Catastrophic ‘unintelligence’: When will we wake up?

The Valentine’s Day Pulwama terrorist suicide attack, which blew up some forty of our CRPF soldiers, has understandably incensed the nation. But, the outrage cannot hide or countenance the sad truth that we’ve failed miserably in our Pakistan policy, especially in our ability to gather and act on intelligence. So grave have some commentators considered this failure that respected senior journalist, Kanchan Gupta, close to the ruling party since the days of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, was moved bitterly to censure the government: “Irrespective of whether or not, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is able to convince voters at the coming hustings to give him a second term in office, his first five years in power at the head of a majority government will be remembered for one of the biggest policy failures: to evolve a strategy to deal with Pakistan and neutralise its murderous cross-border terror apparatus.”

Whether we agree to such a harsh indictment or not, there is little doubt that India has failed miserably either in tracking the enemy’s intentions or in preventing them from hurting us. Nor is this failure new. A shocking fact of the Pakistani invasion of Kashmir in October 1947 is that the top brass of the Indian establishment knew about it but, failed to take decisive preventive action. As several published books and papers have reliably disclosed, Major Onkar Singh Kalkat stumbled upon the details of “Operation Gulmerg” as early as August 20, 1947, two months before it was launched. Although he was arrested, Kalkat managed to escape to Ambala, reaching Delhi by a goods train.

But, his invaluable intelligence was disregarded till it was actually proven true when on October 22, 1947, Maseed Pathan lashkars and other mercenaries, supported by the Pakistani Army, crossed the border. Kalkat later became a Major General, but not acting on his credible and reliable information cost India dearly. Indeed, the mobilisation of thousands, including logistical support provided to them locally, had also been corroborated by sources on the ground. The most shocking bit in this anti-India conspiracy was that the British chief of the Pakistan Army, Gen. Frank Messervy, was not only in the know of things, but supported the Pakistani Army mastermind Major General Akbar Khan in the latter’s machinations. The British not only dismembered India but also played a major role in handing over a large part of Kashmir to Pakistan. It was only because Jawaharlal Nehru, backed by Mahatma Gandhi, ordered Indian troops to be airdropped to Srinagar against the advice of India’s military commander, General “Rob” Lockhart, also a Britisher, that we succeeded in saving what remains of Kashmir.

Fast forward from October 1947 to 1995, when three deadly explosives went off inside the Maulana Azad Stadium in Jammu, one right by the platform on which Jammu and Kashmir Governor General K V Krishna Rao was supposed to hoist the Indian flag on Republic Day. A “post-mortem” was conducted by CD Sahay, the RAW Commissioner, who had also narrowly escaped the blast. He discovered that of the 13 intelligence files consigned to the record room, as many as 6 had warned of the impending attack. Why was the intelligence from ground operatives ignored? Is it any surprise that before 26/11, 2009 and even the Pulwama attack, we had warnings of the terrorists’ plans? In the latter instance, heads of paramilitary forces were even alerted to the possible use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs). What happened to the tall claims that Indian intelligence had been totally revamped after Kargil?

In his extraordinary treatise, Empire and Information (Cambridge University Press, 1996), the late Christopher Bayly, the world’s last great imperial historian, showed how the British empire was as much an empire of information and knowledge as it was of military and might. A reliable spy system, followed by accurate follow-up, enabled the colonial state to defeat every revolutionary or rebellious plot against it. Bayly effectively deconstructs Foucauldian and Saidian notions of “Orientalism” demonstrating that the British conquered India by a combination of loosely acquired day-to-day information and deep socially organised and “taxonomized” knowledge. What is more, it was the cooperation and active participation of indigenous agents, incentivised and deployed as subordinates of empire, that sustained the Raj.

Unlike those before him, it is Narendra Modi who embodies India’s actualised will to power, rather than naïve and noble notions of authority. All the more reason to expect an urgent and immediate rectification of our “unintelligent” security and state apparatus. Before more fatalities and casualties damage both our capability and credibility, shouldn’t we try fully to face up and grasp the geo-political imperatives of our hostile neighbourhood, realising, once and for all, that knowledge is indeed power?

Author is Director, IIAS, Shimla 
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