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 6^th 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 6^th 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. 

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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.

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. 

Of the total 11 accused two are still absconding: Jaiprakash alias Anna, Rudra Patil and Sarang Kulkarni. There were 12 improvised explosive devices prepared and only five were brought to Margao. There was a testing of the devices behind the house of of Laxmikant Naik (brother of deceased and accused Yogesh Naik) at Telaulim, Ponda between 24 and 25 August 2009.

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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1. http://news.rediff.com/report/2009/oct/17/goa-blast-right-wing-group-under-probe-2-held.htm

2. http://zeenews.india.com/news/goa/congress-govt-in-goa-gave-free-hand-to-haters-of-sanatan-sanstha_900768.html

Replicating the pogroms of 2002 in Muzaffarnagar and Shamli

Chapter one 

Muzzafarnager: the replication of pogroms of 2002

Hindus and Muslims have lived cheek by bowl down the centuries in the subcontinent. There had been no preplanned and organized riots or pogroms until the conscious politicizing communalism in the form of Hindutva came on the scene. Those who avoid the Muslim rule in India and look at the rest of the ages as continuous and harmonious Hindustan including the British rule harbor the same illusion as the characters in “Aanand Matth”to whom the Muslim rulers are cruel and impure and the British as enlightened and good. Because of this skewed vision they take upon themselves the imaginary task of purifying the land of the impurity that came with the Muslims. In modern nomenclature it is ethnic cleansing. The Jats hunting and killing Muslims in rural areas in the environs of Muzaffanager did just that since August 27, 2013. This schizophrenic setting of the mind has been going on for sometimes in Gujarat and now in UP and Bihar in the recrudescence of communal violence. They killed the reporter of and chased and then lynched the photo journalist Israr who had made recording of the Jat meeting. It reflects Gujarat where Haren Pandya had made an audio recording of Chief Minister Narendra Modi at his residence on February 27, 2002 instructing his police to not stop Hindu mobs taking revenge against the Muslims in the next three days of protest.  

Despite the ruling party not unsympathetic to secularism in UP, the riots in Muzaffarnager have continued. What is worse they have spread to villages. The local administration rather than the mindset of the members of the ruling party is weak. The déjà vue pogroms were in the offing thanks to Narendra Modi assuming charge of the head of the Hindu party BJP campaign for election in 2014 and his lieutenant Amit Shah as in charge of UP. Many people felt premonition which came true later that Shah’s praying at Ayodhya’s temporarily set up temple reconstructed on demolished Babri mosque at the onset of election campaigning is an ominous signal. Although the BJP could not reap electoral gains on proposed construction of the temple in the second decade of the 21^st century it stood to gain from the fall out of the communal clashes.

An air of amazement was there in a mammoth meeting allowed by the government of the ruling party even in the face of the government ban on such gatherings. It was a conclave of the Jats. Why should the SP government which has avowed to put down communal violence which is deadly to Muslims for they lose in life and property more than anyone else let such a caucus meet. As Shahid Manzoor explained to his party: "We try to explain that the real cause is Narendra Modi and Amit Shah who are now concentrating on UP." The duo knows from their experience in the pogroms in their own state of Gujarat that the people of UP are easy to turn susceptible to communal appeal in the name of temple and religion. Or else what was there when a Valmiki parked his dirt cart before the shop of a Muslim who objected it and in the resultant clash a Hindu was killed and then two Muslims lost their life and the violence erupted like a wildfire. The Hindutva groups are in the wont of using lower castes like the Valmiki to ignite riots in which they reap rich harvest at the polls. Moreover the turn of events followed the pattern of the pogroms in 2002 Gujarat. Modi and Shah’s strategy resulted in what Manzoor said in his remark: “Ultimately, the responsibility [of ruling in UP] is ours. Obviously our image has taken a serious drubbing.” (1)

As in Gujarat 2002 so in UP on September 9^th 2013 five more bodies of Muslims were recovered from a farm then ten more on September 10^th. These were hapless members of the minority fleeing from their villages in search of shelter from the roaming marauding members of the Jat Hindu community out to kill them.

Where did the fracas and brawl on hygienic source of context turn to full blown pogroms? Why did the Jats take over from the Valmiki dirt cart driver? That critical fault lies in the words of the American writer Alex D Pate in Losing Absalom :“Critical weakness [is] that other men could identify with swift precision. It could be a core of coldness in warm peaceful exterior, a fear, a streak of terror carefully woven into the fabric of bravado, or, worst of all, a dark cynicism carefully tucked away in a hopeful body.”(2) That ‘dark cynicism’ and ‘streak of terror’ is easily discernible in the face of the most mentioned of all actors in the gruesome murder and mayhem: Hukum Singh. That face resembles the cold stare of Narendra Modi when the wide spread eyes of the Chief Minister in the sockets stare into the face of others and the gnashing teeth when he was ‘dehydrated’ and called for water in the interview with Kiran Thapar.

 Soon after the above murders the Jats went into a huddle a massive meeting in which more than a lakh people from adjoining states and Delhi travelled to Muzaffarnager. Hukum Singh addressed the irate mobs. The words used by the BJP leader are cat’s paw of taunt of the hateful ideology.  He spoke tongue in cheek: “Instead of penalising me for my so called provocative speech, the district administration should first explain how a gathering of over 1.5 lakh people was allowed at Nagla Mandaur, 20 km from Muzaffarnagar, despite the prohibitory orders in force in the entire district. Why did the district administration allow thousands of vehicles and tractor trolleys from Haryana, Delhi and the neighbouring districts of UP to enter Muzaffarnagar and reach the venue of the mahapanchayat?”  (3)

There is no dearth of such gatherings of mammoth crowds and they were the order of the day in 2002 in Naroda Patia, Sardarpura, Gulberg Society and a host of other places in Gujarat.

The mahapanchayat was apparently for respect for daughters and daughter in laws in Jat community 'Bahu Beti Sammaan Bachao Mahapanchayat' but it veered to a new line of saving daughters and daughter in laws from being lured by Muslims into love and marriage. Although a dalit woman had affairs with a Muslim the Jats reacted in unison to support the dalit against the Muslims. This indicates how the BJP must have been hard at work in working up the Jats and the dalits against the Muslims. As the author RK Ohri observed that the Jats usually do not empathize with the Scheduled Castes but their unanimous condemnation of the inter caste affairs is tip of the ice berg that how much deep is the social unrest that Muslims and the rest have developed in their relationship thanks to BJP insinuation.(4) Hukum Singh with his platitudes uttered in the aftermath of the mahapanshcyat could not hide the facts that the crowds wanted him to talk of Narendra Modi alone. This would extend into of course how Modi taught a lesson to the Muslims in his state. This is proof of where the wind blows from in Muzaffarnager. But in the process of politicizing the issue the result is “a never before religions divided” between the Hindus and Muslims. (5)This is sure proof of the machination of the BJP and especially it emanates from the design of Amit Shah and Modi working from behind the curtain.

 Hukum Singhss’ insidiously remarking that the crowds wanted him to speak of Modi at the Mahapanchayat is fraught with danger. (6) This is grafting of the policy that Modi and Shah had played in Gujarat. The Sahar Mufti of Muzaffarnager Zulkicar Ali pointed his finger at this when he said: “It was a well planned riot, facilitated by the district administration and engineered with the aim of ensuring polarization among the voters on communal lines.”(7)

There is also a disturbing pattern of what happened on August 27 was kept on animation and sustained by the ‘oxygen’ that keeps the BJP alive: communalism. The party through its leaders circulated a video showing the event of August 27 in such a way to inflame the passion of Hindus against Muslims. This is what Noam Chomsky called “inducement to violence” where he blames the drone bombing in the Middle East and Pakistan that produces violence as in the Boston bombing. The fake video made by BJP MLA Sangeet Som of Meerut also fits in that. The footage was made in Pakistan. (8)He is absconding from law and wants to secure anticipatory bail and then invite Modi to Muzaffarnager and sit with him on the dais. So what Hukum Singh said would imply that he wants to repeat for electoral gain the Gujarat model. Not to be left behind Varun Gandhi of the notoriety of Muslim bashing in his own election in Haryana now wants to sit with LK Advani in their planned swamibhan rally, self pride rally in Agra on September 15. It also confirms the growing concern that BJP is outsourcing 2002 into Muzaffarnager 2014 election as Amit Shah has opened his purse to bear the legal cost for whatever happens when BJP workers take on the UP SP government.(9

)    

The result is already there for anyone to see as toddlers with their deadly injuries are appearing in hospitals and their parents hacked to death by the Hindu mobs make headlines in the media. This is fuelling minority community’s feeling of insecurity and fear as it did in Gujarat 2002. Once again their fate is in the lurch. The children were innocent as were their parents as they were fleeing the marauding mobs of Jats. If even the children have to bear the brunt of the mobs what is left for the minority in India then!

Muslims in Muzaffarnager had been nurtured on the Ganga Jammuna culture as is the case with their compatriots from Hindu community. A part of the calculated idea in the escalating violence against Muslims is to target the composite culture in favour of a monolithic culture of Hindutva or Hindu fundamentalism. It is here that the hate ideology of the RSS comes to fore in fomenting trouble. It could not brook LK Advani’s discovering Mohammad Ali Jinnah as a secular person. Bal Thackeray was upset when Modi started his sadhbhana rallies or rallies for harmony. He mistakenly thought that Modi was going soft on the Muslims. VHP also was disturbed when unauthorized temples were being demolished. Similarly Modi also changed his decision on appealing for harsher sentence against Maya Kodnani accused in the Naroda Patia pogroms because Shiv Sena was adamantly opposed that a Hindu should be punished for the massacre of Muslims. Will the RSS then allow anyone to come in the way of its avowed commitment to destroy the syncretic culture that prevailed in western UP particularly in Muzaffarnager”?

So snatching children from fleeing mothers and fathers and killing or mauling them so barbarously is motivated by the hate ideology. No amount of rope walking by the SP or Congress on this will do. When Narendra Dabholkar was killed Sanathan Sansthan celebrated it because he died quickly instead of a long prolonged illness and bedridden life. To the RSS a good Muslim is a dead Muslim. We are back to square one on Muzaffanager pogroms.

What is unfolding in western UP is hate ideology that is intolerant of even innocent children and women as in Gujarat.  Mahatma Gandhi would have gone to fast unto death to stop the pogroms. But even conjecturing Modi to go on another even token or farcical Sadhbhauna on the killings in Muzaffernager like the one in September 2011would amount to crocodile’s tears. Because India First is his ideology of secularism where Muslims don’t figure.  (10)

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(1)                 http://www.indianexpress.com/news/azam-khan-blames-local-administration-and-akhilesh-govt/1166992/0

(2)                 Losing Absalom.  Minneapolice: Coffee House, 1994. P.35) See in “Education and the Novel” by Mustafa Khan University News November 18, 1996.

(3)                 The Man Accused Of Fanning The Muzaffarnagar Riots

(4)                  

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/collapse-of-muslim-jat-alliance-gives-an-opening-to-bjp/articleshow/22447522.cms

(5)

http://www.dnaindia.com/india/1886951/report-muzaffarnagar-a-town-left-ravaged-with-ties-impaired

(6)

Crowds wanted me to talk only about Modi, says BJP leader – Ndtv Septermber 10,,2013

(7) http://www.tehelka.com/muzaffarnagarriots2013/

(8) Playing with fire. The Hindu September 10, 2013.

(9) BJP mulls Modi rally in Muzaffarnagar Hindustan times Lucknow, September 10 2013.

(10) http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/muzaffarnagar-riots-narendra-modi-indefinite-fast/1/309362.html

Chapter two 

Once their neighbours, they held them captive and raped them for days.

It is all over the same as in Gujarat 2002. Women suffered the most. They were raped, were forced to see their daughter or daughters raped in their full view of the ignominy. This is most disturbingly true within a week of the death sentence passed on four of the six who raped a girl in the night of December 16, 2012 in Delhi-Noida. As in Gujarat so in Muzaffarnager the glaring discrimination is there for all to see. Even more brutal was the rape in the pogroms than the bus. Still the conscience of the people did not smite majority of the people as it did in the case of December 2012. Wasn’t it the same in 2002?

If it wasn’t the same then how could the 2002 be Modi’s “exceptionalism”? (1)  Or, Hukam Singh’s exceptionalism now, he who under the guise of saving daughters and daughters in law of his own community exhorted the mobs to go for the women from another community. The same common strain runs through the suffering of the women with no let up.

In the case of a woman woebegone with sorrow she was forced to see three of her daughters raped, gang raped and held captive for days. In her own words she has woven the saga of her personal tragedy for the rest of her life to torment her.

"Four women of my family, including my three daughters (age 17, 18 and 21 years), were held captive by 10-13 rioters and gang-raped in front of me. I was forced to see the shameful and brutal act. Two of my daughters have been released and the other two are still missing.” (2)

Lisarh, Lank, Bahawadi, Hasanpur, Mohammadpur, Baghpat in Muzaffarnager and Panipat and also other districts like Shamli bore the brunt of the assault and rape on women, girls and minors. Communal riots in the yore had had few and far in between recurrence of rape or gang rape that lasted few hours and not for week as now; and, in Gujarat, for weeks together and even for months. In sheer brutality and inhumanity Muzaffarnager has matched Gujarat 2002. 

Lactating and suckling mothers holding their babies in their arms received head injuries as did their new-born. With no succor in sight and fear and terror desiccating their vitals of the body and minds traumatized in a daze had their babes on them. What hope of sustenance and nurture did the camera could catch in their plight as in such a case!? 

Fleeing from Dhanupura in Muzaffarnager Saira (23) was in advance stage of pregnancy and expected her child in less than a month. She got shelter in Loni where 30 other women in their advance pregnancy were also sheltered with their families. Their plight was untold but equally horrendous. The much maligned madrasas in the eyes of the outside world were now the only place they could rest and breathe a sigh of relief from burgeoning pain and angst of life.(3)  there are other madrasas in Ghaziabad and 18 relief camps including the ones in Budhana and Sahapur where 30,000 refugees are housed. Such is the magnitude of the human disaster that has visited upon the minority who till it struck them had no inkling of what would happen and how swiftly it would change their life forever to come. One such is Noorjahan (25) of Nagla perplexed in agony where her ten year old daughter and husband would be. Laank is another village which has emptied out of Muslim population. Basheeran correctly gauges life in the empty villages when she says "I would prefer to die here than to go back. Nobody is waiting for us there." (4)

Most of the assailants and rapist were the neghbours of the Muslim women and the victims of mass rape could easily name them as did the16 year old. She named Rajendra son of Hari Kishan who is leader of the Khap panchayat in the village. She survived to tell the depth of horror implied in perverted choice of what her rapist remarked: “Soni soni ladkiyon ke sindur bhar denge, aur bakiyon ko kaat denge (we will marry the beautiful ones and cut into pieces the others).”

Another victim of 25 years also named her rapists, Subhash, son of Ilamnd and Ankit, son of Daria

of her village Lisarh who raped her for five hours. She went further and told about Ajit the head of the village who had organized this violation of her chastity. He assured her safety and told her not to leave the village but betrayed her and others like her in the night. As if this ordeal was not enough when they reported the matter after the nightmarish events had happened the police man had this to tell the unfortunate victims: Police thane wale ne kaha ki hum to apne ki sahayta karenge, tum Musalmano ki nahi (“We will only save and help our people (Jat and Hindus), not you Muslims)." This many would recall is like what senior police officer KK Mysorewala had told Muslim women and children in Naroda Patiya, Gujarat on February 28, 2002, when they begged for mercy from him as the marauding mobs were in hot pursuit. (5) it would be many months when the saga of suffering of the 1.25 lakh  refugees would be mapped.

This time around the rapes of Muslims women and girls is calculated to yield more votes and seats in the parliament for the Hindu party BJP.  The Communist Party of India spokesman stated: "The RSS had deployed its resources towards creating a communal polarisation which would benefit the BJP in the Lok Sabha election." (6)This need not surprise as Narendra Modi and Amit Shah had had enough of the same in 2002 and knew how it had won the first election for the right wing Hindu party which was shaky and uncertain at first and then it went on to win three more elections. Both the pogroms in Gujarat and in Muzaffarnager were organized to achieve the goal of Hindutva and mark it, there would be no remorse felt over it. for their next item is to tell loud and clear that the Muslims had it coming to them! This standard justification was asserted soon after the Babri mosque was demolished.

Even the Muslims knew what was in store for them. In one of the refugee camps a victim called Yasin Ahmad remarked: "This is all political. This is just so they can polarise us before the elections. We are nothing but fodder for these politicians." (7)

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(1) The Times of India

Communal riots have now made big inroads into rural India
DIPANKAR GUPTA | Sep 14, 201

(2) http://daily.bhaskar.com/article/UP-daughters-raped-in-front-of-mothers-muzaffarnagar-riots-victims-too-afraid-to-re-4376208-NOR.html

(3) http://www.hindustantimes.com/India-news/uttarpradesh/Muzaffarnagar-Fear-lives-with-the-displaced-in-relief-camps/Article1-1122223.aspx

(4) ibid.

(5) ibid

(6) http://zeenews.india.com/news/nation/muzaffarnagar-violence-rss-creating-communal-rifts-says-cpi-m_876400.html

(7)

http://www.indianexpress.com/picture-gallery/-muzaffarnagar-riots-tales-of-tragedy-in-lisrahs-relief-camps/3405-17.html

Chapter 3

Persistent pattern

Do Indian politicians employ IM to wash their dirty linen in the public? Former minister and BJP leader Giriraj Singh says that chief minister ‘Nitish Kumar planned to get Modi ‘killed’ with the help of IM.1 He was referring to Narendra Modi’s rally of 27 October 2013 at the Gandhi maidan in Patna. This is not mere ‘linguistic terrorism’ of BJP as the ruling party in Bihar would like to taunt. TITLED Major Upadhaya. wma audio clipping in the laptop of Dyanand Pandey clearly shows that the planning of attack on Malegaon 2008 was a minor part of the Abhinav Bharat. The activists of AB are well trained in bomb making and exploding and what is frightening: they are spread all over the country. Their strength in number and quality of training in violent activities and attacks aimed at subversion of the rule of law and writ of the constitution itself is unmatched by any other terrorist groups. Given this potential for terrorism seemingly at the command of the extremists both in the BJP and in other right wing organizations it is not surprising that the alibi also includes gods of the Hindu pantheon in direct opposition of IM: “Narendra Modi’s life was saved only by the blessings of God and millions of his supporters. The chief minister was planning to get Modi killed with the help of the Mujahideen.”Why should otherwise the sangh parivar and BJP feel ‘very hurt and betrayed’ by the government in Bihar ordering inquiry against the role of former deputy CM and BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi?   

Gujarat police worked in tandem with the Maharashtra Anti Terrorism Squad. Even without substantiated proof of involvement in Ahmadabad blasts or related matter, the Gujarat police conveniently and facilely took Muslim youths from Hyderabad or Maharashtra and held them in prison. Such was the case of Afzal Usmani. His brother would travel to Ahmadabad for his bail taking this as a link the ATS detained Faiz Usmani and hung him by his feel that resulted in brain hemorrhage and he died. The post mortem has not been fully and fairly done hence what the widow Ruheda and her six orphans believe must be credible after what the ATS did to Khwaja Yunus and what the smart aleck fake encounter specialist Daya Nayak did to Jamal Sadik Mehtar by handing him over to the ace fake encounter specialist DG Vanzara who killed him on the bogus pretext that he was out to kill Modi.

This importing of innocent Muslims as accused in terrorism incident in Gujarat and outside smacks of communalized approach to terror. Faiz is the example of exporting and Ishrat Jahan is of importing. This is conveniently done as it is rewarded by the state government for fighting terrorism ‘successfully’ and that calls for promotion in post and increment in the basic pay structure of the police.

What happened in Patna was not a local issue despite Modi’s threat held out to the chief minister Nitish Kumar that he would be avenged for betraying BJP by breaking the alliance. Soon after the announcement that Amit Shah would kick start his campaigning from Ayodhya as in charge of UP it was clear that he would communalize politics. He had taken the dictum literally from VD Savarkar: communalizing politics and militarizing Hinduism. What happened in Muzaffarnagar on 7 September 2013 was quite relevant. The grand panchayat of the Jats was allowed to take place despite order to the contrary, weapons were stocked, and Provincial Armed Constabulary was accordingly and deliberately delayed at the airport when every minute was taking heavy toll on the Muslims. Communalizing politics ushered in militarization of Hinduism.    

Patna has not seen such scenes as bombs exploding even when a major political event was taking place there. The coming of the stormy petrel in the avatar of Modi was harbinger of violent and aggressive communalism. The early straw in the wind was Amit Shah’s machination. He is Machiavelli incarnate.

LK Advani had universalized communalism and the attendant violence and pogroms of Muslims. No more was communalism product of local events. Pretext was local but the ideology was universal. The natives may be Muslims or Hindus. They could not resist what was thrust upon them. It was this that made many sober headed Jats queasy about the violence in Muzaffarnagar and other parts of western UP. They also saw the imported design.

Communal violence and terrorism were one and the same. What we saw in pogroms in 2002 in Gujarat was terrorism though it was officially and wrongly dubbed communal riot. This also holds true in other cases. It was carefully crafted for Patna as it has its counterpart in Darbhanga, Lucknow has its own in Azamgarh. It was easier to again stigmatize Muslims as terrorists though the calamity that visited them was disastrous more pronouncedly in Muzaffarnagar. The other place was of course Bhatkal which had its first communal riot on 1^st April 1993 in which 226 houses of Muslims were burnt down and 17 were killed. The cause was a stone thrown at the crowd of Hindus. Who did that has not been found out. And the commission of inquiry headed by the Karnataka High Court judge Kedambadi Jagannath Shetty drew a blank on that. But what the judge wrote was unmistakable truth that the communal violence was not on account of any local issue.

Even more convincing is the Dhulia communal violence of 5^th October 2008. A Muslim youth and a Hindu girl were in love and wanted to marry. The matter was amicably settled by their families; but the Hindu Raksha Samiti made it a love jihad inversely by torching all the houses of Muslims in Nardana where the Muslim boy lived. Subsequently the HRS took the Malegaon bomb blast of 29 September 2008 as a provocation to defend Hindus and hence the call to retaliate. The Hindu Raksha Samiti of Dhulia called a meeting ala Jat Mahapanchayat to safeguard Hindus. The violence followed on 5^th October 2008 that shook Dhulia.

In many such cases what essentially is honour killing is turned into accusation of love jihad to create a riot to kill Muslims and burn their property. This happened in Muzaffarnagar as it did in Dhulia. But there is a method in madness here. Mukul Dube confirms it when he speaks of a woman from central Canada who spoke of the method in madness emerging: “an established pattern rather than with something that was only now coming into being.
“It would be foolish to speak of an “uncanny similarity”: because all the evidence we have, tells us that the same kind of careful, systematic planning and preparation went into the recent violence[ in Muzaffarnagar]. As in Gujarat in 2002, the tinder had been made ready and all that was needed to unleash an inferno was a small spark.” 2

 This time around Narendra Modi and Amit Shah had done their homework well and they carried the package to UP and Bihar and continued their Gujarat laboratory experiment of Hindutva there. So what Mukul Dube felt buttresses this role of the duo: “With both instances of targeted, one-sided brutality, it is uncertain whether chance provided the necessary sparks or whether the sparks too were struck as part of the larger plan.” The spark was borrowed from Gujarat to win election in UP because Modi had reaped a bumper electoral harvest thrice and this was the begging of the fourth in 2014.

1.       Asian Age15 December 2013

2.        

. http://communalism.blogspot.in/2013/10/the-experiment.htm