The modern thinking Indian

How often is that the Government, and the party that runs the Government, speak in different voices ? And yet, that is what is happening recently. India has a long history of taking steps that seem like buckling down under pressure, or which don't seem to be fundamentally sound. One can name the letting go of Occupied Kashmir by Nehru, of letting the victories of 1965 and 1971 preventing the dictating of terms to Pakistan, and so on. One now needs to put Prime Minister Manmohan Sing on the same pedestral, as having concluded an agreement with not many apparent benefits.
So, what did the PM do which the party refuses to comment on, and noticeably, does not support even when asked a direct question ? Even since the Mumbai attacks of 26/11, the Indian position has been that it wants to see steps taken to ensure the trial of people involved in Pakistan, as well as significant steps taken to eliminate the support structure for terrorism. Pakistan takes steps forward and backward at the same time. It for examples refuses to take decisive steps against the Lashkar-e-Toiba.
In this environment, the Prime Minister signs a statement with the Pakistani PM Gilani that stated that the discussions could not be held bound to a single issue such as terrorism, and also, controversially, acknowledged Pakistan's concerns about Balochistan, an insurgency that it claims is supported by the Indian Government, primarily through RAW. The PM claimed that there was no mention of Kashmir, that Pakistan has been significantly cooperating including acknowledging the role of the LeT and its nationals in the Mumbai attack. However, much to the discomfiture of the party, the Pakistani Government started raking up the issue of Indian support to Balochistan right after this statement.
Quite clearly, the PM has given a significant handle to the opposition parties, and they are using this opportunity to the maximum, attacking the Congress with glee and gusto; the Congress is not defending the statement, but this cannot go on. The party will obviously not let the PM be defenseless for too long, and this issue would have raised Sonia Gandhi's hackles also a bit.

Labels: 26/11, Congress, Declaration, ISI, LeT, Manmohan Singh, Opposition, Pakistan, Political, Politics, Sonia Gandhi, Statement, Terrorism

The Mumbai terror attacks of 11/26 were a major shock for the world. Every nation fears the prospect of armed terrorists attacking civilians, and here were these 10 well armed terrorists who held the armed forces of a nation at bay for 3 days. How do you protect against terrorists who emerge from the night (from a vast coast), disperse swiftly into the night to their various pre-planned destinations, and attack civilians at will with automatic weapons and grenades. No matter what the security level, there is a more than even chance that some of them will evade detection and managed to attack. Today this happened in India, but given the ease by which the attackers managed to enter, and with some local support, the scenario is replicable to many countries which are on the cross-hairs of global terrorism.
If you read this article in TIME magazine (and I recommend reading the article), you will realize how easy it was for this youth in Pakistan to become a terrorist; there are institutions present everywhere that will feed a disgruntled person and make him feel valuable, and will then guide him on the path of taking up guns and willing to become a suicide terrorist, somebody who has no qualms about killing innocent people.

It was in Rawalpindi that Mohammad Amir Ajmal Qasab, the surviving gunman from the terrorist massacre that claimed 165 lives in Mumbai last November, took his first step toward infamy. In 2007 he visited a market stall run by Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), an Islamist extremist group that has been blamed for the Mumbai attacks, among others. Understand Qasab's story and you begin to understand why young men throw in their lot with Islamic extremists, why Pakistan may be the most dangerous country in the world.
In 1990, Muslims in Kashmir — the Himalayan territory that India and Pakistan have been arguing and fighting over since 1948 — rose up against Indian rule, and the mujahedin soon found a new cause. The Pakistani military used the jihadi movement, hoping that guerrilla warfare would destabilize its enemy India where conventional warfare failed. Jihadi groups in Pakistan collected donations for Kashmir. Young men signed up for training camps, where they concentrated on physical fitness and learned how to use weapons. Jihad wasn't just a diversion from ordinary life; it was a rite of passage.

When you read the article, it makes it seem so easy. Here is a person who has rebelled away from his family, fled to a city. He comes into contact with a militant group while trying to learn how to live a life of crime, and is sufficiently brain-washed and impressed that he will go in for arms training and learn how to be a terrorist. This is sufficiently scary, but when you combine this story with how it seems so easy for this to happen, how arms training happens right under the umbrella of the state and the army in Pakistan, and you start to realize the dangers. What is to stop such a similar incident happening in a country like Great Britain which has a radicalized minority among its Muslim population, and it is easy enough to plan such an attack.

Labels: 11/26, 26/11, Attack, Infrastructure, Investigation, Mumbai, Pakistan, Terrorism, Terrorist