India’s response to the Pakistani ‘terrorist’ vessel has been mysterious and deserves some answers

By now there is no middle ground left. Either you believe the government version of what happened when an Indian Coast Guard ship met a mysterious Pakistani fishing vessel over New Year's Eve. Or you don't.
The government version of events has finally taken shape. A meeting on Tuesday now ensures that everyone is on the same page. Unfortunately, in the previous five days the pages were flying in all directions.
The final version goes something like this: Around two weeks ago, the National Technical Research Office (NTRO) picked up encrypted communication between Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists, the Pakistani maritime agency, their ISI handlers and some elements in Thailand. The terrorists, following the track of the Mumbai attack boat, would target Porbandar on January 12, when the Indian Navy was inaugurating a new installation there.
A counter-operation led by National Security Advisor Ajit Doval himself was launched and it involved the navy, the Coast Guard (CG), the R&AW, and the Intelligence Bureau (IB).
The boat was tracked by a CG Dornier 228 aircraft and later shadowed by a CG ship. At midnight on December 31, when it was 365 km West-South West of Porbandar, the CG ordered the unlit ship to stop for investigation. The suspect boat tried to get away and warning shots were fired across its bow. The four people on board went down to the compartment below the deck and set fire to the boat, leading to an explosion and its sinking. Because it was dark and stormy, nothing could be recovered and all we have in the public domain are two pictures. In one, the boat is burning in the dark.
The headline of the Ministry of Defence press release on January 2 spoke of a boat "carrying explosives in the Arabian Sea". Then the word 'explosive' vanished from the release. The t-word — terrorist — was not uttered. All that the release acknowledged was that the intelligence related to "some illicit transaction".
A full two days later on January 5, defence minister Manohar Parrikar amended his ministry's statement observing that "circumstantial evidence" suggested that the people in the boat were terrorists — after all they had committed suicide, whereas smugglers would have simply surrendered. He also noted that they were in touch with Pakistani maritime and army officials.
On January 6, a ministry of defence press release said that the Indian Navy "denies reports... that it had not reacted to intelligence provided by the NTRO (National Technical Research Organisation)," adding that the navy and the Coast Guard responded as per their standard operating procedures. This was to answer queries as to whether the navy, the nodal agency for coastal security in India, was in the loop on the incident.
The questions are obvious and compelling. The NTRO is not supposed to do retail snooping. Its job is to deploy hi-tech assets like satellites and interception equipment to collect raw information and pass them on to field agencies. There have been earlier complaints that the NTRO, which has not been fulfilling its somewhat exacting mandate in hi-tech intelligence-gathering and cryptography, had been taking recourse to doing low-level telecom surveillance and sending intercepts directly to consumers like state police forces.
Intercepts and bits of information need to be analysed before they are acted upon. That is why the Multi-Agency Centre (MAC) has been set up. Yet, the MAC seems to have played no role in this operation.
The navy was in the loop, as it claims, as well as a target. Yet, it allowed a subordinate agency to take the lead in protecting it. This is the equivalent of the army using the Border Security Force (BSF) to protect itself. Equally strange, the Maharashtra and Gujarat police were not kept in the loop. So confident were the counter-terrorism team that it did not for a minute think that this could be a ruse and that the target could be elsewhere.
It is also strange that the operation took place on the edge of India's exclusive economic zone (EEZ), 365 km from Porbandar. Surely, it would have made more sense to have allowed the suspect boat to come into our territorial waters — 12 nautical miles or 22 kms or less from the shore, where we could have legally boarded it forcibly? Even if it was sunk, you could have then recovered the evidence in the shallower waters, or, if you were lucky, captured one of the terrorists.
The government says it has more evidence, presumably the intercepts of the conversations. If so, they can be released, just as the Pervez Musharraf-Mohammad Aziz conversations were released during the Kargil War. One can also wonder just why more than a week has elapsed and India has still not issued a demarche or a protest to Pakistan on this attempted terrorist operation in which New Delhi forcefully says it has evidence of official complicity.
There are periodic claims of the government of destroying this terrorist module or that. But none of these is justiciable in that no one is tried and convicted. This is in contrast to, say, the counter-terrorist operations that, say, Britain has carried out in recent years where the bad guys have been trapped, tried and convicted. This has its own credibility.
Accepting the government version here will, therefore, have to be an act of faith, not facts leading to certainty.
Economic Times January 10, 2015

Pak boat op has left intel agencies red-faced

The incident involving the sinking of a fishing vessel off the coast of Gujarat on New Year’s Day has raised more questions than it has answered. To start with, the Ministry of Defence press release announcing the event was itself less than categorical. While its headline noted that the Coast Guard had intercepted a “suspect boat carrying explosives”, the text of the release did not thereafter mention “explosives”, though it did say eventually that the crew set the boat on fire “which resulted in an explosion”. All it said was that as per intelligence inputs on December 31, a fishing boat from Keti Bandar, a small port near Karachi, “was planning some illicit transaction in Arabian Sea (sic)”. It did not mention the word “terrorist” or “terrorism” either.

This photograph, released by the Defence Ministry on January 2, shows the Pakistani boat that blew up and sank during a high-speed chase at sea. File pic

To make up for it, as it were, the Minister of Defence Manohar Parrikar spoke up two days later, on Monday morning, when he declared that the men in the boat “were suspected terrorists… mainly because they committed suicide”; smugglers would have simply surrendered. Since the Coast Guard has not managed to pick up any body or any other debris, the minister’s claim is on the basis of circumstantial evidence.

There are several problems with the story as it has been put out and many of these have been listed in the internet or in newspapers. But what the incident does seem to bring out is the continuing dysfunction of our intelligence system and the high levels of incompetence in matters of national security. First, the National Technical Research Organisation had no business to directly provide the intercept to the Coast Guard, along with the Navy. Second, since the Navy is the lead agency in coastal security, the Coast Guard should have taken action after consulting with the Navy brass.

The NTRO is supposed to deal with collecting information through high-tech means. But even if they got the intercept, they should have given it to the Multi-Agency Centre (MAC), which has been specially created to coordinate and analyse inputs relating to terrorism from different sources. The fishing vessel drama was relatively slow moving. The intercept happened a day or two earlier and there was more than enough time for the MAC to have assessed and analysed it. In the world of intelligence, one bit of information is not particularly useful, unless it is put together with other pieces and put through an analytical process. In the case of the Mumbai attack of 2008, the key failure was not in the information received there was information about the Pakistani plan and even the movement of the terrorist vessel the problem was in our inability to effectively analyse the information and understand how events would unfold on the ground.

In this case, too, in an alternative scenario, the boat could have been allowed to make its way to the shore, shadowed by the Coast Guard, or, better still, the marine commandos of the Navy who are trained in stealthy operations. The terrorists could have been quickly rounded up when they landed and India would have had a coup of sorts in exposing Pakistan once again. On the other hand, if the aim of the boat was to transfer weapons or explosives to another vessel, too, the Coast Guard could have waited and caught both the terrorists and their contacts red handed. Instead action took place at the very edge of India’s disputed maritime boundary with Pakistan, making pursuit difficult.

Unfortunately, all we have now is a lot of red faces. People are not sure as to what exactly happened. Defence Minister Parrikar says that the fact that they committed suicide indicates that they were terrorists. On the other hand, the LeT terrorists have consistently preferred to fight and die, rather than simply commit hara-kiri. In that scenario, the alleged terrorists in the boat would have allowed the Coast Guard to approach their boat and then opened fire and died in the process. The idea that the four people simply went down into the hold of the boat and set it on fire does not quite jell.

The government claims would be more credible if they released the pictures of terrorists on the boat. According to some reports citing the Coast Guard, the people in the boat were not dressed like fishermen. Then, how were they dressed? Surely if the boat was being tracked and then approached by the Coast Guard ship, we should have more and better pictures of how the action proceeded.

In a situation like this, it is unlikely that we will learn the whole truth. But the government needs to urgently examine the sequence of events and ask the NTRO as to why it has gotten into the business of directly supplying intercepts to field agencies. This is simply not its mandate. The NTRO is supposed to provide raw intelligence to the various agencies who are then supposed to analyse it. In the case of terrorist-related information, the MAC has been set up to prevent anything falling through the cracks. In this case, clearly something has.

Second, the government needs to find out just why the Navy was bypassed. According to the government decision in the wake of the Mumbai attack, the responsibility for coastal security has been given to the Indian Navy. In other words, if the Coast Guard is launching a major operation, it needs to do so with the permission of the Navy chain of command, especially since, according to reports, the Navy had also been given the same information and had assessed that it did not involve any threat to national security. There seems to be a facile assumption in our security establishment that the next terrorist attack, when it comes, will be like the last one. Hence the scenarios of seaborne Mumbai attack or the Kandahar hijack are being mooted. The reality probably will be a twisted surprise. The agencies should worry about the outlier scenarios, rather than obsessing about their past failures.

Mid Day January 6, 2015

The year of the 'chaiwallah': How Modi scripted India's future in 2014

The year 2014 could well have been an exceptional year for modern India’s political history. This is the year when Narendra Modi, a rank outsider and a political outcast in 2002, stormed his way to power as the prime minister of the country, at the head of the first government since 1989 to have a majority of its own. 

By the end of the year, through significant victories in Assembly elections in Maharashtra, Haryana and Jharkhand, and the impressive showing in Jammu & Kashmir, the Modi phenomenon had steamrollered the Opposition. 

The question in all minds is whether the Modi effect will continue to operate in 2015. Will the party, which today has 1,058 members of the Legislative Assembly in the various states of the country, as compared to 949 of the Congress, score in Delhi and Bihar Assembly polls? 

But equally important is the question of whether Modi will be able to initiate his development agenda, or be derailed by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, Bajrang Dal and assorted Right-wing radicals whose goals are nothing short of converting this huge and diverse country into the homogenous politico-religious entity of their twisted imagination. 

Unlike the shell-shocked Congress, which seems set to decline, the BJP’s Bihar opponents - bitter rivals Nitish Kumar and Lalu Prasad - have actually reunited. 

Further, the election will be conducted at a time when the effect of the Modi bulldozer will be wearing off. If the BJP wins Bihar, it will target West Bengal and Assam in 2016 and, then the biggest prize of them all - the Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh in 2017. 

Notwithstanding the Bihar combination, Modi’s biggest challenge seems to be from within. The struggle is between those who believe that Modi’s mandate is to bring a governance revolution in the country which would lead to a clean, corruption-free and prosperous - and others, who think that the mandate was to assert the primacy of the country's majority community by reconverting minorities and reforming and restructuring education.

But as 2014 ended, it was clear that the message of good governance was being drowned out by the cacophony of the Hindu right-wing. To that end, they have launched a guerrilla war challenging conversion of Hindus, even while attacking Bible study classes, harassing Christian congregations and preventing interfaith marriages.

Modi himself has given ambiguous signals by derailing Christmas Day through his call to celebrate it as Good Governance Day. 

Modi’s dilemma is palpable. Emotionally and intellectually, he is very much part of the Sangh Parivar. But as the chief minister of Gujarat he has grown and outgrown the narrow confines of ideology and understands the virtues and compulsions of pragmatism. 

At one level, he understands the importance of the Parivar elements in his victory. It is clear that he understands the dangers posed by the monofocal agenda of the Sangh. Whenever the RSS and its Parivar has obsessed on conversion or reconversion, Modi has sought to take the high ground and promote “secular issues” - cleanliness through the Swachh Bharat campaign, ‘Make in India’ to promote manufacturing, and so on. 

In his radio talks, he has spoken on a variety of issues such as drug addiction, and in his Independence Day address, he also took up the theme of women’s empowerment. 

In 2015, Modi and the BJP have to show that it is not enough to arouse expectations; they also need to go the distance in meeting them. 

Modi, pictured during his time as BJP nominee, receives a rapturous reception in Varanasi

Contrary to what the Sangh Parivar believes, these are not about the identity of Indians - Hindu or otherwise - but about their everyday life - roti, kapda, makaan, education, job opportunities and a sense of well-being. 

Any effort to side-track this agenda will result in a blow-back which will hurt the BJP politically. One important test that is already upon the government is to deal with the fractured outcome of the J&K elections. Modi must address it not just as the leader of a party that has done very well in the polls, but as the PM who has to deal with a complex state which is teetering on the brink. 

In the process, he can also send a signal of the BJP’s willingness to engage with and come up with constructive solutions with parties representing minorities. 

In proportion to our population, the minorities may not appear significant in India - Muslims 13.4 per cent, Christians 2.3 per cent and Sikhs 1.9 per cent. But in terms of numbers, the picture looks very different - Muslims 162 million, Christians 28 million and Sikhs 23 million - all spread out across the country. 

But remember that in 1991, the disaffection of a small number of the 16 million Sikhs became a major national security challenge to the country. What would be the consequences of the radicalisation of even a fraction of the minority population today? 

There should be no doubts that the key consequence of polarising communities and increasing their insecurity will be the derailing of the government’s development agenda. 

PM Modi gives a speech during his Australia trip  

So, the Modi government will have to decide what its priorities are in 2015. As it is, the first two sessions of Parliament under the new government have been less than stellar. 

Modi may have major political challenges, but his governance tasks are no less daunting. There are short-term issues of passing key legislation to promote economic growth. And then, there are equally compelling requirements to restructure and reform the government itself. 

Since the governance cannot be put on hold, the processes must be a continuing exercise. If on one hand, he is confronted by the lack of numbers in the Rajya Sabha, on the other, he has a serious shortage of personnel - ministerial and expert - to undertake restructuring and reform needed to overcome the structural constraints to sustained high growth of the Indian economy. 

More than that, he needs to be free from the distractions of the Hindutva agenda. In Gujarat, he had successfully kept the VHP and the Bajrang Dal at bay and maintained an uneasy relationship with the RSS. 

So far, ties between the RSS and Modi have been good. They know that if Modi needs them to fulfil his political ambitions, they, too, need Modi’s abilities to remain in a position to influence policy. 

Modi has closely consulted with the RSS and even inducted their personnel into the BJP. 

In the coming year, we will see this dynamic being played out in greater detail. There is an element of cynical calculation in both Modi and the Sangh’s attitudes. Modi seeks to yoke the Parivar to his goals, while the RSS is using the Parivar to keep Modi on the straight and narrow path it envisages for the country. 

The tension between the two could well be the big political story of 2015. But both need to realise that they hold in their hands the key to India’s future. With external factors like oil prices favouring India, what it needs is a stable political environment to create a prosperous India. 

The Sangh Parivar’s overreach could create circumstances that could destroy the promise of the Modi election in one short year. 

Mail Today December 31, 2014

Enter the mellowed dragon

The Chinese economy may be slowing, but the country remains on a roll. The year gone by, 2014, saw Beijing display a new level of confidence and poise, as it steadily enhanced its influence across its region and the world. 

At first sight, 2015 would appear to promise more of the same. But in actual fact, we may see a somewhat different China in terms of its approach to neighbours, both friendly and otherwise. 

Beijing is becoming increasingly aware that its policies have led to heightened tensions between China and its neighbours. 

India has reported a steady drumbeat of Chinese incursions into what it considers its side of the Line of Actual Control. 

In April 2013 in Depsang and in September 2014 in Chumur, the People’s Liberation Army staged confrontations to coincide with the visits of senior leaders to India. 

China and Japan have faced off several times over the Senkaku/Diayou islands and in 2013, China took the unprecedented step of declaring an Air Defence Information Zone (ADIZ) around the islands over Japanese-controlled air space, demanding that all flights through the zone be notified to Beijing. 

Diplomatic 

In the South China Sea, China started asserting its authority by issuing fishing permits in what it claims is its EEZ. It threw out the Philippines from the Scarborough Shoal and has strengthened its military presence there. It has also started building islands in disputed reefs to strengthen its claims. 

These developments led countries in the region to seek America’s help and, in turn, the US beefed up its presence in the area. This led to serious confrontations between the US and Chinese ships and aircraft. 

So the Chinese now appear to be working hard to come across as being less prickly and overbearing. Even while remaining determined to pursue a foreign policy “with Chinese characteristics,” they intend to ensure that their policies do not give their adversaries an opportunity to build up a ring fence around them. 

To this end, they intend to change their diplomatic style, as well as using their enormous pile of cash to win friends and influence people. 

The world often sees China as a monolithic, monochromatic nation, relentlessly marching towards a future which it has clearly defined for itself. The reality, however, is a nation led by a Communist Party elite which is very good at doing what it does, and which works hard at remaining where it is — at the top of the country’s political pyramid.

In 2014, even while the country remained riveted by a major anti-corruption campaign which has begun reaching the higher echelons of the system, it took time to conduct the Fourth Plenum in which the Communist Party sought to take steps to shore up the legitimacy of its rule in the country. 

Perhaps more significant was a major party work conference convened in Beijing involving the entire Chinese elite - party, military and government - to discuss the country’s future foreign policy. 

Xi’s remarks at the conference were nuanced and sought to distance China from its brash and assertive posture. 

Friendly 

At another level, Xi signalled that China wants to be seen as a big power like the US, which is not just feared but also trusted and emulated across the world in a range of areas. 

As it is, through the year, Beijing has taken steps away from the brink. On the sidelines of the APEC summit in early November 2014, Xi Jinping had a short meeting with his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe, and prior to that a four-point plan was agreed upon to reduce tension, promote dialogue and create crisis management mechanisms. 

Simultaneously, China also signed two important military confidence building agreements with the US. One provides a mechanism for notifying the two countries of each other’s activities, including military exercises. The second sets rules of behaviour in cases of encounters in the sea and air. 

The APEC meeting itself came in the wake of China and its BRICS partners setting up the New Development Bank, headquartered in Shanghai. 

Simultaneously, Beijing also initiated moves to set up a new Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) with participation of a number of key Asian countries. 

Around this time, China also announced massive investment plans within the country, as well as $40 billion for the Silk Road initiative to develop railways, roads, pipelines and ports in areas of its interest. 

Consequences 

At the sidelines of the APEC summit, Xi told a group of CEOs that China’s outward bound investment would top $1.25 trillion over the next 10 years, that it would import $10 trillion worth of goods over the next five years and 500 million Chinese tourists would go abroad. Good relations with China, Xi seemed to be suggesting, would be of mutual benefit. 

In this manner, Beijing is seeking to align the interests of its neighbours with its rise, and thereby to convince them that it is not threatening. 

None of this suggests that the Chinese will immediately become less assertive or abandon what they call their “core interests” - control over Tibet and Xinjiang, reunification with Taiwan, and their more recent inclusion to the list, the Diayou islands. 

But it could signal the beginning of incremental change, which could have implications for Beijing’s dealings with its fatuous South China Sea claims, as well as the disputed border with India. 

A shift in Chinese behaviour, howsoever motivated and incremental, will have important consequences for Asia, which is otherwise witnessing a major arms build-up occasioned by Beijing’s own conduct. 

To use Xi’s phrase, “win win” formulations are infinitely preferable to being tangled in self-defeating conflicts. 

Mail Today December 30, 2014

PDP should look at BJP as a partner

The Bharatiya Janata Party’s Mission 44 may not have succeeded, but its chain reaction transformed the Jammu & Kashmir State Assembly elections as nothing else could have. No one expected the BJP to win 44 seats in the state. But the party’s campaign, involving repeated visits by Narendra Modi and a galaxy of party leaders, resulted, perhaps inadvertently, in an outcome that has been described as the most credible election since 1977. It certainly had the highest turnout ever—66 per cent. It was also the most peaceful election held in the post militancy period. 

Bewilderment 

No one charged anyone with irregularity, and the winners and losers have all accepted the results with some bewilderment and surprise. If there is any party with a grouse, it is actually the winner, the Jammu & Kashmir People’s Democratic Party (PDP) which emerged as the largest single party with 28 seats in the 87-member legislature. In the runup to the elections, the PDP was expected to be the largest single party, but expectations were that they would be closer to the half way mark in the assembly, say 35 seats, which would have required it to lead a coalition, possibly with the Congress and/or with independents. 

‘Mission 44’ was more of a mobilisational slogan than an actual target which brought the party to the number two position with 25 seats. The party may have drawn a blank in the Valley, but perhaps, the failure lies in the failure to effectively mobilise its Kashmiri Pandit supporters. Of 31,000 migrant voters for whom polling booths were set up in New Delhi and Jammu, only 5,169 exercised their franchise. A higher turnout could have assured the BJP’s Moti Koul of victory in Habba Kadal. 

Despite their ideological differences, a PDP-BJP tie-up will be the most stable option. This can only benefit the people of J&K

But the ‘Mission 44’s unplanned achievement was to undermine the separatist tactic of boycotting the election. Panicked by the prospect of the BJP making inroads into the Valley, separatists came out to vote and backed the NC, PDP and even the Congress where they could. The figures tell their own story. The turnout in Sopur was 1.03 in the Lok Sabha poll and 30 per cent in the Assembly election, likewise in Tral is was 1.53 per cent in the LS poll and 37.68 for the Assembly. This was the story in other such con stituencies: Pampore 6.14 and 47.48, Pulwama 4.44 and 38.31, Zadibal 5.86 and 23.64, Batmaloo 12.4 and 24.34 and so on. 

One beneficiary of this was the National Conference which was expecting a washout, but it actually managed to get 15 seats. Another was the Congress party which lost 12 of the 17 seats it had in the Jammu region. But it picked up four seats in the Valley and three in Ladakh and the other five from the Muslim- majority regions of the Jammu region. It did not win a single seat from the Hindudominated areas of the state. 

Performance 

The BJP’s performance has been its best ever. The party won 8 seats to the Assembly in 1996, 1 in 2002 and 10 in 2008 in the wake of the Amarnath agitation. This time they got 25 seats across the Jammu region. However, all their candidates, but one, lost their deposits in the Kashmir Valley. In terms of sheer numbers, the party can play the role of a king-maker in the Valley. 

Given the fractured mandate, almost all permutations and combinations have this infirmity or that. The PDP would prefer teaming up with the weaker Congress party. However, numbers will be an issue and the resulting government may not be very stable. Teaming up with the NC is something of a non sequitur because the two compete for the same space in the Valley. The option that looks the most stable is the one that many consider improbable— a combine of the BJP and the PDP. This could take the form of a coalition, or a commitment on the part of the BJP to support a minority government of the PDP. The argument against this option is that the two are ideologically poles apart. The “soft separatist” PDP will find the going tough with the “hard nationalist” BJP. But stranger things have happened in politics. And, given the special needs of J&K, there is a requirement for a smooth relationship between the governments in Srinagar and New Delhi. 

A major problem any new leader of the state must confront is the need to bridge the divide between the Hindumajority areas in Jammu and the Muslim-dominated Valley. Leaving aside the Congress, no party has a presence across the state’s three major geographical regions—Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh. 

The way out could be an MoU between the BJP and PDP, which would commit the latter to come up with legislation to enhance the autonomy between Srinagar, Jammu and Leh. There is an issue which has been doing the rounds since the 1960s and was also the subject of a report in 2000. Perhaps this can be done in the larger context of addressing the demand for greater autonomy by the state as well. 

Responsibility 

The J&K verdict has devolved a special responsibility on the BJP. It has emerged as the second largest party in the state, but more important, it also runs the Government of India. Narendra Modi will have to take a decision on his party’s perspective in the state as much through the lens of a party leader as the Prime Minister of the country. Nothing should be done which could compel the country to pay a needless price later. It is important to heed the lessons from the Congress’ mishandling of the state in the period 1983-1989. 

Mail Today December 24, 2014

The insane logic of violence

It is difficult to find words to express the sheer horror of the attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar, Pakistan. Killing helpless children is perhaps the lowest to which people who call themselves freedom fighters and holy warriors can descend to.

Our immediate task is to step up security in our own schools, especially the ones in the Jammu area, many run for army families living in the numerous cantonments there. In such areas, military facilities are well defended and secured, but residential quarters and schools barely figure in the security plans. It may be recalled that in May 2002, terrorists did breach a military residential area in Kaluchak, near Jammu and killed some 18 family members and 10 civilians and 3 army personnel. The dead included 10 children.

The uncle and cousin of injured student Mohammad Baqair (centre), comfort him as he mourns the death of his mother who was a teacher at the school which was attacked by the Taliban.

In September 2013, three terrorists in camouflage uniforms breached the international boundary in the Kathua district in Jammu and attacked a police station and killed four policemen and two civilians. They then hijacked a truck and reached an army camp in neighbouring Samba district, where they shot six unarmed army personnel, along with a Lieutenant Colonel. Some reports at the time said that the terrorists were looking for an army school and after failing to find it, hit the armoured unit, which was on the main road.

You can imagine what would have been the consequence of such an attack it would have definitely led to an Indian military retaliation and possible escalation to war. Fortunately, that did not happen. But now that scenario has played itself out in the country which has had no hesitation in repeatedly sending killers, who call themselves Fedayeen, cross into our borders to kill indiscriminately.

In the case of Mumbai in 2008, Pakistani terrorists killed people who were of another faith, but here, the extremist Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) killed their own. This is the insane logic of the violent Islamic extremism. The Pakistani deep state, which nourishes the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba, and allows a Hafiz Muhammad Sayeed and his ilk to propagate hatred against India on the basis of religion, should at least now understand and take down the monster they have created. But that won’t happen and you will soon hear suggestions that India was behind the attack because it is they who have nurtured the TTP through the Afghan intelligence.

The terrorists who killed the Pakistani school children claim that they have done their horrifying deed in response to attack on their women folk and children by the Pakistan Army’s operations against the TTP. While there is absolutely no justification for killing innocents who had nothing to do with the Pakistan Army operations, there is need to understand some of the context. The Pakistan Army’s tactics involves using air power and heavy artillery against the elusive guerrillas. Such attacks, more often than not, kill a large number of civilians and have led to the displacement of lakhs of people. Even the so-called precision drone strike campaign of the Americans has killed over 500 civilians along with some 2,000 militants.

Over the years, the Pakistan Army has had an on-again, off-again policy of dealing with the militancy in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (the erstwhile North West Frontier Province) area. Operations began in the area in 2002 as part of the American action in Afghanistan. But the Pakistan Army targeted the Arab, Chechen, Uighur and Uzbek elements, even while trying to make peace with the Pashtun tribes and leaders like Baitullah Mehsud.

The carefully calibrated Pakistani strategy was to allow the Afghan Taliban to recover and undermine the American-led effort to stabilise Afghanistan. Among their proxies were the Haqqani network along with several other tribal leaders like Hafiz Gul Bahadar and Maulvi Nazir whose militancy was focused on Afghanistan. Both the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban say that Mullah Omar is their leader, but in October a number of leaders declared that they were pledging their allegiance to the Islamic State.

Islamabad’s strategy went awry when angered by the heavy-handed Pakistan Army attacks, Baitullah formed the TTP in 2007 and declared war on Islamabad. But since Baitullah’s death in a drone strike in 2009, the TTP has fragmented into several groups, the most prominent being led by Maulana Fazlullah, who is from Swat.

In 2009, pushed by the US and by the fall of Swat to the militants, the Pakistan army launched Operation Rah-e-Nijat and took control of South Waziristan. But all the key militant leaders managed to escape to Afghanistan or to North Waziristan. Despite enormous American pressure, the Pakistan army refused to take up phase two of the operation in North Waziristan.

It was only this June, after attempts of the Nawaz government to negotiate with the TTP failed, and the latter not only killed 23 Pakistani soldiers in their captivity, but also launched the audacious attack on Jinnah airport in Karachi, that the army began its Operation Zarb-e-Azb which is still continuing. This operation which has the support of almost all the Pakistani leadership, barring the Jamaat-e-Islami, has been the direct cause of the school massacre on Tuesday. But even now it is not clear just how the Pakistanis are dealing with their proxies like the Haqqanis. In any case, the policy of “good” and “bad” Taliban remains since the Afghan Taliban, including their leader Mullah Omar continue to be provided shelter by Islamabad.

The Pakistani offensive may have been just too late. Because today, violent Islamic extremism has spread across the country, and is not something that can be tackled by the army alone. Such is the situation that the world has almost given up on Pakistan. But this tragedy could be the opportunity for Islamabad and Rawalpindi to make that strategic shift away from using violent Islamic extremists against its neighbours.

Mid Day December  17, 2014

It is difficult to find words to express the sheer horror of the attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar, Pakistan. Killing helpless children is perhaps the lowest to which people who call themselves freedom fighters and holy warriors can descend to. - See more at: http://www.mid-day.com/articles/the-insane-logic-of-violence/15847160#sthash.f7xM2Elo.dpuf