In spite of confronting extremism and terrorism for over three decades, the government and the administration both at the Centre and states appear to be unable to tackle the problem. This lassitude appear to have spread to the preventive, investigative and operational aspects. The macabre story of terrorist bomb blasts that started in New Delhi in 2005 has continued with increasing frequency in Mumbai, Jaipur, Ahmedabad and again at Delhi during the years that followed. These acts have only reinforced the popular impression that the administration was groping in the dark about how to tackle the terrorists. Many saw that clumsiness rather than organised follow up action as the hallmarks of administration’s response to terrorism.
The national response after every major terror attack vividly shows all that is wrong with this “Indian” response. Usually it starts with immediate visual media coverage of the scene with the public and policemen milling around the blast site. Invariably a serving or retired police officer would be called upon to comment on the blast even as the news trickled in. A senior police officer would cut in to announce the suspected involvement of one of the Jihadi terrorist groups in the blast. Police assessments would be freely given even as half baked information crawled on the news strip at the bottom of the TV screen. The Union Home Ministry not to be left out would say a warning about the impending terror attack was given to the state authorities. Usually, a prompt denial by the state government would follow the claims of New Delhi. Unfazed the Home Ministry would call for an immediate meeting of either state home ministers or heads of police in Delhi to ‘improve the system.’
The Union Home Minister or his junior partner would come on the TV to say the nation would not bow to terrorist elements and assure “all assistance” to the state to combat terrorism. The state police would triumphantly announce a series arrests of suspected terrorists . If the body count due to the attack was large, the prime minister would appeal to the nation to be calm and maintain communal harmony. Of course, the opposition and ruling parties at the Centre and states would trade accusations and allegations of failure to rein in terrorists. Everyone would talk of failure and incompetence of intelligence and security agencies and stress the need to coordinate their work. If the damage to public reputation is serious, a group of ministers would be formed to look into some perennial issues like revamping national security and intelligence agencies.
When dust settles on the event and the media focus shifts to the next non-event of a Bollywood scandal, the whole nation would go into a comatose state. And the government at the centre and state, presumably giving a silent sigh of relief, would carry on as before till the next blast hits the headlines. The whole exercise in futility must be heart breaking for serious minded civil servants and security services members. The administration is seen as pliable, helpless, and ineffective body. This makes it more difficult for them to motivate their teams. Glorification of the terrorist in public mind is a more dangerous consequence of when such attitude is firmed in. As the terrorist gains a larger than life image, witnesses are unnerved stalling progress in the case. This self defeating cycle has resulted in separatists and terrorists scoring brownie points in their ‘war’ against the state.
Though one can fault the Gujarat administration on a few issues, on tackling terrorism it has shown foresight and planning. This had enabled the police to quickly take follow up actions not only in investigating of the Ahmedabad serial blasts of July 2008 but dig deep into terrorists’ ramifications. The follow up actions were at three levels: coordinating the stakeholders, intelligence and investigative agencies at the Centre and states connected with the whole series of blasts; correlating forensic findings, and coordinating a series of arrests of local activists connected with the case in a number of states.
Terrorism is operatively different from insurgency and other forms of extremism. It corrodes the relationship between the state and its citizen to destroy the security and trust of the citizen in the government through physical violence and intimidation. Terrorism cannot be eliminated only by developmental economic tools or educating the public, though they reduce the relevancy of terrorist cause to the people. The state has to deter, discourage, dismantle and defeat the terrorists from destabilizing normal life of the people.
Terrorists are able to proactively operate because they have clarity on what they should do, how they should do and who will do them. To effectively handle terrorism, the state has to match, if not surpass, the terrorists’ clarity of purpose. Such clarity of what is required to be done, who will do it and how it will be done should percolate down to the lowest operational level.
My own experience in Sri Lanka as head of intelligence of the Indian Peace Keeping Force, which had a hazy mandate, taught me a few valuable lessons. A green field intelligence operation takes about 18 months to mature. But in the overseas turf of Sri Lanka, the time frame had to be compressed to one year. On assignment, I prepared a task table identifying as I saw ‘things to do.’ There were 223 items from the mundane to the complex. The duration of each task varied from a few hours (to get a chair and a table for my use and rustle up a telephone!) to three years. This rationalisation process enabled me to go ahead with some clarity on the what-who-how tasking. A few items were added as they appeared and the prioritisation was juggled to fit in demands of a changing operational environment.
Time is a valuable resource available to both terrorists and security administrators. Success comes to those who effectively use time as a resource. Real time response to information can come only if data base management is planned well in advance. Modern information management systems provide this advantage to the administrator. Only he has to get out his conventional mindset to leverage such tools. Unforeseen bottle necks, unclear responsibility, absence of essential competencies and external resources, and lack of problem solving methodology are some of the time wasters. Time based management by objectives, monitoring of progress to reach milestones, and evolving dynamic standard operative procedures are some of other methods that could help the administrator to keep ahead of terrorists. A project management format could help in time management.
Everyone blames the politicians for undermining the rule of law and governance. This is true to certain extent, though politicians always reinforce success because its fall out benefits them. Gujarat has shown how much can be achieved even within the existing scheme of things. Gujarat’s organised approach has also benefited the unravelling of the Mujahiddin’s tentacles in many other states also. So in fighting terrorism, security administrators need to do first things first; that is to get organised. They need clarity of thought to evolve a ‘what-who-how’ methodology. And that does not require any external inputs, but the will to win.
Oct 13, 2008
Copyright: GFiles
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