Far too long did the government and investigative agencies blame Pakistan for the cauldron of terrorism lighted by that neighbour. Then came the nuance that Bangladeshis were stoking that fire. There was hardy any breakthrough in terms of foreigners caught. Even when the foreign hand was discernible as in the 7/11 Mumbai local train blasts of 2006, no credible foreigner was arrested.
Therefore, the convenient theory of blaming terror from across border did not cut much ice. It only helped the intelligence agencies cover up their ineptitude. Even the highest ranking officers of CBI wearing the cloak of anonymity accepted that they had bungled in arrested the wrong people in Malegaon bomb blasts of September 2006. However, the developing story in the news indicates that home grown terror is striving hard to put down its feet on the ground and stand on its own. This infant terror has been conceived and has enjoyed full growth and a normal birth. SIMI, Hindu Janjagran Samiti, Sanatan Sansthan and the Indian Mujahideen as well as Bajrang Dal are quite indigenous. Now that Pakistan is saddled with its own nemesis of terror, time is we focus on what portents are there pointing fingers at the groups within the land.
Prior to the serial bomb blasts in Bangalore July 25, 2008, Ahemdabad July 26 there has been simmering communal tension marked by awful aggressive communal stance of some leaders and groups. Much of the trouble in Gujarat is on account of chief minister Narender Modi. He started fighting his first election by invoking Mian Musharraf to taunt the Muslims who would not vote his communalist party, the pogroms of Muslims in 2002 followed in tandem. President General Musharraf took post Godhra massacre to the UNO general assembly thanks to Modi. When it rained heavily in Ahemdabad Modi performed pooja on the banks of the Narmada to thank the Hindu gods. There was rather nothing wrong in this. But cozily wallowing in the pomp of state power and in grandiose fanfare he challenged the Muslims to perform such a feat of ‘calling’ rains through their religious practices.
He described Muslims as child producing factories and when the National Minorities Commission asked for the copy of the speech in which he purportedly made the remark, his administration played truant. He visited one of the deadliest places of the massacre of Muslims—Naroda Patia-- in the evening of February 28, 2002 and blessed the Charra community whose members had killed so many Muslims that Police Commissioner of Ahemdabad PC Pande had ordered that the dead bodies should be scattered all over the city. Modi also harboured the most notorious killers of Muslims, Babu Bajrangi! He provided him the Gujarat government guest house at Mount Abu health resort while the victims of the pogroms languished in wretched refugee camps. Thus Bajrangi absconded from Modi’s police. He surrendered to the police at the behest of the chief minister who frequently changed judges until Justice Mehta freed him at last.
Everything was done in the name of deshbhakti, patriotism. Modi’s top anti terrorist police officer was DG Vanzara who had killed Sohrabbudin and his wife and also four from Maharashtra which included Ishrat Jehan of Mumbai. Their diaries and I cards were also made available on their persons for fait accomplice. In the last election Modi put on banners boasting that terror would be at bay from Gujarat if the people voted him, making people gullible enough to believe that what had happened till then was not terror. He also taunted the centre with flaccidity and went on to enhance his image of ‘hard’ chote sardar by even daring the centre not to collect income tax from his state.
Let alone Muslims, sober headed people like Vijay Tendulkar wanted school children to know that if he had a gun he would shoot Modi. Did we grown up citizens of this great country pause to think whether we also needed to know anything? Why did the Marathi dramatist par excellent entrust the school children with the knowledge of today to preserve for the future that was so glaringly lost on the 70 plus Bal Thackeray, LK Advani and the octogenarian prime minister AB Vajpayee?
As the shame of Gujarat was the shame of India so is the bomb attacks there an attack on the whole of the country, on each one of us to the last person. It is not enough to mouth platitude of togetherness without establishing truth of past violence and present terror and striving for reconciliation.
Terror is a tactic, a maneuvering to gain an objective. To forestall further terrorist attacks, merely passing of stringent laws will not do. Even the victims of terror have attacked hospitals. What could prevent it? A hospital should be a haven of refuge and cure for the inured and sick. Recently the Israelis released a would be suicide bomber who had failed to blow up. She was badly burnt. She even wanted to kill the doctor. The Israelis treated and healed her injury and made her live through a period in jail. She returned home as a pacifist. Muslims injured in Coimbatore riot were hacked to death in a hospital where they were admitted. In February 1998 bomb blasts took the hospital also as one of their targets. In 1986 wounded Muslim victims of the anti reservation riots in Ahemdabad were thrown to death from the top floor of a hospital. Twenty two years later a doctor attending trauma cases of July 26 blasts lost his life in the same hospital.
Where will this madness end? Who is the statesman that would end the vicious cycle of hate and violence. In the land of the Mahatma we badly need another.
Friday, August 1, 2008
Thursday, July 17, 2008
A girl musing in the backdrop of the communal riot in Chopra
I learnt the virtue of living in public when I traveled in a train recently. There was a huge crowd. A boy of 15 with his sister of 10 boarded a crowded train. At Nashik many more passengers flooded our compartment. The sister was now squeezed between two walls of people and so she leant upon her brother for support. My heart went out for her but I was also in a very uncomfortable position. After some stations passed and the crowd lessened some passengers began to give space to passengers whom they gauged to be from their own caste and religion. I felt very bad when I saw that because she was from the backward community she was not allowed to sit in seat. She had come earlier than those who were accommodated but had entered the compartment later. But my face brightened when a military man ordered people in his front seat to make space for her and let her sit. She was still very scared to move. Then the military man encouraged her to take seat. Her brother then gave his hand and made her sit.
This taught me how we should live in the public. Justice, pity and lawfulness should be our guide and not the religion we are born in or the caste we are doomed to live in. I wish the leaders who trouble our streets in towns and cities with their bandhs should learn this simple truth.
As I sat and thought of my experience I remembered my English teacher of the junior class. He was teaching the new novel of Kiran Desai where Biju slips over a piece of cabbage in the Gandhi café of New York and injures his ankle. He wants the owner of the café to take him to a doctor. When the owner returned from temple and heard his request, he laughed at Biju but told him to rub so oil. He gave him the prasad from the temple. This is how he used religion to ease his conscience and an excuse not to fulfill his legal obligation. Biju’s colleagues told him that the owner economizing in paying on their expenses because they were from his own religion. They were unhappy with him, but were helpless.
There was a quarrel between the owner and his daughter once. She shouted at her father that he should know that they lived in America where no body would clean his ass free of charge. Biju also remembered a Muslim youth from Zanzibar who was also troubled by people from back home. They would pester you to take undue advantage of you because you are from the same caste and religion. But life demands fellowship of people of better civic sense which does not allow you to compromise your civic sense just because you belong to the same religion
I often see very devoted religious people feeding ants with sugar and wonder why do not we treat others in public life like that. Our relations with other people should be like that. Whether the ants have any religion is something they alone know. We humans must not either kill or harm them. At the most we can remove their hunger. Ours is a duty to treat others with sympathy and love like the men feeding ants. This is secularism that we need so much in our country today.
This taught me how we should live in the public. Justice, pity and lawfulness should be our guide and not the religion we are born in or the caste we are doomed to live in. I wish the leaders who trouble our streets in towns and cities with their bandhs should learn this simple truth.
As I sat and thought of my experience I remembered my English teacher of the junior class. He was teaching the new novel of Kiran Desai where Biju slips over a piece of cabbage in the Gandhi café of New York and injures his ankle. He wants the owner of the café to take him to a doctor. When the owner returned from temple and heard his request, he laughed at Biju but told him to rub so oil. He gave him the prasad from the temple. This is how he used religion to ease his conscience and an excuse not to fulfill his legal obligation. Biju’s colleagues told him that the owner economizing in paying on their expenses because they were from his own religion. They were unhappy with him, but were helpless.
There was a quarrel between the owner and his daughter once. She shouted at her father that he should know that they lived in America where no body would clean his ass free of charge. Biju also remembered a Muslim youth from Zanzibar who was also troubled by people from back home. They would pester you to take undue advantage of you because you are from the same caste and religion. But life demands fellowship of people of better civic sense which does not allow you to compromise your civic sense just because you belong to the same religion
I often see very devoted religious people feeding ants with sugar and wonder why do not we treat others in public life like that. Our relations with other people should be like that. Whether the ants have any religion is something they alone know. We humans must not either kill or harm them. At the most we can remove their hunger. Ours is a duty to treat others with sympathy and love like the men feeding ants. This is secularism that we need so much in our country today.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Difficulties in fighting terrorism: equivocation, innuendoes and proxy war
Portentous events like the brutal murder of Mirwas Moulvi Farooq on May 21, 1990 when President George Bush’s special envoy Robert Gates was to visit New Delhi to discuss the Kashmir issue and the equally brutal murder of 36 Sikhs on March 20, 2000 in Chittisingpora when President Bill Clinton was beginning his tour of India are terrorist acts shrouded in mystery. The first resulted in Governor Jagmohan being forced to put in his papers and the second in the cold blooded murder of five innocent Kashmiri Muslims by the security forces, the exhuming of their bodies and the furor over their DNA report. The murder of the five was passed off as proof of cross border terror and the event was hastened to coincide with the closing day of the Clinton visit. Coalesces into these two events are all the three difficulties of equivocation, innuendoes and proxy war.
Equivocation is making statements in such a way to mislead people.
There is greater need to be unequivocal on matters of terrorism now than ever before. The International Criminal Court has issued notice to President Omar al Basher of Sudan to face charges of genocide in Dahfur. This is crystal clear case of using terrorism against a people by no other than the ruler of the country with active connivance of the Sudanese of Arab origin (the Janjiwad) and help from China. Among the charges are mass rape and massacre. It is highly objectionable that the attitude of the two leading Muslim organizations is ambiguous. The Arab League and the Organization of the Islamic Conference should have been loud and clear in condemnation of the terror of Janjiwad.. The government arms and supports this group against the Muslims of Dahfur region who are of African origin. There is no insurgency there as there is in the south of Sudan where the Christians are up in arms fighting the government forces. The disaster in Dahfur is truly humanitarian. However, the accusation against the Dahfur people that they could be potential for subversion is a ruse. It is ambivalent.
Just how difficult has it become to fight terrorism is evident from the prosecution in London of the eight suspects in the plot to blow up aircraft with liquid bomb in 2006. The accused claim that it was a publicity stunt to draw attempt to the mistreatment of Muslims in Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon. The eight accused are Abdulla Ahmed Ali, 27, Tanvir Hussain, 27, Assad Sarwar, 28, Mohammed Gulzar, 26, Arafat Waheed Khan, 27, and Waheed Zaman, 24. The scientist whose opinion the court sought called the ingenious liquid device to blow up planes as prosecution fantasy and the judge remarked that there was no evidence that the accused had fabricated a bomb and that they were dealing with a conspiracy rather than an actual blowing up of planes.(NYT 15-7-8). The role of Pakistan is quite definite. Six of the accused are of Pakistani origin Gulzar had Toshiba batteries manufactured in Pakistan and was waiting for instructions from Pakistan. This would mean that it was an outfit that was controlled from Pakistan. Moreover Sarwar visited Pakistan in 2006 where a Kashmiri fighting for azadi had shown him how to make liquid bomb. Till now the court has found out their intention to blow up planes albeit they had not yet bought even the tickets to fly.
The equivocal nature of this case is: when does latent terror become manifest terror. These are English born would be bombers, at least Ali, Sarwar and Hussain, admit to plot to draw attention to the plight of fellow Muslims elsewhere including Palestine.
Innuendoes are indirect references to people which can damage the character of them. The US is engaged in what it calls a war on terror. The Democratic candidate in the next presidential election is Barack Obama of Muslim origin. Currently there is a good deal of innuendoes in the news discussion as to whether he can really fight terrorism. Obama says that the war in Iraq is a distraction of American foreign policy from its war on terror. Real terrorism is in Afghanistan. His rival the Republican candidate John McCain opposes him on Iraq war. The New Yorker Magazine carried a cartoon this week that may remind you of the odious Danish cartoons. These cartoons stereotype Muslims as terrorists even when they are not.
Equivocation is making statements in such a way to mislead people.
There is greater need to be unequivocal on matters of terrorism now than ever before. The International Criminal Court has issued notice to President Omar al Basher of Sudan to face charges of genocide in Dahfur. This is crystal clear case of using terrorism against a people by no other than the ruler of the country with active connivance of the Sudanese of Arab origin (the Janjiwad) and help from China. Among the charges are mass rape and massacre. It is highly objectionable that the attitude of the two leading Muslim organizations is ambiguous. The Arab League and the Organization of the Islamic Conference should have been loud and clear in condemnation of the terror of Janjiwad.. The government arms and supports this group against the Muslims of Dahfur region who are of African origin. There is no insurgency there as there is in the south of Sudan where the Christians are up in arms fighting the government forces. The disaster in Dahfur is truly humanitarian. However, the accusation against the Dahfur people that they could be potential for subversion is a ruse. It is ambivalent.
Just how difficult has it become to fight terrorism is evident from the prosecution in London of the eight suspects in the plot to blow up aircraft with liquid bomb in 2006. The accused claim that it was a publicity stunt to draw attempt to the mistreatment of Muslims in Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon. The eight accused are Abdulla Ahmed Ali, 27, Tanvir Hussain, 27, Assad Sarwar, 28, Mohammed Gulzar, 26, Arafat Waheed Khan, 27, and Waheed Zaman, 24. The scientist whose opinion the court sought called the ingenious liquid device to blow up planes as prosecution fantasy and the judge remarked that there was no evidence that the accused had fabricated a bomb and that they were dealing with a conspiracy rather than an actual blowing up of planes.(NYT 15-7-8). The role of Pakistan is quite definite. Six of the accused are of Pakistani origin Gulzar had Toshiba batteries manufactured in Pakistan and was waiting for instructions from Pakistan. This would mean that it was an outfit that was controlled from Pakistan. Moreover Sarwar visited Pakistan in 2006 where a Kashmiri fighting for azadi had shown him how to make liquid bomb. Till now the court has found out their intention to blow up planes albeit they had not yet bought even the tickets to fly.
The equivocal nature of this case is: when does latent terror become manifest terror. These are English born would be bombers, at least Ali, Sarwar and Hussain, admit to plot to draw attention to the plight of fellow Muslims elsewhere including Palestine.
Innuendoes are indirect references to people which can damage the character of them. The US is engaged in what it calls a war on terror. The Democratic candidate in the next presidential election is Barack Obama of Muslim origin. Currently there is a good deal of innuendoes in the news discussion as to whether he can really fight terrorism. Obama says that the war in Iraq is a distraction of American foreign policy from its war on terror. Real terrorism is in Afghanistan. His rival the Republican candidate John McCain opposes him on Iraq war. The New Yorker Magazine carried a cartoon this week that may remind you of the odious Danish cartoons. These cartoons stereotype Muslims as terrorists even when they are not.
The subcontinent of India has a tripartite angle of terror. Pakistan is responsible for terror in India and Afghanistan. President Hamid Karzai has directly named it for the attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul. The explosion has the hallmark of al Qaeda which is at loggerheads with India and Pakistan as well as the Afghan government. One source of equivocation is of course the blame that it is proxy war between India and Pakistan. If it were just that it would not have international ramification on the scale of al Qaeda leashed terror.
An element of ambiguity is in the assertion of MK Narayanan who blames Pakistan for the blasts but wants to confront the terrorists responsible for the event. The National Security Advisor told Times Now news channel about the bombing of Indian embassy in Kabul: “We not only suspect but we have a fair amount of intelligence (on the involvement of Pakistan)," While denying this as insinuation, he went on to say: "I think we need to pay back in the same coin. We are quite clear in our mind.” But when newsmen pressed him to name culprits, he nuanced: “Those who are responsible." This would mean that the terrorists and Pakistan are two different entities. However this is wiser than rushing our troops to the border as we did in the huge mobilization in the aftermath of the attack on our Parliament on December 13, 2001. What the National Security Advisor denies as insinuation is nothing else but equivocation.
Proxy means acting on behalf of others. When government forces cannot do because the government does not want its name sullied they use proxy.
When there was attack on his life in April, President Karzai hinted at retaliation. How else is this going to happen except by proxy war? All the three countries have resorted to proxy war because they think that their strategic interest is better served through this means than open warfare. But the suffering of the people is veritable human disaster. Ahmed Shah Warlaj was in the queue outside Indian embassy. In the bomb blast his two sons, two daughters and sister in law died. Two tender aged daughters of his were injured seriously.
An element of ambiguity is in the assertion of MK Narayanan who blames Pakistan for the blasts but wants to confront the terrorists responsible for the event. The National Security Advisor told Times Now news channel about the bombing of Indian embassy in Kabul: “We not only suspect but we have a fair amount of intelligence (on the involvement of Pakistan)," While denying this as insinuation, he went on to say: "I think we need to pay back in the same coin. We are quite clear in our mind.” But when newsmen pressed him to name culprits, he nuanced: “Those who are responsible." This would mean that the terrorists and Pakistan are two different entities. However this is wiser than rushing our troops to the border as we did in the huge mobilization in the aftermath of the attack on our Parliament on December 13, 2001. What the National Security Advisor denies as insinuation is nothing else but equivocation.
Proxy means acting on behalf of others. When government forces cannot do because the government does not want its name sullied they use proxy.
When there was attack on his life in April, President Karzai hinted at retaliation. How else is this going to happen except by proxy war? All the three countries have resorted to proxy war because they think that their strategic interest is better served through this means than open warfare. But the suffering of the people is veritable human disaster. Ahmed Shah Warlaj was in the queue outside Indian embassy. In the bomb blast his two sons, two daughters and sister in law died. Two tender aged daughters of his were injured seriously.
There have been almost relentless terrorist attacks in Pakistan, even more so after the show down at the red mosque of Islamabad. On Sunday July 6, 2008 there was a deadly attack in which eleven police officers were killed and twenty two injured near the red mosque where the militants were observing the first anniversary of the attack on the red mosque. Within twenty four hours there was the horrendous blast at the Indian embassy in Kabul.
As if India and Afghanistan were not enough, Pakistan seems to have taken on the US in this proxy war. An aerial attack on the al Qaeda hideout by the US killed eleven Pakistani soldiers in the North Western province. In retaliation militants killed nine American soldiers on Sunday July 13, 2008 in an assault in the region bordering Pakistan and Afghanistan. (WP)
As if India and Afghanistan were not enough, Pakistan seems to have taken on the US in this proxy war. An aerial attack on the al Qaeda hideout by the US killed eleven Pakistani soldiers in the North Western province. In retaliation militants killed nine American soldiers on Sunday July 13, 2008 in an assault in the region bordering Pakistan and Afghanistan. (WP)
Thursday, July 3, 2008
The New Terror Image
The bull dozer driver who ploughed two buses and other vehicles, killing three and wounding 45 in Jerusalem on July 2 is the newest staggering image of terror. There is a sub continental counterpart of it: the human torpedo of the LTTE of which the Sri Lankan government has duly warned New Delhi. It calls for a better understanding of the alibi for terror and how to resolve it. If not, such newer ways of resorting to terror, murder and mayhem would continue appearing and transforming into new shapes. Human development and growth of civilization on the earth requires that we truly search out rather than keep on justifying one side or the other. There is something seriously wrong when a man drives a 20-tonne earth moving vehicle 500 metres along Jaffa Road to lodge protest and draw world attention.
The bull dozer was an Israeli citizen of Arab origin and came from a modest income family. There was assurance of his easy mobility within his country. But he was from east Jerusalem which is mainly populated by the Palestinians of Arab origin akin to their counterparts, Jews. Hence both are Semite people. His identity card was on him. He was employed in construction work as a driver of the bull dozer. He had two children and was about 30 years old. As a citizen of his country there is obviously no ground why he should do what he did that fateful day. Probably he was not a displaced internally or externally like most of the Palestinians are either in the refugee camps of Lebanon and elsewhere.
Violence and terror has become self sustaining in the Middle East. Which began what is difficult to clearly demarcate. Disproportionate use of force in itself is self generating terror. That is one of the reasons why a Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri made the observation: "We consider it as a natural reaction to the daily aggression and crimes committed against our people in the West Bank and all over the occupied lands." This is the rut of self justification from which it is now difficult to come out. No amount of shuttle diplomacy of Condoleezza Rice or Solana would undo the snare in which the Palestinians and Israelis find themselves.
After the war in 1967 and the Yom Kippur war of 1973 there was a time when hijacking aero planes was the only way the Palestinians could react to the Zionist outrage of occupation of their land and their forced expulsion from the place of their birth. The West reacted rather hostilely by objecting to this mode of terror which the Palestinians considered legitimate way of getting back to those who had made them so miserable. Among the families uprooted was that of their leader Yasser Arafat. Targeting civilian planes made the West repugnant. As the Palestinians are more informed and democratic than many others in the Middle East they realized that they could not swim against the tide and it forced the Palestinians to resort to more individualized and personalized means of expressing their grievances and venting their volcanic frustrating impotence of the suppression and oppression of the occupation. Suicide fidayeen appeared on the stage to make the world know how personalized their suffering has been and how violent their reaction. As the Israeli police chief, Dudi Cohen, said the attacker appeared to have been acting alone. "It looks as if it was a spontaneous act."
The bull dozer was an Israeli citizen of Arab origin and came from a modest income family. There was assurance of his easy mobility within his country. But he was from east Jerusalem which is mainly populated by the Palestinians of Arab origin akin to their counterparts, Jews. Hence both are Semite people. His identity card was on him. He was employed in construction work as a driver of the bull dozer. He had two children and was about 30 years old. As a citizen of his country there is obviously no ground why he should do what he did that fateful day. Probably he was not a displaced internally or externally like most of the Palestinians are either in the refugee camps of Lebanon and elsewhere.
Violence and terror has become self sustaining in the Middle East. Which began what is difficult to clearly demarcate. Disproportionate use of force in itself is self generating terror. That is one of the reasons why a Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri made the observation: "We consider it as a natural reaction to the daily aggression and crimes committed against our people in the West Bank and all over the occupied lands." This is the rut of self justification from which it is now difficult to come out. No amount of shuttle diplomacy of Condoleezza Rice or Solana would undo the snare in which the Palestinians and Israelis find themselves.
After the war in 1967 and the Yom Kippur war of 1973 there was a time when hijacking aero planes was the only way the Palestinians could react to the Zionist outrage of occupation of their land and their forced expulsion from the place of their birth. The West reacted rather hostilely by objecting to this mode of terror which the Palestinians considered legitimate way of getting back to those who had made them so miserable. Among the families uprooted was that of their leader Yasser Arafat. Targeting civilian planes made the West repugnant. As the Palestinians are more informed and democratic than many others in the Middle East they realized that they could not swim against the tide and it forced the Palestinians to resort to more individualized and personalized means of expressing their grievances and venting their volcanic frustrating impotence of the suppression and oppression of the occupation. Suicide fidayeen appeared on the stage to make the world know how personalized their suffering has been and how violent their reaction. As the Israeli police chief, Dudi Cohen, said the attacker appeared to have been acting alone. "It looks as if it was a spontaneous act."
Every scene of murder and mayhem is equally revolting. Change the identity of the victim the casualty is purely human. The above injured Israelis citizen is a picture of pity so is the driver below whom a soldier off duty shot twice in the head and then an antiterrorist office shot and dispatched him forever(below).
Terror rose in the region as a result of the lacerating vetoes the American used so very often that they left no hope of any solution. The Non Alignment Movement was still around and had some leverage. But the Americans had armed the Israelis so much that no one could match them. Moreover the proverbial disunity among the Arabs was self defeating. The Soviet Union was also there to counterbalance the American. It could shore up some support but it died a premature death all of a sudden. Egypt enjoyed close relationship with the Soviet Union but it did not translate into any monetary benefit. The Shah of Iran was not only an ally of the US but also of Israel. Turkey was so indifferent to the Arabs and the Palestinians. So the Palestinians had to rely on themselves, individually in self sacrificing and together in waging the Intifada. That did produce a chemistry of change. It is continuing.
The basics of the alibi of terror can be outlined:
The Palestinians choose suicide bombing because of the occupation of their land and their displacement as well as the phenomenal cruelty of the Israelis.
The Israelis use their superior military power in response to suicide bombing and rockets fired into its territories, both occupied and land within its jurisdiction from its contrived birth, thanks mainly to the US.
The basic (1) is not the antecedent to the basic (2). For example the construction of a railway line connecting East and West Jerusalem for which the driver was working can be in itself the cause of the present terror. The railway is a means of the expansionist design of the Zionism. It depends on how you view the events. As the two sides cannot overcome the compulsions of their own people and policy, the world must reenter into the negotiating process to resolve the impasse, now that ‘the American power has not declined but everybody else in the world has risen like India and China.’
The basics of the alibi of terror can be outlined:
The Palestinians choose suicide bombing because of the occupation of their land and their displacement as well as the phenomenal cruelty of the Israelis.
The Israelis use their superior military power in response to suicide bombing and rockets fired into its territories, both occupied and land within its jurisdiction from its contrived birth, thanks mainly to the US.
The basic (1) is not the antecedent to the basic (2). For example the construction of a railway line connecting East and West Jerusalem for which the driver was working can be in itself the cause of the present terror. The railway is a means of the expansionist design of the Zionism. It depends on how you view the events. As the two sides cannot overcome the compulsions of their own people and policy, the world must reenter into the negotiating process to resolve the impasse, now that ‘the American power has not declined but everybody else in the world has risen like India and China.’
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Kashmir on the fault line of its land
What has happened in Kashmir valley over the past four days is not a picture of whole India. India does have religious strife and sectarian conflict in galore. But the present trouble is a matter of constitutional problem of identity of Kashmiriat that was assured to the people of that state. However the dispute over the allotment of 39.88 hectares of land for temporary shelter to Hindu pilgrims taking shape of a permanent feature of the land is having deep impact on the Kashmiri psyche. That is threatening to make India what Jagmohan feared “a torn and tormented India, an India that is continuously at war with itself.” Certainly India is not a torn country although there is some torment and continuous friction thanks to BJP and even Congress. It will ever be there till a foreseeable future. The present phase is nothing short of “nuts and bolts of operational reality” of the conceded meager autonomy.
The retiring Governor SK Sinha had prepared the plan of granting of land for the Amarnath pilgrims. It has transpired that the temporary shelters in the form of makeshift tent camps would change into permanent guest houses in which the annual visiting pilgrims would stay. They would become full fledged settlements for good. The phobia of the “outsiders” occupying their land haunts the ordinary Kashmiris. The incoming Governor NN Vohra sanctioned the proposed bill. The popular perception is that there is no ruckus over either the pilgrims or improvement of their transit facilities. But taking away forest land and changing the shape into a different identity mark did not go well with the people. Hence the resentment that the governors have undeclared agenda of cutting corners of whatever special status is given to the region through the Resettlement Act of 1983 or otherwise.
The Kashmiris themselves do not cry foul at the governor who is invariably a Hindu. This is despite the fact that some governors have had close link with the right wing parties and were self avowed Hindutvavadi. But lawyers point out that in other states where Muslims are in significant number there is no such arrangement whereby there is a Hindu chief minister and a Muslim governor. Kerala is the antipode. Hurriyat Conference, Peoples Democratic Party or Democratic Freedom Party in the valley does not look at the rest of the country when they agitate over the issue. To them their separate status and identity matter more and they fear the land allotment is an encroachment. Or else why has the resentment become so endemic. Could not have the governors seen all this?
Interestingly the matter was first raised by PDP whose leader Qazi Mohammad Afzal is the forest minister. His supporters and others are not so much concerned that permanent structures could pose threat to the delicate ecology of the region what with plastic and polythene and other non biodegradable things mixing in the soil or felling of the trees and all. It is the tone and tenor of the administration where a governor can extend Amarnath Yatra for a whole month and bring confrontation with the Chief Minister to a head. As it happened during Mufti Sayeed’s tenure. Or, the Centre considering right to information celebrity Wajahat Habibullah to replace SK Sinha leading VHP and BJP to threaten a stir against the move. The central security forces have their own perspective. One CRPF soldier killed Farooq Ahmad Rahi (18) standing on the second floor of his house, not part of the protesters on the ground. There are also different hobby horses which the governors ride in a marked contrast to the elected representatives and their leader. Sinha wanted to manage not only Vaishno Devi pilgrimage but also start a Vaishno Devi University in Jammu. Creating a separate board for reviving Shiv Khori yatra in Reasi, Kailash Kund and the Machail yat in Doda and setting up of a Shardapeeth Unioversity in Kashmir were also on his anvil. As a senior reporter from the valley put it : the protest “reflects the people’s anger and distrust for outgoing governor Lt-Gen S.K. Sinha’s (retired) extra-constitutional ways of conducting himself and running the shrine board, and government’s silence over the matter,”
A divided administration on such a fault line bodes ill for the country as it did not so long ago.
The retiring Governor SK Sinha had prepared the plan of granting of land for the Amarnath pilgrims. It has transpired that the temporary shelters in the form of makeshift tent camps would change into permanent guest houses in which the annual visiting pilgrims would stay. They would become full fledged settlements for good. The phobia of the “outsiders” occupying their land haunts the ordinary Kashmiris. The incoming Governor NN Vohra sanctioned the proposed bill. The popular perception is that there is no ruckus over either the pilgrims or improvement of their transit facilities. But taking away forest land and changing the shape into a different identity mark did not go well with the people. Hence the resentment that the governors have undeclared agenda of cutting corners of whatever special status is given to the region through the Resettlement Act of 1983 or otherwise.
The Kashmiris themselves do not cry foul at the governor who is invariably a Hindu. This is despite the fact that some governors have had close link with the right wing parties and were self avowed Hindutvavadi. But lawyers point out that in other states where Muslims are in significant number there is no such arrangement whereby there is a Hindu chief minister and a Muslim governor. Kerala is the antipode. Hurriyat Conference, Peoples Democratic Party or Democratic Freedom Party in the valley does not look at the rest of the country when they agitate over the issue. To them their separate status and identity matter more and they fear the land allotment is an encroachment. Or else why has the resentment become so endemic. Could not have the governors seen all this?
Interestingly the matter was first raised by PDP whose leader Qazi Mohammad Afzal is the forest minister. His supporters and others are not so much concerned that permanent structures could pose threat to the delicate ecology of the region what with plastic and polythene and other non biodegradable things mixing in the soil or felling of the trees and all. It is the tone and tenor of the administration where a governor can extend Amarnath Yatra for a whole month and bring confrontation with the Chief Minister to a head. As it happened during Mufti Sayeed’s tenure. Or, the Centre considering right to information celebrity Wajahat Habibullah to replace SK Sinha leading VHP and BJP to threaten a stir against the move. The central security forces have their own perspective. One CRPF soldier killed Farooq Ahmad Rahi (18) standing on the second floor of his house, not part of the protesters on the ground. There are also different hobby horses which the governors ride in a marked contrast to the elected representatives and their leader. Sinha wanted to manage not only Vaishno Devi pilgrimage but also start a Vaishno Devi University in Jammu. Creating a separate board for reviving Shiv Khori yatra in Reasi, Kailash Kund and the Machail yat in Doda and setting up of a Shardapeeth Unioversity in Kashmir were also on his anvil. As a senior reporter from the valley put it : the protest “reflects the people’s anger and distrust for outgoing governor Lt-Gen S.K. Sinha’s (retired) extra-constitutional ways of conducting himself and running the shrine board, and government’s silence over the matter,”
A divided administration on such a fault line bodes ill for the country as it did not so long ago.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Maharashtra and its bomb blasts
Finally the Hindu bomb has surfaced. The real question is when it materialized on the scene and under whose patronage. The answer to the two questions holds the key to a host of bomb blasts which have taken place in the country. There are loose strands that need to be tied together. For example Hindu Janjagaran Samiti is registered in Goa (IE 19-6-8) where one of the accused in Nanded blast of April 2006 spent more than two years of training in arms after his stint with a tall sturdy man named “Mithun Chakravarty” of Poona, an expert in bomb making. A rickshaw driver had appeared on popular television channels claiming to have carried two passengers who had come from Malegaon in the late evening of September 8, 2006. They had remarked that they had done the work much earlier in the day what was scheduled for later in the night of Shabebarat.
To begin at the beginning, the first serial bomb blasts were of March 1993. The demolition of Babri masjid was water shed in the history of the country. Bal Thackeray has often said that he was happy that his Shiv Sainiks were instrumental in the destruction. The massacre of Muslims in December and January 1992-93 is also known for the leading role the Shiv Sena played in it. Going by the record of the serial blasts perpetrators, they have said that they were pushed to the wall and had to retaliate to stem what they believed was their genocide.
Since then Mahrashtra has been the focus of terrorist attacks which has entered in what some have termed as a tit for tat phase. Terror breeds terror. The next major terrorist attack was on the local trains in July 2006 which many feared was a blowback to the pogroms of Muslims in Gujarat of 2002. The targets were the first class compartments which the Gujarati merchants generally travel in. The middle class Gujarati merchants of the cosmopolitan Mumbai form the bulk of support for Narendra Modi government in Gujarat.
The third major attack of terror was on September 8, 2006 in Malegaon. The main cemetery mosque and the neighbouring Mushawarat chowk were targets at the precise time of Friday prayer, quite reminiscent of the Black Friday of Mumbai 1993. Needless to say that the bombers wanted to kill Muslims alone.
In the meantime several mosques at Jalna, Purna, and Parbhani in the Marathwada region were targeted. The alleged perpetrators included extremist Hindus belonging to RSS, Bajrang Dal and VHP. There were also various mysterious blasts which need scrutiny.
(1) On April6, 2006 there was a powerful explosion at 1.30 a.m. at the house of the RSS activist Laxman Rajkondawar a retired irrigation engineer. The blast killed his son Naresh Rajkondawar (29) and Himanshu Panse (31). Rahul Pande was injured along with two others. He had run away but was arrested later. At 5.am an FIR was lodged that firecrackers blew up there. Those who were the earliest to visit the injured were BJP MP DB Patil, Shiv Sena’s Prakash Kaudge and Milind Ektate, VHP’s Navin Bhat Thakkar and Bajrangdal’s Sanjay Kodge. House search in the area led to arms cache: One live bomb along with ten live rounds of 7.65 mm, generally used in rifles as well as false beards, skull caps worn by Muslims, Kurta, maps of mosques in Aurangabad. Inspector General Mr Gupta held a press conference on April 7th and revealed that actually bombs were made there at the house of Laxman Rajkondawar and the casualties were caused by bomb explosion. Subsequently a new FIR was registered on April 9 which replaced crackers with bombs as the cause. One of the accused is Sanjay Chaudhari who received phone calls from BD, VHP and RSS activists assuring him of early release. . ACP ATS Anil J Tamaichekar who submitted a report saying that the diary of Maroti Keshav Wagh shows that it was a well organized team and the explosion was an accident. The diary recovered shows how Himanchu had visited Aurangbad in 2004 and surveyed a mosque with a photographer who had taken snaps of the mosque from several angles. There was a map with the mosque clearly marked. Himansu had taken training in Goa for two years.
Maroti Wagh took training at Bhosla Military School at Nagpur then went to Pune and planted a bomb at the Mohammadia mosque in Parbhani. Naresh was pivotal in organizing attacks. He had called Vinod Kamtikar from his mobile, number 9822297494 on April 5 and told him to keep a motor bike ready for Maroti Keshave Wagh, time was l.30 a.m. April 7, 2006.
(2)Pandurang Ameelkanthwar (28) died on the spot as he was carrying biscuit boxes which exploded on February 10, 2007 in Nanded. His cousin Dnaneshwar Manikwar sustained 72 per cent burns and died on February 16 at JJ Hospital, Mumbai.
These blasts were quite weird in nature and give a hint of deep rooted conspiracy. The cause was not any immediate grievance like any pogrom or massacre from which members of their community had suffered in the present.
Then cultural and religious perceived slur transmorphed into grievance that produced terror. Jodha Akbar and Aamhi Pachpute are cultural artifacts of Hindus.
The sevaks of revivalist Sanatan Sanstha Ramesh Hanumant Gadkari (50), Mangesh Nikam (34), Santosh Angre (26), and Vikram Bhave (26) have claimed that theirs was a self start group and self financed attempt to make bombs and explode at Thane, Vashi and Penn theatres and public places. They had bought shrapnel from Panvel eight timers costing Rs 550 from Lhar Chawl and batteries from Grant road and also detonators, gelatin sticks and ammonium nitrate from different parts of Mumbai. This is a do-it-for-yourself work, vintage Maharashtra. Gadkar and Angre were picked up by the police from the Sanatan Ashram at Devat, Panvel, Nikam from Satara, and Bhave from Wadala. Gadkari who has a diploma in electronic engineering made the circuits. Nikam was involved in bomb blast in Ratnagiri in 2006 but was acquitted. Bhave had a record of being involved in a brawl with relatives of a girl who had come to take her from the Sanatan Ashram. Gadkari and Angre had also planted a bomb at a mosque at Pen highway to check the intensity of the device at the time of Diwali to camouflage the sound of explosion. .
There is a clear attempt to modify their statements after arrest according to legal consideration. For example Ramesh Gadkar has first said that his wife Neela, a fellow sevak, had gone to plant the bomb at Gadkary Rangayatan hall in Thane. Afterward he said that it was Vikram Bhave who had accompanied him there.
.
Most ominous is Gadkari’s complaint to the judge “The police are putting pressure on my family and not considering my statement. They want a statement according to their will.” (TOI 19-6-8). What is this will? The police have allegedly changed records in Nanded blasts and could do this time too. This could lead ultimately to acquittal and the framing of the regular run of the mill terrorists. There is a good deal of coded words. In his Saamna editorial Thackeray speaks of “mini Pakistan”, where he would admire these latter day terrorists to plant bombs. “Mini Pakistan” not only refers to illegal Bangladeshi bastis which are not Pakistani, but also a Muslim majority area. Most common example is Malegaon or Bhiwandi. Is there anyone who can dare to seek explanation of the code?
To begin at the beginning, the first serial bomb blasts were of March 1993. The demolition of Babri masjid was water shed in the history of the country. Bal Thackeray has often said that he was happy that his Shiv Sainiks were instrumental in the destruction. The massacre of Muslims in December and January 1992-93 is also known for the leading role the Shiv Sena played in it. Going by the record of the serial blasts perpetrators, they have said that they were pushed to the wall and had to retaliate to stem what they believed was their genocide.
Since then Mahrashtra has been the focus of terrorist attacks which has entered in what some have termed as a tit for tat phase. Terror breeds terror. The next major terrorist attack was on the local trains in July 2006 which many feared was a blowback to the pogroms of Muslims in Gujarat of 2002. The targets were the first class compartments which the Gujarati merchants generally travel in. The middle class Gujarati merchants of the cosmopolitan Mumbai form the bulk of support for Narendra Modi government in Gujarat.
The third major attack of terror was on September 8, 2006 in Malegaon. The main cemetery mosque and the neighbouring Mushawarat chowk were targets at the precise time of Friday prayer, quite reminiscent of the Black Friday of Mumbai 1993. Needless to say that the bombers wanted to kill Muslims alone.
In the meantime several mosques at Jalna, Purna, and Parbhani in the Marathwada region were targeted. The alleged perpetrators included extremist Hindus belonging to RSS, Bajrang Dal and VHP. There were also various mysterious blasts which need scrutiny.
(1) On April6, 2006 there was a powerful explosion at 1.30 a.m. at the house of the RSS activist Laxman Rajkondawar a retired irrigation engineer. The blast killed his son Naresh Rajkondawar (29) and Himanshu Panse (31). Rahul Pande was injured along with two others. He had run away but was arrested later. At 5.am an FIR was lodged that firecrackers blew up there. Those who were the earliest to visit the injured were BJP MP DB Patil, Shiv Sena’s Prakash Kaudge and Milind Ektate, VHP’s Navin Bhat Thakkar and Bajrangdal’s Sanjay Kodge. House search in the area led to arms cache: One live bomb along with ten live rounds of 7.65 mm, generally used in rifles as well as false beards, skull caps worn by Muslims, Kurta, maps of mosques in Aurangabad. Inspector General Mr Gupta held a press conference on April 7th and revealed that actually bombs were made there at the house of Laxman Rajkondawar and the casualties were caused by bomb explosion. Subsequently a new FIR was registered on April 9 which replaced crackers with bombs as the cause. One of the accused is Sanjay Chaudhari who received phone calls from BD, VHP and RSS activists assuring him of early release. . ACP ATS Anil J Tamaichekar who submitted a report saying that the diary of Maroti Keshav Wagh shows that it was a well organized team and the explosion was an accident. The diary recovered shows how Himanchu had visited Aurangbad in 2004 and surveyed a mosque with a photographer who had taken snaps of the mosque from several angles. There was a map with the mosque clearly marked. Himansu had taken training in Goa for two years.
Maroti Wagh took training at Bhosla Military School at Nagpur then went to Pune and planted a bomb at the Mohammadia mosque in Parbhani. Naresh was pivotal in organizing attacks. He had called Vinod Kamtikar from his mobile, number 9822297494 on April 5 and told him to keep a motor bike ready for Maroti Keshave Wagh, time was l.30 a.m. April 7, 2006.
(2)Pandurang Ameelkanthwar (28) died on the spot as he was carrying biscuit boxes which exploded on February 10, 2007 in Nanded. His cousin Dnaneshwar Manikwar sustained 72 per cent burns and died on February 16 at JJ Hospital, Mumbai.
These blasts were quite weird in nature and give a hint of deep rooted conspiracy. The cause was not any immediate grievance like any pogrom or massacre from which members of their community had suffered in the present.
Then cultural and religious perceived slur transmorphed into grievance that produced terror. Jodha Akbar and Aamhi Pachpute are cultural artifacts of Hindus.
The sevaks of revivalist Sanatan Sanstha Ramesh Hanumant Gadkari (50), Mangesh Nikam (34), Santosh Angre (26), and Vikram Bhave (26) have claimed that theirs was a self start group and self financed attempt to make bombs and explode at Thane, Vashi and Penn theatres and public places. They had bought shrapnel from Panvel eight timers costing Rs 550 from Lhar Chawl and batteries from Grant road and also detonators, gelatin sticks and ammonium nitrate from different parts of Mumbai. This is a do-it-for-yourself work, vintage Maharashtra. Gadkar and Angre were picked up by the police from the Sanatan Ashram at Devat, Panvel, Nikam from Satara, and Bhave from Wadala. Gadkari who has a diploma in electronic engineering made the circuits. Nikam was involved in bomb blast in Ratnagiri in 2006 but was acquitted. Bhave had a record of being involved in a brawl with relatives of a girl who had come to take her from the Sanatan Ashram. Gadkari and Angre had also planted a bomb at a mosque at Pen highway to check the intensity of the device at the time of Diwali to camouflage the sound of explosion. .
There is a clear attempt to modify their statements after arrest according to legal consideration. For example Ramesh Gadkar has first said that his wife Neela, a fellow sevak, had gone to plant the bomb at Gadkary Rangayatan hall in Thane. Afterward he said that it was Vikram Bhave who had accompanied him there.
.
Most ominous is Gadkari’s complaint to the judge “The police are putting pressure on my family and not considering my statement. They want a statement according to their will.” (TOI 19-6-8). What is this will? The police have allegedly changed records in Nanded blasts and could do this time too. This could lead ultimately to acquittal and the framing of the regular run of the mill terrorists. There is a good deal of coded words. In his Saamna editorial Thackeray speaks of “mini Pakistan”, where he would admire these latter day terrorists to plant bombs. “Mini Pakistan” not only refers to illegal Bangladeshi bastis which are not Pakistani, but also a Muslim majority area. Most common example is Malegaon or Bhiwandi. Is there anyone who can dare to seek explanation of the code?
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Communalizing terror to terrorize communities
It is no surprise that Bal Thackeray has 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, Hyderbad, Jama Masjid of Delhi, Marathada 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 has 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 says: “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 is upping the ante against the so called jihadi terrorism. That is the fig leaf that hardly hides 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.
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 says: “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 is upping the ante against the so called jihadi terrorism. That is the fig leaf that hardly hides 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.
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