Why
Hyderabad was bombed can be surmised though it is still too early to answer the
second question as to who did it.
Till
early 1970s Hyderabad had no communal tension. As a student there this writer
had a pleasant surprise. Hailing from Malegaon he had come to Hyderabad. There
was a ruckus at Kothi in a local bus; people had started using Urdu expletives
while speaking Telugu. In a reflex he fearing riot started and got up to rush
out with his friend who pulled him down and assured him that there was no riot.
It was customary for the Telugu people to use their language and resort to Urdu
for pet abuses.
All
that changed soon. The riots over Babri mosque made matters worse. Since then
the Hindu right has nursed the city by inducting hate ideology. The MIM
appeared in response. More recently VHP stepped up its spade work of
communalizing politics and militarizing Hindus. Phalanx of cadres of Bajrang
Dal and RSS appeared in impressive display with arms. The state Congress
government did nothing to check it. Akbaruddin Owaisi’s hate speech of daring
to face Hindu extremist hordes for 15 minutes with police withdrawn is the
outburst of exasperation over proactive role of violence against Muslims by the
police in communal riots.
’
“Let no one dare to challenge us!”
This is
the most audaciously ferocious challenge and could and did find an illustration
or retaliation. It could produce an instant illustration by the Hindu fanatics
or retaliation by their counterparts. But the circumstances leave no doubt what
is behind the scene. Actually realizing it as it did this threat constitutes
one of what VD Savarkar had called “super atrocious reprisal.” In his book The Six Glorious Epoch, Savarkar praises
Vir Banda Bairagi as a martyr for what he did as “the most appropriate
retaliation of the molestation of the Hindu women…the burning of the Muslim
locality…not to speak of the subject parade of Muslim men, women and children,
bare-footed in the hot sun…and finally the proclamation of a Hindu state in the
whole of the Punjab.”
That super atrocity for Hindu Rashtra is of the vintage 1857. In between then and now Hyderabad changed from Nizam to the India rule and what happened in the police action of Sardar Patel was also a matter of atrocity matching that of the partition of the country a year ago after Nizam surrendered. What Togadia envisages vis-à-vis Bhagyalakshumi Temple abutting the Charminar is atrocity compounded with atrocity. He did not mince words when he told the Muslims that VHP will convert Hyderabad into Ayodhya if Hindus are not allowed to perform Puja. (This despite the fact the prayers by Hindus goes on uninterrupted.) The VHP will teach Muslims in Hyderabad a lesson that they will never forget. This is similar to what Narendra Modi also had told in the late night meeting at his residence on February 28, 2002. His words he translated into deeds as Togadia saw it in Naroda Patia sitting and watching in his plush clinic what the Bajrang Dal, RSS under Bajrngi Babu were doing to the Muslims in Gujarat. Togadia like his chief in the VHP Ashok Singhal wanted to replicate it in Hyderabad.
The preparations for such an eventuality
had begun long ago. LK Advani said on February 23, 2013 that it was Pakistan
behind the Hyderabad attack. But
first note how many times he refers to the neighbour; “The neighouring country
has not been successful in waging a war against India in the last few decades,
so it has resorted to proxy war. The neighbouring country has taken recourse to
terrorism to trouble India. There is no doubt that there is the hand of the
neighbouring country in Hyerabad blasts. Pakistan should abide by the
commitment made during the meeting between Vajpayee and Musharraf, whereby
Pakistan undertook not to allow its soil to be used for terror acts against
India.” This is the Nazi version of underscoring the truth you want others to
believe. Even before any clues were found the truth was established ala BJP and
RSS. As in the case of the attack on Parliament on December 13, 2001Advani
again showed how best he knew the country of his origin and birth!
Converting
Hyderabad into Ayodhya matches converting attack on Parliament into a full fledged
war on Pakistan. Advani in his rath yatra and the demolition of Babri did the
latter while Tagodia is aiming at the former emulating Advani.
In
the aftermath of the attack on Parliament the government under Advani and
Vajpayee had started mobilizing the army to attack Pakistan. That was also
“super atrocity reprisal.” So the question is who in India is always itching
for it?
This must remain un-answered for a time.
However what is irrepressible is the kind of communal tension built up around
last Diwali, the hype over the temple at Charminar, the cycle march of Togadia
carrying the statue of Hanuman and curtaining off with cloth the houses from the road view of
it, etc have built up to a flash point. It is reminiscent of the partition era.
Sardar Patel who is so much cherished in Hyderabad also reminds the role of
such build up. Writing in a letter to Shyam Prasad Mookherji on July 18, 1948
he says: “As regards the RSS and Hindu Mahasabha, the case relating to
Gandhiji’s murder is sub judice and I should not like to say anything about the
participation or the two organizations, but 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. There is no doubt in my mind that the extreme section of the Hindu
Mahasabha was involved in the conspiracy.”
The question now is who is the leader of
which extreme group involved in this tragedy of Hyderabad, Togadia of VHP or
Akbaruddin of MIM?
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