The modern thinking Indian

India, an exporter of terrorism to the world? That would be an incredible cross for the country to bear, and yet recent events have brought that question much closer to everybody's mind. There does not seem to be much doubt that the recent terrorists attempts in England were the work primarily of Indian Muslims from Bangalore, notwithstanding the Prime Minister's attempted confession of shock at this and his degree of concern over the condition of the families of those caught.
The trail of events seem to lead to the fact that a fair amount of the inculcation into jehadist and terrorist thought had been already there in the minds of the people already arrested. The fact that they were fully indoctrinated during their stay in England does not clear us of the need to ensure that this country does not come under the shadow of international terrorism. India already has too many home grown terrorists of all religions and types (ULFA, Maoists, Kashmiri, Naga, Sikh, etc).
However, and this is a very delicate issue, the type of mass death and destruction that can happen due to the terrorists taking inspiration from a hardline interpretation of Islam is much greater than any other that the country has seen. Kashmiri terrorists of the JKLF type are strong believers in the concept of liberating Kashmir from Indian control, but it is only when the more hardline Islamic inspired terrorism of the Lashkar and its like took control that we saw many more attacks all over the country, especially the ones aimed at creating discord between communities (attacks on temples and mosques).
There are many such organizations in the country that are inspired by a so-called Wahabi path of Islam which believes that non-believers eventually need to be conquered and all nations need to be under one God, Allah. An example of a terrorist organization is the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) that was banned, but even when it was being banned, Laloo Prasad Yadav was in support.
Even now, the Government will be very careful about a crackdown on the areas where such hardline thoughts are being preached, primarily the madrasas. This is rotten justice. If somebody is preaching separatism or jehad or terrorism, measures need to be taken to shut it down and bring such a person to justice, but due to politics, the Government will not take such actions. A case in comparison is the situation in Assam where there is widespread pressure on the Government to take quick and hard action against ULFA, with no concerns about it being an organization comprising primarily Hindus.
If we have to prevent the radicalization of the minority community (and we have already seen an example of how bad that can be in Punjab), then we need to take the required measures to ensure that there is no atmosphere where such breeding can happen, where people can preach jehad or terrorism or separatism and get away under the guise of being a minority.

Labels: Community, Discrimination, Governance, Image, India, Law, Minority, Muslim, Security, Separatist, Terrorism