| Published on 13-07-2007 In National |
| Viewed 4916 times | Written by Nilotpal Basu |
| Bangalore Boys and Indian Terrorism: Deal with the Causes |
|
|
For the last few days, the media is seized with buttonholing a family in Bangalore. The botched attack on Glasgow Airport by the terrorists has brought to the focus an Indian connection. Preliminary reports of the British investigating agency are suggesting that two brothers from a Muslim family of our IT capital have possibly played a major role in the terror attack. The issue, which has caught on the imagination of the mainstream media, is the highly qualified background of these two young men. While the family is being probed and their father's Jamat-e-Islami antecedents are confirmed, it is also being suggested that developments in Iraq had a profound impact on the psyche of Kafeel and Sabeel Ahmed- the brothers.
The mainstream media, however, is not interested in comprehending the Iraq dimension. Their obsession remains with the Islamic angle. And they seem to be lapping up the suggestion of the British security agencies of 'rational profiling'. It seems that everybody concerned is out to prove the most obnoxious ideas, which were articulated by Samuel Huntington in his 'CLASH OF CIVILISATIONS'. In any case, Huntington had provided a lot of fuel to Osama Bin Laden. It now appears that with events unfolding in Iraq and its repercussions have further exacerbated the dangerous portents, which had characterized the immediate aftermath of 9/11.
Coming back to the story of the two brothers Kafeel and Sabeel let it be very clear that there can be no justification for what appears to have been done by them or many young men and women are intending to do. A terrorist act cannot be justified on any economic, social, political or religious ground. The response to occupation and violent suppression thereof by the colonizers and their collaborators are, of course, different propositions altogether. In our country, as well, we have a glorious heritage of freedom fighters, who used armed means to take on British colonialists and their Indian compradors in response to the call of freedom. Bhagat Singh, whose birth centenary, we are celebrating this year, is perhaps the finest representative of this political tendency. So what the Palestinians or Iraqis are doing to the warmongers of US and its allies cannot be equated with something like the attempted attack on Glasgow Airport, which would have harmed innocent civilians who might have nothing to do with the US and the British policies.
But having said this, it is equally important to understand that terrorism cannot be fought effectively without addressing the issue of blatant injustice, which creates a fertile ground for the proliferation of terrorist activities. When patent acts of injustice take place against peoples, who have a common bond based on nationhood or religion, the people from such categories become that much more amenable to the idea of righting the wrong – disregarding the means employed.
Therefore, it is absolutely necessary to address the blatant acts of injustices to which people are being subjected in Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq and elsewhere in the world, where the imperialists are trying to subjugate people to further their economic, political and security interest. In the 21 st century, there can be simply no way to accept the neo-conservative unilateralism. No power on earth, howsoever powerful they may be, can talk of 'preemptive strikes' to effect 'regime change' in countries which are clubbed as 'axis of evil'.
It is not just the Left, but also a far wider democratic opinion in the country, which have been trying to convince our successive governments about this new global reality. The Vajpayee government with its inspirational sources in the RSS proved to be the most ardent supporter of the sinister ideas that Huntington had formulated. The parliamentary debate in India in the wake of 9/11 saw the NDA government excited with the idea of hitching itself to the US game plan in Afghanistan and elsewhere. This approach of the NDA became even more explicit when the government went quite a long way to the verge of sending Indian troop to Iraq.
That the public opinion and the opposition managed to stop that effort, forcing the government to accede a unanimous resolution of the parliament deploring occupation of Iraq and asking for its withdrawal is a different matter. Inspite of its promise of commitments for pursuing an independent policy of vigorous opposition to the US role in Iraq and the Middle East, the Indian government's attitude is conspicuous by its absence. The manner in which the present government has tried to deal with the Iran question has also created a potential situation for being browbeaten by the global warlords. The fact of this is evident in provisions of the Hyde Act.
India has to understand that it is vulnerable. It cannot wish off the dangers of terrorism and just attribute them to ISI and cross border linkages. The battle against terrorism, obviously, cannot be fought by security agencies alone. It has to be fought on several fronts. Acting on the recommendations of the Sachar Committee, vigorously opposing US hegemony and its acts of aggression, ensuring delivery of justice to the victims of the Gujarat pogrom and last but not the least an ideological battle against all communal and fundamentalist ideologies are essential prerequisites for successfully meeting the challenge of terrorism. It is only with such a holistic approach that this battle can be won. It is only with this many-sided intervention that the efficiency and professionalism of our security forces can be of immense value. It is equally important to emphatically debunk the sinister ideas of 'racial profiling' and implicit or explicit suggestions that terrorism is 'Islamic'. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Social Web |  |
| |
|
|
| |
Processing please wait ...
Top Stories
