When Dr Manmohan Singh died, fulsome tributes poured in along with appreciation that had been withheld for all these years. But his foreign policy record was marred, according to some, by his handling of the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks. Far from being a failure, it was one of his wisest and farsighted decisions, albeit difficult to understand in an environment in which strategy has been reduced to photo ops and popularity contests.
The fact is that the Mumbai attacks were launched precisely to provoke an Indian military response, which would have helped extricate Pakistan from a quagmire along the Afghan border. Falling into this trap by launching a military retaliation—which the government seriously considered—would simply have played into the enemy’s hands. Instead, the UPA government worked with the US to isolate Pakistan, arrest many of the masterminds of the attack, and compel China and Saudi Arabia to support sanctions that sharply eroded the capabilities of the Lashkar-e-Taiba.
Not taking the bait
The year before the Mumbai attacks, Pakistan’s military had come under severe pressure at home. The July 2007 commando raid ordered by President Pervez Musharraf on militants in the Lal Masjid had ruptured relations between the Pakistan Army and its jihadist allies, sparking an internal insurgency led by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri condemned the Pakistan Army and called for retaliation, which came in the form of bloody attacks on Pakistani military installations.
As stated in Adrian Levy and Cathy Scott-Clark’s book titled The Siege: The Attack on the Taj Mumbai, many Lashkar cadres also wanted to ditch the Pakistan Army and fight alongside Al Qaeda and the Taliban. In fact, many Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) assets such as Ilyas Kashmiri did so and conducted operations against the Pakistani state.
Levy and Scott-Clark contend that the Lal Masjid clash was the trigger for the Lashkar and its ISI supervisors to begin detailed planning of what had, until then, been a fantastical plan to target Mumbai, initially conjured up by the unreliable David Headley.
By the time the Mumbai attacks were given the go-ahead in July 2008, the standing of the Pakistan Army in the country had fallen to a multi-year low. The lawyers’ movement, the Lal Masjid raid, and the assassination of Benazir Bhutto had weakened Musharraf. Having resigned as the army chief in November 2007, he was subsequently forced out as president.
Meanwhile in July 2008, President George W Bush authorised US forces to conduct strikes inside Pakistan without the latter’s permission. It led to skirmishes between the US and Pakistani forces in tribal areas where dozens of Pakistani soldiers lost their lives.
As a result of these events, public approval of the Army fell from 82 per cent in September 2006 to 60 per cent in June 2008. Furthermore, 51 per cent of the population opposed the Army’s operations against extremists in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) and Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). And 63 per cent said that Pakistan should not support the US “war on terror”.
The solution to the Pakistan Army’s bind—the prospect of having to fight the US as well as its old jihadist allies—was, as in 2001 during the Indian Parliament attack, to engineer a crisis that would force India to mobilise. Such a crisis would not only provide the Pakistan Army the perfect excuse to extract itself from its NWFP and FATA quagmire but also unite all sections of Pakistan to rally behind it.
This is precisely why Manmohan Singh decided not to give the Pakistan Army the conflict for which it was so desperate.
And not for want of trying. Pakistan stepped up its rhetoric immediately after the 26/11 attacks, claiming that India was mobilising when no such thing had happened. A person impersonating former External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee made a phone call to former President Asif Ali Zardari on 28 November 2008 threatening military action. The same caller had also tried, unsuccessfully, to get through to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
Nevertheless, the Pakistan Air Force was put on alert, and Pakistan immediately began sabre-rattling. TTP chief Baitullah Mehsud announced that “thousands of our well-armed militants are ready to fight alongside the Army if any war is imposed on Pakistan”. For the Pakistan Army, this was a dream scenario.
The Indian Army and the Indian Air Force are believed to have presented options to the government for limited strikes on targets in Pakistan, but they would very likely have escalated given how badly the Pakistan Army needed a diversionary crisis. Lehman Brothers had gone bankrupt in September 2008, triggering a global market meltdown and a worldwide recession. It was not the most propitious time to risk a military escalation that could further destabilise the world economy.
Instead, the Singh government began a diplomatic offensive to isolate Pakistan and contain the Lashkar. The government also reformed internal security management to ensure that nothing on the scale of Mumbai could recur.
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India’s war on terror groups
- On the diplomatic front, India convinced China and Saudi Arabia to declare key Lashkar operatives as international terrorists. Many of the planners and handlers such as Sheikh Abdul Khwaja and Zaibuddin Ansari were arrested in foreign jurisdictions and extradited to India.
- The US stepped up its drone attacks along the Afghan border, killing large numbers of militants and several Pakistani soldiers. It all culminated in the raid on Abbottabad in 2011 in which US troops killed Osama bin Laden. In return for Indian restraint, the US escalated its air campaign over Pakistan.
- Violence spiralled in Pakistan. The number of fatalities from militant attacks doubled from 1,643 in 2007 to 3,318 in 2009, according to the Global Terrorism Database. Strategic facilities targeted by the TTP included the Pakistan Army GHQ (2009), naval base PNS Mehran (2011) and Kamra Air Force Base (2012). Pakistan has long accused India of supporting the TTP via its embassy and consulates in Afghanistan, which themselves have come under heavy attack.
- The Lashkar was rendered ineffective as a terror group. The ISI took a more hands-off approach emphasising local groups such as the Indian Mujahideen, which carried out a number of bomb blasts in India. But by 2013, this group had also been rendered ineffective following the arrests of its key leaders, including co-founder Yasin Bhatkal.
- Internal security management was beefed up with the creation of the National Investigation Agency, a chain of coastal police stations and radars, regional hubs for the National Security Guard, and an upgraded Multi-Agency Centre to improve coordination among security agencies at the central and state levels.
- Overall, the death toll from militant or terror attacks in India declined by 73 per cent under the UPA, from 3,239 (2005) to 873 (2013). Incidents of terrorist violence in Jammu & Kashmir fell from 1,990 (2005) to 170 (2013), according to the Home Ministry’s annual reports. Those reports also show that militant infiltration in J&K more than halved, from 597 (2005) to 277 (2013).
This is a successful record by any yardstick. The former PM clearly understood the strategic trap that a beleaguered Pakistan Army was setting for India and deftly avoided it. Over the following years, whether it was the arrest of many of the perpetrators, the global isolation and marginalisation of Pakistan, or a rapid drop in terrorist violence, the UPA delivered.
Amitabh Dubey is a Congress member. He tweets @dubeyamitabh. Views are personal.
(Edited by Ratan Priya)
stupid artical , how on earth by not acting against the enemy is wise, at least a diplomatic actions that cause economic burden but instead, they sold currency printer to get duplicate currency and harm india shameful
Manmohan Singh HMV
HER MAJESTY S VOICE
Ye log kuch bhi justify kar dega
Congressis like to think of defeat as some sort of ‘moral victory’. I think this is what the author is trying to say.
Somehow it feels like a postdated justification to whitewash the infamy of the deceased. Dr Singh will rank amongst the finest minds and best technocrats ever born in India but his abject surrenders to our neighbor both on 26/11 and then at Sharm el Shiekh will always be an indelible blot on his legacy. It is the lackadaisical misrule of the UPA dyarchy that allowed 26/11 to occur and probably prohibited a robust response. Everyone remembers how IEDs in crowded places had become a routine news. The beefing up of the security probably owes more to the stern actions of Mr P Chidambaram than Dr Singh. 26/11 was not his finest hour nor did the timid mumbling thereafter enhance his credentials. It is ill to spread canards about the dead but it is equally calumnious to attribute blatantly untrue qualities. Dr Singh will be well remembered on his own right without the need for any of these mendacious misattributions. The disclaimer of the author being a congress lickspittle should have preceded this poorly argued article.
🤣🤣🤣🤡 nice jock 🤣🤣how to make failure is a master stock !