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VIEWPOINT: FIFTH COLUMN
Striking Terror
Whether in the US or Kashmir, it's time to stop compromising
on terrorism
When measured against
the horror of what happened in New York and Washington last week, our
own terrorist problems seem small but in their own way are as significant.
Coincidentally, on the very day that hijacked planes were deliberately
crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Kashmiri women were
forced into purdah by a faceless terrorist group.
Nobody knows who or what the Lashkar-e-Jabbar
is but its terror tactics were so impressive that as the veiling deadline
(September 10) approached, Kashmiri tailors could not produce burqas fast
enough, shopkeepers threw veils over mannequins and the women-in-veils
movement spread even to Mumbai, not a well-known Muslim city but a victim
in the past of terrorist attacks. Mighty Hindutva charioteers like Sardar
Advani remained strangely silent as terrorism won again. They say the
silence was because elections in Uttar Pradesh loom dangerously close
and nobody wants to put Muslim voters off by speaking out against Islamic
dress codes, a sign, though, that our political leaders continue to make
compromises on terrorism.
 The
political leadership deserves most of the blame for these compromises
but there is a hidden culprit and it is liberal public opinion. Our liberals,
and leftists are strident when it comes to attacking what they perceive
as the "saffronisation" of India. No sooner do they get a whiff
of Hindutva creeping into school textbooks or university courses than
they are out on every public platform protesting their heads off. They
are a vigilant lot, our liberals, when it comes to seeing saffron but
somehow become colour blind when it comes to seeing Islamic green. So
there has not been so much as a whisper of protest out of them against
the terrorist group that has imposed purdah in Kashmir.
There have been other whispers, though, and
they come from liberal journalists who hint that since nobody had heard
of the Lashkar-e-Jabbar till it came out with the veiling order, it could
be a group created by Indian intelligence agencies to malign the genuine
mujahideen. That really is a laugh when you consider that our intelligence
agencies have to date not shown even enough intelligence to prevent the
massacres of innocent people in Kashmir.
It is also worth remembering that there has
been, ever since militancy began in Kashmir 12 years ago, a calculated
attempt to inject Islamic terror in the Valley. In the movement's earliest
stages we saw Islamic militants forcing hotels to close their bars, smashing
bottles of liquor on the streets of Srinagar, closing down beauty salons,
all in the name of Islam. There was also an edict on women's dress codes
and some women obeyed. So the Lashkar-e-Jabbar is not saying something
new, particularly not when you consider that Islamic countries like Saudi
Arabia (where funds for violence come from) and Afghanistan (supplier
of manpower and training) force similar dress codes on their own women.
But Indian liberals are a truly liberal breed,
so they manage to weave a Hindu plot around the appalling Lashkar-e-Jabbar.
The danger of this kind of warped liberalism is that it is invariably
taken advantage of by terrorist groups. So our security forces face a
constant barrage of criticism on rights abuses but massacres in Jammu
go relatively unnoticed. Since liberal opinion almost never speaks out
against Islamic fundamentalism, we also find blatantly sectarian organisations
like the Students Islamic Movement of India speaking out loudly against
the "communalism" of the RSS and its various clones without
noticing the irony of their words.
On account of the weakness of our political
leaders and the partisan tinge of liberal public opinion we find ourselves
in the dangerous situation of taking orders from terrorists. Militant
organisations who kill innocent villagers simply because they happen to
be Hindus should not be in any position to enforce dress or moral codes.
But this is exactly what the shadowy Lashkar-e-Jabbar has succeeded in
doing while our leaders continue to gibber on about terrorists in Kashmir
being "on the run" and our liberals watch from the stands.
Let us hope the full horror of what happened
in the US has some effect here. Terrorism is no longer a form of protest
by a handful of semi-trained militant groups; it is a war fought without
any rules of war. Now that America faces the same war, we can only hope
that President George Bush understands that we also would like to "make
no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those
who harbour them". Pakistan and Afghanistan both harbour terrorists
and their jehad is as much a threat to us as it is to America. If one
terrorist strike can destroy the World Trade Center and the Pentagon,
the thought of what could happen in India is too horrifying to contemplate.
There can be no more compromises on terrorism.
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