On the anniversary of 26/11, we will get a lot of empty words remembering the heroes and the villains. However, it is probably more important to learn the lessons and examine the patterns of history to prevent a repeat of this event. As the cliché goes, those who ignore history are condemned to repeat it. Today, there are several patterns repeating themselves that scream for our attention—patterns that have led to major terror spikes against India in the past.
The first of these is the near total control of Afghanistan by Pakistan. It is worth noting that the Kashmir insurgency and Pandit genocide started in 1989 not—as apologists would have you believe—due to flawed elections and a “sense of alienation” but rather due to the end of the Soviet occupation. That one event freed up thousands of mujahideen in Afghanistan—highly trained, violent mercenaries—who were then sent to India to repeat the “victory” of Afghanistan in Kashmir. At this point, Pakistan was basking in the glory of that victory and did not anticipate the Pressler Amendment sanctions that were to follow shortly in 1990.
The 26/11 attacks in 2008 took place under similar circumstances. Pakistan was firmly an “ally” in the US “war on terror” in Afghanistan. It had acquired indispensability like it had through the 1980s and made its support to the Afghan reconstruction effort subject to security guarantees against India. Those security guarantees needed to be tested and prodded as proof of concept and a reliability guarantee. It worked. Note the difference in the US response to the 2001 attack on Parliament where then Secretary of State Colin Powell acknowledged India’s right to self defence and punitive action as opposed to 26/11 where India was urged to display restraint.
Today, we’re not in a very different position. Pakistan is again basking in not one but two swift “victories”. The first is against the elected government in Kabul, and the second is the rapid castration of the Quetta Shura represented by Mullah Baradar, seen by Pakistan as American stooges, thereby establishing the primacy of its Haqqani network proxies.
As in 1989 and 2008, we again see that Pakistan is seen as ‘critical to peace’. Whether the UK Army Chief General Nick Carter’s statement that he ‘trusts the Pakistan army’ and that they have a ‘constructive role to play’ was genuine delusion, or deliberate mischief or a disingenuous plea for mercy, the fact remains that Pakistan is central to ensuring that Afghanistan is never again used as a base to attack the west. India is dispensable in this equation. It is this sense of victory combined with the sense of indispensability that creates conditions for Pakistan to launch a major provocation.
Corruption and Complacency
But what conditions exist on the Indian side, which make such an attack possible? Mostly, police corruption and incompetence, complacency over security and a tendency to normalise and divert from Jihadi violence. Done mostly for local political reasons, these nevertheless act as a powerful magnifier for Pakistan’s actions.
As in 2008 where Mumbai police were complicit in political actions around the Malegaon blast—creating a narrative of “Hindu/Saffron terror”—today the Mumbai police are engulfed in a scandal where their own former boss Param Bir Singh fears for his life—the source of this threat being the Mumbai police. The fact is: Indian police are hopelessly corrupt, but Mumbai police much more so, operating as the critical fourth leg of a quadrangle of criminality comprising Bollywood, the underworld and Mumbai’s financial sector. This quadrangle is the biggest source of criminality and works cooperatively in staging and solving crimes through the provision of convenient scapegoats, propelling Mumbai police to being the highest rated force in the country in terms of ‘solving cases’. As we all know, criminality is fungible.
Indeed, this is exactly what the Right alleges was done on 26/11. Had it not been for officer Tukaram Omble who captured Ajmal Kasab alive, the belief was the Mumbai attack would be passed off as “saffron terror”, with Kasab conveniently being uncircumcised and with Hindu prayer threads around his wrist. If anything, today the Mumbai police are in an even more compromised state than they was then.
Conversely, in Kashmir we see complacency—where India believes it has won and has started letting its guard. The counter-terrorism operation in Poonch, which has been on for over a month now and has cost India nearly a dozen lives, should be a wake-up call. Worryingly, we still don’t know the identity of the 20-40 terrorists who have entered India and what their purpose is, the delay in dislodging them being particularly worrisome. Needless to say, the liberal press is busy normalising every action of violence when it suits them.
Far from complacency and empty words, we need to internalise the lessons of 26/11 and act to prevent any such recurrence.
The writer is a Senior Fellow at the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not represent the stand of this publication.
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