Repercussions of Dhaka mayhem

The terror attack inside the Holey Artisan Bakery Café in the upmarket Gulshan area, Dhaka, on 2 July was meant to send shivers down the spine of the international community stationed there. The second terror attack on 7 July during Eid and in a place where thousands of devotees had gathered to pray only shows that the fundamentalist version of Islam is clashing with its moderate form. Bangladesh is India&’s closest neighbour in the North-east region and while both governments are looking at trade relations, and there is merit in that since Meghalaya and Tripura can only think of Chittagong port as an outlet to the sea for their exports, these terror attacks are a cause for genuine concern for the North-eastern states.

Erstwhile East Pakistan had long been a trading partner of undivided Assam. Later Assam, Meghalaya and Tripura, and to an extent Mizoram, continued trade relations  with Bangladesh after its creation in 1971.  

It must also be noted that the borders between Bangladesh on one side and Meghalaya, Assam and Tripura on the other are porous. Entry in and out of the two countries is seamless even today since border guards of both countries are not known to keep strict vigil. If they did, then the number of cattle smuggled from India to Bangladesh right from West Bengal through Assam, Meghalaya, etc, would not have been possible. That said cattle, gold, weapons, et al, are not the only commodities smuggled across. Now we know that terror is also spanning the borders much more easily because while there is a possibility of checking tangible commodities and preventing smuggling, how do countries insulate themselves from the import of radical ideologies? 

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When religion, which transcends international boundaries and binds the co-religionists, is used as a trigger to commit horrendous and senseless acts of terror, then the entire security apparatus adopted by countries needs to be revisited. What was hitherto considered an unassailable security architecture (although that is hardly the case today) requires a reformatting, taking the current threats into consideration. The brainwashing of young minds into accepting a radical form of their religious faith; the demonising of people who promote liberal thinking are all new entrants to the vocabulary of Islam. Many young people searching for a meaning in life are radicalised by ideas floated on the Internet. 

We are seeing a section of youth with an identity crisis veering towards religion as a soul mate and a comfort zone.  They are quick to form judgments that harden into opinions they would die to defend. Those who differ with them ideologically and/or theologically are marked out as possible targets of attack. Often the attack is over social media but there is a thin line separating the person who froths at the mouth as he types out a few angry retorts and one who quickly joins a radical group and wields a gun to inflict physical terror on selected targets. 

The self-professed Isis terrorist who attacked the café at Gulshan wanted to create international sensation. And they managed to do so because 17 of the 20 victims were foreigners, the majority of them Italians and Japanese. An Indian girl was among the slain. And this was no ordinary killing. Those who spoke Bangla and could recite the Koran were spared. Others were not just shot but also brutalised. You begin to wonder how such rage can reside inside a person who also professes to follow a religion that believes in a period of fasting as a propitiation for acts of omission and commission. 

Thirteen hours after the terror attack on 2 July  Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wazed spoke but did not sound convincing. This attack was perhaps not entirely unexpected considering the climate of intolerance that had overshadowed Bangladesh in these last few years. Anyone with an independent mind was not allowed to survive. Bloggers were hacked and Hindus bore the brunt of the new radicalism that has become part of the politics of Bangladesh. It is no longer just the Bangladesh Nationalist Party of opposition leader Khaleda Zia that is fomenting trouble in Bangladesh. Other radical Islamist elements have captured the democratic spaces and are now targeting LGBT groups and free-thinkers. You begin to wonder if Bangladesh has the capacity to tackle this new kind of terror or whether, like Afghanistan, it has become a problem that is way beyond the national government to tackle. 

What does this new form of terror mean to us in the North-east, where a significant population of Bangladeshi immigrants are settled? Terror/ extremism/insurgency is not new to the region but so far the perpetrators were identifiable and are home grown “freedom fighters” with a grouse against India, which they often label as the new colonialists after the British left this country. Although most of these insurgent outfits found succour and shelter in Bangladesh under the BNP regime, they have largely been smoked out of their safe-houses in Cox&’s Bazar and Sylhet after Sheikh Hasina&’s Awami League took over the reins of government. 

Now that things seem to have spiralled out of control in Bangladesh, one wonders what shape and form the new security arrangements in that country will take. Another incident like that of 2 July and the one following it on 7 July would turn Bangladesh into another violence-driven zone like Syria, etc. 

The ordinary people of Bangladesh already feel a deep sense of insecurity. Nothing can be worse than when citizens feel that the government has failed to provide them basic security. It&’s a sinking feeling that rickshaw-pullers and others who earn their livelihoods from hard work are sensing. Disruptions cost them their livelihoods. When disruptions become the order of the day ,there is hopelessness all around. 

Governments of the North-eastern states have maintained a stoic silence about the terror attacks in Dhaka. Perhaps they are wary about upsetting the trade and commerce applecart with the neighbouring country.  But at some point the states have to come together to think of a security framework that will address the present challenges from radical Islamic groups. And one would add a rider here that the intent is not to tarnish Islam but to accept the reality that the terrorists used Islam to justify their killings.  

Indeed, the pressures and persuasions to remain politically correct can often distract us from naming the real causes of terror. It is important to face the fact that radical Islam is raising its ugly head and that all those who do not subscribe to that fundamentalist notion of the religion ought to come together and condemn the acts of violence committed by the proponents of extremism who use religious tenets to defend their acts.

The North-east will also see an upsurge as India enunciates a new Citizenship Act allowing Hindu refugees currently persecuted in Bangladesh to be settled in India. It is obvious that many such persons might have already slipped into the region through the porous borders. Does this new Act envisage equal distribution of the refugee population across India?  If not, then the demographic imbalance in India&’s North East would create another bloody saga. We cannot afford to repeat the Assam Movement of the 1970s with its horrors and bloodshed today.

The writer is editor, The Shillong Times, and member, National Security Advisory Board.

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