http://www.newsweek.com/narendra-modi-india-raid-air-force-412812By John Elliott On 1/7/16
Update |When Narendra Modi was elected India’s prime minister, the main hope was that he would transform the muddled and inefficient way in which many of the country’s institutions and organizations are run.
Economic reforms, which dominate media and parliamentary debate, are also important, but Modi was primarily seen as a capable regional politician and leader who could produce administrative change nationally.
Twenty months after last year’s landslide election victory, his failure to make significant changes was graphically demonstrated by an attack last weekend on an Indian Air Force base at Pathankot in the state of Punjab.
The base was not properly protected or capable of being defended against terrorism, despite being just 25 kilometers from the border with Pakistan, and the response by security forces was muddled and badly organized.
The event threatens to undermine Modi’s more innovative approach to foreign affairs, which led him on Christmas Day to drop in on the Pakistan prime minister in Lahore for a few hours when he was flying back to Delhi from Russia and Afghanistan.
Though sourly criticized by opposition politicians for being more of a photo-op than measured diplomacy the visit, the first by an Indian prime minister to Pakistan in 11 years, could help improve the two countries’ tortuous relationship.
The attack is seen in India as an attempt by extremists, probably supported by Pakistan’s military and secret Inter-Services Intelligence agency, to undermine any progress that the Modi visit might have generated. It coincided with an attempted raid by gunmen on the Indian consulate in the Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif.
The Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad (Army of Mohammad), an Islamist group with close links to the Pakistan military, is believed to have been responsible, and, significantly, Pakistan has not tried to deny that the attackers crossed from its territory into India.
The Pathankot attack began on January 2 after six militants crossed the border in an area used for decades for drug smuggling and by other smugglers, and, in the 1980s, by Khalistan (Punjab independence) fighters trained in Pakistan.
Complicating the story, the India Today website has reported suspicions that arms and ammunition used by the Pakistani terrorists were part of a drug consignment that was concealed by smugglers, and that the terrorists crossed the border separately using the same route, possibly with the connivance of Indian officials.
They broke into the air base, in one case reportedly climbing and swinging in from trees on the 24-kilometer perimeter.
Border patrols and thermal imaging were inadequate, and the initial police responses were confused and slow. Floodlights were not working in some areas, and buildings are located against perimeter walls, making access easy.
Criticism has built up over the past two or three days, especially on social media, blaming Ajit Doval, the national security adviser, who is a former spy chief and one of Modi’s most trusted and empowered officials.
Based in the prime minister’s office with executive authority for security (as opposed to just an advisory role), he was in charge of the response and claimed an intelligence success just two days into the three- or four-day operation. The buck stops with him before it reaches the prime minister.
The sharpest and most targeted criticism has come from Ajai Shukla, a former army officer and one of India’s leading defense journalists and commentators. Writing in the Business Standard on January 5, he said, “National Security Advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval’s inept handling has transformed what should have been a short, intelligence-driven, counter-terrorist operation into something that increasingly seems like a debacle.”
At the end of a discussion on India Today Television on January 6, the anchor, Karan Thapar, concluded that the response had been handled “ineptly,” and none of the former generals and analysts on the program disagreed. Manoj Joshi, a leading commentator, calculated there had been five serious incursions and terrorist raids in the area since 2013, the last just six months ago, but security had not been improved.
Manohar Parrikar, India’s defense minister, who was not in charge of the operations, seemed uneasy and ill-prepared when he (not Doval) was paraded before a media conference on January 5.
He even said that five of the Indians killed had died because of “bad luck.” They were members of the low-key Defense Security Corps, made up of retired armed forces personnel who guard the base. Their “bad luck” was that they were shot by attackers firing into buildings.
An officer in the crack National Security Guard died while handling a dead attacker’s unexploded grenade. There has been criticism, by Shukla and others, that Doval flew in 160 NSG commandos with little experience in Punjab to lead the operation against the attackers instead of drawing on 50,000 army troops stationed nearby.
Pathankot is significant, not just for India-Pakistan relations and defense reasons but because it illustrates how so much of the country’s government agencies work in an appalling way. It smacks of the jugaad (fix it) and chalta hai (anything goes, or it will be all right on a night) approach that I highlighted as a serious national failing in my book, IMPLOSION: India’s Tryst With Reality.
Modi has told the defense establishment that it needs to shed its chalta hai approach, but he has failed to push through changes there or elsewhere.
Modi’s Santa Claus-type appearance in Lahore on Christmas Day built on a rapprochement between the two countries that first appeared when he and Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif were photographed chatting at the opening of the climate change negotiations in Paris on November 30.
This began to unravel blockages to talks that had been caused by both countries. A week later, the foreign secretaries and national security advisers met on neutral ground in Bangkok. Overall, this marked an attempt by Modi to reverse the belligerent and aggressive stance he and Doval had adopted a year earlier.
Now they have to decide whether talks planned for next week between their foreign secretaries should go ahead. India’s foreign ministry spokesman, Vikas Sarup, said Thursday afternoon that the government has asked Pakistan to take “prompt and decisive action” against handlers of the attack. “The ball is in Pakistan’s court. We are waiting for Pakistan’s action on actionable intelligence…. We are not giving any time frame…. Prompt means prompt,” he said.
“Prompt and decisive action” are the words that Sharif has also used, saying it would happen. But the military and not the politicians call the shots in Pakistan, so action is not certain.
India’s first priority, however, should be to equip sensitive bases against attackers and force the somnolent defense establishment and security forces to smarten up.
John Elliott is the author of IMPLOSION: India’s Tryst With Reality. This story has been updated to reflect a report that the ammunition used by the Pakistanis was part of a drug consignment that was concealed by smugglers
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