The brazen face of terror: Bonded by a threat

India's diagnosis of terrorism and its subsequent interventions on this issue now stand vindicated after the recent events in the U.S., says DIPANKAR GUPTA.

WHEN American missiles slammed into Iraq during the Gulf War, there were many in India who mourned the civilians in Baghdad and elsewhere who died blamelessly. When Gaddafi's daughter was targeted, the few who condemned this act stood out as woolly- headed idealists. Today, when America is attacked why is it that in India the numbers who condemn the attack are so great? Why is the quality of our grief that much more intense? Why do we feel that we too must seek revenge for what happened in distant America? Can so many people have misplaced emotions?

It is a well-worn cliche that we are all profoundly influenced by the mass media. It is hard to beat the western world, most of all America, in the production of graphic television news.

But we can always switch to some other fun and games channel with its songs, dances and steamy romances. Why are we riveted to scenes of an urban apocalypse when we have other options?

American mass media is hard to resist not just because of the quality of their production, which even makes a biased portrayal appear fair and authentic, but also because America is in many ways close to our hearts; much closer, if the truth be told, than Iraq or Libya. For many of us in India, America is a land of our golden futures. One can earn merit there, get rich, and lead a lifestyle free from the constraints of an encumbered past. America is where opportunities are to be grasped with both hands and where a million careers (even the wild and the whacky) have room to grow. To top it all there is the glitz, the glamour and the good looks. America is many splendoured and casts its influence in a myriad ways. It takes a catastrophe, like the felling of the World Trade Centre, to enliven the presence of America in our consciousness.

From films, to fashion, to technology, it is America we are looking at for leads practically all the time. Some people are fortunate enough to have already realised their goals and are now residents in New York, San Francisco, or Chicago.

Others are waiting in line and raring to touch American soil, clutching folios bursting with realisable ambitions and plans. There are still others, and by far the largest chunk, who know they will never come close to the farthest shore of America and yet pleasantly fantasise about it. These are the many hues of the magic called "The American Dream".

It is the subscription, real and vicarious, to the American Dream that makes all the difference. It is this that explains, to a large extent, the widespread anger and grief that cut across classes when the towers of the World Trade Centre collapsed. These twin peaks epitomised the pinnacles of American achievement, something that we in India have always admired and longed to be a part of. Unlike migrants to America, those who go to West Asia do not go in admiration, but with clenched teeth and determined wills to endure hardships, make money and run home.

This is why when lives are threatened in Iraq or elsewhere in West Asia, except for those directly involved, nobody else is bothered too much about it. West Asia might stoke greed among some Indians, but not envy, and never admiration.

Even during the politics of the Cold War period when America found Ayub Khan or Zulfikar Bhutto more affable than Nehru or Indira Gandhi, the American Dream was doing the rounds in India and flourishing in this hot and humid land. It was not admiration for American politics that attracted Indians to that country. Many of them may have deeply resented America's global ambitions and political dispensations.

Even so, America was where many Indians would like their golden futures to be worked out. America was indubitably the land of opportunity, promise, and where a wonderful life could be planned: who cares about its politics?

Subsequently, post Cold War, Pakistan has been scaled down in America's hierarchy of preference. This change of heart in the White House and the Pentagon warmed Indian hearts immensely. Bill Clinton's presidential trip to India signalled this change. We in India were overwhelmed by America's new recognition of our democratic track record and of our potential to be a close economic and political partner of western allies. Since then we have suffered a series of terrorist attacks and we turned to our rich ally for support. We wanted America to denounce Pakistan in the strongest of terms, but America hesitated and, frustratingly for us, equivocated.

It said all the right things about our democracy and so forth, but showed no passion on our behalf. Now that terrorists have struck at the heart of America we at last see a parity of status between our two countries. America is a superpower, we are not, America is efficient, we are probably just the opposite. Nevertheless, we are now equals as we have both been hit by identical forces of terror. It is this perceived similarity between us and the Americans that makes us empathise with them and to feel their grief and anger so personally within us. We were no longer sympathising, as it were, from a distance.

Our diagnosis of terrorism and our subsequent interventions in this respect now stand vindicated in the light of America's recent experiences and reactions. We have always advocated a full-scale onslaught against terrorism even if that meant giving notice to countries like Pakistan: and now America too is saying the same thing. This merger of hearts, where there was, at best, only a merger of minds, is deeply satisfying to most Indians. This is what has now drawn Indians of all strata closer to America. Even jingoists in both these countries seem to have developed identical perspectives and now have an identical enemy.

Hopefully, this surge of grief all over the world (for America inspires so many countries) will bring home the realisation that terrorism in any form, and by any name, is equally foul. This awareness may, and should temper, America's hand as it seeks retribution. It is important to hunt down terrorists and make them pay, but without adopting terrorist methods. Will America perhaps show us the way? Will America by its actions prove Pervez Musharraf wrong when he said in Agra that ends justify terrorist means; so what if a few innocents die in Kashmir for the larger cause of political self-determination? How many more carnages must take place, and how many more bodies and souls must turn to ash before we realise that there is no such thing as just terrorism?

The writer is a professor with the Centre for the Study of Social Systems, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi.

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