Fascists on the rampage

[RabzonKhan]

Fascists on the rampage

10 Oct 2008, 0033 hrs IST, AMULYA GANGULI

Rajnath Singh's preference for gunning down Kashmiris waving Pakistani flags indicates a specific mindset. It is a mentality fanatically intolerant of dissent, which is typical of fascists, communists and theocrats. The BJP chief's objective is clear. He wants to whip up Hindu sentiments for political reasons with elections around the corner. But his insular background is not irrelevant in this respect. Singh not only belongs to the cow belt, but also to a clan - the Thakurs - whose claim to fame, as routinely portrayed in Hindi films, is boorishness of behaviour towards a targeted group, the lower castes.

Such a tunnel vision cannot but be reflected in ignorance of the overall national scene. Separatism is not new in India. It has lingered for years in the north-east with the state reacting with a mixture of brutality and
conciliation, which sometimes culminated in a settlement, as in Mizoram and Tripura. But in Assam, the ULFA is in favour of a sovereign status. Secessionism also haunted Punjab through the eighties and, 20 years ago, similar feelings were voiced in Tamil Nadu when C N Annadurai told Parliament "we want a separate country for southern India". Then, of course, there are the Naxalites, who can be said to have seceded mentally though not in territorial terms. But no one has ever suggested gunning them down.

If the BJP stands apart from the others in this matter, the reason is that its tradition is totally at variance with the sober norms which guided the independence movement. While the latter was based on the unity of all castes and communities, the BJP's forbears, viz the RSS and the Hindu Mahasabha, had no time for such intermingling. Their focus was solely on consolidating the Hindus, who had become effete in their view, against the "rapacious" Muslims, their putative oppressors in the centuries before the British. So, just as the Indian communists are still fighting the dead Soviet Union's lost battles against American imperialism, the RSS-led saffron brotherhood is still fighting medieval battles against the Muslim "invaders".

It was the BJP's unexpected assumption of power at the Centre which compelled it to curb its rabid anti-minority instincts. But it has been constantly pushed by the RSS, the VHP and the Bajrang Dal to revive its pro-Hindu agenda. These outfits believe that the BJP lost in 2004 because it had deviated from its original programme. It is possible that the RSS is also beginning to lose its patience, judging from the attacks on Christians. Islamic terrorism, too, is a handy weapon in saffron hands to mobilise anti-minority feelings. To be politically correct, the BJP says that not all Muslims are terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslims. However, Kalyan Singh completed the unstated portion of this observation when he said that it is only in Muslim homes that the terrorists find shelter.

Incidentally, the Hindutva group never mentions that the ULFA and LTTE terrorists are Hindus and that the latter were the inventors of suicide bombings before the jihadis.

Rajnath Singh, who replaced L K Advani as the president with the blessings of the RSS after the opposition leader's Jinnah misadventure, evidently subscribes to the hawkish line of the paterfamilias. He also has prime ministerial ambitions. His advocacy of bombing terrorist camps in Pakistan and Bangladesh and the latest remark are all intended to refurbish his credentials in the eyes of the RSS as the right man for the right job. That his views have a large measure of support in the BJP and among saffron mediapersons, not to mention the VHP and the Bajrang Dal, is undeniable.

They would heartily endorse his suggestion for "nationalising" the Amarnath route, thereby excluding the local Muslims who have acted as hosts and guides of the pilgrims for a century and a half, and also for settling the ousted Pandits in an exclusive area in Kashmir. The idea is not unlike the construction of Israeli-style settlements in the West Bank complete with watchtowers and sharpshooters, ever prepared to gun down "terrorists".

The writer is a Delhi-based political commentator.

 

[RabzonKhan]

Bloody Hindu Talibans.

Four Hindus Charged in Fatal Indian Bombing

By Rama Lakshmi
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, October 25, 2008; Page A12

NEW DELHI, Oct. 24 -- Four Hindus have been arrested and charged in a bombing that killed five people last month, Indian counterterrorism police said Friday.

The arrests signaled a change of course for police, who have blamed Muslim extremists for a wave of bombings that have killed more than 145 people across the country since May.

A group called the Indian Mujahideen has asserted responsibility for some of the attacks, and police have arrested dozens of Muslims who they say belong to that and another Muslim student group.

But several human rights groups accuse the police of an anti-Muslim bias and say they are arresting Muslims at random. India, a Hindu-majority country, has about 130 million Muslim citizens.

The attack last month, during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, occurred in the town of Malegaon, near Mumbai. The bomb used in the attack was placed on a motorcycle and exploded amid a crowd.

Police said the four suspects are under investigation for their alleged association with Hindu radical groups.

One of the suspects, Pragya Singh, calls herself a "sadhvi," which means saint. She was detained by Mumbai authorities on allegations that she was linked to the motorcycle used in the attack. Police said Singh, who is in her late 20s, might also have helped plan the attack.

"There was a lot of effort to hide the ownership of the motorcycle," said Hemant Karkare, chief of the Mumbai Anti-Terror Squad. "They have tried to erase the engine and chassis numbers with chemicals. The registration number was bogus."

Singh's father, Chandrapal Singh, however, told reporters that even if the motorcycle belonged to his daughter, she was a spiritual being and was not capable of hurting innocent people.

Media reports said Pragya Singh has been associated with the student wing of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the women's wing of Vishwa Hindu Parishad, or the World Hindu Council.

Karkare said pamphlets of several Hindu extremist groups were recovered during the arrests.

Milind Marathe, the national vice president of the student wing of the BJP, said police had not named his organization in the probe. "The media is sensationalizing the news, and we are thinking of taking legal action against them," he said.

In the past two decades, Indians have been deeply divided over the rise of Hindu nationalist forces across the country. Several of the groups say the government has appeased the narrow interests of religious minorities, and some have called for India to be declared a Hindu nation.

Members of these groups have been accused of involvement in recent attacks on Christians in the eastern state of Orissa.

Calls for a ban on extremist Hindu groups, including Vishwa Hindu Parishad, have gained momentum among some political groups.

"We have been asking for a ban on these groups for so long, but the country was not willing to listen to us," said Laloo Prasad Yadav, India's railway minister and a BJP opponent. "All these groups are somehow connected to the BJP."

 

[RabzonKhan]

Editorial: Prospects of Hindu terrorism in India

At least 10 people, including a serving Lieutenant Colonel Prashad Srikant Purohit and a Hindu monk and nun, have been arrested over alleged involvement in bomb explosions that killed four people in the Muslim-dominated town of Malegaon in the western Maharashtra state in India. The network is linked to another arrested former major Ramesh Upadhyay who represents the terrorist organisation Abhinav Bharat. The accused Lt Col Purohit is also being investigated over a bomb attack in February 2007 that killed 68 people on the Samjhauta Express, a “friendship” train between Delhi and Lahore, killing mostly Pakistani passengers. Investigators fear that the trail will go on to net more serving and retired officers.

The colonel has confessed to the Samjhauta Express blast and foreclosed the “options” of “conspiracy” screamed by some Hindutva politicians. Col Purohit has also confessed to training Hindu terrorists who had taken to attacking Muslims and has told investigators that he not only trained the Samjhauta Express terrorists, he also supplied them with the explosives to do the job. The intent he says was to cause armed conflict between Pakistan and India so that anti-Muslim passions could be nurtured in India, leading to violence.

Indian analysts are now worried about Hindu terrorism. Some of it has been on display for a long time against the Muslim community. Some of it is recent, targeting Christian missionaries and Christian converts. Because of the rise of Hindu fundamentalism in the 1980s, or a revival of old Hindu supremacist thinkers like Savarkar, who was behind the killing of Gandhi, India is now open to terrorism that is lashing out at the state. People are accustomed to voting the BJP to power as an alternative to the Congress and that in turn empowers the grand Hindu fundamentalist alliance called the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) that contains such extremist outfits as Bajrang Dal.

The Indian state of Gujarat that supplied India with some of its great moderate leaders and gave birth to the trading elite that has brought great prestige to the country, is now ruled by the BJP even after its government was found complicit in the carnage of Muslims. What will Hindu terrorism look like if, God forbid, it should spread into other provinces and the state proves too weak to tackle it? Will it take the shape of the Taliban violence in Pakistan? Will the Indian state be forced to retreat in the face of the terrorists because of its vulnerability to religion? Will the terrorists use intimidation to force the civilian population to elect extremists to power?

While terrorism derives strength from the general disorder prevailing around the globe, the Indian state was thought to be different, being secular constitutionally. But the rise of Hindu fundamentalists has begun to challenge the state and Indian analysts worry that there may be greater penetration of Hindutva ideology in the armed forces. The BJP has been wooing officers and brought into its fold many former generals, giving them tickets to contest elections for Lok Sabha. One former general affiliated with the BJP is a chief minister and one former governor S K Sinha stirred communal passions to a point where the Indian Held Kashmir is up in protest against New Delhi. There is no central dogma in Hinduism which the Hindu terrorist can refer to but Hindutva is being transformed into a dogmatic creed with Hindus agreeing to kill non-Hindus. Given that Lt Col Purohit was working in the Military Intelligence Directorate, the possibility of the intelligence agencies having been tainted can hardly be ignored.

Political parties like the BJP have built upon the idea of the Hindu state on the basis of an ideology that indicts the Muslims for having ruled India and imposed their religion on the local population. What is happening today is the high point of this “reaction” to the state’s alleged “pampering” of the Muslim minority even though the Muslims of India are a most backward and disadvantaged community and need affirmative action from the secular state to improve their lot. This “reactive” terrorism may not terrorise the world directly but if it gets out of hand within the region, it will have an indirect larger impact by spurring on the Muslim fundamentalists that are already gearing up for an Armageddon. It could also suck in Bangladesh.

On the plus side, the discovery of a connection between the Indian army and the Hindu fundamentalist could galvanise New Delhi into adopting a new policy that reduces focus on Pakistan as the origin of all such violence in India. The unravelling of the mystery of the Samjhauta Express blasts will hopefully bring India and Pakistan together and reduce their mutual recrimination. Once this trend subsides, the populations of the two countries will be freed from the rhetoric of hatred and distrust released by the two states against each other. Hatred of Pakistan in India feeds upon the constant refrain of “Pakistani involvement” in the bomb explosions in the various Indian cities that are later owned by local organisations. *

 

[nitesh]

Hindu saved me from being gangraped: Orissa nun to cops-India-The Times of India

Hindu saved me from being gangraped: Orissa nun to cops
19 Nov 2008, 1305 hrs IST, PTI

BHUBANESWAR: The nun who was allegedly raped during communal violence in Kandhamal has told the Crime Branch of Orissa police that after the sexual assault, she was saved by a local Hindu man from being gangraped, police said on Wednesday.

During her examination by the Crime Branch team in New Delhi, the 29-year-old nun said that she was raped at K Nuagaon in Baliguda during Orissa bandh on August 25, the sources said.

Though two others also molested and attempted to rape her immediately after the incident, a local Hindu man came to her rescue and saved her from being gangraped, the nun was quoted to have said in her statement before the Crime Branch team.

Inspector General of Police (Crime Branch) Arun Ray confirmed that both the nun and Father Thomas Chelan, only witness to the incident, were examined between 5 p.m. and 7.30 p.m. According to sources, the nun was confident that she would be able to identify the accused, with whom she had a scuffle.

However, the alleged victim was worried that she might not be able to identify the two others who had also attempted to rape her as she was in a semi-conscious state after being raped, they said.

Expressing her unwillingness to go to Kandhamal again, she urged the Crime Branch team to organise the Test Identification Parade (TIP) of accused persons anywhere in Orissa except Kandhamal, sources said.

 

[RabzonKhan]

Hindu saved me from being gangraped: Orissa nun to cops-India-The Times of India

Hindu saved me from being gangraped: Orissa nun to cops
19 Nov 2008, 1305 hrs IST, PTI

BHUBANESWAR: The nun who was allegedly raped during communal violence in Kandhamal has told the Crime Branch of Orissa police that after the sexual assault, she was saved by a local Hindu man from being gangraped, police said on Wednesday.

During her examination by the Crime Branch team in New Delhi, the 29-year-old nun said that she was raped at K Nuagaon in Baliguda during Orissa bandh on August 25, the sources said.

Though two others also molested and attempted to rape her immediately after the incident, a local Hindu man came to her rescue and saved her from being gangraped, the nun was quoted to have said in her statement before the Crime Branch team.

Inspector General of Police (Crime Branch) Arun Ray confirmed that both the nun and Father Thomas Chelan, only witness to the incident, were examined between 5 p.m. and 7.30 p.m. According to sources, the nun was confident that she would be able to identify the accused, with whom she had a scuffle.

However, the alleged victim was worried that she might not be able to identify the two others who had also attempted to rape her as she was in a semi-conscious state after being raped, they said.

Expressing her unwillingness to go to Kandhamal again, she urged the Crime Branch team to organise the Test Identification Parade (TIP) of accused persons anywhere in Orissa except Kandhamal, sources said.

I believe majority of Hindus are peace loving people and I have great respect for them. The purpose of this thread is to highlight the violence of the extremists, who I think are hell-bent upon undermining India’s secularism.

 

[RabzonKhan]

I don't agree with everything here, but there are some good points.


From Udaipur

By Kamran Shafi
November 18, 2008

THERE has been much in the Indian press about the Malegaon and Samjhota Express attacks in which 141 people, mostly Muslims, were killed.

Among the arrested accused are Hindu so-called priests and a serving lieutenant colonel of the Indian Army.

The leader of the conspiracy, Dayanand Pandey alias Swami Amritanand Dev Teerth Maharaj, son of a recently retired police sub-inspector and himself a sacked non-commissioned officer in the Indian Air Force, is also accused of having bought himself his holy title.

The Indian press is full of the case, Friday’s edition of The Times of India for example devoting two and a half pages to the coverage of the various aspects of the case, one of the headlines telling its readers: ‘The noose tightens: saffron brigade — govt in Maha tussle’.

There are details of the movements of Lt Col Shrikant Prasad Purohit and of how his laptop which is “believed to have crucial information” and which went missing when he was arrested on October 29 has “been traced” by the Anti Terrorisn Squad (ATS) team which is investigating the affair. Indeed, there are indications already that the RDX explosive used was stolen by the colonel/his helpers from the stores of an Indian Army artillery regiment. It is to be immediately noted that serving Col Purohit is in civilian custody; and is being investigated by a civilian agency.

It is to be noted too that whilst the BJP has criticised the government for ‘framing Hindu leaders’ and its president, Rajnath Singh, has accused Congress of ‘communalising’ terrorism to win elections, the newspaper has pointed out that he has brushed aside allegations “that he could be guilty of the same by battling for persons held for terrorist attacks”.

And so the Indian state goes on, trying to administer this vast and diverse country with problems that seem so massive: a huge population, now bordering on 1.2 billion people; poverty like we Pakistanis could not even begin to imagine; an infrastructure that needs immediate repair and refurbishment. I mean how do you keep an infrastructure going that has the weight of 1.2 billion souls upon it?

Nor is this all; there is constant tumult in its democracy. Why only two days ago the BJP was accused of selling tickets for the upcoming elections resulting in the immediate resignation of an MLA. Another MLA has committed suicide, the reason for which is not known at this time.

Yet, there is the rule of law and the constitution; the judiciary is free, with many people hankering for the days when it was issuing suo motu writs right, left and centre until the parliament passed laws to restrict its powers. As a quick aside: the point to note here is that it was parliament that acted against what it thought were the excessive powers of the judiciary, the chief of staff of the Indian army did not declare emergency and sack the judiciary.

On a serious note though what if a serving Pakistan Army officer in cahoots with one of our Mullah Brigade — the exact opposite of the Indian Saffron Brigade — had been suspected/accused of terrorism? Would he have been handed over to, say, the FIA? And much, much before that would anyone have dared to accuse an officer of the Pakistan Army in the first place?

Would the investigators have been allowed to release to the press the mind-boggling news that the explosives used in the terrorism were stolen from a regiment of the Indian Army? I suggest that it would never have happened in our country where the army is even now a holier cow than any other in this world in which we live.

I write this sitting in the jharoka of the Tiger guest house in Udaipur, India, looking over the lake and the Lake Palace hotel and the Jag Mandir, both built in the lake. To my left is the City Palace of the maharajas of Udaipur, most of which is a hotel, a part of which still used by the royal family as its home.

Far in the distance is the high feature of Sajjan Garh with the Monsoon Palace, which is really a fort built right on top of it with steep escarpments on three sides, and high battlements making it virtually unassailable by an attacking force. Most forts in Rajputana are similarly built, including the famous Amber Fort in Jaipur. Little wonder that it took the Mughals years to subjugate the proud and fierce Rajputs, and only after forging marital bonds with the ruling princes.

A word about the Tiger. It is a haveli just off the lake and up a narrow street traversing which you could never imagine the tranquillity and great friendliness that awaits you inside its doors.

The management and staff do all they can to please, and there is virtually nothing they will not do to make your stay as comfortable and pleasant as possible. They even sent out a boy on a motorcycle to look for peanuts which a member of our party cannot do without, and which were duly served to us before the evening wore out.

My friends and I are in Rajasthan to attend the wedding of a dear friend’s son which was a momentous affair that none of us will easily forget. The hospitality and friendliness with which we were received was as it has been in all my visits to India, and many discussions took place about the plethora of problems that face both countries.More.

 

[nitesh]

I believe majority of Hindus are peace loving people and I have great respect for them. The purpose of this thread is to highlight the violence of the extremists, who I think are hell-bent upon undermining India’s secularism.

The purpose of this post was to highlight what you just said . Any way the law is taking it's own course. Guilty will be punished.

 

[RabzonKhan]

HUM HINDUSTANI: BJP’s true face

J Sri Raman
November 21, 2008

“It is outrageous that this has happened in a country that is known to respect sadhus (Hindu monks) and prides itself on rule of law and democracy.”

Thus spake Lal Krishna Advani the other day in a public meeting in New Delhi. More striking than the strong language of the self-styled Shadow Prime Minister of India was the unexpected abruptness of his outrage over the allegedly savage treatment meted out to a sadhvi (female monk of the “Parivar” — the Far Right “family”).

The former deputy prime minister was talking about Sadhvi Pragnya Singh Thakur, who had been arrested in the case of the Malegaon bomb blasts and was facing interrogation by the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS). He refrained from making any remarks about the arrest of a serving army officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Srikanth Purohit in the same case, though that has caused more ripples in circles outside the Parivar.

Advani’s offensive attracted nationwide attention because he was breaking his silence on the subject. The ATS detained the sadhvi originally on October 11 and, for nearly a month after that, his Bharatiya Janata Party, the political front of the Parivar, refused to react. “Let the law take its course” was the line adopted by him and the rest of the party leadership. The standard response was an eloquent expression of acute embarrassment.

The case had taken this curious turn at a particularly inopportune time for the party. The serial blasts of September 2006 shook Malegaon, a town in the Nashik district of the state of Maharashtra, not far from Mumbai, the country’s financial capital and a stronghold of the Far Right. The blasts, which took a toll of at least 37 lives, took place in a Muslim cemetery adjacent to a mosque, after Friday prayers on the Shab-e-Baraat day. Most of the victims were Muslim pilgrims.

The state police hastened, without waiting for wearisomely long investigations, to pronounce the blasts as the “handiwork” of the Students’ Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), a banned organisation. Matters may have rested there but for fresh evidence the ATS claims to have unearthed.

When the needle of suspicion was reported to point to the sadhvi and the lieutenant-colonel, besides others, the rest of the Parivar was quick to react with indignation. Praveen Togadia of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), the man associated with the massacre of 2002 in Narendra Modi’s Gujarat, for example, screamed: “They have committed a sin by arresting a sadhvi. They will now face the backlash,” There was no immediate sign, however, of a backlash from the BJP.

The party was in the thick of a campaign for polls to six state Assemblies over two months, and these were seen as a dress rehearsal for the general election due next year. It had adopted anti-terrorism as an important part of its electoral platform. It had made no secret of the fact that it identified terrorism with Islamism. Its attempt, once again, was to cash in on cases of terrorism in order to give the majority community a minority complex and a sense of victimhood, and thus vitiate the pre-poll atmosphere in the hope of reaping a rich harvest of votes.

The talk of “Hindutva terror” did not exactly tally with the party’s chosen tactic. The party had sought to make a distinction between Islamic terror and the “hooligan violence” of Hindutva groups such as the VHP and the Bajrang Dal, which have gone on a virulent anti-Christian offensive in the states of Orissa, Karnataka and elsewhere. To equate the two, an eminent Parivar intellectual has seriously argued, would be to equate an AK-47 with a stick. And now, they were faced with a case of bombings with Hindutva groups as alleged culprits.

The BJP’s initial effort was to disown the sadhvi and dissociate itself from the case. It kept up the efforts even after reports recalling the sadhvi’s past as a leader of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, popularly recognised as the party’s student wing. The BJP continued to do so, even after publication of a photograph of her at a function along with Shivraj Singh Chauhan, chief minister of Madhya Pradesh (her base) and stories about her as a familiar figure in the state’s party circles. Even taunts from another sadhvi, expelled BJP leader Uma Bharati, failed to move the party.

Pundits then saw this as the sign of yet another power struggle in the Parivar. They had a point. Even Modi has been subjected to more than mere pinpricks from the VHP and Togadia in his own fiefdom. The “family” quarrel, however, seems to have been sorted out and the Far Right has firmly closed its ranks.

Advani’s excuse for the shift is the court affidavit filed by the sadhvi, alleging torture during interrogation. Agencies like the ATS are, of course, not widely seen as sticklers for impeccable propriety in their means and methods of investigation. It is also true that the agency itself has admitted subjecting the sadhvi to a narco-analysis, not seen as either enlightened or even efficient.

All the same, onlookers can only be amused at the sight of Advani and others working themselves up into a white heat over violations of human rights, especially where the issue of terrorism is involved. They have even opposed consideration of a petition from Afzal Guru, convicted in the parliament attack case, for a presidential commutation of death sentence as permitted under the constitution. The BJP has demanded action against the authorities of the Jamia University for offering legal assistance to students charged with terrorism. The party has defended “encounter killings” in Gujarat and of course, the pogrom that Modi presided over.

There is hardly any dearth of proof of the BJP’s patriotic campaign against human rights. These rights, according to it, must be sacrificed by the state and the society at the alter of anti-terrorism.

The campaign has now been carried significantly forward. BJP president Rajnath Singh has not fought shy of coming out with the formulation that “Hindus cannot be terrorists”. The other party luminaries have also begun to endorse and echo Togadia about “a backlash” — especially in the electoral battles head.

Tarun Vijay, a veteran Parivar propagandist with a column in a leading national daily puts it trenchantly: “Not a single Hindu will ever condone terrorism. It’s not in our genes. Our blood group in this matter is different.” He adds: “The way Pragnya has suddenly become a hero must make sane people sit up and take note of the wave passing through the Hindu heartland. Tsunamis don’t send advance emails before they strike.”

No, they don’t. But the BJP has given India an advance notice of the unprecedented tactic it is going to try. In no other election has it depended on so brazen a display of communal double standards. When it took electoral advantage of the Ayodhya issue, it did so with its refrain on righting an alleged historical wrong. It has invoked “cultural nationalism” whenever it has sought to make similar use of communal strife.

The party, however, is ready to reveal its true face on terrorism. If Advani persists with his stand, he will present the Indian voters an opportunity to pronounce their verdict on the unvarnished ideology and message of the Parivar.

The writer is a journalist based in Chennai, India. A peace activist, he is also the author of a sheaf of poems titled At Gunpoint

 

[RabzonKhan]

The Ban on Pakistani Writers by Bombay’s Rightwing Has Dangerous Ramifications

by Neel Mukherjee, 7 January 2009

The Guardian (UK)

As a response to the Mumbai terror attacks, this smacks of hysteria and has disturbing ramifications in the longer term.

If fresh evidence were needed that books and writers are one of the greatest threats to bigotry, especially during times that are malleable enough to be twisted to serve their agenda of hysteria and fear, Mumbai provides an eloquently senseless example. Hard on the heels of the terror attacks in the city and the resultant "ban" declared on Pakistani artists and their works by Raj Thackeray, leader of the rightwing Hindu party, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), the Oxford bookstore in Churchgate in Mumbai has been asked to remove all books written by Pakistani authors from its shelves on the "friendly advice" of the police.

Is it possible to determine the "friendliness" of the advice? In the store manager’s words, "A policeman from the Marine Drive police station dropped in at our store and told us to be careful about a possible attack. He advised us to remove books and CDs related to Pakistan, as we may be targeted after the recent terror strikes. He reminded us of Thackeray’s ban." How diligent of the Mumbai police to be so proactive in protecting from possible vigilante attacks: the policeman in question denied having advised the bookstore against stocking Pakistani literature. He had dropped in to "check that everything was all right".

One wonders if this dutiful "dropping in" has anything to do with the MNS employee at the same store who warned his manager not to display Pakistani books. In righteous anger, the staff member explained to the Times of India, "After the recent attack on Mumbai, why should we have any Pakistani material in our bookstore?" Unlike the collusive and internalised censorship that saw french fries renamed "freedom" fries after 9/11, this is a more straightforward case of petty terrorising by apparatchiks. Let us not forget that these are the very people who attack Clinton Cards outlets just before Valentine’s Day every year for selling corrupting tokens of foreign cultures. The mirage of purity remains, as ever, the holy grail of the right.

But there are more disturbing ramifications to be reckoned with before we dismiss this as cultural illiteracy, anti-democratic intolerance of all kinds of pluralities, or rightwing "patriotism" (that massive holdall, which accommodates some of the greatest criminalities in history). It is all those things, but also something more. Like those who had never read a single word written by Salman Rushdie but bayed for his blood on the publication of The Satanic Verses and after his knighthood, these censors are terrorists in the purest sense of the term: playing at the politics of fear by manufacturing a terrifying Other to intimidate and to disseminate lies. By what crazy logic would one seek to have, say, Philip Roth or Joan Didion removed from bookstores if one finds the existence of Guantánamo Bay intolerable? And what do the MNS suggest we do with one of the greatest Urdu writers of the last century, Saadat Hasan Manto, who was born in undivided India in 1912 and only spent the last seven years of his life, from 1948-55, in the new country of Pakistan? Is he "Pakistani material"?

The Pakistani writers the MNS want to banish from bookshops would have been the first not only to condemn but also to understand, expose and analyse the intractable history of such acts. Now, more than ever, we should be rushing out and dedicating entire shelves and tables in bookstores to Pakistani writers. A culture that bans books, especially on the grounds of such dangerous nationalism, is a culture on the brink of self-destruction.

 

[RabzonKhan]

Mixing politics with religion

By Kuldip Nayar
Friday, 03 Apr, 2009

IT is rare that a minister involved in communal riots is arrested. But the Gujarat High Court has made this possible by cancelling the anticipatory bail given by a lower court to Maya Kodnani.

A member of the Narendra Modi cabinet, Kodnani had abetted and participated in the 2002 Gujarat carnage. She escaped justice for seven years. The Supreme Court sent its own investigation team to uncover instances of the murder of Muslims which had not come to light. Many more killings have yet to come to light.

Giving its observations on the Kodnani case, the high court said that “communal harmony is the hallmark of democracy. If in the name of religion people are killed, that is absolutely a slur and a blot on a society governed by the rule of law.” These words are lost on the Gujarat government. But they express the determination of a nation which has been trying to establish a pluralistic country since independence. Needless to say, the minorities will certainly take heart from the judgment.

Many Muslims in Gujarat have said they feel they may get justice. They now speak out, which is something they had not done out of fear. The high court judgment has once again proved that the din of the communalists, however loud, cannot drown secular voices. Yet the party has found a person who has no hesitation in making hate speeches or polarising society in Varun Gandhi who is Jawaharlal Nehru’s great grandson and Maneka Gandhi’s, the widow of Sanjay Gandhi, son. Domestic quarrels had made Indira Gandhi turn Maneka, whose husband Sanjay had literally run the government during the 1977–1979 emergency, out of the house. He too had an anti-Muslim streak. He bulldozed the Turkman Gate habitation in Delhi and forcibly transferred the entire Muslim population outside.

Varun Gandhi has said — and it is recorded — “Yeh panja nahi hai, yeh kamal ka haath hai. Yeh kat ... ke galey ko kaat dega chunaav ke baad…Varun Gandhi kaat daalega!” (This is not the [Congress] ‘hand’ this is the hand of the ‘lotus’. It will cut the throat of the (a derogatory reference to Muslims) after the elections…Varun Gandhi will cut it….) “Barey daraawne naam hotey hain inke.... Agar raat ko kabhi dikh jaayen to darr rahen hain…” (These people have such scary names…. If you ever see them at night, you’d be scared….)

Varun Gandhi, a BJP Lok Sabha candidate from UP, was first on the defensive, saying that he never uttered the words attributed to him and that the CD was doctored. The election commission asked the state government to take notice of his objectionable speeches. Fearing arrest, he first applied for anticipatory bail, but then the RSS parivar reportedly told him that he should offer to be arrested because prison would give him the halo of martyrdom and he withdrew the bail application. But the BJP and its extremist formation, the Bajrang Dal, used his appearance before the court to wage a pitched battle against the police. In the process they got uninterrupted live coverage on TV networks — something the saffron brigade and Varun wanted.

On the other hand, Maneka Gandhi made political capital out of the criticism voiced against Varun, claiming that it was a conspiracy of Congress and UP Chief Minister Mayawati. Then Mayawati ended the drama by detaining him under the National Security Act (NSA) which does not provide for a trial but an assessment by a screening committee, headed by a high court judge, for the extension of detention.

It can be argued that the NSA should not be utilised for matters relating to elections. The executive that invokes the NSA can be motivated by political considerations. At the same time, there is something in the plea that the speakers who try to destroy the very fabric of the country cannot be allowed to spread venom. The BJP feels that it is too severe a punishment for an instance of indiscretion. But should those who try to challenge the basic structure of the constitution — pluralism — get away with a court case which is bound to stretch on for months?

The BJP does not own what Varun has said because his utterance has spread a sense of horror across the country. People do not want to be classified as Hindus and Muslims. The BJP seems to realise this. At the same time, the party sees in Varun a younger Narendra Modi who plugs the Hindutva line with the same gusto and conviction. BJP leader L.K. Advani has said from the election rostrum that he wants his party candidates to show restraint in their speeches. Yet the BJP is projecting Varun as a hero even though he is hitting at the country’s unity. Advani’s ally, Shiv Sena leader Bal Thackeray from Maharashtra, writes in his paper Samana that he has “at last found a Hindu (Varun) speaking as a Hindu.”

The dilemma that the BJP faces is that it does not want to dilute its basic agenda, a Hindu nation, but finds itself pitted against the country which has grown secular in temperament. The party found to its horror after the last Lok Sabha elections that Congress, with its pluralistic credentials, won. Another consideration before the BJP is that it would have to find allies from within the contesting secular parties to reach the magic figure of 272 in the 545-member Lok Sabha. The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) it leads has already lost the Telugu Desam in Andhra Pradesh and the formidable Biju Janata Dal in Orissa. The Janata Dal (United) which is the BJP’s ally in Bihar, both in the government and at the election front, is a doubtful ally because it has declared that it would want all secular forces to join hands after the polls.

Yet the BJP has stuck to its basic philosophy of Hindutva. It should have learnt a lesson from Pakistan. Many believers in an Islamic state got radicalised through madressahs and other places where fundamentalism was doled out. Ultimately, they came to support the idea of a theocratic state and began to indulge in terrorism to establish one. What happened in Lahore recently is an example of what has taken place in different parts of Pakistan, to the bewilderment of its people.

Politics and religion cannot mix in a democratic state. The founder of Pakistan, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, enunciated this principle. Mahatma Gandhi sacrificed his life while upholding the same truth. It is another matter that neither the Taliban in Pakistan, nor the BJP in India have learnt any lessons. Theocracy blinds both.

The writer is a leading journalist based in Delhi.

 

[RabzonKhan]

In the absence of artistic freedom

The New Sunday Express First Published : 01 Aug 2009 12:10:00 AM ISTLast Updated : 02 Aug 2009 09:13:39 AM IST

The absence of M F Husain’s paintings in a forthcoming arts exhibition in Delhi will not surprise anyone. No organiser would like to put up a show that would almost certainly be the target of attack by vandals. The solution could lie in arranging for the posting of a large police contingent. But, again, no organiser would like to turn the exhibition site into a fortress if only because it might put off some visitors. In any event, nothing can be farther apart than art and the strong arm of the state. What is worse, even the presence of armed policemen may not deter at least a few ruffians to sneak in posing as spectators and then attack Husain’s handiwork.


It was probably unavoidable, therefore, for the masters of the show to play safe. But what their capitulation to the threat of anti-socials implies is that the politically-inspired spirit of intolerance continues to be alive and well. The Hindutva brigade may have suffered an electoral setback, but its followers continue to pose a danger to any kind of art or artists of whom they do not approve. In the social sphere, therefore, they continue to hold the whip over a painter or writer or filmmaker who may transgress their perception of what is permissible.

But while the thuggish behaviour of these political activists is understandable, what is curious is the supine response of even those governments that claim to be secular and liberal-minded. The very fact that Husain is unable to return to his home country is in itself an indictment of the government at the Centre for its inability to offer him protection. As the Delhi High Court has said, “a painter at 90 deserves to be in his home, painting his canvas”. But if this criticism has had no impact on the powers-that-be, the reason apparently is that they consider it prudent not to let their political opponents exploit a controversial issue over which there is probably no unanimity of views even in the secular camp.

The high court may have observed that “a painter has his own perspective of looking at things” and that “it would not be proper to hold that he (Husain) had a deliberate intention to manifestly insult Bharat Mata” in his one of his paintings. But to the government, the option of retreat is clearly preferable to upholding artistic freedom.

 

[RabzonKhan]

The murder of values

By Kuldip Nayar | Published: August 4, 2009

I thought the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) must have learnt a lesson after its defeat in the Lok Sabha election. But it seems determined to have no importance in the country. Otherwise, I cannot make out why the party's Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan has welcomed the acquittal of six accused in the murder case of Professor H S Sabharwal at Ujjain nearly three years ago? All the accused are Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) activists. This is the students' wing of the BJP, known for its unruly behaviour.

The party is going downhill because the people are increasingly feeling that it cannot protect the rule of law. Whether it is the murder of Sabharwal, the carnage in Gujarat or the demolition of the Babri Masjid, the BJP is seen as defending the crime. India, however backward economically, is in the forefront of nations which jealously defend democracy and the rule of law. The constitution guarantees equality for all and forbids dictatorial and oppressive ways.

The RSS, which claims to be the custodian of the society's moral standards, looks the other way when its BJP's followers commit murders in broad daylight. It happened in Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh seems to be following its footprints. Is this Hindutva? The Sang Parivar has given such a bad name to the Hindus that it will take the community many generations to efface the stigma. The country saw on television how the ABVP activists killed Sabharwal when he did not toe the line on students' union elections. His ribs were broken and his chest had many wounds.

The judge has said in his verdict that the accused might be guilty but he could not convict them because of lack of evidence. He accused the police of "hiding something." There was a sustained effort to destroy proof, the judge remarked. This is exactly on the lines of the Gujarat killings on a small scale.