Author: Jaithirth Rao
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: July 25, 2006
URL: http://www.indianexpress.com/story/8637.html
Introduction: The more we self-flagellate,
the more we fall into the terrorist's trap
Mumbai has been targeted along its febrile
nervous system. Quite sensibly, in my opinion, most of us do not care about
who did it or why. We are back to 'normal' work ignoring the perpetrators
with the contempt they deserve. We don't need PhDs to present us with an analysis
of the whys and wherefores. Much is obvious even to a non-expert like myself.
It is most likely the work of young out-of-work
fanatically indoctrinated fascists of the Islamist variety.
They are certainly supported financially,
morally, ideologically by forces outside India - forces rooted in Pakistan,
Dubai, Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Saudi Arabia. Support may be official,
formal and acknowledged from state agencies in these countries, or informal,
unacknowledged, below the line and cloaked in official deniability, or from
rogue elements within state agencies supported with winks and nods by governments
or rogue elements beyond the control of governments or from individual and
non-official 'philanthropic' supporters of terrorism indulging in fanatical
and lunatic private enterprise on their own.
The physical work of planting bombs is probably
outsourced to psychologically unstable young males (from neighbouring countries)
who resemble Indians (who can look at a Pakistani or Bangladeshi and tell
them apart from Indians?) or even to Indian nationals susceptible to psychoses
based on grotesque beliefs or grievances, real or imaginary.
Destruction of mosques which are rechristened
as disputed structures or inter-religious violence which is given voyeuristic
coverage in the electronic media with ongoing and credible accusations of
state connivance in these riots surely does not help and both are quite likely
a motivator for recruits among otherwise unemployed, restless youth powered
by high levels of macho testosterone and belief in absurd medieval doctrines
that justify vicious violence against anonymous enemies.
There is no point in berating the Mumbai police
or Indian intelligence agencies. The FBIs and CIAs (blessed with multi-billion
dollar budgets) could not predict 9/11; Scotland Yard not only missed out
on 7/7, but demonstrated unique incompetence in mistaking Latin American Roman
Catholics for Middle-eastern Moslems and in attacking terrorist hubs which
turn out to have no basis! Putting pressure on our over-worked agencies means
that we run the risk of encouraging publicity-hungry cops doing silly things
like making high-profile arrests or indulging in intrusive search and seizure
processes, which boomerang by violating the civil rights of innocent Moslem
households, thus creating and perpetuating a vicious downward spiral of grievance,
victimhood and possibly increased susceptibility to becoming participants
in future acts of senseless terror.
Terrorists seek to exploit the asymmetry inherent
in the face-off between civilisation and barbarism. They make mischievous
use of our openness. They hope to provoke over-reactions from us. They rely
on the proverbial bumbling, serendipitous incompetence of untidy civic societies
with democratic aspirations, if not pretensions. The more we indulge in self-flagellation
and institutional finger-pointing, the more we fall into a trap.
We must pursue them with diligence but not
establish a Homeland Security bureaucracy with an inflated budget feeding
the ever-thirsty Indian state and encouraging it to consume taxpayer resources
and deliver committees and commissions that are disposed of, based on tactical
political considerations rather than any impartial, credible conviction of
the guilty and protection of the innocent. In this respect we are no different
from countries that are richer than us and who have more pretentious claims
to superior knowledge, expertise and efficiency. RAW's track record may be
poor. But almost any intelligence agency in the world has performed better
than the over-funded CIA, and RAW certainly is in this 'better than CIA' category.
And while our agencies are decidedly not in
the same league as the Mossad, it seems to me that if India tries to recreate
a Mossad it will not only fail, but it might in the bargain get a Frankenstein
like the ISI. Think of the damage that the over-empowered ISI has done to
our hapless neighbour. Even as the ISI persecutes people in other countries,
it fails to defend its homeland. Karachi has many more bomb attacks and casualties
than mercifully Mumbai can aspire to.
Net-net terrorist activities are beyond doubt
planned, sponsored, guided, managed and operationally executed in a weird
shadowy manner that cannot be fully unraveled. It is a waste of time to indulge
in needless public recriminations. Our best response is to ignore the incident
(treat it as a force majeure happening no different from floods or car accidents
or air crashes) and return to work in a hurry. This incidentally is exactly
the response of most Mumbai citizens, that is, if the electronic media will
just let them be.
If we give these savage assailants of civilisation
no publicity and carry on with our humble, peaceful, unpublicised, peaceable,
day-to-day, matter-of-fact, ordinary, boring acts of drudgery that involve
the process of earning our livings, then we would have automatically check-mated
our collective adversaries and denied them the sweet success of public visibility
which thy desire. On behalf of the non-hypertensive citizens of Mumbai may
I request the pundits of global academia and media to leave us alone? We should
also not be intrusive with the Mumbai police or the Intelligence Bureau and
hope that they get along with their work, always acknowledging that theirs
is a battle where there never will be complete success. We should wish each
other well and accept our contemporary existentialist destiny on this planet
with a stoic shrug. As the Compassionate Buddha would have said, "We
are aware of the existence of evil Maras in this world, but let us ask Mother
Earth to witness that we have maintained detachment, we shall not succumb
to the temptation to torture ourselves or react with violence against our
tormentors. Ours is the middle way which seemingly demonstrates our weakness
but is the source of our eventual claims to humanity, sanity and equanimity."
As the great American writer William Faulkner told us humankind, in this case
represented by the hapless citizens of Mumbai will "not only endure,
but prevail".
The writer is chairman and CEO, Mphasis
jerry.rao@expressindia.com
