Terrorism

Events over the past few days have made us all sit up and talk about terrorism in
a manner that is bringing out quite clearly the fact that terrorism cannot be
talked about with any degree of satisfaction. It is too grotesque a phenomenon to
be done justice to by language – any language. Indeed, more than the
insufficiency in our security apparatus, the recent attacks in Mumbai have
brought out to the fore the incapacity of human brain to mould into the spoken
word its propensity to plan its own execution in so wanton a manner.

Why did the latest episode cause such widespread outpouring of public
sentiment? I think this was because it was a more drawn out an affair than bomb
explosions –even serial ones at that. It just went on and on. Then again, a part of
me whispers that may be the reaction would have been different if high profile
targets had not been chosen. The rich and the famous are perceived to be
inviolable. People who are middle class and below may dislike this but they are
the ones who support the presumption most jealously. And so, the horror is all
that more pronounced. If Taj is not safe- what is? If the ATS chief is so much at
the mercy of anyone who cares to gun him down – who is not?

Another reason could be our recently found belief in the theory that as a nation
we are better than many other so called developing countries and are also
acknowledged as such by the world. As a world power we are supposed to be the
envy of the world; at the receiving end of the diatribe launched by those societies
for whom the grapes have turned sour but less and less within the reach of such
elements and most definitely not expected to take such attacks lying down.
Surely, we cannot have Trident, India be spoken of in the same breath as Mariott,
Pakistan; how can cricket teams visiting us abandon tours midway and it is
incredible that travel advisories are being issued when the destination is
Incredible India! As a nation we are not prepared to be bracketed alongside
Pakistan which is exactly what this attack has tried to do by exposing our soft
underbelly, our antiquated security structure, our inept politicians and our love
for rhetoric (even when we are decrying it!). Yes, we are not Pakistan to the
extent that our men are not going out to kill men elsewhere but we are as helpless
to save ourselves from these attacks as the average Pakistani is when it comes to
curbing his nation’s proclivity towards aiding and abetting such attacks by
becoming defensive, abrasive or manipulative in order to avoid accountability.

We have been led to believe that the world recognizes us as a nation whose time
has come. But, as we are painfully realizing, we are still nowhere near to being
able to afford getting angry and being given what we want simply on the strength
of our anger. America could get mad at Afghanistan and have no Secretary of
State coming over to hear its side of the story and then going to Afghanistan and
giving its bearded assassins their share of air time because the world was told,
and was ready to accept, that there was just one side of the story. We can rant and
rave but we would still need to explain, to request, to threaten to threaten and
finally to retire behind such homilies as “haste makes waste”, “let us wait and
watch before committing ourselves” etc, etc. I am not against such an attitude
provided we choose it from a position of strength but that is not quite the case
and this, perhaps, is pricking our pride and hurting our self respect. Well, the
first rule one needs to follow to prevent one’s self respect from being trampled
upon is to not hand out the flag to others for hoisting. If you yourself cannot take
the trouble to plant it atop the highest mountain, no one else will.

The solution is not war with Pakistan. War is never the solution but only an
extension of the problem because no wars are ever fought to the finish and no
wars ever succeed in finishing off the root cause behind their commencement.
War, as we fight it, kills off healthy cells and only creates more opportunities for
our unhealthy cells to thrive. And, frankly speaking, no society ever was -or ever
would be - able to afford a war in even material terms, let alone moral or spiritual
terms. It is distasteful to contemplate being killed while you are out eating a
sandwich in a restaurant by the seaside but killing and dying at the border won’t
help matters any. If we go to war (in the traditional sense of the term) against
those sections of the Pakistani establishment who supported these terrorist
strikes it would only be an acceptance of our defeat. As Bernard Shaw once said -
“I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig, you get dirty; and besides, the
pig likes it.”

So, what should we do? India cannot become an Israel – it is too vast and too
populous for that. India cannot become an America (after 9/11) – it is too
indisciplined and too mature for that: the cowboy act would sit ill with us and,
besides, it did even America no good. Over the last few days, I have heard people
praising the US for having avoided another 9/11. Well, good luck to America. In
my opinion, it has only created several more 9/11s for itself. India cannot become
a Pakistan – it is (despite ourselves!) too healthy and too pluralistic (sometimes
distractingly so!) for that. India has to become more true to its own self to fight
against terrorism, both from within and from outside.

And what is that? I wish I knew for sure. But I do know this – most of those who
say, “lets wage a war against Pakistan” are not the ones who would be required to
go out and get killed at least in the initial stages of the war and will, most
probably, if the war really drags on for that long, make a bad show of coping with
the situation; most of those who are hurling the choicest of abuses at the
politicians have little idea of leadership themselves and are, in whatever ways
they can, as guilty of abusing power in their respective spheres of action as our
current MLAs/ MPs are in theirs; most of us who are crying out “Enough is
Enough” are addressing these words to others and at others but not to their own
selves. And this, to me, signifies our continued vulnerability to more terrorist
attacks in future.

In any struggle involving life versus death, strength never lies in the collective; it
lies in collection of individuals. At least I can say this for myself that the tragedy
would get to me most effectively and would, perhaps, lead to some concrete
answers if, and when, I am able to be totally alone while I visit the bustling CST
and am able to imagine death while surrounded by life. Till then, for me,
terrorism is out there somewhere– outside of me and outside my concept of life,
something surreal. Till then, I have no solutions.

Given this, what was my response to the crisis? I remember thinking that if a
collection of individuals would have walked en masse into the besieged Taj, they
would have unnerved the terrorists. They would have sent a stronger message to
the politicians than any candle light vigil ever would. If Enough had indeed
become Enough, I would have preferred a group of unarmed individuals storming
Nariman House instead of the NSG commandos.

Impractical and foolhardy? Maybe. But over and over again I realized that the
terrorist scored over me because he was ready to die in a bid to kill me but I was
not ready to die even to save myself and my fellow countrymen. I would rather
others did the job for me, hiding behind the facetious argument that they were
“trained” to do it.

The commandos who were brave inside those unhappy buildings were not brave
for us. And, while they were trained and armed with fire power, they, too, had
just one life to give. No military training can brainwash a man’s mind enough to
forget that – not in the face of death at any rate. They did their job. Simple. When
saving our country and our lives from terrorism becomes our job too, we also
would be heading out in just as routine a manner as did those commandos to
tackle the menace and come out at the end of it all just as surprised about the
‘hulla-bulla’ and the congratulatory pats on the back as they were.

It is time our job cards expanded. It is time we launched the true Jihad which is a
fight against the worst in us – apathy, laziness, finger-pointing, cowardice,
insensitivity and worse – as much as it is against a concept whose very existence
is the single biggest damnation of our present day civilization, all its glories
notwithstanding- the concept of terrorism.
December 6, 2008 1,551 words