Pampore Terrorist Attack - Part III

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PAMPORE TERRORIST ATTACK - A Special Kind of Failure
Manvendra Singh


“`I don't think they play at all fairly,' Alice began,' ...and they don't seem to have any rules in particular; at least, if there are, nobody attends to them.“ Alice, in this case, is the one lost in Wonderland. And she has an important lesson when it comes to the recently concluded, and deeply tragic, operation in Pampore, Jammu and Kashmir.
All the top-notch military précis, training manuals and doctrines don't prepare a conventional army leadership when it comes to employing Special Forces. Those lines from Alice encapsulate all that there is to know about how the Special Forces play -and how to play with them.

Special Forces are essentially anathema to a regular conventional professional army: a small number of highly trained and motivated lads, doing operations disproportionate to their numerical strength. An army is about mass; the Special Forces about less being more. The twain don't meet.

But an army has to tolerate them, because they exist. And they exist because there are individuals crazy enough to feel comfortable and confident with fewer around in taking on more than what they should. This, in essence, is the basic difference between a conventional army , and Special Forces.

India is not unique in this asymmetry . All professional (or even ceremonial) armies have faced this dilemma and `dispute'. Forward-thinkers will find a way out by accepting the reality that the `crazies' of any society can be an asset and should be used as such.

They leave egos aside, join the future, and give the Special Forces their space to operate. Some armies, especially the ones encumbered by their large bureaucratically driven system, deny the future and this logic. And then they pay a heavy price.

Pampore extracted that far too heavy price. In the public domain, it will remain an operation in which three terrorists were holed up in a building, killed three Special Forces troopers who tried to neutralise them. The public domain will look at, and remember, the operation as even-steven.

But it wasn't so, as the army was the loser. And it wasn't so simply because the operation was directed by those who didn't know how to employ Special Forces, and despite not knowing, insisted on telling the three Specials who died and their comrades who participated in the operation, how to do it.

Alice had figured it out perfectly . If you want them to play , let them play as they want to, fairly or otherwise. They have their rules, even if the rule book is indecipherable by most people. Never tell them this is the playground and play according to these rules. Because they can't. If they could, they'd be wearing different regimental insignia.

The insignia Special Forces wear on the right pocket compels them to think, feel, breathe and play differently .The commanders of war generally , and those in Pampore specifically , believe otherwise, and three precious lives were lost. Disproportionate to the three terrorists neutralised.

The terrorists holed up in the government building had their military psychology lessons correct. They released the civilians to continue with the charade of fighting for them. They pretended they had vulnerable hostages, and compelled the commanders to order an assault.

In a hostage situation, time is essential as delay means deaths. But in Pampore, an assault was ordered before it was clear whether there were hostages, where they were, and how many terrorists held them. Because Pampore is Srinagar and a multistorey government building meant the exigency was getting the hostages out fast.

Which is the first, fatal, mistake when it comes to military planning, special operations in particular. Never have a time-frame for concluding an operation, even if anti-national sloganeering is being aired by TV channels who don't think much of it.

Authority is about having the spine and the hide to take the barbs without losing the larger picture. In Pampore, alas, that was not the case. The TRP game came to play in a life-and-death situation, when there was no need.

Left to the Special Forces, both outstanding units, they'd have dealt with the operation differently . Room entry is part of their training. But multiple rooms and multistoreys are a different game altogether. Special Forces have the ability to adapt to a new challenge for which they haven't trained.

So, let them adapt, find the route, even if it is not a `fair' one. At least precious lives wouldn't have been lost, for the sake of time, which in the end doesn't tell. Only statistics do. And in that the army botched up. Badly .The writer is editor , Defence and Security Alert. Views are personal

Pampore terrorist attack - A larger Conspiracy Part-II

http://myvoice.opindia.com/2016/02/pampore-a-tale-of-valour-and-error/

40 hours, several casualties, and counter terrorism ops still continue. What has enabled terrorists managed to sneak across the border,  hold ration and ammunition and create a death trap for our forces for so loooooooonnnngggg!

And why don't our forces bring down the building? Why are we still suffering casualties and fightin? What's the fun in engaging 40 hours. Get the building down on the effers!! A few rocket propelled or laser guided grenades at the beams is all it needs!  What a collosal waste of ammunition, time, men and effort!

What kind of political compulsions cost us our men ? What kind of intelligence failure fails to realise the supply of a besieged enemy? What kind of strategy it is to elongate such skirmishes.... is it for show????

Are our operations deliberately being staged for hours when they can have a quicker resolution? Is politics guiding army ops? What's the cost to nation? Or is it just Intel failure about the supply lines of a besieged enemy!

Now is not the time, but these questions will probably be asked after the end of the encounter. Especially by our braveheart martyrs and their families.

Pampore - a much bigger conspiracy pre-empted?

Following news item appeared on a news outlet : "As the anti-terror operations continue in Papmore area of Jammu and Kashmir on Sunday, the Entrepreneurship Development Institute building, where terrorists are holed up, has been set on fire. Five soldiers - three Army paratroopers and two CRPF jawans - and a civilian have lost their lives".

The question which keeps bothering is : How come we lost three fine officers .. That too from the Para? It's difficult to understand this unacceptable high loss as 10 Para SF is one of the best we got! We will have to wait for the facts from the officials on this...

Meanwhile the other curiosity is this : Why do we rush in our special forces in everything? Shouldn't they be brought in sparingly? A logical explanation is perhaps because of recent failures .. like pathankot and uri. Or the other more likely reason could be that our security forces must have realised these are not regular terrorists... experts I spoke to believed that Pakistan has sent in their SSG as militants (the Pak eqivalant of SF).

That these may be SSG is borne by other facts too. In operations such as these, the command remains with the GOC .. outer cordon by CRPF .. inner cordon by army ..and then the SF teams enter. This house entry always buys casualties .. but the SF are very well trained for such ops. The number of casualties on SF is proof enough that these are  not usual LeT or JeM kind of militants who are easily neutralised in short time.. but SSG cadre of the standard used in the Parliament attack.

The question which begs answering now : assuming enemy is rational ;), Why would pakistan send in their ssg level force for such low impact operation? Or is it that our forces have prempted something bigger that was on the cards?

Coming as it does closely on the heals of manufactured belligerance among the Red corridors and other internal disturbances,  it's a very chilling reality we seem to be looking at!

There was most certainly something much bigger planned through these incursions, and out security forces seemed to have got wind and neutralised the plan. Let's wait and watch as this story unfolds.  Our tributes to our brave martyrs from the Army and Paramilitary forces! JAI Hind.

Indian Spring to Red Summer.

JNU , the liberated zone in the heart of the capital city, was to be the spark for an "Indian Spring".

Faultlines were brushed up and put to low simmer. Christians under attack, Muslims being lynched over lunch, Dalits being forced to suicides, agrarian distress, workers exploitation, forcible land acquisition, and even violent caste-based demands for backwardness among the most powerful sections across Gujarat, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh and Haryana.

Everything was set. Media was setting it up perfectly for opposition to deliver a crushing Blow to Modi. Unfortunately for them, their bets were on tired middle-aged options : a rent-a-cause activist or drama-a-day anarchist. The two between themselves can smash the China to pieces. I meam the dishes, not the People's Republic (may peace be upon the Chairman Mao)!  And so the plan failed. And how!

The revolutionaries are in a spin. Their revolution has led them running round in revolutionary circles. Many have accepted government hospitality (with some Bassi encouragement) and started squeaking and singing melodiously. Others have bravely hibernated. The entire edifice is under attack. Instinctively, the comrades are all trying to hold against the mighty push, against this demolishing cascade of popualar public opinion, which they have so carefully insulated against in their cultivated make believe world.

The pressure is too much. Magically, Things have started falling in place on their own.  The street thug admitted to gaddari. Bad-NAAM,  NAMAK-harami and NISHAN-E-PAKISTAN, the values a news channel lived upto, blackened themselves. The last time they lit a candle in their dark studios was in support of the rape-republic label by Beeb.

The government, instead of capitulation like they were expected to in the fine tradition of their predecessors, insisted on the writ of the state on the liberated zone. The spring has quickly turned to summer. Heat is on the springers. The revolution needs their Tiannamen square to weather this storm. Anything. Like a crowd jostling within patiala house court. That'll be quite enough to discredit all that the Nation which wants to know.

In the meantime, friends of Lal Salaam are calling to keep the faith. Atheist far left rationalists, are expected to embrace their Arab beckon and join the call for prayers. That's as close to anything Arab as the spring could ever get before the fall.

करो यवनिका पात ,कि अब तो पलकें भारी हो आयी हैं!

करो यवनिका पात ,कि  अब तो पलकें भारी हो आयी हैं,
और अघिक नाटक कर पाना मेरे वश की बात नहीं है।

हारी थकी देह  है मेरी अब तो सो जाने का मन है ,
जहां खो गये सपने मेरे खुद भी खो जाने का मन है।

सूत्रधार मेरी मजबूरी यदि हो सके क्षमा कर देना
अब झूठी मुस्कान दिखाना मेरे वश की बात नहीं है।

मुझको भी अफसोस रहेगा खेल अधूरा छूट रहा है
पर सामर्थ्य जवाब दे रही  अब चुप हो जाने का मन है।

वे अरमान जिन्हें अपने ही हाथों सूली पर लटकाया,
पूछ रहे हैं आखिर पगली तूने जीवन में क्या पाया।

किसको क्या बतलाऊ मुझ को कोई क्या समझा पायेगा
मैंने अपने इस जीवन में संजो क्या ,क्या बिखराया।

कोई शून्य आ रहा घिरता मुझको बांहों में भरने को
इससे अधिक बता पाना अब मेर वश की बात नहीं है।।

Quote by Mrs. Abha Misra (Mausi) in remembrance of Naniji on her punya tithi.

A Grateful Nation.

Smriti irani intervention on the TimesNow debate today, when she saw an Indian General upset.... is the reason why we believe this is the first govt in independent India which is truly ours. She spoke for us. She spoke what we wanted to speak. It is this govt that we all fought for. This was the freedom we had always sought. This is the azadi we cherish. This shall be the patriotism we are proud about. Dare you call us scoundrels. VANDE matram.

Overseas Friends Of BJP - Kenya

The overseas friends of BJP convened on 14th Feb 2016 at 11:00 AM at HCK, Nairobi. The organization has been formalised to bring together the pro-BJP and nationalist Indian voices together in East Africa.

1. We started with prayers and remmebrance of Mother India.

2. Introductions were given. All participants addressed the forum. This included Shri Shetty ji of HSS, Shri Vimal Chadhdha ji, Shri Venugopal ji, Shri Prasun Chaturvedi ji, and others.

3. We resolved to put up a team in Nairobi. Shri Venugopal ji's name was unanimously accepted by the forum as Kenya head.

4. The charter of the organization is as follows:
1. Network: Be in touch with the Indian diaspora.
2. Lobbying: Propagating BJP thoughts and ideology.
3. Provide a forum: representing problems in the country of adoption.

5. In line with our networking objective, We resolved to bridge links with all cultural and social organizations of Indian origin in Kenya.

6. There were various suggestions which were minuted officially, and will be included in our agenda in later meetings.

7. We closed the meeting with a Vote of Thanks from Vimal ji, shanti path and observing silence for our martyrs of the Indian Armed forces.

The appropriation of Bombay by Marathis.

My friend Mayur has recently written a well - articulated piece here http://www.opindia.com/2016/02/mumbai-or-bombay-the-independents-stunt/ taking on The Independent's Amol Rajan's exhortations to reject Mumbai's current name. I love the writing but can't say I agree with all of it. I cannot match the superb quality of writing, but I do have some points which I want to jot down here in reply.

To begin with, Unlike western philosophy where every individual is taught the insignificance of his existence, the Hindu philosophy claims the divinity of every being. Hinduism has never heaped guilt of "original sins" or calls for "rehmat" which is the default status of any human life in other religions. On the other hand, in Hinduism, every individual is a brahmansh,  a part of the larger cosmos. The cosmos is a manifestation of all individuals and would not be the same without the characterstics of that individual. What one person does as per his dharma determines his existence. Individual crusades, therefore, are as important as any "people's movement". To deride someone's individual crusade as insignificant is against the Hindu philosophy. We have respected and appreciated all views throughout our rich history, and I don't feel the need to shout down a quirky idea like Amol's.

I agree that Hindu nationalism was hardly the motivation of renaming Bombay. Subjecting peace loving inhabitants of Bombay to a growing degree of xenophobia, racial discrimination, prejudice and violence was hardly a result of Hindu nationalism too. On the contrary, Marathi belligerence usually borders around seperationism of the kind routinely witnessed in Kashmir by its goons of stone-pelters and resulting in the same kind of persecution as faced by native Kashmiri Pandits by the locals. Kashmir minus Gun may best describe the approach.

[Edit: My friends objected to the comparison with Kashmir. My limited point is unbridled regionalism can quickly degenerate into secessionistic tones. Art 370, exclusiveness, more autonomy, all of this... a "foreigner" is just a notional line from "Outsider". Beats Nationalism. Shouldn't be promoted. Division of India on linguistic lines was as bad an idea as a Communal Award to Sindh, both incidentally supported by Nehru and his Congress.].

The "Marathi" identity of the city, which is highly debatable in actual demographics, is a recent phenomenon by itself. The history of Bombay is hardly a Marathi one.

The city was a small fishermen settlement when Surat was a bustling port.

Bombay was founded by the Portuguese, but was converted into a major industrial hub after it passed into the hands of the British in 1661. There was a concerted effort to import artisans and traders to settle in the new town. Mercantile castes of Gujarat (Surat) also took advantage.

A large part of the Parsi migrants to Bombay in these years was constituted of weavers and other artisans. In 1673, the British handed over a piece of land in Malabar Hill to the Parsi community for the establishment of their first Dakhma, Tower of Silence.

In 1780, 9.2% of the population of Bombay were Parsis. A first wave of migration followed a famine in Gujarat in 1790. By 1812 the number of Parsis in Bombay had quadrupled. In 1837, a second large wave of migrations to Bombay followed a huge fire in Surat. Today, more than 70% of all Parsis live in Bombay.

The cotton boom was largely fuelled by Parsi and Gujarati entrepreneurs. The oldest newspaper in Bombay, "Bombay Samachar", was run by Parsis. Congress stalwarts like Dadabhai Naoroji, Pherozeshah Mehta and Dinshaw Wacha were Parsis. One of India's biggest industrial houses was founded by a Parsi, Jamsetji Tata. Even the physical shape of Bombay was determined by donations to build causeways, roads and buildings by members of the Jeejeebhoy and Readymoney families.

Dr B.R. Ambedkar wrote about this in his 1948 essay, Maharashtra As a Linguistic Province. Ambedkar noted of the Indian Merchants Chamber meeting at Bombay :  “with the exception of one Indian-Christian it was only attended by Gujarati-speaking merchants and industrialists”.

The Gujaratis from Surat built the Land in South Bombay for housing and  warehouses. These areas are in the Malabar Hill, Colaba and Nepean Sea Road. It was the Gujarati's influence which made sure no Englishman, Portuguese, or other Christian nor Muhammadan was permitted to live within their compound or offer to kill any living creature there. The Gujaratis represented their demands to British that in case of war or any other danger which may succeed, the British shall have a warehouse in the castle (today’s Fort area) to secure their goods, treasure, and family. This understanding of real-politik and their economic influence gave the city it's Hindu character.

Gujaratis and Parsis still dominate south Bombay, due to their merit and entrepreneurship. Much later, the locals would start their narrow-minded campaign of "thokashahi" (as opppsed to the peaceful democratic outlook of Gujaratis and Parsis) to displace local populations in their own country and take control of the fruits of someone else's labour. Thankfully,  such forces are on a political decline,  forced to play second fiddle to the BJP, which ensures a more inclusive Hindu nationalist outlook.

The enterprising nature of Gujaratis and Marwaris and Parsis highlight their indispensable role in the city’s economic engine. The city’s grain, textile, paper and metal trade, diamond merchants,  bullion trade as also the stockbroking has strong links to the these communities. The boom in trade and enterprise attracted thousands of Indians from across the country to participate in the running if this mammoth economic enterprise called "The city of dreams". 

A large influx of Tamil migrants to Bombay came in the 1920s. Bombay's first Tamil school which was also Dharavi's first school was constructed in 1924. The Tamils built their homes and society in and around Dharavi, Chembur and Matunga. The derisively called Hindi-speaking "Bhaiyas" from North India came in droves and set their enterprise and provided labour. The Bollywood film industry  (which was largely Hindi/Urdu speaking once the curtains set on Dadasahab Phalke's silent movies era) was one of such enterprises popularised with all of India, and indeed the world.

No mention of Bombay is complete without the contributions of the tradesmen of Sindh, Gujarati Baroda and Dangs, as well as the Deccan Kolhapur, Sindh deserves a special mention.

Sindh had been under Bombay's presidency. Hindu Sindhi traders, being traditionally business communities, nurtured Bombay, the capital. They also preferred close association and contributed to the development of Bombay, often at the cost of Karachi, since it suited the political climate of the time, and afforded political security to Sindh's mainly Hindu (baniya) business families.

Jinnah argued the case of separation of Sindh in his famous 14 points about the need to have Sindh "liberated" from Bombay. After the Larkana communal riots in 1927, the rift in the Hindu and Muslim interests with regard to the status of Sindh became wider. Meanwhile, whereas the Congress supported the idea of separation of Sindh, the Simon Commissions proposals declared that the time was not yet ripe.

In 1931 the Government of India constituted a Sindh Conference to propose viable means of partitioning of Sindh, as it would initially carry a debt to the central government which had to be realized by additional taxation.
Finally Sindh was granted provincial autonomy under the GOI act of 1935. His Highness Agha Khan had this to say about the communal award :
“The separation of Sindh was the foundation stone of Pakistan". The struggle to keep Bombay one was the effort of all Hindu Nationalists, especially the Gujarati and Sindhi businessmen, and would have prevented partition of India, had their efforts succeeded.

The reason Bombay is singled out as compared to Chennai or Kolkatta is because of it's unique history. To say that Bombay is a city of Marathi is as ludicrous as saying India's independence was won by Sonia's congress Party.  Brave business communities who went around the world in pursuit of ambition, also lent their enterprise to the setting and running of modern Bombay. To claim Bombay as a preserve of a linguistic minority, or to somehow find Marathi roots to the city, is the biggest disservice to the history of cosmopolitan multi-cultural Bombay. Only those who had no role in the making of this history feel victorious by their efforts to run it down as "Mumbai", a nomenclature preferred by the militant linguistic minority of the city imposed on its silent majority.