LOOKING EAST

Published : 19 Oct 2014, 07:48 AM
Updated : 19 Oct 2014, 07:48 AM

Terror is like crops. It needs the right environment to thrive. Rarely has it grown without support from corridors of power, specially in South Asia.

In 1985, the regional party Asom Gana Parishad came to power in India's Assam state . The underground ULFA, until then a dormant force, got much support from the AGP, money was even siphoned off from the Chief Minister's Relief Fund and given to the rebels which they used for sending a whole batch to train in Myanmar's northern hills with the formidable Kachin Independence Amry. A small , little known rebel outfit suddenly loomed larger than life . In 5 years, the ULFA was sending shivers up Delhi's spine and President's rule had to be imposed alongside deployment of the army.

What better example than Bangladesh. Between 2001-06, with the Jamaat-e-Islami in power with the BNP, Bangladesh seemed lost to terrorism. From judges to journalists, politicians to diplomats, everyone seemed vulnerable to the depredations of the HuJi , JMB and JMJB and what have you. Interrogate a terrorist — the few who could be booked — and one could see the chain reaching up the corridors of power to BNP or Jamaat ministers who believed in radical Islamist politics and saw the jihadi foot soldier as an useful force multiplier to keep the Opposition at bay.

Suddenly analysts across the world were talking of Bangladesh as the 'second front of Islamist terror in South Asia ( who could beat Pakistan to the top of the tally ) or even as the 'next Afghanistan' . The Pakistan syndrome looked like repeating — a nexus between shady intelligence operatives, crafty politicians and diehard jihadis determined to wield the 'sword of Islam'.

But then comes the turnaround made possible by just one simple factor — political will. Sheikh Hasina's government, for whatever its other shortcomings, cannot be faulted even by its bitterest critics of being tolerant with terror of the radical Islamist kind. The state machinery is unleashed with all its condign instruments and suddenly the dreaded jihadis are on the run or staring at gallows. But like water, terror has a habit of flowing towards where it encounters least resistance.

So we find that all Himalayan rivers flow from West Bengal to Bangladesh but the stream of terror flows upstream in the reverse direction.

The erstwhile ruling Left in West Bengal had completely failed to control various insurgent movements like Kamtapur Liberation Front and the violent Gorkha agitation in the tea producing hills of Darjeeling.

It had tried to check the Islamist terror modules in the aftermath of the jihadi attack on the USIS in Kolkata — but it was already facing powerful land agitations that undermined the police vigil on jihadis.

And the day the Leftist government surrendered to the radical mobilisation against Taslima Nasreen and ordered the controversial author out of Kolkata with more than 100 cars and buses burnt down in a day, the die was cast.

With the change of regime, the jihadis found in Mamata Banerji's government the right kind of nourishment needed to expand the tentacles of terror. Banerjee 's shameless votebank politics – her doles for imams — led to the rise in stature of a few Muslim leaders who had been accused of jihadi leanings and who had been active in efforts to keep Taslima and Salman Rushdie ( invited to a literary fest) out of Calcutta, Banerji publicly applauded their efforts and even forced ponzi mastermind Saradha's Sudipta Sen to takeover a daily paper known to be run by a former state level leader of the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI). That is the predecessor of today's Indian Mujahideen.

Now Oct 2 Burdwan blasts were a Godsend. There have been reports in bdnews24.com for a year now about Saradha's financing of jihadi activities in Bangladesh at the behest of a Trinamul Congress leader. Saradha was into money laundering and would do for anybody from ULFA to jihadis if fat commissions were on offer, suggested the reports. But the Burdwan blasts proved the massive jihadi mobilisation in West Bengal as it had emerged as a safe base area for jihadi activities.

India's NIA has already garnered evidence that bombs manufactured in Burdwan were meant for JMB in Bangladesh and Indian Mujahideen. Bengal has failed to attract investments and get joint ventures but had attracted joint ventures in the terror industry. No wonder , its chief minister who had refused appointments to Bangladesh high commissioner in Delhi and deputy high commissioner in Kolkkata had no hesitation to roll out a red carpet for Pakistan's high commissioner Salman Bashir. They even discussed investments — Bengal may be getting some of that now in bomb making, not car making.

West Bengal now is not just a safe corridor for the jihadis . It is also littered with weapons and explosive caches. Over the past one week since the NIA ( and now the NSG explosives experts) have taken over the investigations from the decrepit state police, one arms cache after another have been uncovered , promoting suggestions that the state needed a thorough combing operations to sanitise its sensitive districts of the wherewithals of terror. Banerji is clearly on the mat though not down and out but fighting. She is raising the federal question and blaming Modi's government of 'uncalled for interference' in law and order issue which is a state subject in Indian constitution. But those who know the Constitution far better than Banerji argue that the expose after the Burdwan blasts indicate this is no longer a state subject of law and order but concerning the national security of India and Bangladesh.

This not only merits a huge joint operation in border districts of the two nations to weed out jihadi nests — but at the moment, that would only be possible if the regime in Kolkata changes. For a host of reasons, Banerji seems to be sure that it is not an immediate possibility.