Arun Shourie
"Congress insists PM ignored I-B reports on Kargil," ran the six column heading of The Indian Express on 16 September. Other papers too gave much prominence to the allegation. This time the Congress spokesman had used as his peg a front-page story in The Tribune of that morning about a "strategy backgrounder" which the paper said the Army had prepared and circulated.
Entitled, "PM ignored intelligence reports," the front page story of The Tribune was an elaborate one. It claimed that the Army Headquarters "has gone to the extent of blaming Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee for ignoring intelligence reports on the intrusion." "The strategy paper, 'Important issues: Case of Brigadier Surinder Singh,' prepared and circulated recently by the AHQ clearly states that it was possible that the Prime Minister may have been given some information of Pakistan's designs by RAW and IB, but he ignored it, 'in the context of the Lahore Bus ride.' " "The paper has made allegations against the Government for ignoring its needs," The Tribune reported. But not just against the Government, it would seem! For The Tribune went on to report that "the strategy paper makes allegations against all and sundry." "Similarly, the Joint Intelligence Committee, whose responsibility is to carry out an assessment of threat and prepare position papers, never did so," the newsreport quoted the strategy paper to have said...
Every syllable of the story smacked of concoction. The title, Army Headquarters suddenly going back on what it has itself been maintaining, its doing so before the internal review instituted by the Army Chief has been completed, its doing so before the Subramanyam Committee has completed even its hearings.
The story was replete with nonsense so patent that even a fool would have spotted it. Recall that sentence -- the one on which the Congress based its charge of the day -- "The strategy paper... clearly states that it was possible that the Prime Minister may have been given some information of Pakistan's designs by RAW and IB, but he ignored it, 'in the context of the Lahore Bus ride.' " That something "was possible". What was possible? That the Prime Minister "may have been given." And what may have he been given? "Some information of Pakistan's designs..."!
In one para -- and that too on the basis of "may be" raised to the power 3 -- the Army was said to have "clearly state(d)" that the Prime Minister may have been given information. Two paragraphs later the Army paper was said to have hurled allegations "at all and sundry."
"The failure is of external intelligence agencies," The Tribune quoted the "strategy backgrounder" to have observed, only to elaborate, "Military Intelligence Directorate is responsible for external intelligence"! Not only would that imply that Army Headquarters was owning up to the failure, it would imply that Army Headquarters does not know what the function of the Directorate of Military Intelligence is!
Within hours of the newspaper being available, the Army issued a strongly worded press release. "It is categorically stated that no 'strategy backgrounder' as mentioned in the article has either been prepared or disseminated to any source," the Army said. " ...The news item under reference is baseless, malicious and has been presented to tarnish the apolitical image of the Army," it stated. "The article appearing in The Tribune dated 15 September 1999 appears to be sponsored / published by an aggrieved party for self-motivated reasons best known to the individual sponsor. The Army Headquarters once again most emphatically denies preparation / dissemination of such a document."
The Prime Minister's Office also issued a denial -- just as categorical.
Both statements were available by early afternoon. But of course the Congress could not allow mere facts to come in the way of hurling its allegation-for-the-day!
The headlines secured, the Congress forgot all about the "strategy backgrounder" at its press briefing the next day!
But not The Asian Age! By the 18th September, it had an altogether new theory. It could not argue that the so-called "strategy backgrounder" was genuine. While earlier newspapers had been insinuating that the Army and the Government had been working hand-in-glove to cover up failure on the Kargil front, the paper now asserted that the Government had left the Army to fend for itself during the Kargil conflict, that the Army was incensed that the PM had kept silent on the controversies kicked up around Brigadier Surinder Singh. So much so that, without citing any source, the paper asserted, as the headline across the top of its front page proclaimed, that a war" had erupted between the PMO and the Army!
As for the Congress, The Tribune fabrication have been squeezed for such milk as it could yield, its allegation for the next day had at its prop statements which Niaz Naik, a former Foreign Secretary of Pakistan, and Sartaj Aziz, its current Foreign Minister had made. These gentlemen have to contend with the political turmoil that encircles Nawaz Sharief and his circle there. There is a war of statements going on there: that ex-diplomat had alleged that India and Pakistan had come close to an agreement on Kashmir, and it is the Pakistan Army which had killed it by its incursion into Kargil; the Foreign Minister -- who had earlier been saying that the Pakistan Army had done nothing in Kargil -- had countered by saying that whatever the Pakistan Army had done in Kargil was in the interests of Pakistan! That is the impulse and origin of statements emanating from Pakistan these days. But the sole concern of the Congress was to locate some news peg for its allegation-of-the-day.
Brajesh Mishra, the Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister, who is the one who had dealt with Niaz Naik, stated on record that no secret deal had been in the works. But for the Congress, the Indian Army is not to be believed, Indian civil servants are not to be believed, of course the Indian Prime Minister is not to be believed. But every tid bit from Pakistan is gospel truth.
Telling reciprocity! During the Kargil war the statements of Sonia Gandhi and her spokesmen were of such succour to Pakistan that they became top stars on Pakistan TV. During the elections, the statements from Pakistan have become props for the Congress!
The consequences are obvious. By making statements of Pakistani personnel as the basis for charges here, these spokesmen contrive a situation in which Pakistan can set the agenda of debate even during elections in India: they can say whatever they think will help the side they think is better for them.
The other side is that there are statements and statements of Pakistani politicians. To which of these would these spokesmen of the Congress respond? In her interview to the magazine Sunday of 1-7 August, 1999, Benazir Bhutto maintains that she and Rajiv came to an agreement about, among other things, "withdrawal from Siachin". As Indian forces alone are in control of Siachin, this would imply that Rajiv had agreed to withdraw Indian forces from Siachin. Benazir provides a circumstantial detail: she says that when she was at the Commonwealth meeting, Rajiv telephoned her and told her that while he could not see through the agreement during elections, he would implement it after the elections. The Congress lost.
Going by its criteria, would the Congress, therefore, explain how its much-vaunted Prime Minister agreed to hand back Siachin? Moreover, going by its daily mud-slinging about non-existent "secret deals", would the Congress explain whether Rajiv Gandhi took Parliament, to say nothing of the country into confidence before coming to such an agreement -- an agreement to vacate land which our Army has sacrificed so much to retain?
While it is at the job, will the Congress explain whether Pandit Nehru took the country, did he even take Parliament into confidence before halting our advancing troops in 1948, and thereby inflicting a loss of 83,100 sq km of territory on our country? Did he work out a national consensus, did he work out a consensus even in the Cabinet before needlessly referring Kashmir to the UN, and thus saddling us with the problem that plagues us to this day? He did not: Sardar Patel was ever so opposed to this unnecessary show of internationalism -- in fact, even Liaquat Ali was pleasantly surprised as even he had not asked for this to be done.
Dr P N Dhar, one of the main participants in the Simla negotiations, who later became Principal Secretary to Mrs Indira Gandhi, has disclosed on record that she and Z A Bhutto came to an agreement to convert the Line of Control into the international border between Indian and Pakistan in Jammu and Kashmir. Indeed, this would have been a part of the documents signed at Simla but for Bhutto saying that such a step would disable him on his return, that instead it should be left out for the moment and he would see it through within a few months. Did Mrs Gandhi take the country or Parliament into confidence before coming to such an understanding?
Rajiv Gandhi commenced aid to LTTE: that has caused a lethal civil war in a neighbour which has been our friend for centuries, it has caused the death of over 1500 Indian soldiers. Did he take the country or Parliament into confidence before doing so? It is known, in fact, that even after he sent the Indian Army to fight the very terrorists that he had foolishly agreed to arm and equip, his Government continued assistance to those very terrorists. Is there a single instance of another Government arming terrorists who were killing its own soldiers? Did he work out a national consensus or take Parliament into confidence to continue assisting terrorists so that they could kill our soldiers?
But today, cock and bull concoctions about secret deals, peremptory demands about taking the country into confidence!
And in any case, where does the Congress allegation based on Niaz Naik's statement stand now? For just two days after the Congress built up its conspiracy theory on his reported assertion, Niaz Naik repudiated what had been attributed to him! The report which had him saying that India and Pakistan had been close to a secret deal was a "fabrication", he stated in a written statement.
No problem for the Congress. It had passed on to the next allegation!
Forgeries have of course been an industry with the Congress since Rajiv's time.
The "letter" which was supposed to have been written by the then Director of CIA, William Casey, to the President of the conservative think-tank, the Heritage Foundation of the USA -- spelling out a design to destabilise Rajiv's Government.
The forgeries to establish that V. P. Singh and his son, Ajeya Singh, had a foreign account in St. Kitts, that $ 21 million had been paid into it as kickbacks.
The forged letter by which my colleagues, S. Gurumurthy and A. Janakiraman were arrested, and V. P. Singh hounded on the ground that a foreign detective agency had been engaged to excavate facts about Rajiv's associates.
The "letter" which V. P. Singh was supposed to have written to the President naming his colleagues, Arun Nehru and Arif Mohammed Khan as having been involved in corrupt deals.
The "letter" JP was supposed to have written in which he was said to have called V. P. Singh "spineless" and much else.
The "hotel bills" proving Arun Nehru's stay in New York, and "telephone records" that established that he had been calling tax havens in the West Indies.
The "letter" to that same American detective in which V. P. Singh is supposed to have asked him to locate the foreign accounts of his colleagues -- including ones who were dead, like Karpoori Thakur! And so on.
In each case, there was a pattern. The forgery would be elaborate, as was the one in The Tribune, with details and all. It would appear in one, preferably out-of station paper: the St. Kitts forgeries started in distant Middle east, in The Arab Times! It would be picked up by one or two papers -- The Telegraph and The Hindustan Times led the rest in the St. Kitts affair. Waving these "news reports" Congressmen would hurl their falsehoods.
A well-practised routine, therefore. But even by the lamentable standards of the Congress, forgeries in this round mark a new low. They seek to implicate not just political opponents. They have implicated the Army of the country. First, spokesmen of the Congress talked of a letter and file that contained intelligence information that had been furnished to the Government about the Pakistani buildup. They spelled out an elaborate number. They declared that if the Government denied the existence of the letter and file, they would produce it. The Army stated that it wasn't just that there was no letter or file of that number, there was no numbering system that matched the number that had been put out. The Congress spokesmen just let the matter drop!
Next, they and friendly magazines like Outlook, flaunted "letters" that Brigadier Surinder Singh was said to have written in August and November, 1998, in which he was said to have warned the Army about the Pakistani build up. The letters had never been received in Army Headquarters, nor at any other level or part of the Army.
The Congress spokesman then flaunted a receipt which he said established that the letters had been received. Friendly papers -- some of which have been campaigning even more energetically for the Congress than Congressmen -- ran with this receipt. "Lying Kargil Generals nailed," ran the headline across the front page of The Asian Age. They reproduced the facsimile of the receipt.
The legend on the top of the receipt itself said that it was for a "Redressal of Grievance" communication from the Brigadier -- the officer had been transferred, he had filed an appeal against it. Moreover, it was dated 28 June, 1999. How could it prove the receipt of letters in August and November in the preceding year? On inquiry I learnt that this oddity had not been noticed!
But the next day the paper compounded the fib. "Army acknowledges receiving the letters," it proclaimed. What the Army had done was to state what the receipt itself stated, that the Redressal of Grievance communication had been received -- on 28 June, 1999. How did this amount to an acknowledgment that the letters in question -- ostensibly written in eight and eleven months earlier had been received?
But the paper was no less zealous than the Congress!
The remedies are obvious. Things have reached such a pit that readers should as a rule disbelieve what papers say till the record of the publication or journalist in question establishes to the contrary.
Second, newspapers should scrutinize each other's work, and report the findings to the reading public.
And in the present case so should at least two other institutions. The Election Commission has been so concerned about things that may affect the fairness of the election process. Surely, nothing but nothing has so polluted the electoral atmosphere, no one has done as much to mislead voters as the liars in the Congress. Why not make a study of the allegations which were hurled, and give us your finding about their veracity?
The other institution of course is the Press Council. Its function is to help maintain standards in the press. It is evident that the fabrications would have got nowhere -- not in 1987-89, not now -- without the active collaboration of some of our leading newspapers and magazines. Why not examine the allegations they broadcast, and what the basis was for them?
After all, to purvey a libel uttered by another is libel. To broadcast falsehood uttered by another is to compound it.
India Connect
September 21, 1999
Showing posts with label indian army. Show all posts
Showing posts with label indian army. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Kargil: Who and What is Responsible?
Arun Shourie
To attribute the occupation by Pakistanis of such extended stretches in Kargil to "an intelligence failure" is too facile. It is an evasion -- an evasion of the basic cause, an evasion of responsibility.
The basic reason why we are always taken by surprise lies in the notions of political correctness in which we have imprisoned discourse, and through that policy. Anyone who talks of the plans of Pakistan, its single-point programme to harm India, indeed anyone who talks about anything to do with our security is dubbed a war-monger. Agencies like RAW are routinely traduced. Hurling allegations at our security forces -- fabrications about human rights violations by them, and the rest -- is de rigueur. When persons who have put their lives on the line to save the country are encoiled in false cases -- as officers and men of the Punjab police have been encoiled -- not a soul raises a finger to support them.
You can do a little exercise. Look up papers or Parliamentary proceedings of the last year, and find out what happened each time Mr L K Advani drew attention to the continuing murderous activities of the ISI, and what they portended for the country, he was set upon -- in Parliament, in newspapers, in public meetings. War-monger, right-wing Hindu chauvinist, alarmist, deliberately embarrassing the Prime Minister who is trying to improve relations with our neighbour...
At my own minuscule level I have had this experience first-hand. I have had occasion to write about the way Pakistan perceives itself -- as "the not-India"; about the sway that fundamentalism has acquired there; about how this is drilled into the populace -- from quaidas to history books; about what organizations like the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba are openly proclaiming as their agenda -- to break India, to kill Hindu kafirs; about the vast resources and facilities which Pakistan's ruling establishment is channeling to them.
Each of those write-ups has been based entirely on published material, on material published in Pakistan. But each time I have written on these things, I have invariably been set upon. He is pursuing an anti-Islam agenda, he is just using Pakistan as a device to malign Muslims and Islam, he is out to create disharmony between communities...
Consider a recurring example. Today we are very exercised about occupation of some spots in Kargil by Pakistani forces and mercenaries. They are a few hundred -- assume a figure higher than anything anyone has mentioned as yet, say they are a thousand. The peaks where they have dug in are isolated, uninhabited. Recall now that on the estimates put together by the Home Ministry -- not now, but in 1992 -- over two crore Bangladeshis have made their way into India. As a result of this demographic invasion, large tracts of our country -- for instance, in Assam -- are such that the state police does not dare to even enter them. But the moment the matter is raised, the shout, "Anti-Bengali," "Anti-Muslim"...
This shutting of eyes is being made worse by the new ideology. Take out the newspapers of the last three weeks, the period during which the enemy has been killing our soldiers, during which, diplomatese apart, we have been invaded and have been at war. Total up the relative space that these papers devoted to the cricket World Cup and to the fighting in Kargil. Now, it is not the case that the country has suddenly become sports-minded during the last five years. It is just that corporations invested vast amounts to make use of the event to advertise their products. Papers have reported figures ranging up to eight hundred crores. These amounts having been invested, a hype about it was created.
One part is the obscenity of it, I can think of no other word: that our soldiers should be laying down their lives, and our papers should be whipping up lather about matches in England. The other thing is the effect such hype has on, literally, the ability of a country to prosecute a war. Ridding an area so remote, an area with terrain of the type Kargil has is not a one-day match. Every inch has to be fought for, with lives. The engagement is bound to take long. And, given the singular aim of a country like Pakistan, wresting the area back is not going to be the end of the matter by any means: ensuring that Pakistan will not get an opportunity to reoccupy the place will require protracted, arduous, meticulous work. A people who hear about Kargil for three-four minutes in the evening news, and then settle down to watch the day's match for four-five hours will never have the staying power that defence against a focused, indoctrinated enemy requires.
It is this atmosphere -- not just the failure of some one agency -- which paves the way for an enemy. Mental habits are fatal by themselves But so feeble has our State and our society become that we will not be able to put even crass self-interest away for the defence of our land, certainly not in any substantial way, certainly not for more than a moment. Take the failure to detect the occupation in Kargil itself. To prevent intrusion in that kind of area requires continuous physical presence. It requires sophisticated equipment. Maintaining a presence in Siachin costs the country Rs 3.5 crores a day. Armymen say that maintaining an equivalent presence in the entire Kargil area will cost three to four times that amount. That would amount to 10 to 12 crores a day. A person like me certainly believes that as such amounts are required, they must be provided, that the way we are placed leaves us no option. And the amounts can be found: half the total amount can be found by cutting just one boondoggle -- just eliminate the 2 crores which is placed at the disposal of every Member of Parliament to spend on "development projects" in his constituency. You will get sixteen hundred crores by doing just that little thing.
But here is an exercise. Find the MPs who will agree to abolish this largesse they have conferred on themselves. Or find a group which will accept a reduction in the subsidy which it has wrested from the State.
So, when we say there has been an "intelligence failure" we are stating an important fact, but we are also just using a phrase. By it we are evading the basic cause. We are diverting attention from our own responsibility in the matter.
I have already dealt with what happens when, even on such a matter, we deal with our ministers and governments as if they were the enemy who is to be trapped, and made a fool of. That itself is just the symptom -- it results from the basic mental fashion: not to be finding fault with those defending our country, not to be denouncing those who are speaking up for it is seen as being a primitive. The release of the Parvez Musharraf tapes holds another lesson. At least on occasion we should have faith in what our governments are saying. Repeatedly, the Prime Minister and the Defence Minister hinted that what they had said about who had known what in Pakistan was based on evidence. But pressmen and politicians were so intent on finding fault that they paid no attention. And now?
A sense of priorities, a little faith, and an even more elementary thing: a little work. Pakistan, like all countries in our neighbourhood, is important for our future. But how many of us take the trouble to read even the newspapers of Pakistan? I will give an example of what we would have learnt if we had been glancing at those papers, and make a forecast based on them. The first has a dual advantage: it shows what we would have been alerted to, and it also nails what Pakistan has been trying to cover up.
In reading what follows please bear in mind that while small, stray news items had been appearing earlier, it was only on the 27th of May, the day after air-strikes were launched, that Kargil became big news in our papers.
On 9 April, 1999, The Nation of Pakistan carried an interview with Zakiu Rehman Lakhvi, the Amir of the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, one of the most rabid organizations which has been spawned by Pakistan's intelligence agencies. "We are extending our network inside India," he declared, "and have carried out various attacks on Indian installations successfully in Himachal Pradesh last year." An open, unambiguous claim. Also a revealing one, for it gives us a glimpse into the mentality of this kind: the "installations" they annihilated were poor workers constructing a road -- such is their concept of jihad in the cause of Allah! But I am on another allusion in the interview: the paper reported him as saying, "the task to hit specially the Indian artillery targeting Azad Kashmir's border population has been given."
On 7 May, apropos nothing, The Nation suddenly reported a huge attack from India, and claimed that it had been repulsed. It said that Indian forces had launched an unprovoked attack in the Shyok sector, and that "valiant Pakistani troops, displaying traditional courage and determination to defend every inch of the country's territory, thwarted the attack in which a large number of intruders were killed and several others injured. The Indian Army withdrew in disarray and even failed to retrieve the bodies of its soldiers..." India denied any such attack, saying the Pakistanis had fired at a routine forward patrol. But the patriotic reporting told the tale: a case was being prepared.
On 15 May, successes of the Pakistani Army were being claimed on the authority of "a senior Indian official"! "A senior Indian official," The Nation claimed in a dispatch datelined New Delhi, "confirmed that the Army Headquarters and the Ministry of Home Affairs received a message on May 13 evening that Pakistani troops had advanced in Kargil and wrested five posts in a 5 km radius from the township...." Could a Pakistani correspondent really have access of that kind? Would "a senior official" in New Delhi be sharing such information with him?
The News of 16th May was more specific. It reported -- ostensibly from Srinagar! --that there had been intense shelling and deployment by Indians, and said that these had come "amid reports that Pakistani troops on May 14th captured a village after bombarding the frontier town of Drass, some 160 km southwest of Srinagar." "Some 40 shells pounded snow-covered Drass and adjoining areas before Pakistani troops took control of the village located on the Line of Control."
By the 17th of May, several papers were proclaiming triumphs, and attributing them -- not to some ghostly mujahidin but -- to the Pakistani Army. "With shelling and firing between Pakistani and Indian troops on the LoC continuing for the last seven days," The Nation observed in its editorial, "our forces have captured another seven Indian posts in the Kargil sector..., captured a village after bombarding the frontier town of Drass..., and severely disrupted the Indian Army's logistics by taking control of important passes in the Kargil sector, choking off the Jammu-Kargil highway. The Indian troops in the Ladakh region too are facing pressure from the Pakistani forces as well as Kashmiri freedom fighters... It is gratifying that the state of preparedness and capability of our armed forces have prevented Indian adventurism on the LoC from making any gains..."
That very day, that is on 17 May, The Frontier Post reported, "Indian troops after having been defeated in the Kargil sector where the Pakistan Army seized five very important Indian posts with a radius of more than 28 km, have opened fire in almost all the sectors of the LoC... The gain of the Pakistan Army at Siachin has disrupted the communication system of the Indian troops..."
"War between India and Pakistan has started in the Kargil sector," proclaimed the Jasarat of 17 May. "According to Army sources, in this war some special units of the Pakistan Army are participating as they are full of martyrdom sentiments for the country..."
The paper from Lahore, Khabrain, reported on 18 May, "Twelve Indian Army posts have come under the control of Pakistani forces. The Indian Army movement on the Ladakh-Srinagar road has completely stopped..."
In its editorial the next day, the Nawai Waqt said, "Clashes are continuing between the Indian and Pakistani forces along the Line of Control in the Kargil sector..."
Reviewing developments over the preceding days, on 27 May, The Nation observed, " ...The concentration of Indian troops in the Kargil sector started taking place after they suffered heavy losses at the hands of the Pakistani troops..."
No circumlocution about who had scored the victories, is there? As countries began blaming Pakistan more and more, references to the Pakistan Army disappeared, and were replaced by acclaim for the so-called mujahideen!
Our Government had the Parvez Musharraf transcripts all the while. Their statements were in part based on these. Had our papers been keeping us posted about what was appearing in Pakistani papers we would have been quite up-to-date on our own.
Nor would we have needed any confidential briefings about what the objective of the Pakistan Army has been. In prescribing what should be done, General Hamid Gul, the pir and ideologue of fundamentalism within the Pakistan Army, revealed what the aim has been. Speaking to Nawai Waqt he said that Pakistani men who had occupied the heights in Kargil must at all costs be enabled to continue there for four or five months. The area would become totally inaccessible after that. They would then be able to choke off the Indian highway completely. India would have to vacate Siachin, and after that it would lose Ladakh...
And now for the forecast. Look around Tamil Nadu. It is at peace. There are no communal clashes. There are no caste clashes. But listen to the former head of the ISI, Lt. General (retd.) Javed Nasir. The Jang of 23 April reported his talk to the Jang Forum. "Gen. Javed also said that if the Kashmir issue goes on for three years more, then Tamils will also rise against India and the country would disintegrate within three years...." That is not an astrologer's forecast. It reveals one of the key areas that ISI is concentrating on. Surprised at the explosives that keep turning up in the state?
In a word, a sense of proportion, some faith in our agencies and authorities, and a little work -- don't wait to get hold of some secret document, read what is being published. Specially what is being proclaimed over loudspeakers by the opponent.
Intelligence is too important to be left to intelligence agencies.
India Connect
June 14, 1999
To attribute the occupation by Pakistanis of such extended stretches in Kargil to "an intelligence failure" is too facile. It is an evasion -- an evasion of the basic cause, an evasion of responsibility.
The basic reason why we are always taken by surprise lies in the notions of political correctness in which we have imprisoned discourse, and through that policy. Anyone who talks of the plans of Pakistan, its single-point programme to harm India, indeed anyone who talks about anything to do with our security is dubbed a war-monger. Agencies like RAW are routinely traduced. Hurling allegations at our security forces -- fabrications about human rights violations by them, and the rest -- is de rigueur. When persons who have put their lives on the line to save the country are encoiled in false cases -- as officers and men of the Punjab police have been encoiled -- not a soul raises a finger to support them.
You can do a little exercise. Look up papers or Parliamentary proceedings of the last year, and find out what happened each time Mr L K Advani drew attention to the continuing murderous activities of the ISI, and what they portended for the country, he was set upon -- in Parliament, in newspapers, in public meetings. War-monger, right-wing Hindu chauvinist, alarmist, deliberately embarrassing the Prime Minister who is trying to improve relations with our neighbour...
At my own minuscule level I have had this experience first-hand. I have had occasion to write about the way Pakistan perceives itself -- as "the not-India"; about the sway that fundamentalism has acquired there; about how this is drilled into the populace -- from quaidas to history books; about what organizations like the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba are openly proclaiming as their agenda -- to break India, to kill Hindu kafirs; about the vast resources and facilities which Pakistan's ruling establishment is channeling to them.
Each of those write-ups has been based entirely on published material, on material published in Pakistan. But each time I have written on these things, I have invariably been set upon. He is pursuing an anti-Islam agenda, he is just using Pakistan as a device to malign Muslims and Islam, he is out to create disharmony between communities...
Consider a recurring example. Today we are very exercised about occupation of some spots in Kargil by Pakistani forces and mercenaries. They are a few hundred -- assume a figure higher than anything anyone has mentioned as yet, say they are a thousand. The peaks where they have dug in are isolated, uninhabited. Recall now that on the estimates put together by the Home Ministry -- not now, but in 1992 -- over two crore Bangladeshis have made their way into India. As a result of this demographic invasion, large tracts of our country -- for instance, in Assam -- are such that the state police does not dare to even enter them. But the moment the matter is raised, the shout, "Anti-Bengali," "Anti-Muslim"...
This shutting of eyes is being made worse by the new ideology. Take out the newspapers of the last three weeks, the period during which the enemy has been killing our soldiers, during which, diplomatese apart, we have been invaded and have been at war. Total up the relative space that these papers devoted to the cricket World Cup and to the fighting in Kargil. Now, it is not the case that the country has suddenly become sports-minded during the last five years. It is just that corporations invested vast amounts to make use of the event to advertise their products. Papers have reported figures ranging up to eight hundred crores. These amounts having been invested, a hype about it was created.
One part is the obscenity of it, I can think of no other word: that our soldiers should be laying down their lives, and our papers should be whipping up lather about matches in England. The other thing is the effect such hype has on, literally, the ability of a country to prosecute a war. Ridding an area so remote, an area with terrain of the type Kargil has is not a one-day match. Every inch has to be fought for, with lives. The engagement is bound to take long. And, given the singular aim of a country like Pakistan, wresting the area back is not going to be the end of the matter by any means: ensuring that Pakistan will not get an opportunity to reoccupy the place will require protracted, arduous, meticulous work. A people who hear about Kargil for three-four minutes in the evening news, and then settle down to watch the day's match for four-five hours will never have the staying power that defence against a focused, indoctrinated enemy requires.
It is this atmosphere -- not just the failure of some one agency -- which paves the way for an enemy. Mental habits are fatal by themselves But so feeble has our State and our society become that we will not be able to put even crass self-interest away for the defence of our land, certainly not in any substantial way, certainly not for more than a moment. Take the failure to detect the occupation in Kargil itself. To prevent intrusion in that kind of area requires continuous physical presence. It requires sophisticated equipment. Maintaining a presence in Siachin costs the country Rs 3.5 crores a day. Armymen say that maintaining an equivalent presence in the entire Kargil area will cost three to four times that amount. That would amount to 10 to 12 crores a day. A person like me certainly believes that as such amounts are required, they must be provided, that the way we are placed leaves us no option. And the amounts can be found: half the total amount can be found by cutting just one boondoggle -- just eliminate the 2 crores which is placed at the disposal of every Member of Parliament to spend on "development projects" in his constituency. You will get sixteen hundred crores by doing just that little thing.
But here is an exercise. Find the MPs who will agree to abolish this largesse they have conferred on themselves. Or find a group which will accept a reduction in the subsidy which it has wrested from the State.
So, when we say there has been an "intelligence failure" we are stating an important fact, but we are also just using a phrase. By it we are evading the basic cause. We are diverting attention from our own responsibility in the matter.
I have already dealt with what happens when, even on such a matter, we deal with our ministers and governments as if they were the enemy who is to be trapped, and made a fool of. That itself is just the symptom -- it results from the basic mental fashion: not to be finding fault with those defending our country, not to be denouncing those who are speaking up for it is seen as being a primitive. The release of the Parvez Musharraf tapes holds another lesson. At least on occasion we should have faith in what our governments are saying. Repeatedly, the Prime Minister and the Defence Minister hinted that what they had said about who had known what in Pakistan was based on evidence. But pressmen and politicians were so intent on finding fault that they paid no attention. And now?
A sense of priorities, a little faith, and an even more elementary thing: a little work. Pakistan, like all countries in our neighbourhood, is important for our future. But how many of us take the trouble to read even the newspapers of Pakistan? I will give an example of what we would have learnt if we had been glancing at those papers, and make a forecast based on them. The first has a dual advantage: it shows what we would have been alerted to, and it also nails what Pakistan has been trying to cover up.
In reading what follows please bear in mind that while small, stray news items had been appearing earlier, it was only on the 27th of May, the day after air-strikes were launched, that Kargil became big news in our papers.
On 9 April, 1999, The Nation of Pakistan carried an interview with Zakiu Rehman Lakhvi, the Amir of the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, one of the most rabid organizations which has been spawned by Pakistan's intelligence agencies. "We are extending our network inside India," he declared, "and have carried out various attacks on Indian installations successfully in Himachal Pradesh last year." An open, unambiguous claim. Also a revealing one, for it gives us a glimpse into the mentality of this kind: the "installations" they annihilated were poor workers constructing a road -- such is their concept of jihad in the cause of Allah! But I am on another allusion in the interview: the paper reported him as saying, "the task to hit specially the Indian artillery targeting Azad Kashmir's border population has been given."
On 7 May, apropos nothing, The Nation suddenly reported a huge attack from India, and claimed that it had been repulsed. It said that Indian forces had launched an unprovoked attack in the Shyok sector, and that "valiant Pakistani troops, displaying traditional courage and determination to defend every inch of the country's territory, thwarted the attack in which a large number of intruders were killed and several others injured. The Indian Army withdrew in disarray and even failed to retrieve the bodies of its soldiers..." India denied any such attack, saying the Pakistanis had fired at a routine forward patrol. But the patriotic reporting told the tale: a case was being prepared.
On 15 May, successes of the Pakistani Army were being claimed on the authority of "a senior Indian official"! "A senior Indian official," The Nation claimed in a dispatch datelined New Delhi, "confirmed that the Army Headquarters and the Ministry of Home Affairs received a message on May 13 evening that Pakistani troops had advanced in Kargil and wrested five posts in a 5 km radius from the township...." Could a Pakistani correspondent really have access of that kind? Would "a senior official" in New Delhi be sharing such information with him?
The News of 16th May was more specific. It reported -- ostensibly from Srinagar! --that there had been intense shelling and deployment by Indians, and said that these had come "amid reports that Pakistani troops on May 14th captured a village after bombarding the frontier town of Drass, some 160 km southwest of Srinagar." "Some 40 shells pounded snow-covered Drass and adjoining areas before Pakistani troops took control of the village located on the Line of Control."
By the 17th of May, several papers were proclaiming triumphs, and attributing them -- not to some ghostly mujahidin but -- to the Pakistani Army. "With shelling and firing between Pakistani and Indian troops on the LoC continuing for the last seven days," The Nation observed in its editorial, "our forces have captured another seven Indian posts in the Kargil sector..., captured a village after bombarding the frontier town of Drass..., and severely disrupted the Indian Army's logistics by taking control of important passes in the Kargil sector, choking off the Jammu-Kargil highway. The Indian troops in the Ladakh region too are facing pressure from the Pakistani forces as well as Kashmiri freedom fighters... It is gratifying that the state of preparedness and capability of our armed forces have prevented Indian adventurism on the LoC from making any gains..."
That very day, that is on 17 May, The Frontier Post reported, "Indian troops after having been defeated in the Kargil sector where the Pakistan Army seized five very important Indian posts with a radius of more than 28 km, have opened fire in almost all the sectors of the LoC... The gain of the Pakistan Army at Siachin has disrupted the communication system of the Indian troops..."
"War between India and Pakistan has started in the Kargil sector," proclaimed the Jasarat of 17 May. "According to Army sources, in this war some special units of the Pakistan Army are participating as they are full of martyrdom sentiments for the country..."
The paper from Lahore, Khabrain, reported on 18 May, "Twelve Indian Army posts have come under the control of Pakistani forces. The Indian Army movement on the Ladakh-Srinagar road has completely stopped..."
In its editorial the next day, the Nawai Waqt said, "Clashes are continuing between the Indian and Pakistani forces along the Line of Control in the Kargil sector..."
Reviewing developments over the preceding days, on 27 May, The Nation observed, " ...The concentration of Indian troops in the Kargil sector started taking place after they suffered heavy losses at the hands of the Pakistani troops..."
No circumlocution about who had scored the victories, is there? As countries began blaming Pakistan more and more, references to the Pakistan Army disappeared, and were replaced by acclaim for the so-called mujahideen!
Our Government had the Parvez Musharraf transcripts all the while. Their statements were in part based on these. Had our papers been keeping us posted about what was appearing in Pakistani papers we would have been quite up-to-date on our own.
Nor would we have needed any confidential briefings about what the objective of the Pakistan Army has been. In prescribing what should be done, General Hamid Gul, the pir and ideologue of fundamentalism within the Pakistan Army, revealed what the aim has been. Speaking to Nawai Waqt he said that Pakistani men who had occupied the heights in Kargil must at all costs be enabled to continue there for four or five months. The area would become totally inaccessible after that. They would then be able to choke off the Indian highway completely. India would have to vacate Siachin, and after that it would lose Ladakh...
And now for the forecast. Look around Tamil Nadu. It is at peace. There are no communal clashes. There are no caste clashes. But listen to the former head of the ISI, Lt. General (retd.) Javed Nasir. The Jang of 23 April reported his talk to the Jang Forum. "Gen. Javed also said that if the Kashmir issue goes on for three years more, then Tamils will also rise against India and the country would disintegrate within three years...." That is not an astrologer's forecast. It reveals one of the key areas that ISI is concentrating on. Surprised at the explosives that keep turning up in the state?
In a word, a sense of proportion, some faith in our agencies and authorities, and a little work -- don't wait to get hold of some secret document, read what is being published. Specially what is being proclaimed over loudspeakers by the opponent.
Intelligence is too important to be left to intelligence agencies.
India Connect
June 14, 1999
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