Fighting terror is a top national issue in these Indian general elections. All national parties have cited terrorism as the major problem in their election manifestoes and have advocated their own ways to tackle it. In India, whether it is the Batla House encounter or the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, the politics of terror has dominated the discourse on counter-terror. The politics of exclusion and electoral rhetoric of inclusion which is not real but ‘vote-politics’ have both contributed to community alienation. 

Muslims in Jamia Nagar in New Delhi had sleepless nights as also the Muslims in Mumbai, following each of these attacks. When in Jamia Nagar, post the encounter, a common Muslim felt alienated, cheated and enraged, in Mumbai he was on his toes to denounce the dead terrorists. What one finds common in these two cases is that the community is deeply concerned about its image and has shown the readiness to be heard, to be taken in to confidence and to be engaged.

The national anti-terror fatwa of Deoband and Jamiat in Delhi in 2008 can be considered as the first major step in condemning and denouncing terrorism to be un-Islamic, in isolating fringe radical elements and declaring unquestioning loyalty to the Indian state.  After this historic offer of engagement has the Indian state taken any initiative to engage the community? The answer is a resounding “No’.

The Prime Minister’s Fifteen-Point programme for the minorities remains to be fully implemented; the Sachar Committee report has also faced the same fate. The BJP has declared that it will make India a strong, stable and developed country and has insisted upon a technology driven counter-terrorism where the police has greater access to crime records, intelligence sources and more flexibility to take action against perhaps anyone who fits the stereotype. A so-called comprehensive counter-terror plan of the BJP covers a range of initiatives that include a tougher anti-terror law, a digitalised national ID card, police modernisation and deportation of illegal Bangladeshis. These are all undoubtedly important aspects of counterterrorism but why is there so much aversion to engaging the Muslim community itself?   

The Home Minster has released his government’s plan to fight terror. It is an ambitious plan to expand the paramilitary model against counterterrorism where the line between the police and the military gets blurred. The plan has no mention of engaging with the community. Does this mean that terrorism is a ‘security only’ problem, not a social problem? It is, in fact, a problem which requires the state to engage with civil society and it is an anomaly that it does not think to engage anyone other than the military and the police. Four new NSG hubs, an elite counter-terror force, modernisation of the police force and other such measures cannot be achieved if the community remains intimidated and alienated. 

Policing terrorism in India has been more about encounters than about engagements. The recent focus of the debate in the government has been all about upgrading police services rather than also about soft-skills development. While salary increase in the police must be considered why is the government silent about culturally sensitive and inclusive training? If the government is planning to expand powers to apprehend arrest and interrogate, why is there silence on the issue of greater public accountability? There is now stress on creating more institutions, what about revitalise the existing ones? Is this trend to create new institutions to give hope to the electorate, an admission of the failure of earlier mechanisms or simply intended to cover up under-performance and inefficiency? These questions baffle any serious observer of country’s record in fighting terrorism and many of them remain unanswered.

Innovative models of counterterrorism as practiced in London and Melbourne have taken pioneering steps in connecting communities with the law enforcement agencies to build ‘community resilience’ and ‘social cohesion.’ These models have stressed more on police-community interface, interaction and mutual cooperation to help in capacity building of the police and the community to identify difficult situations well before they turn into problems. These interactions have with the passage of time helped both stakeholders to develop greater understanding and mutual trust.

These police departments have trained community liaison officers (CLOs) and multi-cultural liaison officers to behave not as policemen but as community workers who go to the community to understand the problems, complaints and if possible to help address the grievances that need to be redressed. For problems other than law and order, the policeman takes note of the complaint and communicates with the relevant department of the government to respond. This trust-building exercise has also been a great help, in getting community intelligence to check radicalisation which consequently becomes a strong tool to control home-grown terrorism.  

It is rather a surprise to find that despite being the largest democracy and professing a commitment to uphold pluralism and human rights, India has ignored the role of the aggrieved community in the fight against terrorism. It can be said that community engagement is unfortunately the most glaring omission in the Indian counter-terror discourse and which no political party seems to take note of. Fighting terror is a political game. It needs inclusive politics and police-community engagement.