07-20-2006, 01:34 AM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Trading terror for votes </b>
Pioneer.com
Hiranmay Karlekar
The serial blasts in Mumbai on July 11 necessitate a second look at India's response to the terrorist challenge facing it. Three elements are critical to any effort to fight the evil - political will, sound strategy and tactics and effective implementation. Of these the most important is the first without which the other two do not work. It should not only be there, but also be seen to be there.
Terrorism is generally practised by small groups whose members are sustained by a fanatical belief in their cause and ultimate success. Every successful strike and every indication of the weakening of the existing Government's will to fight them reinforces this belief and raises their morale. It is, therefore, essential to firmly sustain the impression that, however frequent and vicious their strikes, the Government will not relent. Mere words will not help. The Government must show that it knows what it needs to do and will not flinch from doing it. It must not appear that political considerations will make it pull its punches.
In this context, it is most unfortunate that the Samajwadi Party chief and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav, should have said in Lucknow on July 13 that the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) had no role in the earlier explosions in Ayodhya (July 5, 2005) and Varanasi (March 7, 2006), and that the ban on it could be justified only if its involvement in the Mumbai blasts could be proved. He had reportedly also stated that the Centre and not the State Government had banned the outfit. As unfortunate was the statement on the same day by the party's general secretary and Uttar Pradesh's Minister for Public Works Department, Mr Shivpal Singh Yadav, that SIMI was not a terrorist organisation and action might be taken against those of its members who might have been involved in terrorist activities.
Their remarks were made on the same day when the Anti-Terrorist Squad of Mumbai Police had rounded up around 200 persons, an overwhelming majority of them with SIMI links, for questioning in respect of the 7/11 serial explosions. Their remarks ignored this, the fact that the Supreme Court has upheld the ban on SIMI imposed in 2001, and also that investigations had revealed the involvement of its activists in the blast on the Shramjeevi Express at Jaunpur on July 28, 2005, and the serial blasts in Varanasi on March 7, 2006. These were, however, not unexpected. A couple of weeks before the Mumbai blasts, a spokesman of the Uttar Pradesh Home Department had stated that the State Government did not support the ban on SIMI and that it had informed the Centre as early as June 21, 2005, that the outfit was not active in the State and hence there was no need to ban it.
Uttar Pradesh's Principal Secretary, Home, Mr Satish Kumar Agarwal, and Director General of Police, Mr Bua Singh, had doubtless stated on July 12 that the ban on SIMI was being implemented and closely monitored in the State. They also said that the State police had raided a number of places and that no activity by SIMI was being allowed in the State. Whatever credibility their statements would otherwise have commanded was, however, undermined by Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav and Mr Shivpal Singh Yadav's claims on the following day. Even if one concedes that they were right, the contradiction between their and the State's Chief Minister and PWD Minister's statements suggested that the State's political leadership and police and administrative authorities were working at cross purposes.
Uttar Pradesh, one of the largest States of India, occupies a critically important strategic position in the country's heartland. The war against terrorism will be severely undermined if its Government does not join it wholeheartedly. Indeed, even talk of such a development is bound to boost the morale of terrorist outfits like the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba, Jaish-e-Mohammad, Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami Bangladesh and SIMI. Their leaders already seem to have been enthused by the growing impression that the United Progressive Alliance Government lacks the political will needed to fight terrorism. It began by suspending the construction of fences in stretches of the India-Bangladesh border to stanch the flow illegal migration by Bangladeshis, in the face of protests by Begum Khaleda Zia's Government. Though it resumed construction, the impression that it failed to understand the serious security threat inherent in the continued illegal migration from Bangladesh, was reinforced by its executive order seeking to nullify the Supreme Court's historic judgement on July 12, 2005, scrapping the Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunals) Act of 1983, which had served to hinder rather than facilitate the identification and deportation illegal Bangladeshi immigrants.
While all this contributed, the UPA Government's repeal of the Prevention of Terrorism Act put the largest question mark against its will to fight terrorism. The latter is a savage business. Fighting it requires tough measures. Canada was not squeamish about resorting to these against the separatist movement in Quebec in the 1970s, nor was Britain against the Irish Republican Army.
India can hardly do otherwise. Hence the enactment of POTA, an extraordinary law to meet an extraordinary situation. While providing a legal framework for tough action, it also made those enforcing it accountable and punishable for misusing it. Though many of its provisions have been incorporated into other laws, its repeal has become a symbol of the present Government's woolly-headed and vacillating approach to fighting terrorism.
A large section has attributed the move, as well as the Centre and some State Government's failure to act resolutely against Islamist terrorist groups using mosques and madarsas as centres of fundamentalist Islamist propaganda and recruitment of terrorists, as being part of an attempt to woo Muslim votes. This in turn is encouraging a section of Muslim leaders with terrorist links to try to use their community as a vote-bank to manipulate the country's parliamentary system to sabotage the war against terror.
Their success will hobble India's war against terrorism and severely hurt Indian Muslims by triggering a massive and violent Hindu backlash. They have, therefore, to be dealt with the utmost firmness while making earnest efforts to remove the genuine grievances of Muslims, the overwhelming majority of whom, like the overwhelming majority of India's other religious communities, are thoroughly patriotic and have done the country proud by their achievements in diverse fields. The assumption that they will resent tough action against terrorists, is a gargantuan insult to them.
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Pioneer.com
Hiranmay Karlekar
The serial blasts in Mumbai on July 11 necessitate a second look at India's response to the terrorist challenge facing it. Three elements are critical to any effort to fight the evil - political will, sound strategy and tactics and effective implementation. Of these the most important is the first without which the other two do not work. It should not only be there, but also be seen to be there.
Terrorism is generally practised by small groups whose members are sustained by a fanatical belief in their cause and ultimate success. Every successful strike and every indication of the weakening of the existing Government's will to fight them reinforces this belief and raises their morale. It is, therefore, essential to firmly sustain the impression that, however frequent and vicious their strikes, the Government will not relent. Mere words will not help. The Government must show that it knows what it needs to do and will not flinch from doing it. It must not appear that political considerations will make it pull its punches.
In this context, it is most unfortunate that the Samajwadi Party chief and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav, should have said in Lucknow on July 13 that the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) had no role in the earlier explosions in Ayodhya (July 5, 2005) and Varanasi (March 7, 2006), and that the ban on it could be justified only if its involvement in the Mumbai blasts could be proved. He had reportedly also stated that the Centre and not the State Government had banned the outfit. As unfortunate was the statement on the same day by the party's general secretary and Uttar Pradesh's Minister for Public Works Department, Mr Shivpal Singh Yadav, that SIMI was not a terrorist organisation and action might be taken against those of its members who might have been involved in terrorist activities.
Their remarks were made on the same day when the Anti-Terrorist Squad of Mumbai Police had rounded up around 200 persons, an overwhelming majority of them with SIMI links, for questioning in respect of the 7/11 serial explosions. Their remarks ignored this, the fact that the Supreme Court has upheld the ban on SIMI imposed in 2001, and also that investigations had revealed the involvement of its activists in the blast on the Shramjeevi Express at Jaunpur on July 28, 2005, and the serial blasts in Varanasi on March 7, 2006. These were, however, not unexpected. A couple of weeks before the Mumbai blasts, a spokesman of the Uttar Pradesh Home Department had stated that the State Government did not support the ban on SIMI and that it had informed the Centre as early as June 21, 2005, that the outfit was not active in the State and hence there was no need to ban it.
Uttar Pradesh's Principal Secretary, Home, Mr Satish Kumar Agarwal, and Director General of Police, Mr Bua Singh, had doubtless stated on July 12 that the ban on SIMI was being implemented and closely monitored in the State. They also said that the State police had raided a number of places and that no activity by SIMI was being allowed in the State. Whatever credibility their statements would otherwise have commanded was, however, undermined by Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav and Mr Shivpal Singh Yadav's claims on the following day. Even if one concedes that they were right, the contradiction between their and the State's Chief Minister and PWD Minister's statements suggested that the State's political leadership and police and administrative authorities were working at cross purposes.
Uttar Pradesh, one of the largest States of India, occupies a critically important strategic position in the country's heartland. The war against terrorism will be severely undermined if its Government does not join it wholeheartedly. Indeed, even talk of such a development is bound to boost the morale of terrorist outfits like the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba, Jaish-e-Mohammad, Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami Bangladesh and SIMI. Their leaders already seem to have been enthused by the growing impression that the United Progressive Alliance Government lacks the political will needed to fight terrorism. It began by suspending the construction of fences in stretches of the India-Bangladesh border to stanch the flow illegal migration by Bangladeshis, in the face of protests by Begum Khaleda Zia's Government. Though it resumed construction, the impression that it failed to understand the serious security threat inherent in the continued illegal migration from Bangladesh, was reinforced by its executive order seeking to nullify the Supreme Court's historic judgement on July 12, 2005, scrapping the Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunals) Act of 1983, which had served to hinder rather than facilitate the identification and deportation illegal Bangladeshi immigrants.
While all this contributed, the UPA Government's repeal of the Prevention of Terrorism Act put the largest question mark against its will to fight terrorism. The latter is a savage business. Fighting it requires tough measures. Canada was not squeamish about resorting to these against the separatist movement in Quebec in the 1970s, nor was Britain against the Irish Republican Army.
India can hardly do otherwise. Hence the enactment of POTA, an extraordinary law to meet an extraordinary situation. While providing a legal framework for tough action, it also made those enforcing it accountable and punishable for misusing it. Though many of its provisions have been incorporated into other laws, its repeal has become a symbol of the present Government's woolly-headed and vacillating approach to fighting terrorism.
A large section has attributed the move, as well as the Centre and some State Government's failure to act resolutely against Islamist terrorist groups using mosques and madarsas as centres of fundamentalist Islamist propaganda and recruitment of terrorists, as being part of an attempt to woo Muslim votes. This in turn is encouraging a section of Muslim leaders with terrorist links to try to use their community as a vote-bank to manipulate the country's parliamentary system to sabotage the war against terror.
Their success will hobble India's war against terrorism and severely hurt Indian Muslims by triggering a massive and violent Hindu backlash. They have, therefore, to be dealt with the utmost firmness while making earnest efforts to remove the genuine grievances of Muslims, the overwhelming majority of whom, like the overwhelming majority of India's other religious communities, are thoroughly patriotic and have done the country proud by their achievements in diverse fields. The assumption that they will resent tough action against terrorists, is a gargantuan insult to them.
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