Fifth, a special effort is made to discredit the army, security forces, and local investigations in an attempt to project the terrorists as victims of police misadventures.

Sixth, an aura of victimhood is sought to be built up around the terrorist. If he is either arrested or killed in an encounter, grieving women relatives will vouch for his innocence even though there exists overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Seventh, arguments are rendered to develop a perceptional equality between the terrorist and persons belonging to other religions and communities. The separatists in Kashmir were equated with the Amarnath Shrine Sangharsh Samiti, an organisation which held the national flag close to its heart and chanted ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’ during the protests. Similarly, it is said that if you ban the subversive SIMI, you must also ban RSS and allied organisations. There can be no moral or political equivalence between a subversive and a nationalist.

Eighth, the response of the state has been weak and timid. The government has sought to link the battle against terror not with security considerations but entirely with vote bank considerations. The repeal of POTA, the refusal to give Central assent to state laws, the withholding of the death sentence to the man guilty of attacking Parliament, the encouragement of illegal infiltration from Bangladesh are only illustrative examples.

Ninth, national discomfort is the highest because of an ideological shift in the Congress Party’s position. The Muslim League and the Communists traditionally took an extreme position which did not privilege national interest. The Jana Sangh/BJP propounded the cause of aggressive nationalism. Historically, the Congress occupied the centre-stage where it tried to correlate its own brand of secularism with nationalism. In the last two decades, India has witnessed a series of mainstream politicians such as V.P. Singh, Mulayam, Lalu Prasad, and even Arjun Singh who attempted to redefine secularism as a euphemism for majority bashing. Historically, this was never the Congress position. In fact, Indira Gandhi at times overtook the Jana Sangh/BJP in her aggressive nationalism. But the Congress under Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh is primarily concerned with continuity in power and an alliance with those whose political compulsions are decided by vote banks. As such the alliance can comprise of those who are SIMI friendly. The Congress today finds itself in a chakravyuh. If it continues its soft-on-terror ‘policy’ it loses national support, if it is hard on terror it loses out on the vote bank it has tried to create in the past few years. Either way it is a no-win situation.

... contd.