With Every Mistake We Must Surely Be Learning...

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Tinga Tinga Giraffe from Tanzania

With every mistake we must surely be learning…


The ISKCON/ sitar maestro Ravi Shankar following spiritual Beatle George Harrison,who died in 2001, also wrote sublime songs. This despite being overshadowed by the Lennon-McCartney juggernaut of explosive genius that occasioned comparisons, and twentieth century parallels, with Mozart.

Harrison’s own reflective and melodious contributions include While my guitar gently weeps in which he makes the all too human point that we don’t always do what needs doing and rarely learn from our mistakes.

Of course in the Indian strategic context, we are generally oblivious to our mistakes; let alone caring to learn from the success of others. Even others we admire, and some would say, slavishly follow. That is, if the school that suggests the recent Indo-Pak Foreign Secretary level talks took place at the behest of the US, is to be believed.

But just imagine those same talks taking place in the aftermath of an accurate Indian drone attack, US style, conducted likewise, in darkness, at the recent Jihadi Jamboree in Muzaffarabad, POK, for the so-called Kashmir Solidarity Day on February 4th .

Why, we might have been referring to the infamous Kandahar hijack released hostage Saeed Hafiz, cocky mastermind of 26/11, as well as his brother-in-law Hafiz Abdur Rahman Makki, leader of Jamaat-ul-Dawah, in the past tense now.

But of course, this is pure fantasy on par with the doings of Spiderman. What is all too real however, is that Makki apparently named four Indian cities to be attacked afresh, including Pune, at that self-same rally for Kashmir. But a well-targeted drone attack, and we might not have had to continue trying to convince the Pakistani Government to arrest Saeed Hafiz, and put paid to his brother-in-law Makki at the same time.

Instead, we have the dastardly bomb attack on the German Bakery in Pune as a backdrop to the Foreign Secretary Level talks. Talks widely perceived to have gone in Pakistan’s diplomatic favour because India has come to the table under US pressure without Pakistan conceding anything, or delivering on any of India’s requests.

But of course we are not, as a state set up largely inspired by the apostle of peace and non-violence Mahatma Gandhi, equal to the moral turpitude and derring-do involved. Such targeted surgical strikes or even less ostentatious ones like the elimination of Hamas leader Mahmoud Al Mabhouh in Dubai recently, allegedly by Israeli intelligence agency Mossad, is presumably not even contemplated in India.

Israel, on the other hand, can even use state instruments in a highly secretive way without leaving a discernible trail, let alone proof. Hamas leader Mahmoud died apparently suffocated, but the death could have been natural as well if he was overwhelmed by the quantum of sedative found inside him at the post-mortem. But did Mahmoud take it himself or was he administered the drugs? This could take years to unravel and meanwhile a potent threat to Israel has been rendered one with his maker.

But for pacifist India, offence is not, as yet, from all accounts, considered the best form of defence. Not even with the flexible fig-leaf of plausible deniability included; and this policy squeamishness on our part is being exploited by our enemies and detractors alike.

India is perceived as a soft state that can be bullied to a considerable extent, particularly if the attacks and humiliations come in a seemingly sporadic manner, more so if from non-state actors, enabling the Indians to save face and convince themselves that their national honour has not been impugned.

So an Indian drone strike, US style, is in the realms of a pipe dream. The nearest possibility might be some kind of fifth column along the lines of ISI induced Indian Mujahideen. But in this, we clearly have much to learn from the Pakistanis.

The jihadi brethren in POK on their part, exhibited their contempt for India’s strategic resolve by not only assembling minutes of flying time away from Indian territory but using the occasion to spew undiluted venom against it. They also demanded concessions from the Pakistani Government, lifting of bans and the like, but that may be so much camouflage for the cosiness of their actual nexus.

But then, the creation of such able non-state actors is indeed a master stroke on the part of Pakistan’s military, political establishment, and the ISI. It definitely gives them strategic depth and manoeuvrability both in the Af-Pak arena and in dealing with India in a manner that the Indians cannot, despite their military superiority.

Guerrilla warfare is what is truly difficult and intractable for any conventional armed force, however well equipped, to deal with. This has been proved again and again in different theatres of war. But used well, it can certainly help a nation further its strategic objectives.

Even Elizabeth I of England, the “Good Queen Bess” that put the Great into Great Britain after her formidable father Henry VIII broke with the Papacy; used a pirate like Francis Drake to harass and hijack the Spanish ships returning with gold from the Americas.

And she certainly wasn’t above accepting a great deal of the purloined gold as tribute from the promptly knighted Sir Francis. And of course such tactics, followed by a frontal assault on the Spanish Armada by the British Navy thereafter succeeded in eclipsing the power of Catholic Spain once and for all. We then see Protestant Britannia ruling the waves. It was a dominance of the high seas that saw Britain create a formidable empire that lasted right up to the end of the Victorian era.

This is not to suggest however that the non-state actor is capable of delivering the whole or even part of a nation’s strategic objectives on its own, even with covert support and succour from the state. But, as a flexible, highly manoeuvrable, and swift tool of state policy, it has its definite uses.

Besieged as India is with challenges to its sovereignty and cohesiveness as a nation, it is very necessary to develop the capacity to nip insurgencies, sedition, and terrorism in the bud by means of pre-emptive attacks that may not always play by the rules but act as a stern deterrent to those that may seek to take advantage of our plurality, diversity, and at the root of it, our inherent tolerance.

(1,045 words)

3rd March 2010
Gautam Mukherjee


Published as Leader on Edit Page in The Pioneer on March 5th, 2010 - entitled "This too shall pass. Will it?". Also published online at www.dailypioneer.com and is archived there under Columnists.