INDIA vs. TeRoRrIsM

Ahmad Reza Taheri , NISDA, PUNE, 14 May 2009: On 14 May 2009, we (Research Fellows of NISDA) were invited to a seminar in the city. Pune Police organized a national seminar on ‘Terrorism & Its challenges to Indian Society’ from 9 o’clock a.m. to 6 o’clock p.m. at Ganesh Kala Kreeda Rangmanch Swargate in Pune. The surrounding avenues and streets were fully under the control and supervision of security forces including both army and police, perhaps hundreds of them.

The seminar was attended by some of India’s eminent personalities including, former Chief Justice of India, former Chief Secretary of India, former Minister of Law, Director Generals of Police, retired Generals, leading lawyers, Vice Chancellors, and renowned journalists and writers. Moreover, over 2000 participants including, university professors, doctors, engineers, army and police figures, and students attended the seminar. The following people delivered their lectures on the issue of terrorism and its challenges to Indian society.

In the beginning, Dr. Satya Pal Singh (Police Commissioner of Pune) addressed the participants by pointing out the following issues:  42% of foreign students in India residing in Pune, 50% of the population is below 30 years old, in IT and Armed Forces Pune is number one in the country, 60% of the retired Generals and 22 of retired Director Generals of Police are staying in this city. On the issue of terrorism, he said that this network is being effectively coordinated through Internet and mobile phones. Poverty does not cause terrorism and prosperity does not cure it. Bin Laden and Dawood Ibrahim e.g. the world’s most wanted terrorists both are billionaires.   

S S Virk  (Maharashtra State Director General of Police) remarked on 26/11 terrorist attacks at Taj Mahal Hotel, saying that this incident makes us developing better strategies to counter terrorism. He also continued the same issue by questioning what was missing and what went wrong in this attack.  

J S Verma (former Chief Justice of India & Ex-Chair Person of Human Rights Organization in India) asserted that the police force should be given complete autonomy on par with independence of judiciary if terrorism is to be eliminated from India. We need to have a proactive and holistic approach while dealing with terrorism. Unaccounted money worth 476 $ million is lying in Swiss banks. This can be used to fund terror activities. We react only when we are attacked and we are not good in learning from our mistakes. We must dry up all sources including poverty, which can support terrorism. On 26/11 we had lack of coordination. Our constables are illiterate, earning low incomes, how they can combat terrorism. These people can help us to a large extent so that gather necessary intelligence to fight terrorism. We better have a think-tank of our experienced people; corruption must be eliminated, and the existing laws must be implemented faithfully.

Ram Jit Malani (former Minister of Law) said we must make our heads right. War on terrorism cannot be won unless the terrorist’s ideology is reformed. Terrorism has nothing to do with Islam. We have Hindu terrorists, Christian terrorists, etc.  Although terrorists claim that they want to expand Islam, it is all fraud. The word jihad in such a way does not exist in Quran. Prophet of Islam says that the ink of a scholar is more meaningful than the blood of a martyr. Muslim philosophers wrote the best books, which enlightened the dark Europe. It’s a shame that today terrorists say we fight for the sake of Islam. The speaker also attacked Wahabis for misinterpretation of Quran. Nowhere Quarn says that you go and kill the innocent people. We had 9/11 attacks in America and 26/11 attacks in India in which many innocent people were killed. We must first of all get rid of domestic terrorism. War against terrorism does not require police action; we are required to challenge the spiritual and ideological foundations of the terrorists. One important and horrible teaching among the terrorists is to “just kill few innocent people for the sake of Allah and Islam, then you will go directly to the heaven…!”  Do you think that God requires our help to do such things!?

The fifth speaker was Gopal Sharma (former Director General Police of Jamu & Kashmir) who presented a report along with a diagram, explaining how terrorism or militant violence decreased in Jamu & Kashmir. His study was based on an 18-year statistics --- 1990-2008. The total people including civilians, security forces, and militant killed during these years reaches to 42,668 individuals, he said.  

Muzafar Hussain (a writer & journalist) in his lecture followed the roots of terrorism and found it in Iraq and Iran. He talked about Hassan Sabbah and the way they conducted their terrorist acts. He also pointed that Taliban will be finished when Pakistani ideology is finished.  

KP S Gill (retired Director General Police of Punjab) said we are very weak in our intelligence gathering methods and simply blame others such as Al-Qaeda or Taliban. We must not forget that corruption and anti-terrorism cannot go together.

Dr. Narendra Jadhav (Vice Chancellor of Pune University) said that terrorism is the result of political, social, and economic instability. We have planned some programs to teach our students how to be aware of this problem of terrorism e.g. our colleague students will have to undergo a compulsory course on terrorism from June 2009 at the university. About 10 lack students will be trained in 4 years.

M J Akbar (a renowned journalist) discussed that India has suffered from terrorism from every religion --- Muslim terrorism in Kashmir, Christian terrorism in Nagland, Sikh terrorism in Punjab and northeast, and Hindu terrorism in the whole country.  He also said that terrorism in Arabic means Fisad. Quran in this respect says that if you have saved one person from Fisad or terrorism, it means that you have saved the whole community. He also said that no state could survive without war doctrine, because the security of individuals is the first responsibility of states. He reasoned about the rise of Taliban in Pakistan, saying that when people of Pakistan are tired of army and civilian rulers, they go to Taliban. Today the creditability of both army and police is finished. This is the vacuum, which Taliban is moving into. Finally he pointed that no faith can survive if it prescribes violence.

Ashok Aria (Commissioner Excise Ministry of Finance New Delhi) the 10th speaker said that one of the major sources for terrorism comes from money laundering. The other major force is ill information e.g. many do not know what Islam is. He commented that we don’t understand those who are in power are really politician or “criminals.” More than 80% of our politicians have corers of Rupees. He also pointed that we must provide a free and compulsory education for our children.  Combating these problems means combating terrorism.

Dr. Pattan (Vice Chancellor of Nagpur University) pointed that in the very India there are Muslims and Hindu who live peacefully together without any riots or fights and celebrate each other’s festivals. However, on the issue of terrorism he said that Muslim communities too should come up and take initiative so that combat terrorism.

B G Deshmukh   (former Chief Secretary of India) referred to the issue of internal terrorism and external terrorism. He focused on the issues of communal harmony, cooperation with government and security forces, and good governance and good police. The entire society must take the responsibility and it is not only the job of the police to combat terrorism.  

Finally, D B Shekatkar (retired Lt. General) told let us separate religion from terrorism, because this concept if not separated may bring more violence. He said that unfortunately because of the mistakes of a few people, generation-to-generation of people has to suffer. He appreciated the organization of seminar by saying that we must conduct more and more of such seminars to enlighten our people, because these seminars are very useful. 

The most interesting point I observed in this seminar was the nature of criticism. The retired high ranking officials dared to criticize the policies and administration of the country. But, the serving-high ranking officials did not dare to criticize policies of the country. They just talked of what should be done and how it should be done. Those who were from private such as writers and journalists were moderate in their approach.

The core argument, however, was on India's lack of efficient intelligence on terrorist activities. It has been argued that Indian intelligence has been very weak in combating terrorism. It is indeed a weak point for the administration. We can take example of 26/11 attack itself, where a group of young boys entered India by sea from Karachi. They managed to find their way into Mumbai, the financial capital of the country, and then to Taj Mahal, a very prestigious luxury hotel of more than 100 years old! They killed around 173 innocent people and wounded about 308… why and how it happened clearly shows the degree of Indian intelligence control over the society…!!!  

Ahmad Reza Taheri

a Research Fellow of National Center for International Security & Defense Analysis (YC-NISDA)