It was straight out of the Murphy?s Law book: ?If a series of events can go wrong, it will do so in the worst possible sequence.? For a primer on the ?worst possible sequence?, look no further than the official response to the coordinated and prolonged attacks on six locations in Mumbai from November 26 to 29, in which more than 170 people died. For, through the fog of political indecision and deep flaws in intelligence, and security response and organisation, some fundamentals are clear?especially now that a new security architecture is being established in order to make it plausible that future terrorist threats would be meaningfully dealt with.
When the first terrorist attack in Mumbai was reported to the Maharashtra chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, he spent 90 minutes making and receiving calls on his mobile phone. At 11 pm, he called up Union home minister Shivraj Patil to brief him about the situation. Like Deshmukh, Patil, too, was uncertain about what to do. Since Mumbai has a history of terrorist attacks?but none of the scale witnessed on November 26?both decided to despatch National Security Guards (NSG) but a problem persisted. How many commandos?
In the best political tradition of taking serious issues lightly, they settled on 200, a woefully inadequate number. But then, all the elite 7,400-strong NSG commandoes are in Delhi, some of them tasked to protect VIPs. As images from Mumbai were being beamed live on TV screens across the world, NSG commandos had not even reached Delhi airport. By the time they arrived in Mumbai in a slow-moving military transport plane (the elite force does not have its own aircraft), it was nearly 10 hours after the first reported terror strike.
The hostage-rescue attempts soon turned out to be a saga of confusion. At each location, the commandos blasted their way inside with,reportedly, very little ground-level information. The commandoes, already in too small a number, were operating with a hazy idea of the floor plans of Taj and Trident hotels. Given that they had to sweep room by room carefully, this proved to be costly both in terms of time and casualties. As a result, the commandos didn?t move on the Nariman House, the smallest target under siege, until November 28 morning, more than 40 hours after it was first entered by terrorists.
Serious questions came up later about the equipment at the disposal of the police and security forces. The Indian Express reported that just 10.7% of allocation earmarked for equipment acquisition for the law-enforcement and intelligence agencies was utilised this financial year.
Even more troubling than the events of those few days, are the failings of intelligence management, which if allowed to continue will leave us vulnerable to more attacks in the future. It?s beyond belief that the 10 terrorists could slip into the Indian waters unnoticed by the navy or coast guard. It subsequently turned out that at least half a dozen warnings were issued to the police from as early as September, indicating that such an attack was planned. Yet, the truth is that intelligence reports frequently obtain perfunctory response from the government. Agencies routinely churn them out, one expert says, but often with the fudge, ?actionable intelligence still awaited?. ?In many instances, the need to process information comes largely as an afterthought,? he adds in a sarcasm-tinted tone .
No wonder, actionable intelligence could be a precious commodity in any system saddled with a multitude of agencies lumbering under the weight of their own bureaucracies. With key postings also dictated by political considerations, they remain crippled by inter-agency rivalries, turf wars and failures to communicate. The ?leak? war of blamegame that erupted after 26/11 exposed the workings of India?s two premier agencies, IB and the RAW, both of which were more in news in the recent memory for spy scandals and factionalism than any terrorist attack they averted. Worse, our agencies get away with every colossal failure?the scandal involving the escape of CIA mole Rabinder Singh is just one example of the malady?with no public censure. Unlike in the US or UK, India?s intelligence agencies operate with no parliamentary accountability. Key postings are not subjected to parliamentary approval, nor does the House panel audit their accounts. No one can accuse our agencies of a lack of freedom to failure.
The threat of terrorism has given rise to many feeble laws and agencies in India in the past. Therefore, before harbouring any illusion about the efficacy of new laws and the new agency put in place to forestall future terror attacks, isn?t it sobering to recall another Murphy?s Law: ?An ounce of application is worth a ton of abstraction??