Farmers and factories fight over land in India
Farmers and factories fight over land in India
By Somini Sengupta
Wednesday, September 17, 2008 SINGUR, India: Barely a month before the introduction of the world's least expensive car from a new factory on these former potato and rice fields, a peasant uprising has prompted Tata, one of the most powerful Indian conglomerates, to suspend work on the plant and consider pulling out.
The standoff is the most prominent example of a dark cloud hanging over India's economic transition: How to divert scarce fertile farmland to industry in a country where more than half of the people live off the land?
At the heart of the challenge, one of the most important facing the Indian government, is not only how to compensate peasants who make way for India's industrial future, but also how to prepare them - in great numbers - for the new economy India wants to enter.
In recent years, clashes over land have dogged several major industrial projects in almost every corner of this crowded democracy of 1.1 billion people, most of them rural and poor.
In the eastern state of Orissa, betel leaf farmers have held up a $12 billion project by Posco, the South Korean steel maker, occasionally kidnapping company officials. In western Goa, several proposed Chinese-style special economic zones were scrapped after sustained public protests. And outside Mumbai, India's commercial capital, village councils have insisted on a referendum this month on an economic zone proposed by Mukesh Ambani, the country's richest man.
In nearly all of these cases, the peasants who resist most intensely are often those who know they are qualified to do little beyond eke out a living off of the land.
If that fundamental anxiety feeds their protests, farmers and farmhands, often egged on by the politicians who seek their support, also stage protests to ratchet up the price of the land or to renegotiate deals.
The target of their ire is often the government, which in most cases acquires the land and turns it over to industrial developers. The central government has not finished a long-awaited national policy on compensating those who lose their land.
"If the price is right, people will sacrifice the emotional attachment, but if you no longer have the guarantee of living off the land, then what do you do?" said Subir Gokarn, chief economist for Standard & Poor's in India. "The people who are being displaced are not the people who see themselves as benefiting immediately from the employment opportunities."
Medha Patkar, one of the best-known opponents of large industrial projects in India, said, "Land is livelihood, it's not just property."
Last month, in this rich farm belt in the state of West Bengal, protesters laid siege to the new Tata Motors plant, on one occasion preventing workers from leaving.
The protesters want the government to return roughly a third of the 997 acres, or 403 hectares, that the state acquired for the Tata factory. Some of the land was taken by force from farmers.
Their demands have since led the state government, controlled by an elected Communist administration, to sweeten the deal without taking apart the factory site.
On Sunday, in a bid to assuage protesters, the government announced a more generous compensation package for those who had been evicted. It included a 50 percent increase in the price paid for the property and job training for one member of each displaced family. The governing party and its opponents have been staging competing protests this week.
That new deal only revealed the deep wedge of anxiety that the factory has driven through this cluster of villages.
"We are farmers," said Tayab Ali Mandal, of the village of Joymolla. "We know only farm work, we don't know any paper-pencil work." He gave up his land last year, but bitterly. Now he wants it back, and he rejected the government's latest offer of a job in the plant.
He said he would rather have his 16-year-old son continue to work in a small factory embroidering clothes, a traditional craft in his community. "I won't go inside that place, even to urinate," he said. "We are disgusted by that place."
Gopal Santra and his clan, who refused to accept money for the land they lost, said they hoped the renewed agitation would prompt the state to raise its offer even more.
The Santras owned land across the street from the Tata plant, which they sold a month ago for more than four times the price the state is now offering. Still others, like Sheik Muhammad Ali, who welcomed the Nano, Tata's flat-faced, pint-size car, to his fields, threatened to put the naysayers in their place.
Ali had readily given up his land and through his contacts with government officials, started a business supplying cement to the developer.
On Sunday, he was seething at the protesters who had halted work on the plant for the past two weeks and in turn, his business.
"There's a limit to our patience," he said. "If you take my plate of rice, will I just let you go off with it?"
Bidyut Kumar Santra, a rare high school graduate in Joymolla, was among the lucky few to get a job on the assembly line, and, in turn, realize how poorly equipped he was to keep up with events on the factory floor. The engineers all spoke English, to him an alien tongue.
"I feel ashamed, like what kind of education did I get?" Santra said the other day. He vowed to make certain that his son, who is in first grade, learned to speak English.
The villages of Singur, where the Nano was to be produced, stand at the crossroads of two Indias.
For Tata, it is ideally located along a new national highway heading north to New Delhi, the capital, and near an important east-west artery.
For farmers, it is ideally located on the fertile delta plains of the Ganges River and fed by irrigation canals, making the earth so rich and red that it yields two rice harvests a year, in addition to potatoes, cucumbers and squash.
West Bengal lured Tata here with heavy incentives, including a generous land lease and tax breaks from the state's industrial development agency.
Some of the details of the company's contract with the government have emerged in recent days, prompting the company to go to court, where it blocked further disclosures.
If Tata were required to give back 300 acres of land from the factory site, as the opposition demands, it would have to evict auto parts makers who are setting up shop next to the main Nano plant.
Their proximity allows Tata to save on the cost of production. Those savings and the generous land and tax deal allow Tata to sell the Nano at a price of less than $2,500.
The plant's fate is uncertain. Tata, while welcoming the government's proposed compensation package, has remained silent on its plans.
The company has several other plants where it could produce the Nano in time for the Hindu festival season in October, traditionally a time of big spending.
Tata has dangled the possibility of making the Nano elsewhere if the cost of production and the price of car rise too high.
India, U.S. discuss security cooperation
Washington: As the India-U.S. nuclear accord comes up for ratification by the U.S. Congress, New Delhi and Washington on Wednesday opened their first high-level contacts.
Defence Minister A.K. Antony and U.S. Secretary of Defence Robert Gates expressed “great satisfaction” at the pace of mutual defence and security cooperation.
Mr. Antony is the first high-level Indian politician to visit Washington after the Vienna waiver of nuclear restrictions by the Nuclear Suppliers Group.
Issues which figured ranged from defence, security to global and regional matters, Pentagon officials said. Top officials from both the sides were present at the meeting.
“It was very business-like and focused,” an official told PTI reflecting what the American side had been anticipating all along.
“To say that they reviewed just the gamut of relations would be very stale,” the official remarked.
Mr. Antony’s visit comes at a time when the relationship between the U.S. and India have reached a new peak not just in the realm of defence cooperation but in other areas.
The civilian nuclear deal could well be a topic of discussion between Mr. Antony and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at the State Department, to be followed by a meeting at the White House with National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley.
Another senior official who was a participant in the talks said they reviewed “with great satisfaction” the existing state of defence and security cooperation between the U.S. and India. — PTI
20 killed as 5 bomb explosions rock Delhi
Delhi Bureau
100 injured in marketplace blasts; Indian Mujahideen claims responsibility for terror attacks
NEW DELHI: Twenty people were killed and about 100 injured in a series of five bomb explosions that rocked busy marketplaces in the Capital on Saturday.
The first explosion took place at Karol Bagh at 6.10 p.m.; two bombs were triggered at Connaught Place; and two more in the bustling M-Block market of Greater Kailash.
Initial investigations revealed that the improvised explosive devices were configured using ammonium nitrate. Timer devices were used for synchronising the explosions that occurred between 6.10 and 6.40 p.m. Eight persons were killed at Connaught Place and a live bomb was defused outside the Regal cinema in the heart of the Capital. Two more bombs were found at Central Park at Connaught Place and at India Gate.
In an e-mail to the media, the terror outfit, Indian Mujahideen, claimed responsibility for the explosions.
A red alert was sounded in the Capital.
While the Centre announced an ex gratia of Rs. 3 lakh each for the next of kin of the deceased, the State government announced Rs. 5 lakh for each of the dead, besides Rs.50,000 for those injured.
Congress president Sonia Gandhi and Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit visited the injured at the Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital.
The injured were rushed to the Ram Manohar Lohia, Sir Ganga Ram, Jessa Ram, Lady Hardinge and Lok Nayak Jaya Prakash Narayan hospitals. Some were taken to the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences.
At Karol Bagh, the bomb was kept in or near a three-wheeler. The blast ripped the vehicle apart. An autorickshaw parked nearby was tossed in the air and it fell on the other side of the road. A woman sitting in the vehicle and several bystanders were seriously injured.
Puran Kumar, whose relatives were injured in the blast, said he was in his house when he heard a loud explosion. “I rushed out and saw badly injured people lying on the road writhing in pain and screaming for help. Among them were some of my relatives. Initially, we thought that it was a cylinder blast,” said a shocked Puran.
Another resident, Nanak, said: “A woman lay near the autorickshaw with her face smashed. All that was left on her face were her two eyes.”
A bomb kept in a dustbin near Gate No. 1 of the Barakhamba Road metro station went off around 6.35 p.m.
In Central Park, a bomb kept in a bin exploded five minutes later, causing injuries to over 40 people. Deepak, who runs a garment shop in Connaught Place, said he himself rushed over a dozen injured people to hospital. Most of the injured were women and children.
Two “low-intensity” bombs planted in a dustbin and on a cycle in the busy M-Block Market of Greater Kailash went off at 6.30 p.m. and 6.40 p.m. A woman was injured.
Manmohan: we need to strengthen anti-terror laws
Wednesday, September 17, 2008 SINGUR, India: Barely a month before the introduction of the world's least expensive car from a new factory on these former potato and rice fields, a peasant uprising has prompted Tata, one of the most powerful Indian conglomerates, to suspend work on the plant and consider pulling out.
The standoff is the most prominent example of a dark cloud hanging over India's economic transition: How to divert scarce fertile farmland to industry in a country where more than half of the people live off the land?
At the heart of the challenge, one of the most important facing the Indian government, is not only how to compensate peasants who make way for India's industrial future, but also how to prepare them - in great numbers - for the new economy India wants to enter.
In recent years, clashes over land have dogged several major industrial projects in almost every corner of this crowded democracy of 1.1 billion people, most of them rural and poor.
In the eastern state of Orissa, betel leaf farmers have held up a $12 billion project by Posco, the South Korean steel maker, occasionally kidnapping company officials. In western Goa, several proposed Chinese-style special economic zones were scrapped after sustained public protests. And outside Mumbai, India's commercial capital, village councils have insisted on a referendum this month on an economic zone proposed by Mukesh Ambani, the country's richest man.
In nearly all of these cases, the peasants who resist most intensely are often those who know they are qualified to do little beyond eke out a living off of the land.
If that fundamental anxiety feeds their protests, farmers and farmhands, often egged on by the politicians who seek their support, also stage protests to ratchet up the price of the land or to renegotiate deals.
The target of their ire is often the government, which in most cases acquires the land and turns it over to industrial developers. The central government has not finished a long-awaited national policy on compensating those who lose their land.
"If the price is right, people will sacrifice the emotional attachment, but if you no longer have the guarantee of living off the land, then what do you do?" said Subir Gokarn, chief economist for Standard & Poor's in India. "The people who are being displaced are not the people who see themselves as benefiting immediately from the employment opportunities."
Medha Patkar, one of the best-known opponents of large industrial projects in India, said, "Land is livelihood, it's not just property."
Last month, in this rich farm belt in the state of West Bengal, protesters laid siege to the new Tata Motors plant, on one occasion preventing workers from leaving.
The protesters want the government to return roughly a third of the 997 acres, or 403 hectares, that the state acquired for the Tata factory. Some of the land was taken by force from farmers.
Their demands have since led the state government, controlled by an elected Communist administration, to sweeten the deal without taking apart the factory site.
On Sunday, in a bid to assuage protesters, the government announced a more generous compensation package for those who had been evicted. It included a 50 percent increase in the price paid for the property and job training for one member of each displaced family. The governing party and its opponents have been staging competing protests this week.
That new deal only revealed the deep wedge of anxiety that the factory has driven through this cluster of villages.
"We are farmers," said Tayab Ali Mandal, of the village of Joymolla. "We know only farm work, we don't know any paper-pencil work." He gave up his land last year, but bitterly. Now he wants it back, and he rejected the government's latest offer of a job in the plant.
He said he would rather have his 16-year-old son continue to work in a small factory embroidering clothes, a traditional craft in his community. "I won't go inside that place, even to urinate," he said. "We are disgusted by that place."
Gopal Santra and his clan, who refused to accept money for the land they lost, said they hoped the renewed agitation would prompt the state to raise its offer even more.
The Santras owned land across the street from the Tata plant, which they sold a month ago for more than four times the price the state is now offering. Still others, like Sheik Muhammad Ali, who welcomed the Nano, Tata's flat-faced, pint-size car, to his fields, threatened to put the naysayers in their place.
Ali had readily given up his land and through his contacts with government officials, started a business supplying cement to the developer.
On Sunday, he was seething at the protesters who had halted work on the plant for the past two weeks and in turn, his business.
"There's a limit to our patience," he said. "If you take my plate of rice, will I just let you go off with it?"
Bidyut Kumar Santra, a rare high school graduate in Joymolla, was among the lucky few to get a job on the assembly line, and, in turn, realize how poorly equipped he was to keep up with events on the factory floor. The engineers all spoke English, to him an alien tongue.
"I feel ashamed, like what kind of education did I get?" Santra said the other day. He vowed to make certain that his son, who is in first grade, learned to speak English.
The villages of Singur, where the Nano was to be produced, stand at the crossroads of two Indias.
For Tata, it is ideally located along a new national highway heading north to New Delhi, the capital, and near an important east-west artery.
For farmers, it is ideally located on the fertile delta plains of the Ganges River and fed by irrigation canals, making the earth so rich and red that it yields two rice harvests a year, in addition to potatoes, cucumbers and squash.
West Bengal lured Tata here with heavy incentives, including a generous land lease and tax breaks from the state's industrial development agency.
Some of the details of the company's contract with the government have emerged in recent days, prompting the company to go to court, where it blocked further disclosures.
If Tata were required to give back 300 acres of land from the factory site, as the opposition demands, it would have to evict auto parts makers who are setting up shop next to the main Nano plant.
Their proximity allows Tata to save on the cost of production. Those savings and the generous land and tax deal allow Tata to sell the Nano at a price of less than $2,500.
The plant's fate is uncertain. Tata, while welcoming the government's proposed compensation package, has remained silent on its plans.
The company has several other plants where it could produce the Nano in time for the Hindu festival season in October, traditionally a time of big spending.
Tata has dangled the possibility of making the Nano elsewhere if the cost of production and the price of car rise too high.
India, U.S. discuss security cooperation
Washington: As the India-U.S. nuclear accord comes up for ratification by the U.S. Congress, New Delhi and Washington on Wednesday opened their first high-level contacts.
Defence Minister A.K. Antony and U.S. Secretary of Defence Robert Gates expressed “great satisfaction” at the pace of mutual defence and security cooperation.
Mr. Antony is the first high-level Indian politician to visit Washington after the Vienna waiver of nuclear restrictions by the Nuclear Suppliers Group.
Issues which figured ranged from defence, security to global and regional matters, Pentagon officials said. Top officials from both the sides were present at the meeting.
“It was very business-like and focused,” an official told PTI reflecting what the American side had been anticipating all along.
“To say that they reviewed just the gamut of relations would be very stale,” the official remarked.
Mr. Antony’s visit comes at a time when the relationship between the U.S. and India have reached a new peak not just in the realm of defence cooperation but in other areas.
The civilian nuclear deal could well be a topic of discussion between Mr. Antony and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at the State Department, to be followed by a meeting at the White House with National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley.
Another senior official who was a participant in the talks said they reviewed “with great satisfaction” the existing state of defence and security cooperation between the U.S. and India. — PTI
20 killed as 5 bomb explosions rock Delhi
Delhi Bureau
100 injured in marketplace blasts; Indian Mujahideen claims responsibility for terror attacks
NEW DELHI: Twenty people were killed and about 100 injured in a series of five bomb explosions that rocked busy marketplaces in the Capital on Saturday.
The first explosion took place at Karol Bagh at 6.10 p.m.; two bombs were triggered at Connaught Place; and two more in the bustling M-Block market of Greater Kailash.
Initial investigations revealed that the improvised explosive devices were configured using ammonium nitrate. Timer devices were used for synchronising the explosions that occurred between 6.10 and 6.40 p.m. Eight persons were killed at Connaught Place and a live bomb was defused outside the Regal cinema in the heart of the Capital. Two more bombs were found at Central Park at Connaught Place and at India Gate.
In an e-mail to the media, the terror outfit, Indian Mujahideen, claimed responsibility for the explosions.
A red alert was sounded in the Capital.
While the Centre announced an ex gratia of Rs. 3 lakh each for the next of kin of the deceased, the State government announced Rs. 5 lakh for each of the dead, besides Rs.50,000 for those injured.
Congress president Sonia Gandhi and Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit visited the injured at the Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital.
The injured were rushed to the Ram Manohar Lohia, Sir Ganga Ram, Jessa Ram, Lady Hardinge and Lok Nayak Jaya Prakash Narayan hospitals. Some were taken to the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences.
At Karol Bagh, the bomb was kept in or near a three-wheeler. The blast ripped the vehicle apart. An autorickshaw parked nearby was tossed in the air and it fell on the other side of the road. A woman sitting in the vehicle and several bystanders were seriously injured.
Puran Kumar, whose relatives were injured in the blast, said he was in his house when he heard a loud explosion. “I rushed out and saw badly injured people lying on the road writhing in pain and screaming for help. Among them were some of my relatives. Initially, we thought that it was a cylinder blast,” said a shocked Puran.
Another resident, Nanak, said: “A woman lay near the autorickshaw with her face smashed. All that was left on her face were her two eyes.”
A bomb kept in a dustbin near Gate No. 1 of the Barakhamba Road metro station went off around 6.35 p.m.
In Central Park, a bomb kept in a bin exploded five minutes later, causing injuries to over 40 people. Deepak, who runs a garment shop in Connaught Place, said he himself rushed over a dozen injured people to hospital. Most of the injured were women and children.
Two “low-intensity” bombs planted in a dustbin and on a cycle in the busy M-Block Market of Greater Kailash went off at 6.30 p.m. and 6.40 p.m. A woman was injured.
Manmohan: we need to strengthen anti-terror laws
Vinay Kumar
Hits out at Pakistan-based terror groups
NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday hit out at the role of Pakistan-based terrorist groups in the recent serial bomb blasts, but said the involvement of local elements added a new dimension to the terrorist threat.
“We have reports that certain Pakistan-based terrorists outfits are constantly seeking to set up new terrorist modules within our country. This is a matter of the utmost concern. We have increased vigilance on our borders … But in view of the growing involvement of local elements, this is not enough,” he said.
Favouring further strengthening of anti-terror laws, Dr. Singh noted that security and intelligence agencies had been successful in thwarting and pre-empting several terrorist attacks. “But as the recent blasts in Jaipur, Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Surat and Delhi indicate, there are still vast gaps in intelligence. These need to be overcome.”
The Prime Minister, addressing the Governors’ Conference on its concluding day, focussed on Left-wing extremism, terrorism and his government’s approach to tackling the menace.
The theme of internal security and terrorism also figured in President Pratibha Patil’s inaugural address on Tuesday. She voiced concern at the emerging “metro-terrorism” and favoured firm action against those who followed the path and culture of the gun.
Emphasising that there was no question of the government being soft on terrorism, Dr. Singh said the “issue is really one of examining the efficacy of the totality of the systems and the mechanisms that we have to deal with terrorist incidents.”
He said it was unfortunate that the public debate on terrorism tended to get driven by politics and centred on certain laws enacted or repealed by governments of different political persuasions. “Our government has no fixed, inflexible, or ideological view in this regard,” Dr. Singh said.
He said the government was considering legislation to further strengthen the substantive anti-terrorism law in line with the global consensus on the fight against terrorism.
Hits out at Pakistan-based terror groups
NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday hit out at the role of Pakistan-based terrorist groups in the recent serial bomb blasts, but said the involvement of local elements added a new dimension to the terrorist threat.
“We have reports that certain Pakistan-based terrorists outfits are constantly seeking to set up new terrorist modules within our country. This is a matter of the utmost concern. We have increased vigilance on our borders … But in view of the growing involvement of local elements, this is not enough,” he said.
Favouring further strengthening of anti-terror laws, Dr. Singh noted that security and intelligence agencies had been successful in thwarting and pre-empting several terrorist attacks. “But as the recent blasts in Jaipur, Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Surat and Delhi indicate, there are still vast gaps in intelligence. These need to be overcome.”
The Prime Minister, addressing the Governors’ Conference on its concluding day, focussed on Left-wing extremism, terrorism and his government’s approach to tackling the menace.
The theme of internal security and terrorism also figured in President Pratibha Patil’s inaugural address on Tuesday. She voiced concern at the emerging “metro-terrorism” and favoured firm action against those who followed the path and culture of the gun.
Emphasising that there was no question of the government being soft on terrorism, Dr. Singh said the “issue is really one of examining the efficacy of the totality of the systems and the mechanisms that we have to deal with terrorist incidents.”
He said it was unfortunate that the public debate on terrorism tended to get driven by politics and centred on certain laws enacted or repealed by governments of different political persuasions. “Our government has no fixed, inflexible, or ideological view in this regard,” Dr. Singh said.
He said the government was considering legislation to further strengthen the substantive anti-terrorism law in line with the global consensus on the fight against terrorism.
( 1 )
Paper no. 2847 16-Sep.-2008
INDIA’S COUNTER-TERRORISM STRATEGY 2004-2008: FLAWED POLITICAL APPROACHES
By Dr. Subhash Kapila
Introductory Observations
India's counter-terrorism strategy overly dominated by flawed political approaches during the period 2004-2008 have spawned in its wake an uninterrupted spate of terrorism strikes all over India. The Indian Republic seems to be under a concerted assault by terrorist organizations using religious labels and drawing succor from across India’s borders.
The Indian Republic is not short of having at its command a multiplicity of powerful and effective instruments of State to combat the terrorism menace. The Indian Republic is however woefully short of political will and determination to use these instruments of State including intelligence agencies. India’s counter-terrorism strategy under the present political leadership seems to be imprisoned in a straitjacket of political expediency arising from its captive vote-bank considerations.
The essence of any counter-terrorism strategy is “deterrence”. Deterrence implies that the State devises laws, creates mechanisms and puts in place systems which send clear and forceful signals to the terrorists that should they dare to challenge the sovereignty of the State, the retribution from the State would be swift, hard-hitting and if need be even be disproportionate. The Indian Republic under the present political dispensation has signally failed on this account. Whatever little “terrorism deterrence” that was available to the Indian State upto 2004 in the form of TADA and POTA was brought to naught by the present Indian Government with the repeal of POTA when the UPA Government came into power.
As a result of the above the Indian Republic seems to have been rendered impotent where Islamist terrorist groups merrily strike at will with increasing frequency and intensity. The “Indian Mujahideen” which is a front for the Islamist organization SIMI has claimed responsibility for all the terrorist bombings in the last couple of years. The major bombings in Jaipur, Bangalore and Ahmedabad and the now the capital of the Indian Republic, now Delhi bear the terror foot prints of the Indian Mujahideen.
Terrorist bombings in India are no longer the exclusive handiwork of Pakistani Islamic Jehadi organizations. An increasing number of radical elements within the Indian Muslim community seem now to have been harnessed and operationalized to act as their cats-paws to inflict ‘bleeding cuts’ on the Indian Republic.
The Congress Party and allied to it the “Secular apologists” of different hues seem to be in a ‘state of denial’ on this count and such fixations tend to distort India’s current counter-terrorism strategy of the present Government.
Consequently, the Indian Republic’s approaches to terrorism and its counter-terrorism strategy stand heavily politicized. It is not for nothing that the Indian public has become highly critical of flawed political approaches to counter terrorism of the present Government in New Delhi in terms of their counter-terrorism strategy and their inability to control terrorist strikes.
The exasperation of the Indian public at large stands captured by a posting on a web-site in February 2008 which read:
“If only the Congress focused on turning tables on the terrorists instead of the BJP, the 200 odd victims of the 7/11 in Mumbai, and the many terror attacks across the nation would today be resting easy with a sense of justice having been served.
By making this about a political contest on who has a worse terror record the Congress has insulted the memory of every one of those brave men and women in uniform who shed their blood defending our freedoms, and the memory of those deceased law-abiding citizens who defied their fear mongering to go on with their way of life despite terror threats.
The victims of terror must speak up and demand answer and justice of the Manmohan Singh – UPA Government. Tolerating this delinquency would be fatal to the nation”.
This is the agony of the Indian Republic accumulating as after every terrorist bombing incident one hears the ritualistic rhetoric of the President of the Congress Party, the Prime Minister and the Home Minister that terrorists would be brought to book.
Adding insult to injury, one has also witnessed the two leaders of major political coalition partners of the Congress Party from the Hindu heartland with self-proclaimed pretensions to be future Prime Ministers that SIMI (the parent organization of the Indian Mujahideen) should not be banned. Such advocacy again arises from their reliance on survival in political power on captive vote banks.
Against such a dismal political backdrop of India’s current counter-terrorism strategy it becomes pertinent to ponder over the following related issues:
Terrorism Onslaughts on India: Defining the Dimensions Terrorism: An “Act of War” Against India, Not a Law and Order Problem Terrorists Not Eligible for Human Rights Protection and Recourse to Constitutional Legal Remedies Terrorism Deterrence: Imperatives for Draconian Laws and Special Fast-track Courts Counter-Terrorism Strategy Should be Determined by National Security Considerations and Not Political Expediency Terrorism Upsurge: Political Leaders to Blame and Not the Police Terrorism Pre-emption: Intelligence Agencies Not to Blame Islamist Terrorism Against India: The End Game? India’s “National Honour” Under Assault By Islamist Terrorists Terrorism Onslaughts on India: Defining the Dimensions
The current wave of terrorism onslaught on India needs to be defined in terms of its true dimensions and without political fudging. Political fudging leads to distortions in the enunciation of sound counter-terrorism initiatives to defeat terrorism. Further it leads to loss of focus and direction of the intelligence agencies and the security agencies in combating the terrorism menace.
The Indian Republic must stop pretending that the terrorism onslaughts against India have no religious labels. The terrorist onslaughts against India are being launched in a concerted manner by Islamist organizations and has two dimensions, namely (1) In an earlier time frame Islamic Jehadi organizations based in Pakistan acting as instruments of the Pakistan Army and ISI provided the terrorist soldiery, arms and material for terrorism against India (2) In the contemporary time frame, the Pakistan Army/ISI mentors continue, but the terrorists soldiery for execution of blasts/bombings are now found from within the ranks of growing radical elements within the Indian Muslim community.
The latter makes the task more difficult for Indian intelligence agencies and security forces as the “political expediency” factor of the political masters comes into play resulting in a loss of focus and direction. Surveillance and tracking of terrorists from across the border was easier and there was no political interference there for then votes were not involved.
In the current scenario where indigenous foot-soldiery from within the Indian Muslim community’s radical elements is the main motive force for external sponsors, combating them poses some questions which only the political leadership can answer, namely (1) Would the political leadership permit extensive surveillance and tracking the radical elements in Indian Muslim neighborhoods? (2) Does the political leadership have the stature to motivate the Indian Muslim community for self-policing? (3) Would the Indian Muslim community would be able to overcome the fear of the terrorists and deliver on the location of terrorists sleeper cells and modules to the intelligence agencies and the police?
Despite the above impediments, once the current terrorist threat is defined in its true dimensions, it will provide clarity in focus and direction to India’s intelligence agency and security forces in combating terrorism.
Terrorism: An “Act of War” Against India, Not a Law and Order Problem
Political leaders tend to dismiss terrorism as a law and order problem. This is grossly erroneous and self-defeating.
Terrorism in its current dimensions in India is an “act of war” against India and needs to be recognized as such. The terrorists are not committing murder based on personal enmity against a particular individual or group. They are bombing out hundreds of civilian lives like in any war.
The terrorists when they inflict sizeable losses on innocent Indian lives in scores and hundreds are taunting the Indian state that it is powerless to protect the lives of its citizens which is a constitutional duty of the Government.
The terrorists when they resort to their “acts of war” and mayhem challenge the sovereignty of the Indian Republic and are indulging in aggression against the State.
If India is to succeed in its counter-terrorism strategy, it needs to define terrorism as an “act of war” and devise deterrent strategies to deal with it as such.
Terrorists Not Eligible for Human Rights Protection and Recourse to Constitutional Legal Remedies
Terrorists even if they are Indian citizens forfeit their protection and cover for Human Rights provisions and constitutional remedies when they indulge in “acts of war” against the Indian State.
The Indian Constitution and its legal systems provide multiple avenues to its citizens for redress of their grievances in a peaceful and legal manner. Should a citizen take upon himself to indulge in “acts of war” against the Indian State, he in effect is challenging the very existence of the Indian State as founded by the Indian Constitution.
By acting beyond the pale of the Indian Constitution, the “terrorists” cease to be citizens of India. They cannot claim Human Rights protection and recourse to legal remedies granted to only those who act and live within the framework of the Indian Constitution. The Indian political leadership, the media and other apologists need to get this clear in their heads.
Terrorism Deterrence: Imperatives for Draconian Laws and Special Fast-track Courts
Following from the above it naturally follows that those indulging in “acts of war” against the Indian State cannot be deterred by laws of civilized societies.
Terrorists can only be deterred and especially the potential recruits to terrorism, when they are conscious that draconian laws exist, shorn of constitutional remedies applicable to law abiding citizens only, and that their trials would be conducted by specially designated counter-terrorism fast-track courts and followed by swift exemplary punishment.
Terrorists are “merchants of death” who mercilessly and wantonly inflict merciless death, maiming and de-capitation on defenseless and innocent civilians of the Indian State, No civilized society, and certainly not India, can afford to allow a handiful of radical elements of one community to singe the fabric and challenge the majesty and sovereignty of the Indian Republic.
Neither TADA nor POTA were passed as laws targeting the Indian Muslim community. They were targeted generally against any individual or group aiming to disrupt the peace and harmony of the Indian Republic. If with the passage of time more Indian Muslims were drawn into its dragnet, the laws do not become Indian Muslim-centric in their targeting as secularism – apologists claim.
Ordinary Indian Muslims in the country are content to lead their lives peacefully and securely. If their sense of insecurity is aroused and that provokes some of them to Islamic radicalism, then the political parties that parley “political secularism” as opposed to “existential secularism” are to be blamed, because by doing so they hope to secure their captive vote banks.
Terrorism is encouraged when governments like in the case of the Afzal Guru case inordinately delay carrying out the death punishment confirmed by India’s Supreme Court on the false excuse of technicalities but with the underlying impulses of political expediency arising from vote-bank considerations.
The need of the hour in view of the rising frequency and intensity of terrorism onslaughts against India are severe draconian laws and fast-track courts to impose deterrence on those who indulge in “acts of war” against the Indian State. The United States and Britain as advanced and liberal democracies have such stringent laws.
Counter-Terrorism Strategy Should be Determined by National Security Considerations and Not Political Expediency
It does not need further emphasis that terrorism is an “act of war” and India’s defense preparedness against “threats of war” from any quarter are based on national security considerations. Counter-terrorism strategy therefore too needs to be based on national security considerations and not political expediency.
Would it not be ridiculous and suicidal if India were to decide not to battle Pakistani aggression on the grounds that by doing so the captive vote-banks of concerned political parties banking on narrow communal considerations would be affected?
The Constitution of India in Article 355 enjoins that the Government of India is duty-bound to protect Indian citizens both from external and internal threats. Protection against terrorism is the fundamental right of every Indian citizen.
The current terrorism threat against India has a mix of both external and internal dimensions. While the Government of the day may be ready to meet the external dimension, can the same Government shirk away from combating the internal dimension and manifestation of terrorism simply on the grounds of political expediency arising from its captive vote bank considerations?
Terrorism Upsurge: Political Leaders to Blame and Not the Police
It has become fashionable to blame the police ineffectiveness for the terrorism upsurge in India. Everybody seems to be oblivious that in actual fact the blame for terrorism lies squarely on the shoulders of the political leaders who constitute the Government of the day, their allies and their political supporters who dare to go to the extent of advocating that there should be no ban on SIMI.
The police set-up in India is doing a commendable job with their limited numbers and with meddle some political leaders and politicians making their task of combating terrorism that much more difficult.
Also demoralizing the police are the media who want instant sound bytes from police official on the identity of terrorists after each incident. They should pose that question to the political leaders.
After every major terrorism incident the Congress President and the Home Minister make a bee-line for cosmetic appearances and photo-op opportunities at hospitals to express their political sympathies. Has anyone told them that the hundreds of policemen detailed for their security and sanitizing the routes are diverted at a crucial stage when they should be fully involved and absorbed in the follow-up investigations and pursuit of terrorists and devising further protective measures.
It is intriguing that every time the police set-up only is blamed for being found wanting in preventing terrorism acts. Why are the civil bureaucrats of the IAS at district level, state level and the national level not faulted and pulled up? After all they too are a part of the overall administrative set-up of India which includes law and order.
On TV shows following the Delhi blasts the reactions from the majority of the Indian public severely indicted India’s political leaders and politicians for the upsurge of terrorism in India and hence this is not the individual view of this Author. India’s political leaders are to blame for making India’s police set-up to combat terrorism with one hand tied as a result of their selfish political expediency to safeguard their captive vote-banks.
Terrorism Pre-emption: Intelligence Agencies Not to Blame
After every terrorists blast, the next blame after the police falls on the intelligence agencies. It is conceded that the Intelligence Bureau (IB) is primarily responsible for pre-empting internal security threats with pre-emption of terrorist incidents topping the list of priorities today.
In actual fact, going by media reports most of the time the government of the day is tasking the IB for political intelligence on its opponents. If true then this gross deviation from the IB’s intended duties takes a heavy toll on terrorism pre-emption.
The Home Ministry politicians and bureaucrats let it be known after every terrorist incident that ‘terrorism advisories’ were issued that major towns would be targeted. These advisories are more like “meteorological advisories” general in nature with not even the slightest lead on location, time, place or intended targets.
Having made these points, the most crucial challenge that would be facing the intelligence agencies in the current scenario is as to what degree of penetration, surveillance and tracking would the present Government allow to pursue terrorism leads against the radical elements of the Indian Muslim community who provide the terrorism soldiery for groups like the Indian Mujahideen. The questions for the Indian political leadership stand asked earlier in this paper on this account and they need to address it.
The political record on this count is sordid whether in Northern India, Western India or Southern India and more so at the Centre.
If intelligence agencies are truly and effectively be expected to preempt terrorism they need to be given adequate resources, armed with deterrent legal powers and backed fully politically and not allow political expediency to overtake the functioning of intelligence agencies.
Islamist Terrorism Against India: The End Game
Initially in this Paper, it was stressed that India’s counter-terrorism strategy cannot acquire focus and direction if the dimensions of the current terrorism threat are not clearly defined. It stands brought out that India today is being subjected to terrorism onslaughts by Islamist terrorist groups.
The reflex-action statements from the highest levels of the present political dispensation after each terrorism incident are that the aim of these terrorists is to disrupt the communal harmony within India and that peace should be maintained.
Perfectly noble sentiments, but they only from a miniscule part of the end-game of Islamist terror groups within India with pan-Islamic leanings. It is important once again to attempt to read the end-game of such terrorist groups so that more focus and direction can be added to India’s counter-terrorism strategy.
To get a clue as to the end-game of the Islamic Mujahideen, who have claimed responsibility for the perpetration of all bomb blasts in the last couple of years some relevant excerpts from the SMS message they sent to the media recently are reproduced below:
“We the Indian Mujahideen, ask Allah the Almighty to accept from us these nine explosion which were planned to be executed in the holy month of Ramadan.” It was claimed that the aim of the spate of the current bombings was to “stop the heart of India from breathing”. The bombings were meant to send a message to “prove to you the ability and potential of the Indian Mujahideen to assault any city of India at any time”. Indians are charged with harboring “never ending hostile hatred in your hearts against Islam and its people”. There are a host of other such statements in the SMS, Suffice it to say that the underlying implied theme in these statements is (1) There is a religious label and motivation underlying in these statements. (2) The over-all aim is to hit at the core of the Indian State and if possible lead to its extinction. (3) Communal overtones are given to whip up frenzy on religious grounds.
Readers may recall that some time back some pan-Islamic terror groups had clubbed India with the United States and Israel as enemies of Islam. If that be so are then Indians being viewed presumably in that political context because in the last four or five years there are no atrocities reported to have taken place against Muslim in India. Then why this hatred and vengeance.
Obviously the underlying strategy in the current Islamist terrorist campaign against India is what the Pakistan Army/ISI desire and that is to (1) Keep India strategically destabilized by low-intensity conflict (2) Arrest Indian economic resurgence by driving away foreign investors (3) Engulf India in political turmoil.
Surprisingly and more intriguingly, the current spate of bombings have occurred after the “fatwa” (religious edict) issued by the famous Deoband Islamic Seminary terming terrorism as “un-Islamic”.
Obviously, the Deoband “fatwa” stands ignored by such Islamist terrorist groups and which further suggests that the current terrorist campaign has nothing to do with any misperceived wrongs of the Indian Muslim community but it has more to do with the politico-strategic agenda of the external mentors, patrons and financiers of such Islamist terrorist groups.
Hopefully, the Indian Muslim community at large too would recognize the above reality and purge the radical elements from within their ranks who have fallen prey to external stimuli.
India’s “National Honour” Under Assault By Islamist Terrorists.
The need for all Indians, including political leaders to develop sensitivity to nurture and protect India’s “National Honour” was touched in the Concluding Chapter entitled “Proscriptions for India’s National Security and Defence” in this Author’s book “India’s Defence Politics and Strategic Thought: A Comparative Analysis”.
The main stress was that India’s “National Honour” is indivisible and cannot be divided by different concepts for the majority and the minority communities by Indian political leaders or by political affiliations.
Amongst a number of instances listed as to how India's “National Honour” is singed by politicians the followings quotes from this Book in the current context are pertinent:
“India's National Honour is impinged when India's parliamentarians and political parties politicize national security issues.” “India's National Honour is impinged when Indian leaders are projected on Pakistan TV mouthing pronouncements detrimental to India's national interests prompted by narrow electoral gains to please narrow religious based constituencies. “India's honour is at stake when India expects others to restrain or pressurize its enemies from onslaughts against India by external and internal aggression”. “India's National Honour” is violated when India displays lack of will to take pre-emptive actions against its enemies who inflict proxy war, terrorism and suicide bombings on the Indian State”. India's present political dispensation has signally failed to protect India's “National Honour” in the face of onslaughts by Islamist terror organizations.
It is no use blaming the Home Minister for ineffectiveness to meet the terror threat. After all the accountability for the same rests with the Prime Minister and the Congress President as the ultimate decision making lies with her.
It is high time that the Indian Republic’s citizens demand accountability on terrorism upsurge and increased bomb blasts from the present political dispensation and as to why “political expediency” still persists and over-rides India's national security interests. They need to ask their political masters as to how many more Indian lives need to be sacrificed to arouse them from the stupor of political expediency.
Concluding Observations
The Indian Republic is at the crossroads not only in terms of its strategic directions but more importantly in terms of its political direction and future. India's political system and its political leaders have failed in the last sixty years to protect India from external and internal aggression.
The cumulative effect of the last 60 years of India’s political leaders not having the “will to use power” to protect India from external and internal aggression has led to the present state of the Indian political system being paralysed by Islamist terror groups.
Even the United Nations in its 2007 review on counter-terrorism has faulted India on being soft in its counter-terrorism policies.
The Indian Republic expects its political leaders to have the fundamental sensitivity to protect India's “National Honour”.
The latest series of frequent bomb blasts by Islamist terror groups is a “WAKE-UP CALL” for the Indian political system. What is at stake today is the terrorists end game of intending “to stop the heart of India from beating” and that needs to be defeated.
(The author is an International Relations and Strategic Affairs analyst. He is the Consultant, Strategic Affairs with South Asia Analysis Group. Email:drsubhashkapila@yahoo.com)------------------------Paper no. 2846 16-Sep.-2008 Why We Need a Law to Tackle Terrorism in India
Guest Column by Dr. Geeta Madhavan
The views expressed are author’s own.
The number of attacks on civilian targets in major cities in India has once again raised the question whether special laws need to be enacted to counter terrorism and deal with terrorist activities. The disturbing fact is that those who are not in favour of the enactment of law to counter terrorism often revert to old adages and arguments that are flawed as they no longer reflect the reality of the times we live in. After every act of terrorism, horrific images beamed by the visual media delivers a stunning blow to society. There is at once a clamour for stringent laws but as the images fade or are replaced complacency sets in till the next incident reopens the debate. There are certain myths about terrorism that have existed for quite some time an d before any argument can be made in favour of the enactment of such a law it is imperative to explode those myths.
The First myth is that there is no definition for terrorism or terrorist activity. The adage now discarded by serious analysts, is still paraded in forums i.e. "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter". That this no longer stands up as an argument is obvious. The ideological terrorists who targeted the symbols of oppressive regimes or authorities who were contrary to their belief systems have been replaced by terrorists who target innocent civilian population for a nebulous cause: the bomb in the market place, kidnapping busloads of school children, killing families in theatres, shopping malls and amusement parks. How anyone can even for a moment label them as freedom fighters confounds the logical mind. Any discussion on terrorism is not a matter of semantics but a grave concern of the safety of civilians and the security of society which is the duty of a state to protect. Over and over again one has to listen to persons smugly state that terrorism defies definition; therefore, what cannot be defined cannot be identified. It is imperative to understand that even though an all –encompassing definition for terrorism does not exist there are a number of working definitions that underline what terrorism is and how an act of terrorism can be identified. What entails a terrorist activity may defy specific definition but it certainly is possible for anyone to recognise such a violent act against society. Any act that deliberately and systematically aims the murder, maiming and menacing of the innocent civilians to inspire fear for political, religious or any other ideological end is an act of terrorism. The lack of discrimination in choosing the target by the terrorist organisations spreads fear: if no one is a target then no one can be safe.
The Second myth is that terrorism is the result of marginalisation of certain sections of society by the state and its machinery which has lead to great dissatisfaction resulting in the group turning to violence to address their grievances. Therefore, addressing their problems and removing these causes will eliminate terrorism. This argument advocates a soft approach to counter terrorism. Good governance is identified as the panacea of all ills. Therefore the argument is: any law formulated to curb terrorism will only exacerbate the existing problems. Good governance and addressing the ills of marginalisation is a welcome social conversion but it does not deal with the menace of terrorist violence against citizens. There is also no doubt that terrorist organisations seek to their recruits from those who have economic disadvantage. They use them as foot soldiers to carry out their orders and commit the final violent act but those who run these organisations or master mind the terror campaigns are educated, urbanised intellectuals as well as those motivated by their own brand of warped ideology. Those who preach violence are different from those who put it into practice Therefore, laws are required to deal with the main organisations suspected of spreading and spearheading the terrorist activities and not just the perpetrators of the acts.
The Third myth is when an incident occurs the state and the intelligence have failed miserably ( as the cub reporter on the scene of every by-the-hour news channel often surmises) .The media immediately faults the intelligence agencies and state machinery for not anticipating the attack yet balks at any attempt to enact a law to deal which would ensure otherwise . It is not possible for the state machinery anywhere to recognise and identify the every lowly recruit of the organisation who may have been entrusted with a specific act to be committed at a specific time on a given date.A pragmatic approach needs to be adopted instead of emotional reaction. If a law were to permit the state to monitor constantly an organisation suspected to be capable of subversive activity and to enquire into its activities, it is possible to pre-empt such occurrences. It is not sufficient to seek the suspects of the violence after it has resulted in the deaths of the innocent; laws are required to ferret out the leaders of such organisations capable of suspicious activities before the incidents occur. The strategist and the fund raisers of such organisation should be dealt with severely under the law before the occurrence of an act of violence. Identifying these organisations would not be a major task as these organisations are known to preach and publish their intentions. Organisations and outfits that espouse causes seek media attention to justify their existence and often advertise their intentions through public statements to the media or at rallies and meetings. The success of an organisation lies often in the inability of the authorities to pay heed to them and take suitable action against these organisations. The Aum Shinrokyo movement in Japan began its public campaign of terror in 1994 with the release of sarin gas in a residential neighbourhood .It had published pamphlets and openly stated their intention of using sarin gas and had moved truckloads of chemical agents into their compounds. These apparent signs went unheeded .Had their movements been sufficiently monitored , such large consignment of chemicals moving into their compound would not have passed unnoticed and the 1995 Tokyo attack on the subway system would not have occurred. The police and intelligence, therefore, need to be further empowered under law to maintain a constant vigil concerning all organisations with a capability of turning into terrorist organisations. Communications, recruitment of members and movements of consignments have to be monitored to prevent stocking of chemicals, explosives and arms and ammunitions.
The Fourth myth is that it is not possible to judge at what point of time a political, social or religious organisation becomes a terrorist organisation. Therefore monitoring organisations would impinge on their rights to carry out lawful activities. This of course is an extension of the first myth that an organisation may be genuinely fighting a repressive regime and therefore has had to resort to violence to achieve its end. This again a conceptual misinterpretation – no organisation or person belonging to them can justify violence against the innocent civilian population. The moment violence is directed at society at large , there can be no doubt that the persons committing such acts are terrorists and the organisation that logistically supports, trains or provides funds for them or accepts and endorses their acts as being part of their greater cause is a terrorist organisation. Several organisations acting with impunity in India would fall within the ambit of the new law.
A brief note on the two laws in India that were enacted to deal with terrorism at different times. Both these laws were severely criticised as they violated human rights and vitiated the due process of law. There was uproar in all sections of society and they were consequently repealed. That they flouted the basic concepts of the legal system is irrefutable. Pervious laws in India to deal with terrorism were the Terrorists and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA) of 1985 (amended 1987) and repealed in 1995. The Indian government introduced the Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance (POTO) on October 2001 and the legislature passed The Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) in March of 2002. Both the laws resulted in gross abuse of human rights during implementation and there is sufficient evidence to uphold these allegations. The laws had abhorrent features that violated fundamental freedoms enshrined in the Constitution of India.
Briefly, the inherent flaws were as follows: 180 days detention was permitted without charges being framed, the presumption of guilt of those subject to the law, summary trials, trials in absentia - all of which violated all norms of equitable justice. The sketchy review procedure came under severe criticism. The gross abuse of the laws occurred due to several factors. The texts of these laws were too broad and the term terrorism included everything. The generalised term covered ordinary criminal activities covered by the penal laws of the country like theft and murder. The interlocutory orders of the Special Courts set up under the new laws could not be reviewed. Since the state governments had powers equal to the Central government under these laws there was gross misuse by the state machinery especially in Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Maharashtra where the laws were used to quell political opposition or to settle personal scores and all this is supported by statistics. .The erratic application of the laws at various times also varied from state to state.
Stating the severity of the earlier laws and their misuse only serves to underline the need to reframe the laws; it does not raise the question whether a new counter terrorism law is required are not. Anti terrorism laws are an absolute necessity for society and it should not be treated as political issues even if the implementation is questioned by human rights forums. Anti terrorism law should be viewed as an efficient response within the rule of law. It has been seen that the policy of military response to terrorism is short lived and does not have long term legal effect. To stymie terrorist organisations and weaken the capabilities of terrorist organisations there is an urgent need to enact counter terrorist laws. The state has to be empowered by law to prevent recruitment of cadres, raising of funds and other forms of support by propaganda and to scrutinise and freeze funds and assets. Vigil of terrorist organisations and of other such organisations with the potential to become terrorist organisations irrespective of whether terrorist acts are committed by them or not has to be sanctioned by law. Constant surveillance of its leaders, members and supporters is required. A wait-and-see policy would endanger the liberty of society and lead to grave consequences.
Counter terrorist laws should be viewed as safeguards for collective safety and there should have no partisan or parochial considerations. It should be understood that measured infringement of individual freedom is not violation of fundamental right. No longer do we question additional security measures at airports, public places and other sensitive areas as violating privacy being well aware that safety supersedes discomfort. It is the duty of the state to prevent the existence of destructive forces within its territorial jurisdiction which endanger the life and liberty of its citizens and the safety and security of other states.
Terrorism is not a passing phenomenon and a new counter terrorism law is urgently required to deal with it effectively. The new laws must, however, incorporate certain features that ensure that there can be no misuse by the enforcement machinery.
I. The primary concern is the rule of law. Laws are not to be enacted that in any manner operate outside the realm of rule of law.
II. The definition of terrorism has to be sufficiently narrowed to exclude criminal activities: if intention to terrorise is missing, mere criminal activity should not fall within the purview of the special law. Similarly, an act that would not be criminal but would be permissible under freedom of speech and expression should be deemed an act supporting terrorism if the intention is to garner support or is supportive of a proscribed organisation.
III. Witness protection would have to be incorporated under the new law to ensure greater co operation from fringe elements and sections of society aware of such organisations and their activities.
IV. Another important aspect to be considered would be the uniform and consistent application of such law by the enforcement authority throughout India.
V. Transparency and review procedures would have to be clearly set out in the newly enacted law.
VI. There should be a centralised system to prevent inconsistent application and interpretation of the law throughout the territory. Establishment of a central judicial agency for even application and uniform interpretation should be set up.
VII. Special agencies should be set up so that the overburdened enforcement agency in the state is not required to handle the activities under the special law. Such agencies should also be sufficiently trained and sensitised about the application of the law.
VIII. Specific fund allocation by the government for the agencies that apply the law has to be made as part of the states serious intention to cub terrorism. No agency can function without proper infrastructure, manpower or technology.
This will address the fears that any law dealing with terrorism will abrogate human rights and will place all organisations with genuine concern for addressing social issues under the purview of the state agencies who will then use the laws to curb opponents and settle political scores.
There are no minor forms of terrorism and if there has been concrete evidence of earlier abuse of counter terrorism laws, it is the implementation of the law that should be scrutinised and rectified; the need for counter terrorism law should not be questioned.
By Dr. Subhash Kapila
Introductory Observations
India's counter-terrorism strategy overly dominated by flawed political approaches during the period 2004-2008 have spawned in its wake an uninterrupted spate of terrorism strikes all over India. The Indian Republic seems to be under a concerted assault by terrorist organizations using religious labels and drawing succor from across India’s borders.
The Indian Republic is not short of having at its command a multiplicity of powerful and effective instruments of State to combat the terrorism menace. The Indian Republic is however woefully short of political will and determination to use these instruments of State including intelligence agencies. India’s counter-terrorism strategy under the present political leadership seems to be imprisoned in a straitjacket of political expediency arising from its captive vote-bank considerations.
The essence of any counter-terrorism strategy is “deterrence”. Deterrence implies that the State devises laws, creates mechanisms and puts in place systems which send clear and forceful signals to the terrorists that should they dare to challenge the sovereignty of the State, the retribution from the State would be swift, hard-hitting and if need be even be disproportionate. The Indian Republic under the present political dispensation has signally failed on this account. Whatever little “terrorism deterrence” that was available to the Indian State upto 2004 in the form of TADA and POTA was brought to naught by the present Indian Government with the repeal of POTA when the UPA Government came into power.
As a result of the above the Indian Republic seems to have been rendered impotent where Islamist terrorist groups merrily strike at will with increasing frequency and intensity. The “Indian Mujahideen” which is a front for the Islamist organization SIMI has claimed responsibility for all the terrorist bombings in the last couple of years. The major bombings in Jaipur, Bangalore and Ahmedabad and the now the capital of the Indian Republic, now Delhi bear the terror foot prints of the Indian Mujahideen.
Terrorist bombings in India are no longer the exclusive handiwork of Pakistani Islamic Jehadi organizations. An increasing number of radical elements within the Indian Muslim community seem now to have been harnessed and operationalized to act as their cats-paws to inflict ‘bleeding cuts’ on the Indian Republic.
The Congress Party and allied to it the “Secular apologists” of different hues seem to be in a ‘state of denial’ on this count and such fixations tend to distort India’s current counter-terrorism strategy of the present Government.
Consequently, the Indian Republic’s approaches to terrorism and its counter-terrorism strategy stand heavily politicized. It is not for nothing that the Indian public has become highly critical of flawed political approaches to counter terrorism of the present Government in New Delhi in terms of their counter-terrorism strategy and their inability to control terrorist strikes.
The exasperation of the Indian public at large stands captured by a posting on a web-site in February 2008 which read:
“If only the Congress focused on turning tables on the terrorists instead of the BJP, the 200 odd victims of the 7/11 in Mumbai, and the many terror attacks across the nation would today be resting easy with a sense of justice having been served.
By making this about a political contest on who has a worse terror record the Congress has insulted the memory of every one of those brave men and women in uniform who shed their blood defending our freedoms, and the memory of those deceased law-abiding citizens who defied their fear mongering to go on with their way of life despite terror threats.
The victims of terror must speak up and demand answer and justice of the Manmohan Singh – UPA Government. Tolerating this delinquency would be fatal to the nation”.
This is the agony of the Indian Republic accumulating as after every terrorist bombing incident one hears the ritualistic rhetoric of the President of the Congress Party, the Prime Minister and the Home Minister that terrorists would be brought to book.
Adding insult to injury, one has also witnessed the two leaders of major political coalition partners of the Congress Party from the Hindu heartland with self-proclaimed pretensions to be future Prime Ministers that SIMI (the parent organization of the Indian Mujahideen) should not be banned. Such advocacy again arises from their reliance on survival in political power on captive vote banks.
Against such a dismal political backdrop of India’s current counter-terrorism strategy it becomes pertinent to ponder over the following related issues:
Terrorism Onslaughts on India: Defining the Dimensions Terrorism: An “Act of War” Against India, Not a Law and Order Problem Terrorists Not Eligible for Human Rights Protection and Recourse to Constitutional Legal Remedies Terrorism Deterrence: Imperatives for Draconian Laws and Special Fast-track Courts Counter-Terrorism Strategy Should be Determined by National Security Considerations and Not Political Expediency Terrorism Upsurge: Political Leaders to Blame and Not the Police Terrorism Pre-emption: Intelligence Agencies Not to Blame Islamist Terrorism Against India: The End Game? India’s “National Honour” Under Assault By Islamist Terrorists Terrorism Onslaughts on India: Defining the Dimensions
The current wave of terrorism onslaught on India needs to be defined in terms of its true dimensions and without political fudging. Political fudging leads to distortions in the enunciation of sound counter-terrorism initiatives to defeat terrorism. Further it leads to loss of focus and direction of the intelligence agencies and the security agencies in combating the terrorism menace.
The Indian Republic must stop pretending that the terrorism onslaughts against India have no religious labels. The terrorist onslaughts against India are being launched in a concerted manner by Islamist organizations and has two dimensions, namely (1) In an earlier time frame Islamic Jehadi organizations based in Pakistan acting as instruments of the Pakistan Army and ISI provided the terrorist soldiery, arms and material for terrorism against India (2) In the contemporary time frame, the Pakistan Army/ISI mentors continue, but the terrorists soldiery for execution of blasts/bombings are now found from within the ranks of growing radical elements within the Indian Muslim community.
The latter makes the task more difficult for Indian intelligence agencies and security forces as the “political expediency” factor of the political masters comes into play resulting in a loss of focus and direction. Surveillance and tracking of terrorists from across the border was easier and there was no political interference there for then votes were not involved.
In the current scenario where indigenous foot-soldiery from within the Indian Muslim community’s radical elements is the main motive force for external sponsors, combating them poses some questions which only the political leadership can answer, namely (1) Would the political leadership permit extensive surveillance and tracking the radical elements in Indian Muslim neighborhoods? (2) Does the political leadership have the stature to motivate the Indian Muslim community for self-policing? (3) Would the Indian Muslim community would be able to overcome the fear of the terrorists and deliver on the location of terrorists sleeper cells and modules to the intelligence agencies and the police?
Despite the above impediments, once the current terrorist threat is defined in its true dimensions, it will provide clarity in focus and direction to India’s intelligence agency and security forces in combating terrorism.
Terrorism: An “Act of War” Against India, Not a Law and Order Problem
Political leaders tend to dismiss terrorism as a law and order problem. This is grossly erroneous and self-defeating.
Terrorism in its current dimensions in India is an “act of war” against India and needs to be recognized as such. The terrorists are not committing murder based on personal enmity against a particular individual or group. They are bombing out hundreds of civilian lives like in any war.
The terrorists when they inflict sizeable losses on innocent Indian lives in scores and hundreds are taunting the Indian state that it is powerless to protect the lives of its citizens which is a constitutional duty of the Government.
The terrorists when they resort to their “acts of war” and mayhem challenge the sovereignty of the Indian Republic and are indulging in aggression against the State.
If India is to succeed in its counter-terrorism strategy, it needs to define terrorism as an “act of war” and devise deterrent strategies to deal with it as such.
Terrorists Not Eligible for Human Rights Protection and Recourse to Constitutional Legal Remedies
Terrorists even if they are Indian citizens forfeit their protection and cover for Human Rights provisions and constitutional remedies when they indulge in “acts of war” against the Indian State.
The Indian Constitution and its legal systems provide multiple avenues to its citizens for redress of their grievances in a peaceful and legal manner. Should a citizen take upon himself to indulge in “acts of war” against the Indian State, he in effect is challenging the very existence of the Indian State as founded by the Indian Constitution.
By acting beyond the pale of the Indian Constitution, the “terrorists” cease to be citizens of India. They cannot claim Human Rights protection and recourse to legal remedies granted to only those who act and live within the framework of the Indian Constitution. The Indian political leadership, the media and other apologists need to get this clear in their heads.
Terrorism Deterrence: Imperatives for Draconian Laws and Special Fast-track Courts
Following from the above it naturally follows that those indulging in “acts of war” against the Indian State cannot be deterred by laws of civilized societies.
Terrorists can only be deterred and especially the potential recruits to terrorism, when they are conscious that draconian laws exist, shorn of constitutional remedies applicable to law abiding citizens only, and that their trials would be conducted by specially designated counter-terrorism fast-track courts and followed by swift exemplary punishment.
Terrorists are “merchants of death” who mercilessly and wantonly inflict merciless death, maiming and de-capitation on defenseless and innocent civilians of the Indian State, No civilized society, and certainly not India, can afford to allow a handiful of radical elements of one community to singe the fabric and challenge the majesty and sovereignty of the Indian Republic.
Neither TADA nor POTA were passed as laws targeting the Indian Muslim community. They were targeted generally against any individual or group aiming to disrupt the peace and harmony of the Indian Republic. If with the passage of time more Indian Muslims were drawn into its dragnet, the laws do not become Indian Muslim-centric in their targeting as secularism – apologists claim.
Ordinary Indian Muslims in the country are content to lead their lives peacefully and securely. If their sense of insecurity is aroused and that provokes some of them to Islamic radicalism, then the political parties that parley “political secularism” as opposed to “existential secularism” are to be blamed, because by doing so they hope to secure their captive vote banks.
Terrorism is encouraged when governments like in the case of the Afzal Guru case inordinately delay carrying out the death punishment confirmed by India’s Supreme Court on the false excuse of technicalities but with the underlying impulses of political expediency arising from vote-bank considerations.
The need of the hour in view of the rising frequency and intensity of terrorism onslaughts against India are severe draconian laws and fast-track courts to impose deterrence on those who indulge in “acts of war” against the Indian State. The United States and Britain as advanced and liberal democracies have such stringent laws.
Counter-Terrorism Strategy Should be Determined by National Security Considerations and Not Political Expediency
It does not need further emphasis that terrorism is an “act of war” and India’s defense preparedness against “threats of war” from any quarter are based on national security considerations. Counter-terrorism strategy therefore too needs to be based on national security considerations and not political expediency.
Would it not be ridiculous and suicidal if India were to decide not to battle Pakistani aggression on the grounds that by doing so the captive vote-banks of concerned political parties banking on narrow communal considerations would be affected?
The Constitution of India in Article 355 enjoins that the Government of India is duty-bound to protect Indian citizens both from external and internal threats. Protection against terrorism is the fundamental right of every Indian citizen.
The current terrorism threat against India has a mix of both external and internal dimensions. While the Government of the day may be ready to meet the external dimension, can the same Government shirk away from combating the internal dimension and manifestation of terrorism simply on the grounds of political expediency arising from its captive vote bank considerations?
Terrorism Upsurge: Political Leaders to Blame and Not the Police
It has become fashionable to blame the police ineffectiveness for the terrorism upsurge in India. Everybody seems to be oblivious that in actual fact the blame for terrorism lies squarely on the shoulders of the political leaders who constitute the Government of the day, their allies and their political supporters who dare to go to the extent of advocating that there should be no ban on SIMI.
The police set-up in India is doing a commendable job with their limited numbers and with meddle some political leaders and politicians making their task of combating terrorism that much more difficult.
Also demoralizing the police are the media who want instant sound bytes from police official on the identity of terrorists after each incident. They should pose that question to the political leaders.
After every major terrorism incident the Congress President and the Home Minister make a bee-line for cosmetic appearances and photo-op opportunities at hospitals to express their political sympathies. Has anyone told them that the hundreds of policemen detailed for their security and sanitizing the routes are diverted at a crucial stage when they should be fully involved and absorbed in the follow-up investigations and pursuit of terrorists and devising further protective measures.
It is intriguing that every time the police set-up only is blamed for being found wanting in preventing terrorism acts. Why are the civil bureaucrats of the IAS at district level, state level and the national level not faulted and pulled up? After all they too are a part of the overall administrative set-up of India which includes law and order.
On TV shows following the Delhi blasts the reactions from the majority of the Indian public severely indicted India’s political leaders and politicians for the upsurge of terrorism in India and hence this is not the individual view of this Author. India’s political leaders are to blame for making India’s police set-up to combat terrorism with one hand tied as a result of their selfish political expediency to safeguard their captive vote-banks.
Terrorism Pre-emption: Intelligence Agencies Not to Blame
After every terrorists blast, the next blame after the police falls on the intelligence agencies. It is conceded that the Intelligence Bureau (IB) is primarily responsible for pre-empting internal security threats with pre-emption of terrorist incidents topping the list of priorities today.
In actual fact, going by media reports most of the time the government of the day is tasking the IB for political intelligence on its opponents. If true then this gross deviation from the IB’s intended duties takes a heavy toll on terrorism pre-emption.
The Home Ministry politicians and bureaucrats let it be known after every terrorist incident that ‘terrorism advisories’ were issued that major towns would be targeted. These advisories are more like “meteorological advisories” general in nature with not even the slightest lead on location, time, place or intended targets.
Having made these points, the most crucial challenge that would be facing the intelligence agencies in the current scenario is as to what degree of penetration, surveillance and tracking would the present Government allow to pursue terrorism leads against the radical elements of the Indian Muslim community who provide the terrorism soldiery for groups like the Indian Mujahideen. The questions for the Indian political leadership stand asked earlier in this paper on this account and they need to address it.
The political record on this count is sordid whether in Northern India, Western India or Southern India and more so at the Centre.
If intelligence agencies are truly and effectively be expected to preempt terrorism they need to be given adequate resources, armed with deterrent legal powers and backed fully politically and not allow political expediency to overtake the functioning of intelligence agencies.
Islamist Terrorism Against India: The End Game
Initially in this Paper, it was stressed that India’s counter-terrorism strategy cannot acquire focus and direction if the dimensions of the current terrorism threat are not clearly defined. It stands brought out that India today is being subjected to terrorism onslaughts by Islamist terrorist groups.
The reflex-action statements from the highest levels of the present political dispensation after each terrorism incident are that the aim of these terrorists is to disrupt the communal harmony within India and that peace should be maintained.
Perfectly noble sentiments, but they only from a miniscule part of the end-game of Islamist terror groups within India with pan-Islamic leanings. It is important once again to attempt to read the end-game of such terrorist groups so that more focus and direction can be added to India’s counter-terrorism strategy.
To get a clue as to the end-game of the Islamic Mujahideen, who have claimed responsibility for the perpetration of all bomb blasts in the last couple of years some relevant excerpts from the SMS message they sent to the media recently are reproduced below:
“We the Indian Mujahideen, ask Allah the Almighty to accept from us these nine explosion which were planned to be executed in the holy month of Ramadan.” It was claimed that the aim of the spate of the current bombings was to “stop the heart of India from breathing”. The bombings were meant to send a message to “prove to you the ability and potential of the Indian Mujahideen to assault any city of India at any time”. Indians are charged with harboring “never ending hostile hatred in your hearts against Islam and its people”. There are a host of other such statements in the SMS, Suffice it to say that the underlying implied theme in these statements is (1) There is a religious label and motivation underlying in these statements. (2) The over-all aim is to hit at the core of the Indian State and if possible lead to its extinction. (3) Communal overtones are given to whip up frenzy on religious grounds.
Readers may recall that some time back some pan-Islamic terror groups had clubbed India with the United States and Israel as enemies of Islam. If that be so are then Indians being viewed presumably in that political context because in the last four or five years there are no atrocities reported to have taken place against Muslim in India. Then why this hatred and vengeance.
Obviously the underlying strategy in the current Islamist terrorist campaign against India is what the Pakistan Army/ISI desire and that is to (1) Keep India strategically destabilized by low-intensity conflict (2) Arrest Indian economic resurgence by driving away foreign investors (3) Engulf India in political turmoil.
Surprisingly and more intriguingly, the current spate of bombings have occurred after the “fatwa” (religious edict) issued by the famous Deoband Islamic Seminary terming terrorism as “un-Islamic”.
Obviously, the Deoband “fatwa” stands ignored by such Islamist terrorist groups and which further suggests that the current terrorist campaign has nothing to do with any misperceived wrongs of the Indian Muslim community but it has more to do with the politico-strategic agenda of the external mentors, patrons and financiers of such Islamist terrorist groups.
Hopefully, the Indian Muslim community at large too would recognize the above reality and purge the radical elements from within their ranks who have fallen prey to external stimuli.
India’s “National Honour” Under Assault By Islamist Terrorists.
The need for all Indians, including political leaders to develop sensitivity to nurture and protect India’s “National Honour” was touched in the Concluding Chapter entitled “Proscriptions for India’s National Security and Defence” in this Author’s book “India’s Defence Politics and Strategic Thought: A Comparative Analysis”.
The main stress was that India’s “National Honour” is indivisible and cannot be divided by different concepts for the majority and the minority communities by Indian political leaders or by political affiliations.
Amongst a number of instances listed as to how India's “National Honour” is singed by politicians the followings quotes from this Book in the current context are pertinent:
“India's National Honour is impinged when India's parliamentarians and political parties politicize national security issues.” “India's National Honour is impinged when Indian leaders are projected on Pakistan TV mouthing pronouncements detrimental to India's national interests prompted by narrow electoral gains to please narrow religious based constituencies. “India's honour is at stake when India expects others to restrain or pressurize its enemies from onslaughts against India by external and internal aggression”. “India's National Honour” is violated when India displays lack of will to take pre-emptive actions against its enemies who inflict proxy war, terrorism and suicide bombings on the Indian State”. India's present political dispensation has signally failed to protect India's “National Honour” in the face of onslaughts by Islamist terror organizations.
It is no use blaming the Home Minister for ineffectiveness to meet the terror threat. After all the accountability for the same rests with the Prime Minister and the Congress President as the ultimate decision making lies with her.
It is high time that the Indian Republic’s citizens demand accountability on terrorism upsurge and increased bomb blasts from the present political dispensation and as to why “political expediency” still persists and over-rides India's national security interests. They need to ask their political masters as to how many more Indian lives need to be sacrificed to arouse them from the stupor of political expediency.
Concluding Observations
The Indian Republic is at the crossroads not only in terms of its strategic directions but more importantly in terms of its political direction and future. India's political system and its political leaders have failed in the last sixty years to protect India from external and internal aggression.
The cumulative effect of the last 60 years of India’s political leaders not having the “will to use power” to protect India from external and internal aggression has led to the present state of the Indian political system being paralysed by Islamist terror groups.
Even the United Nations in its 2007 review on counter-terrorism has faulted India on being soft in its counter-terrorism policies.
The Indian Republic expects its political leaders to have the fundamental sensitivity to protect India's “National Honour”.
The latest series of frequent bomb blasts by Islamist terror groups is a “WAKE-UP CALL” for the Indian political system. What is at stake today is the terrorists end game of intending “to stop the heart of India from beating” and that needs to be defeated.
(The author is an International Relations and Strategic Affairs analyst. He is the Consultant, Strategic Affairs with South Asia Analysis Group. Email:drsubhashkapila@yahoo.com)------------------------Paper no. 2846 16-Sep.-2008 Why We Need a Law to Tackle Terrorism in India
Guest Column by Dr. Geeta Madhavan
The views expressed are author’s own.
The number of attacks on civilian targets in major cities in India has once again raised the question whether special laws need to be enacted to counter terrorism and deal with terrorist activities. The disturbing fact is that those who are not in favour of the enactment of law to counter terrorism often revert to old adages and arguments that are flawed as they no longer reflect the reality of the times we live in. After every act of terrorism, horrific images beamed by the visual media delivers a stunning blow to society. There is at once a clamour for stringent laws but as the images fade or are replaced complacency sets in till the next incident reopens the debate. There are certain myths about terrorism that have existed for quite some time an d before any argument can be made in favour of the enactment of such a law it is imperative to explode those myths.
The First myth is that there is no definition for terrorism or terrorist activity. The adage now discarded by serious analysts, is still paraded in forums i.e. "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter". That this no longer stands up as an argument is obvious. The ideological terrorists who targeted the symbols of oppressive regimes or authorities who were contrary to their belief systems have been replaced by terrorists who target innocent civilian population for a nebulous cause: the bomb in the market place, kidnapping busloads of school children, killing families in theatres, shopping malls and amusement parks. How anyone can even for a moment label them as freedom fighters confounds the logical mind. Any discussion on terrorism is not a matter of semantics but a grave concern of the safety of civilians and the security of society which is the duty of a state to protect. Over and over again one has to listen to persons smugly state that terrorism defies definition; therefore, what cannot be defined cannot be identified. It is imperative to understand that even though an all –encompassing definition for terrorism does not exist there are a number of working definitions that underline what terrorism is and how an act of terrorism can be identified. What entails a terrorist activity may defy specific definition but it certainly is possible for anyone to recognise such a violent act against society. Any act that deliberately and systematically aims the murder, maiming and menacing of the innocent civilians to inspire fear for political, religious or any other ideological end is an act of terrorism. The lack of discrimination in choosing the target by the terrorist organisations spreads fear: if no one is a target then no one can be safe.
The Second myth is that terrorism is the result of marginalisation of certain sections of society by the state and its machinery which has lead to great dissatisfaction resulting in the group turning to violence to address their grievances. Therefore, addressing their problems and removing these causes will eliminate terrorism. This argument advocates a soft approach to counter terrorism. Good governance is identified as the panacea of all ills. Therefore the argument is: any law formulated to curb terrorism will only exacerbate the existing problems. Good governance and addressing the ills of marginalisation is a welcome social conversion but it does not deal with the menace of terrorist violence against citizens. There is also no doubt that terrorist organisations seek to their recruits from those who have economic disadvantage. They use them as foot soldiers to carry out their orders and commit the final violent act but those who run these organisations or master mind the terror campaigns are educated, urbanised intellectuals as well as those motivated by their own brand of warped ideology. Those who preach violence are different from those who put it into practice Therefore, laws are required to deal with the main organisations suspected of spreading and spearheading the terrorist activities and not just the perpetrators of the acts.
The Third myth is when an incident occurs the state and the intelligence have failed miserably ( as the cub reporter on the scene of every by-the-hour news channel often surmises) .The media immediately faults the intelligence agencies and state machinery for not anticipating the attack yet balks at any attempt to enact a law to deal which would ensure otherwise . It is not possible for the state machinery anywhere to recognise and identify the every lowly recruit of the organisation who may have been entrusted with a specific act to be committed at a specific time on a given date.A pragmatic approach needs to be adopted instead of emotional reaction. If a law were to permit the state to monitor constantly an organisation suspected to be capable of subversive activity and to enquire into its activities, it is possible to pre-empt such occurrences. It is not sufficient to seek the suspects of the violence after it has resulted in the deaths of the innocent; laws are required to ferret out the leaders of such organisations capable of suspicious activities before the incidents occur. The strategist and the fund raisers of such organisation should be dealt with severely under the law before the occurrence of an act of violence. Identifying these organisations would not be a major task as these organisations are known to preach and publish their intentions. Organisations and outfits that espouse causes seek media attention to justify their existence and often advertise their intentions through public statements to the media or at rallies and meetings. The success of an organisation lies often in the inability of the authorities to pay heed to them and take suitable action against these organisations. The Aum Shinrokyo movement in Japan began its public campaign of terror in 1994 with the release of sarin gas in a residential neighbourhood .It had published pamphlets and openly stated their intention of using sarin gas and had moved truckloads of chemical agents into their compounds. These apparent signs went unheeded .Had their movements been sufficiently monitored , such large consignment of chemicals moving into their compound would not have passed unnoticed and the 1995 Tokyo attack on the subway system would not have occurred. The police and intelligence, therefore, need to be further empowered under law to maintain a constant vigil concerning all organisations with a capability of turning into terrorist organisations. Communications, recruitment of members and movements of consignments have to be monitored to prevent stocking of chemicals, explosives and arms and ammunitions.
The Fourth myth is that it is not possible to judge at what point of time a political, social or religious organisation becomes a terrorist organisation. Therefore monitoring organisations would impinge on their rights to carry out lawful activities. This of course is an extension of the first myth that an organisation may be genuinely fighting a repressive regime and therefore has had to resort to violence to achieve its end. This again a conceptual misinterpretation – no organisation or person belonging to them can justify violence against the innocent civilian population. The moment violence is directed at society at large , there can be no doubt that the persons committing such acts are terrorists and the organisation that logistically supports, trains or provides funds for them or accepts and endorses their acts as being part of their greater cause is a terrorist organisation. Several organisations acting with impunity in India would fall within the ambit of the new law.
A brief note on the two laws in India that were enacted to deal with terrorism at different times. Both these laws were severely criticised as they violated human rights and vitiated the due process of law. There was uproar in all sections of society and they were consequently repealed. That they flouted the basic concepts of the legal system is irrefutable. Pervious laws in India to deal with terrorism were the Terrorists and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA) of 1985 (amended 1987) and repealed in 1995. The Indian government introduced the Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance (POTO) on October 2001 and the legislature passed The Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) in March of 2002. Both the laws resulted in gross abuse of human rights during implementation and there is sufficient evidence to uphold these allegations. The laws had abhorrent features that violated fundamental freedoms enshrined in the Constitution of India.
Briefly, the inherent flaws were as follows: 180 days detention was permitted without charges being framed, the presumption of guilt of those subject to the law, summary trials, trials in absentia - all of which violated all norms of equitable justice. The sketchy review procedure came under severe criticism. The gross abuse of the laws occurred due to several factors. The texts of these laws were too broad and the term terrorism included everything. The generalised term covered ordinary criminal activities covered by the penal laws of the country like theft and murder. The interlocutory orders of the Special Courts set up under the new laws could not be reviewed. Since the state governments had powers equal to the Central government under these laws there was gross misuse by the state machinery especially in Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Maharashtra where the laws were used to quell political opposition or to settle personal scores and all this is supported by statistics. .The erratic application of the laws at various times also varied from state to state.
Stating the severity of the earlier laws and their misuse only serves to underline the need to reframe the laws; it does not raise the question whether a new counter terrorism law is required are not. Anti terrorism laws are an absolute necessity for society and it should not be treated as political issues even if the implementation is questioned by human rights forums. Anti terrorism law should be viewed as an efficient response within the rule of law. It has been seen that the policy of military response to terrorism is short lived and does not have long term legal effect. To stymie terrorist organisations and weaken the capabilities of terrorist organisations there is an urgent need to enact counter terrorist laws. The state has to be empowered by law to prevent recruitment of cadres, raising of funds and other forms of support by propaganda and to scrutinise and freeze funds and assets. Vigil of terrorist organisations and of other such organisations with the potential to become terrorist organisations irrespective of whether terrorist acts are committed by them or not has to be sanctioned by law. Constant surveillance of its leaders, members and supporters is required. A wait-and-see policy would endanger the liberty of society and lead to grave consequences.
Counter terrorist laws should be viewed as safeguards for collective safety and there should have no partisan or parochial considerations. It should be understood that measured infringement of individual freedom is not violation of fundamental right. No longer do we question additional security measures at airports, public places and other sensitive areas as violating privacy being well aware that safety supersedes discomfort. It is the duty of the state to prevent the existence of destructive forces within its territorial jurisdiction which endanger the life and liberty of its citizens and the safety and security of other states.
Terrorism is not a passing phenomenon and a new counter terrorism law is urgently required to deal with it effectively. The new laws must, however, incorporate certain features that ensure that there can be no misuse by the enforcement machinery.
I. The primary concern is the rule of law. Laws are not to be enacted that in any manner operate outside the realm of rule of law.
II. The definition of terrorism has to be sufficiently narrowed to exclude criminal activities: if intention to terrorise is missing, mere criminal activity should not fall within the purview of the special law. Similarly, an act that would not be criminal but would be permissible under freedom of speech and expression should be deemed an act supporting terrorism if the intention is to garner support or is supportive of a proscribed organisation.
III. Witness protection would have to be incorporated under the new law to ensure greater co operation from fringe elements and sections of society aware of such organisations and their activities.
IV. Another important aspect to be considered would be the uniform and consistent application of such law by the enforcement authority throughout India.
V. Transparency and review procedures would have to be clearly set out in the newly enacted law.
VI. There should be a centralised system to prevent inconsistent application and interpretation of the law throughout the territory. Establishment of a central judicial agency for even application and uniform interpretation should be set up.
VII. Special agencies should be set up so that the overburdened enforcement agency in the state is not required to handle the activities under the special law. Such agencies should also be sufficiently trained and sensitised about the application of the law.
VIII. Specific fund allocation by the government for the agencies that apply the law has to be made as part of the states serious intention to cub terrorism. No agency can function without proper infrastructure, manpower or technology.
This will address the fears that any law dealing with terrorism will abrogate human rights and will place all organisations with genuine concern for addressing social issues under the purview of the state agencies who will then use the laws to curb opponents and settle political scores.
There are no minor forms of terrorism and if there has been concrete evidence of earlier abuse of counter terrorism laws, it is the implementation of the law that should be scrutinised and rectified; the need for counter terrorism law should not be questioned.
12-Sep.-2008
Indian Mujahideen: More Questions Than Answers
International Terrorism Monitor-- Paper No. 444
By B. Raman
The group calling itself the Indian Mujahideen (IM) has so far sent five E-mail messages to sections of the media since it made its appearance in November last year. The first message was sent a few minutes before the serial blasts in three towns of Uttar Pradesh in November last year. The second was sent after the blasts in Jaipur in May, 2008. The third was sent before the blasts in Ahmedabad on July 26, 2008. The fourth was sent after the press conference held by the Gujarat Police in August, 2008, in which they claimed to have solved the case relating to the Ahmedabad and Jaipur blasts, identified the perpetrators and arrested many of them. According to the Gujarat police version, it was the Students' Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), which is now operating as the IM. The firfth message was sent before the blasts in New Delhi on September 13, 2008.
2. The first, second, third and fifth messages claimed responsibility for the blasts and the fourth debunked the claims of the Gujarat Police of having solved the case and tried to convey the impression that the arrested persons had nothing to do with the blasts. Surprisingly, the IM has not sent any E-mail messages claiming responsibility for the serial blasts in Bangalore on July 25, 2008.
3. Intriguingly, the IM describes its latest E-mail warning of the New Delhi blasts as "our third consecutive E-mail ". It says: "The INDIAN MUJAHIDEEN accepts the sole responsibility of Delhi serial blasts, and we claim this, through our third consecutive email, which is, unfortunately, still a mystery for you. It is very sad to see the bad condition of your cyber forensics who have still failed to find out our technique of sending the “Message of Death”." Why does the IM talk of only three E-mail messages, when the media had received five E-mails, all purporting to be from the IM?
4. A careful study of all the E-mail messages purported to have been sent in the name of the IM indicates the following:
While the first two E-mail messages were virulent in their content, they were not obnoxiously abusive in their language. The last three messages were not only virulent in their content, but also obnoxious in their language. I had pointed out in my earlier paper cited above that in the message about the Ahmedabad blasts, they had used the word bastard which normally Al Qaeda and pro-Al Qaeda organisations are never known to use. The latest message on the New Delhi blasts are even more abusive than the previous two messages regarding the blasts in Ahmedabad. P. C. Pandey, the DG of Police of Gujarat, has been abused as a rascal, a bastard, a corrupt old hag, a base-born criminal and a filthy loyal dog of Narendra Modi. These are typical of the Mafia underworld of Mumbai and Gujarat. The Gujarat Police and the Rajasthan Police and their Police chiefs have been severely condemned in the latest and a specific threat of terrorist attack has also been held out against A.K.Jain of the Rajasthan Police. But, significantly, there is no criticism of the Karnataka Police and its chief. There is not even a reference to the investigation by the Bangalore Police, whereas the investigations by the Ahmedabad and Jaipur police have been debunked and their claims of having solved the cases have been questioned. Similarly, there is no reference to the UP Police investigation of the blasts of November last. The language used in the third and fourth messages about the Ahmedabad blasts and the fifth message about the New Delhi blasts, which are very abusive, differ from the language used in the first message about the UP blasts and the second about the Jaipur blasts. 5. Why such discrepancies? It is important to find answers to them before we come to definitive conclusions about the IM. Just as the proof of the pudding is in the eating, the proof of the terrorist is in the catching. Unless and until we are able to identify and neutralise or arrest the right persons, who are the brains behind the IM, we will have more surprises. We have arrested many perpetrators of individual blasts, but I am not sure we have arrested the brains. By thinking and prematurely projecting that we have identified and arrested the brains, we will make ourselves liable for more surprises, which could damage the credibility of the police in the eyes of the public.
6. In the latest message, the State Governments of Gujarat, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka have been criticised for their alleged harassment of the Muslims, but the main brunt of the criticism has been on Maharashtra and the Mumbai Police. Having attacked the national capital in New Delhi, they could next target the economic capital in Mumbai.
7. From these messages, it is apparent that the IM does not as yet have a strategic objective such as the establishment of an Islamic Caliphate or the "liberation" of the Muslims of India. Its objective till now is purely tactical to wreak vengeance on the Hindutva organisations and the various State Governments accused of harassing the Muslims. New Delhi seems to have been targeted not only to exhibit their capability for action in the capital, but also to wreak vengeance on the Government of India for its failure to prevent the demolition of the Babri Masjid in December, 1992. The message says: "Babri Masjid was and will remain to be our glorious self esteem and Inshallah, we will prove it to you a hornet’s nest in which you have immersed your bare hand, unaware of the pain to come. If you are prepared to suffer the results of this issue,then by the will of Allah, verily! We will make you face it, and if you feel you are wise enough, then here we announce our ultimatum: Vacate the land of Babri as soon as you can."
By B. Raman
The group calling itself the Indian Mujahideen (IM) has so far sent five E-mail messages to sections of the media since it made its appearance in November last year. The first message was sent a few minutes before the serial blasts in three towns of Uttar Pradesh in November last year. The second was sent after the blasts in Jaipur in May, 2008. The third was sent before the blasts in Ahmedabad on July 26, 2008. The fourth was sent after the press conference held by the Gujarat Police in August, 2008, in which they claimed to have solved the case relating to the Ahmedabad and Jaipur blasts, identified the perpetrators and arrested many of them. According to the Gujarat police version, it was the Students' Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), which is now operating as the IM. The firfth message was sent before the blasts in New Delhi on September 13, 2008.
2. The first, second, third and fifth messages claimed responsibility for the blasts and the fourth debunked the claims of the Gujarat Police of having solved the case and tried to convey the impression that the arrested persons had nothing to do with the blasts. Surprisingly, the IM has not sent any E-mail messages claiming responsibility for the serial blasts in Bangalore on July 25, 2008.
3. Intriguingly, the IM describes its latest E-mail warning of the New Delhi blasts as "our third consecutive E-mail ". It says: "The INDIAN MUJAHIDEEN accepts the sole responsibility of Delhi serial blasts, and we claim this, through our third consecutive email, which is, unfortunately, still a mystery for you. It is very sad to see the bad condition of your cyber forensics who have still failed to find out our technique of sending the “Message of Death”." Why does the IM talk of only three E-mail messages, when the media had received five E-mails, all purporting to be from the IM?
4. A careful study of all the E-mail messages purported to have been sent in the name of the IM indicates the following:
While the first two E-mail messages were virulent in their content, they were not obnoxiously abusive in their language. The last three messages were not only virulent in their content, but also obnoxious in their language. I had pointed out in my earlier paper cited above that in the message about the Ahmedabad blasts, they had used the word bastard which normally Al Qaeda and pro-Al Qaeda organisations are never known to use. The latest message on the New Delhi blasts are even more abusive than the previous two messages regarding the blasts in Ahmedabad. P. C. Pandey, the DG of Police of Gujarat, has been abused as a rascal, a bastard, a corrupt old hag, a base-born criminal and a filthy loyal dog of Narendra Modi. These are typical of the Mafia underworld of Mumbai and Gujarat. The Gujarat Police and the Rajasthan Police and their Police chiefs have been severely condemned in the latest and a specific threat of terrorist attack has also been held out against A.K.Jain of the Rajasthan Police. But, significantly, there is no criticism of the Karnataka Police and its chief. There is not even a reference to the investigation by the Bangalore Police, whereas the investigations by the Ahmedabad and Jaipur police have been debunked and their claims of having solved the cases have been questioned. Similarly, there is no reference to the UP Police investigation of the blasts of November last. The language used in the third and fourth messages about the Ahmedabad blasts and the fifth message about the New Delhi blasts, which are very abusive, differ from the language used in the first message about the UP blasts and the second about the Jaipur blasts. 5. Why such discrepancies? It is important to find answers to them before we come to definitive conclusions about the IM. Just as the proof of the pudding is in the eating, the proof of the terrorist is in the catching. Unless and until we are able to identify and neutralise or arrest the right persons, who are the brains behind the IM, we will have more surprises. We have arrested many perpetrators of individual blasts, but I am not sure we have arrested the brains. By thinking and prematurely projecting that we have identified and arrested the brains, we will make ourselves liable for more surprises, which could damage the credibility of the police in the eyes of the public.
6. In the latest message, the State Governments of Gujarat, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka have been criticised for their alleged harassment of the Muslims, but the main brunt of the criticism has been on Maharashtra and the Mumbai Police. Having attacked the national capital in New Delhi, they could next target the economic capital in Mumbai.
7. From these messages, it is apparent that the IM does not as yet have a strategic objective such as the establishment of an Islamic Caliphate or the "liberation" of the Muslims of India. Its objective till now is purely tactical to wreak vengeance on the Hindutva organisations and the various State Governments accused of harassing the Muslims. New Delhi seems to have been targeted not only to exhibit their capability for action in the capital, but also to wreak vengeance on the Government of India for its failure to prevent the demolition of the Babri Masjid in December, 1992. The message says: "Babri Masjid was and will remain to be our glorious self esteem and Inshallah, we will prove it to you a hornet’s nest in which you have immersed your bare hand, unaware of the pain to come. If you are prepared to suffer the results of this issue,then by the will of Allah, verily! We will make you face it, and if you feel you are wise enough, then here we announce our ultimatum: Vacate the land of Babri as soon as you can."
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