What lengthens the intervention period is lack of planning. Lack of planning is because of lack of information. There is no interface between the information gathering apparatus (Intelligence Bureau) and special branches of the police. These two should have been feeding real time information to the planners.

On the need for introspection:

There are many people who have started introspecting that the casualty levels were very high and it took very long etc. Now they should all sit together -- the NSG, armed forces, police -- and see what lesson have been learnt, what should have happened and what actually happened.

But what is happening is that people are protecting their own turf. That started happening even when the operation was on in those press conferences.

There is no feeling of a joint perception of threat. That this is something that concerns India, people are more interested in how this is going to relate to their career.

On lessons for Special Forces in the Indian Navy:

A typical naval officer, rear admiral and above, who takes decisions at various levels in operations like these, what is his career profile like? Nowhere in his career profile has he ever handled Special Forces.

The Navy hasn't fought a war in a long time. There is a certain mindset when you are in active operations and risking your life on a daily basis. There is a difference between people who served in the IPKF -- where peacekeeping was a misnomer, actually we were operating in a very hostile environment. Every day a handful of people died in Sri Lanka.

Guys who came from that background are different from guys who did not see any combat.

The best people don't enter the armed forces anymore. They don't want to come. They are not coming because of an inadequate service environment, not inadequate advertising. It is because of babudom and lack of introspective ability within the armed forces.

Image: NSG commandos in Mumbai, November 28. Photograph: Jayanta Shaw/Reuters.

Also see: The commandos in action

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