Crossing The Limits

It was indeed terrible Tuesday (11/7/06) when innocent commuters going backhome after a hard day's work were targeted with bomb blasts from Matunga toBhayandar on western suburban trains in Mumbai. So far the death toll is morethan 200 and about 700 people injured, many of them quite severely. No words areenough to condemn such horrible crime against humanity. No one who has evenelementary sense of being human will commit such a dastardly act.

Earlier, the same day, in the morning, eight persons lost their lives inSrinagar, five of them tourists from West Bengal. Grenades were thrown at thetourist bus proceeding towards Pahalgam. Why these killings? Who is behind it?Earlier violence was mostly confined to Kashmir valley. Now this has spread tovarious cities of north India -- Delhi, Varanasi, Ayodhya and Mumbai. Mumbaiwitnessed such horrifying bomb blasts the second time, the first time was inMarch 1993 in which more than 250 innocent people had lost their lives.

Some people think, as many Kashmiris thought in 1989, that violence is theonly way out and if they take to guns, azadi would be near at hand. Now,after losing 80,000 lives, they have realised what repercussions violence bringsabout. 'Azadi' is as far away as it ever was for Kashmiris and all they havegained is violence and more violence. Peace now is as elusive as azadiitself.

We can very well realise the wisdom of Gandhiji's insistence on non-violencefor attaining freedom for India from clutches of British imperialism. No onebelieved Gandhiji when he talked of achieving India's freedom throughnon-violence. Even Churchill, the then Prime Minister of Britain, talked ofGandhiji with scorn and said what this 'naked faqir' could do to the mightyBritish empire, on which even the sun never set.

The world saw that the naked faqir and his non-violence shook the BritishEmpire and got freedom for India. Some people think that the oppressed arejustified in using violence, and, secondly, that without violence one cannotachieve liberation from the oppressors. However, one forgets that while violenceis physical, non-violence is moral and spiritual. While the oppressed may not beable to match violence of the oppressor, non-violence gives the oppressed moralsuperiority and puts the oppressor to shame.

However, it is not easy to practice non-violence for an ordinary person. Itrequires tremendous inner discipline. In Gandhiji's theory of non-violence thereis equally important concept of what he called satyagraha (insistence ontruth) and this requires tremendous patience. Thus non-violence, insistence ontruth and patience, all go together and this has an appeal of its own and ifpracticed honestly, it can achieve tremendous results as Gandhiji showed.

Interestingly, Gandhiji's concept comes very close to the Qur'anic teachingof truth and patience (haq and sabr) as enshrined in chapter 103.It is great shame that the so called 'jihadis are committing such dastardly actsof violence in the name of Islam. Nothing can be more un-Islamic than thesehorrifying inhuman acts. This game is being played for power and pelf by asection of Pakistani army. These terrorists cannot carry on such powerful blastswithout the support of ISI of Pakistan. Lashkar-e-Toiba, which is suspected tobe behind such acts, cannot sustain itself without active help from ISI. ThoughLashkar-e-Toiba has denied responsibility for these serial blasts on Tuesday,and the police too has not reached any decisive conclusion, yet all availableindications point in that direction.

Nawaz Sharif, the former Prime Minister of Pakistan has said in his recentlypublished biography that ISI is not under government control and has been tryingto destabilise India and Bangla Desh. He is certainly in know of things inPakistan and what he says cannot be lightly dismissed.

It is such a matter of shame that Pakistan, which claims to be an Islamicstate, is bringing shame and disgrace to Islam. No other Islamic country is hometo so many terrorists as Pakistan is. Pakistan also has become a front state forall American designs, which further fuels violence and creates more terrorists.In fact, if Pakistan were true to Islam then it should have been a haven ofpeace. The prophet of Islam made peace central to Islamic teachings.

He accepted the peace treaty of Hudaibiyah, which was thought to behumiliating by most of his close companions and yet the Prophet (PBUH) insistedon accepting the treaty as it led to establishing peace. What could be a betteror noble example than this? But these terrorists feel no pang of conscience inkilling innocent citizens. Even according to the rules of Shari'ah,non-combatants cannot be killed. These rules are precursors to the GenevaAgreement, which was drawn up hundreds of years after these Shari'ah rules.

However, it is these Muslims who are openly defying these Shari'ah rules inthe name of Islam. What could be more condemnable? Also how can one invoke jihadin the name of Kashmir? Jihad is not meant for conquering territory, it is fordefending oneself, if attacked, and for controlling one's evil desires. TheQur'an specifically prohibits any war of aggression. It clearly says,"Fight in the way of Allah those who fight you. Do not commit aggression;Allah does not love aggressors." (2:190)

In throwing bombs and killing innocent people, these Muslims are doublyguilty: they are showing aggression against those who are not aggressors, and,over and above that, they are killing non-combatants. Thus they are violatingevery injunction of Islam and yet, ironically, in the name of Islam, they havenamed their armed groups as "Lashkar-e-Toiba " (Holy Army) and "Jaish-e-Mohammad"(the Army of Mohammad, peace be upon him). How can an army which kills innocentpeople be a holy army or army of Holy Prophet? Those who commit such inhumandeeds can never deserve to be called, as they call themselves, holy army or armyof Mohammad (PBUH).

And as for jihad, it has never been used in the sense of war in the Qur'an.There are other words like qital and harb for war. The Prophet (PBUH),when asked what is jihad, is reported to have said that the best form of jihadis speaking truth in the face of a tyrannical ruler. But here the so calledjihadis themselves are tyrannical and it is required to speak the plain truthabout them. They need to be told that what they are doing is tyranny againstinnocent people.

It is such dastardly acts which have brought a bad name to Islam in thepopular imagination. We claim that Islam is a religion of peace but such actsconvince people that Islam has nothing to do with peace, but with violence andterrorism. It is in fact the duty of Muslims to project themselves as a modelfor peaceful behaviour. We cannot expect common people to discern anddiscriminate between handful of aggressors and large mass of Muslims living inpeace with others and sticking to the Islamic teaching of peace.

It is believed that one of the intentions of such killings of innocent peopleis to start communal violence in India. They carried out bomb-blasts in Ayodhya,in a temple in Varanasi and earlier in a market place in Delhi last October. Butthe people of India are mature enough not to fall prey to such dirty games. Whena blast was carried out at a temple in Varanasi, it was feared that it wouldtrigger off communal riots. But not only Muslim leaders and intellectuals, butalso the chief mufti of Varanasi issued a fatwa decrying that attack on thetemple, quoting the Qur'anic verse that to kill one innocent human being amountsto killing the whole humanity (5:32).

The chief mufti and chief priest of the temple in Varanasi came together andexpressed solidarity, thus completely frustrating the designs of those whowanted to ignite Hindu-Muslim riots. When a blast was carried out at Ayodhya, itwas feared in the same way that it might trigger-off violence between Hindus andMuslims, yet nothing happened. We must salute the maturity of Indian people.

This time around also all important Muslim leaders have condemned thiscowardly attack on innocent people. Jamiat-i-Ulama-i-Hind, Muslim League,Jamat-e-Islami-Hind, all of them spared no words in condemning this heinouscrime against humanity. No sane person will ever condone such ghastly killings.The Hindus and Muslims in Mumbai rose to the occasion and helped all those whowere injured and helped in taking dead bodies to hospitals.

It seems India will have to live with such attacks for sometime to come. Itis, therefore, necessary to be ever alert. What happened on terrible Tuesday isalso partly an intelligence failure. Though it is very difficult to predict whenand where terrorists will choose to attack, it becomes all the more necessary tobe very very alert. It is the duty of the government of India to protect thelives of people against such attacks.

Also, it appears there was lack of alertness and disaster management. Thepolice and other authorities took a long time to reach the spots of disaster.Time and again it has been stressed by the NGOs and other activists that Indiawoefully lacks in disaster management. It has been proved once again that Indianeeds to work hard to provide for emergency situations.

People themselves were, it appears, more prepared than the authorities. Suchmajor disasters --  man-made or natural -- are bound to take place time andagain and so the government should work in all seriousness to evolve a disastermanagement plan.

Courtesy, TheCentre for Study of Society and Secularism