POLITICAL DIARY

New Delhi, 24 May 2008

Of Terror & Vote-Banks

WHAT ABOUT THE NATION, MR PATIL?

By Poonam I Kaushish

Foot-in-the-mouth disease is known to afflict many politicians. Perhaps it has something to do with their inflated image of self importance, which makes them forget to put their brain in gear when engaging their mouth. Or perhaps, it has something to do with perfecting the art of doublespeak. On being caught, it’s promptly dismissed as a ‘misquote’. Either way, they as well as we know it is a whole lot of balderdash, a weak excuse to cover their backside.

This one simply takes the cake, in fact it is unforgivable: The country’s Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil has equated hardcore terrorist Afzal Guru’s pending death sentence with that of Sarabjit Singh languishing in Pakistan. “People are saying that don’t hang an Indian in Pakistan, Sarabjit, and then they are demanding hanging of Afzal Guru here...this is not fair,” said Patil.

Clearly, either the Home Minister is playing obtuse or he does not understand the fine distinction that his utterances spell doom. One, it could lose New Delhi the right to ask Islamabad’s pardon for Sarabjit on the ground of mistaken identity. Two, both the accused are Indians, so how can Pakistan claim the right to seek Afzal Guru’s pardon? No matter these Patil gems came at a time when his colleague Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee was negotiating for Sarabjit’s pardon and the Pakistani Prime Minister had advised his President to oblige.

Making matters worse, Patil suggested that Afzal Guru could not be hanged just because political parties were demanding so. “Just because I don’t shout or enter into a ‘tu tu main main’ with others doesn’t mean I am soft. I am doing my duty with commitment that is all that matters. We have to follow the law...a humanitarian view has to be considered,” (sic) he asserted. Really? What about showing remorse for the families of those who laid down their lives to defend Parliament. Or does minority appeasement and vote-bank politics override India’s unity and security?

Arguably, if Indira Gandhi’s killers can be hanged, why can’t a terrorist who attacked Parliament? Are we to believe that Afzal Guru is being let off the hook simply because of religious considerations? That the Government does not want to do anything which may even remotely hurt the Muslim sentiment. Or be misconstrued as ‘deliberately’ singling out a person who belongs to a minority community, specially with elections to many State Assemblies later this year. Terrorism or no terrorism. More so, ignoring the fact that the Muslim clergy too has condemned the terrorists for bringing a bad name to the community.

The tragedy of Patil-speak is that it has descended to the base level of a Government-Opposition war of words. The Congress tom-toms the BJP-led NDA Government’s Kandhar fiasco to counter the Saffron Sangh’s shrill ‘UPA soft-on-terrorist” verbal blasts.  A case of the pot calling the kettle black! So busy are they in scoring brownie points that in their collective wisdom all have fuzzed the larger picture. We are talking about deadly terror which has enveloped India in its octopus-like embrace. Over 270 of the 670 districts in the country are terror-prone. Of these, 70 districts have already been ravaged by terrorists. Terror has already cost us more than 72,000 civilians and 12,000 security personnel. In the last three years alone, Islamic terrorists have killed 5,617 people. Can we then compartmentalize terror on the basis of caste and creed for the sake of votes?

As oft happens, the discourse on terrorism gets bogged down in a parrot-like repeat of predictable standard State response, mostly soft and ritualistic --- of more of the same. Merely curing the symptoms, not the disease. The Prime Minister talks of a new federal agency, the Chief Justice of India for a new legal framework to tackle terrorism and the Opposition clamour’s for ‘tough’ anti-terror laws. All wallow in the false belief that terror is merely a mind game which can be won peacefully by merely waving the white flag.

Recall, the Prime Minister had talked of setting up a federal agency after the Hyderabad blasts in September last. Excellent idea as it would be unencumbered by State boundaries and political interference. But nothing came of it. Simply because our polity uses terror attacks to hit at their rivals. Worse, our netas think small. The federal agency would result in them losing their exclusive control over law and order, a State subject and the powers to exert political and extraneous influence.

Clearly, the time has come that our polity should shed its blinkered communal approach. If the battle against terror has to be won, political considerations, communal pressures, administrative and police lethargy and a weak legal-judicial regime will have to be negated. New Delhi must realize that normal deterrence doesn’t work against a faceless and fearless enemy.

The only way to strike back is to carry the fight into the enemy camp effectively. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Former Punjab Governor, the late Dharma Vira was ever so right when under a spell of President’s rule during the height of Sikh militancy in the State he directed: “I have no use for live terrorists!” Indeed, the Kandhar fiasco would never have happened if only the three hijackers had been eliminated and not jailed.

The need of the hour is more effective intelligence gathering and implementation of existing laws dealing with terrorist crimes. One way is community policing, which would ensure accurate intelligence information leading to credible investigation. Interestingly, a former Director of the Intelligence Bureau, Ajit Doval, has blasted as “a myth the widespread belief that the terrorists strike anywhere, at any time and any target.”

In his view, they strike where their intentions and capabilities meet the opportunities. Hence, the success of counter-terrorism lies in degrading their capabilities, forcing them to change their intentions and denying them opportunities to strike. New Delhi, he feels needs to think of ways to neutralise their fast-growing domestic base, availability of hardware and human resource, collaborative linkages with organized crime, gun runners, drug syndicates, hawala operators, subversive radical groups et al.

We also need to revamp our anti-terror laws. Top experts agree that laws such as the defunct POTA are required. True, Parliament was attacked when POTA was in operation. Nevertheless, it helped in speedily tackling cases of terrorism and bringing culprits like Afzal Guru to book. A POTA-like anti-terror law would send a strong signal that India is no longer soft.

What next? Much depends upon the Government’s willingness to acknowledge without any sugar-coating that India is ensnared in terror’s vicious grip. Already prolonged inaction has proved much too costly and Patil-speak has worsened it. The Centre must launch major offensives to drive home the message that India has no use for a live terrorist.  Self-serving decisions of minority appeasement may feed the polity’s vote-banks. Ultimately, it will only spell double disaster. Enough of self-invited terrorism. India’s freedom and unity is at stake. ----- INFA

(Copyright India News & Feature Alliance)