Bombay Burning!!

The recent events in Mumbai have shaken us all and I'm not surprised to see a host of blogs on the subject on this site as well as elsewhere.

The whole incident is being touted as the Indian 9/11 in terms of scale and spread and perhaps, rightly so.

But then, what now? What happens post this? The HM resigns, the Dep CM of Maharashtra resigns, maybe Madame Sonia will sack the CM too .everyone blames everyone for not acting on prior information and it goes on.

Soon, like the Kargil intrusion, the various serial bomb blasts across the country a few months ago, the explosions and killings of the past and the numerous other incidents of terror induced violence ' this incident too, will get archived.

I don't understand why as a nation, we have learnt only to react not to act.

No, I'm not saying let's go attack Pakistan. That will neither achieve nor solve anything. Those clowns themselves are hopelessly clueless about what's happening in their country

What I want to say is, let's get our government and that includes both the politicos and the babus to get their act together.

I know it's not easy .it's going to need a great amount of thought and a greater amount of action but we HAVE to do it or else every few months some bunch of terrorists from the LeT or the JeM or elsewhere will come screw us ..we'll shed tears watching the horrific scenes on TV and slowly but surely, we'll end up becoming a nation of eunuchs ..a billion eunuchs.

Terror is a way of life in today's world a global cancer that's not going to vanish there will still be incidents, there will still be deaths and there will still be damage to our buildings, our infrastructure, and above all, to our national pride.

But having said that, we can prevent a lot of these incidents and we can present a strong front to the enemy .a front that puts the fear of God in him the fear that it's not going to be easy and that even if they succeed now and then, the reprisals will be swift and strong.

So what needs to change?

First and foremost, our mindset ..and our relics from the past the relics of numerous organizations both on the intelligence front as also the security forces.

What about the mindset? We HAVE to stop being reactive, we HAVE to realize we're as prime a terrorist target as the USA, we HAVE to be prepared at all times, we HAVE to  get over the Pakistan/China fixation and realize that in today's world, our # 1 enemy is the terrorist.

Security Forces ..a recap of the people involved in the Mumbai incidents will give you an idea .. the Bombay Police Maharashtra Police ..the ATS .the Crime Branch the Rapid Action Force, some Army personnel  from the Bombay Garrison, regular Army from around Mumbai the MARCOS some regular Navy and Coast Guard elements and the NSG both from the SAG (army) and SRG (police). . And I'm sure I've missed some. Ever heard of 'too many cooks spoil the broth'? Well, that's what always happens .ops just become that much tougher when every kind of Ram, Shyam and Hari is hanging around trying to fight.

Far as intelligence goes..I guess everyone knows how inept our agencies are and the prime reason for that again, is the plethora of agencies we have .and hardly any of them with any real time and effective capabilities. I can't remember in my lifetime when our int agencies .the hordes of them that we have..have given the nation even one, one piece of intelligence. Frankly speaking, the whole lot is a bunch of nincompoops who are totally embedded on the liabilities side of the national balance sheet.

So what's needed?

First and foremost, we need to look at the Home Ministry. Is it effective enough to run this show as it is organized today? Or do we need a separate Ministry for Internal Security like the US Dept of Homeland Security? I recommend the latter, with a brief to be responsible for addressing all internal including natural disasters (another area where as a nation we are absolutely clueless ewith calling in the Armed Forces being the only response we have). The Home Ministry can stay as is .looking after generic law and order, etc and this won't need more money since the new org can be carved out of the existing monolithic Ministry.

This new Ministry should essentially have two elements an Intel wing and an Action wing both of which should be national assets, cutting across state and political boundaries.

The Intel Wing should have two parts an org which is fused out of R&AW and the IB and a separate org for Electronic Intel (Elint). We have the finest techie brains in the world and therefore, if there's a national and political will, there's no stopping us from having the finest Elint org in the world. Terrorists are very largely dependent on mobile/satellite phones, e mails and chat rooms for meeting their communication needs and we HAVE to monitor all these channels 24/7/365 collect, analyze, synthesize data and turn it into actionable int   something just not possible in the current scenario where hardly anyone knows the difference between information, intelligence and actionable intelligence. In line with this, all the other Security/Police force agencies should modify their organizations and functioning accordingly, with terror related info/int being fed in real time to the central core agency.

Currently, action against terrorists is taken (if and when at all) by either the police forces (state/central) or as a final resort by the Army (regular/NSG). There is utter chaos with no clear lines of command and severe over lapping. Your TV screens during the recent terror attack would have shown you that. The Army is already over stretched in J&K and the North East and most combat units feed over a 100 men per annum to the Rashtriya Rifles .hence enlarging the NSG will only cause a further drain. Similarly, using the Special Forces (or the Marcos) is okay once in a while but cannot be a permanent solution these men are trained for other stuff. So what do we do?

Keep the SAG (the Army part of the NSG) as the final, ultimate Sudarshan Chakra against terror and as a prelude to their ops, or to deal with smaller incidents, have a specialized anti terrorist org in each state drawn from the police forces. Also, reduce the SRG (the Police part of the NSG) role in VIP protection by assigning this to the respective State police forces thereby releasing the SRG for their primary role, i.e. to support SAG ops.

Eventually, in my opinion, we have to look at a Central anti terror force, full time (not tenure based deputation) drawn from the Armed Forces/Police Forces and supplemented by clones at State level. These forces (Central and State) have to be well trained, equipped and yes, well paid.

And then lastly, let us not be scared to counter attack .as reprisal when our sovereignty, our pride, our self respect are attacked. We know where the camps are, where the terror master minds are go after them,..with all that we have ..smart munitions, trans border Special Forces ops choking the money routes..anything and everything that is needed. And this is not only as reprisal we've got to be pro-active strike first, strike hard..when you have the info and the intel.

These are just brief random thoughts . but we HAVE to act or just wither away as a weak nation.

 (And by the way where were Mr Raj Thackeray and his Sena as well as his estranged Uncle and his Sena during all the chaos in Mumbai? Who the hell allows these guys to call themselves a Sena, anyways??? )