India playing politics with
terrorism By Sudha Ramachandran
BANGALORE - After the terrorist attacks in
Mumbai, the Indian government has come under
immense pressure to adopt a more robust policy
toward tackling terrorism. While on the external
front there is demand for stern action against
Pakistan - some are even calling for military
strikes on terrorist camps based in Pakistan - on
the domestic front there have been strident calls
for reviving draconian anti-terrorism legislation
that was repealed a couple of years ago.
A
series of bomb blasts ripped through suburban
trains in Mumbai on July 11, killing 182 people
and injuring more than 700. Investigations into
the blasts are on. Hundreds have been rounded up
and questioned, with three people arrested on
Friday morning.
Meanwhile, India's
political parties have swooped down on the
tragedy to score points
vis-a-vis their political rivals and consolidate
their vote banks. First off the block was the
Hindu right wing - the Bharatiya Janata Party
(BJP), the Shiv Sena and the Vishva Hindu
Parishad. Others who have joined in the race
include the Samajwadi Party (SP), which appeases
Muslim extremism.
Within days of the
tragedy, the BJP organized an anti-terrorism rally
in Mumbai, which was addressed by Narendra Modi,
the chief minister of Gujarat. The choice of Modi
as the mascot for its anti-terrorism campaign was
not without reason. Modi was at the helm in
Gujarat when mobs led by Hindu right-wing
activists massacred thousands of Muslims in 2002.
And in the years since, he has adopted a
virulently anti-Muslim, pro-Hindutva (an
exclusivist Hindu ideology that the right wing
advocates) agenda.
In Mumbai, Modi
launched a blistering attack on the United
Progressive Alliance (UPA) government's "soft"
approach to tackling terrorism and demanded that
Delhi re-enact the Prevention of Terrorism Act
(POTA) or else give the states the power to enact
their own anti-terrorism legislation. Several
other BJP leaders, including L K Advani, home
minister when POTA was enacted in 2002, have
demanded that it be revived. So far the government
has ruled out re-enacting the legislation.
Some believe that POTA or similar
legislation is essential to prevent terrorism in
India. They miss the point that when it was in
effect it didn't prevent terrorist attacks.
India's parliament building was attacked in
December 2001, when POTA was an ordinance. The
Kaluchak army base in Jammu was attacked (May
2002), followed by a string of terrorist strikes
on the Akshardham Temple (September 2002) and the
Raghunath Temple in Jammu (March and November
2002).
In fact, POTA might have been
instrumental in fueling terrorism. Its misuse -
POTA was used by the Modi government in Gujarat to
harass Muslim youth after the riots - is said to
have contributed to deepened rage, prompting
hundreds of them to join extremist outfits
fighting the Indian state.
Those who are
clamoring for tough new legislation to tackle
terrorism are also ignoring the fact that existing
legislation provides police with powers they need
to fight terrorism. Soon after POTA was repealed
by the new Congress-led government, some of its
provisions were retained by amending other laws.
For instance, the Unlawful Activities (Prevention)
Act of 1967 was amended to include POTA provisions
for banning terrorist organizations and their
support systems, including funding.
The
militant organizations banned under POTA therefore
continued to remain illegal. This legislation
imposes penalties that are as stiff as POTA's for
a wide range of offenses, including committing a
terrorist act, harboring terrorists, being a
member of a terrorist group and holding proceeds
of terrorism. And as under POTA, intercepted
communications are admissible as evidence. And in
insurgency-racked Kashmir and the northeastern
states, even tougher laws - the Public Security
Act and the Armed Forces Special Powers Act - are
in operation to fight terrorism there.
After the repeal of POTA India might not
have a special law against terrorism, but there
are laws that contain provisions specifically
meant to combat that problem.
In
Maharashtra, of which Mumbai is the capital, the
Maharashtra Control of Organized Crime Act, 1999,
gives police and intelligence agencies ample
powers. Yet these laws and the powers they provide
the police were not sufficient to prevent the
serial blasts on July 7.
To prevent
terrorism, intelligence-gathering must be
improved. The online Public Affairs magazine
points out that "terrorism must be preempted at
the planning stage, and key to this is human
intelligence ... Once the terrorist planning stage
is passed, and the sleeper cells and modules are
activated, it becomes harder to contain the
violence. Between planning and managing the
logistics, officials say, there was a long gap in
which terrorist attacks could be foiled, but this
gap is shrinking as the terrorists get more
proficient, and more confident when they see the
state not pursuing them single-mindedly."
Intelligence and police officials complain
of political interference neutralizing their work.
They say that the definition of a terrorist seems
to change with changes in government. In the
process, even if they provide input regarding
possible terrorist attacks little is done by the
political authorities to prevent it from
happening. There were several indications that
terrorists were planning to strike in Mumbai,
which apparently was conveyed to the Maharashtra
government. The government did not act and the
result was the July 11 strikes.
It is not
just laws, then, that will prevent attacks but the
political will to prevent them. And the political
will is often not there because politicians are
constantly eyeing their vote banks even when
decisions related to national security need to be
made.
Despite the ban on the Students'
Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) and its reported
involvement in terrorist attacks - the probe into
the Mumbai blasts suggests that SIMI activists
executed the attacks - the Uttar Pradesh
government has defended the outfit. The SP, which
heads the government in Uttar Pradesh, is eyeing
the Muslim vote and is projecting itself as a
champion of the Muslims. With the state due to go
to the polls next year, the SP is wooing the
Muslim vote by turning a blind eye on Muslim
extremism. It is impossible, say police officials,
to crack down on terrorists when the government
backs them. Similar is the case with Hindu
extremists in states ruled by the BJP. The UPA
makes decisions regarding national security
keeping in mind their electoral impact.
The Congress party blames its main rival,
the BJP, for deepening Muslim alienation from the
Indian state and for the flow of Muslim youth to
extremist outfits. It has a point. The destruction
of the Babri Masjid by the BJP and its fraternal
outfits in 1993 and the anti-Muslim violence in
Gujarat have provided a boost to Islamic extremism
in India. Videos of these events and anti-Muslim
hate speeches delivered by leaders of the Sangh
Parivar (the family of Hindu organizations of
which the BJP is a part) constitute part of the
material that Muslim extremists use to motivate
their operatives.
But the Congress is no
less guilty. In 1984, mobs led by Congress leaders
massacred Sikhs in Delhi. The Congress carried out
an intensely communal campaign in the elections
soon after. It criticized the BJP for not banning
the Bajrang Dal (a Hindu extremist outfit that is
part of the Sangh Parivar) under POTA. But it has
not proscribed the organization either for fear of
turning away the Hindu vote. It made a big show of
repealing POTA to score points over the BJP and to
appease Muslims but quietly included many of its
provisions by amending other laws. In states where
it is in power, it has been soft on Muslim
extremism and allowed terrorist modules to
proliferate. The number of terrorist modules
busted in 2005 was a third of the figure for 2004.
If Pakistani President General Pervez
Musharraf turns off the terror tap, a significant
proportion of India's problem with terrorism will
no doubt be addressed. But with terrorism in India
increasingly taking on an Indian face, India will
need to focus on setting its house in order. Its
politicians will have to stop playing politics
with terrorism.
Sudha
Ramachandran is an independent
journalist/researcher based in Bangalore.
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