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Sabrang Team
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Anand
Patwardhan
November 2008
Terror: The Aftermath
The attack on Mumbai is over. After the numbing sorrow comes the
blame game and the solutions. Loud voices amplified by saturation
TV: Why don't we amend our Constitution to create new anti-terror
laws? Why don't we arm our police with AK 47s? Why don't we do what
Israel did after Munich or the USA did after 9/11 and hot pursue the
enemy? Solutions that will lead us further into the abyss. For
terror is a self-fulfilling prophecy. It thrives on reaction,
polarization, militarization and the thirst for revenge.
The External Terror
Those who invoke America need only to analyze if its actions after
9/11 increased or decreased global terror. It invaded oil-rich Iraq
fully knowing that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, killing over
200,000 Iraqis citizens but allowing a cornered Bin Laden to escape
from Afghanistan. It recruited global support for Islamic militancy,
which began to be seen as a just resistance against American mass
murder. Which begs the question of who created Bin Laden in the
first place, armed the madarsas of Pakistan and rejuvenated the
concept of Islamic jehad? Israel played its own role in stoking the
fires of jehad. The very creation of Israel in 1948 robbed
Palestinians of their land, an act that Mahatma Gandhi to his credit
deplored at the time as an unjust way to redress the wrongs done to
Jews during the Holocaust. What followed has been a slow and
continuing attack on the Palestinian nation. At first Palestinian
resistance was led by secular forces represented by Yasser Arafat
but as these were successfully undermined, Islamic forces took over
the mantle. The first, largely non-violent Intifada was crushed, a
second more violent one replaced it and when all else failed, human
bombs appeared.
Thirty years ago when I first went abroad there were two countries
my Indian passport forbade me to visit. One was racist South Africa.
The other was Israel. We were non-aligned and stood for disarmament
and world peace. Today Israel and America are our biggest military
allies. Is it surprising that we are on the jehadi hit list? Israel,
America and other prosperous countries can to an extent protect
themselves against the determined jehadi, but can India put an
impenetrable shield over itself? Remember that when attackers are on
a suicide mission, the strongest shields have crumbled. New York was
laid low not with nuclear weapons but with a pair of box cutters.
India is for many reasons a quintessentially soft target. Our huge
population, vast landmass and coastline are impossible to protect.
The rich may build new barricades. The Taj and the Oberoi can be
made safer. So can our airports and planes. Can our railway stations
and trains, bus stops, busses, markets and lanes do the same?
The Terror Within
The threat of terror in India does not come exclusively from the
outside. Apart from being hugely populated by the poor India is also
a country divided, not just between rich and poor, but by religion,
caste and language. This internal divide is as potent a breeding
ground for terror as jehadi camps abroad. Nor is jehad the copyright
of one religion alone. It can be argued that international causes
apart, India has jehadis that are fully home grown. Perhaps the
earliest famous one was Nathuram Godse who acting at the behest of
his mentor Vinayak Savarkar (still referred to as "Veer" or "brave"
although he refused to own up to his role in the conspiracy),
murdered Mahatma Gandhi for the crime of championing Muslims.
Jump forward to 6th December, 1992, the day Hindu fanatics
demolished the Babri Mosque setting into motion a chain of events
that still wreaks havoc today. From the Bombay riots of 1992 to the
bomb blasts of 1993, the Gujarat pogroms of 2002 and hundreds of
smaller deadly events, the last 16 years have been the bloodiest
since Partition. Action has been followed by reaction in an endless
cycle of escalating retribution. At the core on the Hindu side of
terror are organizations that openly admire Adolph Hitler, nursing
the hate of historic wrongs inflicted by Muslims. Ironically these
votaries of Hitler remain friends and admirers of Israel.
On the Muslim side of terror are scores of disaffected youth, many
of whom have seen their families tortured and killed in more recent
pogroms. Christians too have fallen victim to recent Hindutva terror
but as yet not formed the mechanisms for revenge. Dalits despite
centuries of caste oppression, have not yet retaliated in violence
although a small fraction is being drawn into an armed struggle
waged by Naxalites.
It is clear that no amount of spending on defense, no amount of
patrolling the high seas, no amount of increasing the military and
police and equipping them with the latest weaponry can end the cycle
of violence or place India under a bubble of safety. Just as nuclear
India did not lead to more safety, but only to a nuclear Pakistan,
no amount of homeland security can save us. And inviting Israel's
Mossad and America's CIA/FBI to the security table is like giving
the anti-virus contract to those who spread the virus in the first
place. It can only make us more of a target for the next determined
jehadi attack.
Policing, Justice and the Media
As for draconian anti-terror laws, they too only breed terror as for
the most part they are implemented by a State machinery that has
imbibed majoritarian values. So in Modi's Gujarat after the ethnic
cleansing of Muslims in 2002, despite scores of confessions to rape
and murder captured on hidden camera, virtually no Hindu extremists
were punished while thousands of Muslims rotted in jail under
draconian laws. The same happened in Bombay despite the Shiv Sena
being found guilty by the Justice Shrikrishna Commission. Under
pressure a few cases were finally brought to trial but all escaped
with the lightest of knuckle raps. In stark contrast many Muslims
accused in the 1993 bomb blasts were given death sentences.
The bulk of our media, policing and judicial systems swallows the
canard that Muslims are by nature violent. Removing democratic
safeguards guaranteed by the Constitution can only make this worse.
Every act of wrongful imprisonment and torture that then follows is
likely to turn innocents into material for future terrorists to draw
upon. Already the double standards are visible. While the Students
Islamic Movement of India is banned, Hindutva outfits like the RSS,
the VHP, the Bajrang Dal, and the Shiv Sena remain legal entities.
The leader of the MNS, Raj Thackeray recently openly spread such
hatred that several north Indians were killed by lynch mobs. Amongst
these were the Dube brothers, doctors from Kalyan who treated the
poor for a grand fee of Rs.10 per patient. Raj Thackeray like his
uncle Bal before him, remains free after issuing public threats that
Bombay would burn if anyone had the guts to arrest him. Modi remains
free despite the pogroms of Gujarat. Congress party murderers of
Sikhs in 1984 remain free. Justice in India is clearly not there for
all. Increasing the powers of the police cannot solve this problem.
Only honest and unbiased implementation of laws that exist, can.
It is a tragedy of the highest proportions that one such honest
policeman, Anti-Terrorist Squad chief Hemant Karkare, who had begun
to unravel the thread of Hindutva terror was himself gunned down,
perhaps by Muslim terror. It is reported that Col. Purohit and
fellow Hindutva conspirators now in judicial custody, celebrated the
news of Karkare's death. Until Karkare took charge, the Malegaon
bomb blasts in which Muslims were killed and the Samjhauta Express
blasts in which Pakistani visitors to India were killed were being
blamed on Muslims. Karkare exposed a hitherto unknown Hindutva
outfit as masterminding a series of killer blasts across the
country. For his pains Karkare came under vicious attack not just
from militant Hindutva but from the mainstream BJP. He was under
tremendous pressure to prove his patriotism. Was it this that led
this senior officer to don helmet and ill-fitting bullet proof vest
and rush into battle with a pistol? Or was it just his natural
instinct, the same courage that had led him against all odds, to
expose Hindutva terror?
Whatever it was, it only underlines the fact that jehadis of all
kinds are actually allies of each other. So Bin Laden served George
Bush and vice-versa. So Islamic and Hindutva jehadis have served
each other for years. Do they care who dies? Of the 200 people
killed in the last few days by Islamic jehadis, a high number were
Muslims. Many were waiting to board trains to celebrate Eid in their
hometowns in UP and Bihar, when their co-religionists gunned them
down. Shockingly the media has not commented on this, nor focused on
the tragedy at the railway station, choosing to concentrate on
tragedies that befell the well-to-do. And it is the media that is
leading the charge to turn us into a war-mongering police state
where we may lead lives with an illusion of safety, but with the
certainty of joylessness.
I am not arguing that we do not need efficient security at public
places and at vulnerable sites. But real security will only come
when it is accompanied by real justice, when the principles of
democracy are implemented in every part of the country, when the
legitimate grievances of people are not crushed, when the arms race
is replaced by a race for decency and humanity, when our children
grow up in an atmosphere where religious faith is put to the test of
reason. Until such time we will remain at the mercy of "patriots"
and zealots.
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