How Mumbai terror attacks will help us unite

Ritesh K Srivastava Apart from causing irreparable damage to the nation’s sovereignty and integrity, terrorists always mean to shred the secular fabric of our country. The terror-struck India, which has been home to many communities, speaking different languages, practising different faiths for centuries, has indeed several times in the past come under tremendous pressure to maintain and preserve its secular identity. This becomes evident every time that Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Christians and other communities, who have lived in harmony since times immemorial, start living under a shadow of deep silence. There has been proven involvement of some local Muslims with nefarious elements, including links with our hostile neighbour. This often increases the gap between the majority Hindus and Muslims of India. Although, no one wishes to touch those lines, discuss the issue or accept this bitter reality, it does play on everybody`s mind. The Hindus feel that there are anti-national elements in their midst, while the Muslims feel alienated. There are also festering sores from unfortunate incidents of past which have made the Muslim community feel vulnerable. Some so-called leaders of the Muslim community also blame the majority Hindus for their economic isolation and deplorable conditions, without necessarily thinking about other factors responsible for their backwardness. Every time a Muslim youth is arrested in connection with terrorist activities, the entire community gets a bad name. And the Hindus become more and more angry. This became evident after the Mumbai ATS revealed that radical Hindu groups were behind the Malegoan blasts, which were carried out to avenge previous terror attacks. The majority Hindus, who had been very restrained so far, have now resorted to the same methods of retaliation as the Muslims. This therefore pointed towards a dangerous trend, though in its initial stage. And it is this very demarcation that terrorists wanted to exploit. But Mumbai has been different. The 60-hour siege has hit us as a country psychologically. Nothing in the past compared to this. The overwhelming display of disgust at the incident has in fact, on the other hand, brought communities closer with a sense that we are in this together. That it is an attack on all of us and we have to fight it out as one nation. That the terrorists have failed to wedge chasms is apparent from the fact that every community has come out vociferously not just against terror but also to demand better security for all citizens. A reassuring outcome of the recent election results is that terrorists cannot decide or even leverage in the slightest the way India votes. State level issues especially development set the agenda for polls more than anything else. The maturating of the Indian citizenry is becoming ever more visible. In the past few years, a riot does not follow every time there is a terror attack (and they have been plentiful). Never have the Muslims been as vocal as this time. The Muslim clergy in Mumbai refused to allow the terrorists a burial on our soil, Eid celebrations were muted, people wore black bands, and most mosques condemned terror during prayer meets. Earlier there was a fatwa declared against terrorism. So Muslims have been in step with everyone else or in fact even more when it came to condemning the heinous acts. Therefore, while it must be recognized that the meticulously planned attacks on India’s economic capital have no doubt shaken the collective conscience of the entire nation, they have also brought us closer, contrary to the designs of the planners of the dastardly act. In fact the terror attacks in Mumbai, which has been a terror target for long, have come as a shock not only for Indians, but for the entire world, which now appears to be uniting in its fight against terrorism. The fast unfolding developments that confirm Pakistan’s involvement in the Mumbai terror attacks have once again exposed Islamabad and showed that there is a big difference between what it preaches and practices. It is now clear that the terrorists who sneaked into the Taj and the Trident-Oberoi Hotel were equipped with modern weaponry as they possessed foreign made AK series rifles and communication satellites. The terror attacks also reflect the failure of Indian intelligence agencies, and lack of proper surveillance and border patrolling of our coastal areas. The series of blasts and loss of numerous lives exposed New Delhi’s lack of preparedness to pre-empt attacks as well as its failure to learn any lessons from their past mistakes. The UPA coalition also runs the hazard of being seen too soft on terror supported by Pakistan. The Congress government has been under scanner for not executing Afzal Guru, convicted for Parliament attack, and its handling of the Batla House encounter. Vote bank politics probably provided enough opportunity to some voices to allege that these fallen heroes were not really killed fighting anti national forces! It is high time that the political parties and religious representatives rise above petty politics and put to the nation an agenda that involves the concept of ‘a secure India for all Indians’. All political parties should stand united in the fight against terrorism and lend their support to a slew of measures, including setting up a Federal Investigating Agency, to avert the situation faced in Mumbai. There is an urgent need to understand that the Mumbai terror attacks were aimed at distorting our prized unity among other things. If these attacks cause us to turn on each other in hatred and conflict, the terrorists would have won. They know that hatred and chaos feeds on division. They also know that as radical extremists, their only hope of disrupting society as a whole is by turning us against each other. Let`s deny them that victory. Come let us prove that these tactics have failed, and will fail in the future too. Every attack on our motherland makes us stronger than ever and reaffirms our commitment to our secular credentials and makes us only more determined to root out violent extremism.