Some time in the last few years, it has become easier and acceptable to bring out the Bangladeshi ‘militant cell’ bogey. That there is Islamist politics inside Bangladesh is not in question (many of us spend a great deal of energy opposing it as a political force). That these forces have more theatrical clout than a decade ago is also clear (electoral strength is muddied by the vote splitting agreement of 2001, and the cancelled elections of 2007). That some of them have fantasies of armed intifada is not in question either. But that they have the capacity to wage cross-border forays — this still needs to be proven (that is, are the fantasy groups ten strong, or one hundred thousand — noone has done credible research on this inside or outside Bangladesh).

The proof after the blasts always seems to come from shaky sources. That shadowy beast of Indian intel. Well, not just Indian intel, also American intel. The US has listed HuJI as a ‘global-standard’ terrorist organisation. Does this listing reflect the reality, or it is wish-fulfillment elevating a group of smalltime operators into the global bigtime? We don’t know and we won’t know as long as the WOT equation continues to profit from inflated enemy strategy.

The Bangladesh government muddies the water further by insisting that there are ‘no Bangladeshis’ inside India. Of course there are many Bangladeshi immigrants inside India. There will always be. The real question about Jaipur is — who are these people in the ‘Bangali para’ — what were they doing all this time? Working for middle class Indian families, of course. Everyone in India knows exactly why these people are there — to work. As house help, cleaners, sweepers, cooks, maids, taxi drivers, tailors, weavers, jewelry makers, construction workers. Keeping Shining India rolling along. Yesterday, they were your convenient and easy source of cheap labour. Why are they a problem today?

... contd.