Faces of terrorism in India

Terrorism is a political virus. Greed for power, injustice and intolerance breed terrorism.
No one in the world is immune from the direct or indirect effect of terrorism now

The words terrorism and terrorist were first used as political terms to describe atrocities of an occupying power – say colonial government.

Researches on the history of terrorism also reveal the word ‘terrorist’ being used in describing the tactics used by the extremist revolutionaries in Russia (1866) and in accounts of Jewish tactics against the British in Palestine (1947). During the anti-colonial struggle, what one party called terrorism was referred to as a guerrilla war or fight for freedom by the opposite party. This was so in case of the anti-British actions in India (1857), in Cyprus (1956) and the war in Rhodesia (1973). The word terrorist has also been used, at least retroactively, to describe the Marquis resistance in occupied France during World War II. The British first used the terms ‘terrorism’ and ‘terrorist’ to describe anti-establishment forces who adopted hit-and-run tactics against British colonialism.

It is apparently not easy to define terrorism even though it is not a new phenomenon for the world. A western writer observes, "Terrorism has been described variously as both a tactic and strategy; a crime and a holy duty; a justified reaction to oppression and an inexcusable abomination." Obviously, a lot depends on whose point of view is being represented. Terrorism has often been an effective tactic used by the weaker side in a conflict. In an asymmetric conflict it confers coercive power with many of the advantages of military force at a fraction of the cost.

The popular online encyclopaedia – Wikipedia – notes, "The word ‘terrorism’ is politically and emotionally charged and this greatly compounds the difficulty of providing a precise definition." A 2003 study by Jeffrey Record for the US army quoted a source (Schmid and Jongman, 1988) documenting 109 definitions of terrorism incorporating a total of 22 different definitional elements. Says Record, "Terrorism expert Walter Laqueur also has counted over 100 definitions" and concludes that the "only general characteristic generally agreed upon is that terrorism involves violence and the threat of violence. Yet terrorism is hardly the only enterprise involving violence and the threat of violence. So does war, coercive diplomacy and bar-room brawls."

The lack of agreement on a definition of terrorism has been a major obstacle to meaningful international countermeasures.

In India, the onslaught of the media and law enforcement agencies with their assumptions and repeated mention of Muslim names after each terror attack has entered the psyche of ordinary Indians. Thus an impression has gained currency that terrorism in the country is a Muslim monopoly. But the facts on the ground tell a different story.

In Jammu and Kashmir, the terrorists are Muslims. But they are only one of the several terrorist groups operating in the country. In Punjab, the terrorists are Sikhs. The United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) is a Hindu terrorist group. Tripura also has seen the rise and fall of several terrorist groups. Then we have the Bodo terrorists, Christians mostly, who in their fight for autonomy killed hundreds of Muslims in 1993. Some of its leaders are now cabinet ministers in Tarun Gogoi’s government in Assam. Christian Mizos mounted an insurrection for decades. And Christian Nagas and Manipuris are still heading militant groups. They have bombed trains, assassinated hundreds of innocent men, women and children. This year they boycotted and attempted to disrupt Independence Day (August 15) celebrations in at least five of the country’s seven north-eastern states.

But most lethal of all are the Maoist terrorist groups who reportedly now have a presence in no less than 150 of India’s 600 districts. They have attacked police stations and killed and ransacked the property of innocent villagers who oppose them. There is nothing Muslim about these Maoist groups.

On September 2, 2006 a national English daily published from Mumbai had a detailed report on a few dozen ‘Hindu Mujahideen’ who had for years been working for the Hizb ul-Mujahideen (HM) in Jammu and Kashmir. The news report had all the necessary details – names, ages, addresses of the recruits (all from the Jammu region) and the year they joined the HM. Similarly, in some non-Muslim outfits such as ULFA in Assam, Muslim members are not barred from joining.

On February 24, 2008 bombs blasted inside the local RSS office and at the bus stand in Tenkasi in Tamil Nadu. The national media carried detailed reports on the blasts. The sangh parivar organised demonstrations in various parts of the state, demanding the arrest of "Muslim terrorists", who according to them had committed the crime. However, the Tamil Nadu police acted sensibly. A special team led by P. Kannappan, deputy inspector general of police, Tirunelveli range, made a thorough investigation and arrested three persons: S. Ravi Pandian (42), a cable TV operator, S. Kumar (28), an autorickshaw driver, both from Tenkasi, and V. Narayana Sharma (26) of Sencottai. All of them were activists of the sangh parivar. As reported by the media, the last accused had assembled 14 pipe bombs in the office of Ravi Pandian.

Urdu Times, a Mumbai daily, reported on April 18, 2008 that the Malegaon police had raided the Smith Pathology Laboratory situated in the basement of More Accident Hospital, Malegaon. One pistol, five live RDX bombs, three used RDX cases, four fake 1,000 rupee notes, a laptop, a scanner, Rs 5,000 in cash and two mobile phones were recovered during the raid, according to the newspaper report. The names of the three Hindu terrorists arrested were given as Nitish Ashire (20), Sahab Rao Sukhdev Dhevre (22) and Jitendar Kherna (25). The last one is the owner of the pathology lab.

Following the Jaipur serial blasts on May 13, 2008, the police were reportedly on the hunt for a woman who had allegedly promised Rs 1,00,000 to a rickshaw-puller to carry out the terror attacks. "We are looking for a woman identified as Meena who tried to lure a rickshaw-puller, Vijay, to carry out the attacks," an unidentified police officer told a national daily.
The Aaj Tak TV channel telecast video clips of Vijay saying, "Stop the lady (Meena) or she will explode bombs at Katwali." By that time a bomb had already been exploded in the Katwali area. Vijay, who was detained just an hour after the Jaipur blasts, told the police that Meena lived near one of the blast sites. What happened to Meena and Vijay? What further information did the police extract from Vijay? Were they able to locate and interrogate Meena? All this remains a mystery till date.

The special issue of Communalism Combat (July-August 2008) carried extensive reports on the involvement of several Hindu extremist groups in several bomb blasts in the state since 2003.

In the last week of July 2008 bombs exploded in Bangalore and Ahmedabad on two consecutive days. The Ahmedabad blasts killed 42 people and injured another 200. Over the next few days a large number of unexploded bombs were found and defused in Surat. In an email sent out five minutes before the Ahmedabad blasts a little known group calling itself the ‘Indian Mujahideen’ claimed that it was responsible for the blasts. The police investigating the Ahmedabad blasts case traced the email to an apartment in Navi Mumbai. Interestingly, the resident of the apartment turned out to be not some "Islamist group" but an American: Kenneth Haywood (48), a Christian preacher operating under cover of a dummy IT company. In a highly curious turn of events, Haywood fled India even while the ATS had put out a lookout alert against him.

Police officials had no satisfactory explanation as to how no surveillance was maintained on a man suspected of possible involvement in a major terrorist attack. Would the ATS and the rest of the police machinery have acted in the same cavalier fashion had the laptop been in possession of a Muslim?

Terrorism is a political virus. It breeds where there is greed for power, injustice or intolerance. No one in the world is immune from the direct or indirect effect of terrorism now. Whatever their stated cause, all terrorists have a common goal – generating fear through violence. To effectively counter terrorism we must all bear in mind that terrorism has no religion.

(M. Burhanuddin Qasmi is editor of Eastern Crescent and director of the Mumbai-based Markazul Ma’arif Education and Research Centre. He can be contacted at [email protected].)