Challenged... again

Given that this article was posted so long after the tragic blasts in Ahmedabad and Bangalore, we have the advantage of hindsight. In some ways, the Gujarat Chief Minister has already answered the question posed to him in the headline above. Twice now, anti-national elements have thrown the gauntlet before Modi and both times the iron man has risen to the occasion. Having had the delight of watching the perpetrators of the Gujarat blasts pulled out of their foxholes in Andhra, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, UP and Kerala on national television, we begin this post by praising the genius of the man who combines a powerful will for development with a determination to crush the enemies of the state; as well as by hailing the Gujarat police for delivering this major success. In less than one month after the Gujarat blasts, the police has not only laid bare the plot behind the events in Ahmedabad, but also solved the Bangalore blasts, exposed the identity of the Indian Mujahiddeen as well as the extent and depth of their all India network.

The political fallout of the Gujarat blasts was minimal; while the BJP harped on its demand for reinstatement of POTA, the ruling Congress hedged the issue with hackneyed arguments over human rights and “secularism”. The result, of course, is that India, the nation which has the distinction of suffering the highest number of terrorist attacks per year, does not have a law dealing explicitly with terrorism. Instead, a cynical Digvijay Singh told reporters: “Whenever the BJP is in trouble, blasts take place”. How can we fight terrorism if the ruling polity will not even acknowledge the existence of terrorism in the country?

The recent spate of blasts reflects the lack of Government will to fight terror. It is safe to say that had this happened in the US, Canada or any of the nations of Europe, there would have been overwhelming pressure on the Government to act, in any way possible, in a knee jerk manner if so be. It is a pity that we the people of India, on the other hand, did not find such punitive action to be necessary, much less a pressing concern; it is a sign that despite the fact that our national esteem has grown manifold in the last few years, we continue to undervalue our lives, our rights and entitlements as citizens of a powerful democratic state. The courts cannot act unless the government gives it the laws to work with. While the UPA government continues to see the repeal of POTA as one of its “achievements”, GUJCOC (a clone of POTA that applies only to Gujarat) gathers dust in the office of the President. The lack of will to fight applies not only to terrorists, but also to Maoist guerrillas. Despite Prime Minister Dr. Singh having referred to Naxals as the “greatest internal security threat”, his government has done precious little to contain and crush this movement as it proceeds across state lines, cutting deep into the Indian tribal heartland. The proposed all India mechanism for fighting the Naxals has remained only on paper. The lone hero of the battle against red terror has been Chief Minister Y S Reddy, who seems to have stemmed the raging tide of Naxal violence in his state, particularly in the Telengana region. In the absence of Central forces to fight Maoist guerrillas, the Raman Singh government has had to go for a dangerous gamble by creating the Salwa Judum. Although the Salwa Judum has strengthened the hand of the state in Chhattisgarh, the fact that it exists and is necessary undermines the fact that we live in a modern nation where citizens are supposed to be protected by legitimate armed forces.

The Gujarat blasts, as well as all other terrorist attacks, make it necessary to start a frank discussion on Islam in India. While the media made much over the rise of the “Indian Mujahiddeen”, this is only manufactured news. It would be naïve to think that the terrorist attacks in India to this date have been conceived, plotted and executed entirely by enemy elements from Pakistan and Bangladesh, with no cooperation from local Muslims. However, this idea does fit into the preferred framework for the Left Wing and pseudo-secular press, which, for all its professed liberal internationalism, sees terrorism in India entirely as a response to the Babri demolition and the Gujarat riots, rather than as part of a larger global conspiracy against civilization. Frontline led the way in this regard, stopping just short of saying that “Gujaratis are bad people who deserve to die anyway”. But then, these are people who would rather believe in the continued existence of the “Project for a new American century” rather than in the existence of Al-Qaeeda.

The Indian state is secular and cannot bother to concern itself with the nuances of every conceivable religion. The Indian state should be concerned with ensuring the dignity of security of its citizens. As such, it is the primary duty of the Muslims in India to spill out onto the streets spontaneously and disown terrorism. The state need not know what Islam “really” is; or for that matter, what the “real” version Hinduism, Christianity, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, Scientology and sundry others is. The state needs to make sure that our children have a chance to study modern science, our women can assert themselves fully and achieve their entire potential and that our citizens enjoy their rights and liberties free from discrimination and coercion. We need to ask tough questions: why do we have an “All India Muslim Personal Law Board”? It is disrespectful to Indians in general and Muslims in particular to have their democratic interests represented by a self appointed organization. And even if they were to be elected, did we not agree long ago that Muslims are NOT a separate nation within India; and that India is ONE nation devoid of all dual identities?