INDIA'S NATIONAL SECURITY MANAGEMENT & 9/11
by B. Raman
As we approach another 9/11, a critical analysis of how
we have handled the post 9/11 situation from the political, diplomatic,
operational and psychological points of view would be in order. A
retrospective analysis, if objective and self-critical, would bring
out the deficiencies in our post-9/11 National Security Management (NSM)
with specific reference to the proxy war being waged by Pakistan against
us since 1981 and help us in making the required corrections.
2.On September 12,2001, the UN General Assembly , by
consensus of the 189 member-states, called for international
cooperation to prevent and eradicate acts of terrorism and to hold
accountable the perpetrators of terrorism and those who harbor or
support them. The same day, the Security Council unanimously
determined, for the first time ever, any act of international terrorism to
be a threat to international peace and security. This determination laid
the foundation for Security Council action to bring together the
international community under a common set of obligations in the fight to
end international terrorism.
3.On September 28, 2001, the Security Council
unanimously adopted resolution 1373 under Chapter VII of the UN Charter.
This established a body of legally binding obligations on all
member-states. Its provisions require, among other things, that all
member-states prevent the financing of terrorism and deny safe haven to
terrorists.. The Resolution also called upon each state to report on the
steps it had taken, and established a committee of the Security Council to
monitor implementation.
4.The UN had passed many resolutions in the past, having
a bearing on the State-sponsorship of terrorism which is an important
component of Pakistan's proxy war, but never before had a resolution been
passed in such specific terms as in UNSC Resolution No.1373. India should
have brought its entire political, diplomatic and psychological campaign
against Pakistan's State-sponsorship of terrorism within the ambit of this
Resolution and drawn the attention of the international community through
the UNSC and other means to Pakistan's long history of sponsoring
insurgencies and terrorism in Indian territory for destabilising India and
achieving its strategic objectives.
5.All data having a bearing on this should have been
systematically fed to the committee set up by the UNSC to monitor the
implementation of this Resolution. Similarly, India should have taken the
lead in continuously drawing the attention of the monitoring committee to
Pakistan's lack of sincerity in implementing UNSC Resolution No.1373. This
does not seem to have been done. There does not appear to have been even
an exercise in any of the bodies set up as part of the new NSM infrastructure
in 1998-99 to examine how India could benefit from this resolution and
what modifications would be required in India's campaign against Pakistan
on the terrorism issue.
6. Pakistan had assisted insurgencies in the North-East
since the 1950s; supported the terrorists in Punjab since 1981; sponsored
indigenous terrorism in Jammu & Kashmir (J&K) since 1989 and
pan-Islamic terrorism through pro-bin Laden Pakistani terrorist
organisations in the same State since 1993; and instigated
trans-national mafia groups such as that of Dawood Ibrahim to commit acts
of economic terrorism since 1993.
7. For maintaining a high level of terrorist violence
and keeping Indian civilians and security forces bleeding in different
parts of the country, Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI)
infiltrated trained terrorists and arms, ammunition and explosives not
only across the Line of Control (LOC) in J&K, but also across the
international border in Punjab, Rajasthan and Gujarat, across the creeks
into Gujarat,by sea into the Maharashtra coast, by air through Dubai,Dacca
and Kathmandu and through third countries such as the United Arab Emirates
(UAE), Bangladesh and Nepal.
8. Many of the Khalistani terrorists used to fly from
Karachi to Kathmandu, commit acts of terrorism against India and escape
back to Karachi. The terrorists of Dawood Ibrahim's gang, who carried out
the Mumbai (Bombay) blasts of March,1993,were taken by the ISI to Karachi
via Dubai by air for training and then infiltrated back to Mumbai by air.
The explosives and other weapons for them were clandestinely sent by sea.
After committing the acts of terrorism, they escaped to Karachi by air
from Kathmandu.
9. Keeping these factors in view, all pre-1997
Governments in New Delhi had projected the issue as Pakistani State
sponsorship of terrorism against India to achieve its strategic
objectives, without specifically relating Pakistan's sponsorship only to
the Kashmir issue and without using formulations such as cross-border
terrorism, which tend to exclude the infiltration of terrorists and arms
and ammunition by Pakistan by air, sea and through third countries. They
also kept the focus on Pakistan's providing safe sanctuaries and training
and other infrastructure to the terrorists in its territory in order to
justify the need for action against such sanctuaries and infrastructure.
10. For reasons which are not clear, the present
Government, after the Kargil conflict of 1999, made a radical departure
from the way the problem was being projected by the previous Governments
and started projecting it as a problem of cross-border terrorism. Such a
projection was maintained even after 9/11 and given added emphasis.
11. This has had two results which could be detrimental
to India. First, the responsibility of Pakistan for terrorism in different
parts of India has got blurred and the terrorism issue has got
inextricably and solely linked with the Kashmir issue. Since the
international community looks upon J&K as disputed territory over
which Pakistan has historic claims since 1947, it does not view Pakistan's
sponsorship of terrorism in J&K with the same seriousness as it would
have viewed its sponsorship in other parts of the country.
12. Second, by over-focussing on the cross-border
infiltration issue and by diluting the focus on other issues such as the
terrorist infrastructure and sanctuaries in different parts of Pakistan,
we gave Musharraf an opportunity to wriggle out of a difficult situation
by claiming that he had put an end to cross-border infiltration as best as
he could and nothing more could be expected of him. His contention has not
been questioned by the international community as one saw during the
recent visit of Richard Armitage, the US Deputy Secretary of State, to
India and Pakistan.
13.Putting an end to or reducing cross-border
(cross-LOC) infiltration was the easiest thing for Musharraf to do without
damaging the capability of the terrorists inside J&K and other parts
of India. Since the ISI has developed over the years so many alternate
channels of infiltration it can keep the terrorism in Indian territory
sustained at a high level without the need for cross-border (cross-LOC)
infiltration into J&K.
14.The post-1999 and the post-9/11 changes in the
projection of our case against Pakistan and in our formulations of
various issues relating to terrorism seem to have been decided upon
without a careful examination of the likely implications. We cannot escape
our share of responsibility for unwittingly helping Musharraf in wriggling
himself out of a difficult post-9/11 situation.
15.After 9/11, the purely legalistic approach to
the question of blocking terrorist funding has given way to a more
pragmatic approach, with actions now being taken by the international
community against suspected terrorist accounts even on the basis of strong
suspicion instead of waiting, as in the past, till legally sustainable
evidence was forthcoming. This should have been taken advantage of by us
by moving for the freezing of the bank accounts of Dawood Ibrahim and
other members of his mafia group wherever they are held--whether in
Pakistan, the UAE, South Africa, Nepal, Thailand or elsewhere. Our plea
for action could have been justified on the basis of the strong evidence
at our disposal regarding their involvement in the Mumbai blasts of
March,1993.
16.The UNSC has been taking two kinds of action with
regard to terrorist funding. The first kind is the issue of a general
circular to all member-countries to freeze any account held in the banks
in their territory in the names of individuals/institutions suspected of
involvement in terrorism. The second kind is the issue of specific
circulars giving details of such bank accounts where those are available.
17. From published reports, it would appear that we have
so far moved for action only against the accounts of Ayub Thukar, the
Kashmiri extremist leader living in the UK, and that no action has yet
been initiated in respect of the bank accounts of Dawood Ibrahim and his
mafia group.
18.The attack on the Parliament House in New Delhi in
December,2001,by Pakistan-based terrorists led to considerable support for
India in the international community and recognition of India's right of
self-defence. At the same time, countries such as the US urged
self-restraint upon India and, simultaneously, exercised pressure on the
Pakistani military dictator to act against the terrorist infrastructure in
Pakistani territory. This Western pressure on Pakistan, in the face of
India's mobilisation of its troops, led to some action by Musharraf,
which, as widely anticipated, has proved to be more a pretence than
reality. As the West's dependence on Musharraf to deal with terrorists in
Pakistani territory posing a threat to Western lives and interests has
increased, its readiness to exercise pressure on him to act against those
posing threats to Indian lives and interests has flagged. Musharraf has
been none the worse for our coercive diplomacy, which seems to have run
out of steam.
19. Such a denouement was inevitable and should have
been anticipated by preparing ourselves for other options. One such
option, which in the past had produced results in dealing with terrorism
in the Punjab, was that of covert action against Pakistan through a
counter proxy war. Since 1968, India had built up through its own efforts
a fairly effective covert action capability in its intelligence community
of which any country with as limited resources as India could have been
proud. Its role before and during the 1971 Indo-Pakistan War remains
untold. It deserves to be written in letters of gold. It played an equally
commendable role in putting an end to insurgency in Mizoram and in
contributing to the control of terrorism in Punjab by the Punjab Police
under the leadership of K.P.S.Gill.
20.It took almost 30 years to build up this capability
by a group of dedicated officers of the Indian intelligence community, who
have chosen to remain unknown. Many of them were disturbed in 1997 when
they heard that what took so many years to build was ordered to be wound
up almost overnight in the name of unilateral gestures to India's
neighbours. Their pleas and arguments that Pakistan was a country which
did not deserve any such gesture, that the gesture would remain
unreciprocated and prove suicidal and that such a capability, once
disbanded, could not be created again without difficulty were rejected
with disdain. Subsequent Governments were reportedly disinclined to
reverse this tragic decision lest we fall foul of the US. We have already
paid a heavy price for this.
21. In the absence of this capability, we find that the
only option we have against Pakistan's proxy war is overt military
strikes, which are not easy under the regional and global circumstances of
today as they might have been in the past. The post-9/11 international
fear of terrorism radiating from Afghanistan and Pakistan and the
post-December sympathy for India gave New Delhi an opportunity to publicly
announce a decision to re-create its covert action capability and its
willingness to use that capability for waging a counter-proxy war against
Pakistan, if left with no other alternative. We let go that opportunity.
Reticence continued to inhibit our decision-making and we chose to put all
our eggs in the American basket. Is this going to help us? I doubt.
22. There are certain other aspects relating to NSM in
the post-9/11 world, in which pan-Islamic terrorism would continue to be
the major threat to our security, which have not received the focused
attention they deserve. If they have, those outside the Government are not
aware of it.
23. The first is improving the capabilities of the
intelligence agencies, at the central and State levels, to collect precise
and timely human and technical intelligence which would help in
preventing terrorist incidents and promoting better co-ordination amongst
the various intelligence agencies to ensure timely and effective follow-up
action on the intelligence collected. The reported decision of the
Government of India to set up a Joint Counter-Terrorism Centre under the
leadership of the Intelligence Bureau (IB) to promote habits of the
various intelligence agencies collecting, analysing, assessing and acting
together in respect of terrorism-related intelligence is an important and
welcome initiative in this direction. It has to be implemented vigourously
without letting it fall a victim to personal and institutional ego
clashes and turf battles.
24. The second relates to our physical security
infrastructure. Past physical security arrangements were largely oriented
towards protection of conventional targets such as individuals, VIPs,
military establishments, aviation and other means of transport and
sensitive industrial establishments. After the Mumbai blasts of
March,1993, greater attention was paid to the physical protection of vital
economic targets such as energy-producing and distributing infrastructure.
The reported attempts of religiously-motivated terrorists to acquire
weapons of mass destruction (WPD) and their oft-expressed readiness to use
them, if left with no other means of protecting their religion, and the
post-September 11,2001, emergence of new or catastrophic terrorism as a
likely source of threat in the future call for an urgent evaluation of
India's vulnerability to such threats and follow-up action to prevent such
threats from materialising. Intentional creation of mass panic through
unverifiable claims of possession of WMD and threats to use them
could be another of the future threats against which we have to forearm
ourselves. The entire physical security drill and the institutional
infrastructure for enforcing the drill as existing till now need to be
re-examined in the light of the lessons of September 11,2001. Deficiencies
should be identified and removed and new requirements met on a time-bound
basis.
25.The third relates to information security. With the
entire administrative, economic and defence infrastructure getting
increasingly networked through the Internet and with expertise in matters
such as virus programming and dissemination, hacking,
planting microchip moles, distortion, disruption or destruction of data
networks and computer-regulated command and control being easily available
to any educated terrorist, the importance of putting in place an
infrastructure for safeguarding information security has assumed
even greater importance than in the past. The creation of such an
infrastructure has to be very important priority.
26.The fourth is about crisis management. Till recently,
our crisis management drill was largely oriented towards dealing
with crisis situations arising from conventional terrorist incidents such
as hostage-taking, aircraft hijacking, use of conventional
explosives etc. Future crisis management may have to cope with
situations arising from increasingly unconventional and catastrophic
threats such as terrorists forcibly occupying nuclear and space
installations, acquisition of and threat to use radiological weapons
(dirty bombs), claims of possessing WMD and threats to use them. The
existing crisis management drill has to be totally
revised, updated and regularly rehearsed without giving rise to
public nervousness due to the rehearsals.
27.Just as there is a War Book laying down in detail the
action to be taken by various departments of the central and State
Governments in case of an outbreak of war, there is a need for a
comprehensive Counter-Terrorism Crisis Management Book laying down in
detail the action to be taken by various departments in case of the
commission of a serious terrorist attack of a conventional as well as
unconventional nature. Creation of specially-trained Emergency Response
Teams should also receive priority.
28.The fifth and last is our PSYWAR capability.
Previously, techniques of perception management and psychological warfare
(PSYWAR) were generally used only in times of war or in conflict
situations not amounting to war. In recent years, these techniques to
influence public perceptions are being increasingly used even in peace
time, not only by State, but also by non-State actors, such as terrorists
and malignly motivated non-governmental organisations (NGOs). The
purpose of such use is to further aggravate the alienation of the people
in terrorism/insurgency affected areas and to discredit our Security
Forces, the Police and other counter-terrorism agencies in the eyes of
the people and to sow the seeds of doubts in public mind about our
national security policies in matters such as those relating to our
nuclear and missile capability. The building-up of the required expertise
and infrastructure to identify and neutralise hostile perception
management and PSYWAR methods has received some attention, but the results
achieved are not yet satisfactory.
(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd),Cabinet
Secretariat, Govt. of India,and, presently, Director, Institute For
Topical Studies, Chennai. E-Mail: corde@vsnl.com)
