The June 2008 issue of Pragati is out. Download your copy now.

This issue carries a modified version of my article on the perils of lending intellectual defense to terrorism.

For the original article, see below.

Defending Attacks on National Interest

In a public-life career stretched over more than three decades, D.V.Gundappa wrote tomes on every conceivable aspect of democracy and governance. Speaking at a public forum on nationalism and culture, he calls every citizen a Nationalist and outlines a nationalist’s role in a democracy.

A nationalist establishes contact with the political process by the power of choosing to vote, his democratic right. A further important right arising out of this is the right to examine the performance of the person he has elected by the power of his vote. However, to properly exercise the right of examining the performance requires a high degree of maturity and balance on the citizen’s part. In turn, this maturity is acquired by deep study, observation, and reflection. His guiding principle must always be the fact that his vote will culminate in serving national interest.

An ardent follower of Gopal Krishna Gokhale, he believed in pacifism as the edifice that should guide the democratic process. In his own words (ed: translated by this writer from Kannada):

The path of pacifism is essentially a path of wisdom. Pacifism is a process of reasoned examination of cause and consequence, and a quest for justice and fairness. It is always a path that requires patience. You cannot obtain widsom in haste.

Writing on pacifism in the context of the second world war, George Orwell reasons that

Pacifism is objectively pro-Fascist. This is elementary common sense. If you hamper the war effort of one side you automatically help that of the other. Nor is there any real way of remaining outside such a war as the present one. In practice, ‘he that is not with me is against me’. The idea that you can somehow remain aloof from and superior to the struggle, while living on food which British sailors have to risk their lives to bring you, is a bourgeois illusion bred of money and security. Mr Savage remarks that ‘according to this type of reasoning, a German or Japanese pacifist would be “objectively pro-British”.’ But of course he would be! That is why pacifist activities are not permitted in those countries (in both of them the penalty is, or can be, beheading) while both the Germans and the Japanese do all they can to encourage the spread of pacifism in British and American territories. The Germans even run a spurious ‘freedom’ station which serves out pacifist propaganda indistinguishable from that of the P.P.U. They would stimulate pacifism in Russia as well if they could, but in that case they have tougher babies to deal with. In so far as it takes effect at all, pacifist propaganda can only be effective against those countries where a certain amount of freedom of speech is still permitted; in other words it is helpful to totalitarianism.

Pacifism is not a one-size-fits-all apparel.

In this light, a brief survey of the climate over the past forty years of Indian public life indicates an overwhelming increase in pacifism that has increasingly proved dangerous to national interest. As we shall see, this is a complete perversion of pacifism as defined by D.V. Gundappa and hovers very close around the phenomenon that George Orwell has documented.

For about three decades, the Left-dominated public discourse has firmly entrenched political correctness mostly with respect to critically examining Islam. In the early years, this phenomenon was restricted to negating the reality of the historical excesses of Islamic rule in India, examining the causes of Muslim backwardness in India, and in general, trying to “protect” Muslims from the “tyranny of the majority.” Majority of the Indian media and academia run several variants of the same discourse. Protecting or upholding the interests of the minority is welcome if it is based on honest, open discussion and debate. However, the positions that the proponents of this discourse take often stem from poor (or lack of) scholarship, runs contrary to logic, and in several cases, is openly fraudulent. These proponents silence contesting views typically by labelling such views as communal. These proponents include prominent intellectuals, professors, artists, social activists and more recently, NGOs.

A brief survey of the writings of these intellectuals especially after the terror attack on the US reveals a perverse mindset where the victim is blamed for inviting the unprovoked attack. That the UPA government has proven its record incompetence in both checking and tackling terror is a long-confirmed truism. However, another truism that escapes public vision is a far subtle form of attack that is rapidly vitiating the basic principles governing a functioning democracy. Led by the selfsame intellectuals, this attack seeks to grant legitimacy to terrorists and other threats to national security. The attack is typically cloaked in several noble-sounding garbs: most notably, the human rights garb. This is most evident in the case of Kashmir where the Indian army is always portrayed as the abuser of human rights.

In the past four years, the people of India have resigned themselves to repeated terror attacks considering the said incompetence of the UPA government. However, there is perhaps no way the people can resign themselves to the slew of articles that the media unleashes on them, justifying terror on several pretexts. The media aftermath of the July 2006 serial explosions in Mumbai local trains was an exhibition of terrorism-sympathizing with racial overtones.

Last week’s bombings targeted middle-class Mumbai. Most of the people who ride in “first-class” train compartments in the city come from traditional business communities. They are upper-caste Hindu—and also, largely, Gujarati. That’s important, for the large-scale killing of Muslims in Mumbai’s neighboring western state of Gujarat, in 2001, is a blot on India’s democracy, and a permanent scar in the minds of Muslims.

The easiest way to kill a large number of Gujaratis would be to plant the bombs in Gujarat. The important factor here is the damage to India’s reputation because quite a number of these articles get international coverage. The quotation is taken from an opinion piece by Shekar Gupta, editor of the Indian Express and appeared in Newsweek (A Cause for Comfort, 16 July 2006). If terror-sympathy is one side of the coin, the other side always seeks to lay the blame on the Hindu right, and the cause always points to the Gujarat riots.

The most recent example of terror-sympathizing is the 13th May 2008, Jaipur bomb blasts. In this case, it does not merely stop at terror-sympathizing but purports to hint at something subversive. An email message that the perpetrators sent to the media clearly declares war against India. Praveen Swami’s analysis in the Hindu calls it a manifesto for Jihad (Not just a claim, a manifesto for jihad , May 17, 2008). The email identifies Hindus (including their places of worship, idols, symbols, and Gods) as targets for terror and draws inspiration from historical Islamic kings who invaded India. Close on its heels, another email message from a group of self-styled “Concerned Citizens” spearheaded by Ram Puniyani was circulated to the International Human Rights Organization under the aegis of National Association of People’s Movements. The intent and purport of this message is subversively dangerous. It also calls to assign for itself an extra-constitutional authority, “who in an unbiased way can go to the truth of these acts.” The message has no word to condemn the terrorists, instead it delves more on the evils of the investigating agencies, the alleged angle of “Hindu terrorists” and an incredible theory that this was the terrorists’ method of venting their rage against America’s lust for oil. In their brazen enthusiasm, they accuse the BJP on absolutely no grounds rooted in reality.

In a way, now communal violence is being substituted by the acts of terror to consolidate the electoral base by communal party.

However, the most dangerous part is their whitewashing of the actual message of the perpetrators. The actual message is an unambigious religious war cry. However, in the hands of the concerned citizens, it becomes an expression of hidden angst and a matter of human rights. Ram Puniyani and others have expressed similar concerns in the past. But it does not match the vigour and the ludicrous extra-constitutional demand in the present case. It takes a tremendous amount of effrontery to make such sweeping demands based on outright falsehood and in face of contrary evidence. As a blog perceptively notes, there is absolutely no suggestion on how to tackle terror from these concerned citizens. One suspects whether these intellectuals even acknowledge such incidents as terrorism. The sheer lack of logic in their argument and the audacity in making them makes us wonder if there’s a deeper motive than just a genuine concern for the well being of Indian Muslims.

Apart from the obvious immediate impact of derailing public discourse, this perverse pacifist approach hampers investigation given their clout in the media. As we have witnessed, they can drum up enough media and intellectual support to stall and mislead investigation. The case of Afzal Guru and Zaheera Shaikh are prominent examples of media and intellectual activism gone awry. Given the frequency and boldness of attacks on Indian territory, it is time to rethink priorities. Intellectual defense of terror is deadlier than the actual act.