Saturday, February 22, 2014
Quintessential Hindutva Aseemanand effect
Quintessential Hindutva
Aseemanand effect
Hindutva is a legacy of VD Savarkar in its acquiring the accretion of implications down the decades. It is an aggressive stance of appropriating the right to champion politicized and militarized Hinduism and taking issues to a flashpoint of hostile confrontation vis-à-vis the minorities. It is maneuvering of historical facts and present reality and distortion of them to foist a supremacist point of view. Thus it militates against the virtues of Hindu religion of tolerance for which it has claimed a distinguished place of its own in the world comity since time immemorial. However, the arrival of Hindutva has begun to eclipse the innate strength of Hindu religion in the hurly burly of heralding a Hindu state without minorities.
Most illustrative is the Hindutva intolerance of the minorities and the justification that Hindus cannot be terrorists by birth or by practice. If the members of the group commit violence, that is terrorism, it is meant for retaliating against the others who are not Hindus and can be terrorists. In this it is aping of Al Qaeda.
There are pseudo secularists as well as pseudo nationalists. The latter on account of their ideology and the former are opportunist. LK Advani, Narendra Modi, Praveen Togadia are the architects of modern day Hindutva. If Advani were truly nationalist he would have debated Mandal issue and not divert it with a movement for demolishing a mosque and building a temple on its site. If that was nearly a quarter of a century ago, in more recent times he should have espoused the cause of the innocent people of Muslim community trapped in bogus terror charges instead of demanding harsher laws, even more draconian than the POTA and TADA. For his own constituency which returned him to Parliament time and again had exclusively innocents from Muslim community thrown in jails under the same laws. There is no world from him or anyone how the police had condemnably behaved by painting in rosy colour of how the police played pranks with the public at large let alone Muslims that the episode of Aseemanand repenting for the evil he had done he felt remorse and confessed. Mischievously laughing as he does the big story made up by the police he asserts: “Kaleem knew that I was in the same jail, but I couldn’t meet him.” And the crown of irony in bad taste: “How will I ever say such things to a Muslim boy?” [1]Modi too has played such pranks. The eleven Muslim falsely accused in the murder of Haren Pandya were acquitted. Even senior officers like Sanjiv Bhat have expressed what they knew that Modi himself may be behind the murder of Pandya. Mufti Sufiyan was allowed to flee to Pakistan with tacit approval and he was the master mind. Another mastermind [Haji Omar]was the Godhra accused who was acquitted! What message does Gujarat government under a Hindutva leader want to send to the world?
Even in 2014 this protégé of Advani demands why not GUJCOCA be sanctioned for the state. Little does the mentor or the disciple have if any iota of introspection over the issues of playing havoc with the polity! Even Swami Aseemanand’s playing pranks on the issue of Kaleem being innocent or otherwise can hardly hide the macabre of foul tragedy they have wrought.
But today the truth of Panchmahal pogrom has acquired that volubility as the mutilated woman in Shakespeare who was raped and tongue and fingers cut off to hide the rape by the king. At one point Aseemanand told the reporter that the Dangs “had the kind of work that I am good at—staying among the tribals and working with them. One should always do the work from which one gains contentment.” He illustrates with a cogent example by naming the province that was affected worse in 2002 genocide of Muslims: “The wiping out of Muslims from this area was also overseen by me.” It gratified Chief Minister Modi so much that he gifted even larger amount of public money as a reward to the mass murder of Muslims arranged by the Swami. In October 2002 Modi sanctioned huge amount of money in order to strengthen Aseemanand’s hold on Panchmahal. A part of the largess of Modi went to the construction of the huge temple in Shabri Dham. This became the monument for which a contrite nation would have dubbed it a memorial of shame over the slaughter of Muslims of Dangs. Inversely and perversely it was named after the woman who fed Lord Ram in his exile.
As if mere grants were not enough Modi kick started his election campaign during the eight day recital of Ram Katha by Bapu Morari. If that was October 2002 it was 2013 when Hindutva replicated another campaign, now in UP. Modi’s confidant and fellow accomplice in the crimes of fake encounter Amit Shah emulated Modi in August 2013 by praying at Ayodhya temple raised at the rubble of the Babri Mosque.
The centerpiece of the manifesto of December 2002 election was Gujarat Freedom of Religion Bill. It was this promulgation of conversion bill that one day the US would deny Modi visa in 2005. Little did the world know that this bill does not allow conversion of any Indian to any other religion without permission from the district magistrate! This in spite of the constitutional right, that Indians are free to convert to any religion they want. After the bill was passed into law in April 2003, Aseemanand, Modi and Morari planned to organize reconversion of Christians and Muslims known as ghar vapsi, return home. Morari proposed and Modi accepted.
Four years continued work of construction of temple and infrastructure helped the Hindutva groups to have a mammoth programme in February 2006. The hidden agenda was of course planting bombs in places where Muslims were in sizable number but overtly it was reconversion of Christians and Muslims. Among those who attended were Narendra Modi, RSS leaders including Indresh Kumar and Mohan Bhagwat, Pragya Singh Thakur, etc. the event went down in history annals as the jubilant celebration of Hindutva.
Are we prepared to acknowledge Modi and Bhagwat as terrorists?
As if what had happened in2002 in Gujarat were not enough acts of terrorism, the new revelations by Swami Aseemanand have added further illustrations of perpetuation of terrorism. Rashtraiya Swayam Sevaksangh cadres and Bajrang Dal volunteers were in their uniform in large numbers in Naroda Patiya and other places at the start of the pogroms of Muslims on February 28, 2002. Officially the incidents were merely dubbed as riots in defiance of the fact that the police were firing at the Muslim minority and clearing the ground and then letting the Hindu extremists do the rest, looting, burning houses, killing and burning their victims alive, raping and yanking fetuses with their spears and swords and then making a bone fire, encircling of women by the crowds, gang raping them for hours together and then setting them on fire! This was terrorism. India has failed to call it terrorism. Here India means the political parties, their governments at state and centre and also the media, among others.
These were acts of terrorism committed by the identifiable groups and even the crowds of people let loose upon the victims by the call of strike for three days. The chief minister of the state of Gujarat Narendra Modi had instructed the police to let the Hindus vent their anger at the Muslims and he stipulated three days of time for them to finish the pogroms. That the pogroms were well prepared in advance and all arrangements were made with print outs of Muslim houses and commercial establishments made available and even the surveys were conducted for it in advance. This is how Narendra Modi qualified himself to be the terrorist by his acts of commission and omission. As to the last he has till as late as February 2014 not uttered a single word of regret that the Muslims were killed in such large number. Even worse he followed it by allowing as home minister other acts of commission and omission: the fake encounters. He chose to play politics over the fake encounters. He manipulated the arrests of falsely accused Muslims as terrorists out to kill him so that he would stand to gain support for him and his party in the elections.
This has gone unabated for more than ten years because he let his own lieutenants subvert the law and judiciary in the state.
Furthermore in one currently debated case of Ishrat Jahan and three others Modi sanctioned the cold blooded killing and hence he is a terrorist, qua terrorist. In the statement of no other than GL Singhal whom the chief minister ordered through chain of command to kill the four the chief minister committed terrorism: Singhal gave the statement to CBI : “He (Vanzara) had showed me a complaint written in his own handwriting wherein some contents (names, number of rounds etc) were not written. It was pertaining to this case and the story of encounter in the complaint of what was registered later as Ahmadabad City DCB PS I CR No. 8/04. I had voiced my disagreement to Shri Vanzara on reading this draft complaint. My differences were basically on two points. One, the motive in the draft FIR mentioned a plan to kill the Chief Minister Shri Narendra Modi; but this was wrong. Since I had interrogated Amjadali, I knew the motive was different. Two, I had serious objections to killing the girl, Ishrat. I had said we let her go, and had promised to ensure that she would not spill the beans about this operation to anyone. Despite my strong objections, Shri Vanzara insisted on keeping the motive involving the Chief Minister and on killing the girl and branding her later as a woman terrorist. He had told me that this was already discussed with kali dadhi and safed dadhi, and that they wanted it that way.”
Muslim youths were arrested and framed in false charges of terrorism just because of their appearance with beard and tunic. However, in this case the “black” and “white beard” is the minister of state for home Amit Shah and the chief minister Narendra Modi. They have not been arrested for years on end. Those who were killed outright like Ishrat Jahan were not terrorists at all. Modi, Shah and his police men including the special joint director of IB Rajendra Kumar have not only been alive but in power and they used their office and position to subvert the law and the judicial process. Why these terrorists have prerogatives and the others who were not, were not only brutally killed but made to bear mark of ignominy ever since their death. The act of killing the innocent was passed off as patriotism, deshbhakti as Vanzara called it. Prizes were awarded and promotions lavished. Their killer right from Modi to the cops of all ranks were allowed to rule the land. Courts and police malfunctioned for so long and so cussedly that the entire Muslim community had to suffer ignominy and death of their near and dear ones. Even today there is no suo moto attempt to redress the wrong and frame charges against the real killers. Why is this kind of terrorism different from the terrorism of Ajmal Kasab and Afzal Guru?
The reason is not difficult to ascertain. India is not matured in democratic principles to call a spade a spade. Modi and Mohan Bhagwat are the counterparts of those who are doing the same. Swami Aseemanand has stated a fact in his own voice recorded by Leena Reghunanthan on her phone what constitutes Bhagwat confessing terrorism.
RSS as a terrorist organization: manifest threat to the existence of Muslims. In the killing fields of Mujaffarnagar and everywhere else
It was on January 23, 2014 when the Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi took on Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadu at Gorakhpur. “Netaji, do you know the meaning of converting to Gujarat? It means 24 hours electricity in every village and street.” Then thumping his barrel of chest: “It requires 56inch chest.” Both the fore grounded examples of development are heavily loaded with implications. Before this Mulayam Singh had accused Modi of responsibility for the genocide of Muslims in 2002. The entire strategy of Modi to foist on the Muslims the genocide was calculated to win election which he did. The collector of Godhra Jayanti Geetha had repeatedly told on radio that it was a fire incident in the S6 compartment and there was no sign of protest or fight when the compartment burnt. Even the American writer Martha C Nussbaum in her book “The Clash Within” says that Muslims from behind the platform shanty helped the crowd collect water from their well to douse the fire in S6. This disproves Modi’s hypothesis that the Ghanchi Muslims residing behind the railway station at Signal Falia are criminal by nature. As to the cause of fire the writer says: “Some of them [passengers returning from Ayodha, kar sevaks or Hindu pilgrims who wanted to build Ram temple at Ayodha] got into arguments with Muslim vendors. One tea hawker had tea thrown on him; another selling cigarette was not paid. Another tea hawker went into coach S-6 and was literally picked up and thrown out, because the kar sevaks did not want a Muslim selling tea to Hindus. Another report mentions that a Muslim vendor was beaten up when he refused to say “Jai Sri Ram” (Hail Ram). A boy tried to molest a fourteen-year-old Muslim girl named Sophia…” This unruly scene had not developed into a riot. The crowd of Muslims had gathered outside beyond the iron railing and thus the crowd on the ground was fenced off. Even if there was stone pelting those within the train were not only well armed but had sharp edged stones from the tracks to retaliate. But there was another aspect. The compartments were locked from within, particularly S6 where the passengers had also stacked their luggage against the door so that other passenger could not enter it. Within most of the compartments the pilgrims had kerosene stoves and food stuff to cook cheaper meals on the journey. One such stove must have burst into fire. The train had reached the station at 7.43 and stopped for four minutes at Godhra. The chain was pulled in four compartments [from within of course] because some passengers had not been prompt enough to get on the train when it started moving. The train stopped and there was the fire incident. The fire engines arrived at the scene after 8.30 and the fire was put out by 10 am.
It was this fire incident that Narendra Modi turned into a terrorist attack by Muslims and ISI. This is a vivid illustration of the tactic that Aseemanand calls: making Hindus Katter or hardcore fanatics. “To stop conversions is an easy job. Use the route of religion. Make the Hindus kattar [fanatic]. The rest of the work will be done by them.”Thus by turning an accident into a terrorist attack Modi aroused the passions of the people of the majority community and gave them three days time to take revenge on the hapless Muslims.
The RSS chief Mohan Bhatwat told his cadres on 15 January at Dombivali, Mumbai, that “Sixty five years of Independence to our country had passed. Whatever changes have taken place has been mere physical. Change is in the permanent behavior of the people. The politicians or government servants cannot bring about this because they have to maintain their popularity among the people. Change should come from within the society. Society is the ‘father’ of everyone. ” appla desh swatantra houn 65 warsh jhali. Jey parivartan jhaley tey warwarchey. Pariwartan sthayee bhaw asoon tey rajky nete, sarkar, pariwartan aandnar nahin. Karan teyana lok priyata japoon dhewawi lagtey. ..smaj hatch sarwancha baap aahey. “Those who do not call themselves Hindus were descendants of Hindus. There should be no shame in calling ourselves as Hindus. The Hindu society can lead the world dynamically. Hindustan is a land of Hindus. Hindu ways of worshipping is not related to Hindu religion. Everyone is free to worship or not worship in Hindu religion.” Hindu nahi khnarey purvi hindu purjayanchey hote. Aamhi hinud aahot yachi laaj nako, sanpurn hindu samaj jaga chy netruto prakhty ney karoo shakel. Hinusthan hindun cha desh aahey. Hindu pooja paddaticha hindu dharmanshi sanbhan nahin. Hindu dharmat sarwanna pooja karneha chey, na karneyche swatantry asleycehy…(Saamna January 16, 2014)
Seemingly Modi and Bhagwat are speaking two different kinds of changes. But the crux of the matter is that those who put India First as their ideal and thereby worship it as goddess mother are Indians. Those who do not subscribe to this are not Indians. It was precisely on this discrimination that Modi ordered payment of 2,00, 000 rupees to every Hindu who died in the fire incident on the Sabamati Express train and afterward and only 1,00,000 to Muslims who were killed in the post Godhra pogroms. Since then the chief minister of Gujarat has refused to disburse the scholarship or stipend to the Muslim citizens of Gujarat. What is more RSS and other groups of extremists are unapologetic over the killing of Muslims for the same reason. When cadres of RSS and hordes of its affiliates killed Muslims it was not terrorism according to them! Therefore every Hindu converted to Islam or converted a Hindu girl while marrying her means one more enemy of the Hindus as swami Aseemanand learnt and so did Modi from Swami Vivekanand. Aseemanand, Bhagwat and so Modi would like to see that Muslims become idolatrous and touch the feet of Bharat Mata image or statue to be truly Indian as Bankam Chand Chatterji has given in his poem:
Mother, I bow to thee!
Rich with thy hurrying streams,
Bright with thy orchard gleams,
Cool with thy winds of delight,
Dark fields waving, Mother of might,
Mother free.
Glory of moonlight dreams
Over thy branches and lordly streams,
Clad in thy blossoming trees,
Mother, giver of ease.
Laughing low and sweet!
Mother, I kiss thy feet,
Speaker sweet and low!
Mother, to thee I bow.
Who hath said thou are weak in thy lands,
When the swords flash out in twice seventy million hands
And seventy million voices roar
Thy dreadful name from shore to shore?
Thou art wisdom, thou art law,
Thou our heart, our soul, our breath,
Thou the love divine, the awe
In our hearts that conquers death.
In the case of the Muzaffarnagar pogroms a Muslim youth reportedly stalked a jat girl. Her brothers killed him, and in retaliation the Muslims killed the two brothers. Another version is that a Valmiki stopped his dirt cart before the shop of a Muslim who objected and quarrel started on Augusts 27 August 2013. A mass gathering of jats was held on September 7th and the attacks took place. People were apprehensive of Amit Shah in charge of UP election going to Ayodha and performing puja at the beginning of his campaign in the wake of Nitish Kumar breaking the 17 year alliance between his party in Bihar and BJP. When he did this, Modi threatened dire consequences for what he dubbed as betrayal. He also vowed to avenge it. The jats till then were not fanatics and had always voted with Muslims. To make them kattar or fanatic a BJP MLA made a doctored video of Afghanistan Talibans executing their victims and passed it off as Muslims killing the two brothers. The same tactic was used, making Hindus kattar. Create hatred against the Muslims and ignite fire of communalism and revenge.
The tenets of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) have been latent but have now been becoming more and more apparent and unambiguous so much that it can send chilling apprehension down the spinal cord of the minorities. Its methods have been conspiratorial, violent, self justificatory and extremely chauvinistic. It sanctioned bomb blasts against Muslims in areas dominated by them demographically because of the bogey that Muslims produce more children than Hindus and would take over India in future. This explains why the RSS started advising Hindus to produce more than two children. To this end the organization through its affiliates multiplied over the years according to the same need aimed at extinction of Muslims. From worshipping of weapons of mass destruction and really using them and experimenting for more dangerous ones it remained unabashed, unconstitutional and outright criminal. But obviously the RSS never overtly states any such thing. Even so the belief in bombing and other acts of violence by it comes in open as in the latest news on Aseemanand from the Ambala central jail: ‘Swamiji, if you do this we will be at ease with it. Nothing wrong will happen then. Criminalisation nahin hoga (It will not be criminalised). If you do it, then people won’t say that we did a crime for the sake of committing a crime. It will be connected to the ideology. This is very important for Hindus. Please do this. You have our blessings.” Ours means saffron brigands.
They command government donated land, funds, schools, separate funds especially for temples, etc.
Into this juggernaut Narendra Modi’s election campaigning has added fuel to ignite Hindu sentiments. After all he was and is qua paracharak and not a chief minister or else he would not have let the marauding crowds of fanatics butcher Muslims for three days. He allowed this even after having sworn on the religious book that safety and security of all citizens and not just Hindus of Gujarat was his constitutional duty. Since then he has maneuvered through his lieutenant and in charge of UP election, Amit Shah, the pogroms in Muzaffarnagar and other districts. And those whom he gifted astronomical amount of money from the state exchequer have vision of global Hindu rashtra. He has paid from secret funds bribes to the lawyers of Mallika Sarabhai who was fighting a case for justice to the Muslims butchered in Naroda Patia. The Gujarati Diaspora has made funds available which would perpetrate more killings and later bribe judges and prosecutors or buy them outright in the defense of the accused in the pogroms. They bore the expenses of the pogroms by distributing money and food packages during February and March 2002 in Gujarat. RSS is now a threat overseas for its staunch stalwart’s [Aseemanand’s]vision of ‘a global Hindu rashtra.’ The Diaspora has settled on Modi to carry out the task. For nothing else than this apprehension in mind that Frank Raj remarked that more than Sharia, Hindutva is a danger to the world. [3]
Apropos this the Supreme Court is at long last in a mood to decide whether Hinduism and Hindutva are the same and are nor prejudicial to the other groups of Indians. The revelation of Aseemanand past his two confessions in Panchkula and Delhi and the Caravan addition as an appendix the debate has come a full circle. The election in 2014 holds promise that the sanity would prevail among the citizens of the republic to see through the thick fog that Modi’s speeches have spread as a miasma. The SC had ruled in 1995 that "Hindutva/Hinduism is a way of life of the people in the sub-continent" and "is a state of mind." [4]
Modi and Aseemanand are the counterpoints that can crystallize what exactly should be done. At stake is the Republic of India and not any party or demagogue of enormous proportion looming large over the elections still months away. Jusice JS Verma had ruled in three judge bench that Hinduism and Hindutva are the same and what Dr Murli Manohar Joshi had said during election then in the aftermath of the sway of his party thanks to the demolition of the Babri mosque was not unlawful. Joshi had foretold: “First Hindu State will be established in Maharashtra did not amount to appeal on ground of religion." Contrasted with Praveen Togadia’s statement of it in Hyderabad that first Hindu rashtra will be established in Gujarat in 2015. [5] Therefore, Joshi, Modi, Asimanand and Verma have each in his own ways shown unity of purpose. When Prime Minister AB Vajpayee sent Justice JS Verma and Attorny General Soli Sorabji to Vienna in 2002 to prevent Mary Robinson from visiting Gujarat to ascertain the extent of the genocide they were acting within the broader framework of the ideology.
[1]http://caravanmagazine.in/reportage/believer
[2]Saamna January 16, 2014.
[3] More dangerous than shariah: Hindutva. Frank Raj
[4] http://www.deccanherald.com/content/384155/sc039s-seven-judge-bench-revisit.html)
[5] http://www.rediff.com/news/report/vhp-will-declare-gujarat-a-hindu-state –by-2015-togadia-/20130401.html
Friday, February 21, 2014
A terror tainted Prime Minister?
The Vishwa Hindu Parishad gave a call for a strike in Gujarat on February 28, 2002. It was the chief of the VHP in Ahmedabad,
Jaideep Patel, to whom Chief Minister Narendra Modi handed over the 58 bodies of burnt passengers of the Sabarmati Express train at Godhra. Again, the VHP was at the Goa conclave of the BJP to force the Prime Minister of India, A.B. Vajpayee, to abandon his determination to change the head of government in Ahmedabad a few months after the pogrom. Given this clout of the Hindu supremacist outfit, can a future Prime Minister so close to Hindutva even dream of following his executive discretion in strategic national interests, overriding religious affiliation and considerations?
When the official news letter of the VHP headlined, “What Gujarat does, India will have to do tomorrow”, it was not a mere blue print of town planning. It said clearly that Hindutva alone mattered in the state and would matter in India if Modi came to power. [1] Even Arun Shourie held out the threat that if Muslims persisted in demanding the implementation of the Sachar Commission recommendations, no one could stop Modi from marching to Delhi. The very day after the then PM V.P. Singh accepted the Mandal Commission report and agreed to implement it, L.K. Advani declared his Rath Yatra for building a temple for Ram at the disputed place in Ayodhya. After 1992 and 2002 is there a bigger bloodshed in the making?
It is not the VHP or the RSS which will bring matters to a head. It was Modi who decided to call the fire accident a terrorist attack to initiate the pogrom. The decision came from him. The “heart of darkness” is within him. He has decided to exterminate the “brutes”, much in the way that the former PM of Israel, Golda Meier, decided to exterminate the “rodents”, the Palestinians. The “brutes” were breeding fast and multiplying, as Modi never tired of repeating.
Modi’s hate ideology kept him from feeling remorse, and he will not in the future flinch from doing elsewhere in the country what he did in Gujarat in 2002. This is illustrated by no other than Swami Agnivesh and other members of a group who visited Ahmedabad on the eve of PM A.B. Vajpayee’s visit there on April 1, 2002. “On the second day,” says Swami Agnivesh, “we were to stay for the night at a place called Eshwar Bhavan in the Ahmedabad’s Navrangpura area. There, we were accosted by a group of well-dressed Hindu fundamentalists. They told us, point blank, that we were most welcome to stay in the Bhavan but our Muslim colleagues must go stay in a masjid. We said, ‘We are all together, we are here just to ask everyone to stop this madness.’ But they insisted that the Muslims must be separated from the rest. When we said that this was not acceptable, they warned us that if the Muslims stayed they would blast bombs at the site.” It was this experience that later made the Swami remark: “Modi can never become PM because of his role in the riots.” He went further and told the press conference: “Modi’s Sadbhavana fast mission for promoting communal harmony was a drama and a stunt.” [2]
Before he assumed power as Chief Minister of Gujarat, Modi was a pracharak: and that is what he will always remain. What has recently come to light about “The Believer”, Swami Aseemanand, clearly points to this.
A crisis came in Aseemanand’s active life when Keshubhai Patel of the BJP was the Chief Minister of Gujarat and L.K. Advani was Home Minister at the centre. The violence against Christians in Dangs attracted attention from across the seas. In this context Aseemanand remarks: “It was Jayanti bhai of Navsari who had arranged for our meeting [his meeting with Pragya Singh Thakur]. You [reporter] should not meet him. He was a trustee of the Dang temple. He became anti-Modi, went to the Keshubhai team. So we all have distanced ourselves from him.”
“When my conversion stories made national news and Sonia Gandhi flew down to make speeches against me, there was a lot of discussion about me in the media. Then Advaniji was the home minister and asked Keshubhai to rein me in. Keshubhai started stopping our work and even arrested my people.”
“Then, Keshubhai left and Narendrabhai came into power. Even before he became CM, Narendrabhai used to come to 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.).” [3]
The new chief minister of Gujarat donated huge sums of money to Aseemanand, apart from developing roads and infrastructure around the temple at Shabri Dham. The largess naturally made Aseemanand more generous with the work he was doing for the tribals and also with Sunil Joshi. They were doing the complementary jobs of converting people back to the Hindu fold and retaliating against others due to a perceived threat to the Hindus. On February 11, 12 and 13, 2006, Aseemanand arranged for the conversion of Tadwi Muslims living on the border of Gujarat and Mahrashtra around Nawapur. Muslims sensed the danger and became sensitive. Muslim social workers and NGOs organized an awakening movement to prevent the Tadwi Muslims from paying attention to Swami Aseemanand or attending the meeting he was inviting them to. On the day Aseemanand had arranged to convert them very few turned up and the event was called off.
The road from Dangs goes straight to Malegaon. Sunil Joshi and Pragya Singh and their associates took it. Joshi reportedly rode
Pragya Singh’s motor bike, with her riding pillion. Narendra Modi maintains that road.
Notes
1. Kingshshuk Nag, The Namo story: A political life, Roli Books Noida, 2013, p.175.
2. http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/narendra-modi-will-never-become-pm-says-swami-agnivesh
3. The Caravan releases transcripts of three of the four interviews with Aseemanand: http://www.caravanmagazine.in/swami-aseemanand-interviews
Monday, February 3, 2014
The enigma of Aurangabad arms haul
Riyaz with his mother on the left, sister in the middle;
on the right is his septuagenarian father
His bail was the second after Javed Mohammad Abdul Majid’s. It looks now clear in hindsight that the Delhi police and Nagpur police as well as the ATS of Maharashtra were on a mission to frame innocent Muslim youths who had been active in the juggernaut of improving the moral characters of the fellow Muslims and do community social service. The accused in the arms haul did not know each other except a couple of them hailing from the same towns. Bilal was also innocent but a month ago he paid 40000 rupees to ATS to let him visit his ailing mother. There was no crime record of him and he too was framed in the arms haul case. He has been put back into prison after only half a day freedom to visit his mother. All of them have been in prison for more than seven years.
In any other country this would have been settled through court proceedings. Even Spain released Roshan Jamal Khan on 16th January 2014after six years thanks to the positive role played by Indian media coverage which highlighted his innocence.[‘The mental torture was devastating’. Asian Age , Mumbai edition 25 January 2014] He was arrested for having links to Pakistan. “I was a part of an Islamic reformation group and some Pakistanis had become friends as we offered namaaz together” on 18 January2008 which was Moharram day. “I was offering namaaz at the the mosque Ayub Ansari. Suddenly an explosion took place and armed, masked policemen barges in. they shouted that we were terrorists.” 
Roshan Jamal Khan
He is a native of Mumbai and an alumnus of St Xavier’s in Mumbai who fought his case in the European Court of Human Rights. “Nobody helped me except the Indian media.” Like him Javed, Riyaz, Bilal and the rest arrested in the arms haul are natives of Maharashtra and yet there is no light seen at the end of the tunnel such is the dark life of the dungeon for them. Unfortunately for the natives of India there exists no such court of human rights violation. It has MCOCA courts instead fashioned on the ideology of the extreme nationalist parties like BJP and Shive Sena and has Congress as a by stander to watch the travail of the innocents languishing in prisons. It had irked even the President of India Pranab Mukherji. He remarked in his Republic Day speech that if you have promised something to the people then you must fulfill or people would be disillusioned. For the fair minded and wise this was a timely hint. But India is not devoid of humanity. Hemant Karkare ATS chief at the time of Khan’s arrest had arranged for Jamal Khan to have phone contact with family which Jamal Khan maintained till his release. Indian citizens including the arms haul case accused have no such facility. KP Raghuvanshi and Rakesh Maria (the two who succeed Karkare) are devoid of this human touch to whom innocent Muslims are the fodder in their war on terrorism which the late Karkare called in his last interview as “politics of terrorism”.
Karkare so endeared the fair minded of all sections and age that in the recent Urdu Book Fair in Malegaon children visited the book stalls to buy a book on who had killed Karkare by fondly calling him “kurkure” child fast food. They bought the book for their elders to read as they were pupils of the surrounding schools where the book fair was organized. They just tucked their copies in their satchel and scampered away home.
From this sunny atmosphere when you enter into the world of the innocent framed in terror charges you feel dismayed by the dismal and murky scene. The police cars from ATS, Nagpur and Delhi were chasing the Indica and Sumo Tata which were allegedly bringing the arms from Mumbai to Aurangabad. The Delhi police had already alerted the ATS of Maharashtra which could have stopped the two cars at Mumbai itself or at the most at any check post. It takes six hours at the least to travel from Mumbai to Malegaon and nearly nine hours to Aurangabad. A simple phone call at the check post or barricade would have ended the movement of the huge amount of arms. But what happened actually is incredibly stupid and suspicious from day one. Stupid first: the police cars were chasing the Indica and Sumo Tata. It is improbable that the chase would last full eight hours or more given the fact that the two cars were clearly identified. The coops were harnessed with wireless sets of communication.
Second, the said Indica and Sumo were seized at the Ghuneshwar temple near Khuldabad. Both the cars were brought to the police station at Khuldabad. The cars were stopped and checked on 9th May 2006. The crime was registered at the Khuldabad station. However the strangest thing is that the police let the Indica move away from there and reach Malegaon in the evening and roam around the town and was ‘seized’ again on 12th May 2006.
In the meantime the police held press briefing where in the evening of 9th May SP Lakshumi Narayan of ATS and the Dy SP of Aurangabad Brajesh Singh not only told these details of the seizure but also gave details of the three inmates travelling in the cars had escaped from the scene at the temple. [ See the facsimile of Sham Nama of 10th May 2006]. Bajesh Singh also gratuitously offered the news that there was no intention of the terrorists blowing the famed Bhuneshwar templt at Ellora. The accused included the driver Zubair of Aurangabad. According to information he supplied the police also arrested Mohammad Ami Shakeel Ahmad Shaikh.
When this was already done in the case of the two cars seized and the driver arrested and three escaped and others arrested what is the point in the arms again being found at the Ankai dry well and at Malegaon. In Malegaon the police raided the shop of Abdullah from where they seized another consignment of arms from the same Indica!!! Surprisingly the police did not arrest the owner Abdullah but arrested others who were blamed for having links with Zabiuddin. Their phone records show that they had never known those arrested from Aurangabad or had contacted them on phone.
The Aurangabad arms haul case is the mother of all bogus cases of framing Muslim youths for the crimes committed by the Hindutva adherents in which the police were hand in glove with them. When the cases are dissolved and truth comes to light the police will naturally be guilty of perjury. Their torture of the innocent and extracting confessions constitute what is simply: willful giving of false testimony or withholding of material facts or evidence while under oath in a judicial proceeding.
How the politicians are strange bedfellows of these is evinced in the fact that simultaneously what had happened in Malegaon, Aurangabad at the temple and at the dry well in Ankai near Manmad there was a press meeting in Mumbai on 9th May 2006. It was presided over by the most distinguished character in the drama of terrorism enacted in Maharashtra and the others who attended it made it well known instance of a dramatist personae gratuitously offering further role to perform. The home minister of Maharashtra RR Patil, the joint commissioner KP Raghuvanshi also in charge of Anti Terrorism Squad, DGP Dr Pasricha, and PC of Mumbai AN Roy attended dress rehearsal. Patil announced to the full gallery of reporters that it was a grand success of the arms seizure and patted the ATS for the success. What is more he went further and proudly announced the establishment of ATS divisional offices at Nagpur and Aurangabad. Such impetuosity and peremptoriness proved the dictum right: fools rush where angels fear to tread. The result is for the world to see. Even in the eighth year of the arrest of the innocents the police have not been able to prove anything. The trial court is giving bail to the accused because there is no proof against any of them not even against Zabiuddin who masterminded the arms haul because he was the police informer par excellent. He fell in their trap!
1.
http://www.asianage.com/mumbai/mental-torture-was-devastating-767
Asian Age , Mumbai edition 25 January 2014
2.
Saturday, January 11, 2014
Ideology and not gaffes responsible for Modi’s statements
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.
Thursday, January 2, 2014
Margao verdict Will the witch hunt begin for IM now?
As the heady days of election 2014 are nearer than
anymore any far there is feeling that the early straw in the wind is heralding
a storm. The discharge of the six accused in Margao bomb explosion case raises
many questions and solves none raised earlier. On 21.30 hours of Friday 16
October 2009 two members of the Sanatan Sanstha in Margao, Goa, were “ferrying”
bombs on a scooter. Suddenly a bomb exploded near the Grace Church in the midst
of a Christian ceremony on the eve of the Hindu festival of Diwali. The earliest to react to the terror related
event was no other than the Home Minister of Goa Ravi Naik:
“They wanted to disturb a traditional Diwali-eve
event 'Narakasur' effigy competition in the heart of the town as the blast took
place only a few metres away from the competition venue." Within half an
hour the police recovered another bomb from Sancoale more than 20 kilometers
from the site of the explosion. Naik:
"We have recovered a mobile phone and other gadgets from the
place where both of the Sanstha activists were staying."1
Malgonda Patil and Yogesh Naik died in the blast.
Six others were arrested and charged with terrorism. Among the six there were 4
who had link with Sadhvi Pragya Thakur. Among the accused was Suresh Naik who
is brother of the deceased Yogesh Naik. The other accused is Virendra Marathe,
manager of the Sanatan Sansthan.
Two days later a photo from the scene of the blasts
appeared with the caption that the police were helping an injured. The obscured
image was carried in a report dated 18:
Obscured image
In the cleared image the appearance is different.
Cleared image
One point to note is that the corps is on the same
level as the feet of the police man. The
head could not have sunk at the feet unless there is a crater caused by the
explosion. The obscured image has finger tips within clinical gloves. What for?
The space around the font tire is such that there is no chance of the head and
the shoulder being left there. So the caption that the policeman was helping
the injured is incorrect. The neck and the head along with the uppermost of the
shoulders are not in the image. Does it mean that the photo most likely given
out to the press or allowed the press to carry was with the head and then it
was crocked in such a way the head, the neck and upper shoulders were cut out
to hide the identity? The police man is
shown lifting those parts which are supposed to be there but in the cleared
image are simply not there. They must have been there or else the police man
cannot be lifting the air. If this reading is cogent then the question is that
the covering up of the terror incident went under way right after the
explosion. If the upper part of the body is not there it is clear case of
hiding the identity with a premeditated purpose of tampering in the evidence.
This is possible because the police did not want to reveal the identity for
ulterior reason. In the Nanded blasts of 2006 and 2008 this has happened when
the police said that crackers had accidentally burst and short circuit had
caused fire in a biscuit carton.
Suresh Naik had bought the scooter from another
member of the Sanatan Sansthan, Nishad Bakle four years ago. Even sadhvi Pragya
Singh Thakur had also said that she had sold her motor cycle to Sunil Joshi
when in fact the vehicle was used by Ramji Kalsangra and Sandeep Dange for
planting the bomb on 28 September 2008 at Bhiku chwok in Malegaon.
On Monday 30 December 2013 Judge Pradip Swaikar of
the Goa court discharged the six accused for lack of evidence. The acquitted
are Vinay Talekar, Dhananjay Ashtekar,
Prashant Ashtekar, Vinayak Patil, Prashant Juvekar and Dilip Mazgaonkar. The
government had transferred the case from Goa Crime Branch to National
Investigation Agency on 17 May 2010. The NIA seems to have created a hiatus
between what the earlier reports had said including what Naik had observed and
the actual verdict delivered. The NIA also said that four more accused were
absconding. Who were they, then? The FIR
338/09 dated 16/10/09 while the Case No.RC-07/2009/NIA-DLI was registered on
11/12/2009.
The government had failed to constitute special
court to try the case even after a year and naturally a session trial court
took another three years to deliver the above judgment. Of the 250 witnesses
the court had examined only 7 till October 13, 2010. Among them were two
Hospicio doctors who had attended the two, Malgonda Patil and Yogesh Naik, whom
the police claim as “injured” and not dead.
Among those who had been present to see the spectacle of Narkasur Vadh were chief minister Digambar Kamat, Fatorda MLA Damodar Naik. Those who had planned the blasts were against not just the composite pre Christmas ceremony of Narkasur Vadh on the eve of Diwali but also the presence of the dignitaries. It is strange that the accusations were prima facie true and hence bail was not granted and then the final verdict came from the blue that all the accused were discharged for lack of evidence!
Even more confounding was that during the trial there was no mention of the fact that the accused and the dead belonged to Sanatan Sansthan! In fact the managing trustee of SS Virendra Marathe claimed : "The police had not found any participation of Sanatan Sanstha in this case. Even the court has not made any comments about the participation of Sanatan Sanstha. This point was never even raised during the court proceeding." 2
If the SS is not involved then will the hunt turn to IM in default?
------
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