Book Review – 26/11 Unforgiven

It’s a story of rage, retribution, justice and more than that, the torment of a common man who yearns for vengeance for his personal loss – it’s a chance for every Indian to live that vicarious dream he would have fantasized at some point or the other when the government, its elected representatives, a few fellow Indians, and all other possible institutions fail him.

The story is a fictionalized account of what happened during and after the 26/11 Mumbai attacks. The overall facts like Pakistan’s involvement in the attacks, Hafeez Saeed, Kasab issue, India’s reaction, etc. have all been kept intact but a fictionalized story is woven around the narrative that all of us know of. 

Vikram Maheshwari, the protagonist is a successful entrepreneur and a son of a military veteran of 1971 war, happens to be with his wife and their only daughter in the famous Taj hotel on the fateful night of 26th November 2008. A handful of terrorists from Pakistan launch attacks at multiple places of Mumbai and take the city hostage. They kill Vikram’s wife and daughter and while Vikram himself escapes very narrowly. 

Vikram’s whole world comes crashing down – the only two people he loved the most in the world have been killed mercilessly in cold blood for no mistake of theirs. He hopes the government would take avenge the loss of 170+ of its people – any strong and proud nation would wreak revenge, not seek justice – as per Vikram. But the lily-livered actions of the government of the day boggles him, bothers him. The candle marches by the peace brigade, the ‘spirit of Mumbai’, the romanticizing of being victims, and the whole city going about its business as usual, makes his blood boil. 

He refuses to be the victim and decides to take things into his own hands. He is doubly convinced that trusting the government to pay back Pakistan in its own coin is futile. He teams up with his ex-employee Farzana and her terrorist brother Zakir who has links with a prominent Islamic terrorist organization of India. Through Zakir, he learns the masterminds behind the 26/11 attacks and makes a detailed plan to kill them.

ACP Ajay Dixit comes to know of Vikram’s plans to kill the mastermind of 26/11 attacks who also happens to be the high commissioner of Pakistan! This ensures a cat and mouse game between ACP Dixit and Vikram. Whether or not Vikram becomes successful in his mission, what happens to Farzana, and Zakir forms the next part of the story. 

Manish Jaitly who also happens to be an ex-military officer has produced a gripping story in the form of 26/11 unforgiven. His contempt for the campaigns like “Aman ki Aasha”, the bizarre theory and the government’s tacit support of linking of the Mumbai attacks with RSS, an overall laxity in the government's response have been pronounced in the attitude of the protagonist, Vikram Maheshwari.

The book excels in weaving a gripping tale with a fast pace but may lack in the in-depth character development of important characters of the narrative. But as mentioned before, the reader gets the vicarious sense of justice which seems so elusive in the real world, where the state is filled with a multitude of pusillanimous men masquerading as pacifists.

Book Review – The myth of Hindu Terror

What's common between Shivraj Patil, Digvijay Singh, P. Chidambaram, AR Anthulay, etc.? If you think the common factor is that they are all from Congress, better think again. Alright. I'll add one more name - Ramachandra Guha, the self-proclaimed scholar, Nehru-Dynasty sycophant, and hagiographer. Still didn't get? Let me reveal - they all in some capacity are the procreators and purveyors of the myth of non-existent "Hindu Terror" or "Saffron Terror". The whole echo chambers of the carefully cultivated ecosystem of Congress reverberated with the sound of Saffron for some years and they still do.

The book runs in two levels - one that covers the broader aspect of setting the tone for the narrative of Hindu terror and the other of the author, RVS Mani and his first-hand experience dealing with the dispensation at that point in time. It's the story of sitting government taking sides, abandoning neutrality, twisting facts and painting the majority religion as evil without a shred of evidence, or worse - manufacturing or fixing evidence to suit its agenda and narrative of the day. The "secular narrative" that was run by the government, the author concurs - had the potential of destroying the social fabric to shreds.

The author touches upon the concept of 'other governing elites' propounded by Italian sociologist Vilfredo Pareto on the theme of the dominant coalition; the dominant coalition consisted of political elites, retired public servants, members of the judiciary, non-governing elites from corporate, media and social activists and NGO's. These entities collectively form public opinion. This public opinion will be used as a ruse for public policy. This is relevant to Indian context because one can remember the power the unconstitutional group NAC exerted on the UPA government. This group consisted of all the elites that Pareto mentions and exerted inordinate influence on the government and many times acted as a proxy cabinet. The framing of the narrative by the government is validated in many cases such as Ishrat Jahan story, J & K narrative, Binayak Sen story, and the story of arms loot in Maharashtra.

The seeding of Hindu terror

It was in the year 2006 that the first seed of saffron terror was sown. The author was an undersecretary in MHA and this one time, all the officers of the Internal Security division were in Pakistan. Since all the seniors were unavailable, the author was called for by the Home Minister, Shivraj Patil. He was accompanied by two others - Digvijay Singh, ex-CM of Madhya Pradesh and Hemanth Karkare, Police officer who later got killed in 26/11 attacks. Shivraj Patil was uninterested and unconcerned in the conversation but the other two were 'seeking information' about the recent terror attacks. From the intermittent conversation between the other two, it was clear that they were not happy with the information 'a particular religious group was involved in most of the terror attacks'. This was the information from the investigating agencies. But the two were clearly not happy with the intelligence input the at Muslims were aiding terrorist. They wanted to take control and change the narrative - there were repeated references to Nanded, Bajrang Dal etc. 

The investigations in some of the cases like Malegaon bomb blast, Samjauta express blast etc. by the local agencies were taken over by the NIA and were given Hindu twist. The author gives cases after cases of how facts were twisted and engineered to paint them saffron. An agency like ATS which was headed by Hemant Karkare which was not successful in solving 2006 Mumbai blast even after 5-6 months was given the responsibility of solving Malegaon blasts. Till then, Ahl-e-Hadith was the responsible party for the blasts. But once ATS took over, the entire narrative changed (Recent Acquittal of Sadhvi Pragya reaffirms the position that ATS and its chief at that point in time were dishonest, to say the least)

26/11 blasts

By any yardsticks you can think of, 26/11 incident of Mumbai was a monumental mismanagement on all levels - the politicians, security, media, bureaucrats, etc - that a group of 10 terrorists was able to keep the world's largest democracy as hostage for a few days and kill people willfully, speak volumes on the lapses we had. 

The author gives the background of the attacks - saying there were definite intel inputs saying that there were chances of a terrorist attack through our porous coastline. In his detailed assessment of the incident and the chain of incidents - starting from Home Secretary-level talks in Pakistan where the entire security weights were present on the same day as the attack, the episode of Chitkala Zutshi (additional home secretary who escaped the attack unscathed even though present in Taj hotel and was privy to information of the attack before the attack), strong possibility of local help to terrorists - he strongly says there is a mole or moles at an institutional level from the government who helped the terrorists, siding with the enemy. This is a disturbing assessment and a testimony as to what kind of people governed us during the said period. 

Furthering the narrative 

The inefficient and disinterested Home Minister Shivraj Patil was replaced by another inefficient minister (who was a big failure as Power Minister was promoted for inefficiency) Sushil Kumar Shinde. After a while, P. Chidambaram (PC) was made the home minister. He assumed the role with all pomp and always assumed monopoly over wisdom. For eg, he handpicked the DG for NIA - this he did by throwing all the well-laid procedures in the air. He used NIA to propagate the narrative of Hindu terror repeatedly. 

PC misused his office when made sure parts of David Headley's testimony was excised where he clearly stated that Ishrat Jahan and other companions of hers were terrorists, fidayeen whose sole job was to assassinate Narendra Modi. In his speech at CM conference, in Darul-al-Islam, he repeated the narrative of Saffron terror.

The intelligence reports reported that the flow of funds to terrorists, the growth of madrasas in India-Bangladesh and India-Nepal border by organizations like Jamat and HuJI. Major funding was from Saudi and Kuwait. These reports were never paid heed to. Efficient police officers like Rajinder Kumar who identified and neutralized many sleeper cells were harassed. From Ishrat Jahan case to POTA repeal ordinance UPA was interested in bailing out the terrorists. 

Conclusion

The author was harassed and was constantly pestered by the government even when he moved out of MHA - he took a stand saying the Delhi police were innocent in the Batla encounter (a fatwa was issued against him). He was almost kidnapped, traded - but somehow escaped -  for Ajmal Kasab (the only terrorist of 26/11 to be captured alive)

It was a dangerous coterie which ruled India from 2004-14. It was the time India witnessed the highest number of terror attacks - Mumbai attacks, Samjauta blasts, Malegaon blasts, IISc blasts, Batla house encounter, Delhi, Modasa, Rampur blasts, 26/11 attacks, Ishrat Jahan case etc. and many more. It was a weak government at the center - Manmohan Singh as PM - controlled by the proxy NAC calling shots, Shinde as Home Minister, indecisive defense minister AK Anthony. At another level, it was the most sinister government after independence which had its own divisive agenda which pushed the country into the deep abyss. The author has done a great job in uncovering some of the secrets from his 'insider' knowledge and access and thus systematically demolishing the narrative that was carefully built over a decade.

A small critique on religions !

Muni Tarun sagar once said that the house should be destroyed after a hundred years of its construction and then should be rebuilt. In the same way, religions should be destroyed after one thousand years. Because of a long duration of time, many junks might have made their way to the religion. So, it would be near impossibility to set all the things right. The actual meaning and intention of the religion would have lost long ago. So, the process of cleaning the unwanted aspects should always be on.



Any religion should be open to criticism. Because that’s the main thing which helps to look deep about certain aspects and clean them if needed and also helps in reaffirming the faith in the good aspects of the religion. But a few religions consider themselves to be perfect and beyond evaluation or criticism. Worse than that, they intimidate the people who criticize it and create a kind of phobia.

Hinduism which is perhaps the oldest religion of the world has faced the same. Owing to the long-presence of it, it picked up junk and some aspects of it became intolerable. Though it had some very beautiful things that no other religions had, the junk had piled up so much that it began to mask the great aspects of the religion. So, the reformers came for the rescue. They could see the problem. Many of them criticized and brought many reforms. But due to its enormity and vastness, still many junks has remained. But, one appreciable fact is that Hinduism is open to criticism. No acts were considered as blasphemous acts even though many acts were nothing less.

Christianity also gives a fair amount of freedom in criticizing the religion and for the reforms. But as Christianity is a highly organized religion, it is not as easy as Hinduism to criticize and evaluate. Organization of religion has its own weaknesses and strength. But, with its limitations, Christianity has come a long way and it has given scope for criticism and evaluation.

But the religion which hasn’t opened up at all is the religion of Islam. The very word Islam means ‘to surrender’. It’s a beautiful thing to surrender to something. Unless you are truly humble, it is impossible to surrender to something completely. But as mentioned before, no religion is perfect. Every religion has its own piece of scrap which has to be cleaned up from time to time. If the scraps are not cleaned, the scraps become more and cover the entire religion and the religion appears as a joke.

Islam has hardly gone through reforms over the years. It is as medieval as it was in the 7th century. There is not much difference between Aurangazeb and Osama Bin Laden. Both might belong to completely different eras but the point to be noted is that both were motivated by the same ideology. Obviously, there should be something wrong in some part of the religion. If someone questions that, instead of brooding over the reasons, the very act of questioning is considered blasphemous and the person who questions it is persecuted or worse, killed. So, none dares to question and all want to be politically correct.

Subramaniam Swamy (President of Janatha Party and former minister) had written an article about Islamic terror and the ways to wipe it. Though there were some extreme points in it, he had raised some valid issues. I had posted the article on my Facebook profile. Irfan, one of my college mates in my post graduation got offended by the article and he began to throw some personal slurs at me and also started his line of defense defending his religion and tried to portray his religion as the religion of peace(had he said piece, I would have readily agreed!). The person was so blind that he was not even ready to acknowledge the well-established fact of the Islamic terror. Then Naveen, one of my college mates in my graduation joined this guy and they continued to defend their argument.

Then the rhetoric began: ‘Terrorism has no religions’, ‘You can’t attribute terrorism to one single religion’, ‘Terrorism has a socio-economic-political cause than religious ones’. It was a typical Indian situation: One guy from the minority, to defend him a pseudo-secular intellectual and one hopeless moron against them. My hope to drive home some points to them remained hope till the end because one person had mortgaged his intelligence to his religion and the other one to some ideology and pseudo-secularism. So, the arguments yielded no results. But, the next morning I was surprised to see that my name was promptly removed from his friend’s list. I was bewildered at the level of narrow-mindedness!!

To do a cover-up job for a problem is not the way to encounter a problem at all. To solve any problem, one has to acknowledge the existence of the problem first. If someone is the denial mode and act as if the problem doesn’t exist, the existence of the problem is undeterred and it can only exacerbate over a period of time.

Terrorism - Lessons from Israel & Russia [Part 3]

Israel has handled some of the most audacious operations in the history like no other nation has ever handled. Some of the operations are so audacious that they are unthinkable especially for some meek country like ours. The courage, the patriotism, the retribution exhibited is something unparalleled. Though there are many operations to quote like war of attrition, operation wrath of god, operation spring of youth, the Entebbe crisis, I would like to concentrate on operation wrath of god and the Entebbe hostage crises.

               

OPERATION WRATH OF GOD:

This was the name of the operation given to the operation carried out by the Israeli government in retaliation to the Munich Massacre. In 1972, Summer Olympics was scheduled in Munich, Germany. In that event the terrorist group Black September had kidnapped Israeli players and Israeli coaches and took them as hostages (6 coaches, 5 athletes). Ultimately all the hostages were killed. Five of the eight terrorists also died. The three terrorists were captured but were released because the group Black September had hijacked a plane of Lufthansa airlines. Israel responded to this with the operation of wrath and operation spring of youth and killed almost all who were suspected responsible for the planning of the kidnapping.

A photo of the terrorist in the Munich stadium

Golda Meir

              

                At that time the prime minister of Israel was Golda Meir. She was considered very tough in her decisions. The actions taken by her after the Munich massacre testified the fact. A decision was made to assassinate all the individuals responsible for the Munich attack and the operation was named ‘operation wrath of god’. The targets included the members of the organizations Black September and PLO. It is said that the operation might have gone for nearly 20 years. The Israeli commandos penetrated many countries like Lebanon and other countries to search and kill the targets. A few mistaken murders also did happen. Israel was criticized by a few countries.

                The aim was to take revenge of course but more than that was to make the Palestine militants frightened. The team to carry out the operation consisted of 15 people and was divided into 5 groups: two killers, two guards who would shadow the killers, two agents to rent rooms, apartments, six to eight agents who would form escape routes for the first two groups, the other two agents specialized in communications.

Several hours before each assassination, each man's family received flowers with a condolence card reading: "A reminder we do not forget or forgive.”!

The first attack was in the form of air bombing on the Palestine refugee camp. The second target was the leader of Black September in France. The execution was nothing short of a Hollywood flick. A bomb had been planted underneath the desk phone. When it was confirmed that the person had picked the phone, detonate signal was sent and the bomb was detonated. The next execution was of the representative of Fatah & happened in Cyprus. The next person was gunned down in France.  These executions cautioned the rest of the terrorists and they began to live in heavily guarded houses in Lebanon. Convinced of the fact that the previous methods of assassination would not work, Israel launched ‘Operation spring of youth’ as a sub-operation of operation wrath of god.

Ali Hassan Salameh, considered to be the mastermind behind the Munich attack

                Israeli commandos launched multiple raids into Beirut. There they assassinated many high level PLO officials. Israel believed the mastermind behind the Munich massacre was Ali Hassan Salameh. In 1973, due to mistaken identity, a waiter was murdered in Norway. International pressure mounted on Israeli government to call off the operation wrath of god. The operation was suspended for five years and resumed after that. After five unsuccessful attempts, finally Salameh was assassinated by Mossad in 1979 in Beirut. Besides these, Israel indulged in psychological warfare like running obits of still living militants and sending very personal details to others.

                The assassinations caused dismay in the Arab world. Especially the operation spring of youth lead to the belief in the Arab world that Israel was capable of striking anytime, anywhere. There were criticisms about some aspects of the operations like possible wrong targets, moral issues involved etc.  This campaign is believed to have stopped the PLO terrorism outside Israel but strategically, it is not considered completely successful.

OPERATION ENTEBBE:

                One more operation which is more audacious than any other known operations carried out by any country is the ‘Operation Entebbe’ carried out by Israel in Uganda. This happened in 1976.

                On June 27, 1976 Air France flight traveling from Israel to France via Athens was hijacked by Arab-German terrorists. It had 248 passengers. The plane was taken to Libya for refueling and was then taken to Entebbe airport, Uganda. The hijack was done by four terrorists. When the plane landed in the Entebbe airport, four more terrorists joined the original four. Their demand was to release 40 terrorists in Israel and 13 more from many other countries. They had given the deadline of July 1^st. If their demands were not met, they had warned that they would kill all the passengers on board.

Idi Amin

                Uganda at that point of time was ruled by the notorious dictator Idi Amin. He supported the pro-Palestine cause and hence supported the terrorists. This is a similar situation to that of the hijack of Indian airlines to Kandahar. The Afghan government was more or less in control of the Taliban. They being radical supported anything or anybody who were pro-Islamic. Reasons did not work, only religion did. But Israel did not succumb to the pressure like India did. It did something unthinkable.       

  Many non-Israelis were released by the terrorists. When there were questioned about the kind of the situation in Entebbe, Israel was shocked to know that the Ugandan army was with the terrorists. Israeli government tried diplomatic ways to end the crises before deciding on the operation. But nothing worked out. Somehow, the Israeli government made the terrorists to extend the deadline to July 4^th so that it could get more time to plan the assault. On July 1^st IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) planners came out with the rescue operation and it got the approval from the cabinet.

The Entebbe Airport

                Many people were released and they arrived in Paris. Only 105 were held as hostages by the terrorists. Mossad build accurate picture about the airport, the hostages from the information gathered form the released hostages. A clear picture of operation took shape: five C-130 Hercules aircraft which carried 200 personnel, two Boeing for medical and communications issues, a black Mercedes limo and some land rovers deliberately used to trick Ugandan guards. The IDF pilots practiced the landing and operating on July 2^nd.

The route taken by the Israeli commandos to reach Uganda

Rescue plane taking off

                

                Because the operation was a risky one as well as a secret one, the routes in which they are about to fly had to be chosen very carefully. The distance was very long (about 4000 km) from Israel to Uganda. The planes flew over red sea, sometimes of altitude no more than 100 ft to avoid being spotted by radars (of Egypt, Sudan, Saudi Arabia). On July 3^rd close to mid-night, the Israeli troops landed at Entebbe. A black Mercedes and the land rovers were used give an impression that the vehicles were escorts for returning Amin or other high ranking official.

Black Mercedes which was used in the operation

The Israeli force entered the airport and the hall in which the hostages were held. The terrorists and the Ugandan soldiers were taken by a huge surprise by the unexpected daring and impossible logistics of the IDF. During a 35-minute battle, 20 Ugandan soldiers and all eight hijackers died along with three hostages. The only Israeli commando to be dead was Lieutenant Colonel Yonatan Netanyahu, the leader of the operation. After the operation, the army began loading the hostages and the Ugandan soldiers attacked. The IDF counter-attacked.  The entire operation lasted for about 52 minutes. All 8 hijackers, around 40 Ugandan soldiers, 4 hostages were killed. All the rescued hostages were flown to Israel via Kenya.

Hostages returning after the operation

Yonatan Netanyahu's funeral

The prime minister of Israel commented: "This operation will certainly be inscribed in the annals of military history, in legend and in national tradition." He was absolutely right.  The government of Uganda urged the UN council to seek official condemnation of Israeli raid, which violated the sovereignty of Uganda. The council declined. Addressing the UN council, Israeli ambassador said “We come with a simple message to the Council: we are proud of what we have done because we have demonstrated to the world that a small country, in Israel's circumstances, with which the members of this Council are by now all too familiar, the dignity of man, human life and human freedom constitute the highest values. We are proud not only because we have saved the lives of over a hundred innocent people—men, women and children—but because of the significance of our act for the cause of human freedom”. Well, he was right.  It is high time that India takes up these ideas and start acting sternly against all the people who are posing threats to its security by innumerable means.

Terrorism - Lessons from Israel & Russia [Part 2]

Israel can be a great example in handling terror not only for India but for the entire world. Just ponder over this. Israel is the only country in the entire world which has Jews as the majority. It is surrounded by Islamic nations some of them which have considered Israel as their arch enemy. India, with one hostile nation is suffering so much. Think of Israel which has four hostile nations as its neighbors! Though the process of creating the nation of Israel in 1948 can’t be completely justified, still once a sovereign nation is created it is the duty of the sovereign nation to protect its sovereignty at any cost.

                The main organizations which are against Israel are Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad & Hezbollah. These groups are convinced that they can’t defeat the Israeli army (Israeli Defense Force) on the battle field; therefore they target the Israeli citizens to give a deathblow to the national will. We face a very similar situation here in India. Some of our neighboring nations are convinced that they can’t win the war against our army in the battlefield. So, they target the civilians to plummet the will of the nation. Because Israel and India both face threats from Islamic terrorists who are prepared to sacrifice their lives, many of the lessons learned by Israeli counter terrorism experts over the last five decades are very relevant to India.

Hamas

Hezbollah

Shinbet

 The role of intelligence can’t be emphasized enough in the war against terrorism because an effective intelligence can easily avert many possible terrorist attacks. Israel has rightly prioritized intelligence over defense and protection. It has two intelligence agencies like that of U.S: one is for domestic intelligence (Shin Bet) and the other for foreign intelligence (Mossad). They prepare closely to prepare the threat assessment and submit the report to the prime minister every year. Israel uses both humans and technology to gather intelligence but lays more emphasis on the former.

                Israeli counter terrorism operations are designed to dislocate the infrastructure of the terrorists. This includes various other operations like attacking bomb factories, gathering intelligence, arresting key terrorist leaders. Several organizations have specialized in these operations (Sayeret Matkal). Israel tries to prevent the suicide operations by disrupting the Palestine terrorists at organizational, training stages before they become martyrs.

Sayeret Matkal

Mossad

                Israel’s expertise in aviation security is top-class which is even much ahead of the U.S. El Al’s (Israeli national airline) passenger screening is unique which relies on psychological profiling techniques backed with hi-tech equipments. The profiling process relies on access to intelligence and careful observation of passengers. This method has been very successful .The last hijacking of El Al happened in 1968 and none have happened since then despite extreme threats is a testimony to the fact. Plastic explosives can now be disguised in almost every form, including shoe soles, toys, cell phones, and clothing. So, Israeli methods stand effective despite these things.

Of course, military action alone can’t be a panacea for the epidemic of terrorism. Terrorism has many times deep roots. The problem may be political, religious or social. They have to be addressed. War against terror and treating the root causes for it should go in tandem. It is not a short term fix. As an expert in international policy of counter-terrorism observed “The fight against terrorism resembles a marathon race and not a sprint.”

In the next part of this, I will write about a few audacious operations that Israel carried out which might be unthinkable for many countries.

Terrorism - Lessons from Israel & Russia

What do Israel and Russia have to offer for us, the Indians? Indeed many things especially when it comes to dealing with terrorism. They have demonstrated to the entire world what they are capable of. We, the Indians have got to learn a lot from these two nations in dealing with terror and be able to project & protect a strong image of our nation for the terrorists and the rest of the people of the world. Not the present day image which is quite a squashy one. No wonder the terrorists are making us the soft targets.

                Both the countries have been the targets of most horrible terrorist acts from many notorious terrorist organizations. But the way in which they have handled the situations and the way in which they have avenged back make us adulate them. Adulation alone won’t serve any purpose unless lessons are learnt. It is a sad fact that even though Russia and Israel are the largest suppliers of arms to India, India has failed to tackle terrorism like these countries do. My wish is just that India instead of being just politically correct it better take all the measures necessary to guard & uphold its sovereignty.

                Here, I just want to discuss some of the bold measures that are taken by the two countries, their attitude towards terrorism with some examples

Russia

Though the Russian terrorist problem is not as diverse and as complicated as us, it is still a big threat to them.  Initially, the response of Russia was blamed and also the counter-terrorism strategy was much criticized. Because of changed & newly adopted counter-terrorism policy, Russia was able to shed its previous image and come back strongly. The main threat that Russians face is from Islamic militants in Chechnya and the broader North Caucasus region.

                They have shown their conviction to halt terrorism by taking severe measures. In 1998, they came up with federal law to combat terrorism. The law defined terrorist activities omitting political motivations for it. As we know, Russia’s intelligence agency (Federal Security Service, the successor of the world-famous KGB) is one of the world’s best. That, along with Ministry of interior is responsible for combating terror.

Russia, being a communist country has got much more freedom in acting fully against anything that is deterrent to the interests of the nation. Of course there have been cases of human rights violation. But they are not in a pitiable state our nation where there are many human rights activists who fight for the fair treatment of terrorists. This kind of phony people (in our country there is no dearth for these kinds) are more dangerous than terrorists. There are multiple factors which make us look weak. Whereas Russia guarantees its citizens “For the Russian, a strong state is not an anomaly, not something with which he has to struggle, but, on the contrary, a source and a guarantee of order, as well as the initiator and main moving force of any change”. This kind of a stance from the government is what any citizen can rejoice and the citizens would feel secure in living in such a country.

Zero- Tolerance policy for the terrorists, hostages: Russia has a hard policy when it comes to dealing with any kinds of terrorist activities. During Beslan crisis in 2005 where terrorists stormed a small school taking more than 1200 people as hostages, Vladimir Putin, the then president of Russia announced to the press “Russia does not tolerate terrorism. We deal with terrorists swiftly and completely. This is a warning to terrorists, hostages, rescue workers, bystanders...all those involved in terrorist activities: You will be shown no mercy.” Have we seen any such strong statement from our politicians ever? Even if we hear, have we seen those words translating into actions? The answer would be a resounding NO. In Moscow theater crises of 2002 or in the Beslan crisis of 2005, Russia has demonstrated its strong stance against terrorism.

Moscow theater hostage crises: In the year 2002 (October 23 to be precise) a crowded theater in Moscow was seized by Chechen separatists. They held 850 people as hostages and demanded the withdrawal of Russian forces from Chechnya. The terrorists gave the government a deadline of a week to withdraw the forces failing which they would start killing the hostages after the deadline.

The plot of the theater

 The government came to know that the terrorists had grenades, mines and many other explosive devices lashed to their bodies (a few of them which were later found to be dummies). Over the next three days, a few hostages were released but neither the government nor the terrorists budged and the deadlock continued. What happened after that is truly unbelievable.

The government, instead of negotiating with the terrorists, had decided to take them head on. They pumped a mysterious (poisonous) gas into the theater. After the effect had taken place, the assault on the building began. The encounter between the terrorists and the military lasted for a few hours. The theater was eventually freed but with a cost. The report said that there were 162 deaths (33 rebels, 129 hostages). The striking point here is that the government never tried to negotiate with the terrorists at all. It is their policy which is very clear.

 Just contrast this incidence with Kandahar hijack crisis that we faced in 1999. We negotiated with the terrorists and budged to their demands and released the notorious terrorists. All those released terrorists are coming back strongly on India with one attack after another. Did we err? We can’t say if we assume the hostages to be our close ones.
I am fond of saying this – Every country (i.e. people of the country), especially in a democracy gets a government that it deserves!

Next, I will write about Israel which is even more fascinating.