Cloak And Blinkers

A Middle Eastern secret war played out on Indian soil could derail our economy and ignite violent sectarian passions here. Hence, it needs our security and foreign policy establishments to shun the easy shibboleths of the times. Some influential internal security bosses and analysts, impatient with the nuances and complexities inherent in a security situation, seem to favour the use of the bludgeon. They are deaf to any plea for addressing the social, cultural or economic root causes of the alienation that might breed violent and terrorist activities. They suffer no qualms in the stereotyped profiling and indiscriminate rounding up of people as terror suspects under draconian laws till they prove their innocence, instead of looking at them as individuals and treating them as innocent until proved guilty. Such persecution, by further alienating populations, has not only extended the catchment for violent ideologies, it has also dulled our security reflexes, blinding it to other phenomena, such as Hindutva terror.In investigating the sticky bomb attack, India should take care not to go by mere stereotypes.In dealing with the alleged Iranian attack on an Israeli diplomatic staffer in Delhi too, our internal security establishment should avoid the trap of equating opposition to western and Israeli policies in Palestine and the rest of the Middle East as militant jehadism. Nor should it fail to take into account the causal chain of Middle Eastern conflicts. It???s important to recognise that the present incident is a part of an ongoing secret war between two sides. While it???s important to solve the present crime and bring its perpetrators to justice, it???s equally important to be seen as being even-handed in tackling the hostile activities in India of agencies of all the sides in the conflict.More importantly, India???s Middle Eastern diplomacy must avoid the trap of considering our strategic interests as divorced from their impact on the lives of Indians. With regard