Flashing V, iron hand

Modi8217;s victory shows that people want a ruler who can take the fight to the terrorist camp.

For all his political acumen, Gujarat8217;s macho chief minister, Narendra Modi, missed the import of Congress President Sonia Gandhi8217;s now famous 8216;maut ke saudagar8217; barb at the state government on a lazy afternoon rally in Navsari district on December 1. Those who studied the Gujarat poll scene will testify that Modi8217;s immediate response was to ask why she Sonia is shy of talking about rising prices and inflation in the country. Simultaneously, telephone lines burnt between Gujarat election in-charge Arun Jaitley and BJP8217;s now prime ministerial candidate, L.K. Advani, and by late evening that day Modi had brought in Sohrabuddin and internal security on to the electoral canvas at a rally in Bhuj. The rest, as they say, is history. For the first time, a vital national security issue 8212; confined to mundane and ill-informed debates in Parliament since Independence 8212; was brought to the top of the political agenda by Modi and used to garner votes in the Gujarat elections.

Modi had legitimate reasons for showcasing his government8217;s firm commitment towards internal security issues in post-2002 riots Gujarat. Despite the state being on top of the hit-list of all jihadi groups in the subcontinent after the Godhra riots, not one major terrorist incident has taken place in Gujarat in the past five years of BJP rule. The state government was able to harmonise internal conflict with economic and industrial reform even while there were agitations over industrial policies in certain parts of the country. To add to this, there is little or hardly any infiltration of Naxalism among Gujarat8217;s tribals, in sharp contrast to rising Maoist movements in tribal Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and even Maharashtra.

This is not to say that all is hunky-dory with Gujarat under Modi, but only to point that the Congress-led UPA government can ill-afford to ignore the political dimension of the internal security issue. The internal security meeting in the Capital last week clearly showed that nearly all state chief ministers wanted anti-terror law sans the draconian provisions of the now repealed Pota, as they made it very clear that their states were ill-equipped to handle terror. However, the UPA government8217;s record in matters of national security leaves much to be desired. Given its sensitivity to vote banks, the present government not only refused to develop new tools to fight terror but also has made enforcement agencies toothless by repealing Pota and putting the recommendations of the Justice V.S. Malimath Committee on Reforms of Criminal Justice System on the back burner.

The fact is that the current internal security scenario in the country is rather grave, with Naxalites on the rampage and terrorists striking at will every two to three months. Even eight years after the Kandahar episode, the chief hijacker, Athar Ibrahim, brother of Jaish-e-Mohammed founder Masood Azhar, is actively involved in targeting India. The internal security agencies have intercepted web chats between the Pakistan-trained Munawar, alias Okasa, who was the leader of three JeM militants arrested by the UP police on November 16, and Rawalpindi-based Ibrahim, on the selection of VVIP targets in India. But then the UPA internal security managers love playing politics with terror. Otherwise, how can one explain the premature exposure of the three JeM militants to the public and media without Munawar, the Muzaffarnagar-born leader of the Jaish terror module, having been nabbed? This question obviously was not on top of the mind for the UPA establishment but their grouse was that Rahul Gandhi8217;s name was unnecessarily dragged into the entire issue by the UP government. And Mayawati apparently was unhappy that Rahul Gandhi, who was allegedly the target of these JeM militants, got some undeserved publicity.

Although the internal security establishment is rather clueless on which group conducted the last serial blasts in UP courts, little effort has been made to go beyond the usual suspects of HUJI, Jaish or Lashkar-e-Toiba groups. Not one major terror strike since June 2005 has been completely solved by the internal security agencies, yet the operational head, inexplicably, has been given a prized posting abroad. While there is mounting evidence that critical answers to all these terror strikes lie between Ghaziabad and Bijnore, the government is still to summon the courage to take action, given the political sensitivities involved.

Modi8217;s victory shows that people want a strong ruler who is proactive and has the courage to take the fight to the terrorist camp. Today, Indian entrepreneurs and people at large do not need government support in the form of licences or quotas. They just want the government to provide a terror-free or violence-free environment, so that they can get on with their job. Like it or lump it, Modi was perceived by the majority of Gujaratis to have provided just such an environment.

With 2009 general election only 14 months away, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the Congress Party must realise that national security is very prominent on the radar of the electorate and that its own managers have increasingly become a liability. Shivraj Patil may be the best home minister that India ever had as far as 10 Janpath is concerned, but the 8216;consensus man8217; just does not inspire confidence among his own bureaucracy and paramilitary chiefs. National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan had the gumption to warn Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states about an impending Al-Qaida strike on their oil installations, but still does not know who bombed the Makkah and Malegaon masjids. He gives chits of credibility to a beleaguered Pervez Musharraf in Pakistan even before the Americans, but negates any initiative that his prime minister wants to take on either Kashmir or Siachen. To add to that, interventions by the Centre8217;s interlocutors on Kashmir are kept hanging. It is said that this window of opportunity could be used by the prime minister when the time comes. A similar indecision marks dealings with insurgents in the Northeast.

Story continues below this ad

As both Congress President and PM prepare for their well-deserved year-end holidays, they must be prepared to take tough steps on the national security issue without, for once, getting bogged down on account of vote-bank politics. This can be done by inducting appropriate expertise in the UPA Cabinet in the next reshuffle.

All said and done, Modi8217;s victory will most certainly continue to haunt Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during his New Year vacation on a Goa beach.

shishir.guptaexpressindia.com