Changing Nature of Warfare

The nature of warfare has been changing over several past decades and very visibly since Sep 2001. The trend first arrived into our collective consciousness during the 1984 army operations at the Golden Temple in Amritsar and exploded onto the mainstream during the 1993 Mumbai blasts. It is warfare that trancends borders in a confusing kalideoscope of characters, events and issues, defying nation state boundaries and leaving mayhem in its path. And into this evil brew it brings religion as the interorganizational strategy to manage the environment and to attract, acquire and motivate its deadly talent.

The NSG, our primary federal counter-terror response unit, setup in the aftermath of the 1984 operations, was patterned at the tactical level on the famed German border guard unit - the GSG9 - and at the strategic level on the American Special Operations Command. It foresaw a high-tech, fully integrated air and ground elements operating within a federal ambit. It ended up enmeshed into a outmoded colonial internal security apparatus, that is even today, a state subject. The dichotomy ensured its ruin. Seen increasingly in its alternate avatar - the comic spectacle of highly visibile gun-toting personal security guards accompanying politicians of all hues - it was reduced to yet another para-military unit under a government ministry utterly incapable of understanding its role. That they can still function in times of crisis should only be attributed to absolute professionalism and to the talent of individuals within its ranks who continue to operate against all odds despite its phenomenonally outmoded ecosystem.
Changing such a well entrenched system requires a powerful intent, the likes of which we will probably never see until the rebirth of the collective conciousness and a strong belief in the concept called "India" - always ephemeral, euphemistic and yet so tantalising for those who can see it occassionally. Maybe it is the attempt to define a region as a nationstate that is creating the problem. Maybe India has always represented the concept of a region which can let a billion nation states coexist - each man, women and child a nation state. And imagine the power of intent if the whole region shrugged off old differences and came together to fight this scourge? Thats still a long while away.

It is however strange coincidence that the NSG bears the sign of a "Sudarshan Chakra", the ultimate weapon of the collective conciousnessness. Maybe, just maybe, its time for rebirth.