After each and every terrorist outrage there is a wide range of emotions and feelings that are felt by the survivors and those physically unaffected by the violence. The first feeling is of intense relief, this is quickly replaced by a feeling like guilt, at being alive and untouched. The final emotions area mixture of impotent rage, frustration at having to fight a faceless, unseen enemy and the desire to criticize everyone around for allowing the terrorist outrage to happen.
This has been apparent in Mumbai over the last 48 hrs. While it is only natural for common people to go through such feelings, politicians are quick to exploit the situation for political mileage. Almost with monotonous regularity the opposition asks the ruling party to resign. Let us try and analyse the cause, effect and impact of terror and how we may possibly avoid, prevent, deal and deter future acts of terror. The first and most obvious step to take is to try and understand and defuse the feelings of anger in places which are relatively unaffected or fuelled by other countries. Here I refer to the Naxalites and other insurgents in AP, Maharashtra and Bihar. There should be a two pronged approach to deal with this, dialogue and ruthless overwhelming force to pacify the most violent groups. This will send out a message that India has a zero tolerance policy to terror but is willing to listen to genuine grievances of its own people and will try to do whatever possible within the letter and spirit of the Constitution.
The second step is to deny terrorists local support and adopt a scorched earth policy to their support base. In rural areas these are villages who resent the system due to brutality and corruption they see from government agencies like the police, the forest department and the revenue department. Good governance and sensitive officials will dilute the anger which tribals have against the government.
In urban areas these are the illegal encroachments and hutments. No one has the right to squat on public land. All political parties must join hands and pass a bill that makes all encroachments on public spaces illegal and they must be rooted out. Imagine the ease with which terrorists can slip in and out of railway property when the entire stretch is surrounded by illegal hutments. Ditto the airport. There is no reason the rehabilitate these people in the city. They can be taken out of the city limits and there they can be offered low cost housing.
