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9 December 2014

Lesson from 26/11: Protect coastlines

Dec 09, 2014

The 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks have much wider strategic implications in the context of overall coastal defence of the country, particularly cities either directly fronting the ocean like Chennai and Visakhapatnam, or located in its close vicinity like Kolkata.

On November 26, 2008, ten Pakistani jihadists of the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba travelled by sea to Mumbai in a fishing trawler, infiltrated ashore from rubber assault boats near Cuffe Parade, split up into terror teams and spread inland to attack pre-selected locations in the city with the aim of terrorising the country by causing maximum casualties. Surprise was total and the terrorists succeeded in murdering 166 Indians, including women and children, and wounding another 300. All were killed, except one, Ajmal Kasab, who was captured and stood a much publicised trial under the Indian judicial process. He was eventually hanged. The phrase “Mumbai-type attack” has now passed into the lexicon of national security, surely a dubious honour for India. Thus 26/11 became India’s day of infamy.

In the aftermath of the attack, the government of Maharashtra had set-up a two-member Ram Pradhan Committee officially known as the High-Level Enquiry Committee on 26/11 with the charter to inquire into the incident all that went wrong in dealing with it and how to prevent future recurrences. The findings of the committee were extensive and detailed, but given its point of origin and terms of reference, the committee was quite understandably focused only on the city of Mumbai as well as the adjacent Konkan coast.


But the Mumbai terror attack has much wider strategic implications in the context of overall coastal defence of the entire country, particularly other metropolitan cities either directly fronting the ocean like Chennai and Visakhapatnam, or located in its close vicinity like Kolkata. The Konkan and Malabar coasts have traditionally been the hunting grounds of smugglers and terrorists like Haji Mastan and Dawood Ibrahim, and now, the Coromandel Coast of eastern India too has acquired some degree of public notoriety after the emergence of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. It is essential that any comprehensive coverage of national coastal security incorporates the eastern and southern coastlines as well.

India has a three-tier organisation of coastal surveillance and security, with the Indian Navy and the Coast Guard providing the outer and intermediate tiers, and the state police the final backstop along an inner line running along the coast and its adjacent hinterland. Broadly speaking, the implementation of the outer and intermediate tiers is the responsibility of the Central government, while the security of the innermost tier should be handled by the states which have coastlines to protect. For this, the concerned state governments should create coastal police stations and marine police units.

However, the implementation of such steps has been unsatisfactory. Coastal security is subsumed within the larger overarching aspect of national security. Here, the biggest and most crippling post-26/11 casualties is the non-implementation of the proposed National Counter-Terrorism Centre (NCTC), and the National Intelligence Grid (NATGRID) which would have been the apex agencies for Central coordination of all anti-terrorist intelligence and activities, including those in the national maritime domain.

These proposals were discussed at the meeting of chief ministers in 2012, but were dropped after strong resistance by chief ministers of states ruled by the Opposition parties, sceptical of the intentions of the ruling party at the Centre. Once again, issues of national security were overruled by the compulsions of political expediency. The issue of the NCTC and NATGRID have remained in limbo ever since. This is a classic case of drowning the baby (national security) in the murky bathwater of politics.

The victims of the Mumbai terror attacks are ceremonially commemorated on 26/11 every year, but only in Mumbai. For the rest of the country, 26/11 does not seem to have ever occurred for all the attention it is given. It indeed speaks volume about the country’s sense of national values, that on 26/11 in the current year, the prime focus of public attention was the sleazy drama being played out in boardroom of the Board for Control of Cricket in India (BCCI), for control over the vast financial resources of the organisation, whose record of past manipulation by dubious personalities does not inspire much confidence by the public.

Meanwhile, six years after the event, media footage of the current state of readiness of the planned “marine wing” of the Mumbai Police remains disturbing. Images of expensive new speed boats procured for close protection of Mumbai harbour, lying corroded and inoperable for lack of fuel and regular maintenance, and reports of lack of police personnel to man them, apparently because harbour and coastal policing is not considered as “attractive” as, say traffic control or in police stations, arouses a sense of deep despair.

There are some who argue that 26/11 is now long gone and its lessons no longer remain relevant. For them the only advice is to wake up and smell the coffee, because all indications are that the lessons of 26/11 have yet to be fully absorbed and the follow-up actions concretised, particularly in respect of the rest of the country. Maritime as well as riverine security of international borders, particularly in the east continues to be a work in progress, often for the wrong reasons.

At least one day in the year the people of India should be called upon to remember that India’s nose was rubbed in the dirt on November 26, 2008, with no retribution exacted. Meanwhile, for all we know, the next 26/11 might well be lying just around the next bend of the road, and this time it might not be in Mumbai.

The writer is a former Chief of Army Staff and a former member of Parliament.

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