Terrorism

Terrorism Events over the past few days have made us all sit up and talk about terrorism in a manner that is bringing out quite clearly the fact that terrorism cannot be talked about with any degree of satisfaction. It is too grotesque a phenomenon to be done justice to by language – any language. Indeed, more than the insufficiency in our security apparatus, the recent attacks in Mumbai have brought out to the fore the incapacity of human brain to mould into the spoken word its propensity to plan its own execution in so wanton a manner. Why did the latest episode cause such widespread outpouring of public sentiment? I think this was because it was a more drawn out an affair than bomb explosions –even serial ones at that. It just went on and on. Then again, a part of me whispers that may be the reaction would have been different if high profile targets had not been chosen. The rich and the famous are perceived to be inviolable. People who are middle class and below may dislike this but they are the ones who support the presumption most jealously. And so, the horror is all that more pronounced. If Taj is not safe- what is? If the ATS chief is so much at the mercy of anyone who cares to gun him down – who is not? Another reason could be our recently found belief in the theory that as a nation we are better than many other so called developing countries and are also acknowledged as such by the world. As a world power we are supposed to be the envy of the world; at the receiving end of the diatribe launched by those societies for whom the grapes have turned sour but less and less within the reach of such elements and most definitely not expected to take such attacks lying down. Surely, we cannot have Trident, India be spoken of in the same breath as Mariott, Pakistan; how can cricket teams visiting us abandon tours midway and it is incredible that travel advisories are being issued when the destination is Incredible India! As a nation we are not prepared to be bracketed alongside Pakistan which is exactly what this attack has tried to do by exposing our soft underbelly, our antiquated security structure, our inept politicians and our love

for rhetoric (even when we are decrying it!). Yes, we are not Pakistan to the extent that our men are not going out to kill men elsewhere but we are as helpless to save ourselves from these attacks as the average Pakistani is when it comes to curbing his nation’s proclivity towards aiding and abetting such attacks by becoming defensive, abrasive or manipulative in order to avoid accountability. We have been led to believe that the world recognizes us as a nation whose time has come. But, as we are painfully realizing, we are still nowhere near to being able to afford getting angry and being given what we want simply on the strength of our anger. America could get mad at Afghanistan and have no Secretary of State coming over to hear its side of the story and then going to Afghanistan and giving its bearded assassins their share of air time because the world was told, and was ready to accept, that there was just one side of the story. We can rant and rave but we would still need to explain, to request, to threaten to threaten and finally to retire behind such homilies as “haste makes waste”, “let us wait and watch before committing ourselves” etc, etc. I am not against such an attitude provided we choose it from a position of strength but that is not quite the case and this, perhaps, is pricking our pride and hurting our self respect. Well, the first rule one needs to follow to prevent one’s self respect from being trampled upon is to not hand out the flag to others for hoisting. If you yourself cannot take the trouble to plant it atop the highest mountain, no one else will. The solution is not war with Pakistan. War is never the solution but only an extension of the problem because no wars are ever fought to the finish and no wars ever succeed in finishing off the root cause behind their commencement. War, as we fight it, kills off healthy cells and only creates more opportunities for our unhealthy cells to thrive. And, frankly speaking, no society ever was -or ever would be - able to afford a war in even material terms, let alone moral or spiritual terms. It is distasteful to contemplate being killed while you are out eating a sandwich in a restaurant by the seaside but killing and dying at the border won’t help matters any. If we go to war (in the traditional sense of the term) against those sections of the Pakistani establishment who supported these terrorist

strikes it would only be an acceptance of our defeat. As Bernard Shaw once said “I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig, you get dirty; and besides, the pig likes it.” So, what should we do? India cannot become an Israel – it is too vast and too populous for that. India cannot become an America (after 9/11) – it is too indisciplined and too mature for that: the cowboy act would sit ill with us and, besides, it did even America no good. Over the last few days, I have heard people praising the US for having avoided another 9/11. Well, good luck to America. In my opinion, it has only created several more 9/11s for itself. India cannot become a Pakistan – it is (despite ourselves!) too healthy and too pluralistic (sometimes distractingly so!) for that. India has to become more true to its own self to fight against terrorism, both from within and from outside. And what is that? I wish I knew for sure. But I do know this – most of those who say, “lets wage a war against Pakistan” are not the ones who would be required to go out and get killed at least in the initial stages of the war and will, most probably, if the war really drags on for that long, make a bad show of coping with the situation; most of those who are hurling the choicest of abuses at the politicians have little idea of leadership themselves and are, in whatever ways they can, as guilty of abusing power in their respective spheres of action as our current MLAs/ MPs are in theirs; most of us who are crying out “Enough is Enough” are addressing these words to others and at others but not to their own selves. And this, to me, signifies our continued vulnerability to more terrorist attacks in future. In any struggle involving life versus death, strength never lies in the collective; it lies in collection of individuals. At least I can say this for myself that the tragedy would get to me most effectively and would, perhaps, lead to some concrete answers if, and when, I am able to be totally alone while I visit the bustling CST and am able to imagine death while surrounded by life. Till then, for me,

terrorism is out there somewhere– outside of me and outside my concept of life, something surreal. Till then, I have no solutions. Given this, what was my response to the crisis? I remember thinking that if a collection of individuals would have walked en masse into the besieged Taj, they would have unnerved the terrorists. They would have sent a stronger message to the politicians than any candle light vigil ever would. If Enough had indeed become Enough, I would have preferred a group of unarmed individuals storming Nariman House instead of the NSG commandos. Impractical and foolhardy? Maybe. But over and over again I realized that the terrorist scored over me because he was ready to die in a bid to kill me but I was not ready to die even to save myself and my fellow countrymen. I would rather others did the job for me, hiding behind the facetious argument that they were “trained” to do it. The commandos who were brave inside those unhappy buildings were not brave for us. And, while they were trained and armed with fire power, they, too, had just one life to give. No military training can brainwash a man’s mind enough to forget that – not in the face of death at any rate. They did their job. Simple. When saving our country and our lives from terrorism becomes our job too, we also would be heading out in just as routine a manner as did those commandos to tackle the menace and come out at the end of it all just as surprised about the ‘hulla-bulla’ and the congratulatory pats on the back as they were. It is time our job cards expanded. It is time we launched the true Jihad which is a fight against the worst in us – apathy, laziness, finger-pointing, cowardice, insensitivity and worse – as much as it is against a concept whose very existence is the single biggest damnation of our present day civilization, all its glories notwithstanding- the concept of terrorism. December 6, 2008

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