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Political will to counter terror

At first glance, Friday’s terror bombings in Uttar Pradesh are just one more event in the murderous series of urban terror strikes that India has seen in recent years. For the first time, though, an Islamist terror group operating in India has issued a manifesto seeking to explain its actions. In an e-mail despatched to television stations, the perpetrators of the bombings said their acts were intended to avenge communal pogroms against Muslims. However, the e-mail m ade clear, propelling the pace of justice against their perpetrators was not the bombings’ intent. Justice, it claimed, “could be only possible in Islamic rule, which could be achieved by only one path: jihad.” Neither polemic, nor the accelerating tempo of violence, ought to surprise us. The Hindu has long pointed to the growing pace of recruitment by Islamist terror groups after the 2002 communal pogrom in Gujarat. Capitalising on the legitimate anger Muslims feel about the atrocities inflicted upon them, and the Indian state’s manifest failure to uphold the rule of law, Islamist terror groups have been able to create a domestic infrastructure to sustain their violent campaign. Most of the suspects involved in terror strikes since the 1993 Mumbai serial bombings have been Indian nationals, drawn to the ranks of Islamist groups based in Pakistan and Bangladesh in the hope of avenging communal violence. A jihad against India waged by Indians, a long-standing dream of south Asian Islamists, was once thought a deranged fantasy. It is now upon us.

What needs to be done is well known: India’s stretched police and intelligence services need more resources and institutional reforms if terrorism is to be combated. The real question is just why politicians have shown so little interest in bringing about changes all claim to agree are needed. Behind their apathy lies a wider political problem. Governments in States like Uttar Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh have been criticised, with some justification, for their long-standing unwillingness to combat Islamists — a failure that is, in turn, a function of the allegiance major parties have developed with Muslim communal blocs. However, this criticism misses the point. Across India, governments have demonstrated a remarkable unwillingness to confront any form of communalism, be it Hindu, Sikh, or Christian in its colours. India’s decades-old failure to act against perpetrators of communal violence gifted legitimacy to religious fundamentalists among the victims, and power to their counterparts among the perpetrators. As one fanaticism flowered, it inevitably fed the fears that fuelled the growth of others. Most political parties developed opportunistic relationships with the growing religious right-wing, offering protection from the law in return for votes. A credible criminal justice system will do more to contain Islamist terror groups than any number of policemen. But unless politicians across the ideological spectrum find the will for a meaningful consensus on upholding India’s secular values, the reforms we so desperately need are unlikely to be ever put in place. Islamists have issued their manifesto for war. India’s politicians now need to put together their own manifesto for rebuilding peace.

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