Identity and Violence: The Mercenaries of Hate

The recent serial bomb blasts in Jaipur have evoked another spate of strong reactions and clamour for dealing with the terrorists with an 'iron hand'. In this maze of emotional outbursts & reactionary jingoism something very important has escaped our notice.
We have failed to realize that these recent attacks have something very different and inherently dangerous as compared to any previous act of terror in the country.

Till few years back, most attacks were more or less solely perpetrated by elements who were sent in from outside the country; but these recent attacks (Hubli, Faizabad, Ajmer, Varanasi, Malegaon, Mumbai Train Blasts, Hyderabad, Jaipur etc.) have a complicit domestic involvement (abetted by neighboring elements on both sides of our border) too and are designed to polarize our society.

After 9/11, Indian and Western commentators used to cite India’s example to the world and projected it as THE ideal secular & progressive society. They were amazed by the fact that there was not a single Indian involved (despite its huge numbers) in any major acts of terror in the World. From the 1993 World Trade Center Bombing (Ramzi Yousef), 1998 Blasts in Kenya & Tanzania, 2000 USS Cole Bombing in Yemen, 2004 Madrid Blasts, 7/7 London Bombings et al.

But all that has changed now. The perpetrators of last year’s Glasgow Airport bombings were well educated brothers from Bangalore who came from a respectable middle class family.

Now the question that confronts us today as a society and as a secular nation, is this: Why are young, educated youth from decent backgrounds indulging in these activities?

The easiest thing would be to say that they have been brainwashed/misled by radicals/extremists. But this would just be a case of gross over-simplification. There has to be an inherent grievance/grudge in the mind of the individual which the radicals are channelizing to their advantage. It can be anything; feelings of injustice, poverty, persecution, victimization, delusions of a new world order (a pan-Islamic state?) etc. There have been many events in our country in the past two decades which have reaffirmed and aggravated the alienated youth’s grievances. And we have failed as a nation to address those grievances (if there are any) and bring these people into the “mainstream” and be a part of our ‘growth story’. Its our collective failure.


How can we confront this issue? We have been witnessing in the world a sustained trail of terror and the more we kill the terrorists & the suicide bombers, they just keep on coming and they will keep coming unless we address the root cause of the issue.

The Bible says that we should hate the sin, and not the sinner. We must reflect & unearth where all this is coming from. There have been voices from the other side which suggest a global conspiracy/persecution against them and the reaction from the extremists (who have their own nefarious designs which they don’t share with those gullible masses) is to go back to a medieval (so called perfect) society. Rational people with progressive mindsets must stand against/reject this and project a better alternative otherwise the whole human society will degrade back into an abyss.

As the recent praiseworthy Pakistani movie “Khuda Ke Liye” tells us: Din mein daadi hai, daadi mein din nahin (the beard lies in religion; religion doesn"t lie in the beard)!


Divide And Rule

The real problem starts when people are divided by projecting an “Us vs. Them” attitude. The hate mongers tell their brethren that he is “different” from you, so u should be scared of him. He is out there to harm u. It’s a play on the evolutionary human tendency of being afraid of anything which we don’t understand.

And the demagogue politicians have been masters at this for ages. What eventually happens is that we end up being divided on innumerable lines (community, state, caste, religion, economic status, affiliations, place, gender, race, history, nationality, ethnicity. etc.).

First u are a Maharashtrian, then a Hindu, then a Brahmin, then a sub-sect, then a peasant, Poor…(where does it stop?). Every elections we see the same old drama playing out. And when the real enemy strikes us, we are too weak and too fragmented to respond.

So pls do stand up when a DMK tries to divide u on the basis of Aryan/Dravidian or when a Raj Thackrey tells u that u are a Marathi/non-Marathi and don’t just be a mute spectator.

Because, as we have seen in the past and as we are now witnessing around the world, HATE, has no affiliations. It is a Frankenstein which eventually comes back to haunt its creator (look at the US in Afghanistan or what the Mujahedeen are doing in Pak). What Raj T is saying is nothing new, those are just the remnants of the hatred spewed by his erstwhile party; the communal seeds (and even earlier regional seeds in the 60-70s) sown by it long back. Now since "that threat" is comfortably neutralized, his mercenaries of hate have found a new victim.

I read this quote in the opening pages of ‘Maximum City’ by Suketu Mehta: "We are individually multiple – Kabir Mohanty". The founding fathers of our nation realized this and understood the dangers of these “multiple identities” with which a man lives. That’s why Gandhi/Sardar Patel et al. put a great stress on “Unity in Diversity”, Tolerance, Secularism etc. Even Gandhi’s quotes like India has Assimilated and made its own, all people who have come here, were in this regard.

We have to define our “Overriding Identity”. Though our ancient texts tell us about the concept of "Vasudhaiv Kutumbakam" (the world is our Home), for a start, lets just be Indians first.


Please avoid knee-jerk reactions. Please reject HATE, though its an emotion which comes more naturally to human beings than LOVE & Compassion. And please understand that hate eventually leads to everyone’s downfall. The challenge here for the leaders of the World is promote mutual understanding of peoples & their cultures, their expectations and their beliefs.What the world needs today, is a little bit of more empathy!