Need more pragmatic approach to tackle terrorism in India.

Need more pragmatic approach to tackle terrorism in India.

For the kind attention of Hon. MOH and others.

1. It is almost impossible to take adequate and appropriate action in case of terror attacks that  happen in a thickly populated country like India. Prevention of terrorism by looking into its root causes is the only way out. According to me the most effective way for India to get over the problem of terrorism is to have the courage to stand up and acknowledge and openly seek apology for the mistakes we have done as a nation in the past, mend our ways and ensure these are not repeated in the future. For this, first of all it is necessary for us to get immunized ourselves from various forms of anti-secular activism within; before looking to the threats from outside. To prevent internal anti-secular activities, it is necessary for all political factions to join hands and take stern and decisive action against breeding communal violence and prevent disruptive tendencies within the country.  There shall be zero tolerance to any form non secular organizations and anti-secular activities of any form by anyone however big he or they may be.

The other options like setting up of mass participation as envisaged in various paras below though cumbersome, could help to eliminate terrorism initiated, inculcated and practiced by fundamentalists.

 2. Prevent terrorism from external forces.

Find out and eliminate the root cause of increased hostilities against us from terrorist groups abroad. India was the first country to recognize Palestine and right of Muslims to have their home land back. India also took the courage of joining the nations in severing diplomatic ties with Israel. India is one of the nations which condemned a unilateral decision of war in Iraq. India give moral and physical support for Afghanistan in it’s strive to bring in democracy. India continues to support Iran in its legitimate actions and entered into cooperation in many areas of trade and sharing of resources even at the risk of friendship with America. India had contributed much for the development of many Gulf countries and Arab nations.By and large common mass in Islamic countries were friendly to Indians.

Introspection is very much required to know what changed.  There can be genuine reasons for discontent among various religious / ethnic groups. It is painful to see no one including media and the so called secularist politicians, dare to stand up and condemn the anti secular activities and problems being caused by various religious fanatic groups within the country breeding feeling of hatred of one community against the other for the fear losing votes of one group or other.  Unless we change ourselves in our attitude, Hippocratic approach and double standards; terrorism in one form or other against India is likely to grow further and become very UN-manageable. It is time people rise together to defeat political groups using the religious and communal cards to come into power. 

3. Strengthen defense systems and Crisis Management:

Manufacture enough quantity indigenous sophisticated weapons, arms, armor and tools in the ordinance factories and set up systems and other infrastructure, and make available to the army and anti-terrorist personnel. 

Build up an effective Crisis / Disaster management system and establishment with the back borne of highly trained and equipped army and Para-military personnel in every city and towns and villages.

Set up exclusive GPS / GSM Wireless Telecom Network for Crisis Control and Disaster Management. Quick means of communication is one of the vital needs at the time of major crisis and disaster. The irony is that public telecom networks become useless when it is most needed. The normal telecom networks are designed for normal optimum busy hour telephone use of a routine day. In case of a calamity, Telcom systems and networks systems get choked due to over usage. It is impossible to design a public telephone network that is capable of handling the sudden spurt of telephone traffic of sporadic nature that happen at the time of any major events, crisis and disaster. 

It was pitiful to see that while the 26/11 terrorists were able speak to the perpetrators unhindered,  there were no clear communication happened between the Police HQ and their various men in field. Even the police control rooms did not bother to get information from large number of media persons present in the vicinity who had first hand information of what was happening. This is very much evident from the fact that Mr. Karkare and others with him had no idea of the situation as to the where about of the terrorists and the weapons they had with them due to lack of communication. Death of those three fine policemen caused a terrible turn of the whole events.

When few gas masked security men could have put the terrorists out of action within minutes of their invasion in Taj and other places and apprehended them using some neutralizing gas grenades. it was just fool hardy to order them to go and face those mindless AK 47 rifles and Grenades wielding terrorists, without even having bullet proof vests. Had there been proper communication things would have ended in an entirely different way.

The way out  is to have exclusive private GPS / GSM Wireless telecom network as being used in other countries for  essential services such as security, army, police, ambulance, hospitals, road transport & traffic control, air traffic control, railways and important persons/ organizations and local administration, that are vital in the crisis control/disaster management system.  By design, these shall be non-blocking, full availability systems for congestion free service at the switching centre level as well as at the access network levels. Interconnects to Public networks could be available on normal situation, but it would be capable to filter or block these to avoid flooding of calls from other networks during emergency situations.

With these systems and network set up across the country in place, it would be possible to keep up fail proof communication between the vital points to receive information and pass on orders immediately from central control to various points to take appropriate action in case of cyclone, flood, fire, earthquake, terrorist activities, bomb scare, mob violence or major traffic hold up situations. It shall be possible to access the communications systems of Suburban railway and road transport from this network to contact and pass orders for immediate actions. Bomb scare alarms and announcement system shall be available in every railway compartment.

The network and systems in different cities shall be linked for integrated action of security needs and events and crisis of national importance.  It is possible to have centralized database and control servers in one of the systems and shared by other networks. In addition to such private GSM Network, other infrastructures for crisis management also shall be in place.

Vital things needed are:

i) A centralized administrative body to take over and exercise over all control and coordination.

ii) A research and consultant group to constantly improvise the systems in every sphere, technology, strategy, administration etc., according to changing needs. 

iii) A contingent of specially trained persons in every city and towns.

iv) Necessary infrastructure such as modern weapons, armor and ammunition.

v) Protected vehicles, helicopters, airplanes, fire tenders and etc., pre-loaded and fully equipped in operational ready condition. 

vi) Provide CCTVs at every crucial areas and network it with central control rooms. Even if some of these are not working, the physical presence of it will deter many miscreants.

4. Establish joint mechanism of Para military & Civilian administration:

Make the Army join the mainstream of rural growth. 

Move the Army to Villages and strengthen and diversify the defense establishment for the rural development revolution.

Without trifling the splendid service and the valuable efforts and sacrifices of the men safeguarding the nation in the boarders and elsewhere, we still need to ponder whether it is necessary for most of the defense infrastructure remain embedded in developed cities occupying prime lands. It is also worthwhile to examine, such exorbitant existence of the army establishments eating out of the central exchequer, have matching contribution during the days of peace for the over all growth of the nation. For the sake of nation building, it will be apt to move the army set up out from the cities and re-locate distributed in rural areas, strengthen them further and diversify their activities deploying them for national development, working hand in hand with the local administrative bodies and local population.

Restore peace in border and redeploy the military for nation building: Resolve the issues and bring in good relation with the neighboring countries, so that attention can be concentrated on nation building. India has a mammoth and strong army. It is told that about half a million of India’s military are involved in handling the boarder conflicts between India and Pakistan. If a peaceful settlement is achieved, most of it can be deployed for nation building. So start the reforms from Kashmir. People in Kashmir have suffered enough. The army shall be used for the uplift of the region, not to create more hardships. Anyone trying to incite communal tension there or anywhere should be dealt with severely.  

 Provide opportunity for the army personnel to lead family life in the villages along with the civilians giving them the opportunity to lead a peaceful and stable social life in healthy situations with the local population and at the same time taking part in the nation building process.

This establishment shall function in the style of Corporate with the Federal (MP) and State Legislative Representative of the constituency (MLA), the District collector and one delegated Army personnel of Brigadier level as board of Directors supported with capable administrators taken in from open market. The working of the corporate shall be extended over the district with Lt. Cornell with the Tahsildars at Tahsil level and Lieutenants / Captains with the local executives at Village / Panchayat at level, each supported by units of Military and Para military personnel and supporting staff.

 5. Participate the rural mass in nation building process:

General development of the rural area and uplift of the people there by implementing centrally drawn out development programs making use of locally available and other manageable resources shall be the joint responsibility of the local administration and the army units with close co-ordination of Bureaucracy, Law enforcement supported by the Judiciary and NGOs.

All able bodied un-employed persons in the 21 to 45 years age group of the local population shall be compulsorily enrolled to form human resources units in every Village / Panchayat.

Enrollment and training shall be a continuous process. All persons in the units shall be given compulsory basic education, training in agriculture, trades and other vocational training. The eligible ones shall have opportunity for free higher education.

Paramilitary training shall be given for all those are physically fit. There shall be facility for giving short term para-military training for the youth from the urban areas and it shall made mandatory for all job seekers to have undergone at three months para-military training. All employed persons without exception, shall undergo at least a 45 days para-military training, once in two years. Everyone should be trained on anti terrorism awareness programs and prevention methods.  Imagine the potential of a country with 250 to 350 million mentally and physically disciplined and well-organized persons available in the across the country that could be mobilized and used in case of any national emergency or external threats. The mobility achieved with more roads, highways, railways and infrastructure across the country will make the defense potential much stronger. Moreover, this will be best way, may be the only way to bring self discipline and prevent youngsters falling prey to extremists and the only way to fully eradicate terrorism.

 6. Quickly Implement  Automatic Personal Identification system and make it compulsory.

Personal Identification of every inhabitant and visitors in the country shall be done. With so much IT capability and techno-savvy environment in India, it shall be possible to develop and implement a system  which can generate and provide identity cards with an intelligent chip with DNA map and finger print code embedded in it and once activated it will remain logged in to a GPS controlled network. This could be done by ISRO setting up Geo-stationery satellites for GPS network needed and networked across the country.

The information is loaded via GPS link to into central system which gets updated periodically.  The data is deleted from the system at the death of the person. 

Safeguards against tampering can be envisaged by various inbuilt features. Tamper or removal of the card will permanently damage it as the permanent discontinuity which will be detected and reported by the system. 

In built features and applications safe guard against fraud, non-compliance, misuse and tampering.

The system envisaged will cover every person in entire country.

A ready method to have the record of day to day Census, scope for automatic updating it, collection and use of various information, which could be used for ensuring full scale voting, payment of taxes.

Every visitor entering the country shall be given a temporary ID card at the point of entry and made to carry it with them and surrendered while exiting the country.

7. Allow the mass to continue to stay and prosper in own villages. 

Instead of running away to crowded cities, the local population shall be encouraged to stay in the units in their own villages, by providing them, basic amenities, with the objective of utilizing the trained mass for the rural development projects in local area.

Everyone shall be given adequate minimum wage for a comfortable living for themselves and their defendant family. Those who acquire higher education and training and skill sets shall be given jobs at appropriate levels within the units or send to occupy jobs in other units. Lastly the political masters who are ignorant and incompetent to take decisions on technology related issues should leave it to specialists and make them responsible for its proper implementation.

 8. Revamp the Federal and State system. The present method of sharing of responsibility and power on various vital areas are unworkable and ineffective. To make an end to ever increasing demands of partitioning of exiting formations of States, it is necessary to redefine and percolate power to District level.