In the wake of the terror strikes in Bangalore and Ahmedabad and the discovery of some 20 bombs in Surat, senior policemen and counter-terrorism experts seem agreed on one point: that the Indian Mujahedeen which claimed responsibility for these, and earlier attacks in Uttar Pradesh and Jaipur, is actually a smokescreen for ISI-sponsored terrorist groups.

The experts may well be right. Yet, certain questions are troubling. First, it is established that regardless of the letterhead, those who sent the emails claiming responsibility were fully in the terrorist loop.

The emails have to be taken seriously because they were sent minutes prior to the bombings. In other words, the emails were not the handiwork of either cranks or some boastful groups. Secondly, unlike some terror groups that are preoccupied with the liberation of Palestine and the establishment of a Caliphate, the communication of the Indian Mujahedeen is centred on local issues such as police brutality against Muslims, Hindu intolerance and the lack of justice for Indian Muslims.

This local dimension to the Indian Mujahedeen propaganda leads to the most worrying feature of the terrorist threat. There is now almost incontrovertible evidence that the bombers were not "paratroopers" from Pakistan out on a suicide mission to attack the Red Fort or even Parliament.

The nature of the attacks in Bangalore and Ahmedabad and the aborted mission in Surat suggest that the perpetrators were familiar with the local terrain. In other words, regardless of where their inspiration came from and who were the masterminds, the terrorist foot soldiers were Indians hell bent on killing fellow Indians.

The glaring evidence of local Muslim involvement is something that responsible politicians are understandably wary of addressing. Even the much-reviled Gujarat Chief Minister was careful in describing the bombings as an "attack on India". Only the vacuous Minister of State for Home, Sriprakash Jaiswal, tried to score petty political points by linking the Ahmedabad blasts to the post-Godhra riots. But he was the exception. By and large the political class and civil society were extremely careful to avoid the impression that Indian Muslims bore a "collective guilt" for terrorism. There was a national consensus that the political agenda of the terrorists - to create communal fissures - must be thwarted.

Yet, and let us be honest, the terrorists have succeeded in vitiating the atmosphere. The fact that the bombings were carried out "in the name of Allah" and were also aimed at stymieing India's economic development has made ordinary Muslims - particularly the educated young men - objects of suspicion. The temptation of India to link its terrorist problem to the wider Islamist upsurge in the West and our immediate neighbourhood is irresistible. The initial volley of abuse may be reserved for the most colossally incompetent Home Minister since Independence and the perennial failings of the intelligence agencies - the IB, for example, were preoccupied with "political intelligence" to help the UPA Government win the Trust vote. But while the Government can be voted out in the general election, the Home Minister sacked if Sonia Gandhi so chooses and the intelligence agencies handed over to the real professionals, the problem of Muslim radicalisation isn't likely to go away in a hurry.

The ISI has no doubt been fishing in troubled waters, as they have been in Nepal, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan. Its activities and agenda are also a source of worry to democratic politicians in Pakistan. However, it is important to note that the ISI has facilitated radical Islamism, it hasn't created it. What has been called the Al Qaeda mindset has taken hold of an influential section of the ummah. It involves a rejection of modernity, acceptance of medieval certitudes, a literal reading of theological texts and a complete intolerance of other faiths and cultures. Just as the Nazis viewed Jews, gypsies and Slavs as "inferior races", the Islamists refuse to countenance the non-believers as humans.

This may explain why video recording of executions of its enemies are routinely posted on the internet for the world to see.

India is dealing with a terrorism that is grounded in a mindset of de-humanised ruthlessness that we last saw in those who claimed to be the "Master Race". The terrorists are not boys who have been misled by the lack of employment opportunities or because the Maharashtra Government has been not been sincere in acting on the Srikrishna Commission Report.

These are not boys who will turn into Congress and Samajwadi Party fixers if the Sachar Committee Report is implemented. Nor are they the types who will fall for some mealy-mouthed strictures against violence issued by Muslims clerics who have done well out of Muslim vote banks.

India is witnessing an ideological terrorism that can't be beguiled back into the Constitutional path. It has either got to be crushed or allowed to cripple India.

The terrorist menace has put ordinary Muslims in a predicament. They are being pushed into a corner with every blast and forced to confront issues not of their own making. The so-called traditional Muslim leadership in particular knows that the terrorists pose a simultaneous threat to their own position. The Islamists have fed on the contrived victimhood that power brokers have created in Muslim ghettos but have taken it to a logically absurd conclusion. The fire-breathing leaders have pampered the underworld, taken up cudgels for those who blasted Mumbai in 1993 and torched kar sevaks in Godhra, and sold their community's votes for personal aggrandisement. Now they don't know how to deal with a monster they unwittingly nurtured. Terrorism is too monumental a challenge to be left to Indian Muslims to tackle independently.

The tragedy is that the rest of India is not entirely sure of how to proceed. Everybody knows what India can ill afford communal tension and the emotional alienation of the largest minority community .

Yet we are paralysed by both fear and complacency as terrorists force the agenda in that direction. Terrorism is a menace that demands eradication. But can we tackle a disease if we can't first diagnose it with ruthless precision?

Courtesy: www.newindpress.com, August 06, 2008