Post September 29th Terrorism Scenario

Terrorism/Propaganda/Cultural Hegemony/Communalism




As 9/11 turned out to be the familiar hunting cry of going after Muslim groups in the ‘war’ on terrorism in which India also jumped on the bandwagon, 29/11 is proving a mockery of all the endeavours that investigation agencies, the police and the media have made to create hoopla over terror.

There is a chemistry of change in dealing with terrorism. The media and the police and the investigating agencies have balked from going full steam in their disclosures and presentation of terrorism in India in the aftermath of the startling revelation that sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur of Hindu Jagran Manch of Indore and Surat owned the motor cycle that carried the bomb that exploded in Malegaon. She along with her three accomplices (Sham Sahu, Dilip Nahar and Shivnarayan Singh from Indore and Dharmendra Bairagi from Dewas) are arrested and sent to custody till November 3. this has dismayed some who are still harping on jihad terrorism despite the fact that terrorism unleashed by LTTE in SriLanka and India was the precursor of the suicide bombing of the Palestinians. Such is the vainglory of some that they do not want to accept that Hindus can be terrorists, even the extremist among them. This is strange for the proverbial tolerance of the Hindus got a jolt with the demolition of the Babri mosque at Ayodhya and violence subsequent to it and the pogroms of Muslims in Gujarat 2002.

It would be wrong to assert that pre 29/11 was in its entirety the handiwork of Jihad terrorism. Malegan blasts of September 8, 2006 militate against the biased perception and twisted theories of terrorism juggernaut of 9/11. This is true even when the accused are all Muslims. Those accused are languishing in jail with hardly any credible evidence found against them because they were not involved. The affidavits they have submitted shows that they were either in prison (Shabeer Masiullah) or at home and mosque (Noorulhoda) or leading Friday prayer more than five hundred miles away.

The former chief of ATS Raghuvanshi had remarked that the bombs that the Bajrang Dal activists of Nanded were making were not for pooja. They had been already used three different times at mosques in Purna, Jalna, Parbhani. One of the ones meant for Aurangabad railway station mosque accidentally exploded 1.30 am Thursday night rather than 1.30 pm Friday group prayer time like all the other mosques including Mecca mosque of Hyderabad and Jama masjid of Delhi. The home made bombs manufactured with the help of retired army officers had also been used at the mosque in Panvel by activists of Hindu Janjagran Samiti and Sanatan Sanstha. These of course preceded September 29, 2008 Modasa and Malegaon blasts. In the sophistry of the right wing Hindu organizations everything is okay and can be connived at by sweeping them under the carpet of safeguarding religion. Moreover they are sophisticated(?) enough not to blare out in their manifesto that their intent is like that of the intrepid Al Qaeda.

Till the time of the Delhi high court special tribunal hearing there was no evidence whatsoever which the government could put before the tribunal in its appeal for continuing the ban on SIMI(Students Islamic Movement of India). People even on suspicion of being connected to it have been arrested and are languishing in jail day in and day out. On the other hand, Bajrang Dal was conceived and created as the the sword arm of Hindutva to carry out its violent campaign aginst the minorities, quintessentially Muslim minority. Who but they were the youths with saffron bands tied to their foreheads scaling and systematically tearing down the walls and domes of the mosque at Ayodhya.

If Muslims are caught for any trivial crime and also for not having any criminal background their profiling includes if they had any link to SIMI. Let alone that their beard and long tunic and skullcap lands them into trouble as it happened, among other places, the north east. After 29/11 there is no attempt to standardize the profiling of terrorism of the sangh privar in terms of their cultural symbols although the RSS boasts of being just a cultural organization.

Hindu Janjagrun Manch of Indore, Bajrang Dal, VHP, Hindu Janjagran Samiti, Shiv Sena, Sanatan Sanstha, Durga Vahini, Akhil Bharti Vidyarthi Parishad are different organizations whose members have now been found to be making bombs and exploding them in mosques or in Muslim ghettoes. It makes no sense that extremist Hindus who are caught should be tried as miscreants irrespective of their organizational affiliation. Many but not the masses of Hindus are members of one or more of such organizations. They receive training in arms and ammunition and explosives periodically in a highly organized manner. Former members of armed forces train them. How can it be that Hindus who are caught in terror crime should be tried as individuals and not as members of the numerous affiliates of the sangh parivar. Nathu Ram Godse and Dr Parchure of Indore were members of the RSS and were sworn enemies of Mahatma Gandhi. The prevailing ethos of these organizations is characterized by proneness to violence, secrecy, and conspiracy. Their patriarch Moonje wanted to find out means where by many people can be killed in one go, his obvious target were Muslims, though it is also relevant to note that the Christians too have come under the attack of the extremist Hindu organizations. Therefore the nature of the organizations and their exhibited practice and material in possession must also be considered as causes of terrorism today. On October 19, 2008 RSS cadres displayed guns, swords and other weapons in a public during their parade through the Ashok nager of Indore city. This was done in flagrant violation of the code of conduct in force in Madhya Pradesh for the coming election. Some of them had allegedly used guns to kill Muslims during the agitation for grant of land for the Anant nag yatra. Therefore organizations and the nature of their known activities give enough proof of how such organizations are involved in terrorist acts.

There are statements that political leaders make and they give enough clues for what is the critical mass. The police of course record but conveniently do not act or provide correct feedback. VHP leader Parveen Togadia had made a speech to the lusty cheering of his audience that Hanuman had come to Godhra, Ravana had set his tail on fire and Hanuman had visited Naroda Patia, etc. Those who had ignited fire in Gujarat were causing terror as well as those who assassinated Mahatma Gandhi. Their affiliation to organizations supplies the ideological motivation. They are the variant versions of Sheikh Yasin. For example this is what Bal Thackeray told Shekhar Gupta : “To understand me, you have to go back to 1948, or even before that. Have you ever thought of Godse’s action, why he decided to kill? He got annoyed, upset, very upset. Even after giving a chunk of our land to Muslims, you were giving Rs 55 crore to them. Godse thought that if this old man lives any longer then he will ruin the country.” Or Narendra Modi hectoring his audience that Hindus can’t be terrorists and if they take to terrorism they would finish off Pakistan. Such is the plosive stuff that can set the ball rolling.


Howsoever we may question the premise that all terrorists are Muslims, what is unquestionable is that all terrorism is propaganda. Exploding bombs in theatres showing Aamhe Pachpute or Jodha Akbar, burning train to Pakistan, or exploding bombs on shabebarat or around shabeqader propagates a message. This could be that there are organizations that are devoted to establish a narrow kind of nationhood and/or maintain cultural hegemony.