:: Balbir Punj

When terror gives notice, how should India react?

Balbir K. Punj

In the Turkish capital of Istanbul a strange litigation is underway. The country's apex court has been asked to look at the constitutionality of the ruling party.  The charge against the ruling party is that it is an Islamic political organisation. Turkey's Constitution, drafted in the 1930s by the great Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, declares the country a secular one and all religious parties are, therefore, unconstitutional.

Turkey has been able to resist the pan-Islamic tide successfully for over seven decades. Remember that Istanbul was once the capital of the Ottoman empire that followed the Islamic Sharia law to its last letter - amputating hands of anyone found stealing even a loaf of bread. European powers, after Turkey's defeat in World War I, abolished the Ottoman monarchy. In many Islamic countries this led to the Khilafat movement to restore the decrepit Ottoman emperor who was considered to be the defender of Islamic faith.

In India too this movement flourished, and Mahatma Gandhi supported it without giving a thought to the nature of that monarchy - a medieval, decadent institution that practiced what are, by modern standards, most inhuman and unacceptable laws.

The Khilafat movement was knocked out when the Turks staged a revolution that turned their country away from theocracy and established a modern, secular Constitution that forbade state support to any religion, including Islam. Even wearing of specific religious symbols was forbidden. Turkey, under Kemal Ataturk and his successors, had elected governments and adopted practices of a modern state. From "the sickman of Europe," Turkey became a modern and liberal outpost straddling two continents across the Bosphorus. It jut out into the heart of a pan-Islamic Middle East with a secular flag.  Turkey now awaits acceptance by European Union as a full-fledged member.

But the pan-Islamic virus that has swept the Islamic crescent from one end to the other has entered Turkey too. The pro-Islamic party, camouflaged as a party of justice, has won elections. And against much secular opposition, their practicing Islamic candidate is now Turkey's President. Majority of secular Turks, especially in the army and the academia, have questioned the legality of a government that goes against the basic tenets of the country's Constitution.

But why must I deal with distant Turkey when right at home we have had serial bomb blasts in sensitive and economically important areas, killing at least 50 people and injuring scores of others? 

THE FIRST lesson from the serial bombings is that contrary to claims of politicians, the incentive and zeal for practice of terror is pervasive. And that it is extremely well-organised. 

No doubt, there is sympathy for pan-Islamism among sections of society. And surely, some among these sympathisers are actively collaborating as "sleeper cells" of organisations which believe that God is on their side in achieving global Islamisation through strategic violence. 

If we all agree with this premise, then simple logic tells us that banning a few organisations won't be enough.

A resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan has been bombing girls' schools and targeting working women. The Taliban's target gives away the core belief which drives this pan-Islamism: Islamic orthodoxy is the answer to all ills of the world and that even avowed Islamic countries like Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Indonesia are not Islamic enough. Research in the last two decades has exposed pan-Islamism's pathological hatred for any liberal tendency.

This belief stems from the basic view that all that is required to regulate human society is already contained in the Islamic holy book and its adjunct literature like Hadis and Sharia law. The second conviction is that the state exists only to implement what is laid down in these texts, and the third is that these texts are immutable.

From all this follows the verdict that those who seek to change even a comma in these texts are going against the will of the divine as interpreted by the founder of the religion. And that many Islamic countries, especially the ones with elected Parliaments, are lax in their implementation of Islamic laws and must be whipped into shape. 

So it is not in Europe and India alone that terror is used by such "faithful". It is also used in Islamic countries like Indonesia, Egypt and Malaysia.

Obviously, this mindset is fuelled by the politics of blaming the West, especially America, for poverty and hunger. It is also facilitated greatly when political parties in democratic countries support extremist positions.

For instance, when the Left parties backed attacks by Islamic orthodoxy on Taslima Nasreen and drove her out of this country, even fence-sitting Muslims would have been convinced that the extremists are winning. Or when the Supreme Court verdict on Shah Bano case was reversed.

Al Ummah, an extremist organisation in south India, received sympathies from some "secular" political parties when police arrested their supporters after the Coimbatore serial blasts and the recent discovery of their plan to cause mayhem in Chennai.

When the Kerala extremist leader Mahadhani was acquitted by a lower court in the Coimbatore serial blasts case, the Congress party shamefully competed with the Left to organise a public welcome for him. And the DMK government in Tamil Nadu has not taken any steps to challenge his acquittal in a higher court. Surely we know that such actions not only strengthen extremists, but also garner more support for pan-Islamism.

The demand for stricter laws against Islamic extremism is not a communal one. If Islamic countries themselves are hard on terror merchants of all hues, then why should others lag behind? Why should we allow them to breed more sleeper cells to plant bombs?

It is equally important to focus on and try to alter the "fundamentalist" mindset that engulfs sections of some communities and encourages self-righteousness to the point of justifying killing those who do not fall in line.

The Indian state has been lax on both these fronts. And this negligence has led not just to the serial bomb blasts, but also the audacity of terrorists to dare the Indian state with advance notice of more bomb blasts.

Our political parties only seem eager to hand-hold violent protestors against a cartoon in an obscure magazine in Denmark and to drive out Taslima Nasreen for exposing some unflattering aspects of an Islamic society. 

If even the horrifying bloodletting on our streets doesn't teach India a thing or two, then we should take our cue from the enlightened Turks.