Communalizing terror to terrorize communities

It is no surprise that Bal Thackeray has called for Hindu suicide bomber squads to be formed. When did he not call for it? He did not call for it when Muslims were killed in Malegaon, Hyderbad, Jama Masjid of Delhi, Marathada mosques in his own Mahrashtra, Ajmer and a host of other places. But he did call for Hindu suicide squads when the local trains in Mumbai were targeted, or the twin bomb blasts at the Gateway of India and the Zhaveri bazaar. These latter attacks in his perception were anti national and anti Hindu although there were several Muslims killed in these attacks, too. The former incidents of terror did not bother him because the victims were Muslims and he did not worry about them for he has been dubbing them anti national, all the same.

It is a situation like the fish which cannot live without water. Unless there is communal tension some parties cannot roast their chestnuts. The failure of the national election commission is that it does not act in a rational manner and derecognize such parties after due process of taking cognizance of the speeches and acts of the party leaders who stoke the communal fire. The courts also are lackadaisical in their treatment of offenses relating to the breach of Article 153 of the IPC. Studying the legal implication by the home department of the state is surely a sign of dilly dally. The real aim is to delay justice and delaying justice is denying justice, they know their game well. They have been at it off and on since there is no political will to fight for the right. Such statements which are crystal clear in tone and implication are put on the back burner of filibustering. What else is there to see and ponder when Thackeray says: “When I heard of Hindu’s making bombs, I was happy but the fact that there were used to injure Hindus made me feel ashamed of them.”

It is strange that when the Muslims in the country are waking to the danger of terror, much of it truly or untruly ascribed to them, the Hindu harday samrat Thackeray should have chosen to voice his very menacing thought that matches the warning on the door of the UNO. It is still fresh in the minds of the people how the Deoband seminary issued its edict on terror. "In Islam, creating social discord or disorder, breach of peace, rioting, bloodshed, pillage or plunder and killing of innocent persons anywhere in the world are all considered most inhuman crimes." The edict also exhorts the Muslims "to wipe out all kinds of terrorism and to spread the message of global peace"

Thackeray’s outburst is upping the ante against the so called jihadi terrorism. That is the fig leaf that hardly hides his dreadful intent and horrifying import. That is nothing but quintessentially saber rattling before the terrified eyes of his quarry.

A bomb planted in the parking lot of BSE or near the parking lot of Hanuman temple in Jaipur, in the parking lot of the Gadkari auditorium or Ajmer shrine is unequivocally an act of terror. Be it HuJI or HJS, they are terrorists who did what they did. To get rid of the menace of terror it is efficacious to go to the spring source, the thoughts which breed terror. That is a reflection of the inscription on the entrance of the UNO, albeit it is about war.

As the general election comes nearer one brand of extremists would try to outdo the other. Narendra Modi’s insidious and frankly seditious suggestion to the Centre to not collect income tax as his proud five cror Gujaratis earn enough for what they need and Thackeray’s diatribe against the Muslims are of the same piece. They are fraught with potentials of creating social discord or disorder, breach of peace. In other words, anarchy.