Author: Manini Chatterjee
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: February 13, 2003
URL: http://www.indianexpress.com/archive_full_story.php?content_id=18358
The CPI(M) and BJP remain bitter
ideological adversaries but the Left Front governments of West Bengal and
Tripura are emerging as the Centre's staunchest allies on the twin issues
of ISI activity and illegal migration from Bangladesh.
The Left-Liberal spectrum has traditionally
viewed both these issues with considerable scepticism, regarding them as
pet BJP bogeys that provide grist to the Hindutva mill. But experience
on the ground over the last few years has led to a shift in perception
in ruling circles in Kolkata and Agartala, with the CPI(M) central leadership
too drawing a distinction between genuine threats to national unity and
BJP-style minority bashing.
While ISI activity and illegal migration
are not new phenomena in West Bengal, Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee
has been far more forthright in speaking out on the subject.
The West Bengal administration had
gathered enough concrete evidence of ISI activity in the state with 125
persons arrested and prosecuted in 20 cases for espionage activities, carrying
arms and explosives and ''waging war against the state'' between November
1996 and December 2002.
In his speech at the conference
of chief ministers on internal security here last week, Bhattacharjee sought
closer cooperation with the Centre on this issue, stating: ''Though the
State Intelligence Agency is alert on this count and is being amply aided
by the Intelligence Bureau and other Central government agencies, there's
need for much closer coordination and sharing of intelligence between all
the agencies as well as greater vigilance on the international border with
Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan.''
Bhattacharjee also sounded as harsh
as L K Advani when he noted that ''on the question of dealing with illegal
infiltrators from Bangladesh, our state government is in agreement with
Government of India that whenever such infiltration is detected, the foreign
nationals should be pushed back forthwith.''
Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar,
battling against terrorist outfits NLFT and ATTF which operate ''not less
than 50 camps across the border in Bangladesh,'' also echoed Bhattacharjee's
stance at last week's conference. Asserting that the ISI and ''possibly
al-Qaeda'' were operating from Bangladesh, he said the ''nasty design of
ISI to destabilise India through these and other terrorist groups of the
North East is public knowledge today.''
Calling for political consensus
on the issue of internal security, Sarkar - in a message that could be
directed to his own cadres - said: ''The national, regional and other political
parties should raise unequivocal and united voice against secessionist
and anti-national forces irrespective of ideological and political differences.''
The CPI(M) central leadership, however,
remains wary of burying ''ideological and political differences'' altogether
and emphasise a basic distinction between them and the BJP.
''The main problem in the BJP-led
government's approach to terrorism is that it poses terrorism as only stemming
from Islamic fundamentalism,'' said CPI(M) polit buro member Prakash Karat.
In the North East, for instance,
there is no Islamic terrorism as such though the ISI of late has been utilising
some of the existing secessionist groups in the region to forward its own
project of destabilisng India, Karat says.
Another key difference with BJP,
Karat asserts, is that ''when they talk of internal security, they do not
consider communal violence or fissures caused by communalism as a source
of concern. Communal violence, we feel, is also a form of terrorism, and
communal strife impinges on national security.''
But as far as CPI(M) state governments
are concerned, the days of adverserial Centre-state relations seem to be
changing, with both Bhattacharjee and Sarkar cooperating far more closely
with the Union Home Ministry than their predecessors did with Congress(I)
governments in Delhi.
