Author: Arif Mohammed Khan
Publication: Rediff.com
Date: September 16, 2008
URL: http://www.rediff.com/news/2008/sep/16arif.htm
Human beings are like limbs of one another,
as they are created from the same essence. When one limb is hurt the other
limbs cannot be but in pain. You who are indifferent to the suffering of others
do not deserve to be called a man.
Sheikh Sadi, the great Iranian poet, had said
this about those who are insensitive to human pain and misery, and I wonder
what he would have said about those heartless brutes masquerading as men who
by their own hands cause such heart-rending tragedy as we witnessed in Delhi
on September 13.
India has been a victim of terrorism for the
last more than two decades and has suffered more than any other country in
terms of loss of precious human lives and property. The proxy war that we
have been subjected to has already been discussed in such great details that
now it has attained for many people a rote quality.
The people and Government of India know, rather
the whole world knows who is sponsoring these terror attacks in India, who
is organising the terror training camps and where these camps are located.
Sadly we appear to have developed a sense of inurement to horror. After every
attack we condemn terrorism and give routine expression to our resolve to
fight terror and streamline our security establishment and then sit back and
wait for another attack to repeat the same performance.
We are not the only country who has suffered
at the hands of international terrorism, but we surely are the only country
who has shown this stoic passivity in the face of such great provocation.
Is it because we are inheritors of a great tradition called gambhirta (indifference
to pain and pleasure) and therefore we should not get provoked easily, or
is it because we are insensitive to the loss of ordinary people who become
targets of such terror attacks? If not, then surely we have underestimated
or ignored the gravity of the threat to an extent sufficient to have made
the task of its perpetrators far easier.
Terrorism is no ordinary crime, in plain words
it is warfare deliberately waged against civilians with the purpose of destroying
their will to support either leaders or policies that agents of such violence
find objectionable. This cross-border terrorism has now assumed more dangerous
proportions with the aid and abetment of domestic elements.
Here I am not going to make any allegations
against any country but would like to refer to some public writings and statements
of Pakistani columnists and senior officials. This is what an Islamabad-based
freelance journalist, Dr Farrukh Saleem, has said in one of his columns:
'For the past 40 years our uniformed decision-makers
have been fed nothing but anti-India rations. Our civil society has been indoctrinated
to equate Pakistan with Islam, India with Hindus, both being in tandem with
'Hindus being eternal enemies of Islam'. Our elementary and secondary school
curriculum continues to be full of hate literature. My 9 -year-old son has
a problem comprehending that an Indian can also be a Muslim.'
This was written some 25 years back, but the
situation has only worsened thereafter. Ahmad Salim and A H Nayyar, in their
140-page report on 'The state of curriculum and textbooks in Pakistan', say
'the themes of jihad and shahadat (martyrdom), clearly distinguish the pre
and post-1979 educational contents. There was no mention of these in the pre-Islamisation
period curricula and textbooks, while the post-1979 curricula and textbooks
openly eulogise jihad and shahadat and urge students to become mujahids (religious
warriors) and martyrs.'
Now this is not about the books in a madrassa,
but about the books that are prescribed in government schools for the children
of five to 17 years of age.
On the other hand the chief of Inter Services
Intelligence, while responding to a question at a seminar at Islamabad in
1999, publicly stated that 'Our aim is to weaken India from within and we
can do it'. Only recently, some highly-placed officials of the US State Department
have confirmed that the Pakistani army chief was aware of the ISI's plans
to bomb the Indian embassy in Kabul in July.
These are not new revelations, merely a reference
to show that the perpetrators of violence are not and cannot be treated as
ordinary criminals; in fact they are foot soldiers of the mastermind operating
from across the border. Terrorism is no ordinary crime, it is an act of war
waged against India by targeting its civilian population. It is beyond the
capacity of the local police or state governments to meet this threat adequately.
Once we acknowledge that terrorism is an act
of war waged against India then it becomes the paramount duty of the central
government to decide how long we will allow ourselves to bleed and how soon
shall we put an end to this aggression.
We must also disabuse ourselves of the notion
that all these terror problems have arisen as a result of the so-called unresolved
Kashmir dispute. More than Kashmir, it was the creation of Bangladesh in 1971
and the surrender of more than 90,000 Pakistani soldiers that rankles the
mind of the Pakistani military establishment. They hold us responsible for
their dismemberment and humiliation and feel that but for India's intervention
they could have ruthlessly suppressed the Bangladeshi disaffection and aspirations.
At the same time they are conscious of the
result of three conventional wars and do not have the bile for another direct
encounter. On the other hand, they can take satisfaction that by the stratagem
of proxy wars in the guise of terrorism, they have been able to inflict greater
damage on India. According to this strategy the action is directed at destroying
India from within, which means using Indians to carry out the operations without
risking their own blood and infrastructure.
We need not blame anybody but realise that
our security is exclusively our own concern. Pakistan has every reason to
behave the way they are behaving, but we have no explanation to justify our
sloth and inertia. There are other countries who if attacked pursue the terrorist
across continents, and we have failed to take care of the terror training
camps at a stone's throw from our borders.
Enough is enough, we must make it clear that
we shall not suffer any more spilling of blood on our streets and shall put
nothing to chance in matters of national security.
- Arif Mohammed Khan resigned as minister
from Rajiv Gandhi's Council of Ministers in 1987 in protest after the government
moved a bill in Parliament to overturn the Supreme Court verdict in the Shah
Bano case. He has since remained a consistent voice of Muslim progressives.
