Sunday, February 24, 2013

Hyderabad bombed why and by whom




       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 Akbaruddin Owaisi’s hate speech of daring to face Hindu extremist hordes for 15 minutes with police withdrawn is the outburst of exasperation over proactive role of violence against Muslims by the police in communal riots.
      
       The international president of Vishwa Hindu Parishad Pravin Togadia’s riposte did not take long to come. He said: muslim vote bank key aadhar par desh men loot machi hui hai. Ishi vajehsey Hyderabad ka ek kutta apne aap to sher samajhney laga hai. Ek neh kaha ki police hatalo. Mainey kaha ki 20 saal men jab jab police hati hai, tab desh ka itihaas dekh lo, agar tujhe pata nahin hai, to aainey men itihaas dikhadun. Andhra men jab police hati to sakdon lashen bich gaye thi. In men ak bhi hindu nahin tha aur bihar key Bhagalpur men jab plice hati thi to lakhon lashen bich gayei thin jo bahti hui samundertak pahunch gay thin. . in men ek lash bhi hinudun ki nahin thi…koi hamen chunauti na dey.  “On account of the vote bank politics there is plunder in the country. Due to this a dog of Hyderabad has assumed himself to be lion.  One asked the police to move away. I answered that whenever the police moved away, look at the history of the country at such time. If you don’t know it, I will show it to you in the mirror.  When the police moved away in Andhra Pradesh there were scores of dead bodies piled up. There was not a single Hindu killed here. In Bhagalpur of Bihar when the police moved away many lakh (Muslims) were killed. They were washed away into the sea. Not a single one was of a Hindu. …” "Remember Nellie in Assam, where the police was removed. Over 3000 people died, not one of them was a Hindu." "Remember Bhagalpur, where the police was removed, so many people died that it was difficult to count, not one of them was a Hindu. Dead bodies flew into the sea. Remember Meerut, Moradabad, Gujarat,"
“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?


------- 

Savarkar and Hindutva. AG Noorani. Delhi: Left Word. (2002)        
 

No comments: