Please don’t let it be a Muslim,” was the outpouring on the social media after the Boston Marathon blasts. Hundreds of young Muslims crossed fingers and toes with prayers on their lips that they be spared the aftermath of what always follows a terror attack by these mindless fanatics. This one sentence spoke volumes as the Muslim masses have felt the brunt of police action after the terror attack, the fear, the humiliation, the isolation, as the propaganda machinery turns the entire community into a whipping boy with little effort to distinguish between the terrorist and the people. “Why is no action being taken against those responsible for the death of thousands in Afghanistan and Pakistan” was perhaps the second most fervent reaction on the social media as the young and old and certainly not all Muslims, shared their anger against the drone attacks and military action by the American and Nato forces in the region. Many questioned the silence of the world media on these almost-daily deaths at the hands of those who have occupied sovereign nations in the name of the long-since launched war against terror. Why has there been no action against those responsible for taking innocent lives, was the widely shared sentiment along with a strong condemnation, of course, of the Boston terror attack.Both the posts reflect the Muslim mood today, that in a sense cuts across nations. The fear and helplessness of the masses who are fed up of terrorism, condemn it and yet find themselves in the firing line of those — nations and their institutions like the media — seeking to convert the violence into a dangerous and virulent anti-Muslim propaganda. Leaders of states and governments issue broad brush statements that do not differentiate between the terrorists and the Muslims with the media working, or should one now write conspiring, to blur the distinction and place all the millions of Muslims in the dock. This pressure is being felt particularly by the younger generation that is certainly not willing to accept the burden of terrorist action, but finds that it is being made answerable by an insensitive and wily world for violence that the Muslims themselves condemn and abhor. Terrorism needs to be fought and countered. But it is important to realize that the struggle has to be against both state terrorism, and terrorism per se. The one now seems to be feeding into the other in a vicious cycle that the terrorist will certainly not break, but the state can, with a sound strategy that isolates the terrorists from the people at all levels; and no community feels hounded in the process. After all, the poor of Chhattisgarh are not responsible for the violence unleashed by both the Maoists and the Indian state in their homes; just as the people of Assam cannot be pilloried for the Ulfa; or the Tamils for the LTTE. Support, if any, to extremist organisations comes from state terrorism that does not distinguish between the innocent and the guilty, and kills all justifying it as “collateral damage.” Unfortunately, in their war against terror, states find it easier to paint peoples with the same brush, in the mischievous and highly sinister ploy to pit the “us” against the “them.”Justice is really the answer to it all. Justice that comes from the arrest of the terrorist, his trial and his punishment along with that of his handlers and collaborators. Justice becomes grave injustice leading to alienation in its extreme form, when entire communities are held responsible for the violence and made to pay a price. In Mumbai, state policy has been to pillory the Muslims for every terror attack. The result is that hundreds of young men have been arrested and thrown into jail, to rot there for years, until their cases are heard and they are hopefully acquitted. A terror attack in far off Boston has young Mumbai girls fervently praying that the terrorists are not Muslims, as they know that a weak and insecure government bent on polarizing society will use this as a pretext for a clampdown at home. An old taxi driver born and brought up in Maharashtra shared the fear his family and friends are facing as a result. “All educated Muslims are being put in jail,” he said, wondering what will happen to Mumbai and Maharashtra.Muslim professors in Delhi, known for their highly secular views, are not being able to get rented accommodation in Delhi, India’s capital. They have been turned away by eight housing societies in South Delhi so far and now despair of ever getting a place to stay in India’s capital. This is the end result of the government’s reluctance to differentiate between the terrorist and the community, with the media in India and the West reinforcing the blend of the Muslim, the fanatic and the terrorist. In Ahmedabad, the ghettoization has been complete for decades now. In Mumbai it has been legitimized as well.The cycle initiated by the terrorist with his violence and his indoctrinated and perverted world view has to be broken. The war against terror can certainly not be won by a violent state invading nations, killing innocents with drones, and fuelling wars and strife. A compassionate, sensitive state can do it by drawing the line between those out to vent their anger and wreck the world with violence, and the masses, even as it remains relentless against terror and the terrorist. Instead of aping the US and Israel with their macho concept of the hard state that invokes more hatred than security, India with her lessons of the independence struggle can go back to its pluralism to find the answers. And thereby, strike the much needed balance to ensure that the war against terror does not become a war against her own people.The author is a senior journalist and author.

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