10 Flashpoints 20 Years review: Manish Tewari analyses how India has thwarted terrorism over the years

By: Anu Shakti

New Delhi: Congress leader and MP Manish Tewari has recently published his book titled book “10 Flashpoints 20 Years”. This book has created a stir in the political segment. Comprising hard-hitting verses from the Congress leader, the book condemns India's approach towards terrorism and related issues.

Tewari writes, “Why have non-conventional means not been actively explored and employed as a means of thwarting the terrorist threat? Does it have something to do with the moral dilemma of being a democracy and not adopting means and methods outside the pale of both constitutionalism and law? Can this be a sustainable format for the future also?”

The book starts with an epilogue by Tewari where he clearly mentions the book is an attempt to capture time and it is neither a practitioner’s nor an insider’s tale. He marks his words to be an observer’s reflection.

Sitting at an audience’s seat, Tewari appears to be making a few strong remarks. Nonetheless, time and again he has made a point to clarify that the book is especially for wider audience of those people who are intellectually curious about issues pervading our defence and national security ecosystem.

In the book, Tewari pays a close attention to nuclear tests done by India in 1998. This part of the book explores a chain of possibilities that could have transpired behind nuclear tests conducted by both India and Pakistan.

Tewari also emphasises the functioning of intelligence system in the country and briefly talks about private member’s Bill that he presented in Lok Sabha in 2011 as well as 2020.

The book recollects a memoire from Tewari’s personal life involving the much-condemned hijacking of IC – 814 in 1999 and unfurls some personal-political anecdotes about the same.

It takes the last twenty years or more into account. It sets its pace from Pokhran in 1998 and includes Uri, Surgical Strike as well as revocation of Article 370 from Jammu and Kashmir. The final chapter refers Kashmir as a dormant volcano. Why and how? Answers are well put in the pages followed.

This 300-page long book uncovers several political and diplomatic events about which author claims to have observed from an audience’s seat or as a third party. His observations appear to be answers to innumerable questions of crores of Indians who have been witnessing these incidents with wide eyes and almost tight lips.

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