‘26/11 has no parallels... it needed a kinetic response’
NEW DELHI: Congress MP and former minister, Manish Tewari, has caused a stir with his book, 10 Flashpoints, 20 Years: National Security Situations that have Impacted India. He spoke to
in a freewheeling chat. Edited excerpts:
Harinder Baweja You write that the country does not have a national security doctrine. The Modi government certainly believes it does -- it has authored two surgical strikes against Pakistan.
Substantive changes have taken place over the last two decades, and India is now not only looking at how to deal with hijackings and non-state actors. If you look at what the PLA is doing, and the increased weaponisation of the cyber domain, it is clear that India is dealing with new challenges on the security front; challenges we still don’t have a response to. Vis-avis Pakistan, the optics suggests that the government has been aggressive but the hard question it should ask itself is: Has there been a change in Pakistan’s strategy to use non-state actors? No.
You’ve looked at flashpoints over 20 years. Who fared better: UPA or NDA?
The challenges are of the same order. In the case of Pakistan, the Modi-led NDA did initiate forward-leaning measures through the Uri and Balakot strikes but the jury is still out on whether Pakistan has changed its behaviour; whether it has stopped deploying non-state actors. Both NDA and UPA have tried to manage the challenges from Pakdifferistan and China in ent ways. In terms of trying to get peace, neisucceeded. ther has
You have said that kinetic action should’ve followed the Mumbai attacks. Did you take up the issue with PM Mammohan Singh or Sonia Gandhi at the time?
The 26/11 attacks didn’t happen in isolation. They were a culmination of a nasty proxy war starting with Kargil, terror attacks in Kashmir and the attack on Parliament. 26/11 was a nasty finale to the humiliation meted out in Kargil. On November 28, when the Mumbai attacks were still in progress, when I briefed the media, I had said that we should initiate a kinetic response. I expressed my view as the national spokesi man. was neither in government nor in legislature, at the point and there was no occasion to take it up with the leadership.
written about kinetic action if you weren’t part of the 23 leaders seeking sweeping changes in the Congress? Is it an attempt at selling the book?
It has nothing to do with selling the book. I have been more than fulsome in my praise of Manmohan Singh vis-a-vis his handling of the economy and the nuclear deal. The group of 23 has nothing to do with national security. The reason I wrote this book is because there is not enough discussion and debate about national security and we think it can simply be left to some strategic experts.
You raise the question of why non-conventional means not been actively explored. What are you hinting at?
As a democracy, there is a dilemma in the echelons of power, when it comes to hitting out at the fountainheads of terror…
You mean Hafiz Saeed and Masood Azhar? You mean, target them, like the US did bin Laden?
Yes. The reason we have not gone down that street is because of the ethical dilemma and how that would be perceived internationally. So, in Uri and in Balakot, India’s response was aimed at the larger Pakistani state rather than the kingpins of the terror strike. 26/11 was a watershed in the sheer barbarity of the attack. It has few parallels. That’s why I have argued that there should have been a kinetic response.
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