Reacting right

Varanasi,that ancient,spirituality-sodden city by the Ganga,was suddenly and cruelly attacked during evening prayers. A bomb placed in a milk container ripped through the Sitala Ghat temple,injuring over 30 people and killing a one-year-old girl. The tragedy has reverberated through the nation,which had begun to breathe easy in the 10 months following the Pune bakery attack.But even as we were taking in the news,there was already a political chorus that had swiftly processed the event and assimilated it into its own worldviews,pinning blame according to its own ends. So the BJP decided that the attack stemmed from the government’s “soft-on-terror” policy that emboldened terrorists. “Tentatively,it appears to be a security lapse and lack of proper intelligence,” said BJP spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad. Equally quick off the mark,his colleague,Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi,sought to indict Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram,saying he maintained

a “casual approach” to terrorism. Meanwhile,at the state level in UP,the Congress’s Rita Bahuguna Joshi and the Samajwadi Party’s Mulayam Singh Yadav have leapt on the opportunity to trash Chief Minister Mayawati’s administration and its inadequate security response. The home minister has pointed out that the Centre had alerted the UP government to a possible attack near Dashashwamedh Ghat,which the state has fiercely batted back at him,saying there was absolutely no actionable information and that the CM advised the Central government not to wash its hands of internal security by taking cover behind the “state subject” excuse.

So much agitation and anger,and so little sense of proportion. It’s not to minimise the pain of Varanasi to point out that we have been mercifully spared serious terrorism in the last year,whether the result of dumb luck or highly impressive intelligence gathering. Yes,we cannot afford to let security slacken even for a day,as the home minister rightly pointed out. But it’s important to pull back and realise that these actions have a certain symbolic import — hitting out at a place like Varanasi,on the day after the anniversary of the Babri Masjid destruction,is clearly meant to provoke tension and destabilise the region. However,as is the case of late after many attacks,the humane and dignified reaction of citizens has been overshadowed by the theatrics of the political class. They have,unfortunately,displayed a deep irresponsibility by seizing on human tragedy for its small political uses.