The Times of India
Time for rethink on response to terror 31 Dec 2008, 0740 hrs IST, Santosh Desai
If there is one thing most of India seems agreed on in the aftermath of the terror attacks, it would be that we respond strongly. Even if we don't carpet-bomb Pakistan, as suggested by the more trigger-happy, it is generally agreed that we must convey our resolve in no uncertain terms. We must push the US and Pakistan, get our house in order in terms of security and overhaul our intelligence apparatus.
One question that has not really been discussed is why is India a target for terrorist attacks at all? Is the solution to this problem only that we prepare ourselves better and find a way of attacking some identified terrorist organizations? Is there no other implication, no other area that we need to introspect about other than this? Is there a need to look at how India has dealt with its minorities and specifically, with Kashmir?
Now, the reason why this question is not asked is because we fear what answering it will entail. It will evoke anxieties about our perceived weakness, it will cloud the clarity that we seem to have, armed as we are with legitimate outrage. It would galvanize those who are disgusted with, and not without any justification, what they see as the culture of minority appeasement that seems to bedevil our political system. Also, to allow these attacks to prompt a discussion such as this is to implicitly propose a moral equivalence between the actions — our treatment of minorities and particularly, the issue of Kashmir and the terror attacks in Mumbai. This is not a time to doubt ourselves, for that will only weaken us, is the unspoken agreement among most of us.
In any case, these are questions that need to be addressed separately. Introspecting about the root causes of terrorism will not make the task of protecting Indian citizens against such horrific attacks any easier. But eventually, that is not a question we can run away from.
Terrorism is an act of symbolic violence that aims at creating an upward spiral of empty reciprocal violence. Terrorism makes terrorists out of the other side, something we can see more clearly if we look at the American response to 9/11. The fact that the US could forgo principles that were so central to it and embrace torture, illegal imprisonment and the denial of the most basic rights in its quest to combat terrorism is a good pointer what terror can make us become. The reciprocal violence was by definition empty; vengeance was wreaked on a country that had nothing to do with the attacks. All that was achieved was that the US lived up to its billing in the Muslim world as a thoughtless oppressor with an unreasonable fear of anything Islamic.
Was the American response really a strong one? Is military action by itself a sign of strength? Is the US safer now than earlier? One can point to the fact that seven years have gone by without another attack on US soil, but what about the fact that Americans are targets anywhere in the world? Even in Mumbai, it was the Americans and British that were specifically targeted.
What if, as someone suggested, the US had in response to 9/11 made a grand gesture of reconciliation to the Muslim world? What if, instead of being locked in to the traditional pattern of retributive response, the US had attacked the terrorists symbolically? Terrorism is a battle of ideas and the violence is merely a device. Symbolic warfare needs new definitions of strength and weakness, aggression and defence. To wreak vengeance is in the terrorist's scheme of things, a defensive action. What seems like strength is in fact a programmed form of weakness. We are obeying their orders when we attack them indiscriminately. And given terrorists have no country, it is virtually impossible to attack them without collateral damage to innocent civilians.
The notions of strength and weakness need more careful examination. Pakistan's biggest strength is its perceived fragility and its status as a failed or a rapidly failing state. Its weakness makes it strong. We fear that that pressuring Pakistan beyond a point will lead to anarchy and dangerous instability. In contrast, a seemingly strong action like building a nuclear bomb has led to Pakistan doing the same and thereby neutralising the Indian advantage in conventional terms. Particularly when it comes to terrorism, which uses our strength as a weakness, we need to rethink what would constitute a strong response.
Terrorism uses brutal, gross methods towards a nuanced, subtle end. Terrorists cannot, whatever the intensity and brutality of their attacks, destroy or even substantially weaken India. They can, however, cause serious damage to the Idea of India. In a battle of ideas, we must look beyond the immediate violence and try and aggressively win this war of symbols. This is not easy for every fibre in our body today strains to hit back and extract a measure of revenge. And while it is important for us to convey our determination in this matter, if we are serious about looking for genuine solutions, we have to start asking genuine questions. The weak follow the herd; it is only the strong who can ask the really difficult questions. Are we ready?
santoshdesai1963 at indiatimes.com
-- My humanity is in feeling we are all voices of the same poverty. - Jorge Louis Borges