Everyone knows that India is a target of Islamic terrorism right? Listening to the news hype or the blog conversations on pro-hindu sites (that’s not an insult btw), you can’t help but feel that the Muslim extremists are taking over India and bombing innocent men, women and children all over the place every day. But there’s one teensy little problem with this scenario.
Islamic terrorism makes up less than 9% of all terror incidents in India! And almost all of it is in the Kashmir region.
Now that can’t possibly be true right? I mean what about all the terrorist blasts in 2009 in the rest of India? Except that there were none. Yup, that’s right. Not one damn terrorist attack in India in 2009 outside of Kashmir that we can attribute to Islamic fanatics.
How do I know this? While researching data for a reply to a blog comment – see, I do the research :) – I found that the US government has set up a worldwide terrorism tracking system which gives a wealth of information regarding terrorist attacks globally. It’s free, publicly accessible, and users can filter by country, date range, type of terror attacks, casualties, groups responsible, location within the country, generate heat maps, get victim data and many more options and you can mix n match to get the exact info you’re looking for.
It turns out, that the majority of terror attacks in India is carried out by the Naxals. Here is the complete map of terrorism in India in 2009. A total of 703 attacks.
When you filter by “Islamic Extremism”, the map changes to this with the number dropping to just 63. I got a bit of a shock on seeing this really.
Ouch..where are all the Islamic bombings? You know, the “terrorists” which our government is trying so hard to save us from. The terrorism which has every citizen in India in a funk afraid of their own shadow. It’s in the damn Naxal belt that’s where – go get em!
But please stop this crap about Islamic militants. Yeah, it happens now and then but hardly kills anyone. Not that we Indians particularly care about lives being lost. Otherwise we would have done something about train accidents in India which have already killed 285 people in this year alone.
Of course, this robs people of the satisfaction of blaming all violence in India on the Muslims. Hopefully at least some people will take note.
Thanks for your views on this matter Gorki – and I certainly appreciate the thought you’ve put into them.
I freely admit that the title of my post was meant to provoke. In response to the excess hysteria of terrorism, I crafted a title which is the complete opposite. My hope is that to achieve a kind of middle ground.
I specially liked your comments on the Sikh issue and in such a scenario, of course you’re absolutely right. But Islamic terrorism is quite different. It’s entirely an outside force. It wasn’t systemic like the Khalistani thing was. The only sign of Islamic violence is attempted rare bomb blasts.
In another country like Pakistan, it points to something deeper. It points to large scale support for militants. It points to collusion between the military and the jihadis. In a country in India, it means pretty much zero. Not even the most bitter political enemies have accused the other of being hand in glove with Islamic terrorists.
It must not be easy to carry out a terror attack since they happen so rarely and fail more often than not. That combined with measures we already have in place are more than sufficient I feel for tackling the problems we have.
@Ketan
About your point regarding the army. We don’t maintain an army for combating terrorism. Terrorists are underfunded and we don’t buy F16s to engage in dogfights with the LeT! Even if terrorism was absent, India would still spend the same amount on defence just like every other country does. We also have a loving neighbor on our Eastern front :D
And as far as privacy violations etc, of course the govt. can carry them out in the name of combating tax evasion and the like. But it’s much more likely to meet resistance from the people. With terror attacks, they just have to say “national security” and “we’re doing this for your safety” and people suddenly go quiet and cower in fear.
Finally, as you’ve rightly pointed out, the purpose of terrorists is well…terror. And they’re able to achieve this with very little effort and just by killing a few people each year. Do we let them win and give in to them and become afraid? Or do we just ignore them? If the problem was as bad as it was in the Sikh situation, then yes we can’t afford to ignore it. In the Sikh situation, the problem was within our own country. It was systemic. It was in partial collusion with the police who winked at the problem. It was like the mafia.
But there’s nothing like that about Islamic terrorism. There are no sympathizers in India. There is no collusion. There is in fact, no real problem. This is unlike the whole Muthalik issue. Muthalik had sympathizers. He had supporters. The real danger is not lives lost, but the undermining of the fabric of justice. But Islamic terrorists are (mostly) not even Indians. It’s entirely an outside threat.
Internal threats are worse than outside ones. Which is why the Naxals are far more deadly. Muthalik and the guys like Togadia etc. are all internal and are more dangerous. Islamic terrorists are outside threats and combined with their low kill rate, we as citizens can safely ignore them.
In reply to bhagwad
Bhagwad,
I do not make distinction between acts of Pakistani army and Islamic violence. I think I’d pointed that out to you – the motto of Pakistani army. Also, they name a few missiles after Islamic Chiefs whose only major achievement was propagation of Islam using violence. So, every major war/conflict India has had with Pakistan I take it as an attempt to defend against Islamic violence (if I have not been fed with wrong history, India was not the aggressor in any of the instances).
Yes, we have another neighbor that is also a threat, but had it been the only threat we would have had to to deploy fewer soldiers or at least would have been more secure from China. And even for spoiling relations with China, India was hugely responsible. In my opinion, India was the aggressor in Sino-Indian war. And I also feel that few of the grievances that China has about international borders are not even unfounded, but that would be an entirely different issue.
And then we have had Kashmir problem of 1990, wherein Kashmiri Hindus were forcefully evicted and of course many were also killed in the process. Saying that the problem was merely “geo-political” does not explain how the people who were most affected belonged to only one religion. [For instance, I would never say that what happened as part of Gujarat riots was merely geo-political. Religion had a lot to do with it]. If that were the case, even Kashmiri Hindus would have actively participated in demand for freedom from Indian rule and would not have been exterminated. Why is it that this geo-political problem is greatest only in Kashmir and not some other states that also share border with Pakistan, say, Rajasthan and Gujarat?
Who are the supporters of Muthalik? There might be a few stray supporters, just like there might be stray supporters for Islamic terrorism (the so called “sleeper cells”). This might interest you: “He (Muthalik) fielded candidates against the BJP in the 2008 Assembly elections but lost.” (click). Again, my memory is vague, but perhaps he’d fielded candidates in all the Assembly seats in Banglore and won none. So, I do not see any popular support for him. Whereas here is a case (click), wherein an active political party with elected candidates (indicating popularity) had done something similar in terms of damaging the civil liberty that Muthalik had done. However, it is interesting to note that Owaisi features regularly on NDTV as a wise voice of Muslims.
And no, people’s opposition to any of the government policies makes little/no difference. You might have not been in India at that time, so wouldn’t know the scale of protests the government was met with in implementing caste-based reservations for OBCs in postgraduation courses in Medicine (and perhaps, other fields also). The Mumbai jails were full and yet there were more doctors/students protesting against the reservations, and still, that did not flinch the government a bit. And while I was young, I have heard the implementation of Mandal Commission report in 1990’s had also sparked much worse protests. A youth had also immolated the self. Again, that had made no difference to the government.
Lastly, just like many (and perhaps even you) say that terrorism has no religion, so for the government to restrict freedom, it just needs to say that some terrorism exists. If not Islamic terror, it could be Saffron terror. ;) And why just Saffron terror, why not curb the freedom to fight the Naxal violence?
The best way of ‘tax-evasion’ would have been to register a mass protest and get the laughable tax rates in India down from around 30% to say, 10%, assuming of course that these kinds of protests have any sway.
And if not terrorism and tax-evasion, it would smuggling of narcotics – “We care for your on-the-verge-of-being-Westernized-kids and don’t want the filthy elements out there in the society to get an upper hand. We want your kids happy and healthy. Let’s fight this menace together. Say no to drugs!” :D
Okay, I got your middle ground point. Had not expected you to do that. Somehow, I don’t appreciate that. [Now, having said that I’ll have to go back and review if I’d used a similar tactic with any of my blog posts in the past! :P ].
In reply to Ketan
Though you may not make a distinction between the Pakistani army and Islamic violence, you must surely make a distinction between the Pakistani army and Islamic terrorism. Terrorism has a very specific meaning and modus operandi and an army simply doesn’t fit it.
I can’t disagree with you when you say that Kashmir violence has something to do with religion. Of course it does. But my point is that without the geo political environment it wouldn’t have become what it is today.
People’s sentiments do play a role in the government’s decisions. If the govt. ignores a people’s protest, you can be sure that it’s only because it makes an even larger group happy. India’s democracy isn’t perfect, but it does play a big role in these type of things. The govt. is quite wary of the reactions of civil society to a number of issues – be they the naxal thing, it’s fear of arresting Arundhati Roy, and many other things.
Luckily for us, we aren’t at a stage where the govt can simply ignore what people say. Nothing extracts a visceral fear out of people like “Islamic terrorism.” Just read the comments on this very post!
In reply to bhagwad
Bhagwad,
I do not make the distinction, because both Pakistani army and outfits like LeT fight in path of Allah. Anyway, if you still find that difference too theoretical. The ISI (which, though not the same as army, is an official State agency) and the Pakistani Army in collusion have been training terrorists. If you disbelieve that, then perhaps, I might not have a very substantial proof of that, but well there have been sufficient indications in the past for me to believe that.
Of course, I know all kind of terrorism is multifactorial and that I too have repeated several times. But that’s like saying that HIV does not cause AIDS, because it also requires unprotected sex or blood transfusion or that Vehicles do not cause road accidents, because we also need the driver to be careless, etc.
Israel (Jewish majority) and Palestine (Muslim majority) are in conflict. 26/11 attack (originating from a Muslim majority country) specifically targeted Jews currently living in India. India, is radicalized to a degree, and that also includes those who identify themselves as ‘Hindus’. There were large-scale atrocities committed against (Kashmiri) Hindus. Have you heard of Hindus in Nepal planning to attack Muslims in some random country (say, Qatar)? Sounds wacky? But when it comes to attacks inspired by and carried out in service of Islam, instantly, our attention is drawn to provocation that must have led to “fueling” of terrorism. And all these attacks also start seeming normal over time. The entire World starts this self-blame exercise (of course, in not such simple words). And that is what irks me about apology for Islamic violence.
About people’s protests playing a role can be true, only if it will affect electoral outcomes, that too not always. Because, there can always be other enticements like, reduction in fuel prices before elections or announcement of sixth pay commission. And, more often then not, in representative democracy, it is the local factors that determine election outcomes and not some national level policy (it is for this reason that voter shares tend to be so close; I’m told that even in Bihar elections, where Lalu Prasad Yadav was “routed”, his voter share was only 2% less than that of Nitish Kumar’s JDU). So, political maneuvering is not that simple to understand, IMO. Though, I’m pointing all this out, I do not understand politics well. But a day, when there would protests against breach of privacy would determine election outcomes is VERY, VERY far in my understanding. Again, take example of Radia tapes – how many people have protested against leak of confidential info? Surely, it was not to fight “Islamic terror”. And see, how the whole nation seems to have forgotten the entire privacy issue concerned.
But having said all of that, whether Islamic terror is a complete myth or people just tend to overreact to it must be seen in isolation of whether a government can misuse the threat. Despite my having ranted so much on this post, had you asked a simple question, I would have been speechless, and that would be: irrespective of the magnitude of threat posed by Islam (or any other religion), what is it that can be done to effectively minimize it? For surely, I have no answers to that. I feel all religions lead us astray. Because they put the object of “good” deeds in something nonexistent, religions throw common sense and logic out of the equation. And that is the problem. But to suggest that all the religions destroy logic and common sense to an equal and same areas of life would also be unacceptable to me. Call it my blind faith, but I believe if someone makes fun of Mahavir, the probability that a “fatwa” would be issued and someone would be killed (even in Jain-majority locality) would be at least 100 times less than the same being done with Prophet Mohammed or Allah. And, I do not like it if people try to blur this distinction. [And, I am not even Jain; in fact, certain practices in Jainism are also unsavory, but not as dangerous to humanity as a whole].
And you might be right about visceral reaction against “Islamic terror”, but it is not the thing that that is the only target of visceral and/or angry reactions. Just go and see responses to what Maoist apologists post. And at least for this post, and speaking just for myself, my response would have been entirely different if your title would not have been slotted in an extreme position.
In reply to bhagwad
thought this might be an interesting add on this thread: fighter jets now available on eBay!
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/rest-of-world/Boy-7-almost-buys-fighter-jet-online/articleshow/7429732.cms
going cheap at $113K…. terrorists could buy a dozen easily! hope this is joke of some sort TOI isnt the best credibility wise.
but if somebody actually got them the neighbor could claim that “Azad Kashmir” can decide on its own whether to allow them to be used as it is it allows Azad Kashmiris to ‘freedom fight’ pretty openly already.
Kargil was fought with heavy duty equipment – SAMs were used against our planes and artillery was involved and for the longest of times the fighters were claimed to be not Pakistani army. They refused to collect the bodies! It was after a lonng time that they reversed themselves, and with typical Pakistani flippery Mush claimed credit, saying they inflicted more losses, internationalized Kashmir etc. The earlier denials and statements “ceased to exist” or were expunged in a way that they had never been uttered…. a little exasperatingly nobody on the Indian side (left, left-centre, centre) seems to even care for the back flippery. One of the more painful realizations of my adult life was that the right is sometimes, well, right :-)
My point is your counter-argument scenarios arent as far-fetched as they may seem.
thanks,
Jai
In reply to Jai_C
I’m sure everyone realizes Pakistan’s duplicity – right or left. Not much we can do about it though…
Dear Bhagwad,
First of all, no one is arguing that Maoist terrorism should be ignored; of course not, as I mentioned terrorism of any kind undermines the state and has to be dealt with; but since your post pertains to Islamic terrorism I will focus on addressing that.
The assessment of a terror organization must be based not only on past acts but on the threat it poses; specifically it’s a) aims and b) its capabilities. Then it must also focus on its tactics and targets.
Before I go further let me substitute the words ‘Kashmir separatists’ for ‘Islamic terrorists’ because the later designation casts an unfortunately wide net which may be interpreted in a wrong sense as inspired by an entire Indian community. So the aims of the Kashmiri separatists is to fragment the very nation state of India; its capabilities are enormous since its backers; include not only the tip of the spear that is the LeT but the ISI; the most important institution in a nuclear power of 170 million. It is wrong to believe that unlike the Khalistanis the impact or the backers of these people are outside India (unless like the separatists you too believe that Kashmir is NOT India ;-) )
In pursuit of its aims these groups have already accomplished a lot within India.
1. They have almost emptied the Kashmir valley of its Hindu Pundit community, (notice using little violence but a large degree of a threat to violence).
2. They have suppressed an honest dialogue about the pros and cons of secession among the Kashmiris themselves. This was demonstrated by recent press reports of even the militants accepting that the moderates among them were eliminated by the hard-line terrorists. Thus to the outsiders now it appears that there is only one opinion within the Kashmir valley; that of the seperatists.
3. They have corrupted the state machinery (by forcing out of fear or otherwise) to only half heartedly cooperate with the central initiatives.
4. They have forced the Indian state into a no win situation; to curb more secessionists within the valley, India needs a huge security footprint that often is implemented with the usual ham handed Indian way so that the local population becomes even more resentful.
5. By expanding their campaign now into places like Mumbai the aim is two fold; a) undermine the Indian state so that its economy suffers b) more importantly try to inspire retaliatory harsh measures and riots against the Muslims to alienate India’s 110 million strong Muslim community. There is some evidence that it has partly succeeded in this. A recent book outlined how the SIMI became radicalized from a previously progressive looking student body.
India’s greatest strength so far has been its secular polity; once this gets poisoned; then shining or not, there will be no India left; period. It is thus a zero sum game for their TNT devotee handlers in Pakistan.
This is what is at stake, and that is why IMHO because of its aims and the capabilities of its backers, this particular threat can never be over estimated…..
In reply to Gorki
I agree with just about everything you say Gorki. In fact, my post openly acknowledges that Kashmir itself is a separate issue. My point is that it’s only one part of India which really suffers from terrorism, and that is Kashmir.
And yet when most people talk of terrorism, they’re not referring to Kashmir. They’re talking about masked bombers in their own back yards. And it’s that fear which I’m trying to address.
As for expanding into the rest of India, that might yet happen but it must not be as easy as it sounds otherwise we would have had much worse incidents. In spite of all their efforts, the Commonwealth games went off without any such incident. It must be easy to be a terrorist in India!
Of course, even the ISI can’t do anything openly and this naturally hamstrings their operations. They can’t openly give terrorists the resources they have access to – for example they can’t give them fighter jets :D
So I’m not really too worried about their capabilities. Their goals of course are dangerous – no doubt about that. But as far as the rest of India goes (apart from Kashmir), they’re an outside influence and not much of a threat.
In reply to bhagwad
Gorki,
You or somebody close seem to have lived thru the Khalistan years, the way you described it and the effect of violence. It was particularly resonant in that you could see the effect right now in action, in Pakistan, where after Salman Taseer’s killing the liberals are on the back foot and the fundamentalists strengthened.
Bhagwad,
“…I crafted a title which is the complete opposite. My hope is that to achieve a kind of middle ground….”
some unsolicited advice pls excuse :-) I guessed quite a while ago that you intended to provoke with your title. But you dont need to average two extrema out to reach a middle ground. IMO the cause of the middle ground suffers from extremist language in either direction.
Just keep going reasonable (in fact ignore the more provocative statements. for example until now I’ve pretty much ignored your “complete myth” provocation and just tried to make my points).
re. your new points here:
I think terrorist violence in the rest of India is down due to multiple factors:
– there has possibly been a strong message post 26/11 to their sponsors in our friendly nbr, so fewer attempts are being made
– the nbrs are in a spot of trouble themselves. When their own house is on fire they are unlikely to go around poking in ours.
– counter terrorism efforts may have actually improved. like 9/11 in the US, this was a major strike. chalta hai attitude which developed over time as we learnt to live with terror, may have been shelved at least for some time.
– it could be that some sympathizers/ possible recruits had a change of heart after seeing the sheer brutality and wantonness and the terror machine is getting fewer ppl in.
– it is also possible that state agencies have a freer hand and are “encountering” quietly possible suspects or militants that they are watching before they get to do something (due process is curtailed).
I included the last point trying to be comprehensive ( all are conjecture of course ). The last point if true has the potential to undo the peace.
thanks,
Jai
In reply to Jai_C
Jai,
To be honest, I am never able to decide if curtailing judicial process to kill terrorists is good/bad for a country like India. I know both the pros and cons (or at least so I would like to believe).
There would be resentment when suspected terrorists are killed and it turns out they were not true terrorists, but just innocent civilians, and that could flare up into violence.
But, what if such terrorists actually succeed? If provisionally we believe that Sabarmati Express was burned, indeed deliberately and with some degree of planning, would it have, in retrospect seemed alright to stop the burning without due process (not necessarily killing, but say, simply detaining)?
Violence can erupt in either cases, and I believe, cases where terrorists succeed, it would be much worse.
While not making a “case” for lack of due procedure, it must be remembered that the very bad Mumbai underworld problem could be solved only because of “encounters”. The number of people killed must be less 300, but the problem was indeed ‘solved’. It is difficult to say, how many of those 300 were innocent. Gujarat used to be much worse because of some terrorist called ‘Lateef’. He was also killed in an encounter, and following that the law and order situation in Gujarat started improving gradually, is what I am told.
Your next question might be, what if that innocent civilian is me or my family member… it is for this reason I am ambivalent. :)
Dear Jai,
You made some very perceptive comments. The history of the Khalistan movement has many lessons for the Indians, especially the nationalists about a lot that was (and still is) wrong with the Indian state and also some that is right with it. A majority of Pakistanis are West Punjabis which remains an agrarian society and culturally similar to the Punjabis in East Punjab in many ways. They remain very conscious of their religious identity and it is interesting to note that a somewhat similar religious fundamentalists movement is taking hold of them. Fortunately in the Indian Punjab far too many people including the Sikhs had a stake in the state due to a long spell of democracy. The liberals in Pakistan OTOH have a very shallow base. It is not clear yet how their side will fare in the long run.
Regarding the lack of new terror attacks in India since 26/11, I think you; Ketan and Bhagwad pointed out several important reasons.
One important reason is that for once the GOI performed marvelously on the diplomatic-strategic and upset the LET\ISI calculations. Against expectations it did not launch a military response which would have united the Jihadist behind the PA (who would then have used the Indian threat to disengage from the Western front). The MMS govt. rightly understood that post 9/11 the international mood was decidedly against using terror as an instrument of policy. It therefore launched a diplomatic offensive and used the awareness and sympathy arising from 26/11 to solidify the World opinion against Pakistan and its army’s duplicity. That a brave Maratha policeman gave his own life to nab a terrorist alive who then sang like a canary was an added bonus out of the whole sordid affair. Thus although tactically 26/11 was a great LET\ISI success; it was a strategic blunder that painted the ISI into a corner from which it has yet to find a way out.
If India now does not make any major mistakes, any future terror attacks ordered against it by the handlers in Pakistan are likely to result in diminishing returns diplomatically and cause more harm than benefit to the separatist cause….
Regards.
In reply to Gorki
Agreed – I too have admired the GoI for its diplomatic maneuvering even though a lot of people have accused it of being “soft” on terror just because it didn’t try and blast Pakistan out of the earth after 26/11.
In fact, if the government is smart, they’ll keep Kasab alive for as long as possible. Dead, he’s of no use to us. While alive, he’s a symbol of terrorism emanating from Pakistan and a hand around the LeT’s throat. Sadly, this too will be perceived as “weakness.” But oh well…some people just want to give in to their instincts…
In reply to bhagwad
bhagwad,
I was also against attack on Pakistan, because that would have served no purpose and lot of innocent people, who had absolutely no role to play in 26/11 attacks would have lost their lives.
Very little of Islamic terrorism is guided by some kind of ‘logic’ of avenging. I again bring in the example of Kashmiri Pandits’ extermination to point that out. Also, in 26/11, Jews were particularly targeted. This, people insinuated, was because of Palestine-Israel conflict. Others have insinuated this attack was in response to Gujarat riots (“Muslim genocide” in words of few). So, was it a “multipurpose attack”? Salman Taseer was not killed because he killed some innocents. Ahmadiya and Shias are persecuted in Pakistan, not because they had en masse killed the Sunnis. The Christian Community in Pakistan is so minuscule, it is impossible to think that they might have been persecuting the majority Sunnis over there. An ideology that instills in the mind that pain is a “good” thing, whether inflicted on self or on others, is bound to encourage violence. I again repeat, the motivation to launch an attack in which oneself would die and also kill other ‘innocent’ people is not easy to summon. So, the idea that Islamic violence needs some specific provocation is untenable. Because, if we start believing that, then all instances of Islamic violence would start looking like law of Karma – retrospectively, one can always fit an unsavory event to some past “bad deeds”, but does not mean there indeed must be a causal association. Hence, I posit that irrespective of whether there is significant violence targeted against Muslims are not, such events are going to keep on recurring. Which of course is not to mean that Muslims must be targeted in a systematic fashion.
Another point where I disagree is where you and Gorki feel that this sort of diplomatic posturing is of any help. Except for some token sanctimony it might instill in us, it has no practical value. The US, still, on one pretext or the other keeps on doling out monetary aid to Pakistan, knowing fully well that most of that is going to be used to train terrorists of one kind (un-uniformed) or the other (uniformed).
So, killing or not killing Kasab makes no practical difference. Killing him might avoid the expenses to State exchequer, but well, that I find something cheap to suggest.
In reply to Ketan
I like to think of people who follow Islam as Christians a few hundred years back :) My contention is that if you give Islam another 200 years, things will be just fine.
After all, the world survived Christianity didn’t it?
In reply to bhagwad
bhagwad,
To sort of repeat, had your title of the post been “In 200 years Islamic terror would be a complete myth”, perhaps I wouldn’t have posted so many arguments.
It would be sort of wrong for me to post anything on what the ‘solutions’ could be or how things might ‘improve’, because I am entirely clueless.
And I think I have said this before, the World did survive Christianity, but it would have been much nicer, had so many people not required to die. Likewise, it would as of now be nicer, if the people currently dying because of insanity (of any brand) were to not die, and if people would have hated each other less and been on the whole nicer to each other. That there is a margin for improvement just because of supernaturalism based insanity, when we have all the resources to understand the Universe better without resorting to mysticism is something that I can never digest.
My personal experiences (not related to terrorism, but side-effects of supernaturalsim/mysticism) make my responses to defense of any kind of theology/religion lot more visceral than they otherwise would be.
Hope, that helps you better understand why am I so vocal about these issues. [Hint: see the tag cloud at the bottom of my blog. :) ]
In reply to bhagwad
Bhagwad,
The points I make here are not exactly matched to the places you made them but its pretty much in this thread flow. Hope its okay.
1. your point on “internal threat being more dangerous than external threat” is well taken in the sense I can see where this is coming from: internal majorities can define their way to be *the way* and have different standards and their crimes treated differently, and more lightly. The way we drag the prosecutions of postBabri or post Godhra or 1984 riots certainly bolsters this belief.
It is important, to me, to add the caveat there is not much we can do about the *external threat* while we can and are (however woefully slowly) moving against the internal majoritarians. Holding Kasab as an example of Pakistani terrorism for life is not really a useful idea- practically everybody that has any awareness of this attack already knows it and outside of India I dont think too many ppl care really. And those who believe 26/11 was “an RSS conspiracy” and there are quite a few of them even in India, arent going to be convinced otherwise… Kasab should produce his RSS ID card for them to be satisfied :-)
2. The keeping alive of Kasab will only inform Pakistani would-be militants that they could expect a reasonably comfortable life in jail if they were to participate in a future attack and be caught. They may rationally conclude that it is riskier to indulge in attacks in Pakistan (where they tend to shoot them down, or bomb them with drones) and decide to move over to India :-)
thanks,
Jai
In reply to bhagwad
Why can’t his corpse be similar symbol? It would show the LeT that the government will deal with them swiftly, harshly, and mercilessly, as they deserve. As it is, Kasab is being pampered in prison, throwing temper tantrums when he doesn’t get his mutton biriyani with Basmati rice. God forbid India should actually be harsh on its terrorist prisoners. Only a Hindutva fascist would be so crazy as to suggest something like that.
Use of soft power is perhaps more important than hard power; as the last US adminsteration realized too late to its chagrin in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The fact that the visiting foreign dignitories including the heads of four out of five permanent security council members barely noticed the show and tell act put up by the separatist in the valley last summer is a testimony to Indian diplomatic manouvering. Pakistan had invested a lot of diplomatic capital over the years calling the terrorists ‘freedom fighters’ and all that was washed out in one stroke. The LeT is now squarely in the CIA crosshairs as a terror organisation. All these are steps forward. The US pumps money into Pakistan for other reasons that I may get into later if time permits.
In reply to Gorki
Gorki,
But my point is, what real difference is made when foreign dignitaries notice or do not notice the show put up by dignitaries. These are token gestures, IMO. Actual policy decisions are independent of such tokenism and are rather based on lot many other shrewd calculations. But yet, having said that, I would be against rampant use of arms/violence for entirely different reasons. Firstly, the humanitarian concerns and secondly, especially in case of India and Pakistan, escalation into a full-fledged nuclear war.
Perhaps, your speculation on why the US pumps money into Pakistan has got something to do with the “Military Industrial Complex”?
Thanks!
In reply to Ketan
Sorry, “show put up by * separatists”.
In reply to Ketan
Bhagwad, interesting observation.
Dear Ketan it is more than tokenism.
For example India and Pakistan tested nulcear weapons near similtanously and got sanctioned.
Pakistan is dying to get a nuclear deal with the US like we got; it is unlikely to happen for any forseeable future.
Have you ever wondered why when the Soviet Union imploded no one raised a finger depite the Red Army and the fearsome KGB? The answer may be interestingly tied to the board room battles involving bankers more than anything else on the battle field. It would be worth the trouble if one were inclined to look up the answer ;-)
Regards.
Agreed, Bhagwad. Naxals are terrorists. Islamic terrorism? pooh, they are poor people who have been suffering in this country for centuries!! so if they hold some people hostages, burn some people alive or arrange bomb blasts,chop off the hands of a Christian teacher for alleged defamation of Islam, implement love jihad campaign to convert non-muslim girls by luring them to love- marriages, lets let go of it. after all, we are progressive liberals here. to be considered secular, you need to support them, even if they blow up a tiny part of your country. but another problem remains, buddy.as per your previous post, more people die of smoking, drinking, accidents and lightning than terrorism. what does the death of some 10 people mean to you? oh, its a poor bargain as against the high price of losing your individual liberty, right? if so, should we brand naxals as terorrists and hunt them down? or shall we count it as a way to deal with our population problem?
wow the mastery of the English language by people outside of the US always amazes me. I do not care what big-wad says. i pray that the next tsunami takes out all of indonesia and a meteor takes out mecca. the world is screwed up enough without islam. when i the hatred and fanaticism in the faces of tens of thousands of muslims marching and protesting against the world outside of islam. i don’t get scared i don’t worry. i go to the firing range and wait for the day.
Such a relief, now people can die in Jihadi bomb blast thinking that its only 9% . Wow such a relief
No wonder people call you anti-Indian or anti-Hindu
Naxals don’t even kill people for their religion.
And looks like the life of 3000 people who died in 9/11 doen’t even matter to you, after all its just a very very very very very very very very tiny %age of their population. just 0.001% who cares for that .
Tell this crap to the Americans also, “look u Amrikans, more people die bcoz of naxals in India than your 9/11. so stop crying and searching Osama why are you even wasting time & money”
poor Article….just like other ones
In reply to The Mindset
The Mindset,
Overlooking your sarcasm, I would point out that the number of people killed is not as important as the fear induced by terrorist attacks. Because that – fear – is what tends to curtail the freedom of people and makes them more amenable to yield to threats by religious groups. Which is of course not to mean that people’s dying from any cause must not be prevented. Any preventable human death must be prevented.
Bhagwad thinks media is responsible for this fear. I believe, it also dose something quite the opposite. National media rather tries to counter this fear by inviting peaceful Muslim citizens to their studios and wherein everyone sings in chorus – “all paths lead to god, all religions teach love and brotherhood”.
Second point I have repeatedly made is that when trying to estimate the threat posed by Islam-inspired violence, one must also take into account the vast military expenses India has to bear to preempt attacks from the neighboring Pakistan. Had all that money not been spent, I am pretty confident that the death toll because of Islam-inspired terror would have been a few orders of magnitude higher. Of course, my confidence is derived just from thought experiments, but I am glad to keep such experiments at the level of thought itself. :)
Who cares what he thinks? Islamic terrorism is a world wide phenomenon, is Naxalism so ?
I think this is a comment form NOT an ESSAY form
hey Bhagwad
People like u die in riots .