E D I T O R I A L   P A G E

EDITORIALS

Kashmir package
THOSE who were hoping that Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee will announce some political initiative at the end of his Kashmir sojourn are bound to feel disappointed because all that he has come up with is a Rs 6165-crore economic package for the development of the state. As it is, it is debatable if the Kashmir problem can be resolved through the infusion of cash.

Importance of being Laloo
MR Laloo Prasad Yadav is among those small band of leaders who do not need to introduce themselves in any part of the country. Like most popular politicians he has as long a list of friends as of enemies. In a nationwide poll on his popularity or notoreity it is doubtful whether there would be any votes in the "don't know" column. Yes, there are those who love him and there are those who hate him, but there are few who can ignore him.

Victory of courage
BY recommending the cancellation of the selection of 100 science teachers made in December last year by the Punjab education authorities, the Punjab Lokpal has upheld the allegations of favouritism and foul play first made in The Tribune columns by Nisha Kaura, one of the candidates who could not make it despite being an M.Sc (Chemistry) topper. The letter had stirred all righting-thinking people to question the fairness of the selections.

OPINION

Creeping malaise in Indian Railways
Giving primacy to traffic & passenger safety
V. Eshwar Anand
Railway Minister Nitish Kumar, who invented the sabotage theory in the case of the recent Shramjeevi Express derailment that claimed the lives of 12 passengers, is no exception. Over the years Railway Ministers have been indulging in such an exercise to cover up their own failures, little knowing that this would further erode the image of the Indian Railways.

MIDDLE

High and Dry
Raj Chatterjee
He had black, wavy hair, a heavy, black moustache and thick eyebrows. His eyes were dark and deeply sunk so that with his long, thin and slightly hooked nose his expression was intelligent but sardonic.

ON THE SPOT

Are jihadis pushing India, Pakistan towards conflict?
Tavleen Singh
Newspapers across India called him a “dove” after masked gunmen killed Abdul Ghani Lone last week. They killed him on the 12th death anniversary of Mirwaiz Maulvi Farooq and what struck me, with a weary sense of deja vu, was that they did the same with Maulvi Farooq.

Fidayeen attacks suggest a striking similarity of tactics
Ashok K. Mehta
India faces a Hobson’s choice — restraint or retaliation? Both are turning out to be non-exercisable options. Another Kaluchak will put even greater pressure on the government to act. It is not clear whether General Musharraf has reverted to his strategy of using terror in bringing India to the negotiating table or is he simply not in control of the jehadis.

Grazing in Assam

EDITORIALS

Kashmir package

THOSE who were hoping that Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee will announce some political initiative at the end of his Kashmir sojourn are bound to feel disappointed because all that he has come up with is a Rs 6165-crore economic package for the development of the state. As it is, it is debatable if the Kashmir problem can be resolved through the infusion of cash. Moreover, the Hurriyat leaders have promptly rejected the offer, making it all the more doubtful whether the package would smoothen the road to the October elections. However, the money can indeed go a long way in integrating the state with the rest of India and ameliorating the lot of its people who have been held hostage to a decade-long separatist movement. For that to happen it is extremely important to put checks and balances in place so that the money is spent only for the purposes for which it is given and that there is no leakage on the way. This is the biggest package for the state but fairly large sums have been earmarked in the past as well. Two of the biggest grouses of the people of the state have been that, one, elections are manipulated, and two, money marked for development is cornered by a few politicians and bureaucrats. One hopes that this time the Prime Minister will take personal interest in ensuring that such short-circuiting does not occur.

Infrastructure in Jammu and Kashmir is in extremely poor shape. Although the main thrust of the economic package is on generating new employment opportunities and relief for migrants affected by militancy and cross-border terrorism, more than half of the package (Rs 3,600 crore) has been earmarked for the 287-km railway project between Srinagar and Baramula. The Prime Minister has boldly declared even the date on which the first train will arrive in the Kashmir valley: August 15, 2007. One needs to keep one’s fingers crossed that the deadline will be met at least in this case. Then there is a Rs 1530-crore package for the road sector. The exact amount earmarked for the setting up of power projects has not been specified but that is one area which cries for special attention. Acute power shortage round the year is the bane of Kashmir. As far as creating new employment opportunities is concerned the only tangible avenue that has been announced is the raising of two India Reserve battalions over the next two years. Perhaps the rail and road projects will also provide employment to some local people. Infrastructure development will be meaningful only if its adequate safety can be ensured. Till peace returns to the troubled valley, every installation, new or old, will remain a potential target for the mischief-makers. 

Importance of being Laloo

MR Laloo Prasad Yadav is among those small band of leaders who do not need to introduce themselves in any part of the country. Like most popular politicians he has as long a list of friends as of enemies. In a nationwide poll on his popularity or notoreity it is doubtful whether there would be any votes in the "don't know" column. Yes, there are those who love him and there are those who hate him, but there are few who can ignore him. Most of the time he is on television for political reasons. However, on Friday couch potatoes stayed glued to their televisions sets because an enterprising channel, knowing the commercial worth of the quintessential Bihari [ Mr Laloo Yadav himself is on record as having said that he can take on Amitabh Bachchan in the matter of popularity] reportedly beamed live the wedding of the second daughter of the first family of the impoverished state. Wags may well have been tempted to say that "now we know why the rest of Bihar is so poor". Few leaders in the history of free India have accomplished the feat of leading the caravan of social justice and ending up looking more feudal in style and temperament than the present-day landless former jagirdars, taluqadars and zamindars. The first wedding in the Laloo household was extravagantly lavish considering that over a decade ago Mr Yadav was often sharing the modest quarters of his brother employed as a peon in a government office. Those who saw him and his childhood friends and family members recently on television would indeed agree with the title of the serial that "Jeena isi ka Naam Hai".

However, the second wedding is likely to go down as the mother of all weddings, putting under the shade the marriage of the daughter of the late Madhva Rao Scindia with the son of Dr Karan Singh. Why should Mr Laloo Yadav be made to explain the source of his wealth? What the rajas and maharajas of yore accumulated over centuries of just and unjust rule, the "Laloo sammpan and sammpurna parivar" has managed in a shade over 10 years of undiluted misrule. That too over the state that in the early years of Independence was counted among the best administered territories in the country. When there is a wedding in the Laloo household the question of leaving no stone unturned does not arise. The entire administration was turned upside down and inside out to ensure that the high and mighty of the land received the same lavish treatment as was showered on those who were fortunate to be on the guest lists of Ms Jayalalitha, Mr Sharad Pawar and Mr Amar Singh, to mention the names of just a handful of the new-age champions of social justice. What can the income tax authorities do when Mr Laloo Yadav attributes the vulgar scale of the celebrations to the love and affection of the people and his colleagues? Why not accept him as the uncrowned emperor of Bihar? And thereafter prepare the nation to be ready to spread out the blue carpet [not the traditional red one] for Ms Mayawati as the empress of Uttar Pradesh. That is tomorrow's news today.

Victory of courage

BY recommending the cancellation of the selection of 100 science teachers made in December last year by the Punjab education authorities, the Punjab Lokpal has upheld the allegations of favouritism and foul play first made in The Tribune columns by Nisha Kaura, one of the candidates who could not make it despite being an M.Sc (Chemistry) topper. The letter had stirred all righting-thinking people to question the fairness of the selections. The Tribune office was flooded with readers’ letters, deploring the state of governance and lamenting the level of unemployment and corruption, while some sceptics doubted the genuineness of the letter and attributed motives at the timing of its publication. We at The Tribune now have the sense of satisfaction and vindication. Justice D.V.Sehgal closely examined the selection process and found it manipulative and even “comical”. In his 55-page report to the Governor, he has come down heavily on the role of former Education Minister Tota Singh and then Education Secretary R.S.Sandhu. The selection committee was headed by a District Education Officer in violation of the rules, which require the appointing authority, that is the DPI ( Schools), to chair it. The Personnel Department did not send any of its representatives as they had in the past no say in the recruitment. The interview panel, found Justice Sehgal much to his amusement, included a clerk, a stenographer and “underqualified” subject experts. Of the 100 successful candidates 60 belonged to the four districts of Moga (represented by Mr Tota Singh), Muktsar, Ludhiana and Ferozepur and the remaining came from the rest of the state.

If the large-scale manipulation of selections to government posts leads one to despair, the corrective and prompt action taken by the Punjab Lokpal keeps the hope alive that all is not lost yet. It only took one brave young girl to speak out against the wrong done to her and the wrong-doers stand exposed today. The country needs many Nisha Kauras to point to the failings of the various agencies of the system. Many genuine complaints of citizens remain unaddressed because the courage and conviction shown by Nisha Kaura and judicial activism displayed by Justice Sehgal are rare. To keep the administration on the right track, the collective efforts of active and alert citizens, the media and the judiciary are required. Care has to be taken at the same time that those really talented and selected on merit do not become victims in the weeding out of the undesirable elements. A careful scrutiny of the records can filter out those who got selected on extraneous considerations. The aim should be not to inconvenience the talented. Besides, exemplary and immediate punishment is required to be meted out to those caught on the wrong side of the law.

OPINION

Creeping malaise in Indian Railways
Giving primacy to traffic & passenger safety
V. Eshwar Anand

Railway Minister Nitish Kumar, who invented the sabotage theory in the case of the recent Shramjeevi Express derailment that claimed the lives of 12 passengers, is no exception. Over the years Railway Ministers have been indulging in such an exercise to cover up their own failures, little knowing that this would further erode the image of the Indian Railways.

When the Mangalore-Chennai Mail fell into the Kadalundi river in Kerala while crossing a bridge resulting in 43 deaths on June 22, 2001, Union Minister of State for Railways O. Rajagopal promptly attributed the mishap to a “peculiar geographical phenomenon” in the river even though the accident was due to the 100-year-old weak bridge. In the case of Kerala’s Ashtamudi lake accident involving the Island Express that left 105 passengers dead on July 8, 1988, the “tornado” theory was invented. And in the case of Karnataka Express accident near Lalitpur on April 17, 1989, the late Madhavrao Scindia did not rule out the possibility of sabotage.

The latest derailment is symptomatic of the creeping malaise afflicting the Indian Railways. It also demonstrates the collapse of the command structure, short-circuiting well-defined safety procedures and the lack of accountability in the system. The large number of accidents should certainly be due to negligence on the part of the officials in enforcing safety procedures. The officials are aware of the latter, but there seems to be no effective enforcement of the same.

Derailments can occur because of alignment defects on the track. A curving track is vulnerable to derailment due to a variety of factors ranging from axle angularity, inclined wear of outer rail, misalignment of the track and poor riding properties of train coaches. The Railway Board has laid down detailed instructions on how to face these technical hazards. Its instructions and guidelines issued from time to time to all General Managers and Divisional Railway Managers also cover Permanent Way Inspectors (now designated as Section Engineers-Permanent Way) to ensure that derailments do not result from the track giving away unexpectedly.

The risk posed by “track buckling” resulting from improperly adjusted rails, insufficient rail anchors and inadequate ballast have also been fully written down by the Railway Board along with the hazards relating to buffers of the rolling-stock if they do not conform to the rigid requirements. Certainly, had the railways given the required vigilance to the enforcement of these instructions, its safety record would have been better.

After a major train accident in Mumbai in 1981, the Railway Board had issued instructions that all moving parts, especially axles, should be subjected to ultrasonic testing. However, the paucity of funds has reportedly come in its way. Derailments also occur whenever there is a substantial variation in the thickness of the wheel flanges and the wheel diameter because of incorrect re-profiling in the loco workshops. To ensure that the wheel lathe has been functioning satisfactorily, it was suggested that the officials should record wheel profiles after each periodic overhauling.

Similarly, air brakes are fairly crucial in the railways’ scheme of cutting down on derailments. To improve the position, the Railway Board had in November, 1993, directed the zonal railways to strengthen the infrastructure for training the staff on air brakes. It had specifically instructed issuance of pressure gauges to guards.

Old bridges are also a major cause of derailment. According to an estimate, of the 1,19,724 railway bridges, as many as 51,340 are more than 100 years old. A couple of years ago, the number of bridges classified as “distressed” stood at 515. When will the railways take steps to replace them? In 1989, the Bridge Rehabilitation Committee of the Railway Board had recommended the replacement of girders from all the bridges having three-metre spans with concrete slabs for stability and protection. However, this recommendation has remained on paper. The bridge near Khetasarai station, where the Shramjeevi Express derailed, had two spans of three metres each.

The increase in the number of passenger and express trains should have been accompanied by a corresponding increase in coaches. This has resulted in the overuse of the available stock with a drastic effect on their health and railworthiness. “Sickness” of coaches has become a major problem for the authorities. The reluctance on the part of the officials to mark any coach as “sick”, even strictly from the safety angle, because of the prevailing circumstances of non-availability of spare coaches leads to tension at all levels, particularly keeping in view the last-minute changes in rake formation and complaints from passengers having confirmed reservations. Such tendencies can be checked only when adequate spare coaches of all classes are made available in every primary maintenance depot.

There is a huge backlog of track renewal. With the traffic density ever on the increase, there seems to be no time for maintenance of track or the signalling system though these are vital safety areas. The railways have no doubt undertaken a massive modernisation and expansion drive to introduce electric traction on more routes and upgrade the signalling system. But this is apparently moving at a snail’s pace because of lack of adequate funds. Many signalling cabins are overaged. They aren’t replaced for want of funds. So, what do the railways do? Get pliant and obliging experts to certify that the old ones are safe and can be continued for a few more years.

Added to this is the shortage of staff and materials. Line blocks asked for and sanctioned by the competent authorities are either cancelled or cut, thus affecting the safety of these vital areas. Ironically, all the zonal railways put together have the largest infrastructure in the nation, but they are perpetually short of materials, even vital safety items.

The top brass in New Delhi’s Rail Bhavan and all others in the zonal and divisional headquarters should bestow attention to all these aspects in order to improve the safety standards in all the departments and protect the lives and properties of those travelling by train. True, the Chief Safety Officers and the Divisional Safety Officers at the zonal and divisional levels respectively are responsible for the day-to-day safety management and administration. Training the personnel of the Operations Department forms an essential component of the Safety establishment. But sadly, there seems to be no effective inter-departmental coordination to promote traffic safety. In the absence of a comprehensive and integrated approach to safety, whenever there is a derailment or accident, each department tries to shift the blame on the other. The Civil Engineering Department blames the rolling-stock. The Mechanical Engineering Department finds fault with the track. And the Operations Department blames both but not its own staff!

The Commissioner of Railway Safety (CRS) in every zonal railway belongs to the Union Ministry of Civil Aviation, with a view to imparting fairness to enquiries. He has full powers and can function independently. In practice, however, he is under persistent pressure from the railways and its various departments to clear officers in the investigations. If a small fry like a gangman, a pointsman or a supervisor is indicted for dereliction of duty, it is okay. But when responsibility is fixed at medium or senior administrative levels, the Railway Board puts up a stiff fight and does not agree with the findings of the CRS. There are also complaints that the Railway Board adopts dilatory tactics and prolongs the issue till public interest fades out of memory.

The impartiality of the probe is also questionable because the CRS has no separate field staff to conduct enquiries. Except for the CRS, his other colleagues are officers on deputation from the railways. Moreover, the CRS has to depend on the railways for basic investigation and data support during an enquiry. There are also problems in posting officers to the CRS. Either the right kind of people do not want to go or disgruntled elements desire to escape from the mainstream. This leads to problems either way.

Again, the reports of the CRS are always treated as top secret and confidential and only relevant extracts are published. It has been argued consistently that passengers and citizens have a right to know the findings of the commission of enquiry within a reasonably short time.

MIDDLE

High and Dry
Raj Chatterjee

He had black, wavy hair, a heavy, black moustache and thick eyebrows. His eyes were dark and deeply sunk so that with his long, thin and slightly hooked nose his expression was intelligent but sardonic.

His name was very British, double-barrelled, no less, but somewhere down the line there was a drop of Jewish blood in his veins. He often mentioned it himself, always adding that it was on the distaff side. Hence his name which, though it did not appear in Debrett, was well known and highly respected in the financial circles of Britain before World War II.

We were about the same age and had become friends at the LSE I don’t think he took his studies too seriously. There was an assured place for him in the family business. But his father had made it clear to him that he must start at the bottom and make his way up.

For a time we shared digs in Maida Vale. Then we moved into a furnished flat in Hampstead. The Mecca of the intellectuals, he called it, though neither of us had any pretensions in that direction. A woman came in every day to clean and cook our dinner. It cost us a great deal more that what we had paid our landlady at Maida Vale, but Michael had an allowance from his father which had seemed astronomical to me. So he offered to pay two-thirds of the expenses, an offer I gratefully accepted. It was nice to be able to live within walking distance of two of London’s most famous pubs, Jack Straw’s Castle and the Spaniards Inn.

One Summer Michael invited me to spend a long weekend at the family home in Yorkshire. He hinted at the sort of life they lived, so I took the precaution of acquiring a dinner jacket.

He hadn’t exaggerated. The Tudor mansion which had been theirs for generations was surrounded by woodland and had its own fishing. The house was run by a butler who might easily have stepped out of a Wodehouse novel. There were a couple of other manservants, and I didn’t count the number of gardeners and housemaids.

I was a bit overawed but Michael’s parents were a charming couple who soon made me feel at home.

And back in London there was Elsie, Michael’s friend. She too was a student at the LSE but she came from an entirely different background. Her father was a minor official in the Ministry of Works and her mother taught school to augment the family income. She was pretty and vivacious and Michael was very much in love with her, or so it seemed. He talked of marrying her but I couldn’t quite see her fitting into the set-up in Yorkshire. “But I have a legacy from my grandmother and my father could cut me off with a shilling he so wishes” said Michael.

But Elsie’s world, and to some extent mine came toppling down when, on the spur of the moment Michael decided to join a group of students who had volunteered to fight in Spain.

I never saw Michael again as I left England in late 1937. But several years later I came across his picture in the Bystander. Complete with top hat and striped trousers he was stepping out of St. Margaret’s, Westminster. The girl on his arm wasn’t Elsie. It was the Hon’ble Joan something-or-other, who had been presented at Court the previous year.

ON THE SPOT

Are jihadis pushing India, Pakistan towards conflict?
Tavleen Singh

Newspapers across India called him a “dove” after masked gunmen killed Abdul Ghani Lone last week. They killed him on the 12th death anniversary of Mirwaiz Maulvi Farooq and what struck me, with a weary sense of deja vu, was that they did the same with Maulvi Farooq. After he was killed by gunmen in sneakers and jeans who strolled into his lovely, lakeside home and shot him dead in his little book-filled office, journalists and politicians fell over themselves trying to establish that he had been a moderate. Yet both men spent their lives trying to free Kashmir from India. So what sense should the average Indian make of what is going on in the Kashmir valley? Has it now become a “moderate” demand to ask for azaadi? What will they make of the television images of the last moments of Lone’s life at Srinagar’s Idgah maidan where a huge crowd shouted “Freedom” in answer to Mirwaiz Omer Farooq’s cry of “What do we want?” Lone was seated on the dais as the young Mirwaiz rallied the crowd with slogans in English and Urdu. And it is interesting that Omer Farooq is also described as a moderate, although even the certainty that his father was killed by Pakistan-trained terrorists has not made him draw any closer to India.

I use the word terrorist but, as anyone who has covered Kashmir will tell you, this is not a word they use there. Even when they are sick of violence, the average Kashmiri speaks reverently of the killers as 
“militants”, a word that sounds infinitely more reverential when you say it in Urdu: mujahideen. Why do they speak with reverence? Because the young men who picked up the gun in the late eighties to start a violent struggle for Kashmir’s freedom were idealistic and motivated by concern for Kashmir’s political future rather than by Islam. They were willing to risk their lives to make Kashmir a better place and they believed – rightly or wrongly – that the only way this could happen was if Kashmir could become independent of India. And Pakistan.

They may have been misguided but they were not religious fanatics or foreign mercenaries and because nobody in Delhi chose to seize the moment their strength has been eroded and their movement has been overtaken by the greater Islamic jehad.

Lone knew this and in the last months of his life had become a vocal critic of Pakistani interference in Kashmir. He spoke out against “foreign militants” and “those with a pan-Islamic agenda” and probably lost his life for doing so. No militant group has claimed responsibility for his assassination but nobody claimed responsibility for killing Maulvi Farooq either. There is method in this because it points the finger at Indian intelligence agencies who have so far proved too incompetent to either defend themselves effectively or prove who was responsible. Pakistan’s military ruler’s first statement after Lone’s murder indicated that the idea was to lay blame on Indian intelligence. He described it as “yet another incident in the reign of terror unleashed by Indian forces”. Then, possibly realising that his underwear was showing, changed his tune quickly and called it “an act of terrorism”.

Pervez Musharraf should know an act of terrorism when he sees one but the change in his statement is an interesting clue to what is happening in Kashmir and in India and Pakistan in general. The pan-Islamic jehad that Lone was trying to save Kashmir’s azaadi movement from is spreading ominous tentacles across the 1800 mile border that separates us from Pakistan. If it is not stopped it could destroy the Indian sub-continent and even if Pakistan nurtured jehadis and financed their activities, if Musharraf is now trying to distance himself from them it is because he knows that it is not just India that can be destroyed but Pakistan as well. In other words, much as the Indian government continues to blame only Musharraf, the jehad that is led by people like Osama bin Laden could well already be beyond his control.

Husain Haqqani, whom I have known since the days before he became press adviser to either Benazir Bhutto or Nawaz Sharif, is no friend of Musharraf and yet he had this to say in an article in the Indian Express last week. “The pan-Islamist jihadis are pushing India and Pakistan towards conflict as part of their plan to polarise the region between Muslims and non-Muslims. “Their irrational approach, expressed in their many publications in their several websites, talks of the final conflict between Iman (belief) and kufr (disbelief). And that final conflict, according to jihadi folklore, must take place in the region known in much of Islamic history as Khurasaan (present day Afghanistan) and Hind (India). An India-Pakistan war can only draw in the USA, which from the jihadis’ point of view, serves their purpose of internationalising their struggle”.

So the question we need to be asking on our side of the subcontinent is whether the terrorist incidents that began with the attack on Parliament are ordered by Musharraf or by jehadi groups now working independent of him and perhaps even the ISI. At the same time we need to be asking if this attempt to put everything at the door of some hidden pan-Islamic leaders is not an attempt by the Pakistan government to continue supporting terrorism in India under a new guise. A similar strategy to the one adopted by groups like the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba and the Jaish-e-Mohammed who disappeared only to reappear under new names.

If Musharraf is doing this, it could be as dangerous for him as it is for us. The kidnapping and brutal murder of Wall Street journalist Daniel Pearl as well as the recent car bomb that killed French engineers in Karachi are signs that Pakistan could be paying in blood for its past support to the jehad. It already paid in Afghanistan when the Taliban – another creation of the ISI – became bigger than those who created them. It is hard to say what is happening in Pakistan at least from our side of the border but it is easy to see what is happening in Kashmir.

Since the Vajpayee government has never articulated a clear policy in Kashmir we have been in a virtual state of drift for three years. In this period of drift the terrorism we continue to blame on Pakistan could have acquired a new, more ominous dimension. The Home Minister must wake up to this instead of spouting the same tired old statements about Pakistani-sponsored terrorism.

More importantly, we need a policy that would take into consideration the possibility of the Kashmir movement having been overtaken by the pan-Islamic jehad. All that we have seen so far from Vajpayee and Advani are feeble attempts, now and then, to talk to militant groups and now an attempt to hold elections in Kashmir later this year in the hope that this will be a solution. It could have worked in an earlier, gentler time. It is unlikely to work now.

POINT OF VIEW

Fidayeen attacks suggest a striking similarity of tactics
Ashok K. Mehta

India faces a Hobson’s choice — restraint or retaliation? Both are turning out to be non-exercisable options. Another Kaluchak will put even greater pressure on the government to act. It is not clear whether General Musharraf has reverted to his strategy of using terror in bringing India to the negotiating table or is he simply not in control of the jehadis. The USA, which has sought more time even four months after Musharraf’s January 12 speech renouncing terrorism seems either unable or unwilling to moderate Musharraf despite the routine reiteration of promises by the Pakistani cabinet and the National Security Council on May 22

In the face of fidayeen attacks, India’s patience is wearing out. The May 14 fidayeen attack at Jammu was directed against civilian targets, mainly Hindu, much like the last against the Raghunath temple on March 30, also in Jammu. In the past, all fidayeen attacks have been against security posts, none against civilian targets. The fidayeen attacks in Jammu and Kashmir had declined dramatically from nine in the first four months of last year to three this year — till the one on May 14, not necessarily connected with the Rocca visit.

The ISI has now left it to the fidayeen to choose when to go to heaven. It has left to them the selection of the time and the target of attack. The choice of civilian Hindu targets may be a tactical shift. The May 19 attack against a Rashtriya Rifle post was a standoff and not a suicide attack. Volunteers for dying are probably drying up. But elsewhere the public display of dying for a cause is on the increase.

The terror war in the Middle East, Sri Lanka and Jammu and Kashmir has helped to understand the anatomy of a suicide bomber. Easily the most climactic and catastrophic phase of the second Intifada was played out astride the West Bank last month culminating in a record seven suicide bombings in seven days by the Palestinian Hamas, Fatah and Al Aksa Martyrs’ Brigade. The savage Israeli reprisals were part of a cycle of violence that had no precedent.

Who wants to be a self-bomber? The mythology of martyrdom distinguishes the human bomber from the ordinary terrorist. Jammu and Kashmir’s fidayeen do not strictly meet the Qualitative Requirement (QR), though like other human ordnance of self destruct, they too are guaranteed a passage to heaven if they have not managed to escape. (They always keep open an exit route.) For those who hanker for the ultimate Nirvana, praise, honour, worship and wealth are assured for them and their families.

The startling irony is that the only antidote to the walking kamikaze is another one. The human bomber is the ultimate usable weapon in an asymmetric war. The fine art of the willingness to die in an act of collective murder was perfected nearer home in the land of Ravana and Ram by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam (LTTE) No one has forgotten the legendary Dhanu whose fatal embrace felled former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi when she detonated the garland of explosives strapped to her body. The LTTE’s record in human bombing and suicide attacks is unsurpassable. Their human bombers have accounted for one President, one former Prime Minister, two Defence Ministers, one future President, one Chief of Naval Staff, a couple of Generals and scores of rival Tamil leaders. President Chandrika Kumaratunga, who lost an eye, came within a whisker of death.

By the end of 2000, the LTTE had carried out 173 suicide attacks, but only 70 per cent of these were successful. The LTTE is the only guerrilla force where every cadre has a cyanide capsule strung around the neck, more an established proclivity to pop the capsule in the mouth when entrapped.

Barring the suicide squads of the LTTE and the Islamic jehad — whether Hezbollah, Hamas or Al-Qaeda — this human variety of kill-and-get-killed is not traceable elsewhere. Why for example, did the Red Brigade, the IRA or the ETA not throw up a human bomber? What about the Christian or Hindu human bomber? Will the Islamic jehad bomber go transatlantic? The grand gurus of terrorism have not found answers to these questions. The non-Islamic terrorist groups with the sole exception of the LTTE reportedly believe in violence with restraint — whatever that means.

The export of the human bomber to the USA is also in debate. The history of fidayeen attacks in Jammu and Kashmir is mixed. A fidayeen attack is a do-and-die mission against a security force post. As on date, there have been 42 cases of fidayeen attacks, four of these car bombs. Nearly 200 soldiers against 85 terrorists were killed. More than 50 per cent of the attacks were staged last year with 70 per cent in the Srinagar valley alone. The strapped human bomber, a la Dhanu is conspicuously missing.

Pakistani terror groups do not subscribe to instant martyrdom. That is why the Karachi attack against French technicians is an Al-Qaeda job. The pattern of fidayeen attacks indicates a striking identity of tactics: storm, strike and die. There was one case of an animal bomber. A mule strapped with camouflaged explosives was pushed into a security post and detonated by remote control causing damage and casualties. One of the sticking points of the latest ceasefire agreement between the Lankan government and the LTTE was the latter’s unwillingness to give up suicide attacks.

The terrorist attacks on New Delhi’s Parliament House and the State Assembly in Srinagar were extremely bold but the element of escape was not absent. It is the commandeering of four aircraft and ramming them into their targets that turns fiction into fact. The Attas and Dhanus have romanticised the cult of the human bomber but the fidayeen is in no hurry to go to heaven. The challenge for the Indian security forces is how to intercept the fidayeen before they reach their target and ensure their instant martyrdom.

The writer is a retired Major-General of the Indian Army.

75 YEARS AGO

Grazing in Assam

The Government of Assam in a communique states that it is proposed to appoint a committee, including members of the Council, to enquire into the working of the existing rules for grazing and their effect on milk supply of the province. Pending receipt of the committee’s report, the Governor has decided to certify Rs 15,000 being the half demand on account of commission for the collection of grazing dues which was refused by the Council of 4th March.

SPIRITUAL NUGGETS

The virtuous man delights in this world and he delights in the next; he delights in both. He delights and rejoices when he sees the purity of his own work.

The virtuous man is happy in this world and he is happy in the next; he is happy in both. He is happy when he thinks of the good he has done; he is still more happy when going on the good path.

The evil-doer mourns in this world, and he mourns in the next; he mourns in bot. He mourns and suffers when he sees the evil (result) of his own work.

The evil-doer suffers in this world and he suffers in the next; he suffers in both. He suffers when he thinks of the evil he has done, he suffers more while going on the evil path.

—Khuddaka Nikaya. From the Minor Anthologies of the Pali Canon (translator F.H. Woodward)

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—Anguttara Nikaya. From The Book of Gradual Sayings (translator, F.L. Woodward)