Internal insecurity

Friday8217;s gun battle between security forces and terrorists in Delhi8217;s Jamia Nagar must force a shift in general and political thinking on internal security. This statement is of course an admission of national failure 8212; there has been enough evidence already demanding such a rethink, but our habits have proved to be regrettably resilient. Maybe the fact that the Jamia Nagar incident brings into sharp relief some truths national discussion has wanted to shy away from, will help break the status quo. The locality, almost exclusively Muslim-populated, is gentrified. Urban professionals are the typical residents. And here8217;s therefore demonstration of an extremely worrying and sad truth 8212; that extremism is not a product of the nurturing of poor neighbourhoods that offer few opportunities for young men. Indeed, it can be said that terrorism8217;s domestic projects in India have been more or less led and executed by members of social classes who are hard to categorise as have-nots materially. This is not a staggering sociological fact given that the murderous, 8220;class enemy8221; liquidating Naxalites of the 8217;70s and not a few of the Khalistanis of the 8217;80s were from literate, white-collar classes. But what makes violence in the name of Islam by educated Indian Muslims especially problematic is that India8217;s Muslims are 15 per cent of the country8217;s population and, more important, the idea of India loses an extraordinary amount of vitality and meaning if its largest minority is seen and sees itself as the Other. Therefore the political project following the admission that there8217;s a serious domestic terrorism problem has to have two agendas.

First, don8217;t trade in fake political correctness. Indian Muslims don8217;t deserve hypocrisy because the assumption that straight talk on domestic terrorism will affect the entire community actually condemns the entire community. It also makes Indian Muslims more, not less, vulnerable to popular and political caricature. That encourages brutish communal responses that in turn are used by terrorists as justification. This is, wittingly or otherwise, forgotten by politicians of the kind who question their own government8217;s actions against SIMI, an organisation viewed as dangerous by many Muslim commentators.

Second, following from the first, politics has to reach out to the Muslim community in honest, intelligent ways. Indian Muslims, never more than now, need evidence that India hears the message that a vast majority of them are appalled by the actions of a few, that the community probably has the biggest stake in stopping terrorism. Those who communalise terrorism don8217;t help in this. But those who communalise the fight against terror don8217;t help either. The 8220;Hindu vote bank8221; has often failed the first lot. The second lot is risking a similar verdict from the 8220;Muslim vote bank8221;.