Mumbai and Malegaon have many things in common. Bomb blasts and communal riots make them almost unique in India. There is so much of violence and tension that the people genuinely wonder how to overcome it after the initial daze and fury of it are over.
The passengers who survived the attacks at the CST railway station as well as the widower manager of the Taj are at a loss to understand how swiftly they have been bereaved. Kavita Karkare’s anguish boils down to logic of her academic pursuit of a PhD degree in sociology which would help her search for the sociology of crime and suffering. The heart may not agree with the mind in her for sometimes to come. But this is at least a solace.
On the other spectrum of the same are the victims of frequent bouts of violence in Malegaon who try to grapple with communal violence and blasts. They have what is called hilarious imitation of the Bollywood films, the spoofs. Such imitation films in the town are simply overwhelmingly popular. They not only caricature the politicians, the communalists but also the officers involved in violence.
Says the pioneering film maker Shaikh Nasir: "There is no other entertainment in our town. We are mad about movies. After 14 hours of backbreaking work in power looms daily, the workers want to wear wings and fly. My parodies help them escape." One such film is a burlesque of Sholay and is dubbed Malegaon ke Sholay. The famous heroine Basanti rides a tonga and her paramour rides a bicycle. Malegaon spoof producers cannot hire horses as that is very costly, they prefer bicycles which are easy to come by. Heroes and villains alike ride the bike because that also is the mode of their own transportation to the site of the shooting and back. The bike may make many laugh at the cheap make-do-with imitation of the costly cars that Bollywood actors drive. But that also is a way to overcome the angst surrounding the bicycles which carried the bombs that killed 37 people in a grave yard mosque and a public square on September 8 2006 or the motorbike of Sadhvi Pragyasingh Thakur’s which killed seven in Bhiku chowk on September 29 2008. Most of the people are so poor that they never think how they have been deprived of a city public bus service that should have been given to the town because of the sheer size of population. Encroachment is so obtrusive that even if the bus service is sanctioned the drivers would go crazy how to pick their routes through the intractable meandering maze of the town.
That was what the parents of the bomb blast victim complained to Sonia Gandhi and the home minister of India: lack of infrastructure and absence of public facilities. Rupees one hundred and sixty seven crores allotted to the state for Minorities Development Department have remained unused till the end of 2008. As a result the roads are crowded and impassable what with potholes and encroachments. A frequent source of communal tension is cyclist bumping into a pedestrian from the other community. Temperature is so frayed that it leads to outright brawl. Let alone buses in Sankli streets of Madanpura of Mumbai or Mohammad Ali road of Malegaon even a two wheeler is difficult to negotiate through the thick slow moving casual crowd. Unlike Kavita anyone doing a PhD will have to forego his philosophical bent of mind to first overcome the traffic hurdle.
The dingy lane now named as Shaheed Hemant Karkare street is simply impassable for a pedestrian during the festival days as it is impossible for straight riding for even cycle on other days. Sadhvi Pragyasingh was naturally wondering why so few were felled by the bomb her Ramji had planted.
Mukkaram Pasha’s dare deviltry in wheeling riding or drag riding proved fatal in Bangalore. He raised the front wheel and rode on the rear that made the police whistle and then chase. He allegedly entered a brigadier’s residence and climbed up on the terrace. The sentry shot him for what he told afterward that the boy was speaking in Urdu and he thought him to be a terrorist. As other such violent cases the bullet passed through
his heart. Even then he climbed over the fence wall and escaped to die in hospital later. The most mentionable feature is the fear of the police what would they do when they catch a victim that too from the minority community. Equally notable is the language in which he spoke. It is strange that Urdu the most mellifluent language in the subcontinent should produce such misfortune in violence.
The Mumbai attacks of November 26 had shifted the focus of attention of the world from the worst scenario in the Middle East. But the Israelis attack on Gaza has again moved the attention back to where it usually has been for decades. But this time the death toll of Palestinians has gone to nearly 400 for 4 Israelis killed.
There is a notable difference between India and the rest of the world including the Middle East in terms of the nature of violence. The suicide bomber has still not arrived here. For example a suicide bomber blew himself up in Afghanistan on December 28, 2008 at a place where American soldiers were present but among the eight killed there were five school children. On the same day another suicide bomber blew himself up as he rode his bicycle in a protest march in Mosul, Iraq, against the Israeli attack on Gaza. In the most pictorial and moving demonstration of violence a car driver pretending that his car broke down in Buner around the Swat valley, Pakistan. He asked the people gathered at the polling station to help. As they pushed the car the driver blew himself up killing 26 others. Also on the same day a Tamil suicide bomber killed seven Sinhalese.
Among the reasons why violence is very horrifying are disastrously powerful weapons and destructive designing of the mind. Kavita Karkare wonders whether there was any action plan in place as were the helmets and bullet proof vests so tawdry in quality. Her basic question is who made her a widow. The Israelis as also Kasab and company use far superior weaponry, freely given by the US to the former and sourced internationally by the latter. The Qassim rockets and mortars of the Palestinians are improvised by themselves thanks to the long neglect of their plight by the world.
Revenge, hate, and retaliation are balanced by the failure of the civilized society and its organizations including the governments and the UNO which are accountable for the slide into barbarism. In the Buner car incident Pakistan says it has moved its soldiers from Swat valley to the borders with India in the aftermath of the Mumbai attacks and cannot hold elections peacefully. The UN has miserably failed to control Israeli aggression and hence the rise in violence. Indeed the remedy of both the eyes for one and the whole jaw for a tooth is not only worse than the disease but whining of an insane bigot.
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Friday, December 26, 2008
Terrorism-plus-something politics
Though the newly appointed home minister P.Chidambarum has laid to rest any doubt anybody, let alone AR Antulay, might have had regarding the killing of ATS chief Hemant Karkare, there are still some loose ends that need to be tied. One is the minister’s conception of “terrorism-plus-something politics.” Can anyone claim honestly that our fight against terrorism is qua fighting terror and terror alone? If people impute oil as motive for the US fighting terror in Iraq, or hunting the big gun Saddam Hussein was supposed to be making, his so called WMD, or hunting down al Qaeda that was not there and fool the world for so long, can the questioning spirit be atrophied in the name of the national consensus?
There is need to acknowledge Antulay for a seminal contribution to Indian politics: his coinage of the epithet “terrorism plus something”. For that has been the case of the quintessence of politics in the country since the ascendancy of BJP. That is more or less true of the US since the ascendancy of George W Bush as BJP emulated the Americans par excellent. In the so-called war on terror we follow the US.
Better to quote him. On December 17 barrister Antulay had told: “Karkare was a very bold officer. I know his acumen was great. He had vision and was prepare[sic] to lay down life for country[sic] at any time. Now how come instead of going to the Taj (Hotel) or the Oberoi (Hotel) he went to such a place where there was nothing? He was also making an independent investigation.. (in which) he found that there were non-Muslims who were terrorists. Whether he was just a victim of terror or something (else), I don’t know. I knew him personally; I salute him.” Later in the Parliament he made a nuance in words but not in substance: "Who had sent them to Cama Hospital (where terrorists struck). What were they told that made them leave for the same spot in the same vehicle. I repeat what I had said. I had not said who had killed them but only questioned who had sent them there (Cama Hospital) in that direction," He also made a subtle hint when he qualified himself about the slain as to who had "sent them in the wrong direction."
The last clause is the most crucial instead the unnecessary focus on the faith of either the minister or the accused in Malegaon blast case. Antulay says that anyone familiar with the locality of south Mumbai would wonder at it. His statement would imply that Cama hospital and the streets around are deserted even on ordinary nights let alone at such a terrific time as the attacks of November 26. (Antulay like Salman Rushdie would like to believe that the tragedy overtook Bombay and not Mumbai, VT and not CST, locale that the two should be quite familiar with atavistically).
A leading newspaper described him “Gone rogue” and came out with a column called Geography challenges Antulay theory. Kasab and the other terrorist were fleeing from the CST and came across the car and shot the officers dead or as another version would have it, the two terrorists were hiding behind a hedge plant too skimpy to hide. Anyway they killed the policemen. But of all the people the wife of the slain officer Karkare raised doubts about the direction her husband was sent and what for since he was investigating officer and not in charge of direct action. Somebody else must have been handling the overall fighting against the terrorists that was taking place. A part of why the minister raised doubt must be this misgiving of the widow.
The other part was that on Tuesday December 16 the new anti terrorism laws were introduced in the parliament and the minister was seized of cases of how many innocent people were languishing in prisons across the country against whom no evidence was found even after months or years of imprisonment. Many of them incidentally happen to be Muslims. Another aspect is the extent of terror. Communal riots are also acts of terrorism and hence those who perpetrate them must be described terrorists and must come under the purview of the new laws. Though this might not have been discussed and codified into the new laws but the truth is undeniable. Insurgency, militancy and left wing extremism are not the whole gamut of terrorism. Finding no headway to make the legislators heed all these Antulay might have been frustrated with a portfolio that cannot function materially in a field which is its central concern. Therefore those who do not take the full import of all these can also be playing terrorism-plus-something politics. And so the need to keep the questioning spirit alive.
Fight terrorism we must. But it needs to be fought on all fronts. Those who are made to waste the youths in jails even when their guilt is far from proved are also victims of terrorism. Khwaja Yunus’s brutal murder at the hands of the police calls for restitution, for justice. The most vocal in fighting terrorism are also ready to give ticket to Sachin Vaze to fight election on their party ticket. Unfortunately there is no way to give ticket to the dead to fight election from their grave but Sadhvi Pragyasingh Thakur behind the bars has been offered ticket from a right wing party. We seem to be fighting all kinds of terror with all kinds of weapons, even extrajudicial murder! If anything the questioning spirit would help the people to know what constitutionally sanctioned and justified ways of fighting terror are. Once that becomes our habit terrorism would cease to exist.
There is need to acknowledge Antulay for a seminal contribution to Indian politics: his coinage of the epithet “terrorism plus something”. For that has been the case of the quintessence of politics in the country since the ascendancy of BJP. That is more or less true of the US since the ascendancy of George W Bush as BJP emulated the Americans par excellent. In the so-called war on terror we follow the US.
Better to quote him. On December 17 barrister Antulay had told: “Karkare was a very bold officer. I know his acumen was great. He had vision and was prepare[sic] to lay down life for country[sic] at any time. Now how come instead of going to the Taj (Hotel) or the Oberoi (Hotel) he went to such a place where there was nothing? He was also making an independent investigation.. (in which) he found that there were non-Muslims who were terrorists. Whether he was just a victim of terror or something (else), I don’t know. I knew him personally; I salute him.” Later in the Parliament he made a nuance in words but not in substance: "Who had sent them to Cama Hospital (where terrorists struck). What were they told that made them leave for the same spot in the same vehicle. I repeat what I had said. I had not said who had killed them but only questioned who had sent them there (Cama Hospital) in that direction," He also made a subtle hint when he qualified himself about the slain as to who had "sent them in the wrong direction."
The last clause is the most crucial instead the unnecessary focus on the faith of either the minister or the accused in Malegaon blast case. Antulay says that anyone familiar with the locality of south Mumbai would wonder at it. His statement would imply that Cama hospital and the streets around are deserted even on ordinary nights let alone at such a terrific time as the attacks of November 26. (Antulay like Salman Rushdie would like to believe that the tragedy overtook Bombay and not Mumbai, VT and not CST, locale that the two should be quite familiar with atavistically).
A leading newspaper described him “Gone rogue” and came out with a column called Geography challenges Antulay theory. Kasab and the other terrorist were fleeing from the CST and came across the car and shot the officers dead or as another version would have it, the two terrorists were hiding behind a hedge plant too skimpy to hide. Anyway they killed the policemen. But of all the people the wife of the slain officer Karkare raised doubts about the direction her husband was sent and what for since he was investigating officer and not in charge of direct action. Somebody else must have been handling the overall fighting against the terrorists that was taking place. A part of why the minister raised doubt must be this misgiving of the widow.
The other part was that on Tuesday December 16 the new anti terrorism laws were introduced in the parliament and the minister was seized of cases of how many innocent people were languishing in prisons across the country against whom no evidence was found even after months or years of imprisonment. Many of them incidentally happen to be Muslims. Another aspect is the extent of terror. Communal riots are also acts of terrorism and hence those who perpetrate them must be described terrorists and must come under the purview of the new laws. Though this might not have been discussed and codified into the new laws but the truth is undeniable. Insurgency, militancy and left wing extremism are not the whole gamut of terrorism. Finding no headway to make the legislators heed all these Antulay might have been frustrated with a portfolio that cannot function materially in a field which is its central concern. Therefore those who do not take the full import of all these can also be playing terrorism-plus-something politics. And so the need to keep the questioning spirit alive.
Fight terrorism we must. But it needs to be fought on all fronts. Those who are made to waste the youths in jails even when their guilt is far from proved are also victims of terrorism. Khwaja Yunus’s brutal murder at the hands of the police calls for restitution, for justice. The most vocal in fighting terrorism are also ready to give ticket to Sachin Vaze to fight election on their party ticket. Unfortunately there is no way to give ticket to the dead to fight election from their grave but Sadhvi Pragyasingh Thakur behind the bars has been offered ticket from a right wing party. We seem to be fighting all kinds of terror with all kinds of weapons, even extrajudicial murder! If anything the questioning spirit would help the people to know what constitutionally sanctioned and justified ways of fighting terror are. Once that becomes our habit terrorism would cease to exist.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
War hysteria and outrages
There is nothing new in the saber rattling in the aftermath of the Mumbai attacks. Indian jets straying into Pakistani space on December 13,2008 is the latest jejune trick of real politicks. To say so is not to diminish the enormity of the attacks in Mumbai but rather to highlight it.
The so-called ‘stateless actors’ who attacked the metropolis were dubious in character. If they were jihadists they were also drinking alcohol. If they were Muslims they were also killing innocent people and prominently passengers, women and children and smirking at their crimes. If they were Pakistanis they were also endangering their country into a retaliation that would be catastrophic to them, to say the least. If they were after an imaginary Islam that is based on sharias alone, India was not the place for it let alone an ideal place.
However, their evil deeds have unleashed a pent up hysteria for war. Some people in India have mistakenly believed that war could solve the problem of terror. Israel has fought more terrific wars with its Arab neighbours. But each war has spawned more terror. The doppelganger of Hezbollah is nothing but the product of war, the Israelis rue the day it was born. Who fathered LTTE after Singhalese terror of the yore?
Our neighbour is desperately trying to survive its own misdeeds of mixing religion and politics and playing second fiddle to the West. We are surely falling into the same pitfall. The shoe thrower journalist at President George Bush’s press meeting was also a warning us, as enormous amount of writing against the unjust war had not been heeded for so long. In no way is Pakistan going to benefit from the Mumbai attacks or any war.
But those who cry from the top of the roof of their house for war must reckon with the lumpen network of gangsters and cohorts of politicians. There is a thriving thralldom where rickshaw pullers and shopkeepers have to pay through their nose to the local muscleman or gangster regular hafta or extortion which ultimately reaches the pockets of the political bosses or the cops. They must also see how Madina Pathan of Gujarat is retracting. In the aftermath of the Gujarat genocide she had identified the accused who had raped her and burnt alive her family. But now she is recanting. She is saying that no one raped her and burnt her family. Considering the incidents of shocking violence and cruelty in Mumbai we are outraged. How is it that we fail to be outraged when we see victims of another outrage retract their accounts of those who perpetrated the worst acts of terror on them in full view of the public who till that morning were their neighbours and fellow citizens? Why is this gross violation of morality and decency not an outrage to us? Maqsood Mian Patan had seen senior police officer KK Mysorewala taking a black suitcase from Naroda corporator Vallabh Patel and Ashok Saheb and leaving the Muslims to be slaughtered in their hundreds in Naroda Patia and not arresting even when there was order of the commissioner to shoot Babu Bajrangi on sight. Maqsood is now turning hostile and is saying that these things did not happen. These cases have gone to the Supreme Court. Incidentally the same Mysorewala is in charge of Modasa that along with Malegaon suffered terrorist attack of September 29, 2008. Will he again prefer money to duty?
Why is one outrage prompting us to war on a neighbour country and another outrage not even making us give a rap on the knuckles of the rapists and murderers?
The Sadhvi accused in Malegaon blast and the Kasab accused in Mumbai attacks are perverted individual persons and their collective occupational nouns neither can whittle down nor enhance their crimes; nor can their gender nouns. They are satanic forces personified. To save the Sadhvi and group Shiv Sena, Bajrang Dal and BJP would go to any extent, even to the extent of civil strife. Similarly to deny legal succor to the Kasab the same groups would go to vandalism and violation of the constitution of the land. These hawkish outfits of Mars would be the pioneering forces that threaten to wage war within and without even before the formal declaration of war.
There are two conflicting and contradictory current theses on possibility of war between India and Pakistan. Pakistan had once tried to lead India into a military confrontation over the terrorist attack on the Parliament in 2001 when India responded by Operation Parakaram. But now India has grown wiser and this old alibi for not tackling terror by the neighbour will not work. Hence India must take on Pakistan. This view is coloured by the weltanschauung or world view of Islam as terrorism as it views the Mumbai attack as “jihadi offensive against civilized nations and values.” (K Subramanyam). Diametrically opposite to this is the view that in a situation of war Pakistan will have to take its soldiers from the western borders, which are hotbeds of terrorism of the al Qaeda and the Taliban type and deploy them on the Indian borders. That would not solve the problem of terrorism(Ahmed Rashid). Those who subscribe to the first theory believe war as solution.
War begins in the minds of men. As Eugene O’Neill said of tragedy that we wear masques and our tragedy or misfortune begins when we evaluate ourselves through the eyes of others. Today we see through the western perspective, hence the corrective need to claim Mumbai attack as our tragedy (Arundhati Roy). Moreover terrorism is a technique (Zbigniew Brezesnki, a former national security advisor to the US president) and needs to be fought by a technique.
But this time around as of now India is keeping sanity and not rushing where angels fear to tread.
The so-called ‘stateless actors’ who attacked the metropolis were dubious in character. If they were jihadists they were also drinking alcohol. If they were Muslims they were also killing innocent people and prominently passengers, women and children and smirking at their crimes. If they were Pakistanis they were also endangering their country into a retaliation that would be catastrophic to them, to say the least. If they were after an imaginary Islam that is based on sharias alone, India was not the place for it let alone an ideal place.
However, their evil deeds have unleashed a pent up hysteria for war. Some people in India have mistakenly believed that war could solve the problem of terror. Israel has fought more terrific wars with its Arab neighbours. But each war has spawned more terror. The doppelganger of Hezbollah is nothing but the product of war, the Israelis rue the day it was born. Who fathered LTTE after Singhalese terror of the yore?
Our neighbour is desperately trying to survive its own misdeeds of mixing religion and politics and playing second fiddle to the West. We are surely falling into the same pitfall. The shoe thrower journalist at President George Bush’s press meeting was also a warning us, as enormous amount of writing against the unjust war had not been heeded for so long. In no way is Pakistan going to benefit from the Mumbai attacks or any war.
But those who cry from the top of the roof of their house for war must reckon with the lumpen network of gangsters and cohorts of politicians. There is a thriving thralldom where rickshaw pullers and shopkeepers have to pay through their nose to the local muscleman or gangster regular hafta or extortion which ultimately reaches the pockets of the political bosses or the cops. They must also see how Madina Pathan of Gujarat is retracting. In the aftermath of the Gujarat genocide she had identified the accused who had raped her and burnt alive her family. But now she is recanting. She is saying that no one raped her and burnt her family. Considering the incidents of shocking violence and cruelty in Mumbai we are outraged. How is it that we fail to be outraged when we see victims of another outrage retract their accounts of those who perpetrated the worst acts of terror on them in full view of the public who till that morning were their neighbours and fellow citizens? Why is this gross violation of morality and decency not an outrage to us? Maqsood Mian Patan had seen senior police officer KK Mysorewala taking a black suitcase from Naroda corporator Vallabh Patel and Ashok Saheb and leaving the Muslims to be slaughtered in their hundreds in Naroda Patia and not arresting even when there was order of the commissioner to shoot Babu Bajrangi on sight. Maqsood is now turning hostile and is saying that these things did not happen. These cases have gone to the Supreme Court. Incidentally the same Mysorewala is in charge of Modasa that along with Malegaon suffered terrorist attack of September 29, 2008. Will he again prefer money to duty?
Why is one outrage prompting us to war on a neighbour country and another outrage not even making us give a rap on the knuckles of the rapists and murderers?
The Sadhvi accused in Malegaon blast and the Kasab accused in Mumbai attacks are perverted individual persons and their collective occupational nouns neither can whittle down nor enhance their crimes; nor can their gender nouns. They are satanic forces personified. To save the Sadhvi and group Shiv Sena, Bajrang Dal and BJP would go to any extent, even to the extent of civil strife. Similarly to deny legal succor to the Kasab the same groups would go to vandalism and violation of the constitution of the land. These hawkish outfits of Mars would be the pioneering forces that threaten to wage war within and without even before the formal declaration of war.
There are two conflicting and contradictory current theses on possibility of war between India and Pakistan. Pakistan had once tried to lead India into a military confrontation over the terrorist attack on the Parliament in 2001 when India responded by Operation Parakaram. But now India has grown wiser and this old alibi for not tackling terror by the neighbour will not work. Hence India must take on Pakistan. This view is coloured by the weltanschauung or world view of Islam as terrorism as it views the Mumbai attack as “jihadi offensive against civilized nations and values.” (K Subramanyam). Diametrically opposite to this is the view that in a situation of war Pakistan will have to take its soldiers from the western borders, which are hotbeds of terrorism of the al Qaeda and the Taliban type and deploy them on the Indian borders. That would not solve the problem of terrorism(Ahmed Rashid). Those who subscribe to the first theory believe war as solution.
War begins in the minds of men. As Eugene O’Neill said of tragedy that we wear masques and our tragedy or misfortune begins when we evaluate ourselves through the eyes of others. Today we see through the western perspective, hence the corrective need to claim Mumbai attack as our tragedy (Arundhati Roy). Moreover terrorism is a technique (Zbigniew Brezesnki, a former national security advisor to the US president) and needs to be fought by a technique.
But this time around as of now India is keeping sanity and not rushing where angels fear to tread.
Monday, December 15, 2008
Terrorism and civil war
The glide from the startling exposure of the Hindutva extremists’ involvement in Malegaon blast to the Mumbai attacks in our consciousness has also registered a slide from terror to civil war scenario. What if we are inadvertently sucked into a civil war? No need to say that sensible people would never like to have a civil war in the country. But the situation may so develop where retaliatory strategies as adopted by Modi et la in Gujarat is applied to the rest of the country in varying degree.
There are two groups of people who speak of civil war. One is the paranoid, who see more devils around them than there are actually and who do not see within to discover the one they have. The other group is of the seriously concerned citizens who fear the well being of commonalty rather than their immediate community of believers or of interest. Rajnathsingh belongs to the first and Arundhati Roy to the second. The BJP president’s possibility of civil war is held out as an ominous threat and this acts as a ploy. The aim is greater political clout to carry out the long cherished Hindutva dream of a Hindu Rashtra. That of Roy is premonition, feeling of uneasiness as a warning of approaching danger, a cautionary signal to awaken others to the danger. The aim is to prevent disaster and avoid catastrophe.
These two subterranean parallel feelings are surfacing from time to time during the hype created by terrorist attacks in India, attacks in Pakistan are no matter of concern for us, nor for that matter the ones in Afghanistan. The ominous threat of civil war acquired a pitch when Sadhvi Pragyasingh Thackur, Lt Col Prasad Shrikant Purohit and Sudhakar Pandey had the police on their back. Their startling disclosure of hard-core Hinutva elements’ penchant for extremist design in terror threatened to let the cat out of the bag. The momentum of fighting terrorism was moving full steam against the Muslim society within the country as it was craftily choreographed to serve the political interest primarily of BJP and incidentally of the Congress. Then came the motor cycle of the Sadhvi which threatened to give away everything, including the secret of the attack on Samjhauta Express February 2007 that would belie all that that gone before.
Rajnathsingh had the confidence of having 52 lakh Bajrang Dal activists laced with military training and even armed and 45 thousand RSS units scattered in the length and breadth of the country. Such an awesome power would “awe and stun” the “enemy” within in this so-called war on terror that would otherwise be the civil war he has in mind. He has proven ability as chief minister and home minister of UP. He did not send intelligence report on the behaviour of the car sevaks of the Sabarmati Express as it passed through his state on February 26-27 2002. If he had warned the Gujarat intelligence department perhaps Godhra would not have happened. This is borne out by what ADGP Intelligence RB Sreekumar said later. The clamour for more stringent Pota according to this group is intended to perpetuating injustice exponentially. The People’s Tribunal on Pota consisting of Ram Jethmalani, Justice Suresh, Justice DK Basu, KG Kannabiran, 2004, found that [1] less than 2% conviction of people against whom the law was slammed [2] denial of bail, and [3] confession only as proof, played havoc with victims who were almost entirely Muslims. This prompted Roy to remark “anti terrorism laws are not meant for terrorists; they are for people that governments do not like.” It is a universal truth that BJP and the whole Sangh parivar hates the Muslims and other minorities.
Arundhati Roy, unlike the cussed politicians, is a creative writer and is more sensitive about the direction in which the wind is blowing. She says that denying justice to a whole segment of population is gross injustice and sure recipe of disaster that would pave the way for civil war. There are scores of people accused of crimes, including crimes against humanity, who are moving around freely with impunity. What their victims must be feeling about the justice system in the country! The most outstanding is Babu Patel alias Babu Bajrangi. According to his own confession freely given; he started the massacre of Muslims in Naroda Patiaon February 28, 2002. Along with his horde of 30 he collected 23 guns from fellow Hindus by force. If anyone refused they threatened to even kill him. But they could hardly need the guns to slaughter the Muslims as they herded them into a hollow ground at the point of their swords and trishuls. They burnt them using petrol they freely sourced from the government stock of the adjoining state bus depot. At 2.30 am next day an FIR was lodged against Bajrangi. Indeed so many he and his horde had killed that the commissioner issued order to shoot him on sight. His murderous crowd was made up of members of the Chhara tribal community who were instigated and prepared for such an eventuality by the RSS. Subsequently the police arrested Bajrangi and others. For more than six months VHP distributed money and ration to the families of the arrested accused Chharas and then they discontinued. VHP secretary Praveen Togadia had personally promised them help. Jaideep Patel of VHP was in contact with Bajrangi all the time when the massacre was taking place. Comparing the pogrom with Haldighat battle, Bajrangi said “we set them on fire and killed them.”
A criminal of this level of murder and mayhem had no other than the Chief minister of Gujarat Narendra Modi who sheltered him in Gujarat state guesthouse on Mount Abu against the laws he himself had sworn to uphold for the protection of the people of his state. The chief minister also got Justice Mehta to give bail to Bajrangi. Later he appointed Mehta to submit along with Justice Nanavati the Nanavati Commission report on Godhra. If injustice is repeatedly heaped upon people ad absurdum it may make them insensitive, like a surprise first blow, for sometimes but not for all the time.
There are two groups of people who speak of civil war. One is the paranoid, who see more devils around them than there are actually and who do not see within to discover the one they have. The other group is of the seriously concerned citizens who fear the well being of commonalty rather than their immediate community of believers or of interest. Rajnathsingh belongs to the first and Arundhati Roy to the second. The BJP president’s possibility of civil war is held out as an ominous threat and this acts as a ploy. The aim is greater political clout to carry out the long cherished Hindutva dream of a Hindu Rashtra. That of Roy is premonition, feeling of uneasiness as a warning of approaching danger, a cautionary signal to awaken others to the danger. The aim is to prevent disaster and avoid catastrophe.
These two subterranean parallel feelings are surfacing from time to time during the hype created by terrorist attacks in India, attacks in Pakistan are no matter of concern for us, nor for that matter the ones in Afghanistan. The ominous threat of civil war acquired a pitch when Sadhvi Pragyasingh Thackur, Lt Col Prasad Shrikant Purohit and Sudhakar Pandey had the police on their back. Their startling disclosure of hard-core Hinutva elements’ penchant for extremist design in terror threatened to let the cat out of the bag. The momentum of fighting terrorism was moving full steam against the Muslim society within the country as it was craftily choreographed to serve the political interest primarily of BJP and incidentally of the Congress. Then came the motor cycle of the Sadhvi which threatened to give away everything, including the secret of the attack on Samjhauta Express February 2007 that would belie all that that gone before.
Rajnathsingh had the confidence of having 52 lakh Bajrang Dal activists laced with military training and even armed and 45 thousand RSS units scattered in the length and breadth of the country. Such an awesome power would “awe and stun” the “enemy” within in this so-called war on terror that would otherwise be the civil war he has in mind. He has proven ability as chief minister and home minister of UP. He did not send intelligence report on the behaviour of the car sevaks of the Sabarmati Express as it passed through his state on February 26-27 2002. If he had warned the Gujarat intelligence department perhaps Godhra would not have happened. This is borne out by what ADGP Intelligence RB Sreekumar said later. The clamour for more stringent Pota according to this group is intended to perpetuating injustice exponentially. The People’s Tribunal on Pota consisting of Ram Jethmalani, Justice Suresh, Justice DK Basu, KG Kannabiran, 2004, found that [1] less than 2% conviction of people against whom the law was slammed [2] denial of bail, and [3] confession only as proof, played havoc with victims who were almost entirely Muslims. This prompted Roy to remark “anti terrorism laws are not meant for terrorists; they are for people that governments do not like.” It is a universal truth that BJP and the whole Sangh parivar hates the Muslims and other minorities.
Arundhati Roy, unlike the cussed politicians, is a creative writer and is more sensitive about the direction in which the wind is blowing. She says that denying justice to a whole segment of population is gross injustice and sure recipe of disaster that would pave the way for civil war. There are scores of people accused of crimes, including crimes against humanity, who are moving around freely with impunity. What their victims must be feeling about the justice system in the country! The most outstanding is Babu Patel alias Babu Bajrangi. According to his own confession freely given; he started the massacre of Muslims in Naroda Patiaon February 28, 2002. Along with his horde of 30 he collected 23 guns from fellow Hindus by force. If anyone refused they threatened to even kill him. But they could hardly need the guns to slaughter the Muslims as they herded them into a hollow ground at the point of their swords and trishuls. They burnt them using petrol they freely sourced from the government stock of the adjoining state bus depot. At 2.30 am next day an FIR was lodged against Bajrangi. Indeed so many he and his horde had killed that the commissioner issued order to shoot him on sight. His murderous crowd was made up of members of the Chhara tribal community who were instigated and prepared for such an eventuality by the RSS. Subsequently the police arrested Bajrangi and others. For more than six months VHP distributed money and ration to the families of the arrested accused Chharas and then they discontinued. VHP secretary Praveen Togadia had personally promised them help. Jaideep Patel of VHP was in contact with Bajrangi all the time when the massacre was taking place. Comparing the pogrom with Haldighat battle, Bajrangi said “we set them on fire and killed them.”
A criminal of this level of murder and mayhem had no other than the Chief minister of Gujarat Narendra Modi who sheltered him in Gujarat state guesthouse on Mount Abu against the laws he himself had sworn to uphold for the protection of the people of his state. The chief minister also got Justice Mehta to give bail to Bajrangi. Later he appointed Mehta to submit along with Justice Nanavati the Nanavati Commission report on Godhra. If injustice is repeatedly heaped upon people ad absurdum it may make them insensitive, like a surprise first blow, for sometimes but not for all the time.
Friday, December 12, 2008
Honesty in fighting terrorism
On Saturday November 29, 2008 the attacks in Mumbai ended and in the very first court hearing after the Mumbai attacks Lt Col Shrikant Purohit told the court that there was no proof against the eleven accused in the Malegaon bomb blast of September 29, 2008. He went on to assert that he had nothing to do with it. Within the same week Rakesh Dhawde told the court that he was involved in the bomb blast and was responsible for it. In the clatter of general outcry and accusation of the attacks it should not be strange to see the connection between the two and other similar events apart from the usual dichotomy of the faith of the perpetrators and the country of their origin.
Nettled about the focus on faith rather than fact a woman protester at the Taj hotel refuted faith. 'I am not a Muslim, I am not a Hindu' She did not want to be identified. "Where were you 15 years ago, why did you not protest after the Mumbai riots? I just want to know what is this damn tamasha now! This is all crap! Where were these people after the riots (in 1993) after people got killed in the streets and women were raped? Why did you keep quiet then? Why Enough is Enough now?"
Everybody stopped to hear her as she vehemently spoke about the terrorists operating within India. "Let us first clean up our own backyard and then scream about these terrorists. This is nothing but a television stunt."
We may not share her vehemence but we should strive to understand her logic. ATS chief Hemant Karkare’s honesty was acclaimed at all hands except the hardcore elements of Hindutva that considered him villain in life and hero in death. Among them must be included LK Advani, Rajnathsingh, Narendra Modi and Praveen Togadia who said in sum that Karkare was a desh drohi for pursuing the crimes committed by Sadhvi Pragyasingh Thakor, Purohit, Ramesh Upadhaya, Shankaracharya Dayanand Pandey, etc. In contrast to Karkare, Purohit seems to have acquired new sights after November 26. A man of military should above show honesty, at least to the fellow countrymen whom he has sworn to protect from the enemies of the country. The woman mentioned above links one event with others that are festering wounds on our social and political collective life. In other words she takes a holistic view of the whole matter believing this would be honest in fighting terror. All this should make us introspect on what R H says:
“A careful scrutiny of all the reports available so far suggests, to this writer anyway, that the killing of Karkare and his colleagues was a premeditated act, executed by a group that had stationed snipers at various points along the general route between VT and the Metro cinema with a view to maximising their chances of a successful murderous assault.”
Those who are too much vehement in their desire to fight terror need to be more cautious of their pronouncements and their past. There was the same demand for the extradition of Dawood Ibrahim, Hafiz Saeed, and others. The latter ala other Pakistanis in the past in order to forestall extradition dug up the alleged complicity of LK Advani in a plot to assassinate Jinnah. A police case was registered against the refugee turned prime ministerial candidate in Karachi. The RSS had hatched a plot to kill the Pakistani leader as his cavalcade passed through the Hindu area of the city, a matter of five minutes drive, on August 14, 1947. It was so dreadful that after crossing it, Jinnah turned to Lord Mountbatten and remarked: “Thank God! I’ve brought you back alive!” The English man exclaimed: “My God, its I who brought you back alive!” According to the plan the leader of the group would signal others to throw their bombs at the car but the leader was so unnerved that he did not do it. A cycle repairer of Jullundher, Pritam Singh, disclosed this. India’s demands for surrender of the 20 suspects falls to deaf ears because of this criminal case of the day Pakistan got its independence.
Advani has shot down another suggestion, which could have helped us see with honest candour, the perpetrators. But there is a snag here and he could not be so disingenuous about it. The raising of the Kashmir dispute in the UNO by Prime Minister Nehru is it. There is need to know that the Americans were involved in negotiation for a solution and it could only come through the UNO. President Clinton’s visit was another occasion when the Americans were trying for a solution to the dispute but then happened the Chittisinghpora massacre of 37 Sikhs. It was blamed on Jaishe Mohammad and the five Muslims who were blamed and killed for it turned out to be ordinary poor innocent shepherds. These matters have remained shrouded in mystery because there is no sign of honesty of approach. To say that taking the matter of Mumbai attacks of November 26 to Security Council would produce difficulties for us cannot be true for the reason that Dawood Ibrahim and Jaishe Mohammad are declared terrorists and the world knows that. Why balk from an independent international investigation when such an investigation in the case of the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hareri has established truth of the involvement of Syria in it.
Nettled about the focus on faith rather than fact a woman protester at the Taj hotel refuted faith. 'I am not a Muslim, I am not a Hindu' She did not want to be identified. "Where were you 15 years ago, why did you not protest after the Mumbai riots? I just want to know what is this damn tamasha now! This is all crap! Where were these people after the riots (in 1993) after people got killed in the streets and women were raped? Why did you keep quiet then? Why Enough is Enough now?"
Everybody stopped to hear her as she vehemently spoke about the terrorists operating within India. "Let us first clean up our own backyard and then scream about these terrorists. This is nothing but a television stunt."
We may not share her vehemence but we should strive to understand her logic. ATS chief Hemant Karkare’s honesty was acclaimed at all hands except the hardcore elements of Hindutva that considered him villain in life and hero in death. Among them must be included LK Advani, Rajnathsingh, Narendra Modi and Praveen Togadia who said in sum that Karkare was a desh drohi for pursuing the crimes committed by Sadhvi Pragyasingh Thakor, Purohit, Ramesh Upadhaya, Shankaracharya Dayanand Pandey, etc. In contrast to Karkare, Purohit seems to have acquired new sights after November 26. A man of military should above show honesty, at least to the fellow countrymen whom he has sworn to protect from the enemies of the country. The woman mentioned above links one event with others that are festering wounds on our social and political collective life. In other words she takes a holistic view of the whole matter believing this would be honest in fighting terror. All this should make us introspect on what R H says:
“A careful scrutiny of all the reports available so far suggests, to this writer anyway, that the killing of Karkare and his colleagues was a premeditated act, executed by a group that had stationed snipers at various points along the general route between VT and the Metro cinema with a view to maximising their chances of a successful murderous assault.”
Those who are too much vehement in their desire to fight terror need to be more cautious of their pronouncements and their past. There was the same demand for the extradition of Dawood Ibrahim, Hafiz Saeed, and others. The latter ala other Pakistanis in the past in order to forestall extradition dug up the alleged complicity of LK Advani in a plot to assassinate Jinnah. A police case was registered against the refugee turned prime ministerial candidate in Karachi. The RSS had hatched a plot to kill the Pakistani leader as his cavalcade passed through the Hindu area of the city, a matter of five minutes drive, on August 14, 1947. It was so dreadful that after crossing it, Jinnah turned to Lord Mountbatten and remarked: “Thank God! I’ve brought you back alive!” The English man exclaimed: “My God, its I who brought you back alive!” According to the plan the leader of the group would signal others to throw their bombs at the car but the leader was so unnerved that he did not do it. A cycle repairer of Jullundher, Pritam Singh, disclosed this. India’s demands for surrender of the 20 suspects falls to deaf ears because of this criminal case of the day Pakistan got its independence.
Advani has shot down another suggestion, which could have helped us see with honest candour, the perpetrators. But there is a snag here and he could not be so disingenuous about it. The raising of the Kashmir dispute in the UNO by Prime Minister Nehru is it. There is need to know that the Americans were involved in negotiation for a solution and it could only come through the UNO. President Clinton’s visit was another occasion when the Americans were trying for a solution to the dispute but then happened the Chittisinghpora massacre of 37 Sikhs. It was blamed on Jaishe Mohammad and the five Muslims who were blamed and killed for it turned out to be ordinary poor innocent shepherds. These matters have remained shrouded in mystery because there is no sign of honesty of approach. To say that taking the matter of Mumbai attacks of November 26 to Security Council would produce difficulties for us cannot be true for the reason that Dawood Ibrahim and Jaishe Mohammad are declared terrorists and the world knows that. Why balk from an independent international investigation when such an investigation in the case of the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hareri has established truth of the involvement of Syria in it.
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Terrorism of bondage to past
The Indian subcontinent is still a captive to its past. It is infected with the menace of terrorism as a legacy of its past. There is no sign that it has redeemed itself from its harrowing past or is willing, either. Therefore the politicized mechanism to fight is also motivated by history rather than ground reality.
Mumbai attacks of November 26, 2008 were at first thought unique for being quite new in aspect, dimension and preparation. However if you look closely the serial blasts of March 1993 were also of the same dimension and preparation and so was the aspect of RDX imported and used in attacks.
Muslims essentially in India figure as perpetrators (and also victims, like their fellow countrymen). That the terrorists were Pakistanis and not Indians makes no difference in perception as far as November 26 attacks are concerned.
Basically revenge against atrocity has powered one sort as the Anand Math has done the other. The incidents of Bankum Chand Chatterjee’s novel depict the terrifying Sanayasi rebellious terrorism of early 1700s against the Muslim rule in Bengal. Today India is ruled neither by the Mughals or their descendants nor by the crusaders.
Whether India survives or not our gods must is the trickster’s fancy as it is premised upon the belief that we lost Kabul, Peshawar and Lahore through terrorism because our gods also lost space there. Another inference of this new Anand Math approach is that since only 6 Muslims lost life in Malegaon blast of September 29, it is, nationally speaking, not as material as Mumbai attacks. More so because in the latter case all the ten terrorists were Muslims while all the eleven accused in the former are of different faith who cannot be terrorist thanks to their faith. Equally nefarious and potentially dangerous is the next inference that India paid a heavy price for diverting attention to Malegaon in order to cater a vote bank rather than maintaining focus on the recent bomb blasts in Ahmdabad, Delhi, etc. This latter course would have turned the screw on ‘the enemies of the nation’ while the former course (in which Hemant Karkare had found a Sadhvi and a Shankaracharya and a serving lieutenant colonel, etc as perpetrators) was politicized as it turned on the lawbreakers who were not Muslims.
There is a good deal of talk about Hindutva terror or sangh parivar terror since the arrest of the sadhvi, the swami and the lieutenant colonel. However like all other terrorism this is not new. Digamber Badge (one of the accused in Mahatma Gandhi assassination case) was just like a sadhu (a foil of Guru Golawlker) when he peddled arms and carried some to VD Savarkar to inspect when he went to meet that ‘revolutionary’ along with Nathuram Godse and Narayan Apte. RSS member Madanlal Pahwa had joined the 1000 strong private army of RSS volunteers of Dr Dattatraya Parchure of Gwaliar and would attack Muslims who were leaving Bhopal on the way to newly created Pakistan. Was his murderous violence any less kind of terror? Indeed it was so terrifying that no other than Gandhiji himself forced the ruler of Gwaliar to reign in Parchure. That so disgusted Madanlal that he left Parchure’s militia and came to Mumbai and continued terrorist attack in hotels and on hawkers. From there he went to Ahmednager and threw a grenade at a Muslim procession and ran away and took refuge in the Deccan Guest House of fellow RSS member Vishnu Karkare. Was this not terror? Attacking Gandhiji with bombs and bullets was exactly terror. There was a motivation and propaganda in it. So the whole talk of extremist Hindus taking to terrorism in recent years does not match with the historic facts given above.
The much-debated jihad terrorism is also not new. The origin of the word assassin comes from Arabic and its historic incidents in Turkey are as stark terror as the Kurds there using terrorism for their different ends today. The terrorists from the other side of our borders deign it their duty to speak for the Muslims of the country whom they consider as victims of Hindu extremism without bothering to know that their every act enhances the excruciating suffering of the increasingly ghettoized Muslims of India.
What is new about the Mumbai attacks of November 26, however, is the divergent responses including the rage the people feel against Pakistan, Indian intelligence agencies, the politicians (remember the attacks coincided with the assembly election in BJP ruled Madhya Pardesh and ended with the election in Delhi).
If this rage motivates the people and the government in the right direction we can begin to redeem ourselves from the bondage to the past. Nevertheless we run across a blockade, the triangular complexity of still-shrouded-in-mystery connectivity of the juggernaut to stymie the investigation into the Sanayasi terrorism as Malegaon went through of the sadhvi, the swami and the lieutenant colonel, the assassination of Hemant Karkare and the looming 60-hour long attack in Mumbai.
The monk in Dan Brown’s novel The Da Vinci Code also practices Sanayasi terrorism. Or, what else was it? The monk’s assassination of the key members of the mysterious Christian order, the Masonic order, too, was terror. The challenge is how to decode and who is to do it. Sophia’s grandfather Saunnier was the custodian of the museum and was steeped in it, as was Hemant Karkare in the codes of the Sanayasi-Sadhvi :“Singh has sung” and “the cat is out of the bag”.
But the assassination of the trio, Hemant Karkare, Salaskar and Komte, is reminiscent of another sensational drama of yesterday involving three murders. On November 22, 1963 President John F Kennedy was assassinated. His assassin Lee Harvey Oswald was spotted walking in a deserted street, as deserted as the back streets of Cama hospital and Metro cinema, a police officer tried to arrest him but he shot the officer dead. Afterward Oswald went to a cinema where the police arrested him. But two days later a mafia man called Jack Ruby (an Orthodox Jew, a night club owner, whose real name was Jacob Rubinstein) shot Oswald dead shouting, “Jews have guts”. Some also blamed that the Masonic order got the President killed.
In the present case of Mumbai, the ten terrorists had come to the Chabad house where the Orthodox Jew Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg lived with wife Rovla. The terrorists sent the servant to buy 100 kilo of chicken and 25 kilo of dry fruits. Israeli rescue and recovery organization called Zaka says that the bullets of the terrorists did not cause the death of the rabbi. But the next day the Israeli government denied it fearing its special and strategic relation with India would be jeopardized. It claimed that the rabbi died by bullets fired by the terrorists. It is interesting to remember how the email of the Indian Mujahideen was allegedly sent from the computer of another orthodox evangelical order to which Kenneth Heyward belonged in Mumbai and Bangalore. The dead cannot tell their tale, who can?
Mumbai attacks of November 26, 2008 were at first thought unique for being quite new in aspect, dimension and preparation. However if you look closely the serial blasts of March 1993 were also of the same dimension and preparation and so was the aspect of RDX imported and used in attacks.
Muslims essentially in India figure as perpetrators (and also victims, like their fellow countrymen). That the terrorists were Pakistanis and not Indians makes no difference in perception as far as November 26 attacks are concerned.
Basically revenge against atrocity has powered one sort as the Anand Math has done the other. The incidents of Bankum Chand Chatterjee’s novel depict the terrifying Sanayasi rebellious terrorism of early 1700s against the Muslim rule in Bengal. Today India is ruled neither by the Mughals or their descendants nor by the crusaders.
Whether India survives or not our gods must is the trickster’s fancy as it is premised upon the belief that we lost Kabul, Peshawar and Lahore through terrorism because our gods also lost space there. Another inference of this new Anand Math approach is that since only 6 Muslims lost life in Malegaon blast of September 29, it is, nationally speaking, not as material as Mumbai attacks. More so because in the latter case all the ten terrorists were Muslims while all the eleven accused in the former are of different faith who cannot be terrorist thanks to their faith. Equally nefarious and potentially dangerous is the next inference that India paid a heavy price for diverting attention to Malegaon in order to cater a vote bank rather than maintaining focus on the recent bomb blasts in Ahmdabad, Delhi, etc. This latter course would have turned the screw on ‘the enemies of the nation’ while the former course (in which Hemant Karkare had found a Sadhvi and a Shankaracharya and a serving lieutenant colonel, etc as perpetrators) was politicized as it turned on the lawbreakers who were not Muslims.
There is a good deal of talk about Hindutva terror or sangh parivar terror since the arrest of the sadhvi, the swami and the lieutenant colonel. However like all other terrorism this is not new. Digamber Badge (one of the accused in Mahatma Gandhi assassination case) was just like a sadhu (a foil of Guru Golawlker) when he peddled arms and carried some to VD Savarkar to inspect when he went to meet that ‘revolutionary’ along with Nathuram Godse and Narayan Apte. RSS member Madanlal Pahwa had joined the 1000 strong private army of RSS volunteers of Dr Dattatraya Parchure of Gwaliar and would attack Muslims who were leaving Bhopal on the way to newly created Pakistan. Was his murderous violence any less kind of terror? Indeed it was so terrifying that no other than Gandhiji himself forced the ruler of Gwaliar to reign in Parchure. That so disgusted Madanlal that he left Parchure’s militia and came to Mumbai and continued terrorist attack in hotels and on hawkers. From there he went to Ahmednager and threw a grenade at a Muslim procession and ran away and took refuge in the Deccan Guest House of fellow RSS member Vishnu Karkare. Was this not terror? Attacking Gandhiji with bombs and bullets was exactly terror. There was a motivation and propaganda in it. So the whole talk of extremist Hindus taking to terrorism in recent years does not match with the historic facts given above.
The much-debated jihad terrorism is also not new. The origin of the word assassin comes from Arabic and its historic incidents in Turkey are as stark terror as the Kurds there using terrorism for their different ends today. The terrorists from the other side of our borders deign it their duty to speak for the Muslims of the country whom they consider as victims of Hindu extremism without bothering to know that their every act enhances the excruciating suffering of the increasingly ghettoized Muslims of India.
What is new about the Mumbai attacks of November 26, however, is the divergent responses including the rage the people feel against Pakistan, Indian intelligence agencies, the politicians (remember the attacks coincided with the assembly election in BJP ruled Madhya Pardesh and ended with the election in Delhi).
If this rage motivates the people and the government in the right direction we can begin to redeem ourselves from the bondage to the past. Nevertheless we run across a blockade, the triangular complexity of still-shrouded-in-mystery connectivity of the juggernaut to stymie the investigation into the Sanayasi terrorism as Malegaon went through of the sadhvi, the swami and the lieutenant colonel, the assassination of Hemant Karkare and the looming 60-hour long attack in Mumbai.
The monk in Dan Brown’s novel The Da Vinci Code also practices Sanayasi terrorism. Or, what else was it? The monk’s assassination of the key members of the mysterious Christian order, the Masonic order, too, was terror. The challenge is how to decode and who is to do it. Sophia’s grandfather Saunnier was the custodian of the museum and was steeped in it, as was Hemant Karkare in the codes of the Sanayasi-Sadhvi :“Singh has sung” and “the cat is out of the bag”.
But the assassination of the trio, Hemant Karkare, Salaskar and Komte, is reminiscent of another sensational drama of yesterday involving three murders. On November 22, 1963 President John F Kennedy was assassinated. His assassin Lee Harvey Oswald was spotted walking in a deserted street, as deserted as the back streets of Cama hospital and Metro cinema, a police officer tried to arrest him but he shot the officer dead. Afterward Oswald went to a cinema where the police arrested him. But two days later a mafia man called Jack Ruby (an Orthodox Jew, a night club owner, whose real name was Jacob Rubinstein) shot Oswald dead shouting, “Jews have guts”. Some also blamed that the Masonic order got the President killed.
In the present case of Mumbai, the ten terrorists had come to the Chabad house where the Orthodox Jew Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg lived with wife Rovla. The terrorists sent the servant to buy 100 kilo of chicken and 25 kilo of dry fruits. Israeli rescue and recovery organization called Zaka says that the bullets of the terrorists did not cause the death of the rabbi. But the next day the Israeli government denied it fearing its special and strategic relation with India would be jeopardized. It claimed that the rabbi died by bullets fired by the terrorists. It is interesting to remember how the email of the Indian Mujahideen was allegedly sent from the computer of another orthodox evangelical order to which Kenneth Heyward belonged in Mumbai and Bangalore. The dead cannot tell their tale, who can?
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Hemant Karkare! A tribute to a hero
If any Indian distinguished himself by writing history by his sweat and while doing so made history by writing it in his blood, it is this modest looking man. This assistant commissioner in charge of Anti Terrorist Squad of Maharashtra will be remembered for good. Those who were breathing down his neck will breathe a sigh of relief but all others will have grief.
LK Advani and Rajnathsingh had tried to run down one of the most impeccable and distinguished men of probity. They were doing what the poet Alexander Pope penned three centuries ago: ‘willing to wound but afraid to strike.’ That hurt him deeply: "when allegations are made anyone (we) will feel hurt.". Indeed the Pune ATS had received a telephonic message threatening to kill Karkare and blow up his house ‘within a few days.’
It was painstaking work that he undertook when the bombs went off in Gadkari auditorium in Thane and another theatre in Vashi, Mumbai, by vowing to leave no stone unturned in search of clues. That paid off immediately. But then came Malegaon September 29, 2008 blast. The crowd had gone berserk in Bhiku chowk and had almost threatened to destroy the evidence by their over reaction. But Karkare’s reaching the spot with his team salvaged the dreadful proof of Sadhvi Pragyasingh Thakur’s motor bike, the LML Freedom. Then came the forensic report and the number of the bike. Given the state of the political situation and the communal fragility it was most dangerous to lay one’s hand on a sadhu let alone a sadhvi.
That was like wearing the burning shirt of Hercules. But this valiant man did it.
He worked in private companies including Hindustan Lever and the National Productivity Council before joining IPS in 1985. He worked in Akola, Bhiwandi, Thane and Mumbai. A most daring stint in very difficult district infected by Naxalites, Chandrapur, was also in his lot. He had rich experience with the ace intelligence agency of RAW by serving a stint in Austria and then he took over in January this year as the chief of ATS.
The imprint of his sang froid manner is the subtext of what he said during Malegaon investigation: "We should do our job and it is for the court to decide."
Of course, under the tremendous tension and pressure he carried on his work. Only the other day the court denied police custody of Lt Col Purohit, Sadhvi Pragyasingh etc. karkare did not feel brow beaten: “police custody would have helped investigations to proceed faster but still we will see how best to deal with it in a legal way". This is ironclad perseverance.
Karkare in his crisp blue shirt wore the helmet and took a call on his mobile before he advanced towards the Metro cinema and the Cama hospital. The security circle around him moved. His eyes shone brightly as he went to attend the call of duty.
LK Advani and Rajnathsingh had tried to run down one of the most impeccable and distinguished men of probity. They were doing what the poet Alexander Pope penned three centuries ago: ‘willing to wound but afraid to strike.’ That hurt him deeply: "when allegations are made anyone (we) will feel hurt.". Indeed the Pune ATS had received a telephonic message threatening to kill Karkare and blow up his house ‘within a few days.’
It was painstaking work that he undertook when the bombs went off in Gadkari auditorium in Thane and another theatre in Vashi, Mumbai, by vowing to leave no stone unturned in search of clues. That paid off immediately. But then came Malegaon September 29, 2008 blast. The crowd had gone berserk in Bhiku chowk and had almost threatened to destroy the evidence by their over reaction. But Karkare’s reaching the spot with his team salvaged the dreadful proof of Sadhvi Pragyasingh Thakur’s motor bike, the LML Freedom. Then came the forensic report and the number of the bike. Given the state of the political situation and the communal fragility it was most dangerous to lay one’s hand on a sadhu let alone a sadhvi.
That was like wearing the burning shirt of Hercules. But this valiant man did it.
He worked in private companies including Hindustan Lever and the National Productivity Council before joining IPS in 1985. He worked in Akola, Bhiwandi, Thane and Mumbai. A most daring stint in very difficult district infected by Naxalites, Chandrapur, was also in his lot. He had rich experience with the ace intelligence agency of RAW by serving a stint in Austria and then he took over in January this year as the chief of ATS.
The imprint of his sang froid manner is the subtext of what he said during Malegaon investigation: "We should do our job and it is for the court to decide."
Of course, under the tremendous tension and pressure he carried on his work. Only the other day the court denied police custody of Lt Col Purohit, Sadhvi Pragyasingh etc. karkare did not feel brow beaten: “police custody would have helped investigations to proceed faster but still we will see how best to deal with it in a legal way". This is ironclad perseverance.
Karkare in his crisp blue shirt wore the helmet and took a call on his mobile before he advanced towards the Metro cinema and the Cama hospital. The security circle around him moved. His eyes shone brightly as he went to attend the call of duty.
Malegaon: Dawn of a new probe
At long last there is a ray of hope that the mystery surrounding Shabe Barat serial bomb blasts of September 8, 2006 in Malegaon will be lifted and justice would be done. The nine accused will breathe the air of freedom soon if not immediately. There may be one or two who were caught for some other than terrorism crime but they would wash the stigma of jihad terrorism of which they were maligned and jailed for.
The most crucial aspect was that of the state approver Abrar Ahmed. His father and lawyer brother always maintained that the Superintendent of police in Malegaon Mr Rajwardhan had framed up Abrar. Why did the aged father of Abrar, like the wailing mother of Khwaja Yunus, never tire of blaming the police official is a cause of concern. He pointedly told visitors that he had interacted with the local police all his life and had mediated between the public and the police in matters involving dispute or for peace and had cooperated with them. Yet, he was at a loss to understand how come of all the people his son could have strayed away. True, that Abrar was an informer. True, that he was idle. But planting bomb to kill was beyond what his father could believe. But no one heeded his complaint. However in the aftermath of the sensational disclosure in the arrests of the eleven accused in September 29, 2008 blast there is a groundswell of suspicion of something fishy regarding the Shabe barat blasts at the cemetery and the Mushawarat chowk that killed more than 37 people.
It is a mystery of mysteries that Abrar had simply disappeared. His brother had filed a habeas corpus in the Bombay high court and so the police were compelled to present him in the court at the eleventh hour. But they took a lot of care to prevent free mixing of Abrar and his family members who had been present in the court and outside. Between his disappearance and his reappearance in the high court he was in Deolali camp and Indore, among other places. He had hardly any money till he disappeared. Where did he get the money to travel and stay in places? The police brought him to the court; did the police then maintain him? Why? If the two places figure in the meeting of the extremists of the Abhinav Bharat then was he co-opted by them? It would suggest further that the huge amount with Abrar and his expenses were paid either by the police, SIMI or paid from the fund at the discretion of the liaison officer of army intelligence Lt Col Purohit.
Then there is the mystery of the phone calls he made in which he expressed fear for his life. Why did he fear when he was with the police?
While Abrar was kept at Deolali camp, the artillery cantonment near Nasik, he would tell his people on phone that men in red turban surrounded him. What he could not comprehend was the truth that they could be the artillery jawans wearing uniform that included red turbans.
He had been to Indore where Sadhvi Pragyasing Thackur, Sameer Kulkarni, Ramesh Upadhya and Ramnarayan Singh also lived for sometime. The same is true of Deolali.Of all the places why did he have to go there? Indore is not the least popular place for people of Malegaon to go, nor has it tourist attraction of any sort. While he was there he phoned his father to meet him as he was returning to Nasik and would be passing by the Agra highway through Malegaon. His relatives went there but could not meet him. Did anyone prevent the meeting and why?
There are two more aspects to inquire into. If Rakesh Dhawde supplied arms in Malegaon case, then it is pertinent to inquire which of the two cases, or both? The role of SIMI and/or army. Either of the two supplied RDX for September 8, 2006 blasts, too. Shrikant Purohit has alleged that some SIMI boys were used to make bomb. He has also told Sunit Joshi that he had 60 kg RDX that he had given to Bhagwan for use in blowing Samjhauta express compartments. This cannot remain suppositional for long as RDX was found in the blasts of 2006 and 2008.
The most crucial aspect was that of the state approver Abrar Ahmed. His father and lawyer brother always maintained that the Superintendent of police in Malegaon Mr Rajwardhan had framed up Abrar. Why did the aged father of Abrar, like the wailing mother of Khwaja Yunus, never tire of blaming the police official is a cause of concern. He pointedly told visitors that he had interacted with the local police all his life and had mediated between the public and the police in matters involving dispute or for peace and had cooperated with them. Yet, he was at a loss to understand how come of all the people his son could have strayed away. True, that Abrar was an informer. True, that he was idle. But planting bomb to kill was beyond what his father could believe. But no one heeded his complaint. However in the aftermath of the sensational disclosure in the arrests of the eleven accused in September 29, 2008 blast there is a groundswell of suspicion of something fishy regarding the Shabe barat blasts at the cemetery and the Mushawarat chowk that killed more than 37 people.
It is a mystery of mysteries that Abrar had simply disappeared. His brother had filed a habeas corpus in the Bombay high court and so the police were compelled to present him in the court at the eleventh hour. But they took a lot of care to prevent free mixing of Abrar and his family members who had been present in the court and outside. Between his disappearance and his reappearance in the high court he was in Deolali camp and Indore, among other places. He had hardly any money till he disappeared. Where did he get the money to travel and stay in places? The police brought him to the court; did the police then maintain him? Why? If the two places figure in the meeting of the extremists of the Abhinav Bharat then was he co-opted by them? It would suggest further that the huge amount with Abrar and his expenses were paid either by the police, SIMI or paid from the fund at the discretion of the liaison officer of army intelligence Lt Col Purohit.
Then there is the mystery of the phone calls he made in which he expressed fear for his life. Why did he fear when he was with the police?
While Abrar was kept at Deolali camp, the artillery cantonment near Nasik, he would tell his people on phone that men in red turban surrounded him. What he could not comprehend was the truth that they could be the artillery jawans wearing uniform that included red turbans.
He had been to Indore where Sadhvi Pragyasing Thackur, Sameer Kulkarni, Ramesh Upadhya and Ramnarayan Singh also lived for sometime. The same is true of Deolali.Of all the places why did he have to go there? Indore is not the least popular place for people of Malegaon to go, nor has it tourist attraction of any sort. While he was there he phoned his father to meet him as he was returning to Nasik and would be passing by the Agra highway through Malegaon. His relatives went there but could not meet him. Did anyone prevent the meeting and why?
There are two more aspects to inquire into. If Rakesh Dhawde supplied arms in Malegaon case, then it is pertinent to inquire which of the two cases, or both? The role of SIMI and/or army. Either of the two supplied RDX for September 8, 2006 blasts, too. Shrikant Purohit has alleged that some SIMI boys were used to make bomb. He has also told Sunit Joshi that he had 60 kg RDX that he had given to Bhagwan for use in blowing Samjhauta express compartments. This cannot remain suppositional for long as RDX was found in the blasts of 2006 and 2008.
Monday, November 24, 2008
Hinduising politics and militarizing Hundudom: the consequences
The advantage of having different organizations helps the sangh parivar not only to carry out their work but also escape legal hurdles and deflect attention focused on any one of them. VHP and Bajrang Dal were involved in the violent protest in Jammu over Amarnath yatra land dispute although the Amarnath sangharsh samiti was mentioned on the banners and its officials were making statements. There were Abhinav Bharat activists involved in it as well. With Sudhakar Pandey officiating as Shankaracharya of Jammu and Kashmir and based very much in Jammu itself during the height of the violent agitation what more could the extremists want? Many people in the crowd had their faces covered . Simultaneously Indresh Kumar of RSS with active support from RSS chief Sudershan and Mohan Bhagwat was conducting his march for peace and harmony form Nizamuddin to Hazratbal mosque in Kashmir where ‘nationalist’ minded Muslims were involved. This is how the sangh has its cake and eats it too. Much like the specious argument that we should not communalize terrorism not because ‘no Hindus are terrorists or all Muslims are.’
VD Savarkar had founded the Hindu Mahasabha as well as Abhinav Bharat for one objective but different means to achieve it. In England he was involved in activities of the radicals or revolutionaries including bomb making. He was caught and was being taken to India when the ship anchored at Marseilles in France. He knew the laws well and was afraid that he would be prosecuted so he slid down through the shaft in the latrine and swam to the shore. He attacked a police constable on duty so that the French would arrest him and prevent his deportation to India. But the French handed him back to the British.
The present complex relationship of RSS and the fire-eaters of Abhinav Bharat is nothing new. They have a common core of interest which they cannot allow their internal differences to capsize. Savarkar’s book Hindutva and its ideology cannot be pacifist manifesto of a liberal group. Nathuram Godse carried the book when he went to kill Mahatma Gandhi. Narayan Apte and Vishnu Karkare(no relation of Hemant Karkare) accompanied him. As the president of Hindu Mahasabha Savarkar was behind them.
Their unmitigated hate for Muslims was deeply ingrained. In his childhood Savarkar would organize attacks on mosques in Bhagur near Nasik in retaliation against perceived/reported injustice or wrong suffered by Hindus elsewhere in the country. His child play slowly grew into a life long passion and a philosophy. Himani Savarkar’s[ president of the revived Abhinav Bharat] father Gopal Godse asserted that all the four Savarkar brothers grew up in the milieu of the RSS rather than in their kin family. Their kinship in ideology was better defining attribute than their (including Apte’s) descent from Chitpawan Brahamanism.
The ideology betrayed them as the erased number on the chassis of the motorcycle of sadhvi Pragyasingh Thakur did her. A Punjabi youth Mandanlal Pawa had hurled a bomb at Mahatma Gandhi on January 20, 1948. There were other accomplices. Nathuram and Gopal Godse had their grenades in their hands but the commotion unnerved them so much that they fled the scene. A terrified woman collecting her child and running to safety saw the police and pointed out the attacker. The police nabbed him. Madanlal did not know the names of his accomplices but he told the police that they were from Poona and one of them was the editor of “Hindu Rashtra” newspaper. The police went to the hotel where Nathuram Godse and Narayan Apte had stayed. The two had been so scared that they did not collect their things before they fled Delhi. They had left a document signed by Ashutosh Lahiri of Hindu Mahasabha which denounced Gandhiji and the condition on which he broke his fast. Gandhiji had gone on hunger strike in protest against killing of Muslims in the city.
In Bombay deputy commissioner Jimmy Nagarvalla had his Bombay Watchers’ Club keep a watch on the house of Savarkar which reported that Madanlal had visited the house a week ago. The police did a fine job and identified the people from Poona and got their photos as well and handed them over to the deputy director general of police of the province, UH Rana. Instead of rushing to Delhi by plane to brief home department he traveled by train and on January 24-25 he had the file with the photos of the killers and details but did not tell the Delhi police and did not pass it to the security guards of Gandhiji at the Birla house.
That proved fatal on Friday January 30, as Nathuram Godse, Vishnu Karkare and Nrayan Apte not only reached Birla house but also did a rehearsal. Nathuram shot at the target on the tree with the gun that Gwaliar doctor Parchure of RSS had procured him. Soon afterward he succeeded in killing Gandhiji. Taking advantage of the police uniform he had donned he melted in the crowd.
The pertinent thing to remember is that like the Abhinav Bharat of today there was similarity of views and unity of purpose. The assassins and their backer were intolerant of Muslims. Gandhiji had demanded that Muslims be allowed to pray at the Quwwatul Islam Mosque at Mehrauli at the midmorning too. The Government accepted this condition. That Friday Gandhiji had gone to the mosque along with his two nieces. The Muslims embraced him and welcomed the two girls within the mosque, which is against their canonized practice. This was outrageous to Savarkar and also to his followers. In 2001 Sunil Joshi and Narayansingh Kalsingram (Ramji who planted the Freedom motorcycle of Sadhvi Pragyasingh thakur at Bhiku chowk of Malegaon) wanted to disturb the Tablighee Ijtema at Bhopal but were allowed to go free by the government. Their grouse was how could the government allow this huge gathering of the Muslims.
Uninhibited and unabashed hatred of Muslims and not terrorism was and is the driving force of the Abhinav Bharat. Lt Col Purohit, Ramesh Upadhya as well as Himani Savarkar had lived down the massacre of 37 Sikhs in Chittisingpora on the eve of Bill Clinton visit. The army, the governor, Dayanand Pandey and the rest of the country were silent witness to national security advisor Brajesh Mishra rushing to news conference declaring the Islamic terrorists behind the massacre, exhuming of the bodies of the five innocent Muslims who were made to bear the cross of stigma of Jihad terrorism, then the bungle of the DNA test report and finally the truth. Closer at home they had also known the brutal murder of Khwaja Yunus by the cops of Mumbai. In their much vaunted laboraroty of Hindutva, Gujarat 2002, they had seen visuals of Gulbarg society being encircled a full day before the hapless victims within were taken out and murdered in full view of the public with the police standing around there. If they still wanted to kill Muslims it was not terrorism but their inveterate hatred for them.
The same strong feeling is in Dr RP Singh of Abhinav Bharat. He did not like that the RSS should be training the Maoists in RSS run schools in Nepal. That was against the interest of the Hindu dynasty there. He along with Himani Savarkar had one common target: if there is bullet for bullet there should be blast for blast as well. But the moot point was the cops could use bullet for bullet in encounters. However blast for blast required sourcing RDX and cash. The former was with the army and the latter was also available abroad. That is where Shyam Apte comes in picture. Most worrisome is the spectre of 54 youths whom Rakesh Dhawde had arranged to be trained at the Sinhgad camp in 2003. All of them, including Dhawde, had joined Abhinav Bharat. What if the 60 kg of RDX obtained by Purohit is still with them. And according to Sameer Kulkarni, co founder of Abhinav Bharat, there are 5000 members of the organization across the country. Nay, they have even created sleeper cells in Bangladesh to retaliate.
VD Savarkar had founded the Hindu Mahasabha as well as Abhinav Bharat for one objective but different means to achieve it. In England he was involved in activities of the radicals or revolutionaries including bomb making. He was caught and was being taken to India when the ship anchored at Marseilles in France. He knew the laws well and was afraid that he would be prosecuted so he slid down through the shaft in the latrine and swam to the shore. He attacked a police constable on duty so that the French would arrest him and prevent his deportation to India. But the French handed him back to the British.
The present complex relationship of RSS and the fire-eaters of Abhinav Bharat is nothing new. They have a common core of interest which they cannot allow their internal differences to capsize. Savarkar’s book Hindutva and its ideology cannot be pacifist manifesto of a liberal group. Nathuram Godse carried the book when he went to kill Mahatma Gandhi. Narayan Apte and Vishnu Karkare(no relation of Hemant Karkare) accompanied him. As the president of Hindu Mahasabha Savarkar was behind them.
Their unmitigated hate for Muslims was deeply ingrained. In his childhood Savarkar would organize attacks on mosques in Bhagur near Nasik in retaliation against perceived/reported injustice or wrong suffered by Hindus elsewhere in the country. His child play slowly grew into a life long passion and a philosophy. Himani Savarkar’s[ president of the revived Abhinav Bharat] father Gopal Godse asserted that all the four Savarkar brothers grew up in the milieu of the RSS rather than in their kin family. Their kinship in ideology was better defining attribute than their (including Apte’s) descent from Chitpawan Brahamanism.
The ideology betrayed them as the erased number on the chassis of the motorcycle of sadhvi Pragyasingh Thakur did her. A Punjabi youth Mandanlal Pawa had hurled a bomb at Mahatma Gandhi on January 20, 1948. There were other accomplices. Nathuram and Gopal Godse had their grenades in their hands but the commotion unnerved them so much that they fled the scene. A terrified woman collecting her child and running to safety saw the police and pointed out the attacker. The police nabbed him. Madanlal did not know the names of his accomplices but he told the police that they were from Poona and one of them was the editor of “Hindu Rashtra” newspaper. The police went to the hotel where Nathuram Godse and Narayan Apte had stayed. The two had been so scared that they did not collect their things before they fled Delhi. They had left a document signed by Ashutosh Lahiri of Hindu Mahasabha which denounced Gandhiji and the condition on which he broke his fast. Gandhiji had gone on hunger strike in protest against killing of Muslims in the city.
In Bombay deputy commissioner Jimmy Nagarvalla had his Bombay Watchers’ Club keep a watch on the house of Savarkar which reported that Madanlal had visited the house a week ago. The police did a fine job and identified the people from Poona and got their photos as well and handed them over to the deputy director general of police of the province, UH Rana. Instead of rushing to Delhi by plane to brief home department he traveled by train and on January 24-25 he had the file with the photos of the killers and details but did not tell the Delhi police and did not pass it to the security guards of Gandhiji at the Birla house.
That proved fatal on Friday January 30, as Nathuram Godse, Vishnu Karkare and Nrayan Apte not only reached Birla house but also did a rehearsal. Nathuram shot at the target on the tree with the gun that Gwaliar doctor Parchure of RSS had procured him. Soon afterward he succeeded in killing Gandhiji. Taking advantage of the police uniform he had donned he melted in the crowd.
The pertinent thing to remember is that like the Abhinav Bharat of today there was similarity of views and unity of purpose. The assassins and their backer were intolerant of Muslims. Gandhiji had demanded that Muslims be allowed to pray at the Quwwatul Islam Mosque at Mehrauli at the midmorning too. The Government accepted this condition. That Friday Gandhiji had gone to the mosque along with his two nieces. The Muslims embraced him and welcomed the two girls within the mosque, which is against their canonized practice. This was outrageous to Savarkar and also to his followers. In 2001 Sunil Joshi and Narayansingh Kalsingram (Ramji who planted the Freedom motorcycle of Sadhvi Pragyasingh thakur at Bhiku chowk of Malegaon) wanted to disturb the Tablighee Ijtema at Bhopal but were allowed to go free by the government. Their grouse was how could the government allow this huge gathering of the Muslims.
Uninhibited and unabashed hatred of Muslims and not terrorism was and is the driving force of the Abhinav Bharat. Lt Col Purohit, Ramesh Upadhya as well as Himani Savarkar had lived down the massacre of 37 Sikhs in Chittisingpora on the eve of Bill Clinton visit. The army, the governor, Dayanand Pandey and the rest of the country were silent witness to national security advisor Brajesh Mishra rushing to news conference declaring the Islamic terrorists behind the massacre, exhuming of the bodies of the five innocent Muslims who were made to bear the cross of stigma of Jihad terrorism, then the bungle of the DNA test report and finally the truth. Closer at home they had also known the brutal murder of Khwaja Yunus by the cops of Mumbai. In their much vaunted laboraroty of Hindutva, Gujarat 2002, they had seen visuals of Gulbarg society being encircled a full day before the hapless victims within were taken out and murdered in full view of the public with the police standing around there. If they still wanted to kill Muslims it was not terrorism but their inveterate hatred for them.
The same strong feeling is in Dr RP Singh of Abhinav Bharat. He did not like that the RSS should be training the Maoists in RSS run schools in Nepal. That was against the interest of the Hindu dynasty there. He along with Himani Savarkar had one common target: if there is bullet for bullet there should be blast for blast as well. But the moot point was the cops could use bullet for bullet in encounters. However blast for blast required sourcing RDX and cash. The former was with the army and the latter was also available abroad. That is where Shyam Apte comes in picture. Most worrisome is the spectre of 54 youths whom Rakesh Dhawde had arranged to be trained at the Sinhgad camp in 2003. All of them, including Dhawde, had joined Abhinav Bharat. What if the 60 kg of RDX obtained by Purohit is still with them. And according to Sameer Kulkarni, co founder of Abhinav Bharat, there are 5000 members of the organization across the country. Nay, they have even created sleeper cells in Bangladesh to retaliate.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Malegaon: Crime Trail of Terror
As investigations into recent bomb blasts are still underway and it is difficult to prove what we write howsoever we may try to be objective there is still the emergent need for introspection that cannot be denied to journalism. Whatever you read between the lines may open up a new vista which may have till now been choked up by the ‘dumping of toxic feelings” by leaders and religious biased groups. Much of the coverage on Malegaon is bound to generate heat in debates and discussions where cool-headed analysis in the national interest is required.
The evolving scenario makes one wonder as to what has been happening when we were ‘sleeping’. Therefore we walk a tight rope in dealing with bomb blasts and the cases of Sonal Shah, now on the advisory committee of President elect Barack Obama.
It is reported in a Marathi daily of Malegaon that Sadhvi Pragyasingh has confessed that foreign fund was used in the bomb blast in Malegaon. This contrasts with what has been reported that Lt Col Purohit had misappropriated military intelligence fund. Both the sources of funding are serious and dangerous for the country. They involve fraud nationally and internationally that goes against the grain of the army that has had world opinion on its sides till recently as far as discipline is concerned. Therefore the necessity of each one accused in terrorism facing scrutiny at all levels and from all angles.
Purohit had taken Rs 20,000 from Mr Shirish Yeshwant Date who had family acquaintance with him for getting him licence for arms. Purohit supplied false information by giving bogus documents stating that Date lived in the defence colony of Deolali, Nasik. This fraudulent means of getting money is debauchery.
Mystery surrounds the arrest of Sudhakar Chaturvedi who was arrested from Dadar railway station on November 4 with a country-made revolver and a fake army identity card. If Purohit could give fake residence certificate that Date lived in defence colony of Deolali he could provide fake army identity card as well. It is reported that he not only knew the Malegaon conspiracy but was very much present in Malegaon itself.
BJP is the only political party that boasts a separate retired army personnel cell. One such retiree is the chief minister of Uttarakhand B C Khanduria retired Major General. Another retired officer and BJP member, Sabyasachi Bagchi proudly says that RSS develops the character of the young people. It is this character building that makes them good soldier. If this were so why has the training of RSS gone haywire in the case of Purohit? Of greater concern is the interference of the party and its ideology in the armed forces through this association.
SS Raikar of Bhonsla military school is also a retired person rom the army. He allowed the school premises for terror, hatching conspiracy as well as arms training and providing accommodation.
The former governor of Jammu and Kashmir SK Sinha has allegedly allowed Dyanand Padey to stay in the official residence.
Why have these army men behaved the way they have done? A neutral source retired Lt Gen V.R. Raghavan, former director-general of military operations blames “ultra nationalism of a narrow kind” responsible for the criminality of the contaminated serving and retired army officers. Thus what Bagchi says is eyewash.
No less is the case of Sameer Kulkarni who had taken deposit money from a customer to provide him a computer. Failing to supply he issued a cheque as the customer threatened him. The cheque bounced. The police registered a case against Kulkarni.
Dyanand Pandey’s first appearance in the court on November 17 is of grave import as he broke down and begged that the court should rather hang him but not touch his laptop. What is there in the laptop that he should be so much concerned about it? A popular news channel probed the matter and believes that the Pandey must have stored nude pictures of women and great men of his acquaintance. This bonanza of pornography is bound to shame him along with all those who figure in the collection. The police again used the old technique of retrieving the deleted files for clues. Or is the suspicion real that there is similar delay here as it was in the case of Purohit’s laptop. The delay in finding the laptop was a ruse behind which lies the real intention of deleting the more serious files?
Pandey had harboured criminals in his ashram in Dhand, Ahmdabad. It is also believed that Ramji Kalsangar alias Ramnarayan Singh was sheltered there. On Friday November 14 2008 Dyannd Pandey committed perjury by saying that he was not Dayanand Pandey but Amritanand Dwivedi. He has other aliases as well and that is why the Kanpur judicial magistrate Mukesh Kumar Singh on Thursday noted the multiple names adopted by Amritanand while granting transit remand to ATS as he felt certain that Dayanand Pandey, Sudhakar Dwivedi and Swami Amritanand Dev were aliases of the same person who heads the Sharada Sarvadnya Peeth in Jammu.
His craze to false identity is venal as he was in Gorakhpur in 2006 at the invitation of BJP MLA Shiv Pratap Shukla as Jagatguru Shankracharya. He fled when a man asked about his identity. Murkier still was his craze to meet devotees only at night when he was in Faridabad staying at Mata Mandir as self styled Jagatguru Swami Amritanand Devtirth Maraharj.
He also committed embezzlement as president of f Sharda Peeth of Jammu where he called himself Swami Amritanand. He was thrown out of the Peeth. But he was so Machiavellian that he soon started Sharda Sarvgya Peeth of his own and called himself Swami Amritanand Dev Teerth.
A fuller list of his crimes should make the BJP and RSS and other right wing affiliates of the sangh parivar sit up and face the nation to clarify whether they still want identity based politics and governance. Will they still misappropriate funds raised in the US in the name of relief and divert it to buy pouches of food and wine and distribute cash for those who perpetrated the pogroms in Gujarat 2002 with connivance of the government of Narendra Modi?
Ramesh Upadhya’s stalking a woman and giving her phone number on website as a call girl and also cheating the woman through the matrimonial site by showing that he was 37 and not 57 have a damaging effect on the kind of people in the sangh parivar.
These disrepute people under prosecution threaten to lower the position of India in the world opinion thanks to the sangh parivar’s involvement. If a serving lieutenant colonel of the Indian army is supplying 60 kg of RDX for terrorism that too against visiting Pakistanis then in what way are the ISI and extreme Hindu groups different in ideology and practice. On November 15 the ATS claims that the bomb blast in Malegaon is linked to the February 7, 2007 blasts on Samjhauta Express carrying Pakistanis because RDX was used in both the incidents. But two days later it allegedly changes its stance under the goading of the Intelligence Bureau. All through the government of India has been blaming the ISI of Pakistan for all the blasts in the country and especially the Samjhauta Express blasts.
As to the foreign funds used in Malegaon attack it is necessary to look at how the funds end up in India, the real end users. There are documented proofs that huge amounts of money collected in the US go into the accounts of VHP and other conglomerates of RSS. Sonal Shah and her father Ramesh have been in the core group of VHPA [America] and have been instrumental in sending fund under the name of Eklavya Vidyalaya for backward tribals. But the real use is not to ameliorate the lot of the tribal people by educating them, it is rather to convert them to Hinduism if they are animists or have taken to Christianity. In the recent anti Christian riots in Kanthamal of Orissa and other parts of India it is this fund that played havoc as it did in 2002 against the Muslims of Gujarat. The backward community of Charras was roped in by the RSS to wreak “vengeance” on the Muslims by slaughtering them. This confession is caught on camera and no action has been taken as if that was not terrorism.
George Fernandes had asked the army chief, the Air Marshal, and the Admiral to report the Kargil war to MPs. When the three went to the place it was the party office of BJP. That is how the sangh parivar interferes in the affairs of the armed forces, directly.
The evolving scenario makes one wonder as to what has been happening when we were ‘sleeping’. Therefore we walk a tight rope in dealing with bomb blasts and the cases of Sonal Shah, now on the advisory committee of President elect Barack Obama.
It is reported in a Marathi daily of Malegaon that Sadhvi Pragyasingh has confessed that foreign fund was used in the bomb blast in Malegaon. This contrasts with what has been reported that Lt Col Purohit had misappropriated military intelligence fund. Both the sources of funding are serious and dangerous for the country. They involve fraud nationally and internationally that goes against the grain of the army that has had world opinion on its sides till recently as far as discipline is concerned. Therefore the necessity of each one accused in terrorism facing scrutiny at all levels and from all angles.
Purohit had taken Rs 20,000 from Mr Shirish Yeshwant Date who had family acquaintance with him for getting him licence for arms. Purohit supplied false information by giving bogus documents stating that Date lived in the defence colony of Deolali, Nasik. This fraudulent means of getting money is debauchery.
Mystery surrounds the arrest of Sudhakar Chaturvedi who was arrested from Dadar railway station on November 4 with a country-made revolver and a fake army identity card. If Purohit could give fake residence certificate that Date lived in defence colony of Deolali he could provide fake army identity card as well. It is reported that he not only knew the Malegaon conspiracy but was very much present in Malegaon itself.
BJP is the only political party that boasts a separate retired army personnel cell. One such retiree is the chief minister of Uttarakhand B C Khanduria retired Major General. Another retired officer and BJP member, Sabyasachi Bagchi proudly says that RSS develops the character of the young people. It is this character building that makes them good soldier. If this were so why has the training of RSS gone haywire in the case of Purohit? Of greater concern is the interference of the party and its ideology in the armed forces through this association.
SS Raikar of Bhonsla military school is also a retired person rom the army. He allowed the school premises for terror, hatching conspiracy as well as arms training and providing accommodation.
The former governor of Jammu and Kashmir SK Sinha has allegedly allowed Dyanand Padey to stay in the official residence.
Why have these army men behaved the way they have done? A neutral source retired Lt Gen V.R. Raghavan, former director-general of military operations blames “ultra nationalism of a narrow kind” responsible for the criminality of the contaminated serving and retired army officers. Thus what Bagchi says is eyewash.
No less is the case of Sameer Kulkarni who had taken deposit money from a customer to provide him a computer. Failing to supply he issued a cheque as the customer threatened him. The cheque bounced. The police registered a case against Kulkarni.
Dyanand Pandey’s first appearance in the court on November 17 is of grave import as he broke down and begged that the court should rather hang him but not touch his laptop. What is there in the laptop that he should be so much concerned about it? A popular news channel probed the matter and believes that the Pandey must have stored nude pictures of women and great men of his acquaintance. This bonanza of pornography is bound to shame him along with all those who figure in the collection. The police again used the old technique of retrieving the deleted files for clues. Or is the suspicion real that there is similar delay here as it was in the case of Purohit’s laptop. The delay in finding the laptop was a ruse behind which lies the real intention of deleting the more serious files?
Pandey had harboured criminals in his ashram in Dhand, Ahmdabad. It is also believed that Ramji Kalsangar alias Ramnarayan Singh was sheltered there. On Friday November 14 2008 Dyannd Pandey committed perjury by saying that he was not Dayanand Pandey but Amritanand Dwivedi. He has other aliases as well and that is why the Kanpur judicial magistrate Mukesh Kumar Singh on Thursday noted the multiple names adopted by Amritanand while granting transit remand to ATS as he felt certain that Dayanand Pandey, Sudhakar Dwivedi and Swami Amritanand Dev were aliases of the same person who heads the Sharada Sarvadnya Peeth in Jammu.
His craze to false identity is venal as he was in Gorakhpur in 2006 at the invitation of BJP MLA Shiv Pratap Shukla as Jagatguru Shankracharya. He fled when a man asked about his identity. Murkier still was his craze to meet devotees only at night when he was in Faridabad staying at Mata Mandir as self styled Jagatguru Swami Amritanand Devtirth Maraharj.
He also committed embezzlement as president of f Sharda Peeth of Jammu where he called himself Swami Amritanand. He was thrown out of the Peeth. But he was so Machiavellian that he soon started Sharda Sarvgya Peeth of his own and called himself Swami Amritanand Dev Teerth.
A fuller list of his crimes should make the BJP and RSS and other right wing affiliates of the sangh parivar sit up and face the nation to clarify whether they still want identity based politics and governance. Will they still misappropriate funds raised in the US in the name of relief and divert it to buy pouches of food and wine and distribute cash for those who perpetrated the pogroms in Gujarat 2002 with connivance of the government of Narendra Modi?
Ramesh Upadhya’s stalking a woman and giving her phone number on website as a call girl and also cheating the woman through the matrimonial site by showing that he was 37 and not 57 have a damaging effect on the kind of people in the sangh parivar.
These disrepute people under prosecution threaten to lower the position of India in the world opinion thanks to the sangh parivar’s involvement. If a serving lieutenant colonel of the Indian army is supplying 60 kg of RDX for terrorism that too against visiting Pakistanis then in what way are the ISI and extreme Hindu groups different in ideology and practice. On November 15 the ATS claims that the bomb blast in Malegaon is linked to the February 7, 2007 blasts on Samjhauta Express carrying Pakistanis because RDX was used in both the incidents. But two days later it allegedly changes its stance under the goading of the Intelligence Bureau. All through the government of India has been blaming the ISI of Pakistan for all the blasts in the country and especially the Samjhauta Express blasts.
As to the foreign funds used in Malegaon attack it is necessary to look at how the funds end up in India, the real end users. There are documented proofs that huge amounts of money collected in the US go into the accounts of VHP and other conglomerates of RSS. Sonal Shah and her father Ramesh have been in the core group of VHPA [America] and have been instrumental in sending fund under the name of Eklavya Vidyalaya for backward tribals. But the real use is not to ameliorate the lot of the tribal people by educating them, it is rather to convert them to Hinduism if they are animists or have taken to Christianity. In the recent anti Christian riots in Kanthamal of Orissa and other parts of India it is this fund that played havoc as it did in 2002 against the Muslims of Gujarat. The backward community of Charras was roped in by the RSS to wreak “vengeance” on the Muslims by slaughtering them. This confession is caught on camera and no action has been taken as if that was not terrorism.
George Fernandes had asked the army chief, the Air Marshal, and the Admiral to report the Kargil war to MPs. When the three went to the place it was the party office of BJP. That is how the sangh parivar interferes in the affairs of the armed forces, directly.
Saturday, November 8, 2008
The Malegaon Conspiracy
In the name of fighting terrorism some have hijacked the world opinion against Islam
The firing squad that executed Imam Samudra, Amrozi Nurhasyim and Ali Ghufron (Mukhlas) on November 8, 2008 should leave no doubt in any mind that Muslims do not support terrorism. The terrorists had appealed that they be executed in Ramzan, in September. They had dreamed to go to heaven for creating a South East Asian caliphate. The government and the court viewed it differently. The three accused had carried out 2002 bombing of a picnic resort in Hindu majority Bali, Indonesia, that left 202 dead. The overwhelming majority of the Muslim population of Indonesia had shown understanding with the government and has supported it. There has been no protest in the streets or crowd gathering anywhere celebrating any martyrdom.
However the scene at the session court of Nasik, India, on November 3, is antipodal. It indicates how Indonesia could become India in world economy while India will have to remain where it is in its fight against terrorism.
Malegaon has been prominently in the news for quite sometimes. There is a fairly large segment of Muslim population residing in the eastern part. The notoriety of the town as a communally sensitive flash spot is the least desirable of its attributes for the local people but not for outsiders. Currently it is a stage chosen to launch a Sadhvi into a cult figure of strident Hindutva with its rugged determination to turn India into a Hindu rashtra where Vedic culture would be the ruling passion of the people. History will show whether the face of Pragyasingh Thakur will in its turn launch a thousand phalanxes of the saffron brigades that would carry the day despite what the international community and the minorities along with people free from the extreme belief within the country would react to. Of course the constitution of the country and the laws of the land have always been taken for a ride ala 1992. As much of the confession extracted by the ATS is the confession of a band of thugs it is difficult to prove and is also time consuming we can adopt this creative mode of narration to engage the mind in the meanwhile.
The premonition about the orchestrated order to come into existence is based on how things are transpiring in and around Malegaon. On September 29 the Sadhvi rode pinion in her flowing Hindu robe as Major Ramesh Upadhya drove LML Freedom into the heart of the enemy territory and a jeep filled with the other accused followed. As it would turn out to be their knight in shining armour was no other than a Lt Col of the Indian army, Prasad Srikant Purohit. Their pincer thrust by motorbike and jeep at Bhiku chowk demoralized their enemies for they rose against their own fellow Indians in uniform and tried to seize the outpost at the chowk. It is understandable in the light of the observation of WH Sleeman in his book Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official about thuggery in the nineteenth century. "It is a common practice with Thanadars all over the country to connive at the residence within their jurisdiction of gangs of robbers, on the condition that they shall not rob within those limits, and shall give them a share of what they bring back from their distant expeditions".
The sea of crowd in saffron headwear and flags and pinions surging in Nasik on November 3, 2008 reminds you of the fall of the wall of Berlin, history was made on that day. Since then the Sadhvi has left far behind the BJP priministerial candidate in her trail of glory. His ferocity for fighting terror has depleted and he seems to be lost in ifs and buts. Her saffron turban makes her look like Swami Vivekanand resurrected to lead the Hindus infected by unmentionable un- parliamentarian adjectives Bal Thackeray ascribes to them. Is his Marathi virility far superior to that of the people in the other states of the union?
Devlali camp in the vicinity of Nasik is the right military terrain to train the new recruits of Abhinav Bharat and mine the deadly RDX for the real attack on the fort of the enemy at Malegaon. As the conspiracy deepens Purohit not only provided 4 weapons to the other accused but also distributed cash. From where did he get arms, ammunition and cash? Who could be so generous and why? As the thugs of Chambal and Morena belt had codes and signals evolved to meet emergency, Purohit and the Sadhvi too had learnt the same along with the other accomplices. Purohit had said on the mobile “singh has sung.” There is no mistake of grammar of the verb infinitive sing and past participle sung. It means what it means that Ram Narayan Sigh has detonated the bomb at Bhiku chowk. “The cat is out of the basket” is another code of Purohit that shows how he successfully did his works of military intelligence and adapted them for terrorism. He had also arranged meeting between Pragya, Upadhyay and several others in Anand ashram at Faridabad, in Bhonsla military school of Nasik and had transferred funds from various accounts to Abhinav Bharat accounts and indulged in Hawala transactions.
Nowhere in the world are there so many different organizations subsumed to a paternal organization like we have in India. Ku Klux Klan was and is just one. The RSS and its numerous known and unknown organizations and also the ever-changing affiliates, Bajrang Dal, Hanuman Dal etc, are ever assuming new identity with time. All this involves very huge amount of money. RSS keeps no accounts and therefore there is no audit, it is not even registered. Lt Col Purohit deposited huge amounts of money to the accounts of Abhivau Bharat and transferred money to the other accused. Sameer Kulkarni received regular monthly payment of five thousand rupees. Where does the money come from? Around the time the Sadhvi appeared in court after Bal Thackeray announced total support to her the chief minister of Maharashtra, Deshmukh, also addressed audience in Nasik where he said that the Marathi speaking natives of the state do not do the jobs that the people of UP and Bihar do. He grumbled that Marathi speaking natives prefer comfortable jobs in offices from 11 to 5.
The mammoth crowd that Shiv Sena and Abhinau Bharat mustered at the court in Nasik on November 3 cannot have been of office goers unless they had taken mass casual leave. Mobilizing them also requires transport and huge sums of money. It is inevitable that terrorism requires supply of cash.
Another feature is that like the conspiracy to kill Mahatma Gandhi involved almost entirely Maharashtrians, in Malegaon conspiracy also mostly Maharashtrians are involved, or at least the most crucial ones. Simultaneously it is remarkable that Shiv Sena, a regional party which is in the forefront in providing legal assistance to defend the alleged terrorists. Shiv sena and Ahinau Bharat are essentially Marathi in nature and prone to violence.
They had burst crackers on large scale outside the court precisely at the time when the judge in the courtroom announced order of transfer of the Sadhvi from police to judicial custody (remarkable, for the Muslims accused in 2006 Malegaon bombing are still languishing in police custody). Such a close coordination smacks of military precision. It is for nothing that critics are saying that the RSS has infiltrated the Indian army. What has the country come to!
The firing squad that executed Imam Samudra, Amrozi Nurhasyim and Ali Ghufron (Mukhlas) on November 8, 2008 should leave no doubt in any mind that Muslims do not support terrorism. The terrorists had appealed that they be executed in Ramzan, in September. They had dreamed to go to heaven for creating a South East Asian caliphate. The government and the court viewed it differently. The three accused had carried out 2002 bombing of a picnic resort in Hindu majority Bali, Indonesia, that left 202 dead. The overwhelming majority of the Muslim population of Indonesia had shown understanding with the government and has supported it. There has been no protest in the streets or crowd gathering anywhere celebrating any martyrdom.
However the scene at the session court of Nasik, India, on November 3, is antipodal. It indicates how Indonesia could become India in world economy while India will have to remain where it is in its fight against terrorism.
Malegaon has been prominently in the news for quite sometimes. There is a fairly large segment of Muslim population residing in the eastern part. The notoriety of the town as a communally sensitive flash spot is the least desirable of its attributes for the local people but not for outsiders. Currently it is a stage chosen to launch a Sadhvi into a cult figure of strident Hindutva with its rugged determination to turn India into a Hindu rashtra where Vedic culture would be the ruling passion of the people. History will show whether the face of Pragyasingh Thakur will in its turn launch a thousand phalanxes of the saffron brigades that would carry the day despite what the international community and the minorities along with people free from the extreme belief within the country would react to. Of course the constitution of the country and the laws of the land have always been taken for a ride ala 1992. As much of the confession extracted by the ATS is the confession of a band of thugs it is difficult to prove and is also time consuming we can adopt this creative mode of narration to engage the mind in the meanwhile.
The premonition about the orchestrated order to come into existence is based on how things are transpiring in and around Malegaon. On September 29 the Sadhvi rode pinion in her flowing Hindu robe as Major Ramesh Upadhya drove LML Freedom into the heart of the enemy territory and a jeep filled with the other accused followed. As it would turn out to be their knight in shining armour was no other than a Lt Col of the Indian army, Prasad Srikant Purohit. Their pincer thrust by motorbike and jeep at Bhiku chowk demoralized their enemies for they rose against their own fellow Indians in uniform and tried to seize the outpost at the chowk. It is understandable in the light of the observation of WH Sleeman in his book Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official about thuggery in the nineteenth century. "It is a common practice with Thanadars all over the country to connive at the residence within their jurisdiction of gangs of robbers, on the condition that they shall not rob within those limits, and shall give them a share of what they bring back from their distant expeditions".
The sea of crowd in saffron headwear and flags and pinions surging in Nasik on November 3, 2008 reminds you of the fall of the wall of Berlin, history was made on that day. Since then the Sadhvi has left far behind the BJP priministerial candidate in her trail of glory. His ferocity for fighting terror has depleted and he seems to be lost in ifs and buts. Her saffron turban makes her look like Swami Vivekanand resurrected to lead the Hindus infected by unmentionable un- parliamentarian adjectives Bal Thackeray ascribes to them. Is his Marathi virility far superior to that of the people in the other states of the union?
Devlali camp in the vicinity of Nasik is the right military terrain to train the new recruits of Abhinav Bharat and mine the deadly RDX for the real attack on the fort of the enemy at Malegaon. As the conspiracy deepens Purohit not only provided 4 weapons to the other accused but also distributed cash. From where did he get arms, ammunition and cash? Who could be so generous and why? As the thugs of Chambal and Morena belt had codes and signals evolved to meet emergency, Purohit and the Sadhvi too had learnt the same along with the other accomplices. Purohit had said on the mobile “singh has sung.” There is no mistake of grammar of the verb infinitive sing and past participle sung. It means what it means that Ram Narayan Sigh has detonated the bomb at Bhiku chowk. “The cat is out of the basket” is another code of Purohit that shows how he successfully did his works of military intelligence and adapted them for terrorism. He had also arranged meeting between Pragya, Upadhyay and several others in Anand ashram at Faridabad, in Bhonsla military school of Nasik and had transferred funds from various accounts to Abhinav Bharat accounts and indulged in Hawala transactions.
Nowhere in the world are there so many different organizations subsumed to a paternal organization like we have in India. Ku Klux Klan was and is just one. The RSS and its numerous known and unknown organizations and also the ever-changing affiliates, Bajrang Dal, Hanuman Dal etc, are ever assuming new identity with time. All this involves very huge amount of money. RSS keeps no accounts and therefore there is no audit, it is not even registered. Lt Col Purohit deposited huge amounts of money to the accounts of Abhivau Bharat and transferred money to the other accused. Sameer Kulkarni received regular monthly payment of five thousand rupees. Where does the money come from? Around the time the Sadhvi appeared in court after Bal Thackeray announced total support to her the chief minister of Maharashtra, Deshmukh, also addressed audience in Nasik where he said that the Marathi speaking natives of the state do not do the jobs that the people of UP and Bihar do. He grumbled that Marathi speaking natives prefer comfortable jobs in offices from 11 to 5.
The mammoth crowd that Shiv Sena and Abhinau Bharat mustered at the court in Nasik on November 3 cannot have been of office goers unless they had taken mass casual leave. Mobilizing them also requires transport and huge sums of money. It is inevitable that terrorism requires supply of cash.
Another feature is that like the conspiracy to kill Mahatma Gandhi involved almost entirely Maharashtrians, in Malegaon conspiracy also mostly Maharashtrians are involved, or at least the most crucial ones. Simultaneously it is remarkable that Shiv Sena, a regional party which is in the forefront in providing legal assistance to defend the alleged terrorists. Shiv sena and Ahinau Bharat are essentially Marathi in nature and prone to violence.
They had burst crackers on large scale outside the court precisely at the time when the judge in the courtroom announced order of transfer of the Sadhvi from police to judicial custody (remarkable, for the Muslims accused in 2006 Malegaon bombing are still languishing in police custody). Such a close coordination smacks of military precision. It is for nothing that critics are saying that the RSS has infiltrated the Indian army. What has the country come to!
Friday, November 7, 2008
Barack Obama, terrorism and “cultural” nationalism
Nationalism is and should be natural or strong devotion to your nation. But this natural tendency is warped by the clout of the dominant majority and acquires different hues like tribal nationalism of the Hutus and Tutsi in Congo and Rwanda, cultural nationalism of the right wing Hindus, religious nationalism as of Saudi Arabia, and racial and religious as of Sudan. In conflict zone the natural nationalism is stunted by the superimposed consideration of race, religion, region, culture, origin, etc. In the fight against terrorism this superimposed ideology plays havoc. In Sudan’s Dahfur region the native Muslims of African origin are suppressed and oppressed by the janjiwads or Muslims of Arab origin, the ruling elite. Overwhelming Arab nationalists do not view the terror unleashed upon the Dahfurians by the janjiwads as terror.
In India there is attempt to rationalize the ever-latent-so-far-but-newly-discovered Hindu terrorism of the ilk of Sadhvi Pragayasingh Thakur. All the Hindus like all the Muslims cannot be terrorists nor can a religion be dubbed as terrorist despite the creed of jihad or the mythical opening of the third eye of Shiva.
The compulsive competitive opposition between the right wing Hindutva and the rest representing a spectrum of views from the liberal to cautious rationalist is throwing up many grave matters that touch upon the national security of the country. Among them are: can the self-professed protestations of “cultural” nationalism be allowed vigilantism and are the recent bomb blasts in the country a matter of huge amount of funding for terror.
The right wing is in the habit of describing all terrorist acts in the country as the handiwork of the Jihad inspired Muslims. In such gory incidents only Hindus have had the pain of suffering, according to them. Therefore the insidious suggestion of the need for Hindu vigilante group to save Hindus from terrorism. Such is the false syllogism on the horns of a dilemma. To have natural or “cultural” nationalism. In all this, where does the aspiration of the Muslims for natural nationalism figure in when they sing a hymn to Allah “to decorate my nation with my life blood/ like flowers glorifying the garden”? (ho mere dum se yuhin mayre vatan ki zinat/ jis tarha hoti hai phoolon se chaman ki zinat).
As the security agencies are probing funds pouring into the country to madrasas and other organizations the need of the hour is to investigate the foreign and native (including siphoning of government funds under deceptive headings) funding of the RSS and its affiliates of all hues. In the present case of Malegaon blast of September 29 police have arrested the financier of the Malegaon blast, Ajay Eknath Rahirkar. Sameer Kulkarni was paid five thousand rupees a month. Like that how many others are on the pay sheets? The sum total would come to astronomical figures given the widespread humongous establishments of RSS. In addition Madhya Pradesh has sent a lawyer, Ganesh Savle, to fight the case of the Sadhvi and other accused. Chief Minister Narendra Modi has gifted hefty amount to the Sadhvi that has made her affluent enough to have vehicles and modern houses in different towns of different states all of a sudden, unthinkable in the case of a country girl from down trodden Chambal and Morena belt!
Where cash does not count RDX counts. How come the intelligence officer Srikant Purohit of lieutenant colonel rank having free and easy access to ordnance stocks hatch conspiracy in which RDX has played the most disastrous role and has thereby brought the enviable repute of communalism-free army to disrepute. This has serious strategic implications for our nation (nation, in the natural sense of the word). Or did he also subscribe to the nation in the warped and exclusionary sense of Hindu rashtra?
As BJP president Rajnath Singh has remarked that anyone who believes in “cultural” nationalism cannot be a terrorist. There was a moving demonstration of this as the police cavalcade bearing the accused neared the session court in Nasik where the mammoth gathering of Ahinav Bharat and Shiv Sena activists showered flowers on it with shouts of “Hinduon ka nara hai, Hindustan hamara hai.”[The slogan of the Hindus is that India is theirs] “Hindustan Hinduon ka, nahi kisi ke bap ka.”[India belongs to Hindus and is not the property of the father of any body’s] Hindu rashtra has virtually arrived. In such a rashtra you cannot dare to have any lawyer defend a Muslim accused in terrorism. Let alone that even a serving jawan of BSF Arif Hussain Khati of Sherud, Dhulia, on duty defending the country in a part of Kashmir, cannot claim either his national identity or his house as his own. The crowd that burnt his identity card and house along with his military uniform knew only the “cultural nationalism” to which he could not belong. As a contrast to this Lt Col Purohit and Major (retired)Upadhya and other military officers involved in Malegaon bombings have the cultural national identity. Look at the sea of afffron flags and the surge of emotion at the court scene where the accused were cheered and applauded as heroes. It bodes good for the cultural nationalism but the chanting of the discriminating slogans tolls the knell of natural nationalism, at least for the time being or till sanity prevails upon the misguided and laws of the land are allowed take the course of action.
However, in the aftermath of the President Bush and Prime Minister Manmohansigh’s meeting in October it is clear that India will be involved in fighting what is ordinarily described as Jihad terrorism as it is going on in Afghanistan but surprisingly not in Iraq, at leas not in the view of the president elect Barack Obama. This is how the nation must feel proud to have entered the nuclear club of the western nations.
Obama’s fight against terrorism poses a challenge to the artificially created hype on terrorism in India. It calls for a supra national approach to confront the menace of terrorism in our backyard. Widespread belief among the people in India is that Kashmiri terrorism is Islamic terrorism. It verges on terrorism as an alternate to Islamism. Obama would like India to settle its dispute with Pakistan over Kashmir and join the so-called ‘war on terrorism’ in Afghanistan. This sounds anathema to many but it has potential for the future. After having adopted cultural nationalism (which intentionally excludes Muslims and other minorities) as Indian nationalism (love for the country of birth and residence) the right wing groups would be at pains to make out how could it be that they would be essentially helping one group against another of the same faith! One swears by Islam as much as the other. That is no man’s land to fight terrorism. Here at home the beard, the tunic and the round cap were enough to identify but over there everyone is alike. The odd man should be out.
In India there is attempt to rationalize the ever-latent-so-far-but-newly-discovered Hindu terrorism of the ilk of Sadhvi Pragayasingh Thakur. All the Hindus like all the Muslims cannot be terrorists nor can a religion be dubbed as terrorist despite the creed of jihad or the mythical opening of the third eye of Shiva.
The compulsive competitive opposition between the right wing Hindutva and the rest representing a spectrum of views from the liberal to cautious rationalist is throwing up many grave matters that touch upon the national security of the country. Among them are: can the self-professed protestations of “cultural” nationalism be allowed vigilantism and are the recent bomb blasts in the country a matter of huge amount of funding for terror.
The right wing is in the habit of describing all terrorist acts in the country as the handiwork of the Jihad inspired Muslims. In such gory incidents only Hindus have had the pain of suffering, according to them. Therefore the insidious suggestion of the need for Hindu vigilante group to save Hindus from terrorism. Such is the false syllogism on the horns of a dilemma. To have natural or “cultural” nationalism. In all this, where does the aspiration of the Muslims for natural nationalism figure in when they sing a hymn to Allah “to decorate my nation with my life blood/ like flowers glorifying the garden”? (ho mere dum se yuhin mayre vatan ki zinat/ jis tarha hoti hai phoolon se chaman ki zinat).
As the security agencies are probing funds pouring into the country to madrasas and other organizations the need of the hour is to investigate the foreign and native (including siphoning of government funds under deceptive headings) funding of the RSS and its affiliates of all hues. In the present case of Malegaon blast of September 29 police have arrested the financier of the Malegaon blast, Ajay Eknath Rahirkar. Sameer Kulkarni was paid five thousand rupees a month. Like that how many others are on the pay sheets? The sum total would come to astronomical figures given the widespread humongous establishments of RSS. In addition Madhya Pradesh has sent a lawyer, Ganesh Savle, to fight the case of the Sadhvi and other accused. Chief Minister Narendra Modi has gifted hefty amount to the Sadhvi that has made her affluent enough to have vehicles and modern houses in different towns of different states all of a sudden, unthinkable in the case of a country girl from down trodden Chambal and Morena belt!
Where cash does not count RDX counts. How come the intelligence officer Srikant Purohit of lieutenant colonel rank having free and easy access to ordnance stocks hatch conspiracy in which RDX has played the most disastrous role and has thereby brought the enviable repute of communalism-free army to disrepute. This has serious strategic implications for our nation (nation, in the natural sense of the word). Or did he also subscribe to the nation in the warped and exclusionary sense of Hindu rashtra?
As BJP president Rajnath Singh has remarked that anyone who believes in “cultural” nationalism cannot be a terrorist. There was a moving demonstration of this as the police cavalcade bearing the accused neared the session court in Nasik where the mammoth gathering of Ahinav Bharat and Shiv Sena activists showered flowers on it with shouts of “Hinduon ka nara hai, Hindustan hamara hai.”[The slogan of the Hindus is that India is theirs] “Hindustan Hinduon ka, nahi kisi ke bap ka.”[India belongs to Hindus and is not the property of the father of any body’s] Hindu rashtra has virtually arrived. In such a rashtra you cannot dare to have any lawyer defend a Muslim accused in terrorism. Let alone that even a serving jawan of BSF Arif Hussain Khati of Sherud, Dhulia, on duty defending the country in a part of Kashmir, cannot claim either his national identity or his house as his own. The crowd that burnt his identity card and house along with his military uniform knew only the “cultural nationalism” to which he could not belong. As a contrast to this Lt Col Purohit and Major (retired)Upadhya and other military officers involved in Malegaon bombings have the cultural national identity. Look at the sea of afffron flags and the surge of emotion at the court scene where the accused were cheered and applauded as heroes. It bodes good for the cultural nationalism but the chanting of the discriminating slogans tolls the knell of natural nationalism, at least for the time being or till sanity prevails upon the misguided and laws of the land are allowed take the course of action.
However, in the aftermath of the President Bush and Prime Minister Manmohansigh’s meeting in October it is clear that India will be involved in fighting what is ordinarily described as Jihad terrorism as it is going on in Afghanistan but surprisingly not in Iraq, at leas not in the view of the president elect Barack Obama. This is how the nation must feel proud to have entered the nuclear club of the western nations.
Obama’s fight against terrorism poses a challenge to the artificially created hype on terrorism in India. It calls for a supra national approach to confront the menace of terrorism in our backyard. Widespread belief among the people in India is that Kashmiri terrorism is Islamic terrorism. It verges on terrorism as an alternate to Islamism. Obama would like India to settle its dispute with Pakistan over Kashmir and join the so-called ‘war on terrorism’ in Afghanistan. This sounds anathema to many but it has potential for the future. After having adopted cultural nationalism (which intentionally excludes Muslims and other minorities) as Indian nationalism (love for the country of birth and residence) the right wing groups would be at pains to make out how could it be that they would be essentially helping one group against another of the same faith! One swears by Islam as much as the other. That is no man’s land to fight terrorism. Here at home the beard, the tunic and the round cap were enough to identify but over there everyone is alike. The odd man should be out.
Friday, October 31, 2008
Of cities and bomb making
The report from Kanpur says that the BJP will toe the line of RSS and defend sadhvi Pragyasingh Thakur, who had provided her motorbike in the bomb blast in Malegaon on September 29 and hence was part of the conspiracy. The meeting of RSS seniors there has churned out this strategy on which the election would have to be fought. There is no need to have inhibition over what the sadhvi and her accomplices have done. The sangh feels more emboldened today as it enjoys comprehensive support of the Hindu population of the country although it is clearly reprehensible that conspiracy in high places and gross violation of laws do not match with the kind of democracy the country boasts of.
But this should not come as a surprise because we have fallen so low in our own estimate that everything goes in the name of religion and nationalism. After all how many felt outraged over the pogroms of Muslims in Gujarat? Compounding into this nightmare was the specter of the familiar and ubiquitous doppelganger in tunic with beard and cap although post September 29 Malegaon shows that beards and caps and tunics as well as veil for ladies are not in short supply. Do not be shocked by the terrorist at your dining table in the morning.
The coterie at Kanpur bears all the hallmarks of Delhi or Lucknow vintage 1947-48. Rajeshwar Dayal was the secretary in the central government when the deputy inspector general of UP, BLL Jaitley, came to his house with two trunks of documents of details of houses and establishments of Muslims in the western part of the state marked out and with accurate details on how to approach them. RSS had collected the information in a conspiracy to systematically attack and destroy the houses and properties of the Muslims and kill them. RSS chief Golwalker had prepared this sinister plot personally. So serious was the discovery that Dayal called it “incontrovertible evidence of a dastardly conspiracy to create a communal holocaust” and took the matter immediately to the Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. Nehru surprised him by not ordering arrest of Golwalker. Instead he wanted the cabinet to discuss the matter. The cabinet dithered and filibustered. But the premier asked Dayal to write a letter to RSS boss Golwalker about the cache. Golwalker got the wind of what was transpiring as RSS had planted moles in the high places and one such tipped him off. He changed his residence frequently to dodge the government missive. The government servant was unable to meet him although he was in the same neighbourhood.
It is highly significant to note that Malegaon blast is connected to Kanpur. The ATS is hunting for a retired colonel in UP who had directly helped in preparing the blast. The chemical analysis links the explosion to the other explosions in Kanpur in recent times.
The police have record of the 400 minutes telephonic conversation of the sadhvi with the accomplices including, serving lieutenant colonel Shasikant Purohit of the army, Ramesh Upadhya who taught the others how to make a bomb and procure RDX. Moreover they had met at the Bhonsla Military school of Nasik on April 16 among them was Sameer Kulkarni who transported the explosives to Maleagoin. The police are in search of Ram Narayan Singh who planted the bomb at Bhiku chowk. There is also report that they had met at the school on September 16, some other papers report that the meeting also took place on September 13. They are members of Abhinav Bharat which in turn was the resurrection of Abhinav Bharat society which Savarkar had found in 1905. Savarkar, Moonje and Hegdewar were captivated by fascism and Savarkar had modeled his organization on the Italian nationalist Giuseppe Mazzini’s Young Italy. Most of the accused in Malegaon blasts are also connected with Pune where Abhinav Bharat is headed by no other than the daughter in law of Savarkar. Himani Savarkar is also the niece of Nathuram Godse hence the slogan of her outfit “kshama yachna nahin ab to ran hoga, sangharsh bada bhishan hoga. This slogan is on posters of the organization in Bhopal. Nasik also occupies a crucial place as the Bhonsla military school is located there where the bombers took training and held meeting. The session court is hearing the case there.
The RSS meeting in Kanpur discussed the Malegaon blast and came out with a cynical assessment that the startling revelations of Malegaon blast would not affect the people who habitually vote BJP. Therefore they are back to square one: Hindutuva extremism. For this and all other matters of religious extremism of the Hindutuva you don’t have to go to Tirupati or Chidambrum or Trivandrum because there is a world of difference between the Hindi heartland and the Dravadian south. UP and Madhya Pardesh are central to deep-rooted antipathy to the ‘other.’ After them comes Gujarat. Sadhvi Pragya was from that part of Madhya Pardesh which is famed for anti-Muslims feeling, Malwa region, for it is the stronghold of Hindutuva. If this were not so Malwa would be like Chidambrum.
Hindu Jagran Mach based in Indore came into existence in 2002 during the trouble in Dhar, MP, over prayer at Bhojshala where Hindus as well as Muslims pray in adjoining place. However, the Hindus were allowed to pray only once a year. As the extreme among the Hindus became ascendant they took to aggression and wanted to pray to Saraswati without any restrictive stipulation. The sadhvi and her accomplices are embedded in HJM for their anti minority activities.
On the other hand Kanpur boasts a much larger presence with 60 supported RSS schools known as Saraswati Vidayalas and Deen Dayal Vidayalas. Indeed one such Saraswati Vidayala of Govind nager also hosts the offices of RSS and VHP. There are some 1,500 branches of RSS in Kanpur region of which 300 are in Kanpur itself. There are also 12,000 Bajrang Dal activists. Given such a massive presence in Kanpur it is bound to be the hub of the extreme Hindutuva activities such as bomb making. Two times in August and October there have been two distinct incidents of bomb explosion. In fact in the explosion on August 24 two Bajrang Dal activists, Rajive Misra and Bhupender Sigh died while handling the bomb. An analysis of the chemicals there and of the September 29 blast in Malegaon could establish similarity. In both the places RDX must be present. As the police officer in Kanpur observed that the storage of the explosives in Kanpur was so large that it could have blown up half of the city!
But this should not come as a surprise because we have fallen so low in our own estimate that everything goes in the name of religion and nationalism. After all how many felt outraged over the pogroms of Muslims in Gujarat? Compounding into this nightmare was the specter of the familiar and ubiquitous doppelganger in tunic with beard and cap although post September 29 Malegaon shows that beards and caps and tunics as well as veil for ladies are not in short supply. Do not be shocked by the terrorist at your dining table in the morning.
The coterie at Kanpur bears all the hallmarks of Delhi or Lucknow vintage 1947-48. Rajeshwar Dayal was the secretary in the central government when the deputy inspector general of UP, BLL Jaitley, came to his house with two trunks of documents of details of houses and establishments of Muslims in the western part of the state marked out and with accurate details on how to approach them. RSS had collected the information in a conspiracy to systematically attack and destroy the houses and properties of the Muslims and kill them. RSS chief Golwalker had prepared this sinister plot personally. So serious was the discovery that Dayal called it “incontrovertible evidence of a dastardly conspiracy to create a communal holocaust” and took the matter immediately to the Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. Nehru surprised him by not ordering arrest of Golwalker. Instead he wanted the cabinet to discuss the matter. The cabinet dithered and filibustered. But the premier asked Dayal to write a letter to RSS boss Golwalker about the cache. Golwalker got the wind of what was transpiring as RSS had planted moles in the high places and one such tipped him off. He changed his residence frequently to dodge the government missive. The government servant was unable to meet him although he was in the same neighbourhood.
It is highly significant to note that Malegaon blast is connected to Kanpur. The ATS is hunting for a retired colonel in UP who had directly helped in preparing the blast. The chemical analysis links the explosion to the other explosions in Kanpur in recent times.
The police have record of the 400 minutes telephonic conversation of the sadhvi with the accomplices including, serving lieutenant colonel Shasikant Purohit of the army, Ramesh Upadhya who taught the others how to make a bomb and procure RDX. Moreover they had met at the Bhonsla Military school of Nasik on April 16 among them was Sameer Kulkarni who transported the explosives to Maleagoin. The police are in search of Ram Narayan Singh who planted the bomb at Bhiku chowk. There is also report that they had met at the school on September 16, some other papers report that the meeting also took place on September 13. They are members of Abhinav Bharat which in turn was the resurrection of Abhinav Bharat society which Savarkar had found in 1905. Savarkar, Moonje and Hegdewar were captivated by fascism and Savarkar had modeled his organization on the Italian nationalist Giuseppe Mazzini’s Young Italy. Most of the accused in Malegaon blasts are also connected with Pune where Abhinav Bharat is headed by no other than the daughter in law of Savarkar. Himani Savarkar is also the niece of Nathuram Godse hence the slogan of her outfit “kshama yachna nahin ab to ran hoga, sangharsh bada bhishan hoga. This slogan is on posters of the organization in Bhopal. Nasik also occupies a crucial place as the Bhonsla military school is located there where the bombers took training and held meeting. The session court is hearing the case there.
The RSS meeting in Kanpur discussed the Malegaon blast and came out with a cynical assessment that the startling revelations of Malegaon blast would not affect the people who habitually vote BJP. Therefore they are back to square one: Hindutuva extremism. For this and all other matters of religious extremism of the Hindutuva you don’t have to go to Tirupati or Chidambrum or Trivandrum because there is a world of difference between the Hindi heartland and the Dravadian south. UP and Madhya Pardesh are central to deep-rooted antipathy to the ‘other.’ After them comes Gujarat. Sadhvi Pragya was from that part of Madhya Pardesh which is famed for anti-Muslims feeling, Malwa region, for it is the stronghold of Hindutuva. If this were not so Malwa would be like Chidambrum.
Hindu Jagran Mach based in Indore came into existence in 2002 during the trouble in Dhar, MP, over prayer at Bhojshala where Hindus as well as Muslims pray in adjoining place. However, the Hindus were allowed to pray only once a year. As the extreme among the Hindus became ascendant they took to aggression and wanted to pray to Saraswati without any restrictive stipulation. The sadhvi and her accomplices are embedded in HJM for their anti minority activities.
On the other hand Kanpur boasts a much larger presence with 60 supported RSS schools known as Saraswati Vidayalas and Deen Dayal Vidayalas. Indeed one such Saraswati Vidayala of Govind nager also hosts the offices of RSS and VHP. There are some 1,500 branches of RSS in Kanpur region of which 300 are in Kanpur itself. There are also 12,000 Bajrang Dal activists. Given such a massive presence in Kanpur it is bound to be the hub of the extreme Hindutuva activities such as bomb making. Two times in August and October there have been two distinct incidents of bomb explosion. In fact in the explosion on August 24 two Bajrang Dal activists, Rajive Misra and Bhupender Sigh died while handling the bomb. An analysis of the chemicals there and of the September 29 blast in Malegaon could establish similarity. In both the places RDX must be present. As the police officer in Kanpur observed that the storage of the explosives in Kanpur was so large that it could have blown up half of the city!
Thursday, October 30, 2008
The winter of our discontent: provincialism and terrorism
There is the winter of our discontent that has set in. The stock market is in doldrums, protests and violence in the streets, lynching and encounters in the financial capital of the country, war of words between states of the union, involvement of ex-servicemen and a serving lieutenant colonel in terrorism, the slide of the reputed Bhonsla military school of Nasik and Nagpur into the nadir of terrorism, and 25 bomb blasts in Assam, etc.
It is dreadful to think what the situation would be as the winter advances and the long day’s journey into the night winds up. The next day is unwilling to be born into the murky atmosphere. There is no definite beginning to any of the sordid games we Indians are in the habit of playing against each other rather than any enemy from the outside world (at least no one has definitely been caught so far). A judge in Mumbai showed displeasure that the state was head over heels busy in deciphering the Indian Mujahideen email while failing to see the writing on the wall by the Maharashtra Naunirman Sena. Another judge remarked that had the leaders of Bihar and UP used their resources (kickbacks) the migrants would not have flooded the metropolis. Raj Thackeray then chirped in that the state does not understand the language of nonviolence. Then the violence erupted. Thirteen examination centers for the recruitment of candidates for railway jobs were attacked. The northerner youths appearing for the examination were under brutal attack. One Pawan Kumar died in the attack, there is another version that he slipped from a running train and accidentally died. The mobs in Bihar burnt railway property. In tandem came the deaths of Rahul Raj shot dead by the police as he tried to hijack a bus to propagate his grouse against Raj Thackeray and the lynching of Dharmadeo Rai by the Marathi speaking mob in a local train. These events have made tension and violence move in a crescendo as Lalu Prasad called Raj Thackeray a psychopath and Deputy Home Minister RR Patil justifying the killing: “If a madman gets into a bus and goes on a shooting spree, this is the response they will get.” Besides raising the parochial and political temper this situation is fraught with danger to the country. The center cannot hold and things fall apart and anarchy is let loose. The peace that Bihar maintained and its refusal to espouse provincialism in the face of attack on its citizens in Assam 2003 is under strain.
Even more terrifying is the theft of RDX from government ordnance factory. It is now in the hands of the home grown terrorists, to the groups that included Sadhvi Pragysingh Thaku. On the day Sadhvi appeared in a court of Nasik a Marathi daily there carried report that the cross border or Jihad terrorism has RDX from Pakistan military while the home grown terrorists would have only one source, the government of India ordnance factories. But cross border terrorism has been rampant though it cannot be ruled out that home grown terrorism was not very much there. More than twenty five bomb blasts rocked Assam on October 30, 2008 killing more than 50 including military and police personnel and injuring about two hundred. One attack took place quite near the office of the chief minister but the most terrific was at the Ganeshgudi flyover. Rows of cars turned into wreckage in dust and smoke as if the fury of Hiroshima visited Guwahati. The minister of state in home department of the central government Shakeel Ahmed remarked that it was too early to be categorical but October 3-5 saw communal riots in which 54 lost their life. Muslims inhabit the areas affected by bomb explosions where the shopkeepers are Marwari.
Another cause of concern is that the civilian population of the affected areas of Guwahati turned violent against the police and the fire fighters and pelted stones. This is exactly what happened during the serial bomb blasts in Malegaon September 8 2006 and September 29 2008.
Most of the observers believe that only United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA), the Assamese upper caste organization fighting for autonomy, is behind the serial blasts. “ULFA has a history of triggering serial blasts," Assam's health minister
Himanta Biswa Sarma stated soon after the blasts. Organizing such a preplanned attacks requires enormous resources and widespread local support. Some also think that it is Hurkatul Jihad e Islami (HuJI). If it is ULFA then the same concern is evident as in the case of Malegaon Septmber 29 blast. Who supplied the RDX? Is it from the government ordnance stock? There is growing fear that right wing Hindu organizations have long been using ex-service men and institutions like the Bhonsla military school to train Hindu youths in arms and ammunition though under the ruse of personality development. Nagpur Bhonsla military school had allowed even Bajrang Dal to use its premises and the Nasik branch has confirmed that Major Prabhakar Kulkarni is not only the past director but also the secretary of the institution that runs the school. The major is believed to have trained the sadhvi and the others in the use of RDX.
Somebody must have also trained the terrorists behind the Assam attacks. The scale of the attack leaves no doubt that RDX was used. Although much limited in Malegaon the blast has left RDX marks on 19 items. In Assam it could be in hundreds as more than 25 bombs exploded there. If it turns out to be HuJI then there is of course ISI.
The two terrorist outfits have one thing in common: communalism. The explosion allegedly caused by SIMI, IM or HuJI leaves many dead and wounded and that motivates backlash that is equally an act of terrorism. Hence the father of sadhvi Pragyasingh, Chandrapal Singh Thakur justified her part saying that “a reply to terrorist attacks was required. If the government does not act in time, the common people will have to do something about their own security.” But it seems his daughter will fight from jail, an election on the ticket of Uma Bharati's Bharatiya Janshakti Party (BJS) because the saints cannot be what the police is trying to prove. She would be taking on any leader of the BJP, despite the President of BJP Rajnath Singh himself declaring the sadhvi innocent because anyone who adheres to the cultural nationalism of the RSS cannot be terrorist, including serving lieutenant colonel Shrikant Purohit of the army. Given this kind of rationale we are in for a long winter.
It is dreadful to think what the situation would be as the winter advances and the long day’s journey into the night winds up. The next day is unwilling to be born into the murky atmosphere. There is no definite beginning to any of the sordid games we Indians are in the habit of playing against each other rather than any enemy from the outside world (at least no one has definitely been caught so far). A judge in Mumbai showed displeasure that the state was head over heels busy in deciphering the Indian Mujahideen email while failing to see the writing on the wall by the Maharashtra Naunirman Sena. Another judge remarked that had the leaders of Bihar and UP used their resources (kickbacks) the migrants would not have flooded the metropolis. Raj Thackeray then chirped in that the state does not understand the language of nonviolence. Then the violence erupted. Thirteen examination centers for the recruitment of candidates for railway jobs were attacked. The northerner youths appearing for the examination were under brutal attack. One Pawan Kumar died in the attack, there is another version that he slipped from a running train and accidentally died. The mobs in Bihar burnt railway property. In tandem came the deaths of Rahul Raj shot dead by the police as he tried to hijack a bus to propagate his grouse against Raj Thackeray and the lynching of Dharmadeo Rai by the Marathi speaking mob in a local train. These events have made tension and violence move in a crescendo as Lalu Prasad called Raj Thackeray a psychopath and Deputy Home Minister RR Patil justifying the killing: “If a madman gets into a bus and goes on a shooting spree, this is the response they will get.” Besides raising the parochial and political temper this situation is fraught with danger to the country. The center cannot hold and things fall apart and anarchy is let loose. The peace that Bihar maintained and its refusal to espouse provincialism in the face of attack on its citizens in Assam 2003 is under strain.
Even more terrifying is the theft of RDX from government ordnance factory. It is now in the hands of the home grown terrorists, to the groups that included Sadhvi Pragysingh Thaku. On the day Sadhvi appeared in a court of Nasik a Marathi daily there carried report that the cross border or Jihad terrorism has RDX from Pakistan military while the home grown terrorists would have only one source, the government of India ordnance factories. But cross border terrorism has been rampant though it cannot be ruled out that home grown terrorism was not very much there. More than twenty five bomb blasts rocked Assam on October 30, 2008 killing more than 50 including military and police personnel and injuring about two hundred. One attack took place quite near the office of the chief minister but the most terrific was at the Ganeshgudi flyover. Rows of cars turned into wreckage in dust and smoke as if the fury of Hiroshima visited Guwahati. The minister of state in home department of the central government Shakeel Ahmed remarked that it was too early to be categorical but October 3-5 saw communal riots in which 54 lost their life. Muslims inhabit the areas affected by bomb explosions where the shopkeepers are Marwari.
Another cause of concern is that the civilian population of the affected areas of Guwahati turned violent against the police and the fire fighters and pelted stones. This is exactly what happened during the serial bomb blasts in Malegaon September 8 2006 and September 29 2008.
Most of the observers believe that only United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA), the Assamese upper caste organization fighting for autonomy, is behind the serial blasts. “ULFA has a history of triggering serial blasts," Assam's health minister
Himanta Biswa Sarma stated soon after the blasts. Organizing such a preplanned attacks requires enormous resources and widespread local support. Some also think that it is Hurkatul Jihad e Islami (HuJI). If it is ULFA then the same concern is evident as in the case of Malegaon Septmber 29 blast. Who supplied the RDX? Is it from the government ordnance stock? There is growing fear that right wing Hindu organizations have long been using ex-service men and institutions like the Bhonsla military school to train Hindu youths in arms and ammunition though under the ruse of personality development. Nagpur Bhonsla military school had allowed even Bajrang Dal to use its premises and the Nasik branch has confirmed that Major Prabhakar Kulkarni is not only the past director but also the secretary of the institution that runs the school. The major is believed to have trained the sadhvi and the others in the use of RDX.
Somebody must have also trained the terrorists behind the Assam attacks. The scale of the attack leaves no doubt that RDX was used. Although much limited in Malegaon the blast has left RDX marks on 19 items. In Assam it could be in hundreds as more than 25 bombs exploded there. If it turns out to be HuJI then there is of course ISI.
The two terrorist outfits have one thing in common: communalism. The explosion allegedly caused by SIMI, IM or HuJI leaves many dead and wounded and that motivates backlash that is equally an act of terrorism. Hence the father of sadhvi Pragyasingh, Chandrapal Singh Thakur justified her part saying that “a reply to terrorist attacks was required. If the government does not act in time, the common people will have to do something about their own security.” But it seems his daughter will fight from jail, an election on the ticket of Uma Bharati's Bharatiya Janshakti Party (BJS) because the saints cannot be what the police is trying to prove. She would be taking on any leader of the BJP, despite the President of BJP Rajnath Singh himself declaring the sadhvi innocent because anyone who adheres to the cultural nationalism of the RSS cannot be terrorist, including serving lieutenant colonel Shrikant Purohit of the army. Given this kind of rationale we are in for a long winter.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Multi headed hydra monstrosity of the sangh parivar
We have failed to fully account for the role the so-called cultural organization RSS has played and is still playing in violent acts. Why does this need arise from time to time? It is primarily because the extreme right wing organization has meddled into politics of the country from time to time and by not recognizing Muslims as part of it. Or, as is its assertion from time to time that Muslims have to forgo their allegiance to the foreign faith they have embraced and be sanskritized. This is not only ridiculous but also simply impossible. The RSS indoctrinates its cadres in such a way that they view the Muslims as their enemy and trains them to fight the Muslims. Moreover from much earlier time the organization has indulged in prevarication, secrecy and conspiracy. These are not the stuff on which to build democratic structure. They are outrageously and offensively wrong, hence monstrosity. Multi headed ! Thanks to juggling of words. The police first said it was Hindu Jagran Manch behind the Malegaon September 29 blast and then said it was Rashtriya Jagran Manch. Remember Hindu Jagran Manch is anti minority. It owned up the terrible attacks on Christians and Muslims in Gujarat and other parts of the country. It is also fact that the accused were from Durga Vahini who had links with Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad. Samir Kulkarni was from Abhinau Bharat, but also from Abhinav Bharat Sansthan as well as ABVP.
Mahatma Gandhi’s assassins were from RSS and Hindu Mahasabha. In his letter to Syam Prasad Mukherji, Sardar Patel wrote in July 1948 about the assassination of Gandhi: “our reports do confirm that, as a result of the activities of these two bodies, particularly the former, an atmosphere was created in the country in which such a ghastly tragedy became possible.” Nathuram Godse was baudhik karyavah or intellectual worker of RSS and made five known attempts to assassinate. In fact Gopal Godse asserted: “All the brothers were in the RSS. Nathuram, Dattatreya, myself and Govind. You can say we grew up in the RSS rather than in our home. It was like a family to us”. Can such inveterate and committed person change his party before assassinating Gandhi? What had gone into the making of Nathuram is a matter of years of ideological stockbreeding. What was equally serious about the affair was what the IAS officer told Justice Jeevan Lal Kapoor inquiry commission that the right wing organizations had secretly made plans of subverting the established government and taking over the reigns of the government.
Sadhvi Pragyasingh Thakur’s involvement in the bomb blast is no less serious than what was the case at the time of the assassination of Gandhi. She and Major Ramesh Upadhya and Major Y D Sahasrabuddhe and even a serving armyman, posted at Panchmarhi in Madhya Pradesh had established a network of terror across states involving groups as strategic as ex-service personnel, Bhonsle Military Schools and men in ordance factory or defence services who could pass on RDX as scrap. Does it require any more proof to show that this is sedition? Even the letter of Santosh Kumar Rai National Organising Secreatry AKHIL BHARAT HINDU MAHASABHA (Mo. 09818334959) appeals “to all Hindu community please come in support of SADHWI and UNITE to make BHARAT as HINDU NATION.”
The kind of atmosphere built up over the last six months was such that it could have led to upheaval in the society on unprecedented scale. Amar Singh feared that Muslims might rebel against their repression and oppression on account of the innumerable arrests of many innocent members of the community. It is for such an eventuality that the RSS is training its cadres in arms and ammunition. They would take over the reign. Tarun Tejpal asked the people to pause and think coolly in the wee time of the lull before the storm. It is most opportune that the Maharashtra police did what would become another historic milestone in the administrative service of the country. Their investigation may not fulfill all the expectations of the people of different groups but the nation can legitimately heave a sigh of relief. Bombs will not stop exploding but investigation would be not one sided. Those who admire Hitler could also use the techniques of Hitler of burning the parliament in order to arouse strong nationalist feelings and hatred against the Jews and minorities. Today’s Jews in India are the Muslims hunted and haunted as their Semite brethren of yore. People will be wary now.
There are enough reasons why one should be wary and of what. First what the right wing leaders including the prime ministerial candidate say. It is interesting to note that LK Advani is now saying that the sadhvi had left the sangh parivar’s Durga Vahini. She was a member of several such outfits. This is what Advani has been saying about Nathuram, too. The national convener of Bajrang Dal also told the same about Rajive Misra and Bhupender Singh who blew themselves up while making or assembling bomb in Kanpur on August 24. In the case of the Nanded blast of February 2007 the police tried to hide the identity of the man killed, later it was found out that he was Shiv Sena lealder of Nanded. People should also be wary of fire crackers bursting or biscuit cartons exploding not only in Nanded but also in Rajasthan and elsewhere.
Thus some policemen and the right wing organizations try to hide the fact that Hindu extremists are involved in blasts. Even officers with science background do not behave with honesty and integrity because of the mindset created by RSS ideology. For example look at how a lady doctor treats a Muslim suspect Noorulhoda of Malegaon September 8, 2006 blasts case:
“During the test I was given electric shocks. I was beaten so much on my ears and forehead that I still feel the pain in my brain nerves and bones of the chest. Bangalore’s lady doctor Malini told me “speak up what police is asking you to say otherwise they will implicate you in two or three more such cases.” She too was threatening in the same way and on my repeated refusal she used to give me electric shocks on my ear.”
There is also a schismatic deflective device of the Hindu extremists when members of one organization are caught, first they are either disowned or are made out to have left the organization. But it is not long when other organizations jumped in to defend the accused or arrested. The extremists among the Hindutva group in Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat as well as Shiv Sena leaders want to defend the sadhvi. Manohar Joshi believes that the Islamic terrorism is responsible for forcing the sadhvi to take to terrorism. Hindus were so much enraged by jihad terrorism that they were forced to react the same way. Some say that this should be treated an aberration rather than the norm of the Hindu community. They labour under the illusion that terrorism is a matter of faith and not of the character of the people. In fact the editorial in Samna goes to say that given Jihad terrorism it would be no surprise if all Hindus take to terrorism. This is sure recipe for subversion.
Another device is subterfuge or trick to escape trouble. The sangh parivar is master in subterfuges. The VHP leader Ramvilas Vedanti had got his disciples email letters to him on August 30 2008 threatening his life. The emails were sent in the name of SIMI and Indian Mujahideen. The police in UP found out the truth that the fake letters were used to get z security cover to Vedanti but the police did not take action against the disciples or Vedanti. The Malegaon blast provides another instance of subterfuge and deflective device. The Ahemdabad police have arrested general secretary of VHP of Ahmedabad, Ashwin Patel. The police have this to say in the FIR: "Since the last two to two and a half months, derogatory and defamatory SMSes were doing the rounds about Narendra Modi and his government. Besides there were SMSes to mislead about the Malegaon, Modasa and Ahmedabad blasts and the language used could provoke communal passions". It would take some more time to unearth the whole meaning but it is beyond doubt that the three incidents of bombing had one common purpose: inciting communal passion that could produce backlash. The obvious beneficiary would be, of course, BJP. But the question is not of that party, what about the country? Theft of RDX in the name of sale of scrap ends up in the hands of the extremists of well-spread and well-organized organizations who in the name of defending the country are in fact engaged in terrorism.
Mahatma Gandhi’s assassins were from RSS and Hindu Mahasabha. In his letter to Syam Prasad Mukherji, Sardar Patel wrote in July 1948 about the assassination of Gandhi: “our reports do confirm that, as a result of the activities of these two bodies, particularly the former, an atmosphere was created in the country in which such a ghastly tragedy became possible.” Nathuram Godse was baudhik karyavah or intellectual worker of RSS and made five known attempts to assassinate. In fact Gopal Godse asserted: “All the brothers were in the RSS. Nathuram, Dattatreya, myself and Govind. You can say we grew up in the RSS rather than in our home. It was like a family to us”. Can such inveterate and committed person change his party before assassinating Gandhi? What had gone into the making of Nathuram is a matter of years of ideological stockbreeding. What was equally serious about the affair was what the IAS officer told Justice Jeevan Lal Kapoor inquiry commission that the right wing organizations had secretly made plans of subverting the established government and taking over the reigns of the government.
Sadhvi Pragyasingh Thakur’s involvement in the bomb blast is no less serious than what was the case at the time of the assassination of Gandhi. She and Major Ramesh Upadhya and Major Y D Sahasrabuddhe and even a serving armyman, posted at Panchmarhi in Madhya Pradesh had established a network of terror across states involving groups as strategic as ex-service personnel, Bhonsle Military Schools and men in ordance factory or defence services who could pass on RDX as scrap. Does it require any more proof to show that this is sedition? Even the letter of Santosh Kumar Rai National Organising Secreatry AKHIL BHARAT HINDU MAHASABHA (Mo. 09818334959) appeals “to all Hindu community please come in support of SADHWI and UNITE to make BHARAT as HINDU NATION.”
The kind of atmosphere built up over the last six months was such that it could have led to upheaval in the society on unprecedented scale. Amar Singh feared that Muslims might rebel against their repression and oppression on account of the innumerable arrests of many innocent members of the community. It is for such an eventuality that the RSS is training its cadres in arms and ammunition. They would take over the reign. Tarun Tejpal asked the people to pause and think coolly in the wee time of the lull before the storm. It is most opportune that the Maharashtra police did what would become another historic milestone in the administrative service of the country. Their investigation may not fulfill all the expectations of the people of different groups but the nation can legitimately heave a sigh of relief. Bombs will not stop exploding but investigation would be not one sided. Those who admire Hitler could also use the techniques of Hitler of burning the parliament in order to arouse strong nationalist feelings and hatred against the Jews and minorities. Today’s Jews in India are the Muslims hunted and haunted as their Semite brethren of yore. People will be wary now.
There are enough reasons why one should be wary and of what. First what the right wing leaders including the prime ministerial candidate say. It is interesting to note that LK Advani is now saying that the sadhvi had left the sangh parivar’s Durga Vahini. She was a member of several such outfits. This is what Advani has been saying about Nathuram, too. The national convener of Bajrang Dal also told the same about Rajive Misra and Bhupender Singh who blew themselves up while making or assembling bomb in Kanpur on August 24. In the case of the Nanded blast of February 2007 the police tried to hide the identity of the man killed, later it was found out that he was Shiv Sena lealder of Nanded. People should also be wary of fire crackers bursting or biscuit cartons exploding not only in Nanded but also in Rajasthan and elsewhere.
Thus some policemen and the right wing organizations try to hide the fact that Hindu extremists are involved in blasts. Even officers with science background do not behave with honesty and integrity because of the mindset created by RSS ideology. For example look at how a lady doctor treats a Muslim suspect Noorulhoda of Malegaon September 8, 2006 blasts case:
“During the test I was given electric shocks. I was beaten so much on my ears and forehead that I still feel the pain in my brain nerves and bones of the chest. Bangalore’s lady doctor Malini told me “speak up what police is asking you to say otherwise they will implicate you in two or three more such cases.” She too was threatening in the same way and on my repeated refusal she used to give me electric shocks on my ear.”
There is also a schismatic deflective device of the Hindu extremists when members of one organization are caught, first they are either disowned or are made out to have left the organization. But it is not long when other organizations jumped in to defend the accused or arrested. The extremists among the Hindutva group in Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat as well as Shiv Sena leaders want to defend the sadhvi. Manohar Joshi believes that the Islamic terrorism is responsible for forcing the sadhvi to take to terrorism. Hindus were so much enraged by jihad terrorism that they were forced to react the same way. Some say that this should be treated an aberration rather than the norm of the Hindu community. They labour under the illusion that terrorism is a matter of faith and not of the character of the people. In fact the editorial in Samna goes to say that given Jihad terrorism it would be no surprise if all Hindus take to terrorism. This is sure recipe for subversion.
Another device is subterfuge or trick to escape trouble. The sangh parivar is master in subterfuges. The VHP leader Ramvilas Vedanti had got his disciples email letters to him on August 30 2008 threatening his life. The emails were sent in the name of SIMI and Indian Mujahideen. The police in UP found out the truth that the fake letters were used to get z security cover to Vedanti but the police did not take action against the disciples or Vedanti. The Malegaon blast provides another instance of subterfuge and deflective device. The Ahemdabad police have arrested general secretary of VHP of Ahmedabad, Ashwin Patel. The police have this to say in the FIR: "Since the last two to two and a half months, derogatory and defamatory SMSes were doing the rounds about Narendra Modi and his government. Besides there were SMSes to mislead about the Malegaon, Modasa and Ahmedabad blasts and the language used could provoke communal passions". It would take some more time to unearth the whole meaning but it is beyond doubt that the three incidents of bombing had one common purpose: inciting communal passion that could produce backlash. The obvious beneficiary would be, of course, BJP. But the question is not of that party, what about the country? Theft of RDX in the name of sale of scrap ends up in the hands of the extremists of well-spread and well-organized organizations who in the name of defending the country are in fact engaged in terrorism.
Monday, October 27, 2008
Malegaon is at it again!
Malegaon/Communalism/Pressure on police
Once it was the pride of Hindu Muslim unity, mutual respect and trust. Even the riots in the sixties and seventies did not dent into the harmonious relationship between the various sections of the society. But the 1980s and 1990s changed all that. With the rise of right wing BJP and its newly won respectability of its extreme view the town began to feel strain of being pulled in opposite directions. Since then Malegaon has become captive of communalists.
The police in Malegaon must be under tremendous strain. This is borne out by two recent incidents. Raj Thackeray’s arrest and the police action against those who were barricading the high way and forcing shutting down of shops on October 21-22 and the people pelting stones and manhandling the police in the aftermath of the bomb explosion on September 29 are dissimilar in nature. The people attacked the police in Bhiku chowk on the spur of the moment and several policemen were injured. But the police prevailed upon the situation and even opened fire on the riotous mob in which two persons died and many were injured. They even declared curfew but within minutes called it off. The police who described the blast as gas cylinder explosion when it was clearly bomb blast incensed the mob all the more because people had informed about the abandoned motorcycle(later found to be property of Poornachetanand or sadhvi Pragya) to the police more than an hour before the explosion. They ignored it.
The police did not make ignominious retreat (padta bhui) as is claimed by a Marathi daily columnist. If it were only that perhaps it would not be much, after all we have right to have personal view of events. But then the writer goes on to say that the police should not have thrashed the MNS activists in Hindu areas after how the cops were beaten up by the Muslim mob and after their abject retreat from the Muslim ghetto of Bhiku chowk. This is fine-tuning of communalism where it does not and should not exist. And exhorting to police to keep the avatar or appearance of god (permatmachi roop) is expecting too much. It could be instigating, rather.
Maharashtra Navnirman Sena also boasts of having Muslims in it. However, the supporters of Raj Thackeray did not go into the old town where Muslims live. The Muslims kept themselves busy in the midst of their marriage season. They of course had read news paper report about how the Maharashtra police on October 13 arrested Lalit Kolhe, the Corporator from MNS in Jalgaon . About 16 swords were reportedly seized from his place at the height of the communal riots in Dhule and instances of arson in Jalgaon. So the old township in the east was astir with activities and business as usual.
In the other incident there was a press conference where a district level police officer in the aftermath of the bomb explosion had allegedly stared down at the Urdu reporters (two of whom had nailed the lie of the home minister that no one was injured in police firing) and remarked ominously that a bullet cost 150 rupees and he would not waste government money. Though the import was clear but it was not made out to be communalist expression. This is a tribute to the good sense which the people in Malegaon otherwise have. At the time of both bomb blasts there was no communal flare up and Hindus had helped in by donating blood and treating Muslim victims.
Thus the police otherwise generally believed by Muslims to be biased against them are also stigmatized by the majority community who look at them in the manner of the big brother. Look at what happens during religious processions how the routes and time are observed. They do not want to feel constrained by police regulations because of their surge in emotion and devotion. For two years Malegaon police have had tough time during the elephant god procession. Some who contravene the security norms are habitually extradited from the town but pressure builds up on the police. The show down between the members of the majority community and the police is of a different hue from the Muslim going berserk at perceived injustice or act of cruelty.
According to the influential group of the majority community the police arrested the protesters and took them back to the highway and handed over the protesters to the commandoes who beat them mercilessly. This they perceive is how the police settle old score. That of course is their grouse that their exuberance at the time of religious procession or political protests should be untrammeled by regulatory procedure of the police. As the irascible behaviour of the mob in the Bhiku chowk the disgruntlement of the majority is a chink in their armour. All this in addition to the whopping pressure on the cops to investigate the bomb explosions!
Once it was the pride of Hindu Muslim unity, mutual respect and trust. Even the riots in the sixties and seventies did not dent into the harmonious relationship between the various sections of the society. But the 1980s and 1990s changed all that. With the rise of right wing BJP and its newly won respectability of its extreme view the town began to feel strain of being pulled in opposite directions. Since then Malegaon has become captive of communalists.
The police in Malegaon must be under tremendous strain. This is borne out by two recent incidents. Raj Thackeray’s arrest and the police action against those who were barricading the high way and forcing shutting down of shops on October 21-22 and the people pelting stones and manhandling the police in the aftermath of the bomb explosion on September 29 are dissimilar in nature. The people attacked the police in Bhiku chowk on the spur of the moment and several policemen were injured. But the police prevailed upon the situation and even opened fire on the riotous mob in which two persons died and many were injured. They even declared curfew but within minutes called it off. The police who described the blast as gas cylinder explosion when it was clearly bomb blast incensed the mob all the more because people had informed about the abandoned motorcycle(later found to be property of Poornachetanand or sadhvi Pragya) to the police more than an hour before the explosion. They ignored it.
The police did not make ignominious retreat (padta bhui) as is claimed by a Marathi daily columnist. If it were only that perhaps it would not be much, after all we have right to have personal view of events. But then the writer goes on to say that the police should not have thrashed the MNS activists in Hindu areas after how the cops were beaten up by the Muslim mob and after their abject retreat from the Muslim ghetto of Bhiku chowk. This is fine-tuning of communalism where it does not and should not exist. And exhorting to police to keep the avatar or appearance of god (permatmachi roop) is expecting too much. It could be instigating, rather.
Maharashtra Navnirman Sena also boasts of having Muslims in it. However, the supporters of Raj Thackeray did not go into the old town where Muslims live. The Muslims kept themselves busy in the midst of their marriage season. They of course had read news paper report about how the Maharashtra police on October 13 arrested Lalit Kolhe, the Corporator from MNS in Jalgaon . About 16 swords were reportedly seized from his place at the height of the communal riots in Dhule and instances of arson in Jalgaon. So the old township in the east was astir with activities and business as usual.
In the other incident there was a press conference where a district level police officer in the aftermath of the bomb explosion had allegedly stared down at the Urdu reporters (two of whom had nailed the lie of the home minister that no one was injured in police firing) and remarked ominously that a bullet cost 150 rupees and he would not waste government money. Though the import was clear but it was not made out to be communalist expression. This is a tribute to the good sense which the people in Malegaon otherwise have. At the time of both bomb blasts there was no communal flare up and Hindus had helped in by donating blood and treating Muslim victims.
Thus the police otherwise generally believed by Muslims to be biased against them are also stigmatized by the majority community who look at them in the manner of the big brother. Look at what happens during religious processions how the routes and time are observed. They do not want to feel constrained by police regulations because of their surge in emotion and devotion. For two years Malegaon police have had tough time during the elephant god procession. Some who contravene the security norms are habitually extradited from the town but pressure builds up on the police. The show down between the members of the majority community and the police is of a different hue from the Muslim going berserk at perceived injustice or act of cruelty.
According to the influential group of the majority community the police arrested the protesters and took them back to the highway and handed over the protesters to the commandoes who beat them mercilessly. This they perceive is how the police settle old score. That of course is their grouse that their exuberance at the time of religious procession or political protests should be untrammeled by regulatory procedure of the police. As the irascible behaviour of the mob in the Bhiku chowk the disgruntlement of the majority is a chink in their armour. All this in addition to the whopping pressure on the cops to investigate the bomb explosions!
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