Our so-called secular political class and elite kept away from the observance of the anniversary of the Mumbai tragedy of 11/7/2006. Forget about flowers. Not a drop of tear. Not a word of sorrow. Not a sign of grief. Not a single expression of solidarity with the relatives of the victims.
Large sections of the nation shed tears on July 11, 2007, in memory of the 190 innocent Indians belonging to different religions who were killed a year ago in a series of explosions in suburban trains of Mumbai by jihadi terrorists inspired by the ideology of Al Qaeda. Their tears were also an expression of solidarity with the surviving relatives of these victims.
Just as millions of Americans and their leaders belonging to both sides of the political spectrum shed tears on September 11 every year in memory of the over 2,500 innocent civilians belonging to different nations who were killed by Al Qaeda in the US homeland on September 11,2001, and in solidarity with their relatives.
Just as millions of Indonesians and Australians and their political leaders shed years every year on the anniversary of the Bali bombing of October,2002, in which nearly 200 innocent
civilians--Indonesians, Australians and others--were blown to pieces by jihadi terrorists.
Just as millions of Spanish people, their royal family and their political leaders shed tears every year on the anniversary of the Madrid bombing of March,2004, in which the jihadi terrorists targeted suburban trains, killing nearly 200 innocent civilians.
Just as millions of British, their royal family and their political leaders shed tears every year on the anniversary of the London bombings of July,2005, in which jihadi suicide terrorists targeted the public transportation system killing over 50 innocent civilians.
There was a significant difference between the observance of the anniversaries of these great human tragedies inflicted on humanity by the jihadi terrorists in other countries and in India.
In other countries, the head of the state or government participated in the observance of the
anniversaries. On July 7, 2007, we saw on the TV touching scenes of Mr Gordon Brown, the British Prime Minister, and his wife visiting the tube stations where the terrorists struck and placing flowers at the scene of the tragedy.
In India, our so-called secular political class and elite kept away from the observance of the anniversary of the Mumbai tragedy of July
11, 2006.
Forget about flowers.
Not a drop of tear.
Not a word of sorrow.
Not a sign of grief.
Not a single expression of solidarity with the relatives of the victims.
I did not write this article yesterday because I waited to see whether our Prime Minister would fly to Mumbai and lead the people of the nation in remembering the innocent
Indians--men, women and children--who were blown to pieces by the jihadi terrorists last year. I was convinced in my mind that he would not. Still, I was hoping that he would prove me wrong by participating in the observance of the anniversary. He didn't.
Why didn't he?
Busy dealing with grave crises confronting the nation?
No.
Lack of time?
No.
Bad weather?
No.
He did not attend because he was worried the Muslims might misunderstand.
He did not attend because he was worried that any public expression of sorrow for those blown up by the jihadi terrorists might be misinterpreted by the Muslims as stigmatising their community.
A few weeks after the Mumbai blasts of July 11, 2006, I had been to Kolkata to attend a
conference. One of the eminent participants told me that a few days after the blasts there was a meeting in the Raj Bhawan chaired by the
governor of West Bengal to discuss some other subject. One of the participants proposed that they observe a two-minutes' silence in memory of those killed in Mumbai.
The governor ruled his suggestion out of order.
Why?
Lest the Muslims misinterpret it as stigmatising their community.
Jihadi terrorists can go on indulging in one act of mass casualty terrorism after another.
But, according to our so-called secular political class and elite, we should not talk about it or even cry about it.
Our anger, our tears, our exasperation at the failure of the government to deal with them might be seen by the Muslims as stigmatising their community.
How many acts of jihadi terrorism we have had in India since the present government
came to power in Delhi in 2004?
Delhi, Varanasi, Mumbai, Malegaon, Bangalore, Samjhota Express, Hyderabad.
Shri Shekhar Gupta, the Editor-in-Chief of the
Indian Express, in a recent article drew attention to a fact to which I have been drawing attention in my writings for over a year. There has been no satisfactory progress in any of these investigations.
In the past, our Police might have been criticised in some instances for its inability to prevent acts of terrorism, but it had generally received very high praise for its successful investigation.
We all felt proud of the Mumbai Police of the 1990s recently when the case relating to the Mumbai blasts of March,1993, in which about 250 innocent civilians were blown up by jihadi terrorists, ended in conviction. There were many other cases in which too the Mumbai Police of the 1990s had covered itself with credit.
So too the Delhi Police.
So too the Police of other cities.
Why there is a perception now that they are not as good as they were in the 1990s?
Has there been a deterioration in their competence?
No. In the 1990s, they received the full backing of the political leadership of those years, which took active interest in the investigation.
The political leadership of those years did not give sermons to the police not to do anything which might be viewed by the Muslims as stigmatising or targeting their community.
It refrained from inhibiting a thorough investigation through such sermons.
The political leadership of the past provided leadership and guidance. It took active interest in the investigation. It was determined that the guilty will be brought to book, even if they be Muslims.
The political leadership of today gives sermons and no leadership. It avoids active monitoring and supervision of the investigation lest the Muslims misunderstand.
I was in service at the height of terrorism in Punjab and Jammu & Kashmir under leaders like Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi and Narasimha Rao.
They never gave sermons.
I had never heard expressions like "stigmatising a community" or "targeting a community" etc coming out of their mouth.
In the past, we used to accuse Western countries of following double standards in counter-terrorism because of their reluctance to co-operate with us.
We accused them of adopting an over-legalistic approach in order to avoid co-operating with us.
Since the botched-up London and Glasgow terrorist strikes by a joint Arab-Indian jihadi cell, we have been guilty of the same sins of commission and omission which we attributed to the West in the past.
Much of the initial leads about the Indian participants and their jihadi background before they migrated to the UK came from the Karnataka Police. It is they who were the first to identify the man who drove the car, which crashed into the Glasgow airport, as Kafeel Ahmed, an Indian national.
They were also the first to identify him as an aeronautical engineer and not a doctor.
They were also the first to establish that he became Wahabised in Bangalore and not in London, Belfast, Cambridge or Glasgow. He was not infected in the UK. He carried the jihadi infection to the UK from India.
Leaders of the Indian Muslim community are worried that digging out the truth might lead to a stigmatisation of the Indian Muslims abroad.
They express their concern to the so-called secular political leadership. What does it do?
Till recently, our Prime Minister was giving sermons to our police and intelligence agencies not to do anything, which might be viewed by the Muslims as stigmatising their community.
Now, he calls up Mr Gordon Brown and gives him a sermon about the importance of not doing anything which might stigmatise the Muslim community.
The Australian Police want some quick check-up about the antecedents of an Indian Muslim doctor from Bangalore under interrogation by them. He is related to one of the Indian perpetrators of the London and Glasgow attempts and had lived with them in the UK before migrating to Australia.
What do we do?
The Central Bureau of Investigation gives them a sermon about the importance of making their request through proper channel.
Just as the Western Police and intelligence agencies used to tell us in the past when we asked for a quick check-up of a terrorism-related information.
New Delhi is afraid that any over-enthusiasm by our police and investigative and intelligence agencies in co-operating with the British and Australian investigators making preliminary enquiries about the suspected Indian Muslims might be viewed by the Indian Muslim community as stigmatising them.
So, the message is: Drag your feet in co-operating with the British and Australians.
The sensitivities and feelings of the Muslims are more important than saving innocent
civilians--whether in India, the UK or Australia--by exposing the jihadi iceberg and neutralising it before it is too late.
We shed tears for the victims of last year's Mumbai explosions yesterday.
Let us shed tears for ourselves today for having the misfortune of having a government
for which the feelings of the Muslims are more important than saving the lives of innocent civilians from the continued depredations of the jihadi terrorists.
B. Raman is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, government of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail:itschen36@gmail.com )