26/11: Ex-PM mulled using force against Pak

Late Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was often criticised for not ordering a firm Indian response to Pakistan in the wake of the November 26, 2008, Mumbai terror attacks, but the fact is his Cabinet had contemplated military action before deciding against it.

In an exclusive interview to The Tribune on the eve of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Manmohan Singh had categorically admitted that his government did mull the use of force against Pakistan after the 26/11 attacks.

“The dastardly attack in Mumbai was unpardonable. I disagree with the insinuation that we were not ready with military punitive actions. We were. We did contemplate the use of force,” Singh had told this correspondent. He said the UPA government decided against punitive action because the geo-political situation at the time was evolving in India’s favour and India responded diplomatically and swiftly to isolate Pakistan.

“Our response was to isolate and diplomatically expose Pakistan as a terror hub, besides rallying the international community for decisive action against terrorists. We succeeded too,” Singh said. He said that within 14 days of the Mumbai attacks, India got China to agree to declare Hafiz Saeed as a global terrorist under the UN 1267 Sanctions Committee.

“The Congress-led UPA ensured that a $10m bounty was placed on the head of the Mumbai attack perpetrator and the founder of Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) Hafiz Saeed by the US. Another mastermind, David Headley, was convicted to 35 years of prison during our government in 2013. Top LeT members involved in the Mumbai attacks were kept under sanctions lists as terrorists by the UNSC due to our unrelenting diplomatic efforts. Result is that the LeT per se has become ineffective today,” Manmohan Singh said in the interview.

The former PM said that his government made counterterrorism cooperation in the international community against the LeT more effective and countries like Saudi Arabia and even China cooperated to a great deal.

“Several terrorists were arrested and deported to India as they travelled outside Pakistan. Sheikh Abdul Khwaja, handler of the 26/11 attack and Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami (HuJI) chief of operations for India, was subsequently picked up in Colombo and brought to Hyderabad and formally arrested in January 2010. Zaibuddin Ansari (aka Abu Hamza/Abu Jundal) was arrested at the Delhi airport in June 2012 after he was deported from Saudi Arabia,” Singh said.

Although Manmohan Singh didn’t disclose the nuances of calls for military action in his government, records reveal these calls were most vociferously struck down by then External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee.

Mukherjee himself admits in his book ‘The Coalition Era’: “Amid heated debates within the Cabinet, there was a demand for military intervention, which I rejected.” Mukherjee said there was no scope of romanticism or adventurism in external relations.

At that very time, then Congress president Sonia Gandhi had proposed Mukherjee’s name as a replacement for beleaguered Home Minister Shivraj Patil, but Manmohan Singh settled for P Chidambaram as Patil’s replacement since Mukherjee was dealing with a lot already.

The Mumbai attacks had killed over 170 persons with the BJP, to date, accusing the UPA government of not reacting with force unlike Prime Minister Narendra Modi under whose term Uri surgical strike and Balasore air strikes were conducted by the Indian armed forces in response to grave provocations by Pakistan.

Manmohan Singh in his 2019 conversation with The Tribune criticised PM Modi for “seeking publicity over surgical strikes”. “Many decisive military operations were undertaken during previous governments, including the Congress-led UPA regime. But flaunting the successes of armed forces for political interests is unacceptable,” Singh had said.

In the same interview, the former PM had said coalitions were here to stay, as proven in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. “Democracy is about cohesion, cooperation and cohabitation. Democracy entails building a consensus out of divergent viewpoints in national interest. Hence, democracy, per se, is a coalition of ideas. There are continuous checks and balances in a coalition government and decision making is more democratic and cautious,” Manmohan Singh had said on coalitions.