As the World Turns..

- Dr. Ramesh N. Rao

What Can India Do?

There are reports that India’s Research and Analysis Wing (India’s equivalent of the CIA) is extending intelligence gathered on Pak-Afghan axis and the training camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and also information about the terrorist groups that are active in the region.

An aggressive and effective policy against terrorism should be formulated by the Vajpayee government, and one may hope that the Indian participation will be welcomed by the international community in this now-declared global war against terrorism, which India has been fighting in isolation for a long time. I said “one may hope”, and it is in that light one should see the FBI seeking and getting a number of documents from India on September 14 with detailed information about terrorist training camps in Pakistan. The material was handed over to FBI officials at the U.S. embassy in Delhi after a high level meeting with the director of the Intelligence Bureau, K. P. Singh, and chief of RAW Vikram Sood.

The FBI was given several videotapes showing training methods the Taliban and others use to instil the “jihadi” mentality among the youths, hailing from a variety of Muslim countries, at camps located on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border within Pakistan as well as in the illegally occupied parts of Kashmir. The files given to the FBI include addresses of various dreaded terrorists and financiers of militant movement.

It is also in this light that we should see Prime Minister Vajpayee’s statement to the Indian public. He harped on the basic ideals that India and the U.S. shared, democracies each. He also mentioned the pain and suffering that India and Indians have experienced over the last two decades in its own war against Islamic terrorists. India has been alerting others to the fact that terrorism is a scourge to all humanity, and that what happened in Mumbai (more than 700 killed in a single day of bombings carried out by the jihadists based in Pakistan and the Middle East) was bound to happen elsewhere, “that the poison that propels mercenaries and terrorists to kill and maim in Jammu and Kashmir will impel the same sort to blow up people elsewhere”. Finally, what Vajpayee said about the role of religion was pertinent: “As an integral part of this battle, it is necessary that we bear in mind that no religion preaches terrorism. The fringe elements of society, which seek to cloak terrorism in a religious garb, do grave injustice to both their faith and its followers”.