26/11 & inquiry commission

I started reading this news as yet another typical news and yet another demand by the opposition. Looked like Govt and opposition are back to their normal service of demands & denials and accusations & counters.

What really got me a bit nervous was the reply given by the Home Minister. Quoting from the article

Demand "Leader of Opposition L K Advani of the BJP on Friday asked the government to share with Parliament the dossier of 26/11 evidence given to Pakistan and also called for setting up an inquiry commission - a demand the government rejected."

Reply "However, home minister P Chidambaram ruled out setting up any probe commission and said the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government had not set up any commission after the hijacking of the Indian Airlines flight to Kandahar in December 1999."

This reply sounds fussy: 1999 was bad and the Govt response was not really glowing either. But what is bad is using that as a reference.

Does that mean that if the Govt in 1999 faltered in its response to a particular situation the Govt in 2009 must do the same? And then claim that you didn’t do it either when you were there.

How about learning from the past mistakes? While I feel that HM was so far right in not sharing the details with Parliament because of the sensitivity of the issue. But now situation has changed as Pak has gone ahead and freed the person whom India thought was the chief planner of 26/11. I think now making the evidences public in Parliament is better. After all US have it. Pak has it. It’s only Indian Parliament which does not have it.

Pak has improved its position, with US aids, it has got out of the hole it was in immediately after 26/11 and now probably will not do anything to bring the culprits in 26/11 to book Govt would be better of having a public debate as it would increase their credibility and also allow them to make any mid-course correction into the response. I do not see this position of no-dialogue-till-a-concrete-action continuing for long as very soon US would be pushing India to sit across the table with Pak as they need Pak forces to concentrate in Af and would like India to slow down on its offensive.

India needs to device a new plan as the dossier hasn’t worked and what better way of doing it than starting with an honest public debate rather than pointing to old omissions that others have done.