|
RIGHT
ANGLE
Awaiting
The Backlash
Without
our bleeding hearts the jehadis wouldn't be in business
By
Swapan Dasgupta
Let's
not delude ourselves by thinking it was an isolated incident. Last week's
attack on the army camp in Delhi's Red Fort was ominous. It demonstrated,
much more forcefully than a British jehadi's suicide bombing of the army
headquarters in Srinagar, that the war isn't only over Kashmir. Yet again
the country has been sharply reminded that the target is India itself.
The "liberation" of Kashmir is merely a means to the final solution:
the very disintegration of India as a nation-state.
 This
is hardly an original revelation. The jehadis have tom-tommed their objective
from every available website and obliging pulpit. What is truly remarkable
is how little heed has been paid to these pronouncements. The effete minusculity
who shape India's political discourse during non-election seasons has
consistently ridiculed suggestions that Pakistan is more than just a difficult
neighbour, that it is the staging post of pan-Islamic terrorism with jehad
as a state policy. In a pathetic bid to be liberal and large-hearted,
the political class has been gently nudged along the path of appeasement.
India has let its guard down. We were always a soft state. Today, that
softness has turned to callousness and promiscuity.
The evidence
is galling. A jehadi walks over from Pakistan 16 months ago, sets up a
bogus computer centre in a Delhi ghetto last July and provides safe houses
to the Lashkar-e-Toiba terrorists who attack the Red Fort. In Aligarh,
the Students Islamic Movement of India spreads its hateful message with
impunity and facilitates the recruitment of terrorists. When one of them
is caught, the students go on the rampage, beat up policemen and secure
the backing of politicians looking for electoral shortcuts. Inside a Jaipur
prison, a jehadi bomber brags about his mission to Talibanise the whole
region. Delhi, Mumbai, Calcutta or Hyderabad, the conclusion is inescapable:
India has a macabre penchant for self-destruction.
There's
no point pinning the entire blame on the authorities. Yes, there is laxity
in the army and police. The army, even now, isn't sufficiently attentive
to routine functions like patrolling. Its energies have been squandered
in irrelevant functions like building zoos, planting trees and cleaning
lakes-all because some officers want to please some influential people.
As for the police, apart from normal problems like corruption and excessive
VIP duties, it is hamstrung by familiar political pressures. For the past
few months, for example, the new Shahi Imam of Delhi's Jama Masjid has
been misusing the Friday prayers to deliver provocative sermons that border
on sedition. These sermons serve to nurture a jehadi mindset. Yet, he
is meekly indulged, to the point of running a state within a state.
The authorities
are paralysed by the lack of political will. It has been five years since
the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities Act was allowed to lapse. The
Law Commission recommended another anti-terrorist law last year but it
fell through after the National Human Rights Commission discovered that
terrorists have human rights. Since then, there has been no movement.
Only one terrorist act after another, including the ignominy of India's
foreign minister escorting killers to their freedom in Kandahar.
The situation
demands overcoming political fear. It calls for chief ministers like Rajnath
Singh and Buddhadev Bhattacharya who have ordered the police to play tough
with the rough. It calls for wisdom to know that today's liberalism is
a monumental perversion awaiting a corrective backlash.
Top
|
Among
the major spin-offs of developing the LCA is the mountain of confidence
that India's aeronautical engineers have gained. But there's still plenty
to do, writes INDIA TODAY Deputy Editor Raj Chengappa in
