Mumbai terrorist attacks: a strategic blunder by Pakistan? Every Mumbaikar, every Indian, every citizen of the world has been outraged by the audacious terrorist attack of Mumbai. It was a carefully planned and executed attack with several strategic goals. Attack the financial capital of India, attack the westerners and attack the Jewish community.
Drive a wedge between the Indian Muslims and rest of India, Drive a wedge between India and the impotent, namesake civilian government of Pakistan. Slow down India’s economic growth. Scare the foreigners and tourists. Slow down the economic growth of India. Or it could be a strategic diversionary ploy for the sake of Al-Qaeda and ISI. However, just like the strategic and fatal mistake of the LTTE in its assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, the ISI and LeT have made a strategic blunder. It will become a strategic blunder for the terrorists if India and the world react in a thoughtful manner, and not in a knee-jerk way as demanded by many impatient people of the world. The democratic government of India needs to react very shrewdly, just like Chanakya.
Here are some positive ways of dealing with this menace:
1. Fix our intelligence agencies. We had so many warnings from the USA. We had captured terrorists many months ago with blueprints of the attacked landmarks of Mumbai. Even Taj had received warnings and yet it did not have fool-proof security measures at all its entry and exit points. India is reported to have only 3,500 intelligence agents for 1.1 billion people. Compare that with the US, where the FBI employs 12,000 agents for 300 million residents. This is a quote from Jack and Suzie Welch in its ‘India’s Moment Of Truth’ in Business Week.
2. Fix our anti-terrorist force. It was indeed shameful that it took nine hours for our commandoes to come to the affected sites. They were kept in Delhi; their plane was in another city. They were disorganized. A bus was not even ready to bring them from the airport to South Mumbai. They were not well-equipped. They did not even have the maps or layouts of the hotels. The terrorists were better armed, better trained and better equipped. Let us swallow our pride and get the Mossad to come and train our force. Let us have a force in at least 20 centers all over India. We have had so many terrorists’ attacks in the past 2-3 years that it is a tragedy that we have not invested in a proper anti-terrorism task force.
3. Expose the terrorists and get the world’s public opinion behind us; get Pakistan to be declared a terrorist state. We have enough evidence. Let us not be shy about it.
4. Get the Indian Muslims declare themselves to be Indians first, and let them tell the world that these terrorists are not true Moslems. It is a moment of truth for the Indian Muslims. Either they are patriotic Indians or they are not. There is no middle way. They need to speak up and mobilize public opinion against radical and fundamentalist Muslims. Let us leverage the super stars, Aamir Khan, Shah Rukh Khan and Salman Khan.
5. Formalize (and publicly acknowledge) a security pact with Israel – we have common interests and common enemies. Let us learn from the best.
6. Modernize the urban police force – which is our first line of defense. Let us get Mayor Giuliani to come to India, and let Mumbai police become the role model for the rest of India. Who better than the Mayor of the world to help us? He transformed NYC, and responded really well to 9/11. Let us invite him as a consultant to the Mumbai city and let him transform our police force in the next 12 months.
7. Re-juvenate the affected places and get back to normalcy as soon as possible. The Mumbai spirit should be kept alive. I am personally going to Mumbai in late December and not scared; do not let fear affect you. Otherwise you are empowering the terrorists even more. As Suketu Mehta wrote in New York Times, ‘ If the rest of the world wants to help, it should run toward the explosion. It should fly to Mumbai, and spend money. Where else are you going to be safe? New York? London? Madrid? So, I’m booking flights to Mumbai. I’m going to go get a beer at the Leopold, stroll over to the Taj for samosas at the Sea Lunge, and watch a Bollywood movie at the Metro. Stimulus doesn’t have to be just economic”
8. The Foreign investors should be attracted even at a more rapid pace with incentives. Pakistanis are already feeling left behind the economic success of India – let them realize that the peace dividend will yield more than the state-sponsored terrorism
9. Cut off all diplomatic ties with Pakistan – stop inviting Pakistani actors, singers, cricketer’s etc. to India, unless they publicly condemn Pakistani terrorism. Stop the trade, train and bus links. Do not let them benefit from India if they do not support us in our fight against terrorism. Slowly dial up the diplomatic and covert operations against Pakistan until all the suspected terrorists are handed to India, and all terrorists’ camps are disbanded. Get USA and Israel to attack the camps if necessary. Eventually solve the Kashmir problem – if Pakistan cooperates then negotiate. If it does not, take over PoK, and even create a Baluchistan or independent Sindh states, like Bangla Desh was created in 1971. We need to learn from Israel and how it is dealing with its enemies who want to destroy its nation. By the way, given that it has taken us so long NOT to make surgical strikes on the terrorist camps – let us shelve this idea for the time being.
10. Enact stronger laws against suspected terrorists. Democratic values are useless if we are like sitting ducks.
11. Take all terrorists threats seriously and have all the armed forces protect the civilians. India has a huge maritime border. But, it has a strong navy too. Let us leverage all our forces. It is an undeclared war. We need to fight this war just like a traditional war. 12. Every city should have a crisis management infrastructure. Gosh, only two fire-fighting engines responded to the attacks. One for Taj and one for Oberoi. The policemen were expected to fight the heavily armed terrorists with mere lathis. The commandoes had to wait an hour at the airport for the BEST bus to take them to South Mumbai vs. helicopters!! Who was in control? Who was the commander in chief? Who was coordinating the response? If we can achieve even 90% of the above then the terrorists will realize that not only will they be thwarted in future attempts, but they will also realize that their terror attacks have badly back-fired on them. They will be even more isolated and eventually destroyed. Evil must be destroyed. Sri Hanumanji came to the world to destroy the evil of Ravan. We must also become united and destroy the evil of terrorism once and for all, thoughtfully and forcefully. It can be done.
