SPot the Difference

This blog is paraphrasing of MS Barkha Dutt's article on MAoist violence the need for the Government to respond strongly to it. The question that needs to be asked is how do these so-called liberals react differently to different types of terrorists and insurgent.

Have we already forgotten the tiny, tear-streaked face of a little children crying over numerous dead soldiers who are routinely shipped home in coffins from Kashmir? In the way that only tragedy can accelerate adulthood, these are the children, barely in their teens, who stare resolutely into the camera eye and announce that when they grow up they also want to be a soldier. This could be the happy dream of many a child, except their declarations are rooted in precocious, guttural anger. Their fathers have died on many a desolate hill or highway attempting to stem the tide of hatred fueled by religious fervor attempting to engulf, first Kashmir, and then entire India. These deaths should have bridged the false polarisations that the Great Debate has engineered in India. Except that, as history repeats itself in a chilling loop — and another bullet-ripped body is recovered from the killing fields of Kashmir — we have lapsed into a familiar, banal and fake 'For and Against' debate.
The impression of a severe, worrying ideological divide is, of course, courtesy the inchoate discourse within the political establishment. It's no secret that the Delhi elite has stymied all attempts to agree on a full battle-plan against Terrorist violence. The government has never used air support during operations against the terrorists in Kashmir. The politicians of many hues and paperwalas routinely describe terrorists and separatists as misguided youth.
But other than the generalised philosophical formulation of a 'two-pronged approach' — development and security retaliation — we have no sense of what he actually thinks on an issue that is more grave than any external terror threat. The National Contrarian Members Club led by the free loaders from Kremlin-on-along with the free loaders from Kremlin-on-Yamuna provide free, monthly entertainment by declaring themselves as self-styled keepers of national conscience and are able to taunt the memory of our dead soldiers and declare themselves to be the real voices of the Nation’s core values. Some of them have gone to the extent of writing editorials suggesting that the time has come for Kashmir to be given its Azadi.
both the principle opposition and current CM in J&K — who is now grappling with a complex set of moral choices in dealing with the stone-pelter crisis — have openly disagreed with any tough, unsentimental approach to separatist violence. In other words, as the troops go into battle, the generals appear to be squabbling. To borrow an astute phrase from the ever-succinct former R&AW chief Vikram Sood, "There is a lot of politics in the insurgency. But no State can afford to have this much politics in its counter-insurgency.” Adding to the din is the noise of TV debates that amplify existing differences to create the illusion of a country that can't reach a consensus, even as the crisis deepens with every passing month.
The irony is that most Indians agree on much more than they disagree on. We may not be students of strategic affairs or be well versed in the complexities of crisis management, but the areas of agreement seem remarkably simple and commonsense.
First off, extra-constitutional violence — even in the name of the marginalised and the minority — will have to be countered with the legitimate and legal retaliation of the State. There can be no ifs and buts when it comes to condemning such violence. And I reckon that most of us are deeply exasperated by those who seek to glorify the gun as a mode of Robin Hood-esque revolution against India. When we watch our soldiers and policemen get swallowed by the dragon-mouth of this sponsored terrorism we feel helpless and ashamed. This time, as we watch the daily crisis unfold, I think most of us cannot bear to confront the anticipation of loss in the eyes of the children, as they wait to discover whether their fathers will make it home alive or not. Whether or not the government should negotiate with the separatists is a tactical question and has no easy answers. But it's a question that any government has to answer from a position of strength — not weakness.
That said, there is absolutely no space for extra-constitutional violence by the State either. The State is morally bound — unlike the Terrorists — to uphold the values of democratic accountability. Fake encounter is muder – plain and simple. If it goes unpunished, does it not diminish the moral high ground the State occupies in the crisis like the one we are witnessing today? Every time the State lapses — either in human rights violations or in accounting for them — we alienate more people and give new life to the ever-spinning cycle of violence. So, morality aside, even tactically, it's poor strategising.
Most Indians also agree on the development debate in the terrorist heartland. None of us is comfortable with the idea of brute majority steamrolling the local communities.
The ultimate irony is that many a time we have found our voice of reason in many a widows, gentle, soft-spoken women whose husbands were killed by terrorists. It is they who speak, in a Zen-like moment of grace, of the need for the Indian State to find the "will”. The path is actually clear and visible. It just needs political courage to walk down it, before any more people die.
Yogi is paraphrasing Barkha Dutt who is Group Editor, English News, NDTV. The views expressed by the author are personal.