Bombs are not for Shab-e-Barat

On June 4, 2015 People’s Liberation Army (Khapang faction) guerrillas based in Myanmar killed 18 soldiers of Indian army in Manipur. In hot pursuit on June 9th Indian commandoes entered the Myanmar jungle and killed around 100 guerrillas. First India claimed that it had taken the Myanmar government in confidence and that the NSA Ajit Doval even visited the Myanmar government officials and briefed them. Later on the Myanmar government denied this. Unwittingly a friendly neighbor was embarrassed. But India’s other neighbor, Pakistan, was alarmed and reacted in more hostile manner than expected. While Myanmar denied that the insurgents in its territory were bombed, Indian government officials on June 10th confirmed the intrusion of the neighbouring country’s space, nay they asserted that more such hot pursuits would follow. In the night of the attack the minister even warned India’s other neighbours of such consequences in future. The minister did not mince words that this was “a lesson and a message to all the terrorist groups that India will not hesitate in going beyond its geographical borders to eliminate terrorists.” [1] Col Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore (retd): “The message is that you are not safe if you are attacking Indians on Indian soil.” However, the director of the Myanmar presidential office remarked: “According to the information sent by Tatmadaw (Myanmar Army) battalions on the ground, we have learned that the military operation was performed on the Indian side at the India-Myanmar border.” The Naga and Meitei militants were the target of the attack. The Prime Minister Narendra Modi sent his PMO officer Jitendra Singh to visit Nagaland and Manipur to assess the mood there. As expected, Pakistan reacted sharply. No other than the former President Perevz Musharraf chose strong words. He blamed India for this aggressive intrusion in a neighbouring country. This is a preplanned strategy with the ultimate aim of denuclearizing Pakistan. Did he take the surgical strike as a dry run to be replicated in Pakistan? “We do not want to use nuclear capability but if our existence comes under threat, who do we have these nuclear weapons for...Don’t attack us, don’t challenge our territorial integrity because we are not a small power, we’re major and nuclear power. Don’t push us….We should have self confidence that their dream to denuclearize Pakistan is not possible. We won’t let their end game materialize.” He saw red herring in the attack: “Deal them (India) with sovereign equality, my experience is they will further suppress if we back off. Their stand is offensive one.” But the punch came when Musharraf said that “If I say in (former Prime Minister) Chaudhary Shujaat Hussein’s style, do we have nukes saved to be used on Shab-e-Barat.” [2] However curt is the remark it equates Abhinav Bharat bombing Muslim worshippers on September 8, 2006 with the work of the army. It was this kind of back and forth that US Secretary of State John Kerry found to be very disturbing: “These (India and Pakistan) are two very very important countries playing a critical role with respect to regional interests, and it’s very very important that there be no misinterpretation or miscalculation with respect to any of the back-and-forth and the empowerment some entities might feel as a result of that.” [3] It is more disturbing than what Kerry feels. And therefore subject of serious concern. It needs insight into the contours of the back and forth. Prime Minister Modi chose his pack very carefully and had experience in foreign policy nuances. He fought 2002 election between what he calls Mian Musharraf (Pakistan President Gen Perves Musharraf) and him. As a result he broadened his vision and set eyes on Mian Musharraf(an euphemism for Muslims) as his rival while asking the people of the border state to choose him over Mian Musharraf. The Pakistan President took the matter of the genocide of Muslims in Gujarat to the General Assembly of the UNO. Among the pack Modi chose is Ajit Doval as his NSA who had had a long clandestine mission in Pakistan as an undercover agent. As paracharak or guide and teacher of RSS Modi had another associate, the special deputy director of Intelligence Bureau Rajendra Kumar. The latter generated false reports like the burning of the Sabarmati Express as a terrorist attack hatched by Inter Services Intelligence of Pakistan. Thus Modi had indulged in foreign policy matters even when he was just the chief minister of a state. The white bearded who ordered the killing of Ishrat Jahan, Pranesh Pillai and two Pakistanis is no other than Modi. The black bearded was of course his minister of state for home, Amit Shah. That Richard Headley had mentioned her as agent of Lashkar-e-Tayaba has no evidentiary value. Kumar was ultimately responsible for supplying guns from IB arsenal to kill the four. The MHA has refused permission to try Kumar and three others of IB. BJP is a staunch Hindu nationalist party which eyes Pakistan as part of India according to its akhand Bharat ideology of its patron organization RSS. In the euphoria of having successfully exploded bombs in Pokharan II in 1998 Madan Lal Khurana in PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee government had challenged Pakistan to wrestling match. If this is the kind of crude unreformed nationalism how is it any different from defense minister Manohar Parrikar’s point of view of removing a thorn with another thorn? The Sopore killings in early June 2015 are a result of killing Pakistani agents and terrorists by using local terrorists in Kashmir. Former chief minister of JK Omar Abdullah called it the direct outcome of Parrikar’s change of mind set. In carrying out the Myanmar attack there was visible another instance of the change in mindset. Modi’s minister of broadcasting and information Col. Rajvardhan Singh Rathor attributed it to the 56 inches chest of Modi. It is reminiscent of DG Vanzara the close confidante of the chief minister who conducted all the fake encounters of Muslims. Vanzara called the operation as mardon ka kaam, great and daring deeds of the macho. Musharraf chose to side with the US in the war on terrorism in the wake of 9/11. It was right decision though under duress. Secretary of State Colin Powell had conveyed the warning of President George W Bush that “you are either with us or against us in the war on terror.” Later Bush’s deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage threatened Musharraf that in case he did not support it he “should be prepared to be bombed to Stone Age.” The Pakistani leader took the right decision. In case of India it fortuitously jumped on the bandwagon of the war on terror. But India’s war on terrorism turned out to be endogenous. It made it out to be a hunt for Students Islamic Movement of India, its own citizens just because they were Muslims. It banned SIMI even when there was no proof of the organization’s terrorist link. It gave a license to the police and army to frame innocent Muslims as terrorists and get awards and promotion for conducting fake encounters. In the name of fighting terrorism Lt Col Prasad Purohit did that and more. As in charge of counter terrorism intelligence section of the army he generated bogus intelligence report of Noorulhoda Shamsuddoha as a member of SIMI and had him arrested in the September 8, 2006 blasts in Malegaon. This war on terrorism focused on the enemies within, the Muslims. On the pretext of fighting separatists in Kashmir the army and police targeted SIMI and its reduction ad absurdum—IM. That work is still going on as the phenomenon of Islamic States in Syria and Iraq looms larger. To the boss of ABVP Ashok Singhal IS is another avtar of “Jehadi terrorism.” His remark is tell tale: “What happened in Godhra. Rambhaktas were burnt alive; it was an act of jehad. The result was we got a man called Modi who is an ironman.” “Islam in India has the story of being ‘jehadi Islam.” He cited IS as an example. But went further: Islamic jehad is the cause of caste system. It divided the Indian society. The scheduled castes were rendered untouchables by Islamic jehad because they did not convert and hence became dalits. Those who could not bear the onslaught of Islam fled to jungle and became Scheduled Tribes. [4] Drawing inference to the present time Singhal said “A similar situation is arising before the community (Hindus) these days.” This kind of back and forth is capable of producing enormous suffering for which Kerry showed his “enormous concern” when he spoke to President Sharif of Pakistan. In the back of all this is also Headley and Doval’s role in the fake encounter of Ishrat Jahan. An extremist recently spoke to the charity organization in Mumbra that is running an ambulance in Mumbai named “Shaheed Ishrat Jahan”. The man with north Indian accent objected that she was a terrorist. Ishrat’s mother and sister have been shot at from time to time. Doval was chief of Intelligence Bureau (2004-2005), which works under CBI. It was in his period in office that Rajendra Kumar generated the bogus input that declared Ishrat Jahan as a LeT operative, nay indeed a woman fidayeen out to kill Modi. He supplied the AK 57 that the ATS under PP Pandy, DG Vanzara and GL Singhal used in killing her and three others. All this in the name of Modi, Togadia and Advani. Doval is credited with the tactic of “shoot first, investigate later”. This was carried out in the case of the fake encounters. All through Doval defended Modi when he was singled out for the genocide crimes or the fake encounters and severely criticized. Modi’s being at the helms of the affairs of India has diminished what is national and what is international in terms of fighting terror. It was his scurrilous remarks against Musharraf that widened the forum when the matter came up in UNO General Assembly. His delineating 9/11 as “Islamic terrorism” was in the same vein. Even PM Vajpayee instead of sacking Modi spoke in terms of Huntington thesis of Muslims having problems of living with their neighbours. He was speaking in the Goa conclave of his Hindu party BJP where it was widely expected that he would change the chief minister of Gujarat. Those who read RSS as dichotomized and Modi is now acceptable to Muslims miss the point. He is the chip of the old block. When the media persons asked KP Raghuvanshi about Bajrang Dal and VHP and RSS activists were planning to blow bombs in Aurangabad mosque the following day but accidentally blew themselves up in the house of the RSS member and engineer in Nanded on April 6, 2006 he said that the bombs were not for pooja, Hindu prayer. Musharraf knew that scores of Indian army officers were involved in the two bomb blasts of 2006 and 2008 in Malegaon. Only Lt Col Prasad Purohit and retired Major Rmesh Upadhya were named while scores of others escaped scrutiny. And, that it was Purohit who had supplied the RDX that was used on the Pakistan bound Samjhauta express for which innocent Indian Muslims were blamed. A large number of Pakistanis were killed. It was in this context of history of terror that he retorted that the Pakistan nukes were not meant for Shab-e-Barat. This was further context bound by a minister giving the Myanmar surgical attack as a warning to Pakistan. And even to US that had also harboured illusion of taking out the bombs from Pakistan lest they fall in the hands of the Taliban and the al Qaeda. Kerry addressed the situation well. ------ [1] Asian Age June 11, 2015 [2]Asian Age June 12, 2015 [3]Asian Age June 18, 2015 [4]Indian Express June 4, 2015