviously the next govt ( esp if it is BJP) will have a lot to answer but they will also need time to set up systems anbd get delivery of equipment.BJP becos then people like ROW will be talking about this from day 1 of their office. With inheritance of this kind governace of economy and security – it is going to be very difficult for BJP to do a miracle overnight.
Terrorism is not just an act of few blasts here and there, or a man in city killing few people with Ak-47. Its a huge network, from drug trading to corrupt government servants, from bookies of match fixing to Pakistani diplomats.
They may not be acting in perfect coherence or in a planned manner, but each of these groups have their own localized interests which eventually makes our nation weaker.
An efficient structure to fight terror must emphasize on beating terrorists and anything remotely associated with them at every corner we encounter. Every tiny step they take against india, we must retaliate in a manner that will inflict maximum damage on them.
Very clearly Congress slept on the wheel for most of their rule in last 5 years. Under their rule, for the first time in history of India, Indian extremists became a threat at such a large scale, as evidenced by continuous attacks by SIMI/IM and Naxalites. Only after Modi was able to catch perpetrators very quickly after the Ahmedabad attacks in 2008, did the Congress feel ground slipping and found their first success after the Delhi attack and we have had a measure of respite at least from SIMI/IM attacks for some time now. It is very clear that terrorists attacks were not stopped all this time, simply because the Congress did not want to antagonise Muslims. Finally they did what they had to do, but their discomfort is palpable. Just a couple of days ago, PM Singh advised police forces to be mindful of the unfair targetting of Muslims!
Congress is primarily responsible for the state of the country, and it is high time people are exposed to this fact. This is a challenge given that media is largely anti-BJP. To counter this, we have started http://www.bharatright.com, a website that compiles all nationalist opinions from all newspapers of India and present them on a daily basis. Please visit us, and also spread the word.
Yes, Advani really has no answers to criticisms of his stewardship of Home Ministry. Kandahar, Dec 13 etc are albatross around his neck. So Congress is spot on on this. But with Congress around prominently terrrorism will be internalized, just as they did corruption. Because fighting terrorism entails fighting muslims overtl or covertly. Congress with its vote bank mentality will never alienate muslims. With India’s demographics changing as they are doing, BJP ( the only party genuinely anti-terrosist) acquiring power at the centre is a fast-vanishing possibility. So Indians must reconcile themselves to a permanent state of siege. But can India survive that kind of situation ? Sooner or later a devastating civil war condition will develop in India.
Thia has reference to mail from R.V, dt.April14. Why like the Congres are others also talking about Kandahar ? What did they expect? Not hand over the terrorist and get all the passengers including some foreigners killed by the highjackers? Then also such people would have blamed Advani for the killing of the passengers. Sometimes I wonder , as to why Mr. Advani is not replying to attacks on his handling of the Kandahar highjacking?
There is no terror policy of the UPA, the fact is that this election is a no issue elections when ever an issue based debate is started the congress spin docters/ our over glorified media take it away from its tracks and convert it into a mud slinging match, a country which sits next to the epicenter of terrorism, We stand on the edge of becoming a Europe in Asia, every single politician comes with his agenda….where is the agenda for the NATION…
India is under seige from alldirections east and west by Islamic terrorism, Also thru Nepal and on the east side the Marxists. Further now with Sonia wanting to take revenge on LTTE, we shall now have some threat from southern side as well. With congress having political base amongst Muslims they are just not going to be able to tackle terrorism. They also ally with communists and hence are soft towards the marxists as well. The LTTE problem they can’t deal with because of the history. That leaves BJP as the only Party capable of tackling these threats. Unfortunately print and electronic media is just Pro UPA/Congress. If the UPA comes back, India will be th biggest loser. Won’t be surprised if we have balkanisation of India after a few years