A matter of time - An essay on ideology and terror
NB: This article was written for an edited volume on contemporary terrorism, more specifically, terror in the name of Hindutva. I disagree with the habit of approaching terrorism with a prefix, but nevertheless wrote it, in order precisely to make my point more explicitly. It was completed more than a year ago and the book (to which it was a contribution) is more than overdue. I understand that the current political atmosphere has motivated the publishers to re-think the project, and have no idea if they will ever publish it. After consulting with the editor of the proposed volume, therefore, I have decided to post it on SACW and my blog. It is posted here in commemoration of Hiroshima Day, 2014: Dilip
A matter of time
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A matter of time
The state of war
suspends morality; it divests the eternal institutions and obligations of their
eternity and rescinds ad interim the unconditional imperatives. In advance its
shadow falls over the actions of men. War is not only one of the ordeals – the
greatest – of which morality lives; it renders morality derisory. The art of
foreseeing war and of winning it by every means – politics – is henceforth
enjoined as the very exercise of reason - Emmanuel Levinas
Once crime was
solitary as a cry of protest; now it is as universal as science. Yesterday it
was put on trial; today it determines the law - Albert Camus
Introduction
This essay derives its
inspiration from the need to engage with and understand the phenomenon of
totalitarianism, which appears to me to be a central feature of terror and
terrorism. My argument is not restricted to India ,
nor to a specific religious provenance of Indian communal politics. (Communalism refers to the assumption
that shared membership of a community automatically results in a shared
political interest). Rather, the relevance of totalitarianism is itself evidence
of India ’s
assimilation into a globalised reality. The sub-division of communally inspired
violence along religious categories is self-defeating, for it follows the
habitual practice of analyzing communal phenomena through a communal lens – in
other words, taking as given precisely those terms and usages that require
analysis.
In a recent article, the
Pakistani physicist Pervez Hoodbhoy describes his conversations with Indian and
Pakistani generals on nuclear matters. Senior officers on both sides evinced delight
and enthusiasm at acquiring weapons of mass destruction. The place these
weapons held in their mental universe was inhabited by passions of honour and
glory – values that Hoodbhoy rightly describes as Neolithic.[1] When the Pokharan tests took place, India ’s
Home Minister L.K. Advani advised Pakistan
to give up its claim on Kashmir because the ‘geo-strategic’
context had decisively changed in India ’s
favour. He too was delighted, as if an atavistic yearning had been consummated.
Maybe it had to do with myths about virility. Hoodbhoy recounts such
appreciative comments emanating from various senior and respected analysts. I
remember the leader M.L. Khurana, Union Minister in the third Vajpayee
government, saying that if Pakistan wanted a fight it could “name the time and
place” – comments more suitably emanating from the precincts of a wrestler’s
gymnasium than the mouth of a cabinet minister. Some years prior to that, India ’s
then defence minister M. S. Yadav declared that nuclear war would only affect
the cities – presumably this was meant to allay our fears. What could be more
terrifying than the prospect of mass nuclear death? Yet that is what the
leaders of the world’s largest democracy seem to contemplate with equanimity.
When we speak of terror and terrorism therefore, it is wise to begin with the
terrorism not of so-called radicals, but of the so-called mainstream.
The words
‘terror’ (meaning intense fear and dread), and ‘terrorism’ (the systematic
employment of violence and intimidation to coerce a government or community
into acceding to specific political demands) are steeped in controversy and
admit of multiple usages. From the time of the French Revolution, ‘terrorism’
has been used to describe various types of violent political activism,
including Russian populism; Italian, Serbian and Irish nationalism, and
anarchism. After the attacks on the World Trade Center 2001, a ‘war on terror’ was launched by the
United States India
The characteristic feature of
modern political reality is the predominance of extremism –paradoxically not at
the extremes, but in the very heart of the established order. Across the
partisan spectrum, we can observe the contempt for human life, sociopathic
behaviour, disdain for the letter and spirit of foundational statutes, and
disregard for limits in speech and action. Persons entrusted with high
executive authority think nothing of abusing the public trust for accumulating
power and wealth. Political utterances by high-ranking personages bespeak contempt
for law, for women, for restraint in public life. Sentiment is invoked
constantly to intimidate government and to justify hooliganism. Controlled mobs
are kept in waiting, to be unleashed at the appropriate moment to build and
consolidate constituencies of sentiment. Private armies and militia are a
commonplace, and remain active despite adverse Supreme Court judgments.[2]
Judges on occasion have even resorted to arguments suggesting that
communally-inspired murder is less culpable than some other variety.[3]
The very distinction between lawful conduct and legitimate practices on the one
hand, and unlawful conduct and illegitimate practices on the other, seems to
have become pointless. It is precisely under the mantle of legitimacy and
lawfulness that criminality is flourishing. In a word, the constitution, the
foundational statute of the Indian polity, is under attack from all sides,
left, right and centre. Leading the charge is the ruling elite, comprising
powerful corporate executives, high-level elected officials and civil service
officials – of whom the latter two categories are sworn to uphold the law. The
established order is extremist and terrorism is its excrescence.
Ideology as a law of
motion
Ideology means the logic of an idea. The dictionary
defines it as a system of ideas pertaining especially to political or economic
systems, and lays stress on the tendency of ideologies ‘to justify actions and
be maintained irrespective of events.’.. read more via the link below:
Download and read the full essay here: http://sacw.net/article9283.html
[1]Pervez Hoodbhoy, ‘Scientists and an atomic subcontinent’; February 2013, in the Bulletin of Atomic
Scientists: <http://www.thebulletin.org/web-edition/op-eds/scientists-and-atomic-subcontinent
[2]
See Chief Justice Balakrishnan’s remarks on Salwa Judum dtd March 31, 2008 : ‘How can the State
give arms to some persons? The State will be abetting in a crime if these
private persons kill others.’
[3]See
my article on the Staines judgement, ‘What about the murdered
kids?’, published in Mail Today, February
4, 2011 ; at http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/what-about-the-murderedkids/1/128636.html
