Global Insight Perspective | |
Significance | Home Minister Shivraj Patil today resigned to take responsibility for the handling of the terrorist attack that cost at least 192 their lives last week while Indian authorities became increasingly explicit over the suspected Pakistani origins of the attacks. |
Implications | With elections coming up in six months, the Indian National Congress (INC)-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government is keenly aware that they must re-build confidence in the internal security apparatus. Indo-Pakistani relations are expected to face significant strain with potential implications for the bilateral detente between the two countries and Pakistan's strategic prioritisation of current anti-militant operations in the border regions. |
Outlook | The United States is expected to play an instrumental role in containing tensions in the region. While pragmatism should prevail, substantial risks remain, with the timing of the attacks exploiting the current transition of the U.S. government, the election cycle in India and growing pressures on the weak Pakistani coalition government. |
First Resignation
India’s home minister Shivraj Patil yesterday stepped down to take responsibility for the 60-hour terrorist attack against the country’s financial capital Mumbai launched by radicals last week, claiming 192 lives (see India: 27 November 2008: More than 100 Killed as Mujahedeen Group Stages Attacks in India's Financial Capital). High-profile security advisor M.K. Narayanan has further offered to resign, but it remains unclear if Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will accept. India’s finance minister Palaniappan Chidambaram is now to take over as home minister, with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh temporarily assuming the finance portfolio, according to Reuters.
A Security Lapse?
The resignations have been announced as India’s government has come under increasing pressure to account for what has been criticised as a lax response to the terrorist attacks for which hitherto unknown radical group the Deccan Mujahedeen has taken responsibility. Recriminations have grown as security was expected to be high given that the Mumbai attack came on the back of a series of co-ordinated terrorist incidents in recent months, which have raised concerns that terrorism is on the rise. Most recently, the little-known Islamic Security Force-Indian Mujahedeen took responsibility for a series of 12 bombings in the insurgency-plagued state of Assam in India’s Northeast that killed close to 80 people (see India: 30 October 2008: North-East Indian State of Assam Hit by Multiple Bomb Blasts). The Indian Mujahedeen may, according to security services, share links with the proscribed Students’ Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) and foreign terrorist groups such as the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed, and Bangladesh-based HUJI. Six weeks previously, India’s capital New Delhi was the scene of a series of blasts in crowded markets that left 20 dead (see India: 15 September 2008: Multiple Bomb Blasts Hit Indian Capital). Meanwhile, Mumbai was the scene of India’s largest terrorist attack ever, striking at the city’s transport system, with 180 killed as a result, raising questions of why security had not been bolstered adequately since then.
While Indian commandos succeeded in bringing an end to the siege of luxury hotels the Trident Oberoi and the Taj Mahal this weekend, ending a 60-hour siege by a yet unknown number of terrorists, criticism emerged that the failure on the part of security forces and police to respond swiftly to the attacks played a significant role in the high death toll of the attack. PRS Oberoi, who is the chairman of the Oberoi Group, held that the majority of the killings at his hotel complex took place within the first 30 minutes of the attack, with police only subsequently arriving at the scene. Meanwhile, in trying to explain why it took anti-terrorist unit the National Security Guards (NSG) three days to defeat the terrorists, its head J. K. Dutt, has emphasised how well-trained the attackers were and their familiarity with the layout of the hotels, according to the International Herald Tribune. The last three gunmen in the Taj Mahal reportedly succeeded in eluding the NSG by setting repeated fires and littering the scene with unexploded hand grenades.
The Pakistan Connection
Meanwhile, India has pointed a finger of blame at Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba, with India’s deputy interior minister announcing today that all of the attackers were from Pakistan. The Indian authorities have however stopped short of blaming the Pakistani government, although expressing concern that anti-India activities have taken place on Pakistani territory. The status of the Indian intelligence services has been placed on a "war" footing while reports are circulating in domestic media that the government will suspend its involvement in the bilateral peace talks with Pakistan. The Islamabad government has denied any involvement in the Mumbai attacks, which are threatening to throw a spanner in the works of the peace process between the two nuclear-armed South Asian powers, which was launched in 2004. A Pakistani pledge to send the head of its intelligence agency to India to support investigations was rescinded after being reportedly rebuffed by the ISI hierarchy. The incident is a diplomatic embarrassment for the Pakistani government and a very public acknowledgement of its lack of authority over the agency. The attack comes after Pakistani president Asif Ali Zardari, spurred by U.S. diplomats, took a conciliatory stance vis-à-vis India last month and suspended the political wing of the ISI; a long-held demand of India's. Pakistan has sought to gain leverage by warning that it will withdraw forces currently engaged in anti-militant campaigns in the lawless border regions if India engages in a military build-up on the border as in 2002. U.S. foreign policy also adopted by the incoming Obama administration favours rapprochement between India and Pakistan to allow the latter to fully focus on combating extremism in the Afghanistan border region. Deploying its role as mediator in the region; Washington announced that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will fly to India to display her country’s solidarity. Setting out a more hard-line approach to the authorities in Pakistan, Rice also called on Pakistan for "transparency" as Indian investigations into the bombings proceed. Conversely, she is also expected to put diplomatic pressure on India to adopt a moderate approach vis-à-vis Pakistan, provided that the latter cooperates in ending anti-India activities on its soil.
Outlook and Implications
With elections coming up in six months, the Indian National Congress (INC)-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government is keenly aware that they must re-build confidence in the internal security apparatus. The government was already ahead of the attack subject to criticism for not taking security issues seriously. The opposition BJP is already seeking to capitalise on growing public anger with the government. Communal relations, already strained by widening income inequalities, could be complicated further if the BJP reverts to its Hindu nationalist agenda ahead of the elections. In a bid to shore up confidence, Prime Minister Singh yesterday announced that the government would double the NSG, which currently counts 7,400 officers. He further informed that discussions would be held on the establishment of a federal-level agency of investigation aimed at streamlining the operations of state and national agencies, as well as being tasked with improving maritime and air security. However, the measures will fail to counter the claim that authorities were caught napping particularly as claims emerge that the Indian government had already received warnings in spring of last year that a terrorist infiltration via sea was a risk.
The implications for geo-political relations in the region are significant. If the terrorists are proven to have Pakistani provenance the linkage either directly, or in popular perception, to Pakistan's governing elites will be made in India. Through the quiet urging of the United States; the official policy of the Pakistani government has been one of engagement with India that has resulted in a de-escalation of tensions since 2002. However, the support of the security apparatus in Pakistan, and specifically in the all-powerful ISI, for that policy is questionable. The Pakistani security structure is grounded in the definition of India as the country's prime strategic threat with the fate of the disputed Kashmir province and indirectly the alignment of Afghanistan the key arenas of conflict. The ISI cultivated militant extremist groups in its proxy war with India in Kashmir and in Afghanistan in the 1980s and early 1990s and is charged with maintaining involvement in LeT-led attacks in India including the 2001 attack on the Indian parliament, a wave of deadly bombings in Delhi markets in 2004 and more recently the highly symbolic car bomb attack on the Indian embassy in Afghanistan. If a motive of the attacks is to undermine closer U.S. sponsored Indo-Pakistani engagement and serve a warning to the Pakistani government their timing is acute. U.S. foreign policy is in a period of transition and redefinition while Prime Minister Gilani's government offered a direct challenge to the ISI's influence with the closure of its political wing last weekend that has gained significant influence as a power broker in Pakistani politics in recent years. The Pakistani government risks being alienated with its moderate-internationalist platform undermined abroad and at home by domestic nationalism if it is seen to be too compliant to Indian charges of complicity and U.S. influence.
The U.S. will assume a delicate brokering role to prevent a potentially disastrous spiral in tensions with the precepts of its South Asian policy resting on the stabilisation of Afghanistan, the associated eradication of the Islamist activities in Pakistan's border regions, Indo-Pakistan detente and stable sub-regional economic growth to counter the growing economic weight of China. The U.S. retains significant leverage. Pakistan's fragile economy again remains dependent on foreign financing support with the country last week officially acceding to an IMF structural programme to stave off a full-blown balance-of-payments crisis. In India, pragmatists led by Manmohan Singh have favoured engagement with Pakistan in support of regional stability to support economic growth while relations with the U.S. have warmed significantly cemented by the conclusion of the civilian nuclear accord between the two countries. The economy is already decelerating as domestic demand is circumscribed by high inflation and rising borrowing costs while exports progressively weakened as U.S.-led global growth attenuates. Data released Friday showed GDP in real terms rose 7.6% on the year in the three months through September highlighting the softening of growth even prior to the convulsions that gripped global financial markets from mid-September onwards. Following the escalation of the global financial crisis the rupee has significantly depreciated while stock markets have experienced steep declines as foreign portfolio capital inflows have reversed in a broad flight to safety. The impact of the Mumbai attacks and a possible protracted and tense stand-off with Pakistan on confidence could be significant. All parties have a vested interest in preventing any escalation in hostilities. However, U.S. mediation has the unintended consequence of encouraging political brinkmanship from both sides with limits set by the demands of international stability tacitly acknowledged by both sides. However, the risk remains that in the context of the political cycle in India, surging popular outrage and the demonstrable ineffectiveness of the Pakistani government to rein in militant activity and exercise control over its security apparatus; such political posturing could spiral out of control.