Terror talk

The number of Indian books on terror is far less compared to the sheer volume of 3,000 books that were penned after the Twin Towers collapsed on 9/11. Yet, books like Who Killed Karkare? by S M Mushrif,ex-Inspector-General of Police,Maharashtra; 26/11-Mumbai Attacked,edited by Harinder Baweja,Roli Books; 26/11 The Attack On Mumbai (Penguin Books); and War Zone Mumbai by Mrityunjay Bose are already out and focus on the strikes that shook the world last year.

However,books like Confronting Terrorism,edited by Maroof Raza,tackle a larger question: How is India equipped to deal with this menace which has been described as an ‘ultramodern,and a very traditional,conspiracy’? This collection of essays,by nine experts—strategic analysts and military historians—examine,among other issues,the capacity of India’s police and paramilitary forces to deal with well-equipped,meticulously planned terror attacks,the army’s ability to transform its ‘reactive mode’ to a more proactive approach and the complex dynamics of the nuclear terror threat.

Apart from this book which was released in Delhi on Monday evening,Penguin has brought out two books on terror this year,including The Al Qaeda Connection: The Taliban and Terror in Pakistan’s Tribal Areas by Imtiaz Gul. Drawing on his long familiarity with the region,this Pakistani journalist follows the trail of militancy and the manner in which it has evolved under Al Qaeda’s influence in tribal areas. Through first person accounts of encounters with local officials,militant leaders and followers,he talks about the death and destruction that they have wrought.

Currently,the writer in focus on the Random House India portal is Nicholas Schmidle,author of To Live or to Perish Forever: Two Tumultuous Years in Pakistan. He takes readers to Pakistan’s rioting streets; to Taliban camps in the North-West Frontier Province; and on many adventures as he provides a contemporary history of this region riven by internal conflict. Another journalist to probe the world of Taliban and Al Qaeda is Sally Neighbour,author of The Mother of Mohammed. “She discovers a world of converts and believers. This is a unique account from inside the jihadists’ mind that helps us to understand the magnetism of the Islamist cause,” says Akash Shah,head of Jaico Publishing House.

A new release from Roli Books,Decoding Intolerance: Riots and Emergence of Terrorsm in India,has the author Prateep K Lahiri discussing the history of religious fundamentalism as well as the phenomenon of terrorism in India and the world.

These books,far from being labelled ‘feel-good’,hold a mirror to the unsafe world we live in.