Between The Lines
Terrorism rearing its head
It must be a coincidence. Otherwise, why would the terrorists choose October 11, the birthday of Gandhian Jaya Prakash Narayan, to strike when people have forgotten him? Even at Patna where his protégé, Nitish Kumar, is the Bihar chief minister, there was no official function, much less a public holiday. The terrorists who attacked the dargah at Ajmer are hardly concerned with Narayan's message of peace and non-violence. They have their own cult of bomb and their own dogma of fundamentalism. Their purpose was to instill fear. More than that, it was meant to convey hostility to the composite culture which the dargah represented. A study done a few years ago showed that the number of non-Muslims visiting the place was more than that of Muslims.
Over the years, the shrine of Sufi Saint Khwaja Moinuddin Chisti has become a meeting point of different religious beliefs. This fusion, Sufism, is gaining recognition for liberalism. It has brought the faithful and the fakir together. How can extremists brook something which upholds the spirit of accommodation and sense of tolerance? The terrorists' action is understandable, but the dargah's is not. The drums which have been beaten since the days of Emperor Akbar, who gave them to the dargha, fell silent in protest on the Id. Old clothes were worn with black badges. Terrorists would have wanted no better response. Silence is needed when there is nothing to articulate. The dargah's drums should have been beaten longer and louder to make the terrorists realise that the dargah's age-old traditions were not so brittle that a blast could break them.
Still, the question that every Indian must ask himself is why terrorism is rearing its head. The government's readymade answer is that it is a handiwork of terrorists from across the border. There may be some truth in it, particularly when the training camps are still in operation in Pakistan. National Security Advisor M.K.Narayanan has accused ISI. Yet, the fact remains that if the terrorists were from outside, who were the locals helping them select the site, hauling the explosives, and providing shelter to them after they had finished their heinous task?
It was not so bad a few years ago. Something has gone wrong to annoy a few segments of the society. It has little to do with poverty or lack of education, but has much to do with fundamentalism. But that something is the sense of unfairness, the feeling that the government does not attend to their grievances. The oft-repeated charge that Muslims get the wrong end of the stick is not without foundation. They are the most secular community. So much so, they have never voted since partition for a party claiming to represent Muslims or appealing in the name of Islam. They have tended to put their faith in the leadership of non-Muslims.
Yet, when they find justice eluding them, as happened in the wake of the Babri masjid's demolition and the Gujarat killings, a few among them can go wild. The guilty in the bomb blasts at Mumbai are punished even after 14 years. But the killers of Muslims three months later are not touched, even though the Justice Sri Krishna report named them: top police officials and Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackery. Again, it may be an individual case but it shows the administration's partisanship. Rizwanur Rahman, who married a Hindu girl from a rich family, was found dead after one month on the railway tracks near Kolkata. The administration is mixed up, but no action has been taken despite an uproar by the public and the media. The High Court has ordered a CBI probe, much to the embarrassment of the CPI (M) state government.
The blast at Ludhiana is an isolated case, probably by Sikh militants. Yet it indicates a sense of alienation. The Sikh community nourishes the grouse that none has been hanged for the murder of 3000 Sikhs in Delhi in 1984. Again, a number of Sikhs missing since Operation Blue Star have not been traced. And some who had indulged in the excesses against the community have been treated generously.
I may be wrong to infer that what happened at Ajmer and Ludhiana were an emotional outbursts for pending cases of injustice. The persons involved may well be outsiders. But the point I want to make is that the Hindu community, 80 percent in the country, has to wake up to the excesses committed against the minorities including the Christians. Instances like not getting a house or a job because of following a particular religion are piling up to make some people desperate. The Constitution of India guarantees equal treatment to all Indians, without caste, creed or colour. The ethos of our national struggle is also secularism.
I can understand the BJP's stand because it believes in the Hindu polity. But I fail to make out why the Congress, with its long secular traditions, has been lukewarm towards the minorities. The congress is too halting, too compromising when it comes to standing up and being counted against communalism. Strange, the party should woo or admit former BJP members to the Congress. Can a person who changes ideology overnight be trusted?
We can learn a lesson from Pakistan. It was a liberal society. The ruling military junta trained terrorists to fight in Kashmir. In the process, liberalism in Pakistan was adversely affected. There can hardly be any satisfaction that the country is paying for it. The Frankenstein it had created is eating it up. The gain is terrorism's. Tribal areas are particular targets. Suicide attacks have taken an ominous turn as the terrorists are now fighting against law-enforcing agencies inside their strongholds.
New Delhi's problem is that it has no well-thought out, long-term strategy to tackle terrorism. There are ad-hoc efforts, with little coordination between the centre and the states. America, a larger country than ours, has not experienced any terrorist act after 9/11. The reason is that the intelligence agencies work hard, not like India's which do not follow up even a prior warning. We are a soft state which requires a change in attitude, not another special police force or a harsher law.
I want to tell those who believe that armed struggle would free this country from the "hold" of capitalists. We should do everything to release the 70 percent of people caught in poverty even after the 9-10 percent of economic growth. But violence is no option, just as war is not, in today's world. There are so many fissiparous tendencies in the country that can come into play. One does not know what will come out from the violence. Our democracy is firm, but our sense of justice is not.
Kuldip Nayar is an eminent Indian columnist.
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