Unholy war

For years, Dr Subramaniam Swamy has waged a battle against Sonia and hurled charges at her. But none of the members of today’s anti-Sonia Front have ever paid any attention to Swamy’s allegations. It is only a recent phenomenon that people like Fernandes have seen so much merit in Swamy’s vitriolic campaign that he even hosted a tea-party in his honour! I feel sorry for leaders like Chandrashekhar, who instead of denouncing such efforts, is joining hands with them.

Mending fences

It is good that the Government has finally started fencing the Indo-Bangladesh border. Quite unfortunately, the erstwhile NDA Government, in its six years of rule, did nothing on the issue of Bangladeshi immigrants. And now that they are out of power, they are making loud noises about why the immigrants are not thrown out of country. There was a time when the BJP was in power, both at the Centre and in the State of Delhi, yet it did absolutely nothing on the issue of Bangladeshi immigrants in the nation’s Capital. Worse, now it is even trying to give the whole issue a communal shade, pointing to the religion of the immigrants.

Indian Muslims cannot be confused with Bangladeshi immigrants sneaking into our country; while the loyalties of the former have stood the test of time, the latter remain aliens and a grave threat.

The new government has steadfastly begun the job of fencing the nation’s eastern border, particularly in Tripura, which will no doubt help in controlling massive infiltration. Home Minister Shivraj Patil has himself monitored the fencing. Bangladeshi infiltration in the Northeast is a big problem and Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee has indicated that ISI is responsible for the recent Assam bombings.

A delicious irony is that those who tortured and killed millions of Bangladeshi people are now being able to gain a foothold in Bangladeshi soil. It is indeed sad that Bangladesh is forgetting its short history of how the very genesis of the nation was rooted in a deep hatred towards western Pakistan.

All-round intelligence

Even for non-Americans, Gerald Posner’s bestseller, Why America Slept: The Failure to Prevent 9/11 is an absorbing read. Probing the antecedents of 9/11, along with a deep scrutiny of the role played by the CIA and FBI, the book extends credence to the fact that lack of coordination between FBI and CIA played a major role in the attacks. In fact, when Posner is not talking of serious infighting and backstabbing between CIA and FBI, he lays bare a shocking account of gaffes and goof-ups and bureaucratic lethargy that we would perhaps identify with our own government departments.

Sure they can pinpoint human movement inside a building using satellite infra-red technology, but what they perhaps forgot was that good intelligence, at the end of the day, depends on the quality of people and processes.

India’s own intelligence and crime-fighting agencies, Intelligence Bureau and Research & Analysis Wing have been equally guilty of fighting among themselves even on issues of tremendous national importance. RAW, in particular, managed to earn serious flak following the Kargil incident. The agency seems to be in the doldrums and urgently requires restructuring.

However, of late we have seen some positive developments. With J N Dixit at the top as National Security Advisor, we should see more and more coordination efforts at the top between the two agencies. Not only that, the agencies themselves have competent heads in Ajit Dobhal and CD Sahai for IB and RAW respectively.

The writer is a Congress MP. He can be contacted at shuklarajeev@gmail.com