As Pakistan heats up we must act to prevent the next Samba

Last Thursday morning a group of three terrorists infiltrated across what is called the "working boundary" between India and Pakistan in the Jammu region. Hijacking a three-wheeler, they arrived at Hiranagar, a small town on the national highway, just ten kilometres or so from the border.
Here, having failed to locate an army camp, they attacked a police post - and since they were wearing Indian Army uniforms, they simply walked into the station and shot whoever they could find.
After killing two civilians, they hijacked another truck and set off for Samba. They struck at the camp of the 16th Cavalry and succeeded in killing its second in command Lt Col Bikramjeet Singh, injuring the commanding officer, Colonel A Uthiah, and two other soldiers. 

Omar Abdullah (centre), chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, pays tribute to the martyrs of the Samba militant attack

Inquiry

This is a very sensitive area. For fifty kilometres or so, because of the Shakargarh bulge that abuts into India, the "working boundary" is just 10-12 kms away from National Highway 1 A that links J&K to the rest of the country. This region is dotted by army camps. However, the numerous nullahs and rivulets that run from the highlands into the Pakistani territory also provide a means of infiltration since they are difficult to fence and patrol, especially during the monsoon.
Usually infiltration takes place in the dark phase of the lunar month, which would have been in early October. However, the terrorists had an immediate goal - to sabotage the Manmohan Singh-Nawaz Sharif talks that were scheduled to be held in New York on Sunday.
Had they killed large numbers of civilians, either the families of the 16 Cavalry personnel, or children in the nearby Army School in Samba, we may have had a massacre of reminiscent of Mumbai 2008. However, the killings were restricted to the policemen and the army personnel and, unfortunate enough as they were, they were not as inflammatory as the possible deaths of women and children. That would almost certainly have torpedoed the talks.

The army has set up a court of inquiry into the incident. There are three aspects that need to be examined. First, just where did they infiltrate from? Given the lay of the land, it is not easy to prevent the infiltration of small groups. But if there has been laxity in the form of poor patrolling, which is done by the BSF in this sector, then that needs to be taken note of.
Because the infiltration and the subsequent killings took place in a matter of hours on Thursday morning, it would have been difficult to generate advance intelligence on the terrorists' movement. However, there are questions being raised about the inability of the system to sound a general alert after the attack on the Hiranagar police station since it took another hour or so for the terrorists to reach the Samba army camp.
The second issue is to determine whether adequate counter-infiltration measures had been adopted in the area. The border around the region is floodlit and fenced, as well as actively patrolled. But a report in August spoke of large scale damage to the fencing, amounting to nearly 1 kilometre, that had been swept away by flash floods.
Further, we need to know whether or not additional measures, such as the use of motion sensors, night-vision devices and radars are in place. As we have noted, this is a very sensitive area and nothing but the toughest counter-infiltration systems must be in place here.
The third issue is that of security of the Army camp. It has been noted that the terrorists got easy access into the camp by shooting dead the lone sentry. Again, at the risk of repetition, considering the sensitivity of the area, the unit needed a larger guard detail.
More important - and this is a larger issue - the army needs to revise its standard operating procedures for perimeter security. It needs to not only have physical presence of the guards, but also ensure their security, since in any attack, the most obvious first step is to shoot down the guards.

Danger

To this end, there is need for a complex guard house which protects the guards from such surprise attack. It should have a rocket-proof structure, along with a bullet proof glass screen to enable the guards to see what is going on outside.
Our DRDO is busy designing intercontinental missiles, but it appears to have little time to develop a model guard house which can be adopted by the armed forces and the police for their numerous camps in insurgency-prone states.

All these issues need to be considered in some detail in the coming days and months, because there is every indication that things will get a lot hotter. This has to do with the game being played out in Pakistan where the establishment is divided over dealing with the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan and the other assorted militants.
While the political establishment comprising of people like Nawaz Sharif and Imran Khan want to engage the TTP in talks, the Army is against it since it has taken heavy casualties in the battle against the domestic jihadis.

Complacency

The Army retains its faith in the "good" jihadis who do battle with India and Afghanistan. Increasingly, however, it is no longer possible to maintain Musharraf's policy of having "good" militants under ISI control operating in India and Afghanistan, because the "bad" militants have become the proverbial Frankenstein.
Clearly, the anti-Indian jihadis are aware of this struggle and have sharply stepped up their actions against India. Infiltration has already gone up sharply. The winding down of the US and NATO operations in Afghanistan could enlarge the area which could be used by anti-Indian jihadis to set up training camps. In addition, domestic pressure could encourage the Pakistani establishment to point the militants towards India.
We should not be lulled into complacency about the nature of the militancy in J&K these days. Incidents can be few and far between. But when they occur, they can be deadly.
Mail Today September 30, 2013

The principle of 'closest partners'.

The United States has placed India in the category of ‘closest partners’ for defence cooperation. The official spin, that came out of Washington, following the meetings between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President Barack Obama last week, was that New Delhi would now be on the same footing as the closest allies of the US such as Britain when it comes to the transfer of defence technology.
That may be the endpoint that New Delhi and Washington have decided upon, but it is far from the current reality. Both sides would need to do an enormous amount of work to attain that goal.
The Joint Declaration on Defence Cooperation arrived at between the two sides sets up an ambitious agenda when it says that they “look forward to the identification of specific opportunities for cooperative and collaborative projects in advanced defence technologies and systems, within the next year.”
The declaration goes on to add that the principle of ‘closest partners’ will apply in relation to “defence technology transfer, trade, research, co-development and co-production for defence articles and services, including the most advanced and sophisticated technology.”
But the caveats are contained in the next sentence which notes that “they will work to improve licensing processes” and that they “are also committed to protecting each other’s sensitive technology and information”.
These are both important issues, but in the main they require burning night oil and, in the case of sensitive information, some creative diplomacy. What is important is that the US has clearly signaled its strategic intent to build special ties with India. Few will deny the importance of the US, or any other country, needing to protect their sensitive technology and processes. This is not unique and the Russians are equally tough on this issue. But instead of pinning down India to its existing agreements such as the Communications Interoperability & Security Memorandum of Agreement (CISMOA), the Americans could be well advised to work around the Indian skittishness by working out a new India-specific agreement which will protect its sensitive information and technology instead of fitting us into the CISMOA straitjacket. A rose by another name, smells as sweet.
As part of this process, the US has reiterated it support for India’s full membership in the four international export control regimes-which cover virtually every area of high tech in the world — which would further facilitate technology sharing. Most of America’s allies are part of these regimes and India’s entry would enable technology sharing and development as many companies dealing with defence technologies have subsidiaries or supply chains which extend to other countries who are close to the US.
But the biggest obstacle before us is India’s inability to identify the opportunities the US is offering, and then work the American system to take advantage of it. At present, India’s defence acquisition, design and development and production systems are ossified. You can present them the best of options and they will reject them. Without deep and enduring reform in the institutions and processes related to identifying and prioritising India’s defence needs and then acquiring them — either through import, or through domestic development — the US option will remain sterile.
The third clause of the joint declaration addresses this issue when it says, “The two sides will continue their efforts to strengthen mutual understanding of their respective procurement systems and approval processes, and to address process-related difficulties in defence trade, technology transfer and collaboration.” In other words, the US will continue to nudge India’s Ministry of Defence to undertake reform.
The US is clearly keen on pinning down India to specific projects which can be seen as Indo-US endeavours just as the Brahmos is an Indo-Russian one.
Brahmos missiles, a derivative of the Yakhont supersonic anti-ship missile is now a standard fitment in the most modern Indian Navy warships. Taking off from that, India and Russia are also collaborating on a fifth generation fighter and a medium multirole transport aircraft, both important projects.
There is nothing so ambitious in the Indo-US horizon as the FGFA or a MRTA as of now, but India needs to get down and do its homework. Though, of course, unlike the case with Russia, where the collaborations are between state owned companies, the Americans would prefer a hook up with the private sector, or, at least, the Indian public sector will have to learn with a private sector American partner. One of the easier options is the one being offered by the US to co-develop more lethal versions of the Javelin anti-tank missile. At the other end of the scale could be collaboration on aircraft carriers and nuclear propelled submarines.
In the last couple of years, the Ministry of Defence under the leadership of A K Antony, has appeared to shy away from any association with the United States. As part of this, India has avoided multilateral naval exercises involving US, Australia and Japan. However, an important element of confidence building this time was the announcement that India will participate in the Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) naval exercise hosted by US Pacific Command in 2014.
How this ‘closest partner’ relationship unfolds remains to be seen. There should be no illusions that it will match the relationship that exists between the US and UK which is too unique to be replicated. Not only does it involve close business and technology associations, but almost seamless intelligence cooperation and it goes back 100 years to World War I. Neither, hopefully, will the relationship be of the ‘close’ type that the US has enjoyed with Pakistan.
Mid Day October 1, 2013

Nothing to write home about

There was a time when the United States was riding so high that the White House looked down on foreign heads of state using their presence in the annual United Nations General Assembly session to seek an audience with the leader of the free world. With its diminished status in today’s multi-polar world, it is Washington that finds it expedient to use the event for some old-fashioned diplomacy. On the list for this year’s summits, or “working visits,” are Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan, Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. They could all be upstaged by a possible summit between Barack Obama and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. 

Dealing with Israel

For Mr. Abbas and Mr. Netanyahu, the context is domestic politics. Anything to do with Israel is local politics, as far as the U.S. is concerned. And the real problem with Israel is the intractable issue of Palestine. Having put his foot in it by clearly defining the emerging Palestinian state, Mr. Obama is now in a bind because of Israel’s customary intransigence. The meeting with the Nigerian is a patch-up effort aimed at soothing sentiments of black Africa’s most populous nation, which was left out of Mr. Obama’s itinerary in his June tour of Africa.

An Obama-Rouhani meeting though could put everything in the shade, even the UNGA. The estrangement between Iran and the U.S. has poisoned international politics for the past three decades. In the past year or so, they seem to be headed for an even more serious clash over Iran’s nuclear programme and the tightening of American sanctions. So any development toward resolving that situation would be good news, especially for countries such as India which have important geopolitical stakes in good relations with Teheran.

Where does the Manmohan-Obama summit fit in all this?

The relationship between India and the U.S. has been described in many ways: estranged democracies; natural allies; strategic partners; the defining partnership of the twentieth century; and so on. Today, if anything, there is one word to describe them, “dysfunctional,” which they both are, as putative allies and democracies. It is this reality upon which their efforts to put the mojo back in their relationship is foundering.

The real explanation for the stasis that has gripped India-U.S. relations since 2008 is largely economic, but there are also domestic causes on both sides. In June, leading U.S. business groups wrote to President Obama protesting what they called “unacceptable” Indian practices targeting U.S. business interests in India. Later that month, as many as 40 U.S. Senators signed on to a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry repeating the complaints.

Then, there are the political trends in the U.S. that make it seem increasingly inward looking and divided. The obsession of the Republican Party in undoing the healthcare law promoted by President Obama is a case in point. There are a hundred and one problems confronting the U.S. — degrading infrastructure, mounting deficits, a widening rich-poor divide, a deepening social divide between conservatives and liberals — but all that the U.S. Congress is obsessed with is undermining the Obama presidency. It is difficult not to believe there is an element of racism in it considering the efforts being made by Republican politicians to marginalise black voters.

The U.S. is uniquely gifted in its geographical location and natural resources, and upon these advantages it has constructed the richest and most powerful nation on earth. But it seems determined to expend its natural capital at a furious rate. Battered in Iraq, not quite rid of its military commitments in Afghanistan, it nearly stumbled into another one in Syria a month ago. 

The lost decade

As for India, it now seems certain that we are in the midst of our lost decade. The Indian economy is sagging and the complaints of Indian businessmen against the Byzantine ways of New Delhi echo those of their American counterparts. No matter who wins or loses the coming election, in 2020 India will not be the global player it was hoping to be. Indeed, it will be lucky just to put the Indian growth story back on the rails by then. While the world economic crisis is one cause, poor political management and poorer policy choices are also responsible.

Even so, Washington and New Delhi believe, the show must go on. There have been several speeches and statements on the eve of the Prime Minister’s visit to Washington — U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter spoke in New Delhi of the importance of the Defense Trade and Technology Initiative aimed at upping India’s defence capabilities. In his remarks to the Aspen Institute India last week, National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon emphasised the durability of the ties that have developed in the last decade.

But it was a somewhat lowly official — a Deputy Press Secretary — Josh Earnest, who drew the bottom line. Briefing journalists on Air Force One last week, he said Prime Minister Singh’s visit would “highlight India’s role in regional security and stability, and provide an opportunity for the two leaders to chart a course towards enhanced trade, investment, and development cooperation between the U.S. and India.”

Parsing his words — India is increasingly important to U.S. calculations of stability in Afghanistan and South-east Asia. All other issues — increased trade, investment, development cooperation — are aimed at raising India’s capacity to meet these challenges. This is not the first time that India is playing this role. In the 1950s and 1960s, the U.S. played a significant role in propping up India as a model democratic developing country. In geopolitical terms, it would seem that India and the United States are destined to be “natural allies,” though always in the future rather than the present.

Today, the U.S. is aware that India is unlikely to become its ally in the way that Japan, Australia or Britain and Germany are. But it is conscious of the fact that enhanced Indian economic and military capacities are to the benefit of the U.S. and its allies which are aimed at “balancing” China. That is because recent history and geography pit India against China. It is not just a matter of the disputed border, though this is not an unimportant issue. It is also China’s geopolitical compulsions to “build capacity” in the same manner in smaller South Asian countries, much to the discomfiture of New Delhi, which lacks the resources to take on Beijing. Unwittingly, though not entirely unwillingly, India is playing a role in American geopolitical calculations in Asia. In other words, there is a convergence of interests though New Delhi shies away from exploring where that leads.

At the end of the day, U.S.-India ties will rest on a community of shared interests, rather than shared values. That is where they will get their principal sustenance, but that is where we could find the biggest problems when their interests diverge, say, in the matter of the U.S. pivot to Pakistan as a prelude to its withdrawal from Afghanistan or in the matter of Iran.

In this larger scheme of things, Prime Minister Singh’s visit, his sixth bilateral summit with the U.S. leader in nine years in office, will not be of great significance because the circumstances of what go into a successful summit do not exist. That has to do with the paralysis of governance in New Delhi, but equally the distemper that afflicts Washington. 

The Hindu September 25, 2013

As India and Islamabad unite on the need for peace, it's time to put our faith in diplomacy

Observers have not failed to notice that in his first remarks on Pakistan, after being anointed Prime Ministerial candidate of the Bharatiya Janata Party, Narendra Modi avoided confrontationist rhetoric.
Instead, of his trademark jibes against Islamabad, Modi, speaking at an ex-servicemen's rally in Rewari, offered sensible advice: "I want to tell the rulers of Pakistan that battle should be waged against poverty, battle should be waged against illiteracy, battle should be waged against fundamentalism.... If you stop being a breeding ground for terrorists for the next 10 years, you will progress more than in the last over 60 years... Your birth might have its basis in anti-India sentiments, but you cannot survive on anti-India sentiments."
Indeed, in substance this is not very different from what Nawaz Sharif and his government say they want to do, or what the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) has been telling Islamabad.

Foreign diplomats and Indian officials who have interacted with Pakistani officials, too, have come back with the impression that the all-powerful Army and the new government are on the same page in relation to a policy that emphasises the need to battle domestic terrorism and promote economic growth.
Somewhat late in the day, Islamabad seems to have realised that Afghanistan is not about to fall into its lap, and that instability there presents existential danger to the Pakistani state.

A sensible option

This in turn means promoting not just peace, but economic ties with India. This is not something that they want to do because of the goodness of their hearts, but because they know that any move to confront the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, requires peace with their Indian adversaries.
Moreover, any effort to pull Pakistan's economy out of the black hole it is sinking into requires an opening up to the more dynamic and larger South Asian economy, which, in practical terms, means India.
To come back to Modi. Now that he is approaching what could possibly be the pinnacle of his career, the last thing he wants is to box himself in by his own rhetoric. It is for this reason that in his Rewari speech, he also invoked Atal Bihari Vajpayee's policy, which used the Kargil crisis to get the world community to pin down Pakistan on avoiding the use of violence in relation to Kashmir.
Given the circumstances this could well be asking for too much. But it would be a good idea for the UPA government to discreetly brief the BJP leadership, which today importantly, includes Modi, on the prospects of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's talks with his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif.

The UPA government could ensure more uniformity of response by briefing the BJP on the PM Manmohan Singh's talks with his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif (pictured)

The government has already undertaken a great deal of background work in the talks, expected to be held at the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session on September 29. The issues were discussed by External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid with the Pakistan prime minister's foreign policy adviser, Sartaj Aziz, at the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit, where both countries have an observer status.
Last week, Pakistan High Commissioner Salman Bashir met NSA Shivshankar Menon. There have also been undisclosed meetings between the PM's special envoy Satinder Lambah and his Pakistani counterpart Aziz. But things are not quite hunky dory, and Aziz has publicly acknowledged that Pakistan has lowered its expectations from the talks. But for this it has only itself to blame.
Even though Mr Sharif and General Kayani are on the same page on the future of Pakistan, their desire for peaceful relations with India has not quite translated into a peaceful Line of Control in Kashmir.

Mischief

There seems to be no let up in the strong push from the Pakistani side to send in more militants and weapons into the Valley and as a result there have been repeated instances of firing along the LoC, in breach of the 2003 ceasefire, which was proffered by Islamabad itself.
Then there is the continuing Indian unhappiness with the tardy pace of the Pakistani trial of Lashkar-e-Tayyeba leaders who have been arrested for the Mumbai attack of 2008. Now, according to reports, Aziz has told Khurshid, that Pakistan has appointed a new prosecutor in the place of the earlier one who was assassinated.
In addition, a Pakistani judicial team would visit India in September to cross-examine key Indian witnesses.

 

Poll constraints

To cap all this, India is in the election mode and even Prime Minister Singh, who ardently wishes to provide momentum to the peace process, has been attentive to the public mood. The average Indian is angry with Pakistan over the breaches of the LoC, especially the beheading incidents there, the most recent relating to five Indian soldiers in early August.
Speaking to media persons on his way back from the G-20 summit earlier this month, Singh declared that he had to factor in the fact that terror acts had not ceased and not only were people espousing terrorism (read Hafiz Saeed) moving about freely, but that there had been "no significant progress in bringing the culprits of the Mumbai massacre to book".
Foreign and security policies are somewhat different from domestic policy, because external actors control some of the variables that determine their outcomes. In the case of Pakistan, the outcome of policy depends crucially on the attitudes and actions of Pakistan's political and military establishment.
But as far as India is concerned there is little doubt that a cessation of terrorism, a possible settlement of the Kashmir dispute, and a stable and peaceful Afghanistan is something that all our political parties support.
Since the 1990s, India has given Pakistan a long rope, continuing to engage it in dialogue despite repeated terrorist attacks inspired by, or actually organised by, official elements in Islamabad.
However the Mumbai massacre of 2008 has been a watershed of sorts and even people like Manmohan Singh who favoured "uninterrupted dialogue" have had to pause.
Even now, the differences between the parties on the need to continue engaging Pakistan are minimal. Some believe in a tougher response to individual incidents, but all are agreed that it is only through diplomacy that we can achieve peace. 
Mail Today, September 23, 2013

Agni V launch and other great expectations

The test launch of Agni V has been greeted by some breathless reporting, considering missile technology is old hat and the putative target, China, is way ahead of India in launch vehicle, as well as nuclear weapons technology.
Nevertheless, the successful test adds to the incremental steps that India has been taking to enhance its strategic deterrent capabilities. This has been marked earlier this year by the commencement of the sea trials of the Arihant, nuclear propelled ballistic missile firing submarine.
In a different category come the Indian successes against domestic terrorism in the form of the arrest, first, of Abdul Karim ‘Tunda’ an ace-bomber who operated in the late 1990s in the region around Delhi and second, of Yasin Bhatkal, a key Indian Mujahideen operative who has played a significant role in the bombing campaigns across India since the mid- 2000s.
Both the Agni and the terrorism successes hide more than they reveal. In the case of the terrorists, we have not heard too much about the role played by our external intelligence agency R&AW in ferreting out the terrorists and ensuring their arrest. Reports show that today’s terrorists are quite savvy and resort to all manner of techniques and methods to evade electronic snooping. The only way to get them is through the old-fashioned way — using human intelligence. This is also the toughest and most tedious method, but, as veteran intelligence officers will tell you, also the best.
Likewise, the Agni test does not reveal the sterling role played by the Indian Space Research Organisation in the success of the Agni programme. Key technologies that have gone into the Agni series of missiles were first mastered by ISRO, principal among these being the ability to make solid propellant engines and accompanying it, the flex-nozzle technology enabling the missile to pitch and yaw. If the ISRO designed SLV 3 formed the second stage of the very first Agni, it was an ISRO scientist who designed the second stage for the Agni II, which is the key missile in the Indian arsenal.

As for Agni V, it needs to be noted that its diameter is the same as that of the segment developed for the ISRO’s Polar Space Launch Vehicle (PSLV), the workhorse of our space programme.
What the two developments do indicate is that the country does have deep resources in the area of defence and security. The issue is to harness them effectively. The big problem that we often face is that of the silo mentality. Our government departments and organisations insist on working in silos and would prefer to reinvent the wheel, rather than accept that another department may be able to provide the solution to their problem.
Contemporary security challenges require institutions and organisations to work together, just as modern science often depends on teamwork instead of the outpouring of individual geniuses. But getting people to work together in India is a major challenge. Perhaps the greatest challenge comes with regard to our national security. A broad definition of national security will involve almost every aspect of our lives — trade, commerce, natural resources, policing, governance, military matters, foreign affairs and so on. Though it is rare for countries to coordinate all of them, some like China do manage it and have benefited enormously from it. In India, we have been importing large numbers of passenger jets, but have never managed to leverage our purchases to establish a domestic civil aviation industry. The Chinese, on the other hand, invited foreign railways technology to set up projects in their country and within a decade they had imbibed the technology and emerged as a major player in developing fast railway networks.
They are now doing the same in other areas that interest them — civil aviation, renewable energy, military aviation and so on. Most of the Chinese advances in science and technology owe themselves to Project 863, named after the year (1986) and the month March (3) in which top Chinese scientists wrote a letter to supreme leader Deng Xiaoping, calling for major investments in a range of areas from biotechnology to robotics — to ensure that China would emerge as a major force in research and development. Through the programme, the government has pumped billions of dollars into labs and universities and enterprises, on projects ranging from cloning to renewable energy. It is through this programme that China has become the world leader in manufacturing solar panels as well as wind turbines.
The Chinese apply this principle of command-driven management to national security as well. At the top of the decision-making pyramid in everything related to national security sits the Standing Committee of the Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party, and associated with it, the Central Military Commission. What these bodies decide is final and the task of pushing the decisions on the rank and file rests on the shoulders of the ubiquitous Communist Party members.
Of course, a country like India cannot replicate this structure. But surely, our Union Cabinet, or our state Cabinets and governments can do a better job of managing things than they have done. Disunity and incoherence at the top inevitably trickles down to the system below and that is what has made the national security system of the country largely dysfunctional, despite episodic achievements like the launch of the Agni V or the arrests of top terrorists. Mid Day September 17, 2013

Once again, politicians are poisoning the communal well

The outbreak of communal violence in western Uttar Pradesh could not have come at a worse time for India. The country is reeling from the multi-layered crisis brought on by a political paralysis of the UPA which has, in turn, brought the economy, which was already on the ropes, near to a knockout.
Equally, it could not come at a worse time for Uttar Pradesh, which is re-emerging as the key to the formation of the next Union government.
UP has been free of major communal violence since the 1980s but now communal violence accompanied by an impending election bodes ill for the state.

Uttar Pradesh is now facing communal riots again, as well as an impending election which will do little for unity

Ramifications

There was a time in the 1960s or even 1980s, when a communal riot here or there did not have all-India ramifications. But that was the era where the print media self-censored and it was in any case, as a medium, unable to quite tell the story of the terror and loss that accompanies such events.
The India of the 1980s and the India of today are very different places, not only because of the massive growth of mass media in the form of over 400 news channels and nearly 1 lakh newspapers, along with nearly a billon mobile phones and tens of millions of internet users.
It is different because we are much more wired with the world and each other, both economically and socially. The domestic wiring comes not only through the rapid urbanisation of the country, but the increasing mobility of the young who travel afar, often abroad, for education and jobs.

The economic wiring comes through its economic profile, where the country's exports have increased from around $10 billion in 1984-85 to around $300 billion today. In addition, the country now gets significant amounts of foreign direct and institutional investment.
The short point is that large-scale social violence in any part of India has a much wider impact than it used to have in the old days.
It would be premature to blame any one party or organisation for the violence in Muzaffarnagar. Though it is apparent that, once the violence erupted, parties have been trying to make political capital from it. Primary blame must fall on the Samajwadi Party which has been ruling the state for the past one year. Reports suggest that the UP government's handling of the events in Muzzafarnagar was tardy and incompetent.
Fortunately, for once, people are only blaming the UP police for failing to act in time, in the past, the Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) was often the principal perpetrator of the violence.
In May this year, responding to a question in the state assembly, Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav confirmed that as many as 27 incidents of communal violence had taken place in the state since the Samajwadi Party formed the government led by him in March 2012. Of these, three incidents, in Mathura, Bareilly and Faizabad were fairly big. Violence had also occurred in Meerut thrice, Ghaziabad, twice, three times in Muzaffarnagar, twice in Khushinagar and once in several places like Lucknow, Bijnore, Moradabad and Sambhal.
Clearly, western UP was a tinderbox ready to go up in flames. Yet, as the Union government and other observers point out, the SP's response was tardy. Was this because of design? A mirror image of the BJP's voter polarisation strategy, but this time aimed at the significant Muslim population in western UP?

Stakes

Equally, it is difficult to ignore the centrality of the state to the plans of the Bharatiya Janata Party. Not for nothing did Narendra Modi announce, at the very time he was given charge of the BJP's campaign committee that his erstwhile Home Minister Amit Shah would head the UP campaign committee.
Shah is known for his enormous skills as a party organiser and election manager. But he is also an accused in a number of cases relating to the extra-judicial execution of Muslims, alleged to be terrorists out to assassinate his mentor, Narendra Modi.
The stakes could not be higher for the BJP in the coming general elections. Having lost two consecutive polls, it desperately needs victory. It is for that reason that its mentor organisation, the Rashtriya Swyamsevak Sangh (RSS) has given up its traditional bashfulness and emerged into the limelight to guide it into the fray.

Battlefield

Looking at the battlefield, it is apparent that the BJP's national footprint is a problem. The party is strong in western and northern India, but is weak in the east and the south. Its real chance lies in creating a Modi wave, based on his strong support among the 200 odd urban and semi-urban constituencies in the country, and doing exceptionally well in UP.
As regards the middle-class, which also includes urban aspirants for that status, Modi seems to be the clear winner. But as for UP, the party and the Parivar need to do a lot of work. And that is where a possible motive to polarise voters along communal lines comes in.

 

Polarising voters, especially with the aim of either mobilising or isolating the 140 million strong Muslim community in the country, is dangerous strategy. In terms of numbers and geographical spread, the community is a significant part of the country. Any effort to deliberately put its back to the wall will end up in poisoning the Indian polity as a whole. This is the lesson of the riots that followed the destruction of the Babri Masjid in 1992 and the Gujarat killings of 2002.
There is nothing to suggest, as of now, that such a policy will succeed. But, there is nothing to suggest either, that our political parties will not stop trying to use communal politics to further their interests.
Mail Today September 11, 2013