Surgical operation: More of modi please

By Prem Chandran

The first indication that the Narendra Modi government is not a continuation of the Manmohan-Sonia Gandhi dispensation has come loud and clear in a minor but significant action across the border in the east: the surgical strike in Myanmar that, as first reports indicate, killed as high as 20 militants. The swift response comes a week after a militant ambush that killed as many number of soldiers in Manipur. Indication that the age of vacillation in India’s governance mechanism is just about over. Pakistan, for one, is put on notice: here now is a game-changer. Clearly, the Narendra Modi era has arrived.

Prima facie, there isn’t much to gloat over what has happened inside the Myanmarese territory. Indian commandos airdropped by helicopter lunged their way a distance into camps/hideouts of the Nationalist Socialist Council of Nagaland (Khaplang) that had done the deadly Manipur ambush, and engaged in a surgical operation lasting a while -- that too at the dead of the night -- achieved their mission, and returned to their base in India. Myanmar foreign ministry was informed by India of the commando operation, late in the morning Tuesday, when it opened for the day – by which time the commandos were back in India and in rest mode.

News is that India secretly maintained such a commando force for decades, but this is the first time that the country undertook a surgical strike of this kind across its borders in a covert fashion -- without obtaining the prior permission of the country in which action was performed. Looking back, this was precisely what India could have attempted immediately after the Parliament attack; this was what it could have done right when armed terrorists sent from Pakistan struck at Hotel Taj and other targets in India in 2008. Clearly, what was needed was political will to take on the attackers; something that India under Narendra Modi is now showing it has. It involved painstaking planning. Ajit Doval took the matters forward under Modi’s watch and direct guidance.

The Pakistani establishment reacted by saying Pakistan is not another Myanmar. Quite true. It has an aggressive military. The logistics involved in a similar surgical strike in Pakistan, for instance, will be different. But, two things matter. India’s sophisticated military technology is superior to that of Pakistan, though Pakistan military had, so far, demonstrated greater potential for mischief. Like its surfacing in Kargil, or its ISI taking the terror route to fight India. New India is making it clear to one and all that it will, if need be, be willing to go the extra mile to achieve its aims. Borders do not necessarily matter. Not anymore. That, precisely, is the difference that this strike has brought home. Without doubt, the Pakistani establishment must be huddled into panicked deliberations Wednesday, to how to match with the new situation. For one, how safe are the pro-Kashmir terror outfits that it is harbouring on its soil, and on the Pak-Occupied Kashmir as well, with Modi in a nasty action mode? What will be the price Pakistan will have to pay for another terror strike?

Remarkably, the action comes just a couple of weeks after the Narendra Modi government crossed its first post – the one year of its rule – and started its innings for the second year. Modi acted with abundant caution in the first year; rather, he gave the impression that the difference he was seeking to make in governance was only his perceived overindulgence in foreign jaunts – meeting up with heads of state, building bridges with nations near and far, and at the same time not giving sufficient attention to matters at home. His government left much to be desired in the two budgets that it presented; the Union Budget and the Railway Budget. Lacklustre, one must say. There was little of innovation. There was little of attempt to take the bull by its horns. Arun Jaitley presented a please-all budget that lacked character; Suresh Prabhu made a joke of himself by presenting a budget that had little to cheer about other than the ludicrously low vision that he demonstrated by introducing wi-fi on platforms and the like! He failed even to provide a cheap thrill. The two budgets were a dampener on Modi Magic.

Yes, changes were visible in the way the coal and spectrum auctions were conducted, with the exchequer raking in hefty sums – lakhs of crores – through transparent auctions. Contrast this with the auctions of the past under the UPA, when this nation’s resources were palmed off to Sonia dispensation’s near and dear ones for a song. Who will account for the lakhs of crores that the country lost? A civilized nation like India cannot think in terms of stoning to death the ones who were a party to this loot of the century. Therein lies our weakness.

India, it by now is clear, is no more up for the grabs. There were other good tidings as well in this past one year. Modi has not been able to send a ship and get back the black money stashed by politicos and bureaucrats in Swiss banks, if that was what some people thought he would do. But, his government has made some impressive moves to check the menace. By tightening laws, for one. He has also been able to control corruption by keeping a close watch on his ministers. Political corruption at the Union Government level has been controlled if not fully eliminated. Modi is directly keeping a watch on what is happening in every ministry. Modi must, though this is being riled on by the Congress and the paper tiger called the Left. They were game with a Sonia and her 2000-strong secretariat running a government from behind, over the shoulders of a duly elected Prime Minister. An extra-constitutional authority can do that, but not the elected Prime Minister of the country!

But, even now, India remains largely corrupt. From top bureaucrats to petty officials, and politicians of various shades, a whole lot of sharks continue to wallow in corruption and bribe-taking. The entities like the Railway Board, a nerve centre of corruption, remain as it is.

There, for one, is very little of improvement in railway services. That is known to the millions who travel by trains. Touts keep running the meals distribution system in train after train, other than the few premium ones. Railways have been made a mess of over the years, and its money-fetching freight services have been deliberately disengaged in ways as to benefit the private sector goods movers. Just as, city after city, water supply systems have been neglected so as to allow tanker lorry lobby to distribute water and pay hefty bribes to politicians to run the show at the expense of the water-starved citizens. An Arvind Kejrijwal might be seeking to make a difference to corruption in governmental services, but see the way he is being isolated by not only the hand-in-the-honeypot politicos but also the disgruntled elements within his own (previous) rank and file! People by themselves are disinterested and are willing to get adjusted to the corrupt system. Their daily lives are more important to them.

No one expects a total overhaul of India’s systems overnight; not in a year’s time as well. Modi has four more years to take things forward. Surgical operations should not limit itself to Myanmar, or to foreign soil. Similar surgical operations against vested interests in India are a must too. We must be seeing many more of surgical operations. Modi, one trusts, has the grit and determination to make a difference to governance in this country. Likely, he was going slow in his first year. Rather, it is safe to assume he was taking stock of the situation. His was a studied silence. Modi is a keen observer of what’s happening around him. That is his strength. Action should follow. People still have high hopes about the dawn of the Achche Din that he had promised.

It is understandable that someone like Ashok Chavan in Maharashtra, the very same Adarsh fame, saw the first anniversary of the Modi government as the first death anniversary of the Achche Din. He spoke the truth, and Modi should be happy about what he heard from him. For, those of Chavan’s ilk might have found to their dismay that their Achche Din – the licensiousness to do what they want and get away with the loot – under a ManmohanSonia regime was over. Such Achche Din cannot last for ever. For those of Chavan’s ilk, this cannot but be mourning time. Surgical operations of the Myanmarese kind must follow against them as well. India needs be cleaned up too.

The writing on the wall is clear: be it for terrorists or militants or the loot brigade within the country, Acche Din is over. It is time for them to face up to Modi’s mental might. Time the old order gives way to a new order. We want Modi in Action Mode; not in the Maun Mohan Mode. Carry on, PM. premcee@gmail.com www.indiahereandnow.com

India here and now