That there is a ‘dirty
tricks’ department in each state is not a figment of a radical’s
imagination. Since such organizations require to be low profile by nature
and calling, little evidence surfaces. Counter intuitively, democracies
are no exception. Valid suspicion has arisen over the role of respective
agencies of the two leading democracies of the world, the US and India,
in creating an environment justifying the recourse to military means
by the two states in the ‘national interest’.
In the USA, two prominent films have dared to question the media propagated
and popularly accepted version of 9-11. These are ‘Loose Change’,
that has since become one of the most watched internet documentaries,
and Dave vonKleist’s ‘911 In Plane Site’. They have
thereby undercut the rationale of export of democracy through military
means that the US is currently engaged in. They marshal their evidence
to try and prove that the conspiracy behind the attacks is not a theory,
but a probability, and the conspiracy has not been one hatched by the
Al Qaeda.
They make a persuasive case that the plane that is believed to have
hit the Pentagon was actually a missile since there was no wreckage
of a plane at the site seen in the pictures and media coverage of the
aftermath. Of the plane that could not hit its intended target, the
White House, but crashed in a Pensylvania field, there is again no convincing
proof of wreckage found at the site. More interestingly, in their version,
the planes that crashed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center
were not quite passenger planes. Instead they go on to prove that the
buildings were pulled down in a controlled demolition and did not fall
as a result of the crashes. Further they cover the efforts at a cover
up of the trail by the authorities, adding to suspicion that there was
something to hide.
Finding a motive is not difficult from a viewing of subsequent actions
of the US. The invasion by the US of Afghanistan and Iraq as part of
the Global War on Terror has been critiqued by Chomsky et al as the
US bid to control global energy resources and thereby usher in the neo-conservative’s
vision of the New American Century. So as to overpower the isolationist
streak in the US, those in power needed a Pearl Harbour equivalent attack
to rally the nation in support of their intended wars. Now that these
have run aground in appalling insurgencies and with Democrats eyeing
the White House, more evidence substantiating the suspicion is will
likely surface. Internal to the US, many privileges of freedom have
been imposed on by homeland protection demands by the state’s
security compulsions.
It is reasonable to assume that India is no stranger to the game. The
Chattisingpora episode in which Sikhs were massacred in Kashmir has
been competently probed by critical observers as Pankaj Mishra. There
is also the case of five missing trekkers in Kashmir, abducted and killed
by the Al Faran group. That the word ‘Faran’ does not exist
in Arabic casts a baleful shadow over the theory of terrorist abduction.
More prominent has been the Parliament attack case. Arundhati Roy’s
thirteen questions in a new book published by Penguin, ‘13 December,
A Reader: The Strange Case of the Attack on the Indian Parliament’,
arguing for clemency for the main accused in the Parliament attack case,
Mohammad Afzal, are demanding of answers.
It bears examination as to the extent of political control over the
group, its ideological inclination, composition and any checks and balances
that exist within and over it. In the absence of information this can
only be a theoretical effort. It is known that the National Security
Council is the political body at the apex of the national security system.
However, it is known that at least two of the Ministers on the Council,
the then Foreign and Defence Ministers, were not in the loop on the
decision on India going nuclear in 1998. Below this body is the Strategic
Policy Group comprising bureaucrats. The members only have positional
authority and little expertise on national security, and on this account
are unlikely to be ones vested with the powers in question. Clearly
the institutional setup is at variance with the reality. Absent the
necessary knowledge on the inner workings, an appraisal of the underside
of the system is a fair start point.
The anonymous minders of the nation’s security take the ‘hard
decisions’. The core of the national security elite forms the
‘inside group’ that arrogates to itself ultimate power,
the power to wage war and curtail lives and liberties in the national
interest. The rationale is inevitably the larger common good, which
the common man is unable to comprehend, and on that account need not
be consulted. Those in this club of decision makers have an image of
expertise which propels them into the inner circle. However it can be
reckoned that their sense of social responsibility, democratic accountability
and moral values which is germane to their contribution at this level
of decision making, does not figure as criteria for induction into the
apex of the system.
It is apparent that such core groups have acquired a vastly expanded
power over lives of people and destinies of nations. Given the increasing
cooperation between the two democracies including the Joint Working
Group on Counter Terrorism and the India-US Defence Policy Group, India
is likely to learn from its stronger partner strategies that may prove
inappropriate for our part of the world and democratic status. There
is therefore, at a minimum, a need to be alert to the possibility of
subversion of the state from within, and, more widely, to ascertain
if those vested with power without having to account for it have a sustainable
ethical grid.