Trolling Terror

(This is a piece I wrote after the Mumbai terror attacks on 13 July. My first opinion piece, it was put up - to my amazement and glee - on the Tehelka website)

I dread terror attacks. Not only because a number of innocent people die, but also because they bring out the worst in the Indian psyche. It makes the common man resemble the grandfather who makes the entire family uncomfortable at reunions with his racist diatribes and unconscionable solutions for all the world's ills. It leaves the Indian soul, which at the best of times is open and accommodating, a thoroughly parochial and violent beast.
On Wednesday, attributed by some news channels as 26/11 perpetrator Ajmal Kasab's birthday, 21 were killed and more than 100 injured in a series of blasts in Mumbai. Within minutes, social media - used by 8 million Indians and counting - erupted with what has now become par for the course on the middle class's response to terrorism: hang Kasab/Afzal Guru in public, bomb Pakistan back to the stone age, get rid of all our inept politicians. Internet trolls poured hate on whoever they considered responsible. One user even asked for Kasab’s castration at the Gateway of India. When calmer heads suggested a more rational approach to the attack, they were silenced by long, emotional diatribes full of moral righteousness calling them unpatriotic, pseudo-secularists and cowards.
Sadly, this is about average for any discussion on Indian politics in cyberspace. There is a disproportionate number of loud fundamentalists on the internet at the best of times, who regularly attack moderate voices with long, hateful posts (with a nationalistic disregard for the grammar of the language of our erstwhile colonial masters), which are interested more in painting the author as anti-national more than debating the issues at hand. In the worst of times, average, decent people take the comfort of the crowd and join in the mud-slinging, elbowing for more room on the moral high ground.
Now, one could argue that 8 million is a tiny majority, but you do not need to be a weatherman to know that these opinions qualify as mainstream in this country. Even if these are the opinions of the minority, it is a very vocal minority.
These knee-jerk reactions conveniently ignore ground realities, possible consequences and even simple morality. There is no evidence that links Pakistan to this particular attack. In fact, the lack of any intelligence seems to suggest a local group was responsible. Even if it was responsible, we cannot bomb a nuclear Pakistan without dire consequences. Similarly, we cannot deny Kasab due process without compromising the principles this country was founded on.
Terrorism is born through instigation of the minority community by playing on its insecurities. It is no accident that the bulk of the members of Indian Mujahideen were radicalised during either the Babri Masjid demolition or the Gujarat pogroms. It needs to be fought by actively engaging with Pakistan on dismantling its terror apparatus, and by building a truly secular state to remove the insecurities of Indian Muslims. These are solutions, however, that are too gradual for a country with as short an attention span as ours.
To a rational human being, these facts should be apparent. Unfortunately, rationality is the first sacrifice we make in trying to come to grips with terrorism. Perhaps it is wrong to expect rationality in a situation such as this. These reactions are, after all, a primal urge for revenge at the people who kill our fellow citizens with impunity. It is very difficult to look at the US going into Abbottabad and assassinating Osama bin Laden, and then be told that there is nothing other than diplomacy that our country can do to stop terrorism. When people look at Kandahar and Entebbe, they naturally assume India is a soft state.
People need to vent, after all. Sure, one would like the public to hold some civil liberties and human rights as inalienable, but on an emotive issue like terrorism, that seems too much to ask for.
It is when this xenophobic rage passes for public consensus on terrorism that it gets dangerous. There are political forces which play on this paranoia for narrow political gains. Thankfully, the BJP desisted from the more extreme measures during their stint in power, but it did pass the draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act (Pota).
So far, Indian governments from all sides of the political spectrum have shown great maturity in dealing with Pakistan on terrorism. Yes, there have been mistakes and they have sometimes erred on the side of caution, but India is generally perceived as handling the situation as an adult. There is still a lot more to be done on terrorism, but there is no place for simple solutions for such a complex problem. What we as a society need to do is not stick to moral absolutes when talking about terrorism, but acknowledge that there are serious limitations our country faces in the war against terror.