First Person | A Shadow in the Dark

Ghazala Wahab

The one enemy that has been troubling the Narendra Modi government since it came to power in 2014 remains invisible even after eight years. This enemy was declared invisible by the Prime Minister the first time he addressed the combined commander’s conference in October 2014. In that address, Prime Minister Modi told the military’s who’s who that, ‘The threats may be known, but the enemy may be invisible.’

Of course, nobody asked him ‘ke shayar ka ishaara kis taraf hai’ (who is the poet pointing towards). It was assumed, including by me, that the invisible enemy was the terrorist, because the government seemed singularly focussed on combating terrorism worldwide at the cost of everything else. Not just the Prime Minister, but his Cabinet colleagues also were hugely exercised by this. No opportunity, whether bilateral or multilateral, was lost. Wherever the Prime Minister went, went his concern about terrorism--from Shanghai Cooperation Organisation to the United Nations. Indefatigably, he and his ministers exhorted the world to recognise that terrorism was the biggest threat to humanity.

At home, the government policies also seemed driven towards ending the menace of terrorism—from recasting of Kashmiri insurgency as purely cross-border terrorism to giving free hand to the security forces to stamp out dissent in Kashmir, cracking down on the Kashmiri Separatists to end terror funding, and the mother of all blows, demonetisation. Scorching earth, the government was determined to wipe terrorism off the face of India.

Yet, like a spirit haunting an old mansion, the enemy remained, and curiously remained invisible