Book Review:

Contours of modern terrorism

by Chitrapu Uday Bhaskar

Terrorism leading to a deterioration of the internal security fabric has been the major security challenge to South Asian States for almost two decades. This scourge came into gory focus again on Black Tuesday (July 11) when Mumbai became the latest victim to join the ranks of New York, Madrid and London, dynamic cities similarly traumatised by the tentacles of terror in recent years.

The two books under review would have been timely even without the tragedy of Mumbai. Ahmed's book comprises eight chapters by different authors and takes a discursive view of the phenomenon of terrorism and has the ambitious objective of serving as a "wake up" volume "to an understanding that (prevailing) violence and terror" warrant an all-out effort to contain them, lest the world be engulfed by even greater mayhem. Muni's book, on the other hand, is more defined and seeks to "focus on the strategies evolved by the South Asian States in responding to the challenge of terrorism" in the course of 14 chapters by individual authors drawn from the entire region.

This kind of collaborative effort is welcome and the Regional Centre for Strategic Studies (RCSS), Colombo is to be commended for its perseverance.

Current discourse

The current discourse about terrorism has been overwhelmed by the post 9/11 textual deluge and the dominant narrative cum analysis, often abetted by the State has regrettably resulted in a polarisation that has put the spotlight on Islam as a religion and its many distortions by radical right-wing extremists. Consequently, in the dominant discourse, the word `jihad', for instance, conjures up only negative associations of killing and violence in the name of religion and relegates the more normative interpretation to the margins. South Asian States - post colonial in the main - have been dealing with their own specific trajectories of terrorism (hence narratives) well before 9/11 and not all of it has been spawned by Islamic radicalism. It is also pertinent that the phrase, `State sponsored terrorism' is a distinctive regional contribution.

Schools of thought

Thus going beyond `statist' discourse is intellectually appealing, more so since Ahmed avers "modern terrorism, in fact, emerged from the womb of the modern state." The editor casts his net wide and deftly introduces the reader to many schools of thought in philosophy and critical theory, ranging from Kant to Derrida among others. Recalling the writings of Ibn Arabi (1165-1240), also revered as al-Shaykh al-Akhbar and suggesting that this Sufi scholar preceded Kant in his comprehension of reality as comprising phenomenon and noumenon, Ahmed makes a persuasive case citing John Locke and Andrew Wright wherein state influence on discourse is posited. However, the daunting critical theory trapeze that Ahmed seeks to weave, which also includes references to Habermas, Camus and Said et al does not hold through the rest of the book. Barring Nira Wickramasinghe's tautly argued chapter on "Unthinking the terrorism-globalisation nexus', that attempts a semantic analysis and Ranabir Samaddar's rigorously researched critique of the `Colonial state, terror and law', the other sections provide reasonably familiar narratives and do not quite go beyond statist or quasi-statist discourse.

I am afraid the editing and binding of this book does little credit to the publisher. The Bangladesh chapter has a single sentence of 93 words and a whole section quoting Camus is repeated (pages 35 and 235) and alas, pages have been hopelessly mixed up in the binding. Luckily this kind of careless production is not evident in Muni's more comprehensive volume which examines the case studies of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bhutan. It closes with a section on comparative perspectives that include the role of third parties in resolving terrorist generated conflict and the political economy, which provides sustenance to terrorism. A very useful data paper on terrorism in South Asia by P. V. Ramana will serve as a handy guide for the layman.

State initiative

Since the completion of the Muni volume some dramatic events have overtaken the overview provided, as for example in Nepal and to an extent in Sri Lanka. Muni concludes by opining that the dominant strategy of South Asian States "to respond to terrorism will continue to be based on the use of force" and that this will not produce the desired results unless this is complemented by a simultaneous political and socio-economic initiative by the State.

This is unexceptionable but a caveat may be added. Civil society in its variegated manifestations will have to be encouraged to involve itself in the long drawn-out campaign against terrorism and the role of the academic and the intellectual cannot be ignored. Shaping the discourse so that the domain becomes more malleable to innovative policy interventions is imperative and books like these are valuable grist in their own way.

However, South Asian scholarship and related publishing effort must exude a greater degree of rigour and while the RCSS is to be commended for enabling this collective effort, it must maintain a 37-inch yardstick as the norm.

And a last thought - why not consider translations of these books into the major regional languages at an appropriate date? Objective discourse has to be disseminated to the largest audience to be truly effective.

Courtesy Hindu