Sangh Parivar

The serial blasts in Jaipur on May 14
were apparently the 21st successful operation (outside Jammu & Kashmir) by
radical Islamists against the people of India.

The 70 or so people
who died horrible deaths last Tuesday joined the 3,674 Indians who are known to
have been killed by a galaxy of terrorists in the 50-month period from January
2004. The statistics, diligently collated by The Times of India, suggest that
India is second only to Iraq in the number of people killed by terrorists. The
"merchants of death" have never had it so good.

The story of
Incredible India is truly remarkable. It would be difficult discovering too
many societies where a Government tries to cover up its pathetic helplessness
by projecting the organised killings of the aam aadmi -commuters on suburban
trains, scientists attending seminars, housewives shopping for Diwali and
devotees worshipping at temples - as karma and cruel fate. In normal democratic
societies, the existence of well-organised terror networks would have prompted
outrage. In India, it has prompted a curious response: A blend of capitulation
and denial.

The capitulation has
been shamefully brazen. In trying to dispel the assertion that terrorists don't
deserve human rights, the UPA Government has gone out of its way to assert that
terror suspects shouldn't suffer any discrimination. The architect of the
Coimbatore bomb blasts, for example, turned his prison cell into a massage
parlour before the authorities engineered his acquittal. The convicted
perpetrator of the attack on Parliament idles away his time in prison with the
full knowledge that the Government lacks the anatomical wherewithal to carry
out the punishment awarded to him by courts.

For liberal India -
UPA represents its most disfigured face - the important thing about terror is
to deny its existence as far as possible. It has become almost a ritual for the
Centre to greet every jihadi orgy with the assertion that we must not be
provoked into enacting strong anti-terrorist legislation. For the
English-language TV channels, the socalled "spirit of Mumbai" or the
tale of Jaipur's "resilience", is invariably contrasted with the
savage response of Gujarat to the carnage in Godhra.

It's one thing to
invoke the gritty, stiff upper-lip approach as a byword for quiet
determination. It's another thing to believe, like the infamous Mohammed Shah,
that Delhi is still a fair distance away, and declare an unending happy hour
for terrorist marauders. To mindlessly repeat after every outrage that terrorists
are "cowards" is to miss the point. The issue is not about the lack
of personal integrity of the bombers. It's about why the Centre has been
emasculated by the terrorists.

It can hardly be the
case that even someone as vacuously inept as Home Minister Shivraj Patil
approves these attacks on what the Indian Mujahedeen email called the
Kuffar-e-Hind (infidels of India). Like the inflation monster which threatens
to eat up the Congress electorally in Karnataka, terrorists have alienated the
UPA Government from large chunks of urban India. Yet, why is the Congress
hellbent on courting unpopularity by persisting with its appeasement of terror?

After every
terrorist atrocity, every religious head worth his name has invariably
denounced the terrorists and prayed earnestly for peace. A massive conference
was organised in Deoband some months ago to inform the terrorists that killing
innocent civilians is theologically unsound. Therefore, if electoral support is
what the UPA is after - a legitimate preoccupation in a democracy - why isn't
the Manmohan Singh Government hitting the terrorists hard, and where it hurts?
Logically speaking, by adopting a robust anti-terror policy the Government
could have clawed its way back on popularity charts.

Unfortunately, there
is a striking mismatch between reality as projected by breathless TV anchors
and the truth in real life. There has been mounting evidence to show that the
bombers are not foreign disruptionists who merely "sneak" into India,
carry out an operation and then disappear into their cubby holes in Pakistan
and Bangladesh.

The post-mortem of
every terrorist outrage points to local networks of radical extremism that act
as facilitators. The leadership of the Student's Islamic Movement (they have
dispensed with the "India" suffix) isn't foreigners; they are people
who can quite legitimately claim Indian passports.

India is confronted
by home-grown, ideologically-driven terror. The Government doesn't want to
admit it. Nor does it plan to act against it for fear of unsettling people who
vote en bloc. It persists with its hypocrisy and double-speak on the cynical
belief that the Kuffar-e-Hind is incapable of responding in a united way.

No wonder there is
growing liberal indignation at Rajasthan Government's decision to deport
illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. If people have entered India without valid
papers, they deserve to be expelled - whether Bangladesh likes it or not. The
compulsion is greater if it is established that Bangladeshi ghettos have served
as sanctuaries for HUJI and other terror groups. Yet, just days after the
outrage there is liberal clamour to keep many corners of Rajasthan forever
Bangladeshi.

An effective
anti-terror policy can be built on a combination of effective policing and
social deterrence. That India needs a dedicated federal counter-terrorism body
is undeniable. It is heartening that even the Congress has come around to this
position. However, efficient policing and accurate Intelligence have to be
complemented by all-round vigilance. A zero tolerance policy on terrorism
implies creating an environment that discourages local support to bombers.

All deterrence is
based on fear of recrimination. Anti-terror strategies in India are hamstrung
because support networks of terror enjoy political patronage. Our cities will
become safer once the bombers and facilitators realise that every crime will be
met by active intolerance.

Source : The Pioneer (Delhi edition)

Date: 18-may-2008   

Author : Swapan Das Gupta