The confession of Swami Aseemanand, a significant and apparently influential member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, or RSS, a Hindu extremist Indian based group, has been instrumental in exposing and stripping the Indian nationalism of its grotesque yet truly fascist ideology. That ideology had hitherto been concealed through a celebrated liberal front.
The Swami openly admitted to have carried out acts of terror himself and has also exposed many Hindutva leaders. According to him, it was not Muslim boys, but an entire team of RSS pracharaks, who exploded bombs in Malegaon, on the Samjhauta Express, Ajmer Sharif and Mecca Masjid.
The horrid episode of Samjhauta Express blast where 68 innocent Pakistani travellers lost their lives just due to the fact that it was basically Pakistanis, who travel on the Samjhauta Express train that runs between India and Pakistan. That it led them to commit such a heinous crime, perfectly exhibits the basic Indian desire to crush and destroy all that symbolises Pakistan. After 64 years, the trauma of partition cannot be deemed plausible for such intense hatred. These sentiments have to be carefully nurtured to warrant such extreme reaction.
However, the fact that these fact expose is the gravity of threat that emanates from our eastern borders, which is predominantly Pakistan centric, as the main target of these Hindutva terrorists is only Pakistan, unlike the groups based here. The local groups have limited reach, operating within the confines of the national boundary. Coupled with the Pakistan centric Indian security policy i.e. Cold Start, it provides all the more reason to us to increase our vigil on the eastern border, instead of launching yet another venture in North Waziristan.
In an interview with The Hindustan Times, Digvijay Singh of the Congress has confirmed that this Hindutva terror poses a bigger threat than the jihadi variety. He said: I have blamed the RSS for being involved in terror. I have got proof to say that. I have said that they were behind the Anna Hazare and Baba Ramdev agitation because I have letters from Sanghi functionaries supporting these movements. When I say something about the RSS, I speak with authority and on evidence.
Indeed, Swamis confession gives a severe blow to the Indians and seriously questions the popular international rhetoric built upon the framework of Islamic extremism, and the assumption that only Pakistan is serving as a hotbed for breeding terror in the region.
When compared with Islamic terrorism, the scale is the same in Hindu terrorism. Malegaon 1 and 2, Modasa, Hyderabad Mecca Masjid, Ajmer Sharif dargah, Samjhauta Express have been proven to be acts of fundamentalist Hindus. In Nanded, Parvani, Jalna, Mhow in Indore, Nimach, Bhopal, the blasts and attempts were carried out by these people.
In fact, from 2000 to 2011, there have been more bomb blasts by Hindu fundamentalists than Muslim fundamentalists.
The Indian authorities have been deliberately overlooking and concealing the activities of the Hindu radical groups operating in India, which are involved in targeting Muslim and Christian minorities as well as undertaking ventures of terrorism in both India and Pakistan. The revelation of the Hindutva involvement in all attacks carried out from 2006-2008 has been a real curtain raiser for all the backstage Indian drama going on. The blame for all this has hitherto been shouldered by groups and organisations in Pakistan.
The Sanghi terror has spread like the proverbial wildfire all across the country with a majority of its victims being the Muslims of India. Forming a strong network of like minded people, the RSS has successfully penetrated every institution, including the police, the media and even the Indian armed forces. All the Muslim suspects caught by the police soon after these incidents continue to languish in jails awaiting trial. Despite being aware of the reality, the Indian police and courts have done nothing due to the presence of the Sangh supporters strewn all over the place.
Lieutenant Colonel Shrikant Prasad Purohit, a serving India army official along with Colonel Hasmukh Patel and other senior officers have been found colluding with the RSS. Colonel Purohit has been held by the Indian police and is being interrogated for his involvement in the Malegoan and Samjhauta Express blasts. This further confirms the fact that the Indian army also harbours religious extremists and terrorists among its officers cadres. More so, the RSS is being termed as an extension of the Indian army with a Pakistan centric agenda of attributing every terror incident occurring in India to religious organisations in Pakistan. Their agenda is to target Muslims.
All Muslim organisations of India are now protesting unanimously against the stark discriminatory attacks on them from all directions. A large-scale campaign has been run in which Muslims are being misrepresented as terrorists.
The statement of an Indian official exemplifies the fact, when he claimed: Every Muslims is not a terrorist, but every terrorist is a Muslim. After the exposition of the bitter truth by none other than the reverend Swami, it can be easily claimed that all terrorists - in India - are terrorists.
Kapil Komireddi, an Indian journalist, asserts that the Indian establishment should have unearthed the Hindu extremists, who were targeting Muslim areas instead of the reflexive reaction of the police that was to round up young Muslim men, torture them, force confessions and declare the cases solved. Despite the knowledge of criminal activities, the Hindu radical outfit RSS remains open for business - even though it campaigns, very openly, for a Hindu state in India, and its members incite and perpetrate violence against Muslim and Christian minorities.
Komireddi also stresses that the assassins of Mahatma Gandhi were members of the RSS; thus they pose a great threat to the security situation in South Asia. Rahul Gandhi, too, had shown serious reservations declaring the Hindu extremist groups as the real threat to Indian security, while brushing aside the issue of Lashkar-e-Taibas, or LeTs, involvement as inconsequential in the bigger picture. He also, asserted that these Hindu groups create religious terrorism and political confrontation with the Muslim community, thus fuelling the feud that led to a subsequent labelling of Muslims as intolerant extremists.
The Hindu terrorism, or famously known as Sanghi terrorism, needs to be highlighted to the world, which would take this war on terror, or WOT, to another dimension, where India should also play a role in curbing extremism in its territory. Any future incident should now be viewed through the prism of Hindutva terrorism, which is far more fatal and detrimental to peace in South Asia.
. And I say this as a minority myself.
