Telegraph - UK
6 Dec 2008
The motto of India's Marine Commandos is "We dare to win." But their failure to prevent an attack by 10 terrorists on Mumbai has given rise to a different slogan: "Please send a fax."
Modelled on the British Royal Marines, this force presents itself as an elite assault unit on permanent alert to strike the nation's enemies.
The attack on Mumbai should have been an ideal occasion for this rapid-reaction force to display its skills. When the terrorists raided the Taj Mahal Palace, they were barely a few hundred yards from the Indian Navy's Western Command headquarters, which includes a Commando base.
Yet for more than a hour after gunmen stormed this hotel and the Oberoi Trident, Marine commanders and Mumbai's city bureaucrats fought one-another.
The elite rapid reaction force demanded written orders before leaving the high brick walls of its headquarters. The delays allowed the terrorists vital time to consolidate their positions within the hotels. The Marines were eventually deployed after a verbal agreement that a faxed request from the state government would be sent later.
In the meantime, the poorly equipped Mumbai police and municipal guards were left to take potshots at the well-armed terrorists, who, it has emerged, had undergone a year's training in camps across the border in Pakistan.
Questions over how 10 men could seize the most prominent landmarks in Mumbai and then hold at bay the combined forces of the India security services for 60 hours have raged in the aftermath of the incident. Confidence in India's armed forces, intelligence agencies and the government itself has been badly shaken by a series of revelations.
The episode has shown that India is singularly ill-equipped to deal with modern terrorism. Its army and police are still based on the system created by the British Raj. Security spending has been criticised as wasteful and skewed towards protecting state leaders, not ordinary citizens. As in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks in America on September 11, it has emerged that rivalry between different services resulted in vital clues being overlooked.
With 18 million people, Mumbai would be exceptionally hard for any security service to protect. The sprawling conurbation is one of the world's most chaotic. Every day tens of thousands arrive at its railway stations and bus depots to seek their fortune in its dynamic version of capitalism.
Experts are nonetheless damning about the India' security failures. "A city the size of Mumbai, with 18 million people, doesn't even have a SWAT [Special Weapons and Tactics] team or a helicopter available," said Ajay Sahni, executive director of New Delhi's Institute for Conflict Management. "At every stage there was complete institutional failure. You can't have a rapid-action force that takes seven hours to arrive. We're talking about an early 20th century police system trying to deal with a 21st century threat."
India has plenty of men in uniform. The key problem is that too few have the training and equipment to resist a determined terrorist - and those who do are caught in a thicket of bureaucratic constraints.
When two of the gunmen opened fire inside Mumbai's main railway station, the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, only one policeman fought back.
Jullu Yadav, a head constable, ran to one of his men who was frozen with terror and wrestled a .303 Lee Enfield rifle from his hands. This British-made, bolt action rifle dated from the Second World War. It remains a standard issue weapon for India's armed police.
Constable Yadav sheltered behind a column and fired at the attackers. But he admitted that he was no match for terrorists who carried modern, automatic weapons and conducted a shooting spree that cost more than 50 lives.
"It's been almost a year since I fired a gun," he said. "I did not even have a gun because there was a shortage. I asked my constable to fire but he was scared so I took his gun and fired two rounds at them. Though my heart was thumping and I was scared I wanted to return their shots."
Such heroism was not uncommon in the hours that followed. But myriad delays in getting trained forces in place to tackle the siege have been blamed for the heavy loss of life.
The Home Guards, a municipal militia equipped with Sten Guns - another weapon of Second World War vintage - were equally ill-prepared. Mumbai's Anti-Terrorist Squad suffered a severe blow when a vehicle carrying their men to the scene was ambushed by two terrorists. The car had no armour against bullets and the squad's leader, Hemant Kadare, and two senior lieutenants were killed instantly.
The website of the Indian Navy describes the Commandos as a highly trained counter-terrorism force. A platoon of the 2000-strong unit recently fought Somali pirates in the Gulf of Aden.
Yet even when they managed the 200-yard trip to the Taj Hotel from their headquarters, the commandos were easily repulsed. More criticism has surrounded the deployment of the National Security Guards, the Indian equivalent of the SAS. It has just one base outside Delhi and had to be shuttled to Mumbai on an ageing Russian transport aircraft.
A full night of bloodshed had elapsed by the time its forces arrived at dawn on the day following the start of the attacks. "Initially we could not comprehend whether we were up against a bunch of motivated terrorists or trained commandos of another army," said one NSG soldier. "The extent of ammunition carried by the terrorists initially overwhelmed us."
Outside the Taj hotel, there was no clear chain of command. During lulls in the fighting, the security forces occasionally claimed victory.
A full 18-hours before the final terrorist was killed, General Noble Thamburaj, the commander of Indian forces in the south, inspected the scene with his wife. The couple went inside the Taj hotel. Within hours a fierce battle was raging again.
Security lapses at sea before the attack were equally grave. Although India's own intelligence intercepts and the American Administration had both given warning of a sea-borne assault, the Navy and Coastguard failed to act.
For a country that portray's itself as an emerging superpower, the Mumbai attacks were a humbling blow. Demonstrators vented their anger with their country's civilian and military leadership. One software tycoon said that Mumbia had reached a "tipping point."
A city that had gloried in its historic transformation has seen its confidence shattered. From Bollywood stars to street hawkers, uncertainty is the dominant mood. "Mumbaikars have just one question to ask all the politicians in this country who travel in the safe cocoon of class security," said Moneycontrol. com website. "What about us?"
