MUMBAI ONCE MORE

Mumbai has been hit once more. Will be hit many times over. Given the trajectory that our leaders and policy makers have put this nation on, it not a question of whether but when another terror strike will take place.

Notwithstanding Rahul Gandhi’s baseless claim that 99% terror attacks have been prevented, it is true that the frequency of attacks has reduced since 26/11. But this is not because of the few half-measures taken by the government to bolster internal security but because a) Pakistan’s hands have got a bit tied after they were completely exposed for the first time ever in that attack b) Sonia Gandhi has gone into a maniacal mode to consolidate her Muslim and minority vote bank guided by her personal predilections and her campaign team consisting of the NAC and dubious NGOs and hate-mongering activists, prompting terrorists and their masters across the Radcliffe Line to pull their foot off the terror-attack pedal till she delivers, so that reaction from the majority community is muted, and c) focus of the intelligence agencies has been diluted and diverted to create a big media tamasha of the clear, present and growing danger of a virtually non-existent Hindu terror which was the creation a handful of people involved in four attacks, the last of which was in 2007, giving them time and space to consolidate and build.

The net result is that the people of India are today more vulnerable than they were earlier to terror; sitting ducks, as a leading daily headlined their plight after the Mumbai serial blasts on July 13, 2011.

What does it take to fight terror? First, a country has to put in place internal measures, including a robust real-time intelligent network, to make it extremely difficult for terrorists to get funding, local support and freedom to move around with little fear of getting caught before they launch an attack. After an attack, not only should getaway be made very difficult but there should be swift and stringent punishment, mainly as a deterrent for those who might be contemplating joining such outfits. Second, the external factors responsible for propagating and exporting terror should be made to feel the cost of their misadventure to the degree that they are compelled to put a stop to their activities. Unless the second part is conclusively addressed, the first will yield only limited results, and lower the morale of the people and the nation as a whole.

But, be it in the corridors of power or in post-attack discussions and columns, despite the sound and fury, despite the very detailed knowledge some analysts have about the mother-terror architecture in Pakistan, in the end, the refrain remains the same: we can do no more than talk to Pakistan, and we must improve police and intelligence set up at home.

The first part, the easy, meaningless one really -- except for analysts and commentators -- continues to be pursued, while the second remains as neglected as it always was.

In fact, given Sonia Gandhi’s seemingly obsessive compulsion to woo the minorities, central agencies are increasingly looking the other way as the Indian Mujahideen consolidates and spreads it wings, and as Pakistan deploys more and more local sleeper cells to be activated at a time of its choosing. Home Minister Chidambaram, who initially promised much, seems to have been effectively been done in by Sonia’s team that is more focused on emasculating the majority and splitting the society communally to deliver an electoral victory to Sonia in 2014, than on allowing the government to fulfill its constitutional obligation of protecting the lives of its citizens and securing the nation from the menace of terror of which it has been a victim for almost a quarter century.

Talking to Pakistan is not going to yield anything for India. Pakistan is getting India to the negotiating table at the point of gun not to give but to extract, to extort. Our leaders and babus have made their mouths and minds the weapons of choice to deflect and defeat the aggressive, never-say-die, hate-filled minds ready to wage – and doing so – a thousand year war. They think little about the helpless and innocent Indians who are getting killed again and again, because they and their kith and kin are safe and secure. They believe that giving some concessions will get the Pakistanis off their back, and they spend their energies solely on trying to give only that much as will not raise a furore in the country.

The Pakistanis, who smelled the coward in them long back, on the other hand, keep shifting the goal posts and outsmarting them at every turn, so as to wear them down till finally they --India -- submit. It does not seem to have struck our guys that the more we give, the more the demands will increase, after suitable pauses. May be they know it; but if that be so, it means that their ignorance of and abhorrence for the employment of force to counter and defeat force overrides their commonsense, live and effective examples of other nations notwithstanding.

The US is a democracy like us, but after just one major attack on mainland US, they went for the perpetrators of the attack even though they were non-state actors in a sovereign country. And, though it took them ten years, they hunted down and killed Osama bin Laden. They knew that unless they struck terror back in the hearts of the terrorists, attacks on the US would not only continue but would increase in intensity and frequency. Though they that also put in place very stringent measures to almost eliminate the chances of further major strikes, they were never under any illusion that mere defense would defeat fanatic warriors who were not fighting a conventional war and who thought nothing about losing foot soldiers fed to fight and die for virgins in paradise.

That is why there have been no attacks on America till now, while here the sense of despair is becoming alarming. Make no mistake: if there are more such attacks, that country will not hesitate at all to introduce even harsher measures, at greater cost to individual freedom temporarily. Liberty comes at a price and can be enjoyed unfettered only in a secure nation not facing a serious threat. Many terror attacks and decades later, we refuse to learn even basic lessons.

Is this the response expected from a huge nation of 1.2 billion to such a grave threat? Every time a terrorist attack takes place, our politicians almost proudly and openly announce that a neighboring country, Pakistan, is behind it. It is almost as if they are telling the nation that they have done their job by blaming Pakistan, which is all they can do, and that the nation has no choice but to meekly continue accepting this evil. Having identified the source two decades back, why has no effective response been formulated yet? Why do we continue to wail like a helpless, defenceless woman who is being repeatedly raped by a small boy 1/6th her size?

Just imagine a scenario in which Pakistan was six times our size rather than the 1/6th it is. What would it have done by now? Do I need to spell out? We probably would have long been splintered and devoured as a nation by that country, and run over by Talibani extremists. And what have we done? For six decades, we have aimlessly and apathetically allowed a tiny Pakistan to fearlessly keep trying to do precisely that, and have not yet formulated a terminal response that can put an end to this cancer that is going larger and that will, inevitably, afflict our own Muslims in the long run, just as is being planned.

We seem to know well only how to rush quickly to the high moral ground of fatal weakness that our first Prime Minister taught us, and camouflage the overriding concern for electoral victory that his Italian grand daughter-in-law is pursuing with deathly determination.

Till this debilitating paradigm remains in place, the ordinary people of Mumbai, indeed the whole of India, will continue to live with the fear that they may not return home in the evening, that their blood soaked bodies will be dumped like garbage at the back of trucks.
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HUSAIN'S 'RAPE OF INDIA'

The terror attack in Mumbai by Pakistani terrorists on November 26, 2008, angered MF Husain who felt as if India had been raped. "A writer or journalist can express his/her feelings by writing, but I can express them only through my paintings. I have already started work on the theme 'Rape of India' to condemn the terror attack, as the incident was as unpleasant and brutal as rape."

The painting that you see here is the result. Now I am no connoisseur of art; in fact I can appreciate it no better than the average man on the street. That does not necessarily mean that what I see is not what the artist wanted to convey, even though it may be at variance with the interpretations of those who claim to be more knowledgeable.

This is what I see in this Husain painting.

• A young raging bull, tail up in victory, has forced himself into, and is biting, a frightened (holy) cow. Husain is known for his horses but here he has shown a bull and a cow (you can't miss their horns).
• India is shown as a helpless Hindu (vermilion on the head) nautch girl (ghungroo on one leg). Some may see her as an extension of the cow that is being raped.
• The Indian (Hindu? - Brahmin tuft on the head of child) man is shown as a child who is not only not capable of defending and protecting himself but as one who needs to be carried and protected by his Mother India, even as she is being raped.
• The painting is on two canvases, with the word 'India' being split across them.

Is Husain's pain against the terror attack that he has likened to India's rape visible in the painting?

What do you see in this creation?
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Related reading: Freedom of expression: No difference between Husain and Westergaard
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FAIL THE NATION, GET REWARDED FOR 'LOYALTY'

The more things change in India's corridors of power, the more they remain the same. If all those hours of live reporting of 26/11 and the thousands of candles lit by ordinary citizens have not been able to move India's rulers, what do you think will be the effect on the promoters of terror in Pakistan? Or on China?

The only politician at the Centre who was held accountable for 26/11, primarily because of his abysmal failure to do anything at all for nearly five years, was Home Minister Shivraj Patil. Remember how after every terror attack he used to blame Pakistan and the ISI, and consider his job done? Remember how he used to deflect attention from his unacceptable incompetence and incomprehension of the challenges of his job by saying that he had the "blessings of his leader" (Sonia Gandhi)? Remember how even as serial bomb blasts were rocking Delhi minutes away from him, he found time to change his clothes thrice in an hour? Remember how he tried justify not hanging Indian national Afzal Guru by linking it with India's request to Pakistan to not hang Indian national Sarabjit Singh?

Now that 26/11 has been completely forgotten and elections in Maharashtra won by the Congress, this gentleman has been rewarded for his loyalty to his leader with the plum post of Governor of Punjab so that he can spend his remaining years on this planet unrepentant and in luxury at the expense of the aam admi.

The other guilty man who should have himself resigned on moral grounds after 26/11 is National Security Advisor MK Narayanan. He did virtually nothing as India's NSA but waffle through his years on the job. Yes, the one thing that he did commit to doing on TV - and perhaps did - was carrying out a thorough review of Rahul Gandhi's security after three terrorists, who the nation was told planned to kidnap him, were arrested in Lucknow. Perhaps due to his age he was unable to remember that his primary job was to carry out such a review for India. This former Director of the IB should have been the best man to revamp India's virtually non-existent intelligence machinery. But, despite numerous trips to the US on state expense, things only got worse and accountability never, ever came into the equation. On the contrary, even though he was a stand-out non-performer at such a difficult time, not only did he not lose his job then, but has now been chosen to do in West Bengal what Patil is going to in Punjab.

The failures of these two top men responsible for India's security would have remained undiscovered had P Chidambaram not taken over as Home Minister and got down to the task with a focus, purpose, pace, intelligence and professionalism that has changed the dynamics almost completely in a year. It is he who is now trying to put together, among many other desperately needed changes, the much needed National Counter Terrorism Centre that these two gentlemen did not even think of for over five years. Though much remains to be done, no one is in any doubt any longer that the Patil and Narayanan were guilty of criminal neglect and incompetence of an order that would not have gone unpunished in any other responsible nation.

Since there has been no terror attack, except in Kashmir, for over a year now, it is easy to forget that India is at war. As Chidambaram said a few days back, the one thing we cannot afford is complacence. He is evidently the lone warrior out there in the government who understands what India is up against, and is doing something about it too. As per reports, the new NSA is likely to be either Shiv Shankar Menon, India's former Foreign Secretary of Sharm-el-Sheikh fame, or Shyam Sharan, another one from the same stable. Look at the joke. These guys know it in their bones that they are not qualified for the job. So, they are going to fit the job to suit them; the NSA will be now less about security, even though that is his precise job, and will act as the PM's think tank on foreign policy. MEA extension counter in a new office.

Does India have no one beyond the mentally static circle of career bureaucrats who have nothing new at all to bring to the table in this challenging job? Or does loyalty to individuals outweigh real, professional considerations that determine selection of persons to such posts in countries like the USA that place the nation first?

The Pakistanis are watching with glee. Not only have the guilty men of 26/11 and more been rewarded for their sycophancy, even the one who does not know how to draft a few lines properly is likely to be elevated. Worse, not a single official across the lower rungs of the hierarchy in various departments and organisations has been held accountable and penalised. How can they be when politicians, police officers and bureaucrats at the very top are actually being rewarded for failing the nation?

This is the perfect recipe for pushing a nation down the self-defeating and confidence-sapping slope of resigned acceptance that the only way to meet any threat to it is meek surrender. We may not understand what this mindset has done already and will do in future, but the Pakistanis and the Chinese smelled blood long back. That is why they have been chipping away wherever they can, for years. They know that a nation that is run like this will one day simply cave in behind a cloud of fraudulent but lofty and moralistic words. It is only a question of time. Unless they miscalculate and wake it up prematurely, like Laden did on 9/11. Let us pray they do, for there is little hope that anything less will.
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JIHADIS: ISI, ARMY, CIA FINE; WHERE ARE OUR ROGUE ELEMENTS?

Guest post by Shyamal Barua

FBI's interrogation of David Coleman Headley aka Syed Daood Gilani, has once again confirmed what has been widely known forever: Pakistan's army is working with the jihadis who have been targetting India. What is not so well known however, is that, it once ran training camps for the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) militant group with the apparent knowledge of the CIA, an example of complicity that raises questions about the current state of the nuclear-armed nation. So says former French investigating magistrate Jean-Louis Bruguiere, author of a new book that provides rare insight both into alleged past army support for the defunct Lashkar-e-Taiba and to the group's connections to a global network linked to al-Qaeda.

The question of Pakistani military support for Islamist militants is crucial for the United States as it tries to work out how to stabilise the country and neighbouring Afghanistan. Bruguiere bases the information in his book on international terrorism, "Ce que je n'ai pas pu dire" ("What I could not say") on testimony given by jailed Frenchman Willy Brigitte, who spent two and a half months in a Lashkar-e-Taiba training camp in 2001-02. In an interview, Bruguiere said he was convinced Lashkar-e-Taiba, first set up to fight India in its part of the divided Himalayan region of Kashmir, had become part of an international network tied to Al-Qaeda. "Lashkar-e-Taiba is no longer a Pakistani movement with only a Kashmir political or military agenda. Lashkar-e-Taiba is a member of al-Qaeda. Lashkar-e-Taiba has decided to expand violence worldwide," he told Reuters.

That's pretty much a given, isn't it? They provide training facilities and cadres for Al-Qaeda. Three of them were arrested in Bangla in Nov 14th news plotting to boom the U.S. embassy in Dhaka in an expression of the Bangla people's outrage at our existence. He was "very, very anxious about the situation" in Pakistan, where militants are staging a series of bloody urban attacks to avenge a government offensive against their strongholds.

"The problem right now is to know if the Pakistanis have sufficient power to control the situation," he said. They don't. If they change their ways they might in the future, but they're not really changing their ways. They're trying to go after the Pak Taliban but not the Al-Qaeda infrastructure or the Afghan Taliban infrastructure in Balochistan and North Wazoo. The problem was also "to know if all the members of the military forces and the ISI are playing the same game. I am not sure," he added. I'm sure they're not, and I'm also sure that the ones who aren't are not rogue.

Pakistan has long been accused of giving covert support to Lashkar-e-Taiba, which was blamed for last year's attack on Mumbai in which 166 people were killed. It denies the allegation and has banned the organisation. But Hafiz Saeed isn't in jug, the charges against him were dropped and he never did more than house arrest. Pak military trainers provided training and logistical assistance the Mumbai killers and LeT is about as "defunct" as I am, maybe less so. New form of terrorism: Bruguiere said he became aware of the changing nature of international terrorism while investigating attacks in Paris in the mid-1990s by the Algerian Armed Islamic Group (GIA). These included an attempt to hijack a plane from Algiers to Paris in 1994 and crash it into the Eiffel Tower -- a forerunner of the Sept 11, 2001 attacks. The plane was diverted to Marseilles and stormed by French security forces.

This new style of international terrorism was quite unlike militant groups he had investigated in the past, with their pyramidal structures and political objectives. "After 1994/1995, like viruses, all the groups have been spreading on a very large scale all over the world, in a horizontal way and even a random way," he said. It doesn't cost much to be a terrorist. The November 14th-Red Brigades-Baader Meinhof model works perfectly well for small-scale operations, and even big blow-outs like killing Aldo Moro, if you're willing to take the casualties. Note that Jemaah Islamiyah, for instance, was effectively wiped out after the Bali bombings.

An early encounter with Lashkar-e-Taiba came while he was investigating shoe-bomber Richard Reid, who tried to set off explosives on a transatlantic flight from Paris in 2001. This investigation led to a man, who Bruguiere said was the Lashkar-e-Taiba's representative in Paris, and who was suspected of helping Reid -- an accusation he denied. Bruguiere said the link to Reid was not proved in court. Brigitte, a Frenchman originally from France's Caribbean department of Guadeloupe, had gone to Pakistan shortly after Sept 11 to try to reach Afghanistan. Unable to make it, he had been sent to a Lashkar centre outside Lahore. A man named Sajid Mir became his handler. "He quickly understood that Sajid belonged to the regular Pakistan army," wrote Bruguiere. After one and a half months, he was taken with four other trainees, two British and two Americans, to a Lashkar camp in the hills in Punjab province. The Toyota pick-up which took them there passed through four army checkpoints without being stopped.

During his two and a half months stay at the camp, Bruguiere says, Brigitte realised the instructors were soldiers on detachment. Military supplies were dropped by army helicopters. Brigitte said he and other foreigners were forced four times to leave the camp and move further up into the hills to avoid being caught by CIA officers. They were believed to be checking if Pakistan had kept to a deal under which the Americans turned a blind eye to Lashkar camps in Punjab provided no foreigners were trained there. In return, Bruguiere said, Pakistan under then president Pervez Musharraf helped track down leaders of Al-Qaeda.

Western countries were at the time accused by India of double standards in tolerating Pakistani support for Kashmir-focused organisations while pushing it to crack down on militant groups which threatened Western interests. Diplomats say that attitude has since changed, particularly after bombings in London in 2005 highlighted the risks of "home-grown terrorism" in Britain linked to militant groups based in Pakistan's Punjab province. After leaving the camp accompanied by Sajid, Brigitte was sent back to France. Sajid then ordered him to fly to Australia where he joined a cell later accused of plotting attacks there. Tipped off by French police, Brigitte was deported from Australia in 2003 and convicted by a French court of links to terrorism. Bruguiere said he had personally questioned Brigitte in the presence of his lawyer to check his testimony. Information provided by Brigitte was also crosschecked by French police based on mobile phone and e-mail traffic. Bruguiere went to Pakistan himself in 2006 as part of his investigations into the deaths of 11 Frenchmen in a bombing outside a hotel in Karachi in 2002. He stepped down as France's best-known counter-terrorism expert in 2007 and now represents the EU on the Terrorist Finance Tracking Programme in Washington.

So much about the rogue ISI and CIA, but just consider these facts of escape by dreaded LeT leader Ilyas Kashmiri, the first time in late 1994 from the Ghaziabad safe house, cordoned by Indian cops, upon being tipped off by a milkman who saw some men with guns inside, but while Omar Saeed Sheikh, and Maulana Masood Azhar was captured, later freed during the IA's Kandahar hijack episode, and the second time, he was apprehended by Indian Army in Poonch and jailed in 1995 only to escape from the prison in 2 years, and later conducted operations against India, and reportedly being rewarded personally with cash by then Army Chief General Pervez Musharraf for presenting the head of an Indian army sepoy to him.

Kashmiri is the common thread that runs between Sheikh and Headley. Both were Pakistan-born anglicized youth, equally committed and skilled in understanding and adapting to the ways of the West. They did not fit the traditional description of a jihadi terrorist, yet were very effective in planning attacks. The inter-connections between Omar Sheikh, Ilyas Kashmiri, David Headley, Zakiur Rahman Lakhvi, Bahaziq, 26/11, 9/11, LeT, ISI, CIA etc., are so intricate that it will become almost impossible to state where ISI ends and where global terrorism begins, though all leads indicates it to be CIA/MI6/Mossad.

What is more worrisome, however, is that from the Mumbai blasts of 1993 to the carnage of 26/11, despite many evidences about the involvement of number of rogue and corrupt elements in our society, both at the govt level including in the intelligence & security apparatus, and civilian including celebrities in the world of showbiz, not many have been punished. It's high time that we identify the rogue elements amidst us, to help prevent repeat of such massacres in future, and not take the official version of the intelligence shared from the FBI,CIA or MI6, who have their own compulsion for concealing, suppressing, and even distorting facts to their advantage, and to save their skin.
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A YEAR AFTER 26/11, CALLS FOR A STRONG PAKISTAN

It is exactly one year since Mumbai was attacked by terrorists sent from Pakistan and 20 years since India began fighting terrorism unleashed on it by that nation. Despite all the hue and cry after 26/11, there is absolutely nothing, repeat nothing, to suggest that there has been any fundamental change in Pakistan's posture towards India. Those who masterminded the Mumbai attack still roam free in Pakistan and the usual belligerent noises continue to be made by its leaders. Just because Pakistan has got mired in an internal strife of its own making does not mean it has awoken to the realisation that it is time for it to embrace India as a friend. There is also no reason for any Indian to say that Pakistan too is an innocent victim of terror.

Yes, there has been no major terror attack since 26/11. But this pause should not make anyone rush to the conclusion that there is a cessation of hostilities from Pakistan's side.

Despite the mountain of bitter experiences that began with Partition itself, there remain intellectually and emotionally weak and meek voices in India's establishment whose hearts beat for Pakistan. Forgetting everything, they are trying their best to scare Indians into believing that a strong and stable Pakistan is India's interest, and that if it breaks up, India will have to face five loose and very dangerous cannons. Taliban will be at India's doorstep, they bleat like ignorant goats who believe they are going to be slaughtered, as if a rag tag outfit of individuals with nothing but small arms, is going to be a far more dangerous proposition in hostile Indian territory than the strong, cohesive and fully armed military machine of Pakistan.

These professors of panic have conveniently forgotten that ever since its creation, Pakistan has been deliberately working to break India up. In fact, it can even be argued that the sole objective of its policy towards India has been to bleed it to death by inflicting on it a thousand cuts. Has anyone ever heard Pakistan say that a strong India is in Pakistan's interest? Is a single Pakistani whose voice matters saying so even now? Forget Pakistan. Has anyone heard even China say something like that? On the contrary, it has been giving every possible support, including in the nuclear field, to Pakistan to enable it keep India weakened and tied down. It has even given shelter and training to various insurgent groups of the North East. Of late, in fact, there is even talk in China of breaking India into 25-30 pieces. And our dumb guys are crying for a strong Pakistan?!

Any other country in the India's place would have done everything possible to destroy all threats emanating from Pakistan by comparatively so weakening it that it would have been left with the same choice that China has left India with. Not many people know that India had raised an armed unit of Tibetans who were to carry out covert operations in Tibet at a opportune time. But after China zoomed way ahead of an apathetic India in military strength, the idea was dropped in utter panic. If India tries anything now, it has no doubt that the response from China will be in many multiples. Learning from China, that it exactly the kind of fear that India should have put into Pakistan. But it did nothing whatsoever to even slightly deter Pakistan from continuing to fearlessly prosecute its proxy war.

That is why India has, for 20 years, been fighting terrorists on its own soil and taking a heavy body count. Why did this happen? A fatal fondness for being seen as nice and peaceful has created an inertia that has made this nation vulnerable to all kinds of attacks, even from insignificant countries like Bangladesh. That is why the very people who have criminally failed to make India strong and secure against attacks from Pakistan are the ones who are now saying that a strong Pakistan is in India's interest. They have somehow managed with a known enemy without doing anything at all for decades. Any change is unfamiliar territory; weak hearts and static minds fear nothing more than change.

That is precisely why, instead of readying India for a post-Pakistan scenario or even a fully Talibanised Pakistan, they are once again displaying the same mental bankruptcy that has seen India needlessly lose thousands of its sons over the last two decades. To strengthen their case for continuing with the status quo ante situation of a strong Pakistan, frightening pictures are being painted of nuclear weapons falling into the hands of the Taliban. This is not being done with even the remote thought of readying India's armed forces to play a major role in securing the nukes with the help of the US and sane elements in the remnants of Pakistan, should it go under, but to frighten India into making concessions to a nation that, even if it survives this time, will without doubt become even more dangerous and violent in the coming years.

In fact some analysts have gone to the extent of making the absurd claim that Pakistan winning its war on terror is "in India's supreme national interest!" - take that - to make out the even more ridiculous case that India must make "moves, offers, anything that will enhance the power and credibility" of Pakistan's government. One is unable to comprehend how such minds work, and how they can be so out of touch with the reality in Pakistan, despite this being a major part of their job 24/7. Pakistan is effectively run by the military which has promoted and used religious fundamentalism and terror as instruments of state policy. The weak civilian government there does not take the final call in any major matter, particularly concerning India. Even President Zardari who has made some right noises, has no control over anything; his words amount to nothing. That is why even Dr Manmohan Singh says "I don't know who to deal with" in Pakistan. Yet some guys want to "strengthen" Pakistan's government, when they should know that it will not in any manner change anything in India's favour.

Even a child knows that a clenched fist packs much more power than an open hand with its five fingers apart. There is also no one who does not know that if the roots of a tree are cut, its branches lose their vitality, and that even if they are successfully replanted individually, they emerge much weaker than when they were being nourished through one stem. Yet, some bright individuals want Indians to believe that India will be secure if there is a strong Pakistan that is ideologically and militarily united to fight India, and will become vulnerable if it has to deal with five small resultant states that will be without direction and power, and perhaps even at war with each other.

Last year, General David Petraeus, commander of the US Central Command, reiterated the unpleasant truth that some Indians want to avoid, when he said that many Pakistani leaders consider India as its principal threat and regard extremist groups as potential strategic asset against it. The recent arrest of Syed Daood Gilani aka David Headley and the revelations about his close links with the LeT, Indian Mujahideen, ISI and serving and retired Pakistan Army officers, has once again highlighted the repeatedly forgotten fact that terror in India has been, and is being, promoted and sustained by the state of Pakistan, or at the very least parts of it that matter and will continue to call the shots.

Many people realise that if Pakistan emerges stronger from the present crisis, particularly after the US leaves, the news can only be bad for India. A well-oiled terror apparatus having the full backing of a rejuvenated state which may well get Afghanistan back, as it is aiming to, will present an unprecedented challenge to India. India needs to strengthen and prepare itself to meet such an eventuality with a sense of urgency that is nowhere to be seen. Any concessions and offers that it makes to Pakistan now are only going to be used to claim victory for the jihad launched by it against India. And that will only breathe fresh life into the terror structure and attract more recruits to fight India with renewed vigour and determination. One has to be nuts to even make such a suggestion at this point of time.

There is no pressing hurry to get into talks with a state when you don't know who is in control of it. There is nothing to be gained from strengthening the very hands that have tried their best, and are trying still, to slit your throat. There is no sense whatsoever in helping to hold together, much less strengthen, an idea that is grounded in hostility to you and that is already self-destructing, as it had to. Whatever needs to be done should only be done after the debris has settled, no matter how long it takes.

This is the least that those culpable and sitting protected in their fortresses - and their mouthpieces - can do out of respect for those who have laid down their lives fighting this long and all but declared war of hate, and the innocent who have fallen victim to it in the course of their daily lives. To their souls in heaven, any call being made for a strong and stable Pakistan is nothing short of treason.

Also read: Musharraf's shockers on terror. Kashmir and Indian Muslims
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GILANI, GILANI AND GILANI CORP, AND THE 'G' EFFECT ON INDIA

The surname Gilani must have a strong karmic connection with India.

Syed Ali Gilani is the one separatist Kashmiri leader who has been steadfastly saying that Jammu and Kashmir is Pakistan since ethnic Kashmiris are Muslims. Even though 'moderate' separatist leaders have 'toned down' their demand to 'Azadi' (Independence) - do overlook the latest statement of the Mirwaiz that China is also a stakeholder - Gilani refuses to budge. He in fact has gone to the extent of justifying Pakistan's policy of infiltrating terrorists into India by asking, "Why did India send its troops to East Pakistan to support the movement there?" Needless to add, he represents the 'basic issue' that India does not want to acknowledge, as it attempts, yet again, to find a resolution to the Kashmir problem, without knowing how and without any understanding of the dynamics that will be set in motion if any concession is given to Pakistan. A country that mindlessly created a problem in 1948 and then foolishly allowed it and Gilani to become bigger and bigger over 63 years, can scarcely be expected to get proactive overnight and find a thought-out "solution" that is in India's best long term interest.

Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani is the present Prime Minister of Pakistan. He blew hot and cold after at least 10 terrorists from Pakistan attacked Mumbai on November 26, 2008. Initially, not only did he deny that the terrorists were Pakistanis, his government even went to the extent of calling them Hindu-Zionists who were planted by India to spoil the 'pak' name of peace-loving Pakistan. It was only when the paternity and village of Ajmal Kasab could no longer be hidden, did the reluctant admission come, thanks primarily to Uncle Sam. But that culpability did not deter Gilani from making hawkish noises, particularly about Kashmir. In fact, just eight months after 26/11, he ambushed an unsuspecting Dr Manmohan Singh and got him to admit in writing that, effectively, India was sponsoring terror in Baluchistan and other parts of Pakistan. If that was not enough, not only has he allowed the masterminds of 26/11 to roam free, he and his government are now accusing India of supporting the Taliban in Pakistan, and pressuring it to solve Kashmir, undoubtedly in Pakistan's favour. This Gilani is the face of the Pakistani establishment that has never been able accept, among many other things, the reality of Pakistan's size and live in peace with a bigger, secular India.

Syed Daood Gilani is much in the news now, as David Coleman Headley, the name he adopted in 2006 to escape suspicion for his frequent trips to India, Pakistan and elsewhere on chilling terror missions. Son of a Pakistani diplomat father and an American mother, he went to a military school in Pakistan, before moving to the US. He was in India just before 26/11 and in Pakistan when the attack took place, fuelling speculation that he was deeply involved in that terror attack. The US says that some elements in the ISI could be linked to him and that it will soon confirm whether he had any connection with 26/11. Gilani had also been travelling freely to different parts of India, reportedly to find recruits for the Indian Mujahideen and to set up sleeper terror cells. According to some reports, he was even given a satellite phone by an official of the Pakistan consulate to enable him to make calls to Pakistan without being detected. Our useless intelligence agencies, working overtime to prove that there was no involvement of locals in 26/11, would never have got wind of his activities had the FBI not homed on to him. The scale of his involvement in terror activities is still unfolding. Five serving and retired Pakistan army officers have already been arrested for their links with him. Much more is expected to follow in the coming days and months. This Gilani represents the brainwashed aam admi, the foot soldier who executes Pakistan's policy of using Islamic terror, jihad, as an integral instrument of the state.

In many ways, this 'Gilani, Gilani & Gilani Corporation' exemplifies what Pakistan was, is, and is likely to remain, particularly with respect to India. There may be moderate voices in Pakistan, especially in the media. But the harsh truth is that those who conceptualised and moulded Pakistan, and are now running it, metaphorically belong to the dangerous 3G corporation. This is something that India needs to get firmly into its head. Unless that is done, we will keep getting ambushed during parleys and wasting away the blood of thousands of sons of India, by losing on the negotiating table what they have been repeatedly protecting and gaining with their valour and sacrifice.

Hang on. Is it a mere coincidence that India has, perhaps, an even deeper karmic connection with another surname beginning with 'G'?

Mahatma Gandhi, Indira Gandhi and Family Gandhi are all intimately linked with, and have shaped, the destiny of India. The first Gandhi led India to Independence and Partition. The second Gandhi broke Pakistan in two. Rajiv Gandhi reportedly frittered away a golden opportunity to cut Pakistan to size for good in 1987, enabling it to launch its ongoing proxy war against India in 1989. Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi are now in the saddle. Are they going to complete the task that Indira and Rajiv left unfinished? Or are they going to commit the blunder that Indira Gandhi did in Shimla in 1972, and wind up creating an even more dangerous situation for India in the long run?

Funny isn't it that both Gilani and Gandhi have six alphabets each and sound pretty similar too? India has been effected in the extreme by the 'G' effect of both. One will have to give way. The former cannot win unless the latter chooses to lose to it in a fit, or fits, of the same naive large-heartedness that led to the downfall of Prithviraj Chauhan. One can only hope that the Gandhis of Delhi do not make the same mistake again. But with an Italian connection, you never know...
'

INDIA TO PAK: YOU KEEP SHOOTING, WE'LL KEEP TALKING

A month and a half back, India's new Foreign Minister SM Krishna had given as clear an indication as he could that Mumbai 26/11 had been placed in the archives, like numerous previous terror attacks had been, and that India was ready yet again to offer the other cheek to Pakistan, even though it was still bleeding as a result of the many slaps given by the latter earlier. "Never negotiate out of fear, but never fear to negotiate". These were the little understood words of John Kennedy that Krishna used to justify what was clearly going to be a climb down of humiliating proportions.

Anticipating where Krishna and the officials at the Foreign Office were preparing to take India, this is what I had written then: We are getting back to square one, tail between legs, the empty bark beginning to sound like a pleading yelp. And all this without even the dignity of a face-saving concession by Pakistan, however tiny. Kiyani and gang must be laughing their guts out, after spitting contemptuously in India's face, yet again. The "buzdili", cowardice, that defines India's response to Pakistan's open and unrelenting efforts to hurt it through covert use of force, and spotted long back by former ISI chief Hamid Gul, is only getting worse.

I must admit that I was wrong. The capitulation Krishna and the officials in his office were planning for India was actually far worse and far more damaging. I can only imagine that they were able to sell their dumb and defeatist ideas to Dr Manmohan Singh by covering them with the lofty but empty and divorced-from-reality Nehruvian idealism and magnanimity that has repeatedly seen India give but not get. That failed and disastrous mindset was clearly responsible for making the PM say that India will not be a great country without engaging Pakistan.

A country does not become great by engaging other countries on their terms, particularly when those countries are waging war against it. By doing so, quite the reverse happens, and over time a great country is weakened and then defeated by a determined enemy. But who will teach that to our career diplomats and politicians?

During his visit to Pakistan in 1999, Atal Bihari Vajpayee tried to illuminate Pakistanis by saying, "One can change friends, not geography, not neighbours". He was greeted with Kargil a few months later. Ten years later, Manmohan Singh, after the terror attack in Mumbai, still said: "we cannot choose our neighbours...an alert and pluralist society like ours is the best defence against terrorist onslaughts". He was greeted in Sharm el-Sheikh by an even more aggressive Pakistan that got him to agree to a joint statement that has shocked and angered a lot of Indians.

The whole world has known since the dawn of civilisation that you cannot change your neighbours. And ever since then, there has been a never ending struggle to ensure that your neighbour remains friendly to you and does not engage in acts that are hostile to your interest. Whenever that equilibrium is disturbed, the matter is more often than not settled through use of force or, better still, the threat of it. For the bigger nation, diplomacy is merely an instrument to convey to your neighbour the minimum that you expect of him, and to tell him that failing which he must be prepared to face unacceptable consequences. And to make such a warning credible, you have to consciously develop the means that can deliver that message effectively without him being able to respond and hurt you in turn beyond a point.

Unfortunately in India, diplomacy - mere words - has become an end in itself. Negotiations and talks based on fear and cowardly morality have become the prime vehicles by which a huge nation of more than a billion people wants to interact with and influence its neighbours who are in its strategic sphere of influence. This sorry state of affairs is partly because of politicians who have no understanding of national security and strategy and partly because career diplomats and other departments of the government work in water tight compartments and are busy building their own dysfunctional bureaucratic empires.

Pakistan also knows that it cannot change it neighbours. But it is not willing to accept the existence of its neighbour in the east in its present form and wants to change the dynamics to suit its own view of history based solely on religion. So, ever since its birth, it has unsuccessfully used various means to bring about that change. The present and ongoing zero cost, zero risk method of using terror or low intensity conflict is one that it has employed for over two decades now, with no reaction from India despite the heavy cost it has been paying to fight it. To those who have their eyes and minds open, it is evident that Pakistan is not going to give it up till it is forced to.

The only guys who manifestly cannot see fundamental fact this are politicians and officials making a career out of writing notes in the Foreign Office, NSA, MHA and MoD. That is why the PM says that India will only passively keep defending itself against this proxy war with the help of "an alert and pluralistic society". That is why a Foreign Minister misquotes JFK to begin talking with Pakistan once again to mask his helplessness. And that is why India agrees to a joint statement that no self-respecting country will even consider, just eight months after the worst ever terror attack on its soil and despite Pakistan having done nothing to show that it will not allow its territory to be used against India.

Who would have even dreamt that India would agree to a statement which says: "Action of terrorism should not be linked to the composite dialogue process and these should not be bracketed". Worse, how could India ever agree to the inclusion of "threats in Baluchistan and other areas" of Pakistan, because their very mention implies that Pakistan is accusing India of supporting terrorism in the whole of Pakistan? And that too after losing thousands of her sons in fighting terrorists in Kashmir and with Pakistan not only not accepting its active involvement in the war there, but also openly threatening that peace is not possible till Kashmir is resolved?

The PM may have said after the Joint Statement was issued that the composite dialogue process cannot resume till the perpetrators of 26/11 are brought to book. That means little given what has been accepted by India in writing. This virtual surrender that has also opened up endless future possibilities for Pakistan to accuse India of supporting terrorism in Pakistan, shows that Pakistanis remain, as always, one step ahead of India. That is simply because they know what their objective is and they know how to deny it too by lying through all their pores, without giving a damn whether India believes them or not.

Once again, India has let Pakistan get away with a blatant act of war. Once again, India has told Pakistan that it can keep shooting at India and keep killing its sons and daughters. India will not react; it cannot because its politico-bureaucratic set up is convinced that India can stop those bullets and beat Pakistan solely with the help of poorly drafted statements and an "alert pluralistic society", forgetting completely that it is this very pluralism that Pakistan cannot live with and wants to alter by all means at its disposal. The bullets from Pakistan will not stop if India does not change the way it thinks and responds. And that cannot happen till it keeps trying to mount the moral horse at the slightest pretext to claim a hollow 'victory', beyond which its bureaucrats do not want to see for obvious reasons.

When the Prime Minister of a country says in full glare of the international media at Sharm el-Sheikh "dialogue ke siwaye koi chaaraa nahin hai" he immediately makes one billion people of the country look like helpless cowards who have no choice but to surrender before someone who is holding a gun to their heads. And he all but legitimises the use of that gun by the enemy. Dr Manmohan Singh is an honourable man. But he is an economist by training, not a strategist. Unfortunately, it is evident that officials in the Foreign Office and in the NSA who have his ear are also equally ignorant and ill equipped to understand and deal with a mindset called Pakistan, a mindset honed and controlled by its generals.

Eloquence is no substitute for real understanding of an obdurate and offensive military mindset. Without that understanding, an appropriate response that Pakistan will understand and react to in a manner that we want, will not be forthcoming. And India will be forced to take hit after hit like a helpless duck. We have to force Pakistan to stop shooting. Talking like defensive dimwits is not going to make it put the gun down. It is time for India to get fresh, knowledgeable and focused minds into controlling positions in the security and diplomatic apparatus of the country. The sooner we do it the better. Till we do, the bullets will keep coming and all we will do is talk like zombies who have lost their way in a self-made labyrinth.
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Picture source: Gulf News

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2. Cowardog superpower
3. Police fighting terrorists with cars and canes: dismantle colonial IPS
4. Making India safe: cosmetic changes will not stem rot
5. Understanding and defeating the ideology of terror

MUMBAI 26/11: WHY IS THE GOVT SHIELDING LOCALS?

First it was Mumbai Police Commissioner Hasan Gafoor who said it openly in a televised press conference, only to retract his statement a few hours later under pressure. Then it was the BBC that made that claim in a TV program. Now it is the FBI that has provided solid evidence that proves that the terrorists who attacked Mumbai on November 26, 2008 did get local support for their operation.

Ever since 26/11, there has been a lot of speculation about the extent of local help that was provided to the terrorists who carried out the biggest terror attack ever in India. The Congress led governments both in Maharashtra and the Centre have, however, been consistently maintaining that the attack was planned in Pakistan and executed by Pakistanis who had no local help at any stage from any Indian except Fahim Ansari and Sahabuddin, both of who have been arrested by the police.

When Gafoor first dropped a bombshell by telling the media that "fourteen to sixteen men, which includes Indians and Pakistanis, are are wanted in the attacks", the government got him to clumsily retract his statement within hours to say that the "wanted" list, yes, included all the nine dead terrorists and Ajmal Kasab who had already been captured alive, and that the only two Indians in the list were also already in custody.

It is worth recapitulating certain significant facts pointing to strong local support that had emerged immediately after the attacks but about which no follow up action has manifestly been taken:

• Naval commandos who were among the first to engage terrorists in Taj Hotel recovered a rucksack left behind by them. The contents of this rucksack were shown by many TV channels and included, among other things, cash and seven credit cards including those of top Indian banks like the ICICI, HSBC, HDFC, Axis and CITI bank. Fake Indian identity cards were also found on the person of all terrorists. Ajmal Kasab, the lone terrorist captured alive, was carrying a fake ID card of Arunodaya Degree College of Hyderabad, in the name of Naresh Verma. Who got these cards made in India for the terrorists?
• The terrorists were completely familiar with the layout of the hotels and moved around the buildings with practiced ease. Their knowledge of the layout was first brought out by the Naval commandos and later confirmed by Ratan Tata himself. "There seems to be no doubt that they knew their way around the hotel," he said, "They seemed to know it in the night, or in the daytime. They seemed to have planned their moves quite well, and there seem to have been a lot of pre-planning in terms of what they did and how they managed to carry on for three days and sustain themselves during that time." Was it possible for them to acquire such familiarity only on the basis of blueprints, as claimed by Gafoor?
• The way they were able to sustain themselves for three days without running out of ammunition and explosives suggests that much more of the lethal stuff than they carried in their rucksacks had been smuggled into the hotel prior to the attack and placed at locations precisely marked during previous reconnaissance missions. Who placed them there?
• The terrorists were supposed to sink the boat they used to land in Mumbai, but had planned to get away safely after completing their operations. It means that they would have known the safe location to where they were to go to they to go, before evetually making their way back to Pakistan by a different route. Could such a get away have been possible without serious logistic support on Indian soil?

For almost eight months now, Indians have been led to believe by their own government that ten young boys just landed up from Pakistan in Mumbai by sea and held the city to ransom for 60 hours, all on their own. When Narendra Modi first echoed the question that was in the minds of most Indians by saying that the "smallest of persons knows" that a terror attack of this scale could not have been launched without some local support, Home Minister Chidambaram responded by asking in turn whether Modi was in contact with Pakistan. The position that no locals were involved was reiterated by him just 10 days back. But now it seems that the truth that the government has been trying so hard to hide from its own people is beginning to surface uncomfortably for it.

In a program telecast on June 29, the BBC made the startling claim that it was spotters on the ground who kept the handlers of the terrorists informed about the exact position of the security forces, enabling the former to direct events minute-by-minute, routing calls over the internet. BBC correspondent Richard Watson said that they knew every move that the police were making as the crisis unfolded, and that it was unlikely that this information was obtained by them from live TV coverage shots. This stance was, predictably, rejected by Mumbai police who maintain that the attack was carried out by a "totally independent module of ten terrorists" launched from Pakistan.

The most damning documentary evidence of all, however, has been made available by the FBI in its report to the Mumbai crime branch, as reported in the Hindustan Times of July 11, 2009. As per the FBI provided logs of the phone calls made by the handlers of the terrorists to "numerous phones in Mumbai, Pune and Nashik", they were in touch with local contacts between November 23 and 28. During this period, they made 91 calls to 23 mobile phones and 10 land line phones using 30 VOIP connections. The first call was made three days before the attack to a Delhi land line number. Details of calls made have since been published in HT and can be found here.

As per the HT report, none of the people who took these calls have been identified, let alone investigated. Why has no effort been made by the police to find out details, and more, about the 33 recipients of these calls? The handlers of the terrorists were surely not calling their relatives in India to just greet them during those few days.

It is becoming increasingly evident that investigation into the involvement of local LeT modules and/or individuals in the Mumbai terror attack has not been been stonewalled either accidentally or on the orders of local functionaries. A conscious decision seems to have been taken to do so by some very responsible people in the government. Mumbai's Police Commissioner would not have retracted his statement had he not received orders to do so from the highest echelons in the central government.

The question is: why is the government so adamantly shielding locals who have waged war against India? Is it because those involved are so politically powerful that they can damage the electoral prospects of the alliance in power in Maharashtra and Delhi?Are the lives of India's innocent citizens and the country's security less important than retention of political power?

Is this the unacceptable price that India will have to pay from now on for being a secular democracy?

MUMBAI 26/11: OFFERING THE OTHER CHEEK, AGAIN

We are getting back to square one, tail between legs, the empty bark beginning to sound like a pleading yelp. And all this without even the dignity of a face-saving concession by Pakistan, however tiny. Kiyani and gang must be laughing their guts out, after spitting contemptuously in India's face, yet again. The "buzdili", cowardice, that defines India's response to Pakistan's open and unrelenting efforts to hurt it through covert use of force, and spotted long back by former ISI chief Hamid Gul, is only getting worse.

When after Mumbai 26/11, Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee started chanting the "all options are open" mantra almost every second day, Pakistan was not frightened into meek submission or acceptance of its complicity in that terror attack despite the capture of Pakistani Ajmal Kasab. Army Chief Kiyani, in fact, threatened India with a response "within minutes" if India dared to launch any air attack to take out terror camps on Pakistani soil, while former President and Army Chief Musharraf warned India to not even think of an attack, saying that Pakistanis were not "wearing bangles". Other Pakistani commentators, helped by many pigeon-hearted Indians, scared India even further by talking of a nuclear war.

India was relieved when, thanks solely to American pressure, no matter what the Indian government might say, Pakistan made a minor concession by admitting that a part of the Mumbai conspiracy was hatched on Pakistani soil and arresting the Lashkar-e-Toiba commander Hafiz Saeed who had been named by Ajmal Kasab. Then began the usual delaying tactics about the "clinching" evidence India had forwarded in a huge dossier. Gradually, temperatures cooled in India, to the point that Mumbai 26/11 was all but forgotten, much like Kargil 1999 and Parliament 2001 had been earlier.

Now that the elections are over and the same government that was talking of exercising "all options" against Pakistan is back, Pakistan has hit back with perfect timing. Hafiz Saeed has been released by a Pakistani court for lack of evidence. The Mumbai attack trail is now dead in Pakistan. A tighter slap than this could not have been given by one sovereign nation to another. And what is India's response? It is complaining like a little boy to mummy (US) and, even worse, getting ready to offer the other cheek for the nth time.

After saying for months that India will not re-start the dialogue with Pakistan till it shows concrete evidence that it is serious about fighting the terror that Pakistani "non-state actors" have unleashed in India, it is now getting ready to start talking again, despite Hafeez being on the loose and Pakistani PM's provocative statement on Kashmir. Trust the Indians to find every excuse in the book to do nothing more than talk.

As per a report in the Times of India, the new Foreign Minister SM Krishna has dug out the words of JFK to begin talking: "Never negotiate out of fear, but never fear to negotiate". The same report goes on to say that talks might "get the Pakistanis to attempt to stop the next big-ticket terror attack" that it is likely to sponsor to push India to come to the table. Now if this is not negotiation out of fear, then I don't know what is. In fact, this is worse; it is an open admission of the painful fact that India remains struck by a paralysis just like the one that had immobilised Superman Christopher Reeve.

A negotiation born out of fear is not a negotiation at all. It is no more than bargaining about the quantum of concession that you, not the other party, have to make. This is elementary. Pakistan is effectively ruled by the military. A military mind simply cannot accept defeat, however small, except on the battlefield. That should have been clear to the Indians after decades of fruitless negotiations. How could India have missed the basic understanding that Pakistan's generals would, one way or another, continue to try to defeat India, without going in for a full-blown war?

Unfortunately, we have a bunch of fuddy-duddy politicians and babus on our side who think that life begins and ends with negotiations, which they think they can win with their minds and tongues alone. They haven't yet realised - no surprise - that a military under command is very different from a military in command. That is why this sordid drama is played out again and again, and that is why India keeps losing its sons to a proxy war that its ignorant rulers want to believe out of fear that they can win by doing nothing about it at its source.

Nothing has been learnt; nothing will be. Brace yourself for a new series of Mumbai 26/11s and more.
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3. Cowardog 'superpower'
4. Mumbai 26/11: will India use the military option?
5. Hafiz Saeed...26/11

THE WORLD IS CHANGING; TALIBANI MINDSET IS NOT

The recent imposition of a Rs 2 crore jazia (infidel tax) on Sikhs by the Taliban in Pakistan's Orakzai Agency has angered the Sikh community in India and re-opened painful historical wounds. This development and the eviction of Hindus from Kashmir Valley two decades back have two things in common. One is the virtual blank out of both by India's mainstream media, as if they were insignificant, and the second is that both acts are products of the same medieval and intolerant mindset that is now threatening to seize control of all of Pakistan.

For some people living in their comfortable cocoons, these realities either do not exist or are unimportant since they do not touch them; their world is moving ahead.

Imran Khan, the urbane, westernised Pakistani playboy cricketer-turned-politician has for long been the darling of India's secular media and the glitterati. One would have imagined that he would have the same progressive, 21st century outlook that his friends in Delhi and Mumbai do. But, no. He is one of the main supporters of the decision of the Pakistan government to hand over Swat Valley to the Taliban. Not just that. He even defends what the Taliban are doing by saying that by enforcing their variant of the Sharia, they are only implementing the Law of Allah ( Watch these revolting videos of their brutally and mercilessly beheading people. You need to prepare yourself to watch them). This defence of the ways of the Taliban from a man whose British ex-wife would have been flogged and perhaps stoned to death for adultery had she been in Taliban territory, is horrifying evidence that the world, at least a large part of it that affects India directly, has not changed at all.

Despite decades of Western education and exposure, Imran Khan retains a Talibani mindset. He is not the only one who does. There are many, many more like him in Pakistan and elsewhere who don't look or publicly behave like the Taliban, but are one with them ideologically as well as in their fight against the US. That is why the US is soon going to discover that the war that it is fighting in Afghanistan and Pakistan is like no other that is has fought, ever. As per The New York Times, the Taliban are ready to have a body count and see "who has broken whose back". That is also why we in India must quickly wake up to the realisation that the Taliban need not arrive in India physically to pose a real threat to this country. They just have to get into the minds of some Indians.

The SIMI and the Indian Mujahideen represent the Indians who have been come under the grip of the Talibani mindset. Even though they have carried out numerous terror attacks and killed hundreds of innocent fellow Indians, fortunately their numbers are very small and influence extremely limited, though they are trying hard to poison more minds. Till now, most Indian Muslims have shown great maturity and kept away from these extreme elements who reject India's secularism and democracy, and want to establish a Taliban type of Islamic state in India.

A couple of months back, however, there was one significant regressive development, the ramifications of which have, not surprisingly, also gone completely unnoticed. The UP Board of Madrasa Education(UPBME) suddenly rediscovered, in progressive 21st century, that "free interaction between boys and girls" is not permitted by Islam. Describing co-education in schools as "anti-Islamic and against the Sharia" the UPBME banned it across madrasas in the state. "Parda" (veil) is essential in Islam and co-education encourages "be-pardagi" (removal of veil). So said Haji Rizwan Haq, chairman of the UPBME, to justify the ban.

The direction in which a part of India is beginning to move should be evident from this seemingly innocuous development which came close on the heels of a similar edict passed by militants in the remote North Waziristan of Pakistan. In India, it has been imposed in India's largest state, bang next to secular India's capital, and not in some forgotten corner that no one knows about. Yet, people in Delhi want to pretend as if nothing has happened. Their own world is changing for the better and that is all they are interested in.

More significantly, not a single progressive, secular Muslim leader of India has spoken against this visible example of the creeping Talibanisation of India's Muslims. They are mute not due to any fear of the Taliban. It is either sheer apathy or a silent approval of this "back to fundamentalism" mindset that has kept them from saying anything. Among the non-Muslims, there are those who argue that since this edict is meant only for madrasas and that too of UP alone, why bother? Let them do what "they" want, some say; how does it affect "us"?

Yes, our world is changing. But for many people living in the real, harsh world out there, it is imperceptibly regressing back to the time when there was excruciating religious intolerance and subjugation, the kind most of us have forgotten about. The world where this is happening does not exist for our cocooned elite yet. Just like the world that faced terror attacks did not till they were hit while having dinner at the Taj on November 26, 2008. That solitary attack on them has already been all but forgotten and everything is back on course.

That is why what is happening to Sikhs in Pakistan is also being ignored, as are all seemingly disparate developments that all point to the fact that as a secular India moves forward into the 21st century, there is a growing Taliban-influenced environmental current which is trying to push a large portion of its population into an isolated bubble frozen in time. It is our collective responsibility to protect them and pluck them from the force of this strong current so that they too can move forward and ahead along with the rest of their country men.

But that can happen only if we have the courage to accept that there is a problem and then display even greater courage and resolve to find a lasting solution to it, without giving into the demands of petty populism.
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Readers may also read:
1. Zakaria's Afghan strategy: salvation or surrender?
2. Swat is now Pakistan's flog valley
3. Tackling Islamic terrorism: what India needs to understand
4. Taliban blow up houses of Sikhs
5. News from Pakistan - Lessons for India
6. Pakistan in Sharia quagmire

WHAT WILL INDIA DO AFTER THE NEXT 26/11?

India is likely to face another Mumbai 26/11 type of attack in the near future. That is the assessment of Startfor, a US intelligence think-tank. Really, do we need anyone to tell us that this is something that is inevitable? Or do we naively believe/hope that the US is going to protect us against such attacks with the power of the dole that it is giving to a sinking Pakistan? Or that the Pakistanis have been sufficiently sacred by the shrill "all options are open" war cry and empty threats of surgical strikes that Indian leaders unleashed after Mumbai was attacked?

Nearly five months after India faced its deadliest terror attack, everything is back to normal. Everyone has forgotten about the horror that the country faced for three days. Everyone, almost, is relieved that the 'foolish hawks' who were irresponsibly talking of war with a nuclear Pakistan have become quiet. Also everyone, well not quite, has also heaped praise on the government for the very mature manner in which it has handled the crises and defused tensions.

All that is fine. But, no one is asking the two critical question that need to be asked: What has India done since then to deter state/non-state actors - call them what you like - from Pakistan from launching more such attacks? What is India going to do when, not if, another such attack does take place?

Narendra Modi has been ridiculing the government for running to Obama after the Mumbai attacks rather than doing something tangible to sort Pakistan out. Stratfor is also of the view that the UPA government was too soft and that India is likely to deliver a more forceful response should the BJP come to power after these elections. Is that really so? Yes, the general view is that the UPA has been ignoring the increasing threat of terror that India faces from Pakistan. But, would a BJP government have really responded very differently to Mumbai 26/11, and will it do so if it comes to power?

The response of the government of any sovereign state to an act of war depends mainly on two related and somewhat interdependent factors: its tolerance threshold and the relative combat power of the states involved. While there is certainly a difference between the tolerance threshold of the Congress and the BJP, they both have the same military at their disposal. The weakness of latter is what has made repeated terror attacks on India an almost zero-risk option for Pakistan for decades. As Pakistan knows better than all armchair analysts, that is going to make it virtually impossible for India to exercise a limited military option even in the future. Why? Because should the war escalate into a full blown conventional affair, India's defence forces are not in a position to give an iron-clad guarantee of success. And, failure - even a stalemate - is simply unacceptable for a country that has seven times the population of its adversary and wants to believe that it is about to become a super power.

There is a lot of uninformed talk that the era of wars is over and that it is economics and not military strength that matters in the 21st century. Those who talk on these lines are obviously blind to what the Americans and the Chinese are doing. China is not much larger than India. It has a border dispute only with this country and faces no threat from any of its other neighbours. If the Chinese leaders were Indian, they would probably have taken the Nehruvian route and almost mothballed their defence forces. But, being realists who know history and the role that power will continue to play in shaping it, they have done exactly the opposite. As a result, their military might has grown to a level that even the Americans are beginning to see a real threat to their uni-polar dominance of the world.

India, on the other hand, despite having been invaded and humiliated by the Chinese in 1962, have simply done nothing to match China's military might. And now the asymmetry is so great that whenever the Chinse decide to use force to annex Indian territories claimed by them, as indeed they will at a time of their choosing, it will be an almost no-contest.

Worse is what we have done vis-à-vis a much weaker and smaller Pakistan. We have allowed that country to militarily match up to us to a point where it can deter us from using the military option. India has the economic strength to simply make it a no-race for Pakistan that cannot spend beyond a point on defence. This would have happened on its own had India's sights been fixed on a maintaining a similar balance with China. But our leaders, devoid of any strategic vision, chose to ignore the role and relevance of the military as a key instrument of state policy. As a result, this is the only nation in the world that is happy maintaining an edge over a far smaller neighbour while pretending that a slightly bigger one, who has consciously chosen to become very powerful, does not exist!

It is because of this thinking that rather than India deterring Pakistan from launching and sustaining a proxy war, it is Pakistan which has successfully deterred India from reacting militarily in a manner that puts the cost-benefit ratio indisputably in India's favour. And Mumbai 26/11 was not the first time that India was provoked, almost taunted. Kargil and the attack on Parliament should have woken up a drowsy security establishment to the realisation that Pakistan was going to keep at it as long as it was sure it was going to get away. And how was it going to come to that conclusion? The cowardice of India's leadership, as former ISI chief Hamid Gul called it, coupled with the continuing absence of an unbridgeable military gap. Since India is even now simply not interested in doing anything about it, its tolerance threshold is per force very high. And Pakistan is going to test it to the limit. It knows only too well that the "zero tolerance" to terror that its politicians loosely talk about is just gas.

When there was serious talk of war after 26/11, the realisation hit that India's military was not ready for it. There were critical shortages of combat equipment due to which the military was perhaps weaker than it was at the time of Kargil. No wonder military commanders refused to go to war; you can't fight a real war with words.

Has anything changed nearly five months later? Major shortages of combat aircraft, air defence systems and artillery guns still exist. May be changes and preparations have been made, where they can be within limitations, to give a swift riposte to Pakistan should another attack be launched. But my sense is that the moment Pakistan gets to know through its intelligence network that India has both the political will and the military wherewithal to defeat Pakistan in a limited conventional war below the nuclear threshold, it will change tactics and opt for less spectacular attacks or go in for attacks carried out by Indian citizens only. If Startfor is to be believed, that has clearly not happened.

Narendra Modi might ridicule the Congress; the BJP may arguably display greater political will to retaliate. But the hard fact is that even if there are 10 more Mumbai 26/11s, no government will be able to make Pakistan pay in the only manner that will compel it to abandon its present course. This is the price this nation has paid and will keep paying for the failure of all governments to build and use the military as the cutting tool of coercive diplomacy and deterrence.

So, when the next 26/11 takes place, India will still be found running helplessly to the US, crying "Obama, O ba, O ma", as Modi has been saying to ridicule the Congress. Even if Modi himself is the Defence Minister then.
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Readers may also read:
1. Making India safe: cosmetic changes will not stem rot
2. Mumbai 26/11: will India use the miltary option?
3. Kashmir and Afghanistan are two sides of the same coin
4. India and Pakistan are not victims of the same terror

TEESTA, AJMAL, VARUN AND THE SECULAR BRIGADE

If there is one Indian who has made the worst type of "hate speeches" and used all kinds of falsehoods to inflame Muslims against Hindus, and that too for years, it is the so-called social activist Teesta Setalvad. Yet despite all the venom that she has been spewing in a voice that seems to come from the grated gut of a bitter person who has never known love, she has been the darling of India's mainstream media and like-minded "secularists".

For her ceaseless efforts to fraudulently portray Hindus at large as cold-blooded rapists and murderers, Teesta has been praised, feted, quoted and admired by the rootless variety of Indians who are ever ready to pounce at the smallest of incidents that show Hindus to be the most intolerant and communal minded of all communities in India. Indeed, if one were to believe this lot which has a vice-like grip over the media, secularism survives in India only because of the unending sacrifices and unbreakable secular beliefs of Muslims and other religious minorities; given even a sliver of a chance, Hindus will make the Taliban look like angels.

Look at the awards this secular brigade and a grateful Congress government have heaped on Teesta:

• Padma Shri
• M.A.Thomas National Human Rights Award from the Vigil India Movement.
• Parliamentarians for Global Action 'Defender of Democracy' award, jointly with Helen Clark, the Prime Minister of New Zealand.
• The Nuernberg Human Rights Award
• The Nani A Palkhivala Award

Teesta, much like the violent river she is named after, might well have continued on her path of hate and falsehood and been awarded the Padma Bhushan next, had the SIT led by former CBI Director RK Raghavan not exposed the fact that she cooked up tales of macabre and wanton killings, tutored and threatened false witnesses and levelled false charges against Police Chief Pandey.

Remember that horrifying and unbelievable story about a mob gang raping a pregnant Muslim woman, Kausar Banu, and then gouging out her foetus with sharp weapons? That is an example of the utterly sick level to which Teesta descended in her campaign of brutal, unforgiving hate for which recourse to falsehood was not something that shamed her at all.

I am not able to determine whether it is Ms Setalvad who has done more harm to the nation with her sustained and bitter vitriol or it is the secular media which is responsible, first for promoting her campaign ad nauseum most irresponsibly because she spoke their secular language of hate and now by virtually shielding her from the public fury and wrath that she deserves.

Ajmal Kasab, the sole surviving Pakistani terrorist responsible for the Mumbai 26/11 terror attack was supposed to be the trump card that India had to expose Pakistan's hand in the blasts. Remember that thick dossier that India sent to Pakistan as "proof" based on his confessional statement? Remember Narendra Modi bringing out that when, thanks to the doing away of POTA, his confessional statement was not admissible as evidence even in India, how was Pakistan expected to accept it as nothing but the truth? Remember how everyone has been shouting that he should be give a "fair" trial and saying that it was an open and shut case that would be over in six months?

Kasab has killed many people in full glare of CCTV cameras in the only "secular" nation in the world where he can get away lightly. Not only is he going to get a "fair" trial, he is not going to convicted in a hurry, if at all. For all you know, he might even be released in a hostage situation, like we saw in the the case of the kidnapping of Rubiya Sayed and the Kandahar hijack. Although he is a foreign national who has waged war on India, he is being tried by a benign Indian judicial system designed to give him many years to live as a VIP prisoner.

SG Abbas Kazmi, the lawyer appointed to defend Ajmal, made it clear on the very first day of the trial that this is not a case which is going to get over in a hurry, all the evidence against him notwithstanding. First, he pleaded that Kasab was under 17 and, therefore should be tried by a juvenile court. When the court rejected that argument on the basis of the statement given by Kasab where he had said that he was 21 years old, Kazmi retracted that confession saying that it was made under duress. Kazmi is in no mood to "co-operate" with the prosecution to ensure that justice is done swiftly in this most straightforward and horrifying of cases that had the whole nation enraged. A protracted legal battle is certain.

What is Pakistan going to do now? It will throw Kasab's statement into the Arabian Sea and stop further investigation because this statement is not only not evidence under India law but has been denied by Kasab himself. There is more. Don’t be surprised if Pakistan sends across some proof that Kasab is 17 indeed. His mother may even come down to Mumbai and give such a statement. The way things are shaping in this case which Ram Jethmalani had boasted would be over in five minutes, Ajmal Kasab will probably never be hanged.

Is this what we call a "fair" trial when on the very first day of the trial it is beginning to look that he actually might get away despite all the evidence against him? Why is there no TV studio outrage at a defence lawyer for whom shameless use of utter falsehoods to protect the murderer of innocent Indians takes precedence over truth and the pain of the entire nation? Is Kazmi interested in justice or is he more than keen to help the foreign killer of many Indians get away by using unfair means? Where is his conscience as a citizen of India?

Will there be calls for re-introduction of the clause to include confessions made before a police officer as evidence? Will there be a demand for trying foreign nationals who wage war against India by a military or similar court expeditiously? You know the answer. What, in fact, is most likely to happen is that the secular media is soon going to start hounding the government for being unduly harsh on a delicate young boy who was led astray by the LeT that exploited his poverty. Human Rights activists will soon be made to appear on every TV channel to complain about the violation of Kasab's human rights and lecture India on how it needs to treat him fairly as a civilised nation. Similar views of "secular" Indian citizens will also be aired, to make the whole nation feel as if it is the real sinner harassing an innocent kid.

Cut to Varun Gandhi about whom I have written in detail in a few other posts. What is the verdict of the secular brigade in his case? He is guilty and "must not be allowed to get away". In fact he is so dangerous that he must be locked up under the draconian NSA which has not been used even to put behind bars terrorists-without-religion and their abettors responsible for killing faceless, expendable Indians. He says the CDs of his speech are doctored; of course he is lying. Why has he not proved that they are? Why should we even bother to ask those who did the sting to prove that their CDs are authentic, or take the trouble to do it ourselves? They appear to us to be authentic; we have seen and heard them. Nothing more is needed to pronounce him guilty and extremely dangerous for the secular fabric of this nation. A court decision will take years to come. We canot wait till then. Justice has to be administered instantly in this case which is even more water tight than Ajmal's. Varun must not be allowed to make political speeches and even contest elections. His guilt has already been established.

Why should a greenhorn politician like Varun Gandhi be declared guilty without trial? He has spoken "against" Muslims; that is just not acceptable. You are a secular hero only if you make hate speeches and do worse against Hindus, not for them. He has done the exact opposite, so what if it is only in one unverified speech. His is an unpardonable crime for which he deserves no mercy, no sympathy. Jail is the only place for him. Straightaway. In the secular India of our dreams, there is no place for communal politicians or parties who ask for the "Hindu" vote. We accept only secular parties who ask for the Muslim vote and/or those who ask for the vote of Hindus not as a whole but in fragments like Yadavs, Dalits, Reddys, Vokkaligas etc

Why should a dangerous hate-driven, communal monster like Teesta Setalvad be loaded with awards? This champion of secularism had no choice but to cook up ghastly incidents and tell all sorts of horrendous lies. That was the only way she could drive home the "truth" that Modi is a mass murderer and Hindus are cold-hearted barbarians who hate and kill peace-loving Muslims for no reason at all. She has done great service to the cause of a secular India. She is the great protector of helpless minorities. Forget punishment or condemnation, she, in fact, deserves many more awards.

Why should a Pakistani terrorist like Ajmal who killed scores of people in cold blood, be allowed to dishonestly exploit the big gaps in India's lax legal system? India must be seen as being "fair" to its Muslims; it should not appear to them that Kasab is being disadvantaged in any manner because he is a Muslim. So what if he is a Pakistani? He is a Muslim first. Secular India cannot be seen to be treating any Muslim with even the whiff of vendetta. That is why we did notask for a ban on SIMI, till it started indulging in violence. We know that it has been saying since 1977 that it does not believe in secularism or democracy, is waiting for another Ghaznavi and wants to establish the rule of Islam in India. You can't put people from the minority community into jail only because they say that their aim is to turn the whole of secular India into a theocratic Pakistan.
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Teesta, Ajmal and Varun. All of them are experiencing the might of India's very powerful secular and "liberal" activists who are completely and ruthlessly intolerant of any view that clashes with theirs. While Teesta and Ajmal are basking in their support, Varun is being singed by their fury. Teesta Setalvad is their ugly, dishonest, hate-filled face; Ajmal is the poster boy who they will use to show to the world how "fair" India is to its minorities who are reeling under the imaginary oppression of Hindus. Varun, a Gandhi, is the unexpected red rag who can ruin their party. They are not going to allow him or anyone else to do that. Come what may. Even if in the process, truth and morality have to be sacrificed with a cold, "Teesta"ease that can send shudders down your spine.
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Readers may also read:
1. Teesta's house in disarray
2. Teesta Setalvad and spicy cooking
3. You can fool all of the people, all of the time
4. This is about Gujarat, not Teesta
5. Gilani, Durrani, Kiyani, Biryani and the butcher!
6. The Varun sting: who is not playing the communal card?
7. Varun Gandhi: Wounded tiger on the prowl