Terrorism: An Indian perspective
by B. Raman
After the 9/11 terrorist strikes in the US, a New York-based journalist had come to India to study how the Indian people had reacted to the March,1993, serial explosions in Mumbai. She rang me up at Chennai and asked me what was my first impression on visiting the spot. I told her: "The explosions did not bother Mumbai's street children. They were playing cricket unconcerned near the scenes of the explosion. There was no sign of any panic."
The December 13,2001, attack on the Indian Parliament was the first terrorist strike in front of TV cameras. The whole attack was transmitted live by the TV channels. Some months later, I had been invited to the US on a lecture tour. I had taken with me video recordings of the terrorist strike on the Parliament and of terrorist incidents in the West. I used to show recordings of the Parliament attack as well as of the incidents in the West. I would then ask the audience:" Do you notice any difference?" They did not notice any. I then pointed out that in the Western scenes, scared people were running away from the scene. In the visuals of the Parliament attack, people were running towards the scene. Many had climbed on to tree branches and were watching the exchange of fire between the Police and the terrorists as if they were watching a film being shot by Steven Spielberg.
After the Bali explosion in Indonesia in October,2002, a meeting on terrorism was held in Bangkok. I attended the meeting. A Thai researcher presented a paper on the impact of the explosion on the tourist economy of Thailand and other countries of S.E Asia. According to him, after the explosion, practically all Western tourists, except some French, ran away from S.E.Asia. There were large-scale cancellations of air and hotel bookings. But Indian tourists did not run away and not a single Indian group cancelled its travel plans. On the contrary, many more Indian groups visited Thailand by taking advantage of the huge discounts offered by the airlines and hotels. He felt that the Thai tourist economy might have faced serious trouble but for the Indian tourists, who were not nervous or panicky after the explosion. He recommended that in future Thailand should pay more attention to promoting tourism from India.
I am mentioning these incidents to underline that no terrorist group---jihadi or non-jihadi--- generally succeeds in scaring or intimidating the Indian people. One of the objectives of the terrorists is to scare and intimidate the people. If they refuse to be scared or intimidated, the terrorists fail to achieve their objective. This is what we call the Indian spirit. So long as this spirit is alive and strong, no terrorist group will strategically succeed in India. We saw it in Punjab. We are seeing it in Jammu and Kashmir. We will see it in the rest of India where we continue to have sporadic acts of jihadi terrorism and Maoist terrorism.
India has been facing terrorism of different kinds---ethnic, separatist, jihadi and left extremist--- almost since its independence in 1947. None of them has ever succeeded. Despite their periodic attacks, the country continues to progress at 8 per cent plus, foreign investments continue to flow, India has emerged as a major IT power and India's foreign exchange reserves keep going up. This is the best way of dealing with terrorism---not to let yourself be intimidated and not to let the terrorists affect political stability and economic progress.
India has the second largest Muslim population in the world after Indonesia. No Indian Muslim went to Afghanistan in the 1980s to join the jihad against the Soviet troops. No Indian Muslim has gone to Afghanistan to join the jihad against the US and other NATO troops. No Indian Muslim has gone to Iraq to fight against the US troops.There is no Indian Muslim in the Guantanamo Bay centre for detained Al Qaeda suspects in Cuba run by the US. In the report of the US National Commission, which enquired into the 9/11 terrorist strikes, there is only one reference to India---- a visit to India by Khalid Sheikh Mohammad (KSM), who is alleged to have orchestrated the 9/11 terrorist strikes on behalf of Osama bin Laden. He later told a US military tribunal that Al Qaeda had wanted to blow up the Israeli Embassy in New Delhi. But it did not.
Why? He did not explain. I could guess why. Because it did not have any local support in the Indian Muslim community.Many Pakistani terrorist organisations, which have joined the Al Qaeda-led International Islamic Front (IIF) formed in 1998, are active in different parts of India. They have been responsible for many of the terrorist strikes outside Kashmir. These are the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM), the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI), the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) and the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JEM). Some Indian Muslims have joined them ---in India as well as from the Indian Muslim community in the Gulf.
But Al Qaeda as an organisation has not yet been active in India. There have been only two confirmed instances of Muslims of Indian origin gravitating towards Al Qaeda or its ideology. Both were residents of the UK. From time to time --- after terrorist attacks--- claims of responsibility are made on behalf of a so-called Indian branch of Al Qaeda. Indian Muslims ---- particularly in Kashmir--- are themselves the first to refute such claims. Indian Muslims do not deny that some of them have joined Pakistani jihadi organisations, but they always insist that none has joined Al Qaeda.
Why are they keeping away from Al Qaeda till now? Because they feel uncomfortable with the fact that it is largely an Arab organisation. Indian Muslims may accept money from Arab organisations---particularly from Saudi Arabia--- but they do not feel comfortable with Arabs. Sometime ago, a religious cleric in Hyderbad in Andhra Pradesh advised Indian Muslim girls not to marry Arabs. He alleged that Indian Muslim girls, who married Arabs and migrated to the Gulf, were ill-treated there. For an Indian Muslim, the cultural solidarity with the other Indians is more important than religious solidarity with the Arabs. So long as this feeling of cultural solidarity remains strong, Al Qaeda may continue to face difficulty in making an impact on the Indian Muslim community.
At the same time, we are concerned over certain trends in the Indian Muslim community. What are they? First, some Indian Muslim youth joining pro-Al Qaeda Pakistani jihadi organisations and helping them in carrying out terrorist strikes in different parts of India. Second, the beginning of an attraction for Al Qaeda in small sections of the Indian Muslim community in the UK. Third, the Glasgow incident of June,2007, which was the first instance of an Indian Muslim attempting an attack of suicide terrorism. Fortunately, this virus has not so far spread to India, but we have to be careful.
We in India do not believe that a Muslim is born to be violent. We do not believe that the Muslims of the world constitute a monolithic community. We do not believe that if you know one Muslim, you know all Muslims. We do not believe that all Muslims behave alike. At the same time, we are worried by the emerging trend of some Muslim youth belonging to organisations such as the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) taking to terrorism in the name of jihad and projecting their so-called jihad as part of a global jihad.
In our counter-terrorism policies, we make a distinction between the jihadi terrorists and peaceful members of the Muslim community. We focus our counter-terrorism policies on the terrorists and not on the community. While enunciating counter-terrorism policies, our Governments carefully consider their impact on the Muslim community as a whole and take care not to drive more Muslims into the arms of the terrorists. This should explain the reluctance of the Government to give greater powers to the Police as demanded by them.
Indian counter-terrorism is based on the principle that except in the border areas, where we face the problem of cross-border terrorism, the police has to be the weapon of first resort against terrorism and the Army the weapon of last resort. We do believe that the difficulties faced by the US and other NATO countries in Afghanistan, Iraq and other countries is due to their failure to make this distinction between a small group of jihadi terrorists and the large numbers of the community. It is also due to the militarisation of counter-terrorism or Americanisation of counter-terrorism. This over-militarisation or Americanisation of counter-terrorism has itself become another cause of aggravated terrorism. We have carefully avoided associating ourselves with such policies.
source - http://www.dailymirror.lk/DM_BLOG/Sections/frmNewsDetailView.aspx?ARTID=17137