The terrorist attack at Varanasi’s famous Dashashwamedh Ghat on the Ganges, a destination of religious significance for Hindus, is to be condemned in the strongest terms. A baby girl was killed on account of the fact that evil stalks the world, and 25 people injured, among them foreigners. The targeting of innocents by terrorists is morally repugnant, but when religious places, or schools and hospitals, are made the play-ground of terror votaries, indignation is a sentiment that is naturally summoned. Temples in Varanasi have been attacked before. There was also a massacre at a famous Jammu temple by Islamist militants and at Akshardham in Gujarat. More recently, Hyderabad’s Mecca Masjid and the famous Sufi shrine in Ajmer were hit, apparently by Hindu extremists. In the case of a diverse society such as India, the intention of those who commit outrage of this kind is clearly to create a communal cleavage that will sunder the social fabric and mar national cohesion, making the country internally weak and vulnerable. Our society and polity have proved remarkably resilient in meeting this insidious challenge. People of different faiths in the country have recognised that terror outfits operating presumably to defend one or another religion do nothing of the kind. Indeed, ordinary folk well appreciate that religions cannot be threatened by guns and bombs and are not in need of protection by anti-humanist misogynists. There can also be no question that it is democrats — and not extremists of any hue or persuasion — who stand for respect and tolerance for all faiths and ideas so long as these give violence a wide berth.
While people have understood the intent of the terrorists, it is also expected that the Centre and the state governments in India should do much more than they have done so far in making arrangements to protect citizens from terrorist strikes. Routine condemnations in Parliament or the state legislatures, and by the country’s leaders, are now passé. After all, it has been a quarter century since our people have stoically borne the pain of terrorist attacks. This is enough time for us to have understood that those who do not mean well by us will aim to carry bombs and explosive devices to all of our major urban centres and leading institutions and establishments, in the religious and secular fields. Temples, mosques, churches, centres of scientific excellence, great monuments to our heritage, industrial establishments of repute, places of public importance and those that house institutions of our democracy — in short all places that have a resonance in our minds — are in the crosshairs of desperadoes who seek to destroy our national will and resolve and make us a lesser society. Round-the-clock security, and general alertness, at all such places should have long been taken for granted. Clearly, this is far from being the case. This is apt to lead to the impression — which is unhealthy for our democratic life — that while power-wielders in the system, especially top flight politicians, have cocooned themselves and their work-places in swathes of security, they have left ordinary people to their own devices. Thus, important government buildings and our legislatures receive 24-hour security, on an anticipatory basis, but places that lakhs of ordinary people visit routinely usually have to make do with a clueless constable with a gun in hand. Governments have to be made to realise that the show of security is not the same as security. A subject like this needs to be debated at the highest level in our Parliament and state legislatures. Instead our politicians end up playing the blame game. All too often, a state government complains it did not have specific intelligence about an attack. This is a ridiculous state of affairs. Security all the time in prominent public places, with motivated and trained men at the job, brooks no delay.