By Asfar Faridy
For the past few days I had been planning to write about the way incidents of bomb blasts or terror attacks are being reported by the media and reportedly investigated by our intelligence and security agencies. However, I was as clueless as our intelligence and security agencies are about these blasts. Then came help from my old friend Dr. Tariq Ata. As I was going through old emails, I happened on a letter from Dr. Ata titled ‘something worth our introspection’. It really fit my way of looking at issues like terrorism, especially in India.
The mail from Dr. Ata was a story about a person who wanted to say something to Socrates about one of his students. Socrates, the great philosopher, asked the man a few question before he could say anything. Socrates asked: Is what you are going to say is true? The reply came that he was not sure about that, he then was asked another question that whether what he is going to say was good, again the reply was negative. Socrates asked a third and last question – is what you are going to tell me useful? The man said no. Socrates then asked the man -when you are not sure that what you are going to tell me is true, good or useful then why are you saying anything at all and that too about my own student?
The story is really worth our introspection and especially with regard to our fight against terrorism. It has to be realized by everyone including intelligence and security agencies, political parties, media and different organizations, that in the broader interest of our nation, India, they have to speak the truth, good and say something useful. Unfortunately, till date, steps are not by taken which will certainly prove very costly for us, the people of India. A very simple and straight forward question is, why is it that even before security agencies start an investigation about an incident, the media starts reporting and quoting sources involved in the investigation, quotes that are many times later proved to be not only wrong but also baseless?
Take the case of the Ajmer blast. The police themselves had no leads, but just a day after the blast occurred, certain media started reporting that a SIM card was found on the spot of the blast. In this day and age, it is very common for people to own mobile phones. It could be used for triggering a bomb blast but at the same time the mobile phone could also belong to an innocent person who has lost his life. Again, any person or any group from Al-Qaeda to Lashkar and Jaish to Bajrang Dal and Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Shiv Sena to ISI and CIA to Mossad could be involved in creating terror, and it needs to be thoroughly investigated before making them public.
It has to be kept in mind that India is not America, Britain or Australia and even those countries are paying the price for pointing fingers towards Muslims for anything and everything. They have created hate that has lodged into the psyche of their own people who are forced to spend sleepless nights after having seen anyone from the Muslim community. The US administration under George W. Bush has not done any good to their own people by creating Islamophobia and attacking Muslim countries in the name of the war against terrorism.
India should not follow this same destructive path and accuse Muslims for every wrongdoing in the country. Undoubtedly, Muslim individuals can be involved in a bomb blast or terror attack, but so can a Hindu or for that matter a Sikh, a Christian, a Jain or Buddhist. Blame should be cast on those who are actually involved and not on a certain community or follower of a certain religion. Therefore, it is high time for our introspection and a long hard look at who we are serving with wrong or half-truth information? Terrorists or our country India?
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Asfar Faridy is a journalist based in New Delhi