Vidya Subramaniam on Terrorism and the Minorities

Vidya Subramaniam's op-ed on the terrorism issue summarizes many of the points commentators have been making in recent days. B.Raman has some similar thoughts in his Outlook piece today. Some of the questions she raises regarding the ongoing investigations are from Mail Today which has been running stories raising doubts about the version of events put out by the Delhi police. But she goes on to equate the Bajrang Dal with the terrorists:

More and more voices are also asking why the Bajrang Dal, which has a proven history of bomb-making, and which, in tandem with the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, has been on an orgy of murder and mayhem in State after State, cannot be banned.

The reply as Swapan Dasgupta has been quoted to have said is this:

...Equating the Bajrang Dal with SIMI is like comparing a water pistol to an AK-47. "Rioters," he says, "cannot be equated with terrorists. An individual who took part in the Bombay riots of 1992 may be a respectable citizen today while a terrorist is committed to undermining the sovereignty of the state."

I agree with that distinction even if I do not necessarily buy the analogy of the water pistol and the AK-47. In any case, the two are different and cannot be compared though the government has a similar obligation in both instances.

She then goes on to rhetorically pose the question:

...The aftermath of a bomb blast is an extraordinarily delicate moment given the very real suffering experienced by those at terror’s receiving end. For the journalist to raise even the faintest doubt when a terror case is projected to have been solved at such a time is to risk being called anti-national. The recent vigorous discourse in the media suggests that this burden may have been lifted. What explains this?

which she proceeds to answer:

Probably one significant realisation: that unvetted police claims can have the unwitting effect of tarring an entire community when only a minuscule section is involved in terrorism.

This assessment is shopworn and false. It is not the first time we are having a bomb blast or the police happen to be accusing Muslims. In all of the earlier instances as well, the same charge could have been made. Yet, the questioning of the police theory has been more intense this time around. The answer is in part owing to the proliferation of media sources. The other potential reason is the conflicting claims being made by police agencies from different states which casts doubts on their stories. Finally, the serial bombings in rapid succession raises the cost of error - with the wrong people in custody, the odds of more attacks only get more likely, something the media with its traditional skepticism of governmental competence is acutely aware of.

Lastly, she criticizes the BJP for questioning the legal aid pronounced by the VC of JMI:

To question Jamia Millia University Vice-Chancellor Mushirul Hasan’s offer of legal aid to terror suspects — as the Bharatiya Janata Party has done — is to strike at the presumption of innocence which is a sacred law of the land.

Wrong again. The question, as Andromeda pointed out in an earlier post, is whether they are entitled to legal counsel at public expense, not about their guilt or otherwise or even about whether they deserve representation (see this item on the controversy).