India’s war on terror remains a postscript

Sombre memorial services in the United States marked remembrance for 9/11 — or September 11, 2001 — the day when the Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre collapsed in flames and smoke after airborne suicide bombers of Al Qaeda flew two hijacked passenger aircraft into the buildings. It was a “shot heard around the world” with which the United States launched its war on terror on October 7, 2001, under President George W. Bush, directed initially at the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, but expanded subsequently to the entirely unconnected requirement of invading Iraq and removing Saddam Hussain.

Al Qaeda as an agent of international jihad was never a major presence in India and this country had never been directly targeted by the organisation, either on 9/11 or earlier. However, it needs to be emphasised that India had been fighting its own war on terror since well before 9/11, against jihadi terrorism targeting the country, emanating from Pakistan, directly sponsored and coordinated by the Pakistan Army and the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).
Pakistan was the trusted ally and dependable anchor of the American Cold War policy, and national interests in South Asia and the United States found little difficulty in ignoring India’s protests and representations about Pakistan-sponsored jihadi terrorism. But 9/11 was the game changer that forced the United States to acknowledge and confront the harsh realities of a radically changed world which directly impacted its own interests and placed mainland America directly in the line of fire.
For India, the war against jihadi terrorism is its own long war which the country has been handling with its own resources, without any international assistance, ever since the radicalisation of Pakistan and its Armed Forces from 1977 to 1988 under the Zia-ul-Haq regime. India’s war on terror has had its successes and failures, with its own landmarks. 9/11 was essentially an American tragedy and, therefore, perhaps it had less impact in this country than 26/11 (November 26, 2008), the day coordinated terrorist attacks took place across south Mumbai, following a daring sea-borne infiltration by 10 terrorists of the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba.
In 2011, the run-up to the 10th anniversary of 9/11 in India was punctuated by two terror attacks, one on July 13 in Mumbai (bomb blasts at Zaveri Bazar, Opera House and Dadar), and the other on September 7, at Delhi high court’s gate No. 5. In both instances casualties were substantial, though the police responses, allowing for local variations, were much improved compared to 26/11. Procedural drills appeared to have been standardised, with immediate actions being taken by the various agencies concerned, notably the new National Investigation Agency (NIA), set up after the 26/11.
However, the aftermath of both the Delhi and Mumbai blasts shows that the major shortcomings in India’s war on terror remain unresolved. Firstly, India’s capabilities for preventing terrorist attacks are inadequate, since neither the Mumbai nor Delhi blasts could be pre-emptively short-circuited. Secondly, while the post-incident intelligence and policing processes are stated to have been streamlined and improved to some extent, coordination and, more importantly, cooperation between the various Central and state agencies remains ineffective due to apparently uncontrollable inter-ministerial turf wars within the government, with each department jealously protecting its own turf. The much-touted National Grid for sharing intelligence and coordinating follow-up counter terrorism actions at a national level still remains a fairly distant goal, stymied by mistrust which cannot be resolved by prime ministerial exhortations.
The positive identification of the specific terrorist organisation involved in any incident may be satisfying but it is essentially window-dressing, because an anti-national terrorist organisation can transform itself by a simple change of name. What is important is detailed background knowledge available with the intelligence and investigating agencies regarding the inner workings of the whole range of terrorist organisations in the country.
There is also little doubt that jihadi terrorism in India is now almost self-sufficient in indigenous resources, even though the description of the jihadi himself (or even herself) as “home-grown” is misleading. A jihadi may well be of native birth, but the anti-national doctrines of radical violence that s/he may espouse are totally of external origin. The investigating agencies have pronounced that the Delhi blast is the handiwork of the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami, while who was responsible for the Mumbai blasts is not yet known. But there is a definite commonality in the modus operandi of the recurring blasts, especially the last two at Mumbai and Delhi which point towards the growth of a new breed of urban jihadis perhaps best exemplified by new organisations like the “Indian Mujahiddin”. He (or she) is increasingly likely to be “someone like us” rather than a wild-eyed fanatic from the tribal regions of AfPak. The overall capabilities to beat the bombers at their own game and provide foolproof security against recurrence of explosions require additional capability-building in pro-active counter-intelligence. The stakes are high and there is no room for complacency.

Gen. Shankar Roychowdhury is a former Chief of Army Staff and a former memberof Parliament