The South Asian: After the Attack

December 22, 2008

After the Attack

"Tragically, it does not seem that even a beginning will be made to get to the root of the problem of terror." An EPW editorial.

The kind of organised violence that Mumbai was subjected to over 59 hours from the night of 26 November needs to be banished from the face of this earth. The challenge is how to go about doing this. It is the diagnosis of a disease that determines how it is to be treated and cured. But, given existing class and power structures, in the main, it is ruling class-power elite understanding of the phenomena that will guide what kind of purposeful action is deemed necessary. And, given that class-power elite’s identification of "the terrorists" with the forces of darkness in Manichaean conflict with those of light (the self-appointed protectors of "democracy", "freedom", and "justice" on a global scale and all who are with them), the whole discourse invariably gets confined to ways of meeting the terrorist threat, which in practice boils down to "necessary" counter-terrorism.

The new Union Home Minister, P Chidambaram, at his first press conference after assuming office painted a rather unoriginal picture of recent terrorist attacks, including the Mumbai one, posing "a threat to the very idea of India, a threat to the soul of India that we know, this is secular, plural, open and tolerant". He went on to say that "we will respond with all the determination and resolve to the grave threats posed to the Indian nation". Are we then in for expanded central powers in the maintenance of internal security? From all the talk so far, there are proposals to station wings of the National Security Guard in major cities, set up a federal investigation agency on the lines of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (the latter is already involved in the investigation of the Mumbai attack), upgrade the Research and Analysis Wing and the Intelligence Bureau, and enhance coastal security.

But will the spending of hundreds of crores of rupees on internal security – with essentially the same set of higher-ups and their political godfathers, whether of the BJP or the Congress, who have failed repeatedly to stop the spate of terrorist attacks in the recent past – solve the problem? The BJP is insisting that the new national agency be backed by a strong Prevention of Terrorism Act, 2002-like law to make it effective. Will India then witness a further shift in the balance of power between the judiciary and the police in favour of the latter? Washington has already made an offer to provide New Delhi with expertise in setting up "effective homeland security architecture" on the lines of what was done in the US following the 9/11 attack.

All the recent acts of terrorism have arisen within the existing structure of power and politics at the national and international levels. The 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks in the US have to be seen in the context of that country propping up reactionary regimes in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, its supporting and bankrolling Israeli repression of the Palestinians, the Gulf War against Iraq in 1991, and so on, all part of its imperialist thrust in west Asia. Washington has since been engaged in a global "war on terror" with the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq and the threatening of Iran. And now, instead of distancing itself from this blatant violator of international law, New Delhi has cemented a strategic alliance with Washington and built a special relationship with Israel, all this at a time when the epicentre of the "war on terror" has moved eastward from Iraq to the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Understandably, there is a deep sense of public anger and revulsion across all communities over the terrorist attack in Mumbai. But why was this same sense of rage and disgust not as widespread when the Babri Masjid was demolished even as the security forces, under official instruction, remained mere bystanders when the demolition was on? Or, when it was clear that gangs of Hindutva marauders had swiftly gone about executing a pogrom against Muslims in Mumbai in January 1993 or in Gujarat in 2002 (in the latter, the Hindutva mobs had the blessings of those in power in the state)? Why has there been no public outrage in the rest of India at the tens of thousands of deaths of Kashmiris following the post-1988 armed resistance to the military in Kashmir.

Of course, the demolition of the Babri Masjid, the pogroms against Muslims, the deaths of tens of thousands of Kashmiris or indeed, India joining what Al Qaida dubs the "Crusader-Zionist alliance", in no way justifies what the terrorists have done in Mumbai. Nevertheless, it is time to pose the question as to why young men choose to carry out senseless acts of violence knowing fully well that, as a consequence, a macabre death awaits them. Upon an honest answer to this question by the ruling groups rests the prospect of beginning the process of banishing such terror from the face of the earth. Tragically, given the present structure of class power at the national and international levels, even a beginning will, in all probability, not be made. Meanwhile, the cost to humanity – especially in the most wretched and deeply exploited regions of the world – will continue to escalate. Posted by collective at December 22, 2008 09:58 AM

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