Policies or the lack of it - I

2009 election campaign by Congress-I, or rather, the party of fake "Gandhis" and their chamchas was a stark reminder that India still has a long way to go as a democracy. Attempts to make Kandahar into a political issue, nearly a decade after the incident, and the virtual lack of grilling by media, was a reminder to any serious observer that anything and everything goes in Indian public debates, as long you are on the good books of the media.

A revelation by Jaswant Singh, of internal divisions, back then in NDA cabinet, about Mazood Azhar and his friends, begs us to ask ourselves, i.e the Indian citizens - "What is our policy response to terror attack? or more specifically, to hostage situations?"

India should be prepared for more terror strikes. Pakistan is looking increasingly like it'll be victim to two troubles, Taliban and economic collapse. Like the chicken and egg problem, one will be hard pressed to identify which was the cause of other. The world is suffering from hangover of parties during boom, and the bill for the parties will be due in a couple of years. But Pakistan and Islamic terrorism in general, have not been effected by these cycles. A careful analysis by followers of Pakistan will reveal that Pakistan would have gone the way of Dodo, irrespective of how rest of world economy performed. Pakistan is finished, there is no doubt about it.

India is unfortunate to have Pakistan as its neighbour, and that is not going to change, ever. Youth of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Gaza have been largely raised and educated with focus on one goal - Establish their "God's" writ, or rather, writ of clerics who quote "him", on the whole world.

One good thing, or bad thing, depending on which side you see it from, is that their new Jihad has given push to innovation in defence equipment. The Jihadis themselves have been good at exploiting some of the cheaper technology breakthroughs. A average Jihadi is comfortable using GPS, Satellite phones, mobile phones and radio technology. They have been the pioneers of 21st century low-cost warfare strategies so far. And the world has not seen the last of their innovations yet.

Their low-cost innovations mean they can hang around for long time through all economic cycles. An expansive supply of brainwashed manpower from large part of Middle-East and Africa also means one can't nip them anytime soon. It is a open question on what will happen when petro-dollars start running out. But my bet says it will just add more manpower from oil-states to the die-as-a-jihadi queue.

But all of the above is bad news for India. Of the countries Jihadis love to victimize, India is the weakest. And whenever the Jihadis have the need to display their macho-ism, they will do a low-cost strike on India. We will have more Kandahars, 26/11, Hazratbals and Akshardams.

But in digging up Kandahar, 10 years later, parties like Congress have displayed that they are very much capable of putting their interests much ahead of the country's interest. And they are lesser of evils. Every major incident will be made into a opportunity for mud-slinging.

We need a template for making decisions in terrorism related incidents to keep cheap political posturing out of it. The incoming government should take this up on a high priority, the next jihadi attack may be only couple months away, or maybe sooner.