A paralysed society

An act of terrorism fractures society in multiple ways. Not only does it lead to loss of innocent lives but also leave many people crippled physically, emotionally and psychologically. It also drains the city or state of its financial resources, says Irfan Engineer.

There is no universally accepted definition of terrorism. But the broad features of terrorism can be identified. One important feature by its very nature is that terrorism is an act of violence, or threat of violence to inflict physical harm and injury and even death to a section of population. The violence or threat of violence is directed against innocents and ordinary, vulnerable human beings that come within their range.
In a war the targets are mainly well-defined and mostly military establishments but there can be collateral damages, i.e. innocents may be incidentally harmed. In acts of terror on the other hand, innocents are the main target. Violence or threat of violence is directed against a section of population to achieve certain well-defined political objectives, such as cessation or self determination of a region, release of some prisoners, achieve communal polarisation and deepening of cultural and religious identities, or plainly convey a message to the citizens that their state apparatus will be unable to protect and secure them unless their demands are met.
Terrorism is of two types – mob terrorism and bomb terrorism. We are familiar with bomb terrorism, but communal riots are also a sort of mob terrorism where instead of bomb, mob violence is used to inflict violence on innocent people to achieve political objectives viz. deepen communal identities, polarise the polity along religion or ethnic lines, make minorities feel insecure and helpless and make electoral gains and ultimately come to power.
Convictions of accused of terror attacks have been secured only in the case of accused in March 1993 serial bombs in Mumbai and in the case of terror attack on the Parliament. In the case of bomb blasts in a BEST bus in Ghatkopar, several alleged SIMI activists were arrested. An engineer who was to appear in a reputed MNC for his interview was arrested from his village and tortured to death but the police could not obtain any confession from him. A co-accused complained to the court of the torture. Since no evidence was found against them the rest of the accused were set free.
In the case of Mecca Masjid blast and blast at Gokul Chat and Lumbini Park in Hyderabad, HUJI was blamed on the first day of the blast even before any investigation could be carried out. Bangladeshis were blamed as well. About 28 Muslim youth in the age group of 18-27 years were arrested and tortured using third degree methods. All the torture led to nothing and the Home Minister of Andhra Pradesh had to admit in the Assembly that no one was charged with the offences in the case of bomb blasts at Mecca Masjid, Lumbini Park and Gokul Chat. The 28 youth who were jailed for over six months and tortured in this connection were released as no charges could be brought up against them, but only after losing their precious careers and spending more than a lakh each for bail and other legal expenses. Some of them were arrested only because their cellphone numbers figured in the diary of those previously arrested. As a result today, Muslim youth are not sure with whom they should maintain contact and with whom they should not. Certainly no one, even Muslims are keeping away from those who were arrested. There is no job, no livelihood, no marriage and no social life for these people and even after release they see no future prospects or hope in life.
In the case of Jaipur serial blasts, even before any investigation began the first sound bytes given by the politicians was that HUJI was involved and the Bangladeshis residing in the city were responsible. While this happened the terror infrastructure perhaps remained intact and terror attacks merrily continued.
Both bomb terrorism and mob terrorism have resulted in death and serious injuries to hundreds of innocent citizens resulting in loss of bread winners of the affected families. In the incidents of terrorism, properties, businesses and livelihoods worth hundreds of millions of rupees are destroyed inflicting serious blow to our economy. Insurance companies had to suffer severe blows in paying out insured amounts to affected businesses. These insurance companies of course pass on the burden to the future insurance seekers in the form of higher premiums. In the recent terrorist attacks in Mumbai, Hotel Taj alone has reportedly suffered a loss of Rs. 500 crores, the loss to Hotel Oberoi and Trident may be a little less. In 1992-93 riots, Mumbai suffered a loss of Rs. 13,000 crores. Gujarat riots led to even higher losses.
The valuable money of tax payers is used in paying compensation to the affected families. The compensation on the other hand, is meagre and insufficient to help the affected families to continue their normal life. They have to struggle to meet ends. Often children’s education suffers as they have to be withdrawn from their schools/colleges and forced to earn a livelihood for the family. Women are worst sufferers in the process. If the bread winner of the family is killed or incapacitated, they have to look after the entire household. In such a situation daughters are the first ones to be withdrawn from education as their education is the least priority. After the Mumbai riots of 1992-93, one lady set up a roadside tailoring shop outside Vile Parle station to mend torn clothes. She would work for 14-16 hours a day and then do cooking for the family and look after other household chores. She managed to educate her son who wanted to become a doctor and scored sufficient marks to get admission in a medical college. However, the family had no money to pay the fees and other educational expenses. Had the story not come out in the media, the boy would have lost the opportunity completely and continued as a labourer for the rest of his life. Fortunately, after reading his story some good samaritans came forward to take care of the boy’s education. How many such stories come out in the public? Hundreds of victims of bomb terrorism and mob terrorism suffer their plight silently with their standard of living coming down drastically.
Due to bomb terrorism, the state and even large institutions, establishments and companies have to introduce security measures like luggage screens, metal detectors, security personnel, frisking etc. This is diversion of expenses which otherwise could have been used for development and poverty alleviation. Ordinary citizens also have to factor in extra time for security measures while travelling. There are much longer queues at the airports and security checks take a longer time and even at railway stations we have to undergo some security check.
The emotional aspect of terrorist attacks is completely ignored by the government and inadequately addressed by the voluntary organisations as it is not recognised as a problem. Particularly after Gujarat carnage, wherein women were brutally, sexually assaulted, their womb torn open and the foetus pulled out and displayed, they keep having doubts as to why only they were attacked, what was their fault and why were they at a wrong place at a wrong time to be innocent victims. They keep repeating these questions to anybody willing to listen to them. They even develop suicidal tendencies. The emotional and psychological aspects are not addressed by the government at all and very inadequately addressed by the NGOs. Mental rehabilitation is as important as physical rehabilitation for a victim to lead normal life. We need to train peace activists who can voluntarily undertake counselling and have counselling centres for the victims of mob and bomb terrorism. The Institute for Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution, Mumbai organises a series of training programmes on peace and conflict resolution to train peace activists. In such training programmes, equipping the peace activists with skills of counselling is one of the skills imparted with the help of Dr. Harish Shetty, one of the noted psychiatrists in India and who is also public spirited. More such training programmes are required to produce large numbers of voluntary counsellors equipped with minimum skills.

The writer is Director, Institute for Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution, Mumbai.

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