Communalism and Terrorism: two sides of the same coin

Obviously there is a connection between the communal riots and bomb blasts, often serial, that follow them. In every communal riot it is ubiquitous that the majority community exerts maximum pressure through street violence and house to house attacks in a very organized manner. The police are too eager to help in. There is hardly any disciplined and professional cop who maintains sanity while on duty. In such a murky scenario the minority community generally suffers most both in terms of its members killed, maimed and tortured; and property and houses burnt or looted. The destruction of the commercial establishments is crippling. The readymade explanation is: they had it coming.

On February 14, 1998 the textile town of Coimbatore suffered a cataclysmic change as a series of bomb blasts killed more than sixty people. The chief minister of Tamil Nadu Mr Karunanidhi said ‘the seeds of extremism were sown after the demolition of the Babri Masjid at Ayodhya on December 6, 1992, but the immediate provocation for the blasts came from the killing of 18 Muslims and destruction of Muslims' property in the wake of the murder of a traffic constable at Coimbatore in the last week of November 1997’. There was a communal riot in the town in November and December. The offshoot of the communal frenzy was that three suicide bombers and seven armed Muslim youths tried to take revenge of the atrocities suffered by their community.

Every communal riot leaves a permanent scar on the mind of the people in general. People of both communities feel fear and insecurity in varying measure. As the Muslims suffer most their trauma is widespread as a matter of commonality of experience of being victims of the fury of the majority and the brutality of state authorities, especially the police. The apparent beneficiary politically is the right wring parties. The leader of the opposition LK Advani became the Home Minister thanks to the terror unleashed by the misguided youths of grieved local minority community. It is also invariable that the right wing parties look at ISI and the local sympathizers to further divide the people. Their larger outlook makes them feel a kind of solidarity with the US and the Israelis who are fighting terrorism. This is irrepressibly true even when the fact that terrorism in a place like Coimbatore has a ‘locale and a name’. Its provenance is in the mire of communal cauldron that is allowed to boil round the year.

Even the chief minister of Gujarat Narender Modi did not hesitate to accept the cause and effect theory, otherwise the third Newtonian law. In the natural sciences one to one connection can be verified. But in the human relations this is rather difficult. For example Godhra attack led to the pogroms. But the attempted abduction of a girl by the kar sevaks from near Godhra or the brawl on the railway platform between caterers and the sevaks is deliberately not brought forth as the antecedent. But consequences they must have produced. However, human beings can stagger the response according to the choice of time and place. That is what sets the natural sciences in a different category.

A police constable was killed while he tried to stop cars carrying explosives in Coimbatore , Tamil Nadu. As a result riots started between Hindus and Muslims causing death to 19 people. Some Muslims were admitted in a hospital. As they were recovering from severe injuries they were hacked to death in the hospital. On February14 1998 twelve bombs exploded all over the textile town. One place of attack was the hospital where the injured Muslims were killed earlier. This establishes the fact that terrorism is grounded in communalism. Hence, fighting terrorism should be fighting communalism.

To some parties like BJP terrorism is advantage on a platter. The party won the election from Coimbatore as well as neighbouring Nilgiri. Shiv Sena was weakened with defections of Narayan Rane and Raj Thackeray but resurged in the corporation election in Mumbai after the serial blasts of 11/7 last year.

Former RAW official and a leading commentator on terrorism B Raman says that we are a nation without memory. One may not agree with him because there are people who remember how LK Advani and his party men were unhappy with the US over the latter’s kid glove treatment of Pakistan . They would say that the US was very selective in its approach to terrorism. But they forget that they are also quite selective in their view of the same. The right wing politicians are in the rut created by their bete noire Pakistan and hence blaming the ISI is a gut reaction. The local sympathizer is the wandering Jew even if such a one does not exist at times. On Monday August 25, 2003 two bomb blasts in taxis killed more than two scores of people at the Gateway of India and the Zaveri bazaar. Next day Chief Minister of Gujarat Narendra Modi blamed the Lashkare toiba for it. Advani was at it again blaming Pakistan and the ISI as he did in the case of the Coimbatore.

Once more the provenance of terror was the humdrum shanty of Mumbai. Syed Mohammad Hanif, wife Fahmida and their baby daughter Farheen as well as Ashrat Ansari were citizens of the city. The pogroms in Gujarat had irked them too much. This family and friend carried the home made bombs to kill the innocent. Interestingly majority of the victims at the Gateway of India were the kathiawadi people of Gujarati origin. The mastermind was the wandering Jew. Abdul Aydeet alias Naseer, was killed in an encounter on September 13, 2003. Home Minister Bhujbal called the killing big achievement. Perhaps the story would have been different if Naseer were caught alive.

Communalism and terrorism is two headed poisonous snake. It is pulling the country in different directions. Both are baleful and feeding upon one another. It is now history that Hanif and family had made the bomb in their dingy home in a crowded chawl. The Director of State Forensic Laboratory Dr Rukmini Krishnamurthy had stated that “On the face of it, it doesn’t appear to have had any external missiles as was the case in 1993 serial blasts.” Al Qaeda or the ISI would have made more sophisticated explosive devices. Even the terrorists of Coimbatore were amateurish. One of them had blown himself in a lane when the police gave him chase. They had made their devices in Kerala with locally available materials. Even so those who fish in the troubled waters of communalism and terrorism hardly distinguish the two.

It was the time of Ganesh festival at its peak in Maharashtra and Hyderabad . Narendra Modi was preparing to visit a Ganesh mandal meeting in Hyderabad on August 28, 2003.Police Commissioner of Hyderabad VK Krishna Rao refused permission to Modi because he said that the chief minister was perceived as a fascist. If the visit had gone ahead he would have dilated upon the local connection and the Pak detestable agency while there was no such thing on the ground in Mumbai.

In Mumbai itself Mr Bal Thackeray was fuming, his party was ready to retaliate for Monday’s (August 25) blasts. He warned the State government not to start arresting his ‘boys’. “Shiv Sainiks are brave hearts”, he said. “They can teach a fitting lesson to Pakistan sponsored terrorists. Unfortunately many of our laws are senseless. If Sena activists gear up to retaliate, I don’t want the State government to go on a vengeance spree.” “India should dispatch trained militants to Pak to counter cross border terrorism. The Centre should lift the ban on the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE) and rope in the Tigers to take on the Inter State Intelligence (ISI) of Pakistan . India needs a strong leader like Margaret Thatcher (former British prime minister) who once told a Muslim group from London to adhere to the country’s laws or leave Britain.”

Thanks to Ganesh festival the maha aarti prayer did not go full swing like January 1993 despite Raj Thackeray’s exhortation that if Godhra was the response to the demolition of Babri then “maha aarti was ours” to August 25 blasts.

What the common man in the street should infer from this hurly burly is the home truth that terrorism would recede from the land if we eschew communalism.