New world order and
The apparent failure to act on intelligence inputs ahead of the Pulwama attack is alarming enough, but it is downright frightening to analyse the chain effect and geopolitical ramifications of the preventable terror strike.
THE RECENT ARTICLE BY FRONTLINE’S ANANDO Bhakto (https://frontline.thehindu.com/politics/pulwama-terror-attack-happened-despite-two-successiveactionable-intelligence-inputs/article33834740.ece) on the Pulwama attack of February 2019 on a convoy of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) was an extraordinary piece of investigative reporting. It was especially so for having emanated from Kashmir, a tightly sealed black box on any security information.
The report laid bare the following facts, backed by documentary evidence: that there were at least 12 separate pieces of communication within the security grid that incontrovertibly lead to the February 14 attack; that the identity of the assault’s planner, Mudasir Khan, was known 23 days before the attack; that his whereabouts were located 22 days before; that the specific motive for the attack was documented four days before it; and that the methodology, even if imprecise, was conjectured the
Ahmed Dar, the eventual suicide bomber, to Mudasir Khan.
In other words, in addition to a mound of quantitative intelligence, there was substantial qualitative evidence to support steps towards pre-emptive action. However, the article points out, despite the evidence, a potential weakening of the security grid was effected with the transfer of a senior police officer under whose jurisdiction the site of the attack fell. The moot question: why was no action to pre-empt and prevent taken? Two answers suggest themselves: gross incompetence or deliberate oversight. Neither should satisfy civil society. To be sure, the thrust of the article’s implication—that the intelligence reports and analytical data were ignored— was suspected and voiced in street wisdom from the get-go. However, in many such cases the absence of evidential basis for that conclusion forces a fade from memory, and the episodes are doomed to languish in the dustbin of history’s countless unexcavated accusations of conspiracy theory rationales that are uncritically accepted or contemptuously endured as examples of brutal state violence that will never be held to civilised standards of accountability.
Discouraging though this may be for those who continue to believe in the idea of India as a modern state conceptualised just before 1947, it should be perplexing to recall that the re-election of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government came on the heels of repeated citations of the attack and the deaths in election rallies (“Jingoism as politics”, page 14), serving the dual purposes of gaining voters’ sympathy and demonising Kashmiris.
It is much too early in history to expect material evidence to connect the last two events, but the circumstantial evidence can hardly be contested. All this despite the now documented “actionable intelligence” surrounding the Pulwama blast.
Alarming though this is, it is downright frightening to analyse the chain effect in geopolitical ramifications of the preventable Pulwama attack when we note that we continue to live with ongoing geopolitical consequences of Pulwama 2019 today.
CONSEQUENCES FOR SOUTH ASIA
The first connects are not difficult to see. As a direct response to the blast, the Indian Air Force attacked Balakot in Pakistan two weeks later. The Pakistan Air Force replied with an attack across the Line of Control. The BJP won the elections, but the pre-election military exchange between India and Pakistan seemed to raise South Asia to the dubious distinction of being one of the more dangerous regions in the 21st century. The BJP, emboldened by the election results which boosted its quantum in Parliament, took unprecedented measures to cut off Jammu and Kashmir from the world on August 5, 2019. The “Reorganisation of J&K Act 2019” was introduced in the Rajya Sabha on August 5 and passed the same day. Passed in the Lok Sabha on August 6, it