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Rasheeda Bhagat

THE steps taken by a cornered Gen Pervez Musharraf, to arrest Pakistan-based terrorists like Azhar Masood and the former chief of the Lashkar-e-Taiba will at least ensure that we do not begin the second year of the new millennium warring with our neighbour.

But these are early days yet. Pakistan's sincerity in curbing, forget ending, cross-border terrorism should sustain. There is little doubt among anyone watching Indo-Pak relations that Gen Musharraf's action against the terrorists is a response to external pressure rather than to a change of heart. The combination of international pressure and India amply demonstrating its displeasure about the attack on Parliament led to the General cracking the whip on the terrorist outfits operating from Pakistan.

The audacious attack on Parliament has shaken the nation so badly that most people feel, and are saying it too, that we cannot live under the shadow of terrorism endlessly. As we demand retaliation and demand, justly too, that it end the cross-border terrorism, let us use the dawn of yet another year to ask ourselves a few questions and seek honest answers.

Kashmir has been living with Pakistan-sponsored terrorism and the security forces' response to it for over a decade now. As the terrorists and the security forces took on each other, and the latter combed the population of the Valley desperately to pick up the local elements supporting the jehadis, caught in the cross fire were the innocent people. For years they have lived under the fear of the unknown — the bomb, the bullet or the landmine. What kind of demand did we, the rest of Indians, make of our rulers in New Delhi that it end once and for all the menace of terrorism in Kashmir by resolving the Kashmir problem?

But now that the terrorists have spread out of Kashmir and attacked the very core of our democracy - Parliament — this has enraged us. Better late than never, we might well say, shuddering at the very thought of the misguided jehadis, targeting our homes next.

Hopefully this time Delhi will prove to Islamabad that it means business, not by pushing the two countries to the brink of a war, but by twisting the General's arm diplomatically. The recalling of our High Commissioner and the other steps, including the severing of transport links, might be in the right direction. Perhaps, New Delhi had no other option, but one cannot help grieve over the fact that how quickly can links, which took years and massive efforts to establish, be broken.

The start of a new year is good time to resolve to end all kinds of terrorism. So, along with ending cross-border terrorism, can we take a look at the various kinds of terrorism that we practice? What about the `terrorism' of a sizeable section of our population on the unborn female child whose life is snuffed out because in this society a girl child is considered a curse? While we shed tears for the women of Afghanistan for the sub-human levels of existence to which the Taliban had reduced them to, let us spare a thought for how our women are treated in many a home.

Even in this 21st century dowry deaths are commonplace and the life of a widow is considered so worthless that at times, even today, a widow prefers her husband's pyre. Statements of power continue to be made through atrocities on women, including rape.In a Rajasthani family in Mumbai seeing her chartered accountant sister-in-law roll out chappatis endlessly for the huge joint family and its numerous guests, a girl simply stopped dreaming of getting a post-graduate degree. "After all, I too will end up cooking and doing household work after marriage, so why sweat it out in the college?" she asks. Her family has the means to educate her, but not the mindset to allow her to work.

"The women in our family do not have to earn; we are men enough to provide for them," says her uncle. Thus are dreams shattered, and with that the ability of many Indian women to make a meaningful contribution to the development of this country.

What about the terrorism of the majority community against the minority? Of the `superior castes'? Of the rich over the poor? The educated over the ignorant? And, the mother of all terrorism: Politicians over the people?

As we spoil for a war with Pakistan, let us spare a thought for the 60-year-old Almey Majhi, the Orissa woman who lost her husband, two sons and a daughter-in-law, when starvation forced her family to consume infected mango kernel instead of the rice they could not buy. Is she not entitled to think of the politicians who came knocking at her door for votes as terrorists? After all, they promised her the moon, but could not ensure her family one square meal a day. Her loved ones had to kill themselves not because this country had no food to sustain them, but because corrupt and callous politicians cared not to reach either the foodgrains or the means to earn them to her village. You cannot blame her if today she is not able to muster enough `nationalism' to feel proud of this emerging superpower that is going to provide so many tonnes of wheat to Sri Lanka at a subsidised price, or participate with much fanfare in the rebuilding of Afghanistan.

While it is easy, and even fair, to blame our rulers for most of the ills plaguing our country and society, what of us? Do we, the citizens, including the educated, affluent and fortunate sections, not often degenerate into various levels of `terrorism' in our individual lives and homes? Ever wondered how even the more sensitive among us, who are fully aware that a child's place is in the school and not some kitchen, garden, restaurant or auto mechanic's garage, can be blind to this evil? And how conveniently we do this. By arguing that the family needs his/her income or that it insures him/her two square meals a day.

How many times, caught in our own frustrations or compulsions for speed, we give in to `road rage' and bully the pedestrian or the cyclist? Of course, we in our turn, especially if are using the potholed roads as those of Chennai, see ourselves as victims, `terrorised' by the government we returned to power not in the least bothered in providing us either with potable water or usable roads!

This saga of terrorism can go on and on. But there is a difference between this `ordinary terrorism' and the variety encouraged by our neighbour. While the latter has to be dealt with firmly by our government which, in turn, will need a hand from the international community in ensuring that the General-turned-President does not speak with two voices on the subject of terrorism, the former can be controlled by ourselves, provided we give it some thought and act with sensitivity.

The people of India and Pakistan must resolutely urge the two governments not to talk war. They can pressure our the governments to look at the Kashmir problem with a new perspective; not merely as a piece of geography that is linked to egos, but as a problem of living, breathing, tortured and traumatised human beings who need some respite. One attack on Parliament has jolted us out of our slumber. Let us, just for a moment, step into their shoes, and imagine what hell it would be to live under the shadow of terror all the time.

If Sri Lankans, with a mere change in governance, have given themselves so much hope of finding a peaceful resolution to the long-raging ethnic conflict, why should the people of India and Pakistan allow our governments to cry war? We too can give peace a chance.

Response can be sent to rasheeda@thehindu.co.in

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