Failed state

The popular Indian tourist city Jaipur was hit with a series of bomb blasts on Tuesday resulting in over 80 people dead. Outside of the troubled regions of Jammu and Kashmir and the North-East, this is the tenth terror bombing in India targeting civilians since 2005. In what is now all too familiar, blame game and finger pointing have started after these blasts as well. While the law enforcements promise to deliver, Indians have increasingly becoming more insecure at the moment when they are poised to play a bigger role internationally.

After each of these blasts Indian authorities have blamed Pakistan or Bangladesh based terrorists for these attacks. While accusing ‘Islamic’ terror groups for these attacks, law enforcement agencies start arresting Muslim youths of the area, in many instances torturing them. None of those arrested have ever proven guilty for any of these terrorist acts.

Indian Muslims were once proudly showcased internationally by the Indian Prime Minister for the fact that they were free from terrorist activities. In 2006 when visiting India, President Bush remarked to his wife that "Not one Indian Muslim has joined Al Qaeda." Since 2005 a new wave of terrorist attacks in India was blamed on Islamic groups originating in Pakistan and Bangladesh. Slowly the blame shifted to Muslims of India because they were thought to be providing local support to these terrorists. Indian Muslims have increasingly come under pressure from the media, law enforcement agencies and right wing Hindu groups.

Indian madrasas became a special focus of attention of these groups. In response, the Darul Uloom at Deoband, one of the oldest and largest seminaries of Islamic learning in the country, recently organized an anti-terrorism conference attended by a large number of Muslims scholars. This gathering issued a fatwa against terrorism, declaring it to be against Islamic teachings. These conferences are now being organized in many parts of the country. This is a sign of desperation and the only thing a powerless community under siege can do.

Many Muslims find it difficult to believe that some among them may have resorted to terrorism. Given that several series of raids and detentions by the state authorities have never resulted in any conviction Muslims of India have reasons to suspect that they are being unfairly targeted.

For their part the Indian intelligence agencies seem to have failed miserably to prevent or solve these terror strikes, a large number of them designed to create tensions between Hindus and Muslims by targeting their places of worship. Since 2006, four mosques and two temples have been targeted. Indian law enforcement agencies have arrested a large number of Muslims after every blast but none of the investigations have so far led to disruption of any terrorist group in India.

In three years, terrorists have struck India in the East, West, South and North. These bombings have been of low to medium intensity blasts. In most of these cases, ammonium nitrate was used as an explosive material, pointing to a local group. RDX, another explosive material, can only be obtained through army contacts or through an international link. Use of easy to obtain ammonium nitrate and the modus operandi of these terror bombings suggest a local group with limited resources.

Terrorists have used bicycles or bags to plant bombs in crowded public places. To increase the impact of their low to medium intensity bombs, terrorists have strategically chosen the targets—mosques on Friday and temples on Tuesday— to kill the maximum number of people. The bombs were packed with metallic objects to increase the lethal power of the explosions. In most cases, some of these bombs have been found unexploded, potentially providing valuable clues to the police. But these clues have not lead to solving of any of these terrorism cases. The intensity or frequency of bombings shows no sign of slowing down pointing to the miserable failure of Indian security agencies.

Muslim and some secular organizations say that these investigations have failed because investigators have been looking for leads in all the wrong places. Some like human rights activist Teesta Setalvad says that linking Islam with terrorism is nothing but a well planned conspiracy against Muslims. They believe that the most to gain from these attacks are extremist Hindu groups, also knows as Hindutva groups, so known for their ideology of Hindutva which claims India is for Hindus. There have been confirmed cases of their involvement in at least some of the blasts. In April 2006, a bomb blast in Nanded, Maharashtra in the house of a Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS, parent body of all Hindutva groups) activist first alerted secular groups to the possibility of their involvement in terror bombings. Two Bajrang Dal members died in that blasts reportedly during making of the bombs. Bajrang Dal is a militant associate of the RSS.

Just last month, Home Minister of India Shivraj Patel informed the Parliament that Maharashtra police, anti-terrorist squad, and India’s premier investigating agency Central Bureau of Investigations have come to the same conclusion that some Bajrang Dal members were involved in Nanded blasts.

In September of the same year, three bombs exploded in Malegaon, a Muslim majority city of Maharashtra. Local witnesses reported recovering a dead body with a fake beard on it, suggesting that terrorist disguised themselves as Muslims to plant the bombs. The bombing was timed to coincide with a Muslim festival when the targeted mosque and the graveyard were full of people.

In June of 2007, a low intensity blast in a Muslim majority area of Assam that killed one and wounded 40 person was initially blamed on Assam militants United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) but in a very unusual statement ULFA denied the responsibility and blamed the RSS for the bombing.

In July of last year, a former chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, Mr. Digvijay Singh, issued a statement that bombs and explosive materials was recovered from RSS sympathizers in that state. He has repeated his statement since and has demanded a ban on Hindutva organizations.

Of all these blasts linked to Hindutva groups, the investigating agencies have not tried to work their way up to the organization to find out the masterminds or the conspiracy. Meanwhile, the blasts have continued; in the south of the country, in January of this year, Tenkasi a small town in Tamilnadu witnessed two bomb blasts—one targeting the local RSS office and another one a bus stop. No one was killed in these attacks but Hindutva groups organized demonstrations to create tension between Hindus and Muslims. The Tamil Nadu police investigated the blasts and arrested seven Hindus as responsible for them. All of them were been found to be RSS activists, and one of them is the General Secretary of a local RSS front, the Hindu Munani.

All this and the continued incidents of terrorist bombings in India have increased the demand for an impartial and effective investigation that looks at all clues and leads. Muslims have long argued that biased investigations have resulted in harassment of Muslims and have not resulted in any positive outcome. The latest bomb blasts in Jaipur are a proof of that.

A group of prominent intellectuals and peace activists, comprising of Asghar Ali Engineer, Ram Puniyani and several others, have demanded that a National Commission be set up to monitor the progress of investigations into these bomb blasts cases. This might help speed up the process of investigations, find valuable clues to catch the culprits, provide justice to the victims, and prevent future attacks.