Untold Facts

Terrorists: Amit, Monmohon and Pranab

Indian Foreign Affairs Minister Pranab Mukerjee has declared on the 16th December (08) that India would not continue dialogue further in the wake of the 26th November Mambai incident that they started some time back with Pakistan. Pranab, however, indicated that they may not immediately make armed attack on Pakistan. These two points made by him was nothing unusual to make but just appear routinely diplomatic gesture against their ‘enemy number one’. What is, however, curious or amazing that India would discuss the lone issue of ‘terrorism’ with Pakistan but nothing about the Kashmir issue along with terrorism that easily can be taken as a plea for stopping dialogue with Pakistan.

On terrorism, BBC Radio Service had an interview heard in Dhaka at 6:30 a.m. on the 17th December with an Indian Professor of Political Science of the Jadabpur University, Amit Bhattachjary, who did not directly refer to the Jammu and Kashmir issue vis a vis terrorism, but was very much clear in his assertion that terrorism and terrorists have to be clearly defined. He was critical about the issue that the rulers by terrorists mean only to protect their interests, and so in referring to the Indian Prime Minister Monmohon Singh’s rhetoric, for example, termed only the Maoists as ‘terrorists’.

If we think about and analyze the question of Jammu and Kashmir, held forcibly against the will of the majority people by Indian government since October 1947, what else the desperate people of the region, one generation after another, could have option for their national liberation?

In liberation war, Guerilla tactics for humbling occupation forces is a well known modus operandi. That India has kept the region of Jammu and Kashmir for over half a century now under forcible occupation is clearly proved by the fact that nearly 500, 000 Indian armed forces have been stationed there in perpetuity for decades. Once they would withdraw the occupation forces, there would have been no Indian control there. The fact is not only known to the Indian government but also to the so called free world who masquerade as the champion of human rights and freedom.

The Kashmir issue has remained pending for about six decades now in the nose of the free people in the world body of the United Nations (UN). That remained as a ray of hope for the freedom loving people of Kashmir. But how long must they wait for freedom and at what cost? How much blood shed? Did the colonial British in two hundred years took so much of blood of the people of the Indian subcontinent just as much the free Indian soldiers took of the people of Kashmir for freedom in six decades?

Professor Amith Bhattacharya had in the interview also referred that the ruling class hardly intend to address the real issues in regard to terrorism and the terrorists. It is easily appreciable to any person of average common sense that freedom and independence is a national issue but at practical personal or even group levels the issues are unemployment, deprivation, poverty and lack of opportunities for dignified living. Terrorists and terrorism have close affinity with these life sustaining issues. For the youths of Kashmir being nearly 90 % Muslims have little opportunities for sustenance. In education, as well, they have few opportunities for learning and advancement just as other minority communities like the Dalits, Other Backward Class (OBC), tribals, Gorkhas, Mundas, etc. Of late the ETV Bangla (Kolkata) has been serializing about poverty, backwardness and lack of educational opportunities for the Muslims of West Bengal (Paschim Banga) that I had occasions to watch a few (14, 15 and 16 December evening). They constitute 25% of the total population but not more than 1.5% in higher education and professional employments. They maintain somehow their existence in education by running their Madarasa system of education, petty jobs and businesses. In the serial, some of the petty businessmen had been complaining that they did not get any banking credit support for none would provide them security guarantee, because they were poor Muslims. Immediately after the partition of 1947 and establishment of Pakistan with two wings, many of those poor Muslims would come either to the eastern or go to the western region. That scope is now gone, particularly because, Bangladesh is one of the most overpopulated (150 million compressed in a small area of 144,000 square kilometers) country in the world; opportunities are scarce for the locals and no such for any outsider. Millions of poor Bangladeshis have been eager more than ever before to look for employment and jobs outside its own territory.

It is not that all poor and unemployed people go for enlisting their names in the terrorist camps. Some may. But most determined ones have some higher ideal. Liberation of one’s own motherland, Kashmir for example, who did not accept India as their motherland, can not be termed as ordinary terrorists having no higher ideal but for Halua Ruti alone. Examples are many in and around. How about the Tamils? Assamese, Gurkhas, Bodos?  How about Khudiram? To the colonial British he was a terrorist but now he is recognized as a patriot. French young woman Joan of Arc (19) was adjudged a Witch and executed in 1431 A.D., but after 489 years she was canonized to be a Saint in 1920! For the freedom fighters of the young blood who took to any method, not condonable in law of the land, if guided and motivated by self esteem for higher ideal of freedom, can hardly be summarily blamed for.

India is not immune from home grown extremist organizations like R.S.S., Bajrang Dal etc. representing and deeply committed to implementation of the Hindu ideology in otherwise secular India thus clearly violating the Constitution. Curiously neither the R.S.S nor the Bajrang Dal has got ban as yet despite many pressures. On the contrary, the much lesser extremist Muslim students’ organization SIMI fighting for rights of self preservation as minority has already been banned, nothing but a double standard.
I would as such feel that the more mature ones in any level should go to the deep of the injury of all the minorities for its cure and must not end in scratching the surface. Should the UN hold the vote for self determination of the people of Jammu and Kashmir, things are certain there to take a cooler and peaceful turn. Otherwise, India, even if would have added troops and arms there, terrorism would only multiply. Pakistan is, no doubt, a good escape goat, possibly, for electoral gains of one or the other party, but containment of terrorism with sufficient effectiveness would remain a dream for the Indian rulers.

Dr. M.T. Hussain