Drastic security curbs around Independence Day and the claim of Al Qaeda's arrival in India put a question mark over the country's `anti-terrorism' strategy.
THIS past Independence Day will be remembered more for the thousands of security barriers and barbed-wire fences erected in scores of "sanitised" cities and draconian restrictions placed on citizens' movements, than the celebration of India's freedom. Never before did we witness such panic-driven over-reaction to what turned out to be a dubious tip-off - in this case, a United States Embassy warning of a possible terrorist attack, itself related to an allegedly foiled London plot to blow up 10 transatlantic airliners.
Panic and irrationality alone explain why as many as 10,000 policemen were deployed to guard the Red Fort, why Delhi's airspace was closed for a whole day to protect a ceremony that ended before 9 a.m., and why curfew-like conditions prevailed in most State capitals. Such was the mood among the police, shaped by the general climate of anxiety and fear, that they tore down posters based on Khushwant Singh's Partition novel Train to Pakistan in Delhi's Khan Market. I witnessed this on August 14.
Indian intelligence and security agencies went into an overdrive immediately after the "Heathrow conspiracy" was foiled on August 10, and the suspects were arrested in London. In copycat imitation of the British, they too imposed drastic hand-baggage restrictions on international passengers, banning liquids and laptops - although the threats in the two cases were manifestly different.
Besides the authorities' desperate anxiety not to be found flat-footed again after the Mumbai blasts, two causes were at work. First, the U.S. Embassy's post-London intelligence "input", which warned of possible attacks by "foreign terrorists", including Al Qaeda, on targets in New Delhi and Mumbai. And second, National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan's new assessment that Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), believed to have conducted numerous terrorist attacks in India, has now joined Al Qaeda network. Narayanan announced this during an interview to a private news channel, without bothering to adduce an iota of evidence.
Both the U.S. warning and Narayanan's assessment are open to question. The U.S. State Department contradicted its own Embassy the very next day. It said the warning should be understood in "somewhat more hypothetical terms", it was not based on "definitive information". But India's NSA and Home Ministry chose to ignore this altogether and carried on with harsh security measures, including intensive searches of railway passengers.
It is hard to regard this as a measure of reasonable caution. Caution is warranted in good measure when reliable intelligence suggests that there is a location-specific, imminent terrorist threat - not a vague, existential, intangible or ethereal threat.
The event that triggered the U.S. warning occurred thousands of miles away, in London. The British police claimed that they had mounted "unprecedented" surveillance and taken "urgent action" to foil the airliner bombing conspiracy by arresting most of the plotters. If the claim is right, then it made little sense to have instituted draconian security measures after the arrests. The police version of the "conspiracy" is not convincing. It was not clear when the attack might occur. The police were tipped off about the terrorists' plans more than a year ago. But "none of the alleged plotters had yet bought airline tickets", according to anti-terrorist sources quoted in The Guardian. Some did not even possess passports.
At minimum, this puts a huge question mark over the attacks' imminence. As for the plot's supposedly international ramifications, some of the suspects had visited Pakistan. Subsequently, some other "links" with groups such as the Jaish-e-Mohammed were hinted at. (These are still under investigation.) But a British "senior security official" was quoted: "The plot was constructed in the U.K., targeted in the U.K., based in the U.K., and foiled in the U.K."
After dissecting the U.K. police account, several experts (for example, www.craigmurray.co.uk/archives/2006/08/the_uk_terror_p.html) believe that it might fall in the same category as the panic reaction that led to the gunning down of an innocent Brazilian (Jean Charles de Menezes) in July 2005 in London. The police had, strangely, confused him to be a "South Asian" and claimed that he was wearing a "padded jacket". He was not. The British police stand similarly indicted in the recent Forest Gate raid targeting two Muslims, and earlier, in the Ricin "poison plot" scare. Britain apart, there was no cause for India's over-reaction and copycat imitation.
Narayanan's assessment would have sounded half-way credible - despite the National Security Council's dismal record of non-performance - had he cited specific facts, dates, names and so on to show that the LeT recently joined Al Qaeda and established operational links with it out of definite motives. Surely, it is incumbent upon a responsible official to offer weighty, irrefutable evidence based on solid documents and unimpeachable sources before going public on such an important issue.
However, Narayanan and other officials, or non-official "experts" quoted in the media on this issue, have produced nothing remotely approaching such evidence. When confronted with sharp questions that raised doubts over their assessment, they resort to obfuscation and dissimulation - for instance, by saying Al Qaeda is a "virtual network" or "state of mind". If Al Qaeda is "virtual", then its links do not have to be real, based in the material world.
As for "state of mind", that description equally applies to professional, uninformed "counter-terrorism" too. We are now hoist with people of that very mindset, who determine and direct our intelligence and counter-terrorism operations. They resort to dubious methods of shaping public opinion by planting unsourced stories in the media, which are not only unverified, but also unverifiable. The journalists concerned are rarely given access to primary material. They are told in hush-hush tones about "intercepts" of wireless calls and the sighting of "tall men, speaking an alien language" in Kashmir. One paper even reported: A "30-member Al Qaeda module is on the prowl in south Kashmir."
However, wireless "intercepts" are unreliable and inadmissible as evidence. The sight of "tall men" speaking a foreign-sounding language in a multi-ethnic, multi-lingual State like Kashmir is not all that unusual. Some militant groups cited as Al Qaeda's collaborators are mutual rivals: for example, the LeT and the Jaish-e-Mohammed. The largely "indigenous" Hizbul Mujahideen despises both.
It is also not clear why Al Qaeda must get operationally involved in India and direct specific groups (do they not have enough experience by now?) Creating a scare about Al Qaeda without furnishing evidence serves to manipulate public opinion and create conditions conducive to harsh laws such as the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) and the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA) and suppression of civil liberties. It also facilitates sweeping generalisation about "Islamic terrorism", a hold-all term for all kinds of groups, from Kashmiri separatists to the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) to the LeT. This generates yet more paranoia.
However, even more pernicious is the exploitation of such bogeys by counter-terrorism officials to evade responsibility and hide their own incompetence, lethargy, and worse Al Qaeda is publicly perceived like a force of God or Satan, against which human agencies, even mighty American agencies, are helpless. So India's failures to anticipate Al Qaeda attacks and protect innocent lives become totally excusable.
This raises uncomfortable questions about Narayanan's world view. He evidently holds a totally distorted stereotype-driven view of contemporary terrorism - as quintessentially Islamic. He interprets terrorism through the prism of religious faith - like many officials in our intelligence agencies, some of which admit no Muslims. In 2001, Narayanan addressed the International Association of Chiefs of Police in Toronto. He focussed on "religious terrorists, especially of the radical Islamist variety".
These, Narayanan said, "are driven by different value systems. Violence for them becomes a sacramental act, a divine duty executed in response to a theological imperative. Terrorism assumes a transcendental dimension, and its perpetrators are undeterred by political morality or practical constraints. The religious terrorist tends to be more sanguine, since religion acts as a legitimising force." The "Islamic terrorist outfits" are backed by "intricate" support networks with "recruits from the Islamic diaspora of more than a score of countries".
These words could have been taken out of the speeches or writings of any of the countless leaders and officials in the West who routinely demonise Islam and use terms such as "Islamic terrorism", but never "Christian", "Hindu" or "Jewish" terrorism.
Narayanan concludes his remarks by evoking Hinduism: "In extraordinary times, we need unusual remedies - religion not excluded. Every religion has a salient mantra. For the Hindus (the religion to which I subscribe), the `Gayatri' is considered to be the supreme mantra... The `Gayatri' mantra... `protects him who chants it.' It is a purificatory mantra that is believed to create powerful vibrations beneficial for one's well-being. In these perilous times, may the chanting of the `Gayatri' protect and guide us... to defeat the many forces of Evil."
Narayanan was not in office then. Today, he is. He must clarify whether he adheres to views that are incompatible with a secular and balanced understanding of terrorism. He owes the public an explanation - and hard evidence about Al Qaeda's arrival.
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