I know that it has become the Indian way of responding to every incident of terrorism, but I am getting increasingly tired of the chorus of ‘Intelligence Failure’ that follows each bomb blast.
Of course, it is the job of intelligence agencies to keep a watch on terrorist organisations, but no agency is omnipresent or omniscient. If spy services were so good, then there would never be any terror attacks anywhere in the world because intelligence agencies would have foiled them.
In fact, every country that faces a terror threat has had to confront vicious attacks. The British Security Service and the Secret Intelligence Service did their best to cope with the Irish Republican Army’s (IRA) terror campaign during the 1970s and 1980s—still bombs went off and lives were lost. The IRA even managed to bomb the hotel where former Prime Minister of the UK Margaret Thatcher was staying. She was lucky to escape with her life.
The Americans have often failed spectacularly at preventing political assassinations (especially when lone gunmen are involved). There is a long list of terror attacks, including 9/11, where their intelligence failed. Even Mossad of Israeli intelligence, often admired by Indian fans for its anti-terror tactics, failed to anticipate the Hamas attack, which led to the last war.
Intelligence failures do occur. And often, even when the intelligence is good, it gets ignored once it’s passed higher up the chain. In the case of the 2008 Mumbai attacks, the Research & Analysis Wing (R&AW) says it intercepted communications from the boat the terrorists were using to land in Mumbai. The transcripts were passed on — and ignored by the top people in the National Security apparatus.
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New terror campaign
Every attack calls for a postmortem after the event. But this must be conducted calmly and forensically. Hysteria and cries of ‘intelligence failure’ may help in scoring political points, but they don’t really take us forward. Judging by the little we know about the latest Delhi blast, it was, ironically enough, a tragic consequence of an intelligence triumph.
The J&K police rolled up a terror network that had the potential to create havoc and kill thousands. The quantity of explosives recovered was mind-blowing. The people who constituted part of the network were seen as upstanding citizens; they could have gone about planting their explosives without attracting too much suspicion.
It now seems clear that the Delhi bomber was part of the network. Recognising that his fellow conspirators would give him up during interrogation, he either launched a final suicide attack or tried to transport his stash of explosives, which blew up unexpectedly.
It’s hard to focus only on an intelligence failure in such a case. And yes, it is tempting to
point out that the Delhi Police were busy roughing up and detaining protesters who were complaining about pollution when they should have been protecting citizens from terrorism. But as much as I condemn the police action against the protestors, it is not fair to link this with a failure to prevent a terror attack.
All of this is important because we could be looking at a renewal of a terror campaign. We know that Pakistan’s current military leadership is proudly hostile to India. We also know that their army will not risk a military conflict. The last time around, they were lucky that US President Donald Trump intervened before India had a chance to take the battle deeper into Pakistan. That allowed them to claim victory. But they won’t be so lucky next time, so war is not in their interests.
In such a situation, a revival of the terrorist movements they have fostered over the last two decades suits their purposes. As long as the terror suspects are of Indian origin (as they seem to be in this case), Pakistan can claim that this is India’s internal affair.
Our room for manoeuvre is limited.
Fighting back
After Operation Sindoor, a military response can only be a last resort. Not only will Pakistan’s friends in the White House try and stop us, but we will find it difficult to convince the rest of the world that the terrorists are armed and supported by Pakistan.
So the much-maligned intelligence agencies become our best hope of limiting the attacks, fighting back, and protecting India.
It is always hard to assess how well or badly the agencies have functioned because, as every R&AW chief and former chief will tell you, “our failures are on the front pages while our successes are kept under wraps.”
It is fair to say the intelligence establishment did not cover itself in glory when it was accused of hiring hitmen to kill Khalistanis. Not only was the idea itself foolish and dangerous, but the execution was pathetic.
I am assuming that the government has cleaned house since then. Because if our worst fears are right and a terror campaign is being planned from across the border, the only way to foil it is through intelligence. And not the stupidity that was in evidence during the anti Khalistani operation.
Vir Sanghvi is a print and television journalist and talk show host. He tweets @virsanghvi. Views are personal.
(Edited by Ratan Priya)
It is really true! The Indian intelligence agencies have done marvelous job in preventing terror incidents. And please note, it the Indian media to blame to give a bad image to the intelligence agencies. So this so-called “much-maligned” term is created by media itself. Look how this wretched Indian media reported the recent Delhi blast. Like vultures these reporters roamed over the debris.
People just don’t understand that it’s statistically impossible to have a 100% track record in preventing such incidents. Most of these people fail to recognize that the state was able to thwart something really big in nature when they caught so much ammonium nitrate and also seized a ricin factory in gujurat.
This attack was more or less an “accidental” attack. As in it was unplanned and just happened because the substance was unstable. If he had planned it a bit better then we could have seen casualties going above 50.
Maligning intelligence without understanding the situation is just absolutely ridiculous.