Bhaskar Dasgupta May 19, 2006

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rel="tag" href="/tag/Afghanistan">Afghanistan in a matter of very few days otherwise, he would be killed. As it so happened, reports suggest he tried to escape and the Taliban lopped off his head. All this happened while the Indian government and the Indian Embassy in Kabul made frantic efforts to free him. A tragic situation, but also something that led me to think about how states look at individual citizens, who are threatened outside the state boundaries; and what do states do after they have been killed.

A frequent theme of this column is how one of the primary purposes and rationale for existence of the state is to provide security to its citizens. We have had countless examples of how states and their rulers, which do not provide security, get into trouble. It is tough enough to provide security within the state’s boundaries, but the problem is severely compounded when the killing or kidnapping happens outside the national boundaries. If it is a bog standard criminal case, such as many of the recent cases of Britishers murdered in South East Asia and Australia, then the British police do get to participate, but it is generally considered an unfortunate accident. One shakes his/her head at the sheer misfortune and moves on. But this is not the case when a national is kidnapped and threatened to killed or actually beheaded.

Terrorist groups have this particular propensity to carry out these actions. As an aside, I find myself wondering about them. It may be understandable in a very twisted way to hijack a whole bus or planeload of passengers and threaten to kill them all for a political reason, but one single individual? Some countries, in a weak moment, have given in to the terrorist demands (the Rubaiya case in Kashmir, the release of the three terrorist leaders in India after the hijacking of the Indian Airlines plane and the rumoured if not confirmed case of the Italian Journalist in Iraq are two examples which spring to mind). However, generally, to take the latest example of K Suryanarayana, did the Taliban really expect the Indian Government to actually pull out all its nationals from Afghanistan just because one individual was about to be killed?

The question is so ludicrous that the basic thinking seems to be fatally flawed. Either the group in question is simply criminally insane; or it is a question of internal group politics; or they know fully well that the stated objective will not be fulfilled, but they get massive publicity even if their stated goal is not really fulfilled. States have learnt to their deep introspection that giving in to terrorist demands causes huge amounts of pain. For example, when the Islamist terrorists hijacked the Indian Airlines plane, they demanded the release of three of their imprisoned leaders in India. The pathetically weak Indian leaders gave in to the wailing of their relatives (also their hands were weakened by the prior Rubaiya case) and released the three leaders. These three musketeers were ecstatic and the Islamist militancy and terrorism in Pakistan and Kashmir ratcheted up dramatically, Daniel Pearl was beheaded, hundreds and thousands of people were killed as a direct result of this stupid decision to release these terrorist leaders. Hence, as with the USA and UK, India has also decided not to give in to terrorist demands. Better late than never, but if this is the case now, then why do these morons keep on doing silly things like this? No idea, I guess it is their desire for raisins. Whether we talk about Israel, India, USA, UK, Italy, Germany, Australia, Japan etc., each has suffered this phenomenon and all have had their individual nationals explicitly murdered by terrorists for some political cause. In addition, how they dealt with it is very instructive. The reactions ranged from pure extra-judicial revenge to pure capitulation. We all know what the Israeli position is. If any one of their people is killed, they go after the perpetrators. Largely, this is what happens. Israel’s policy has a classical eye for an eye, blood for blood basis and frankly, it has some resonance across the world. For proud nations, for somebody to knock off their people means that they hit back first and worry about the repercussions later. Israel’s policy on hijacking and airport security is top notch.

Remember what happened in Entebbe in 1976? And generally, leaving aside humanitarian principles and law/order precepts, this policy has many adherents. This policy however, has a long tail, which can sometimes cause follow-up problems by creating an action-reaction chain. The USA also has bought into this policy, but to a lesser degree. Both countries believe in the tit-for-tat principle and while there are many counter-examples, both countries do go after the movers and shakers of the terrorist groups, such as USA’s hellfire attack on the car carrying terrorists in Yemen or the air strike on the village of Damadola in the Bajaur tribal area of Pakistan, which missed Al Zawahri (second in command of Al Qaeda), but got eighteen civilians instead.

Another example is that of old USSR and current Russia. Nobody ever can accuse the Russians of being subtle. Therefore, any time a Russian is killed or kidnapped, they came down with their characteristic bear-footprint. The examples are legion, but the most recent would be in the balmy lovely land of Chechnya. Every time a Russian soldier or civilian is killed, the bear lashes out with devastating effect in a broad-based way, something like how the Nazis used to operate, but generally, the Russians are quiet these days as their international operations are not so very much.

Somewhat less drastic is how states such as the UK work. While they will not give in to the terrorist demands, the British embassies are particularly well trained on terrorist negotiations. While Britishers have been killed after a ransom or a political demand, generally the British policy of jaw jawing the terrorist negotiators to utter tired capitulation works well. We have the cases of British oil worker held hostage in Nigeria, the British contractor Gary Teeley, British hostage Norman Kember and British journalist James Brandon, released in Iraq as examples of successful negotiations. In addition, the United Kingdom does not usually take unilateral steps to decapitate the terrorist groups after a hostage has been killed, preferring to work through general police work, Interpol, the host country’s police department and plain old diplomacy. There have been swirling rumours about extra-judicial killings in Northern Ireland, but for the past 8-10 odd years after the ceasefire, I have not come across any incidents or even rumours, where British agents or Special Forces were said to have killed the perpetrators.

Moving further along the scale, we have India, which is learning (or should I say, re-learning) how to deal with terrorists. It is so sad that a country, which has arguably the biggest, longest and toughest experience with terrorism, does not learn the lessons and keeps on making the same mistake repeatedly. Nevertheless, in this particularly limited case of nationals being kidnapped and killed outside of the country, such as Ravindra Mhatre killed by Kashmiri terrorists in the UK, the Indian workers killed in Iraq and the recent sad situation, the Indian government tries to play a low-key game. The Mhatre killing prompted Indian-British cooperation to a degree, the Indian workers killed in Iraq prompted some high level hand wringing but was simply accepted, while the recent killing will be regretted. The way India seems to work is to look at these cases from a much higher plane. Afghanistan is a strategic geo-political country and it provides a response to Pakistan hosting all those Kashmiri terrorists. However, will anything be done in particular about Suryanarayana’s death or about going after the perpetrators? No. I am sure the phone lines are buzzing between Delhi, Kabul and the Indian embassies/consulates in Afghanistan, but the idea will be to keep pushing forward with the economic investment and development. Perhaps it is the best way to deal with such attacks. The poor chap’s life has gone to waste, but the best revenge would be to try to help the country to develop and make it impossible for others to die for such stupid reasons.

So in the broader scheme of things, the state can really do very little to save a hostage. If it does do something – it has to cross too many red lines. Furthermore, the opprobrium that follows this action means that the state suffers disproportionately because of this revenge action. This means that one has to take things in a soft approach. Reaching for the revolver or the cruise missile as your first option is not right. Yes, cruise missiles may well be required, but only as a comprehensive range of measures. You see, the objective is not to gain revenge, as that will lead you down a cycle of action-reaction. The objective should be to (a) obliterate the terrorist group; (b) destroy the ideology and most importantly (c) make sure that the terrorist group does not come back. It may sound brutal for the individual, but possibly, it is the only solution for the state.