[sacw] Manufacture of the Enemy in India

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Web Dispatch #2
7 Jan 2000
http://www.mnet.fr/aiindex
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Economic and Political Weekly
December 18, 1999
Commentary

ISI:THE UBIQUITOUS ENEMY

by Gautam Navlakha

THE spurt in news items related to Pakistan's ISI conjures up an image of
its involvement in wide-ranging violent activities in India. If these
stories are true, then what stands out is the incompetence of the
government of India which has failed to neutralise ISI, despite having
spent tens of thousands of crores on 'internal security', proliferation of
para-military forces, intelligence agencies, counter-insurgency groups,
bureaucracy, consultants, etc. Instead of examining its failure, the
government, and the media (with a few honourable exceptions) acting as
'force multiplier', have been waging psychological warfare against
citizens. In the first place through fanning insecurity. And secondly using
it to arm itself with more repressive powers. And even when there is
accretion in powers it would be propagated that these are inadequate and
more are required. Another round of ISI bashing will then ensue. There is
reason for this scepticism. It is the government which first mounts a
propaganda war against ISI and then becomes silent until the next phase
lest the public start asking uncomfortable questions.

This agency hit the headlines in the 1980s during the Punjab crisis. By
1992, the focus shifted to ISI's role in Jammu and Kashmir where, by
1993-94, it graduated from supporting militancy to fighting a 'proxy war'.
Thereafter militants in the north-east supposedly came under its influence.
Demolition of Babri masjid and the anti-Muslim pogroms saw an increase in
rumours about ISI. Some of these were truly astounding. For instance, the
then army chief accused ISI of paying Somali warlords to attack Indian
troops. The beating of civilians by army soldiers in Secunderabad in
=46ebruary 1995 was passed off as being the handiwork of ISI. And worse, the
murder of a BJP leader in Hyderabad in 1993 was attributed to ISI when his
own wife pointed an accusing finger at his party colleagues. However three
Muslim youths, the alleged killers, were shot dead in police 'encounter'
(EPW, February 18 and 25, 1995). And each new story about ISI was
accompanied by a step up in military response to deal with domestic
problems, and encouraged communal-fascists to attack the minorities,
ironically, giving the ISI more fertile ground. The past 18 months are no
different.

Through most of his tenure as the union home minister, L K Advani struck
an alarmist note about the ISI and its activities. And promised a white
paper. Parliament sessions came and went but the report was still in the
making. Throughout this period stories were leaked, attributed to unnamed
sources, about this or that activity of the ISI. A draft of sorts was
prepared and circulated to the parliamentary consultative committee
connected to the ministry of home affairs. It spoke of security related
expenditure due to ISI amounting to Rs 64,000 crore. According to this
draft 29,151 civilians and 5,101 security personnel were killed, explosions
caused loss of Rs 2,000 crore, etc. There were problems with such accounts.
The parliamentary committee had expressed serious reservations about the
ministry's 'inadequate replies', failure to offer 'specific details', and
admonished the ministry from using the ISI as an 'alibi' for everything
that happened (EPW, October 3, 'Insecure Foundation of Security').

Even otherwise, the draft was full of infirmities. Everything was being
blamed on the ISI when it was not made clear at what point or how ISI
activities began in India? What was the extent or nature of support? If the
origin and cause of the rebellion were not located in the political economy
of India, then by what stratagem were the ISI able to persuade people to
take to arms when there was no discontent? It was also not clear how the
figures touted had been arrived at. As a result the MHA draft smacked of an
attempt to mask government of India's role in causing discontent which led
to armed rebellion, by conveniently shifting the blame on to an external
agency.

But then, as suddenly as the ISI-behind-every-incident theme appeared, it
also went out of fashion. Soon after prime minister A B Vajpayee's Lahore
visit in February 1999, ISI became a non-threat. None other than union home
minister went on record to assert that there are no ISI bases in India, and
that there are "individuals acting on behalf of ISI". But also added that
the government was "quite capable of tackling them". The white paper on ISI
was quietly buried. That is until the second half of July, once the
'limited war' ended in Kargil, it was once again free for all. For
instance, ISI was accused of being behind the hacking to death of seven
persons in the remote village of Binauli in UP=92s Baghpat district on Augus=
t
21. This was front page news but the denial by the local administration the
next day was pushed to the inside page. Similarly, BJP=92s allegation that
the Darbhanga firing on July 17 in which 25 persons died was 'a well
planned conspiracy hatched by the ISI' received much publicity from an
obliging media.

The ISI was blamed for the train bombing near Siliguri, but the probe so
far indicates that ISI may after all not be involved. Throwing aside
caution, Major General B P Bopanna, GOC, 21 Mountain Division, claimed that
madrasas located in Nalbari and Barpeta districts of lower Assam as also in
the south Barak valley were engaging in 'anti-national activity'. This
unqualified claim made it out as though all the madrasas were engaged in
this. But on August 5, Lt General Shekatkar, GOC, 4 Corps, said there were
100 ISI agents operating from Assam and they were backed by ULFA and Bodo
militants. Now this delimits the threat drastically. But the earlier
statement was never retracted. Of course on August 7, Prafulla Kumar
Mahanta asserted that ISI was in league with ULFA and was dreaming of
setting up a new Islamic state in the north-east. This was the first time
such a disclosure was made. If there is any evidence, the state government
ought to have provided it. But this remark was made at an election meeting
and, therefore, the very next day the Assam CM was ready with his denial.

The other aspect is the exaggeration and one-upmanship at work among
official agencies. In an Assam-West Bengal joint operation, Indian cops
entered Bangladesh from Cooch Behar and went 207 kms to Rajshahi and 'took
delivery' of a consignment of 30 kg of RDX. The diplomatic faux pas was
sought to be covered with the usual disclaimer. But more interestingly
Delhi police claimed to have seized two consignments of 50 kg and 10 kg of
RDX, and another 3.5 kg of RDX was reportedly recovered from Muzzafarnagar
district in UP. But how accurate are these reports? If it is possible to
estimate how much RDX is produced by various countries, deduct what can be
estimated to be 'legitimate' requirement, then the surplus may be assumed
to be for sale. From that it is possible to determine whether such huge
consignments are real or exaggerated. How much could still be hidden. For
all we know, the total of such amounts could be beyond Pakistan's
manufacturing capability. And as a general alert has been sounded about
ISI, various police forces and agencies are competing for their share of
credit and reward.

This is true of the media too. One newspaper claims Nepal is a big centre
for ISI operations against India, another focuses on Bangladesh as centre
of ISI activities. The use of a hotel's name in the case of Nepal (The
Pioneer, August 29) is supposed to lend authenticity, but in 1994 similar
leak about a Nepalese bank (The Economic Times, March 4) which was
allegedly a conduit for ISI funds was refuted and nothing has been heard
about it since. What is interesting is that sources for both are unnamed
officials. If these documents are confidential, then there is something
that is sought to be hidden. Why else would there be selectively leaks
about ISI, if GOI has credible information in its possession. This
selective leaking of unverifiable 'raw data' through obliging media is
meant to fuel tension and apprehension which can be exploited for electoral
gains. Now it is alright for the newspaper to ferret out information, but
there is need to exercise caution while using unverifiable information
especially when officials are reluctant to be identified as the source and
therefore, be held accountable for its corroboration.

The point is that it is easy to feed fear psychosis by giving out
unsubstantiated news which allows the Indian government to escape its
culpability in the making of the crisis and pass the buck to an outside
agency, whereby a section of citizens is turned into an enemy. But it also
makes government appear thoroughly incompetent within the logic of its own
creation. Because with 17 lakh armed personnel at its command, a plethora
of black laws including power of preventive detention, compliant judiciary,
pliable media, and an appetite for augmenting the repression strength at
its command all that the government has achieved is enabling domestic
conflicts to transit to the status of 'proxy' war and armed rebellion. To
be indifferent to a proven record of repression, injustice, and fuelling of
anxiety among the minorities, women, and children is to encourage tyranny.
It is not difficult for jingoists to seize this opportunity to spread
hatred and sow divisions when the government and weak-kneed media help
vitiate the atmosphere. (Consider how the media has through its silence
acquiesced in the witch-hunt mounted against the reporter and editors of
two magazines summoning them to appear before an army court knowing fully
well that, unlike Pakistan, the military in India has no jurisdiction over
civilians.)

Does it mean there is no ISI? All it means is that ISI will fish in
troubled waters or exploit domestic strife, something which India's RAW
does too (it also trained armed groups such as LTTE). But just as most
Indians will recoil at the idea of being held responsible for causing the
sectarian and ethnic strife in Pakistan or Sri Lanka, it is equally true
that the responsibility for conflicts and internal wars going on in
different parts of the country rests on the Indian government. Because
their orign is located in internal political processes and misgovernance.
Therefore, it might be better to interrogate why and how discontent festers
into armed conflicts, and explore ways in which the legitimate demands of
discontented people can be resolved through negotiations. If ISI prospers,
which the ministry of home affairs unashamedly claims is the case, it is
because the Indian government does not want to accept the internal basis of
the conflicts. It is an obvious fact that the best form of security is
provided when people are assured a life in which their dignity and
liberties are secure.

Postscript: The union home minister has stated that while the draft on ISI
is ready it will not be presented in the winter session because his
ministry is waiting for the report of the official committee inquiring into
the 'limited war' in Kargil. Presumably, the official committee will lend
its weight to the ideological underpinning about the ISI and the 'enemy
within'.

__________________________________________
SOUTH ASIA CITIZENS WEB DISPATCH is an informal, independent &
non-profit citizens wire service run by South Asia Citizens Web
(http://www.mnet.fr/aiindex) since1996.