Comment

The recent episodes of terrorism in Bangalore and Ahmedabad prove one thing: putting bombs in public places is now a profession, not a cause, for some individuals. Just as we are journalists or doctors or lawyers, there are now professional terrorists. I have a heard a lot of liberal claptrap about how the 2002 Gujarat riots pushed many ordinary Muslims towards terrorism. It’s true, but only up to a point. When every act of terror is traced to Gujarat, it sounds phoney.

The 1993 Mumbai blasts were certainly linked to the anti-Muslim riots a few months earlier. The Gateway of India blast five years ago also seemed related to Muslim anger over what happened in Gujarat. But with each passing year, the Gujarat excuse starts to wear thin. In fact, more murders are now being committed in the name of avenging Gujarat than anything else. If you start adding up the terrorism-related deaths in India after 2002, you will find that the toll vastly exceeds the number killed in Gujarat. So what’s the purpose of further revenge?

Now we have another tell-tale sign that terrorism is being professionalised. The email that preceded the Ahmedabad blasts is all of 14 pages. It was not the work of one angry man or group. If the organisers of the 1993 blasts were driven by rage, the cold-blooded killers of Ahmedabad last week went about their tasks with clinical precision.
They did it because it was a job they wanted to do. Tomorrow they could offer their services to any Hindu militant organisation — if they want it.

The rant by the so-called ‘Indian Mujahideen’ — probably a bunch of international thugs keen to append the terror label to Indians — starts by admitting they are terrorists. Titled ‘The Rise of Jihad, Revenge of Gujarat’, the email vents its fury against everyone — from Vilasrao Deshmukh to Mukesh Ambani, from Shah Rukh Khan to Aamir. There’s even something on incidents in Yavatmal in Maharashtra. This makes it obvious that the recent acts of terrorism may have nothing to do with genuine anger against the events in Gujarat, but something else.

Whenever anyone makes a huge list of grievances, lumping big reasons with small, it’s a dead giveaway that the reasons are being invented to fit the action planned. Just like an employee leaving a job for better pay invents a hundred reasons why he doesn’t like his current workplace, the email makes it clear that the rationale for killing innocents has been invented to justify the crime.

Nobody gives a damn why they are doing it. Few Muslims believe that these phonies are fighting for any cause but their own; Hindus have stopped fulminating against terror despite the heavy toll it takes each time. Given the sheer size of India and its apparent callousness, a few blasts here and there make no difference.

If terror is ever defeated, it will be defeated in India, though for all the wrong reasons. We are the only people in the world without a coherent policy on how to deal with it. Anyone can get away with mass murder here, but we continue to get on with life. This must be frustrating the terrorists.

This explains why they are busy writing long emails to make sure we get worked up again. But Indians don’t have the time to read long emails. The terrorists are barking up the wrong tree.

I believe that India will continue to provide soft targets for Terror International to practice its skills, but since nothing much will be done about it here, it won’t help them get any better. To really test their mettle, terrorists have to go after harder targets in the west, where higher skills are required. As a soft state, India bends with every passing terrorist wind, but gets up again after it all ends.

There are many things we need to do to combat terror — improve intelligence, policing, etc — but sometimes doing nothing is better than doing something foolish — like George Bush did in Iraq. We aren’t doing too badly.

Email: r_jagannathan@dnaindia.net