The apathy of Muslims in confronting genocide in Gujarat 2002 Ominous parallels

Most meticulously preplanned genocide of Muslims in Gujarat 2002 passed into history by sheer apathy of Muslims of India. Their benighted leadership and self indulgent ignorant community made no headway. They could not make Sonia Gandhi, president of Congress party, to even privately meet the Ahsan Jafri family in their despair and loss. The slain Member of Parliament was from her party. The BJP despicably ignored him by refusing any mention any regret let alone a motion of mourning on his death. All this happened due to the rudderless community floating in stormy sea of communalism. What was more aggravating: the defiant and cruel rule in the state of Gujarat which used its state machinery to conduct the genocide thanks to the brazen and complicit role of the chief Minister, Narender Modi, was left unbridled by the central government. Furthermore, Modi had the temerity to muster hard core elements in his party to virtually brow beat the prime minister in the Goa conclave into toeing their line of let alone sacking him as chief minister but applauding him and retorting Muslims for their wont for not living with their neighbours in peace and tolerance. This kind of Nazi like behavior along with the pogroms of 2002 needs an exhaustive analysis of what caused the genocide and what really happened, the guilty and how the evil deeds have continued as examples pile up from post Modi scenario in the state of Gujarat, confirming Shakespeare’s dictum that the evil men do lives after them and continues to cast ominous shadows hereafter. There has been enough genocide in the world. They corroborate what the victims suffered at whose hands and for what. Writing on one such Leonard Peikoff observes in his book The Ominous Parallels “We dare not brush aside un-explained a horror such as Nazism.” Unfortunately against the background of the ascendance of Modi as PM writing about the genocide is not in “today’s mainstream. They will be part of tomorrow’s”. These words of Ayn Rand are part of the parallel to the rise of neo Nazism of after the World War Second but holds truth for Gujarat and the country under Modi. [1] There have been two genocides in India, Sikh genocide of 1984 and that of Gujarat 2002. The second was modeled on the first among the most corroborative evidence is the stipulated three days of the second in emulation of the first. The Muslims were entrenched in terrorism cases ascribed to them while it was the work of the Hindutva. Implicating innocent Muslims in such cases including the notorious fake encounters of Gujarat overwhelmed the minority community. In contrast the Sikhs were not besieged after the genocide of 1984. They retaliated more martially in the Khalistan movement of Sant Bhindranwale. But their resources were intact and there was no boycott against them. After lapse of 30 years they have not left the matter to oblivion by reaching the august portals of the UNO by their report covering: “pre-planned and deliberate killings of the Sikh community in 19 States of India, eyewash investigations by the successive governments, zero convictions and the failure of the Supreme Court to take cognisance of thousands of deaths during the first week of November 1984.” [2] Ominous parallels between the gas chambers of Auschwitz and the black hole of Naroda Patia or the inferno of Sardarpura are comparable. In the gas chambers of Nazis there were mushroom-shaped lids of vents through which they poured the amethyst-blue crystals of hydrogen cyanide upon the 2000 victims packed like sardines in the chamber. The fatal gas slowly started “delousing” them or “bathing” them. They were lured into believing that they would be bathed and cleaned and freshened. The Jews “piled up in one blue clammy blood-spattered pyramid, clawing and mauling each other even in death.” [3] But there are obvious differences. In the dry well of Naroda Patia the Muslims were forced to gather at the dry well at the point of gun by Babu Bajrangi-Maya Kodnani gangs of murderers. Then the petrol they had obtained from the State Transport Bus Workshop was poured on them. The Muslims hugged each other and then raised their arms to heaven for His mercy and knowing that their extinction was at hand they embraced each other and had a fiery funeral. There were some 800 of them. There were so many killed at Naroda Patia that the Commissioner of Police PC Pandey ordered the corps to be scattered to other places to lessen the casualty figure. In Sardarpura Muslims were decoyed by the Patels into believing that they would be sheltered. They were then locked into a single hall and a live electric wire attached to a rod was thrown into it. More than 30 were burnt alive. There was no electricity pole or connection there earlier. It was procured urgently on February 27, 2002 specifically for what would happen on the following day. In the case of the Sikhs in 1984 they were caught and their turbans and hair were doused with petrol and then burnt killing the hapless gruesomely. The militant Sikhs assassinated Indira Gandhi and General Vaidya. The Muslims did nothing of the sort. The allegation that the Muslims in the refugee camps like Juhapura would turn to terrorism proved to be false. It was this stasis in one sided suffering that generated the anguish of Akrabuddin Oweisi of AIMIM when he spoke of his helplessness in the face of untold suffering in his own Hyderbad. “I was hit by three bullets. One of them is still in my body. I was stabbed 70 times on my stomach; I was struck 40 times on my hand. My liver was punctured. My intestine came out of the stomach, 15 feet in length was cut to only 5 feet. I have trouble in eating. There is no iron in my blood. As a result there is dark before my eyes and I have instances of fit occasionally and I faint and fall.” All this happened to him in communal violence. Referring to violence perpetrated on Muslims and the boycott against them is enforced, he says “my heart feels it, it is disturbed and I feel anger at it and want to take it out on those who cause this. But when will the time come when we can avenge this?” Twenty five cror Muslims of the country are unsuccessful to sensitize the others about their plight. [4]This is placed in the context of Modi calling Muslims as puppies who come under the car and get killed and Praveen Togadia calling Akbaruddeen Oweisi as a dog of Hyderabad as well as how Muslims were targeted by bomb attacks in Malegaon and they alone were blamed for what they suffered. Like Slobodan Milosevic, Modi in April aroused the passions of extremists in Assam by threatening to expel the ‘illegal’ Bengali Muslims settled there while he did not bother about the Hindu refugees settled there. In 2011 the then chief minister Tarun Gogoi of Assam won election in Barak valley by declaring refugee status to Bangladeshi Hindus. Modi went beyond in his speech when he accused Mamta Banerjee and Congress: “You are concerned about infiltrators and not your own people ... they must go back, they are robbing the youths of India of their livelihood.” [5] That was on May 4, 2014 when Modi justified killing of 50 Muslims in Assam that started on May 1. This was in sequence to his speeches in April. The so called ‘illegal’ migrant Muslims have their valid papers and even then the pogroms were carried out. The NDFB militants slaughtered Muslims for supporting a non Bodo candidate in Lok Sabha election. In Kokrajhar, Chirag, Baksa and Udalguri. The other districts of Assam have also been witness to killing of Muslims: Dhubri, Barpeta, Bongaigaon 698 rioting in 2013 in Dhubri, 236 cases of rioting in Barpeta in February and August 2013, in Cachar 226, etc. In the May 2014 election according to Bhavdev Goswai had remarked that the NDFB rebels had supported BJP. The Congress leader Piush Hazarika had said that BJP “ will now use other terror outfits to execute its communal agenda in the state.”[6] In India the distinction between riots and genocide and terrorist attack is slurred for those involved in genocide are also terrorists known for their role and have been also involved in riots. For those involved in terrorist attacks on Ajmer shrine were also behind the attack on the Best Bakery in Baroda in 2002. It is due to the hate ideology of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh which is committed to terminate all the Muslims unless they accept Hindu religion. During the genocide Modi had visited Naroda Patia and exhorted the Charra community that they should continue their extermination juggernaut the next day and the day after that. His lieutenants like Bajrangi and others averred that they ceased their work of mass massacre on the stipulated third day. [7]Naroda Patia too had its hermetically sealed gas chamber. The killers had busy action at the dry well and around. In the evening they returned to their areas where they discovered that some Muslims had hidden in the sewer. They rolled heavy boulders on the gutter and sealed it so that they would be suffocated by the poisonous gases. Next day their corpses were recovered. Samantha Power was very active in the first election campaign of President Barak Obama. She had seriously criticized America for supporting those regimes that were tainted with crimes against humanity and genocide. Power was slated to take a very important portfolio after election but she stood by her belief and left the campaign. Her grouse was that the US policy was for safeguarding the right to life and other human rights across the world and yet next day the US representative would vote for the countries and their rulers who were involved in genocide. India was against the genocide of the refugee camps of Palestinians in Sabra and Chatilla in Lebanon where defense minister Ariel Sharon had allowed the Israeli army to encircle the camps and slaughter the Palestinians. But after LK Advani let Moshe Dayan visit India and open its embassy things took a dramatic turn. In the aftermath of 9/11 the US made no efforts to criticize the genocide in Gujarat. During Modi’s three day visit President Barak Obama met him three times and even issued a joint editorial of Washington Post which reads: "The true potential of our relationship has yet to be fully realized. The advent of a new government in India is a natural opportunity to broaden and deepen our relationship. With a reinvigorated level of ambition and greater confidence, we can go beyond modest and conventional goals. It is time to set a new agenda, one that realizes concrete benefits for our citizens." “While our shared efforts will benefit our own people, our partnership aspires to be larger than merely the sum of its parts. As nations, as people, we aspire to a better future for all; one in which our strategic partnership also produces benefits for the world at large.” The new catch phrase: “Chalein Saath Saath” enshrined in the vision statement has become a repeated election slogan all over India with the addition of Modi’s name: Chalo chalein Moid key saath.” Such bonding of the two administrations is a slap in the face of Samantha Power. Ayn Rand and Leonard Peikoff were alarmed by the neo Nazism. It would be rather incorrect to say that Americans are not. Their refusal to visa to Modi was in right direction but there are other trends. One is that the US is a close ally of Israel and the Jewry in America has enormous control of the government. Furthermore the events of West Asia have repercussion on India. The concern for the Islamic States of Iraq and Syria is current theatre of war. Modi and his national security advisor Ajit Doval do not want the Americans to leave Afghanistan for the obvious reason that it would fall into the hands of the Talibans. So the Jewish lobby and the financial clout of the Gujarati diaspora have much in common to gain. Sonal Shah was also closely associated with the incoming administration of Obama in the first election campaign. She was dropped from an important post because of the huge amount of cash sent to India in 2002which had financed the genocide through VHP. The growing collaboration between Modi and Obama administration is ominous because they may produce weapons, export missile technology and other such joint ventures including sharing of nuclear technology which would make existing conflicts sustained for profit motive. Muslim countries do not figure in this let alone the Indian Muslims. However Modi is attempting too much. In the midst of this the refrain of protest in America cannot let the ghost of Modi rest: "Modi, Modi, you can't hide, you committed genocide!"[8] As India has chosen to align with the US it will now have the acquired syndrome of interpreting its own acts as has the US and other rich countries been doing. Noarm Chomsky in the 2002 Introduction of his book Pirates and Emperors, International Terrorism in the World remarks that the interpretation of 9/11 will “depend substantially on how the rich and powerful interpret this dramatic demonstration that they are no longer immune from atrocities of the kind they routinely inflict on others, and how they choose to react.” India was already doing it in 2002. It refused to consider 2002 genocide either as act of terrorism or genocide or holocaust. Till today it does not consider 1984 to be either just that. Modi is anyway fond of the crown of an emperor and always holding swords in his hands. A man is known by not only the company he keeps but the things he surrounds himself with. The failure of Muslims is that they could not gather enough support within or outside the country to have the UNO of International Criminal Court take cognizance of that. Two US citizens of Muslim origin in America lost their mother and grandmother in the genocide in Gujarat 2002. They have filed a case against Modi in the US courts. There is no sign that they would have the clouts to get the case heard at international fora. On the other hand VHP (America) has had enough to fund genocide and also resources to defend it and whitewash the pogroms.(9) Chilean President Augusto Pinochet and Slobodan Milosevic belong to other spheres of influence. [1] The Ominous Parallels, Leonard Piekoff Meridian 1993. Introduction. [2] http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/world/us-group-to-submit-1984-riots-report-to-un/article6amid489935.ece [3] William Shirer The Rise and Fall of the third Reich New York: Simeon and Shuster 1960 pp969-70 [4] Daily Tajuman –e- Urdu September 27, 2014 [5] http://in.reuters.com/article/2014/05/04/modi-assam-muslims-immigrant-congress-idINKBN0DK0FQ20140504 Modi rails against illegal immigrants after Muslim killings [6] India Today September 29, 2014 [7] Tehelka November 3, 2007 [8]http://www.asiantribune.com/node/85631 [9] http://stopfundinghate.org/

Ambiguous Prime Minister and “exported terrorism”

The basic premise of investigation in bomb blasts within the mainland India is to blame it on foreign involvement and it is of course Pakistan. Within this broad frame comes the local involvement and that is Indian Mujahideen. The calculated effect is that Indian Muslims bear the brunt of the accusation and serious consequences. Innocent members of the community are arrested including women and children. Having stigmatized the whole community is forced to wear the cross of ignominy and suffer untold misery and insult and violence. In most if not all cases the truth comes out much later that Muslims were not involved or the blast was not executed by them or it was some kind of accident which was made out to be a terrorist attack. In Brundwan, West Bengal, the crude explosive device that went off was made out to be a bomb blast in which the deadly RDX was used. Reacting to the attempt to turn it a big event and hunt and hound Muslim the Government Home Secretary Basudeb Banerjee made it clear: “We recovered a large amount of chemicals used in bomb making and crude bombs along with some SIM cards and phones. No IED or RDX was recovered.” [1] There is a premeditated attempt to turn it against the Muslims and BJP goes for it in full swing. This queers the pitch for the Muslims who may ultimately come out as innocent. So right at the beginning the Home Secretary squashed the sinister design when he said further: “The standard rule is to defuse bombs if they are recovered. The bombs were defused by the bomb disposal squad of CID following all the rules. An assistant director of the Central Forensic Laboratory was present and his team had already visited the spot. Moreover, senior officers of central agencies are in touch,” Therefore, this incident does not fit in the description of the event being exported from or imported in from across the borders. So in nutshell there are attempts to manufacture false accusation to pillory the minority community. It is as indigenous as the wherewithal that went in causing/producing explosion. In short stories or novelettes famed Urdu writer Sadat Hasan Mantoo often showed the absurdity of violence and terrorism of a bygone era, partition. Though, it was not a fashion to talk terrorism then even when terrorism was in full swing. After knifing to death the crowd in Mumbai and elsewhere discovered the victims to be of their same faith! How terrifying it was for determining the faith by unzipping the pants and often even not bothering that! That were hardly few days of new nations of Pakistan and India when the people were discovering and trying their new identity and the pen drawn line dividing what was one unified nationality. Toba Tek Singh of Mantoo had it right, a mad man in jail indecisive of which country to shift. If terrorism was ubiquitous then how have the borders changed our perception of it? It has suddenly become exported! With a new PM in office India is again switched back to the hazy partition. There have been many people including media persons who have questioned PM Narendra Modi’s grasp on facts of history. Still there are others who questioned him on recent history and contemporary events. When he addressed the Council for Foreign Relations in US he said that all terrorism in India is exported. There is no home grown terrorism. It was in the context of Al Qaida chief Ayman Alzawahiri’s video released early in September 2014. Modi’s observation does not square with the facts on ground for there is no Al Qaid branch in India. However, India has always blamed Pakistan for all acts of terrorism within the country! The only one Pakistani caught and hanged so far was Ajmal Kasab. How could it be exported then? Another context of his remark is Taliban in Pakistan-Afghanistan regions. That can pose problem Talibans have not crossed into India so far, may be because they are too much enmeshed in the two neighbouring countries. When there was an attack on Indian embassy in Kabul our national security advisor MK Narayanan had remarked that India would pay back in the same coin meaning thereby India also would retaliate. That India was involved in Waziristan, Pakistan, was acknowledged by PM Dr Manmohan Singh in a meeting at Sharm al Sheikh, Egypt. While still in the US Modi tweeted: ✔ @PMOIndia Follow We need to take the issue of terrorism very seriously. Sadly several nations never understood the real menace of terrorism: PM @narendramodi 11:22 PM - 29 Sep 2014 [2] Does Modi still really understand terrorism? He had held out threat to journalists who wanted to cover Gujarat genocide by saying that they would meet the fate of Daniel Pearl! Why did he have it witness in the US tour, it was very much there when he had not left for the US tour. Or did he not realize that Ahsan Jarfi had spoken to him to save the life of the people who had sought refuge there from the marauding extremist Hindus? They had encircled the housing society since nine in the morning of February 28, 2002. There was a striking police force at hand and yet it was shifted to another place. That the besieged Muslims were under imminent threat to their existence was clear as they were continuously firebombed, water supply was cut off, etc. This was terrorism. It was indigenized terrorism. Even the guns and rockets used there were manufactured in Gujarat and some by BJP, VHP, Bajrang Dal and RSS leaders cum business men. Tehelka of November 3, 2007 is full of the details. This is what Jaffrette Christoff means when he calls it emulating and stigmatizing. Emulating whom? (But) Stigmatizing whom? In our zeal to see the export of terrorism from across the border we never bothered why MK Narayanan was instrumental in preventing investigation in Samjhauta Express train attack on February 18, 2007. The Haryana police were on the right track. He said it would earn bad name for India and so he stopped the investigation. Why did the Punjab High Court grant Swami Asimanand bail in the Samjhauta Express when he had confessed that he was involved in it? And that this bail order was passed in September after Modi had already become the PM! Those who have proven record of terror are given bail whereas the overwhelming numbers of Muslims have no time from their daily life to plan and execute any blast and yet they are stigmatized. This is borne out by the record that no Muslim from India had taken part in 9/11 nor in any Al Qaeda attack anywhere else in India or overseas. So Modi’s expectation "Muslims of India will fail al-Qaeda" is hollow. The prime minister is like many from his state who are solely engaged in business and trade and hence his use of exporting terror is as if it was like cotton that Gujarat produced and exported to other countries over the centuries. Delhi has acquired sort of notoriety over killing innocent North Eastern Indians like the Nagas, Manipuris, etc. The incidents of terrorism here are not exported from any negihbouring country, Bangladesh or Pakistan. However, there is a proviso that terror events in Nigeria may have been partly the cause of the attack on three ‘Nigerians’ on September 28, 2014 in New Delhi. Mapaga (22) and Yohan (22) from Gabon and Guira (20) from Burkina Faso were brutally attacked by the mob of Hindus and almost lynched at Rajiv chowk metro station. Towards the end of the attack the three survivors took refuge in religion and shouted Nare takbeer, Allah-ho-Akbar and were countered by a splutter of Bharat Mata ki jai and a lone cry of Vande Matrum. The attackers beat them in groups and then took turn one by one as the beleaguered foreign nationals tried to climb the enclosure of the police station. One police man was there who initially tried to intervene and there were others who stood cheek by jowl from the police post as silent spectators. [3] This too was act of terrorism. The cause of the terror attack was imported from Nigeria. This sheer inhumanity belies the traditional belief that we Indians are traditionally hospitable to strangers and foreigners. Even so the victims were not from Nigeria but from Gabon and Burkina Faso. This is a travesty of terrorism that in the aftermath of 9/11 Sikhs were attacked and killed and now the mistaken identity played havoc in our own land. But because they were Muslims is what clinched the issue. Terrorism is neither good nor bad in kind says the PM but why some even in mistaken identity are not allowed to prove their innocence? The global dimension of terrorism is very much there but India has exclusively blamed terrorism from across the border, Pakistan. So why this Nigerian extension? Despite our protestation that we are a peace loving country and alien to terrorism we cannot pretend to be ignorant of the fact that the West has categorized Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh as a terrorist organization. We can hardly ignore it as no other than the Terrorism Research Centre based in East Virginia, US, has taken it on its record. It is a research centre and a think tank. Dr Subramniyam Swami has often cited the centre selectively to show how India has been subjected to terrorism as no other country only to hide the other side that we too have terrorist organizations of our own, RSS, ULFA, etc. RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat saying on Doordarshan on October 3, 2014 Dussera day that it is the West behind terrorism is complements Modi. However, Bhagwat like Modi is deeply ambiguous because he speaks of new incarnation of terrorism which is the product of the selfish interest of the West. Modi speaking from the US and Bhagwat speaking from Nagpur, India, have deliberately obfuscated the reference or geography of west. Do they have in mind West Asia in mind which includes the IS or Islamic States of Iraq and Syria or the West in the sense of what Samuel Huntington means when he refers to Islam and the West? Which is the west then? Has the West exported terrorism to the West Asia as a geopolitical strategy and is Al Qaida’s desire to open a branch in India to deal with Kashmir, Gujarat and Assam as an extension of it? And what is more ominous does Modi want to join arms production with the US to claim for its share in the profit in arms sale? Does Modi’s India want to emulate Israel and be in East but be like the West? Self interest is motivating factor for exporting terrorism and Bahgwat hints at it when he speaks of globalization and if any Indian leader who is more for globalization, it is a Gujarat born one for he knows how to power development. The Americans are obliged in the case of Israel and won’t mind to repeat it for India for Yankee profiteering knows no limit, moral or geographical. Lesson to learn: In terrorism call a spade a spade. If beheading by IS or Taliban is terrorism so is the beheading in the US Moore Farm where a cashiered employee tried to force a fellow worker to convert to Islam. When the victim resisted he beheaded him. This could not be jihad. This is indigenous and not exported. Terrorism is hatred for the other The Rajive chowk metro station terrorists hated Muslims, be they black or Asian. [5] Blaming others but never inspecting leads to blind alley. BJP has not learnt it and signs are it would never and hence preventive measure to ban terrorists who are terrorists and not patriots. Police failing to take action against are complicit in terrorism and hence need to be defined as terrorists. DG Vanzara had arrested the extremists who killed hundereds at Naroda Patia. He let them off without registering crime. Maya Kodnani and Vanzara need to be defined as terrorists. At Yakutpura in Vadodra the police assaulted women and children and burnt cars on during the last four days of September 2014.[6] The city has had many such incidents of arms planted by Vanzara to cause riot in favour of Modi and BJP around election. Modi as CM refused to learn can he refuse it now that he is PM? The violence and terror in 2002 and 2014 was home product and not imported from Pak. Or exported from their either. The four days were no love jihad period although it was Navratri. Viral Desai, VHP president in Bharuch threatening to perform dance before mosque is extension of terrorism but not e [1]http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/bjp-on-offensive-bengal-says-no-terror-link-found-in-burdwan-blast/ [2]http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2014-09-30/news/54475386_1_prime-minister-narendra-modi-terrorism-global-challenge http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Terrorism-is-a-threat-to-humanity-there-is-no-good-or-bad-terrorist-Narendra-Modi/articleshow/43830312.cms [3] http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/they-kept-calling-us-nigerians-took-turns-to-hit-us/99/ ‘They kept calling us Nigerians… took turns to hit us’ http://youtu.be/0XHBOE93Oks [4] http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-rss-chief-mohan-bhagwat-claims-western-selfish-interests-leading-to-spread-of-terrorism-praises-india-s-mars-mission-2023237 [5] http://www.news9.com/story/26671662/your-2-cents-debate-over-workplace-violence-terrorism [6] http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-otherstates/90-arrested-for-vadodara-violence/article6467472.ece