State of vacuum in times of terror

The appalling bombing of trains in Mumbai should lull us out of the Arcadian complacency that had been creeping into our security discourse. As a security challenge, terrorism it is not easy to deal with. As a political strategy, it is premised upon producing one of two outcomes. Either it incites a strategic and political overreaction which can, in turn, foment a vicious cycle of violence and counter-violence. Or it incites a fear of overreaction, leading to a policy paralysis that makes the state look very weak. In this sense, terrorists play a win-win hand, at least as far as their attacks on the state are concerned. Dealing with terrorism therefore requires a fine judgment that almost no state seems to have quite achieved.

While it is premature to ascertain who was responsible for these blasts, there is little doubt that terrorists are once again sensing a political vacuum and lack of resolve in the top echelons of government. A proper response to terrorism requires a dual strategy. On the hand, the state has to send a clear message that terrorism is not acceptable. But this is a message the state has to send in the architecture of its security policies, in the assiduousness and precision with which it pursues perpetrators. There is something almost anaemic about the way the Government condemns terrorism.

The NDA government’s anti-terrorism policy was a combination of formalism, draconian powers to the state and political overreaction. Its legislative interventions like Pota made it susceptible to the charge that it violated due process and civil liberties that a civilized state should protect at all costs. Concomitantly, its political rhetoric was less interested in targeting terrorists but more in milking terrorism to create an atmosphere of anxiety that could be exploited for political gain. The NDA’s record was more legal formalism than actual success in combating terrorism. The UPA’s policy seems to simply reverse the strategy: do away with all strong signals to terrorists and, for fear of political overreaction, prevent tough scrutiny of groups that may be out to do harm. The tragedy is that either way members of the minority community are set up as objects of a potential political backlash. In the NDA’s case they become direct targets; in UPA’s case, if the state is is seen as soft on Terror it cultivates conditions for a future backlash.

We of course know that there is no such thing as a spontaneous backlash: organised groups and the state prepare propitious conditions for exploiting violence. The silver lining has been that since Gujarat, and with the coming to power of the UPA, the state at least has not connived in such a backlash. But it would be premature to conclude that the politics of backlash will not come to haunt us. Clearly, terrorists would have been emboldened by the events in Bhiwandi, and the image of a Shiv Sena ready to go on a rampage at the slightest affront. The potential of a volatile communal politics has not receded. Therefore it is all the more important that the state is seen to be intelligently strong on terrorism. On terrorism we now need a discourse that can detach the issue from the majority-minority distinction; that distinction should simply become irrelevant in framing our response.

... contd.

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