An article written by Anand Patwardhan which was rejected by the Times of India:
Terror: The Aftermath
Anand PAtwardhan.
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.
Anand Patwardhan
November 2008
Forwarded by:
Cynthia Stephen
Independent Researcher and writer
Bangalore, India
