Call it the fog of war. And the good guys must turn the searchlight on themselves whenever the occasion demands. It now appears that the “suspicious” passengers, all of them Indians, abroad the recalled and subsequently cancelled Northwest Airlines flight were guilty of, at most, decidedly odd behaviour. Any post-mortem of the incident must start with this principle — when innocents end up getting harassed or worse, an apology or something better should be automatically due. If the war on terror is at some level about values, as heads of governments of various democracies have said in various contexts, empathising with innocents is one value that must be non-negotiable. Democracies simply can’t argue that there will be collateral damages in the war on terror and leave it at that. They can’t shrug and say some people getting caught in the crossfire is ‘acceptable’ price for safety.

Many raise the question of ‘racial profiling’ in this context. Bluntly put, do Arab/South Asian/North African ‘looks’ engender reflex action on the part of security personnel? It is necessary here to be sober. Automatic official assumptions of mala fide intentions on the basis of an individual’s appearance or ethnicity is outrageous, utterly unacceptable and a God’s gift to terrorist propagandists. But indignant condemnation of all security procedures, accusations of overt or barely covert racial prejudice against security agencies are no better as an argument. What is tempting to describe as a racist bias may be panic, over-reaction, erroneous spot judgments on the part of specific security officials. When that happens, as we argued earlier, state institutions must acknowledge the injustice done to an individual. But without solid evidence of institutional bias, it would be grossly irresponsible to accuse en masse those manning the front gates and front lines against terrorism.

... contd.