Its now two weeks and more since the mumbai terror attacks. The protesters have gone back to their life. Politicians have gone back to the fights. Media has gone back to chasing stars and other news. The editorials are still pouring in. But its official. We are back to status quo. I am sure by now, the change ain't coming this time.
I am making this post on the back drop of the 13 December 2001 parliament attack anniversary and the visit of Prime Minister Gordon Brown to the subcontinent. The former event, i mean the anniversary has turned out to be another shame for us. There were only 12 of our elected representatives yesterday to pay homage to the martyrs. It was like the senior leaders of the major parties attending. It was like, they were there as representatives of these parties. I was just thinking, the cops should have just tried to save the senior leaders saying, saving them is equivalent to saving all and exposing them to the terrorists of 13/12 . The political game has not yet reached an end and hence Afzal Guru is still awaiting to know if he is gonna be hanged or not.
The British and Americans are 10 times better than us, look at prime minister Brown. He has made quite an achievement in Pakistan today including a 6 million pound deal of support to pakis (I am sure the behind door deal is, don't let that happen in Britan what happened in Mumbai and u can have that 6 million).
Anyway neither this post nor this blog is about bashing. This week i wanna talk about taking on terrorism. We are always asking Pakistan to do this, to do that and crying around saying they are doing nothing. But what are we doing about terrorism thats brewing in India. Nothing. The first thing the Indian govt needs to do is that we clean out the in house terrorists (though it includes the politicos..lets exclude the for the time being... lol).
Let the govt come out with an action plan saying that n such and such time limit we would clean out terrorism in India. Let the say that in 6 months we are focusing on this part of the problem and then the next six on another part and so on. For this the first thing the govt need to do is to identify the issues pertaining this issue. As a common citizen these are some possible measure that the govt can take.
Make the eastern borders(incl Nepal) impregnable. The start ground action. Lets say they decide to start with NE terror groups including assam. Let the army be given the task to take them out. Simultaneously extend Operation Sadhbavna( the army's people relation program) that has been very successful in Kashmir to this part. Then we can force the hand of Myanmar junta to allow us to join them and conduct operations on their land with their army on their western borders where these terror groups have training camps.
Once cleaned out, focus on the naxals. The prime minister himself has said the Naxals are the primary concern for India. So lets take them out. Break their corridor, make inroads and be ruthless. Educate ppl to not support them, arm ppl if required and let army control those areas where the local administrations(incl police) are finding difficult to reach).
Then turn the attention to the sleeper cells in India. Don't destroy them but penetrate them. Identify the international links. For this the govt will have to do a lot in taking into confidence the Muslim community. It is near impossible unless we have somebody from that community in our side. There are hundreds of the patriotic and many will come forward if we show respect and confidence in them.
Only after clean the house can you think about taking on outsiders. These attacks are going to happen as long as there is local support and these attacks can't be done so frequently by just outsiders. If we don't take care of insiders before going out after the outsiders we will lose the battle from inside. Hopefully the Indian leadership has some thoughts in this line.
I will be back next week, with new topic. Don't Forget, 26/11/2008, Mumbai. 178 people lost their lives, how many more will lose? Time will answer.
Hi Paddy,
ReplyDeleteGood insights there...
As regards the Naxals your idea of taking them out region by region, area by area might actually work because they are not capable of communication nor co-ordination between each other...
But the same won't be possible in the case of the Sleeper cells.. This insane bunch of self-proclaimed martyrs with their self-declared foolish ideologies is so deeply entrenched in the fabric of society itself, that it would be difficult to take them out one by one..They are well networked and operate through satellite groups spread across the length and breadth of the nation in pockets.
And note also that they have sufficient influence to ensure that ppl easily shift their loyalties, if GIVEN THE TIME.. the best way to tackle this problem will be, to start with, like you said:
1.Take the leaders of our Muslim brethern in to confidence. They can genuinely help us in this good cause.
2.Identify the sleeper cells across the board, on a national level
3.Co-ordinate a fixed time and arm the army with the necessary resources
4.conduct a simultaneous attack to ensure that this cancerous set up that is spreading within the borders is wiped out.
However, this has to be done on a top brass level without any leakages else the repercussions would result in many other Mumbai-like carnages across India.
The question is : Is our bureaucratic set up capable of deciding and executing something of this nature and magnitude?
Otherwise, is there any other way?? This is open to debate...
Jana
@jana, thanx for the response. When i said we need to take terror elements section by section. I ddnt mean splitting a particular type of terrorist groups, what i ment was to group them ideoligically as naxals, NE terror groups, jihadis and taking on them one by one.
ReplyDeleteYou closing comments are really intersting and important. Without a strong commitment from that fraternity it would be impossible to take on terrorists.
Cheers
Paddy