Fighting Terror, the Far-Right Way

Wednesday 17 September 2008

by: J. Sri Raman, t r u t h o u t | Perspective

http://www.truthout.org/article/fighting-terror-far-right-way

    Newton's Third Law of Motion now has nearly as neat a political
parallel. Every non-state terror strike against human lives leads to an
opposite and often more than equal state assault on human rights. The New
Delhi blasts of September 13 have led to no different a sequel.

    India has witnessed ten major serial explosions of this kind in the
post-9/11 period, excluding the still mysterious attack on the country's
parliament on December 13, 2001, and militant offensives mainly targeting
the army and security forces. The fallout of the calamity, which has become
frequent and familiar, has been predictable every time. The reaction to
terror-wrought tragedies, from powerful sections of the political spectrum
and, particularly the far right, has been remarkably the same and twofold.

    Every time, even before the blood at the site has dried and bodies are
being counted, the far right and its friends - as well as even some of its
avowed foes that are not free from its influence - hasten to point fingers
at the usual suspects. No investigations are deemed necessary
before "Islamic terror" is indicted, and the culprit is identified
as "cross-border terrorism," aided and abetted by local "sleeper cells."

    The second reaction, which follows within a split second, is to
demand "more stringent anti-terror laws," with less rights for the often
arbitrarily accused than allowed under law for even a common criminal.
Without severe curbs on human rights, it is asserted, inhuman terrorism
cannot be combated.

    The story has been repeated after the five blasts in crowded and central
areas of New Delhi, claiming a toll of 22 lives so far and seriously
injuring at least 98. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the political front
of the parivar or the far-right "family," in fact, has outdone itself on
this occasion. And for a good reason. Assembly elections are coming soon in
New Delhi and other states, while the country's general election is due in
early 2009.

    A couple of anti-minority riots have always been the party's preferred
method of campaigning for elections. The New Delhi explosions have given it
on a platter a divisive issue of its heart's desire.

    BJP leader and former deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani surprised
no one by calling immediately for a stringent "anti-terror law" again. He
added two riders to the demand. He upheld, in the first place, such a law
passed by the assembly in the State of Gujarat as a model for the rest of
the nation. The Gujarat Control of Organised Crime (GUJCOC) Bill is a
brainchild of Chief Minister Nerendra Modi, whose name is written in golden
letters in the annals of a grateful Indian fascism, for the grisly
anti-minority pogrom six years ago. Advani shared Modi's indignation at New
Delhi sitting on the bill and stalling its enactment.

    Secondly, he seized the occasion to demand the re-enactment of India's
own Patriot Act, passed by the BJP-led government of Prime Minister Atal
Bihari Vajpayee in the wake of 9/11. The Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA)
elicited all-round popular opposition. One of the first steps of the United
Progressive Alliance government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was to
scrap the draconian act as promised in the UPA's poll manifesto.

    Turning the clock back, Advani declared: "The POTA will be restored and
the terror control acts forwarded by the States would be given ratification
if the NDA (the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance) comes to power."

    No prize for guessing where the Vajpayee government got the POTA idea.
The war on rights was the official New Delhi response to 9/11 and a
Washington diktat in its wake. Piloting the law in a joint session of both
Houses of Parliament on March 26, 2002, Advani talked of it as a post-9/11
imperative. He said it would "meet a call made by United Nations Security
Council Resolution No. 1373, passed on September 28. This resolution
said: 'All states shall ensure that any person who participates in the
financing, planning, preparation or perpetration of terrorist acts is
brought to justice'."

    The resolution, it is needless to recall, was a faithful reflection of
the official US wish and will. The "justice" to which it referred
represented a blatant denial of the basic norms of civilized jurisprudence.
India was one of several countries that responded to the resolution by
passing laws targeting civil liberties and democratic rights in the name of
tackling terrorism.

    The POTA was opposed for its many obnoxious provisions. It put the onus
on the accused to prove his or her innocence. It treated confessions made
to police (often obtained under torture) as acceptable evidence. The law
was all the more lawless in being directed particularly against a minority,
especially in its implementation. The 30 terrorist organizations listed in
the POTA included 11 Muslim and four Sikh bodies, but no outfit of
anti-minority terrorism like the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), spearhead of
the Gujarat carnage of 2002 that claimed nearly 3,000 Muslim lives. The
POTA has not even been invoked against members of the non-minority
organizations that do figure in the list, like the Liberation Tigers of
Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and extreme-Left groups.

    As for Modi's law, the government of India has refused its assent on the
ground that it had been drafted "on the lines" of the discredited POTA.
According to analysts, in fact, it is worse than its forerunner on
conspicuous counts.

    For example, while the minimum imprisonment for harboring a terrorist
under the POTA was three years, it is five years for harboring a member of
an organized crime syndicate in the case of Modi's measure. While the POTA
distinguishes between voluntary and forcible harboring, Modi does not. The
POTA does not apply to any case in which the harboring was done by the
husband or wife of the offender, while Modi's law makes no such exception.
The POTA lays down: "Whoever knowingly holds any property derived or
obtained from commission of any terrorist act or has been acquired through
the terrorist funds shall be punishable." Quite deliberately, Modi's
drafters delete the term "knowingly."

    It is not as if Advani and Modi lack admirers in the opposite camp.
National Security Adviser M. K. Narayanan, some of whose strange statements
we have noted in these column before, has doubled as Modi's defender. In
an "internal communication," Narayanan is reported to have asked the Home
Ministry to "reconsider" Modi's measure. Home Minister Shivraj Patil, said
to be upset over the idea, is now known to be under pressure within the
ruling circles to resign.

    Support for Modi was also forthcoming from former President A. P. J.
Abdul Kalam, known for his fervent nuclear nationalism. Kalam, while in
office, had refused presidential assent to the bill for its provision
allowing interception of telephonic conversations. Now he pitched in for
the bill, which retained other anti-rights provisions, on the ground: "We
need to enact laws which will provide stringent punishment and which will
deliver faster justice through quick disposal of cases."

    Kalam and other anti-terror crusaders never seemed unduly worried about
the inordinate delay in the disposal of cases related to the Gujarat
massacre. To them, that was not a case of terrorism - it was, after all,
only a minority that was being terrorized.

    The Advani-Modi campaign for the POTA and GUJCOC causes greater alarm,
coming in the wake of the far right's ferocious attack on another minority.
I noted earlier the anti-Christian offensive in the state of Orissa, in a
September 4, 2008, column. The offensive has now been extended to
Karnataka, another state under the BJP's rule.

    The POTA did not prevent terrorist strikes, even of the
denomination-specific far-right definition, and even in Modi's Gujarat,
while the BJP was in power in New Delhi. Will blasts, however, bring the
party back to power and the savage law into the statute book again? Let us
hope not.

[A freelance journalist and a peace activist in India, J. Sri Raman is the
author of "Flashpoint" (Common Courage Press, USA). He is a regular
contributor to Truthout.]
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