Pahalgam reminded me of another even more terrifying incident that engulfed Mumbai on 26/11/ 2008. I was directly involved in the operations following this horrific episode, as I was then the Cabinet Secretary.
On a languid Wednesday evening in 2008, I had returned early from the office. Around six in the evening, I received my first call from M L Kumawat, then Special Secretary in the Ministry of Home Affairs. By a strange coincidence, Home Secretary Madhukar Gupta was away in Pakistan for a meeting. Kumawat told me trouble had started in Mumbai. I rang up the Chief Secretary, Johny Joseph. His initial thought was that a terrorist incident, similar to the string of terror attacks that rocked many Indian cities in the nineties and the first decade of this century, had struck Mumbai once again.
That this was a terrorist attack became clear when the ten terrorists in Mumbai continued to play their dance of death across multiple locations. The Chief Secretary sought the help of marine commandos, and the naval chief, Adm Suresh Mehta, was happy to oblige.
Close to midnight, the Chief Secretary telephoned me and formally sought the help of the National Security Guard. In law and order matters, the Centre can act only at the request of the State Government. I spoke to J K Dutt, the Director General, immediately. He was ready to move, but as his force was located in Manesar, it took time to bring them to the airport, commandeer an aircraft and fly them to Mumbai.
It took the NSG a little more than two days to flush out and exterminate all the terrorist vermin, except Kasab, who had been captured after he killed scores of innocent people in the Chhatrapati Shivaji railway terminus. Kasab lived for nearly four years thereafter in Mumbai prisons as judicial processes wore on.
The task of the NSG was rendered far more difficult by an irresponsible media that filmed and described all their operations over the national networks, providing information from minute to minute to the handlers of the terrorists in Pakistan.
While no judicial or official inquiry into the events of 26/11 was ordered at the Central level, a great deal was done to strengthen our defences and intelligence systems along the coast. In this task, executed by a Committee headed by the Cabinet Secretary, the State governments were fully involved, and the Navy, the Coast Guard and the State marine police set up a coordinated network. Commodore Srikant Kesnur wrote in a daily in October 2019, “We can confidently say that our Maritime Domain Awareness is of a very high order; higher than it has ever been. Structures have been created to enhance ‘jointness’ among military, law and order, and intelligence agencies.”
This year’s Pahalgam attack was, in some ways, different. A few terrorists, dressed in army fatigues, sauntered into a popular tourist spot called Baisaran Valley, located near Pahalgam in Jammu and Kashmir, with AK-47s and M4 carbines. They took their time separating the Hindus from others and shot them in cold blood as the victims’ wives and children watched in horror. There was not a single policeman, not one security guard, to resist them. Having completed their gruesome, heartless task, they casually went into the woods surrounding the valley and have not been seen thereafter.
There are similarities and differences between Pahalgam and Mumbai. Both represent a colossal intelligence failure. Whether it was Kargil in 1999, Mumbai in 2008, Pulwama in 2019 or Pahalgam now, the stark fact remains that neither human nor technical intelligence succeeded in providing concrete information. After the event in 2008, it came to light that a considerable amount of intelligence information had been available to multiple Indian intelligence agencies, but they could not put it together and prepare themselves. The American Pakistani, David Headley, had visited India several times to help the Pakistanis plan their operation meticulously. Pahalgam reveals that India still has not gotten its act together.
The other striking feature about Pahalgam was that a popular tourist spot was left unguarded in a sensitive state like J&K. This definitely highlights a glaring omission on the part of the security forces and the police, which are directly under the Central Government, and by the District administration.
The role of the media also seemed different. While during and after 26/11 the media revealed in graphic detail all the NSG operations, the mainstream media, after Pahalgam, devoted itself to creating a cacophony of noise to arouse jingoistic fervour.
So far as the economy is concerned, Mumbai quickly shrugged off the impact of 26/11 and went back to its commercial ways, while the tourism industry in J&K, which was booming, has been halted in its tracks. The collapse of the economy can well trigger another wave of terrorism, and it becomes the responsibility of the entire nation to rebuild J&K all over again.
The significant difference was the reaction to the event. While after 26/11 India chose not to go to war against Pakistan, India ruminated over their response for a couple of weeks after the Pahalgam incident. Then, it fired guided missiles into terror spots in Pakistan. Whether this had the intended effect of wiping out terrorism is questionable because the Pakistani Army and ISI, the masters and owners of the terrorists—their proxy Army—would have taken safeguard measures to move out most of them. The four-day operation has also not weakened the Pakistani military or its leader, Gen Munir, who has now been elevated as Field Marshal in recognition of his “victory” over India. Hence, we can expect terrorism to continue to get patronage in that strange country, where the Army almost entirely owns the economy and the polity.
The credit for the ceasefire was immediately taken by Donald Trump, another “new” for India, which has hitherto opposed with vigour the hyphenation of India and Pakistan and foreign involvement in settling the long-standing dispute. Besides, the decision to send multi-party delegations to 33 countries while showcasing the unity of the Indian polity again raises doubt whether the Government, in their thinking, have begun to equate our strong and economically powerful nation with our weak neighbour, widely recognised as a failed nation.
(Views are personal)
(kmchandrasekhar@gmail.com)
K M Chandrasekhar | Former Cabinet Secretary and author of As Good as My Word: A Memoir