Here India Stands
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26/11 Reflections 26/11 Reflections November 2011 2 26/11 Reflections Published by Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations 3rd floor, Cecil Court, M.K. Bhushan Marg, Next to Regal Cinema, Colaba, Mumbai 400 039 T: +91 22 22023371 E: [email protected] W: www.gatewayhouse.in Cover image: Chattrapati Shivaji Terminus, Mumbai Photography: Paul Jesseman Design & Layout: Divya Kottadiel Editor: Hari Seshasayee Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations is a foreign policy think tank in Mumbai, India, established to engage India’s leading corporations and individuals in debate and scholarship on India’s foreign policy and the nation’s role in global affairs. Gateway House is independent, non - partisan and membership-based. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the written permission of the publisher. 3 26/11 Reflections Contents Foreword .............................................................................................................................................................................. 5 India’s Hydra-Headed Terrorism ~ Neelam Deo ............................................................................................................................................................... 6 26/11…What Outcomes Do We Want? ~ Meera Sanyal ............................................................................................................................................................. 8 The Architecture for Securing Lives ~ Akshay Mathur ...................................................................................................................................................... 10 26/11: Seriously Not Ready ~ Brigadier Xerxes Adrianwalla ......................................................................................................................... 13 26/11 - National Day of Remembrance ~ Admiral Venkat Bharatan .................................................................................................................................. 16 The Right to Security Act ~ Jayaprakash Narayan .......................................................................................................................................... 17 Why the UN Didn’t Respond to 26/11 ~ Dr. Waheguru Pal Singh Sidhu ......................................................................................................................... 19 26/11 Revisited from Lahore ~ Masood Hasan ........................................................................................................................................................ 22 India: Up-and-Down on Pakistan ~ Inder Malhotra....................................................................................................................................................... 24 The ISI: U.S. Backers Run for Cover ~ M.D. Nalapat ............................................................................................................................................................ 26 9/11 and 26/11: Are We Any Safer? ~ Bob Dowling ........................................................................................................................................................... 28 Hope-to-Despair-to-Hope Policy on Pakistan Doesn’t Work ~ Seema Sirohi ........................................................................................................................................................... 30 26/11: What About Human Rights? ~ Meenakshi Ganguly .............................................................................................................................................. 32 4 26/11 Reflections Foreword t has been three years since 26th November, when terrorists attacked Mumbai’s monuments and its self-esteem. Life has resumed for the Mumbaikar, as always. But many questions Iremain, unanswered. Gateway House has attempted to analyse the event and its aftermath. We asked experts and ordinary individuals from around the world to bring in their unique perspectives. In a series of 13 essays, we examine the following: How did the ordinary Pakistani feel as she/he watched the towers of the Taj burn? Why didn’t the United Nations respond to 26/11 the way it did after 9/11? Should New York heed the warning of 26/11? What does Washington’s double-standards in South Asia mean for us? Should we change our strategy on Pakistan – or is it now the right time for Pakistan to change its strategy towards us? Are we better equipped in terms of defence equipment and maritime security? What can our security structures learn from our corporations? Are we entitled to the Right to Security, the way we are to education and food? What are the human rights of terrorism’s victims? Have we really cared for those who suffered on account of terrorism? Why is justice so delayed in India and what does it mean for terrorism? We hope these opinions will provide some answers. Manjeet Kripalani Executive Director Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations Mumbai 5 26/11 Reflections India’s Hydra-Headed Terrorism ~ Neelam Deo he third anniversary of the terrorist Italy, the Japanese Red Army, the Baader attack on Mumbai is a chilling reminder Meinhof group in Germany. More recent and T that the perpetrators of numerous earlier long-lasting have been left wing terrorist groups and subsequent terrorist acts have mostly not in Latin America such as the Sandinistas in been identified, charged, found guilty or Nicaragua and the Shining Path in Peru which punished. Although all the evidence shows claim the ideological and romantic lineage of Ajmal Kasab to be guilty, the investigative and Che Guevara. judicial processes continue, without end. India seems to have experienced all of the above. With justice so delayed, citizens are growing The size of our country, the colonial legacy, the increasingly frustrated by the inconclusiveness vast diversity of religion, ethnicity, language and of investigations into cases of terrorism – and ideological persuasion has meant that we have the discourse around terrorism is becoming lived with some form or other of violent protest defined in sectarian (religious) since Independence. Among the terms for political advantage. earliest was the threat of Terrorism has become so infused secession by Tamil Nadu in with the politics of short- Ideological differences protest against attempts to termism, that we have lost sight have spawned dilute the use of English as a of the motivation for the original national language. The long- act of terror and are thus unable innumerable terrorist running Telangana agitation to respond adequately to the groups, especially after remains unresolved. Although grievance. Consequently, the advent of Marxism Assam was carved into seven terrorism in India has become different states between 1963 hydra-headed, morphing into and 1987 to fulfil ethnic different forms and spanning the aspirations, deadly insurgencies gamut. continue. Sub-nationalism is alive and well in the North East, with support Let us examine the various kinds of terrorism, initially from Communist China, followed by manifested over time in different ways and in Pakistan and occasionally unfriendly different countries around the world, and see governments in Bangladesh. where India stands. Hindu-Muslim riots have received the most Bits of the old traditional fighting between media exposure, scholarly examination, and religious groups can still be seen in their official focus because of the wide dispersal of the modern incarnations in the Palestinian-Israeli minority community over the country, its conflict and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front in depressed economic conditions, and lower level southern Philippines, for instance. Often these of accessing education. All of this has enabled can also have an ethnic element as in the political manipulation of the Muslim community Sinhalese Buddhist versus Tamil Hindu (and and kept communal passions inflamed. The Christian) conflict in Sri Lanka and the Turkish division of the country on religious grounds and versus Kurdish PKK fighters. Another variant is continuous Pakistani posturing on behalf of the separatist struggles of the ETA in Spain or Indian Muslims, the differences over Jammu and the many ethnic groups in Myanmar. Kashmir, and Pakistani support to terrorist activities has driven the two communities Ideological differences have spawned further apart – so much so that speaking of innumerable terrorist groups, especially after minority (Muslim) terrorism versus saffron the advent of Marxism. So Russia had its (Hindu) terrorism has become part of Nihilists and Narodniks, the Brigate Rosse in mainstream discussion. 6 26/11 Reflections Germany and Italy diminished as a result of Added to the Hindu-Muslim religious mix was police work and judicial procedures. Yet others the Punjab problem and Sikh terrorism. This such as the Kurdish PKK disappeared through a was the product of local grievances and political combination of diplomacy, the arrest of its manipulation of religious sentiments sustained leader Abdullah Ocalan in Syria, political by training, funding, and safe haven provided by concessions such as allowing the use of the Pakistan as well as wealthy Sikh communities Kurdish language in educational institutions and abroad, channelled largely through Gurudwaras.