Politics of Terror: Assassins in UP!

Is it a Politics of Terror or Terror of Politics.

Mayawati’s apprehension about her own assassination may not be unfounded, but just a simple blame game may not just work for her. Because it’s her state which she has to get a hold of. Because the terror breeding grounds in Uttar Pradesh are already hyper-active and someone has to take the responsibility and get going. Failure of Intelligence or Not, Uttar Pradesh has to gear up it’s machinery to tackle the menace. Otherwise everything is imminent, so to say. The only way to save yourself is to save the world. Political Agenda's in the garb of terrorism can be implemented, only if you let it get out of hand. If you can control your state and it's affairs, political machinations will be difficult and far fetched.

Indian today is a object for terrorist attacks. Guwahati, Hyderabad and Gorakhpur are immediate indications in the lengthy war that India has been combating against terrorism. Current indications point two things. First, that terrorism is in a position to target religious places with the purpose of creating communal tension. Second, use of technology to maintain an element of surprise means that the state will have to improve its security measures for defensive strategies.

India’s intelligence agencies need to be focused on identifying terrorist organizations and their cells within India. Generally one can differentiate between those organizations which are Islamic fundamentalist groups with cross border affiliation, like the Lashkar-e-Taiba. These groups are today active all over India, as was witnessed in Malegaon last year and possibly in Hyderabad more recently. Then there are home grown organizations like the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), which have developed along conventional lines and have parallel patterns of recruitment, as do the cross-border affiliated groups, operating in J&K and other parts of India.

Take the instance of UP. The Union government has been sensitizing state governments about the activities of ISI. Periodic coordination meetings are held with the state governments for sharing inputs from various quarters as well as devising strategies. There’s little risk in planting bombs outside court buildings, especially in Uttar Pradesh, where the state government itself says 34 of 70 districts have been penetrated by terrorists.

To take a long-term view of terrorism and its management is important to understand the nature of terrorism and it’s rapidly changing forms. This is not easy because of the dynamics that make developing of a system difficult. Extended southern Asian region, comprising Xingjian, Central Asia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Bhutan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Myanmar, are presently the main cauldron of Islamic and separatist terrorist activities.

Bruce Hoffman's well-written book provides useful insights into the tactics and technologies used by terrorist groups and the historical evolution of terrorism. Particularly cogent was his observation that the way the media covers subguerrilla attacks -- especially coverage that focuses on the human-interest aspects (for example, the emotions of the relatives of hostages) -- makes it easier for the attacker to manipulate events and severely constrains government options to respond to the attack. He also shows that subguerrilla attacks many times fail to engender the sympathy of the wider public, but they do instill fear sometimes bordering on the irrational (for example, one terrorist incident, although unlikely to recur, can cause mass cancellations of trips overseas, etc.). Hoffman also notes that religious subguerrilla groups may have fewer compunctions about inflicting heavy casualties, making their use of weapons of mass destruction more likely. The author argues correctly that with the increased willingness to use weapons of mass destruction, many of the rules of "terrorism" may need to be rewritten (Brian Jenkins' premise that "terrorists" want many people watching, but only a few dead).