Listening to Sufi music as thousands are murdered

A symptom of the way things are. The courts won’t deliver. When someone — at the greatest risk to his life — acts to save the country, they shriek, ‘‘human rights violation’’. During the last 20 years, about 64,000 have been killed in terrorist-related violence.

All of them have been killed within the territory of India.

Two hundred and twenty districts covering 40 to 45 per cent of the country’s territory are now affected by insurgencies of one kind or another. The two principal challenges that account for these killings are Islamic fundamentalism and Left-wing extremism. It is more or less taboo to talk about the first. And the second is explained away in fashionable circles as the counter to ‘‘state-terrorism’’, as the consequence of ‘‘land reforms not having been implemented’’! A State in denial.

And the situation has worsened to an alarming degree over the last few months.

The sponsor of Islamic terrorism in India — Pakistan — has not changed its conduct or aim one whit. Peace lovers keep inventing signs of hope — talk of games, of a pipeline. They draw attention to visits — the Pakistani Foreign Minister one day, the Prime Minister the next, the Chief Minster of West Punjab the third. And each time they are jolted — pleasantries over, each visitor declares, ‘‘Nothing will come of… unless Kashmir.’’

A few months ago, I was myself witness to an amusing instance. This was at the dinner that followed the India Today Conclave, 2003. Musharraf had been invited to give the keynote address via satellite from Islamabad. A ‘who’s who’ crowd was present — a crowd among whom talk of peace is a fashion statement, much as exhaling ‘‘wah-wah’’ at any baying that calls itself ‘‘Sufi music’’. In 80 minutes, Musharraf mentioned Kashmir 70 times. His message — incessantly reiterated — was simple:

• Kashmir is a dispute between India and Pakistan.

• It is the key dispute. In fact, so central is it that if it is ‘‘solved’’ no other dispute would survive, and if it is not solved no other dispute can be solved.

• And the only solution to the Kashmir dispute is that India give up its ‘‘rigid’’ stand and accept Pakistan’s position.

The audience was at first nonplussed; then disappointed; then it gasped; eventually it was reduced to a sort of embarrassed tittering. For they had invested so much in peace!

Every week, the terrorists kill a dozen or more security personnel through attacks in the Valley. The Chief Minister, his daughter, Dr Farooq Abdullah, his son Omar, have all just about escaped assassins. So many others have not.

The Hurriyat has stopped talking to Delhi. On the other hand, it makes a great show of talking to every Pakistani high-up who comes to India. And look at what we have reduced ourselves to. The Foreign Secretary of Pakistan — and this particular one happens to be filled with more poison against India than almost anyone I have met — comes to Delhi. Hurriyat leaders call on him for receiving guidance and advice! This is duly published in the papers — with not the tiniest hint of censure. In Baluchistan, in the Frontier areas, in Gilgit-Baltistan there are strong movements to secede from Pakistan. Imagine the Indian Foreign Secretary visiting Islamabad. Would he be allowed to meet the leaders of these secessionist movements?

As for Left-wing extremism, one of the foremost experts in India on terrorism, Ajai Sahani, reminds me that according to official figures in October 2003, 55 districts in nine states were affected by Naxalite activity. The same figures reveal that by November 2004, 156 districts spread across 13 states are affected. That is, every week Naxalite operations have come to cover two more districts.

Nepal provides a warning in more ways than one. First the pace at which such insurrections spread. The Dang assault took place in December 2001 — just three years ago. At that time, only four districts in Western Nepal were affected. Today, each of the 75 districts right across the country is in the grip of Maoist violence. Second, about our own condition. At the meeting of a committee of Parliament, I asked one of the senior-most officials who was testifying, ‘‘Have we received evidence that the Maoists are getting arms and other aid from China?’’ ‘‘Some arms may have come in from China through smuggling,’’ he replied, ‘‘but there is no evidence that China is helping the Maoists.’’ The implication? The arms and ammunition that they are wielding have come from, at the least they have reached them through India, and from and through Indian groups. What does that say about the reach, the resources, the sway of these groups in India itself?

Look at the accompanying map. It is taken from the ‘‘South Asian Terrorism Portal’’ (www.satp.org) — the most authoritative and comprehensive source of information about terrorism in our region. A vast swathe of a corridor has already been carved out — from Nepal to Andhra.

UP is next in line — the Naxalites having just left their calling card in Chandauli through a brutal massacre.

Over vast stretches, these terrorists and insurgent groups are the government. They collect taxes. They decree ‘‘justice’’. They dictate who shall get what contract; in this way, ‘‘development outlays’’ — which Governments in Delhi project as proof of what they are doing for a region — have in fact become the principal source of funds for insurgencies.

The recoveries that are made from the terrorist groups would shock anyone: lakhs at a time, the most modern weapons. As are the discoveries: in Jharkhand, officials tell me, ‘‘bunkers’’ consisting of two to three storey high concrete structures have been found dug into hillsides.

Our response? Abolish the instrument our security personnel need — POTA. Our response? Bend to them, give in to their peremptory demand — we will come to the table with our arms; thereafter we must be free to roam with our arms.

Response

Confronted with this worsening, we set up committees. Then stamp their reports ‘‘Secret’’, and lock them in a drawer. We pass laws. Not implement them. Then pass a stiffer law. Then give in to the campaign that the stiffer law is being ‘‘misused’’, and scrap the law. TADA yesterday. POTA today.

The reports of the Task Force on Border Management and the Task Force on Internal Security are text-book illustrations of this fatal sequence. The Task Forces were set up in the wake of the Kargil war. Each was headed by a distinguished civil servant — the former by Madhav Godbole, the latter by N N Vohra; both of them with extensive experience in national security. The Task Forces held detailed discussions with and received evidence from the most knowledgeable experts our country has on security. They submitted their reports in August and October 2000. The Task Forces had themselves urged that their findings be published — to use the words of the Task Force on Border Management: ‘‘It has to be accepted that it is only through well-informed, alert and vigilant public opinion that national security can be strengthened. Excessive and undue secrecy in such matters can be counter-productive. Against this background, the Task Force recommends that its report should be published as early as possible.’’ Yet ‘‘Secret’’ was stamped on the reports, and the people still do not know what they must.

What did Task Forces find? What did they recommend? What do their reports tell us about the state of national security? About ourselves?

For starters

It transpired that while over the years our land borders had received attention — such as it was, and that too fitfully — the security requirements of our maritime borders had not been systematically assessed even once in the fifty years that we had been independent. We did not have even a count of the number of islands we have in each archipelago.

How were we managing the security in them?

What the Task Force on Border Management found about Lakshadweep is typical. The Task Force noted,

‘‘The strategic location, isolation from mainland and remoteness strengthens the possibility of poaching, smuggling and storage/ dumping of arms and narcotics. Instances of dumping smuggled silver and gold in Suheli Island have come to light. In addition, there have been instances of twin rotor Army helicopters landing at Suheli Island, and spotting of unidentified helicopters flying in the waters around the islands.’’

What holds for silver and gold and narcotics holds equally well for arms and explosives. This is exactly what the Task Force found from evidence garnered through interrogations:

‘‘A strategic amalgamation of all these activities (narcotics trafficking, smuggling silver and gold, hawala operations) and developed facilities have been worked out at the instance of the ISI of Pakistan. Drug couriers are allowed passage on condition of collecting and reporting trans-border intelligence. Trained saboteurs and terrorists are prevailed upon to carry drugs for sustenance and operational expenses from the sale proceeds. Passage to couriers of contrabands is often conditional to carrying and delivering arms and ammunition. Smugglers are often given assistance and facilities in exchange of organising infiltration of terrorists and saboteurs and landing of explosives, arms and ammunition. The ISI has thus been eminently successful in utilising the network and infrastructure developed by smugglers and drug traffickers to serve its own objectives.’’

Hence the extreme implications for national security of what happens in and around the Lakshadweep islands.

By what machinery are we keeping tabs on these activities? By what machinery are we pinpointing, to say nothing of chasing those unmarked helicopters? By what machinery are we tracking ISI’s agents? The Task Force found:

‘‘The Lakshadweep police maintains police stations in the islands of Minocoy, Kalpeni, Andrott, Kavaratti, Agatti, Amini, Kadmat, Kiltan and Chetlat with an outpost at the island of Bitra. Intelligence gathering in the islands is carried out by one Inspector, one Sub Inspector, one Head Constable and three constables working in the Special Branch at Kavaratti. Intelligence gathering in all other islands is carried out by one Head Constable/ Constable who reports to the OIC (Officer in Charge) of the police station who in turn passes it on to the Inspector (Special Branch) at Kavaratti.’’

Realisation had dawned once upon a time:

‘‘The ever perplexing security scenario of the Lakshadweep islands and the absence of any worthwhile surveillance had prompted the Director General of Coast Guard to moot the idea of a Marine Police Force as far back as 20 December 1996 during the Sixth Standing Committee meeting of the Island Development Authority.’’

That is, four years before the Task Force was examining the matter. And what had happened since?

‘‘The Lakshadweep Government has since put up a case for a Marine Police Force on the same lines as for the Andaman and Nicobar in October 1999.’’

That observation was made in 2000. We are at the end of 2004. Has even that Marine Police Force been set up? All this while it was said that the ‘‘case’’ put up by the Lakshadweep Government is ‘‘being processed’’. By now, even that is not being done. The entire question has got entangled in inter-ministerial tussles.

Are we serious about defending our country? One Inspector… A proposal put up fifty years after Independence… Four years later, a ‘‘case put up’’. Another four years, case ‘‘being processed’’. Then that case buried…

The writer is a BJP MP and former Union Minister.

PART II

PART III

PART IV