Disarrayed Dialogue: Moderate Taliban reach out to Real Taliban in Pakistan

Sushant Sareen, 

Senior Fellow, VIF

After months of to-ing and fro-ing on a clear, cogent and coherent policy and strategy to combat the ‘Mother of all Problems” in Pakistan, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif pulled yet another surprise on his countrymen by announcing a last ditch attempt to hold a dialogue with the Taliban. Two earlier behind-the-scene attempts by the Nawaz Sharif government to bring the Taliban to the talks table – the first through Major Amir and Harkatul Mujahideen chief Fazlur Rehman Khalil and the second through some clerics – had never really got off the ground. Meanwhile, a sudden spike in Taliban attacks seemed to stiffen the back of the Pakistan army which carried out retaliatory attacks against suspected ‘bad’ Taliban targets in North Waziristan (NWA) using helicopter gunships and jet fighter aircraft. The general impression that was gaining ground was that the Pakistani state, especially the Army, was gearing up to take the fight to the Taliban and perhaps even launch either a full scale or a targeted operation in ‘Terror Central’ i.e. North Waziristan.

The Taliban sympathisers in Pakistan had been put on the back-foot by the growing public opinion in favour of a military operation against Taliban safe havens in NWA. The elusive political consensus for launching such an operation seemed finally at hand with even Taliban sympathisers like Imran Khan declaring that his party would stand with the army if an operation was launched. Even the Taliban were convinced about an impending military assault and in order to forestall it they suddenly started sending signals that they were open to holding talks with the government. In the days leading up to Nawaz Sharif’s much anticipated policy statement in Parliament on tackling Taliban terrorism, a series of statements were issued by the Taliban spokesmen expressing their willingness to hold ‘meaningful talks’ with the government.

But with ministers engaging in tough talk in public, it was expected that Nawaz Sharif would end his government’s dithering and go on the offensive against the Taliban. Alas, that wasn’t to be. Making a sharp about-turn, Nawaz Sharif once again opted for the talks tack and announced a four man committee to hold negotiations with the Taliban. With Nawaz Sharif having played into their hands, the Taliban were quick to grab the opportunity offered to them on a platter. They let a couple of days pass just so as to not betray their delight at the turn of events and then magnanimously announced their own five-man negotiating team and also a 10 man committee to oversee, supervise, guide and monitor the dialogue with the government.

The decision to give talks another chance has come as a shot in the arm for the Taliban supporters who have capitalised on this opportunity to push their sinister agenda and grotesquely morph the public discourse and debate from one centred on countering terrorism to one focussed on enforcing Shariah (Islamic law) in the country. Suddenly, those demanding action against the Taliban have been put on the defensive. With the depredations of the Taliban being explained away as the struggle for transforming Pakistan into an Islamic utopia with Shariah as supreme law, those opposing the Taliban can mount only a muted opposition to the Taliban tactics, not to their objectives. Whether or not they agree with Shariah, everybody has to pay lip service to it because not doing so is like giving an open invitation to murder.

Regardless of who the government nominated as its negotiators, once the negotiation gets centred around Shariah, as they are likely to because the Taliban have proclaimed this to be their ultimate goal, the table will tilt in favour of the Taliban. Although this is bad enough, what has added to the sense of disquiet is the fact that the negotiations will not be taking place between those who take a more nuanced and moderate view of what is Shariah, and those who want to stuff a literal and stone-age version of Shariah down the throats of the people; the negotiations will actually be taking place between a set of moderate Taliban (i.e. the government nominated committee) and hard-line or real Taliban (i.e. the Taliban nominated committee).

Out of the four members on the government committee, three – Major Amir, Irfan Siddiqui and Rustam Shah Mohmand – are known to be either closet Taliban or have publicly taken positions that represent, or at least favour, the Taliban and jihadist cause. The fourth – Rahimullah Yusufzai – has never really come out unequivocally against the Taliban in a way that he could be labelled as someone opposed to them. In short, they all have Islamist leanings. As far as the Taliban nominees are concerned, it gets even worse. Maulana Samiul Haq not only openly claims to be the father of the Taliban but also has ‘swung both ways’ (pun intended) because before he became the Taliban representative he was approached by the government to intercede on its behalf with the Taliban. Maulana Abdul Aziz of the Lal Masjid fame has known Al Qaeda links and has issued fatwas against reading funeral prayers for soldiers who died fighting the Taliban. Prof Ibrahim is a Jamaat Islami leader which has openly advocated and defended the Taliban and functioned as the political face of Al Qaeda. Imran Khan and Kifayatullah, who have begged off from the Taliban committee have also been espousing the Taliban cause. Incidentally, five out of the seven negotiators from both sides are Pashtuns, one (Irfan Siddiqui) is a Punjabi and one, (Abdul Aziz) is from a Baloch tribe settled in Punjab.

The ideological predilection, orientation and affinity of the negotiators from both sides have practically put the Taliban in the driving seat as far as the dialogue is concerned. More than the Pakistani state’s narrative, it is the Taliban narrative and demands that are dominating the discourse. Already, by appearing to go on its knees in the quest for a dialogue with the Taliban, the government had conceded valuable space to the adversary. Compounding the mistake, it appointed negotiators who tend to speak the language of the other side instead of that of the home side. Members of the government team have already weakened their sides negotiating position by providing an alibi to the Taliban on one of the implicit but critical red-lines laid down by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in his parliament speech i.e. talks and terror cannot happen together.

Instead of holding the Taliban feet to fire on the issue of terror attacks, the government team members have been holding forth on why such attacks might continue to happen because groups opposed to the negotiations might try to sabotage the dialogue by launching terror strikes. Quite asides the fact that this is exactly the sort of alibi Pakistanis use with India when they conveniently wash their hands off terrorist outrages in India by blaming them on ‘non-state actors’, buying into this sort of explanation amounts to allowing the Taliban ‘plausible deniability’ even before the formal start of negotiations. In other words, the Taliban can use shadowy groups to continue with their grisly task. This is exactly what has happened in the case of the suicide attack on a Peshawar restaurant frequented by Shias. The Taliban denied any responsibility for the attack and distanced themselves from the Jundullah which first claimed responsibility. Incidentally, Jundullah is a known affiliate of the Taliban. A day later, a group claiming to be TTP (Peshawar) claimed responsibility, but not a peep has come from either the government team, or the Taliban or even the Taliban committee members who were busy blaming India and US for the Peshawar attack.

One of the government’s primary objectives behind holding a dialogue was that it would bring a halt to the wave of terror attacks and this would in turn create space for some sort of a political settlement. Although the whole premise of a political settlement with a group like the Taliban with millenarian objectives is rather far-fetched, there is the attendant problem of who to negotiate with to usher in peace. This acquires even more salience in light of the alibi, or if you will ‘deniability’, that has been granted to the TTP, which is the umbrella organisation of most of the 60 odd terror groups operating in Pakistan. The point is that if the TTP cannot ensure that there won’t be any terror strike during the negotiations then what purpose will be served by talking to it. In essence, if the TTP can’t stop the violence then it is just one of the groups and not the only group with which talks will have to be held. This is where the confusion gets further confounded. In principle, the government has declared it is ready to talk to any of the groups that is interested in holding a dialogue with the state. And yet, the entire focus has been on holding a dialogue with just the TTP. In fact, in order to woo the TTP to the negotiating table, the government is reported to have shelved the tentative dialogue it was purportedly holding with some smaller groups. But if the TTP cannot, or as the case may be, will not, deliver on a cessation of terror attacks then the entire exercise is quite futile.

The continuation of violence is only one part of the conundrum. Even though peace in itself is a laudable objective, there is no clarity on the terms on which peace will be achieved. Except for a pro forma reference to holding the talks within the parameters of the constitution (which means nothing if Samiul Haq is to be taken seriously when he says that the Taliban are fighting for upholding and implementation of the constitution which according to him is being violated by the government!), everything else is up in the air. Even the negotiators of both sides are not clear on what they are going to talk about. Not only are the negotiators speaking in different voices on what they think their mandate is, they are also having their own take on the issues that will be coming up for discussion. For instance, Samiul Haq and Ibrahim have been saying that their role will be that of mediators. In fact, Samiul Haq has said that his committee represents neither the Taliban nor the government and will protect the interests of both sides. Abdul Aziz, on the other hand, has been waxing eloquent about how the main issue will be imposition of Shariah, which even Samiul Haq and Ibrahim agree will be the bottom-line of the Taliban.

On the government side, the negotiators have already defined what according to them will be the central points that the Taliban will raise – among other things, release of prisoners, withdrawal of army from FATA, reparations and compensation for damage caused by military operations, general amnesty (including for the foreign fighters). Rustam Shah Mohmand has even gone to the extent of saying that Shariah was not an issue for the Tribals, as though they will be negotiating not with the Taliban but with the Tribals. Yusufzai has also listed these same items around which negotiations will take place. In a sense, by anticipating what the tactical or transactional demands of the Taliban will be, the government negotiators seem to be creating a climate for conceding them, more so because they have also pointed out the likely objections from the army to accepting these demands. By making public what they think will be the initial demands of the Taliban (which they suggest will have to be conceded if the peace process has to progress) they have confronted the Pakistani state – both the government and the military – with a grave dilemma. If these demands are conceded, it will embolden and strengthen the Islamist insurgents; if they are not, then the whole process will collapse. What is more, these demands could drive a wedge between the civilian government and the military if the former is inclined to concede these demands and the latter is opposed to them.

There are also serious doubts harboured on both sides about the mandate and authority that the nominated committees exercise. Although the government has declared that its committee is fully empowered to negotiate with the Taliban, the negotiators on the other side have raised questions how empowered the government committee really is. Similar questions have been raised by the government committee about its Taliban counterpart. While the Taliban have ‘reposed’ their confidence in the people they have nominated, they have also announced a 10 member committee comprising top members of the Taliban Shura to oversee, supervise, monitor and issue directions to the people who will be directly negotiating with the government. If anything, this is a clear message (if one was needed) of the subservient and subordinate nature of the committee that will negotiate with the government.

Although people like Samiul Haq and Abdul Aziz might pretend to be ideologues of the Taliban and the Jamaat Islami may behave as the political face and over-ground spokesperson of the Al Qaeda/Taliban combine, the TTP has really shown them their place. Not only have these stalwarts, who assumed that they would be riding on Taliban shoulders into power which has otherwise eluded them, been disabused of these foolish notions, their stature and status has been reduced to that of mere errand boys. The same was the message for Imran Khan and Maulana Fazlur Rehman (through his party man, Kifayatullah), who probably understood it and did not become part of the Taliban committee. But people like Samiul Haq, Abdul Aziz and the Jamaat Islami, in their desperation to regain some relevance have ended up as useful fools in the hands of the Taliban who will dispense them in the rubbish bin of history once they have served their purpose.

Clearly then, this dialogue is going nowhere. This begs the question why Nawaz Sharif decided to try this tack when even he would have known the minefield he was walking into. There are probably three or four explanations behind this decision. The first reason is purely personal. Initiating hostilities would make him and his family a target of attack. He has already backed off from the execution of a couple of Taliban prisoners after he was warned that it would make the Sharif family fair game for the Taliban. The second reason was that any operation would result in retaliation in Punjab. This he wants to avoid at all costs. After all, if the ‘controlling authority’ of the state of Pakistan becomes unsafe, all of Sharif’s plans to resurrect the economy and cement his political base would come a cropper. Third, he did not want to alienate his core right-wing and conservative constituency that has an ambivalent attitude towards the Taliban and other sundry Islamists.

Although before the dialogue started, even his core constituency was leaning on the side of a military operation, Sharif knows how fickle this sentiment is. The moment the bombs would start going off in Lahore, Faisalabad and other parts of Punjab, a clamour would start to talk to the Taliban. What is more, if things went wrong during the operation (as they inevitably would) and civilian casualties started mounting, the Taliban supporters would start beating the drums to stop the operation. Nawaz Sharif would also keep the Lal Masjid crisis in mind where first the media shouted itself hoarse demanding an operation, and after the operation was launched it switched sides and started breast beating about the casualties caused by the operation. Fourth, Nawaz Sharif is somewhat chary of using the army in a big way because of the fear that it might tilt the civil-military balance in favour of the latter. Finally, Nawaz Sharif cannot afford to ignore the impact that such an operation would have on Pakistan's game-plan in Afghanistan where the situation is already in a flux what with the withdrawal of ISAF looming large on the horizon. The last thing he would want is to precipitate matters and create a situation that sucks the Pakistan army even deeper into the quagmire by making the Taliban of all hues close ranks and turn their guns against Pakistan. It is another matter that this is exactly what would happen once the US and ISAF troops withdraw, but that is something that is still some months away.

As far as the Taliban are concerned, the dialogue works to their advantage every which way and the longer they can carry on with this charade, the more they stand to gain. The way the Taliban see it, as the US drawdown takes place in Afghanistan, their allies (some would say principals, i.e. the Afghan Taliban) are expected to start controlling large swathes of territory. Neither the Afghan nor the Pakistani Taliban would therefore like to get bogged down in a scrap with the Pakistani forces at this stage. In other words, the Taliban don’t want to muddy the waters just yet. The closer the TTP can push the possible military operation to the withdrawal date of the Americans, the more difficult and complicated it will become for Pakistani forces to move against them. What is more, the TTP would be better placed to retreat into sanctuaries under Afghan Taliban control inside Afghanistan with the foreign forces withdrawing. Of course, the Pakistanis who have put a lot in the store of their ‘strategic allies’ – the Afghan Taliban – believe that once these people start operating openly inside Afghanistan, they will squeeze the TTP and not just deny them any safe haven but push them back into Pakistan where the Pakistani forces can eliminate them. It is another matter that the Pakistanis have a inherent quality for miscalculating and misreading situations and then regretting at leisure.

By entering into negotiations, not only have the Taliban delayed the military operation (and in the process retained their safe havens in not just North Waziristan but also other areas in the Tribal Areas), they have also demolished the consensus that was developing in favour of exercising the military option. Just when the Pakistani state and society appeared to be closing ranks against the Taliban, the talks have once again widened the cleavages within the society and between the civilian leadership and the military. As mentioned earlier, they have managed to twist the debate from terrorism to Islam and sowed ideological confusion among their opponents. What is worse, the dialogue would certainly have an impact on the morale of the troops who will bristle at the spectacle of the Taliban negotiating with the Pakistani state not just as equals but also from a position of strength. The fact that the Pakistan army was all keyed up to move into NWA and had to stand down at the last moment is unlikely to go down well among the rank and file. Motivating troops for an operation that is likely to be somewhat long drawn out takes a little doing. The task becomes even more complicated when there are confused signals that are being sent about the adversary the troops are supposed to fight.

Nawaz Sharif would of course be seeing things differently. According to his calculation, if the talks collapse, it would provide a valid justification to launch military operations. But then the question arises that if 50000 casualties are not enough of a justification, how will public opinion crystallise in favour of the military option just because the dialogue breaks down. Chances are therefore that Nawaz Sharif will end up with the worst of both worlds. Not only will the talks will fail but Nawaz Sharif will also be accused of engaging the Taliban in bad faith and not doing enough to ensure the success of the dialogue. Far from public opinion consolidating in favour of use of force, it will not just remain divided but might even fragment more than it already is.

All this presumes that the Taliban version of Shariah will not be acceptable to the Pakistani state. But given Nawaz Sharif’s Islamist proclivities, it is entirely possible that he might toy with the idea of conceding many if not all of the Islamist demands. This way he can anoint himself Amir-ul-Momineen. Not that this will end the violence. On the contrary, this will lead to a new round of conflict with the Taliban who swear loyalty to Mullah Omar – after all, it isn’t possible to have two Amir-ul-Momineens. Even if Nawaz Sharif resists the temptation of becoming Amir-ul-Momineen, he will satisfy his Islamist urges by further Islamising the laws in Pakistan. He could then use this to mobilise the public behind him by taking the stand that he has done what was being demanded and yet the Taliban remain recalcitrant. In other words, the war will however still have to be fought because at the end of the day it is all about a power grab. But then this will be a war between two groups of Taliban – the faux version led by Nawaz Sharif and the real version fighting under Mullah Omar’s banner. 

Dimensions of Cyber Security in India

Lt Gen (Retd) Gautam Banerjee, 

Executive Council, VIF

Preamble

This is the information age and therefore like all lucrative assets of the past ages, information assets must be an object of competition and conflict – and in extreme cases, warfare. This conflict is being played out in a new domain: the cyber-space. With increasing dependency on the cyber domain for every aspect of human endeavours, it is obvious that like all national assets, India’s cyber-space has to be secured against all forms of espionage, subversion, sabotage and attack.

In this article, it is proposed to discuss the theology of cyber security and the fundamental considerations that might lead to its effective implementation in the Indian context.

Civil and Military Functions of Cyber Security

There are five domains in which the civil as well as military functions of national security have to be performed, viz, land, sea, air, space and cyber- space. In reference to the last named, it is a common supposition that there is singular convergence of civil and military functions. The misconception is reflected in the use of undefined terminologies and loose semantics which lead to confusing juxtaposition of concepts that govern the issue of cyber security. Factually though, the said convergence is no more prominent than it is in the context of civil-military interplay in all of the other domains of inter-state competition and conflict. In order to make the best use of our resources in achieving a fair degree of cyber security therefore, it is important to promote clarity and consistency in ruling definitions and concepts in the Indian context.

We understand that every nation nurtures its own set of specific aspirations in consonance with a given set of geo-political, social and natural assets. These aspirations go to define the path for national prosperity which are then sought to be protected by the triumvirate of national power, viz, socio-political, economic and military security. The first two of these aspects of security are civil functions whereas the third takes recourse to warfare to perform its role. The distinction to note here is that the civil functions of socio-political and economic security of a nation is bound by inter-state ideological differences, geo-political adversities, competition for resources and business rivalries - all aimed at extracting more and more self-advantages. This is a continuous process. Military security, on the other hand, is an extreme step that is performed as a last resort to force the adversary to desist from his unbearable animosity either by threatening to, or by actually inflicting physical punishment on him. For the intervening periods of no-war, the purpose of the military institution is to prepare for that extreme eventuality called ‘war’. This distinction between the civil and military functions of national security influences the domain of the cyber-space just as it does in others domains of competition and conflict; it has universal applicability.

Appreciation of the afore-stated distinction is more relevant in the Indian context. This is so because in the Indian dispensation, military power is not seen as a fulcrum of nationhood as it is in the case of America or China and a host of other countries. Recognition of the distinction would obviate emergence of discrepancies between the civil and military functions that is caused by use of undefined phraseology like ‘cyber security’, ‘cyber-attack’, ‘cyber warfare’ etc.; our cyber policies must clearly convey as to what is intended to be accomplished.

Cyber Security and Cyber Warfare

In general, civil functions of national security involve fierce inter-state machinations that are marred by economic usurpation, industrial espionage, technology denial, geo-political ganging etc. – all carried out under a façade of civility. These machinations, vicious as these may be, are yet not described as ‘warfare’ simply because there is no element of force-imposition here. In the civil domain therefore, cyber-intrusions, disablers, corrupters, theft, sabotage etc., and the counter-measures against these, may not be termed as cyber warfare. Conversely, ‘cyber warfare’ is a military function and its prosecution is but a military operation, to be conducted in the spirit of extreme measures - just as it is in the case of conventional, sub-conventional or nuclear warfare. Notably however, when it comes to cyber security skills and resources, there is near-total commonality between the civil and military domains. In view of these subtle-yet-salient distinctions, formal apportionment between the civil functions of ‘cyber security’ from its military counterpart, ‘cyber warfare’, is obligatory to obviate emergence of policy irrationalities.

Civil Functions of Cyber Security

Civil functions over the cyber-space have four denominators :-

• Public Services (health, education, civil-supplies, social security schemes, essential services),
• Financial Services (banking, subsidy funding),
• Industry (manufacturing, service sector, R&D, trade),
• Governance (policy, procedure, statistics, survey, records, administration).

The burden of cyber security is driven by inter-state political and ideological differences, competition for resources including ‘knowledge’ itself, business rivalries and even terrorism. Accordingly, civil functions of cyber security aim at securing the cyber-space in a manner as to prevent inimical acts of the following kinds :-

• Sabotage of ‘National Information Infrastructure’ (NII) through intrusion into electro-magnetic spectrum,
• Inducing collapse, corruption or diversion of the nation’s Information Technology (IT) driven public service, administrative, economic, technical and industrial infrastructure.
• Psychological subversion of the society to manipulate public opinion.

Cyber-threat in civil domain may emanate from foreign or domestic sources, both adversarial or friendly. These sources could be state intelligence agencies, economic and technological competitors, foreign military establishments as part of their war preparedness, and lastly, rogue non-state elements perpetrating acts of cyber-terrorism. The threats are characterised as follows:-

• Paralysis of cyber intensive systems at the national level to freeze the adversary’s ability to function unencumbered.
• The saboteur may not be easily identifiable. Even if identified, the perpetrator’s system architecture may be difficult to decipher, thus hampering effective counter-action.
• Once triggered, even the perpetrator will not be able to control the intended degree of paralysing effects upon the adversary, neither is it possible to contain the damage from affecting unintended parties. To that extent cyber-sabotage is like terrorism.
• It would be banal to expect a nation to submit to launch, or the threat of launch, of cyber-sabotage. Therefore, it is not a civil deterrence like economic sanction, technology denial etc.
• Dependence on global cyber-assets like the Internet, GPS, digital information, satellite images etc. has some advantages too. Due to its world-wide connectivity, cyber-sabotage on one party would also cause collateral damages to the cyber-assets of unintended public and private sectors at the global arena – and that imposes caution upon the saboteurs.

Notably, in the matter of cyber security, only a thin line separates the passive and defensive measures with the active and offensive ones. Therefore, there must be a strong pro-active as well as reactive element of offensive built into the civil functions of cyber security. However, in instituting these measures, the problems of role-overlap and mix-up of organisations would arise. It would therefore be necessary to formally define the civil functions of cyber security activities to distinguish these from their more intense and destructive military counterpart, and so obviate defocus and redundancy. This end could be met through promulgation of a comprehensive ‘National Cyber Security Protocol’ (NCSP), a part of which may remain confidential.

Cyber Security Mechanisms

Considering India’s policy orientations, protection of the cyber-space from manipulations and intrusions from inimical parties would mostly be sought to be achieved through passive measures; execution of pro-active disabling actions seems to be rather farfetched in our context. Accordingly, the civil functions of cyber security in our context would involve the following mechanisms:-

• Warning and response to cyber-attacks,
• Retrieval of cyber-assets – primary, secondary and tertiary data, protocols and processes, and,
• Restoration of the compromised cyber driven systems – economic, industrial, technological, societal systems.

It will be noticed that first of the three mechanisms involves adoption of pre-emptive and retaliatory counter-measures. The problem, however, is that in the cyber domain, defensive actions come the cropper unless coupled with pre-planned, debilitating cyber-intrusions. Therefore, notwithstanding any reluctance over policy endorsement, the mechanism must have an element of pro-active offensive to be able to warn and respond to an impending cyber-attack. The other two mechanisms are skill, process and resource intensive in nature. Obviously, all three mechanisms have to be operative at full gear at all times.

For judicious and overarching control over these complex and widespread mechanisms, India will have to go beyond just promulgating rhetorical cyber security policies. Indeed, formal enunciation of an elaborate NCSP would meet that end. Further, to implement and control the NCSP, it would be sensible to construct an organisation, duly empowered in terms of authority over policy direction, coordination, legal scrutiny and enforcement across the public as well as private sectors.

Cyber Warfare in the Military Domain

In the military domain, operations that are undertaken to gain information superiority fall under the ambit of ‘Information Warfare’ (IW). Within that ambit, offensive and defensive ‘Information Operations’ (IO) are waged by means of weaponised intervention, electronic warfare etc., ‘cyber warfare’ being one such mean that is prosecuted in the cyber-space. Cyber warfare therefore is truly a ‘military operations of war’, to be conducted as an element of offensive and defensive IO, and waged in the same spirit of ultimate measures. It is distinguished by predominance of offensive content and is to be prosecuted through military-dedicated IT-based satellites, data warehouses, maps, communication net-works, GPS, UAV, AWACs, PGM etc. However, while civil functions are to be operational at all times, the military function during peace-time is to prepare and test continuously, letting go at war-time to disable the opponent’s military, quasi-military and civil infrastructure. Herein lies the distinction between the civil and military functions of cyber security. Conversely, there are many commonalities between the two functions with respect to the above discussed civil cyber security mechanisms as well as the software skills, hardware and processes.

Objectives of Cyber Warfare

The purpose of cyber warfare is to degrade the adversary’s surveillance, reconnaissance, command, control, communication and intelligence systems through cyber-attacks on his operational nerve centres. These are ‘disabling’ attacks which must be complemented with ‘disorienting’ attacks which are aimed at registration of false information to the enemy and make him 'see' non-existent battle groups, missiles, bridges, etc, thus inducing him into irrelevant committal of his forces. The combined result is expected to lead to disruption and dislocation of the enemy’s orchestration for war.

As an element of IO in defensive as well as offensive modes, cyber warfare would focus upon the following aspects: -

• Command and Control Warfare (C2W): The objective is to attack the adversary’s ability to generate and communicate commands to its forces and disable or corrupt his Defence Information Infrastructure (DII).
• Intelligence Based Warfare (IBW): It is the integration of sensors, processors and data-links to achieve efficient reconnaissance, surveillance, target acquisition, target engagement and finally, damage assessment.
• Electronic Warfare (EW): Communication as well as non-communication combat to achieve degradation, disorientation, interruption and corruption of the adversary’s electro-magnetic emissions is classified as EW. In other words, it implies domination of electro-magnetic spectrum.
• Psychological Warfare: This is aimed at targeting the adversary's mental orientation and perception, and thereby influence his intent.
• Hacker Warfare: This is defined as destruction, degradation or corruption of adversary’s computer data-base and automated decision support and executive processes.
• Infrastructural Warfare: Under the civil functions, this involves ‘information blockade’ and ‘information imperialism’ to derive political and economic advantage. Under warlike conditions, its extreme manifestation leads to attacks on the adversary’s primary infrastructure – railways, power plants, oil sector etc. for example.

The Regime of Cyber Security

Most advanced countries have instituted robust mechanisms to protect their cyber domain. In this respect, USA enjoys overwhelming superiority even if she takes care to keep her elaborate activities under wraps. Besides passive measures, she secures her cyber-space by technology driven barrage of highly complex cyber-intrusions and backs it up with deliberate enticement of cyber-attacks from adversaries and friends alike to break into their algorithm. To do so, civil and military functions of cyber security are seamlessly enmeshed to produce the best results, cyber- attacks like ‘Gauss’, ‘Stuxnet’, ‘Duqu’, ‘Flame’ etc. being a few known ones. China, on the other hand, depends upon her innovative mass of cyber operatives, reportedly two million strong, to support her cyber security regime, much of which is committed on internal surveillance and the rest being devoted to intrusive hacking. The score for the European nations stands even despite many reported hacking attacks from China and Russia, not to speak of their all-weather ally, the US. In any case, not being at the centre-stage of global circus, the European stakes are mainly limited to economic cyber-assets.

India is a novice in comparison, even if there have been some tentative attempts made to venture into the realm of cyber security. These attempts are however, more or less confined just to work-station access-denials, blocks against hacking and back-up storage. Whereas the private sector has taken few baby-steps to maintain a facade of security of its IT-based assets, the state, nonplussed as it seems to be in the matter, is not motivated enough to proceed beyond promulgating a policy-outline that cries out for more serious substance. Of course, certain laudable efforts have been made in the Government’s intelligence set up and the ‘Department of Electronics and Information Technology’, but these are individual rather than institutional initiatives, and therefore confined just to specific bands of the threat-spectrum.

A Structure for Cyber Security

Having discussed the functions of civil cyber security and military cyber warfare and the differences as well as commonalities between the two, it becomes apparent that: One, there would have to be a substantial degree of congruence of resources and efforts in protecting the Indian cyber-space; and Two, when it comes to prosecution of cyber warfare, it would have to be a purely military venture. Thus appears the necessity for an apex body to coordinate these primary and secondary functions at the national level. Accordingly, we may conclude the discussion with a brief look at some of the measures that might afford the desired level of protection to the indigenous cyber-space. These measures could be:-

• Establishment of a ‘National Cyber Regulatory, Control and Security Authority’ (NCRCSA), to coordinate between the civil NCSP and the military ‘Cyber Warfare’. Incorporation of a ‘Cyber Research Department’ would also be necessary.
• Regulation, coordination and strengthening of the civilian cyber activities of the ‘National Information Centre’, ‘National Crisis Management Centre’, ‘National Cyber Response Centre’, ‘National Information Infrastructure Protection Centre’, ‘Computer Emergency Response Teams’, NDMA, NTRO, Department of IT, DOT, MHA, MoD and the private sector under the aegis of the proposed NCRCSA. The responsibility and wherewithal for cyber security is too diffused at present to be able to prevent cyber-attack, and respond to it quickly and effectively.
• ‘Cyber Command’ may be formed to plan and prepare prosecution of Cyber Warfare across the service barriers, and in coordination with the national level authority. A ‘Cyber Warfare Research Establishment’ must form part of this Command. NCSP and Cyber Warfare must be permanent and continuously performing commitments, with permanent set ups and flexible recruitment and training rules, and as stated, function under the overarching management of the proposed NCRCSA.

Conclusion

The stage when creation of cyber-assets becomes contingent upon its robust protection has arrived in India. It is time therefore to accord high priority to cyber security even if it means some compromise with proliferation of the nation’s cyber domain. The foremost consideration in seeking that end is that if our cyber security has to remain inviolable, the security measures have to be tailored to Indian conditions and devised by native genius. This consideration further reinforces the cause of formal apportionment of roles and responsibilities between the civil and military functions of cyber security.

The Perception War in Afghanistan: Pessimism is No Policy

Lt General (Retd) R K Sawhney, Distinguished Fellow, VIF

Sushant Sareen, Senior Fellow, VIF

During a visit to Afghanistan a couple of months ago, many top Afghan officials and politicians insisted that while the security situation was precarious and the political situation was fragile, the real cause for alarm was not so much the danger of the Taliban sweeping through the country as it was the plummeting confidence among Afghans and foreigners in the ability of the Afghan state to resist, much less defeat, a Taliban onslaught. Despite the Afghan National Army (ANA) and Police vindicating themselves against the Islamist insurgents on a number of occasions, doubts continued to be cast about their fighting prowess and their capacity to provide security and stability to Afghanistan. According to Afghan officials, one of the primary tasks for the next government in Afghanistan will be restoring the confidence of the people in the ANSF. They felt that if this can be achieved, the tide of despondency can be turned around and half the war would have been won.

The job of dispelling the dismal scenarios that seem to have started dominating the public discourse and narrative about the future of Afghanistan is however becoming more and more difficult. Instead of using public confidence as a force multiplier, the US-led international forces in Afghanistan seem to be hell bent on undermining it and ensuring that the crisis of confidence deepens. Erring on side of transparency (in fact taking it to ridiculous extremes), the foreign powers have ignored the importance of psychological warfare in degrading the morale of the enemy and enhancing the morale of your own side. If anything, the Americans are doing precisely the opposite by launching what appears to be a psy-war on their own side. In the process, not only are the Americans degrading the morale of their own troops and allies but also reinforcing the perception of impending and inevitable victory of the enemy.

Apart from a spate of doomsday predictions by some Western journalists turned academics (many of them toeing the Rawalpindi line), the recently leaked National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) has also dealt a body-blow to the already shaky confidence within and outside Afghanistan on the prospects of the Afghan state to survive post the 2014 withdrawal. According to the NIE, all the security, social, political and economic gains and accomplishments of the last decade would be “significantly eroded by 2017 even if Washington left behind a few thousand troops and continued to bankroll” the Afghan government. In the event that the military and monetary support dries up post withdrawal, the NIE predicts a rapid deterioration in the situation in Afghanistan. In other words, if the West pulls the plug on the Afghan state, it will not even be able to survive until 2017. While there is no gainsaying that Afghanistan will remain critically dependent on Western aid and assistance for another decade and perhaps even longer, the underlying pessimism in the NIE – spooks tend to call it ‘uncomfortable realism’ – has served as a shot in the arm for the Taliban/Al Qaeda combine and their patrons and supporters.

As if the NIE was not bad enough, the pre-release excerpts of former US Defence Secretary and CIA chief Robert Gates’ book ‘Duty’, has only added to the sense of disquiet about Afghanistan. The picture of utter disarray, confusion and lack of policy coherence, clarity and direction in Washington, especially in the Obama administration, that Gates paints explains a lot of what has gone wrong in Afghanistan. As an aside, it must be said that those who despaired over the dysfunctional decision making in the Manmohan Singh government could take some heart from the way the Obama administration functioned.

Be that as it may, Gates, who is one of the ultimate Washington insiders and who has not just watched policymaking from close quarters but has been a part of it, should know what he is talking about. He admits that one of the biggest blunders Obama made was fixing a timeline for withdrawal from Afghanistan. More than anything else, this damaged the war effort and enthused the forces of Jihad International. Obama’s declaration of withdrawal vindicated the Islamists who used to boast that while the Americans had the watches, the Taliban had the time. In fact, from the time the foreign troops entered Afghanistan and later when the Pakistan inspired, instigated and insidiously supported insurgency started in right earnest in 2003 (taking advantage of the shift in US attention and focus to Iraq), a common narrative developed among the Taliban/Al Qaeda combatants and their over-ground supporters that it was only a matter of time before the foreigners would leave Afghanistan.

Inside Pakistan, a common refrain among top officials was that while the US would leave, Pakistan would always be where it was and therefore they could not adopt a hands-off approach to what happened inside Afghanistan and must be in a position to manipulate and manoeuvre developments in Afghanistan. This was really nothing but a euphemistic way of letting the US know that Pakistan would continue to retain the Taliban option which, in a rather perverted and convoluted way, was Pakistan's trump card in Afghanistan. Shockingly, the Americans were well aware of this and yet except for constant entreaties (that invariably fell on deaf ears because they weren’t backed by the big stick) asking Pakistan to ‘do more’, there was very little that the US did to compel Pakistan to surrender its desultory and disastrous strategy in Afghanistan.

Perhaps the problem wasn’t so much at the level of US officials who, as is now clear from Gates’ account, were under no illusion about Pakistan; the problem was really at the political level with both the Bush and Obama administration – the former too taken in by his ‘close buddy’ Musharraf and the latter too keen to just get out first from Iraq and then Afghanistan regardless of the mess that this would leave behind. Clearly, the politicians had their own woolly headed ideas and conceptions on how to handle the war. What also went against the US was the ‘imperial hubris’ of even those officials who knew exactly what was going wrong and where the problem lay. Even though many US officials had been informed (much before the Taliban resurgence) that the US was fighting the wrong war, in the wrong country and against the wrong enemy (without taking the war into Pakistan, it would never be able to win the war), in their haughtiness the Americans refused to even hear of the possibility that Pakistan would engage in ‘strategic defiance’ through ‘strategic duplicity and deception’ – a concept first enunciated during the first Gulf War by the former Pakistan Army chief Gen Mirza Aslam Beg – that would ultimately lead to the situation that exists today.

Even now, despite all the doom and gloom, things haven’t reached the point of no return in Afghanistan. The situation can still be retrieved, if not entirely then substantially. But the first and most important step in this is to be done is to infuse confidence (not just among Afghans but also among countries that don’t want to see a return of the Taliban) in the ability of the Afghan state and security forces to hold their own against the Taliban. This will require an effective communication strategy coupled with efforts to bolster the strength and capability of the ANSF. It is just not good enough to first reduce the ANA into a glorified constabulary by denying it the equipment that it needs to take the fight to the enemy, and then expect it to acquit itself on the battlefield. Even if for the sake of argument it is accepted that the ANSF doesn’t need airpower, tanks or artillery, these heavy armaments must be provided, if only because they instil confidence in the troops and uplift their morale. What is more, not just the West but other well-wishers of the Afghans, like India, must not only continue the development and budgetary assistance to the Afghan state but more importantly provide solemn assurances and guarantees that this aid will continue to be given for the foreseeable future.

As for the grim predictions contained in the NIE, these need to be taken with a pinch of salt. Generally, intelligence agencies tend to be overly pessimistic in their assessments while military officials tend to be overly optimistic in their analysis of a situation. Most often, the reality lies somewhere in between. Intelligence assessments are based on certain weak areas that could play a critical role in effecting the outcome that is being predicted. Instead of throwing in the towel based on these assessments, efforts need to be made to plug these weak areas so that the dire predictions don’t come true. Unfortunately, what is happening is that these loopholes or weak areas are being widened because of wrong and faulty policy and strategy. This in turn is making the conjecture of a Taliban victory turn into a reality.

While there is no denying that the security situation will remain precarious, even more so post withdrawal, it is important that none of the major players lose sight of the big picture. The choice is a very stark one: either the big players can build, equip and support the fledgling Afghan state and security forces to ensure that the doomsday scenarios don’t unfold, or else they could all just pack up and leave and thereby make sure that doomsday does in fact become a reality. In other words, it is still not too late for countries that do not want to see the Afghan state crumble to work out what they need to do individually and collectively to ensure this doesn’t happen. Equally important, if despite all their efforts, the Afghan state does in fact crumble, then these same countries need to get together and work out their fallback positions.

It is in this context that India needs to take the lead in working with other countries to strategise how to control the fallout of a Taliban takeover. Given that the current Indian dispensation’s default perception of Afghanistan’s future has been dictated by a sense of defeatism in Afghanistan, it is a little surprising that apart from hand wringing there is as yet no real plan on how to handle the fallout of a Taliban/Al Qaeda/Pakistan run Afghanistan.

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Kashmir – Dilution Is No Answer

It is time for the army to consolidate

Its gains, rather than thin out

Gen (Retd) NC Vij, 

Dean, Centre for Defence Studies

The motivation for this piece comes from Editor-in-Chief Shekhar Gupta’s recent article in Indian Express, ‘Disarming Kashmir’ of December 7. In his inimitable style, he has built up a case that with peace and normalcy returning on the ground, there is scope for a partial thinning out of the Army presence in the Valley and some symbolic dilution of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA). In the process, he has also made certain observations; like presence of half a million Indian soldiers with most illiberal of laws fighting in the Valley; a new factor having originated in the Indian policy making by way of a veto power for the Army. All these merit serious analysis to reach right conclusions.

The issue of Kashmir provides a wicket, which in cricketers’ parlance, is called a spinner’s delight. It is so very easy to give twists and turns to these issues, however fickle the supporting facts. To get the right answers it is essential to get the basic facts right. The myth about the presence of half a million Army boots in the State is woefully off the mark. The Army has for quite some time now adopted a posture of more emphasis towards maintaining the sanctity of the Line of Control and Counter Infiltration grid and is already very thin in the hinterland. Only reserve brigades of the three Corps in J&K are deployed in the hinterland on the counter-insurgency grid with a strength of 10,000 and operational availability of 5000-6000 troops. The main counter-insurgency force in the hinterland are 62 Battalions of the Rashtriya Rifles; with approximately 50-60,000 troops available for operations. Thus, optimally only 55,000 - 60,000 army troops are operating in the in the hinterland at the very maximum, which is a far cry from the often quoted figure of half a million plus force, a difference of nearly 1 to 10. CRPF and J&K police provide the additional effort. By quoting erroneous figures, we only end up providing a handle to our adversaries.

Yes, the proxy war situation has improved considerably; the majority of leadership of Lashkar-e-Toiba, Hizbul Mujahideen and Jaish-e-Mohammed and the terrorists training camps in the hinterland have been vanquished but there are still a large number of them in the staging areas across the Line of Control, awaiting their turn to infiltrate. Even more importantly and, at the strategic level, the overall security matrix in Afghanistan is likely to have direct implications for us. As the American-NATO forces prepare to withdraw in 2014, a lot of uncertainty will prevail. If Pakistan has her way and the Taliban can get even partial control of Afghanistan, then it is quite on the cards that with her support, hordes of these Jehadis in their hundreds/thousands may be directed against India in Kashmir. With this uncertainty we would be better advised to keep our security posture intact and all the contingency plans worked out. This scenario may look far-fetched to some self-proclaimed strategists in our country but not to trained professional minds.

This brings me to the next factor of the alleged “Veto power having been acquired by the Army”. Nothing could be more preposterous and farther from the truth. The problem is that, as George Tanham, a world renowned military thinker has stated, “India lacks strategic culture”. We have virtually no institutionalized process of long term thinking and planning by a balanced group of experts. With the odd exceptions of the 1971 and Kargil wars, the decision making process has kept the Armed Forces out of the loop and they are left only with the onerous responsibility of executing what the Government, with the advice of the civil bureaucracy, decides from time to time. To illustrate, has the Government articulated its political aim and strategic objectives anywhere in the insurgency belt starting from the North East to J&K? The Army is thus left with no choice but to evolve its own approach and, they have done it very well! The lack of a regular dialogue between the Government and the Commanders has been a major shortcoming ever since our Independence. As a matter of fact, the entire Higher Defence Management apparatus has been crying for major changes for quite some time now, and it was so recommended by the Group of Ministers after the Kargil War. It is the bounden and sacred duty of the Armed Forces to offer honest and frank professional advice to the Government on national security matters. If a difference of opinion and professional judgment is to be construed as assumption of ‘veto power’ by the Army, it is most unfortunate. Because of the trust deficit with Pakistan, the Army has always been against finalizing any such arrangement in Siachen, wherein we can easily be surprised and left in a hopeless operational situation. This has been our consistent stance, for over a decade plus now and similarly in Kashmir it is time for us to consolidate our gains rather than thin out. It is difficult to fathom as to why anybody in this country would want the Army to shy away from its duty to tender its best professional judgement to the Government. It is for the Government to accept or reject this advice. Rather than blaming the Army unfairly we should work for structural improvements in our security apparatus.

Now coming to the sensitive and emotive issue that the AFSPA is anti-people and provides them the license to act with impunity and without accountability. The key issue is that the AFSPA comes into effect only after the Government declares a State, or parts of it, disturbed, meaning thereby, that the normal functioning of the Government has broken down and there is no choice but to induct the Army to restore normalcy.

The Army must be deployed judiciously and strictly for only limited periods and not indefinitely. Unfortunately, it is just the opposite in practice and the States continue to be classified as disturbed, even when the situation has improved considerably/hostilities suspended. This is only because of the lack of confidence in their governance and ineptitude that they insist on retaining the Army to cover their weaknesses. The Army has always resisted this and advised against it. Nagaland is a case in point and so are parts of Assam. That would be a rational approach and the Army has always promoted this. The fact that the Army themselves have strongly resisted the clamour for their induction into the Naxal areas amply proves their sensitivity and respect for this principle of civil governance.

But on the other hand, if the operational situation in a State is delicately poised, it is time to stand firm. The answer at such junctures does not lie in, what is being touted as ‘symbolic dilution’ of the Act, because that will subject the security forces to thin legal protection. If the situation was absolutely normal, then as a starter, some areas even in J&K along the International Border could be considered for removal of AFSPA. But would it be wise to risk it even after blatant terrorist attacks in areas like Kaluchak, Kathua and Samba across the IB sector? So under the existing strategic scenario, the answer is a categorical – NO.

I will herein like to emphasise that the Army always tries to set strict standards of discipline for themselves and leaves no genuine case without being thoroughly investigated. The decision of the Army to start Court Martial proceedings against six personnel accused in Machil area is a case in point. They would be the last to deny that there have been the odd mistake and thus there is a constant effort to improve. This is obvious from a marked decline in allegations from as many as 1170 between 1990-99 to 226 between 2000-04, to 54 during 2005-06, 9 in 2009, 6 in 2010 and only 4 in 2011. Strategically post 2014-15, if the security situation further improves, then the AFSPSA could be selectively removed from some areas along the international border, but not try to dilute it.

In the end, the last and the most important question is, at what stage can we consider that peace has genuinely been restored in J&K? Will it be when there is maximum tourism, say over 6-8 million tourists per year, or when the valley is free of violence to a degree wherein the Kashmiri Pandits will feel confident enough to return to their homes? To my mind, the return of Kashmiri Pandits should be the real objective that we must aspire for!

Challenges Before The Post 2014 General Election Government

Dr M N Buch, 

Dean, Centre for Governance and Political Studies, VIF

Towards the end of May 2014, India will have a new government and a new Prime Minister. In his speech on the eve of the Republic Day 2014, the President made three significant remarks which every Indian must bear in mind. He warned against what he referred to as "populist anarchy". He also said that a political party and a government must promise only that which it can deliver. The President's third comment was that the people of India should vote sensibly so that the new government is stable and can take those decisions which lead the country on the path of development.

I consider Shri Pranab Mukherjee's advice to the nation to be of essence because today we are witnessing a disastrous competitive populism in which every party is vying with the others to make announcements which, if actually implemented, would pauperise the whole country, make us bankrupt and thus make the government totally incapable of providing even the minimum services to the people. Almost as a continuation of immediate expediency and irresponsible populism is the plethora of promises made by the political parties to the electorate, raising expectations and, on failure to deliver, wondering why the people are annoyed. Such wild promises actually retard all progress because they create a conflict between that which is possible and the impossible which has been promised, prevent the drawing up of a rational schedule of priorities, making it impossible to take policy decisions and, because of clash of interests, result in spasmodic, knee-jerk implementation and, in the ultimate analysis, a paralysis of government. As a corollary to this is the fact that the uncertainty of the situation prevents a coalescence of parties, a fractured mandate and the emergence of small interest groups which work against the national interest. This has been the situation in India ever since P V Narashima Rao lost the election and we entered an era of unstable coalitions where immediate local interests completely overwhelmed the national interest. That is why the President's speech on the eve of Republic Day was a clarion call to the nation to return to reason and eschew divisive politics.

The new government will face formidable problems when it comes to power. Will the mandate be clear or will it be so fragmented that there will be difficulty in forming a government which can work? This issue is extremely important because a fractured verdict forces the President into a corner where he has to appoint a Prime Minister and ask him to form a government. Whom should the President invite when there is no clear cut majority? My personal view is that we need some amendments in our Constitution to deal with a contingency which has now become almost a norm in India. One amendment would be that in such a case the President should summon the House, lay down the parameters and then ask the assembled members to give their preference for who should be invited to form the government. The assembled members should be deprived of all means of external communication, should be held incommunicado and not allowed to meet any outsider. The members should remain so locked up till they arrive at a consensus on who should be appointed Prime Minister. The Prime Minister would then be a consensus candidate.

A few more amendments are also needed. A motion of no-confidence should not be allowed to be moved for the first two years of the five year term of the legislature. An official bill, if defeated in Parliament, should not be deemed to be a vote of no confidence during this two year period. If the budget is defeated then the previous year's budget should be deemed to be the current year's budget so that government does not come to a halt. This would ensure that there is an adequate vote on account to permit government to function normally, though no new schemes or initiatives could be launched. The two year moratorium on a vote of no confidence is suggested so that the government has at least this period to stabilise itself and win the continuous confidence of the House. If, thereafter, a government does not stabilise, then the government in a state must be conducted for the balance of the five year period, which is the full life span of the House, through President's rule. At the Centre, there can be no President's rule; government for the balance period should be through a caretaker government, but which is empowered to take all the decisions which a fully elected government is competent to take. This will deter frequent elections, make it possible to hold elections simultaneously for Parliament and State Legislatures and, perhaps, force the parties to become more responsible and thus obviate both the President's rule and a prolonged caretaker government.

Would this impinge on the democratic right to be ruled by an elected government? Prima facie yes, but when we look at the history of coalition governments in India, both at the Centre and in the States, we find strange permutations and combinations taking place by what can at best be termed political horse trading, but which at worst can be termed outright purchase through bribery. Can such a government be considered to be democratically elected, especially where legislatures have changed sides and no longer represent the will of the voter who has voted not only on the basis of candidate preference but also on the basis of party preference? Such a situation does not equate to democratic government and, perhaps, President's rule or a caretaker government might in fact be more democratic and certainly it will be more decisive. In fact the first challenge before a new government would be to ensure that it commands the confidence of the House in such a way that it can deliver good government without having to pander to the baser greed of highly selfish little groups whose objective is self promotion rather than good government.

From the time when the Narasimha Rao Government started dismantling excessive control of the state over the economy, India had a welcome surge of growth and development. Normally growth is judged by the rate of GDP growth and this was reasonably healthy for several years. In fact after China we had the highest rate of growth globally and this gave us and the world a false feeling of India at last breaking through the barriers which inhibited growth. What we failed to appreciate is that our growth was very heavily based on the strength of the tertiary sector, which itself is tied to the global demand for such services. Information technology based growth is what we promoted, but there was no simultaneous increase in the size, efficiency and the productivity of the secondary sector. By contrast, China vigorously pursued the secondary sector route to development and in the process built up a huge manufacturing sector which has flooded the world with goods and heavily tilted the balance of trade in China's favour. Because goods become obsolete very quickly China has also invested adequately in research, development and innovation. It has enhanced the skills of its workforce and has made rapid strides in technology. India leads in software development but the hardware on which the software is applied comes from China. Therefore, the new government will have the challenge of how to build the secondary sector in India so that manufacturing becomes the main employer and thus encourages skill development. It is the secondary sector which provides the maximum employment in long term.

Sixty per cent of the land area of India is arable compared with only 10% of China. Our inflation is not so much manufactured commodity driven as it is agriculture produce driven. The green revolution proved that India can produce enough to feed our people. But we have never leveraged the enormous potential of agriculture and horticulture to give us production levels which will give adequate food stuff at lower prices, while at the same time become the raw material for agro industries which add value, gainfully absorb the surpluses, pass money back to the producer through bulk purchase and value addition, provide employment in agriculture, transportation, agro industry and an enormous service sector which through banking, technology and machinery inputs, extension services, gives knowledge of scientific agriculture and financial support which would bring exponential increase in productivity, while creating vast number of jobs in the secondary and tertiary sector which supports agriculture. How to achieve the goal of using agriculture to bring prosperity to India, especially rural India, will be the real challenge which the new government will have to face. In the process the government will have to take a good, objective look at populist schemes, including subsidies, employment programs which do not create permanent assets and gimmickry which is aimed at vote bank politics rather than the need to bring prosperity to the rural people.

The social sector is a curious by paradoxical one which in education and health care has a pyramid which at the apex gives institutions of excellence equal to the best in the world, but with an enormous base of education and health care institutions which are worthless. How can one build a good Indian Institute of Technology, Science Education and Research, Information Technology or Business Management on a foundation of schools which impart no education whatsoever? How can we build an All India Institute of Medical Sciences or a super specialty hospital whose foundations and whose feeders are the extremely miserable primary health centers? Education and health care begin at the level of the individual house and child and if the institutions which impart education at the village level or provide health care at the primary centre level are of a certain acceptable standard, then the edifice of higher education and higher healthcare will be sound. How to achieve a massive surge of quality education and healthcare at the primary level will be a massive challenge to the new government.

The energy sector, irrigation and construction of infrastructure of roads, railway lines, airports etc., the building of adequate civic infrastructure including water supply, drainage and sewerage present major challenges, but in order to achieve success there one needs good government. Good government means laws, rules and regulations which have as their objective the service and welfare of citizens. This is as true of regulatory legislation as it is of development legislation. Good government means decisiveness in decision making, a strong will to ensure efficient administration which delivers good government and a system whereby decision making and implementation are so open that citizen participation becomes easy. Law and order, the protection of human rights, greater productivity, more gainful jobs and equity in distribution are all a part of governance and efficiency in these sectors is essential for good government.

Corruption has become a major issue in India and the Aam Aadmi Party, which is in power in Delhi, has come out in favour of a strong measure of probity and simplicity in public life. People in Delhi have responded favourably to the possibility of the new party tackling corruption and bringing governance to the door step of citizens so that they can get their just dues. Unfortunately, this party is not facing up to the other challenges posed in this paper, partly because being in government is still strange to it, partly because it did not anticipate that it would come to power and partly because it is still in an anti-establishment agitation mould.

A major challenge is how to ensure that government becomes an instrument to preserve and strengthen secularism and to use government as a vehicle to carry the message to our people that is the very plurality of India, the diversity of people, ethnicity, culture, language and faiths which give us unity. Secularism goes beyond merely maintaining communal peace and enforcing law and order. It means inclusiveness in which no one is “the other”. The Sanatan Dharma and faiths such as Sikhism, Buddhism and Jainism which have emanated from it demand such inclusiveness because to Sanatan the world is the “Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam” or one single family.

Politics, unfortunately, has fragmented society on lines of religion, caste, class, region, language, ethnic groups and even sub groups. The use of caste or religion to appeal to voters to vote enmasse for a particular party, the arousing of base religious or similar passions, the violence thus instigated are all aspects of communalism. We shall then have to carry the definition of communalism beyond Hindu vs Muslim and view all divisive politics as communal and fissiparous. The present danger to secularism cannot be faced unless we accept this much wider definition of communalism and then gird up to control it. Why not make 2014 the year in which India really faced up to the menace of all communalism and then moved towards a truly secular republic?

For the elections of 2014 what one wants to know from all political parties is how they will go about the business of governance keeping the above challenges in mind. I, for one, am sick of political rhetoric. Can we, for a change, get politicians talk rationally and with horse sense and tell us how they will tackle the questions of government in such a way that the President's advice becomes the key stone of our future politics.

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