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A heinous act

THE HEINOUS TERRORIST attack on the Swaminarayan sect's Akshardham temple complex in Gandhinagar (Gujarat), which clearly ranks among the most dastardly of such assaults on innocent civilians outside Jammu and Kashmir, deserves to be condemned in the strongest of terms by everyone who has even a modicum of faith in basic human values and civilised behaviour. The sense of outrage the incident has evoked worldwide is reflective of the heightened anti-terror mood generated by the global campaign post-9/11. While the exact identity of the terrorist elements that perpetrated the dark deed may take some time to be established conclusively, one cannot peremptorily dismiss the fact that the attack has come at a time when the externally-backed jehadi groups are under tremendous international pressure and when the Jammu and Kashmir-specific terrorist menace (especially in the context of the ongoing Assembly elections) is being tackled in all seriousness. In fact, the immediate official reactions — from the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, and the Deputy Prime Minister, L. K. Advani, downwards — have been absolutely clear about the Gandhinagar episode being an act of "desperation" by terrorist elements patronised from across the border, a "frustrated" lot.

Whoever is responsible, there is little doubt about the diabolical design behind the Gandhinagar incident that left around 30 persons dead and over 100 others wounded. The consolatory and reassuring part of course is that a few hundred more worshippers and tourists trapped inside the temple complex were evacuated by the security forces before the two-member terrorist squad could be tackled in a smooth commando operation. In targeting a high-profile place of worship in a State that has seen the communal temperature rising in recent months, the perpetrators have obviously sought to further their sinister objective of destabilising the polity by provoking a communal backlash. Given this context, it is indeed heartening that the political class across the country has, in a remarkable display of solidarity and spontaneity, responded with a passionate public appeal for restraint and peace and a pledge to ensure that communal harmony is not allowed to be disrupted, whatever the provocation from the terrorist forces. After all, the challenge from such subversive elements is to civil society — and all the liberal values that it cherishes as for instance participative democracy, pluralism and rule of law — and not to any particular segment of it. Any response that fails to recognise this fundamental proposition will betray a total lack of maturity and, what is more, result in playing into the hands of the saboteurs themselves.

In practical terms, this will require, first, that the political parties resist the temptation of competitive politicking by embarking upon such potentially divisive and violence-prone activities as protest demonstrations or bandhs. At a more substantive level, the anti-terror combat must be looked upon and operated scrupulously as such and not turned into a medium for harassing or persecuting any particular community. Obvious though it is, caution on this score has become necessary in the context of some ominous developments underscoring communally-divisive trends in several parts of the country and in Gujarat in particular. As a matter of conscientiously committed principle, the entire political class must reach out to the masses with the message of communal amity and harmony, not seek to drive a wedge between different religious groups for narrow partisan gains. There could be no better or more effective way of frustrating the attempts of the terrorist elements to set one community against another as a tactic to secure their vicious end. What is at stake in the fight against terrorism is really the very soul of the nation, which in turn lies in such values as secularism and multiethnicity.

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