Enemies of living together

Enemies of living together Mustafa Khan By the same author First Hindutva Genocide of Muslims and its Architect (January 26, 2014) Aggressive Hindutva terrorism and Malegaon (January 30, 2014) Decade of the Demagogue and His Demagoguery (January 30, 2014) Mass-Terror Atrocities on Muslims for a Hindu Rashtra (January 30, 2014) Premeditated Framing of Innocent Muslims in False Terror Charges (March 20, 2014) Ishrat Jahan: Sacrificed at the Altar of Hidnutva Moloch (July 28, 2014) Narendra Modi and his pack: the terror streak (April 29, 2014) Muzaffarnagar, fury and ferocity (April 10, 2014) Polarizing India in attempt to Hinduize it (February 27, 2015) Indian Muslims’ continuing agony (July 12, 2015) Elephant in the room, radicals and the radicalized (September 25, 2015) Even Keel October 24, 2015 Mustafakhan1948@gmail.com 9028225763 2554-236370 To my children and grandchildren for having lived together Contents Introduction Chapter 1 The fallout of the festival of sacrifice of animals Chapter 2 “Who gave them the right to kill my father?” Chapter 3 Yogi Adityanand’s offer of body, mind, wealth and guns Chapter 4 Sanatan Sanstha and living together in the same village Chapter 5 Epilogue on Dadri Chapter 6 The fatal flaw of living together of Indians Chapter 7 India is motherland for whom Chapter 8 Human geography Chapter 9 Destroying coexistence by creating false identity Chapter 10Malegaon Experience Of Riots And Communal Violence Bill Chapter 11 By scalpel and not by sword, new dialogue of civilizations Chapter 12 The land was ours before we were of the land Chapter 13 How we slept over the threat of terrorism leading to civil war Chapter 14 Contour of complexities of living together in India Chapter 15 Ill fares the land and hastening ills a prey where RSS… Chapter 16 Snippets Chapter 17 The mentally disturbed and their human rights to live together in the family Chapter 18 The Zoo Story Chapter 19Does IS pose threat to India Chapter 20 Lebensraum Chapter 21 Sowing wind Chapter 22 My India resides in people like him Chapter 23 Long shadow of terrorism Introduction There are people who enjoy a walk in nature. It soothes and gives comfort. “My horse must think it queer, to stop without a farm house near,” says the American poet Robert Frost. There are friends whom you would like to invite or visit and talk. However there are those who would be pained and even alarmed when they hear that Swami Vivekanand had said that a Hindu convert to Islam is not a Hindu less but an enemy the more. So the thought of killing the enemy is born. Brutus also said that he did not love Caesar any less but he loved Rome the more. That too he said that before killing Caesar. Enmity is born in the mind of man. Some invent the excuse like the lion did before killing the lamb at the stream where they were drinking water. March 2006 was the year that saw attack on Sankat mochan temple in Allahabad. But later that year Malegaon was chosen for bomb blast for its concentration of Muslim population because the Tadwi Muslims refused to attend ghar wapsi in the second week of February 2006. It was this demographic cause that prompted Sunil Joshi, Swami Asimanand, Lt Col Prasad Purohit to target Malegaon. However there was a far deeper reason. The anti Christian pogroms in the Dangs of Gujarat acquired such a momentum that foreigners took note and started visiting the tribal regions to know the truth. The Prime Minister AB Vajpayee also visited the Dangs and remarked that conversion was bad but reconversion worse. That implied the pogroms. As pressure on Christians receded it was diverted to Muslims paralleling the withdrawal of Russians from Afghanistan and receding of Communism and diverting the same power and fury against the new enemy, Islam. Rising of population of Muslims fuelled it. The right wing extremist organization Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s hatred for Muslims and other minorities is an open secret. So is its commitment to establish a Hindu nation in India in which Muslims will not be acceptable. The RSS never hosts the Muslims. Such is its stand. Lock stock and barrel. The Twitter hashtag #porteouverte, which means "open door" in English, asked the people in Paris after the attack on November 13 2015 to host people who were still stuck out in the streets. This again shows that the western countries do more than we in India. For example girls and women of Muslim community were not only gang raped but had sticks ands rod stuck in their vagina and had to traverse naked and drag their bodies hungry and thirsty in the streets of Gujarat in 2002 genocide. The majority community did not bother to even give them water or put a piece of cloth on their naked body. This was a massive failure in living together. And the PM Narendra Modi in his tour of England which coincided with the attack in Paris wants us to forget genocide and only listen his platitude that India was for all communities o live together. It was he who had asked his police to let Hindus vent their anger on Muslims. That was inducement to killing Muslims. In the year 2015 the gravest crisis in living together is taking place on the Aegean Sea around Lesbos. When Greece is facing the worst economic crisis it is the beacon of hope for thousands of people fleeing from Middle East and other places for a safe haven across the waters. The situation is so grave that the president of European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker fears that “there is the risk of disintegration” of Europe. After she met Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann towards the end of October 2015 they said that “fences have no place in Europe.” This came after October 28 tragedy when seven children were drowned and three men also died while fleeing through Turkey to Lesbos. Against this crisis India went through a far more damaging one when more than a thousand people reached the house of Akhlak in Bisada, Dadri, just outside Delhi and killed him only on the pretext of his alleged eating of beef. Later forensic laboratory said that it was not beef but mutton. So the international crisis in Europe and the national shame in India have shown evidence of people not having learnt how to live together, how to discover the other and empathize those unlike them. Europe faced the problem much better. Years ago I was building my house. On a Thursday evening one of the workers, a boy of 13 wanted to leave for home early. On my asking he gave the reason that there was only his father at home. His mother was dead. He had come from Ahmadabad and was living in slums. It was weekend day for workers as Friday was generally observed as a holiday in Malegaon. On that night there was turn of his neighborhood to get water in the public tap of the municipality. His circumstances in life had taught him to live together well with his father because that was the only company that would keep them and the house together. There was no succor otherwise. There are others who are more fortunate to have their private water connection and have other members in the family not to bother about weekly necessity to be at home to collect water from the public tap. They may also have the opportunity and money to go to school for education rather than to the building site for work. They may also have water but may be standing in queue for hours to get their weekly or monthly share of kerosene to cook. One such boy used to collect kerosene from the hawker early in the morning. Usually customers would put their cans in a line to mark their turn and go to household works. The boy was agonized when someone stole his can and they went without cooking fuel and his mother could not eat properly for three days. They had to eke out existence during that period with great hardship. Thereafter he worked in a shop for some days to buy a new can. He would stand in the queue alone in shivering cold that too in the morning to avoid discomforting his mother again. Her company he valued so much. Learning to live together is sustained by experience and also from education. The etymological sense of learning is leisure which for some can also be the alternative of educating in knowing the world and living a better life. This is what the girl Lil in A bone from a dry sea goes through. When the family goes away hunting in those far away ages leaving her free time she thinks how to make net and weave fishing net with reeds ala the spider’s gossamer to catch fish and provide security to the family. However, it is sad that those who have security of job and police to protect them have produced all kinds of phobia of the “other." Or have systems of belief private and public that is the source of dividing into groups and trying to burn the ground under the feet of the “other” so that they become extinct. Anthropology is full of the efforts of how to overcome it and live a secure life. When the educationists of the world got together in the last decade of the 20th century they came out with the four pillars of learning in a book Learning: The Treasure Within under the stewardship of the French educationist Jacques Delor. This is a focal point in the later part of this book Whether formal schooling or experience or even being informed about the world, living together is an eternal problem of men. Different countries or cultures have invariably the same basic problem. South Korea’s example is astounding how in a single neighbourhood of Seoul there are 300 to 400 what Associated Press report calls “Bacchus ladies” elderly women trolling for customers who could take them to nearby motels and have sex or drinks for playing games. This they do for relieving their loneliness, earning something to eke out existence in a very competitive society or escaping from the onerous burden of being widows of the war of 1950-1953. They have been abandoned by their children. In a later chapter I speak more on human rights violation, poverty and family life and even mental instability can lead to problems of living together in India. But if Indian world outlook since time immemorial is that the world is a family then why has the dominant cultural nationalism of the Hindu right views India as meant for only those who are born in India of Hindu parents and have vedic culture. This self contradiction is behind the toughest challenge to living together in India today. It was not there when the Mughals ruled India or even Shivaji ruled a part of it. Shivaji’s father worked in the service of the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb as did many Muslim chieftains in the army and navy of the Maratha king! In a perceptive analysis of the present scenario Matthew Samuel asks Who is the Biggest Terrorist Of Them All..? In his write up recently he say “there is a significant minority that refuses to buy the state’s argument that Yakub [Menon] was killed to send a ‘powerful message’ to the terrorist groups how the Indian State targets the minorities in the name of counter-terrorism even if it refuses to acknowledge that majoritarian Hindutva politics is to blame just as much as Islamic militancy for terrorizing people of India.” The consequences are disastrous. “Nothing else has weakened our fight against terrorism more than the way the States treats the two kinds of terror---anti-minority massacres by mobs mobilized to give a boost to majoritarian politics and bomb blasts by Muslim recruited by underground groups that offer them a chance to retaliate and avenge the mass killings—differently.”[1] This tectonic shift is throwing up huge challenges for coexistence. The late Marathi playwright and intellectual Vijay Tendulkar was seized of the matter when he considered Narendra Modi as a terrorist and wanted a gun to go and kill him. He was paralleled by Harold Pinter who considered President George W Bush as the greatest terrorist in the world. The demolition of the Babri mosque was in itself an act of “organized terror” and it was replicated by other incidents of organized terror to observe the 10th anniversary of the demotion in February 2002 when the kar sevaks threw out from running train Muslim passengers and manhandled the tea vendors and molested Sophia and other women. The pogroms that followed were also organized terror supported by state terror. Then the economic and social boycott of Muslims all around Gujarat that made life hell on earth to exist. This made living together as the first organized casualty of terror unleashed by Modi instructing his police not to come in the way of Hindu ire but let the Hindus vent their anger. Bal Thackeray also boasted that it was he and his Maharashtra that had tutored Modi in this. Muslims in India are still reeling under the influence of the evil genius of such demagogues. There were numerous demagogues though Narendra Modi was the reigning one in Gujarat. There were those who were his henchmen who had such a procrustean view of living only with their likes! They did not even entertain any exception to their exclusivist and narrow desire to create a pure land for only Hindus that it was impossible to visualize the Muslims living on the periphery of their land. This is what a team of diverse geniuses experienced when they visited Ahmadabad on April 4, 2002 when the pogroms were still going on. The next day the PM Mr AB Vajpayee was to visit the city. The members of the delegation included Swami Agnivesh, Rear Admiral Ramdas, Nirmala Deshpande, Valson Thampu, Father Dominic Immanuel, the Maulana of Jamait-e-Ulemai Hind. They wanted to stop over in a Hindu religious hall where they could hear the grievances of those who suffered in the pogroms. They were denied permission and told bluntly: “This has nothing to do with Vajpayee or Modi. This is dharma yudh (religious war) and we do not want Muslims around.”[2] As there was no succor Ramdas and Deshpande contacted the army and they were given shelter. But was Vajpayee any lesser genius in Machiavellian politics of hatred for the Muslims? In another meeting where Harsh Mander and former PM Inder Gujral were also present, Swami Agnivesh tells how sinister Vajpayee was. “What I saw on TV and read in Tehelka gave me goose bumps. A man is boasting how he slit a pregnant woman’s womb; men are talking about hoisting a dead pig atop a mosque. And these men are roaming free. This genocide, and the state’s total complicity.. We had sensed all this. But still there was reason to give [them] the benefit of doubt. But after the Tehelka report, I am beginning to feel that Godhra itself was staged. “About the same time, along with Inder Gujral, Harsh Mander and others I met Vajpayee at Panchvati. I requested Vajpayee for a white paper on Godhra. I said; find out exactly who was responsible for Godhra. The PM just laughed and said the inquiry was on. Early in April, when the rioting was at its peak, Vajpayee had expressed regret over the carnage, and had famously wondered how he would face the world. He had admonished Modi in this speech and reminded him of his raj dharma (duty as the chief minister). Our esteem for Vajpayee went up. We thought he was one truthful person. We thought he would remove Modi from the chief ministership. Nothing happened. Later, in Goa, Vajpayee took a U-turn, and began to praise Modi. After that statement he was totally exposed.” [3]Surprisingly Vajpayee blamed Muslims who did not live with their neighbours with tolerance and he cited examples of many countries. As he piggyrode on US in war on terror so did he join Samuel Huntinton who said the innards of the Muslims were also bloody; and Bernard Lewis who saw nothing good in Muslims and advised President George W Bush to invade Iraq and Afghanistan. So who is it that really hates living together with others? The worst that the state in India has done is to view RSS not as a terrorist organization. The ambiguity regarding it as a cultural organization hides the fact that it is the mother of all terror as far as killing of minorities is concerned. Those who have been arrested in the bomb attacks in Malegaon, Mecca mosque, Samjhauta express are the leaders of RSS. One such leader is from West Bengal who succinctly made it clear that Muslims must not live in India: “If a Muslim living in India chooses their god before India, then why should he be allowed to live in our country? This country belongs to Hindus first,” says Ramapada Pal who is the chief preacher of RSS in West Bengal. What causes such kind of intemperate remark is the ideology of RSS and not the personal experience as happened in the case of Uttam Shaha. His niece fell in love with a Muslim and married him. This had so upset him that he is determined to do what he says: "My mission is to make India a Hindu nation,” [4] Ever since right wing Hindu extremists’ coming to power in India there is copycatting of killings of the neighbouring country, Pakistan, and making monotheism of Hinduism and ushering in barbarity of the Dark Ages. It is strange that Shekhar Gupta calls the Pakistanis as the angriest people of the world. Those who killed Akhlak were any less angry? The most disturbing spin off of it is for the Muslims of India and what is truly a cause of concern for living together of Indians and Kashmiris. The greater the effort to make Kashmir as integral to India the worse is the far off effect. In the name of annual Amarnath yatra there is attempt of grabbing land, whenever there is any tension the softest target is the driver or the cleaner of trucks being lynched with impunity. In October 2015 India imposed ban on petroleum being transported to Nepal and there was also killing of drivers and cleaners. The pretext of beef has superseded ghar wapsi, or reconversion, love jihad, etc. Kashmir valley was free from this but now beef has broiled a storm of protest and revived the freedom movement for aazadi. Zahid Rasool Bhat funeral and the call for freedom portends of times of intolerance Scenes of mourning be they in Dadri, in Saharanpur or Kashmir speak volumes of failure to live together thanks to the right wing ideology of hatred propagated by RSS and its affiliates including Shiv Sena. A portrait of a disconsolate lady in despair is Zahid’s mother In Saharanpur Noman’s sister wants answer what if her brother was transporting animals for farming and still Bajrang Dal thugs killed him! The daughter of Akhlak Shaishta also posed the question that if it were proved as it was that her father Akhlak had only mutton and nothing else will her father’s killers make him come back to life? Khushnama, sister of Noman, is another woman who is in despair of existence together. RSS is the behemoth that the blind men of all the political parties and investigation agencies and police touch and yet refuse to name it to be what it is, a terrorist organization. The involvement of RSS is also direct and linked to a host of terrorist attacks across the country and even in all the present turmoil within the country. Even the cabinet ministers genuflect before it along with their PM Narendra Modi. Protests in Kashmir against killings of Muslim over false accusation of eating beef were taking place amidst shouts for aazadi or freedom. There were banners asking the government to ban RSS. Playing politics over living together There are two Geetas who contrast in living together. Over the fate of one the prime minister of India Narendra Modi and the president of India Prnad Mukherji felt elated. She was brought back to India in the end of October 2015 after having strayed into Pak territory and spending more than a decade there. Modi government played politics over it. Modi was showing off that he cared for a Hindu girl and rescued her from a country the like of which is as hard core Islamist as Afghanistan. He and the Edhi foundation of Pakistan felt complacent that they fed vegetarian food to Geeta (purportedly of Bihari origin who had recognized one Mahato from there as her father but on arrival back in India refused to accept him as her father). Modi and Edhi also were patting their backs for her choosing to live like Hindu and Pakistan letting her do so. Edhi foundation received one crore rupees from Modi government for living together in amity. But the other Geeta had a tragic tale. She lost her life in a racket that Babu Bajrangi and Bajrang Dal were conducting over which Modi maintained an eerie and ominous silence. In 2002 the goons of Bajrangi quartered her for living together with her husband, a Muslim and refusing to return to her Hindu fold. The marauders had a computer generated list of Hindu girls or women living in Muslim houses who should be spared. But that Geeta flatly refused to leave her husband and preferred to die in saving her husband. Partition of India and the years leading to it spawned new patterns of creating enmity that rendered living together difficult although not impossible to overcome. But the men in power dithered or their attempts were not sufficiently effective. Those entrusted with the job of law and order either did not persevere in the job or were simply neglected. One such was the instance involving RSS boss Guru Golwalker organizing attacks on Muslims of the Central Province. When Jawaharlal Nehru’s secretary pointed out how the RSS was preparing massive attack on Muslims living in the Central Provinces Nehru issued arrest warrant against Golwalkar who was in the same locality of Delhi and yet was not traced. The order was pasted on the door of his room but there was no diligence shown in pursuing the matter. Nehru did not ban the RSS as the secretary expected. Another instance was of Mahatma Gandhi bringing pressure on the ruler of Gwalior to check Madanlal Pawa from attacking Muslims leaving India or those who elected to remain in India as its citizens. The relatives and friends of Madanlal Pawa even approached Nehru who got him a job to forestall him from his radical activities. However, because of the inveterate hate ideology of RSS Pawa chose to continue spreading harm to the minority community. He left Central Provinces and went to Ahmadnagar and continued extortion of money from Muslims of Maharashtra and organizing attacks on them. Along with Vishnu Karkare he joined the conspiracy to kill Gandhiji and hid himself among the Punjabi refugees.[5] These were the enemies of living together of Indians within the nation that was taking shape. They were the precursors of Sadhvi Prachi, Sadhvi Pragyasingh Thackur, Swamy Asimanand, Sakshi Maharaj, etc. There are people in the minority community also who in their depression become maverick as did MJ Akbar who foretold Modi as the cause of upsurge in voting in Bihar. Modi was his hero when he became a turncoat, joined BJP and became a spokesman. The result on November 8, 2015 belied him. In the last chapter of his book The Shade of Swords: Jihad and the Conflict Between Islam and Christianity he wrote: “In an age of despair the need for a hero who can inspire pan-Islamic victories becomes acute. The situation today is akin to a thousand years ago, when Crusaders conquered Jerusalem and Christians established powerful states in the heart of Palestine ... Saladin lifted Muslims from a morass then. “There is no such hero on the horizon now. Despair can become a breeding ground for mavericks who believe in themselves and their version of the faith." How could Akbar forget that the prophet himself was remarkable in the morality of living together and let the Jews and Christians pray in the mosque where they would frequently meet him? When Huntington remarked that the innards of Islam are bloody and not just the hands of Muslims, he, inter alia, had in mind the wars which followers of Islam were forced to fight to establish and survive. But saying that their intestines were filled with blood would imply that they had drunk the blood of their victims. That would be going far beyond the metaphoric meaning. If it were so the Prophet had fought a war for 18 years and as a conqueror of Mecca he could have put to swords his enemies. He did not such thing. He simply and to the consternation of the world forgave them. Even Roman emperors would set the gladiators to fight and kill their victims. That was the fault of the evolutionary process of human kind. Blaming Islam is inaccurate and those who viewed it as world view of Islam would term it like that. Farrukh Dhondy reivwed Akbar’s book and dubbed it “history of rage of Islam”. The outburst of extreme anger cannot be the defining feature of Islam or else what does compassion portend of which Islamic tradition highlights in its tenets? Take a hint from Huntington and Akbar, PM AB Vajpayee also joined the chorus in 2002 that the people of Islam have problems of living with their neighbours. A litmus test is that of Atali in Haryana. The Hindus started objecting to the construction of the mosque though the Muslims have had sanction for the same work. The riots and violence that followed on June 19, 2015 was a shock they would never forget. The majority people simpled turned not only hostile but intoleranct. In a traumatized resignation one of them a dappler, Shabbir Mulla, addressed the Hindus: “Where can we go. The people of these villages did not let us part them when the partition took place and people were migrating to Pakistan. They stopped us here. So where do we go from here now? If they wanted to kill us they would have done long back. The ancestors of the natives of these hamlets gave us refuge here. “Now in whatever way they want to keep us we would live accordingly.” ----- [1] http://www.tehelka.com/2015/08/who-is-the-biggest-terrorist-of-them-all/?singlepage=1 [2]“The whole BJP is debased.” Tehelka Magazine, Vol 4 Issue44, [3] ibidem 1 [4]http://www.firstpost.com/india/with-muslim-population-rising-in-w3est-bengal-rss-says-branches-may-double-in-state-2466788.html [5] Freedom at midnight Chapter 1 The fallout of the festival of sacrifice of animals How India is transformed! There was a time the culinary habits and the cuisine of communities were their private concern. Not anymore. Now the public domain has extended beyond the periphery of your house. The police sub inspector Ramesh Kashinath Nagrale was expected to do the formal courtesy call of the congregation for Id-u-azha at the Idgah ground of Nasirabad in Jalgaon of Maharashtra. Instead of accepting a coco nut, a bouquet and garland or becoming the conduit of handing them to the Imam who performed the prayer he dilated on whether sacrificing animals is sanctioned by the holy book Koran and asked his audience to quote chapter and verse. Not just that he also questioned where the reference is in the holy book for Muslims to marry four wives. The congregation asked him not to touch upon such matters, when he did not stop they confronted him and then assaulted. As the tension rose the crowd spilled over the national highway NH6. People stopped vehicular traffic and the situation went out of control. The government suspended Nagrale.[1] Living together in Nasirabad had inculcated a kind of détente between different communities which was maintained despite the police bias and unnecessary foray in religious matters where rather social courtesy could have passed the time of festivity much better. On the other side of the spectrum is the case of the UP village in the provenance of Yogi Aditynath in Gorakhpur. The Muslims can eat meat on other days. But because there was communal flare up earlier and they reached an understanding then they must now not sacrifice animal not just in the public place but also in their private houses. They have to go through the regimen of surrendering their animals to the Hindus for the period of the sacrifice during the Idul-Azha. So the constitution of India is ultra vires for that time! So they subsist in their own country at the sufferance of the majority Hindus. Wither India! Existence is impossible The third village is a matter of serious concern. The phobia of the “other” is such a catalyst agent that even rumour or announcement from the loudspeaker of a temple in the present charged and ignited atmosphere in India can set one group upon the other. At 9.30 pm on September 28, 2015 two men forced the temple pujari in Noida village Bisara to announce that one Akhlak had consumed beef stored in his house. He was a native of the village and his family had lived there for centuries as black smiths doing the work of making or repairing farm implements like ploughs or scythes for his Hindu neighbours. Suddenly a crowd of more than a 1000 descended upon his house and beat the 58 year old and lynched him. The district magistrate of Noida rushed to the house to control the situation two hours later. The husbandry experts from the department of the government seized the meat. It was mutton and not beef! The magistrate NP Singh averred: "We have got the meat samples picked up from Akhlaq’s fridge tested by our animal husbandry department experts who said quite affirmatively that it was not beef at all.”[2] The magistrate further said: "Though the killers have no formal association with any fundamentalist organisation, it was apparent that each of the arrested individuals held very rabid views of Hindutva."The Sangh parivar or extremist Hindu affiliates are so numerous and their work is so widespread that the kind of atmosphere they have created over the years has made living together as its first casualty. It would require Hercules to wash the Augean stables of Hindutva laboratory to remove the dirt and acid that is collected in the brains. Neither the so called secularists nor the communal parties could be competent to handle it. What is worse even the judiciary has fallen victim, in the political parlance, captive parrot. Recall a similar event of September 2013 in Muzaffarnagar! The right wing Hindutva propaganda has claimed another victim. Its sowing of hatred for minorities is now yielding rich dividends. The obvious beneficiary is the Hindu party BJP whose leader Sanjay Rana’s son Vishal took leading role in killing Mohammad Akhlak. The others with him were Shivam, Saurabh and Rupender.[3] Mahesh Sharma is the culture minister under Modi who called the lynching an accident. “I feel this incident occurred due to some misunderstanding and the law should truthfully act against whoever is responsible for it.”It is clear lie. The bones were found in the morning and the lynching took place around ten in the night with more than 1000 people attacking and killing Akhlak and almost killing his son Danish. The son survived with two brain surgery. The marauders molested the daughter of Akhlak and his wife and also attacked his mother. The family of Akhlak would prepare mutton and pack in tiffin at the festivals and give to their Hindu neighbours. Instead of such a good turn deserving another, the obvious proverbial betrayal is ignominious and leaves epochal scar on the minority community. Many fear that like Muzaffarnagar this incident of UP will not result in any conviction. Even the forensic laboratory result showed that it was mutton. With this it is clear that the BJP does not want Muslims to live in India. Their vision of a Hindu rashtra does not countenance Muslim minority. However, the chief of Indian Air Force Anup Raha would provide security to the family of Akhlak and his son Corporal Mohammad Sartaj and would give sanctuary to the survivors in an Indian air force base. That BJP and its patrons in RSS do not have any remorse over the incident by the kind of statement they make: BJP western UP unit’s vice-president Shrichand Sharma told The Indian Express that ‘this happens every day’. “This was not a communal riot. The Hindu community worships cows. Whose blood won’t boil if they see cow slaughter?” This is a nefarious argument. The attitude is unrepentant and self justificatory. It bodes ill for living together in India and even makes President Barak Obama’s assertion relevant that India would succeed if not splintered. How can India be splintered over eating beef? There were enough Hindus who were unconcerned when the movement for Pakistan got momentum. They too were aware that it was a storm gathering on the horizon and all the Hindus could not prevent the sudden bursting of it over settlement of population. So also today there are Hindus who scoff at the idea that India did right to stop eating beef. And they are not only the Hindu farmers who benefit from the sale of cows and bulls. One such is the former justice of the Supreme Court Markande Katju. He was in Benares University where he remarked that the cow was just another animal “which cannot be anyone’s mother. Cow is just an animal and an animal cannot be anyone’s mother. If I like to eat beef then what’s harm in it, even people worldwide consume beef, if I like to eat then who can stop me…Are those people across the world who eat beef bad and only we (in the country) who don’t eat are saints and seers? What’s the harm in it when people eat beef, I too eat and will even continues to eat further.”[4] They also cannot stop the division that is deepening between Hindu extremists and the minority Muslim community. The murder of Akhlak and serious injuries to his son and molesting of his daughter and wife is in itself a heinous crime. Even worse is that this could easily affect the Muslims in general and not only Akhlak’s son Corporal Sartaj in Indian Air Force. He is duty bound to drop bomb on Pakistan if ordered as did tank Commander Abdul Hamid who took the highest toll on Pakistani tanks in 1965 war. But the sacrifices they have made as proof of their patriotism directly contrasts with the ruling echelon of BJP and Shiv Sena who are seeking like what Dr Samuel Johnson calls: the last refuge of the scoundrel, patriotism, especially of the likes who want to wear their patriotism on their sleeves as a badge of claims of concession and reservation denied to Muslims. They are the ones who go scouring the dumping space within four electric polls as in Dadri to find out what Muslims eat on festival days. Has any constitutional assembly given them right to do so for a future course of India? The Hindu rashtra cannot be in the making! Danish, son of slain Akhlak who was a proud citizen of his country for having served as a blacksmith, his elder brother Sartaj is in the Air Force defending India from its enemies, Pakistan and China. The survivors will continue to live together to tell their sorrowful tale of trauma and bereavement for not having eaten beef and yet exemplarily punished by forces of Hindutva for the rest of their life in the land of their birth and country of their choice. The RSS has canonized the murder as justified by Vedas! The Hindu nation still may be away by 8 years but religious nationalism is here and kicking. This is the single most crucial feature of living together. It not only manifests in the insane statements of the fanatics of the Hindu right but surreptitiously it is spreading its tentacles and threatens to end democracy soon. The Muslims are paying dearly for their existence at the sufferance of the majority. Killing Akhlak was one individual’s death in which the fate of Muslims as minority is doomed. During the genocide of 2002 the President of India KR Narayanan had written to the PM AB Vajpayee for immediate need to treat Muslims with dignity and respect. Vajpayee rejected it outright when he went to the September 2002 enclaves of his party in Goa and remarked that Muslims do not know how to live with their neigbours. That buttressed the position of Narendra Modi who could get away in full glare of media with the conduct of the genocide, the first in the laboratory of Hindutva in Gujarat. The PM did not quote Samuel Huntington correctly but what he said constituted the obvious clash within the civilization. As Martha C Nussbaum wrote afterward:“If we really want to understand the impact of religious nationalism on democratic values, India currently provides a deeply troubling example, and one without which any understanding of the more general phenomenon is dangerously incomplete. [p.9] “Even before the crisis of 2002, tensions between religious communities were increasingly defining lives in many regions of India. Poor women in Gujarat seeking to work together for women’s human rights were increasingly driven apart by community organizers who fomented hatred, making it difficult for Hindu women to live and work alongside Muslim women. Female students in Lucknow, once a home of Hindu-Muslim cooperation and amity, observed or experienced daily threats of physical violence from organized brigades of Hindu-right students, who menaced them with physical abuse if they wore blue jeans or celebrated Valentine’s Day or birthdays (customs deemed unacceptably Western). New textbooks commissioned by the BJP’s minister of education, Murli Manohar Joshi, were beginning to teach young children habits of intolerance and suspicion. (“Kabeer is a nice boy,” one first grade reader goes, “even though he is a Muslim.”) [5] This also puts question mark to what President Pranab Mukherjee spoke on the release of a book on him penned by Shekhar Gupta of how core values have maintained India and it would remain so forever. Core values were already thrown in dustbin and the death of Akhlak was not and cannot be the last. Even before the pen could write the next line news came that from the constituency of Mulayam Singh Yadav tanners peeling the hide of a dead cow were attacked. “India is now justifiably listed alongside barbaric, blasphemy-murdering Pakistan, with blogger-butchering Bangladesh and with teenager-crucifying Saudi Arabia.”[6] All these will continue as we have not learnt how to live together and now that option is closed because the enemies of living together are calling the shot. Living together is a context bound process and not generalization of abstracts of pontification. When President Mukherjee went third time on October 20, 2015 to hold forth he was still reluctant to name the evil of the clash within. “Our civilization teaches us to promote tolerance, to accept differences and to respect dissent. Therefore that is the essence which has kept us together. Therefore, what I stated that we should recognized this underlying message and convey it in our actions, day-to-day practices. Whether it should be the part of our civilization and culture, in our behavior, in our approach and attitude.” ------ [1] http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/cop-assaulted-for-making-objectionable-remarks-suspended/1/482918.html [2]http://www.rediff.com/news/report/no-beef-consumed-in-dadri-murder-nsa-to-be-invokend-against-killers/20150930.htm?pos=4&src=NL20151001&trackid=7MGeiBNRiOgHpjiU22XIw0UhYgsPCBFedrAsNDfdS8Q=&isnlp=0&isnlsp=0 [3]http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/BJP-leaders-son-among-two-held-for-lynching/articleshow/49211735.cms [3] http://www.rediff.com/news/report/no-beef-consumed-in-dadri-murder-nsa-to-be-invokend-against-killers/20150930.htm?pos=4&src=NL20151001&trackid=7MGeiBNRiOgHpjiU22XIw0UhYgsPCBFedrAsNDfdS8Q=&isnlp=0&isnlsp=0 [4]Asian Age October 4, 2015 [5] The Clash Within. [6] http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/49280039.cms Chapter 2 “Who gave them the right to kill my father?” Four months of poisoning and anniversary of VHP Muslims in India would register in their memory of what is happening to them as a fall out of their being faithful. There is hardly a day that passes when the Modi government does not jolt and shock them. As if, the sewing machine and bricks of Dadri are hammering and demolishing them with even greater force than what happened in 1993. The man who pioneered the launch of rathyatra from Somnath temple on September 25, 1989 is now ensconced in the most powerful executive office of the country like the Moloch, placid and frigid. Meanwhile the victims pile up. Tujh to kitno ka lahoo chahiye aiy arz-e-watan Jo tere arz berang to gulnar Karen Kitni aahone se tera kaleja thanda hoga Kitney aansson teray sahraon ko gulzar Karen [How many people’s blood you want mother land that can change your colourless earth into colourful garden. How many sighs of people you want to make your heart content. How much tears you want to convert your desert in a garden. Faiz Ahmad Faiz] What happened in Dadri can be picked up from what was chronicled: “The vigilantes from Save the Cow sprang into action the moment they heard a rumor that a cows slaughtered remains had been found near an electrical transformer looming over the heart of this village. They quickly raised the alarm through text messages and phone calls. A local Hindu priest was asked to alert villagers from his temple loudspeaker. “Soon, about 1,000 men had gathered by the transformer. There was no sign that a cow, a revered holy symbol for Hindus, had been slaughtered. Nonetheless, the men proceeded through zigzagging alleys to the home of the suspected cow killer, Mohammed Ikhlaq, one of the few Muslims living in this village about 30 miles east of New Delhi. “Mr. Ikhlaq and his wife, Ikraman, were on their second-floor patio, dozing after dinner and prayers. Suddenly their home was swarming with men. Mrs. Ikhlaq heard someone shout, Kill them. She, her husband and their son Danish, 20, retreated inside, behind a thick wooden door. The mob shattered the door. Whats the matter? Mrs. Ikhlaq cried out. An incredulous voice replied from the dark, After slaughtering a cow, you are asking us whats the matter? “Men began to paw at Mrs. Ikhlaq, so she bit hard into a sweaty hand, broke free and fled downstairs, too scared to even breathe, she said in an interview. Upstairs, the mob bludgeoned her husband with her sewing machine and smashed her sons head with a brick. Then they dragged Mr. Ikhlaq down 14 cement steps and out to the main road by the transformer, where he was left for all to see.” [1] Like a vise that catches and crushes the body of the hapless victim the vulturine dissection descends. “The death of Mr. Ikhlaq was at most the unintended byproduct of a chaotic, highly charged situation of his own making. He slipped and his head hit the road and he died,” said Mr. Vichitra Kumar Tomar, head of the save cow unit, adding: “These things happen. Its a mob.” Against the logic of Akhlak’s daughter Shaista that if it was beef they should have registered FIR against her father there is the barb from Sadhvi Surchitra “those who consume beef deserve such actions against them.” [2] Sangeet Singh Som BJP MLA from western UP was involved in the pogroms of Muslims in 2013. As if that is not enough he has the impunity to say that like Muzaffarnagar he and his cohorts would teach a lesson to the government and the Muslims for appeasement. He had circulated a doctored video of capital punishment in Pakistan and passed it off as if it was taking place in Muzaffarnagar. Can such people understand the calamity that struck the family of deceased Akhlaq? They have no remorse over what happened in Dadri. The NDTV editor Ravish Kumar was shocked that a young man asked him why Gandhi and Nehru allowed Muslims to stay in India. Riots did take place during partition but most of the country did not show tendency to violence against the hapless minority. Moreover the Muslims chose to stay in India by their free will. The RSS chose not to fight for the freedom of the country and saved their energy for a bitter war later as it is doing now. A part of the strategy of RSS is to plant division where it does not exist. There had been no quarrel between Hindus and Muslims in Dadri as it was also the case in Muzaffarnagar. In fact Akhlak called his childhood friend Manoj Sisodia to succor. Within fifteen minutes he was there but by then the fury and ferocity that was seen in Muzaffarnager swept through the house of Akhlak replicating the pogroms. Som’s threat of a befitting reply to Muslims assumes ominous dimension because violence would definitely continue. Sangeet Singh Som, his ominous words doomed the fate of Muslims in Muzaffarnager and now in Dadri it they are ringing in the air as banshee of death and destruction of Muslims of Bisada. Well off, well fed, well groomed, rich and also educated and yet preying on their helpless victims! As Narendra Modi Sena had appeared in Muzaffarnagar about 4 months before September 2013 so did the Samadhan Sena of Govind Chaudhary in and across Dadri. Samadhan now must be patting its back for having given samadhan[contentment] to Modi, Amit Shah and BJP for the bloodshed that it so nicely presented to Moloch on a platter. Four months of sowing hatred like the harvesting of sugar cane was enough and another 4 months now has yielded the same kind of grapes of wrath. The manure and water came from “declining population of Hindus” and slaughter of cows. What began in June 2015 in Virpura was a cash crop of hatred. As a father realized how quick was the result that his son involved in the radical and rabid change in the youths. "One day, he was talking about movie stars and item numbers. The next day he began saying the population of Hindus in the country has dipped. I have asked him not to attend these meetings, but do young boys listen these days?" Modi had taken just a day in February 2002. His lieutenants are taking four months. How inefficiency is delaying development. ------ [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/05/world/asia/mob-attack-over-rumors-of-cow-slaughter-has-political-overtones-in-india.html?_r=0 https://treeangle.co.id/news/43809/2015/10/indian-politicians-defend-mob-attack-over-cow-rumor [2http://zeenews.india.com/news/india/dadri-lynching-case-sadhvi-prachi-makes-provocative-remark-says-beef-eaters-deserve-such-fate_1805749.html [3] http://www.firstpost.com/politics/decoding-the-dadri-lynching-from-political-mileage-to-strange-thoughts-and-boiling-blood-2451576.html Chapter 3 Yogi Adityanand’s offer of body, mind, wealth and guns smacks seditious On September 28 2015 seven members of a BJP leader Sanjay Rana’s family of the nine accused in the murder of Mohammad Akhlak had taken initiative in the attack on the house of the hapless. In response to police investigation the controversial Member of Parliament from Gorakhpur Yogi Adityanath offered mind, wealth and guns to the Hindus whom the police have detained. This is unambiguously seditious. He had formed the Hindu Yuva Vahini whose member Jitendra Tyagai said:"We will go and meet Hindus who are being harassed by authorities. We will provide them all possible help, be it tan-man-dhan-gun (body, mind, wealth and guns), if they areare harassed." The burly youth’s look back in anger at the police at the police at the gate of Bisada, Dadri is not only insolent but seditious true to the mandate of Hindu Yuva Vahini of the Yogi of Gorakhpur This can create such a grave situation as seen in the following scene from Muzaffarnagar when similar groups of Narendra Modi Sena had obstructed the police from arresting criminals involved in killing Muslims. Or the following scene when the Meerut district magistrate was injured on July 4, 2014 when the Jat Hindus wanted to hold mahapanchyat and he was doing his official duty. The first scene shows how the cortege is in procession when the police wanted to arrest the alleged killer of Muslims There are more youths who are wanted in the killing of Akhlak. His daughter Shaista was reeling with shock when ngihbours known to her and her family were in the assault on her house. When her mother was molested her mother too was shocked and ran down the stairs in such a berserk that she could not breathe. Her husband had gone to the remotest part of the room upstairs to escape from the bloody attackers who had yanked off the head of the sewing machine from the frame and were going to take him out. This was if needed to define, sheer terror. Tyagi’s logic is topsy-turvy as he gives the example of a Hindu who committed suicide a day before: "The one who slaughters cows are being compensated. Did they earn this money on their own? Why only Muslims are getting help? Why Jay Prakash has not been given any help?" [1] The offers of arms are for the Hindus of Dadri’s Bisada village of greater Noida outside Delhi. It is another feature of sedition that the locals of Dadri have mounted a siege of the village like Muzaffarnagar and were monitoring all the entry and exit points of the village and not allowing outsiders or unwanted. The Yogi of Gorakhpur has been host to Sunil Joshi, Riteshwar Bharat bhai and members of the Nepalese royal family who had negotiation with extremists of Abhinav Bharat in training commandos and other acts against the constitution of India. What has the government learnt from Muzaffarnagar to prevent Sangeet Som from repeating it in Dadri. The unruly scenes above and the nudging of judges who are pliant as during Modi’s rule in Gujarat and now in Delhi makes a grim reading of the unfolding scenario as Julio Ribeiro puts it: “[Jyoti]Salian’s lament on being asked to go soft on Hindu extremists accused of terrorist acts frightens us to believe that the country is steadily being led on to the path trodden by our surly neighbour on our western border. The masterminds of the 26/11 attacks are treated like heroes in Pakistan. “We are not there yet, but if hidden hands nudge the judicial system to free murderers of the saffron variety, we will be soon.” Today we don’t even think of what Som and the Yogi are doing is terrorism. But if another video surfaces that could prove them to be what they are we would be shocked as many were shocked when Hemant Karkare came upon the Abhinav Bharat. We [all Indians and not necessarily any one group] are made to believe they are culturally Hindus and holy men and therefore they are in fallible. “But, the ATS had suddenly, unexpectedly and, I must add, fortuitously come across incontrovertible evidence, which included taped conversations, to prove that the Malegaon blasts, as well as the Ajmer, Hyderabad and Samjhauta Express blasts that killed nearly a hundred people, were conceived, planned and executed by a group of fanatical Hindus bent on revenge.”[2] The Hindu right has quietly and overconfidently under Modi and Bal Thackeray come to appropriate right to revenge as their birth right and this is not terrorism. In fact world over revenge is a leitmotif of all kinds of terrorism unless it is too personal. The murder of Sunil Joshi was no doubt on a persona pretext that he did something to Lady Sadhvi Pragyasingh Thakur that no gentleman should even say in the presence of ladies. But she was involved in the murder because she removed the gun and other clues from the house of Joshi on the night of murder itself. Indresh Kumar feared him for Joshi would have revealed the secrets of the conspiracy behind many terror attacks. What the Yogis and Soms are doing is “making our great country in the image of our neighbor.”[2] It is significant to note how people like Som and the Yogi can get away with the law of the land by devious means. What happened in Muzaffarnagar and later in Dadri can be compared with what Hemant Karkare came upon in his investigation. “There are conversations, kept in the laptop of Shankaracharya (Sudhakar Dwivedi). He used to record the conversation in secret meetings on his laptop, sometimes visuals too. I [Salian] asked Karkare, why is he recording? He is a plant. He wants to show it to someone, a conspiracy hatched in the dark. From those conversations we got to know the actual story, they wanted a central Hindu rashtra, they don’t recognise the Constitution of India, had their own constitution written, their own flag — even their Bharat Mata was an armed one. “When did you get the feeling that you are being asked to go slow? “Last year I got a call from one of the officers of the NIA, asking to come over to speak to me. He didn’t want to talk over the phone. He came and said there is a message that I should go soft. I told him I will always support the cause of justice. Then, when we got our date for the MCOCA hearing. A day before our day when Mr Mariar Puttam, a senior counsel, was to appear for us, an additional general from the state of Maharashtra came and said, “You cannot appear for us.” He started nudging Mariar. “Then another additional general for the state, Anil Singh, came and said he will appear for the state and Mariar cannot. Both started to nudge Mariar — in the open court, both were nudging him. I am sitting behind him. I told Mariar not to appear. It was so insulting. Mariar finally got up and said to the judge, “Your lordship may decide. This is my instruction. I may be allowed to go out.” The judge said you have been here for many months, we would like to hear you. He was heard, our affidavit taken. But the way NIA and the state of Maharashtra nudged him showed something very fishy. If they were treating a senior counsel like that, I knew then something was seriously wrong. Ultimately the order came, the judgment given. It was horrible; after the order came no one called me. NIA hasn’t called me till today to discuss. They were so unhappy because MCOCA was retained.”[3] So the descent to the law of the jungle is the same in Muzaffarnagar [2013], Malegaon [2008] and what is happening in Dadri 2015. India is emulating Pakistan. And people like Nawab Singh Nagar, Srichand Sharma, Sangeet Som, Tarun Vijay, Mahesh Sharma and Sanjeev Baliyan would have their field work done with impunity. President Barak Obama could reach out to Mohammad Ahmad the boy who had a clock and was harassed by the immigration department and soothe the ruffled boy. The niece of former boss of ATS in Maharashtra KP Raghuvanshi in Muzaffarnagar could reach out to her uncle to delay deployment of army so that they could do a wholesome killing of Muslims! The PM of India doesn’t budge. He never did before. He will never do anytime in the future. ------ [1] Indian Express October 7, 2015. [2] http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/why-we-must-listen-to-salian/99/ [3]http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/the-meaning-very-clearly-was-dont-get-us-favourable-orders/ Chapter 4 Sanatan Sanstha and living together in the same village Before coming to Sanatan Sansthan it is better to have a universal account of how living together can involve intra-civilizational clash as well as inter-civilizational clash. I Intra civilization clash Bernard Lewis was the most remarkable critic of Islam for he never saw any good either in the faith or the people who live by it. It was he who had counselled George W Bush to attack Iraq because he thought that the Muslims were primitive people of barbaric practices incapable of any refinement of civilization. His hatred for the Muslim fuelled his epithet, The Clash of Civilization. Much after him Samuel Huntington developed it into an elaborate theory which the likes of Tony Blair and AB Vajpayee very eagerly bought outright. However, as it turned out the clash of civilizations is rather intra than inter civilizations. As Attorney General Eric Holder of US said about Abdulmuttallab case :"There’s a desire to ignore the facts to try to score political points. It’s a little shocking.” This present trend in US of neo cons opposing the upholders of the civil laws and liberties is intra civilization clash. Much of the violations of human rights and collateral damages inflicted on civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan as well as the extraordinary renditions, manoeuring intelligence reports to prepare for war and water boarding are the works of Dick Cheny, George W Bush, Paul Wolfwitz, Elizabeth Cheny and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, etc. Eric Holder and Samantha Power among many others would like to turn against use of drones killing innocents or what transpired in the case of Dr Aafia Siddiqui and her two missing children. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab boarded a plane on Christmas day 2009. He was cleared by ICTS International security agency (founded by Shin Bet, Israel's civil security agency) at Schipho airport at Amsterdam. There was no passport with him. Strangely enough he bought first class ticket. He had a bomb sewn in the underwear. The security agency could see his crotch very well in the x-ray and yet it cleared him. He tried to blow up the plane but it failed because there was no blasting cap attached to it. The initial report did not mention about the Israeli company clearing him. Nor was it revealed that the amount of explosive could hardly destroy the arm rest. By the time it came out the harm was done. His name and alleged link to al Qaeda had been the headline news around the world. The purpose behind this is clear: stereotyping him as a fanatic Muslim terrorist. This happened notwithstanding the fact that his own father had alerted CIA station chief in Nigeria about it. What was not disclosed at first was that his father was a banker who oversaw defence deal with Israeli Defence Forces personnel to train Nigerians in security. FBI said that the radical Yemeni cleric Anwar al-Awlaki had told Abdulmutallab to blow the bomb. But there is no proof that he ever went to the cleric or had any contact with him. Thus he was made to fit in the pattern of 9/11 hijackers who were trained in San Diego, New Mexico (where Awlaki was born) and Mjor Nidal Hasan who were inspired by the cleric. In India we have the cross fertilized breed. Far too long the IB and RAW and local investigation agencies in tandem with the police had been creating false impression. Their objective was more or less communal. When the truth dawned upon some it was stunningly shocking. It is pertinent to remember what the Union home secretary Gopal Krishna Pillai said on December 9 2009 about Hindu fringe groups' involvement when bombs went off in mosques in Hyderabad, Malegaon, Delhi and elsewhere. "It took us a few years to convince the system that we need to look out, and we were able to finally lay our hands on the Colonel Purohit (of the Malegaon blasts) network," Similarly, there have been several inputs that showed that terror against India has tentacles outside Pakistan. He said some of the emails and communication linked to Indian Mujahideen had originated from the US. In addition to the truth that home secretary asserted there are other dark forces represented by RSS, Shiv Sena Shri Ram Sena in India who simply refuse to accept the truth. They vehemently opposed ATS chief Hemant Karkare and hinted darkly that unless he stopped in his track he would be in grave trouble. What happened thereafter is now history. These people are like Jack and his bloody hunters in "Lord of the Flies." In contrast Karkare was like Ralph the epitome of brilliance of mind and social harmony and commitment to civil laws. Both these groups are the product of the same civilization. Bal Thackeray, Narendra Modi and VHP were breathing down the neck of Karkare when he caught sadhvi Pragyasingh Thakur and Purohit, etc. But when Karkare was killed they totally changed their stance and started calling him a martyr. Shiv Sena and Uma Bharti even offered Purohit tickets in the election. Shiv Sena wanted to pay for the lawyer who would defend Purohit and Sadhvi. On the other hand they openly threatened lawyers of any Muslim accused of the similar crimes. In most other cases like Samjhauta express incident the police and the investigating agencies fabricated all kinds of lies to blame Muslims when it was becoming clear that Purohit and Abhinav Bharat were behind them. The recent report of arrest of Shahzad Ahmad has again refocused attention on the pattern of lies. Now we are told that he had fired a single bullet at inspector Mohan Chand Sharma. Till his capture we were told that Atif Ameen and Sajjad had fired from their guns and that caused the death of Sharma. Even the NCHR had bought this claim and accepted it. The neighbours in Batla house have maintained that there is one exit with two doors opening on the same place and if Shahzas and Junaid had escaped the people should have seen them. They did not see anyone escape. The cops who rushed up at hearing the shooting would have surely met and apprehended Junaid and Shahzad. They did not apprehend them. Then reports of Shahzad attending a flying course in Banglore to mount a 9/11 in India was leaked to media by the police obviously. The phodia rose in a crescendo. The route of escape Shahzad and Junaid took is another cocktail of lies. According to Indian Express the duo went to the bus station on foot and boarded a bus to Badarpur. Then they took train to Mumbai without knowing where it was bound. The Times of India carries two versions. One, the two went to Aligarh by train or bus, then to Lucknow and finally to Azamgarh. Two, they went to Aligarh, then to Blundhsaher, Lucknow, Khalispure, Jaipur, Jodhpur and finally to Mumbai. The police did not make an inventory of bullets and cartridges,etc. The scene was also without any residual evidence there much like the incident of Aafia Siddiqui. In her case she was accused of assaulting eight American military officers at Bagram prison in Afghanistan. She was too feeble to lift a gun let alone snatching it from the burly soldiers and belabouring them and then shooting them. Neither the soldiers nor the site gave any trace of the shoot out on July 18 2008. The American ambassador to Pakistan Anne Patterson had been denying till then that Aafia was even held by the Americans. In fact she, a US citizen as well as her two children, was kidnapped from Pakistan on March 30 2003 and put through the ignominious extraordinary renditions and taken to Bagram. She was raped and tortured for five years. She wailed so loudly in the lonely nights that her cries were heard ringing in the air far and wide. The US soldiers started calling her Lady Gray of Bagram. The ambassador would arrange luxurious parties and brief the journalists the version that the army gave out. In this way falsehoold was deliberately spread. Her wailing and agonized shrieks would remind people here how Khawaja Yunus was tortured and given water boarding punishment in Mumbai. His mother also wept and cried in the stillness of the night in Parbhani. Police Inspector Vaze disposed off the body of Yunus much the same way Vanzara had done the body of Kauserbi, wife of Sohrabuddin in Gujarat. In all such cases the forces of evil were at work, forces which would like to use the extreme extent of terrorizing their hapless victims. To oppose such evils there are people like Karkare and of late Chidambrum who would be upright and more responsive to human rights. This kind of clash is within the homeland culture of a country. Currently Mumbai is a witness to this. The police and intelligence agencies have never bothered about the fiefdom over which Bal Thackeray ruled like a feudal lord. On the eve of the serial bomb blasts in locals on 7/11, the Shiv Sainiks had burnt vehicles and vandalized shops and commercial establishments protesting over the alleged mud slung at the statue of Thackeray's wife. When Annad Dighe, Shiv Sena pramukh of Thane, died, the sainiks had vandalized the Singhania hospital where Mr Singhania's aeroplane was also kept. In the emergency wards of the hospital there were very serious cases in ICUs. They had a hell of a time. There was also the murder case of Ramesh Kini in which a finger of suspicion pointed at the Thackerays. To show solidarity with the victims of medieval revenge even the prime minister, VP Singh, had visited the widow of Kini. This last captures the clash between the people who let loose the law of the jungle and those who abide by the rule of law. In the countdown to the release of My Name is Khan we wait with baited breath what might the hordes shouting My Name is Thackeray would do. Would they again set upon the hapless North Indians commuting long distances for jobs, interviews, examinations, driving their taxis, etc. ----- DNA 10-12-09 Headley wakes govt up to terror from the West. II There are good hearted people in villages around India having unalloyed happiness of purity and innocence and untouched by debauchery. As Alexander Pope put it Happy the man whose wish and care A few paternal acres bound Content to breathe his native air In his native town. The people of Ramnathi in Ponda of Goa are still bucolic and sound in principles as Oliver Goldsmith put it: Ill fares the land to hastening ills a prey Where wealth accumulates and men decay They took a firm stand against the Sanatan Sanstha that its ashram should be shifted from Bandora within seven days, before October 7, 2015. On September 30 the president of Ramnath Yuvak Sangh, Saurabh Lotlikar addressed a meeting and served this notice. Not only had that he also said that a majority of the people of Ponda want it. “We are also Hindus. We don’t need organisations like Sanatan to tell us what Hinduism is” he remarked. This reflects his sanskar or good family tradition since he was accompanied by the sarpanch or headperson of the village. She is his mother, Sharmila. Several elderly people of the village also were present. There is also a matter of concern for what they say the Sanatan teaches ‘something else’ that is not Hinduism. It is bizarre coincidence that in 2009 the police were investigating the bomb blasts of Margao when they seized record of 1000 condoms requisitioned by the temple. What for a temple need birth preventive contraceptives? This is against the Hindu religion. But it also goes against the new acquired ideology of those who advocate more children for Hindus vis-à-vis the birth ratio of Muslims and other minorities. One can understand the anguish of Lotlikar who wondered what the condoms have to do with the spirituality that the Sanatan purportedly teaching. Nay it advertises to the world that it is teaching this. Of all the places this is a matter of national concern as Goa is a tourist attraction where free sex including pederasty and drugs frequently appear in press report. Lotlikar, mother and villagers: “What condoms have to do with spiritualism.” There are many things common in terrorism that Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh practiced in Wacko Oregon which made living together difficult for the village and the devotees numbering 4000. The population of the village depleted to just 17. The well armed guards mounted watch for 24 hours and spread bacteria salmonella typhimurium on salad served in hotels 750 people were affected. The followers arranged 400 sham marriages Like Rajneesh, Timothy McVeigh blew up the Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995 killing 168 people. He belonged to another cult like Rajneesh and the Sanatan Sansthan, Branch Davidian in Waco. When the camp was besieged by federal agents he protested. His sentence “Our government is the potent and omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example.” Before being killed he quoted a poem: Invictus, “I am the master of my fate. I am the captain of my soul.” Another such was Jim Jones, an American who established Jonestown in Guyana. His followers killed five at his command and when the US got on their track, Jones ordered his followers to consume cyanide and kill themselves, 909 carried out the order and died. He would exploit superstition and hold intestines from toilet to frighten them of maladies thy suffered. He also hypnotized as the others. Sanatan Sansthan fits in this pattern. It is an impenetrable cult where promiscuity seems to be practiced or else why girls are entrapped there. Priti and Priya Chaurassia were hypnotized and kept there though they denied it. They were also handled by musclemen from Pramod Muthalik’s Sri Ram Sene. However the girls say that they came according to their free will. “We left home after our parents tortured us physically and verbally. Our lives were under threat with them and hence we ran away. We are not staying with the Sanatan Ashram and do not want to disclose our whereabouts. We are not hypnotized and working for the Sanatan voluntarily.” Another girl having the same explanation is Swati Adbhai from Nasik whose father had filed PIL in high court in 2011against the Sansthan that it is keeping his daughter forcibly. However, Shyam Manav a rationalist says that lies have been so hammered in the victims that repeat the same as did Sameer Gaikwad allegedly involved in the murder of Govind Pansare, Narendra Dhabodkar. The Nasik connection is alarming as Lt Col Prasad Purohit had spread the influence of Abhinav Bharat in the army when he was posted there and even the bombs were assembled there which blew up in Malegaon in 2008. Already several members of Sanatan are sentenced to ten years in prison for bombs that exploded in Thane and Vasai. ------ Cf Virendra Marathe, managing trusteehttp://www.rediff.com/news/interview/exclusive-sanathan-sanstha-managing-trustee-speaks/20150928.htm?pos=5&src=NL20151005&trackid=7MGeiBNRiOgHpjiU22XIw0UhYgsPCBFedrAsNDfdS8Q=&isnlp=0&isnlsp=0 Chapter 5  Epilogue on Dadri As the dust settles on Dadri it is evident that the overall objective of the right wing Hindutva really was to demonstrate that a sleepy hamlet can be enthused at the beck and call to kill the chosen quarry, Akhlak and others in the house. The discovery of the bone might or might not have taken place in the morning but it was enough for the chosen time of darkness to settle to extract revenge and send the message that the Muslims were at the sufferance of the Hindus. There is a close parallel with the genocide of Muslims in 2002. The Sabarmati express fire incident had taken place in the morning. The collector of Godhra Ms Jayanthi Ravi was the first to reach there and tell the world on the official radio service and TV channel that it was a fire accident. Chief minister Narendra Modi went later in the day at 2 pm and went into a huddle with his cohort and turned it into sabotage after late in the evening. Attacks on Muslims had started on February 27, 2002 itself but it was set for the following three days when thousands of Bajrang Dal activists and cadets of RSS wearing their official dress began the pogroms. There was a remarkable act in Dadri when the dead body of Akhlak was dumped at the four electric poles. Notable is also the preparation Akhlak family was doing after dinner. They had finished their night meal and retired to their upstairs bedrooms and were on the verge of sleep. This shows that there was no thought of any consequences of what would follow as a consequence of their having eaten mutton from the sacrifice of animals on the festival day of September 25, 2015. The night of September 28 was as quotidian as any other but some wanted to make it kristallnacht, the night of the concerted violence. In naked defiance of the minority Muslims in particular RSS and Shiv Sena made no bones of the issue of the future of the Muslims when their chiefs addressed the issue on Dussera day rally on October 22, 2015. “Instead of searching beef in people’s houses, declare the nation a Hindu Rashtra. Then let us see who slaughters cows?” Udhav Thackeray in his hunting call prodded his ally in the government and deeds. RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat took up the strain, “Small episodes happen. They get exaggerated and presented in a big way. Small incidents keep happening but these cannot distort Indian culture, Hindu culture. Since time immemorial, it respects diversity, coordinates among diversities to establish unity. This is Hindutva.”[1] Both of them broiled up the minority community in a metaphysical anguish over their existential problem. The RSS in particular left no one in doubt that they have absolute power over choosing the quarry and the time to kill. Another choice the RSS has shown is that through such acts it is in fact uniting the country and this is in essence Hindutva. So one dominant group’s attempt to unite the country in the name and cultural essences of Hinduism is a direct and fatal risk to the survival of other smaller groups. Notwithstanding, every such act is loosening the tie that has so far kept us living together. Even worse than the infamous demolition of Babri mosque the signature development in Dadri is your time is up and therefore pack up and leave or else face more such attacks. Like a truly terrorist organization it left the imprint of what we call the Sangh parivar or saffron family. After blowing four bombs in the graveyard mosque and an adjoining public square in September 2006 the Sangh wrote back a reminder. “Do you remember or not the bomb blasts? Or have you forgotten! If you have forgotten then be prepared for further bomb blasts. The power of the Sangh (RSS) is all over the state and the country. Remember this is a Hindu Rashtra and we will make it one. Muslims, leave India. Jamaitul ulema-e-Hind, don’t try to be smart. We are enclosing here with our deeds” Sangh The above threatening letter was sent to Jamaitul ulema-e-Hind and a local newspaper Dinkar on the day of the attack September 8, 2006 in Malegaon. The next attack was scheduled for September 13 at Mohammadiya mosque and madrasa. The bomb was discovered in time and defused. Therefore there is no change in the ideology of RSS and will never be. Even the PM Manmohan Singh could not stop attacks (on Muslims) in Malegaon though he had warned of impending attacks on Muslims just a week or two before when he addressed the chief ministers and governors in 2006 and 2008. Thus the world must take note as to whither is India bound as many in India are cussedly indifferent to what is transpiring so that better counsel can prevail. ------ [1]Asian Age October 23, 2015. Chapter 6 The fatal flaw in living together of Indians Racial prejudice against non Aryans is the stuff of what Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar of RSS had in his mind when he wrote in his book WE, or our nationhood defined. “To keep up the purity of the Race and its culture, Germany shocked the world by her purging the country of the Semitic races—the Jews. The Race pride at its highest has been manifested here. Germany has also shown how well nigh impossible it is for Races and cultures, having differences going to the root, to be assimilated into one united whole, a good lesson for us in Hindusthan to learn and profit by.” If anything it is this vitriolic thought has been the bane of Indian democracy. Everything boils down to the urge to purge non Hindus. It takes all sorts to make the world and yet the wisdom of this apothegm is lost on the right wing Hindutva. Except Hindus all others are unwelcome and in the present scenario Hinduism is Hindutva and nothing else. Golwalkar and the Nazis do not want those who are different from them. However, educationists from all over the world came together in the last decade of the previous century and discovered that learning is a treasure within the learner when he learns to know, to do, and to be and most importantly learn to live together with others, among other things. They wrote a book on behalf of the UNO for the world community. In the chapter “Discovering other people” of Learning the Treasure Within the essence of learning to live together is given in lucid words of wisdom: “One of education's tasks is both to teach pupils and students about human diversity and to instill in them an awareness of the similarities and interdependence of all people. From early childhood, the school should seize every opportunity to pursue this two-pronged approach. Some subjects lend themselves to this - human geography in basic education, foreign languages and literature later on. “Moreover, whether education is provided by the family, the community or the school, children should be taught to understand other people's reactions by looking at things from their point of view. Where this spirit of empathy is encouraged in schools, it has a positive effect on young persons' social behaviour for the rest of their lives. For example, teaching youngsters to look at the world through the eyes of other ethnic or religious groups is a way of avoiding some of the misunderstandings that give rise to hatred and violence among adults. Thus, teaching the history of religions or customs can provide a useful reference tool for moulding future behaviour. “Lastly, recognition of the rights of other people should not be jeopardized by the way children and young people are taught. Teachers who are so dogmatic that they stifle curiosity or healthy criticism instead of teaching their pupils how to engage in lively debate can do more harm than good. Forgetting that they are putting themselves across as models, they may, because of their attitude, inflict lifelong harm on their pupils in terms of the latter's openness to other people and their ability to face up to the inevitable tensions between individuals, groups and nations. One of the essential tools for education in the twenty-first century will be a suitable forum for dialogue and discussion.”[1] This statement has eternal verities which can teach human race to not only live with each other in peace and tranquility but also the means to resolve conflicts. But what about the children born and brought up and matured in the warped and twisted atmosphere of families where only prejudice and hatred for others is nurtured right from their infancy and early childhood. Nathuram Godse, the assassin of Mahatma Gandhi was born in a Chitpawan Brahmin family of Rashriya Swayamsevak Sangh members. His brother and co accused Gopal Godse remarked that everyone in the family was imbued in the ideology of RSS so much that it was qua RSS family. Nathuram Godse stood in the court for five hours and read from his last letter. “All this thinking and reading led me to believe that it was my first duty to serve Hindudom and Hindus both as a patriot and as a world citizen. To secure the freedom and to safeguard the just interests of some thirty crores (three hundred million) of Hindus would automatically constitute the freedom and well-being of all India, one fifth of the human race. This conviction led me naturally to devote myself to the Hindu Sanatanist ideology and programme, which alone, I came to believe, could win and preserve the National Independence of Hindustan, my Motherland, and enable her to render true service to humanity as well.” The characteristic feature that defines him is he considers himself Hindu Sanatanist, a Hindu born of Aryan parents who were also Hindus. His commitment and devotion to only Hindus is true patriotism to him and the likes of him. To care for them will in itself be freedom and happiness for India. In this there is no place for either the Muslims or the rest of minorities. Gopal Godse wrote in his book Gandhiji’s Murder and After how Nathuram spoke to the editor son of Mahatma Gandhi, Devdas: “I am Nathuram Vinayak Godse, the editor of a daily... Today you have lost your father and I am the cause of that tragedy. I am very much grieved at the bereavement that has befallen you and the rest of your family. Kindly believe me, I was not prompted to do this with any personal hatred, or any grudge or any evil intention towards you.” Godse had not learnt how to look at the world “through the eyes of other ethnic or religious groups.” At the time he killed Gandhi the overwhelming Hindus in the country were shocked and deeply disturbed by his evil deeds. This shows that the group from which he came was microscopic and very narrow minded. It was on account of the ideology of RSS which does not want to coexist with the minorities for it does not consider them as Indians or clean. That it is also behind the caste system which has treated Dalits as inferior. It puts followers of RSS in the midst of Nazis and fascists. The Hindu refugees from Pakistan had occupied the Quwatul Islam mosque in Delhi. Mahatma Gandhi had gone on fast that it should be given back and Muslims should be allowed to pray on Shabe-barat. He also kept fast that whatever money India had promised to return to Pakistan in lieu of property left in India by the migrants should be given to that country. As a good will gesture he would rather take it and give it to the Pak government. This rankled the extremist Hindus of Hindu Mahasabha and the RSS, but not to all the Hindus in India. He was a member of the two extremist organizations who had abstained from using all their energies to fight the British and wanted to save their energy to fight against the Muslims after Independence. It was because they did not want the Muslims to remain in India and wanted them to leave for Pakistan. The move to give Muslims a place in the country they had chosen was unacceptable to the extremist groups of Hindus. It was in this context that Godse added that “the accumulating provocation of 32 years, culminating in his last pro-Muslim fast, at last goaded me to the conclusion that the existence of Gandhi should be brought to an end immediately. Gandhi had done very well in South Africa to uphold the rights and well-being of the Indian community there. But when he finally returned to India he developed a subjective mentality under which he alone was to be the final judge of what was right or wrong. If the country wanted his leadership, it had to accept his infallibility; if it did not, he would stand aloof from the Congress and carry on his own way.” “Either Congress had to surrender its will to his and had to be content with playing second fiddle to all his eccentricity, whimsicality, metaphysics and primitive vision, or it had to carry on without him.”[2] The above was the rift that developed into an unbridgeable chasm between the hardcore Hindu militants and the rest of Indians who sided with Gandhi. This is the Hindutva politics that has continued in the present time of PM Narendra Modi. When Gandhiji’s son met Godse in jail on the day of his arrest, Devidas Gandhi said he was sorry for killing when deprived him his father. Devdas replied: “Then why did you do it?” Nathuram said “The reason is purely political and political alone!” BJP is the political wing of RSS and it is still playing the same politics. Therefore howsoever clever sophistry and arcane ideology, the Hindu extremists wedded to this do not want Muslims in India, not even as second class citizens. The hatred for Muslims was inculcated early in childhood when the children should have been taught in tolerance and humanity. VD Savarkar was also from the similar background and in his childhood in his native place Bhagur near Nasik would attack the local mosque. Considering Muslims unclean is still the fatal fault in the education. This is illustrated in the genocide of Muslims. “In Gujarat the chief minister and his henchmen like Babu Bajrangi, Praveen Togadia set the tone and tenor of clearing the land of their pure conception of Gujarat or India of those who came later and ‘defiled’ it. Muslims were made out to be unclean as they were carnivorous and set apart from the dominant Gujarati culture of vegetarianism. It was ironic that Bajrangi prided himself to be herbivorous who could also rape and kill like the Muslims and wanted the Muslims to remember that he as a kechdi eater was as ferocious as they! So the Muslims were objectified as the other who have brought obstacles in the way of development and posed a threat to the culture of the land. Thus the Hindu extremists who stripped naked a Hindu girl Geeta, abused her and then quartered her and burnt her alive felt that she had brought dishonor to their religion and culture by marrying a Muslim called Salim. In April, 2002 the couple was betrayed into a trap when the people made them visit their relatives in Ahmadabad. In fact the most dreaded killer was a full time worker of the Hindutva. His work was to find out Hindu girls who marry Muslims and trace them. He would often abduct such girls or women and return them to their parents and demand huge amount of money. During the pogroms he was fierce in pursuing his goal of achieving ethnic cleansing. He was a bogey like Modi.” [3] ----- [1]Extract from Learning: The Treasure Within - Report to UNESCO of the International Commission on Education for the Twenty-first Century, Jacques Delors et al., 1996. [2http://www.deccanchronicle.com/150125/nation-current-affairs/article/opinion-gandhi-godse-and-rss] [3] Mustafa Khan, First Hindutva genocide of Muslims and its architect. . Chapter 7 India is motherland for whom? Speaking in the General Assembly of the UNO PM Narendra Modi said that Indians (meaning Hindus) consider their country as motherland and revere it as their mother (meaning worship her by paying obeisance to her image, idol worship India). There is multiple layers of meanings here. It clearly excludes Muslims who do not worship India as they are not idol worship. By implicitly denying Muslims equality his speech and ideology would not eye Muslims as living together and enjoying the same rights. It is difficult for a foreigner to grasp the intricacy of this kind of perception . Narendra Modi was a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh pracharak or leader and automatically an ideologue and a demagogue. He still is. Therefore most of his pronouncements have provenance in the hate ideology of the organization Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and consequently Hindu mythology and legends. Speaking from the Raigarh fort on 5 January 2014 he said that the sack of Surat on 6th January 350 years ago “was not loot.” Shaistekhan had hidden treasure there at the behest of Aurangzeb. Shivaji wanted that wealth to help him establish his own Hindu kingdom. Therefore Modi’s penchant for hidden health is to enrich the Hindu rashtra or nation he like his fellow extremists on the right want to establish. He calls it Hindavi raj as the Shiv Sena mouthpiece Saamna of 6th January puts it. [1] The sack wouldn’t have been possible without the secret support of the natives of Gujarat. This surely is insidious way of suggesting that the Hindus were not all loyal to the emperor but had atavistically cleaved to their religion and hence they were ready to help the pillage. That was for a good cause. He dilated on his fellow Gujaratis of yore: “They informed him about the treasure, helped him and offered food. With the support of locals, Shivaji attacked the treasure of Aurangzeb.” Thus Modi has clearly attempted to view history in the light of the saffron ideology to create suspicion and hate against the Muslims by using and distorting history to suit his election campaign. He remarked that ascribing the Maratha warrior plundering of Surat would be an insult of Shivaji maharaj! Modi even went further and said that Shivaji in fact wanted to teach a lesson to Aurangzeb. Suratey wer keyleyli chal hi Aurangzeb la dhada shikvineyasathich hoti. The standard politics of bringing hidden gold and Indian money stashed away in Swiss banks is often the boast of BJP pastime. They want to get it back to develop India. May be this would enhance Modi’s development model that his Gujarat is. Thus he continued and remarked that Aurangzeb had looted the wealth of Surat with the help of Shaishtekhan and had it hidden there. This hidden treasure the Maratha warrior wanted to bring back to India and help in the welfare of the poor people. Hatch khajina maharajani parat aanoon hindusthanatil gorgarib jante cha kalyansaathi upyoguat aandla. The Marathi version would imply that whatever development took place in India was on account of what Shivaji plundered and invested in the people. This is how development took place at that time. 1 Another aspect of Modi’s Hindutva is that all the legends have a real base in life. Once he prayed for rain on the Sabarmati River and lo there was rain. He then challenged the Muslims to bring rain in their Ramzan, holy month of fasting. Even the two sisters Tana and Riti could pray through their Malhar song so melodiously that rain would come and drench the sunstroke affected Tan Sen. He would be refreshed and rejuvenated. But there is also politics here. The sisters had helped Tan Sen to perform raag Deepak so well that it pleased Akbar and the emperor ordered that the sisters should be brought to Delhi. It was against the village culture and the sisters refused to go. Akbar sent his soldiers to capture them and bring them to his court. The sisters preferred death rather than break the tradition, they committed suicide. The two sisters were Modi’s fellow villages of immemorial days of the past. Modi instituted celebration of the two sisters by instituting an award and every sixth day of Diwali there is a musical concert in their memory. Lata Mangeshkar was the first to have bagged the award. The ceremony was held in Modi’s village Vadnagar.3 Whether it is music or hidden treasure there is a superimposed Hindutva tag. Without it he has no chance of winning election. For this reason Shrimant Kokare of Maratha Seva Sangh in Maharashtra put his finger at his attempt of communalizing politics a la Savarkar: “It is an attempt to create fissures between Hindus and Muslims, Shivaji fought political battles, not religious, but Mr Modi was trying to make it appear like a religious battle. There were 35 per cent Muslims in Shivaji’s army, 12 of his bodyguards were Muslims, his navy chief was Daulat Khan. Yet Mr Modi never spoke on these aspects of Shivaji Maharaj.” 2 Modi like other RSS die hard extremists has learnt more from the Anand Math of Bankam Chand Chatterjee than other books. There is a tremendous amount of ready material of improbable cruelty ascribed to Mughals. A reporter with Newsweek-Washington post had interviewed this writer. The occasion was of a large number of books donated by the US embassy to him. The books were put in the library of the college where he worked. He told the interviewer that had the books been donated to a madrasa the Muslims who supposed to have turned against the US in 9/11 attacks would have realized the importance great learning facilities in the US of which the books were only a part. He casually mentioned American Literature which could inspire secularism. This produced a cascade of letters and comments in the paper of which one was about barbarity of Emperor Babur: “The kings are tigers, and their officials are dogs; they go out and awaken the sleeping people to harass them. The public servants inflict wounds with their nails. The dogs lick up the blood that is spilled. Source:Rag Malar, (pg.1288).” 4In all this the strains of secularism in Akbar, Babur, Shivaji is made to eclipse for a right wing ideology. That ideology has its spring source in the novel Anand Math where fighting the Muslim and killing them is justified but the foreigners like the English are supposed to be superior and hence protected. A summary of the early part in details shows it as it includes the plundering of the revenue by the extremists among the Hindus because it was collected by a Muslim subaltern although the overall authority of the revenue collection was in the hands of the English. The English are not only not blamed but held in awe and veneration. Anandmath begins in the year 1770 when there was famine in Bengal. The hungry were driven to cannibalism. There lived in the village of Padchinha a man called Mahender Singh with his wife Kaleyani and an infant daughter. What little was left during the famine was taken away by the revenue officers of the government. One such officer Mohammad Raza Khan had announced that the revenue collected from the crops would be raised to ten percent. It came as a death warrant. Into that tragic gloom came the epidemic of small pox. In every neighbourhood scores of people died everyday so much so that the dead and the living ‘lived’ together. People did not have time and strength left to bury their dead. The starving began to eat the dead putrid flesh of dogs, hyenas and humans. They walked a long distance and were tired. Mahendra went to fetch water and food leaving his family in a dharmshala. After sometimes thugs came to the place and robbed them of their ornaments. But they were so hungry that they did not find any immediate use for the gold and silver. They quarreled with their chief and killed him. They made fire to roast and eat his dead body. Then someone thought that Kaleyani’s daughter’s meat would be soft and fresh and easy to eat as they were disgusted with the stiff meat of the dead. When they turned to the two they found the place empty and so they went after them. The woman could not escape their chase but she stopped and hid and was saved by a brahamchari. Mahendra Singh and his wife decided to leave their ancestral house and property and move to a city. He brought his rifle for protection, she brought poison. They came a long way when they were very tired and hungry. He told them to wait in the dhrmshada until he brought them some milk. Starving farmers took Kaleyani and her daughter. She was hiding in a green spot covered by bushes. When she woke up she was in a temple where a bharamchari brought some milk for them. She gave the milk to her daughter but did not take any herself. When the priest insisted she washed his feet and drank that water. The priest went out in search of Mahender Singh. Mahender Singh saw how an English officer was carrying revenue to Calcutta under guards. One of the guards saw Mahender with a gun and called others to catch the thug. The officer asked them to tie him to the cart. The English were revenue collectors of Nawab Mir Jaffer whom the narrator calls sinner, murderer, treacherous. The narrator says that Nawab Jaffer was drunk on opium and neglected Bengal crying in pain and suffering. The revenue was collected and distributed among the people and the extremists. Some aspects of the novel reveal the ideology of the Hindutva. One of the leaders of the group in the novel is Satyanand. He has taken the vow [mahavarta] that they would be devoted to Bharat as their real mother; their biological mother is only physical conduit. Satyanand also asserts that he and others like him think of the land called Bharat as their real mother. Satyanand tells Shanti that he believes that he thinks motherland as the only mother. Mi fakt deshalach maan manto. They would also remain celibate in the service of mother India who is a goddess in incarnation. Another thing is that there is need for men and weapons. If they are in short supply they could not defeat Muslims. During the pogroms of 2002 RSS volunteers along with Bajrang Dal activists were made available well in advance, that too in their familiar uniform. Arms and ammunition were well stocked and were transported even during the curfew hours. They were imported from UP, Punjab, Bihar and other states. ------- 1.Saamna. 6 January 2014. 2 Asian Age, 6 January 2014. 3. Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, Narendra Modi :The Man. The Times Tranquebar, 2013 p 21. 4. http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/postglobal/america/2007/07/mark_twain_turned_madrassa_stu.html 5. Quotes are from Marathi edition of Anandmath. Chapter 8 Human geography Human geography studies how human activity affects or is influenced by the earth’s surface. Dharavi is the largest slum of Asia located in Mumbai which was earlier called Bombay. Even the nomenclature of the name of the metropolis changed due to the activities of the human beings living on it. Shivajinagar also shares that distinction, a violent spatial strategy of the Hindu right .It was dumping ground for muck, junk and all kinds of waste materials. Then human beings were being dumped there. Shiv Sena and its violent activities naturally drove Muslims in nearby ghettos; some of which came up because of government intervention as Mrs Indira Gandhi as PM of India intervened in the eighties and got Muslims a secure piece of land now called Cheeta camp. These pieces of land are the scars left by violent upheaval in the affairs of human beings. Laurent Gayer and Christophe Jaffrelot call the movement of Muslims in Mumbai as well as elsewhere as a shift from centrality to marginality. That is in substance ghettoization. Juhapur in Ahmadabad, Gujarat, is another. Arun Shouri wrote in Illustrated Weekly of India of Oct 20, 28, and Nov 3 1985 “The man who broke up India.” He held Mohammad Ali Jinnah for the break up but HM Seervail countered it by observing “to introduce religion into politics is to court disaster, but it was Mahatma Gandhi who, admittedly, introduced religion into all India politics against Jinnah’s advice.” Jinnah was hailed in 1906 as the ambassador of Hindu Muslim unity. Lucknow pact of 1916 saw Congress and Muslim League coming closer. Annie Besant started Home Rule League of which Jinnah was president in Mumbai and Motilal Nehru at Delhi. She left it in 1920 because it got “intertwined with religion.” Then Gandhi took over and he made swaraj his aim and changed the object from ‘peaceful and legitimate means’ of achieving freedom to ‘constitutional means.’ It was Gandhi who used Hindu terminology ‘Ram Rajya’ for good government. In Young India of October 20, 1921 Gandhi wrote: “I claim that with us both (Maulana Mohammad Ali and Gandhi) the Khilafat is the central fact, with Maulana Mohammad Ali because it is his religion, with me because, in laying down my life for the Khilafat, I ensure the safety of the cow, that is my religion, from the Mussalman knife.” [1]Another instance of human geography in the field of living together came on February 27, 2002 when Sabarmati express caught fire and CM Narendra Modi declared it as sabotage. Khushwant Sing wrote in the opening pages of his book The end of India: “these are dark times for India. The carnage in Gujarat, Bapu Gandhi’s home state, in early 2002 and the subsequent landslide victory of Narendra Modi in the elections will spell disaster for our country. The fascist agenda of Hindu fanatics is unlike anything we have experienced in our modern history. After partition I had thought we would never again experience a similar holocaust. I may be proved wrong.” It was not just landslide victory of the election 2002 but also the 31 % votes that BJP got on May 16, 2014 in parliamentary election which created the upheaval and discord in India because since then it has brought to surface the thorny issue of whether Indians can live together or fall apart again. Human geography was already disfigured when the people of India migrated from India to Pakistan or vice versa in the rain and cold of August-September 1947. Juhapur in Ahmadabad in 2002 then Muzaffarnagar in 2013 and Bisada, Dadri, UP in 2015( Atali and Jamshedpur in the same year) are tolling the bells again. Send not for whom the bell tolls…it tolls for thee. Juhapur earlier and then Dadri is a leap in the dark. The bright sunlight of December 6, 1992 might not be remembered as so horrible despite all the bloodshed. But the murky night in Bisada and the horrible murder of a single human being, Akhlak, is ringing the knell of a parting that may assume dooms day. Another instance of typography and people affecting each other is what had happened in Godhra in 1927. Morarji Desai was deputy collector of Godhra in the service of Bombay Provincial Services. There was a communal riot there and the British officers found out that he was aiding the Hindus and inciting them against the British. The British officers filed a case against Desai and the trial court passed strictures against him. However, the session court let him off. The British officers reduced his seniority as a punishment. It was in 1930 that Desai left the service and joined quit India movement started by Gandhi and ultimately rose to the position of the Prime Minister of India. Narendra Modi also was involved in the conspiracy of what happened in Godhra on February 27, 2002 and after ten years of rule in Gujarat he rose to the position of the PM of India on May 16, 2014. [2] The solution Teaching human geography in all its aspects can lead to a better way of living together. Shared experience also teaches but it is so costly at times. What the people of Dharavi had experienced in 1980s and in 1992-3 were regretful. when all the passion is spent and prudence prevails sometimes smile returns, with rich rewards. Deepak Kale and his Muslim neighbours had experienced catastrophe. He let the Muslims pray in his shop as their mosque was being renovated in 2015. Even so patchy knowledge and selective use of it is not holistic. RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat is a veterinarian and his example of Kenyans drinking blood but not slaughtering cow does not square with either records of history or the turmoil over eating beef. Anyway drinking blood is in itself ghoulish. Even when Akhlak of Bisada had not eaten beef he was brutally killed. What edification is in such a gory incident, killing humans and killing animals are two different and incomparable things. It is history that When Ram returned to Ayodhya there was a huge banquet in which beef was specially served. How can modern day Ram Rajya countenance this? When the chief minister of Karnataka Siddaramaiah said "Till date I have never eaten cow meat. But if it suits my palette and if I want to eat beef, I will eat it. Nobody can stop me," who would arrest him, let alone teaching a lesson![3] And what does it portend that Rahul Yadav was injured in police firing in Bisada and his family was presented a cheque of 3 lakh rupees and assured of a job?[3] Education and shared experience may lead to dawning of sanity but who would live thereafter a reformed life? You can wake up a sleeper but not one who is pretending to be asleep. When both the sides reciprocate for amity and harmony living together is not just possible but it also relieves both from the burden of stress and strain for their security. The Pakistani preacher Tarik Jameel during the haj of 2015 addressed Muslim pilgrims from India at Meena before they left for Arafat hills. He told them for forgive those who had done wrong to them or treated them badly so that next day when they seek forgiveness from Allah he would forgive them. He exhorted them to defer their rights rather than adamantly fight for them. That way Allah would open doors for others to coexist with Muslims. By looking at the moral upright character of the Prophet it may impress them even to accept Islam as their path in life and become Muslims ultimately. He also gave the example of 18 years war that the people of Mecca waged against the Prophet. When they were finally defeated the Prophet and his army entered Mecca. However there was no bloodbath as the Prophet had forgiven them and welcomed them to Islam. His honesty and upright straight forward behavior brought peace which is Islam. Although the divine did not mention Muslims’ claim on Babri but Ayodhya is also veritable human geography worthy of edification. That would open the door to peaceful coexistence. The maulana also calls jihad as tufan-e-battamezi (a storm of ignominy) and insists on aakhri wakt tuk maaf Karen (forgive till the last moment) as the Prophet called this latter sub se badi sunnat (greatest canonized recommendation of practice by the Prophet) Placating and sycophancy as illogical means of finding solution A Muslim poet Munawwar Rana is doing all kinds of acrobatics to turn the tide of intolerance as it is getting deeper roots into the land. He is playing to the full gallery of those who had sowed the seeds of hatred between Indians. The beauty queen of TV serials was once in the wont to wash the utensils in the panty with a pail and rag rose on crochets of academic sorts to reach the zenith of being the human resource minister. She along with Rana and MJ Akbar know the verity in what Robert Frost put it: Better to go down dignified With boughten friendship at your side Than none at all. Provide. Provide. Munawwar Ranna had just recently boasted that power flowed through the sewerage of his native place, Lucknow, and rushed where angels fear to tread. He saw in the nick of time which side of the bread is buttered in living together like the character in Chman Nehal’s novel Azadi who saw that he would lose his real estate in the throes of partition and became a turncoat and accepted a Muslim name and dress plus a beard. Only a week ago Rana had said: ‘Excuse me please! I hail from Raebareli. Power gets to the ramparts of Delhi through the gutters of our city. I proclaim I will never accept any government award in my life.’ Suddenly he has been swept in the rhythm of his poetry notorious for his leitmotif of love for mother. And now he is waiting for an accolade from Modi when he meets the PM: ‘If the situation in the country is bad then as citizens we are all responsible for this. To say all the time in front of a camera that we are conspiring to defame Modiji is wrong. What do I have to do with Modiji? He is the Prime Minister of our country. When I will see Modiji I will not be able to speak. Both of us will see in each other’s eyes and will start crying. I will remember my mother and cry and Modiji will remember his mother and cry.’ If this is his solution, Alan Paton put it succinctly, Cry the beloved country. [4] Material consideration for living together Many in India have become wary of increasing intolerance. The governor of Reserve Bank of India Raghuram Rajan “resort to bans will chill all debate.” Banning beef is also costing India huge amount of losses besides depriving food to a lot of people. On October 31, 2015 Infosys found NR Narayana Murthy voiced concern over considerable fear in the minds of the minority people. Zubn Mehta: “Our writers, our filmmakers do have a chance of speaking their minds. We should not ostracize them. Otherwise we will become a dictatorship, a cultural dictatorship.” Scientific solution PM Bgargav a top scientist in India remarked: “We don't want our democracy to be replaced with religious dictatorship.” He also accused Modi and RSS who “are trying to dictate what we eat and do”. “This constraint on my freedom is something I do not like, so the most I can do in protest is return my award.” He returned his Padma Bhushan award in protest against "the government's attack on rationalism, reasoning and science". Without these three virtues can a nation live? On October 27 a group of scientists wrote to the president of India toinitiate action because a polarized society is a time bomb. "We, the scientists, are concerned about the recent developments with reference to intolerance, polarisation and spread of communal hatred resulting in the death of innocent people, rationalists." "A highly polarised community is like a nuclear bomb close to criticality. It can explode any time and drive the nation to utter chaos. This is a highly unstable atmosphere and we should do everything in our hands to defuse the disparity, and enlighten society in scientific spirit." "It is not just victimising innocent and enlightened people but killing them." Knowledge of human geography along with discovering the other can lead to conflict resolution. Atali in Haryana was in the news in 2015 for the attack on the mosque that Muslims were building there. They had the ownership deeds and also sanction for building the mosque but the Jats stuck in by burning the mosque and houses and attacking the Muslims. This was aggressive behavior. The Muslims were natives and had lived for a long time together with the Jat Hindus and worked with them. Some were quite rich and their earned wealth became eye sore for the majority peoples. Then the panchayat or local self body and the government and Muslims and Jats mutually settled the matter in November 2015 by agreeing to build the mosque outside the village and maintaining the madrasa or seminary at the place where the mosque was attacked. The reason was that the Jats did not want to hear the prayer call from the loudspeaker and found it nuisance even when the temple and its bell did not make them feel it jarring. Regarding the objection of roving Islamic divines visiting the village it was waived. What is questionable here is the living together could have gone on but the kind of mindset that developed with the rise of the Hindutva in power the equation changed. It is also pertinent that the Punjab Sikhs have restored mosques that had been turned into gurdwara or go down or barn after the partition; but later realization of injustice and feeling of being in minority brought a greater measure of sanity in both the communities, Sikhs and Muslims. In contrast the most visible face of Hindutva is that of Modi in its masks easily churned out in mass production and freely available in gatherings for a particular political purpose. This does not lead to any conflict resolution and on the other hand it deepens the gulf between the majority Hindus and the minority Muslims. ------- [1] [HM Seervai. Partition of India, legend and reality Delhi Universal1989. Pp, 3, 14. [2] http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/lok-sabha-elections-2014/news/Election-results-2014-Train-to-Delhi-via-Godhra/articleshow/35234379.cms [3] http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/dadri-lynching-chargesheet-filed-against-bjp-leader-sangeet-som/#sthash.07vdlnpB.dpuf [4] Urdu Media Monitor October 30, 2015 Munawwar Rana Ready to Carry Modi’s Shoes!] [3]http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Nobody-can-stop-me-from-eating-beef-if-I-want-to-Karnataka-CM-Siddaramaiah/articleshow/49584012.cms [5] http://zeenews.india.com/news/india/dont-want-democracy-to-be-replaced-with-religious-dictatorship-scientist-bhargava-on-returning-padma-bhushan_1815901.htm Chapter 9 Destroying coexistence by creating false identity I Crisis of identity, will a sectarian renaissance cure it? It is strange that some people still harbour the illusion of an identity that would solve all our problems. A powerful dominant section in Maharashtra appropriates selected stories and images of Shivaji for its own political and cultural end. The end is exclusionary and partisan. The Maratha ruler in his time and context of history was not what some people would like everyone to believe as they believe. Equestrian statues of the Maratha king are in galore. The one near the Gateway of India where the tourists throng is enough. Interestingly the tourists crowd the piers of the Gateway to view the sea rather than look back at who is riding post haste with a raised sword and giving a clarion call. Having another off the shore from the Marine Drive would be another tourist attraction. The mighty statue of Rana Pratap Singh at Udaipur is splendid in terms of tourist attraction. Certain aspects of mass aggressive tendencies have so overwhelmed the common psyche of groups that they ascribe the same to the legendary figures of the past and make them mascots of present day political configurations and aspirations. That such an identity would be appropriated by the ones filled with passionate intensity and the communalists for their interest to score over others is a foregone conclusion. Babu Bajrangi did not mince words when he referred to slaughtering Muslims in their hundreds and boasted, "Maza aata hai na, sahib. [I enjoy it]… I cam back after I killed them them (sic), called up the home minister and went to sleep… I felt like Rana Pratap, that I had done something like Maharana Pratap..I'd heard stories about him, but that day I did what he did himself. " (Tehelka November 3, 2007) The main purpose behind this skewed recourse to history is revivalism and not what some mistakenly believe a renaissance of a section of the society. However, you cannot have a renaissance for the asking. If it is a rebirth of learning, as it really is, it is a secular matter. There has been revival of the mythical or mythological stories through television serials, like the Ramayna or the Maharbharat. That did produce revivalism and the whole movement of Ramjanam bhoomi that reached a climax in the demolition of the historic mosque at Ayodhya. It was craftily choreographed to win votes. We are still paying for it and perhaps nobody would like to have another such movement. Not the least in the name of a mythical bridge. There is already a conviction that we had had an Indian renaissance at the turn of the nineteenth century. Raja Ram Mohan Roy and Tagore were the fruits of that renaissance. Wanting another so soon is wishful thinking. Even so the 'rebirth of learning' has now been replaced by a much more revolutionary thing: the web. How much can anyone drink from a hose? The metaphor of the hose of water is apt as the net is ever enlarging the scope of knowledge. Knowledge is no more stored in any space that would lead to the spread of learning if it falls into hostile hands and artists and artisans migrate. Rebirth of learning in Europe also saw the Greek philosophers finding a new life after they hibernated with the Arabs. Will a renaissance in the name of religion lead to such rebirth? For an Iqbal or a Hussein, for example? In the age of the internet, globalization and corporations there is need for a composite identity that is not only national but also tolerant. When the tiger roared at the lamb drinking water down the stream, it gave excuse that the lamb was polluting the water. And when the lamb replied that the water was flowing from the tiger to him, the tiger hit back saying that the lamb's ancestors had done so. For the ills of society when people like Bal Thackeray, Subramanian Swamy and others, ala RSS, find scapegoat in Muslims it is high time to either dismiss them or take them seriously. All of them want to go back to pre British India to define identity of Indians, which they believe is essentially Hindu in character. Even if, for the sake of argument, we come to an agreement that we all have Hindu identity how are we going to solve the problems of unemployment, indebted farmers, insurgency in various parts of the country. Tamil tigers and Naxalites are essentially Hindu. Struggle for determining one's homeland is as violent in the north east as it is across the Palk Strait. Religion per se does not make its followers backward or forward in material terms. Therefore reserving jobs for the backward, be they Hindus or Muslims or anyone, is based on survey and findings. There has already been reservation based on religious identity of the Hindus. But it was extended to certain Muslims only recently on account of their backwardness. Thackeray not only called it doling out of alms of concessions [saulatinchi khairat] but as a danger to the unity of the country. Because any reservation to Muslims would push the country into the abyss of another partition [dusraya phadni chya khol]. It implies that they are not trustworthy, hence their perfidy. Thus suspicion is created around that identity. Defining group identity on what happened in1947 and viewing it as a crisis is forgetting one's roots. Blaming Muslims for the partition and attributing "perfidy" [treachery] as the hallmark of their identity (as Swamy does in Is Hindu Reanaissance the Answer? Covert June 1-15, 2008, and Bal Thackeray in his letter to the Prime Minister, Samna, September 13, 2007) is banal. Some people have become so schizophrenic that they want to live as if what happened in 1947 did not transpire. Thus they believe that the pre British India was still there for them, intact. They are just like the ukil babu or the lawyer in Shadow Lines of Amitav Ghosh. Their denial of 1947 is essentially the denial of the partition of India. Even if, again for sake of argument, we reverse history then the bulk of the hordes of talibans of Afghanistan and the North West Province of Pakistan would be at our door steps everywhere. That might not be very enviable, I suppose. The Indian Muslims would not like anymore tampering with history for they know very well that they have paid and are still paying for those who wanted their 'pure' land and got it and left the consequences for the Muslims of India to bear. II Communalizing terror to terrorize communities It is no surprise that Bal Thackeray had called for Hindu suicide bomber squads to be formed. When did he not call for it? He did not call for it when Muslims were killed in Malegaon, Hyderabad, Jama Masjid of Delhi, Marathwada mosques in his own Mahrashtra, Ajmer and a host of other places. But he did call for Hindu suicide squads when the local trains in Mumbai were targeted, or the twin bomb blasts at the Gateway of India and the Zhaveri bazaar. These latter attacks in his perception were anti national and anti Hindu although there were several Muslims killed in these attacks, too. The former incidents of terror did not bother him because the victims were Muslims and he did not worry about them for he had been dubbing them anti national, all the same. It is a situation like the fish which cannot live without water. Unless there is communal tension some parties cannot roast their chestnuts. The failure of the national election commission is that it does not act in a rational manner and derecognize such parties after due process of taking cognizance of the speeches and acts of the party leaders who stoke the communal fire. The courts also are lackadaisical in their treatment of offenses relating to the breach of Article 153 of the IPC. Studying the legal implication by the home department of the state is surely a sign of dilly dally. The real aim is to delay justice and delaying justice is denying justice, they know their game well. They have been at it off and on since there is no political will to fight for the right. Such statements which are crystal clear in tone and implication are put on the back burner of filibustering. What else is there to see and ponder when Thackeray said: "When I heard of Hindu's making bombs, I was happy but the fact that there were used to injure Hindus made me feel ashamed of them." It is strange that when the Muslims in the country are waking to the danger of terror, much of it truly or untruly ascribed to them, the Hindu harday samrat Thackeray should have chosen to voice his very menacing thought that matches the warning on the door of the UNO. It is still fresh in the minds of the people how the Deoband seminary issued its edict on terror. "In Islam, creating social discord or disorder, breach of peace, rioting, bloodshed, pillage or plunder and killing of innocent persons anywhere in the world are all considered most inhuman crimes." The edict also exhorts the Muslims "to wipe out all kinds of terrorism and to spread the message of global peace" Thackeray's outburst was upping the ante against the so called jihadi terrorism. That is the fig leaf that hardly hid his dreadful intent and horrifying import. That is nothing but quintessentially saber rattling before the terrified eyes of his quarry. A bomb planted in the parking lot of BSE or near the parking lot of Hanuman temple in Jaipur, in the parking lot of the Gadkari auditorium or Ajmer shrine is unequivocally an act of terror. Be it HuJI or HJS, they are terrorists who did what they did. To get rid of the menace of terror it is efficacious to go to the spring source, the thoughts which breed terror. That is a reflection of the inscription on the entrance of the UNO, albeit it is about war. As the general election comes nearer one brand of extremists would try to outdo the other. Narendra Modi's insidious and frankly seditious suggestion to the Centre to not collect income tax as his proud five cror Gujaratis earn enough for what they need and Thackeray's diatribe against the Muslims are of the same piece. They are fraught with potentials of creating social discord or disorder, breach of peace. In other words, anarchy. Chapter 10 Malegaon Experience Of Riots And Communal Violence Bill Prologue The scene is Lalit Grand Palace, Srinager, third week of June 2010. MJ Akbar and Tarun Vijay shake hands. After greeting each other they exchange pleasantries: Akbar: Why do you throw pebbles at Muslims. Hurl boulders at us and see how your politics (of BJP) succeeds Vijay: Ha, ha, ha! Akbar: In fact BJP should rebuild the Babri mosque. We have many amongst the Muslims, like you, who would themselves demolish it and rebuild it ala the Akal thakt at the Golden temple! -------------- Malegaon has had the misfortune of engineered riots sustained with borrowed oxygen of communal hate. The borrowed oxygen costs money and according to Pramod Muthalik, more than 70 lakh for a riot and even more. Many people in this town are overwhelmingly preoccupied with their struggle to get both the ends meet for their wretched hand to mouth existence. They live in a blissful ignorance (perhaps) and do not know that the government had decided to discuss and finalize the five year old Communal Violence (Prevention, Control and Rehabilitation of Victims) Bill on July 15, 2010. Last time a communal riot visited upon (like an epidemic in the sense of the old testament of the Bible) the town was October 26, 2001. The cause was trifling; a decorated awning for the Navratri cum Dassera festival was slightly bent but not pulled down or damaged by Muslim crowd. Adjoining it was the temple and the Juma masjid cheek by jowl. That Friday a policeman had torn a pamphlet calling people to buy Indian goods, be Indian and buy Indian. Muslims were outraged by the behavior of the police and tried to thrash him. He took shelter in a police van which was also slightly shaken by the restive crowd. But the Hindutva groups spread rumour that a temple was destroyed and even a dozen Hindu women were molested. That kind of rumour and propaganda spread like a wild fire. For fifteen days there was curfew order clamped down on Malegaon. However, the villages and districts around came under the fury of the tornado of communal violence that spread to more than 200 villages and half a dozen districts. More than fifteen Muslims lost their life and a Hindu was also killed. Fourteen of the Muslims killed were victims of police shooting. A Muslim girl around the Girna dam area was raped but was sheltered by the bheel community. Later the rapists were tried and convicted by the court. So many mosques were demolished that a local web site put the number in its coverage which al Qaeda website quoted. Muslim anger was not at the Hindus at the outset. There was no riot for appreciable time when the police could have prevented the flare-up involving them turning into a full-blown communal riot. The Muslims and Hindus did not rush at each other right away at the ground zero. The Hindus were busy for their preparation for burning the effigy of Ravana in the evening later that day. They were able to finish their ceremonial duty burning Ravana but in the meantime sporadic confrontation between the communities started taking place. The situation went out of control. One of the gravest faults was that the shops of Muslims (mostly shops and repair centres of transport business) between chawni police station and Motibag naka were allowed to be looted and then burnt. The shops were quite visible to the end from the police chowki[near the court] itself and there was no need to go and see. It was within reach of the police by walk. Had a couple of dozen cops taken trouble with just sticks and tear gas shells it could have been prevented. Muslims also burnt shops in their area. Even a woman doing some chores in the balcony of her first floor fell to the bullet of the police and died. As compared to Hindu shops and business establishments Muslims had more shops and business establishments looted and burnt. Even so the police firing took more Muslim lives. That was within the city. There was of course no shooting at the Hindu crowd that was looting and burning Muslim shops between chawni police station and Motibag naka. In the rural areas and villages there was no shop or business establishments of Hindus looted or burnt. Only Muslims suffered hugely and only they were forced to migrate from villages and rural areas. Never before had Malegaon seen migration of Muslims from mofussil areas and from nearly a hundred villages! Does all this fall into a kind of conspiracy where the police cannot extricate themselves from any blame? A conspiracy is deep rooted secret planning of a crime and needs more than what the proposed Communal Violence is willing to admit. Nathuram Godse had made five attempts to kill Mahatma Gandhi. He even got circumcised in JJ Hospital in Bombay where the staff celebrated at the successful operation. (PM Rehmani, Faizane Rehmani, Anjuman Moinut tulba, 2005). The aim was to cause anti Muslim riot. He had shot in full view of the police and public and was no fool to believe that the people would have mercy if he was found uncircumcised. However, in the resultant melee he slipped away. But unfortunately he also carried a copy of his own newspaper “Hindu Rashtra”. The police searched lodges and hotels and came upon the abandoned copy of the Marathi newspaper and traced him to Poona. Before the day was over Prime Minister Nehru came to know the identity of the assassin and went on the air and told the nation. Till then Muslims were frightened and held their breath for the backlash that would visit upon them. The proposed Bill would have require first class honest work and follow up action on the events. The angle of conspiracy must include in every investigation of actions of individuals and organizations where there is possibility of actions and individuals affecting the two communities. But unfortunately BJP leader Arun Jaitley saw to it that the bill was shelved. Preventing a riot is preventing conspirators from realizing their objective. In the early 1980s SM Mushrif was SP of Malegaon when some miscreants garlanded a statue of a devi at Matamath in the center of Malegaon. The Hindu crowd became violent and threatened to retaliate. He reached the spot and tried to pacify. He wanted to call additional police force but could not wade through the crowd. Luckily the Maharashtra bank in front of the temple was open where he could use the phone. He went in and wondered why it should be open on a Sunday morning! He made inquiry and found that it was open to prepare the auction of a house of a Hindutva leader Advocate Gunjwad. He smelt a rat there. That lead proved vital for the lawyer had garlanded the statue with his own hand to cause a riot and stave off the auction! In most cases unearthing the conspiracy is a failure and hence the festering wound of communal violence on our polity. Similarly the administration does not show application. Application is effort or attention or using of rules of law in the case of riots with sincerity. What happened to the transport business mentioned earlier bears this out.The extreme right groups did not want Muslims to flourish or do business. The village people did not want the Muslims to live in the villages. Controlling a riot should be prompt and effective. In the 2001 riot the police should have nipped the trouble in the bud. Their failure could also be because of some officers’ lack professionalism or bias. Officers often allow a group to fulfill its quota of inflicting damage and casualties. A prolonged curfew is a sign of lack of control of the situation. A Muslim army man was amazed and agonized over how Muslims were looting their own shops selling spices between Urdu library and the Mosom river when the curfew was relaxed. Most of the shops had been looted by Hindus on the very first day. The Muslims finished the left over. Interesting to note is the fact that looting and burning of Muslim houses and properties went on in the villages of Nasik district and other districts. No curfew or prohibitory order was enforced in villages or towns. But in Malegaon it was enforced even when it was not as volatile as on the first day. Empowering the police now would lead to more misrule over the civil life rather than curbing violence. The police and administrative officials should be made answerable for the anomaly in enforcing curfews and using available force in very crucial time when the situation could have been brought under control. (Ashok Kamte did it well in Sholapur, Sangli and Satara posting.) Who then let Malegaon to slide to such a horrible situation that hungry Muslims shut up in their houses should go on looting spree of shops of their fellow Muslims to feed their hungry and starving families? In doing so living together was not in the immediate danger of disappearing but was superseded by famine like situation. Chapter 11 By scalpel and not by sword, new dialogue of civilizations It was in 1998 that the then President Khatami of Iran proposed ‘a dialogue among civilizations.’ He was speaking at the United Nations. Two years later at the same forum he elaborated that the proposed dialogue should be based on cultural and religious matters. At times such matters have played havoc with the civil society driving many like Irshad Manji to talk of restoring humanity and reason to Islam. The desire of many including believers is thata heart to heart talk even when you do not see eye toeye is necessary. There is no need to use the sword to perpetuate violence and no need to live under the shadow of sword. If at all and at the most we can use the blade that the surgeons use to perform a healing operation on a festering wound. And that of course is metaphor for revealing the truth with the aim of reconciling people of different faiths. It is a revolutionary process, be it journalism or a dialogue aiming at the maxim: to know is to forgive. M J Akbar used the images of the scalpel in his mission statement issued from Manipal, Mangalore, in April 2007. After his unceremonious removal from the post of editor of Asian Age he was launching Covert as a biweekly journal. “Democracy demands media that reveals the covert, and sifts the covert to peel off propaganda.” Some in their mistaken belief have relied on the sword for too long to realize that the pen (now the bytes) can be more effective in focusing on truth. Akbar figured here because Samuel Huntington quotes him in his book Clash of Civilisations. The sword is mistakenly associated with religion as the means of propagating faith though the truth is a different matter altogether. This has been bone out by the events in Brussels. In pagan times before the ascent of Christianity there stood a heathen temple to Venus. In the centre of the city stood he church of Minims. I was built upon what the Christians called ‘a place of low repute.’ The Muslims bought the chapel and changed it into a mosque. The scalpel should work on ‘a place of low repute.’ No place be it heathen, Christian, Hindu or Muslim, can be ‘low’. Worldly ‘repute’ cannot match heavenly bliss. Inheriting a place of worship from another people of a different faith from your own need not be a matter of pride or crowing or boasting. The journalists as well as the believers must endeavour for the global sanity that is crying need of the hour. Lest the heavenly father commiserate with us over our sibling rivalry we must try to coexist. That can only come from reaching out to each other through dialogue and understanding. What is cover t in the holy books must be made overt through verbral scalping that is dialogue. There is sermon in the stones of the churches and mosques of Brussels. Humans must not misappropriate the divine claimant-ship . on no other issue have human beings shed so much blood as on that . Saladinwas Kurd who reconquered Jerusalem for the Muslims in the crusades. The Kurds in Belgium who occupy the churches are must more tolerant as they have hidnder clothes the images but pray in their different way. The church authorities no longer dispute the ownership of the inherited places of worship. They both exist in a spirit of tolerance. Chapter 12 The land was ours before we were of the land, human geography Encroachment has become universal in India for both the poor and the rich. Encroachment on public land and making it slum and then proper authorization making it legal settlement is another name for Mumbai. In Mumbai even the poor pay enormous amount of money to stay on footpath. There is no guarantee when the corporation officers would come and demolish your structure. People of all groups live on encroached roads or footpath and even the rich encroach for commercial purposes. Where they depend at the mercy of nature, others and corporation officials they like to eke out existence but in times of communal strife they are generally most vulnerable for attack. Unlike Mumbai the south in India is different. Kamal Hasan is much different in his reaction. Being a native of Tamil Nadu he is witness to a chief minister daring to arrest the Shankar achrya of Kashi who was involved in the murder of an important functionary of the temple and also boys who were found abused and killed. Hasan’s reaction to protest against the intolerance of the Narendra Modi regime is rational. He would not return “national” awards and yet protest. The milieu of Tamil Nadu differs from that of the Hindi heartland. Even after arrest of such high priest people did not have any sharp reaction against each other. However in 1969-70 the communal riots in Bhiwandi suddenly became a land of intolerance for the others, the minority. Justice Madon found the human geography changed so unbelievably when the society split vertically. He wrote in his inquiry commission report: “It was a lonely, arduous and weary journey through a land of hatred and violence, of prejudice and perjury. The encounters on the way were with men without compassion, lusting for the blood of their fellowmen, with politicians who trafficked in communal hatred and religious fanaticism, with local leaders who sought power by sowing disunity and bitterness, with police officers and policemen who were unworthy of their uniform, with investigation officers without honour, and without scruples, with men committed to falsehood and wedded to fraud, with dealers in mayhem and murder.” In sharp contrast to India’s past and present is Lesbos. What country friends is this? Ilyria, madam. That is Shakespeare’s characters in Twelfth Night talking about the strange shores they are washed away to when their ship is wrecked and they discover the land and the people. Currently Europe is going through population shift unprecedented in scale since World War II. India has also followed that pattern due to the right wing politics in Muzaffarnagar and in Dadri. What is trickle today has the potential to change into a torrent. The internally displaced are the ironsmiths doing jobs for their compatriot Hindu farmers. Even Akhlak did the same in Bisada, Dadri. Many more did the same in Muzaffarnagar in western UP. Partition exodus in August-September 1947 began as trickle and then became a mass movement of whole villages and districts moving across the borders in Punjab. Little did the people of India bother to remember partition exodus of yore that is raising its ugly head in Western UP that had not seen either communal riots or migrations of huge population thanks to the Muslim-Jat bonhomie. That exactly was destroyed by the right wing BJP which wanted to win election by hook or crook. “By the Hook or by the Crook” is also a policy paper currently prepared in Europe as well as in Australia which deals with the current shift of population from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan but has the potential to change the social structure in Lebanon and Jordan. Why did the RSS pick up this four year old war in Syria known as IS to emulate it in India? Such is the human geography of the Gulf countries that they do not bother about the refugees of their own adjoining regions while Europe is doing so much. Such mammoth refugees from East Pakistan gave birth to a new nation, Bangladesh. Will the history in the subcontinent not repeat that? Or will we be crossing our fingers over the terror tactics of the IS? Maharashtra is far from the Middle East yet the government has sanctioned more than 8 crore rupees to prevent Muslim youths from joining IS. In essence it is the right wing party youths who are fully radicalized. Ravish Kumar of NDTV visited Dadri on the third day and found the region empty of its youths. Wither had the youths gone after killing Adkhak? Ghettos and parallel societies A trek of biblical proportion http://carnegieeurope.eu/2015/10/01/roots-of-europe-s-refugee-crisis/iie3 Chapter 13 How we slept over the threat of terrorism leading to imminent civil war circa December 2008 The glide from the startling exposure of the Hindutva extremists’ involvement in Malegaon blast to the Mumbai attacks in our consciousness has also registered a slide from terror to civil war scenario. What if we are inadvertently sucked into a civil war? No need to say that sensible people would never like to have a civil war in the country. But the situation may so develop where retaliatory strategies as adopted by Modi et la in Gujarat is applied to the rest of the country in varying degree. There are two groups of people who speak of civil war. One is the paranoid, who see more devils around them than there actually are and those who do not see within to discover the ones they have. The other group is of the seriously concerned citizens who fear the well being of commonalty rather than their immediate community of believers or of interest. Rajnathsingh belongs to the first and Arundhati Roy to the second. The BJP president’s possibility of civil war is held out as an ominous threat and this acts as a ploy. The aim is greater political clout to carry out the long cherished Hindutva dream of a Hindu Rashtra. That of Roy is premonition, feeling of uneasiness as a warning of approaching danger, a cautionary signal to awaken others to the danger. The aim is to prevent disaster and avoid catastrophe. These two subterranean parallel feelings are surfacing from time to time during the hype created by terrorist attacks in India; attacks in Pakistan are not matter of concern for us, nor for that matter the ones in Afghanistan. The ominous threat of civil war acquired a pitch when Sadhvi Pragyasingh Thackur, Lt Col Prasad Shrikant Purohit and Sudhakar Pandey had the police on their back. Their startling disclosure of hard-core Hinutva elements’ penchant for extremist design in terror threatened to let the cat out of the bag. The momentum of fighting terrorism was moving full steam against the Muslim society within the country as it was craftily choreographed to serve the political interest primarily of BJP and incidentally of the Congress. Then came the motor cycle of the Sadhvi which threatened to give away everything, including the secret of the attack on Samjhauta Express February 2007 that would belie all that that gone before. Rajnathsingh had the confidence of having 52 lakh Bajrang Dal activists laced with military training and even armed and 45 thousand RSS units scattered in the length and breadth of the country. Such an awesome power would “awe and stun” the “enemy” within in this so-called war on terror that would otherwise be the civil war he has in mind. He has proven ability as chief minister and home minister of UP. He did not send intelligence report on the behaviour of the car sevaks of the Sabarmati Express as it passed through his state on February 26-27 2002. If he had warned the Gujarat intelligence department perhaps Godhra would not have happened. This is borne out by what ADGP Intelligence RB Sreekumar said later. The clamour for more stringent Pota according to this group is intended to perpetuating injustice exponentially. The People’s Tribunal on Pota consisting of Ram Jethmalani, Justice Suresh, Justice DK Basu, KG Kannabiran, 2004, found that [1] less than 2% conviction of people against whom the law was slammed [2] denial of bail, and [3] confession only as proof, played havoc with victims who were almost entirely Muslims. This prompted Roy to remark “anti terrorism laws are not meant for terrorists; they are for people that governments do not like.” It is a universal truth that BJP and the whole Sangh parivar hates the Muslims and other minorities. Arundhati Roy, unlike the cussed politicians, is a creative writer and is more sensitive about the direction in which the wind is blowing. She says that denying justice to a whole segment of population is gross injustice and sure recipe of disaster that would pave the way for civil war. There are scores of people accused of crimes, including crimes against humanity, who are moving around freely with impunity. What their victims must be feeling about the justice system in the country! The most outstanding is Babu Patel alias Babu Bajrangi. According to his own confession freely given; he started the massacre of Muslims in Naroda Patiaon February 28, 2002. Along with his horde of 30 he collected 23 guns from fellow Hindus by force. If anyone refused they threatened to even kill him. But they could hardly need the guns to slaughter the Muslims as they herded them into a hollow ground at the point of their swords and trishuls. They burnt them using petrol they freely sourced from the government stock of the adjoining state bus depot. At 2.30 am next day an FIR was lodged against Bajrangi. Indeed so many he and his horde had killed that the commissioner issued order to shoot him on sight. His murderous crowd was made up of members of the Chhara tribal community who were instigated and prepared for such an eventuality by the RSS. Subsequently the police arrested Bajrangi and others. For more than six months VHP distributed money and ration to the families of the arrested accused Chharas and then they discontinued. VHP secretary Praveen Togadia had personally promised them help. Jaideep Patel of VHP was in contact with Bajrangi all the time when the massacre was taking place. Comparing the pogrom with Haldighat battle, Bajrangi said “we set them on fire and killed them.” A criminal of this level of murder and mayhem had no other than the Chief minister of Gujarat Narendra Modi who sheltered him in Gujarat state guesthouse on Mount Abu against the laws he himself had sworn to uphold for the protection of the people of his state. The chief minister also got Justice Mehta to give bail to Bajrangi. Later he appointed Mehta to submit along with Justice Nanavati the Nanavati Commission report on Godhra. If injustice is repeatedly heaped upon people ad absurdum it may make them insensitive, like a surprise first blow, for sometimes but not for all the time. Chapter 14 Contours of complexities of living together in India Selections Bihar election result of November 8, 2015 has generated hope that people can live together in tolerance. But the defeat of BJP is the defeat of the political party of the multi-headed monstrosity known as RSS. As long as this hydra headed terrorism vis-à-vis the minorities exists, coexistence is impossible. Howsoever denied, RSS is quintessentially a terrorist organization. Its entire energy is to subjugate and convert all minorities into Hinduism or wipe them out. Lt Col Prasad S Purohit, Sadhvi Pragyasingh, Dr RP Singh, Major (rtd) Ramesh Upadhya and others had solemnly taken a vow to make condition so intolerable for Muslims that the Muslims would migrate to Pakistan/Bangladesh to save their lives. There are two impossible conditions of un-surmountable difficulties obstructing peaceful and harmonious living together. One, RSS views that Muslims had chosen Pakistan and hence they must go there. Second, Hindutva terrorism is a reaction to forcing Muslims either to convert or disappear, therefore Muslims can be terrorists and Hindus cannot. The Winter of Our Discontent: Provincialism And Terrorism October 31, 2008 There is the winter of our discontent that has set in. The stock market is in doldrums, protests and violence in the streets, lynching and encounters in the financial capital of the country, war of words between states of the union, involvement of ex-servicemen and a serving lieutenant colonel in terrorism, the slide of the reputed Bhonsla military school of Nasik and Nagpur into the nadir of terrorism, and the bomb blasts in Assam, etc. It is dreadful to think what the situation would be as the winter advances and the long day's journey into the night winds up. The next day is unwilling to be born into the murky atmosphere. There is no definite beginning to any of the sordid games we Indians are in the habit of playing against each other rather than any enemy from the outside world (at least no one has definitely been caught so far). A judge in Mumbai showed displeasure that the state was head over heels busy in deciphering the Indian Mujahideen email while failing to see the writing on the wall by the Maharashtra Naunirman Sena. Another judge remarked that had the leaders of Bihar and UP used their resources (kickbacks) the migrants would not have flooded the metropolis. Raj Thackeray then chirped in that the state does not understand the language of nonviolence. Then the violence erupted. Thirteen examination centers for the recruitment of candidates for railway jobs were attacked. The northerner youths appearing for the examination were under brutal attack. One Pawan Kumar died in the attack, there is another version that he slipped from a running train and accidentally died. The mobs in Bihar burnt railway property.(Akash Kapur also refers these events in India Becoming.) In tandem came the deaths of Rahul Raj shot dead by the police as he tried to hijack a bus to propagate his grouse against Raj Thackeray and the lynching of Dharmadeo Rai by the Marathi speaking mob in a local train. These events have made tension and violence move in a crescendo as Lalu Prasad called Raj Thackeray a psychopath and Deputy Home Minister RR Patil justifying the killing: "If a madman gets into a bus and goes on a shooting spree, this is the response they will get." Besides raising the parochial and political temper this situation is fraught with danger to the country. The center cannot hold and things fall apart and anarchy is let loose. The peace that Bihar maintained and its refusal to espouse provincialism in the face of attack on its citizens in Assam 2003 is under strain. Even more terrifying is the theft of RDX from government ordnance factory. It is now in the hands of the home grown terrorists, to the groups that included Sadhvi Pragysingh Thakur. On the day Sadhvi appeared in a court of Nasik a Marathi daily there carried report that the cross border or Jihad terrorism has RDX from Pakistan military while the home grown terrorists would have only one source, the government of India ordnance factories. But cross border terrorism has been rampant though it cannot be ruled out that home grown terrorism was not very much there. 13 bombs exploded in Assam on October 30, 2008 killing more than 50 including military and police personnel and injuring about two hundred. One attack took place quite near the office of the chief minister but the most terrific was at the Ganeshgudi flyover. Rows of cars turned into wreckage in dust and smoke as if the fury of Hiroshima visited Guwahati. The minister of state in home department of the central government Shakeel Ahmed remarked that it was too early to be categorical but October 3-5 saw communal riots in which 54 lost their life. Muslims inhabit the areas affected by bomb explosions where the shopkeepers are Marwari. Another cause of concern is that the civilian population of the affected areas of Guwahati turned violent against the police and the fire fighters and pelted stones. This is exactly what happened during the serial bomb blasts in Malegaon September 8 2006 and September 29 2008. Most of the observers believe that only United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA), the Assamese upper caste organization fighting for autonomy, is behind the serial blasts. "ULFA has a history of triggering serial blasts," Assam's health minister Himanta Biswa Sarma stated soon after the blasts. Organizing such a preplanned attacks requires enormous resources and widespread local support. Some also think that it is Hurkatul Jihad e Islami (HuJI). If it is ULFA then the same concern is evident as in the case of Malegaon September 29 blast. Who supplied the RDX? Is it from the government ordnance stock? There is growing fear that right wing Hindu organizations have long been using ex-service men and institutions like the Bhonsla military school to train Hindu youths in arms and ammunition though under the ruse of personality development. Nagpur Bhonsla military school had allowed even Bajrang Dal to use its premises and the Nasik branch has confirmed that Major Prabhakar Kulkarni is not only the past director but also the secretary of the institution that runs the school. The major is believed to have trained the sadhvi and the others in the use of RDX. Somebody must have also trained the terrorists behind the Assam attacks. The scale of the attack leaves no doubt that RDX was used. Although much limited in Malegaon the blast has left RDX marks on 19 items. In Assam it could be in hundreds as 13 bombs exploded there. If it turns out to be HuJI then there is of course ISI. The two terrorist outfits have one thing in common: communalism. The explosion allegedly caused by SIMI, IM or HuJI leaves many dead and wounded and that motivates backlash that is equally an act of terrorism. Hence the father of sadhvi Pragyasingh, Chandrapal Singh Thakur justified her part saying that "a reply to terrorist attacks was required. If the government does not act in time, the common people will have to do something about their own security." But it seems his daughter will fight from jail, an election on the ticket of Uma Bharati's Bharatiya Janshakti Party (BJS) because the saints cannot be what the police is trying to prove. She would be taking on any leader of the BJP, despite the President of BJP Rajnath Singh himself declaring the sadhvi innocent because anyone who adheres to the cultural nationalism of the RSS cannot be terrorist, including serving lieutenant colonel Prasad Shrikant Purohit of the army. Given this kind of rationale we are in for a long winter. Pramod Muthalik: Stalwart Of Sangh Parivar Coming Home To Roost! February 7, 2009 The crisis created by Lt Col Srikant Purohit of Abhinav Bharat and Pramod Muthalike of Sri Ram Sena is complementary to each other. They have been nurtured on an extreme ideology. The 'culture' that Hindutva laboratories have developed in the name of Hindu 'culture' has at long last begun to assert its Frankenstein existence of its own. The monster is no more in the control of the scientists. Both the organizations are equally dangerous to the unity and the integrity of the country. Purohit and his Abhinav Bharat have been in the news for quite sometimes but not so much Muthalik and his SRS. Muthalik is called the Togadia of Karnataka or the south. In appearance he could still beguile a naïve person like Francois Gautier as herbivorous and toothless and even gum less oldie. But a man is known by his deeds and association. As the chip of the old block he owes his existence and essence to Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. In the aftermath of the Gujarat pogroms against Muslims Parveen Togadia regaling in the lusty cheering of his audience had told the people that they have to leave the path of Mahatma Gandhi for good. He was not only justifying what had happened but also the course of action that VD Savarkar, BS Moonje and RSS had defined—the organized secretive and physical aggression on the enemy (primarily the Muslims). They did not confront the British or the Portuguese while India was struggling for its freedom. Christians did not become target until the later part of the first decade of the twenty first century. Togadia and Muthalik have originated from the sangh but with a difference. They have a penchant for rabid tirade against the Muslims in a very open offensive manner unlike the sophistry of the sangh echelon. This is true to only an extent because the sarsangh chalak at the time of the demolition of Babri mosque and the anti Muslims riots subsequent to it had justified all this saying that the Muslims had it coming to them! Muthalik has been doing almost like the sangh and Togadia in a copycat manner. The vandalizing of the pub and the molestation of the girls in Mangalore by the SRS thugs of Muthalik on January 25 2009 has all the hallmarks of the sangh. The Hindus have not been prudish. Muthalik and his cohorts have vividly demonstrated how Hindutva is grafting an alien mores on the indigenous vibrant culture that is famed for care free celebration of sexuality as captured in the sculptures and paintings of Khajuraho, Ajanta, Ellora, and in kamashutra, and in words and deeds recorded in history, arts and literature. Hence the attack on FM Hussein's paintings including the much vaunted naked Darupadi on August 2008. The other grafting that is worth note is violence or martial spirit. Hindus have been having a peaceful coexistence with people of different races and religions for ages together. This did not go well with some who were uncomfortable with this setup as they could not have their own axes to grind and so they invented ways and means of doing it. In the present case of attack on the pub SRS targeted the pub because the owner was a new comer to the place and had not coughed up the extortion money they had deemed their birth right. This is much like the sons of the soil extortion of the Shiv Sena in Maharashtra which so scared textile industry that they migrated to safer havens. Therefore enforcing a different dress code and using muscle power are foisted upon the Hindus who do not have it atavistically in their blood or tradition. In Sahni's novel Tamash the Hindu youths are inducted into culture of violence by their training in killing pigs to begin with. Examples of these are: attacks on Churches in Karnatak September 2008, on fashion shows in Moti Mahal Manglor Decemer 20, 2008 and usual run of the mill, manhandling those indulging in Valentine Day celebration. The youths carried out these attacks at the behest of Muthalik. If it were only these it would not have been that disturbing because the people of India are inured to such nuisance. And there are enough people who have all their worth only in their nuisance value. But then Sri Ram Sena was godfathered by Muthalik as a bunch of suicide squads ready to carry out deadly attacks. That attracted the attention of Purohit but not the government of India or the state government. This abdication of the state threatens to play greater havoc than the society has seen so far. People are so taken in by the sophistry of the sangh parivar prattle that they find it difficult to believe the truth, even those who are within the ambit of the right wing groups. To disabuse the gullible like Francois Gautier it is instructive to illustrate from a tale from Nathaniel Hawthorn called Rappachini's daughter. Dr Rappachini was a botanist and spent his life in his laboratory to develop a 'culture' that is highly poisonous. He even experimented on his daughter. She developed the poison in her breath as a result of the experiment. A prospective would be lover came to court her for marriage. As they were sitting for tea a fly flew before them. The daughter exhaled breath and the stream of breath coming out of her mouth killed the fly instantly, the lover was so scared that he ran out of the house! Gautier found it hard to believe that the RSS senior leaders he met were so old and polite and sweet 'reasoning' that he could not believe that they would harm even a fly. But the kind of physical culture they develop in youths is not an exercise in inanity. Moreover, you do not need a baton or a gun or a sword to kill a fly. For SRS the ultimate objective is to strengthen BJP. If that political outfit gets a thumping majority they could ultimately do what many extremists on the right have in their mind, establishing a Hindu rashtra in essence where the minorities would know their place. After the Mangalore attack Muthalik justified by saying: "Whoever has done this has done a goodjob. Girls going to pubs are not acceptable. So, whatever the Sena members did was right. You are highlighting this small incident to malign the BJP government in the state." He even warned the party that the people would teach them a lesson "if they continue to ignore Hinduism and suppress the youth fighting to retain Hindu culture." What else could you expect him to say, a man who had spent 30 years in RSS, VHP and then was "loaned" to Bajrang Dal! Four years ago he started SRS and was affiliated with Shiv Sena and Uma Bharti factions. All these shifts are proven sangh practice of deflection and tactical manoeuvring to escape from the laws of the land. Or distancing RSS from any activity which has become a public outcry by ascribing it to individuals in one of its many conglomerates and carrying on the work of RSS as usual as if nothing has happened! Where Muthalik and his accomplices cannot escape the laws the right wing government is always at hand to bail them out. The new BJP government in Bangalore withdrew more than fifty cases in which Muthalik was involved. Most of the cases were about his inciting communal hatred against the Muslim minority in the state especially in Haveri, Shimoga, Belgaum, Gadag, Bijapur, Mandya, Bagalkot, Kodagu, Dharwad, Uttara Kannada and Dakshina Kannada districts. Among the cases is one over the dispute of Baba Budangiri grave where the.SRS wanted to occupy the Muslim shrine and turn it into a Hindu temple. They say it is the Ayodhya of Karnataka. As the BJP came to power at the centre after the demolition of the Babri so it would in Karnataka. Because of his strong posturing on the issue, the party wanted to distance itself from Muthalik. But when the party came to power it withdrew the case of the Chikmaglur shrine. This shows beyond doubt that Muthalik and the BJP have close relationship and the deflecting strategy finally helps them get beyond the reach of the laws. Muthalik's influence is very much wide spread in the coastal regions as well as in the border regions like Belgaum. He even joined Shiv Sena but was afraid that the Kanada speaking people in the region and the state would not like him so he left it. Regionalism is a catalyst agent against communalism at times and they know it and circumvent it deftly. During the protest over the Cavery river water dispute Muthalik was involved in the attack on the house of Chief Minister Karunanidhi's daughter'in Bangalore. As Babu Bajrangi abducted Hindu women who had married Christians or Muslims and brought them back to their parents' houses and imprisoned them to get them back to the fold, the SRS also followed suit. For example they attacked a bus in which school children were touring Mysore on December 28 2008. The boys and girls belonged to different faiths. There is a deep rooted conspiracy of the sangh parivar to segregate people on religious lines and maintain the standoff because that helps them in their works or what else is their raison d' etre? Regarding Purohit praising Muthalik it is under investigation but what is undisputable is SRS cadres present in full strength outside the court when sadhvi Pragyasingh Thakur and Purohit were brought to the Nasik court. They carried saffron flags and shouted slogans against the ATS officials. There is an eerie connection between terrorism and mixed marriages. Gujarat 2002 carnage followed close on the heels of Bajrangi's kidnappings of women who had married outside the Hindu fold. The Malegaon bomb blast of September 29 2008 was the pretext on which the Hindu Surakhsa Samiti of Dhulia started riots in the first week of October 2008 in and around Dhulia against Muslims as a Muslim youth had married a Hindu girl in Nardana where they had burnt many houses including that of the relatives of the boy. Muthalik has blamed that the girls in the Amnesia pub were with boys from other faiths. He is also suspect in the bomb blast in the court of Hubli where SIMI activists like Safdar Nagori and others were to appear. Thus keeping the public attention spellbound to conversions, mixed marriages and the so called "Islamic terrorism" a much more heinous thing was underway. It was subverting the very democracy and constitution of the country. Terrorism And The New Line Of Investigation October 27, 2009 The investigating agencies are notorious for changing horses in the mid stream while probing terror incidents in the country. Somewhere someone in the hierarchical structure does not feel comfortable if the line of investigation is in the right direction. For example, RDX found in Samjhauta express attack could have come only from military stock. This makes sense when Lt Col Prasad Purohit admitted that he had pilfered 60 kg of RDX from Jammu and Kashmir army godown. A part of it he had given to one Bhagwan for use in Samjhauta incident. This disclosure so much shocked the national security advisor MK Narayanan that he warned the government of the consequences of this on the bilateral relationship between India and Pakistan and the much vaunted weltanschauung that India was victim of terrorism from across the borders. That of course derailed the investigation. Muslim youths who had nothing to do with the attack were arrested from Rajasthan and other places and are still languishing in prison. The suit cases, bottles and batteries were of course bought in Indore. Then happened Malegaon, thanks to Hemant Karkare. Karkare admitted on August 18, 2008 that he had found no trace of SIMI in the bomb attack on September 8, 2006. Next time Malegaon suffered another attack on September 29 2008. He caught the real culprits and then someone again stymied. ATS found the mobile phone number of Dr Bipin Parekh with sadhvi Pragyasingh and Ramchandra Kalsangra. The line of investigation did not go any further. But the approver Abrar Ahmed mentioned in his April 2009 affidavit that Parekh along with Dr Rajender Amin and others had caused the blast in 2006. However, strangely the phone records of Malegaon accused Ramchandra Kalsangra lifted veil from the secrecy of those who had actually bought suitcases, bottles and batteries from Indore that were in fact used on Samjhhauta express on February 18 2007. Pranav Mandal not only had close association with Kalsangra alias Ramji of sadhvi Pragyasingh but was a member of another of the uncountable and ever expanding Hindu right outfits, Shivaji vikas mandal. Indeed so many of these are there that a thesaurus of terror would be half filled with them. Accidental bomb explosions in Goa, Kanpur, Nanded (twice) have played havoc with the numbers. Thus the new line of investigation by the CBI is pertinent but we have to wait and see if it is also persistent. Goa blast was also accidental. However, what were more persistent and pertinent were the ominous repots over the years how Goa was used to train the terrorists of the Hindu right. No significant action was taken in this regard. Could all this add up to what SM Mushrif argues in his book "Who Killed Karkare: the real face of terrorism in India", that the driving force of Hindu right terrorism is to put innocent Muslims in the dock and bring a bad name to Muslims of the country Plight Of Muslims Under Terrorism February 22, 2010 Never before was the situation for the Muslims in India so awful as today. An accused in terror attack in Mumbai 26/11 Fahim Ansari wants bail to come out and search a lawyer who can defend him. Reason: his lawyer Shahid Azmi has been shot dead by Chhota Rajan gang in the name of "patriotic killing." His move suggests that he accepts the judicial system. Despite its shortcoming he still trusts it to exonerate him ultimately. Azmi himself had gone through the rigmaroles of the judicial system and had successfully overcome hurdles including five years in jail when he completed junior college education and graduation. He knew that the system was biased against the minority and yet he did not lose faith in the institutions of the country. They redeemed him only to be killed as he was fighting for many others like him who were incarcerated. The Sachar commission has already documented that the highest number of inmates everywhere in the country is of Muslims. Another accused is Saquib Nachan booked for local train blast at Mulund 2003. He has petitioned the SC to investigate all the cases of terrorism since 2002. There is something terribly wrong with conduct of investigation and the judicial system. According to him the Muslim youths are languishing in prisons across the country without trial. He has spent seven years in prison and others have also gone through the same length of time and even more. The suffering of Nachan and Ansari or the late Azmi must also be viewed as an off shoot of the global strategy of Americans in the region. The gravitational pull that India and Pakistan exercise over the Americans is reflected in local bomb blasts in India. Of late President Obama has authorized operation Af-Pak; and Marjah in Afghanistan has been baptized in fire. The fall out of this can and does affect situation in India. Muslims as a community in India are unconnected to the war on terror either in Afghanistan or Pakistan or even in Kashmir valley. The Af-Pak strategy and the Pakistan's strategic depth into Afghanistan primarily bring the US into the subcontinent. Every drone attack or ground advance beyond the Khayber pass means more bomb attacks in Pakistan and its spill over into India. If Pune blast is a consequence of this it proves foreign secretary Nirupama Rao right because she had pointed out at the possibility. “We have to be constantly alert to this possibility.” However if we have not got the clues and found any lead in the matter, it would give away our weakness in the investigation of the matter. In a hurry, as it often happens, to show some breakthrough to the bosses or to affiliates in ideology, it is also possible that more people like Ansari or Nachan would be made to wear the cross. Or, like some of the accused in Malegaon blast of 2006 whose only "crime" was to carry placards depicting Laden and denouncing the unjust war of George Bush on Iraq. The entry of terrorism thanks to America has destroyed what Alexander Pope rejoiced, happy the man whose wish and care a few paternal acres bind, content to breathe his native air in his native town. Investigation Agencies Washing Dirty Linen In Public! March 11, 2010 Will the modern day Neros now in Delhi fiddle away precious time as the country is inching towards disaster one after another? The same kind of handling of investigation by the local police and then the ATS and then the CBI that leads to prolonging the agony of the innocents rubbing their heels away in gruel pain and ad absurdum waiting in prisons across the country. The classic example of Samjhauta express blast 2007investigation has become a kind of archetype pattern. It has made us the laughing stock of the world in our so much vaunted fight against terror a la USA. It is common knowledge that the Haryana police had almost come to a breakthrough in their investigation when the National Security Advisor MK Narayanan stepped in and told the government that it would expose army involvement (Lt Col Shrikant Prasad Purohit!) and expose our Achilles' heel to Pakistan. That produced what can be understood by changing horses in mid flooded stream. The insensate horses of ATS, IB, and the Special Cells of police have been swept away by powerful under currents. The undercurrents are of ideology, stereotyping, and the juggernaut of office promotion, racketeering, bias and partiality. It is strange that India should be following USA in tandem. As the Americans are fighting information war through their war on terror, India is doing that in copy cat manner. Their latest fight in Marja in Afghanistan made the cluster of farm houses there into a big city with 80,000 people under the sway of the Talibans. When the journalists lifted the veil of secrecy of the government agencies they discovered Marja to be nothing even like a small town, let alone a city. The fertile agricultural land is busy with farmers producing food for stomach and not fodder for cannons. The secret agencies in America know how gullible the people are to believe how heroic work their soldiers are engaged in while fighting in that far away god forsaken world of Afghanistan. In India also we are fighting information war. If the bravado of the right wing groups is indicative of anything, it surely has enough steam to propel the police and the investigation agencies to continue their charge like that of Don Quixote against the windmill. Why did Home Secretary GK Pillai suggest that the probe in Pune blast would be conducted by the ATS? Did he not get the wind that ATS was not competent enough under KP Raghuvanshi to move an inch in the investigation of Malegaon blast of 2008 after the assassination of Hemant Karkare? In fact whatever Karkare had fearlessly and fairly discovered through his inquiry has been brushed under the carpet of the new dispensation of KP Raghuvanshi. The letter of Fahim Ansari (Urdu Times March 8, 2010) from prison rings in stentorian voice with truth of his assertion and claim that Karkare had found him innocent in the case of the serial blasts of 2007 in the Mumbai local trains. Karkare had remarked to the police and the ATS subordinates to see that Fahim is set free. It is also on record that Karkare did not find any SIMI involvement in the 2006 Malegaon blast. He was most professional and objective in his attitude and work. Pune bomb blast and Bhiku chowk (Malegaon) bomb blast of 2008 are alike. In both the cases the police mischievously gave out that it was gas cylinder explosion. Tiny iron balls had pierced walls, shop shutters and human bodies at Bhiku chowk and yet willfully the police persisted for quite some times in claiming that it was cylinder blast. The people were so angered that they started violent protest and the police had to shoot the protesters to bring the situation under control. Luckily, sadhvi Pragyasingh's motorcycle revealed the truth. In Pune the fire fighters washed the German bakery as if they were engaged in the Herculean task of washing the Augean stables. They left no stone unturned to wipe out the traces. At whose behest? For quite some times nobody had claimed responsibility for Malegaon 2008 blast, just like in the Pune case. The police were agog with their inability to apprehend anyone in both the cases. Unlike Malegaon, in Pune they dug out an old phone call to Arif Pathan: "An officer who identified himself as 'Tayde' alog with three others took me to Pune and I was constantly asked about a particular phone number from which I must have received calls two years back." Pathan said. "The police did not tell me whose number it was nor the context in which it had been tracked."(Yahoo, Sunday 7, 2010). For three days he was interrogated at an unknown place where there were also four youths held whom the police wanted him to identify. All this reminds one of the almost extraordinary renditions that the Hyderabad police were engaged in sometimes back. Arif's fate would still be shrouded in mystery of disappearance had not his family created a stir and his connection to such a well known figure like Sanjay Dutt created yet another enigma. But then the million dollar question is: Is ATS ingenuous enough to say that it was really sidelined and the fiasco over Arif Pathan planted to discredit it? Dimensions Of Malegaon Blasts: Samjhauta Express June 19, 2010 Malegaon blast cases of 2006 and 2008 have many more dimensions than we have been able to see. Soon after the arrest of Lt Col Prasad S Purohit on the night of November 5, 2008 disturbing news started coming out through his interrogation. It is doubtful that such an army official like him or Colonel (retired) SS Raikar commandant of Bhonsla military school would be subjected to third degree torture but reports of Purohit’s arrest suggest that he was tortured. His relative Vilas Anand Dalvi submitted an affidavit describing specific instances of torture: so badly beaten that his left hand was paralyzed, fingers of right hand fractured, knees injured. (Purohit tortured, family tells court Indian Express Fri Nov 14 2008). Raiker like Purohit was in the capacity of liaison officer with the military intelligence before retirement. On November 14, 2008 ADG VN Rai of Haryana police was in Mumbai investigating Samjhauta link. Raikar said that the trail went to Indore and then became cold. DGP Ranjiv Dalal also remarked that Indore was an important link in the plot of Malegaon and Samjhauta train explosions, a town where the Sadhvi Pragyasingh Thakur and Purohit had met to hatch the conspiracy and from where things were procured. Because of the intervention of National Security Advisor MK Narayanan in the process of investigation the Indore connection even when very strong was not thoroughly vetted and searched. He felt that it would dramatically change the world opinion that India had created by blaming every terrorist attack within India on Pakistan. India was in a fix. Then followed: the tergiversation. The Haryana police officers were stalled from proceeding further. The whole world was watching and perhaps that would not have been that material had not the Pakistanis been keeping a tab on this matter. For, they raised Samjhauta train blasts issue at every conference to brow beat us. Though 68 Pakistani passengers lost lives and many more were seriously injured in the devastating inferno caused by the two explosions it was also a symbolic terrorism aiming at dismantling the rapprochement between the two South Asian neighbours. The jihadists would not countenance it but there are desi jihadists who not only view Pakistan as enemy but a part of ancient India sawed off through ballot based on religious strength of different communities. They never hide their aspiration to regain the whole of ancient India into one integral land. Purohit’s constitution matches the articles of faith of the RSS. To cover up one lie man tells many others. This simple human folly was lost on the NSA as well as the Intelligence Bureau and RAW. As a result of this the cooked up lame excuse that in 2006 a Pakistani had a fracas on the train and jumped off it when it was about to start. India gave details of this agent provocateur to Pakistan calling him as one of the two responsible for the twin blasts on the friendship train. As the Pakistanis tried to ascertain who this national of theirs jumping out was when the train would be going into Pakistan soon in the middle of the night they could not find anyone of that name among the passengers on record as well as in their country. There was also no plausible reason why should he be jumping out of the train and why should he be quarreling with fellow Muslims and fellow Pakistanis on a foreign soil that, too, was hostile despite the fact that the special train was maintained as a friendly gesture to improve bilateral relations between India and Pakistan. Three years ago the Haryana sleuth were doing a commendable work that matched what their counterpart in Hemant Karkare was doing for the Malegaon blast. They found the leads that led to Indore and went cold as in Malegaon 2006 case, too. But then they did the wisest thing people thoroughly professional do: disseminate knowledge (like Kunta Kinte to his daughter in Alex Haley’s epoch making “Roots”). They gave information of what they had found that the bags used for explosion on Samjhauta express were bought from the Abhinandan Bag Centre in Indore’s Kothari Market and they also identified the tailor who sewed the suitcases for that purpose. They even had found out that the other ingredients of the explosives like pipe, Super Saurabh plastic boxes, etc. were procured from there within a radius of a mile and half. The cat was out of the bag but Narayanan and the Madhya Pardesh BJP government put it back into the bag. How come India could allow this to happen? It must now be history that the US and Israel have become so brazen to defy world opinion that come what may even the most publicized event cannot dent their strategic interest in the middle east or elsewhere. This is particularly true of the Palestinian problem. India has chosen to side with them in the so called ‘war on terrorism’. By closely associating with the Israelis we have also veered to disregarding public misgivings at home and international concern abroad. In the case of Gujarat genocide and Samjhauta express attack we have come a cropper! Even so our newly strategic allies had responded in measure. The US state department had refused to call the attack on the American consulate library in Kokata at the beginning of the 21st century as terrorist attack. It called it revenge mounted by private individuals to settle score with the police for having killed their relatives somewhere in Gujarat. But in the case of Samjhauta express the response and concern is not so candid! Terrorism And How We Are ‘Covering’ It (Up) July 13, 2010 Terrorism came handy to usual antagonists of Muslims, RSS and other Muslim bashers as a handle to beat the Muslim minority and a brush to tarnish its whole image in the country and beyond. The work went on in full swing whenever a bomb exploded in the country. The media preying on the paranoia of the majority community with increasing attacks blamed on JeM, LeT or HuJI sensationalized stories with descriptions kept ready. For example this facile submission, or editorial of the Hindu: “Challenge of Islamic terror”. “Investigative leads point to Harkatul Jihadi-e-Islami (HUJI), the Islamist organization behind the Mecca Masjid attack in Hyerabad, as being behind the terrorist strike at the dargah of Khwaja Moinuddin Chisti in Ajmir. What can one say about an outfit so consumed by hatred as to deliver death to the shrine of a saint who preached the oneness of god’s creation? The Ajmer bombing is the latest in a series of terror strikes directed at both Hindu and Muslim religious institutions. Investigators have been able to establish that many of these attacks were carried out by Islamist terror groups such as the Lashar-e-Taiba, the Jaish-e-eMohmmad, and the HUJI.” The editors of the Hindu did not make any painstaking research or else they would know that the most motivated organization to create communal discord in the country is the RSS. As of now, the middle of 2010 is showing loud and clear the involvement of RSS in the bomb attacks across the country. Instead of banning it and exterminating it root and branch there are people who feel that “Hindutva terror will give Pak a handle” to beat us. We are tightly holding the handle and beating Pakistan all the while is another matter.”With the emergence of evidence that in a number of blasts, from Malegaon to Ajmer to Mecca Masjid, Hindu fundamentalist groups are involved, it weakens our case against terror internationally.” This comes from the spokesperson of the Congress party Manish Tiwari. There is a big question mark not only on what Tiwari says but on who made India join the juggernaut “to mobilize international opinion against Pakistan’s failure to contain Taliban factions and terrorist groups like Let”? Rather than fighting terror we have chosen to join what Hemant Karkare called in the last interview of his life ‘politics of terror’! And why does not Tiwari include Samjhauta expess attack in his list of Hindutva terror? Karkare sacrificed his life in unearthing Malegaon that led to Samjhauta. Should the country allow his sacrifice go in vain? Terror is being covered as news events and it has lent itself to some, who are judgmental in other fields, another occasion of covering up, hiding and camouflaging the real perpetrators behind the events. However, there are others who have redeemed sanity and refused to be obliged by partisanship. Kuldip Nayyar had called Malegaon 2006 terror attack as the handy work of al Qaeda. He dismissed it in one sentence. But over the years he was awakened to the horror of the Hindutva terror and affirmed what he heard from some of the professional minded investigators that Hindutva outfits were after all behind the Malegaon attacks of 2006. Taveleen Singh preens herself as politically incorrect, what she means is best known to her but she believes that protests over the death of boys killed in the Kashmir valley is a return of the jihadists. “What matters is the jihad and its goal of subjugating idol-worshipping, infidel India once more to the domination of Islam”. Is by any stretch of imagination the aim of those who are throwing stones at the police this subjugation of the infidel India? If that were so why should they sacrifice themselves for what they shout Aazadi, freedom, even as their swearing by Kashmiriat is diametrically in contrast with Islam? On the Martyrs’ Day July 13 in the valley does Singh think that those whose graves the mothers, sisters, daughters and wives are visiting were victims of any jihad? In 1994 the police would seal areas, separate men from others, and then shoot them dead in what they called seal and search operation. The so called operations were conducted to liquidate the insurgents. That was the peak year when there was not much of international focus on Kashmir thanks to the attention diverted to ethnic cleansings in former Yugoslavia. But the killings had been going on all the time. The police had also killed many in the funeral procession of the father of the present Mirwaiz Umer Farooq. That the senior Mirwaz was assassinated by the security forces is a common knowledge there. That happened during the reign of Jagmohan as the governor. During his tenure in office he put into practice what Tavleen Singh and the BJP and RSS want: extinction of the ‘terrorists’. So many were killed that that “he managed to turn the people on the streets from idealistic dreamers of freedom into a united front that despised India with the intensity only possible among the mortally aggrieved and mourning.” Where was the question of Jihad anywhere here or in other cases for that matter? More than 800 jawans of the Rajputana Rifles had descended on the village of Kunan Poshpua in Kupwara district on February 22, 1991 and raped almost all the women and killed many men. Were the victims of police brutality jihadists, or terrorists for that matter? By what standard can the boys being killed recently jihadits? Therefore in covering the events of terror there is either an account or comment on facts or an attempt to deny the truth and create fiction which is easily sold as fact. Justine Hardy who has been covering the events in the valley for more than two decades is sober and unbiased. She describes a slew of complexes as by product of terrorism: “The conflict (in Kashmir) has brutalized women but they do not turn to each other in their pain. They turn inwards, into silence, and away from the calls for their men to pick up the gun; from the sounds of rifle butts against their door demanding entry, from the cry of a neighbor telling them that their boy has gone, from the extremist throwing acid in their face for not wearing the veil; from the rapist between their legs, demanding entry.” Is the state not responsible for these dehumanizing reflexes as well as for more than 300 kinds of depressions that Dr Arshad Hussain of the Shri Hari Singh Medical College is treating every day? Whose terrorism is this that is playing havoc in the valley? The religious angle is a different kettle of fish. After more than three years of dilly dallying the CBI has only now begun sighting the tip of the iceberg, that Swami Aimanand supervised all the three instances of bomb blasts, Malegaon, Ajmer and Mecca masjid. What is looming larger as Takht-e-Suleiman overlooking all these is Samjhauta express blasts which are so dazing that the investigators are still stunned and have not regained sight! The friendly train is suppressed willfully as if our cordial relations with our neighbor are so brittle that it would sour everything, the mere acknowledgement of it. In the mean time the bomb maker and planter Ramji Kalsangrah has been busy in outshining every other terrorist by casting his vote in the local assembly election of 2009, Ramji is sending out signal that he is hale and hearty even politically by enjoying his right to choose. Thus the game of hide and seek goes on in the name of terror. Living together and being “into” the idea of the sangh and in prison cell Human beings live together when they share ideas and feelings. They take lively and active interest in it. Swami Asianand lived a long life working for RSS and doing reconversion of those who had left Hinduism. He was quite lively and active when he confessed and then retracted what he had confessed. He showed courage to expose and then guffawed that how could he do this that too for a Muslim! What amazing adrenalin did he have! Syed Abdul Kaleem was an accused in the Mecca mosque blast. He was in the same cell where Swami Asimanand was also kept. He served the old man by bringing water to him or help him in whatever the swami wanted. In this way he won the heart. He also told him about his being innocent. Their being in jail one for the real planning to kill Muslims and the other being made to undergo suffering vicariously for what the other had done resulted in thaw and led to the confession. This is the layer upon layer that Naipaul noticed in India society. Kaleem spoke very soft and politely and was very obliging that won the day for him. In contrast was the dialogue in Atali, Haryana, between the Jats and Muslims. The Muslims said that they had resigned to live as the others would like them to live. But this produced no thaw. The Jats were not into the idea of living together and that was why they could not accept the mosque in the village. The intricacy of living together is like you take all the space of the bathroom shelf with your own items and leave nothing for your spouse. Sharing your make up assortment of tubes and bottles is more enjoyable and make you belong to each other. But when you segregate the other and keep distance it is sure sign of failure to live together. You have to connect yourself to the other to be successful. Through communication Syed Abdul Kaleem destroyed the wall that divided him from the swami. In the foreword of his novel Heyward EM Forster uses only two words Only Connect. In the case of Asimanand their hearts got connected, and that clicked. “Sir, when I was lodged in Chanchalguda district jail in Hyderabad, one of my co-inmates was Kaleem. During my interaction with Kaleem I learnt that he was previously arrested in the Mecca Masjid bomb blast case and he had to spend about one and half years in prison. During my stay in jail, Kaleem helped me a lot and used to serve me by bringing water, food, etc for me. I was very moved by Kaleem’s good conduct and my conscience asked me to do prayschit (penance) by making a confessional statement so that real culprits can be punished and no innocent has to suffer,” told the swami to the judge who was taking down his confession. That was on December 18, 2010. It is significant to note that Sadhvi Pragyasingh Thakur one of the main accused in Malegaon blast of September 29, 2008 wanted the bomb to kill many more people, Muslims. She was of the opinion that mass murders through blasts would drive Muslims out of the country. When she heard that only six or seven had been killed she was in consternation when she rang up and asked the planter Ramsingh Kalsangrah, her man, why so few were killed? These were the people who did not want Muslims to live in India. As their accomplices including Dr RP Singh, Indresh Kumar, Lt Col Prasad Purohit committed to the same cause, they believed that they should kill so many that the Muslims would simply flee from the country. It was Asimanand who had chosen Malegaon as the target of another bomb attack of September 8, 2006 for its concentration of Muslim population. However the men behind the attacks were not individuals, it was RSS. Mohan Bhagwat and Indresh Kumar, the most influential, were also doing the same and it were they who were simply translating their ideology into practice. It was that Muslims had demanded Pakistan and got it and therefore they must not live in India. They should either be extinct or migrate. Leena Gita Raghunath of the Caravan magazine took interview of Asimanand as per his desire to be prolific. He told her about the turf was that is raging in Kerala in which Hindus, Muslim and communists attack each other and kill to claim more space. Such is the human geography there. “I will tell you that. I had gone to Cannanore jail. Our people had fought against the communist people, and were in jail. I went to meet them – almost 60 people were in jail and talked to the jailor. I met Jaanu who was leading the adivasi struggle. I have a lot of friends there. It has been long years now. I went as an agent of the Sangh.” Then he turned to Bhagwat and Kumar in the interview: “Let me explain this to you—how they behaved with me. Let’s leave the torture aside—whatever they did to make me name Indresh ji [and] Bhagwat. “After the Samjhauta blast happened, three agencies worked on it and arrested three different sets of people. Some even confessed.” Then he turned to what he did in the Dangs: “In 1997. There quickly the adivasis were being converted to Christians. In a short while, all the tribals became Christians. Christians used to call it “Paschim Bharat ke Nagaland” (Western India’s Nagaland). Full of hills and jungles. Every village had a church. I was a worker of the Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram, a wing of the Sangh. For this work I travelled the whole of India – Nagaland, the Northeast, Andamans, Kerala, and then came to Dang. “If you leave out the Northeast, Dang has the highest Christian population. They wanted to separate from Gujarat and become a separate state. Kerala does not have that. Christians are scattered; they are not concentrated in one district, are they? Ok, yes, they are in Kottayam.” A fact of human geography he made explicit: “It was good because it was Gujarat, not Chhattisgarh, Orissa, MP; in comparison, better developed. I have been to every state where there are adivasis. I have not been to states where there are no adivasis, like Haryana, Punjab and Jammu-Kashmir.” “I would do service by teaching children – poor children, adivasi children. It is great to help educate such children, even if it’s one child.” “I first stayed in one village for two months to learn their culture, habits and language. I also understood how and why they were becoming Christians. They had no knowledge of Hinduism. No Hindu priests were there. The Christian priests would go and give religious sermons, but I didn’t think that made any effect on them. But then when children fell ill they would say, pray to Jesus and your child will get better; so then people kept in touch with the priests, and then later ended up getting converted. So then I started organising the Hindus, whoever was left.” “In 10 days, 40,000 Christians got converted to Hinduism and 30 churches ko tod ke humnein mandir banaaya. (We destroyed 30 churches and built temples.)” “Yes. Sunil Joshi and people from Indore used to come to meet me. They said that I was doing good work among the Christians. When talking to them I also used to air my views. The biggest issue is Muslims. With Christians we can always stand together and threaten them. Mussalman se nipatne ke liye abhi se tayyar hona padega. (We must be ready from right now to deal with Muslims.) They are multiplying fast. If they become a majority we will be in really bad shape. Kuch karna chahiye. (We ought to do something.) For this from Indore Pragya, Sunil and other people would often come to discuss ways to curb this with me.” “There [in Pune] I met Himani Savarkar, daughter of Gopal Godse, who was married to Savarkar’s ladka (son). We all made a group with the plan that we have to do something for this. “I have a friend in Kolkata, Tapan Ghosh, an RSS pracharak. He was also helping us with the work – to do things in a new way. In a meeting in Bhopal I was very worked up and main bahut aggressively bataya ki, abhi aakraman na hone pe hum khatam ho jayenge. (If we don’t attack now, we will be finished.) I don’t know how this reached the NIA and CBI.” When Asimanand visited Maharashtra he was called Ramdas, the guru of Shivaji. “In Ajmer, and in Hyderabad, the blasts were done through a mobile phone. Mobile se spark hota hain. Battery rahta hain, timing rahta hain, us se vispot hota hain. (The mobile gives a spark. There’s a battery, timing, which leads to an explosion.) There was no one in whose name the SIM card was. But the place of the SIM was Sunil’s parichit jagah (familiar place). “So they then assumed it must be Sunil who procured the SIMs. There was an RSS pracharak, Devendra Gupta—they arrested him from Jharkhand. They blamed him for giving out a SIM on a fake driving license. Purey ke purey galat driving licence ke aadhar par SIM card diyah. Driving licence jiske naam pe hain, woh koi hain hi nahi. Ye jo banane diye Devendra Gupta, Sunil ke dost thhe, RSS ke pracharak thhe. Koi evidence nahi hain. (Completely on the basis of a false driving license, he got a SIM card. The name of the driving license was not a real person. Devendra Gupta was Sunil’s friend, an RSS pracharak. There is no evidence.)” “Whoever was connected to Sunil was arrested first. I was the last one.” “From Hyderabad, Raja Balaji of the CBI took me from Haridwar to Delhi and then Delhi to Hyderabad. Galat galat baat karne laga. (They started to say bad things.) Then I thought that whoever did it did the right thing. Mere man mein bhi aaya, chalo theek hain. Hindu ke liye to achcha hua. Logon mein Hindutva ke upar bhav aajaye. (I thought, this is fine. At least it is a good thing for Hindus. People will feel for Hindutva.) Whatever may happen to me. What is wrong in taking the blame for it. Mera jo hoga so hoga. Phaansi bi ho jaaye to dekha jayega. (What happens to me will happen. Even if I am hanged for it, I will face it.) “I did the complete planning. About his confession: “I thought it will be good for Hindus. I thought that if for the purpose of Hindutva even if I end up being hanged then it is okay. I didn’t do it. But at least [seeing this] the other Hindus will realise that this should be done.” About Vivekanand : “I like his line that when a Hindu converts to Muslim or Christian, it is not just that we have one Hindu less among us, we have one new enemy of the Hindus.” Savarkar and was greatly influenced by his teachings, and so went to meet his family; and then we all ended up working together on the same goal. We are worried about the increasing number of Muslims. They should have two children only. If they keep multiplying at this rate, in fifty years they will become the majority in this country. “I saw the videos in which Taliban slaughter people. Yes I did talk in meetings about that. I said that if Muslims multiply like this they will make India a Pakistan soon, and Hindus here will have to undergo torture. I used to tell Sunil that we should do something to frighten them off. I did stress that we should do something about it soon. But blaming me for the planning of the blasts is not the truth. “Kaleem knew that I was in the same jail but I couldn’t meet him. How will I ever say such things to a Muslim boy? “He asked me my purpose of visit and I said I am here to propagate Hinduism. He took me to the village. Then he said that everyone there was Christian, he said all the children go to church, there were churches everywhere. When I asked whether all the old people got to church, they said there are some who don’t go to church. So I went and met them. They told me openly that they changed their names and became Christians, but don’t go to church. Pastors don’t force them to become Christians because they know that their children will be Christians and go to church. “Girls are the best to do this work. So I said give me some girls, I will take them to Jashpur where the ashram is — would teach them dance, bhajans. They will also start believing in Hanuman. In just 2-3 months, I got 6 girls. So I first contacted the Vivekananda Kendra at Kanyakumari. There was a Vivekananda school in Port Blair, I sent the girls through them to train them in bhajan singing. Then I took them to Jashpur, then taught them our culture in 3 months time. “When these girls returned, we started visiting the villages one by one, and the people who had not yet become Christians started coming forward and saying that this is our culture and started telling their children that what they were doing so far was not their culture. Slowly these bhajans started spreading from one house to another. The hidden Hindus started coming out. “Then I concentrated on little children. Slowly we started training even younger kids for bhajans — the kids in class 3-4. We married off the girls, as I am a saint and it was not proper to roam around with unmarried girls. We had our Hindu culture and could not do it like the Christian missions. So we asked these girls to train the kids. In every village we made groups of 6 to 7 kids. So I told them that these kids will need temples. The people used to call me “Hindu father”. So they said okay for the Hindu church. They made a prayer hall like that of the church – so that everyone could sit together and pray. This was not like our temples, with the idol of the deity. Everything was done in the Christian way. This was a new learning experience for me. “So then we appointed a poojari for the temple purposes. So on day one the poojari came with a register and drew a list of the people in the village who were Hindus. I got to learn from them, how the Christian community organised themselves – because the tribals followed the same for the temple too. Like a church, they insisted that everyone who was Hindu had to come to the temple. All the committees were formed by tribals. In Port Blair the committee president was Damodaran, and the secretary was Bishnu Pada Ray from Bengal. We used to take him around all the places. Then his eyes were on politics; so I told him it’s good for you to go to politics. “Acquaintance — some people said so, but I didn’t see anything. Both used to stay together. It felt good to see them work together. “Vivekananda has also said that if you could teach even one illiterate person two words, then you will find mukti (enlightenment). So I thought this will be the two main things in my life. I will also live with the adivasis and teach them, and will also take care of the fact that no more enemies of Hindus are born, and if anyone has converted then to bring them back to Hinduism. “Then, Keshubhai left and Narendra bhai came into power. Even before he became CM, Narendra bhai used to come and meet me and he told me, “I know that Keshubhai is troubling you. He will soon be out of power and I will become the CM. Phir aapka kaam hum karenge. (Then, I will do your work.)” I didn’t want to drag any of their names in when I was arrested. Even I had no role in the crimes. The only thing was that I know Joshi and Pragya ji. That’s a different matter Instead of bomb for bomb theory Asimanand and Hiramani Savarkar should have patiently won the hearts of non Hindus, be they Muslims or Christians or animists. He did succeed in that other way: “Everyone’s house had a photo of Hanuman. What a change that was. In every village, Hanuman Jayanti, Shivratri samooh mein manate hain (used to be celebrated together). There was a spot where the river would meet the sea. We had the idea to celebrate a festival there. Every year there would be a mela there. Dang was a very small area, but in Andaman the whole state was changed by me. When they saw my temples, all the Hindus were very happy. The Tamilians, people from Kerala and from UP — police and teachers. Police and teachers helped me a lot. But I never stayed anywhere other than with the Ranchi people. It was only after 2 years that the Bengali crowd found out, the swami who is from Ranchi also knows Bengali! Even then they didn’t realise that I am from Bengal.” But the flip side of it was horrifying when he bared his fangs. He dilates on what Sunil Joshi and Pragyasingh Thakur, blowing bombs to kill Muslims in mosques and trains and mausoleums. He not only justified it and allowed his Hindu religious ashram to be used for such purposes. Remember that Modi donated funds for the Sabridham temple and also promised to do which the previous chief minister Keshavbhai Patel was forced to stop when Christian leaders, Sonia Gandhi and secular minded Hindus like Lalu Prasad Yadav, etc objected too and the pressure on Asimanand was building up. “I told them (Sunil Joshi and Pragyasingh)I have my sphere of work. I won’t do any other work. You can do that. This work is not wrong, it’s good. Whatever you are doing, that is important. We should avenge the attacks on the temples. You all can do it. So then they started doing it. And my ashram became the centre for this.” The temple became the centre of terrorism in planning bomb attacks, monitoring it, funding it and preparing hide out. Bharatbhai Rateshwar comes from a Sindhi colony in Maharashtra. Such colonies developed in the partition period in 1947 and thereafter. They came as refugees and became sources of support for right wing Hindutva whom they funded by money and other kind. Asimanand also tells about his cook Phoolchand or Bablo, “Once in a meeting called by the collector the [Christian] priests alleged that we were converting people. Then he stood up and asked them to show in the records who those Christians were. The reality is that the tribals on becoming Hindus, never changed their caste certificates as they did not want to lose the benefits. He asked the collector why his records did not have a single Christian in Dangs. And asked the pastors “Hinduon ke beech mein aapne church kyon banake rakha hain?” (Why have you built a church among the Hindus?)” This tactic of the Hindutva was used against the Muslims too. Their school records were changed and their names like Tadwi Hindu or Bheel were used and the attack on Malegaon 2006 exactly originated in the reaction to the Tadwis’ abstaining from attaining the Sabridham mela in February 2006. The failure disturbed Asimanand and he let the attack take place since he had chosen the target. (See elsewhere “What exactly caused the attack.”) What happened in Gujarat 2002 was genocide. If there is any need of proof of the crimes against humanity that Asimanand and his staunch followers in the tribal land committed it is in the words of Asimanand: “I went to Gujarat for the work of Hindutva. Let me tell you this, in 2002, when Godhra happened, the cleansing of Muslims from the adivasi areas, I was very active in that. I didn’t reveal myself at the time, so I went free. The work done in adivasi areas was done directly by the adivasis. I did not come forward. And no one [no Muslim] has returned there so far. They’ve returned to all the other places. Here they cannot return. They weren’t in Dang, but from Panchmahal to the north. “Sunil Joshi and me were very close.” Joshi too was complicit in the genocide. “He had a long beard. He was a nice person, used to do a lot of bhajan-pooja. Sat from morning to evening in the Shabari mandir, while I wandered around in the jungles. We wanted to let the people know through media that we had taken badla (revenge) for what happened to the Sankat Mochan temple and other temples.” “We were having discussions on this. What name to keep? The Muslims ought to know that we Hindus are doing this. “We had to take revenge for this; we ought to be able to say that we Hindus did this. So we wanted to give the group a name related to Hinduism, and tell the media that we Hindus took revenge; took revenge for the temple. We have thought nothing of blasts that have occurred elsewhere. But for it happening in a temple, we have taken revenge, and will take more. We kept no name. Couldn’t tell the media. Sunil died, in between, so we couldn’t tell the media.) ”So when the CBI arrested me, I thought this was a good time to reveal this. I knew that I could be hanged for it. Par mera umar bhi to ho gaya (But I am old, anyway). Someone should speak up for the Hindus, saying, I did this. Sunil and I did it together, so I admitted it myself, and said [to investigators], what do you want to ask? “They kept asking, so did you do the Hyderabad blasts too? I said yes, Sunil and I did it. But then I didn’t know who went and [planted it] for Sunil. Sunil toh guzar gaya. (Sunil was already dead.) I gave the name of Sandeep [Dange] whom they have not yet arrested. I did not meet Sandeep much. Sunil used to live with me. I told Sunil that we had to blow up Hyderabad and other places. It is only right, if they have bombed temples, that we bomb mosques. One policewallah who was noting this — he and I had a true friendship — told me, Swamiji, don’t have so much written down. You’ll be trapped. You’ll die. You will hang.) I asked him, kya taqleef hain (where’s the problem)? “Then the ASP Balaji who arrested me, and stayed with me in a room told me: Swamiji if you will say all this, it will make history. But don’t just say this here. Will you be able to say the same in court?) I didn’t have a lawyer to advise against it. I was also a bit carried away then.) Then the Sangh’s lawyers told me, We can’t save you now. Then they said that I should give a statement that I was tortured. I said write whatever you want, and I will sign it. But in truth they didn’t torture me. Asimanand was also involved against the events of 1998beccause Pragyasingh and Joshi came to him soon after that: “They read about me when the 1998 story was written and they felt that someone was doing this from the Sangh, so we should go and visit him.” He blew the lid from his confession when he told Leena that Indresh Kumar had in real fact told him to continue bomb blasts: “Indresh never asked me to stay away from this work. I said that to spare Indresh ji. On the contrary, he used to tell me to do just this.) [Much laughter and small talk with the jail staff in the room and Aseemanand.] “I am a violent one among the Sangh people. Have used violence to establish Hindutva — in Dangs, Andaman, Chattisgarh, Nagaland. Please don’t write it. “Mohan Bhagwat, Indresh and Sunil, they all came to meet me in Shabari Dham. We all four were sitting. “Sunil said to Bhagwat ji: Look, we should do some violence in the name of Hindus. There are people in the Sangh who feel so. Whatever happens, it will be between us alone. We will not link the Sangh with this. We won’t take any help from you for this. We are letting you know because you are the top officials, that we are planning to do this. Then Mohanji and Indresh, both said: “This is great. It’s very important that it be done. But don’t link it to the Sangh. The Sangh will not do this. [unclear]. Now Hindutva has someone like this on its side. But this is not the ideology of the Sangh.) “Then they told me: If you will do this we will be at ease with this. Nothing wrong will happen then. This will not be criminalised then. If you do it then people won’t say that we committed a crime for the sake of committing a crime. It will be connected to the ideology. This is very important for the Hindus. Please do this. You have our blessings. Nothing more than that from us. I told them that I will leave the Kalyan Ashram for this work, and you should also not come to Shabari Dham too often. But I have no idea how this thing reached the CBI. LR: So who told this first to the CBI? SA: Pata nahin. (I don’t know.) That Indresh and Bhagwat used to meet me is known to them. So when they asked, I told them that Indresh ji asked us not to do this. On the contrary, Indresh ji was the one who asked me to do this. I didn’t want to get Indresh ji involved in this. It’s the right thing too. He only gave us his blessings. Didn’t tell us anything more than this. Just said that if you do it we would be at ease with it. LR: But then almost two years before you were arrested these facts had reached the CBI. How? [Silence] LR: Pragya didn’t give any statement. Sunil was not even alive. And even then in the name of Jiten Chatterjee your statements were being printed in the paper. Was it that armyman, Purohit? [He looks at the clock.] “Adivasis used to do all the Sangh’s work.” When they arrested Purohit, he told the police that I had done everything First Pragya was the main party in the Sunil Joshi murder case. Harshad Solanki, who was also involved, used to stay with me. Sunil Joshi used to keep Harshad Solanki and Mehul in his house. They both were wanted in the Best Bakery case. Since in Madhya Pradesh no one troubled them much, he used to take them to MP. So after Sunil’s murder, Harshad and Mehul ran away because they were living under a different name, and on enquiring, anyone would come to know of their truth in the other case. . So then they put the blame on Mehul and another guy Raj, who was also staying with them. Why did they murder? Because Pragya asked them to. And Raj and Mehul, who was arrested in the Jaipur case, were also charged with this. Pragya was also arrested from Bombay and brought and held in Bhopal jail. Then from Bhopal police, NIA took up the case. Then the NIA felt that Harshad had not killed him; from their investigation they surmised that it was Lokesh and Rajinder. Then they took Lokesh to MP. Lokesh is almost charged in every case and has been tortured in almost every case. “They told him that his wife had told them that he[Lokesh Sharma] has confessed to her about murdering Sunil Joshi … They said that so they would now arrest his wife, too, in the case. The man who had not been broken by all this torture was broken by this thing. Anyone will do it; when it comes to your wife you have to do this.” So this being into something means sharing thoughts and deeds and also the ideology which surrounds you. If Sharma’s wife told the police it must have made the husband wretched and damned by his own people so close to him. So living together is ruptured. Another instance is that Mohan Bhagwat and Indresh Kumar had met Asimanand at Shabri Dham where they talked how Bharatbhai Rateshwar had given 50, 000 to the duo which they had passed on to Joshi. To this transfer of money for funding terrorism was something all these people were into. As Bhagwat told Asimanand:“You can do this. You can do this with Sunil. But we won’t be a part of it. If you are there, believe that we too are with you. What you are going to do will not be wrong. The course will be right.” This kind of justifying for a crime makes all of them into it. “Indresh told us to do it. But why should we take his name? I’ll take it upon myself. The police asked me why you did it when Indresh asked you not to. So I said he is from the Sangh and I am not part of the Sangh. I am from the VKA. Even when the Kalyan Ashram heads ask me to do specific things, I don’t do it. I do things according to my wish. ------ http://caravanmagazine.in/swami-aseemanand-interviews#sthash.KSfGgQSR.dpuf The old man and the terrorists An old man can be dangerous, as he fears nothing. – GB Shaw, Heartbreak House In a conversation among the conspirators of Abhinav Bharat Dr RP Singh tells Major Ramesh Upadhay, Lt Col Shrikant Prohit and others he had a call from Tehelka and he thundered at the caller “You communist witch. I will parade you naked.” Later Purohit told them that they needed “negotiating ability” in establishing the Hindu Rashtra. To negotiate needs communication ability as such. The doctor lacked the ability, as did Shailash Raiker, in charge of the Bhonsle Military School in Nasik near Malegaon. Raiker remarked that the bomb explosion at Bhiku chowk could not have been the handiwork of a motley group like Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, and others. He overlooked the fact that India is not a banana republic and our military people are not ragtag junta trying to seize power by abrogating the constitution. He even told his reporter he would not like the reporter to take his photo nor to have any mention of his name in any report. But the reporter could write what he liked, he added. Yes they sorely missed negotiating ability. What they missed, an old Bengali man had in abundance. He violently reconverted the Christian tribals of the Dangs. He even did not bother about the restraint that former Prime Minister AB Vajpayee and his deputy LK Advani were exerting on him. The Government of Narendra Modi even withheld permission to build a hospital. But he had successfully communicated with the tribals. They bonded well with him even when there was a well-organized hunt for him. This would remind you of Graham Greene’s novel The Power and the Glory. Like the priest of the novel he let the tribals sacrifice animals and drink liquor. More important was preventing their conversion to Christianity or Islam. It was this that set him apart from RSS and other Hindutva groups. He would not play any politics over it, as would Indresh Kumar. Nor would he have any sophistry, as the RSS would indulge in an attempt to prevaricate. He confessed that on the next day of bomb blast in Malegaon on September 29, 2008 he had picked up two persons, Ramji Kalsangra and Sandeep Dange in his car. A rickshaw driver in Pune had also picked up two passengers on their arrival in Pune from Malegaon after sunset of the day the first terrorist attack on September 8, 2006. These two were talking about how what was scheduled to happen at late night had actually prematurely happened at 130 pm on Friday September 8, 2006. They were obviously talking of Malegaon as they had alighted from a bus coming from that town. The rickshaw driver was shown on a popular TV channel in the night. The police never bothered about this footage. It assumes importance because reports of Nanded 2006 blasts show that Mithun Chakerwarty (Lt Col Shrikant Purohit?) had trained the terrorists of Abhinav Bharat and while parting at the railway station in Pune he handed them the bombs. Were the two passengers coming from Malegaon Sandeep Dange, Sunil Joshi or Ramji? The Pune angle like the Dangs angle was not explored by the investigation agencies. Two senior professors of Wadia college and Rakesh Dhawde were also from there. The place Akansa resort is also located there. To point out these to the investigating agencies is like showing candle to the sun. si confession in the wake of his encounter with Kaleem in Hyderabad jail has made him expansive. Will he also throw light on these? If he does his communication will bear the hallmark of his integrity. If he diverges into vindication of retributive terrorism it would mean resurgence of his ideological association with RSS. Another such related matter is that there are people in the country with the same mindset. They want to laugh away the whole matter by comparing the investigation agencies vis-à-vis Amanand with Stalin’s smoking pipe. The Russian dictator had lost his pipe and the KGB chief Beria arrested about a dozen suspects of which half died during investigation and the remaining confessed to the crime of stealing the pipe. Of course, Stalin later found it in the papers under his table! The two are not comparable; investigation agencies arresting and having Asimanand confess the truth and Stalin’s episode. But it reveals the patent RSS habit of berating what is unwanted and undesirable to it. Those who have died during interrogation like Khwaja Yunus in Ghatkoper case have their ghosts come to haunt us. This may have disturbing effect on those who tortured him and may be some would follow suit of Asimanand. Or, the accused wrongfully arrested will learn the law of the land and fight back like Shahid Azmi or Dr Farogu Makhdumi. The brilliant fight of the former saved Fahim Ansari from ATS framing him for 26/11 and the latter’s defence in the closing days of the last year has exposed the inanity of the confession sans any corroborative evidence in the Malegaon 2006 case. Coming to the inner core of communication ability or lack of it in 2006 case there is the incommunicado of SP Rajwardhan Sinha under whom the first investigation was done. When the reporters of Asia Express (January 22, 2011) asked him to react to allegation that he is accused by the Muslims youths to be involved in their frame up he refused to speak. But he said that he would tell the CBI. First the CBI told the Supreme Court that it did not find anything in 2006 case. Later it simply passed on the local police’s and ATS”s chargesheet as if it had thoroughly investigated the matter and came to the same conclusion. This was the greatest blunder the CBI committed. Now it is in the town again. It has learnt from its mistake and is doing what I wrote some years back, throwing the net wider to catch the culprits behind the Graveyard mosque and Mushawarat chowk attacks. It is striving hard to have three disappeared persons including Arsalan surrender to the police. Now that the whole world press has its focus on Malegaon, the agency thinks, they need not fear torture. On January 20 and 21 2011 the officer gave their cell phone numbers to the people with whom they interacted in a wider range of investigation. This is a commendable work of the CBI officers as easy access is open to all: call to MV Lad 9870285917, Iqbal 9870967107 and Kumar9773201515. This flies in the face of the mobile that Abrar alleges Rajwardhan had given him and recorded a doctored conversation of one of the alleged planters of the bomb, Zahid. Abrar claims that Rajwardhan had the conversation not only recorded but made Abrar and Lt Col Purohit hear the recording. It was then that Purohit remarked that Abrar was now a witness. Verbal communication communicates more than words. Rajwardhan had at first told Abrar that he had some inkling that the 2006 blasts was caused by Muslims as well as Hindus. But when Abrar told him that he had overheard people in the Galaxy hospital saying that Dr Rajender Amin, Dr Bipin Parekh and Someshwar Shankar etc were behind the blasts, Rajwardhan was startled. Does this mean that what Abrar had overheard gave away the secret? Incidentally, Parekh’s mobile number was found in Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur’s phone. How come this happened! On his arrest Purohit admitted that Abhinav Bharat had used local Students Islamic Movement of India activists in 2006. Such is the nature of communication of terror. It would remain a muddle until CBI resolves it. Until then suffice it to say that truth does appear in what the guilty says and how does he say. Much depends on the psychology of the person. The district chief of RSS in Shajapur Sandeep Dange had great expertise in coordination of the bomb blasts of 2006 – 2008. He was short tempered as well. This closed lipped man was quite secretive albeit snappish by nature. He is a fugitive from law and quite elusive, the least communicative. On the other hand Indresh Kumar so far left out is too assertive and aggressive. RP Singh also left from arrest and interrogation is the most abrasive, abusive and well qualified, an endocrinologist with awful endocrines who could dare and be prepared to burn Vice President Hamid Ansari. What chance for the humble weavers, children and beggars of Malegaon graveyard! Against his hubris is the Swami of humble origin but educated whose heart not just melted with pity for Kaleem but who also had clairvoyance. “I understood that love between two human beings is more powerful than the hatred between two communities.” When will the people and their groups acquire this clairvoyance? Sunil Joshi and the dragon that killed him Seventh of September 2006 saw a resurgence of Hindutva movement around reviving the issue of the controversial national song of Vande Matrum. It was deliberately crafted around the worked up anniversary of Bankamchand Chaterjee’s novel Anand Muth. It fits well in the core strategy of Rashtrya Swayamsevak Sangh. The song eminently excludes Muslims as true citizens of the country as they can never sing the song since it violates their fundamental belief of worshipping Allah and no one else and rejecting idolatry. As a town with sizable Muslim population, Malegaon saw this as a convenient way of whipping up communal passion against them. Thus the meeting at the famous temple at Mosampul in Malegaon included Shiv Sena leaders Dada Bhuse, Sanjay Dusane, Rama Mistry, Pramod Shukla, Anand Bhika Pawar, Narendra Maharaj, Raja Ram Jadhav, Kailash Teesge, Tarabai Shirsat, Chayabai Shewade. Bhuse and Pawar pointedly said that the national song was against the British and its reactionary fervor was still not dead as others had taken the place of the British in modern times. (Malegaonvi shiv sena turfe wande matrum, Lotkmut 8-9-2006)The basic approach of RSS, Bajrang Dal, Shiv Sena and VHP and their later day avatar of Jai Vande Matram, Abhinav Bharat, was to target Muslims by means of terrorism. By then terrorism had acquired the weltanschauung of anti Muslim connotation. It was primarily this worldview that led to the attacks on Muslims on September 8, 2006. Sunil Joshi played a crucial role in it. It would be preposterous to say that he was an associate of SIMI and he used Muslims to bomb Muslims. However, the innuendo has got currency that well motivated and devoted members of Students Islamic Movement of India let him penetrate their movement. In the first place the government at Delhi could never produce a single instance of SIMI involvement in bomb blasts. It prevailed on the Supreme Court to continue banning SIMI after every two years. Sunil Joshi was a hardcore communalist and would not divulge anything against the right wing extremists of Hindutva. To say that Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur organized the second terrorist attack in Malegaon on September 29, 2008 to avenge SIMI’s alleged killing of Sunil Joshi is simply subterfuge. The only link assumed in the second attack is that the Sadhvi’s motorcycle was parked under the SIMI office at Bhiku chowk. She wanted to give a warning to SIMI that she was capable of taking them on according to the pet ideology of the Hindu right of bomb for bomb. The well designed plot did not have the SIMI office at all as a target. Those who brought the motorcycle of Joshi (she had sold it to him) to the chowk did not want to park it there. They tried their best to park it at their designated centre at the Nukud corner where the crowd of Muslim women buying bangles and tawdry ornaments for Id was thickest. That would have caused a huge casualty in thousands. But the lady police which had cordoned off the approach from Bhiku chowk to Nukad corner had steadfastly refused to let the motorcycle riders enter the corner. It is this approach lane to the Nukad corner that is aptly named after Martyr Hemant Karkare. Both the terrorist attacks of 2006 and 2008 were mounted by inner core group of Bajrang Dal which has the temerity of changing names to avoid detection and bad publicity. Similarly, saying that Joshi’s “overall behaviour was something not expected by a woman (read Pragya)" and that is why she got him killed is dodging and diversion. Then the question ultimately asked is who really got him bumped off. And why. It could be that Pragya let herself play in the hands of someone far superior. It could be a well placed man like Indresh Kumar or equally doughty Parveen Togadia. They have the enormous sums at their disposal. Of course, Harshad Solanki took instructions from her on the day he and his cohorts killed Joshi. The pugmarks are still there but the dragon is someone still elusive. The dragon could be an organization or agency or its individuals working as splintered entities. This comes handy for the purpose of avoiding detection or later manipulation. The assassin of Mahatma Gandhi, Nathuram Godse, had got circumcised in JJ Hospital of Mumbai. He had never left RSS and according to his accomplice and brother and father of Himani Savarkar, Gopal, his whole family was nurtured on the ideology of RSS. In those days there was no group like Bajrang Dal to take on more extensive destructive work. Bajrang Dal is the armed wing of RSS. It is this group which has the expertise of making bombs, using advanced weapons of mass murder and training to carry out difficult tasks. It has suicide squads and splintered groups designed to carry out violent attacks and deflect attention from the parent body as well as the mother of all groups, RSS. Durga Vaheni is the female counterpart of Bajrang Dal and Pragya rightfully belonged to it. If description of Mithun Chakerwarty matches Lt Col Purohit, it was he who had trained and supplied RDX from his flat in Pune. He gave it to not just the Bajrang Dal activists of Nanded but also those who attacked Malegaon Muslims in 2006 and 2008, be they Abhinav Bharat or Jai Vande Matrum. Attacking Samjhauta express was even more daring. It shows all India recruitment of terrorists. The definite and sure involvement of the army is very much there. Shrikant Prasad Purohit was in the intelligence wing of army working in the so called counter terrorism section. On October 15, 2008 even before his name appeared anywhere for 2008 attack in Malegaon the lieutenant colonel had sent a letter to his superior. In it he wrote not to report but to confide to a sympathizer and obtain advice from him. The lieutenant colonel wrote to Major Bhagirath Dey "The blasts which took place in Gujarat and Malegaon are on the same day and same time using the same technique. I had learnt that it is Mr Indresh Kumar of the RSS, who is instrumental in carrying out these actions. It is likely that senior RSS officials like Indresh Kumar are playing in the hands of ISI, knowingly or unknowingly." (Malegaon blast case: Purohit's letter indicts Indresh, Sadhvi Pragya. India Today March 3, 2011). This disclosure reads like a report of an intelligence officer to his superior. But the army’s silence over more than two years would amount to either Purohit trying to save his skin or mutually worked out strategy of bailing out a fellow officer from a seemingly disastrous situation. This would lend to different explanations. That the army is itself neck deep in it or RSS is. The headquarters of RSS at Nagpur was the Camelot of different assignment in different parts of the country. The visor, the armour and the swords and spears were replaced by bombs and bomb makers. According to Swami Asimanand, Indresh Kumar had told him that bomb making was not the work of the swami, it was for Sunil Joshi. He had given 50000 rupees to Joshi for the work. ('RSS leader Indresh provided money for making bombs' Zee New January 8, 2011)True to its nature the modern day Camelot was in touch with its knights in shining armour. The reports were coming in from someone (“Pophale”?) on duty in the police control room of Malegaon on September 8, 2006. Saturday, April 16, 2011 Impunity in disposing of rape case of a Muslim girl The rape and murder Rukhsana of Partur Hathdi, Jalna district, is dreadfully gruesome. She was pregnant and was raped by some Hindus so far not identified. From the gory details of the circumstances it is clear who had raped her. The police Patel of the village Sadashiv Jurekar and the sarpanch (village head) Ramesh Shyam got the death of Rukshana entered as suicide and then burnt her dead body in the Muslim graveyard of the village. What is unmistakable to infer is that both administrative officials of the village tried to cover up the matter. They could not be so naïve as to believe that the Muslims burn their dead in their cemetery! The rural Muslims are the most penurious of our population. Their being indigent makes them survive at the sufferance of the Hindus. Crimes committed against them have little chance of airing let alone registration in any administrative offices of the state. The way her body was disposed off shows that the rapists and killers were not from the Muslim community. The deafening silence of their identity is eloquently telling the story of that identity. The hand to mouth existence of the rural Muslim makes it unthinkable that they would ever have enough to grease the palms of the officials. However, some Muslim leaders came to know the murky circumstances. One of them was Abu Azmi who condemned the event and spoke about the plight of the rural Muslims. But on Saturday April 9, 2011the Maharashtra Assembly legislative council member Hussein Dalwai entered the hall with an earthen pot containing the ashes and bones of Rukhsana. He along with other leaders like Manikrao Thakere protested. That forced Home Minister RR Patil to pacify them that an inquiry by crime investigation department would be conducted and the guilty would be brought to book. This case of rape and murder of a Muslim girl could not have drawn even this much attention in the legislative council but for the sudden time schedule change. Two important matters were on the agenda but the concerned members and ministers were absent when the assembly session began. The third item was the case of Rukhsana. The Home Minister casually assured that inquiry would be made. The matter was hushed up. But Dalwai came to know of it in a hospital of Mumbai. He rushed to the assembly hall and along with the congress party president Manikrao Thakere forced the speaker to restart the debate on the issue. Hence, the dramatic entry of Dalwi! Sachchar commission says Muslims constitute majority in the prison population of India. However, some crimes like rape have become so luxurious to go beyond the reach of some. In the absence of a healthy civil society and strict adherence to the law of the land the women and the minorities suffer alike. But for the woman from the minority it is virtual hell. Even the dead body has no rest! (courtesy to Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes were Watching God). The mainstream papers have no space for the Rukhsanas as they are preoccupied with the weighty matters of corruption. Urdu papers like Sahafat or journalism struggle to keep abreast. Of Praise for Mr Modi Calling chief minister of Gujarat as Nero was self consciously too circumspect way of describing the kind rule of Ravana that Gujarat has been going through even now. He may gloat over the praises showered on him by an American officer of the US embassy, Anna Hazare, etc., he may cock a snooke at the centre or the Congress party, but it is time now for the nation to see through the kind of demagoguery he has been engaged in. This is quite serious. He is a true demagogue, a political agitator who appeals to the basest instinct of the mob. He did his act over and over again. It was evident in his repeatedly asking what the crowd would do to Sohrabuddin. Their encore of murder illustrates the point. The acolytes and associates of Modi are like the nine blind men who have discerned features which they perceive without having a fuller comprehension of the whole behemoth he is. Major General I S Sinha of Golden Katara Division of Indian Army gave three cheers to Modi for having accomplished his work within given time. Look at what Modi accomplished overnight. Wali Gujrati’s mausoleum was demolished and wiped out of the surface and a road built overnight there. If this was not done by Modi by his own hands he also did not kill the nearly two thousand Muslims in the pogroms of 2002. What he had done was set the target for Hindus to vent their anger for full three days. He also moved around and applauded the Chharra community women for giving birth to the valiant members who slaughtered Muslims in Naroda Patia. One of the most gruesome murderers (Suresh Richard) has gone on record telling how Modi visited his womenfolk in the evening of the first day of wholesale murder and slaughter and rape. A senior police officer at the same place refused to protect Muslim women and children and told them that it was an order from above that that day they would show no heed to the pleadings of the Muslim victims. Police officer KK Mysorewala’s utterance denying help to the Muslims became the title of the report that Human Rights Watch published. Why do those praising Modi choose to ignore this? They have also not bothered that Mysorewala was the one who told Babu Bajrangi to go into hiding as there was shoot at sight order against him. When Modi wanted Bajrangi to surrender Mysorewala was again used to convey the message. Mysorewala was superintendant of police of Modasa when Muslims were attacked by Abinav Bharat with bombs on September 29, 2008. He turned a Nelson’s eye on it. Anna Hazare’s reason for preferring Modi as well as Nitish Kumar is rural development. This is myopic vision of what actually is the case. Modi’s administration not only did not do anything to stop the genocide of Muslims but over the years tacitly and criminally let the Hindus systematically boycott Muslims in the rural parts of Gujarat. Most of them cannot even now return to their heaths and hearths although nearly a decade has passed the fury he let loose upon them. Their humble professions, commercial establishments along with their homes were destroyed. Were not the Muslim transporters, motel owners, garage mechanics parts of the wheel of development of rural Gujarat? Where was Hazare when this went on year in and year out? Modi did what Slobodan Milosevik did in former Yugoslavia, instigate the mobs of Serbians against the minority Muslims. The mobs did the rest. It is a national shame that the police never supplied CDs of his derogatory speeches and phone calls. Why did all this fall on the deaf ears of Hazare and Sinha? It is amazing that a Muslim divine like fellow Gujarati Maulana Ghulam Vastanavi saw the material development in Gujarat as worthy of praise. Islam does not prefer material development over the spiritual and moral development. Had it been otherwise the Prophet could have started collecting interest over the money that many deposited with him because of his sterling moral character. Islam forbids interest or usury and values sound moral character. Amitabh Bacchan chose to advertise the glory of Gujarat because of the same material consideration. He would collect money by advertising because money is important. This is his characteristic attitude. A brother of his has enormously got rich and lives in Switzerland with the booty of the Bofors guns deal. Money and conscience are two different and contradicting things. Modi and Bacchan have set perceptions on whom to bond with. If Bacchan did not invite any of the Khans to the marriage of his son Abhishek he is free to do so as a citizen of this country. A man is known not only by the company he keeps but also the company he avoids. Choosing to bond with Modi and not bonding with Amir, Salman, and Shah Rukh Khan is truly melodrama in effect. But in public life there is need for introspection. Modi was against the secular minded MP Ahsan Jaffri who had opposed his Hindutva ideology during the election at the beginning of Modi’s term in office. He chose to ignore and not take any notice of the pleadings of Jafri to save the life of the people taking shelter in his house. His party also did not want to have a motion in the parliament to express grief over the brutal murder of the MP. Again he like his party is free in democracy to hang a portrait of Savarkar in Parliament or bond with Swami Aseemanand or the likes of Babu Bajrangi. Conscience is a strange thing it is activated in the case of corruption involving money but remains dormant in the corruption of other things. CPM P Abdulla Kutty is another strange bedfellow of Modi like Dr Farooq Abdullah and Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi. But how many have even thought of Tulsiram Prjapati, a family friend and associate of Sohrabuddin Shaikh? Why does he deserve real praise? He was taken to identify Sohrab. Without losing time he informed Sohrab’s brother Rubabuddin that he had seen Sohrab alive in police station. Two days later Sohrab was killed. This was the notorious fake encounter that has failed to make any dent in our cussedness as you can see how Modi hobnobs with the fathers of industry like Mukesh Ambani and Ratan Tata and how he preens over the praise showered by the American diplomatic staff. Subsequently Tulsiram was brought to Gujarat and killed as the Rajasthan police refused to oblige the Gujarat police. During this and since his inception as CM Modi has been the home minister. In 2007 election Modi justified the murder of Sohrab. Can the nation not recall that he went further and told his mobs that what he had done would deserve hanging him and he was ready for it? Those who are loudest in demanding hanging Afzal Guru do not want to recall that because of the demagoguery of the Modi kind that has entrapped us? But how long! Wednesday, April 6, 2011 Rape in Malegaon The last time a rape took place in Malegaon was during the communal riot of October 26 2001. A girl named Mumtaz was raped by several men from Hindu community near the Girna dam. The case was registered, one of the rapists committed suicide during the trial, another died natural death and the third was convicted and is in jail. At that time the situation was terrific as more than 200 villages were affected by the riot that killed more than fifteen Muslims. A Hindu also lost his life. The riot started when a police man tore a handbill titled Be Indian and Buy Indian goods being distributed after Friday prayer at the Jama mosque. The Hindutva groups spread false rumour that fifteen Hindu women were raped. The Asian Age had sent its reporter Clarence Sequeira to verify the figure. She found that no Hindu woman was raped. When she questioned the police they told her that all the fifteen were high born ladies and would not reveal identity. The reporter found no case registered as far as the alleged rape of the fifteen was concerned. A rape can cause riot and the 2001 case was just that. The rumour spread like wildfire and Muslims suffered enormously in more than 200 villages and beyond. Just because of the rumour. More than ten years later and two bomb attacks after Malegaon has the second rape case which has the ingredients of a communal disturbance. A Muslim girl Sakina Afroz Shaikh(name changed) aged 15 was grazing her cattle in the forest area near Chinchgavan. Her brother Amjad was with her as they were on way back with their tiffin box. Two Hindu youths Ankush Shom Pawar and Eknath Sitaram Sonowne kidnapped her at 7 p.m. on Monday March 28, 2011. They beat up Amjad and scared him away. They covered her mouth and gagged her, she swooned. When she recovered and became conscious she started struggling. They carried her off to a place near Kushyaba temple. Ankush Pawar raped her twice. Eknath Sonowne returned to the village to see what the reaction of the kidnap and rape was. Amjad told his family pointing Eknath, that he was the one with Ankush who had abducted his sister. On receiving the news the family of the rape victim went to police station and lodged a police complaint. An FIR was lodged in Malegaon and the police sent her for medical examination at the civil hospital. Dr Nikhat Parvez along with two nurses conducted the check up. Swabs with semen were obtained. Her dress with semen was also taken from the hospital. The medical report mentions that her hymen was freshly ruptured but it also says that she was ‘habitual’. That would mean that she has had frequent sex. The space mentioned in the report is ‘two fingers’. How could there be fresh rupture of hymen if she is called habitual? The girl is a minor and says loud and clear that this incident took place and identified the two above mentioned fellow villagers. But her relatives name one police constable Sanjay Pawar attached to Malegaon police who is trying to persuade them to have the matter settled in the village “tanta mukti” council, local council for settling dispute. When they complained to the sarpanch, village head, Pappur Goturam Pawar, he told them that if they give in writing he would have Sanjay Pawar transferred. The police have arrested the youths. The family of the girl fears that when court meets on April 13 the accused would get the bail. They have also expressed fear as the associates of the accused namely; Sanjay Wagh Naik, Dattu Bhiva Gere, Chandersing Sadhu Wagh, Sitaram Sonowne, Chanderram Sitaram Sonowne, Sanjay Sahebrao Naik and Dashrat KamaSingh have threatened them with consequence. An aunt of the girl fears that the Hindus would have false cases registered against the Muslims and have them arrested! This would not only tip the balance against the Muslims but may lead to their forced migration as it happened in 2001. So the need for impartial inquiry into the whole matter would go a long way to not only get justice to the girl but also ease communal tension that might lead to more trouble. It would also be desirable that women’s organizations come out and investigate the case and establish the facts. The national commission of women can also give a helping hand before the situation becomes ugly. In particular inquiry must focus on the police why did they register the case under CrPC 366 (abduction) and not 376 (rape). The bias against the Muslims runs deep in the police and administration. This particular case is the latest example. She is saying that she has been raped and yet the police have registered the case under 366 and not 376!!! And who is the cop Sanjay Pawar to mediate that the matter should be settled out of court!!! His role is suspect and the director general of police in Mahrashtra should look into the matter. Till 10 25 p.m. of Wednesday April 6, 2011 there was no change in the behavior of the police. Sunday, May 22, 2011 The killing of a driver In Ben Jonson’s play Volpone there is a character who inspects the contents of a match box for what kind of piece of intelligence it might contain for a foreign country. The Intelligence Bureau of India has fortuitously given out to the world that it is assiduously doing the same in its pursuit of the most dangerous terrorist after Osama bin Laden who is also hiding in Pakistan. The killing of the driver of Iqbal Kaskar was designed to locate where Dawood Ibrahim was hiding. The Intelligence Bureau used a middle man from Nagpada who gave subcontract to a source outside Mumbai to kill the driver. As a fall out of Abbottabad assassination of Osma bin Laden this was quite expected. What was not expected was that the IB should be so foolhardy to venture into such a tangle of terror in the heart of the underworld in Mumbai. The Mumbai edition of The Asian Age on Thursday May 19, 2011 made it a front page headline. It shows India in a poor light. If “IB outsourced Kaskar firing” according to the paper, then IB could also have outsourced Karkare killing as well. Or, still better someone outsourced Karkare killing to IB among others. It also shows how much our agencies are obsessed with terror of one kind rather than terror of all kinds which beset us. We also fail to differentiate ourselves from the Americans. We are opportunists and wanted to piggy ride the Yankees. It revives the memory of the blunders of IB in regard to the security set up in Mumbai in November 2008. That precipitated the climax in the assassination of Hemant Karkare though the terrorist attack continued for two more days thereafter. Hindustan Times of January 10, 2009 says that the mobile phone numbers used by the terrorists during 26/11 were available with the IB for 5 days before the attack started. On November 21 the naval headquarters wrote and also spoke to Prabhakar Alok for more information. The Joint Director of IB did not reply. Of the 35 phones 3 were actively used to communicate with the handlers in Pakistan. In the first place the IB was in the know of more than what is known. It knew that 32 phones were bought from Kolkata and 3 from Delhi. It should have been very seriously concerned but did not show any awareness of the urgency of the request or just ignored it. Even if we cannot call it complicity, but, the meaning can be inferred, nevertheless, that this facilitated the movement of the terrorists who attacked Mumbai on November 26, 2008. As of now in the murder of the driver there is need for monitoring by a committee of the parliament as to the authenticity of the alleged involvement of the IB. Vice President Abdul Hamid also emphasized this in his Kao memorial lecture. The murder of Arif Abu Baker Sayyed is clearly an act of terrorism. Unless proved otherwise it stands to reason that it was an act of terror committed by the Indian intelligence agency. It is also quite known to the world that IB has set up training camps in which criminals are trained to kill those whom the agency wants to bump off. There is recent history of 1993 bomb blasts witnesses who were killed in such a way. Scores of them met this fate. IB is back on its old hunt. But the moot question is whether it would serve the interest of the country when already judgment has been delivered and the guilty are sentenced varyingly. Even for the sake of argument suppose Dawood Ibrahim indicates flurry of activity, is India really going to execute a surgical strike? And, where is the don? It is quite sobering to remember that India had almost gone to war with Pakistan when the Parliament was attacked in December 2001. What kind of signal we are sending to our neighbouring countries and the world at large? Including in the list of names of the most wanted criminals like Dawood, Saeed we have also such names like Wazul Kamar Khan and Feroz Khan in the dossier we sent to Pakistan. Feroz is in high security prison of Arthur road and Wazaul is out on bail and has been marking his presence at local police station in Mumbai. It is as absurd as the character in Samuel Beckette’s play Waiting for Godot watching for a foreign body in his hat and hitting it on the palm of the other hand again and again to see whether it falls down. The underword has a code of honoring each other’s family by not attacking a member of it. Therefore it was not Iqbal but the driver who was the target. So, it was not Chhota Rajan or Ravi Pujari who organized the attack. Then the others in the field are IB or middle men like Ubaid ur Rehman. Striking the hat again and again would end in reduction ad absurdum. Saturday, May 7, 2011 Demonstrating a cover-up job of Modi of Gujarat On May 5, 2011 the Supreme Court refused to consider the affidavit that Sanjiv Bhatt had submitted to it. SIT submitted its report on April 25 and denied that Bhatt attended the meeting at the house of Modi. Bhatt alleged that the CM had told the police to let the Hindus vent out their anger at the Muslims as he wanted to teach the Muslim a lesson to stop the balancing act of the previous governments in communal rights and let the Hindus have the upper hand and to tilt the balance in their favour for good. The other serious observation of the SIT is that Bhatt has some motive to level grave charges nine years later and it calls for a probe. Next, he tutored his driver to give false information. Earlier report of SIT submitted in November 2010 had found insufficient evidence against Modi and amicus curaie Raju Ramchandran objected to “no prosecutable evidence against Modi.” SC asked SIT to probe further. However SC hints at the fact that SIT has not come up with any change in the second report submitted to it. It has given 8 weeks time to Ramchandran to study all the evidence and suggest if any offence can be made out against anyone. Next hearing is on July 28. Thus the slow movement of the judicial process makes one wonder whether the adage justice delayed is justice denied is still true. This has been going on in Gujarat for more than ten years now. It is proudly passed off as Moditva, unrepentant hijacking of the state to commit atrocities and still go scot free. The best example is Babu Bhai Bajrangi. The crimes he committed speak loudly for the heaven to hear and yet we on the earth have not heard it so far! The courts also seem to be taken in by Moditva. Madhu Srivastava and his people made Zahira Shaikh turn hostile. She went to jail but they are still free. Of the accused and convicted for life in prison now another witness has turned hostile. The case must reopen again and this would continue ad absurdum. The obvious reason is that the endeared chote sardar of Gujarat is also capable of becoming the Prime Minister! Therefore the judicial process must continue as it is going until more hurdles come in the way and the courts prolong to kingdom come! The crimes Modi has committed are like a hippopotamus clearly seen trampling the grass on the lawn and yet the investigators are holding the magnifying glass close to their eyes and prying into the roots of the grass as if watching the movement of an ant. The fun is that Modi knows that we know it that Modi knows it! The impotency of everyone in the face of all this is a tribute to those who had gathered at Janter Manter for a revolution to usher in. Exceptions are there to prove the rule. Modi brought in a reign of terror, in the words of Zakia Jafri. He conspired, he executed the conspiracy and is busy in what Shanti Bhushan calls cover-up job. The courts like the Chief Minister are vying with each other to go to infinity in time. Will nine years that Sanjiv Bhatt took slide into nine decades before justice is delivered? The seditious act of terrorism: Samjhauta express The most notable feature of the charge sheet in the Samjhauta case is that it strikes a chord in the heart of the people of the country irrespective of their identity. That Indians of all hue and colour belong to one nation and one nation alone. That Pakistan is a different country though not named here. It also reveals the undeniable truth that the bombers of the train were motivated to attack the predominantly Muslim passengers but Hindus were also killed. Furthermore the planned attacks on Mecca mosque, Ajmer and Malegaon were aimed at Muslims of India for what the jihadist terrorists were supposed to be doing in the case of Akshardham, Raghunath and Sankat Mochan temples. This is borne out by each of the capital lettered word the charge sheet mentions: “criminal conspiracy with an intent to threaten Unity, Integrity, Security and Sovereignty of India and to strike terror in the people of India and a foreign country.” But what is its implication is that the conspirators of the RSS do not share the same view of the spirit of nationality as revealed in the charge sheet. Had this been the case they would not have targeted fellow countrymen in acts of terrorism just because they follow a different religion. The Muslims of India do not share the jihadist fervor of the kind that is so visible in “a foreign country” as the charge sheet calls Pakistan. Therefore “seditious act of terrorism” squarely fits on the RSS and its conglomerate for it is they who have excluded the minorities like Muslims from the kind of cultural nationalism they advocate to project them as the ‘other’. These are far reaching meanings of the citizenry of this country at odd with the ground reality of the right wing groups. The charge sheet mentions Akshardham temple, Raghunath mandir, and Sankat Mochan temple where jihadist terrorists struck. The overwhelming number of Muslims had nothing to do with such attacks. They had no affinity with anyone who was involved in such attacks. What went amiss was that Muslims were outright blamed and a witch hunt was mounted against them. This made it look like all the Muslims were just jihadists and were prone to terrorism. The truth turned out to be quite opposite of it. The RSS and others of the same inclination have never reconciled to the fact that peaceful coexistence requires equal respects and trust for all. At a critical juncture of history two persons of eminence have written what is the crux of the matter. President KR Narayanan remarked on July 24, 2002 that “the Hindus who formed the majority (need) to speak out in the traditional spirit of the Hindu religion.” Then he underscored that India must deal with its Muslim minority “in a civilized manner,” ensuring them “security and the right of citizens in a democratic state.” This was not the case in the arrests of innocents and their languishing in jails years on end on false charges, in the pogroms that took place in Gujarat. Narayanan quotes Prime Minister Nehru who addressed the chief ministers when he said that the Muslim community was “so large in numbers that they cannot, even if they want to, go anywhere else. They have got to live in India. That is a basic fact about which there can be no argument. Whatever the provocation from Pakistan, and whatever the indignities and horrors inflicted on non-Muslims there, we have got to deal with the minority in a civilized manner.” What happened in India’s war on terror in the last decade is far from what Nehru wanted in 1947. That is what is needed more now than the case was in 1947 excepting the border crossing and the scale of murder and mayhem in the name of partition. Immediately in the aftermath of the attacks on Samjhauta express the Muslims were blamed and several members of the community were arrested. The investigation by the Haryana police was obstructed by the lack of cooperation on the part of the Madhya Pradesh government and the strange logic of India’s national security advisor. As far as prayaschit, deep remorse, is concerned, Aseemanand felt it once but took a somersault. Indresh Kumar who gave 50, 000 for the attack does not feel it at all. If the RSS had a modicum of it, it would have surrendered Indresh Kumar to the police! It is still not too late. July 13-11 Malegaon blasts of 2006 and, now, the pathology of terror There is a moving scene of courtly love even in the macabre world of terror. There is intrigue within an intrigue, sub plot within a plot. Sunil Joshi and Pragyasingh Thakur had their stars crossed ala Romeo Juliet. What made the duchess have a dimple on her cheek as the painter painted her? The duke in Robert Browning gave an order and all her smiles disappeared forever. Similarly what exactly did Joshi say that violated the modesty of Pragyasingh Thakur? Was it so bawdy that it should not be said in the presence of women? The virile figure of Joshi aroused different passions in different people as did the other protagonist. There are layers of meaning that surround episodes in high drama. In this euphemism can play crucial role as does innuendoes in the matters of love relationship. There is also sexual jealousy which demands its share in toll of the lovers. It could not have been just a naughty remark like that of the commissioner of police in Delhi who said some years ago that handsome ladies in the city wear dashing and dazzling and provocative dress. That causes teasing, molestation and rape. The murder of Joshi requires more erudition than the cops and investigators have time to afford. Euphemism and innuendoes abound in Malegaon 2006 case as well. An important witness and sometimes approver in 2006 case Abrar Ahmed narrates how he fell on the bathroom floor and had his spine injured and was hospitalized on January 1, 2007. Into the JJ Hospital arrived groups of his relatives from his in-laws sides and also from his own blood relations and of course the cops. Then additional superintendant of police of Malegaon Mr Rajwardhan also visited him. At one time in the hospital he allegedly gave one lakh rupees to Abrar’s brother in law Farooq Vardha and five and a half to his father in law Iqbal Chourdhary. He also got him a flat in Bhiwandi and another in Mumbai. This entire largess was given for the reason best known to the cop only. He had also given a gun to the brother in law of Abrar. What was the purpose? However, Abrar’s wife Jannatunnia contends that her brother had a licence for gun as far back as 2000. Even when the case has not come up for trial well almost into the sixth year of the detention of the nine accused this delay has begun to show fissures. There is mudslinging as to who is barren or impotent. She is still young and good looking and desires another chance in life. The circumstances of the case constitute one of the most intriguing episodes of Hindutva terror. Soon after the bomb explosions on September 8, 2006 on Shab-e-barat Abrar visited the Galaxy hospital. He overheard that some well known Hindus had exploded the bombs. He went to the house of his in laws and told them about it. They were startled, according to him, and rang up his brother in law Farooq Vardha (another police informer) in Bhiwandi. So the police came in action and instead of going after the Hindus like Dr Bipin Parekh, Someshwar Shanker, Dr Rajender Amin and others they detained Abrar. First Rajardhan gave him work of repairing his inverter at his residence in Nasik. In the meanwhile he was given a phone to contact Rajwardhan. But the additional superintendant of police gave a mobile phone to his wife as well. What had Rajwardhan to do with her and what he talked to her on her contact number 9825826597? In a French novel it would make one wonder at the role of the roué. The gun that the cop gave to Vardha is more intriguing. Was Abrar so material witness that he needed to be guarded with a gun? Or, liquidate when the time came. Rajwardhan had met Abrar on Sptember 13, on the fifth day of the blasts. Subsequently he sent Abrar and wife to Indore and other places in Madhya Pradesh. They were introduced to Lt Col Shrikant Purohit, Sadhvi Pragyasingh and others. At the Jagtap mala, like the château in a romance, many more intrigues awaited Abrar and wife. They had dinner with Purohit. It is also a fact that later Abrar and wife were kept separate in places alien to the couple and particularly to the woman. How could she live alone? But then at one meeting Rajwardhan addressed Abrar in the presence of his wife (and perhaps some others) ala ‘kahin per nigahen kahin per nishana’; looking at someone but aiming at another. “Naya juta jab phat jata hai ya khrab ho jata hai to use fenk diya jata hai.” (When a shoe is torn or becomes tattered we throw it away.) Abrar could not make sense of it directly and asked him to explain. Rajwardhan told him that he was quite mature and a hint is enough for a wise man. However, Abrar knew that the cop was a scheming person and wanted to drive a wedge between him and his wife. That has now turned into a gulf between the spouses. She has sought divorce in the sharia court. There is a new alignment in the families. His father’s family says that she is trying to dodge the National Investigation Agency (NIA) sleuths from getting to the secret surrounding her husband’s role in the blasts. Her father’s family on the contrary believes that her husband’s role in the blasts has besmirched the reputation of her family in the eyes of the people. She feels that the slur of being wife of a police informer is telling on her nerves and ill treatment of her in-laws is excruciating. In the time of breaking of the family of the accused it is important to note that there is an Iago or villain who has contributed to the worsening of the situation. Now the question arises what exactly was the equation of the villain and the family. This is not a question of slander. The allegation of shunning investigation by NIA is fraught with deception that has far reaching consequences. It needs close scrutiny in the court of law. There are other cases of the same kind where the cop’s relation with families involved in serious crimes raises serious doubts. And the investigation has either run in cold track or the matter has been hushed up. Shamshuddin Mushrif quotes a report of the Milligazette of May 1-15 2008 in his book Who Killed karkare? “17 April 2008: The Malegaon police raided a pathology laboratory situated in the basement of a private hospital and recovered five live RDX explosives, three used RDX explosives, one pistol, a laptop, a scanner, two mobile phones, four fake currency notes of Rs one thousand each and Rs 5000 in cash and arrested three persons, viz., Nitish Ahere Sahebrao Dhurve and Jitendra Khema belonging to some unknown organization.” A Marathi news paper Lokmat carried front page coverage for three days on the same event. The paper does not mention any liaison. But what was not thought of is becoming a probability of equation or relationship. Therefore investigation must also focus on the personal relationship of the important people who figure in the case. Are investigators trained to handle this? Similarly a court cannot dismiss the affidavit of Abrar even when there can be lies in it. But it contains circumstantial evidence. Abrar and Jannatunnisa did stay in hotel Pritam of Dadar in Mumbai. It is also known that LIC agent BK Shaikh met them at the Gateway of India. What was the couple doing there? They were known to be living in necessitous circumstances and therefore how could they afford the hotel bill? Moreover, what Rajwardhan is reported to have told about the frayed relationship of the spouses has come home to roost. --- http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-07-10/mumbai/29757634_1_malegaon-blast-khula-divorce Wednesday, August 24, 2011 Wily nature of fighting terrorism post-Malegaon denouement There is a need to be cautious in taking words of politicians who speak on terror. Very few have statesmanship and insight. The majority play politics even with terrorism. Statesmanship demands rising above the self profit motive of party and jingoism. On August 20, 2011 India’s agricultural minister Sharad Pawar remarked “all the accused in Malegaon 2006 case are innocent. This is what I had said a year and half ago.” He went further “after I had said that, the investigation started and the real (culprits) were caught in the second bomb blasts (of 2008). And what I had said after that one of the accused (Swami Aseemanand) accepted that they had done it. Therefore all the accused in (2006 case) are innocent and should be set free.” (Urdu Times August 21, 2011). One year and half ago would imply February 2010. If that is what Pawar has in mind then ground reality does not justify this assertion of his. On April 2, 2009 he had said: "Like United States in the world, Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) is responsible for Terrorism in India. The communal agenda of the BJP and its anti-National policies are providing fodder to the separatist activities and are responsible for the growing terrorism in the country." "Terrorism finds its root in the communal agenda and injustice meted to others. If we really wish to eliminate terrorism from India, it is high time we refrain the parties like BJP from playing the divisive politics." ( Inquilab, Mumbai April, 3) This unspoken truth that was always there is cogent and known to most in India who have a modicum of sanity in them and are not affected by the hideous ideology of cultural nationalism of the Hindu right. Still Pawar deserves credit for articulating it. Going further back, on October 8, 2008 Sharad Pawar remarked that “BJP rath yatra was the root cause of (Islamic) terrorism in India.” He also accused the party of making “attempt to create friction on the basis of religion and language.” Furthermore he said that the attack on Afghanistan and Iraq was the cause of terrorism outside India. Some of these observations contain grains of truth but it would be wrong to conclude that Pawar really said that the 9 accused in 2006 blasts case in Malegaon are innocent. Even if he had three letters from the Central Bureau of Investigation to that effect it was not translated into any shift in the state policy and its execution. Three of his party men did nothing in this regard. Soon after the 2008 blast on September 29, ministers Chaggan Bhujbal and RR Patil were holding a meeting at the government guest house in Malegaon and blamed the new attack on Students Islamic Movement of India. Another bigwig Baba Siddiquy reached there and he also toed the same official line. This made the people angry and they raised an up roar. However, the people of Malegaon are still good hearted as the brother of one of the accused Shabbir Masiullah. In the third week of August 2011 Jamil rushed and opened his brother’s workshop where the Anti Terrorists Squad had alleged that Shabbir had assembled the bombs. The National Investigation Agency sleuths entered it and took photos and sent Jamil out to fetch envelops in which they wanted to collect the soil for forensic analysis. They wrote out one page report and asked him to sign as witness. He refused because they had written that he had invited them to do investigation and collect the samples of earth. Till they called him he had no idea of them. There was no one called from the neighborhood to witness it. He was alone and they were a dozen and he was overwhelmed. So he signed. This condescending attitude on the part of the agency is similar to Pawar’s. The Muslims of India are not only equal to the rest of fellow countrymen but also respectable. Sending on errand like that smacks of patronizing, what else than deigning and looking down from above and prevailing upon him! Pawar had given inaccurate number of explosions of bombs on March 13, 1993 in Bombay. He was camping in the metropolis as the Defence Minister of India. He did that to restrain further exacerbation of the situation against the Muslims. However, the Chief Minister of Maharashtra Madhukar Naik publicly accused Pawar as the one behind the anti Muslim riots in the city. The deputy Municipal Commissioner GR Khairnar also maintained that Pawar, Bal Thackeray and Dawood Ibrahim were old cronies. To say all these is not to lessen the importance of what Pawar had said that the root cause of terror in India was the rath yatra of LK Advani. It had begun in September 1990 from Somnath, Gujarat, when there was terrible anti Muslim riots on the occasion of Ganesh immersion in Vadodra, and, it left a trail of violence, murder, rape, riots and arson in its wake. Advani’s progeny Narendra Modi was the chief architect of the yatra. Incidentally it has become a hobby horse for investigation agency to hunt Juhapura (a refugee camp for the displaced and disposed Muslims during 2002 pogroms) in Gujarat for all kinds of terrorist acts. For July 13, 2011 attack also the police reached there. Why would the agencies do it with the Muslim victims of pogroms of 2002 in Gujarat when there are other communities who have also been targeted for mob violence? If not Juhapura in Ahemdabad or Azamgarh in UP, then there are the wandering Jews of the Muslim community, like Subhan Quereshi alias Tauqeer. Only last month Intelligence Bureau identified him as the one behind 13/7. However the agency has now acquired new sights, as if after a cataract operation, perhaps. Now it says that the two planters are absconding in Nepal. (Asian Age, August 22)As if the duo Ramchander Kalsangra and Sandeep Dange were not enough that we have two more there. So why only two? In this juggling of words and statements the agency and the doughty politicians are engaged in evasion, instead of taking on terrorism head-on. Hemant Karkare had seized the truth of terrorism in a trice. The slain head of the Anti Terrorist Squad was no-nonsense man of probity and excellent professional abilities. He took office on August 1, 2008 and declared that there was no trace of SIMI in terrorist attacks of 2006 (Malegaon). (Urdu Times August 16, 2008) If anyone it is Karkare who deserves the highest tribute for fighting terrorism. He did not play politics but playing politics is the oxygen of the politicians. The local MLA of Malegaon Mufti Ismail did not join the other Muslim MLAs who visited Home Minister Chidambrum on August 17 in a delegation headed by the Chief Minister of Maharashtra Prithaviraj Chavan. He has a running feud with the family of one of the accused whom he thinks is in the pay of the police. The former veteran leader and long time MLA Nihal Ahmed regularly addresses Ismail as the khubri or police informer. The first step that the mufti put forward raised the eye brows of the serious minded people. In the May 2006 arms haul case the local police reportedly broke open a shop and took away CPUs full of RDX, Ak 47s, etc. Instead of doing panchnama or registration of the crime by calling the well established neighbours there and then as witness the police called the mufti several miles away from the site, at a place near the police colony around the church in Malegaon camp much afterward that too late at night. It was here that the mufti remarked that his head was cast down with shame that youths of his community had smuggled arms into the town and were caught. He put his signature on the report the police had prepared. The police as usual blamed the accused as members of SIMI. This matter also is a part of the imbroglio that Malegaon 2006 has become and has created fame worldwide as the explosions were made out to be fall out of the arms haul. The arms haul has serious bearings on the first terrorist attack three months later on September 8. What Hamid had told Abrar and the police had recorded has transformed itself into Zahid saying the same sentence to Abrar. What they could not bring into the town could be the RDX! Or, what more important is the material they are talking about? The mufti’s close association with former additional SP Mr Rajwardhan is the Gordon’s knot of the Malegaon 2006 blast case. At the instance of Rajwardhan Abrar Ahmed (the accused police informer) got his reliable friend Hamid Hussein Javid Iqbal phone to him (Abrar) and utter the sentence “mader chod , jitna bolna tha tu bol chuka ab sun. Hum logon ko jitna samaan gayab karna tha hum kar chuke magar hum isko gaon me nahin lasake.” (Mother fucker, what you had to say you have said. Now listen. Whatever material we had to take we have taken but we could not bring it into the town.) Hamid rang Abrar from a coin box at Pahelwan restaurant on Kidwai road in Malegaon and told him the above. The phone which Abrar had had the number 9823436809. It was the same phone that Rajwardhan had given Abrar. The phone call was made in the first week of October 2006, hardly a month after the first blasts in Malegaon. Abrar claims that Rajwardhan kept him in Jagtap farm house near Nasik where Lt Col Shrikant Prasad Purohit of the 2008 blasts case accused also stayed. He was treated to a feast with Purohit. Just before Id on October 25, 2006 the ATS were recording a statement of Noorulhodha, another accused in 2006 case. Noorulhodha was uttering threat to Abrar that Abrar was implicating others like Noorulhodha in the blasts case of 2006 in which Abrar was himself involved. The ATS made Abrar listen on a hand-free mobile the tape recording going on in another room. This double crossing of Abrar made him fall into the trap of the ATS, either he had to do as the ATS wanted or face conviction and imprisonment. The above incident Abrar has narrated in his affidavit and submitted it to the MOCOCA court of Justice YD Shinde on April 18, 2009. The trial has yet to begin. But if there is some truth in it, it would open a Pandroa’s box for all. It would reveal the wiliest way of fighting terror. That the army appointed Purohit as in charge of anti terror intelligence wing and the serving lieutenant colonel was framing up the nine accused. The ATS has charged Zahid of having spoken the sentence (“Mother fucker…”) to Abrar. This accused (Zahid) was imam of a mosque in Phoolsangvi village in Yawatmal, 500 km away from Malegaon. He was leading Friday prayer there on September 8, 2006 when the bombs went off in Malegaon and 37 Muslims were killed and hundreds injured. The police say he planted the bombs at the graveyard mosques! Is this how the ministers, investigation officials, politicians, muftis and Lt Cols of the army fight terrorism? What the people have failed to realize in all these is that high ranking officers in the police and investigation agencies are involved in the mess. Hence granting bail to the nine accused is no simple matter. It would be political expediency if the government sends its attorney general and the government prosecution withdraws the case against the nine. ---------- http://www.indianexpress.com/news/bjp-rath-yatra-root-cause-of-terrorism-in-in/371186/ Sharad Pawar “If ‘green terror’ is fine with them, why should ‘saffron terror’ upset them so much? Isn’t green too a colour in our national flag?” he said. (Hindustan times 29 Aug2010) http://www.hindustantimes.com/Pawar-promises-to-address-minorities-woes-in-iftar-speech/Article1-735637.aspx (Hindustan Times , August 21, 2011) He began by decrying the ‘unjust’ atmosphere prevailing in the country and said right wing terrorism was putting Muslim minorities to great trouble. “It is unjust and unfair that crimes are committed by one group and another hauled up for them and punished,” Tuesday, September 20, 2011 Farce of fast: mapping the mind of the heir apparent to Delhi sultanate 2014 The three days fast from September 17-19, 2011 that Narendra Modi had undertaken did not bode well for unity, harmony and peace either for his very own state or the country. Gujarat is his ‘very own’, yes, because he has a hallucination that Gujarat is he and he is Gujarat. There is no difference between the two. Perhaps his mantra of development has gone to his head. Or else why should he undertake such a huge publicity stunt of a makeover from ‘the merchant of death’ to ‘the sultan of governance’? Though he castigated the sultanate of Delhi (Congress rule), his overwhelming desire and hidden agenda is to acquire it for him only. However, the crux of the matter is that the ‘merchant of death’ has realized from day one February 28, 2002 that the genocide that he was unleashing on the hapless Muslims would have to be defended by subterfuges. Anyone in 21st century conducting such a course of action that too in a democracy knows the fate he will meet at the end. Luckily for him Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the central government and his own cabinet and the anti Muslim atmosphere in the aftermath of 9/11 played into his hands to execute the diabolic design known as the Hindutva experiment in the Gujarat laboratory, aptly called as the Final Solution. What he realized was the fall off of the deep conspiracy and the follow up was the subterfuge and cover up that would be required. That was also inevitable as he wanted to save his neck. He proved himself to be Dr Jekyll and Mr Hide for his ‘very own’ Gujarat. Therefore his makeover is in that direction of becoming ‘the sultan of governance.’ Those who saw through this diabolic design were never even once under any delusion. One of them was RB Sreekumar who kept his diary and other records and used them to show that it was nothing but genocide of Muslims. He even addressed an open later to Modi on the eve of the fast: “You have rewarded practically, all those govt. officers, who actively participated through their acts of commission and omission, in violation of their oath of allegiance to the Constitution of India, in the planning and execution of anti-minority genocide in 2002, after the most condemnable Godhra train burning incident. This genocide will remain an inerasable sinful blot on our country, particularly to the practitioners of Hinduism of Upanishad and Bhagvadgeeta.” To achieve the real spirit of fasting, Sreekumar advised Modi: “Kindly convert your fast as a yagna to exorcise from your mind the ideas of exclusivism, sectarianism and hatred of certain sections Indian citizens, indoctrinated by the Sangh Parivar.” The epithet ‘merchant of death’ was coined and used by Congress president Sonia Gandhi against him for the pogroms of Muslims in Gujarat 2002. That genocide was choreographed and conducted with impunity because the atmosphere of the state was so much vitiated by communalism that there was hardly any place for sanity left. However, there were a good number of people within the state and outside who were not tainted with it and they read the handwriting on the wall correctly. Among them were his own revenue minister Haren Panya, his chief of intelligence, RB Sreekumar, police officers like Sanjiv Bhatt, Rahul Sharma, a social worker Malika Sarabhai and many more like them. They had seen closely what was written all over his face from yore. In contrast to them there were lotus eaters or people who did not wake up from their self induced slumber of what was really happening in 2002. The home minister of the central government of India LK Advani, defence minister George Fernandes, Arun Jaitley, Arun Shourie, and many others. They showered praise upon Modi and even invoked his name to issue threat and terrorize the Muslims. This dichotomy persists even today full nine years after the pogroms and so does the double speak of Moditva, his espousal of Hindu rightwing communalism. His hatred for Muslims is unmistakable as he calls them miyan (a derogatory word for Muslims, hum panch hamare pachis (we five our twenty five, his Goebbels-type of repeating lies so often that it becomes truth to the mass of people. Few Muslims can afford five wives and have twenty five children. This saying is also derogatory classification of Muslims despite the contrary nature of truth.) He called the Ghanshi Muslims who live in Godhra as criminals and responsible for the fire on the train. There is no credible evidence for this that they were behind the burning of the compartment of Sabarmati express. He instructed his officers to allow Hindus to take revenge so harshly that the Muslim would never raise their head. Afterward he justified it according to the Newtonian law of action and reaction. He dared the Muslims to summon rain in their holy month of Ramadan as he had done in the Hindu month of saravan. Eyesores of his were the greasy dressed Muslims repairers of vehicles on the sides of the roads and highways. The most convincing proof of his hatred is his staunch position of a prachrak of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. The sangh is unequivocally the deadliest enemy of the Muslims despite their customary equivocation and façade of cultural nationalism that excludes Muslims. The result of the first day of fasting for unity or harmony ironically turns out to be the utter denial of moral responsibility. There can be no hope for either unity or harmony because Modi knows that there would be no forgiveness for the crimes he allowed his administration to commit. "What moral responsibility for riots am I being asked to take? My government did its best," Modi said. And the recurring prevarication of the Hindu right came out further when he referred to September 12 SC verdict: "Who's celebrating? I'm fasting. What verdict are you talking about? Is there a single FIR against me?" This hubris turned out to be his fatal flaw. He came to believe that no FIR was registered against him. But the truth is that the SC has granted the case to be tried in the trial court and for the first time the allegations against a sitting CM would be tried as well along with the 62 others. Jakia Jafri wanted FIR registered against Modi and others which the DGP PC Pande refused in 2005 and the HC dismissed out of hand in 2006. She appealed to SC in 2007. In 2011 the SC granted her leave. The judgment of the SC has come at a time when there is some glimmer of a hope that communalism is fading in Gujarat. The chances of Modi or his party coming to power at the centre is also bleak. The courts are remorselessly following the ten cases in which Modi is clearly involved. At such a juncture Modi has acted in real time to grab public attention lest he lose that any further thanks to the startling discoveries of the pogroms and the fake encounters. It is ironic that the US has been hoodwinked by the excitement of the development in Gujarat as has the magazine Society. There is also no denying the fact that the BJP party has come in power due to the communal divide over the Babri mosque momentum of the rath yatra of Advani, the demolition of the mosque and the horrible communal violence that seized the country. Therefore the more such communally divisive politics the greater the chances of the right wing party coming to power. The Hindutva iconic map of India on the stage at the Gujarat university auditorium and the absence of the posters of the iconic leaders of the party along with party flags there, were tell-tale of this. The focus is only on Modi and his development mantra. That is made out to give the message that he is most suitable for the country to lead it to progress and development. This is almost quite true but for the fact that this fan fare is meant to sideline the deeds of ‘the merchant of death’ for the sake of his chances as ‘the sultan of governance’ to rule the country. The chances of this backfiring are there. Sanjiv Bhatt dilates on one such when he narrates his experience in his open letter to Modi. “This is my 24th year in the IPS. I was allotted to the Gujarat cadre during a time when the State was passing through the throes of widespread and sporadic communal violence. Having been baptized by fire, I have been since trying to understand and deal with the likes of you, who deal in the divisive politics of hatred. It is my well founded observation that the polity of Gujarat has now crossed the stage where communal violence can accrue electoral benefits to any political party, as the process of communal polarization is very nearly complete in Gujarat. The experiments in the divisive politics of hatred have been very successful in the Gujarat Laboratory. You and your likes, in the political arena, have been largely successful in creating divides in the hearts and minds of the "Six Crore Gujaratis". The need to resort to any further communal violence in Gujarat is already passe.” “In a constitutional democracy like ours, it is incumbent upon the State to act in Good faith at all times and under all circumstances. Over the last nine and a half years many friends have fallen prey to the misleading campaign that the Gujarat Carnage of 2002 was a spontaneous reaction to the condemnable action at Godhra on the fateful morning of 27 February 2002. The Newtonian Law was never abused more. You had resorted to your knowledge and understanding of Newtonian physics in March 2002 and had sought to apply it to polity and governance at the peak of the Gujarat Carnage of 2002. But what you might have deliberately missed then, and what many of us seem to be inadvertently missing now; is the universally accepted principle of governance which mandates that in a constitutional democracy, an avowedly secular State cannot be allowed to be partisan. It was the bounden duty of the State to have anticipated and controlled the possible Newtonian reaction, if any; not orchestrate and facilitate systematic targeting of innocent individuals!” The above quote at length bares the Achilles heels of Modi that his credit for governance cannot cover up the murky deeds of Mr Hyde. On the first day of the fast Modi proved in letter and spirit that his sadbhavna or good will was but dushbhavna or enmity. His home department dismissed Sanjiv Bhatt from the job because he had given out the secrets of danseuse Malika Sarabhai’s PIL in which she had accused Modi of ordering secret service fund of ten lakh rupees to be given to her lawyers as a bribe so that they would derail her case of April 2002. She had demanded inquiry into Naroda Patia where more than a hundred Muslims were burnt alive. The exposure came on the second day of the fast and the home department asked Bhatt to remain present for inquiry on the third day of the fast. However, without taking into consideration his views he was dismissed for having remained absent from duty for ten months. Sanjiv Bhatt, Sreekumar, Teesta Setalvad, Mallika Sarabhai and others even Jagruti Pandya make a formidable front opposing Modi on moral and legal grounds. In another way the ‘regimentation terrorism’ (Louis Assange coinage) is opposed by various groups and it helps in throwing up even more dreary details. For example DG Vanzara as in charge of Ahmadabad city crime branch had planted arms in the houses of some Muslims of Dariapur on the 2002 Rathyatra day. This led to rioting and harassment of the Muslims, their arrest and torture. When Sreekumar reported this illegal act of Vanzara to the Commissioner of Police Ahmadabad the chief secretary KR Kaushik started an inquiry against him. This could not have come about without the approval of Modi. In a way his “intrinsic mind is not for good will to all”, especially the Muslims and those Hindus who refuse to toe his line of thought. He refused to wear the skull cap the Muslim divine presented to him on the second day though he had been donning the turban of the Sikhs, the flat hat of the Assamese, the cow boy cap, the decorative Himachal Pradesh cap of the Hindu farmers, the colourful tie and die turban of the Rajasthan people, the black cap of his own RSS, etc. The full import of the refusing to wear the cap offered by Sayed Imam Shahi Sayed could not sink into the mind of Modi because his “intrinsic mind is not for good will to all.” The imam is a sufi who lost his brother in 1993 Babri anti Muslim violence. Even then he travelled to the fast venue persuaded by Yasin Ajmerwala an activist of Rashtriya Muslim Manch of Indresh Kumar and was shocked at the refusal. The imam said in an afterthought: “He has been wearing caps, turbans of each community, but declined a Muslim one.” That the sufi Islam is pluralistic in essence as is symbolized by the mausoleum of Ajmer which Aseemanand wanted to target for bombing because even Hindus go there. This fact could not be lost on Modi. Even this accommodative Satpanthi sect has no place in the kind of India that the extremists among Hindus like Pracharak Modi envisage. The maulana made it even more explicit: "The refusal to accept the cap is not an insult to me but an insult to Islam." Modi acted again in real time when Sreekumar submitted his affidavit in response to Mallika Sarabhai’s demand that he do so in the matter of the “secret services’ money to bribe” her lawyers. Sreekumar had given his affidavit on the matter on Friday, the day when Modi’s home department also dismissed Bhatt from his job for his deposition of this matter before Nanavati-Shah Commission in May 2011. All this adds up to how the Commission must have leaked the crucial details in real time like the SIT who was wont to do in the investigation of the Sohrabuddin case and the pogrom cases. After the arrest of Amit Shah it was Modi who was solely running the department along with his tainted Home Secretary Antani. Let alone the PILs in the SC and the corroborative facts narrated by Modi’s DGP (intelligence) and his assistant, the media were very much there on the scene of the genocide. Like the chief minister of UP Kalyan Singh who did not order the police and military force at his command to stop the demolition of the Babri mosque, Modi also did not use the 9 columns of army at his disposal as reports indicated on March 3rd 2002 “Fernandes tried to insist on adequate army deployment", “but the state government’s uncooperative attitude ensured that lives that could have been saved were, in fact, lost. The government failed logistical information, for instance, on areas around Ahmedabad – Narod, Bapunagar, etc. - and the police refused to help the army (italics added for insight). As a result, the nine army columns made available to the state government were deployed only around noon on Friday. Flag marches began only in the evening. “(Hindustan Times 3.3.02) If this is not complicity on the part of Modi what else is it? How long will Modi and his party deny all this, albeit, give him certificate of being honest and most efficient? This makes the claim hollow that the police were outnumbered by the mobs. The police were themselves leading the attacks on Muslims. Even in demolition of the grave of a Muslim poet held in high esteem by even the Hindus was being demolished and the strike force of the police passing there by indicated the mobs to do a thorough and quick job of it! What will be the fate of democracy in India be if Modi were the Prime Minister in future? The past experience will help us to peep into the future as the media reports in the context of the genocide on March 3, 2002. “Opp MPs not allowed to tour Ahmedabad : A TEAM of MPs comprising Sitaram Yechuri, Shabana Azmi, Raj Babbar and Amar Singh were today denied permission by police to visit the riot-affected areas of Ahmedabad. The team that returned to Delhi, criticised the Gujarat government for the way it is handling the situation. After waiting for over three hours at the Ahmedabad police commissioner's office last night, an outraged Shabana said city police gave the absurd excuse that their presence would incite more violence. Speaking to mediapersons in New Delhi today, Samajwadi leader Amar Singh said: "We tried to visit some of the worst-hit areas of the city but we were asked for permits. Then we were told that if we wanted to go to any of those areas we should do it at our own risk," he said. He has already shot off a letter to Narendra Modi charging him of having let loose a "jungle raj" in the city. "We have been getting repeated calls from people stuck in trouble-torn areasforhelp but police are not allowing us into the city. (Indian Express 3.3.02) Those who ruled from Delhi in 2002 included a man who visited Gujarat full six days after the calamity that struck the state and the capital from which he has won elections successively till today. “Advani skirted most sensitive areas, including Naroda, Chamanpura and Bapunagar, and at the press meeting, he looked like he had yet to come to grips with the situation. Though he rapped the state administration over the mounting death toll, he seemed to buy the official claims of "tapering tensions" and effective administrative action (italics mine, for irony).” Given this mindset of the rulers who came to power in Delhi for the first time and the experience of their protégé in Gujarat the road looks metalled and well paved. But Modi is not exactly a fool. And this is also his subterfuge. He knows that a potential contender for the post of PM would never say what he said at the time of 2007 election. He had dared the central government to hang him for the killing of Sohrabuddin. He repeated it on the second day of the fast “fasad ke liye kusurwar hun to phansi do” (“Hang me if found guilty of the riots”. That is how the Urdu heading of the paper goes.) At times he does not realize that he is not speaking tongue in cheek. Euphemism and innuendoes have brought him to this fame. But can all this make the poster boy of Hindutva a suitable match for the Delhi sultanate? ------- http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Modi-bribed-my-lawyers-to-derail-PIL-on-2002-riots-Sarabhai/articleshow/10028796.cms Saffronised police show their colour (Hindu 3.3.02) Gujarat toll crosses 400, villages burn He also accepted the official count of deaths in police firing, which, according to locals, is questionable. (HT 4.3.02) http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Narendra-Modi-refuses-to-wear-maulanas-skull-cap/articleshow/10047403.cms Asia express (Urdu) September 19, 2011. “He has been wearing caps, turbans of each community, but declined a Muslim one” Indian Express September 19, 2011. When you concern with human beings without mark of caste, religion or nationality it is Commonalty. Thursday, November 17, 2011 Arrest and bail of 9 accused: pathology of Malegaon Human geography Overwhelming people in Malegaon are good natured. That does not exonerate them from the few who are in a pathological condition. They are of course not terror prone at all. Among the scourge that has exacted a terrible price from them is that the town is bustling with police informers. They would go to any extent to trap anyone for a trifling amount of money. There are also some who have “liaison” with police officers who use them in their nefarious design. There are those who display expensive ornaments in a gaudy show that they are so close (intimate?) to the authorities. They are so meager in possession that the gold is the symbol of having gained at long last the spoils of office and so they sashay and flaunt their decoration. Like Shakespeare’s characters in Measure for Measure they make even the highest officer fall victim to their charms. By being exceptional they have made Malegaon no less than the notorious towns of the old Bible, Sodom and Gomorrah. Thus adultery has come to stay. It finds manifestations. It subjugates the other better half to suit the ulterior designs of the rulers of the democratic set up of sorts. It is this exception that has made the town suffers for its being otherwise so teeming with the good hearted. Inversely speaking, looking at what the town went through a recourse to literature leads to the truth, by indirection find direction out, as Hamlet’s would be father in law Polonius says. In Joseph Conrad’s novel The Secret Agent there is a sensible woman of middle class background. She has a retarded brother and marries a fat secret agent. She hopes that her husband would be kind to her brother in return. The agent is used by the police as well as Russia which uses him to snoop on the British. The masters in Russia want him to plant a bomb. The agent gives the bomb to his brother in law and sends him to the weather observatory. It explodes and kills the poor differently abled. When she comes to know the secret design of her husband she kills him and tries to escape to a foreign country. The police and Hindutva groups keep a tab on even this unseemly side of life in the town. They have information of the age and gender of the child of the accused or children their kin have. Thus the registrar collecting the papers of bail and solvency from the nine accused lost her temper when the evening was “etherized upon the table like a patient.” When the people beseeched her to hurry up she flared up and even threatened to frame the twelve year old son of one of the accused in blast case. They protested that they would tell it to the media to check her move. Many of the accused have grown beards in the prison and others who already had made it wholesome as the five years had a bumper crop. One of the clean shaved was Abrar when he went to prison; and came out a bearded and clad in fashion able dress. In his affidavit of April 18, 2009 he speaks about Superintendant of Police Rajwardhan Sinha. The cop exhorted him to throw away the new shoes which had been badly used and are torn. Abrar wrote that the cop wanted to drive a wedge between him and his wife. His advocate brother Jalil says that the wife and brother in law of Abrar got him framed up in the case. She of course sought to be divorced and is rumoured to have married another person to get rid of the nagging past. Her past might be like that but not her hubby. How can either of them redeem from their past? He in jail desired her photo as a companion to dispel loneliness in the cell. She inadvertently gave the photos which reveal more than the espousal companion he sought. She refused to be his companion in despair in the words of the subtitle of Alan Paton’s novel Cry, the Beloved Country. Coincidentally she is the next door neighbor of a famous man nicknamed Khurshid bomb walla. In 1968 a bomb had exploded in Ghoti neibourhood of Aurangabad. It was traced to a worker of Khurshid for which the owner of power looms and his worker were arrested. Jalil blames the family of his brother’s wife as police informers. Thus history repeats itself for those who forget their past. In the meantime the people were celebrating the release of the accused little bothered by the Parliament accused Prof SAR Gilan’s counsel for caution, the release of an innocent accused is not a matter of celebration but a time for reflection. According to Swami Asimanand the police and the teachers bond well with the terrorists. The Zionist Crusade Against Palestinians 26 arch, 2009 The original crusades went on for two hundred years spread over several centuries of the Middle Ages. Another such albeit inverted crusade began with the birth of Israel and its unrelenting and merciless drive against the Palestinians in order to grab their land. The Gaza aggression (2008-2009) in which nearly 1400 mostly innocent Palestinians lost their life and thousands were injured was continuation of the same. There was genocidal instinct behind the so called Operation Cast Lead. Of the only about 10 Israelis killed most of them were victims of friendly fire. One of the tea-shirts in vogue and now worn by Israeli soldiers displays the belly of a pregnant woman marked with a bull’s eye with the caption: I shot, 2killed. Another depicts a mother weeping beside her dead baby and a teddy bear the caption reads “Better Use Durex”. Both are tell-tale symptoms of same instinct to exterminate the Palestinians so that the Jews can have the land for themselves. Neither the mourning mother nor the pregnant woman physically and immediately poses a challenge to the IDF and yet they must have been most wantonly killed in real of which it is a depiction. What was depicted was taken from the real action that went on for 22 days of December and January. According to the statement of the Israeli soldiers the rabbinate had exhorted them to show no mercy to the Muslims because it was against the tenets of their religion. Another depiction is of a bombed out mosque. There is so much of dehumanizing of the Palestinians that in one tea shirt a young woman is shown with bruises which she must have incurred as she had tried to resist the rape by the Israeli soldier and the writing beside it is “Bet you got raped!” A heart breaking scene of not showing mercy to the Muslims was the Shifa hospital where a Palestinian doctor was working. Dr Izzeldin Abuelash wept uncontrollably before the camera for the death of his three daughters aged 20, 15 and ten and a niece. Though he was not blaming the invading Jewish soldiers but there were many irate Israelis who shouted him down showing their anger that they had lost more and suffered more! Another instance of denying mercy was the killing of the nine year old Ibrahim, son of Kamal Awago. After killing him the Israelis took him by the leg and turned him and put him on a raised part for target practice and shot repeatedly! As these things were taking place, within Israel on a hill the Israeli civilians were enjoying the sight by eating ice cream as they watched from the ice cream stand how the bombers and Apache helicopters were taking off and shooting missiles at their random targets and phosphorus was sprayed causing pain and suffering on the ground some of which they could see with naked eye or through the binoculars. TIME reporter headlined the story: On the Gaza Border: Israelis Cheering on the Attacks. The startling revelation by the soldiers of the Israeli army about the Gaza war leaves no doubt it was a part of a resurrected crusade for our time. As one of them identified as Ram has remarked: “the rabbinate brought in a lot of booklets and articles and their message was very clear: We are the Jewish people, we came to this land by a miracle, God brought us back to this land and now we need to fight to expel the non-Jews who are interfering with our conquest of this holy land. This was the main message, and the whole sense many soldiers had in this operation was of a religious war.” Indeed the army rabbinate had tons of books and roomfuls of books which it must have distributed to the IDF soldiers that ignited them to an induced crusade against the gentile Muslims, here the Palestinians of the Gaza strip. This is pictorially borne out as the soldiers started wearing tea shirts with the motifs of the war written large on them. Another soldier called Aviv says: On the one hand they (Palestinians) don't really have anywhere to flee to, but on the other hand they're (IDF senior officers) telling us they hadn't fled so it's their fault ..” Aviv was a squadron commander and others told him “Yeah, any person who's in Gaza is a terrorist”' What else is this than the truth that the Israeli army did not discriminate between the civilians and the Hamas militia and this indiscriminate treatment of the civilians constitutes in the words of Richard Falk war crime of the greatest magnitude. Even the Israeli NGO called Physicians for Human Rights has found through its own investigation of what is another proof of war crimes: "attacks on medical personnel; damage to medical facilities and indiscriminate attacks on civilians not involved in the fighting." It further says: "Israel placed numerous obstacles in the course of the operation that impeded emergency medical evacuation of the sick and wounded and also caused families to be trapped for days without food, water and medications," the report said. One specific incident cited by it is that of a Palestinian father called Shurrab whose two sons were shot by Israeli forces as they drove toward the southern city of Khan Yunis on Jan. 16. "One of the sons died immediately, the other bled to death for 12 hours," the report said. "All that time the Israeli soldiers were within a short distance from the Shurrabs but did not provide any assistance despite the father's repeated requests." What is the cause of merciless repression of the Palestinians of Gaza by the cuss and cruel Israelis? The heart of the matter is the holy land. Jews and Muslims as well as Christians consider Jerusalem and the environs as their holy land. They fought the crusades to get it or retain it. In the past the Jews and Muslims united fought against the Christian crusaders. Today thanks to superiority in arms the Israelis are hell bent in exterminating the Palestinians. The people of Gaza are displaced people, uprooted from the West Bank and Israel. They were forced to migrate because of the terrorism unleashed upon them by the Zionist settlers in the Middle East. Many of the people of Gaza were born and grew up in the West Bank which the Israelis captured in the 1967 seven day war and drove them out. When the Hamas fighters fire rockets called Qassim into Israel they see it as the only way to fight against the injustice they suffer at the hands of the Israelis. It is the Israelis who are responsible for their diasporic existence today and of all their miseries. The Israelis mount their merciless attacks on them in order to break their will power so that the hope to return to their land of birth and their rightful homeland dies in them Shoe Throwing On Independence Day! 16 August, 2010 Kashmir valley’s crop of grapes of wrath will ferment more discontent than we have seen so far. Bullets and stones will erode whatever democratic pretensions we still have in our repertoire. How long can we pretend that the minors killed in police firing are guilty of an uprising that is not indigenous? They are now spotted at the forefront of protest marches. Uncharacteristically they are “overgrown children.” They are transfusing the anger and frustration of the last two generations into a new dawn that is unwilling to break the light on the horizon and leaving the rest of the place in utter dark. And now the minors are joined by the old. Abdulla Ahad Jan who threw his shoe at Omar Abdullah was very distinguished as an individual professional. As a policeman he never was inhibited by the awesome powers of the state or the Ikhwanis, a kind of vigilantes supporting the puppet governments. The Ikhwanis had let loose terror on the native village of Jan, Ajas in the 1990s. They had torched Jan’s house and shot in the arm of his son Showkat and crippled him for life because his father dared to criticize their atrocity. Even Jan’s nephew was a victim. Studying in UP he was suspected to be a terrorist and imprisoned for the past eight years. Jan, Showkat and the nephew are victims of the juggernaut of fighting terror in the valley and elsewhere which has veered off into outlawry. The fault does not lie in the groundlings in the valley but the rulers of Kashmir in Srinager and in New Delhi. Jan’s reaction was the harvest of the grapes of wrath in the passing summer of discontent in the valley. By calling him a psychopath the authorities have compounded the matter as is common there. It is strange that he had the sanity to find out this weapon to confront the authorities whom the victims view as occupiers of their land ala the shoe thrower at George Bush. Jan had rendered distinguished service as a police man and was awarded rewards and had completed his beat at the house of the state secretary on August 14 and brought home the salary of the month to run the house. How could he have any psychiatric problem? Psychiatric problems lie somewhere else. Angry protests either in Srinager or Rajkot are symptoms of certain maladies which have infected the polity and have grown a fungal culture of gross violation of human rights in the name of ruling the states. Narendra Modi of Gujarat was also disturbed by noisy protest on the same occasion of unfurling the tricolor for reasons best known to the people unless they are bigoted like him and his counterpart in the valley. Hectoring like “If you have bullets, we have courage" to students cannot be lost upon them unless they are myopic like him. His way of ruling his state did not bring peace to the state in the last ten years as he boasts. He had been involved in the state sponsored pogroms of 2002 and the series of fake encounters since then till today. That cannot be called “war on terror” by any means. It is in fact creating terror. Let alone physical courage what moral courage has he in the face of the ongoing disclosures over Sohrabuddin case to hector that the Centre is weak in confronting terror? Modi chose to cite the incidents past and present of disturbance of the Independence Day in the Kashmir valley and compares it with his Rajkot celebration which is disturbed by the Congress. How could the so called stone pelters be equated with the Congress workers? Mahagujarat Janata Party and National Students Union of India are not by any standard like the disgruntled populace of the valley. Even on the Independence Day Modi’s vow to fight terrorism is base on what Pramod Muthalik observed on the sacred day to our memory: “there is only one terrorism in India and it is Islamic terrorism.” But what Modi himself told on the night of February 27, 2002 was asking the Hindus in Gujarat to vent their anger on the Muslim for three days beginning with the VHP and BJP call for strike the next day. It was letting loose terror on the Muslims. His ADGP BR Sreeekumar and Hiren Pandya who revealed this secret to the world were the first shoe throwers. Expressing one’s outrage at injustice and falsehood is shoe throwing, be it physical or figurative. The Quagmire of Terrorism: BJP Ruled States 09 May, 2010 Long lingering suspicion about BJP’s tampering with investigation into terrorism is now out in the open. This ultranationalist Hindu party is never shy of defending the ultranationalist accused in terrorism. The change of government in Rajasthan has started a process that is snowballing into a huge humiliation for the party if it can bring itself to feel it. There is every reason that it would not feel, nay go out attacking the Congress and other parties since communalism is its life force. In the Ajmer bomb blast it is only now that BJP is not in power that the truth is coming out. There is fear that the arrest of Devendra Gupta would reveal the ‘fountainhead’ of RSS’s link to Ajmer blast. It is equally relevant to note how subsequent to the arrest of the RSS volunteer Gupta the Supreme Court has declared narco test illegal. The general secretary of RSS Suresh Soni has since then and may be only because of it said that the RSS has relieved Gupta of all responsibilities. People in Jaipur now want a fresh probe in May 2008 attack and they believe that the investigation was waylaid because of the police under the leash of their political bosses of BJP. Association For Protection Of Civil Rights (APCR) is convinced after the disclosure in the Ajmer case of involvement of RSS and BJP. Among the members is Mr. Sawai Singh, convener Sadbhav Manch Rajasthan, who said “we advised the investigating agencies in the very beginning to keep all possibilities at hand and not to spare any one from the investigation.” He believes that the erstwhile BJP government rode its hobby horse of communalism even when terrorists’ acts pointed finger at the extremists among the Hindutva groups There is a clear pattern emerging from all over the country. The police keep Muslims under their scanner and frame them whenever any terrorist act takes place. They don’t bother to even casually look at the involvement of Hindu organizations. Unless the Indian society is divided on communal lines who would bother about BJP and hence to keep the pot boiling they connect terrorist acts with Muslim youths. That creates the desired impression against the Muslims and gives rich dividends at polls because the accusation raises the paranoia of the people. BJP plays upon their susceptibility. It is easy to mouth a platitude like terrorism knows no religion and a terrorist has no religion. Religious texts have been appropriated to the end of terrorist attack according to all kinds of terrorists irrespective of which faith they follow. Mohammad Atta overtly used lines of Koran to justify what he did. Arun Shouri has also made clear that the Hindu scriptures lend a very violent interpretation in which terrifying attacks can be justified as self preservation. Indeed, one such self preservation was the matter of job reservation for backward Muslims under Sachhar commission recommendations. Shourie threatened the minority that if they persist in demanding it then nobody would stop Narendra Modi from going to Delhi (read, from becoming the Prime Ministe of India) and put them to mortal risk as he did in 2002! Bal Thackeray wrote to the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that job reservation for Muslims would make Shiv sena start a civil war in the country. He often spoke of the third of eye of Shiva opening when his sainiks were slaughtering Muslims in the resurgence of violence beginning in the second week of January 1993. But there is a major difference between perpetrators of terrorism from Hindu and Muslim folds. We had always known the involvement of the ISI in terrorist attacks in India. We had also known for quite a long time that the Indian army was most secular in outlook while dealing with internal disturbance. Malegaon attacks as well as Samjhauta express attacks have changed that. A couple of days before Hemant Karkare was shot dead he had visited New Delhi along with senior ATS officers to apprise the higher echelon of the government that there was disturbing enlargement of involvement of the army in terrorism and that has serious repercussion for the country. It was like what Ashish Nandi said of the vanner sena or the monkey brigade taking up terrorist reprisal. That it is not just the army but what has been obviously felt by many but never uttered that BJP rule is also skewed by terrorism. Even a senior journalist like Kuldip Nayyer is troubled: “Authoritative sources in Delhi suspect that Madhya Pradesh, where the BJP government is in power, has become a safe sanctuary for the Hindu outfits. Hindu Jagran Manch from Indore in the state is considered by the Maharashtra police responsible for the Malegaon blasts which killed 37 Muslims ( in September 8 2006 blasts).” Should Indore be added as another hub of terrorism? It also does not come as a surprise since it fits in jigsaw of terrorism that Jatin Chatterjee aka Swami Asimanand is hiding in Gujarat. Chief Minister Narendra Modi gifting money to Asimanand is a documented fact. His wreaking havoc on the converted tribals is also well known. He was sighted at an ashram on Saturday April 1.If Alice were to be born again it would be in the wonderland of Gujarat! Narco test though abrogated by the SC cannot be simply like throwing the baby with the wash water. It did leave vital clues like Srikant Puohit revealing the names of Swami Asimanand and Ramji Kalsganra. Both are absconding and supposed to be ‘hibernating’ in Gujarat. Will they too be given signal to come out when all is quiet on the western front as Babu Bajrangi was given? Gujarat is the laboratory of Hindutva and RSS is doing the experimentation. Dr SB Munje had visited Italy to find out how larger number of people could be killed. RSS never believed in the Constitution albeit it hides its own constitution like it hides so many other things. Denial is its standard tactic to ward off suspicion and the more it does the greater is the suspicion. LK Advani often denies that Nathuram Godse was a member of RSS. The world knows better than Advani and Soni. If a proper and impartial investigation is done in Sunil Kulkarni’s death it would also lift veil of secrecy that RSS was connected to the secret plan to blow up the huge Bhopal mosque where a Muslim congregation of tabligi jamat was taking place. May be truth would come out once BJP is removed from power in MP. Maut ka Saudagar And His World! 06 August, 2010 Satan and his rebellion against the almighty gave birth to sin and death. Sin was born to him and he also cohabited with it and brought death in the world. When he wanted to leave hell to go to heaven Satan saw sin and death with dogs begotten by unnatural coupling of sin and death guarding the gate of hell. If there is any image that can capture the horrors of Gujarat since 2002 it is this that comes to the mind. The arrest trail of the holygrail that is Swami Asimanand in the Dangs and the rigmarole over the bail of Babu Bajrangi, and Abhay Chaudasma’s claim that he had saved Sohrabuddin from getting mired into Haren Pandya murder show new evidence that the parent body of the sangh family RSS has birthed so many. RSS does not hold even the Hindu women anywhere equal to men. Kauserbi like many other of her coreligionists was a victim of a much wider campaign. RSS and VHP had distributed a pamphlet in the Bajrang Dal training camps for three months leading to the Godhra accident and the pogrom subsequent to it. They had exhorted Hindus not to hesitate raping and killing Muslim women following how VD Savarkar had chided Hindu kings for not raping Muslim women when they conquered their enemy. Irrespective of the ‘cultural nationalism’ espoused by RSS, Kauser was a truly Indian woman. She stiffly resisted the police when they were arresting her husband Sohrabuddin. She told them “main apne shauhar bina nahin gina chaheti” (I do not want to live without my husband.) They contacted Amit Shah Gujarat Minister of State for Home under the Home Minister Narendra Modi who ordered them to arrest her as well. Her husband was killed on November 26, 2005. Why did the police take two more days to finish her? They had raped her in the meantime. During this they also took her to Rajasthan police to take charge of her. When the Rajasthan cops refused Vanzara contacted Shah who told them to kill her as well. Vanzara made such an elaborate arrangement to have her cremated in his palace like farm house in Ilol and then disposed off the ashes. There are two versions. According to the first her ashes were thrown into the well of the farm house and a slab of concrete built over it. The other is that the ashes were taken to Narmada River and thrown into it. Abhay Chaudasma found all this very bizarre. This falls in line with what had transpired at the time of the pogroms of which the fake encounters are an adjunct: “women seared, fetuses displayed, children watching rapes, the killing of raped women and then the burning of the dead bodies so that evidence was destroyed.” The method in this madness was the systematic training that was on in the state. Much afterward Amit Shah casually remarked in the presence of top police officers of Gujaat that Kauser must have run away with someone to Pakistan. This was an innuendo showing the scant regard for women the same training has inculcated in the cadres. So it is not the chicks but the broiler the investigators should go after and ultimately the original broiler. That leads to the murder of Haren Pandya and his father Vithalbhai’s screaming claim that it was a political murder. RSS is believed to have killed Sunil Joshi in order to destroy trail of conspiracy and terror hatched by its top pracharaks. It is now well known that Haren Pandya had revealed to the Citizens for Justice and Peace what had transpired in the meeting at the house of Chief Minister Narendra Modi in the night of February 27, 2002. His day light murder shortly after this on March 26 2002 needs to be examined in the light of this “politics of terror” Modi was playing. Like Ishrat Jehan murder there was no blood or bullet mark on the seat of his car. This is what his widow has said. The poor woman’s disbelief at the way things happen and investigations carried on is shared by Kavita Karkarer and Vinita Kamte. But what status has the women howsoever wives of the killed in the society created by the right wing Hindutva? Like John Milton’s description of hell above crime begets crime and when everyone concerned is a product no one is above or beyond the murky hell. Deputy Commissioner of Police Chaudasma a creator/creature of this hell like his ultimate boss Modi put it this way to Azam Khan witness no 4 of CBI: “main Sohrabuddin ka bahut achha dost tha aur maine hi usko Haren Pandya murder case mein ulajhne se bachaya tha”. (I was a good friend of Sohrabuddin and had saved him from getting stuck in the Haren Pandya murder case). What are the antecedents of the gory tale of Kauser and Pandya? Going by what has been revealed it is quite clear that the police like their counterparts in the rest of the country are long entrenched in corruption. Hafta or installments paid regularly is preferable. They find out the source like extortion money collected from marble and textile traders. They employ people like Sohrabuddin and Tulsiram Prajapati. But they also have spring fall of supari or contract to kill and double cross their agents. So it could be that some very powerful person gave supari to Sohrabuddin to kill Pandya. Who that person could be is as mysterious as who is the one who got Sunil Joshi killed. The Lock Step Conformity Of America 10 July, 2009 It is pitiful to note that the United States mocks its own Yankee pragmatism when it comes to the Palestinians and women. This is even more pronounced in the days of the administration of President Barack Obama. From the day his aides removed Muslim women in hijab from a photo session to his highly exceptionable silence over the detention of former Georgia Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, Nobel Peace Laureate Mairead Maguire and others by Israel he smacks of a Democratic pretender. The boat the Spirit of Humanity was seized on June 30 and 21 people abducted and kept in prison and released on July 5. The Americans who spent their July 4th Independence Day in Israeli jail were Cynthia, Adam Shapiro, a film maker, and Kathy Sheetz, a nurse and film maker. The UN rapporteur Richard Falk called the seizure unlawful and the Israeli blockade of Gaza a continuing crime against humanity. During his election campaign he facilely accepted the resignation of Samantha Power. She was ‘forced’ to leave the campaign not because she had said that America opposes genocide one day and yet it defends it the very next day in the UN but for calling Hillary Clinton a bitch in an informal situation. The former is very often repeated when it comes to the genocidal policies and practices of Israel. Such is the lock step conformity of all the US administrations vis-à-vis Israel that one wonders whether it is Israel which is running America. This is true despite the fact that Obama rules the United States of America and not the United States of Israel. The Democratic party is known for its concern for the minorities and intellectuals. It is also true that the Americans are still not ripe enough to have a woman president. Why had the hijab of a couple of women in a crowd posed any danger that the head scarf-ed women were removed from the scene, and they his admirers! In this the Americans are not what in another context Martin Kingsley calls fully evolved society. Many events that have taken place over the years poignantly bear this out. An American white Christian woman protesting Israeli demolition of Palestinian houses was crushed to death by a bulldozer. It did not cause any ripple in the water of frigidity of the American conscience. The then president of the US did not bother to make any statement. On the other hand when Somali pirates kidnapped a private US citizen Obama sent American bombers to rescue him. More appalling than anything is the most savage system of imprisonment in Israel. How failed is Israel as a state is exemplified by the awful prison of Ramle, one of the gulags of our time. There are people there who have not committed any crimes and do not know whether they would be ever released. Many of them are from Arab countries and have no legal help and embassy contact as they are denied both. Their being “trapped in despair” is the reason why they so raptly hear the lectures of Captain Denis Healey who tried to take humanitarian aid to Gaza in his ship, DIGNITY. They also want to learn navigation and sail on the blue waters of the deep seas around the world rather than waste their life in the Israeli prison. Will their dream ever come true! There are the proud Ethiopians who ended up there in their search for a better life! One can only hope against hope that things would turn for the good of all. The imprisonment of Cynthia McKinney and Mairead Maguire shows that the silence of Obama and his administration is an eloquent confession of how the closest and most reliable ally, Israel, practices the grossest violation of human rights and dignity. The US record was tarnished by its invasion of Iraq and the notorious Abu Gharib prison and the Guantanamo detention centre and the ill famed extraordinary rendition. Further, its record is made murkier by its close association with Israel and its complicity in what Israel is doing. Or else why are Obama and the mainstream media silent over the Cynthia McKinney affair. She along with 21 others had taken token humanitarian help to Gaza which included food, medicine, crayon and cement, etc. Speaking symbolically and connotatively she remarked: “The Israelis high-jacked and arrested us because we wanted to give crayons to the children in Gaza.” “Zionism has surely run out of its last legitimacy if this is what it does to people who believe so deeply in human rights for all that they put their own lives on the line for someone else's children. Israel is the fullest expression of Zionism, but if Israel fears for its security because Gaza's children have crayons then not only has Israel lost its last shred of legitimacy, but Israel must be declared a failed state.” Let alone debating and contesting the import of such soul searing indictment, the government of America and the media have maintained deliberate studied indifference to the whole affair. They are so much under the thralldom of the Jewish lobby! However the moment they hear the Zionist twitter on ‘holocaust’ and ‘never again’, they begin to chirp and look over their shoulders to see that others have noted their chirp. The Israelis had looted all of the belongings of those who sailed in the boat along with the humanitarian aid. The hijacked were forced to borrow an old phone from somewhere in the prison from another prisoner to send their message. Cynthia’s Independence Day message makes the celebration ceremony a parody of the truth. The enforced silence on certain matters is so jealously maintained that there is a total black out on them. Only now has the US army accepted that Israel has nuclear weapons though it was known to almost every country in the Middle East as well as the world thanks to Mordechai Vanunu. Behind the towering walls in occupied land Israel is drilling for oil. This is a plausible truth of our time. Will the world also wait for half a dozen decades for the US government to officially find it out and acknowledge it as true? Kashmir: A View From The Plain 22 August, 2010 The Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has said that if there is consensus the government would consider autonomy for Jammu and Kashmir. Still there is no sign of mentioning it a second time let alone moving a resolution in the parliament. In the meantime Bal Thackeray threatened on the eve of the Independence Day: “Autonomy to Kashmir? It is the limit!” (Kashmir la swyatta? Hud jhali! ). His words show he has reached the flash point and would not take it anymore. “Why this autonomy! And for whom?! (kasli swayatta! Aandi kuna sathi?) Parsing the exclamatory and the interrogative would reveal that how could a region of India have autonomy that is not already there in India itself. But the question mark on the identity of the people seeking identity is to him more horrifying to say the least. “Unfortunately if it is at all given the country will be flung into an abyss, just imagine.” (jar durdevane dilich tar saara desh kontya kahdit lotla jaeel teyachi kalpana kra.) Bal Thackeray lives far from Kashmir but has the potential to raise the temperature to boiling point elsewhere especially in Maharashtra. His musclemen have the freedom to physically assault Syed Ali Gilani, the Hurriyat leader in Jammu thanks to the police. They could dig up cricket pitch, ditto! Given this kind of law and order situation it would not be surprising that this time around it would be hell let loosed. In 2008 agitation against the revocation of grant of land for the pilgrimage to Amarnath Jammu and Indore and other parts of the country saw sheer terror. In contrast the people of the valley fed and housed the stranded pilgrims and showed no hatred for them for being Hindus. While at the same time the Muslim drivers passing through Jammu were assaulted brutally and even killed and trucks looted. Not only there but also in Punjab! This kind of inhuman reprisal in Jammu and the selected parts of the rest of the country shows how the Hindu right is ready to coerce the government. Shiv Sena and BJP cannot brook any concession to either the Kashmiris or the Muslim minority in the country. On the provisions made for the poor and backward Muslims in Sachchar Committee recommendations Thackeray wrote to the PM that it would lead to civil war. Such is the communally charged situation in the country and the nefarious politics being played over it that the oil slick off the shores of Mumbai by the collision of ships and the overturning of a tanker on road the ecological danger is not viewed as serious as the autonomy in the far off region of the country. Instead of clearing the sea of the oil the supporters of Thackeray and his nephew are engaged in competitive politics of having more Marathi films screened in multiplexes. What else is this if not the communal consideration of the agitation in valley and the carrot of autonomy dangled by the PM? Like much else things are viewed from a communal angle in the plains of India. There is no doubt the situation and the mindset of the Kashmiris are affected by the barbarity often seen in communal riots and pogroms against the Muslims in particular following Babri demolition and the Godhra incident. That has exacerbated the situation and hardened the minds but the present stone pelting protest is a different matter altogether. There is nothing communal and the stone pelters are not aiming to kill any police even when they get hold of any one once in a blue moon. However on the other hand the genocidal tendency in the police is widespread. A policeman chased a five year old Athar and shouted at him while the kid ran into his house: “Hum mar dalenge. (We will kill you).” It is another incident that even in treating the incidents of street protest as a matter of breaking law of strict curfew order the anger and reply of the paramilitary shows what is latent is becoming manifest. The rest of the country is as much in the dark of the truth of the events as is the chief minister Omer Abdullah himself who taunted that: “If his life had been so important, why didn’t the other two boys pull him out.” He is talking of a boy who was mauled with rifle butts and when he was having seizures the CRPF jawans threw him into the water so that his death would be passed off as drowning. But the boy recovered and struggled in the water and at that point the soldiers fired tear gas canister at him. The post mortem report shows that he received injuries on head and died. Truth is the first casualty of the ongoing operation against the protests. It is evident in the case of the Chief Minister himself. The police officer supervising the scene and the diver who went into the bottom to fish out the body of Faizan came up and raised his thumb but dived again with a small rope and tied the body to something in the water so that it would not emerge in the day light. But it came to the surface and that is how the world came to know about the truth of the boy! With such startling disclosures it is quite possible that there would be change in the perception of truth in the plains of India. Indian civilization is much older than Kashmir and the moorings of civilization cannot be washed away by a few years of insurgency or counterinsurgency. Nor can the temporary turbulence of rabble rousers like Thackeray or Pramod Muthalik or the brief “frozen turbulence” of a governor of the region. The Amarnath pilgrimage is still on for which Muthalik has called for the cancellation of the tax of two thousand rupees per pilgrim. In this age of corporate business even communal violence is also a commodity. You can order a riot by paying seventy lakh rupees to Muthalik and his Sri Ram Sene and you can have it anywhere you like. But the shell is broken and truth is peeping out! Saamna August 14, 2010. Mother Speaks. Danish Nabi, Kashmir Times, July 28, 2010 He flays Kashmir govt’s move to impose tax on Amarnath pilgrims. Deccan Herald. August 1, 2010. August 21 Am A Pacifist. But Here’s Why I Want To Be A Stone-Pelter Zahid Rafiq,Tehelka. August 21, 2010. Chapter 15 Ill fares the land and hastening ills a prey where RSS divides and creates bloodbaths In my book Elephant in the room: radicals and the radicalized I have argued that imaginary fear that is crafted by the right wing leaders like Modi and Advani not only polarized India but also produced suffering for the minority Muslims. There is no sign of suffering ceasing in near future despite the Bihar result of November 8, 2015. They had created fear of Muslims swarming over the land because of their rise in population and their getting jobs marrying girls from Hindu community had led to the pogroms in Muzaffarnagar in 2013 and the horrendous act of barbarism in attacking the family of Akhak and then justifying it. If RSS can justify as it did and also give reason of Vedic edict of killing those who kill cows then this surely shows that the RSS is the arch enemy of living together. They rake up any issue to polarize the society along communal lines cause riots and make the Muslims suffer intermittently. Thus on November 10, 2015 people in the district of Godago in Kanataka were celebrating the birth anniversary of the 18th century secular king of Mysore. RSS and its religious wing VHP decided to not only oppose it but attack the opponents. In Medkary the attack took place when the police were in force. In controlling the mobs the police caned the assailants and the VHP leader Katappa died and thirty others were injured. Among present day stalwarts of dividing people is Modi and Shah who cannot pale into eclipse the gang of four—Advani, Yeshwant Sinha, Shanta Kumar, Murli Manohar Joshi—because it is after all the ideology and the ideologues of RSS who rule the roost. In contrast is the Samajrwadi Party leader Azam Khan demanded Modi on England tour to bring the ring of Tipu Sultan with Ram engraved on it. And also the Kohinoor diamond in the crown of Queen Elizabeth with whom he would be dining. Modi’s sinister design in telling the Biharis that their reservation in jobs will be jeopardized as it would be given over to “some communities” (read, Muslims) failed to divide the Bihari voters. Modi also had used polarizing tactics of fighting his election of 2002 against Mian Musharraf seems to have continued and swayed the people of Gujarat by living apart from their Muslim neighbours even 14 years afterward. This phobia of the other is the elephant that is making India and not Pakistan moth eaten. Whether the Pakistanis burst crackers over the victory in Bihar is their whims and internal matter. Why throw the acid in the minds of the Indian Muslims, hathi chale Bihar phunke hazar, the elephant is going to Bihar and is trumpeting thousands of time. The message and intent is: divide and rule. http://thewire.in/2015/11/12/the-elephant-in-the-room-that-bjp-dissidents-arent-ready-to-talk-about-15421/ Sidhart Bhatia Chapter 16 Snippets Abandoning one’s child in Tirumkeshwar kumbh mela, fair Reshma and father Gauri Yadav, in the days when the PM wants parents to send selfi of their daughter/daughters there are parents who disown their daughters This happened on September 25, 2015 at the crowded bus station meant for pilgrims going to the Kumbhmela at Tirumbkeshwar in Nasik district. Gauri Yadav from UP left his six year old Reshma at the bus station and tried to flee in a bus without his daughter. She wept profusely and screamed for her papa. The police noticed her in her berserk abandonment. Then suddenly a cop realized that her father must have boarded the bus that was leaving. The cops stopped the overcrowded bus and checked every passenger. None said that their daughter was deserted there. Then the cops brought Reshma and she identified her biological father. The police asked him and others of his family to get down and took them to the police check post, they registered the case and remonstrated Gauri and then let him take the girl! The good hearted cops were Dinkar Bhandarwar and Vikrant Jamadar. Reshma was so scared and crying loudly she could not either give her name of that of her father. Sakaal September 26, 2015 ----- New highs of barbarity. In Saharanpur on February 16, 2015 Jehangir (24)was beaten by four youths Sarang Joshi, Shashank Singhal, Anoop Garg and Nitin at Pansari market over parking issue. He received ante mortem injuries. On February 18 the traders struck against the murder charges police leveled against the four. Haider Ali in Philbhit UP was a dealer in cow and oxen. In June 2015 he was caught and beaten and then tied to a motor cycle and dragged in the village. . http://indianexpress.com/article/cities/lucknow/muslim-youth-dies-of-injuries-family-alleges-police-apathy/#sthash.gZHfbVbR.dpuf Shakir worked in Easyday supermarket in Mangalore on August 26, 2015. His colleague requested for lift. As he was with the Hindu girl the moral police stopped him, stripped and tied him to a pole and assaulted him. http://indianexpress.com/article/cities/bangalore/moral-police-strike-again-in-mangalore-youth-stripped-beaten-in- public/#sthash.Nzj3y9Cm.dpuf Deepak Kale of Dharavi leadther shop http://www.rediff.com/news/special/meet-the-hindu-who-lets-muslims-use-his-shop-as-a-mosque-for-free/20151016.htm?pos=3&src=NL20151017&trackid=7MGeiBNRiOgHpjiU22XIw0UhYgsPCBFedrAsNDfdS8Q=&isnlp=0&isnlsp=0 Abdul Gani of Sewri in Mumbai went to see a relative in the hospital caring for tuberculosis patients. After a couple or visits he discovered that the relatives had simply dumped their relatives there and never bothered to care for them. When he would buy food for the patient whom he visited the others stared at him with hungry eyes. He started buying food for them as well. Then he discovered ‘the others’ how they were rendered derelicts. He not only buying them food but found that the doctor had given 18 bodies of dead Muslims to a charitable trust for the final rites. It shocked him. Since 2005 he has been burying the abandone at his expenses of nearly 3000 rupees for one at the Naryal nagar cemetery. In the last five years he has buried 250 such derelicts. He has now contacted ambulance service for the needy. Inquilab October 19, 2015 Sindhur Singh, Haresh SinghKatoch, Bal Bahadur singh, and Virendra Singh caught for murdering Md Zahid Rasool Bhatt on October 9, 2015. Guest A guest is a good sign. He brings new atmosphere. We must change our daily habits to make him feel happy. Going silent after his arrival is bad. You were never silent otherwise and see that you are talking and not keep mum. Sleep and let others sleep Arthur road jail is where there are so many prisoners that their feet touch the heads of those who are down in the row next to them. When the feet meet the heads of others there is noise and shouts bad words. Prisoners curse each other and that leads to fights. But you live in your houses where the condition is not as worse as the jail. What does not make you sleep is the atmosphere. What others do and how they live keeps you away from sleep. Sleep early and wake up early and go to school or work,that is how best you can live a better life. Cocks crow in the morn to tell us to rise And he who lies late will not be wise. School home work in living together Film celebrity Amir Khan in a school programme in October 2015 said that every child is an individual and a teacher should pay heed to his individuality. This remarkable way of realizing the other in a humane manner creates the best milieu for learning. Therefore parents should reciprocated it by asking whether their child made someone smile or laugh in the class as well as how many did he help in their life. Such a regimen of asking inculcates the finest result in living together. Live as if you are the only Bible somebody would ever read The American writer and humourist Mark Twain had a difficult time in reading the bible when onanism and such things were horrigying to him but not to the believers. The saying that one should live as if he is the only Bible somebody ever read is peak test of how one should live. On the last Friday of ramzan the imam prayed for the emancipation of husbands terrorized by their wives. I wondered at his one sided approach. A couple of days later I approached him why did he not ask Allah for the deliverance of wives who have been made to bear severe afflictions brought about by their husbands. Their trauma and tribulations exceed far beyond their husbands’. He was lost in his surprise and could not make sense of my question. His eyes spread out and his facial changing contours indicated that he was struggling to figure out what was something quite new. As if it was a new toy of puzzle he wanted to get the knack of it. Then he realized the truth what the better half deserve. He shook his head and began to smile. To read only one book is not bad but as Tariq Ramzan says that Muslims must have well informed and learned discourse or dialogue with others. A newly inducted reciter of the Quran bemoaned what could he do to wake up before 9 in the morning. The occasion was his father’s intense anger at him for wasting time with friends on the previous night and not driving his mother home by their own rickshaw. His enjoying friends’ company had made his mother wait at her father’s house when it was getting quite late. He could however do household work or coach students in the reciting of the holy book for a consideration. If not any such thing he could have gone out for exercise in fresh air in the open fields in the morning and simultaneous thought of living better with others as well as with his father. It reminds one of Mark Twain. In his Letters from Earth Satan writes of Bible: “It is full of interest. It has noble poetry in it; and some clever fables; and some blood-drenched history; and some good morals; and a wealth of obscenity; and upwards of a thousand lies.” The two Testaments are interesting, each in its own way. The Old one gives us a picture of these people's Deity as he was before he got religion, the other one gives us a picture of him as he appeared afterward. - Letters from the Earth The Christian's Bible is a drug store. Its contents remain the same; but the medical practice changes...The world has corrected the Bible. The church never corrects it; and also never fails to drop in at the tail of the procession- and take the credit of the correction. During many ages there were witches. The Bible said so. the Bible commanded that they should not be allowed to live. Therefore the Church, after eight hundred years, gathered up its halters, thumb-screws, and firebrands, and set about its holy work in earnest. She worked hard at it night and day during nine centuries and imprisoned, tortured, hanged, and burned whole hordes and armies of witches, and washed the Christian world clean with their foul blood. Then it was discovered that there was no such thing as witches, and never had been. One does not know whether to laugh or to cry.....There are no witches. The witch text remains; only the practice has changed. Hell fire is gone, but the text remains. Infant damnation is gone, but the text remains. More than two hundred death penalties are gone from the law books, but the texts that authorized them remain. - "Bible Teaching and Religious Practice," Europe and Elsewhere It is strange that Mark Twain’s books were banned for immorality content but not the Bible. “When one reads Bibles, one is less surprised at what the Deity knows than at what He doesn't know.” - Mark Twain's Notebook Chapter 17 The mentally disturbed and their human rights to live together in the family The death of 25 mentally ill patients in a mental asylum in Tamil Nadu on August 5, 2001is a reminder of how several factors including social factors and not just poverty alone that make people dump their mentally ill relatives and leave them there for good and thereby make the hospital a hostel. Many of them are of course cases of schizophrenia. If a girl grows into a spinster and acts in any unusual manner she becomes a schizophrenic. The chances of her younger sister marrying someone is rendered bleak and therefore the relatives dump her in the mental hospital or simply neglect here, sweeping her under the carpet for a better impresson on tothers, as it were. Such a girl thinks herself unwanted and then withdraws from society. Her loneliness is a blight on her life. Finding no succor from her relative she becomes an outcast woman. Whether she lands in a mental asylum or the street is too difficult for her to know. She is a derelict from now on. She is willfully abandoned by her own people. The plight of such a derelict is made worse by the dereliction of responsibility of the state authorities as well as the dereliction of duty of the society at large. In essence it constitutes a grave violation of the human rights. The tragedy of the Ervadi asylum of Tamil Nadu is a grim reminder of humanity’s treatment of its own mentally sick. Do the relatives not know that they are leaving thir own flesh and blood to the hoodlums of the so called mental hospitals—hardcore alcoholics, womanizers and marijuana addicts? The ‘asylum racket’ is the breeding ground of human rights abuse. It was reported that 2000 patients poured in the asylum of Ervadi every day. The asylums are run by people who have no idea of mental health, not to speak of having the train in dealing with the mentally sick. Those who can afford to pay Rs 2000 a month keep their mentally sick there where as the poor keep their mentally ill there for two or three days and then go back to their home towns. Most of the patients are women and they meet their worst f ate. There. They have been raped by the employees of the asylums; some were no doubt unaware of what was done to them. And those who have b physically resisted out of pure instinct rather than reason or any morals have been beaten up badly. As if their tattered clothes, matted hair, sunken eyes and pale face with blanks and helpless eyes and wounded ankles injuries on account of shackling were not enough, they have to go through repeated rapes. In other parts of the country the situation is no better, the mental asylums are just dumping grounds. They are hardly therapeutic centers. The relatives, who bring their mentally sick to such places, have no idea of what is going on there. The people in charge of mental asylum do not have specialized knowledge about mental health. In the government mental hospitals the staff is trained but many have become so callous about their work. What can we expect from them how they treat the mentally sick? India has signed and ratified most of the resolutions of the United Nations General Assembly including the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women. This last act was adopted by the General Assembly on December 18, 1979 and came into force on September 3, 1981. The Convention recognized the right of women to have access to adequate health care facilities, and right to enjoy adequate living conditions, particularly in relation to housing, sanitation, electricity and water supply, transport and communications. India adopted the National Plan of Action for Women in 1976. Then in 1988, Indian government drafted a National Perspective Plan for Women (1998-2000). With all these acts and statues we have not made any significant improvement in the case of our women, especially in the matters of their mental health. A report of the National Human Rights Commission on ‘the quality assurance in mental health’ notes that some of the wards, which are just large halls housing about 125 patients, look more than cattle sheds than hospital wards.’ Patients sleep on the bare floor closely huddled together, a situation that is rife with the possibility of physical and sexual abuse, no beds, no lighting, and no toilet. On the top of it, in most such hospitals there is the ubiquitous long-stay patient. This surely is an indication of how the people think of the hospitals s the dumping ground. In this way they abandon their own relatives and the employees abandon them to the dirt and mire of the common halls which resemble cattle shed and are virtually that. What is there in the mentally sick that brings about their abandonment? What is popularly known in India even today as madness or lunacy is in fact a schizophrenic disorder which is in even simpler language just a psychotic disorder or mental disorder. It is an alteration of perception of reality, thought or consciousness about it. This is a hallucination or delusion. It makes one draw an inference based on this alteration and believes that the inference is real and actual such a person has a psychotic disorder. For example, the elder sister who who remains unmarried for a long time develops inferiority complex. She wrongly infers tht she is ugly and that her younger sister is prettier than she is and that she can avenge it upon her by killing her and herself. What are the causes of this disorder? The causes could be the effect of drugs, reduced availability of oxygen during high fever or extreme vitamin deficiency, or the consequences of infections such as syphilis. Such a schizophrenic disorder has a disastrous effect on the life and health care system of the individual. How does a person actually behave while plagued by this malady? Such people hear voices that are not there, speak a language others don’t understand, laugh when others see nothing hum sick women ed asa witch or mad and dumped in the asylum when as a matter of fact people must show greater undersanding of her problem in life and treat her with utmost sympathy and ns she should be provided with a fair chance to live a normal healthy life. She isdnied this basic right to health when she is abandone. The Time of India report on mentallyorous, and seem to lose touch with the real world. A woman is dumped in the mental hospital because she is whispered around the place as hearing voices which the others never hear. She laughs where there is no apparent reason to laugh obviously. The girl who grows into a spinster gets tired of adverse comments in the society and therefore is withdrawn from others; this social isolation impairs her functioning as a human being in all its manifestation. She neglects her personal hygiene and grooming. Her inappropriate affect, vague and digressive speech instead of making others sympathize thise with her make them not only apathetic but decidedly hostile. Because of social isolation and apathy she begins to mistakenly believe that she has magical power. She is dubbed as a witch or mad and dumped in the asylum when as a matter of fact people must show greater understanding of her problem in life and treat her with utmost sympathy and she should be provided with a fair chance to live a normal healthy life. She is denied this basic right to health when she is abandoned. The Times of India report of mentally sick women in its issue of August 16, 2001 is revealing. “Not all 183 women of the 583 inmates in the Agra hospital need treatment and the doctors concede as much. But the sad truth is that many of these inmates have been abandoned by their near and dear ones.” Kesar left her home and started wandering the streets in fits of acute depression after she lost her baby boy. The police brought her here (Agra mental hospital), but even though she gave them her address and her family was contacted no one cared to visit her. “Sunita’s brother came once—four years ago—and she has since been waiting for him to return. Sunita’s husband got the village panchayat to declare her marriage null and void. He does not want her back, nor do her parents. ‘Although these women are keen to return to their houses, director of the mental hospital Sudhir Kumar believes that the neutral environment of the hospital is the best medicine for them.’ The paper also reported that the uniform that women wear is so worn out that the short kurta or salwaris made of a white fabric had started yellowing after years of use. What an image of the derelict! We ought to collectively hang our heads in shame as we truly constitute the vasudaiva kutumbkam. The derelict is weakened in health either of the body or the mind and instead of sticking together and helping her out of her plight we simply abandon her. Kesar’s condition worsens after the death of her child. The man who fathered her child had the natural duty to care for her, he should have gone to the mental hospital as often as he could. But the fact of the matter is he along with his family just ignored her altogether. On the other hand, the state authorities did give her a place in the hospital but they don’t have a follow up scheme whereby they could reintegrate such patients when they recover. And, as in most cases, the patients want to get out of the hospital. But who is there to take them and care for them? In his welcome speech at the fourth world Confereence on Women Bejing, 1995, the secretary general of the UN Butros Ghali remarked that women consitututed 70 percent of the world’s poor population of 1.2 billion. Going by this account the female derelicts of the world must also be quite significant in number. But there is hardly any statistical data available. In Ghana alone women accused of witchcraft meet a dreadful end. When any woman is accused of witchcraft she is forcibly taken away from her familiar environment and segregated most inhumanly by those people who are no better than what she is. Her travail begins with no end in sight. A cock is thrown in the pit, if it falls on its back she is not a witch, but if it falls on the side she is declared a witch and she is kept in segregated colony of witches. She is doomed to die in ignominy. However, her fate hardly changes even if she is exonerated, because now onwards she is condemned to live as a derelict. To be derelict, as her counterpart in Indian mental asylum and outside it knows, is to live in misery all alone. Even the mind does not go any further with her. There is a feminization of poverty even in the case of derelict. People who have acquired money in the last few decades have also faced the grim prospect of uprooting of joint families, migration to cities and towns. The upshot of this has been jettisoning of the so-called insane human flotsam. That is people who are caught in the vortex of modernization or globalization have hardly any time for mentally sick. They would rather provide what they believe the mental hospital to be a safe haven for their mentally sick. The human rights of the derelicts Where do they live and how do they end up There is a section of our society which is most vulnerable to disease and death on account of exploitation. The woman in each of the groups is cast off and is never taken back. In the first place she is cast out of the group she is born in. Finding no one to turn 'to she is forced to become a sex worker. Her life henceforth is a grueling agony of the unorganised sector. Eventually she ends up on the streets of our cities where some morsel she always hopes to get to keep her body and soul together. But often she nears her end even that morsel is beyond her reach. She just cannot reach it even if it is thrown at her out of charity. She can come from a respectable family of a higher or lower class or from a denotified tribe. In the case of the former the stands up to her class and opposes some actions or rituals of it and is thrown out of it because of her opposition. In the case of the latter she is forced out of the fold where she has no choice. -Many a woman when expelled from her immediate group is forced to sex work and cannot avoid the end from being hard. She can be a farmer's wife cast out because of the debauchery of her husband or his total disregard for her and the cruel indifference of his family. Or, as in some cases, she is considered to be weak in mind and is abandoned. She can be a hapless victim of social traditions which rob her of her fundamental rights to life and dignity and security. The Khilwadis or playthings of the denotified Banchhada tribe of Mandsaur, Neemuch, Ratlam, Indore, Ujjain and Shajjapur are women who were the first born of their families and as such were inducted into the trade of small flash at the age of 12 or 14 Later on even their sisters could not escape their ignominious fate. Once forced out of their families they could not marry anyone from the Banchhada tribe. 15% of them test HIV positive. But they like their other folks are indifferent to this threat: “Who To Bumbai Ki Bimbari Hain. Hum Kya Karen.” One can imagine where such women end up when going becomes difficult in their relatively sheltered world of the environs of motels of the vicinity in the outskirts of a town or village. There has always been news appearing in papers that many young girls have ambition to join the world of models and the Bollywood. They are physically harassed and take to the life of the street in Mumbai. They are sucked into selling their bodies when their smoking and drug taking deprives them of even the little that is left for their daily bread. Going back to their places of birth is an awful task. As Toni Morrison has said one has to go where the roads take you in a city. And the roads take you inevitably to self-degradation, deprivation, diseases and death. The idea of the derelict came to me in the most unforgerrable manner that morning when I was walking to college. A pile of quilt attracted my attention. It was lying in the middle of the square before a famous temple in my native town, Malegaon. The realization that there was a human being under the quilt came as a bolt from blue. The shock snatched away my breath for the moment. Left there in the square the pile would have soon turned into a mess of bones, flesh blood and quilt given the quantum of traffic there. However, it was still early morning. Birds were still alighting on the sides of the road and gutters and picking up whatever germs or food grains were left after the sweeper had swept the road clean. A householder passed me indifferently as I had stopped there but I was struck by his total disregard to the human form under the quilt. I retraced some steps and asked him. He remarked that it was a woman beggar who had begged at the footsteps of the temple on the special prayer day of the week. Her strength must have left her by the time she crawled to the middle. She either fainted or gave up her struggle for life. I asked the municipal sweeper resting on the platform of a nearby shop to remove her to the side of the road at least. He said that she was infected by a disease that had made her body so rotten that she stank horribly and that he would not touch her. I began to fold my sleeves in preparation to lift her with my hands all by myself. There was still time for the college bell to ring. Anyway I was prevented from any further move in this direction by the arrival of a political leader who lived nearby. He said that she was dying of aids and it would be better if we called the police. They would summon the municipal hospital ambulance. Realizing that there was little time left before the traffic rush to start we went to the police station, a stone’s throw from there. We identified ourselves and gave our address with our names. The police do act sensibly sometimes and that time they did. Of course, I went college and attended my duty and on my way back inquired about the event of the morning. People told me that the woman was carried away in the ambulance to the hospital where she gave the name of her husband who had abandoned her years ago. She passed away after she barely uttered the name of her husband’s village. What made her live such a dreary existence occupied my mind for the rest of the day. How could it be the terrible disease? It could not have been the disease for if it had attacked her husband she wouldn’t have left his side until he had breathed his last. The trauma of this encounter with such a wreck of humanity was cathartic, to say the least. For days I was dazed whenever I recalled the event. Slowly other such derelicts began to appear and started to produce impact on my mind. At the intersection of the two major roads just on the periphery of the town I had often seen the people who are considered weak in mind. They are the ones who bear the brunt of street children’s mischievous unwelcome. Many of them cannot make out what missiles are reaching them. Even after stones hit and injure them and fall to their feet they do not know what to do gaze in wonder or in utter loss. Even in their senselessness they have a sense of relative peace in that forsaken part because it is relatively free from people and children. First the deadly malady of the mind or body and the second is the social unwelcome. How long. O Lord, how long! These derelicts need all our sympathy and what is more our recognition of their human rights. We have amongst us such people who have always suffered, looked upon us mistily and bore patiently what they have never deserved and what is more their grievous condition is not congenital. Very often it is brought about by the sad accident of personal relationship of family misfortune.What the derelicts of the world have in common is utter helplessness connate and coupled with appalling wretchedness: no succor in their suffering and no cessation of the grueling pain What else are the women of Ghana who are accused of witchcraft! In mounting tension of the mind and gnawing hunger of the belly they are held down by those with whom they have lived as equals. They watch with baited breath a butchered cock flapping on the ground, if it ends on the side they would be declared witches and if it ends on its back they would be exonerated. But their fate is already sealed. Even the exonerated ones dare not return to their villages. They would be pelted to death. They are forced to foreswear human company and be confined in the witches’ villages, doomed to shun what was until the other day dear and near to them. Day in and day out life is a travail that is ever increasing with no hope or any let up. Five decades ago the world did realize the need to addrtess such people and reach out to them a helping hand. The universal declaration of human rights in 1948 laid down the following tenets. The right to liberty, security and freedom of movement The right to dignity The right to education The right to social security and services The right to equality-equality of protection before the law The right to marriage and family life The right to health, However, it is this last right – the right to health – that has been denied to people without their knowledge. Let alone the people who are helpless and wretched. Even the so called educated and decent seem to be indifferent to the plight of people who have been denied the right to health. This is on account of not knowing fully what the right to health and information means. In 1978 the international conference on primary health care was held at Alma – Ata Kazakhistan. The deliberations led to the declaration that health is a fundamental human right. And all the governments of the world must make it a part of their social agenda to achieve the highest possible level of health for their people. Of course NGOs as well as other sectors of society must join in this joint venture. The conference also affirmed that the governments must bring health care at affordable cost to where the people live and work and also provide promotive, preventive, curative, and rehabilitative services. In the case of the abuse of most of the human rights we know something that indicates that a particular right is abused. A custodial death surely means that somebody was killed while under detention and the police had no right to do so. But our right to health is not properly recognized. The beggar who was hardly more than a pile of quilt was totally unaware of her rights. Even we the so called educated did not surely know except that she was a miserable object of charitable attention. While alive she was too poor to have merited the attention of anyone. The pious worshippers would have dropped coins without knowing that there was something that she wanted more than bread. We presume that most of the beggars we see around temples and mosques need just food and shelter. It has not yet entered our system of thought as to what more important things we need to give to others. Or rather they have a right to it. The Ashrams and asylums we have built do not show our awareness of the right of the unfortunate to health. We have often seen cricket players of world stature coming to the red light area of Kamathipura in Mumbai. They have played with children of sex workers of the place. What they have spoken on the occasion and what they have done are at variance with the grim and sordid reality of the macabre situation there. What the worthies speak at such times constitutes what William Schultz and John Bolton call the sunny world of human rights rhetoric. No doubt free condoms are distributed to the sex workers and their callers and the sex workers are exhorted to insist on protected sex. This in a place where 55% of sex workers are HIV positive! But in the harsh reality does not match the sunny rhetoric of the world without rhetoric and realism are quite different from each other. Most of the people who go to the sex workers do not want to wear condoms and the sex workers cannot force them to use one. In the event of a sex worker asking a customer to wear condom which he does not want, he either goes away to another and thus deprives her of her earning or he complains to the brothel keeper who naturally scolds and asks the sex worker to comply with the wishes of the man. Therefore in most cases the sex workers just don’t bother about the insistence on protected sex. And a majority of the customer is so much inebriate that the difference between protected and unprotected sex does not mean anything. So the fundamental right to health will have some meaning only when there is some real awareness on the part of both the sides. This is not purported to mean that cultural relativism can trump the human rights here. Indeed the health hazards are so great that it is all the more important to know full well the implications of the rights. Contextualization of human rights is very necessary. It is true that world celebrities and liberal feminists visits Kamathipura in an attempt to highlights the sufferings of the sex workers end up as beggars in their later life. But the beggar who ended up before the temple was rejected by the man who should have supported and protected her. He was still the legal husband of hers. But for all practical purposes he had abandoned her for good. It could have been as in most cases her acquiring HIV. His rejection in the home village must have rendered her succourless. And deprived of all supports and no hope in the village she must have migrated to the town where she could eke out existence somewhat. The sex workers of Kamathipura also face the same kind of pattern. Their living with AIDS must drive them out of their profession at one time or another and turn them into beggars., They eventually end up the way the beggar did. The UNIFEM manual Gender. HIV And Human Rights A Training Manuel (2000) shows the uniform pattern of how family and community learn about the HIV status of women. The family of such a women living with HIV considers her a whore and throws her out after taking away her children from her. The community thinks that throwing out was a light punishment, she should have been branded and shown to other girls as warning, But the first stone is cast at her by her husband. He thinks that his spouse has a large vagina and must have been sleeping with someone else. Calling her a curse upon him he turns her out of the door. The most disastrous thing that happens at such a time is that the medical help that she needs so badly is not given. Thus her suffering is not relived at all. The social ignominy can be overcome with a degree of equanimity and fortitude. But What about the ceaseless march of the AIDS. Chapter 18 The Zoo Story: a plea for discovering the other Humans and animals living together 1994 was declared the year of the family. In declaring it to be so UNO was of course guided by the universal concern for reaffirming the filial values that have helped man to flourish through ages. Its aim was to create a weltanschauung. That is: a scheme or concept of human history, especially one by which a particular individual or group seeks to understand or explain things as they are, and possibly or probably maybe , in order to be guided in forming a policy or programme. That is what we can at the most call the official version. Literature cannot be circumscribed like that definition. Nor can it be expected to toe the official line. The relationship between the book and the family is very old indeed. In the west birth and marriages were entered into the blank pages enclosing the family Bible. A chronicling of pedigee cannot find a better place than to be near the Genesis (the first chapter of the holy book)and be associated with the primordial family. Literature has done enough through its words to refurbish the family and its hypostases: love and compassion for each one of the family tender care to help and protect each other, sacrifice of one’s comfort for the others in their hour of trial. Ensconcing oneself within the fortified phalanx of the family members and not bothering for others or caring for them is the very opposite of what would not have liked such callous outlook hosoever his dislike for civilization and refinement. A humane concern for the others is the essence of family life. For, is not human society itself a larger family? But when the homo sapiens degenerate, we have the mafia family as in The Godfather. Edward Albee’s [;au The Zoo Story is a contrastive study of the benign and the callous concepts of family. The excluvist family man Peter is set against the inclusivist Jerry who is in search of a family. The only family that Jerry knows is in the frame containing the photo of his mother. Outside the frame the family does not exist. Hence the search for the family. Peter’s is the fugitive sense of the family. He shows no pity for the Other. He is devoid of Otherism or they hypostases of the family. The play opens as jerry comes to the bench where Peter is sitting in the eastern part of the Central Park in New York. Jerry walks from the zoo which is around the Sixty fifth street to the bench near the nearer the Seventy fourth street. Peter confirms that Jerry has been walking northerly. They can see the Fifth Avenue from the bench. Peter has come from his house on the Seventy fourth street beween Lexington and Third Avenue. The Upper East East Side is the place where middle class live. But Jerry comes from a relatively poorer section, Upper West Side. He lives in a rooming house between the Columbus Avenu and Central Park West. He could have come to the zoo or the bench by a nearer route but he has walked up Fifth Avenue from the Greewich Village beginning his march from Washington Square. He has walked three miles to reach the zoo. From his rooming house to the Centra Park bench he would have to walk a much shorter distance of just one mile if he had wanted. It. The real longer distance is contrasted with the imaginary shorter distance he could have taken. This points the hiatus between the rooming house in Upper West Side and Peter’s apartment in the Upper East Side. Peter: It doesn’t sound like a very nice place…where you live. Jerry: Well, not; it isn’t an apartment in the East Seventies. Jerry gives the impression of being an irresolute and even a bohemian coming up from Greenwhich Village, trying to establish a contact witht ehe resolute and settle Peter. The contact appears from the first an impossible situation, something that cannot be endured. Jerry had to take the subway from the rooming house to go to Washington Square. A Westsider would surely view such a journey as impossible, unendurable. But that is what Jerry has intended to do: to go out of the way to meet someone like Peter who has one wife, two daughters, ttwo cats, two parakeets and two television sets, a lucrative executive job in publishing line. A man, in other words, who has thrown a protective sheath around himself against anyone like Jerry who is a permanent transient and a homosexual. And yet Jerry had to make the impossible journey to the zoo to learn the bitter truth about relationship of man and man and man and animal. They live in theirisolated cells unconcerned against each other. “It is necessary to go a long distance out of the way in order to come back a short distance correctly.” This coming back a shorter distance correctly is equivalent to the imaginary journey tof shorter distance between the rooming house in Upper West Side and the zoo and Peter. Given the complexities of modern life of alienation it is impossible to make the journey. It is clear that Jerry would never go straight to the east side and break the barrier and open up channels of communication, of empathy and fellow feeling. All this is impossible because it is quite unendurable. After all Jerry goes to much out of the way, he v even gives his life for making a contact and the result is that Peter does take his book and does hurry away leaving the miserable to such an agonizing death. Jerry knows that this is all futile. The long and real journey that Jerry makes is a pointer to the futility of the short and imaginary journey which he does not undertake. Chapter 19 Does IS pose a threat to India? The root cause of terrorism India has no locus in the confrontation between the West and the Middle East. India had amassed its army against Pakistan once and thought it could in edgeways play a larger role on the world scene. The US persuaded it to let prudence take the better part of its bravery in a standoff with a nuclear armed Pakistan. That was 2001 when a right wing BJP leader was the Prime Minister of India, AB Vajpayee. Now, again, there is the BJP PM, Narendra Modi. He has gone further and signed agreement to join the selected countries which sell arms to gain profit and the US is apparently quite happy at it. Though some doubt it. Graham E Fuller in his book A World Without ISLAM observes: “Probably no other region of the world has endured such intense and sustained intervention from the West than the Middle East. There are several major reasons: its immediate proximity to the West—a West that later developed powerful expansionist impulses: the attraction of the Middle East’s huge energy resources and its related massive financial influence; and its strategic location for millennia as an East-West crossroads in international geopolitics. We saw…the impact of colonialism, imperialism, and neo-imperialism over several centuries and the intensification of US interventionism in the present. “The cumulative anger, frustration, and radicalism that this history of intervention has produced are abundantly evident. The question perhaps is not how 9/11 could have happened, but instead, why didn’t it happen sooner? As the radical Middle East groups articulate their grievances in our globalized age, why should we be surprised that they ultimately carry their struggle to the heart of the West? It takes little brilliance, then, to have anticipated some kind of pushback, resistance, a sharp or even violent response to long-term Western actions. It is particularly disingenuous for the West at this point to turn around and speculate on what is wrong with the Muslim world or with Islam, that the West should be witnessing a violent response from the Muslim world. It borders on obtuseness or willful ignorance not to acknowledge any impact or role of its own policies over the last two centuries or more in stimulating the rage of current responses from the Muslim world.” [1] The root cause of ongoing terrorism in Paris as on November 14, 2015 and elsewhere in the Middle East is civilian death and destruction. The aerial bombardment in Iraq, Syria or Afghanistan is the worst that the western countries have inflicted on the region. Let alone the civilians even the armies of different states in the region are not capable of retaliating to the attack from the air. This frustration fuelled terrorism on the ground. This could take lone wolf attack on a limited scale or the groups attacking in scattered parts of a city like it happened in Paris on November 14, 2015. In retaliation the French President Francois Hollande vowed merciless attack in Iraq and naturally the threatened attack started on Sunday November 16. In 2014 Gharib al-Ikhwan, spokesman of IS had warned "Any killing in the Islamic nation will be met with an instant, decisive and horrible reaction." It is difficult to break this vicious circle. The three events that are consequent to this warning as far as the year drawing to an end with November-December 2015 is concerned are Sinai downing of the Russian plane, massive attacks in Beirut and the concerted attack on Paris. This was a departure from what Abu-Mohammed Abu Adnani had warned of lone wolf attack. Situations such as these have also paralleled same frustration in other regions of human geography particularly in Gaza and Gujarat among others. In Gaza there were instances of Jewish youths taking part in massacring Palestinians. Even Jewish soldiers of US were involved. Two of them, Sean Carmeli (21) and Max Steinberg (24) lost their lives in Gaza. “I’m not here by requirement, I’m here by volunteering and I have a purpose,” said Max. [2] They would stay in Israel. Was their purpose to perpetrate what happened on November 19, 2014? “While the Western media went into overdrive over the tragedy of the synagogue killings in Jerusalem, little Mohammed Siyam lay gasping, fighting for his life on an operating table in Turkey.” “As two crazed men, armed with knives, unleashed a brutal, indiscriminate attack on the unsuspecting Jewish congregation, the 14-year-old was just one of many Palestinian children who had already had his limbs sheared off in a brutal, indiscriminate attack. “That the 14-year-old had survived this long was a miracle in itself. He lost both of his legs during Israel’s war against the civilians of Gaza in the summer; the Israeli airstrike also blew 12 members of his family to pieces with bombs deliberately designed to kill and maim human beings. The courageous youngster, an innocent child who had already survived three wars in his short life, finally gave up his struggle and was pronounced dead on Tuesday during yet another operation; this one was on his lungs and respiratory tract.” “The Western media, it seems, is not interested when the dead come from the Gaza Strip where 2,140 Palestinians paid the ultimate price this summer [2014]alone for having the misfortune to live in the world’s largest open air prison.” [3] The two Americans were also connected to Chabad House in Rio Grande. Max even said that though American citizen it was Israel where he really belonged. In Ode village of Gujarat or Sardarpura many killers were US citizens who fled to the US after the massacres. The courts did nothing and nor did the government in asking the Interpol to issue red cornered notice against them or declaring them terrorists absconding abroad. And yet PM Narendra Modi had this to say at Wembley that “diversity is our pride.” He spoke under the “tragic shadow of dreadful acts of terrorism” in Paris. In similar “tragic shadows” he had warned press reporters in 2002 to visit the carnage and cover the events at their risk for they would meet the fate of American journalist on the hunt track of Osma bin Laden, Daniel Pearl, who was beheaded in Pakistan by the radicals who in turn were tried and executed by the Pakistan courts. At the same G20 meet in Turkey Modi asked for cutting off the funding of terrorists involved. And yet he did never even once take cognizance that Sonal Shah and her father had collected funds under the banner of Vishwa Hindu Parishad of America and sent it to Delhi from where it was redirected to Gujarat. It ended up in feeding and arming the killers of Muslims. When it was brought to the notice of President Barack Obama he dropped her from his election campaign. In contrast Amit Shah was the main organizer of Modi’s election in 2002 and also in 2014. He was neck deep in the crimes against humanity in both the years and yet this “advisor to crime lord” on parole escaped trial. Later the courts dropped charges. Modi never felt what he called in Turkey “shock, pain and outrage” for the victims of genocide in Gujarat during his elaborate and state managed splendid meetings to create harmony so called sadhbhauna in 2012. What is more the intelligentsia kowtowed to him with the exception of a few! His “Islamizing of the problems” of development, that the Muslims were a hurdle to it, and reservation has earned him nothing but contempt from the community. Taking reservation rights from the Dalits and giving it to Muslims was another stunt of his during the Bihar campaign 2015. He it was that turned Godhra fire accident as the result of Muslims of Godhra. The Ghanchi Muslims there have the same trade like other dealers in oil as he is himself from the Ghanchi caste, though a Hindu. He incited the mobs by his epithet that Muslims are child producing factories and an eye sore by side of road as they deal in repairing vehicles and greasing them and hence appearing in greasy and oily dirty clothes. Even so the Muslims of the state have not turned radical as is the case in Middle East today. In India even the moderate Muslims and Hindus have become restive. Mani Shankar Aiyar and Khurshid Salman have voiced concern from the foreign soil because they have been constrained into saying that Modi “needs to be removed” to make India move forward not only in its relationship with Pak but in solving other problems. The glaring instance of poverty, backwardness and wretchedness in Muslims is aggravating and yet he did not spend the money allotted for ameliorating their lot as long as he was the chief minister of the state. The same sanctioned amount by the central government which other states are utilizing except his and because of him. Even children hailing from Sufi families are bereft of it. The imam who wanted to put Islamic cap on his head during the harmony meet was also a Sufi and so was the saint Urdu poet Wali Gujrati and hundreds others whose graves spotted by the side of roads were demolished in 2002 and concrete roads were built thereon over night. The three crucial terrorist attacks for which Muslims were accused are Godhra fire accident, assassination of Haren Pandya and attack on Akshardham temple. There is eerie silence over the fact that the accused were given option to choose in which case they would like to be framed. This was what Tariq Ramzan calls Islamizing of the problem. Some others had done the evil deeds but Muslims were framed. Why did the police allow Mufti Sufiyan to escape to Pakistan? In one case the court passed stricture that Modi did not apply his mind to the case before sending it to court for trial. Despite these glaring cases of gross injustice to Muslims they have not become “captive canary in the mineshaft” of Gujarat or elsewhere. In contrast to this is Osama bin Laden. Laden was financed and armed by the Americans to fight the Russians. Even here the Muslims had no air power to strike the Russians. Jihad became feasible when American troops entered Mecca and Medina and did not leave even after the limited time fixed for them. Saudis had feared attack from Iraq but that did not happen. This new fear of occupation of Iraq and subsequent IS appearance on the scene and the fight with the government of Assad. In all this “problem is not basically ‘Islam’ but geopolitical and social issues that affect Muslims, who are adopting weapons of the weak.” [4] What Muslims lacked was good quality education, good living standard and job opportunities. That made them as weak as the Tamils in Sri Lanka. The Hindu Tamils were the first to use suicide bombers. The Paris suicide bombers were the distant descendents of the Tamils of Prabhakaran. What the two share in common is the pathology of war, dying while fighting and killing the enemy. When Rafael fighter planes drop bombs on the hapless IS fighters there are casualties. They produce anger, desire for revenge and frustration. Then frustration that the victims feel that they were helpless against the enemies flying in high altitude planes made them feel humiliated and shameful. The attackers in Paris were on the ground which demanded death and they chose to give their lives. More followed on Wednesday November 18 when a Woman in St Denis blew herself after 7 hours of confrontation and siege. A man believed to be mastermind was also killed. In this theatre of war the Indian Home Minister Rajnath Singh saw danger to the world, “ISIS is not a threat for any particular country, but for the entire world.” When he made the remark the India and Russian soldiers were jointly practicing gun battle at the Mahajan field firing range, Bikaner, Rajasthan. [5]Russia is the oldest and trusted ally of India and is currently supporting Syria against IS. The moot question to consider is that Modi refused to comment on the terrific subjection of aerial bombardment of Gaza and other places. He was the prime minister when the atrocities were committed. That took a heavy toll of life. Children and women were indiscriminate target and force used against them was far disproportionate, a people whose land Israel occupied and suppressed and oppressed them, drove them out of their own orchards and homes at will had to bear such periodic bouts of barbarity! Has India no time to voice moral concern, let alone play a role in stopping such barbarity! This eerie silence reminds one of Modi’s refusals to condemn the genocide of 2002 in his own state of which he was the chief minister! And now he is pontificating on enormity of terrorism and need for humanity. Blood is blood whether it is shed in east or west. And as far as religion is concerned, another moot question: “If not through Islam how else the Middle East formulate its resistance to the West?” [6] As far as religion is concerned, it is worth recalling in a flashback the record of Modi from the earliest time of his becoming chief minister of Gujarat. On January 1, 2002 All India Muslim Unity Front (AIMUF) comprising of umbrella representation of dominant groups of Muslims vowed at the monument dedicated to Mahatma Gandhi in Delhi to root out terrorism. They clearly underlined that they were against cross border terrorism and wanted India to be firm in handling this menace. They “demanded stern action against those who were aiding and abetting terrorism in India.” Their avowal was fervently patriotic. They must have apprehended that since India had chosen to jump on the bandwagon of President George Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair in the war on terrorism that you are either with us or against us; that troubles were ahead for their community. Choosing to determine who was a terrorist, was not left to the victims but the victor. As if the Intelligence Bureau in Delhi and the Gujarat government did not want to eye the resurgence of patriotic warmth of the Muslims in any other way than cynically making a preemptive strike by arresting as many as 123 Muslims returning from a seminar in London. The cops called them members of Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI). This collaboration of the two, IB and Gujarat government has proved pernicious to the country as well as for Gujarat. However The Times of India on December 30, 2001 quoted a top police official that the police had found no perceptible link yet of the organization with the recent attack on parliament. What is significant to note is that as many as 123 Indians had gone to London where it would be impossible to hold a meeting of radicals that too in the aftermath of 9/11 or December 13, 2001attack on the parliament in Delhi, as far as India is concerned. Among the arrested were 44 from Maharashtra, followed by Gujarat 25, Madhya pradesh 13, Karnataka 11, UP 10, Rajasthan 9, West Bengal 4, Tamil Nadu 4, Bihar 2, Chhattisgarh 1. The central government had banned SIMI on the heels of 9/11 despite the fact that no Indian was involved in 9/11 attack on the US, a fact that even President George Bush averred. This confirms the suspicion that the government headed by the Prime Minister AB Vajpayee and deputy PM LK Advani from Hindutva group used the anti-Muslim world view to piggy ride the US in victimizing the Muslims. If they wanted to placate the US Modi is following their footsteps in the same way in 2015. In his overdrive to dilate on terrorism what sort of expert is he? He coined the phrase Islamic terrorism on September 17, 2001 debate on television. And as far as the Muslims are concerned they have short memory. The Jameatul Ulemai Hind organized protest rallies across the country on November 18, 2015 against IS. Even in Malegaon Muslims took part in the protest against Paris attack even when in 2006 attacks the RSS had directly warned Jameatul Ulemai Hind that India was a Hindu country and they should shut up! Does anyone bother about them? In their enthusiasm in living together with fellow Indians they are quite lyrical: khake watan ka mujh ko her zarra deota hai, “every dust particle of my motherland is veritable deity for worship for me!” ------ [1] Graham E Fuller. A World Without ISLAM. New York Back Bay Books, 2005.Pp 305-6 [2]https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/07/21/two-americans-were-killed-fighting-with-the-israel-defense-forces-in-gaza-strip/ [3] https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/articles/middle-east/15361-shock-and-horror-at-killings-but-not-when-victims-are-palestinians [4] ibis p 321 [5] Asian Age November 18, 2015 [6] ibid 307. Chapter 20 Lebensraum, cause of enmity and intolerance in living together The German word lebensraum means living space. But it also means territory a country needs to grow and also space that a group believes it needs for security and development. Its negative implication is shrouded with hostility and need for security against another group which poses it a survival threat. Kannur in Kerala is hotbed of terrorism rife with turf war between Hindus, Muslims and the leftists. Even in British India when Indians were one and India included what today is Pakistan and Bangladesh. Ghettoisation was not in vogue then. Nor was it at the time of partition of India in 1947. Khushwant Singh says in The End of India that “In the first week of August 1947 I was in Lahore. In the second half of August I was in Delhi. I did not know which country I belonged to—India or Pakistan.”[1] He was born in a village deep in Punjab. In his fiction he presents it as Mano Majra which synchronized the three religions of the land of five rivers where the Muezzin and the Hindu and Sikh priests pray loudly in their diverse manner without any tension and people go to sleep by the sound of the last departing train for Delhi or Lahore. However on arriving in Lahore he felt secure that he would live the remaining life there. A new reality dawned when his neighbor on one side declared himself to be a Parsi and another Christian. The sardar must have been befuddled and with squinted eyes must have looked in utter consternation at the topsy-turvy world they were now inheriting due to the folly of their leaders. He was not the prototype of Sadat Hasan Manto’s Toba Teg Singh, a mad inmate of a mental hospital who was all the more crazed by being left to making a choice to which country he belonged. Manto himself knew very well to where he belonged. As a friend of film star Ashok Kumar he would walk together with his fiend in Bombay after settling there as a displaced person. At night after work they would part at the green line dividing their communities and go to where he belonged, Muslim area. And of course Ashok Kumar retreated to his Hindu part of the city. So within India they had further divisions. They had economic freedom as writers and actors. But others were not. But freedom to live together disappeared: Faize Ahmad Faize articulated it lyrically: Chaley the yaar ke mil jaaegee Kaheen na kaheen Falak key dasht mein taaron kee Aakhre manzil. [When we comrades set out on our march in the hope We will find out our destination beyond the stars.][1] In pursuit of the ideal land of their dream of freedom the people and their leaders made a mess of living together. As Ranmohan Gandhi says in his book Understanding the Muslim Mind “We think of 1947 accurately, as the year of our independence from Britis rule but that is not quite how the future will look upon it. Unless I am greatly mistaken, our descendents will regard the transfer of power as less significant than the inhumanity to which many Hindus, Muslims and Sikh allowed themselves to sink that year. It is a year of our shame, not a year of our achievement.”[2]He was 12 years old when his father Devadas Gandhi and and a friend Hamid were talking. That had this long term effect of regret of folly that we did not learn to live together. Sen also experienced it at 10. [2] Amartya Sen describes an incident of his childhood and points out how “economic un-freedom” is cause of intolerance of living together. When he was 10 a Muslim came to his house for shelter and water. He was stabbed and was bleeding profusely. He was attacked in a Hindu area of Dhaka. He said that his wife had told him not to go to that Hindu area but he was helpless as his family had no food and was starving. After taking some water he said something. Sen and his father took him to hospital. He died. However, before his death he remarked that his wife had asked him not to return home. That very day he had got a job and was on his way to join it. “The lack of freedom in his life, if he was to be a good father and feed his children, he had to take every opportunity that came his way, even at great personal risk. He took the risk and lost his life and the earning power for his family. ” [3] This made Sen become skeptical of community-base identities and hostile to communitarian philosophy and communitarian politics. Many others also experience it and hate violence that it leads to. In this economic interest of the aggressive attackers does produce hatred of rabid elements in society who do not want people of different groups owe allegiance to different faiths living together. The maha arti or mass ringing of bells and chanting Hindu marshal prayer on road on December 26, 1992 in Bombay was to secure the streets of the city for Hindu shopkeepers and depriving Muslims of their economic stake. ------ [1] Khushwant Singh. The End of India Penguin 2003. P 83. [2] Rajmohan Gandhi Understanding theMuslim Mind Penguin India 1986 P ix [3] http://indiatogether.org/interviews/sen.htm Chapter 21 Sowing of wind and reaping of whirlwind With the process of globalization and market based economy ushered in by Dr Manmohan Singh we saw India coming to be something or of passing into a state. Singh was finance minister of the government headed by PM Narsimha Rao. The RSS connection of PM was secretive maneuvering of letting the demolition of the Babri mosque taking place that made living together very impossible in real terms. But the globalizing of India in economy opened up far more difficult problems for living together in secular matters too. A well known columnist Akash Kapur was returning from Bangalore to his house outside Pondicherry when his driver tried to avert an accident when a moped cut across the road coming out of the tamarind tree. Two youths riding it hit the car and were thrown up and fell on the hood. One of them seriously injured. Kapur and the driver rushed to the police post in haste to escape the rage of people gathering. The crowd encircled the police post and demanded the two to be handed over to them. The police inspector quickly put his revolver into the drawer of his table and his assistant began shutting the windows and double barring the door. They feared mob fury. The inspector and other cops started beating the driver. He defended that he had been forced to take right turn to avoid hitting the moped coming in great speed. The inspector stopped beating and went to pacify the crowd. In order to do that he again hit the driver to show the restive crowd that he was doing something for them to get them justice. Kapur had a friend brother of the village president in the neighbourhood of Kapur’s area. Sathy came and told the people who he was and asked them to go. The police inspector also asked the people to leave. This sudden change in the inspector came about when he heard Sathy the brother of the president of the village. They were land sharks with enormous wealth and were turning the fertile land into a township overnight. However, the writer was shocked by the noise and imminent violence and threat to his life as he looked at a face that was fixed on him; it was stolid and cold blooded. His sixth sense told him that the man wanted to kill and the police being members of the village community would not do anything to save him from the mob. Kapur says that he was very much disturbed. “What scaredme that afternoon was the sense of utter lawlessness. Things felt out of conrol. I was at the mercy of an angry mob. And all of this was happening in a police station.” That made him recall what was happening to the Bihari immigrants in the city of Mumbai. “In the papers, I had been reading about ‘goondagiri.’ The first time I saw the term used was after a series of riots in Mumbai. A mob had attacked out-of-state migrants to the city. They‘d beaten up a group of workers; at least one man was killed. The police stood by. A couple of days later—and too late—the state chief minister announced that the government would ‘not tolerate goondagiri.’ “But goondagiri wasn’t restricted to Mumbai. All over India, there were stories about kidnappings and rapes and mob violence. The law and order machinery was creaking, in some placed [places] breaking down. Parts of the country had become virtually ungovernable.” “India. I began to feel, was in upheaval. A few decades ago, in the late ‘80s, VS Naipaul had travelled through the country and noticed an incipient “liberation of spirit.’ He wrote of a nation awakening from decades of post colonial inertia. He wrote about stockholders and businessmen seizing new economic opportunities, about politicians and revolutionaries, and ordinary citizens, trying on new identities. “Naipaul was prescient. The social and economic emancipation that was in full force now was just beginning to manifest when he travelled through the country, it would intensify in the ‘90s. This process was invigorating, and often inspiring. But Naipaul was prescient, too, about the flip side of the emancipation: the violence and even a sense of anarchy that would accompany India’s redefinition. “India’s liberation, Naipaul famously wrote, ‘could not come as a release alone. In India, with its layer below layer of distress and cruelty, it had to come as disturbance. It had to come as rage and revolt. India was now a country of million little mutinies.’ “The nation was on the move. It was all very exciting. But it also felt dangerous. The process of liberation was messy; the old order was crumbling, and sometimes it seemed like all that was stepping into the vacuum, was a chaos.” [1] This long quote shows how the outlawry unleashed by stalwarts of Hindutva like the late religious warrior Ashok Singhal was coming home to roost. What was done to Akhlak, Mohsin and the genocide in the name of development was to destroy living together. It also recoiled upon the majority in the ongoing process. ----- [1] Akash Kapur. India Becoming, a journey through a changing landscape. Penguin. Delhi. 2012.pp 176- 177 Chapter 22 My India resides in people like him True India resides in people like those who have the equanimity of mind and integrity of character. They have absolutely no prejudice against any section of the populace. Such people include the most humble and the mighty alike. It is they who have made India great. They live with others as they would like to live in their own family. In his last interview before he was assassinated next day, Anti Terrorism Squad chief Hemant Karkare made the difference clear. "We are being very very careful. In fact, when we want to question a suspect and if he or she has any Hindutvawadi connections, we make sure once, twice, thrice, that we have enough reason and evidence to even question. Normally it is not like that. We are able to freely question anyone we suspect." "In fact, immediately after the blast I had visited Malegaon along with the Deputy Chief Minister and other officials and witnessed the anger of the locals who shouted some slogans. After that I told my men that we have to pursue this case very objectively and not start with assumptions that people of this community or that community could be responsible." [1] Before him was KP Raghuvanshi and he handle anti terrorism soon after the assassination. In 2003 there was bomb blast in a Mulund bound local train in which 12 people lost their lives. One of the accused was Dr Abdul Abdul Jabbar Sheikh. He was given third degree torture to accept to give false evidence against other Muslims. His confession was obtained after barbarous beating and so it was bogus. However, there are three things which the prosecution and the police ignore to have him framed in terror. (a) He had signed each page of his confession with the Urdu words galat hai “Its false”. He wrote in mirrior image. And attached his signature duly. (b) He retracted his confession when he was transferred from police custody to judicial custody. (c)He informed the court about it in 2003. The court called experts of Urdu like Professor of Urdu from Mumbai University’s Urdu department Dr Muizza Kazi, Waqar Kadri from Maharashtra UrduAcademy and Sirguru from the Bombay High Courts translation department. The three witness gave evidence that what was written was in Urdu and meant that it was untrue, meaning thereby that the confession was not given willingly. Another witness was SS Parbhavale a chemical expert who said he had found the material from the attack on train as having no traced of either RDX or TNT as the prosecution claimed. [2] In his speech of August 2015 in UAE and England in November 2015 PM Narendra Modi was inveterately in a rut of assumptions and could not come out and easily move. In the aftermath of 9/11 he was very much convinced about “Islamic terrorism,” which includes Islam and its followers, when he debated on the television with Dr Rafik Zikaria, Sidhart Vardharjan, etc. In his speech at Wembley England Modi said, “Agar Sufi parampara balwaan hui hoti, Islam mei jisne Sufi parampara samjhi hoti...woh haath mei kabhi bandook nahin leta. (If Sufism had been allowed to have more influence on Islam, no one would have ever taken up a gun in their hands.)” Karkare and Modi are incomparable in their mindset and also deeds. These statements by the two illustrate what they are. Modi assumes while Karkare bases thought on facts. Another assumption "Today there has been a message that has gone out from here to the world and I think it is very important. Those who are involved in terrorism should be punished." "Itna hi nhi, samajhne wale samajh jaayenge, akalmand ko ishaara kaafi hai (those who need to understand this will understand)," [3] Here he is referring to Pakistan while he was speaking in Dubai August 2015. His tone and tenor was threatening and in this he had appropriated the assumed consent of the ruler of UAE. At home in Delhi Modi lay before you his man ki baat or what was in his heart and mind: "Few days back I had an opportunity of meeting a Sufi saints and scholars. I tell you honestly that the experience with which they spoke, the way they spoke, it was like music to the ears. "The choice of their words, the way they spoke, the meaning, the generosity in Sufism, I felt nice." He is clear and his words are music to our ears, that he could be Modi speaking! His textual analysis of what he heard sharply contrast with what he told Ahsan Jafri and what he spoke when he referred to Sohrabuddin and Muslims producing children, we five and ours twenty five. And most eloquently his silence over the treatment meted out to Muslims of which from the first victim the Pune techie Mohsin Sheikh brutally killed soon after Modi took over as the PM of India to the equally barbarous killing of Akhlak of Dadri for assumed eating of beef on September 28, 2015. This is nothing but strapped terrorism, terrorism that is fastened or secured in a specified place or position. It is what National Security Advisor MK Narayanan remarked when he spoke of the attack on Indian Embassy in Kabul some years ago, that India would pay back in the same coin. Mohsin and Akhlak were living in predominantly Hindu neighbourhoods. Their attackers were Hindus and chose the target well in advance, Mohsin and his friends were returning from a distant mosque after prayer. There was no provocation other than wearing a skull cap and tunic and having a beard. If in Atali of Haryana the Jats did not tolerate sound of prayer call from the mosque, in Pune they did not want to countenance the cap and the beard and the tunic. The police in Ahmadabad did what the home minister and Chief Minister Modi ordered them to arrest 123 people in the same attire on their returned to Gujarat after attending a conference or tabligi jamat gathering in England on January 1, 2002. His confidante and in charge of the crime branch DG Vanzara had asked Mufti Qayum who was falsely accused in Akshardham temple attack, to which group he belonged, he replied Tabligi jamaat. The cop cursed him and beat him up more harshly than before. This is the tip of the iceberg. The Modi dispensation was bent on driving a wedge between the Muslims. Modi is still doing it, now on a foreign soil, Britain. He is not only plying communal politics but sowing discord among the people. On August 30, 2015 he had met 60 sufi saints and had advised them to counter the extremist forces of Islam. He had also refused to wear the sufi headgear offered to him during the peak hours of his sadhbhauna, the meeting of creating harmony among the people. Yet he is so cussed that he has the temerity to declare to the diaspora: “You all are true ambassadors of India in UK. Wherever we go we show people how to live in harmony, how to care for everyone around.” He has perfected the art of charlatanism and also has the tactic of hunting in a pack with wolves and playing with the hare. What else could people feel when they remember that he had shut down the relief camps in 2002 for foisting election in Gujart and the national election commission had misgivings over it. So the question is why did not he see India residing in the heart of Mohsin? Why did he he see it in Imran Khan of Alwar? ------ [1] http://archive.indianexpress.com/news/karkare-s-response-to-a-death-threat-a-smiley/391325/0 [2] Asian Age November 9, 2015 [3] http://www.firstpost.com/india/terrorism-uae-investment-in-india-digs-at-pak-the-key-takeaways-from-pm-modis-dubai-speech-2396286.html Chapter 23 Long shadow of terrorism Who is a habitual liar the Prime Minister or Sanjiv Bhatt When India was sleeping several acts were committed as stark terrorism. This pretended sleep was a long slumber even the courts could not jolt us out of it. For decade and more. Akshardham temple attack was one. The police made Mufti Qayum practice writing over and over again to match somebody else’s letter so that Muslims would be framed in bogus charges. Like the state like the country. In the 26/11 attack in Mumbai the Maharashtra special force of police fighting terrorism, Anti Terrorism Squad, did the same by forcing Fahim Ansari draw a map of targets in Mumbai and accused him and said they had found his map in Ajmal Kasab’s pocket. Though not all India slept over it. There were many who were vigilant and knew writing on the wall. But India as a state slept over and is still asleep for it does not consider that 2002 Gujarat pogrom was an act of terrorism and that assassination of Haren Pandya was also an act of terrorism. So PM Modi’s pontificating on terrorism as he did in Kuala Lumpur is dubious to say the least. Sanjiv Bhatt was in charge of intelligence department SIB in Ahmadabad and was also responsible for the security of Narendra Modi who was chief minister of Gujarat in 2002 and is Prime Minister of India now. It is necessary to scrutinize both Modi and Bhatt what statements they have made since 2002. In the East Asia summit in Kuala Lumpur PM Narendra Modi remarked “We often thought of terrorism as a peripheral problem for this region. The barbaric terrorist strikes in Paris, Ankara, Beirut, Mali and on the Russian aircraft is a stark reminder that its shadow stretches across our societies and our world, both in recruitment and choice of targets." He said that there should be no political balancing in this resolve. "There is no distinction between groups. There are no sanctuaries. There are no funds. There is no access to arms. But, we also have to work within our societies and with our youth." The Paris attack had so much overwhelmed him that it intruded even in climate change conference in Paris in the future. "There, we must not only come together to craft a balanced and concrete outcome on climate change. But we must also stand together to send a clear message that we will not retreat in the face of terror."[1] Assessing these sentiments of Indian PM in the light of the past and present yields good deal of the man who made them. On February 28, 2002 Sanjiv Bhatt had gone to see Modi twice, “by the time of the second meeting… the carnage at Gulberg Society had begun in full view of the police personnel who were deployed there... The Chief Minister was accordingly briefed about the complete police inaction and complicity. The Chief Minister was also explicitly informed about the imminent threat to the lives of ex-MP Ehsan Jafri and his family members.”[2] The contrast between Modi and Bhatt is nowhere poles apart than in their relationship to the police and in their métier and forte. The chief minister ruled Gujarat by dictating orders according to his whims and bias. He did not care for the Constitution of the Republic of India. Bhatt did. As a chief minister Modi was sworn to office to protect all the citizens. He discriminated citizens on the basis of their religion. He instructed his police not to protect Muslims, to go easy with the marauding Hindu crowds, allow Hindus to vent out their anger on Muslims. Bhatt did his best to protect the people irrespective of their religion. He went by the rule of the law book of the land. He had asked to register a crime case against Modi so that he could give evidence. His request was dismissed. Second, he had told the inquiry commission, SIT, off the record that he was present in the February 27, 2002 meeting and Modi did instruct to let the Hindus vent their anger against Muslims. That he was not too junior to attend the meeting though he did attend all the subsequent meetings. That the meeting was called for law and order even so the CM subverted the law and order process by exactly going against it and issuing order that the police should not come in the way of the Hindus. These murky deeds and activities constitute the métier of the CM and what Bhatt said and did make the forte of the man who was Deputy Commissioner of Police (intelligence). The CM was also his home minister and his department activities include his asking Bhatt and RB Sreekumar to subvert the case of Mallika Sarabha which she was fighting against the killers of Muslims in Naroda Patia, harbouring a proclaimed law offender in Mt Abu Gujarat guest house and changing judges to get him out on bail, appointing two of his ministers to man the police control room during the pogroms, not applying his mind to important cases like Akshardham temple attack, Haren Pandya attack for which the courts passed strictures against him, etc. Batt’s strong character comes out in his informing the CM and urging him for action in the ongoing pogroms at Ahsan Jafri’s house, finding out the truth about the Akshardham temple attack that finally helped the accused acquitted after more than ten years in jail that too in solitary cell and in the death row, the fake encounters also came to light like Haren Pandya may have been shot dead by sharp shooter Tulsiram Parjapati etc. thanks to the manipulations of the police loyal to Modi that these cases may never go to the logical conclusion. One such case is that of the notorious extortionist Sohrabuddin. Modi is on record of having told in mammoth gatherings of people during election campaign where he accepted that he it was who had Sohrabuddin killed and his audience encored him shouting that they would also have given death to such a one. Pandya’s widow visited Vizakapatnam and met the accused Asghar Ali and found the truth that he had not killed her husband. Even the deputy PM Advani could not help with the mystery. With this kind of plethora of cases against Modi could any other head of government in any other government in the word escape justice? BBC correspondent in India Mark Tully was right when he said there is no full stop in India. Not just Bhatt but also justices PB Sawant and Suresh Hosbet had testified before SIT that Pandya had deposed before their people’s tribunal that Modi had issued instruction to let the Hinds take revenge upon the Muslims. It was in his reign for more than a decade that genocide was conducted and fake encounters were committed in his name and more than a dozen senior police officers were put behind the bars and still were bailed out despite grave crimes leveled against them. It was under his watch that living together became impossible for the Muslims for their own neighbours had raped, killed and burnt them and their houses and commercial establishments and yet the marauders got away with crimes against humanity and yet in every foreign country he speaks of terrorism and humanity. In case after case Modi with his loyal police and investigators turned vital witnesses hostile. KD Panth had given affidavit to the court that he had driven Bhatt to the meeting on February 27, 2007 where Modi had asked the police to let the Hindus take revenge upon the Muslims. Panth turned hostile and even accused Bhatt for using him against Modi. It is also bizarre that the SIT called Modi partisan and communal but did not bother to investigate further. Bhatt also prevented attack on Mancha mosque by simply stopping his car nearby. The unruly mob dispersed and that shows his forte.[3] In some if not all terrorist acts in his state of Gujarat there was the long shadow of terrorism practiced by RSS. Modi neglected to make thorough investigation into them, into how much was his support to Swami Asimanand in exterminating Muslims from the Dangs in 2002 and Christians in 1998-99. Those who killed Sunil Joshi also took part in destroying the Best Bakery. When he held forth on the terrorist attacks in Paris, Ankara, Beirut, Bali and attack on the Russian plane, he spoke tongue in cheek. The world leaders like Francois Holland and Putin were caught sleeping. BJP initiated debate on the Constitution and took the wind out of the Congress sail because the opposition was constrained not to even allow such a debate. The move was to attack secularism and socialism. “Peoples who never had faith in the Constitution nor had they participated in its drafting, are now swearing by it and laying claim to it.” (Sonia Gandhi on November 26) “India first” and the Constitution as “holy book” is not what the India expected to hear from its PM. Nor even “For the government, the only dharma is India first, the only dharma granth (holy book) is the Constitution.” (Modi on November 27) However he promised no change in the Constitution (at least for the time being so that he and his party could come back another day and fight the remaining battle.) In the same debate Mehbooba Said remarked: “Indian Muslims follow the real Islam. This is also because the Hindu majority is very tolerant. The way Hinduism has the tolerance, perhaps no one has it.” The situation in Pakistan and Syria is such “one cannot open the mouth” even when innocent people are killed. “To those who ask (Muslims) to go to Pakistan, I want to say that the nation owns us and we own the nation.” She referred to Bhagalpur, Meerut and Gujarat she believed it was the system that failed, but the people kept the spirit alive. A day earlier Farooq Abdullah added his mite when he observed that Pakistan Occupied Kashmir will go to Pakistan and Indian part will remain with India. The real question at the deepest level is what situation in India has churned up these thoughts. A part of the answer is what we have so far discussed in this book. As Modi is the architect of what happened in 2002 long back had owed an explanation to the nation. Failing that he turned taciturn after assuming the highest office of an executive as the PM. Notwithstanding his fire eaters in the government did not rest content with having got the power. Nay they brought the hidden agenda of turning India into a Hindus rashtra to the fore. They even began speculating the expected time of 2015 and then pushed it to 2023. Regarding recruitment and funding of terrorists there is an Indian side to what Modi had in mind. The RSS is ever on new drive to recruit and funding hate in India is by no means over because of the thriving communities in the diaspora. ----- [1]http://www.ndtv.com/india-news/terrorisms-long-shadow-stretches-across-world-pm-narendra-modi-1246244 [2] http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/substantial-evidence-to-prosecute-modi-sanjiv-bhatt-to-sit/article2832220.ece [3] http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/substantial-evidence-to-prosecute-modi-sanjiv-bhatt-to-sit/article2832220.ece [4]Asian Age November 27, 29, 2015. Chapter 24 EDUCATION AND CULTURE FOR TOTAL CONSCIOUSNESS Mustufa Khan M.S.G. College, Nashik, Maharashtra The phenomenon of the mind is a land that is not yet explored in depth to the end, it is a space of unending extent. Perhaps it could never be fully mapped. Education can show some light for a dis¬tance to make one's journey of life a little tolerable. There was once a student who had recently lost his mother. His teacher of geography played a cassette of whale song in the class. The song attracted the boy so much that he was very much engrossed in it. When the teacher finished the particular unit of les¬son she was dealing with the habitually and hur¬riedly switched off the song. The boy was grieved that the teacher was so perfunctory, casual and me¬chanical when what concerned him was so vital to his feelings and thought. It dismayed the boy. Some¬how the song had attracted him and brought to him the sweet memory of his mother. He wanted to lin¬ger here longer, may be indefinitely. That would be transcending the limit of a classroom period of al¬lotted time to a .subject or a teacher. Why couldn't the teacher play it longer, he thought. It would be so nice of her! His mind surged like a wave towards the teacher in the same way as the whale must have been doing after his mother. They merged into each other. The next lesson would leave him far behind the class as the teacher announced that she would next take up another region of the earth for her teach-ing. The place his mother was buried and where the boy was would be left out of the new region of ge¬oaraphy. Had the boy lingered with the lesson, the Song The song attracted the boy so much that he was very much engrossed in it. When the teacher finished the particular unit of les¬son she was dealing with the habitually and hur¬riedly switched off the song. The boy was grieved that the teacher was so perfunctory, casual and me-chanical when what concerned him was so vital to his feelings and thought. It dismayed the boy. Some¬how the song had attracted him and brought to him the sweet memory of his mother. He wanted to lin¬ger here longer, may be indefinitely. That would be transcending the limit of a classroom period of al¬lotted time to a .subject or a teacher. Why couldn't the teacher play it longer, he thought. It would be so nice of her! His mind surged like a wave towards the teacher in the same way as the whale must have been doing after his mother. They merged into each other. The next lesson would leave him far behind the class as the teacher announced that she would next take up another region of the earth for her teach-ing. The place his mother was buried and where the boy was would be left out of the new region of ge¬oaraphy. Had the boy lingered with the lesson, the song would have shown him a deeper connection between what was taught and what had happened in his own life. But that is hardly possible given the regimen of school system. There is a need to overhaul the system whereby we could make an effort in the di-rection of creating a complete consciousness in ev¬ery individual student, and that could surely open up the mind. There was a boy who went to sleep and saw a dream that he had become old. He began to worry greatly because he had not done any act of piety that could warrant a safe passage to heaven. There were widows he had not helped in their indi¬gence, roads he had not built for the pedestrians to walk on, trees he had not planted for the weary to rest under their shadow, wells he had not dug for the thirsty to quench their thirst by their water. Sud¬denly he opened his eyes and saw his mother bend¬ing over him. She told him that it was the Parsee New Year. When he told this nightmare to his mother, she comforted her boy that it was good that the boy saw the dream because now he can set on the task of doing service to the people and service to people is service to god. The boy was flushed with sweat and when his mother assured him that he was still young to finish the task that would take him to paradise -he got out of bed with a resolve to do better than what he had done so far. This sweep from the unconscious to the conscious is a direc¬tion of the total consciousness. Of course, this epi¬sode is a part of a prose lesson but in itself it is a paradigm of what every lesson is for the learner. The Sanskrit gyan-vigyan complementation is another vista on life and eternity. The vedas tell us that acquiring systematic knowledge is necessary for this world. Such knowledge could be the study of chemistry, for instance. But to have a real under¬standing of the world and how to act in it according to one's own choice to gain freedom of soul is the gyan that is necessary. Thus for the defence of our country it is necessary to have a thorough knowl¬edge of physics which could help us to develop de¬terrent nuclear capability but for the salvation of our soul we must have the knowledge of our maker and why he has made the world and our place in it. To pick our path through the world in order to go to our maker is the knowledge that every individual has to learn for himself not necessarily within the four walls of a class. Who doesn't feel the constraints of time and place? Living in a chawl of Mumbai, for example, is full of constraints of all sorts. There is no space to walk through, no privacy, the noise around inun¬dates your ears from the wee hours of the morning till you go to sleep. And yet people have experi¬enced such a transport of joy that seems to lift them into another world where the noise and dust of the road is not found, where the hurry to catch a bus to go to work is absent. How is this transport possible? Bertrand Russell says that wisdom is the emancipa¬tion from the tyranny of the here and the now. It is not knowledge but wisdom. It is the sum total of all that we know, the total consciousness. Thus the per¬son who transcends the proximity of what is near in time and space reaches a higher realm of conscious¬ness. After you become conscious of those who are near you, it entails upon you to respond to them, in other words to be responsible to them. So conscious¬ness is not just awareness but also an obligation to mankind and other living things around us. In John Steinbeck's novel `The Grapes of Wrath; the daugh¬ter of a wretched worker is devastated by the grim scenario of unemployment and betrayal when she is left pregnant by her lover. Calamity strikes them again when the girl delivers a still-born child. Heavy rains force her family to seek shelter in a barn. There is already a boy there who is very much frightened by their arrival thinking that they are the owners of the place. As a matter of fact the boy has taken shel¬ter there with his father who is terribly sick. The wretched family of the father and the girl become aware of the sick man in a corner of the barn. He is dying of starvation. When they hear the tale of the boy their pity is aroused. The sick man could not eat any food but he could drink milk. But where was milk available there? But then they realise that the girl is lactating and could suckle life into the sick. A nod from her father did the miracle that even systematic knowledge in books could not have per¬formed. There is a unanimous feeling that our world has shrunken into a big village. People everywhere be¬come aware of whatever happens in any nook or corner of the world. Our culture and education cre¬ate a kind of total consciousness that was absent from the erstwhile world. The consciousness about the plight of the refugees is so widely diffused glo-bally that people of diverse walks of life would like to contribute their share to help the stricken people out of their travail. There was a universal feeling of sympathy for the Americans who died in the World Trade Towers. What the Afghans suffer is a com¬mon knowledge whether we subscribe to the ideol¬ogy of the rulers of Afghanistan or oppose it. There are different kinds of refugees. Pearl Buck describes the sufferings of a Chinese refugee whose house and farm are destroyed by the flood. He carries his grandson in basket hanging from a stick. Some one takes pity on his grievous condition and gives him a silver and a copper coin. He spends the copper on gruel with which he feeds his grand son and licks the pot with his tongue for whatever was left. The silver coin he saves for buying seed to plant in his field. Who can read this and not sympathize with the old man? As the old man would like to continue his family line after the death of his son in the flood it is also in the pale of our consciousness that it should be so. It is education and culture that make us wish so because we are pervaded by the total consciousness that makes man become what he is! 'Vasudaiva kutumbakam' means all men are members of a large family. In fact our scriptures also speak of a universal soul that pervades all liv¬ing things of the world. This noble part of Indian culture is replicated throughout the world making the world a larger family and therefore the need to have amity amongst all. He liveth well who loveth well all things great and small. This entails upon us a total consciousness of our being interconnected with all the others on the planet earth. We have to only connect ourselves to all the living beings on the earth. The same vedic thought is suffused in Coleridge's poem where the mariner shoots the bird of good omens, the albatross, which transforms ev-erything, paralyses the sailors, becalms the water of the sea and stops the ship from sailing. Having this all embracing thought will make us live peacefully and what great leaders have failed to usher in, the total consciousness will achieve: usher in peaceful co-existence the world over. We live in a world that has changed much since the last decade of the previous century. There is almost a palpable ambience of a new kind of con¬sciousness today. It encompasses us like a hallo. It is a kind of modern culture that has in its compo¬nents those things that define what life is globally. Ecology has become a subject of study in primary school as it has become a distinct discipline of the university education. We could not think of such a subject some forty years ago. This is an interesting example of the interdependence of culture and edu¬cation today. Both contribute to such a conscious¬ness in us that cuts across all kinds of boundaries that divide man. In doing so there is a new ground for the unity of the human society all over the world. Who is there in any corner of the world that does not feel concerned that there is global warming that is affecting our life on the planet! That agricultural soil is eroded at the rates of inches per decade while the same has been formed at the rates of inches per millennium.That aquifers are recharged at the rates of inches per year and we pump out water at the rate of feet per year. Many of us remember our child- hood when water was not a problem or was not a¬s serious a problem that it is has become in our later years. This widespread awareness had entered int the curriculum that we teach. It is indeed the anguished cry of a cultured and educated man who would like to ask: `Can't today's population, with its knowledge of the histories of past civilizations and billions of working minds, help us avoid the fate of the East¬ern Islanders, and the Henderson Islanders (who completely died out on one of the Pitcairn Islands in the South Pacific), the classic Mayans, the Anasazi (native Americans who built the vast pueb¬los of Chacon Canyon), and others who destroyed the environmental supports of their societies? We wish the answer were yes. Yet the billions of hu¬man minds we have today are not stopping society from destroying its resources even faster than ear¬lier civilizations destroyed theirs.' There can be no two different answers to the question here. We are all concerned in our safety and well being. Such was never the case before. This post-modern feeling is the product of our new cul¬ture and education. The concern for an environmen¬tally sustainable future is the cherished view of the majority of people of the world. The total conscious¬ness is the transcending virtue whereby we go be¬yond the narrow limits of religion, class and nation¬ality we happen to be born in. When we talk of states without boundaries we are talking about the all-per¬vasive consciousness of our era Such a consciousness evinces awareness of all the facets of life and the deeper implications. By and large the people of the world know that every¬one has an unalienable right to life, right to family, right to work and so forth. Wherefore has this con¬sciousness come from? It has come from the com¬posite culture of the modern world. The human rights are the fruits of people thinking globally. The general secretary of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, is honoured with the Nobel Peace Prize because of his work in the field of human rights. Everyone would feel delighted by the award because it is not for any personal work but for a global cuase. Truly we feel convinced that we have to educate each otheras per the Article of the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights (1948). Chapter 25 In the Garden of their Mothers It would be rather difficult if the male dominated society anywhere takes upon itself the task to redress the wrong done to women. The woman should be involved and given the major share of power and responsibility to redress the wrong. However, well meaning people (including males) can throw light and new focus on the problem as a mark of sincerity that can be more than just lip service to a cause. The sense of sharing with the woman the need for her to be empowered and her own experience to be heard and acted upon for redress is pivotal for a change in the society worldwide. Cases from the US Air Force Academy For the first time the woman was yoked in the war juggernaut to show to the world that she is shoulder to shoulder with her male counterparts. But this is a shallow claim as the woman who had gone through it writes a different tale from what the male dominated establishment of the army would have us believe. Ms Sharon Fullilove must have been a star of her high school graduating class as her application in 1999 for admission to the United States Air Force Academy carried a commendation from President Clinton and Vice President A: Gore. She recounts her experience: "During the school year, you talk to people it has happened to, even upperclassmen, and they all say the same thing," Ms. Fullilove, 23, said in an interview. "They tell you to expect getting raped, and if it doesn't happen to you, you're one of the rare ones. They say if you want a chance to stay here, if you want to graduate, you don't tell. You just deal with it." Ms. Fullilove's views are shared by dozens of other women who have left the academy before graduating, saying they were victims of rape and other sexual attacks. Many have come forward in recent months, recounting their ordeals and expressing their outrage, as Ms. Fullilove did, about an environment that they say favors men and protects them against complaints of sexual assault. She said that long after her rape, she learned that her assailant worked at the time as a counselor who answered the academy's hot line for aped and pillaged in war. She did not expect to be raped and pillaged at the United States -Air Force Academy. It's just unbelievable how she was taken advantage of. It makes me sick.1 The military establishment is based on ranks and if you are outranked you comply with the wishes of your superior. But problems arise when men demand that women comply with other commands that sound innocent enough at first but lead to unwanted sexual advances, like an order to talk in private with an older male cadet. Ms. Brakey, who has hired a lawyer to help her gain reinstatement to the academy, said a supervisor on her training exercise made repeated attempts to spend time with her, which she said she avoided. One night he woke her from her tent and insisted they talk. Outranked, she complied and followed him down a path away from tents where others were sleeping, she said. After a few minutes of conversation, she said, he pinned her on top of a picnic table and raped her. What a woman said about war in general and the Iraq war is pertinent here. She wants to remind the world that "modem warfare never spares the civilian population. Rape is always a weapon of war, and women's bodies are used as prizes for the conquerors" Those who have no say in the policy of governments in matters of war are women, children and men (many, but not all). -Airman Laura Sargant reacted to the rescue of Jessica Lynch during the second Gulf war: 'Being a woman, there's obviously a lot more things that can be done to you. I believe in women's rights, but if I was in a combat situation, and they were saying they were going to rape me, that would bother me a lot more than if they said they were going to pull all my fingernails off "' The plight of Sharon, Brakey and Laura is a testimony of our time which veritably justifies the concern of Abigail Adams, wife of the second President of America, who so many years ago complained to her husband and what her husband and since then those who succeeded him in the high office have ignored. Abigail wrote to her husband, "Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favourable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such limited power into the hands of the husbands. Remember all men would be tyrants if they could." The President called her saucy and then went on to compare Ladies with Negroes and Indians and wrote to his wife, "We know better than to repeal our Masculine systems."' That those 'Masculine systems' have stood the test of time despite the likes of Bush and Clinton coming to the scene is borne by Sharon Fullilove, Brakey and Laura. Pregnancy and Happiness Rape changes the biology of the woman irreparably. What is most abominable, it is psychologically life shattering. But when her will is secured through love or marriage, it is a matter of celebration to the woman to bear the child, a kind of happiness that only she can command. She rejoices at her exercising the right to reproduction. Audre Lorde has created in her poem the unforgettable knowledge of conceiving. Now That I Am Forever With Child How the days went while you were blooming within me I remember each upon each the swelling changed planes of my body How you first fluttered then jumped and I thought it was my heart. How the days wound down and the turning of winter I recall you growing heavy against the wind. I thought now her hands are formed her hair has started to curl now her teeth are done now she sneezes. Then the seed opened. I bore you one morning just before spring my head rang like a fiery piston my legs were towers between which a new world was passing. Since then I can only distinguish One thread within running hours you flowing through slaves toward you. Audre Lorde's poem is about an African American woman who remembers how she passed conception, pregnancy and delivery of her child. She speaks fondly about her curious and pleasing experience. She speaks as if she is a child who would reveal her newly found precious possession. Her remembrance of her experience is self amusing. The theme is expressed through a serious of adverbs. They are adverbs of sequence, time and place of them reveal the stages of her confinement, pregnancy and delivery. The governing adverb is "each upon each". It is related to the days, how they passed one by one as well as the transformation of the planes of her body. Then follow other adverbs and adverbial clauses -'the child within first fluttered', 'then jumped', 'now her hands are formed','now ha teeth are done', 'now she sneezes', 'then the seed opened','I bore her one morning','just before spring','while you were blooming'. The two adverbs in the title of the poem are crucial to the meaning. 'Now' is the immediate present, the moment of speaking of the mother, while 'Forever' includes the present and future, it implies pennanence. Having given, birth to her child the mother has undergone a sea change. There is a new world that she has given birth to, and now she can live forever with the love in her for the new world. How momentous is her experience of'mothering' the child can be seen in the time dimension of the poem. The past, present and future areinterlinked. The mother conceived the child, bore it in her nine months and then gave birth her. Her past merges into her present self - amusement in reminiscing her happy past. Then she knows how she would live through her coming days with the love of what she has brought in to this world. The attitude of the mother is of self amusement. She considers the child within her as blooming'. The first flutter of the child and the sudden loud beating of her own heart are matters of close intimacy - a hint of future bonding between the mother and child. The shaping of different parts of the foetus is a special moment of realization. The hands are formed. The hair curls on the tiny head. The teeth are done. By this the mother means that :he gums and other parts of the mouth are shaped. The most amusing is the sneezing of the child. This is the joyful tone of recounting of her experience. Audre Lorde's mother speaker in the poem has very subtly foregrounded her own self as a mother who has 'mothered' her child. She is fully preoccupied in her own maternal world and the new world she has brought into existence is like a satellite that would revolve around her. Such a strong preoccupation of a woman leaves a strong impression on the reader that the poem is a gender marked work of literature. So it is an instance of feminism. The images of seasons are very meaningful. When the child was in her, the mother felt her to be heavy against the wind in winter. The mother gave birth to the child just before spring. Spring means regeneration, rebirth, and rejuvenation. The mother is no doubt renewed. The thaw in the world outside is naturally a rebirth of the woman. Such a reading of the poem is borne by the paradoxical title of the poem. The experience of . mothering' the child has permanently engraved into her flesh and skin the remarkable change of her coming into a new being. Her past is now giving shape to a future of new possibilities of love and meaningful bonding between the mother and the child. The umbilical cord is now replaced by a tissue of thread that is much finer and delicate to imagine. Needless to say that there is a cutting edge sensibility in the woman writer who knows better what can give her power and authority over her own resources, material or intellectual. Audre Lorde's narrator rejoices at her reproductive rights while many others including those in our own country and in particular in Punjab and Rajasthan do not have the privilege when it comes to female foetus. Sula of Toni Morrison says: "I don't want to make so-mebody else. I want to make myself." Eva mistakenly calls her selfish and is traditional when she counters Sula by saying that "no woman got no business floatin' around without z man." What Boy did to her and what she did to her foot, her son Plum and then what happened to Hannah are all the consequences of Eva's belief that the woman must have a man by her choice, and if riot, without her choice. That is where the vulnerability of the woman lies, she cannot live by herself. On the other hand the entitlement of Sula is that she can have rib scraping laughter with Nel because at that time they are not tethered to the male ego and can have uninhibited talk about John L's warped sense of the sanitary when he was sing to stick in Shirley's hip. Sula's classic passage about the black male as the envy of everybody reveals how the black woman is a victim of racism and sexism; two trends in human behaviour that have truncated her being. Feminism in Arundhati Roy's writing In the meteoric rise of Arundhati Roy one can see the universal feminist concern for the quality of life for women and also for humanity. She is in the mainstream of the ongoing political thought that calls for an overhaul of our perception of women. Velutha is called a god although he is of humbler birth and the ruling hierarchy of Kechamma and Inspector Thomas Mathew would not allow him to live. Such is the caste ridden strangle hold on the individuals that Velutha's father Vellya Pappan himself would like to kill his son! Ammu's love for music and song in addition to the pleasure that she gets from the god of small things shows the order of priority of the woman in contrast with the hegemonic bigotry of her own family and the police. It confirms what sexual politics is: power-structured relationships arrangements wherby one group of persons is controlled by another. 5 How skewed is the perception of society which pretends to look at Ammu as a Darupadi? Chacko yes, but not Ammu. Ammu had no chance of marriage. Everyone knew it. At twenty seven, there was the full likelihood of her growing into a spinster. Her father was a professor of entomology but believed that education was an unnecessary expense for a girl. While waiting for a marriage proposal she eked out an existence by doing housework. She found an opportunity when she went to attend a wedding in Calcutta where she fell in love with a Hindu and married, him rather than return to Ayemenem single. Her family did not have any objection because', otherwise the chances of marriage within the community were bleak. They ignored her when she wrote about it. However, her husband turned out to be a drunkard. The English manager of the tea estate designed to send him to a clinic to treat him for drinks but wanted his extremely attractive wife to look after his bungalow. Her husband had not even completed the manager's wish when Ammu took the heaviest book, the Reader's Digest World Atlas, and attacked him and left him for good. Her father could not believe her story because he believed that an Englishman, any Englishman, would ever covet another man's wife. Much of the conscionable world is the creation of man, and it is in a muddle. Its most cognizable examples are its history, its civilization, its war and the family structure. At the beginning of The God of Small Things, Ammu found that choosing between her husband's name and her father's name did not give a woman much of a choice. Yako was an impossibility. But her father's house was even worse. He was charming and urbane with visitors and donated money for charity but when he was alone with wife and children he became a monstrous, suspicious bully. A married daughter had no position in her father's house, and after divorce she had no position anywhere at all, and a divorced daughter from a love marriage was in a virtual hell. This exasperating situation or locus standi is aptly dubbed by Ammu as Locusts Stand I. She lived on sufferance. Her existence is threatened by the Male Chauvinist Pig. Rahel's list of those who could give some order to her world included Ammu, Chacko, Mammachi, Velutha. She had feared that Esthappen was not included because he could grow into a Male Chauvinist Pig, without comprehending that Chacko could be another ("Get out of my house before I break every bone in your body! ")`, and that Mammachi could go wrong. She is conditioned by the ethos of the ruling social relationships with the working women in the pickles factory. Mammachi condoned it by leaving small amounts of money for the women who accepted her bounty because they had young children, old parents and drunkard husbands. She would say: "He can't help having a Van's Needs." However, when it came to Ammu's liaison with Velutha her tolerance of 'Men's Needs' changed to unmanageable fury at her daughter. The woman knows that history is not her story; it "negotiates its terms and collects its dues from those who break its laws." (p.55) Her story is suffering; even the kathakali men, including the one who acted Kunti and had soft breasts, went home and beat their wives. Thus when Ammu fell in love with Velutha, she along with her lover realised that history's ?ends had returned to claim them. One such was Thomas Mathew. He looked down upon -A=u as a prostitute, veshya, "he tapped her breasts with his baton, it was not a 710 iceman's spontaneous brutishness on his part. He knew exactly what he was doing. It was a premeditated gesture, calculated to humiliate and terrorize her. An attempt to instill order into a world gone wrong."(p.260) The account of the world in Chacko's words would be Earth Woman, or what we call Mother Earth. But Roy takes a much more sweeping view of the universe. Bringing order to the chaotic mass from which the earth is shaped is the task appropriated by man upon =elf sans the woman. It results in a fractured view whereby people do not want to face in to the reality of the engendering power of the woman. She is doomed to wallow in the chaotic mass of the uncreated world. Calling the cops who brutally killed Velutha in police custody as henchmen, Roy turns to Rahel and Estha's incomprehensible amazement at the events of the day: "The twins were too young to know that these were only history's henchmen. Sent to square the books and collect the dues from those who broke its laws. Impelled by feelings that were primal yet paradoxically wholly impersonal. Feelings of contempt born of inchoate, unacknowledged fear - civilization's fear of nature, men's fear of women, power’s fear powerlessness. 'Man's subliminal urge is to destroy what he could neither subdue nor deify." (p.308) Two sets of alignment take place in this crucial passage which help to create awareness of the status of woman and what momentous effort is required for her empowerment: Civilization nature Men women Power powerlessness The woman comes out as powerless and excluded from civilization. Ammu had a mortal in: of being shaved like the prostitutes and then disowned by all. The cops who had threatened to do so were the ones who molested her modesty and person. They were aligned with the hierarchical power structure in which man-made laws could not brooke Love Laws. The caste system comes handy to man's subliminal urge to destroy what he cannot subdue or deify. Love Laws allow the untouchable tongue to touch the innermost part of the beloved. Even so the woman is not allowed the right to procreate. Such is the procrustean traditional hold of the society. But the Love Laws reigned supreme as he entered her when biology excluded fear, and the fear that "the cost of living climbed to unaffordable heights" (p.336) "Even later, on the thirteen nights that followed this one, uninstinctively they stuck to the Small Things. The Big Things ever lurked inside. They knew that there was nowhere for them to go. They had nothing. No future. So they stuck to the small things." (P.338) More evils against women Whatever pleasure of Small Things or Big Things Velutha could give to Ammu seems to be a luxury when we look at what men have been doing in the name of female circumcision in Kenya or Turkey and elsewhere. Nearly forty percent of women in Kenya have been subjected through circumcision. Using crude knives quacks in the mud huts of Kenya cut off all or part of the external female genitalia. This excruciatingly painful operation runs life-long risks, fatal infection and susceptibility to HIV and could deprive girls of ever having any sexual sensation. In these countries, the barbaric practice is carried on in the name of chastity and austerity and initiation into adulthood and marriage. Though President Daniel Arap Moi banned female circumcision in December 2002, the practice continues clandestinely. Alice Walker has written against this obscene rite of passage. Another cultural specificity is conversion and how it affects the woman. In her celebrated essay "Everyday Use" Dee comes to meet the narrator. Dee was an African American g who was converted to Islam when she married a Swahili Muslim youth. She used to keep her feet neat. But now she was covered down to the ground in the hot weather. One begins t wonder with Walker why men make women the symbols of their cultural specificity when there is nothing in herself to demarcate it. Why can't the men do all the symbolizing an leave the women freedom to live a little more freely? In her world famous novel "The Colour Purple" (1982) there is a poor helpless woman who fights against the oppression o the black men and shows that if the women come together they could remove sexism an cruelty perpetrated upon them by their male oppressors. There, indeed, lies the empowerment. The woman according to Walker has always been expressing her artistic creativity, making sense of the world she is thrown into to live together with others." In Search of 0 Mothers' Gardens" shows heroic endeavours that women have always undertaken to create knowledge about themselves and thereby have self entitlement. "To be an Artist and Black woman, even today, lowers our status in many respects, rather than raises it: and yet Artists, we will be."7 She gives the quilt hung at the entrance of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington depicting the story of the Crucifixion as an example of the muzzled an often mutilated, but vibrant, creative spirit of the black woman. The woman who made was a slave denied reading and writing or painting or any other form of self-expression. The other example is the kitchen garden. In their terrific ordeal, including that of breeding children at the command of the slave owner, children whom the slave owner would se down the river, the women held on to life and carried over from one generation to another by word of mouth or through quilt making and gardening, what they felt others should know and be comforted while surrounded by desolation and hence be truly empowered. In the Garden of their Mothers ' They were women then My mamma’s generation Husky of voice—stout of Step With fists as well as Hands How they battered down Doors And ironed Starched white Shirts How they led Armies Head ragged Generals Across mined Fields Booby-trapped Ditches To discover books Desks A place for us How they knew what we Must know Without knowing a page Of it Themselves. (p.58) References 1 In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens", in Literature for Composition, ed. Silver Barnet, et al., New York: Harper Collins, 1988. P.55. 2. Letters reproduced in Issues in Feminism, ed Sheila Ruth, California: Mayfield Publishing Co. 1995,pp 476-77. 3 Millet, Kate Sexual Politics, New York: Doubleday, 1970. 4 New York Times, March 16, 2003. 5 New York Times, April 5, 2003. -6 Roy, Arundhati, The God of Small Things, New Delhi: Indiaink, 1997 p.225. All subsequent quotes are from the same edition. 7 "Starhawk, "Why We Need Women's Actions and Feminist Voices for Peace", Women's Voice, Spring Special Issue 2003. Excerpt in Meantime, March 7-20,2003, pp.42-3.