[On the ineptitude of the response -- why the private sector is dynamic, efficient and responsive while the public sector is not] Because of the venality and cynicism of so much of the political class in India, which I think now people in India feel an enormous amount of scorn and contempt for. You saw what happened after the attacks, that the father of one of the police officers who was killed, was was visited by the chief minister of a state, he threw him out. He didn't want to have anything to do with you. And that's a pretty general attitude towards politicians in India. I mean, look at the scale of how bad the response was. We now hear that Indian intelligence had informed the coast guard on that evening that they were expecting an attack -- a Lashkar-e-Toiba attack by sea. That evening. And the coast guard had been alerted to go and find the ship. They failed to find it. The Taj hotel had been repeatedly told about an attack by sea and to beef up their security which they did for about two months and then nothing happens and so they took it down, the security down again. And then the attack happened. The police officers who were wearing bullet-proof vests were wearing clothing so old that it could not stop the high velocity rifles that were being used and so three senior police officers were killed within moments of the attack beginning because the bullets just went through their protective armour. The commandos who eventually went in were actually based in Delhi and had no dedicated aircraft. So they couldn't get to Bombay. It took them 12 hours to enter the buildings. And as I say, the fire engines. In a city that sits by the sea, hotels that sit by the water were allowed to burn for three hours before water got to them. Well, this... People could of course with some legitimacy say that the United States was caught unprepared as well you know, and the radios didn't work in the wall street zone...and you could of course make a similar catalogue of errors about what happened on that day on Sept 2001...But it was awful to watch as this pile of mistakes grow, while meanwhile the city was burning...The fact that there were - four terrorists in the Taj - who could hold on the Indian army for four days...when they were coked out of their heads, you know, snorting coke in one nostril, while executing people...I mean, the idea that they were allowed to go on...for four days is unthinkable... 
So yes, I agree with Mira that to change the emphasis to these kind of draconian security laws is wrong because what you need to do is clearly to fix absence of a security machinery, you know...You need armoured vehicles, you need proper body protection, you need aircraft to bring people to the scene of the crime, you need a coastguard which can guard the coast, you know... I mean, India has a very long coastline. And y'know Karachi is only a hundred mile away from Bombay... So the idea that there can be an attack by sea is obvious, you know...And as I say, there were warnings...American intelligence says it told the Indian intelligence, many times. Indian intelligence itself says that it told the Bombay police, many times about it pand yet there is this colossal failure. The problem is there and to put it in the other place is to put it in the wrong place. And I do mean to say, that when Suketu was talking about the quality of the city is what annoyed people. |
There is a wonderful remark by, I think, HL Mencken that "Puritanism is the haunting fear that someone somewhere might be happy"...And, and I do think that happiness is a part of the thing that really, along with Cocaine, gets up their nose. The idea that, as Suketu said, that this is a city of pleasure makes it, in the same way as the people who tried to bomb night clubs in England, y'know, said that it was legitimate because there were these slags in short skirts there, y'know, who deserved to die because of their sexuality, y'know, so there is in this whole area of the Islamic terrorist project a real dislike of open society, of the way people ordinarily live with each other. And they attack it. ....[On the role of Media]
I think it is the wrong argument. I mean, what would you have the media do? To look away from the burning building? To look away from the slaughter in the railway station? Not to cover the siege of the Chabad House?
[Did the media end up aiding and informing the terrorists?]
Well there were one or two moments of clumsiness like that where it was reported on NDTV -- which I was, I was in London at that time and I was glued to 24 hours NDTV there... because you can get it on satellite ... and someone reported that they received a phone call from a room on such and such floor of the Taj .... which then informed the listening terrorists where people were...I mean that clearly was a blunder... and I think there were no doubt others, but I think on the whole it is the wrong argument. That's not where the problem was. I mean, you had the journalists doing their best, you know, and sometimes the best of journalism is not good enough...but that doesn't mean that that's where the problem was... the problem I think is elsewhere ...
...
There was a problem of the rolling news that an enormous amount of what was announced as news was almost immediately afterwards, we were told, was not correct... So one minute these killers were supposed to be British, y'know or some of them anyway, and five minutes later they weren't. And originally, there were 20 of them, then there 25, then it turned out that there were only 10 of them ... and maybe some got away... you know, They came by ship, No they didn't. The ship had been arrested by the coastguard which was supposed to have been the mothership. Oh, maybe there wasn't such a ship. They had a room in the Taj hotel. No they didn't. They were members of the hotel staff. No, they weren't. You know, so it was very difficult, I think, which is why I didn't know what to write at that time because the facts were changing so much.
[On the real issue: Pakistan]
These are not the causes of what happened. I mean, this is no doubt significant and We should debate how the media covers events, whichever country we are in. we can no doubt say, they got this wrong, they got that right, you know, but this is not the issue. The issue is -- and it is important as there is a new President due to take office in this country -- what should be the world's policy towards Pakistan? It is a very important matter right now. Because you have the British Prime Minister two days ago, Gordon Brown said that British intelligence, following up leads of various terrorists' activities, they informed him that 75 per cent of what they were studying led back to Pakistan. All the roads of world's terrorism lead to Pakistan
....
But it needs to be very very tough, that argument. It has to be made with enormous force. Who makes it? Let's start with the President of the United States. For the last years, since the 911 attacks, the American government policy towards Pakistan was to give them a lot of aid and to treat them as an ally in the war on terror.
So billions of dollar have been handed over first, mostly, to the Musharraf government and now its successor.
| Without any requirement that that money should come with, let's say an agreement that Pakistan is not going to house the terrorists that we are supposed to be fighting against. Instead, Musharraf very skilfully played both ends against the middle. He was a westerner to the West and a Mullah to the mullahs. You know this is the man, remember, when Benazir was in power, it was Musharraf who set up the Lashkar-e-Toiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad. When these groups were being created to fight in Kashmir, he was the general n the army who was given the task of monitoring and supporting those groups. So we have treated Pakistan with this very velvet glove for a very long time and we have got in return is zero. The headquarters of al-Qaeda, The headquarters of Taliban, the headquarters of Lashkar-e-Toba, the headquarters of Jaish-e-Mohammad, the world's centre of terrorism: Pakistan. To be fair, even the last days of the Bush administration I think Condoleeza Rice's visit to Pakistan was very significant. I mean, it is quite clear that she told them that if they did not ban these groups, Pakistan will be declared a terrorist state. And they more or less said that when they gave their reasons for having made these restrictions. But the problem with what's happened so far, it looks, certainly I think from an Indian perspective, things look like a sham. We have seen before, these leaders placed under house arrest, who continue to move freely. We have seen before the closing of an account, when another one springs up round the corner When Zardari says of course we will prosecute them if we can locate them... you know, the SFX: horse laughing. It is only two months, that the Zardari government authorised the purchase of an armoured vehicle to drive the leader of the LeT around. So he is driving around Pakistan in a state armoured car. ... [On the ordinary Pakistanis and the power elite] When you talk about what it is, Pakistan. The Islamic parties received less than 2 percent of the vote. When people in Pakistan are allowed - which they are not very often allowed - to express their opinion in an election that is not fixed, you know, when the ballots are not stuffed.. so this time the vote against Musharraf was so big that he couldn't fix the election actually. So you actually got a reflection of what people think. And they think regionally, you know --the Punjab votes for Nawaz Sharief, the Sindh votes for the PPP -- but they don't think like religious extremists. They do not vote for them. So on the one hand you have the mass of the people not being interested in the rhetoric of the jehad. But on the other hand you have the power elite being completely enthralled with it. That's the problem. [Whether there is a continuing shadow of Partition over India-Pakistan relations?] Only, in that if there hadn't been a Partition, there would be no Pakistan... But, you know, I don't know. Yes, because people have long memories. But, I think, realistically no, I think what, the kind of things we have been talking about the political dynamic of what Islam is, what Islam has been turned into by certain groups in Pakistan...that has very little to do with 1947. So I am not sure it is a post-colonial problem, this. I think we have gone post post, I mean this is a next phase. And I do think that one of the things that could be beneficial if people in India become more, let's say, in Bombay, become more politically aware about their pwn city and protection. I mean they are right to say they do not, cannot trust the federal, the central government to protect their city. It has not done so. So Bombay must be given the right to protect itself.It must have its own authorities. I mean the fact that you know there wasn't even a commando force in Bombay. It was in a suburb of Delhi. And what it mostly did was protect political big wigs. That's what it did. It drove around in motorcades, making politicians feel important. And suddenly it had a real job to do. But I think it is very important that this city, and as you say, Bombay is this entrepreneurial hub. It is efficient. It understands efficiency. It better be given the power, the power, localised political power, to reorganise its own defence. |
