India needs a discourse on citizenship that takes its communities out of the prevalent majority-minority mindset

The Statesman, 14 October 2008

In Defence of The Terrorist

Jamia Millia Islamia Has Taken The Lead

The decision of the Jamia Millia Islamia to provide legal aid to two of its students arrested recently on charges of terrorism from the adjoining Jamia Nagar following the 13 September serial blasts in Delhi and an inspiring peace march led by the university’s Vice-Chancellor, Professor Mushirul Hasan, on 25 September in the campus has predictably queered the debate on terrorism.

Leading a campaign for a tough anti-terror law and not shy of communal profiling of the politics of terror, the BJP was quick to condemn the move, seeking the VC’s dismissal. The country’s secular and human rights voices have, as usual, articulated their fears on stereotyping of Muslims, their neighbourhoods and the anti-terror methods and measures of the police.

Since in its widest and wildest ramifications the ‘politics of terror’ has become painfully pervasive in India, far worse than during the Khalistan campaign in Punjab or since Kashmir exploded in 1989, the issue deserves a nuanced dispassionate discussion.

Rallying point

The JMI’s decision with university-wide support to uphold the right to legal defence of the accused students emerges as a rallying point for the believers in the rule of law and human rights in the country. Optimistically, it snowballs into a visible challenge in India’s fight against the politics of terror even while defending the dignity of the individual (so emphatically mentioned in the Preamble of the Constitution) and protection provided to citizens against encroachment on fundamental right to liberty under Articles 20, 21 and 22 of the Constitution.

It is pertinent here to draw attention to the intense debate in the Constituent Assembly on Article 21, which put under the scanner the concepts ‘procedure established by law’ and ‘due process of law’. The preference to the former amidst apprehension of encroachment on the right to liberty motivated Dr Ambedkar to bring in safeguards on arrest and detention in Article 22. Article 39A brought by the 42nd Amendment in 1976 ensuring ‘free legal aid’ to citizens must become a potent instrument against the possibility of state terrorism of any kind in any context. Should we decry the use of these constitutional rights by or for any citizen or community?

Islamic and jihad, the common euphemistic prefixes to terrorism internationally, driven by Osama bin Laden’s illusive shadow on contemporary terror networks, have caused ahistorical and decontextualised discourse that ignores the role of the international power politics in this contemporary scourge. The dangers of looking at terrorism with green glasses in a country with over 15 crore Muslims cannot be under-rated. Despite the regularity of the vicious terrorist strikes across the country, the security and intelligence agencies have neither indicated operation by a big outfit or network, nor large-scale involvement of any community. The small networks carrying out these nefarious acts have displayed a victimhood psyche claimed to be arising out of the strengthening of the political Hindutva.

Whereas the BJP, talking tough on terrorism as India gets into election mode, condemns any statement by any section of society against victimisation of any community or citizen in the name either of terrorism or rioting, it has sadly been promoting both the acts through its informal networks, not bothering if one is feeding the other. Failing to transform saffron into a universal colour of love and compassion in the political and social realms, the party keeps spewing venom against certain communities. This has been spilling into terrifying violence on the pretext either of dominance or religious conversion.

Despite the Nanavati-Mehta clean chit to the Modi government, Gujarat 2002 was as much a manifestation of terrorism as is recent violence against Christians, most of whom are poor. The violence against the non-Marathis by Raj Thackeray and his goons, who have taken a leaf out of the politics of Bal Thackeray, now a Parivar ally, demonstrates the terroristic breaches the flood of hate caused by its sectarian politics can wreak. Introspection within the Sangh Parivar, which harbours a pathological hatred for what it calls non-Indic religionists (e.g., Muslims and Christians), is urgently called for. For, if a sense of victimhood results in terrorist blasts, the Parivar must see if the saffron is being stained with red.

The police in India, de-institutionalised since inception, left without substantive organisational reforms, communalised and repeatedly abused since independence, is coming under multiple pressures with increasing social and political volatility. They are expected to be ‘efficient’ enough to bring the guilty to book immediately even under the most difficult circumstances of communal riots and terrorism. But they do falter. However, being perhaps the most unpopular institution in the country, it ends up incurring flak where it does not deserve. Still not equipped to tackle terrorism, it is crumbling under pressure. The demands from society for transparency in tackling such a high pressure task as terrorism is justified, but it must be tempered with demands for police reforms, community policing and a more representative recruitment. Condemnation is fraught with dangers of counter terror.

New framework

Obviously, India needs a discourse on citizenship that takes its communities out of the prevalent majority-minority mindset, whether it is driven by religion or any other consideration. The third largest Muslim population in the world cannot by any standards be dubbed a minority. Neither can (or should) such a large population be suppressed, nor can they be reduced to second-class citizenship. The question then is whether and how it is possible to promote a new framework of diversity and equal opportunity that has recently come out of three distinguished expert groups led by Rajinder Sachar, N R Madhava Menon and Amitabh Kundu.

While we tackle the immediate problems thrown up by the Jamia Nagar ‘encounter’, larger questions deserve attention from the discerning in society - citizens, intelligentsia, social and political leaders and indeed the common man. And, the academic community of the Jamia Millia Islamia - students, teachers, the VC - has rightly taken the lead.

The writer is Ford Foundation Professor, Centre for Dalit and Minorities Studies, Jamia Millia Islamia