The winter of our discontent: provincialism and terrorism

There is the winter of our discontent that has set in. The stock market is in doldrums, protests and violence in the streets, lynching and encounters in the financial capital of the country, war of words between states of the union, involvement of ex-servicemen and a serving lieutenant colonel in terrorism, the slide of the reputed Bhonsla military school of Nasik and Nagpur into the nadir of terrorism, and 25 bomb blasts in Assam, etc.

It is dreadful to think what the situation would be as the winter advances and the long day’s journey into the night winds up. The next day is unwilling to be born into the murky atmosphere. There is no definite beginning to any of the sordid games we Indians are in the habit of playing against each other rather than any enemy from the outside world (at least no one has definitely been caught so far). A judge in Mumbai showed displeasure that the state was head over heels busy in deciphering the Indian Mujahideen email while failing to see the writing on the wall by the Maharashtra Naunirman Sena. Another judge remarked that had the leaders of Bihar and UP used their resources (kickbacks) the migrants would not have flooded the metropolis. Raj Thackeray then chirped in that the state does not understand the language of nonviolence. Then the violence erupted. Thirteen examination centers for the recruitment of candidates for railway jobs were attacked. The northerner youths appearing for the examination were under brutal attack. One Pawan Kumar died in the attack, there is another version that he slipped from a running train and accidentally died. The mobs in Bihar burnt railway property. In tandem came the deaths of Rahul Raj shot dead by the police as he tried to hijack a bus to propagate his grouse against Raj Thackeray and the lynching of Dharmadeo Rai by the Marathi speaking mob in a local train. These events have made tension and violence move in a crescendo as Lalu Prasad called Raj Thackeray a psychopath and Deputy Home Minister RR Patil justifying the killing: "If a madman gets into a bus and goes on a shooting spree, this is the response they will get." Besides raising the parochial and political temper this situation is fraught with danger to the country. The center cannot hold and things fall apart and anarchy is let loose. The peace that Bihar maintained and its refusal to espouse provincialism in the face of attack on its citizens in Assam 2003 is under strain.

Even more terrifying is the theft of RDX from government ordnance factory. It is now in the hands of the home grown terrorists, to the groups that included Sadhvi Pragysingh Thaku. On the day Sadhvi appeared in a court of Nasik a Marathi daily there carried report that the cross border or Jihad terrorism has RDX from Pakistan military while the home grown terrorists would have only one source, the government of India ordnance factories. But cross border terrorism has been rampant though it cannot be ruled out that home grown terrorism was not very much there. More than twenty five bomb blasts rocked Assam on October 30, 2008 killing more than 50 including military and police personnel and injuring about two hundred. One attack took place quite near the office of the chief minister but the most terrific was at the Ganeshgudi flyover. Rows of cars turned into wreckage in dust and smoke as if the fury of Hiroshima visited Guwahati. The minister of state in home department of the central government Shakeel Ahmed remarked that it was too early to be categorical but October 3-5 saw communal riots in which 54 lost their life. Muslims inhabit the areas affected by bomb explosions where the shopkeepers are Marwari.

Another cause of concern is that the civilian population of the affected areas of Guwahati turned violent against the police and the fire fighters and pelted stones. This is exactly what happened during the serial bomb blasts in Malegaon September 8 2006 and September 29 2008.

Most of the observers believe that only United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA), the Assamese upper caste organization fighting for autonomy, is behind the serial blasts. "ULFA has a history of triggering serial blasts," Assam’s health minister Himanta Biswa Sarma stated soon after the blasts. Organizing such a preplanned attacks requires enormous resources and widespread local support. Some also think that it is Hurkatul Jihad e Islami (HuJI). If it is ULFA then the same concern is evident as in the case of Malegaon Septmber 29 blast. Who supplied the RDX? Is it from the government ordnance stock? There is growing fear that right wing Hindu organizations have long been using ex-service men and institutions like the Bhonsla military school to train Hindu youths in arms and ammunition though under the ruse of personality development. Nagpur Bhonsla military school had allowed even Bajrang Dal to use its premises and the Nasik branch has confirmed that Major Prabhakar Kulkarni is not only the past director but also the secretary of the institution that runs the school. The major is believed to have trained the sadhvi and the others in the use of RDX.

Somebody must have also trained the terrorists behind the Assam attacks. The scale of the attack leaves no doubt that RDX was used. Although much limited in Malegaon the blast has left RDX marks on 19 items. In Assam it could be in hundreds as more than 25 bombs exploded there. If it turns out to be HuJI then there is of course ISI.

The two terrorist outfits have one thing in common: communalism. The explosion allegedly caused by SIMI, IM or HuJI leaves many dead and wounded and that motivates backlash that is equally an act of terrorism. Hence the father of sadhvi Pragyasingh, Chandrapal Singh Thakur justified her part saying that "a reply to terrorist attacks was required. If the government does not act in time, the common people will have to do something about their own security." But it seems his daughter will fight from jail, an election on the ticket of Uma Bharati’s Bharatiya Janshakti Party (BJS) because the saints cannot be what the police is trying to prove. She would be taking on any leader of the BJP, despite the President of BJP Rajnath Singh himself declaring the sadhvi innocent because anyone who adheres to the cultural nationalism of the RSS cannot be terrorist, including serving lieutenant colonel Shrikant Purohit of the army. Given this kind of rationale we are in for a long winter.