Indian Muslims’ maturity, deft govt. handling staves off a crisis: Time for the West to watch in awe India’s ‘unified response to terror’

Islam,Terrorism and Jihad10 Dec 2008, NewAgeIslam.Com

Indian Muslims’ maturity, deft govt. handling staves off a crisis: Time for the West to watch in awe India’s ‘unified response to terror’
By Sultan Shahin

One of the most curious aspects of the Mumbai terror attack was that large sections of the Western media appeared to have suddenly developed great sympathy for the “plight” of Indian Muslims who were deemed to be “in crisis.” Full length articles appeared in prestigious journals and newspapers lamenting that Muslims in India do not get their full share of the national cake. This had never happened before. On the slightest reflection, the reason became clear.

As the news spread of another deadly Pakistan-sponsored terror attack on India, the West started harbouring fears of India-Pakistan going to blows and this is something that doesn’t suit the West at all at this moment – it wants to continue to use Pakistani soldiers in its losing war against the Taliban and does not want Pakistan to divert its forces to its eastern borders with India following tensions generated by this terror attack. Hence the attempt to put the blame on India’s internal problems with what was sought to be projected as a Muslim community in crisis. While we are not sure at his point in time at what level the attack was Pakistan-sponsored but it has already become clear, and a fact practically accepted by Pakistan that Pakistanis supported by elements within the military establishment were involved. However, the Muslim response was so spontaneously in sync with the national mood, and the government handling of the likely fallout so deft that fellow countrymen realised this was nothing more than the latest Pakistani attempt to destabilise India and the answer to this lay in nothing except national unity and greater display of Indian secularism.

While the Indian Muslims were not in crisis as claimed by an article in the Time magazine, the terror attack was designed to and could have led to a crisis for Muslims. The timing was significant - just before the Eid al-Azha celebrations which are known to have acted as flashpoints in the past for communal violence. Had the government allowed the terror attack to arouse communal passions as the Pakistani enemies of Indian Muslims wanted, this Eid could have turned into a Moharram, which is clearly what the attackers wanted.

Now it is time for the West to learn a lesson about the strength of Indian secularism and the basic common sense of the Muslim community, despite the shenanigans of some of our intellectuals and large sections of the Urdu Press. Let me quote a few lines from an article in New York Times and savour the awe and wonder in the words of the reporter ROBERT F. WORTH. He writes: “MUMBAI, India — Throngs of Indian Muslims, ranging from Bollywood actors to skullcap-wearing seminary students, marched through the heart of Mumbai and several other cities on Sunday, holding up banners proclaiming their condemnation of terrorism and loyalty to the Indian state. Muslims took part in a candlelight march last week toward the Oberoi hotel in Mumbai.

“The protests, though relatively small, were the latest in a series of striking public gestures by Muslims — who have often come under suspicion after past attacks — to defensively dissociate their own grievances as a minority here from any sort of sympathy for terrorism or radical politics in the wake of the deadly assault here that ended Nov. 29.

“Muslim leaders have refused to allow the bodies of the nine militants killed in the attacks to be buried in Islamic cemeteries, saying the men were not true Muslims. They also suspended the annual Dec. 6 commemoration of a 1992 riot in which Hindus destroyed a mosque, in an effort to avert communal tension. Muslim religious scholars and public figures have issued strongly worded condemnations of the attacks.

“So far, their approach appears to have worked: the response has been remarkably unified, with little of the suspicion and fear that followed some previous attacks.”

Now, a word about government handling. It is not fashionable to praise the government right now for anything. You stand in danger of being lynched, not just being called a lackey and names like that. The media has created a situation of great disaffection with the government. The pundits have all behaved as if a suicide attack like Mumbai could have been prevented with better intelligence and better patrolling and so on. They forget the 9/11 attack on the sole super power of the world. They say that nothing has happened on the American soil since then and that is proof that it can be prevented. Nothing could be sillier than this. Why would the Jihadis travel such distances and go to America at enormous risk, when American and other Westerners are now available in their courtyards?

Our intelligence and patrolling, etc. can certainly be and should be improved, but that can never be the full answer.
The disease has to be tackled at its root and that is being done in rather skilfully now, certainly in a more skilful and result-oriented manner than what had been done by the Vajpayee government after the attack on parliament. We had then spent a billion dollars and lost more than 700 soldiers without firing a shot - in a mere show of strength which brought no results. This time in less than a fortnight we have top terrorists arrested by Pakistan and the possibility of being able to interrogate them jointly with Pakistani authorities. This is a diplomatic minefield and the government seems to be treading softly and carefully as it should and succeeding so far.

Our media pundits may not understand this, but our people do, instinctively perhaps. There can be no other interpretation of the election results held so soon after the terror attacks that the opposition BJP tried to capitalise on in a big way. Even the Muslims have supported the ruling party in a big way, and even in as volatile a constituency as Batla Nagar, Delhi, which was the scene of what later became a very controversial shoot-out of alleged Muslim terrorists in which a decorated police officer too lost his life. Nothing could demonstrate their maturity and long-term vision than making this choice in what must have been a very difficult decision, but they have gone along with and supported what the majority of Delhiites thought was best for the city.


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