“The Parliament attack was 20 years ago, are we more prepared today?”

News– 20 years of 2001 Attack on parliament, an analysis of how much we have improved. 

What has been the scene in Internal security landscape since the 2001 attack on parliament  

Despite the innovations and improvements in intelligence infrastructure there have been several terrorist attack on India since the 2001 attack like 2008 Mumbai attacks, Uri, Pathankot attack, 2019 pulwana strike, Chinese incursions in Ladakh and many more.  

How can India improve its situation 

1. Most of the times government responds to terrorist attacks with immediate retaliatory measures which have short shelf life. Example- Operation Parakram after the parliament attack. However what is needed is a clear political strategy 
2. Strong hard power capability. Example- Israel conveys its firm anti-terrorism stand by having a robust intelligence gathering mechanism and social media messaging. 
3. A social environment needs to be created which does not give impetus to such activities. Adversaries can take advantage of unstable social environment.(discord) 
4. India needs to undertake reform of its intelligence infrastructure and there is also pressing need for robust intelligence gathering mechanism . 
5. There is need to fix accountability given that there are plethora of intelligence agencies in India and they have often overlapping functions. 
6. India’s efforts at reforming its security architecture and processes have historically been reactive, piecemeal and only incremental rather than holistic. For example, in the aftermath of the kargil War with Pakistan in 1999. 

Conclusion 

India needs to undertake proactive reforms and not just implement corrective measures subsequent to these crises. 

Source– This post is based on the article “The Parliament attack was 20 years ago, are we more prepared today?” published in The Indian express on 13th Dec 2021.