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Journalism of Courage
Fifteen years ago, Pakistani terrorists armed with sophisticated weapons and munitions struck at the heart of Mumbai, killing 166 people and injuring scores of others. The audacious attack — its brazen scale and execution — stunned India, derailing the India-Pakistan peace process and triggering a domestic political firestorm, the echoes of which can be heard even now.
Politics took over even before the operation by the NSG commandos to flush out the militants from the Taj Mahal Hotel, Oberoi Trident Hotel and Nariman House, was over. The massive security failure resulted in the resignation of then Union home minister Shivraj Patil. Another political casualty was then Maharashtra chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh.
Since then, the Congress and BJP have often crossed swords over Pakistan-sponsored terrorism and India’s response to it.
Narendra Modi, the then Gujarat CM, landed in Mumbai on November 28 while the security operations were on. The then Congress government in Maharashtra had urged him to defer the visit till the operations were over.
Nevertheless, Modi visited the Trident Oberoi and drove to slain Maharashtra ATS chief Hemant Karkare’s residence to commiserate with his family. Outside the Trident, he addressed the media, where he announced Rs 1 crore each for the three slain top Maharashtra Police officers, blamed Pakistan for the attack, and took potshots at the then Manmohan Singh-led UPA government.
He asked the UPA government to take up with the international community Pakistan’s “blatant violation” of UN conventions that prohibit the use of sea and land boundaries and weapons for terrorism. He said Prime Minister Singh’s address to the nation the previous day was “disappointing” and asked the PM to convene a meeting of the CMs to draw up an effective policy to strengthen the Coast Guard and the Navy.
The BJP then, just ahead of the Assembly elections in Delhi on November 29 and in Rajasthan on December 4, came out with a full-page newspaper advertisement, which stated: “Brutal terror strikes at will. Weak government. Unwilling and incapable. Fight terror —Vote BJP”.
The BJP accused the Congress of being “soft” on terror. The Congress countered, raking up the Kandahar terrorist swap.
Pressure was mounting on the UPA government and especially Home Minister Shivraj Patil, who was already under attack from the BJP over his handling of internal security. He had faced much political flak and derision just a month earlier, after he was seen in three different sets of clothes on the night of September 13, when serial blasts ripped through Delhi.
In Mumbai, Maharashtra Deputy CM R R Patil, who was also in charge of the state home ministry, had triggered a political storm by calling the terror attack a “small incident” (“such small incidents can happen in big cities”). Patil, who belonged to the NCP, resigned a day later.
On November 30, Shivraj Patil resigned from the Union Cabinet. “The President of India, as advised by the Prime Minister of India, has accepted the resignation of Shivraj Patil, Minister of Home Affairs, from the Council of Ministers with immediate effect,” a Rashtrapati Bhavan communique said. P Chidambaram was appointed as his replacement.
But there was more embarrassment in store for the Congress. On the day Shivraj Patil resigned, CM Deshmukh visited the terror-ravaged Taj Mahal Hotel in Mumbai. With him were two unusual companions — his actor-son Riteish Deshmukh and filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma. The embattled CM sought to downplay the incident, saying Varma’s presence was just a coincidence, but the news sparked further outrage.
On December 4, Deshmukh resigned as the CM, accepting moral responsibility over the terror attacks. He was replaced by Ashok Chavan.
But the political reverberations did not end there.
In December 2010, senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh claimed he had spoken to Karkare on November 26, 2008, hours before the city faced the terrorist attack. Karkare was killed in the attack.
Singh’s comments, which were made while releasing the book “26/11 RSS Ki Saazish? (26/11, An RSS Conspiracy?)”, authored by Aziz Burney, then editor-in-chief of Urdu Sahara newspaper, created yet another storm. Digvijaya claimed that Karkare had told him he had been receiving threat calls from Hindu extremists. Karkare at the time was heading the investigation into the 2008 Malegaon blasts, for which three members of a Hindutva group had been arrested.
R R Patil, who was back in the home minister’s seat after the Congress-NCP alliance retained power in the 2009 Maharashtra Assembly elections, told the Assembly that the state government had found no record of a telephone conversation between Digvijaya and Karkare on the day of the attack.
A month later, Singh came out with what he called call records of the conversation between him and Karkare on 26/11, and sought an apology from Patil and all others who had dubbed him a “liar”.
The 26/11 terror attack has, in the last 15 years, often been a flashpoint between the Congress and the BJP.
For instance, an observation on the terror attack by Congress leader and ex-Union minister Manish Tewari in his book triggered a war of words in November 2021.
In his book “10 Flashpoints; 20 Years”, Tewari observed that India should have acted strongly against Pakistan after the terror attacks, as restraint against Islamabad is perceived as a symbol of weakness.
“For a state that has no compunctions in brutally slaughtering hundreds of innocent people, restraint is not a sign of strength; it is perceived as a symbol of weakness. There comes a time when actions must speak louder than words. 26/11 was one such time when it just should have been done. It, therefore, is my considered opinion that India should have actioned a kinetic response in the days following India’s 9/11,” he wrote.
The BJP latched on to his remarks to argue that it was a confirmation that the UPA government was insensitive, useless and not concerned about national security.
