Catching up with the SIT chief

Published in Milligazette

http://www.milligazette.com/news/3701-catching-up-with-the-sit-chief

By Firdaus Ahmed[1]

Mr. RK Raghavan, a former director of CBI, is known better for his fortnightly column in the reputed journal Frontline, a flagship publication advertised as India’s National Magazine from the publishers of the equally formidable for its erudition, The Hindu. It is therefore with some respect that readers have been accessing his views to inform and shape their own. This regard for his post retirement output on security and policing is perhaps what prompted the Supreme Court to appoint him as the head of the Special Investigation Team that went into the Gujarat carnage to assess the veracity of the more significant crimes committed post Godhra there. The report of the SIT having been submitted it is now clear that the exercise was one of exonerating the political figures involved not only in inciting but later in covering up the crimes. That the report has gone on to even absolve the political leadership of Gujarat then of acts of omission, leave alone of acts of commission, has left the readers of RK Raghavan’s columns in a state of confusion. Was their faith in the credibility of Mr. Raghavan as a guide into the internal security realm misplaced?

Raghavan’s latest column in the Frontline, ‘Tepid on Terror’, (http://www.frontlineonnet.com/stories/20120601291009700.htm, May 19-June 1, 2012) should dispel any doubts of Mr. Raghavan’s political inclination. In effect, Mr. Raghavan is no professional writing dispassionately about his craft. He is instead a political person and his work reflects his politics. Mistaking him is the fault of his readers, not his. If the Supreme Court was likewise misled by his seemingly secular credentials, then it is at the institution’s cost. Mr. Raghavan cannot be blamed for being himself. Clarity on the working of his mind is easily obtainable from his column in which he attempts to advocate the NCTC.

The argument he makes, that comes out clearly in his concluding paragraph, is that the NCTC would be able to network foreign intelligence agencies better and with its policing powers (that has proven its Achilles heel) be able to act autonomously to good effect. His article brings out the ‘threat’ of terror as he sees it in the surviving of Al Qaeda post 2014, and its affiliation to the Lashkar e Taiba. This, given the latter’s penetration of India (in Mr. Raghavan’s estimate) is an existential threat that requires an appropriate response in the form of an NCTC. While the first and last paragraphs have a mention of NCTC on an article purportedly on NCTC, the remainder of the article is scaremongering with which the liberal minority is by now already more than familiar with. 

The problem is that this has now become the ‘common sense’, with ‘authorities’, who ought to know better, also purveying it. With Mr. Raghavan’s ‘clean chit’ to the political leadership in Gujarat, it is apparent that the future may well be a repeat of the past. Mr. Raghavan’s  is a self-fulfilling prophecy in that with the judicial system sabotaged by his report, it would incentivise hotheads to draw their own conclusions. This will then make Mr. Raghavan take the position, ‘See, I told you so, didn’t I?’; thereby buttressing his ‘expert’ credentials. That his article does not carry a mention of Hindutva inspired terror that has masqueraded as minority perpetrated suggests a blind spot. This blind spot is incidentally what reveals Mr. Raghavan’s politics best. These elements have been lying low of late, given the manner they have been exposed as behind many if not most terror incident’s earlier attributed by default as minority perpetrated.

This brings one to the point that Mr. Raghavan yet again misleads by attempts to rely on the ‘common sense’ to make a case for NCTC. This popular, if erroneous, notion has been manufactured by closet cultural nationalists, both in the strategic community and media; the ranks of which now have a distinguished denizen, Mr. Raghavan, now unmasked. The case for NCTC if at all is not that it is required for coping with minority perpetrated terror and its external linkages, but for taming Hindutva inspired terror. The terror that has passed for minority perpetrated terror has been doubly effective. Firstly it has put the minority in the dock and also, secondly, when there, on the backfoot, in getting those so accused to first their prove innocence and then prove the other side guilty. This is what in intelligence circles are called ‘black operations’. This is suggestive of intelligence tutelage of those so engaged. Given the predilections of the well regarded Mr. Raghavan now exposed, it is worth a ponder if there are subterranean linkages between state agencies, well known to be without parliamentary supervision and nefarious groups of a certain political persuasion. Analogy can be drawn from the notorious ISI linkages allegedly with certain grou, brought out copiously in Mr. Raghavan’s article. Given that the state, both at the Union level and provincial, has acted with alacrity against the latter, there is little need then to also have an NCTC based on this logic. Instead, an NCTC with teeth is required for the Union to act against Hindutva inspired terror groups, since there is great reluctance, perhaps due to the possible complicity mentioned here, against Hindutva inspired groups. Given that this argument is not marshalled makes Mr. Raghavan’s critique of those holding up the NCTC somewhat ‘tepid on terror’.

While there are good reasons to go slow on the NCTC with teeth as envisaged, one reason why it is needed is to cope with those that form the blind spot of the state. Admitting to this is perhaps too much to expect of the home ministry, but this is the more pertinent reason why the UPA has perhaps wanted the NCTC in its current form. However, there is a problem area that needs reckoning with. This is that in equipping itself with such powers, in case the Union is captured, democratically or otherwise by forces inimical to the Constitution, then it would be too late to rue them such powers. So although there is good reason to have an NCTC that can take action, there are reservations that can lend the exercise pause.

In enabling these observations on the NCTC and the dominant security discourse, Mr. Raghavan’s column has served a purpose, but not as he imagined. It is time the editors of the Hindu group read their very own columnists since such writings excite dissonance in their readers, being inconsistent with the otherwise credible and creditably liberal line of the publications of the group.

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[1] Firdaus Ahmed blogs at www.subcontinentalmusings.blogspot.in

Milli Gazette

THE GUJARAT REVELATIONS
By Firdaus Ahmed
According to an affidavit in the Supreme Court by a senior police official, he was witness to the chief minister in Gujarat requiring the police to stay out of violence that he expected Hindus to inflict on Muslims in wake of the burning of the train bogie at Godhra. This was intended to ‘teach the Muslims a lesson’. The police had been somewhat even handed earlier, as a result the Muslims had apparently been emboldened. The lesson would help put a stop to communal violence they indulged in.

The chief minister has since been reelected and has acquired a reputation for being strong on development. There is also the claim that Gujarat has since been communal violence free. A Muslim educationist heading a leading seminary has been under cloud for acknowledging that Muslims do not face discrimination in Gujarat. A leading industrial tycoon is seen in an advertisement praising the Gujarat administration for speedily granting his corporation land for completion of a car project. India’s top actor is a state ambassador for Gujarat. The cop in question has gone on record accusing the Special Investigation Team probing the cases of violence on behalf of the Supreme Court of being partial to the chief minister.

Clearly, the chief minister has done well since for himself and evidently for his state. The question is can the subsequent record help over-shadow the previous record. This is consequential since the chief minister may have ambitions for ruling from Delhi, particularly since his political party is short on leadership with an impressive record.

The answer is equally clearly in the negative. Justice has not only to be done, but seen to be done. The chief minister would have to pay for his acts of omission and commission. But only in case these are proven in court. The problem is that close to a decade has elapsed since.

This means ample time has been available for records to be set right, assuming there is truth to the charge in first place. That the police officer did not blow the whistle earlier indicates the atmosphere of fear in the state bureaucracies. That his own senior has contested his claim brings out the atmosphere of connivance prevalent. This environment of fear is perhaps that gets the bureaucracy working and in its working bringing compliments, if controversial, for development for the state. There is also the possibility, given that the people have reelected the party that within the state apparatus exists a considerable constituency subverted to the ideology of the political party.

In the immediate aftermath of the carnage, the prime minister, of the same political party, could not follow through on his preference of asking the chief minister to go for violation of what he termed as the ‘raj dharma’. The chief minister in the event was saved by the union home minister accepting his narrative of the events in Gujarat. This ability to handle Delhi, no doubt, sent the message to people and officials in Gujarat of the power of the chief minister.

The climate of fear has been extended over time by the earlier killing of the home minister during the carnage, Hiren Pandya. There have been periodic reports of killings of some Muslims in encounters, now being increasingly challenged as fake encounters. These cumulatively have possibly lent the chief minister an aura of invincibility. This perhaps explains the higher indices on development reportedly been notched up by Gujarat. No one in the administration would want to fall afoul of such a ruthless man. It is said of the Emergency that the trains ran on time.

In other words, the ‘development’ that is attributed to Gujarat is not through means that are worth replicating. If these are good enough for the Gujarati people and their state officials, these are not necessarily replicable across the diverse land of India. In any case the controversy that greeted even the revered Anna Hazare’s references to the chief minister’s record on development indicates that the record on rural development is not quite what it is made out to be.

There are three indicators to the contrary about the state of affairs in Gujarat. Firstly, the persecution of Christians in the tribal Dangs district indicates that all is not well in rural Gujarat. Swami Aseemananda, the mastermind who has confessed to his involvement in the right wing conspiracy to malign Muslims through terrorist bomb attacks, had his ashram there in Gujarat. Second is that there has been little done for justice and resettlement of Muslims effected by the violence. This means impunity for the perpetrators and by extension accretion in the aura of ruthlessness of the chief minister.

Lastly, there has been the case of bomb blasts in Ahmedabad as part of the series of blasts in cities across India in 2008. The curious part of this case has been that the only place these were detected and reportedly ‘defused’ was in Surat. The obvious implication is that these have been planted there to implicate Muslims yet again. The less obvious but more significant implication is that this may well have been to take the scent off the elements who had actually planted these. No wonder that the Center has had to create a fresh agency, the NIA, to look at the blasts of questionable origin. The fear is that the intelligence apparatus is so penetrated by subverted ideology if not elements that a fresh agency is required to pursue the ends of justice.

It is therefore important to restrict the chief minister’s shadow to his home state. It is for the people there to realize who they have as their elected head. As for the rest of the people of India there is no way their sense of justice and propriety will allow them to countenance such a person as their political leader. Ensuring that this does not come to pass due to democratic miscarriage requires that the truth in Gujarat be pursued to its logical ends. More need to follow the example of the brave hearts as Hemant Karkare and the whistle blower, Sanjiv Bhatt.

If truth was to prove elusive still, then regretfully it must be acknowledged that this nation needs no better a leader than the chief minister as prime minister.