Indian counter-terrorism

International tennis fans were disappointed twice when the Bangalore Open was postponed to next week and then cancelled altogether, owing to terrorist blasts.  Four major cities have now been struck by bomb attacks within four months, bringing to a head a national debate about law enforcement and civil liberties, and politicians are grappling with the specifically Indian difficulties of responding to terrorism.

The prime suspect in these attacks is the Indian Mujahideen.  This group has left intelligence agencies teasing clues, but kept hidden many details of its structure, leadership, and even objectives.  What can be said is that, while the perpetrators may have spent time in Pakistan, they are Indian citizens.  Their messages tap into grievances particular to Indian Muslims -- such as anger over thousands of deaths in Gujarat’s communal bloodbath of 2002 -- combining this with the globalised strand of revivalist Islam that has spread in the internet age. Worryingly, they can wreak panic and destruction in India’s cities with proven ease, planting crowded urban spaces with simple bombs.

Many countries have experienced a ‘defining moment’ terrorist attack since 2001, including Morocco and Indonesia, as well as Spain and the United Kingdom.  Public fear typically empowers the government to take measures it deems necessary.  Tighter law enforcement is then introduced, despite some ruing of lost civil liberties.  Despite a limited return to a 'normal' balance of powers, judicial systems and police powers are altered in the long run.

The Delhi bombings of September 13 had this sense of a defining moment for India. They prompted a clamour of demand from media and politicians for a better intelligence service, tougher policing, widespread CCTV cameras and the creation of a new terrorist-fighting agency at federal level, to sit on top of the nation's police forces, which operate state-by-state. Yet this is where India departs from the typical experience, encountering a series of unique challenges.

Far from being neutral arbiters of law and order, India's police forces are often embroiled in local competition for the spoils of office.  They are frequently implicated in settling scores among political rivals.  Parties that win state governments - often by mobilising local caste identities - lose little time in appointing their own favoured personnel and transferring unsympathetic officers to far-flung outposts.

At their worst, state police forces have acted as agents of disorder within India’s democracy, which is itself pervaded with use of violence for political ends.  Expanding police powers and loosening legal process, therefore, is likely to exacerbate violence.  Since Muslims have frequently suffered police harassment in the past, there is a direct threat of exacerbating support for the Indian Mujahideen and their imitators by increasing police powers.

Moreover, relations between New Delhi and the state capitals will be complicated by the new terror clampdown.  A perennial bone of contention is the constitutional power to impose ‘president's rule’ on disorderly states.  Reacting against this threat of central control, state governments cling to their alloted powers, which include authority over policing.  Despite fighting a large scale Naxalite insurgency in rural areas, poor relations between states and the centre left India for decades without a single agency able to deal with the problem --  allowing Maoist fighters to take refuge across state borders.

Discontent is running high at the manifest failures in basic policing exposed by the latest attacks, which demonstrate a clear cross-state threat. However, the creation of an Indian FBI would set state governments on edge, not least by threatening the powers of patronage and coercion that control over policing affords them.