We have seen this again in response to the attack on our Parliament, the initial confusion and the hours it took the Authorities to grasp the situation and react to it – and this was an exceptionally high security target with its own security force and procedures.

We have also, seen this most tellingly in the anti-terror operations, that we call 26/11, at Mumbai. Where it took the Authorities more than a day to grasp the elements of even such small, relatively isolated, attacks on a few targets in the heart of our most important urban city, and nearly two days more to bring it under control at the cost of so many lives and so many other casualties.

Of course we have also, seen such delays in understanding the implications, and being able to properly respond to the situation, in the 1993 riots in Mumbai and to an extent in the response to the 2002 riots in Gujarat.

Who should we hold responsible for such lack of preparedness, for such delays in grasping the extent of, and reacting to the situation. For being unable to separate the actionable information from the flood, and the noise, of incoherent information, and arriving at a quick and appropriate response to the situation.

Instead of blaming it all on only the then Leaders, perhaps we should all share the blame of not insisting on our governments having properly preplanned, laid down procedures, specifying the levels of responses and the counter measures to be resorted to, in all typically expected situations and position trained and adequately equipped manpower to execute them in a quick and effective manner, and the Media too for not voicing our demands and also, for not keeping track of the Government’s action thereon.

We should of course hold any Individual or Leader to blame for specific acts of commission either by provocative urgings or actual involvement. Blaming someone in any other manner would only show a lack of understanding of the circumstances.

Should we blame the Police and Anti-Terror units and their leaders, for not visualizing such contingencies and planning and training for them

– for not having coordination between their various units and organizations

– for in short – panicking and reacting in a most confused and ill-informed manner and only being able to react in a somewhat better way after a day or so? Of course, we should.

The satisfactory reaction of the lower levels of police to execute preplanned cordoning and search operations, which they often execute in various interdiction operations, only proves the importance and effectiveness of contingency planning and conduct of drills, and highlights the lack of such planning and preparation at the higher echelons, including those at the Political levels.

There is no arguing the fact that unforeseen dangers and calamities cause all those who are expected to react to such events to initially freeze, unless properly trained and drilled. The lack of ability to discern actionable intelligence from the flood of data and the ‘noise ‘of just information caused by the exaggeration and error of what little there is; the calls for help from so many directions, every one of them demanding the right to call on all of the available forces insisting on immediate action in response to their call. The lack of any standard operating procedures or of any contingency plans can all only result in tremendous confusion at all levels of Authority, the higher the Authority the more the confusion.

Even individuals in the Police and other Authorities, trained in their routine activities but with no training for such contingencies, can easily react in a confused and uncoordinated manner and even give wrong and inappropriate orders or advice at such times, further compounding the confusion.

The higher the Authority, the greater the cacophony of information (not actionable intelligence) and the greater the number of mostly contradictory recommendations for the responses to be called for (not responses properly coordinated to the events and threats perceived).

It is understandable that every danger perceived by each of the threatened individuals, is to him / her deserving of maximum and immediate response by the Authority he/she calls on, but what can any such Authority do in response to the clamour of tens, or hundreds, or even thousands of such calls when it has no way to assess the actual threat and the level of response that is practical and possible given the relatively limited resources / forces available and the confusion of the situation allowing for their deployment and response, and when any inappropriate reaction could lead to even greater harm and casualties.

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