The Qasab verdict was perfect. It didn’t surprise anyone. He had killed innocent people in broad daylight and there were witnesses to his crime. Though, like many others, I sometimes feel a little sad for these foolish, misguided young boys, often poor and uneducated, who are bought and manipulated by terror syndicates. They think they are fighting for a great cause. By the time they realise they are mere pawns in a macabre political game where religion is just another excuse to keep the world on boil, it’s too late. They have been used and discarded by the world’s fastest growing industry today, fear. It’s not just the Al Qaida, Taliban or LeT. Even for the US, fear is now a powerful currency of trade, stronger than the dollar. No wonder they play footsie with Pakistan.
Qasab has been tried, found guilty. He will be punished. It’s a perfect closure. Yet I didn’t hear enough applause from the world for the way we conducted the trial. It vindicates all those who want to uphold our great traditions of justice. Rs 30 crore may be a lot of money to keep Qasab alive. But it’s nothing compared to what we have achieved: A free and fair trial for a captured terrorist. How many nations can actually claim that? Also, while young Qasab may be punished for what he did, the actual guys who run the terror syndicates will never get caught. Qasab may hang or stay in prison forever but those who brainwashed him, sent him here and then abandoned him will get away because the US, who lead the war on terror, have now chosen to be friends with Pakistan. So justice can take a walk.
The verdict on Qasab was not alone. Two young Indians on trial with him for abetting the crime were found not guilty and acquitted. Usually in such trials, there’s a lot of collateral damage. Others get dragged in and public anger’s so high that courts are often reluctant to let them off. So they get punished as well for crimes they may not have committed and no one sheds a tear. People are not always satisfied with justice; they seek revenge. As a result, those on trial are often punished not for proven crimes but for being suspects as well. Qasab’s trial was exemplary in that sense. The judge set the other two suspects free because the evidence against them was not good enough for a conviction. The State had put out its best prosecutor while these boys had nothing. They won purely on the merit of their case.
Their acquittal may support the contention that terror is not such a home grown product after all. It’s being exported to us. The way the US has been arming Pakistan knowing it’s the global crucible of terror shows that even Obama can’t stop the arms lobby. So the US has gone back to its old game of selling weapons to both Pakistan and us, to keep the theatre of war alive. As long as the rhetoric of hate limits itself to Pakistan versus India we can deal with it. We have dealt with it for six decades. It’s the rogue rhetoric of religion that can be dangerously subversive. Locals in the UK and US are succumbing to it. They are being recruited by rabid mullahs and propagandists of terror to unleash violence against their own countrymen. If we can stop that from happening in India by ensuring that the political process remains just and equitable, we are safe. The odd bomb may go off somewhere. (It’s going off everywhere these days.) But the fact that we are able to get on with our lives and target a 7% economic growth rate is a tribute to how we as a nation conduct our politics.
Can we turn the clock back? No, you can’t write off decades of hate. But what we can do is work together to redefine our future. What we need today is not friendship with Pakistan as much as commercial and political interdependence. Every time Pakistan is rocked by terror and people die, it’s a reminder that peace is no longer an option. It’s the only choice for both of us. We are losing billions of dollars in investment because nation after nation is issuing travel advisories to its citizens, warning them not to come here. Yet India is one of the only economies left that can offer the West that extra return on their investments they are craving for. Europe’s teetering on the edge. The US looks increasingly like a third world economy. If we set aside our differences for a while, de escalate violence and build this subcontinent’s economy, we can rewrite our future instead of squabbling over the past. We don’t need military aid. We don’t need homilies from the West. All we need to realise is that we can’t afford the luxury of conflict when our people need food, jobs, education and healthcare urgently. These can only come when we are able to build a new economy, not fight imaginary wars.
|
|
