Danger on the doorstep

By Neena Vyas

IMMEDIATELY AFTER the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, the Government in New Delhi gave the impression that at last India had been able to get Pakistan where it wanted it. Sooner rather than later, Pakistan would surely find itself in the list of countries which had harboured and sponsored terrorism, and Washington was now determined to root out the evil to defend democracy and freedom. In one stroke, India was able to get its point of view across.

New Delhi rushed with its offer of every kind of help to fight the global war against terrorism, rather grandiosely declared by Washington and quickly joined in by its NATO allies. After all, India had been at the receiving end of terrorist attacks for well over a decade - the Khalistanis in Punjab, the assorted groups of jehadis in Kashmir, the insurgency in the Northeast, the Naxals in West Bengal, Bihar and Andhra Pradesh - and, as the Prime Minister reminded the country, over 50,000 innocent lives had been lost in them.

Three major political leaders had been assassinated in India, directly or indirectly they had all been victims of terrorism or a mentality indistinguishable from those of terrorists. Mahatma Gandhi fell to the bullets of an assassin, Indira Gandhi was the victim of terrorism as was Rajiv Gandhi a decade later. And what better opportunity than now to put India's services at the disposal of the world community led by the U.S. in the fight against terrorism?

However, the danger was - and New Delhi seemed to be oblivious of this - that although the attacks on America were horrendous and those who perpetrated them needed to be brought to book, it was necessary to ponder over Washington's credentials to lead a war against the Taliban in Afghanistan. What has been glossed over completely is the harsh fact that it was Washington which had armed and trained the Taliban through billions of dollars given to Pakistan to fight Russian dominance of Afghanistan during the Cold War period. Osama bin Laden was a creation of its own intelligence agency, the CIA. The parallel in India was striking, for Bhindranwale who led Khalistani terrorism here was also a creation of Indira Gandhi, who wanted to split the Akalis, and Rajiv Gandhi had also become a victim of the LTTE, an organisation which was at one time nurtured by his mother.

Against the backdrop of these complicated power games played by different nations, the rhetorical statements of good against evil and civilised society against barbarians cannot be taken at face value without further endangering internal security. The contradictions are so obvious, for the last century had seen evil coming from the so-called civilised society - Vietnam, Nagasaki and Hiroshima and Hitler's holocaust, to name only a few.

To come back to the horrendous events of September 11, the Taliban has warned of a jehad against America and all those who cooperate with it. And the American President, Mr. George W. Bush, let slip what was on his mind (although later he retracted), a `crusade' against those who harbour terrorists. And coincidentally, all the `states' which are being mentioned as possible targets in the near or distant future are Islamic - Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, among others. The Gulf War was fought, rightly, to force Saddam Hussain to vacate Iraq's aggression against Kuwait, but Israel continues to occupy what belongs to Palestine. No action against that.

There is every danger for India and all other countries that have a sizeable Muslim population (with significantly large moderate opinion against the jehadi mentality) that the so-called U.S.-led global war against terrorism may degenerate into a sectarian war against Islam, or at least it may be seen as such.

India has fought its own war against terrorism for two decades and longer. No country in the world helped, not even a word of condemnation came. And the Government has realised, as had previous Governments, that without a political solution it will be difficult to end the cycle of violence, especially in Kashmir and the Northeast. A war between the U.S. and Afghanistan cannot offer a quick-fix solution to Kashmir.

Intelligence agencies have been warning about a whole network of organisations engaged in subversive activities. Rabidly communal and dangerous organisations such as the SIMI, the misuse of madrassas for questionable activities, the Bajrang Dal's hate campaign against the Christians and the Church - religion has become a weapon of hate in the hands of all kinds of sectarian organisations.

One thing has become clear after the attacks on America. No matter what the security checks in place, if a highly motivated group of persons is ready to die it is extremely difficult to prevent spectacular terrorist crimes. Desperation and dejection, poverty and unemployment, alienation, narcotics and gun-running, and finally religion mixed with these makes for explosive terrorism. And there is no dearth of these ingredients in India.

The internal security implications of a full scale war in our neighbourhood which the U.S. (with a reluctant Pakistan by its side) is getting ready for are far-reaching. Do we need this additional spark with nonsensical emotional overtones of `jehad' and `crusade' and `good against evil'?

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