The Mumbai Carnage

It is not just the loss of innocent lives that pains me, it is the attack on India's very philosophy of open society, its multicultural life style and the age-old tradition of religious tolerance that is at stake. Those fanatics in India, Pakistan or elsewhere who blame India for mistreatment of minorities have only to walk the streets of Delhi near the Jama Masjeed at night and see the freedom enjoyed by the Indian Muslims. If you wish to see India's treatment of minorities you can see not only the composition of the governments at various levels of India but its cricket team, its film stars and other social and cultural luminaries. This religious tolerance goes far back in history. Thousands of Europeans came and lived in India much before the British began to rule India. These were the Europeans who fled Europe because of religious persecutions. It is this tolerance which is put to test when such carnage takes place. The terrorist hope to drive a wedge between the Indian communities on religious lines. In most cases such attempts have failed. Politically motivated religious riots (encouraged by home grown fanatics on all sides) have occasionally taken place in India but none of the terrorist acts have led to inter-religious strife. All communities all over India have denounced this cowardly killing of innocents in Mumbai.
In fact, this carnage may even bring India and Pakistan closer. After all Pakistan is suffering from similar acts of terrorism. It goes without saying that some elements in both countries do not want to see the warming of relationship between the two countries and they may be behind this carnage. One suspects that some rouge elements of the ISI may be behind such acts. It is important therefore that the present government of Pakistan flushes them out. It is also important that the Pakistan Government also closes down training camps which are openly run in Pakistan under the direct patronage of the ISI. Pakistan must learn from the mistakes of the American administrations which created the Taliban , Osama bin Laden and other terrorists elswhere. It is the terrorists created by the CIA world over that now hauns America and its allies.
So far as India is concerned, the leadership both at the Central as well as local levels, which has clearly shown its incompetence in securing India's security must take stand not only against terrorism but also against any kind of religious bigotry. There is a time to think of abolishing religious schools and strengthening secular and multicultural education in schools. There is also a need for enacting an uniform civil code for all the Indian citizens irrespective of religious beliefs. Minority rights, religions and cultures must be protected but pampering of any group for electoral consideration is bound to be counter-productive. The government must have the courage to take drastic measures against fundamentalists in any community. All the community leaders, particularly, those from the minorities must come in full force to denounce such wanton killings and isolate such forces that encourage such acts of terrorism. Minorities may have genuine grievances; in a democracy like India there is a lot of scope for peaceful protests. Force is not an answer. Even the partition of the country and the resulting millions of deaths and transfer of population did not solve the problem. So let us not acty in a way that intensifies hate on both sides of the divide.