Obama–Modi Mann Ki Baat

With just a day to go for the arrival of US First Citizen and First Lady, New Delhi is gripped by Obama fever, literally and figuratively. Sections of Luyten’s Delhi have become out of bounds for the ‘aam aadmi’ with security blanket enveloping the city like never before. The talk of the town is that in addition to official vigilantes with caps and without caps, there will be several prying eyes in the sky, and many of them American.

No surprise the Pakistani security and strategic experts like Sattar Alvi have gone to the town mocking at India, and confidently asserting that Washington lacks confidence in the Indian security apparatus. Our sleuths have not helped our cause with their warning that the likes of Islamic State (IS), Al Qaeda (AQ) and Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) are waiting to strike at soft targets from Kashmir to Delhi during Obama visit. A top Army official, Lieutenant General K H Singh, GOC, 16 Corps, even thought it fit and proper to be more specific on the intelligence input. “As many as 200 militants are poised across the border on Pakistani soil and ready to infiltrate and attack targets here”, he said at a media briefing. As if for emphasis, he added, “The militants are being supported by the Pakistani establishment, army and the ISI.” There you have it: Pakistan is involved.

The Union Minister of State for Home Affairs, Kiren Rijiju, may like to brush aside the Pakistan-centric concern as a North Indian phobia. He is right to an extent because North India has not yet recovered from the ravages of partition. And anti-Pakistani sentiment has given birth to a cottage industry of sorts for some sections – bureaucrats, diplomats and media persons including.

The fact of the matter is that the security establishment is known to put out such warnings on the eve of Independence Day, Republic Day, and important festivals like Diwali. The Obama – eve warnings fall into a pattern in a manner of speaking. You cannot blame the sleuths. They have a thankless job to do and they do not want to be blamed tomorrow. Yet, after every terrorist strike, the leaking roofs in the police headquarters declare: “We did not have specific actionable intelligence”. How much actionable an input can be when today’s media report is yesterday’s intelligence. It is not to say that India has not developed expertise to snoop around but the problem is that the intercepts are lost in the din of turf wars, as the Mumbai mayhem of November 2008 has clearly demonstrated. We are yet to learn from the 28/11 fallout. A case in point is the interception of an explosive-laden Pakistani boat that was intercepted near the India- Pakistan maritime boundary off Gujarat coast on the last day of the year that has just ended. It was “an intelligence- based midnight operation” in “darkness, bad weather and strong winds,” according to officials of the Coast Guard, Navy and a premier intelligence agency, the National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO).

The ‘operation’ has left many questions unanswered, like for instance, whether the Pak intruders were killed in the explosion they had caused in their boat or whether they had jumped minutes before hitting the button for the vessel to go up in flames. As of now, it is clear that the Navy and the Coast Guard have been acquitted well unlike in 2008 when they had failed to find out the trawler that had brought Ajmal Kasab et al to Mumbai despite “inputs” on the coordinates of its position off the Colaba coast.

A couple of observations will be in order. One, the episode has highlighted the dangers that exist in maritime security. It has brought forth an issue which has received scant attention thus far: Should agencies like NTRO hog the headlines? In the instant case, media reports spoke of how the Pakistani vessel was detected and its movement was pinpointed right from the time it left Pak shores and was intercepted some 360 km West-South West of Porbandar.

A careful reading between the lines, if not the reports proper, offers good food for thought to the “enemy” on spoofing attacks, which, in essence, are no more than an overload of false data either to mislead you or to let you develop a sense of complacency. In today’s internet age, spoofing has become a potential weapon; your firewalls are programmed for defence; there are not many ‘protocols’ that help us to identify the source or destination of a message. Moreover, the attacker has the first mover advantage.

Another takeaway from Dec 31 ops, according to some experts, is the possibility of carrying out the strike in total “radio silence.” All this in the context of another maritime attack can make it difficult to zero in on the real intruding vessel since India has to live with maritime threat from Pakistan; Looking for a fishing vessel on the high seas is as bad as looking for a needle in the haystack.

Simply put, it is time to give a makeover to the leaking roofs in the security establishment, and make them shun the headlines. This is not to say that there should be no advance warnings; there should be –not one, in fact, as many as needed to sensitise the people. And, of course, to signal ‘the enemy’ that you are high on alert, like now, when the most powerful man in the world besieged by the worst diplomatic crises is coming to Delhi after vowing in his State of Union Address to “relentlessly hunt down terrorists from Paris to Peshawar.”

The ‘positives’ for India that might result from the visit are unclear, though. The New York Times speaks of “chemistry between Obama, a former law professor, and Narendra Modi, a former Hindu activist,” and expects the two leaders “to break the ice.” Cutting through the hype, it would appear that India will have to be content with MoUs on energy and climate cooperation, transfer of non-strategic technologies and reaffirmation of continued support to its soaring ambitions. However, the Obama –Modi ‘Mann Ki Baat’ over All India Radio will be a cause for heartburn in Pakistan.

By: Malladi Rama Rao