Jagmohan
With the Pathankot incident … the warning to the nation was implicit. But will it have any effect? Those like me, who have attempted to look at the phenomenon of terrorism in India through the spectacle of history, would certainly answer this question in the negative.
My book, Frozen Turbulence in Kashmir, published in 1991, began with the translation of a German poem the opening lines of which, in translation, said: “it has happened; it goes on happening; and it will happen again”. I had penned them because I had come to the conclusion that India had acquired political and administrative ethos which were terrorism-conducive and not terrorism-repelling. The state had become too soft and its institutions too soulless. Disruption and demagogy had penetrated too deep into the texture or its democracy. And narrow ends of personal and political power had attained total ascendancy.
My personal experience has engendered in me a strong belief that terrorism-related incidents will continue, be they in the form of kidnapping of a Union home minister’s daughter, Dr. Rubaiya Sayeed, as happened at Srinagar in December 1989 or in the form of bomb blasts that have recently occurred in Jaipur, Bangalore, Ahmedabad and Delhi.
The extent to which the state was becoming ineffective would be clear from the fact that in Jammu and Kashmir in the period, 1990 to 1996, despite hundreds of heinous crimes, not a single dangerous terrorist was convicted under the TADA – not even the self-confessed killers of the four officers of the Indian Air Force, the murderers of the Kashmir University Vice-Chancellor Mushir-ul-Haq, the Doordarshan Station Director Lasa Kaul and Awami Action Committee leader Mirwaiz Maulvi Farooq. The report of the US State Department for the year 2006 has noted: “During 1988 to 2002, there have been 13 convictions of terrorists in India, though thousands have become victims of their crime.” Leaving aside Iraq, which is a special case, India is currently witnessing the highest number of terrorism-related incidents. Since 2000, there have been 74 ‘Jihadi attacks’, causing death of 1180 persons.
The fatal flaws of the Indian State and its leadership are reflected vividly in the events of December 1994 to May 1995, pertaining to the famous Kashmir-shrine of Charar-e-Sharief, built in 1808-10, in honour of Sheikh Nuruddin who founded the Sufi-Rishi Order. About 50 hard-core militants, led by an Afghan mercenary, Mast Gul, sneaked into the Dargah. The State and Central intelligence agencies remained ignorant or casual about their presence. The militants dug in and collected a large number of lethal weapons inside the complex. On March 5, 1995, they killed two BSF jawans in a nearby area. Only then, the seriousness of the situation dawned upon the authorities. On March 8, the Army was moved to lay a sort of siege from a distance of about two kilometres. Characteristically, the Government was quick to announce ‘safe passage’ to the militants. But the offer was spurned by Mast Gul. Both at the State and Central levels, indecision and confusion continued, while the militants called all the shots. Eventually, on May 11, 1995, the Dargah and the adjoining houses and shopping complex were burnt down.
Physically, Charar-e-Sharief Shrine was burnt by the pro-Pakistani elements. But, on a different plane, it was burnt by the timidity and hesitancy of the Indian rulers. Pakistan and its terrorist outfits committed the ‘crime’ by commission. The Indian rulers committed it by omission. After Charar-e-Sharief, Prime Minister Narasimha Rao’s statement in Parliament on May 12, 1995 that burning down of the Shrine by mercenaries and militants was only going to steel our determination, sounded pathetic.
Could there be a worse demonstration of ineptness and lack of will? The monumental mishandling resulted in total destruction of the historic shrine, burning of 800 houses and 200 shops, besides costing millions of rupees to the poor country’s exchequer and causing grave human misery and pain not only to the residents of Charar-e-Sharief but also to thousands of others who became victims of the fallout. What is still more deplorable, Mast Gul, the most wanted foreign mercenary, escaped and even held press conferences and TV interviews on Indian soil. Overnight, he became a cult figure, providing a further prop to subversion and terrorism in Kashmir. For this incident, which made India a laughing stock of the world, no one was held accountable.
The grave shortcomings of the Indian polity look all the more striking if we contrast the terrorism-related situation in India with that arising from what was termed as a pro-democracy movement, centred around Tiananmen Square, in China. Once the Chinese state came to believe that what was happening would imperil the stability of the country, cause large scale public disorder and divert the attention and resources of the nation from development to internal conflicts, which could be further fanned by external forces, it moved, with great speed, keeping at bay the cacophony of the human-rights bodies and arm-chair intellectuals and hand ringers. After a few days, China was wholly out of the woods. Today, it is a powerful and peaceful state, attaining unprecedented pace in economic development, earning applause and prestige all around the world. On the other hand, India remains engulfed not only in bloody terrorism but also in a number of its internal and external fall-outs. The inherent disinclination of the state to adopt a strong, sustained and focussed approach has cost the nation dearly.
What I am commending here, I must clarify, is not the Chinese methodology of dealing with the problem but the clarity and consistency of its approach and the overwhelming importance it accords to the need for maintaining national integrity and stability. Incidentally, even if figures of fatal casualties of demonstrators at Tiananmen Square, between 1000 and 5000, as given by Europa world year book, are accepted, they look insignificant when compared to about 100,000 killings that have occurred in India in the wake of terrorism that has been menacing the country since 1980s. While those killed at Tiananmen Square were the activists of the movement, the overwhelming majority of the victims of terrorism in India were wholly innocent, including women and children. The blood of these innocent persons is on the head of an infirm and indecisive state of India.
It should be clear to all of us that for too long the nation has been bled by terrorists; for too long the Indian state has exposed its soft under-belly to saboteurs; for too long political parties have resorted to petty manipulation; and for too long the overall ethos of governance has been allowed to deteriorate. Despite the spread of terrorism, over a large part of the country and also over a long span of time, the Bourbons of the political establishment are refusing to rise above petty considerations of politics and power. On the other hand, negative and nihilist forces are getting stronger.
It is time that the leadership of the political parties scans the past with the seriousness and sensitivity that is required, draws the right kind of lessons from it and works out a unified strategy to reorient the country’s polity, to revitalise its institutions, to invest its democracy with a new meaning and purpose an to combat subversion and terrorism with unwavering determination.
If correctives are not applied immediately, terrorism will continue to bedevil us, and the country will soon be sucked into the cockpit of democratic anarchy. History, it is said, is no blind goddess; she does not excuse blindness in others. She is not going to make any exception in our case.
(The author is former Governor of J&K)
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