The reaction of our political leaders to last week’s sickening terrorist violence in Varanasi came as a disturbing reminder of how unserious they are about fighting terrorism. We are up against a small group of evil but cowardly men who can be defeated because they are cowards who kill unarmed women and children but are too scared to fight against soldiers. But they will be defeated only if our political leaders show that they are serious about winning this war.
When the bombs went off in Varanasi the first reaction of Home Minister Shivraj Patil and Supreme Leader Sonia Gandhi was to ‘‘rush’’ to Varanasi? What for? To have their pictures taken at the bedside of the injured and the dying? Mulayam Singh Yadav and Mayawati had the same reaction.
What use could these leaders have been in Varanasi on a day when the police should have been spending all its time investigating the bombings? Instead of concentrating on this they would have been providing security to the sudden avalanche of VIPs. In these days of 24-hour news channels and instant communications, there is no reason for political leaders to ‘‘rush’’ to the spot unless they have a taste for horror tourism.
Having said this, let me add that the reaction of our ‘‘secular’’ leaders was preferable to that of the standard bearers of Hindutva. A whole bunch of creepy-crawly Hindu fanatics crept out of their holes to also ‘‘rush’’ to Varanasi in order to stir up Hindu emotions by emphasising that it was Muslims who were responsible. Our Hindutva Leader of the Opposition, Shri Lal Krishna Advani, decided he was going to take yet another walk.
If Shri Advani were serious about the fight against terrorism he would have done much more as home minister to train and equip our security forces. His new ‘yatra’ will serve mainly to heighten Hindu-Muslim tensions by making it sound as if the only terrorist threat India faces is Islamic. Will Shri Advani mention the Maoists on his yatra? Will he point out that they are Hindu and that 115 people have already lost their lives to Maoist terrorism this year? The ‘yatra’ is irresponsible and unnecessary. If Shri Advani is a true nationalist he should spend his time in Delhi urging the Sonia-Manmohan government to articulate a clear, unambiguous policy towards terrorism.
As I am no expert on the subject, I rang up Dr Ajay Sahni who edits South Asia Intelligence Review and is an authority on subcontinental terrorism. I asked if he thought the attacks in Varanasi were the work of local groups. He said he saw clearly the hand of Pakistan and by this he meant the Pakistani state. It was the work of ‘‘sarkari jehadis’’ in the employ of the Pakistani state and almost certainly part of either the Lashkar-e-Toiba or the Jaish-e-Mohammad.
When I asked what he thought the Indian state needed to do to defeat Pakistan’s evil plan, he said the most important requirement was a ‘‘coherent counter-terrorism policy’’. There must be no muddle-headed thinking or ‘‘deliberate muddying of waters’’ as we saw from a Congress party spokesman who said he was not sure if the Varanasi violence was terrorist in nature or some other kind. What kind?
Did we need special counter-terrorist forces, I asked, and he said that local policemen worked best but they needed proper training and equipment. An example of how unserious the political class is about providing these basic requirements comes from Jharkhand, where the government was provided Rs 36 crore by the Centre for modernising the police force last year. It used only Rs 2 crore on this and diverted the rest of the money for buying luxury cars for state ministers and bureaucrats. The result is that the state’s 400 police stations remain decrepit and the police demand for 15 anti-landmine vehicles remains on hold for ‘‘want of funds’’.
This is only one example. If Shri Advani wants to pursue the idea of his ‘yatra’ he would be doing us a service if he restricted his wanderings to police stations. Let him go from one police station to the next in the Maoist areas and personally witness the conditions in which our security forces work. As for his replacement, Shivraj Patil, if he is serious about fighting terrorism let him give us a clear policy before the next session of Parliament.
Meanwhile, we in the media need to do our bit by monitoring the fight against terrorism carefully, on a day-to-day basis, instead of paying attention only when there is some act of violence.
write to tavleen.singh@expressindia.com
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