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| Revamp system, not men | | | NIRBHAY JAMMUAL
The immediate fallout of the Mumbai carnage was that heads have rolled down and many more will be shown the door. The Union Home Minister, Shivraj Patil has resigned and so has the Maharashtra Chief Minister, Deshmukh, Deputy Chief Minister,R.R.Patil.Well the three ministers resigned after the Government and public pressure mounted on them. They had not quit out of moral responsibility for the terrorists strike in Mumbai. ad they believed in their conscience and were aware of their moral responsibility they should have resigned the day the incident took place. It was Lal Bahadur Shastri who had offered to resign as a minister while owning responsibility for a major rail mishap. Though his resignation was not accepted Shastri, decades ago, had the courage to resign. But his offer of resignation had not ended the menace of rail accidents .Between two to three major rail mishaps take place in different parts of the country.
If Shastri's offer for resignation could not end the rail accidents the same analogy can be applied to the terrorist activities. Had resignation of ministers been an answer to any major problem the remedies could have been found years ago. It has not been the case. It will not be the case. The reason being that the system is defective. Change the system instead of ministers. Alter the policy instead of blaming a minister or some VIP. Shivraj Patil should have resigned soon after terrorists struck with venom in Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Bangalore and Delhi.He did not do it because he was certain that these terrorists had not come to India on his invitation. If Patil was asked to resign it was the result of keenness on the part of the Congress led UPA Government to insulate the Government against continued criticism by the opposition and by the people..The media had already begun painting Shivraj Patil in black colours. His fault being that he would appear before the media as immaculately dressed minister. He seemed to be too decent to man the home ministry which has to deal with rugged faced men of the police and the paramilitary forces.He has gone out of the union home ministry unsung, unwept.
However, the Prime Minister seems to have picked up a right person for the right job by giving the home portfolio to P.Chidambaram. As union Minister for Finance PC,as he is usually called,cold not perform miracles. In fact he presided over recession and acute inflation. His commitment to hike the annual growth rate could ot stand the test of recession. Though recession is now a global phenomenon inflation had hit the business stalls years before recession. PC is not new to the home affairs. He has held the post of minister of state for internal security and had been instrumental in freeing Punjab from the menace of militancy. It was under his leadership that the two most brilliant police officers, Julius Ribeiro and K.P.S.Gill were appointed DG police Punjab. He was instrumental in clearing operation black thunder. .His policy on giving a free hand to Gill and others is said to have tamed militants operating in Punjab. This way one expects PC to show results. He may be able to do so if the system was overhauled. Whenever some militancy related incident takes place the intelligence agencies dish out briefs claiming that they had informed the Government and the security agencies in advance. In case of Mumbai incidents the IB claimed it had given information to the Navy and coastal guards about the infiltration of highly trained terrorists from the sea route. The coastal guards have denied having received any such report.
PC is credited with having sanctioned fencing of the entire Punjab border which is said to have resulted in the drop in the level of ingress. The same strategy has been adopted in Jammu and Kashmir but the barbed wire fence has not altered the level of infiltration because militants have devised ways for snapping the fence. So PC needs to evolve a pragmatic policy on tackling militancy. Better weapons for forces, increase in the manpower of the security forces, strengthening the intelligence grid and making it mandatory for each state to raise several battalions on the pattern of NSG commandos. Whatever policy the Government forms it needs to be implemented without any delay. Such policy should not wait for implementation for years as has been the case with the plan of acquiring more motor boats and submarines for strengthening coastal security. |
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