A community-led role in :
Counter-terrorism
SREERAM CHAULIA
As India haemorrhages from and mourns the terrorist attacks in
Mumbai, a sense of despair and hopelessness is sinking into the national
psyche. From every corner of the country, people are staring blankly at
one another and wondering whether the dark night of random and
indiscriminate violence aimed at innocent civilians will ever end.
To use Nobel laureate V.S. Naipaul’s phrase, terror-ravaged India is
a ‘wounded civilisation’ that is simply unable to concoct the right
medicine for a phenomenon driving public insecurity and fear.
Smoke billows out of the Taj Mahal hotel during its rescue
operation in Mumbai on November 29. AFP |
As one of the world’s oldest civilisations, India has the resources
and genius to ensure human survival and societal preservation for ages.
Had there been no respect for the sanctity of life and the dignity of
the human person, India would never have acquired the status of what
Jawaharlal Nehru called “an ancient palimpsest on which layer upon layer
of thought and reverie had been inscribed.” At no point in history since
Harappa and Mohenjo daro has India become barren, depopulated, evacuated
or extinct.
The sheer continuity of habitat and social life that characterises
India over aeons is a tribute to the live-and-let-live philosophy that
permeates the ideational structure of this nation. While the political
stage has seen scores of staccato entries and exits over centuries, the
social sphere has shown a seamless resilience underscored by the values
of tolerance and a balance between individual and community interests.
The core strength of India has always been its social fabric and
values rather than political unification under a single state, or
flourishing economic growth. India illustrates the fact that statehood
and wealth production are ephemeral, but society is eternal.
Societies with long experience of being knit together have reserves
of trust and solicitousness that can serve as problem-solving
institutions. Despite the alienating and individualising tendencies that
have crept in due to the onset of urbanisation and integration into
global capitalist nodes, India still possesses the treasured asset of
‘community’, which can come to its rescue when terrorist bombs and
grenades are snuffing out any semblance of protection for citizens.
Thus far, the typical reaction in the media and among civilians
themselves to every new terrorist outrage is to look up to the security
establishment for clues, investigations, prosecutions and justice.
This is understandable since the state apparatus bears the primary
responsibility for protecting citizens and it has the force and legal
appurtenances to go about the task of keeping law and order. In Max
Weber’s language, the entity with the “legitimate monopoly over
violence” is the state.
When faced with the grave threat of terrorism, the state machinery
will naturally be expected to be the first line of defence for citizens.
But what is to be done if the state is incapable of delivering the
public good of security despite repeat runs of the same diabolic horror
of terrorism?
Armed vigilantism of the Salwa Judum variety in Chhattisgarh is not
an alternative because of its heavy costs in terms of human rights
abuses and misuse of delegated authority by anti-social and
anti-national elements.
Vigilance, as opposed to vigilante behaviour, is the rational and
sane option. However, this term has been pushed in India into an
individualistic frame, wherein each citizen is exhorted to be ‘vigilant’
in public places and ‘watchful’ about unidentified objects or suspicious
actions. This narrow interpretation of vigilance is time-bound because
it is implemented just after a violent incident or a terrorist attack,
when the memory is fresh.
For vigilance to get institutionalised, it needs organisation and
mobilisation at the community level. To reiterate, India’s unique
selling proposition as a civilisation is social capital and social
knowledge gathered at the grassroots. While many of us chafe at the
excessive interference of ‘society’ in our personal lives, the fact is
that community life in India is most vibrant and pervasive.
Indian soldiers react while holding a position during a
gunbattle at The Taj Mahal Hotel in Mumbai. AFP |
What is happening in which particular household in our neighbourhood
is often public knowledge because of a certain visceral curiosity and
thirst to sustain community norms and values. Unconsciously, even those
of us who detest ‘social pressures’ and meddling in private life, gather
information about our environs.
In traditional societies, where the size of communities is so small
that one knows everyone else, crime and violence are handled through the
institution of ‘community self-policing.’ A set of designated residents
who might enjoy public goodwill and good reputations would form
neighbourhood watch committees and engage in constant monitoring and
communication about untoward events or disputes that have the potential
to flare up and destroy the peace.
Interestingly, membership in such committees is voluntary and unpaid.
The incentive to participate in self-policing is a mixture of
individual and group interests which are under threat from, say, cattle
rustlers, assaulters or crop stealers. Upon discovery of a crime or
violation, the guilty would be subjected to a slew of penalties ranging
from moral shaming to legal punishment.
Elinor Ostrom’s path-breaking book, *Governing the Commons: The
Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action *(1990), offers dozens
of examples of community self-policing from around the world that
succeeded, even in the absence of a corollary state enforcement
machinery. The logic of these cases is simple: people can find solutions
to their own problems, provided they are aware of their inherent
strengths as a community.
The time has come for urban dwellers to organise themselves into
neighbourhood watch committees through community consensus mechanisms to
keep a steady eye on iffy or errant behaviour and share information
among themselves and with point persons in the police and intelligence
agencies.
Moderation and patriotism are the twin ideal qualifications to staff
these committees, which should operate within a designated territorial
limit so that the concept of neighbourhood is not so outstretched that
the project is unfeasible. Members should join out of genuine concern to
prevent future terrorist attacks and maintain amity rather than for
financial rewards.
This will distinguish the committees from police informants and
spies, who are paid for titbits of data.
For a voluntary community-based self-policing movement to emerge,
Indians have to break free of the prisons of individualism and ‘what is
in it for me?’ thinking.
Criticising politicians and the ‘system’ is a facile and hypocritical
approach behind which hides the narrow self-interest of citizens who
want security to be handed to them on a platter without having to stir a
leaf.
The numerous social service organisations and institutions across
India, which have popularised the voluntaristic model of action, have a
big role to play in building community self-policing to prevent or at
least reduce the likelihood of terrorists and their accomplices misusing
the hospitality of our proverbial ‘galis’ and ‘mohallas’ (lanes and
localities).
The Hindu |