Welcome address by Dr M Manzoor Alam

COPING WITH TERRORISM

A Look at Certain Issues Involved in Current Discourse

Dr. Mohammad Manzoor Alam

Over the last few years terrorism has come to occupy centre stage in national and international political discourse. There are endless varieties of terrorism and terrorists, depending on from where you are looking at the issue. The varieties are spread across Asia, Middle East, Latin America and Europe.

Terrorism expert Jonathan Barker says, "Since the events of 11 September 2001, the propaganda uses of 'terrorism' have multiplied, and it has never been clearer that one person's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter." This has made a correct understanding of the political, economic and moral issues involved more difficult.

Such differences of perspective are there even in the frontline states in the "War on Terror" like the United States and UK. It is interesting to note that when Vladmir Putin tried to enlist the support of UK in Russia's own version of "War on Terror" against Chechens following the massive attack on Beslan, Tony Blair snubbed him saying the Chechen struggle was not terrorism, but freedom fight.

Barker says that terrorism and the so-called "War on Terror" have turned out to be the most divisive facets of today's life. The so-called US "War on Terror" has led to the loss of nearly a million lives in Iraq alone, although Iraq never had anything to do with terrorism at all.

The very discourse on terror as figuring in the Western discourse has become infested with too many untruths. Insincere governments worldwide have used it to silence political opposition and suppress people's genuine aspirations. Amnesty International Chief Irene Khan has pointed out that the "War on Terror" has undermined the human rights and civil liberties movement worldwide.

The NDA government in India and the Israeli government had used the "Anti-Terror" environment to suppress Muslims in India and Palestinians in the Middle East. In these two countries there have been attempts, to connect terrorism with Islam, but one of the major experts on the issue, Walter Laquer, does not see any connection. Laquer is no ordinary expert as he is taken very seriously by US foreign policy establishment.

DESI TERROR

A constant source of terror, intimidation and mass violence has been the Sangh, with its myriad offshoots and front organisations. Inspired by German Nazi and Italian Fascist ideologies it is behind virtually every anti-Muslim, anti-Christian violence and intimidation campaign. Despite paying lip service to Dr. Ambedkar and Dalit uplift it is tacitly behind atrocities against Dalits as well, because its warped ideas of cultural purity and Aryan superiority have the ultimate effect of producing hatred against the "impure" people.

It is inspired by Nazi idea of ethnic cleansing, the elimination of "impure" races to establish a divinely ordained society of twice-born Aryans. This, in a nutshell, is the teaching of Dr Baliram Hedgewar, also known as "Masterji", who was the founder of RSS. The same ideas have been elucidated and explained more clearly by Hedgewar's successor, Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar, also known as "Guruji" among his followers. Masterji and Guruji sowed a seed that bore poisonous fruit. The most high-profile victim of this hate ideology was Mahatma Gandhi. The murder of the Mahatma was, and still remains, a high-visibility act of terror with few parallels.

Their fascination with mass violence is so intense that they are forever charmed by Hitler and regard him as a spiritual guru of sorts. While they no longer publicly express their admiration for Hitler and his extermination of Jews, gypsies and communists, they do nurse a desire to kill off Muslims, Christians, communists and all other "undesirable" classes. Such desire is not always unspoken. There is one classic example of this, reported in newspapers in the week before the demolition of Babri Masjid in 1992. Sangh goondas, wearing saffron bands, used to harass Muslims travelling in trains. In one such case Muslims travelling from Maharashtra to UP were attacked by the goondas without provocation. The surprised Muslims asked, "Bhai Saab, hamara kya qasoor hai?" To that one of them replied, "Hum tumarhe Bhai nahin hain, hum Hitler ke Bhai hain."

This desire to become Hitler and terrorise others has manifested itself in hundreds of anti-Muslim riots and assorted criminal acts. Interestingly, around the time Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated, then Uttar Pradesh chief secretary Madhav Godbole got a steel trunk belonging to Golwalkar seized by the police. The trunk was stuffed with detailed maps of Muslim populations in UP. It had an ethnic cleansing plan to kill most of them and drive the rest to Pakistan. Fortunately, that plan was foiled and the perpetrators went into hiding, to resurface soon and cook up more plans to attack Muslims.

The blood lust of these terrorists was never satisfied. And this ideological thread of terror and intimidation runs through the entire fabric of Sangh thought. Now, see this open admiration for and support to Nazi genocide in Golwalkar's We, Or Our Nationhood Defined:

German race pride has now become the topic of the day. To keep up the purity of the race and its culture, Germany shocked the world by her purging the country of the Semitic Races--the Jews. Race pride at its highest has been manifested here. Germany has also shown how impossible it is for races and cultures, having differences going to the root, to be assimilated into one united whole, a good lesson for us in Hindustan to learn and profit by.

Over the last six decades we have seen how well they have learnt the lesson from Nazis and how thoroughly they have profited from that learning. Golwalkar's guru Veer Damodar Savarkar was no less an admirer of Nazism. Savarkar said in his presidential remarks at the 22nd session of Hindu Mahasabha in 1940, "Nazism proved undeniably the saviour of Germany under the set of circumstances Germany was placed in." Incidentally, Savarkar was the first to articulate the concept of Hindutva, an idea akin to Nazism-Fascism and clearly distinguished from Hinduism.

You will find the same thread of anti-Muslim hate and hysteria running through the entire Hindutva narrative. Anti-minorities terror is part of this ideological baggage driven by hate and fear. As India expert Paul Brass rightly points out, communal riots are integral to its political script. One of the most high-profile manifestations, of this was the Ayodhya campaign and the spate of anti-Muslim communal riots preceding, during and after Babri Masjid demolition. Of course, we had Gujarat 2000 and myriad other anti-Muslim pogroms, followed by Malegaon, Samjhauta Express, Makkah Masjid, Delhi Jama Masjid and half a dozen other bomb attacks by Sangh terrorists. We have not certainly seen the last of it.

BUT WHERE IS THE MIGHTY INDIAN STATE?

This question has been frequently raised by academics, Indian and foreign. Where does the mighty Indian state go away when the country is being burnt down by mobs led by Sangh activists? Why does the Indian state abdicate in favour of the unruly, violent, blood-thirsty mob? Who is the more powerful of the two, the mob or the state? After all, the state is supposed to have a monopoly on coercion and violence. Nowhere in the civilised world the state stands aside and looks passively as the mob takes over. Why do you think the state has been given a large army, air force, navy, police, paramilitary forces, magistracy? Of course, to protect citizens' life, limb, property, honour and dignity. Then why does the Indian state run away in the face of a handful of goondas?

No nation can be built like this. One of the founders of the US constitution, John Adams (who later became President John Adams, soon to be followed by his son President Quincy Adams) wrote in the canonical Federalist Papers that citizens give up some of their freedoms in favour of the state, which in turn is obliged to protect the citizenry. The Indian state, right from 1947, has failed this test consistently.

Journalist and former academic Siddhartha Vardhrajan pointedly raises this question in his (edited) book on Gujarat 2000. He wonders as to why does the Indian state fail consistently, whether it is India 1984 or Gujarat 2002. We cannot, can never think of building the nation without building the nation state. Look at Somalia, which has disintegrated into a conglomeration of mutually warring tribes as the state has dissolved. Are we heading towards such a situation? God forbid.

WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

It is frightening to contemplate the course on which Hindutva terror has been driving the country over the last six decades and more. Where will all this lead to? Orissa government watches as Sangh terrorists burn village after Christian village, church after church, priest after priest, for a whole month. Then it halts for a while before another long round begins. At one single moment several states are in the grip of Sangh violence, loot, rape and arson. The states blame the victims, in this case Christian, as the Centre dishes out empty threats. Anti-Christian violence alternates with anti-Muslim violence. This business never stops. The perpetrators are the same everywhere, Sangh functionaries of one stripe or the other. We have also witnessed anti-Sikh riots of 1984. The foot soldiers were the same then, although their leaders were different. Anti-minorities violence has become the order of the day.

Again, we ask where is the justice delivery system? The Mumbai bomb blasts accused of 1993 were caught and jailed for long terms. But what about the perpetrators of anti-Muslim riots of 1992-93 in the same Mumbai? Nothing. And what happened to the killers of Maliana and Hashimpura? Again, nothing. And what happened to the criminals who staged dozens of riots in 1992 and demolished the Babri Masjid? All of them became Union ministers of cabinet rank. The leading figure became the Home Minister and Deputy Prime Minister of India. Home Minister is responsible for law and order, prevention of terrorist attacks etc. This was a nice example of "hire a thief to catch a thief." Now the same man is our shadow prime minister, to use a British expression. Let us hope he will have better luck this time around and catch terrorists, including himself. In 1993, the CBI had recommended that these people be charged under laws dealing with terrorism. Jurist NC Setalvad, too, had made the same plea.

How do we go about building the nation if the state itself becomes a party to terrorist acts? How can we build the nation if one of the main persons responsible for the demolition of Babri Masjid and the concomitant bloodshed gets away with just a few hours imprisonment (of less than a day). This man was then Chief Minister of UP, responsible for law and order and protection of human lives, besides, of course, the Babri Masjid. Having experienced the weakness of law he became so emboldened that he claimed openly (using posters and other media), "Jo kahte hain, so karte hein" (we do what we claim). The promise of breaking the mosque amid monumental violence was really followed up with the dastardly deed.

Now the question is, "Is it how we think a nation is built?" Is it how a justice delivery system functions in a democracy? If we go by terrorism expert Jonathan Barker's definition of state terror, this was a perfect example of state terror. The state terror under the BJP-led NDA at the Centre followed up its criminal deed by trying to put the onus on mosques, madarsas and Muslims under the forgery called Group of Ministers (Advani, Fernandes, Jaswant) Report. Thanks to the cynical manipulation of law, this document prepared by perpetrators of terrorism, has now a semi-statutory status, we are told.

THE OTHER FACE OF SANGH TERROR

Late Qazi Mujahidul Islam Qasmi was a visionary. On December 6, 1992 he was sitting quietly in the afternoon when news of Babri Masjid demolition was pouring in. By then most of it had already been destroyed. He looked pretty grim, not just for the historic mosque (one of the few remnants of the great Sarcenian architecture and a UNESCO World Heritage site). When queried about his silence, he said that so much violence against Muslims was going on (and Muslims would fill jails in cases related to the violence) that in the backdrop of this historic act of aggression, some Muslim youth would certainly be misled into terrorism.

Qazi Sahab was afraid that Muslims would be denied justice and some misguided youth would think that as the political system had failed them and even judiciary had not protected them, they must take to the gun and try to protect their life, limb, honour and property. Qazi Sahab warned that this would amount to playing in the hands of the Sangh, which was the perpetrator of this historic crime. He said we must at all cost prevent our youth from taking law into their own hands and observe patience (sabr) even if the state, the society and judiciary fail us.

Soon after that, massive anti-Muslim riots (organised by Shiv Sena and Sangh groups) began in Mumbai. They continued for more than 10 days as the state of Maharashtra as well as the Centre looked the other way. At the height of the violence, when train loads of Muslims were fleeing the city, the former prime minister Chandrashekhar was in Mumbai. Talking to newsmen he broke into tearful sobs and predicted, "I am afraid soon the Muslims are going to take up arms." Till then no Muslim youth was ever reported to be involved in terrorist activity. The community as a whole was deeply upset about the drift of things. No community likes that its youth should go astray. That's why when the names of Muslim youth began to appear in connection with terrorist acts, the elders of the community were aghast with horror and disbelief. They could not believe that their youth would go astray after suffering the scourge of Sangh terror for four and a half decades. The community is trying very hard to check this trend.

Then we began to hear stories that Sangh strategists were planning to provoke Muslim youth into terrorism to have the ultimate pleasure of hunting them down from Apache helicopter gunships. To us this looked like a far-fetched idea in 1993, but 15 years down the line Mr M.K. Narayanan, the national security advisor, came out in public with the idea that he was not averse to using helicopter gunships against Indians. For him the only problem was political propriety of the proposition. We must appreciate the long-term planning of Sangh strategists.

Now that horrendous events like Mumbai attack have become part of our consciousness, we know that too many external elements and agencies have entered the scene. Although one-fourth of the number of Mumbai attack victims were Muslims and all attackers were outsiders, BJP tried to corner the Indian Muslims once again over the issue. We are convinced that even the handful of Indian Muslims accused of terrorist acts are the other face of Sangh terror as they have arisen from Sangh terror itself.

The rise of Hindu bomb-makers and bombers, too, is part of the same narrative. In the meanwhile, other major terror threats like Naxalites and sundry groups in the north-east are ignored by the security agencies.

SO, HOW DO WE BUILD THE NATION?

The first and foremost thing to be done is that we recognise the existence of terrorism of different hues that includes both state terrorism and group terrorism. The civil society has to act to defuse the fire and the justice delivery system has to begin to deliver justice, and also be seen to be delivering justice.

The right to equal protection of law is a hallmark of democracy, but it is conspicuous by its absence in our system. Victims of anti-minority violence, anti-tribal and anti-Dalit violence often find that their FIRs are either not lodged by the police, or the complaints against the perpetrators are diluted. Intellectual and human rights activist Madhu Kishwar complains that the police refuse to listen to the victims of crimes against women and the poor but are quick to record "complaints by goondas against human rights activists." Certainly, this is not the right way to build the nation. Equal protection of law has to be operational in all cases.

For years we have been asking for an inclusive discourse on these issues, instead of the motivated Sangh discourse on Islam, mosques, Muslims and madrasas. We have also been demanding an Equal Opportunities Commission on the lines of UK's Race Relations Commission. This body must have some muscle and statutory teeth to set things right.

We have also been demanding a judicial commission to go into all major episodes of mass violence. This could be an instrument of healing like South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission. We must act on several fronts to eradicate terrorism and build the nation. We must begin it right away, for tomorrow could be too late.