The three-day echo

We need to think through terrorism and its politics a while longer

Some security experts like to call the pattern 8220;teen din ka bukhar8221;, a fever that typically grips the country for three days and gets cured on its own. Every time bomb blasts hit one of our cities and claim dozens of innocent lives, the country is convulsed by a fit of rage and finger-pointing. Newspapers and TV channels churn out serial offerings on what is wrong with our security and intelligence agencies, why there is no coordination between the states and the Centre, on whether we need a federal investigating agency, how big the foreign hand is now and if the latest round of bloodletting could have been prevented by a law such as POTA. Sources in the security agencies drop hints about the involvement of one or the other outfit in the alphabet soup 8212; LeT, JeM, HUJI, SIMI 8212; that is now routinely cited to explain terror attacks in our cities. The victimised cities clear the debris left behind, bury their dead, claim their compensations and move on while the media switches to the latest crime of passion, political drama or sporting circus. Until the next wave of blasts. This has been as true as it is cynical.

The fever lasted a little more than three days after the serial blasts in Jaipur in May in which about 65 people were killed. And that was thanks to some verbal duelling between Rajasthan8217;s combative chief minister, Vasundhara Raje, and Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil over bundling out all Bangladeshis. Also, because the debate over a federal investigative agency lasted for a few more days than it usually does. This time, the fever is expected to take a little longer to cure since two big cities have been targeted on successive days and more bombs are being recovered from a third city even as the blood on the streets of Ahmedabad is yet to be washed clean. But all signs point towards the immediate response to these twin outrages being no different.

During the last five years, about 600 people have been killed in 12 major bomb attacks on Indian cities and towns as well as the one on the Samjhauta

Express last year. Enough has been written about how this makes India the most targeted country after Iraq, and perhaps Afghanistan, to not be repeated here. But should it not come as a surprise that a country that has battled terrorism since the 8217;80s and lost leaders and commoners to it alike, has the fourth-largest military in the world, is working to send missions to the moon and is trying to position itself as a global power, does not have a clear, national counter-terrorism strategy even on paper let alone in action?

Once this is accepted, the rest of our responses are natural corollaries, the tired excuse of law and order being a state subject notwithstanding. Whether it is the inability of our security agencies to prevent terrorist attacks or track and nab the perpetrators, or, for instance, the simple need for an IPS officer to rely more on a friendly batch-mate in another state for help when a trail leads to that state.

Now that it is generally suspected that the perpetrators of most of the recent terror attacks probably belong to a section of homegrown, disaffected Muslim youth, the problem of countering it is more of an internal challenge than one of blaming our troubled neighbours to the west or the east. And in this season of having courageously made up its mind to open its arms to global assistance to help tide over the energy crisis, the establishment could look outside to at least draw some inspiration to put in place and implement a counter-terrorism strategy that seems to be working well in the countries that have one.

Britain, for instance, began implementing a long-term counter-terrorism strategy in early 2003 with the aim of reducing the risk from international terrorism so that people can go about their business freely and with confidence. The strategy involves government departments, emergency services, voluntary groups, businesses and international partners; aspects include preventing radicalisation of sections of society by addressing inequalities and discrimination, challenging the ideologies and the politics of hate, building the capabilities to respond to attacks and continuously evaluating and testing the preparedness to stop them. To be fair to Indian security agencies and policy-makers, a few elements of such a strategy do exist, but unfortunately they are lost in the creative chaos of an internal security system that is as disjointed as it needs to be cohesive.

Story continues below this ad

The other bigger challenge is the need for a sense of national reconciliation on the lines of what South Africa8217;s Truth and Reconciliation Commission has achieved. The demolition of the Babri Masjid and the Gujarat riots have left too deep a scar on the psyche of India8217;s Muslims for it to be healed by time or sidetracked by the politics of minorityism and majorityism. While this is no argument to justify violence in the name of religion or any other cause, spare a thought for the Muslim boy who was perhaps in primary school when the mosque in Ayodhya was razed or in college when Gujarat burned, and ended up becoming a radicalised SIMI activist or Indian Mujahideen, assuming they are indeed behind these attacks.

If Jaipur, Bangalore and Ahmedabad have a message for our politicians and administrators, it is this: the time for divisive politics over religion or terror is well behind us. This is the time to atone for our recent past, heal and forge a sense of political and social unity to tackle terror instead of cynically exploiting suffering with an eye to another magical 272 MPs next year. Which is why Narendra Modi calling out the army within hours of the blasts and joining hands with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during the latter8217;s visit to Ahmedabad on Monday gives hope. And Sonia Gandhi avoiding Modi, and Sushma Swaraj floating absurd conspiracy theories, spark despondency.

yp.rajeshexpressindia.com