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India Must Confront Terrorists

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By DILEEP PADGAONKAR Special to The Washington Post

The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 30, 2008

NEW DELHI, India - Terrorist attacks have shattered the peace in more than half a dozen Indian cities over the past year. Yet none threatened India's secular and democratic polity as much as the carnage that jolted Mumbai last week. Mumbai is India's financial and commercial capital and arguably the country's most cosmopolitan metropolis. By targeting, among other establishments, two of the city's most opulent hotels - the Taj and the Oberoi Trident - where the rich, famous and influential congregate to advance their business and political agendas, the terrorists struck at the very symbol of a resurgent nation.

The timing of the assault is equally significant, coming on the eve of elections to five provincial assemblies. Campaign rhetoric has polarized opinion along sharply antagonistic lines, essentially pitting the ruling Congress party, which swears by secularism, against the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party.

After terrorist attacks in the past, the BJP has denounced the Congress party as being soft on terrorism in an effort to mobilize India's substantial Muslim vote in its favor. The Congress, in turn, attacks the BJP and its affiliates for bashing Muslims in order to consolidate its core Hindu vote. Indians have a peculiar word to describe this state of affairs - communalism, meaning a determined bid to exploit religious sentiments for electoral gain.

The effect of this competitive demagoguery has been disastrous on many counts. Terrorism suspects have been picked up at random and denied legal rights. Allegations of torture by police are routine. Suspects have been held for years as their court cases have dragged on. Convictions have been few and far between

Muslims convicted in some cases have been punished while Hindus have been let off lightly or not punished at all.

As a consequence, India's Muslims have begun to lose faith in the Indian state, its institutions and its instruments. This has led to the radicalization of Muslim youths
To further complicate matters, a Hindu holy woman, a Hindu holy man, a serving officer of the Indian armed forces and some Hindu extremists have been arrested for their alleged involvement in terrorist attacks. It is now the turn of the BJP and its affiliates to charge that the police, at the behest of their "secular" masters, are failing to observe due process.

Simply put, the Hindus, like the Muslims, have started to question the credibility of the police and, by extension, the state. These fears cannot be calmed unless the Indian state cracks down vigorously on terrorism, regardless of the suspects' religion.

Dileep Padgaonkaredits the bimonthly magazine India & Global Affairs.

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