Monday, December 29, 2008
Support Gaza
On Saturday December, 26th, Israel once again unleashed a wave of violence against the Palestinians, this time conducting aerial bombings of the Gaza Strip. In what is being called the bloodiest day in the Gaza since the 1967 war, Amerikan-made F-16s rained down over 100 tons of bombs on an area of only 139 sq. miles, killing over 227 and injuring over 700. This day will forever be remembered as another stark example of the violent and oppressive legacy of U.S. imperialism and it lackey settler-state, Israel.
Like Amerika, Israel is founded on land stolen from an indigenous population. Today, the Palestinian territory is a small fraction of its original size, existing in walled ghettos and two main spatially separated tracts: the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. In the context of this historical situation, these continued attacks on the Palestinian people can be viewed as nothing less than an act of protracted genocide.
Palestinians for their part have resisted. In 2006 the Palestinian people by a landslide elected the Hamas movement to Parliament. Supported by the U.S. and Israel, the ruling Fatah Party launched a coup, throwing the Palestine into a brief civil war. From the fighting, Fatah regained control of the West Bank and Hamas
consolidated their rule in Gaza. Since then, the U.S. and Israel have enforced a tight embargo upon Gaza, inducing food and energy shortages which some have called a humanitarian crisis.
This most recent attack was clearly directed towards the Hamas led government in the Gaza Strip. Police stations, civil administration buildings and official military outposts were targeted for aerial bombings. Of the killed, many were functionaries of the state: police, military, bureaucrats and local officials. The real intentions of these attacks are obvious: to cripple Gaza society even further.
Israel claims that its latest actions are aimed at stopping “rocket attacks.” The attacks referred to are mortars and small projectiles shot by small handfuls of mobile combatants. Usually fired from between half a mile and a mile away, Palestinians resisting genocide aim high towards a settlement, often hitting
nothing. Rarely, such acts of resistance kill Israeli citizen non-combatants.
Beyond philosophical questions of ‘parities’ of violence between Israelis and Palestinians, there is the question of survival. For Palestinians, every settlement represents an outpost of invasion. Like the Amerikan invasion of North America before it, the indigenous Palestinian faces the real possibility of being completely annihilated by Israel. With meager means and an even more desperate situation, ‘indiscriminate’ mortar attacks and even suicide bombings become viable options in fighting for survival. Those who support Palestine’s right to exist must also support their right to resist the ensuing Israeli invasion. RAIM-Denver can be counted amongst this
group.
Like the genocide of indigenous North Americans, crude acts of resistance are used to build public opinion for further aggression. The same is happening today in Gaza. While it is hard to say exactly how many in the Israel and the West actually support this latest aggression towards Palestinians, it is obvious that their is very little solidarity with the Palestinian victims. This should be lesson to the oppressed masses of the world: the First World does not care if you die.
RAIM-Denver joins the international chorus of outrage at this latest attack and mourning for those who lost their lives. Our sincerest condolences go out to the loved ones of those who died in this latest act of U.S.-supported Israeli aggression. We cannot imagine the pain you’ve been made to endure. Moreover, we look forward to the day when you live free, safe from aggression and oppression and in equal standing with the world community.
Down with U.S. Imperialism
Down with Zionism
Defend the Palestinian People’s Right to Self Determination
MASS PROTESTS TO CONDEMN...........
A W A M I BH A R A TMASS PROTESTS TO CONDEMN THE ONGOING ISRAELI HOLOCAUST OF THE GAZAN POPULATION.
DEMONSTARTIONS WILL BE HELD AT:
AZAD MAIDAN, OPP CST ON THE 30TH OF DECEMBER FROM 2PM ONWARDS
GAZA HAS BEEN REDUCED TO A CONCENTRATION CAMP SIMILAR TO AUSCHWITZ OR THE WARSAW GHETTO, BY THE ISRAELI GOVERNMENT AND ITS MILITARY MACHINE.
THE 1 MILLION GAZANS CONTINUE TO BE BRUTALISED ON A DAILY BASIS WHILST THE GOVERNMENTS OF THE WORLD WATCH.
THE ONGOING AERIAL ASSAULT THAT HAS CLAIMED THE LIVES OF MORE THAN 300 PALESTINIANS AND INJURED MORE THAN 700 ODD MORE IS TESTIMONY TO THE FACT OF THE NATURE OF THE NAZI ELITE THAT RULES ISRAEL
WE CALL FOR THE TOTAL BOYCOTT OF ISRAEL WHICH IS A COLONIZER, APARTHEID AND NAZI STATE SUPPORTED BY THE US IMPERIAL POWER, THE EUROPEAN UNION AND THE COMPLICITY OF THE ARAB ELITE ESPECIALLY IN SAUDI ARABIA, EGYPT AND JORDAN.
ORGANIZED BY:
QUAMI MAJLIS-I-SHURA, VIDYARTHI BHARTI, PHULE-AMBEDKARI VICHAR MANCH, DALIT-OBC INTELLECTUAL FORUM, INDIAN SOCIAL MOVEMENT AND OTHER SUPPORTING ORGANIZATIONS THAT HAVE LENT THEIR SUPPORT
Feroze Mithiborwala, Kishore Jagtap, Farid Khan, Amol Madame, Sayeed Khan, Varsha V V, Arif Kapadia, Chetna Birje, Munawar Khan, Reshma Jagtap, Ghazala Azad, Jyoti Badekar, Gaurav Kariya, Thomas Winnie, Tito Eapen, Jagdish Nagarkar, Sudhir Dhawale, Bhagwan Kesbhat, Mulniwasi Mala and Harshawardhan Vartak.
editorial - The Frontpage
Break the Silence
The brutal attack by Israel on the helpless civilians of Gaza has to be strongly condemned and deplored. Israeli leaders have been giving interviews justifying an attack that has violated all international laws and conventions. Over 270 persons have been killed, many more hundreds injured, and the numbers are still going up in what can only be described as the combined assault on freedom and sovereignty by the US and Israel. This has taken place just days after Israel's aggressive foreign minister was seen smiling and laughing with her Egyptian hosts, in what is yet another example of Arab subservience to the emerging military power in the region.
The United Nations has to step in for whatever it is worth and stricture Israel for this violence. Peace cannot return to West Asia until the Palestinian issue is resolved, and countries like Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Libya and others with half a conscience still left must immediately speak out and move for the isolation of Israel in the region. Saudi Arabia that has always exported its religion but refrained from actively supporting the Palestinians must realize that its own house will come under threat if it does not take a stand to protect those who have faced the brunt of US and Israeli injustice for decades.
The Indian government has condemned the attack, but the rhetoric has to be followed by immediate sanctions, military and economic. The defence relations between India and Israel are increasing by the day, to a point where Tel Aviv has entered the league of big military players because of support from New Delhi. India is being equated as the third wheel in the US-Israel axis and it is imperative that the government actively supports the Palestinians with a concrete plan of action seeking to isolate Israel and push it towards a just and equitable solution giving Palestinians their homeland. India is a powerful voice in the region that has fallen silent on important issues, and it has to raise this in keeping with the traditional foreign policy objectives that had placed it on the side of the oppressed peoples of the world soon after it became independent of colonial rule.
This brutal attack will only lead to further instability in the region. Hamas has avowed to revenge the killings, and large scale protests have broken out all over the West Bank as indeed on the Arab streets. This will make it doubly difficult for the Arab governments to contain their people, and for the US to control Iraq and Afghanistan. The anger against both Washington and Tel Aviv is palpable, and the death of hundreds in Gaza can now be expected to fuel further reactions. It is almost as if Israel wants the cauldron to keep boiling over, as this then is used by the Zionists to justify military action and the US presence in the region. The Arab governments have to find the courage to drop the US mantle and act in the interests of their people, the Palestinians and the region.
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Slaughter In Gaza
More Than 200 Killed As
Israel Drops 100 Tons Of Bombs In Gaza CityThe BBC Video ReportIsraeli F-16 bombers have pounded targets across the Gaza Strip, killing more than 200 people, according to local medical workers. Click to view
Israel Drops 100 Tons Of Bombs In Gaza CityThe BBC Video ReportIsraeli F-16 bombers have pounded targets across the Gaza Strip, killing more than 200 people, according to local medical workers. Click to view
Israeli Attack on Gaza, Kills 205
Israeli warplanes have carried out a massive airstrike on the Gaza StripBy Press TVVideo footages showed the bodies of dead people including men, women and children on Gaza streets. Continue
By BBC We can see from our office here in Gaza, in the middle of Gaza City, ambulances are still evacuating the injured from buildings and school kids are trying to find secure places. Continue
Hamas Press Conference After Israeli Attacks On Gaza
Video - 27 Dec08Taher al-Noono, a Hamas spokesman, speaks to reporters in Gaza following Israeli attacks which killed more than 195 people and wounded more than 200 others. Continue
Bush Winks at Israel’s Slaughter in Gaza,
Obama and Clinton Are SilentBy Matthew RothschildPresident-elect Barack Obama and Secretary of State-to-be Hillary Clinton were shamefully silent in the first hours after the attack. Bush’s reaction, and the non-reaction by Obama and Clinton, underscores the point that Hanan Ashrawi made on Saturday. “Israel has gotten used to not being held accountable and to being a country that is above the law,” said the Palestinian legislator and human rights activist. She called the bombings a “massacre.” Continue
Gaza Massacres Must Spur Us To Action
By Ali Abunimah"I will play music and celebrate what the Israeli air force is doing." Those were the words, spoken on Al Jazeera today by Ofer Shmerling, an Israeli civil defense official in the Sderot area adjacent to Gaza, as images of Israel's latest massacres were broadcast around the world. Continue
Gaza Massacre Israel’s Cynicism Supported by the West’s Complicity
By Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC)Today
the Israeli army launched its long awaited strikes against the Gazan people, an unarmed, captive civilian population. The West, including the British government, has supported the last two years’ of blockade of the Palestinians in Gaza for the crime of exercising their democratic rights in a manner not to Israel’s liking. Continue
One Israeli killed, 4 hurt as Palestinian rockets hit Negev home:
Palestinians in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip fired at least 54 Qassam and Grad rockets into southern Israel on Saturday after Israeli air strikes killed more than 195 Palestinians in Gaza, according to Palestinian sources.
Israel to mount emergency international PR effort in wake of savage attacks on Gaza:
Livni instructed senior ministry officials to open an aggressive and diplomatic international public relations campaign, in order to gain greater international support for Israel Defense Forces operations in the Gaza Strip.
In Pictures :Israeli Attack On Gaza:
courtesy: Informationclearinghouse
Thursday, December 25, 2008
DECEMBER 26, '08 WILL MARK THE MONTH TO....
A W A A M I B H A R A T
DECEMBER 26, '08 WILL MARK THE MONTH TO THE DAY WHEN OUR CITY WAS ATTACKED BY TERRORISTS.
ON THIS DAY WE APPEAL TO THE PEOPLE OF MUMBAI AND INDIA AS WELL, TO REMEMBER THE SACRIFICES OF THE BRAVE PEOPLE, THE POLICE, THE ARMY, THE FIREMEN AND ALL THE OTHERS WHO LAID DOWN THEIR LIVES TO DEFEND OUR LAND.
UNDOUBTEDLY IT WAS THE ATS CHIEF AND HIS TEAM WHO SYMBOLISED THE BRAVERY OF THE INDIAN PEOPLE AND THUS WE WILL BE GATHERING AT THE SITE WHERE THE ATS OFFICERS WERE SLAIN.
SHAHID HEMANT KARKARE, SHAHID ASHOK KAMTE AND SHAHID VIJAY SALASKAR AMAR RAHE !!
CALL TO PAY HOMAGE TO THE BRAVE MARTYRS OF THE MUMBAI TERROR ATTACK
"SHRADHANJALI AND SARVADHARMA PRARTHAN"
THE PROGRAMME WILL BE TO LIGHT CANDLES & SING SONGS OF PEACE AND COMMUNAL AMITY.
WE WILL ASSEMBLE AT THE SPOT WERE THE MARTYRS LOST THEIR LIVES IN DEFENSE OF THE NATION, BEHIND ST. XAVIER'S COLLEGE, AT THE CORPORATION BANK, NEAR RANG BHAWAN, MUMBAI.
DATE: 26th DECEMBER 2008 / TIME: 6pm to 7pm
S A T Y A M E V J A Y A T E !!
ORGANIZERS
FEROZE MITHIBORWALA, KISHORE JAGTAP, DILIP BANSODE, MULANIWASI MALA, SAYEED KHAN, VARSHA V V, AMOL MADAME, JAGDISH NAGARKAR, SHRIDHAR SHIRSAGAR, SANJAY SHINDE, ARIF KAPADIA, CHETNA BIRJE, RESHMA JAGTAP, JYOTI BEDEKAR, AFAQ AZAD, WINNIE THOMAS, TITO EAPEN, AVINASH KAMBLE, MUNAWWAR KHAN, HARSHAWARDHAN VARTAK, GHAZALA AZAD, IRFAN MULLA, INAYAT GAURAV KARIYA, HUSSAIN, ANIL, ISTIAQUE MUKAMMAD,
VIDYARTHI BHARTI, DALIT INTELLECTUAL FORUM, PHULE - AMBEDKARI VICHAR MANCH, YUVA SARKAR, MUSLIM INTELLECTUAL FORUM, YUVAK KRANTI DAL, OBC INTELLECTUAL FORUM & GANAI SANSKRUTIK ANDOLAN
DECEMBER 26, '08 WILL MARK THE MONTH TO THE DAY WHEN OUR CITY WAS ATTACKED BY TERRORISTS.
ON THIS DAY WE APPEAL TO THE PEOPLE OF MUMBAI AND INDIA AS WELL, TO REMEMBER THE SACRIFICES OF THE BRAVE PEOPLE, THE POLICE, THE ARMY, THE FIREMEN AND ALL THE OTHERS WHO LAID DOWN THEIR LIVES TO DEFEND OUR LAND.
UNDOUBTEDLY IT WAS THE ATS CHIEF AND HIS TEAM WHO SYMBOLISED THE BRAVERY OF THE INDIAN PEOPLE AND THUS WE WILL BE GATHERING AT THE SITE WHERE THE ATS OFFICERS WERE SLAIN.
SHAHID HEMANT KARKARE, SHAHID ASHOK KAMTE AND SHAHID VIJAY SALASKAR AMAR RAHE !!
CALL TO PAY HOMAGE TO THE BRAVE MARTYRS OF THE MUMBAI TERROR ATTACK
"SHRADHANJALI AND SARVADHARMA PRARTHAN"
THE PROGRAMME WILL BE TO LIGHT CANDLES & SING SONGS OF PEACE AND COMMUNAL AMITY.
WE WILL ASSEMBLE AT THE SPOT WERE THE MARTYRS LOST THEIR LIVES IN DEFENSE OF THE NATION, BEHIND ST. XAVIER'S COLLEGE, AT THE CORPORATION BANK, NEAR RANG BHAWAN, MUMBAI.
DATE: 26th DECEMBER 2008 / TIME: 6pm to 7pm
S A T Y A M E V J A Y A T E !!
ORGANIZERS
FEROZE MITHIBORWALA, KISHORE JAGTAP, DILIP BANSODE, MULANIWASI MALA, SAYEED KHAN, VARSHA V V, AMOL MADAME, JAGDISH NAGARKAR, SHRIDHAR SHIRSAGAR, SANJAY SHINDE, ARIF KAPADIA, CHETNA BIRJE, RESHMA JAGTAP, JYOTI BEDEKAR, AFAQ AZAD, WINNIE THOMAS, TITO EAPEN, AVINASH KAMBLE, MUNAWWAR KHAN, HARSHAWARDHAN VARTAK, GHAZALA AZAD, IRFAN MULLA, INAYAT GAURAV KARIYA, HUSSAIN, ANIL, ISTIAQUE MUKAMMAD,
VIDYARTHI BHARTI, DALIT INTELLECTUAL FORUM, PHULE - AMBEDKARI VICHAR MANCH, YUVA SARKAR, MUSLIM INTELLECTUAL FORUM, YUVAK KRANTI DAL, OBC INTELLECTUAL FORUM & GANAI SANSKRUTIK ANDOLAN
Monday, December 22, 2008
Sunday, December 21, 2008
India's New Anti-Terror Laws Draconian Say Activists
By Praful Bidwai
Inter Press Service
NEW DELHI, Dec 19 (IPS) - Following the late November terror attacks in Mumbai, India has passed two tough laws being seen by rights activists as potentially eroding the country’s federal structure and limiting fundamental liberties.
Parliament -- meeting under the shadow of the November 26-29 attacks on India’s commercial hub resulting in close to 200 deaths -- approved the legislations on Thursday with no considered debate and the ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA) of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh pushing them past amendments tabled by several parliamentarians.
One law, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) Act, seeks to establish a new police organisation to investigate acts of terrorism and other statutory offences.
The other, the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Amendment (UAPA) Act, radically changes procedures for trying those accused of terrorism, extends the periods of police custody and of detention without charges, denies bail to foreigners, and the reverses the burden of proof in many instances.
Civil liberties activists and public-spirited citizens are appalled at the new laws, which they describe as draconian and excessive in relation to the measures India really needs to take to fight terrorism.
"The UAPA Act is particularly vile, and will have the effect of turning India into a virtual police state," says Colin Gonsalves, executive director of the Delhi-based Human Rights Law Network. "It basically brings back a discredited law, the Prevention of Terrorism Act of 2002 (POTA), except for admitting confessions made to a police officer as legal evidence."
POTA was an extremely unpopular law, which the UPA government abrogated upon coming to power in 2004 in response to innumerable complaints of its selective and discriminatory use against India's Muslim minority, and its cavalier and irresponsible application to offences not even remotely connected with terrorism.
While rescinding POTA, the UPA kept in place all of India's criminal laws, which are much stricter than those in many democracies.
In addition, it also enacted an amendment to the Unlawful Activities Act, 1967, which increased punishment for committing acts of terrorism and for harbouring terrorists or financing them, enhanced police powers of seizures, made communications intercepts admissible as evidence, and increased the period of detention without charges to 90 days from the existing 30 days.
However, this was not enough to please those who want a "strong" militarised state which will prevent and punish terrorism by violating the citizen’s fundamental rights, including the right to a fair trial, and not to be detained without charges.
India's main right-wing political group, the Bharatiya Janata Party, has been stridently demanding that POTA be re-enacted. Until recently, the UPA, the Left and other centrist parties stood firm in rejecting the demand despite the numerous terrorist attacks that India has suffered over the past few years.
"But now, the UPA has suddenly, and shamefully, caved in to the BJP's demand under the pressure of elite opinion," says Jairus Banaji, a highly regarded Mumbai-based social scientist. "The capitulation seems to be based on the UPA’s anxiety to counter the BJP's ridiculous charge that it lacks the will to fight terrorism, and on its political calculations about the next general election due by May."
In its desperation to be seen to be taking a tough stand against terrorism, the Manmohan Singh government also tabled the NIA Bill earlier this week. The new agency will specifically investigate offences related to atomic energy, aviation and maritime transport, weapons of mass destruction, and Left-wing extremism, besides terrorism.
Significantly, it excludes Right-wing terrorism, which has become a greater menace in India.
Unlike the existing Central Bureau of Investigation, which needs the consent of a state before investigating crimes there, the NIA will not need a state's concurrence. This is a serious infringement of the federal system, where law and order is a state subject.
Many state governments and regional political parties have sharply criticised the Act on this count. In India, Central agencies are politically vulnerable to manipulation by New Delhi and often used to settle scores with states ruled by opposition parties.
The NIA Act also provides for special courts to try various offences. This too has drawn criticism from eminent lawyers such as Rajeev Dhavan, who argues that the potential misuse of this anti-terror legislation will now "come from both the states and the union, which can hijack the case".
The UAPA Act contains a number of draconian clauses, and is also applicable to the entire country -- unlike the Unlawful Activities Act, which was originally not extended to the strife-torn state of Jammu and Kashmir. This too has drawn protests from Kashmir-based political parties and human rights groups.
The stringent clauses cover a broad range, including a redefinition of terrorism, harsh punishment extending from five years’ imprisonment to life sentence or death, long periods of detention, and presumption of guilt in case weapons are recovered from an accused person.
The new definition now includes acts done with the intent to threaten or "likely" to threaten the unity, integrity, security or sovereignty of India, and offences related to radioactive or nuclear substances, and even attempts to overawe, kidnap or abduct constitutional and other functionaries that may be listed by the government. Dhavan says: "The list is potentially endless."
Under the Act, an accused can be held in police custody for 30 days, and further detained without charges for 180 days, although courts can restrict the period to 90 days.
"This is a travesty of constitutional rights and the rule of law," says Gonsalves. "Even worse is the presumption of guilt in case there is a recovery of arms, explosives and other substances, suspected to be involved, including fingerprints on them. The police in India routinely plants such arms and explosives, and creates a false record of recovery."
"The very fact that offences such as organising terrorist training camps or recruiting or harbouring terrorists carry a punishment as broad as three or five years to life imprisonment shows that the government has not applied its mind to the issue,’’ Gonsalves added.
Under the Act, there is a general obligation to disclose any information that a police officer of a certain rank thinks is relevant to the investigation. Failure to disclose information can lead to imprisonment for three years. Journalists are not exempt from this.
Besides making telecommunications and e-mail intercepts admissible as evidence, the Act also denies bail to all foreign nationals, and mandates a refusal of bail to anyone if a prima facie case exists, which is decided on the basis of a First Information Report filed by the police.
POTA and its predecessor, Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA), were extensively abused. They typically targeted the religious minorities, specifically Muslims, and allowed for their harassment and persecution.
The TADA story is especially horrifying. Some 67,000 people were arrested under it, but only 8,000 put on trial, and a mere 725 convicted.
Official TADA Review Committees themselves found the law’s application untenable in all but 5,000 cases. In 1993, Gujarat witnessed no terrorism, but more than 19,000 people were still arrested under TADA.
Religious minorities were selectively targeted under both Acts. For instance, in Rajasthan, of 115 TADA detainees, 112 were Muslims and three Sikhs.
Gujarat had a worse pattern under POTA, when all but one of the 200-plus detainees were Muslims, the remaining one a Sikh.
The passing of the two new laws is certain to increase the alienation of India's Muslims from the state. They have been the principal victims of India's anti-terrorism strategy and activities in recent years.
Muslims are first to be arrested and interrogated after any terrorist incident, even when the victims are Muslims, and although strong evidence has recently emerged of a well-ramified pro-Hindu terrorist network, in which serving and retired army officers were found to be key players.
Muslims also distressed at the alacrity and haste with which the new laws were passed, especially since it contrasts with the UPA government’s failure to enact a law it promised five years ago to punish communal violence and hate crimes targeting specific religious groups.
"This will pave the way for more disaffection amongst Muslims and make the social and political climate more conducive to terrorism," argues Gonsalves. "Even worse, it will promote excesses of the kind associated with state terrorism. And that is no way to fight sub-state terrorism."
Copyright © 2008 IPS-Inter Press Service
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Read it its important
A W A M I B H A R A T
"E X P O S I N G T H E P O L I T I C S O F T E R R O R"
PRESS CONFERENCE
MARATHI PATRAKAR SANGH, CST, MUMBAI
20TH DECEMBER / 2 - 3 pm
SPEAKERS: FEROZE MITHIBORWALA (RASHTRIYA SAMAJ PAKSH - NATIONAL VICE PRESIDENT),
KISHORE JAGTAP (AWAMI BHARAT - SPOKESPERSON),
DILIP BANSODE (BHARIP BAHUJAN MAHASANGH - PRESIDENT - MUMBAI)
MULNIWASI MALA (PHULE-AMBEDKARI VICHAR MANCH)
WE DEMAND A SPECIAL HIGH LEVEL PROBE INTO THE
DEATHS OF SHRI KARKARE, SHRI KAMTE & SHRI SALASKAR.
It is rather bewildering to see that despite the fact that both the government and certain sections of the corporate media are trying to supress the public outcry over the deaths of the three valiant ATS officers, the government is refusing to institute an inquiry commission to put all doubts to rest. The point is if it is also obvious as we are given to believe then why is the government runnning scared. That itself is raising doubts and creating more room for suspicion.
We also support the demand made by Shri A. R. Antulay and are thankful to him for having brought this issue to the centre stage of the national debate. The genie is out now. The only answer is that a probe be ordered. The remarks by A. R. Antulay have stirred the latent doubts amongst all communities and the popular perception far differs from what the media would have us believe.
As part of the "People's Investigation" which we will thus have to undertake, some of questions are as follows:
1) The police version still states that Shri Karkare died of Ak-47 bullets. Our investigation shows that he was killed by 9mm bullets fired from a revolver that hit him in the neck. We demand that the Post Mortem report relating to all those killed be made public.
2) We demand that the phone records be made public as that will finally prove as to who was / were the individuals who sent the three officers to the Cama Hospital. It will reveal the names of the policemen and politicians involved and reveal their locations as well at the time of the calls.
3) Shri Karkare was known to be a meticulous officer and it is beyond us as to why he went unprepared to engage the terrorists.
4) At the time of the shooting at the Cama Hospital, why were not the policemen at the Azad Maidan Police station, barely 100 metres away, not called into action and the terrorists surrounded in Cama Hospital itself ?
5) Why the various conflicting reports in the media even regarding the time and place of their killings for the first few days? Why did not the police provide a clear picture of the events as they are trying to do so now.
The reason as to why the people do not trust the official police version as well as that of the establishment within the media is that the these sections had mislead and misinformed the people on the terror attacks at Malegaon, Jalna, Parbhani, Beed, Nanded, Kanpur, Ajmer and Mecca Masjid in Hyderabad, Samjhauta Express, to state a few. The investigations by the ATS squad revealed that these terror attacks were being perpetrated by the terror cells of the Abhinav Bharat led by Purohit and Sadhvi Pragnya. The roots of these cells also ran into the Bajrang Dal, ABVP and into the Bhonsla Military school.
Moreover the media had been reporting verbatim the police version without any independent investigation, barring a few journalists and newspapers.
This irresponsible and uncritical reporting has caused untold damage to the fabric of the nation and has contributed to demonising a section of our society. Therefore it is very difficult to trust the government, the police and the media and all of them need to introspect if they will have to win back the faith of the masses. Thus a number of Muslim youth were wrongly arrested, tortured, maimed and labelled for life as terrorists for life the above blasts that were being traced to the Sangh Parivar. Those arrested were let of by the courts and thus the conviction rate is a dismal 1 - 2 % for all the brouhaha around us.
Thus the track record of the above sections that are coalescing together leaves much to be desired.
Who is answerable and accountable for individuals and families that have been destroyed. The judiciary needs to set a policy of checks and balances that will control a marauding police force with a increasing communal outlook that will compensate all those who are victims of false accusations and victimisation.
Also the point is that why are people refusing to believe that the deaths of the ATS officers are above board ??
The conditions prior to the terror attack were ranged against trhe BJP and the Sangh Parivar. This FACT none can challenge or discount. An entire infrastructure of terror was being slowly but surely unearthed much to the chagrin & dismay of the Hindutva Right. Leaders and newspapers of this section were clearly threatening Shri Karkare and this is no secret. Thus one direct impact of the deaths of the ATS officers will be that the investigation will be buried and the Sadhvi Pragnya's and the Purohit's be let of. And the terror network will remain intact to spread more terror.
Thus as the biggest gainer in this entire sordid terror episode is undoubtedly those political and social organizations that stood to be exposed and their nefarious terror gambit be laid bare. THUS THE SUSPICION AMONGST THE MASSES OF THE PEOPLE !!
We also demand that Ratan Tata apologise to the courageous members of the police and the armed forces who he says were inept at countering the terrorists.
The fact is that the terrorists had weapons and ammunition to last them for 60 hours. All of that was not broght in merely in a rubber dingy. Undoubtedly a vast number of weapons had been stocked in both the Taj and the Oberoi prior to the arrival of the terrorists. This factor is crucial to the investigation as this could not have happened without inner complicity. Also even though R. Tata had recieved adequate warnings he refused to comply with the security requirements "so as not to inconvenience the guests" This apathy led to the deaths of hundreds.
Moreover R. Tata has stated that he will be approaching "external agencies" (read MOSSAD) for his internal security. The privatization of security, defence & armaments will undermine our national security. Ratan Tata has tied up with Israeli & US aerospace and arms production companies.
We thus stand by our earlier poistion that certain political forces from within our country organized this terror attack with the help of the American CIA and the Israeli MOSSAD who organzied the mercenary-terroists from Pakistan to attack Mumbai. A genuine terror attack was required if
• India was to further align itself within the US-Israeli orbit and every terror attack has served this agenda. Any doubts on this FACT. Every terror attack isolates and demonisesd Indian Muslims and creates space for Bush and Israel style tactics.
• Finally with the Indian elite being targeted the warmongering reached a feverish pitch which was never the case till the Aam Aadmi faced the brunt.
• The US that is enmeshed in a losing quagmire in Afghanistan needs Indian troops to intervene as its European NATO allies are fast deserting the sinking ship. The USSR lost the war with 3.5laks troops and the US with 1.5 lakh stands little chance. Thus every attempt is being made to pressurise Pakistan to carry on waging the war in Afghanistan and the Mumbai terror attack does serve the US interests in the region.
• Worse India's task is to contain, threaten and wage war if need be against a Nuclear armed Pakistan. The crisis in the region is of the making of the US-Saudi-Israel and Pakistan and we would be best advised to avoid taking the American bait as that will only spread devastaion and war for India & the entire region.
For those who think that this theory is farfetched, they only need to STUDY the operations of the CIA and the MOSSAD within Pakistan.
FACTS:
• As all are aware the CIA has deep roots in Pakistan.
• The ISI chief Lt. General Shuja Ahmad Pasha is an American appointee.
• The Military Chief Ashfaq Parvez Kayani is also a US appointee.
• US blocked the recent attempt by the civilian government to control the ISI and the Military and infact it is the US that wields far more influence within these sections, far more than the civilian government.
• The ISI and the Pakistan Military are no. 3 on the list of US financial aid after Israel and Egypt.
• Time and again the CIA and the MOSSAD have organized these terror gangs to strike at targets in Bosnia, Chechenya, Kosovo, Afghanistan and parts of Central Asia, South America and other regions of the World.In fact Lashkar e Taiyaba played a role in Bosnia via the ISI-CIA nexus.This is all on record and the dissenters are welcome to challenge us publicly.
• The American school for training terrorists is in Fort Benning, Georgetown - "School of the Americas" also called the "Western Hemisphere School for Security Co-operation" (www.soaw.org) This is the worlds premier institute for terror training and especially reviled across South America that faced the brunt of the US backed death squads.
Since now the media has rightly raised the spectre of the involvement of Dawood Ibrahim in the terror attack, we need to further deeply investigate the matter. Undoubtedly Dawood works for the ISI in its nefarious activities ranging from narco-terrorism, money laundering, smuggling etc. All of these factors go into creating a terror industry.
The fact that is not being stated is that Dawood has for a long time been a CIA ASSET. According to an imporatnt article by Jeremy Hammond who is the editor of the much respected "Foreign Policy Journal", Dawood has been working for the CIA-ISI combine especially in its drug operation in Afghanistan, Central Asia and Europe. Russian writer Vladimir Radyunin had written about the role of the CIA in the increasing heroin cultivation and production in Afghanistan and the threat that it poses to Russia due to the widespread & increasing availibilty of refined heroin. The site ciadrugs.com will give all the necessary references to anyone who cares enough to research the matter and that is only to begin with.
Nariman House and the Israeli factor
One issue that continues to befuddle and boggle the mind is why Nariman House. Why was a building in a Colaba gaothan attacked. The common answer is that they were targeting Jews. Agreed !!
But why not attack the Israeli consulate located at Nariman Point barely a kilometre from the Oberoi, instaed of going all the way into the bylanes of Colaba into a building with no strategic value. Surely the Israeli consulate would seem far more probable.
We belive that the Jews who were killed were targeted as they were NOT ZIONISTS.
There are two clues in this direction:
1) During the funeral the family of the slain victims refused that the Israeli flag be draped over the coffin and angrily said that "WE ARE NOT ZIONISTS".
2) Inspite of continued insistence of the Israeli authorities, the Nariman House family refused to upgrade the security of their building and said that they had faith in their God (YAHWEH). Thus the fact of the matter was that unlike most Jewish families who are extremely security conscious, the Holtzbergs refused to undertake even the basics which even any Mumbaikar would look into.
For those who even have an elementary knowledge of the history of the struggle within the Zionists and the anti-Zionists Jews over a period of 125 years, the above theory and facts will make immense sense. (read A. Lilenthal)
Thus it is our stated position that it was the MOSSAD that had given Nariman House as one of the targets to the LeT terrorists.
We also condemn the role and the changing positions of the Pakistani government and the Military. Every effort should be made without any excuses and the LeT and Jaish terror infrastructure must be destroyed without delay and Hafeez Saeed and Azhar Mahmood as well as Dawood be arested and tried and sentenced.
The problem is that we are dealing with governments from both sides of the border that are closely allied to the US-israeli orbit.
Thus our struggle is to create a genuine nationalist anti-imperialist movement within India and across the region.
Specific Intelligence Inputs
It is a blatant lie that the RAW had failed in its task of gathering information and warning the government and the various defense related sections. The RAW had tapped into the satellite phones of the LeT, warned of the boat taking off from Karachi, photograhed the same from its spy plane, given specific co-ordinates to the Navy on November 19, that even intercepted the boat but let it pas due to the fake ID cards that were issued from Probandar (Gujarat). RAW had given the targets as Taj and Marriot, the time, 9 - 11pm and both the Centre & the State were aware of these facts. Thus the question is, inaction or complicity.
Also interestingly the CIA had warned the Indian government of the impending attack. The basic question is why did not the CIA warn the civilian government led by Zardari and Gilani and also pressuried the ISI and its terror gangs from calling of the attack.
Are not these obvious questions that we should raise ??
Draw your own inferences !!
There are other questions that will emerge as part of our "People's Investigation", that we will keep on putting out in the People's domain. hard questions that will not be asked and answers that will remain buried.
That is the task ahead and the truth will prevail.
Satyamev Jayate !!
ORGANIZERS
SAYEED KHAN, VARSHA V V, AMOL MADAME, JAGDISH NAGARKAR, SHRIDHAR SHIRSAGAR, ARIF KAPADIA,
CHETNA BIRJE, RESHMA JAGTAP, JYOTI BEDEKAR, AFAQ AZAD, WINNIE THOMAS, TITO EAPEN, AVINASH KAMBLE, MUNAWWAR KHAN, HARSHAWARDHAN VARTAK, GHAZALA AZAD, IRFAN MULLA, INAYAT GAURAV KARIYA, HUSSAIN & ANIL
"E X P O S I N G T H E P O L I T I C S O F T E R R O R"
PRESS CONFERENCE
MARATHI PATRAKAR SANGH, CST, MUMBAI
20TH DECEMBER / 2 - 3 pm
SPEAKERS: FEROZE MITHIBORWALA (RASHTRIYA SAMAJ PAKSH - NATIONAL VICE PRESIDENT),
KISHORE JAGTAP (AWAMI BHARAT - SPOKESPERSON),
DILIP BANSODE (BHARIP BAHUJAN MAHASANGH - PRESIDENT - MUMBAI)
MULNIWASI MALA (PHULE-AMBEDKARI VICHAR MANCH)
WE DEMAND A SPECIAL HIGH LEVEL PROBE INTO THE
DEATHS OF SHRI KARKARE, SHRI KAMTE & SHRI SALASKAR.
It is rather bewildering to see that despite the fact that both the government and certain sections of the corporate media are trying to supress the public outcry over the deaths of the three valiant ATS officers, the government is refusing to institute an inquiry commission to put all doubts to rest. The point is if it is also obvious as we are given to believe then why is the government runnning scared. That itself is raising doubts and creating more room for suspicion.
We also support the demand made by Shri A. R. Antulay and are thankful to him for having brought this issue to the centre stage of the national debate. The genie is out now. The only answer is that a probe be ordered. The remarks by A. R. Antulay have stirred the latent doubts amongst all communities and the popular perception far differs from what the media would have us believe.
As part of the "People's Investigation" which we will thus have to undertake, some of questions are as follows:
1) The police version still states that Shri Karkare died of Ak-47 bullets. Our investigation shows that he was killed by 9mm bullets fired from a revolver that hit him in the neck. We demand that the Post Mortem report relating to all those killed be made public.
2) We demand that the phone records be made public as that will finally prove as to who was / were the individuals who sent the three officers to the Cama Hospital. It will reveal the names of the policemen and politicians involved and reveal their locations as well at the time of the calls.
3) Shri Karkare was known to be a meticulous officer and it is beyond us as to why he went unprepared to engage the terrorists.
4) At the time of the shooting at the Cama Hospital, why were not the policemen at the Azad Maidan Police station, barely 100 metres away, not called into action and the terrorists surrounded in Cama Hospital itself ?
5) Why the various conflicting reports in the media even regarding the time and place of their killings for the first few days? Why did not the police provide a clear picture of the events as they are trying to do so now.
The reason as to why the people do not trust the official police version as well as that of the establishment within the media is that the these sections had mislead and misinformed the people on the terror attacks at Malegaon, Jalna, Parbhani, Beed, Nanded, Kanpur, Ajmer and Mecca Masjid in Hyderabad, Samjhauta Express, to state a few. The investigations by the ATS squad revealed that these terror attacks were being perpetrated by the terror cells of the Abhinav Bharat led by Purohit and Sadhvi Pragnya. The roots of these cells also ran into the Bajrang Dal, ABVP and into the Bhonsla Military school.
Moreover the media had been reporting verbatim the police version without any independent investigation, barring a few journalists and newspapers.
This irresponsible and uncritical reporting has caused untold damage to the fabric of the nation and has contributed to demonising a section of our society. Therefore it is very difficult to trust the government, the police and the media and all of them need to introspect if they will have to win back the faith of the masses. Thus a number of Muslim youth were wrongly arrested, tortured, maimed and labelled for life as terrorists for life the above blasts that were being traced to the Sangh Parivar. Those arrested were let of by the courts and thus the conviction rate is a dismal 1 - 2 % for all the brouhaha around us.
Thus the track record of the above sections that are coalescing together leaves much to be desired.
Who is answerable and accountable for individuals and families that have been destroyed. The judiciary needs to set a policy of checks and balances that will control a marauding police force with a increasing communal outlook that will compensate all those who are victims of false accusations and victimisation.
Also the point is that why are people refusing to believe that the deaths of the ATS officers are above board ??
The conditions prior to the terror attack were ranged against trhe BJP and the Sangh Parivar. This FACT none can challenge or discount. An entire infrastructure of terror was being slowly but surely unearthed much to the chagrin & dismay of the Hindutva Right. Leaders and newspapers of this section were clearly threatening Shri Karkare and this is no secret. Thus one direct impact of the deaths of the ATS officers will be that the investigation will be buried and the Sadhvi Pragnya's and the Purohit's be let of. And the terror network will remain intact to spread more terror.
Thus as the biggest gainer in this entire sordid terror episode is undoubtedly those political and social organizations that stood to be exposed and their nefarious terror gambit be laid bare. THUS THE SUSPICION AMONGST THE MASSES OF THE PEOPLE !!
We also demand that Ratan Tata apologise to the courageous members of the police and the armed forces who he says were inept at countering the terrorists.
The fact is that the terrorists had weapons and ammunition to last them for 60 hours. All of that was not broght in merely in a rubber dingy. Undoubtedly a vast number of weapons had been stocked in both the Taj and the Oberoi prior to the arrival of the terrorists. This factor is crucial to the investigation as this could not have happened without inner complicity. Also even though R. Tata had recieved adequate warnings he refused to comply with the security requirements "so as not to inconvenience the guests" This apathy led to the deaths of hundreds.
Moreover R. Tata has stated that he will be approaching "external agencies" (read MOSSAD) for his internal security. The privatization of security, defence & armaments will undermine our national security. Ratan Tata has tied up with Israeli & US aerospace and arms production companies.
We thus stand by our earlier poistion that certain political forces from within our country organized this terror attack with the help of the American CIA and the Israeli MOSSAD who organzied the mercenary-terroists from Pakistan to attack Mumbai. A genuine terror attack was required if
• India was to further align itself within the US-Israeli orbit and every terror attack has served this agenda. Any doubts on this FACT. Every terror attack isolates and demonisesd Indian Muslims and creates space for Bush and Israel style tactics.
• Finally with the Indian elite being targeted the warmongering reached a feverish pitch which was never the case till the Aam Aadmi faced the brunt.
• The US that is enmeshed in a losing quagmire in Afghanistan needs Indian troops to intervene as its European NATO allies are fast deserting the sinking ship. The USSR lost the war with 3.5laks troops and the US with 1.5 lakh stands little chance. Thus every attempt is being made to pressurise Pakistan to carry on waging the war in Afghanistan and the Mumbai terror attack does serve the US interests in the region.
• Worse India's task is to contain, threaten and wage war if need be against a Nuclear armed Pakistan. The crisis in the region is of the making of the US-Saudi-Israel and Pakistan and we would be best advised to avoid taking the American bait as that will only spread devastaion and war for India & the entire region.
For those who think that this theory is farfetched, they only need to STUDY the operations of the CIA and the MOSSAD within Pakistan.
FACTS:
• As all are aware the CIA has deep roots in Pakistan.
• The ISI chief Lt. General Shuja Ahmad Pasha is an American appointee.
• The Military Chief Ashfaq Parvez Kayani is also a US appointee.
• US blocked the recent attempt by the civilian government to control the ISI and the Military and infact it is the US that wields far more influence within these sections, far more than the civilian government.
• The ISI and the Pakistan Military are no. 3 on the list of US financial aid after Israel and Egypt.
• Time and again the CIA and the MOSSAD have organized these terror gangs to strike at targets in Bosnia, Chechenya, Kosovo, Afghanistan and parts of Central Asia, South America and other regions of the World.In fact Lashkar e Taiyaba played a role in Bosnia via the ISI-CIA nexus.This is all on record and the dissenters are welcome to challenge us publicly.
• The American school for training terrorists is in Fort Benning, Georgetown - "School of the Americas" also called the "Western Hemisphere School for Security Co-operation" (www.soaw.org) This is the worlds premier institute for terror training and especially reviled across South America that faced the brunt of the US backed death squads.
Since now the media has rightly raised the spectre of the involvement of Dawood Ibrahim in the terror attack, we need to further deeply investigate the matter. Undoubtedly Dawood works for the ISI in its nefarious activities ranging from narco-terrorism, money laundering, smuggling etc. All of these factors go into creating a terror industry.
The fact that is not being stated is that Dawood has for a long time been a CIA ASSET. According to an imporatnt article by Jeremy Hammond who is the editor of the much respected "Foreign Policy Journal", Dawood has been working for the CIA-ISI combine especially in its drug operation in Afghanistan, Central Asia and Europe. Russian writer Vladimir Radyunin had written about the role of the CIA in the increasing heroin cultivation and production in Afghanistan and the threat that it poses to Russia due to the widespread & increasing availibilty of refined heroin. The site ciadrugs.com will give all the necessary references to anyone who cares enough to research the matter and that is only to begin with.
Nariman House and the Israeli factor
One issue that continues to befuddle and boggle the mind is why Nariman House. Why was a building in a Colaba gaothan attacked. The common answer is that they were targeting Jews. Agreed !!
But why not attack the Israeli consulate located at Nariman Point barely a kilometre from the Oberoi, instaed of going all the way into the bylanes of Colaba into a building with no strategic value. Surely the Israeli consulate would seem far more probable.
We belive that the Jews who were killed were targeted as they were NOT ZIONISTS.
There are two clues in this direction:
1) During the funeral the family of the slain victims refused that the Israeli flag be draped over the coffin and angrily said that "WE ARE NOT ZIONISTS".
2) Inspite of continued insistence of the Israeli authorities, the Nariman House family refused to upgrade the security of their building and said that they had faith in their God (YAHWEH). Thus the fact of the matter was that unlike most Jewish families who are extremely security conscious, the Holtzbergs refused to undertake even the basics which even any Mumbaikar would look into.
For those who even have an elementary knowledge of the history of the struggle within the Zionists and the anti-Zionists Jews over a period of 125 years, the above theory and facts will make immense sense. (read A. Lilenthal)
Thus it is our stated position that it was the MOSSAD that had given Nariman House as one of the targets to the LeT terrorists.
We also condemn the role and the changing positions of the Pakistani government and the Military. Every effort should be made without any excuses and the LeT and Jaish terror infrastructure must be destroyed without delay and Hafeez Saeed and Azhar Mahmood as well as Dawood be arested and tried and sentenced.
The problem is that we are dealing with governments from both sides of the border that are closely allied to the US-israeli orbit.
Thus our struggle is to create a genuine nationalist anti-imperialist movement within India and across the region.
Specific Intelligence Inputs
It is a blatant lie that the RAW had failed in its task of gathering information and warning the government and the various defense related sections. The RAW had tapped into the satellite phones of the LeT, warned of the boat taking off from Karachi, photograhed the same from its spy plane, given specific co-ordinates to the Navy on November 19, that even intercepted the boat but let it pas due to the fake ID cards that were issued from Probandar (Gujarat). RAW had given the targets as Taj and Marriot, the time, 9 - 11pm and both the Centre & the State were aware of these facts. Thus the question is, inaction or complicity.
Also interestingly the CIA had warned the Indian government of the impending attack. The basic question is why did not the CIA warn the civilian government led by Zardari and Gilani and also pressuried the ISI and its terror gangs from calling of the attack.
Are not these obvious questions that we should raise ??
Draw your own inferences !!
There are other questions that will emerge as part of our "People's Investigation", that we will keep on putting out in the People's domain. hard questions that will not be asked and answers that will remain buried.
That is the task ahead and the truth will prevail.
Satyamev Jayate !!
ORGANIZERS
SAYEED KHAN, VARSHA V V, AMOL MADAME, JAGDISH NAGARKAR, SHRIDHAR SHIRSAGAR, ARIF KAPADIA,
CHETNA BIRJE, RESHMA JAGTAP, JYOTI BEDEKAR, AFAQ AZAD, WINNIE THOMAS, TITO EAPEN, AVINASH KAMBLE, MUNAWWAR KHAN, HARSHAWARDHAN VARTAK, GHAZALA AZAD, IRFAN MULLA, INAYAT GAURAV KARIYA, HUSSAIN & ANIL
Friday, December 19, 2008
The Monster In The Mirror - By Arundhati Roy
The Monster In The Mirror
By Arundhati Roy
What we're experiencing now is blowback, the cumulative result of decades of quick fixes and dirty deeds. The carpet's squelching under our feet. The only way to contain -it would be naïve to say end - terrorism is to look at the monster in the mirror. We're standing at a fork in the road. One sign says Justice, the other Civil War. There's no third sign and there's no going back. Choose."
By Arundhati Roy
What we're experiencing now is blowback, the cumulative result of decades of quick fixes and dirty deeds. The carpet's squelching under our feet. The only way to contain -it would be naïve to say end - terrorism is to look at the monster in the mirror. We're standing at a fork in the road. One sign says Justice, the other Civil War. There's no third sign and there's no going back. Choose."
Thursday, December 18, 2008
PRESS CONFERENCE
A W A M I B H A R A T
"E X P O S I N G T H E P O L I T I C S O F T E R R O R"
PRESS CONFERENCE
MARATHI PATRAKAR SANGH,
CST, MUMBAI 20TH DECEMBER / 2 - 3 pm
SPEAKERS: FEROZE MITHIBORWALA (RASHTRIYA SAMAJ PAKSH - NATIONAL VICE PRESIDENT), KISHORE JAGTAP (AWAMI BHARAT - SPOKESPERSON), DILIP BANSODE (BHARIP BAHUJAN MAHASANGH - PRESIDENT - MUMBAI)MULNIWASI MALA (PHULE-AMBEDKARI VICHAR MANCH)
NEW ISSUES AND QUESTIONS HAVE EMERGED SINCE THE LAST PRESS CONFERENCE THAT WE HAD ORGANIZED AFTER THE MUMBAI TERROR ATTACK,ESPECIALLY IN CONTEXT OF THE THREE SLAIN ATS POLICE OFFICERS, SHRI KARKARE, SHRI KAMTE AND SHRI SALASKAR.
AT THE POPULAR LEVEL OF THE MASSES & WE THE PEOPLE ARE DEMANDING A HIGH LEVEL JUDICIAL PROBE
INTO THE VERY MYSTERIOUS CIRCUMSTANCES THAT LED TO THE UNFORTUNATE DEATH OF THE ABOVE THREE OFFICERS.
WE SUPPORT THE DEMAND MADE BY CABINET MINISTER A. R. ANTULAY AND FOR THE NATIONWIDE DEBATE THAT HE HAS CATALYSED BY RAISING THE ISSUE IN THE PARLIAMENT ITSELF.
WE ALSO CATEGORICALLY DEPLORE THE STATEMENT MADE BY RATAN TATA WHERE HE HAS INSULTED THE MEMORIES OF THE MARTYRS OF 26/11 BY STATING THAT OUR POLICE AND ARMY ARE INEPT.
RATAN TATA HAS A LOT TO ANSWER FOR AS HE WAS CLEARLY AND REPEATEDLY WARNED ABOUT THE IMPENDING ATTACK ON THE TAJ & YET REFUSED TO TAKE ADEQUATE MEASURES WHICH THEN COST THE LIVES OF TEN'S OF INNOCENTS.
CERTAIN OTHER FACTS IN TERMS OF THE INTELLIGENCE REPORTS AND CLEAR WARNINGS HAVE ALSO COME TO LIGHT, WHICH RAISE THE QUESTIONS OF BOTH LETHARGY OR WORSE COMPLICITY !!
WE ARE ALSO IN THE PROCESS OF CREATING A FACT FINDING TEAM THAT WILL INCLUDE A NUMBER OF OTHER ORGANIZATIONS AS WELL AS CERTAIN INDIVIDUALS FROM OTHER CITIES AS WELL.
THERE ARE A NUMBER OF OTHER QUESTIONS AND SMOKING GUNS THAT WE WILL BE RAISING AND WILL CONTINUE TO RAISE IN THE PUBLIC FORA TILL THE TRUTH OF 26/11 IS FINALLY EXPOSED AND THE TRUE CULPRITS BE BROUGHT TO JUSTICE.
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Mumbai for Peace - Join Hands in Unity - 12th December '08 / 12 to 12.15pm
SAY NO TO TERROR AND WAR! SAY NO TO VIOLENCE!
We, the people of Mumbai, from all walks of life, of all faiths, all linguistic groups, all ages, will express our commitment to peace by coming out on the streets and holding hands in unity from 12 noon to 12.15 pm. on Friday the 12th of December 2008.
We, the people of Mumbai, who have seen hatred and bloodshed in our city, pledge that we will not give in to terror and to those who preach war, violence, hatred and intolerance. We undertake to keep Mumbai a city that is peaceful and united. We commit to building a world based on the principles of tolerance and peace, equality and justice.
We expect:
1.
Government must take responsibility and map out long-term and short-term strategies, and take action on them.
2.
Accountability, better coordination amongst various security and intelligence agencies to deal with terror; and sharing of intelligence and information.
3.
Joint action between India and Pakistan governments to curb religious extremism of all shades in both countries.
4.
Punishment of those responsible for attacks on minorities, which is also an attack on the multi-cultural body politic of India.
5.
Swift, transparent and credible trial and punishment for all those involved in terror, whatever the religion they may profess.
6.
Protection of civil and human rights of people and no arrests and torture of innocents in the name of ant- terror measures.
7.
A comprehensive Communal Violence Bill in place of the one pending in the Parliament.
8.
Immediate implementation of police reforms, providing equipment and training, basic service conditions to police personnel and state security forces. Active facilitation of community participation in security and intelligence gathering.
9.
Ensuring moderation and sensitivity in media reporting of violence whether terrorist or any other form, through self-regulation.
10.
Evolve a policy for legal action against hate speech and demonization of any religion or community.
MUMBAI FOR PEACE: a campaign of Mumbai based organizations.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Mossad-CIA Connection ToMumbai Terror Attacks?
By Yoginder Sikand
29 November, 2008Countercurrents.org
“O ye who believe! stand out firmly for God, as witnesses to fair dealing, and let not the hatred of others to you make you swerve to wrong and depart from justice. Be just: that is next to piety: and fear God. For God is well-acquainted with all that ye do.”
(The Quran, Surah Al-Maida: 8)
Numerous theories are doing the rounds about the dastardly terrorist assault on Mumbai. The dominant view, based on what is being suggested by the media, is that this is the handiwork of the dreaded Pakistan-based self-styled Islamist and terrorist outfit Lashkar-e Tayyeba, which, ever since it was ostensibly proscribed by the Government of Pakistan some years ago, has adopted the name of Jamaat ud-Dawah. This might well be the case, for the Lashkar has been responsible for numerous such terrorist attacks in recent years, particularly in Kashmir.
The Lashkar is the military wing of the Markaz Dawat wal Irshad, an outfit floated by a section of the Pakistani Ahl-e Hadith, a group with close affiliations to the Saudi Wahhabis. It has its headquarters at the town of Muridke in the Gujranwala district in Pakistani Punjab. The Markaz was established in 1986 by two Pakistani university professors, Hafiz Muhammad Saeed and Zafar Iqbal. They were assisted by Abdullah Azam, a close aide of Osama bin Laden, who was then associated with the International Islamic University in Islamabad. Funds for setting up the organization are said to have come from Pakistan’s dreaded official secret services agency, the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI). From its inception, it is thus clear, the Lashkar had the support of the Pakistani establishment.
The Lashkar started out as a paramilitary organisation to train warriors to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan. Soon it spawned dozens of camps across Pakistan and Afghanistan for this purpose. Militants produced at these centres have played a major role in armed struggles, first in Afghanistan, and then in Bosnia, Chechenya, Kosovo, the southern Philippines and Kashmir.
Like other radical Islamist groups, the Lashkar sees Islam as an all-embracing system. It regards Islam as governing all aspects of personal as well as collective life, in the form of the shariah. For the establishing of an Islamic system, it insists, an ‘Islamic state’ is necessary, which will impose the shariah as the law of the land. If, the official website of the Lashkar announces, such a state were to be set up and all Muslims were to live strictly according to 'the laws that Allah has laid down', then, it is believed, ‘they would be able to control the whole world and exercise their supremacy’. And for this, as well as to respond to the oppression that it claims that Muslims in large parts of the world are suffering, it insists that all Muslims must take to armed jihad. Armed jihad must continue, its website announces, ‘until Islam, as a way of life, dominates the whole world and until Allah's law is enforced everywhere in the world’.
The subject of armed jihad runs right through the writings and pronouncements of the Lashkar and is, in fact, the most prominent theme in its discourse. Indeed, its understanding of Islam may be seen as determined almost wholly by this preoccupation, so much so that its reading of Islam seems to be a product of its own political project, thus effectively ending up equating Islam with terror. Being born as a result of war in Afghanistan, war has become the very raison d'être of the Lashkar, and its subsequent development has been almost entirely determined by this concern. The contours of its ideological framework are constructed in such a way that the theme of armed jihad appears as the central element of its project. In the writings and speeches of Lashkar spokesmen jihad appears as violent conflict (qital) waged against 'unbelievers' who are said to be responsible for the oppression of the Muslims. Indeed, the Lashkar projects it as the one of the most central tenets of Islam, although it has traditionally not been included as one of the 'five pillars’ of the faith. Thus, its website claims that ‘There is so much emphasis on this subject that some commentators and scholars of the Quran have remarked that the topic of the Quran is jihad’. Further, a Lashkar statement declares, ‘There is consensus of opinion among researchers of the Qur'an that no other action has been explained in such great detail as jihad’.
In Lashkar discourse, jihad against non-Muslims is projected as a religious duty binding on all Muslims today. Thus the Lashkar’s website claims that a Muslim who has ‘never intended to fight against the disbelievers […] is not without traces of hypocrisy’. Muslims who have the capacity to participate or assist in the jihad but do not do so are said to ‘be living a sinful life’. Not surprisingly, therefore, the Lashkar denounces all Muslims who do not agree with its pernicious and grossly distorted version of Islam and its hideous misinterpretation of jihad—Sufis, Shias, Barelvis and so on—as being ‘deviants’ or outside the pale of Islam or even in league with ‘anti-Islamic forces’. The Lashkar promises its activists that they would receive great rewards, both in this world and in the Hereafter, if they were to actively struggle in the path of jihad. Not only would they be guaranteed a place in Heaven, but they would also 'be honoured in this world', for jihad, it claims, is also ‘the way that solves financial and political problems’.
Astoundingly bizarre though it is, the Markaz sees itself as engaged in a global jihad against the forces of ‘disbelief’, stopping at nothing short of aiming at the conquest of the entire world. As Nazir Ahmed, in-charge of the public relations department of the Lashkar, once declared, through the so-called jihad that the Lashkar has launched, ‘Islam will be dominant all over the world’. This global war is seen as a solution to all the ills and oppression afflicting all Muslims, and it is claimed that 'if we want to live with honour and dignity, then we have to return back to jihad’. Through jihad, the Lashkar website says, ‘Islam will be supreme throughout the world’.
In Lashkar discourse, its self-styled jihad against India is regarded as nothing less than a war between two different and mutually opposed ideologies: Islam, on the one hand, and Hinduism, on the other. It tars all Hindus with the same brush, as supposed ‘enemies of Islam’. Thus, Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, Lashkar chief, declares: ‘In fact, the Hindu is a mean enemy and the proper way to deal with him is the one adopted by our forefathers, who crushed them by force. We need to do the same’.
India is a major target for the Lashkar's terrorists. According to Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, ‘The jihad is not about Kashmir only. It encompasses all of India'. Thus, the Lashkar sees its self-styled jihad as going far beyond the borders of Kashmir and spreading through all of India. Its final goal, it says, is to extend Muslim control over what is seen as having once been Muslim land, and, hence, to be brought back under Muslim domination, creating what the Lashkar terms as 'the Greater Pakistan by dint of jihad’. Thus, at a mammoth congregation of Lashkar supporters in November 1999, Hafiz Muhammad Saeed thundered, ‘Today I announce the break-up of India, Inshallah. We will not rest until the whole of India is dissolved into Pakistan’.
The Lashkar, so say media reports, has been trying to drum up support among India’s Muslims, and it may well be that it has managed to find a few recruits to its cause among them. If this is the case, it has probably been prompted by the fact of mounting murderous Hindutva-inspired anti-Muslim pogroms across the country, often abetted by agencies of the state, which has taken a toll of several thousand innocent lives. The fact that no semblance of justice has been delivered in these cases and that the state has not taken any measure to reign in Hindutva terrorism adds further to the deep-seated despondency and despair among many Indian Muslims. This might well be used by self-styled Islamist terror groups, such as the Lashkar, to promote their own agenda. Obviously, therefore, in order to counter the grave threat posed by terror groups such as the Lashkar, the Indian state needs to tackle the menace of Hindutva terror as well, which has now assumed the form of full-blown fascism. Both forms of terrorism feed on each other, and one cannot be tackled without taking on the other as well.
Mercifully, and despite the denial of justice to them, the vast majority of the Indian Muslims have refused to fall into the Lashkar’s trap. The flurry of anti-terrorism conferences that have recently been organised by important Indian Islamic groups is evidence of the fact that they regard the Lashkar’s perverse understanding of Islam as being wholly anti-Islamic and as a perversion of their faith. These voices urgently need to be promoted, for they might well be the most effective antidote to Lashkar propaganda. Numerous Indian Islamic scholars I know and have spoken to insist that the Lashkar’s denunciation of all non-Muslims as ‘enemies of Islam’, its fomenting of hatred towards Hindus and India and its understanding of jihad are a complete misrepresentation of Islamic teachings. They bitterly critique its call for a universal Caliphate as foolish wishful thinking. And they are unanimous that, far from serving the cause of the faith they claim to espouse, groups like the Lashkar have done the most heinous damage to the name of Islam, and are to blame, to a very large extent, for mounting Islamophobia globally.
At the same time as fingers of suspicion are being pointed at the Lashkar for being behind the recent Mumbai blasts, other questions are being raised in some circles. The significant fact that Hemant Karkare, the brave ATS chief who was killed in the terrorist assault, had been investigating the role of Hindutva terrorist groups in blasts in Malegoan and elsewhere and had received threats for this has not gone un-noticed. Nor has the related fact that the assault on Mumbai happened soon after disturbing revelations began pouring in of the role of Hindutva activists in terror attacks in different parts of India. That the attack on Mumbai has led to the issue of Hindutva-inspired terrorism now being totally sidelined is also significant.
And then there is a possible Israeli angle that some are raising. Thus, the widely-read Mumbai-based tabloid Mid-Day, in an article about a building where numerous militants were holed up titled ‘Mumbai Attack: Was Nariman House the Terror Hub?’, states:
“The role that Nariman House is coming to play in this entire attack drama is puzzling. Last night, residents ordered close to 100 kilograms of meat and other food, enough to feed an army or a bunch of people for twenty days. Shortly thereafter, the ten odd militants moved in, obviously, indicating that the food and meat was ordered, keeping their visit in mind, another cop added.
“One of the militants called up a television news channel and voiced his demands today, but, interestingly, when he was asked where are they all holed him, he said at the Israeli owned Nariman House and they are six of them here", one of the investigating cops said. Since morning, there has been exchange of gun fire has been going on and the militants seem well equipped to counter the cops fire. To top it, they have food and shelter. One wonders [if] they have the support of the residents, a local Ramrao Shanker said.”
A Mossad/Israeli hand in the affair might seem far-fetched to some, but not so to others, who point to the role of Israeli agents in destabilizing a large number of countries as well as possibly operating within some radical Islamist movements, such as a group in Yemen styling itself ‘Islamic Jihad’, said to be responsible for the bombing of the American Embassy in Sanaa, and which is said to have close links with the Israeli intelligence. Some have raised the question if the Mossad or even the CIA might not be directly or otherwise instigating some disillusioned Muslim youth in India, Pakistan or elsewhere to take to terror by playing on Muslim grievances, operating through existing Islamist groups or spawning new ones for this purpose.
If this charge is true—although this remains to be conclusively established—the aim might be to further radicalize Muslims so as to provide further pretext for American and Israeli assaults on Islam and Muslim countries. The fact that the CIA had for years been in very close contact with the Pakistani ISI and radical Islamist groups in Pakistan is also being raised in this connection. The possible role of such foreign agencies of being behind some terror attacks that India has witnessed in recent years to further fan anti-Muslim hatred and also to weaken India is also being speculated on in some circles.
Whether all this is indeed true needs to be properly investigated. But the fact remains that it appears to be entirely in the interest of the Israeli establishment and powerful forces in America to create instability in India, fan Hindu-Muslim strife, even to the point of driving India and Pakistan to war with each other, and thereby drag India further into the deadly embrace of Zionists and American imperialists.
In other words, irrespective of who is behind the deadly attacks on Mumbai, it appears to suit the political interests and agendas of multiple and equally pernicious political forces—Islamist and Hindu radicals, fired by a hate-driven Manichaean vision of the world, but also global imperialist powers that seem to be using the attacks as a means to push India even deeper into their suicidal axis.
29 November, 2008Countercurrents.org
“O ye who believe! stand out firmly for God, as witnesses to fair dealing, and let not the hatred of others to you make you swerve to wrong and depart from justice. Be just: that is next to piety: and fear God. For God is well-acquainted with all that ye do.”
(The Quran, Surah Al-Maida: 8)
Numerous theories are doing the rounds about the dastardly terrorist assault on Mumbai. The dominant view, based on what is being suggested by the media, is that this is the handiwork of the dreaded Pakistan-based self-styled Islamist and terrorist outfit Lashkar-e Tayyeba, which, ever since it was ostensibly proscribed by the Government of Pakistan some years ago, has adopted the name of Jamaat ud-Dawah. This might well be the case, for the Lashkar has been responsible for numerous such terrorist attacks in recent years, particularly in Kashmir.
The Lashkar is the military wing of the Markaz Dawat wal Irshad, an outfit floated by a section of the Pakistani Ahl-e Hadith, a group with close affiliations to the Saudi Wahhabis. It has its headquarters at the town of Muridke in the Gujranwala district in Pakistani Punjab. The Markaz was established in 1986 by two Pakistani university professors, Hafiz Muhammad Saeed and Zafar Iqbal. They were assisted by Abdullah Azam, a close aide of Osama bin Laden, who was then associated with the International Islamic University in Islamabad. Funds for setting up the organization are said to have come from Pakistan’s dreaded official secret services agency, the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI). From its inception, it is thus clear, the Lashkar had the support of the Pakistani establishment.
The Lashkar started out as a paramilitary organisation to train warriors to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan. Soon it spawned dozens of camps across Pakistan and Afghanistan for this purpose. Militants produced at these centres have played a major role in armed struggles, first in Afghanistan, and then in Bosnia, Chechenya, Kosovo, the southern Philippines and Kashmir.
Like other radical Islamist groups, the Lashkar sees Islam as an all-embracing system. It regards Islam as governing all aspects of personal as well as collective life, in the form of the shariah. For the establishing of an Islamic system, it insists, an ‘Islamic state’ is necessary, which will impose the shariah as the law of the land. If, the official website of the Lashkar announces, such a state were to be set up and all Muslims were to live strictly according to 'the laws that Allah has laid down', then, it is believed, ‘they would be able to control the whole world and exercise their supremacy’. And for this, as well as to respond to the oppression that it claims that Muslims in large parts of the world are suffering, it insists that all Muslims must take to armed jihad. Armed jihad must continue, its website announces, ‘until Islam, as a way of life, dominates the whole world and until Allah's law is enforced everywhere in the world’.
The subject of armed jihad runs right through the writings and pronouncements of the Lashkar and is, in fact, the most prominent theme in its discourse. Indeed, its understanding of Islam may be seen as determined almost wholly by this preoccupation, so much so that its reading of Islam seems to be a product of its own political project, thus effectively ending up equating Islam with terror. Being born as a result of war in Afghanistan, war has become the very raison d'être of the Lashkar, and its subsequent development has been almost entirely determined by this concern. The contours of its ideological framework are constructed in such a way that the theme of armed jihad appears as the central element of its project. In the writings and speeches of Lashkar spokesmen jihad appears as violent conflict (qital) waged against 'unbelievers' who are said to be responsible for the oppression of the Muslims. Indeed, the Lashkar projects it as the one of the most central tenets of Islam, although it has traditionally not been included as one of the 'five pillars’ of the faith. Thus, its website claims that ‘There is so much emphasis on this subject that some commentators and scholars of the Quran have remarked that the topic of the Quran is jihad’. Further, a Lashkar statement declares, ‘There is consensus of opinion among researchers of the Qur'an that no other action has been explained in such great detail as jihad’.
In Lashkar discourse, jihad against non-Muslims is projected as a religious duty binding on all Muslims today. Thus the Lashkar’s website claims that a Muslim who has ‘never intended to fight against the disbelievers […] is not without traces of hypocrisy’. Muslims who have the capacity to participate or assist in the jihad but do not do so are said to ‘be living a sinful life’. Not surprisingly, therefore, the Lashkar denounces all Muslims who do not agree with its pernicious and grossly distorted version of Islam and its hideous misinterpretation of jihad—Sufis, Shias, Barelvis and so on—as being ‘deviants’ or outside the pale of Islam or even in league with ‘anti-Islamic forces’. The Lashkar promises its activists that they would receive great rewards, both in this world and in the Hereafter, if they were to actively struggle in the path of jihad. Not only would they be guaranteed a place in Heaven, but they would also 'be honoured in this world', for jihad, it claims, is also ‘the way that solves financial and political problems’.
Astoundingly bizarre though it is, the Markaz sees itself as engaged in a global jihad against the forces of ‘disbelief’, stopping at nothing short of aiming at the conquest of the entire world. As Nazir Ahmed, in-charge of the public relations department of the Lashkar, once declared, through the so-called jihad that the Lashkar has launched, ‘Islam will be dominant all over the world’. This global war is seen as a solution to all the ills and oppression afflicting all Muslims, and it is claimed that 'if we want to live with honour and dignity, then we have to return back to jihad’. Through jihad, the Lashkar website says, ‘Islam will be supreme throughout the world’.
In Lashkar discourse, its self-styled jihad against India is regarded as nothing less than a war between two different and mutually opposed ideologies: Islam, on the one hand, and Hinduism, on the other. It tars all Hindus with the same brush, as supposed ‘enemies of Islam’. Thus, Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, Lashkar chief, declares: ‘In fact, the Hindu is a mean enemy and the proper way to deal with him is the one adopted by our forefathers, who crushed them by force. We need to do the same’.
India is a major target for the Lashkar's terrorists. According to Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, ‘The jihad is not about Kashmir only. It encompasses all of India'. Thus, the Lashkar sees its self-styled jihad as going far beyond the borders of Kashmir and spreading through all of India. Its final goal, it says, is to extend Muslim control over what is seen as having once been Muslim land, and, hence, to be brought back under Muslim domination, creating what the Lashkar terms as 'the Greater Pakistan by dint of jihad’. Thus, at a mammoth congregation of Lashkar supporters in November 1999, Hafiz Muhammad Saeed thundered, ‘Today I announce the break-up of India, Inshallah. We will not rest until the whole of India is dissolved into Pakistan’.
The Lashkar, so say media reports, has been trying to drum up support among India’s Muslims, and it may well be that it has managed to find a few recruits to its cause among them. If this is the case, it has probably been prompted by the fact of mounting murderous Hindutva-inspired anti-Muslim pogroms across the country, often abetted by agencies of the state, which has taken a toll of several thousand innocent lives. The fact that no semblance of justice has been delivered in these cases and that the state has not taken any measure to reign in Hindutva terrorism adds further to the deep-seated despondency and despair among many Indian Muslims. This might well be used by self-styled Islamist terror groups, such as the Lashkar, to promote their own agenda. Obviously, therefore, in order to counter the grave threat posed by terror groups such as the Lashkar, the Indian state needs to tackle the menace of Hindutva terror as well, which has now assumed the form of full-blown fascism. Both forms of terrorism feed on each other, and one cannot be tackled without taking on the other as well.
Mercifully, and despite the denial of justice to them, the vast majority of the Indian Muslims have refused to fall into the Lashkar’s trap. The flurry of anti-terrorism conferences that have recently been organised by important Indian Islamic groups is evidence of the fact that they regard the Lashkar’s perverse understanding of Islam as being wholly anti-Islamic and as a perversion of their faith. These voices urgently need to be promoted, for they might well be the most effective antidote to Lashkar propaganda. Numerous Indian Islamic scholars I know and have spoken to insist that the Lashkar’s denunciation of all non-Muslims as ‘enemies of Islam’, its fomenting of hatred towards Hindus and India and its understanding of jihad are a complete misrepresentation of Islamic teachings. They bitterly critique its call for a universal Caliphate as foolish wishful thinking. And they are unanimous that, far from serving the cause of the faith they claim to espouse, groups like the Lashkar have done the most heinous damage to the name of Islam, and are to blame, to a very large extent, for mounting Islamophobia globally.
At the same time as fingers of suspicion are being pointed at the Lashkar for being behind the recent Mumbai blasts, other questions are being raised in some circles. The significant fact that Hemant Karkare, the brave ATS chief who was killed in the terrorist assault, had been investigating the role of Hindutva terrorist groups in blasts in Malegoan and elsewhere and had received threats for this has not gone un-noticed. Nor has the related fact that the assault on Mumbai happened soon after disturbing revelations began pouring in of the role of Hindutva activists in terror attacks in different parts of India. That the attack on Mumbai has led to the issue of Hindutva-inspired terrorism now being totally sidelined is also significant.
And then there is a possible Israeli angle that some are raising. Thus, the widely-read Mumbai-based tabloid Mid-Day, in an article about a building where numerous militants were holed up titled ‘Mumbai Attack: Was Nariman House the Terror Hub?’, states:
“The role that Nariman House is coming to play in this entire attack drama is puzzling. Last night, residents ordered close to 100 kilograms of meat and other food, enough to feed an army or a bunch of people for twenty days. Shortly thereafter, the ten odd militants moved in, obviously, indicating that the food and meat was ordered, keeping their visit in mind, another cop added.
“One of the militants called up a television news channel and voiced his demands today, but, interestingly, when he was asked where are they all holed him, he said at the Israeli owned Nariman House and they are six of them here", one of the investigating cops said. Since morning, there has been exchange of gun fire has been going on and the militants seem well equipped to counter the cops fire. To top it, they have food and shelter. One wonders [if] they have the support of the residents, a local Ramrao Shanker said.”
A Mossad/Israeli hand in the affair might seem far-fetched to some, but not so to others, who point to the role of Israeli agents in destabilizing a large number of countries as well as possibly operating within some radical Islamist movements, such as a group in Yemen styling itself ‘Islamic Jihad’, said to be responsible for the bombing of the American Embassy in Sanaa, and which is said to have close links with the Israeli intelligence. Some have raised the question if the Mossad or even the CIA might not be directly or otherwise instigating some disillusioned Muslim youth in India, Pakistan or elsewhere to take to terror by playing on Muslim grievances, operating through existing Islamist groups or spawning new ones for this purpose.
If this charge is true—although this remains to be conclusively established—the aim might be to further radicalize Muslims so as to provide further pretext for American and Israeli assaults on Islam and Muslim countries. The fact that the CIA had for years been in very close contact with the Pakistani ISI and radical Islamist groups in Pakistan is also being raised in this connection. The possible role of such foreign agencies of being behind some terror attacks that India has witnessed in recent years to further fan anti-Muslim hatred and also to weaken India is also being speculated on in some circles.
Whether all this is indeed true needs to be properly investigated. But the fact remains that it appears to be entirely in the interest of the Israeli establishment and powerful forces in America to create instability in India, fan Hindu-Muslim strife, even to the point of driving India and Pakistan to war with each other, and thereby drag India further into the deadly embrace of Zionists and American imperialists.
In other words, irrespective of who is behind the deadly attacks on Mumbai, it appears to suit the political interests and agendas of multiple and equally pernicious political forces—Islamist and Hindu radicals, fired by a hate-driven Manichaean vision of the world, but also global imperialist powers that seem to be using the attacks as a means to push India even deeper into their suicidal axis.
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Hemant Karkare! Tribute To A Hero
Hemant Karkare! Tribute To A Hero
By Mustafa Khan
If any Indian distinguished himself by writing history by his sweat and while doing so made history by writing it in his blood, it is this modest looking man. This assistant commissioner in charge of Anti Terrorist Squad of Maharashtra will be remembered for good. Those who were breathing down his neck will breathe a sigh of relief but all others will have grief
Terrorist Atrocity In Mumbai
By Keith Jones
Whoever were the authors of this week’s terrorist attack in Mumbai, it was a vile act that will only serve reaction in India and internationally. Unquestionably the BJP will seize on the Mumbai atrocity and its horrific toll in human life to try to suppress public discussion of, and derail the investigation, into the Hindu terrorist network
Bombs And Bullets Cannot Destroy India -As Long As Its Gates Remain Open
By Shashi Tharoor
This atrocity was not homegrown. But if it leads to demonisation of the nation's Muslims, the terrorists will have won
Once Was Mumbai
By Kumar Ketkar
That the terrorist attack took place just when the media was full of stories of “saffron terrorism” may be a coincidence, but the killing of Hemant Karkare, the chief of the Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS), gives the event an anti-climactic turn
India's Leaders Need To Look Closer To Home
By Tariq Ali
Indian intelligence outfits are well aware of all this and they should not encourage the fantasies of their political leaders. Its best to come out and accept that there are severe problems inside the country. A billion Indians: 80 percent Hindus and 14 percent Muslims. A very large minority that cannot be ethnically cleansed without provoking a wider conflict
Zero Tolerance Time
By Zafar Sobhan
It is unclear what, if any, links exist between terrorists in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh (to say nothing of links between Maoist extremists across South Asia), but what is incontrovertible is that all three countries of the Indian sub-continent have active terrorist networks, and given the porosity of our borders and the ideological affinities of many of the groups, it would be unlikely if cross-border networks and support structures did not exist
By Mustafa Khan
If any Indian distinguished himself by writing history by his sweat and while doing so made history by writing it in his blood, it is this modest looking man. This assistant commissioner in charge of Anti Terrorist Squad of Maharashtra will be remembered for good. Those who were breathing down his neck will breathe a sigh of relief but all others will have grief
Terrorist Atrocity In Mumbai
By Keith Jones
Whoever were the authors of this week’s terrorist attack in Mumbai, it was a vile act that will only serve reaction in India and internationally. Unquestionably the BJP will seize on the Mumbai atrocity and its horrific toll in human life to try to suppress public discussion of, and derail the investigation, into the Hindu terrorist network
Bombs And Bullets Cannot Destroy India -As Long As Its Gates Remain Open
By Shashi Tharoor
This atrocity was not homegrown. But if it leads to demonisation of the nation's Muslims, the terrorists will have won
Once Was Mumbai
By Kumar Ketkar
That the terrorist attack took place just when the media was full of stories of “saffron terrorism” may be a coincidence, but the killing of Hemant Karkare, the chief of the Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS), gives the event an anti-climactic turn
India's Leaders Need To Look Closer To Home
By Tariq Ali
Indian intelligence outfits are well aware of all this and they should not encourage the fantasies of their political leaders. Its best to come out and accept that there are severe problems inside the country. A billion Indians: 80 percent Hindus and 14 percent Muslims. A very large minority that cannot be ethnically cleansed without provoking a wider conflict
Zero Tolerance Time
By Zafar Sobhan
It is unclear what, if any, links exist between terrorists in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh (to say nothing of links between Maoist extremists across South Asia), but what is incontrovertible is that all three countries of the Indian sub-continent have active terrorist networks, and given the porosity of our borders and the ideological affinities of many of the groups, it would be unlikely if cross-border networks and support structures did not exist
Friday, November 28, 2008
The only way that we can fight the demon of terrorism is by revealing the truth and thus uniting the people across religions and nations for our common struggle against imperialism and for a global human society based on the principles of secularsim, democracy and social justice.
The battle is for the very Soul of India !
The battle is for the very Idea of India !
The battle if for the very Unity of India !
We the People will win the war for Peace !
दहशतवाद्यांची 'मराठी बोली'?
दहशतवाद्यांची 'मराठी बोली'?
28 Nov 2008, 0204 hrs IST टीम मटा ।
मुंबई
एटीएसचे प्रमुख हेमंत करकरे यांच्यासह तिघा वरिष्ठ पोलिस अधिका-यांची हत्या करणारे ‘ कामा हॉस्पीटल ’ मध्ये बुधवारी रात्री घुसलेले दहशतवादी अस्खलित मराठीत बोलत होते... कामाच्याच एका कर्मचा-याने ही माहिती दिल्याने पोलिसही चक्रावून गेले आहेत. ' कामा' हॉस्पिटलमध्ये बुधवारी रात्री घुसलेल्या दहशतवाद्यांनी तेथील दोघा वॉचमनवर गोळ्या झाडल्यानंतर तिथेच जवळ असलेल्या व युनिफॉर्ममध्ये नसलेल्या तिस-या कर्मचा-याच्या पोटाला एके-४७ रायफल लावून 'तू इथे काम करणारा कर्मचारी आहेस का', असे अस्खलित मराठीत विचारल्याचे कळते. त्यावर कर्मचा-याने अतिरेक्यांचे पाय धरले आणि 'मी येथे काम करीत नाही... हार्टअॅटॅक आलेल्या माझ्या पत्नीला येथे अॅडमिट केले आहे', असे सांगितले. तेव्हा 'खरे सांगतो का खोटे' असे दहशतवाद्यांनी दरडावून विचारले. त्यावर 'नाही साहेब, आईशप्पथ खरे सांगतो', असे उत्तर दिल्याने दहशतवाद्यांनी त्याला सोडून दिल्याचे कळते. ही माहिती याच कर्मचा-याने कामा हॉस्पिटलचे अधिकारी आणि आरोग्य खात्याला दिली. दहशतवादी अस्खलित मराठी बोलत असल्याचे कळल्याने पोलिस चक्रावले आहेत. याच तीन दहशतवाद्यांनी अतिरिक्त पोलिस आयुक्त अशोक कामटे, एटीएसचे प्रमुख हेमंत करकरे तसेच विजय साळसकर यांची हत्या केल्याचे समजते. कारवाईला वेळ का? दरम्यान, दहशतवादीविरोधी कारवाईची सगळी सूत्रे एनसएसजीचे डायरेक्टर जनरल हलवत असून ओबेरॉय, ताज आणि नरीमन बिल्डिंग येथे मोठ्या प्रमाणात नागरिक असल्याने त्यांना इजा होऊ नये, याची खबरदारी घेत कारवाई केली जात असल्याने अतिरेक्यांविरोधातील कारवाईला वेळ लागत आहे. दहशतवाद्यांना हुसकावून लावल्यानंतर एनएसजीचे कमांडो हॉटेलांचा एकएक मजला रिकामा करीत आहेत, असे मुख्यमंत्री विलासराव देशमुख यांनी सांगितले.
http://maharashtratimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/3767093.cms
28 Nov 2008, 0204 hrs IST टीम मटा ।
मुंबई
एटीएसचे प्रमुख हेमंत करकरे यांच्यासह तिघा वरिष्ठ पोलिस अधिका-यांची हत्या करणारे ‘ कामा हॉस्पीटल ’ मध्ये बुधवारी रात्री घुसलेले दहशतवादी अस्खलित मराठीत बोलत होते... कामाच्याच एका कर्मचा-याने ही माहिती दिल्याने पोलिसही चक्रावून गेले आहेत. ' कामा' हॉस्पिटलमध्ये बुधवारी रात्री घुसलेल्या दहशतवाद्यांनी तेथील दोघा वॉचमनवर गोळ्या झाडल्यानंतर तिथेच जवळ असलेल्या व युनिफॉर्ममध्ये नसलेल्या तिस-या कर्मचा-याच्या पोटाला एके-४७ रायफल लावून 'तू इथे काम करणारा कर्मचारी आहेस का', असे अस्खलित मराठीत विचारल्याचे कळते. त्यावर कर्मचा-याने अतिरेक्यांचे पाय धरले आणि 'मी येथे काम करीत नाही... हार्टअॅटॅक आलेल्या माझ्या पत्नीला येथे अॅडमिट केले आहे', असे सांगितले. तेव्हा 'खरे सांगतो का खोटे' असे दहशतवाद्यांनी दरडावून विचारले. त्यावर 'नाही साहेब, आईशप्पथ खरे सांगतो', असे उत्तर दिल्याने दहशतवाद्यांनी त्याला सोडून दिल्याचे कळते. ही माहिती याच कर्मचा-याने कामा हॉस्पिटलचे अधिकारी आणि आरोग्य खात्याला दिली. दहशतवादी अस्खलित मराठी बोलत असल्याचे कळल्याने पोलिस चक्रावले आहेत. याच तीन दहशतवाद्यांनी अतिरिक्त पोलिस आयुक्त अशोक कामटे, एटीएसचे प्रमुख हेमंत करकरे तसेच विजय साळसकर यांची हत्या केल्याचे समजते. कारवाईला वेळ का? दरम्यान, दहशतवादीविरोधी कारवाईची सगळी सूत्रे एनसएसजीचे डायरेक्टर जनरल हलवत असून ओबेरॉय, ताज आणि नरीमन बिल्डिंग येथे मोठ्या प्रमाणात नागरिक असल्याने त्यांना इजा होऊ नये, याची खबरदारी घेत कारवाई केली जात असल्याने अतिरेक्यांविरोधातील कारवाईला वेळ लागत आहे. दहशतवाद्यांना हुसकावून लावल्यानंतर एनएसजीचे कमांडो हॉटेलांचा एकएक मजला रिकामा करीत आहेत, असे मुख्यमंत्री विलासराव देशमुख यांनी सांगितले.
http://maharashtratimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/3767093.cms
Mumbai Terror attacks 26, 27 / 11 - masterminded by the Sangh Pariwar
AWAMI BHARAT
The dastardly Mumbai terror attack of November 26 & 27, has claimed the lives of over a 125 people and injured scores more. This terror attack in our analysis has been planned & orchestrated by the Sangh Pariwar and its allies within the security apparatus to counter the investigation of the ATS led by Hemant Karkare, so as to nullify and deflect attention from the expose' of the BJP-RSS Parivar's involvement in formenting terror attacks in the country. The basic aim was to totally subvert every attempt by the ATS (Anti-Terror Sqad) that was undoubtedly uncovering the nefarious terrorist cells within the various branches of the Sangh Pariwar as well as their RSS abettors & sympathizers within the army, IB, RAW and the entire security apparatus. The Mumbai terror attacks will thus draw away attention, as well as serve to justify the terrorist activities of the Sadhvi Pragnya's and the Purohit's and futher lend to their glorification. It will basically shore up the sagging credibilty of the BJP-RSS, especially that of L. K. Advani, who had taken a public posture of both defending the alleged terror cells and attacking the ATS. This was utterly myopic on the part of a leader who is unfortunately considered to be the next PM. Also L. K. Advani who has vehemently and publicly attacked Hemant Karkare, is now cynically praising the man after he was murdered. Moreover we also question as to why PM Manmohan Singh chose to accompany L.K. Advani to Mumbai and have only him by his side to the exclusion of every other national & regional leader ?? Also similar to the Jaipur terror attacks (March 13, 2008) which undoubtedly aided the BJP to win a majority in Karnataka, the Mumbai terror attacks could also prove useful to the fortunes of the BJP in the upcoming elections across 5 states.
One of the most disheartening events was the deaths or rather the murders of the courageous ATS Chief Hemant Karkare as well his associates, Ashok Kamte & Salaskar, who were spearheading the investigation. Hemant Karkare was not shot in the chest as was reported, but was shot in the neck. Even prior to this terror attack, Hemant Karkare was recieving a series of threats to his life for persisting with the investigation which was and has infact unravelled a terror network with deep roots in the various organization of the RSS and included the BJP, ABVP, VHP and the Abhinav Bharat amongst others. The cousin sister of Hemant Karkare as well the mother of Salaskar have appeared on TV and have expressed strong doubts about the deaths of their loved ones and have strongly hinted at other possibilities. It was also reported that when the death of Karkare was announced, the RSS members rejoiced and celebrated. We thus demand a judicial inquiry to look into the deaths of the three courageous ATS officers whose deaths are a blow to the morale of the entire police force. The feeling that Karkare and his comrades were the prime victims of this plot is now widespread amongst the people and is matter of serious popular discussion and a number of TV channels are discussing this possibilty.The death of Karkare and his comrades has sent out a strong signal to all those who would dare to challenge this diabolical Hindutva nexus within our security apparatus. This again is not unique to India as we are witness to the phenomenon of the religious right and its influence within the military establishment in countries as diverse as Pakistan (Islamist Right), USA (Christian Right) and Israel (Jewish Zionists). There is thus a need to weed out all such individuals and groups from within our security apparatus. The Zia's, Sharon's and Bush's have all proved far too detrimental for their respective nations and the world at large.
The first media reports began to inform us of a previously unheard of group called the "Deccan Mujahedeen". Let it be made clear that neither the Deccan or the "Indian Mujahedeen" exist. The Indian Mujahedeen is a creation & the front organization of the Indian security apparatus. The role of the "IM" is to seek to entrap Muslim youth. Organizations like the IM are created with the backing of criminal elements from within the Muslim community as well as informers. The IM is known to be linked to the Fazlulrehman gang as well as the Bhatkal brothers with similar criminal antecedents. We believe that it is fairly easy to entrap 15 odd Muslim youth annually out of a population of 15 crores, by showing them CD's of Gujarat and Ayodhya and by emotionally drawing them to "avenge" the oppression and exploitation of a beleaugured minority. Intelligence agents in the garb of Muslim clergy have been known to indulge in this activity, whilst informers like Safdar Nagori have also helped in this process.As far as the terrorists who attacked Mumbai are concerned, they are in all likelihood highly indoctrinated and extremely well trained terrorists, determined to die for their "cause" & are basically controlled by the American CIA, the Pakistani ISI and the Israeli MOSSAD. There is a long and recorded history of the CIA and the MOSSAD along with the intelligence agencies of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, deploying these groups in Afghanistan, Chechenya, Bosnia and Kosovo amongst others. The stunning report that stated that Indresh Kumar a senior RSS operative in Nepal recieved Rs 3 CR was known to Togadia, Purohit and Vaidya the ex-RSS chief. This till date has not been denied by the RSS. This hints of a collusion between the ISI and the RSS at certain mutually beneficial levels and should come as no surprise and needs further investigation.It was clear to the BJP-RSS that the threat that lay from the ATS investigation could destroy them as it went to the core of the leadership and names such as Advani, Modi, Togadia, Rajnath Singh and Vaidya began to appear.
Thus they would have to organize a major spectacular terrorist attack to thwart the investigation. In our estimation, the MOSSAD and the CIA have aided and abeted the BJP-RSS in the planning and execution of this terror attack. What was required in this extended sordid drama was the need for a genuine terrorist group of Pakistani origin, which was provided for by the ISI with a bit of prodding from its masters in the CIA and the MOSSAD if required. The ISI is a mercenary organization with no scruples and is out there for the highest bidder. Moreover there exists various factions within the ISI, some which are baically controlled and paid for by the CIA and the MOSSAD. The terrorist group would have no clue to the larger plot and would only be a pawn in the entire episode in which it would be given to believe that it was serving the cause of Islam by waging Jehad against Hindu India.The terrorists were also given targets which included nationals of the US, UK and Israel as an added incentive. In one such announcement the terrorist spokesperson announced that they were here in Mumbai as part of their battle against the Jewish people and the faith of Judaism. Thus the Nariman House building in Colaba, that unkown to most is inhabited by Israeli-Jewish families was also attacked and hostages taken. This incident will only serve to cement ties between the Zionist elites of Israel and the Brahmanical elites of India.The fact of the matter is that there exists a strong ideological bonding between Zionism & Brahmanism. Both are committed to racial, religious & caste superiority. Both also have a history of collaboration with Imperialism and the exploitation of their people.Let it be clear to one and all, that Muslims have never had any sort of antipathy or hatred for the Jewish people or for Judaism for that matter and history is proof of this fact. What Muslims like all other peoples and nations are oppossed to is Zionism and its colonial aparthied state called Israel. The fact of the matter is that at the heart of International politics lies the Palestine / Israel conflict and only a just solution will finally bring peace to the world.
Till then Israel will continue to destabilise Muslim societies across the world so as to spread Islamophobia and further weaken and isolate the Muslim community as is very apparent in India. The key is to understand the difference between Judaism and Zionism. Judaism represents the ethical and moral vlaues of the Jewish faith whilst Zionism is a rascist, fascist and colonial ideology.Both India and the world stand at the crossroads. The scourge of terrorism has become the political and social challenge of our times and needs to be fought as it is we the ordinary people who are the victims of terror. The politics of terror has replaced the politics of communal riots and is the new strategy of communal fascism.
One of the most disheartening events was the deaths or rather the murders of the courageous ATS Chief Hemant Karkare as well his associates, Ashok Kamte & Salaskar, who were spearheading the investigation. Hemant Karkare was not shot in the chest as was reported, but was shot in the neck. Even prior to this terror attack, Hemant Karkare was recieving a series of threats to his life for persisting with the investigation which was and has infact unravelled a terror network with deep roots in the various organization of the RSS and included the BJP, ABVP, VHP and the Abhinav Bharat amongst others. The cousin sister of Hemant Karkare as well the mother of Salaskar have appeared on TV and have expressed strong doubts about the deaths of their loved ones and have strongly hinted at other possibilities. It was also reported that when the death of Karkare was announced, the RSS members rejoiced and celebrated. We thus demand a judicial inquiry to look into the deaths of the three courageous ATS officers whose deaths are a blow to the morale of the entire police force. The feeling that Karkare and his comrades were the prime victims of this plot is now widespread amongst the people and is matter of serious popular discussion and a number of TV channels are discussing this possibilty.The death of Karkare and his comrades has sent out a strong signal to all those who would dare to challenge this diabolical Hindutva nexus within our security apparatus. This again is not unique to India as we are witness to the phenomenon of the religious right and its influence within the military establishment in countries as diverse as Pakistan (Islamist Right), USA (Christian Right) and Israel (Jewish Zionists). There is thus a need to weed out all such individuals and groups from within our security apparatus. The Zia's, Sharon's and Bush's have all proved far too detrimental for their respective nations and the world at large.
The first media reports began to inform us of a previously unheard of group called the "Deccan Mujahedeen". Let it be made clear that neither the Deccan or the "Indian Mujahedeen" exist. The Indian Mujahedeen is a creation & the front organization of the Indian security apparatus. The role of the "IM" is to seek to entrap Muslim youth. Organizations like the IM are created with the backing of criminal elements from within the Muslim community as well as informers. The IM is known to be linked to the Fazlulrehman gang as well as the Bhatkal brothers with similar criminal antecedents. We believe that it is fairly easy to entrap 15 odd Muslim youth annually out of a population of 15 crores, by showing them CD's of Gujarat and Ayodhya and by emotionally drawing them to "avenge" the oppression and exploitation of a beleaugured minority. Intelligence agents in the garb of Muslim clergy have been known to indulge in this activity, whilst informers like Safdar Nagori have also helped in this process.As far as the terrorists who attacked Mumbai are concerned, they are in all likelihood highly indoctrinated and extremely well trained terrorists, determined to die for their "cause" & are basically controlled by the American CIA, the Pakistani ISI and the Israeli MOSSAD. There is a long and recorded history of the CIA and the MOSSAD along with the intelligence agencies of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, deploying these groups in Afghanistan, Chechenya, Bosnia and Kosovo amongst others. The stunning report that stated that Indresh Kumar a senior RSS operative in Nepal recieved Rs 3 CR was known to Togadia, Purohit and Vaidya the ex-RSS chief. This till date has not been denied by the RSS. This hints of a collusion between the ISI and the RSS at certain mutually beneficial levels and should come as no surprise and needs further investigation.It was clear to the BJP-RSS that the threat that lay from the ATS investigation could destroy them as it went to the core of the leadership and names such as Advani, Modi, Togadia, Rajnath Singh and Vaidya began to appear.
Thus they would have to organize a major spectacular terrorist attack to thwart the investigation. In our estimation, the MOSSAD and the CIA have aided and abeted the BJP-RSS in the planning and execution of this terror attack. What was required in this extended sordid drama was the need for a genuine terrorist group of Pakistani origin, which was provided for by the ISI with a bit of prodding from its masters in the CIA and the MOSSAD if required. The ISI is a mercenary organization with no scruples and is out there for the highest bidder. Moreover there exists various factions within the ISI, some which are baically controlled and paid for by the CIA and the MOSSAD. The terrorist group would have no clue to the larger plot and would only be a pawn in the entire episode in which it would be given to believe that it was serving the cause of Islam by waging Jehad against Hindu India.The terrorists were also given targets which included nationals of the US, UK and Israel as an added incentive. In one such announcement the terrorist spokesperson announced that they were here in Mumbai as part of their battle against the Jewish people and the faith of Judaism. Thus the Nariman House building in Colaba, that unkown to most is inhabited by Israeli-Jewish families was also attacked and hostages taken. This incident will only serve to cement ties between the Zionist elites of Israel and the Brahmanical elites of India.The fact of the matter is that there exists a strong ideological bonding between Zionism & Brahmanism. Both are committed to racial, religious & caste superiority. Both also have a history of collaboration with Imperialism and the exploitation of their people.Let it be clear to one and all, that Muslims have never had any sort of antipathy or hatred for the Jewish people or for Judaism for that matter and history is proof of this fact. What Muslims like all other peoples and nations are oppossed to is Zionism and its colonial aparthied state called Israel. The fact of the matter is that at the heart of International politics lies the Palestine / Israel conflict and only a just solution will finally bring peace to the world.
Till then Israel will continue to destabilise Muslim societies across the world so as to spread Islamophobia and further weaken and isolate the Muslim community as is very apparent in India. The key is to understand the difference between Judaism and Zionism. Judaism represents the ethical and moral vlaues of the Jewish faith whilst Zionism is a rascist, fascist and colonial ideology.Both India and the world stand at the crossroads. The scourge of terrorism has become the political and social challenge of our times and needs to be fought as it is we the ordinary people who are the victims of terror. The politics of terror has replaced the politics of communal riots and is the new strategy of communal fascism.
The only way that we can fight the demon of terrorism is by revealing the truth and thus uniting the people across religions and nations for our common struggle against imperialism and for a global human society based on the principles of secularsim, democracy and social justice.
The battle is for the very Soul of India !
The battle is for the very Idea of India !
The battle if for the very Unity of India !
andWe the People will win the war for Peace !
Feroze Mithiborwala, Kishore jagtap, Sayeed Khan, Varsha V V, Amol Madame, Arif Kapadia, Afaq Azad, Chetna Birje, Reshma Jagtap, Irfan Mulla, Jagdish Nagarkar, Mulniwasi Mala, Ghazala azad, Munawar Khan, Saeeda Khan, Noorjehan Momin, Tito Eapen, Winnie Thomas, Inayat, Jyoti Bedekar, Anil Hate, Avinash Kamble, Chand & Harshwardhan Vartak
Feroze Mithiborwala, Kishore jagtap, Sayeed Khan, Varsha V V, Amol Madame, Arif Kapadia, Afaq Azad, Chetna Birje, Reshma Jagtap, Irfan Mulla, Jagdish Nagarkar, Mulniwasi Mala, Ghazala azad, Munawar Khan, Saeeda Khan, Noorjehan Momin, Tito Eapen, Winnie Thomas, Inayat, Jyoti Bedekar, Anil Hate, Avinash Kamble, Chand & Harshwardhan Vartak
Monday, November 24, 2008
Hindu Terrorism
By Badri Raina
Zmag
Epigraph:
"underlying these religions were a common set of beliefs about how you treat other people and how you aspire to act, not just for yourself but also for the greater good"
(Obama in his interview about Religion given to Cathleen Falsani, March,27,2004; cf. to his mother's teaching about the validity of diverse faiths and the value of tolerance.)
I
So, now, India is home to "Hindu" terrorism.
Departing from the more usual banner-appelation, "Saffron Terror", I wish the fact to be registered that saffron is drawn from the stamin of a delicate and indescribably pretty mauve flower grown exclusively in my home valley of Kashmir, and exclusively by Muslims. My inherited memories of it are thereby sweet and secular to the core.
Also, saffron when used to grace milk products, Biryani, or to brew the heavenly Kehwa is a thing of the gods truly.
It is only when it is coerced against the use of nature to colour politics that it rages against the sin. Then, don't we know, what gruesome consequences begin.
I think it proper, therefore, to stick with the more direct and honest description "Hindu" terrorism, since, much against their grain, even India's premier TV channels are now bringing us news of "Hindu" terrorism, so compelling the materials gathered by the investigating agencies thus far.
This despite the fact that in my view the term "Hindu" trerrorism is as erroneous as the term "Muslim" terrorism. Even though not a religious man myself, I am able to see that being Hindu or Muslim by accident of birth has no necessary connect with how one's politics turn out to be in adult life. A plethora of specific contexts and shaping histories are here provenly more to the point.
II
It was way back in 1923 that Savarkar, never a practicing Hindu (indeed a self-confessed atheist) had first understood that from this benign term, "Hindu," could be drawn the toxic racial concept Hindutva, and made to serve a forthrightly fascist purpose. That Brahminism had always been a socially toxic form of Hinduism was of course an enabling prehistory to the new project.
He it was who established Abhinav Bharat in Pune (1904), that theoretical hotbed of twice-born Brahminical casteism against which low-caste social reformers such as Phule, Periyar, and Ambedkar were to struggle their whole lives long.
Such casteism was made the instrument of communalist politics to serve two major objectives: one, to overwhelm and negate the specific cultural and material oppressions of the low-caste within the Hindu Varna system , and two, to elevate the low-caste as a warrior of a common "Hindutva" army against the chief common "enemy," the Muslim.
Such an army has been seen to be needed to salvage the "real" nation from this so-called common enemy who continues to be represented to this day by the RSS and its hydra-headed "educational" front organizations as an "invader" still bent on seeking to convert India into an Islamic theocratic state.
Aided in these mythical fears and constructions by the British during the crucial decades leading upto Independence, India's majoritarian fascists continue thus to keep at bay all consideration of secular oppressions based entirely in the brutal social order of Capitalist expropriation.
Savarkar thus counseled how a resurgent nation could result only if "Hinduism was militarized, and the military Hinduised."
Clearly enough, the serving army Colonel, S.P. Purohit and the other retired Major, one Upadhyay, who the Mumbai ATS (Anti-Terrorist Squad) tells us, are at the centre of the Malegaon terrorist blasts of September 29, 2008, alongwith Sadhvi Pragya and the rogue-sadhu, Amreetanand—and very possibly complicit in half a dozen other blasts as well—seem to have heeded Savarkar's advice to the hilt.
Indeed, in his Narco-test confessions, Colonel Purohit, sources have told some TV channels (Times Now), admits to his guilt and justifies his actions as retribution for what he thinks SIMI (Student's Islamic Movement of India) have been doing. He is understood to have further indicated that the rogue sadhu, Amreetanand, nee Dayanand etc., has been the kingpin and chief coordinator and devisor of several other blasts carried out by this cell, including the blasts at the revered Ajmer Dargah (Mausoleum of the 12th century Sufi saint, Chisti, which to this day draws devotees across faiths the world-over), and at Kanpur.
The ATS are now busy exploring the routes through which huge sums of money have been brought into the country for such terrorist activity as Hawala transactions, and whether the RDX, suspected to be used in the Malegaon blast, was procured by Colonel Purohit through army connections. It is to be noted that Purohit has been in Military Intelligence, and serving in Jammu & Kashmir, where it is thought he made contact with the rogue sadhu, Amreetanand.
(Indeed, as I write, news comes of the ATS claiming that Purohit actually stole some 60 kilos of RDX which was in his custody while doing duty at Deolali, and that in his Narco-test confession he admits to passing it on to one "Bhagwan" for use in the blast on the Samjhauta Express train in Feb.,2007.)
Needless to say, that alongwith the courts, we will also require that the ATS is actually able to obtain convictions rather than merely pile on evidence which may not be admissible in law.
To return to the argument:
As I suggested in my last column, "Notions of the Nation" (Znet, Nov.,4), Hindutva militarism since the establishment of the Hindu Mahasabha and the RSS has been inspired by the desire to emulate and then better Muslim "aggressiveness" seen as a racial characteristic that defined "Muslim" rule in India, and rendered Hindus "limp" and "cowardly."
Thus, if Savarkar established Ahninav Bharat, Dr.Moonje, an avowed Mussolini admirer who in turn inspired Dr.Hedgewar to establish the RSS on Vijay Dashmi of 1924 (victory day, denoting the liquidation of the Dravidian Ravana by the Aryan Kshatriya warrior, Ram) established the Bhondsala Military Academy at Indore (1937). It now transpires that this academy has been playing host to the Bajrang Dal for militarist training routines etc., and its director, one Raikar, has put in his papers.
Unsurprisingly enough, both these institutions are now under the scanner.
III
Over the last decade, terrorist blasts have occurred in India across a wide variety of sites and in major cities and towns.
Many of these blasts have taken place outside mosques and known Muslim- majority locations, as well outside cinema halls that were thought to be showing movies inimical to Hindu glory.
Briefly, these sites are: cinemas in Thane and Vashi in Maharashtra, Jalna, Purna, Parbhani, and Malegaon towns, again all in Maharashtra—and all areas of high Muslim density, in Hyderabad outside a famous old mosque, and in Ahmedabad and Surat in Gujarat.
Curiously, in the Surat episode, some sixteen odd bombs were found placed along the main thoroughfare in tree branches, on house-tops, on electric poles and so forth. Not one of them however exploded. This was thought to be the result of defective switches. Curious circumstance that; besides the wonder that Ahmedabad's Muslims could find such sprawling access to such strategic locations without Modi knowing a thing.
Yet, regardless of where the blasts have taken place, almost without exception the Pavlovian response of state agencies as well as, sad to say, media channels has been invariably to point fingers of suspicion and culpability towards one or the other "Islamic" outfit.
Often, young Muslims men have been rounded up in the scores and held for days of brutal questioning without the least prima facie evidence. Nearly in all such cases, however reluctantly, they have had to be let off.
The most recent case is that of some fifteen young Muslims picked up after the Hyderabad blasts. Tortured with electric shocks, they have nevertheless been found to be innocent and let go.
Indeed, after the gruesome blasts in the Samjhauta Express—a train service of reconciliation and confidence-building between India and Pakistan—in which some 68 people were burnt to cinders, 45 of them Pakistani citizens, fingers were immediately pointed towards the SIMI.
Yet, the ATS of Mumbai now suspects that this may also be the doing of the "Hindu" terrorists in custody. These speculations have been raised by the circumstance that the suitcases that held the bombs had Indore labels on them.
Just as the ATS now suspects that more than half a dozen blasts (the two at Malegaon, in 2006 and 2008, at the cinemas in Thane and Vashi, at Jalna, at Purna, at Parbhani, provenly at Nanded and Kanpur) have all been the handiwork of "Hindu" terror groups.
IV
For some years, reputed civil and human rights organizations, and individual members of civil society that have included journalists, judges, lawyers, writers, artists, teachers, students, and labour organizations, besides organized Muslim fora and Left parties, have been cautioning both state agencies and media conglomerates to:
-- desist from the Pavlovian haste with which some one or other Muslim group is immediately named and labeled literally within an hour of the occurrence of a blast, thus contributing to the maligning of the entire Muslim community;
--to consider the possibility that groups other than those involving Muslims could be involved;
--to refrain from covering up prima facie evidence which points to such possibilities; indeed, where such evidence seems conclusive, as the complicity of the Bajrang Dal at Nanded and Kanpur;
--to ponder the question as to why Muslims should effect blasts within their own localities or outside their mosques;
--to weigh the consequences for the Muslim psyche of the failure of the state to prevent repeated pogroms against them, and to find or punish the guilty; not to speak of active state connivance in those pogroms (Moradabad, 198o; Nellie, 1983; Hashimpura, 1987; Bhagalpur, 1989; Mumbai, 1992-93; Gujarat, 2002, to cite just the more recent ones);
--to permit transparency in the matter of police investigations with due regard for the Constitutional rights of those held in custody—such as visitation, access to legal defence, norms of the recording of confession and other evidence etc.,
--to respect the obligatory presumption of innocence until anyone is juridically found guilty;
Time and again these cautions and rightful prerogatives have been trampled under foot.
Aided by the loud biases of the corporate media which have tended to reflect the predilections both of free-market imperialism and comprador urban middle class sentiments in India's metropolitan towns, India's state agencies and that "all-knowing" species, the Intellegence expert, who seems ever present to reinforce anti-Muslim prejudice, have tended to feed massively into the politics of the Hindu right-wing.
For years on end, India's chief malady has been sought to be seen to reside in "Islamic" terrorism, and in the complicit refusal of the secularists to allow draconian preventive laws to be brought back on the books. Not in poverty, malnutrition, disease, absence of health care or clean drinking water, or lack of steady work among the urban poor, or the ousted tribals, disenfranchised farmers, chronic failure of primary schooling and so forth among some 75% of Indians. And most of them belonging to the Muslim, Dalit, and Tribal communities.
And to repeat for the nth time, this three-fourths of Indians able to spend just or under Rupees Twenty a day, all according to the governments' own Arjun Sengupta Committee Report.
Not to speak of the venomous communalization of the polity, the alienation and ghettoisation of the minorities, and the state's failure or unwillingness to carry through schemes that could redress these maladies.
As to new terror laws, the government of the day may protest that it has all the laws it wants, and more; as well as the fact that the worst terrorist attacks took place when laws like the dreaded POTA (Prevention of Terrorism Act) was on the books during the tenure of the NDA regime led by the ultra-"nationalist", BJP. Small dent is made by any regime of empirically-founded facts, or fair-minded arguments on the right-wing fascists and their fattened constituency.
V
Now, of course, a radically transformed milieu is unraveling.
Photos and Videos are doing the rounds that show the "Hindu" terrorists currently under investigation in close and intimate proximity to top leaders of the RSS, the VHP, and the BJP as well.
Had POTA indeed been on the books today, such evidence would have authorized the police to put them all behind bars on the charge of associating with those under investigation for "terrorism." And all that without any recourse to bail either.
Predictably, nonetheless, after some days of dumbfounded crestfallenness (remember that the main electoral plank of the BJP in the elections now under way in several states and in the soon-to-be-held parliamentary polls is the failure of the Congress to eradicate "terrorism" because of its "minority appeasement" policies), the right-wing fascists are back to brazen form.
Even as the projected Prime Ministerial candidate, Advani (the high-point of whose career remains the successful demolition of the Babri mosque), party hard-liners have taken to peddling outrageous theories.
As a complement to the well-known Pavlovian hunch that "all terrorists are Muslims," we are now told by the likes of Rajnath Singh, the party President, that "no Hindu can be a terrorist," that is to say even when he or she is found to be one.
This for the reason that what the ordinary man calls "terrorism" is infact "nationalism" where any Hindu be involved. Live and learn.
Other than that, it is both interesting and laughable that spokesmen and women of the BJP are today reduced to gurgitating every single argument that Muslims and civil rights organizations have to this day voiced:
--presume innocence until found guilty;
--desist from the "political conspiracy" to malign a whole community;
--do not let enemies of the Hindu -right propagate fake evidence against them, since all evidence against them must be fake in principle;
--and most outlandishly, do not communalise terrorism; that from India's rank communalists who have done nothing but communalise terrorism ever since we remember!
VI
Even as these new developments point to a potentially mortal combat among "Hindu" and "Muslim" terror groups, I venture to think that the situation also offers opportunities of far-reaching redressal for all three axes that matter: the state and its agencies, the party-political system, and the polity generally.
First off, if, as has been the case, the Congress's secular credentials have consistently been vitiated by, willy nilly, playing second-fiddle to Hindu-communalist appeasement, the denuding of the Hindu- right offers it the opportunity of a lifetime to assert the supremacy of the Constitutional scheme of things, without fear or favour.
It is indeed a circumstance that can now help the Congress and other secular parties to come down like a ton on communalism of all shades that underpin the fatal subversion of the secular republic without the need for apology.
In this endeavour, its greatest inspiration must come from two factors on the Muslim side of the issue:
one, that over the last year every single major and influential Muslim cultural and religious organization has publicly, and repeatedly, denounced through speech, act, and fatwa "terrorism" as un-Islamic and a rightful candidate for punishment under law;
and, two, that without exception they have pleaded only and ever for fair and just treatment at the hands of the authorized instruments of state, both when victimized by pogroms and suspected as culprits; and for credible pursuit of those that persecute them.
Not once has any Muslim organization worth the name suggested that Muslims have any claims that override the Cosntitutional regime of laws and procedures pertaining to all citizens of the Republic.
All that in stark contrast to the refusal, however camouflaged or strategised, of the RSS and its affiliates to accept either the secular Constitution or the notion of secular citizenship.
It is to be recalled that the RSS tactically acquiesced to acknowledging the primacy of the national flag over its own saffron one in 1949 as a quid pro quo to its release from the ban imposed on it after Gandhi's murder.
To this day it seeks to overthrow the Republic as Constituted by law and to replace it by a theocratic Hindu Rashtra wherein the prerogatives of citizenship will be determined not by secular, democratic equality but racial difference among Indians (all that brutally codified in Golwalker's two books, We, Our Ntionhood Defined; and, the later Bunch of Thoughts which explicitly designates Muslims as the nations's "Enemy Number One" in an exclusive chapter.)
However Hindu cultural politics may have come to infect sections of the fattened urbanites, the Congress must show the conviction that none of these in this day and age would be willing to back what is explicitly "terrorist" activity, indistinguishable from any other, once the matter is proven.
This then is a fine moment to release a new energetic politics that recharges the conviction and inspiration of the non-discriminatory humanism that informed the leaders of the freedom movement, and thus to disengage whatever popular base the Hindu- right has built over the years since the demolition of the Babri mosque from its fascist leaderships and cadres.
Just as, infact, many BJP supporters are busy thinking whether they are indeed willing to carry their love of Muslim-haters quite to the point where those other dreams of Indian super-powerdom are seriously jeopardized by a war of competing terrorisms.
It is also a golden opportunity for the Congress-led UPA, should it come back to power, to take a hard look at the communalist virus that has infected law-enforcement agencies over the decades, and to make bold to effect reforms of a far-reaching character, such as include the recruitment of Muslims and other "minorities" in due proportion to the forces, and not just among the lower ranks.
Speaking of the army, some 3% Muslims are today among its ranks—some sixty years after Independence. And I won't make a guess as to how abysmal might infact be its share among the officer core, colonel and above. And wouldn't I dearly like to take a peek into what sort of Indian History is taught India's future officers at Khadakvasla and Dehradun. Truly; and who does the teaching as well.
VII
As to the BJP: it has another opportunity as well; namely to reconstitute itself as a secular party on the right, bearing full allegiance to the Constitution in letter and spirit (remember now that among other things on the street-level, the NDA regime led by the BJP did constitute a Constitution Review Committee—an ominous enough move that, thankfully, was duly aborted in course), and shunning once and for all its enslavement to the RSS and its fascist vision of India, its history, culture and state.
Failing to do so, the BJP may succeed in causing further mayhem; but it is highly unlikely now to attain the sort of ascendance it seeks through fair means and foul.
Most of all, the BJP must understand that the Muslims of India, and Christians as well, have the inalienable right to live and work in the country on the terms set by the Constitution, not by the RSS or the Sangh Parivar.
And, conversely, that the BJP itself is as subject to those Constitutional stipulations as any another collective of Indians who practice their beliefs and politics.
Let the BJP notice the epigraph chosen for this column; it comes from the new President-Elect of the one country that the BJP adores. Or will it now, with a black man at the helm?
A different voice floats from there.
Time for the BJP to change its langoti, and say "yes we can" also be peaceable and law-abiding citizens of the Republic of India. And to prize and protect its magnificent plurality like all sensible and humane Indians.
badri.raina@gmail.com
Zmag
Epigraph:
"underlying these religions were a common set of beliefs about how you treat other people and how you aspire to act, not just for yourself but also for the greater good"
(Obama in his interview about Religion given to Cathleen Falsani, March,27,2004; cf. to his mother's teaching about the validity of diverse faiths and the value of tolerance.)
I
So, now, India is home to "Hindu" terrorism.
Departing from the more usual banner-appelation, "Saffron Terror", I wish the fact to be registered that saffron is drawn from the stamin of a delicate and indescribably pretty mauve flower grown exclusively in my home valley of Kashmir, and exclusively by Muslims. My inherited memories of it are thereby sweet and secular to the core.
Also, saffron when used to grace milk products, Biryani, or to brew the heavenly Kehwa is a thing of the gods truly.
It is only when it is coerced against the use of nature to colour politics that it rages against the sin. Then, don't we know, what gruesome consequences begin.
I think it proper, therefore, to stick with the more direct and honest description "Hindu" terrorism, since, much against their grain, even India's premier TV channels are now bringing us news of "Hindu" terrorism, so compelling the materials gathered by the investigating agencies thus far.
This despite the fact that in my view the term "Hindu" trerrorism is as erroneous as the term "Muslim" terrorism. Even though not a religious man myself, I am able to see that being Hindu or Muslim by accident of birth has no necessary connect with how one's politics turn out to be in adult life. A plethora of specific contexts and shaping histories are here provenly more to the point.
II
It was way back in 1923 that Savarkar, never a practicing Hindu (indeed a self-confessed atheist) had first understood that from this benign term, "Hindu," could be drawn the toxic racial concept Hindutva, and made to serve a forthrightly fascist purpose. That Brahminism had always been a socially toxic form of Hinduism was of course an enabling prehistory to the new project.
He it was who established Abhinav Bharat in Pune (1904), that theoretical hotbed of twice-born Brahminical casteism against which low-caste social reformers such as Phule, Periyar, and Ambedkar were to struggle their whole lives long.
Such casteism was made the instrument of communalist politics to serve two major objectives: one, to overwhelm and negate the specific cultural and material oppressions of the low-caste within the Hindu Varna system , and two, to elevate the low-caste as a warrior of a common "Hindutva" army against the chief common "enemy," the Muslim.
Such an army has been seen to be needed to salvage the "real" nation from this so-called common enemy who continues to be represented to this day by the RSS and its hydra-headed "educational" front organizations as an "invader" still bent on seeking to convert India into an Islamic theocratic state.
Aided in these mythical fears and constructions by the British during the crucial decades leading upto Independence, India's majoritarian fascists continue thus to keep at bay all consideration of secular oppressions based entirely in the brutal social order of Capitalist expropriation.
Savarkar thus counseled how a resurgent nation could result only if "Hinduism was militarized, and the military Hinduised."
Clearly enough, the serving army Colonel, S.P. Purohit and the other retired Major, one Upadhyay, who the Mumbai ATS (Anti-Terrorist Squad) tells us, are at the centre of the Malegaon terrorist blasts of September 29, 2008, alongwith Sadhvi Pragya and the rogue-sadhu, Amreetanand—and very possibly complicit in half a dozen other blasts as well—seem to have heeded Savarkar's advice to the hilt.
Indeed, in his Narco-test confessions, Colonel Purohit, sources have told some TV channels (Times Now), admits to his guilt and justifies his actions as retribution for what he thinks SIMI (Student's Islamic Movement of India) have been doing. He is understood to have further indicated that the rogue sadhu, Amreetanand, nee Dayanand etc., has been the kingpin and chief coordinator and devisor of several other blasts carried out by this cell, including the blasts at the revered Ajmer Dargah (Mausoleum of the 12th century Sufi saint, Chisti, which to this day draws devotees across faiths the world-over), and at Kanpur.
The ATS are now busy exploring the routes through which huge sums of money have been brought into the country for such terrorist activity as Hawala transactions, and whether the RDX, suspected to be used in the Malegaon blast, was procured by Colonel Purohit through army connections. It is to be noted that Purohit has been in Military Intelligence, and serving in Jammu & Kashmir, where it is thought he made contact with the rogue sadhu, Amreetanand.
(Indeed, as I write, news comes of the ATS claiming that Purohit actually stole some 60 kilos of RDX which was in his custody while doing duty at Deolali, and that in his Narco-test confession he admits to passing it on to one "Bhagwan" for use in the blast on the Samjhauta Express train in Feb.,2007.)
Needless to say, that alongwith the courts, we will also require that the ATS is actually able to obtain convictions rather than merely pile on evidence which may not be admissible in law.
To return to the argument:
As I suggested in my last column, "Notions of the Nation" (Znet, Nov.,4), Hindutva militarism since the establishment of the Hindu Mahasabha and the RSS has been inspired by the desire to emulate and then better Muslim "aggressiveness" seen as a racial characteristic that defined "Muslim" rule in India, and rendered Hindus "limp" and "cowardly."
Thus, if Savarkar established Ahninav Bharat, Dr.Moonje, an avowed Mussolini admirer who in turn inspired Dr.Hedgewar to establish the RSS on Vijay Dashmi of 1924 (victory day, denoting the liquidation of the Dravidian Ravana by the Aryan Kshatriya warrior, Ram) established the Bhondsala Military Academy at Indore (1937). It now transpires that this academy has been playing host to the Bajrang Dal for militarist training routines etc., and its director, one Raikar, has put in his papers.
Unsurprisingly enough, both these institutions are now under the scanner.
III
Over the last decade, terrorist blasts have occurred in India across a wide variety of sites and in major cities and towns.
Many of these blasts have taken place outside mosques and known Muslim- majority locations, as well outside cinema halls that were thought to be showing movies inimical to Hindu glory.
Briefly, these sites are: cinemas in Thane and Vashi in Maharashtra, Jalna, Purna, Parbhani, and Malegaon towns, again all in Maharashtra—and all areas of high Muslim density, in Hyderabad outside a famous old mosque, and in Ahmedabad and Surat in Gujarat.
Curiously, in the Surat episode, some sixteen odd bombs were found placed along the main thoroughfare in tree branches, on house-tops, on electric poles and so forth. Not one of them however exploded. This was thought to be the result of defective switches. Curious circumstance that; besides the wonder that Ahmedabad's Muslims could find such sprawling access to such strategic locations without Modi knowing a thing.
Yet, regardless of where the blasts have taken place, almost without exception the Pavlovian response of state agencies as well as, sad to say, media channels has been invariably to point fingers of suspicion and culpability towards one or the other "Islamic" outfit.
Often, young Muslims men have been rounded up in the scores and held for days of brutal questioning without the least prima facie evidence. Nearly in all such cases, however reluctantly, they have had to be let off.
The most recent case is that of some fifteen young Muslims picked up after the Hyderabad blasts. Tortured with electric shocks, they have nevertheless been found to be innocent and let go.
Indeed, after the gruesome blasts in the Samjhauta Express—a train service of reconciliation and confidence-building between India and Pakistan—in which some 68 people were burnt to cinders, 45 of them Pakistani citizens, fingers were immediately pointed towards the SIMI.
Yet, the ATS of Mumbai now suspects that this may also be the doing of the "Hindu" terrorists in custody. These speculations have been raised by the circumstance that the suitcases that held the bombs had Indore labels on them.
Just as the ATS now suspects that more than half a dozen blasts (the two at Malegaon, in 2006 and 2008, at the cinemas in Thane and Vashi, at Jalna, at Purna, at Parbhani, provenly at Nanded and Kanpur) have all been the handiwork of "Hindu" terror groups.
IV
For some years, reputed civil and human rights organizations, and individual members of civil society that have included journalists, judges, lawyers, writers, artists, teachers, students, and labour organizations, besides organized Muslim fora and Left parties, have been cautioning both state agencies and media conglomerates to:
-- desist from the Pavlovian haste with which some one or other Muslim group is immediately named and labeled literally within an hour of the occurrence of a blast, thus contributing to the maligning of the entire Muslim community;
--to consider the possibility that groups other than those involving Muslims could be involved;
--to refrain from covering up prima facie evidence which points to such possibilities; indeed, where such evidence seems conclusive, as the complicity of the Bajrang Dal at Nanded and Kanpur;
--to ponder the question as to why Muslims should effect blasts within their own localities or outside their mosques;
--to weigh the consequences for the Muslim psyche of the failure of the state to prevent repeated pogroms against them, and to find or punish the guilty; not to speak of active state connivance in those pogroms (Moradabad, 198o; Nellie, 1983; Hashimpura, 1987; Bhagalpur, 1989; Mumbai, 1992-93; Gujarat, 2002, to cite just the more recent ones);
--to permit transparency in the matter of police investigations with due regard for the Constitutional rights of those held in custody—such as visitation, access to legal defence, norms of the recording of confession and other evidence etc.,
--to respect the obligatory presumption of innocence until anyone is juridically found guilty;
Time and again these cautions and rightful prerogatives have been trampled under foot.
Aided by the loud biases of the corporate media which have tended to reflect the predilections both of free-market imperialism and comprador urban middle class sentiments in India's metropolitan towns, India's state agencies and that "all-knowing" species, the Intellegence expert, who seems ever present to reinforce anti-Muslim prejudice, have tended to feed massively into the politics of the Hindu right-wing.
For years on end, India's chief malady has been sought to be seen to reside in "Islamic" terrorism, and in the complicit refusal of the secularists to allow draconian preventive laws to be brought back on the books. Not in poverty, malnutrition, disease, absence of health care or clean drinking water, or lack of steady work among the urban poor, or the ousted tribals, disenfranchised farmers, chronic failure of primary schooling and so forth among some 75% of Indians. And most of them belonging to the Muslim, Dalit, and Tribal communities.
And to repeat for the nth time, this three-fourths of Indians able to spend just or under Rupees Twenty a day, all according to the governments' own Arjun Sengupta Committee Report.
Not to speak of the venomous communalization of the polity, the alienation and ghettoisation of the minorities, and the state's failure or unwillingness to carry through schemes that could redress these maladies.
As to new terror laws, the government of the day may protest that it has all the laws it wants, and more; as well as the fact that the worst terrorist attacks took place when laws like the dreaded POTA (Prevention of Terrorism Act) was on the books during the tenure of the NDA regime led by the ultra-"nationalist", BJP. Small dent is made by any regime of empirically-founded facts, or fair-minded arguments on the right-wing fascists and their fattened constituency.
V
Now, of course, a radically transformed milieu is unraveling.
Photos and Videos are doing the rounds that show the "Hindu" terrorists currently under investigation in close and intimate proximity to top leaders of the RSS, the VHP, and the BJP as well.
Had POTA indeed been on the books today, such evidence would have authorized the police to put them all behind bars on the charge of associating with those under investigation for "terrorism." And all that without any recourse to bail either.
Predictably, nonetheless, after some days of dumbfounded crestfallenness (remember that the main electoral plank of the BJP in the elections now under way in several states and in the soon-to-be-held parliamentary polls is the failure of the Congress to eradicate "terrorism" because of its "minority appeasement" policies), the right-wing fascists are back to brazen form.
Even as the projected Prime Ministerial candidate, Advani (the high-point of whose career remains the successful demolition of the Babri mosque), party hard-liners have taken to peddling outrageous theories.
As a complement to the well-known Pavlovian hunch that "all terrorists are Muslims," we are now told by the likes of Rajnath Singh, the party President, that "no Hindu can be a terrorist," that is to say even when he or she is found to be one.
This for the reason that what the ordinary man calls "terrorism" is infact "nationalism" where any Hindu be involved. Live and learn.
Other than that, it is both interesting and laughable that spokesmen and women of the BJP are today reduced to gurgitating every single argument that Muslims and civil rights organizations have to this day voiced:
--presume innocence until found guilty;
--desist from the "political conspiracy" to malign a whole community;
--do not let enemies of the Hindu -right propagate fake evidence against them, since all evidence against them must be fake in principle;
--and most outlandishly, do not communalise terrorism; that from India's rank communalists who have done nothing but communalise terrorism ever since we remember!
VI
Even as these new developments point to a potentially mortal combat among "Hindu" and "Muslim" terror groups, I venture to think that the situation also offers opportunities of far-reaching redressal for all three axes that matter: the state and its agencies, the party-political system, and the polity generally.
First off, if, as has been the case, the Congress's secular credentials have consistently been vitiated by, willy nilly, playing second-fiddle to Hindu-communalist appeasement, the denuding of the Hindu- right offers it the opportunity of a lifetime to assert the supremacy of the Constitutional scheme of things, without fear or favour.
It is indeed a circumstance that can now help the Congress and other secular parties to come down like a ton on communalism of all shades that underpin the fatal subversion of the secular republic without the need for apology.
In this endeavour, its greatest inspiration must come from two factors on the Muslim side of the issue:
one, that over the last year every single major and influential Muslim cultural and religious organization has publicly, and repeatedly, denounced through speech, act, and fatwa "terrorism" as un-Islamic and a rightful candidate for punishment under law;
and, two, that without exception they have pleaded only and ever for fair and just treatment at the hands of the authorized instruments of state, both when victimized by pogroms and suspected as culprits; and for credible pursuit of those that persecute them.
Not once has any Muslim organization worth the name suggested that Muslims have any claims that override the Cosntitutional regime of laws and procedures pertaining to all citizens of the Republic.
All that in stark contrast to the refusal, however camouflaged or strategised, of the RSS and its affiliates to accept either the secular Constitution or the notion of secular citizenship.
It is to be recalled that the RSS tactically acquiesced to acknowledging the primacy of the national flag over its own saffron one in 1949 as a quid pro quo to its release from the ban imposed on it after Gandhi's murder.
To this day it seeks to overthrow the Republic as Constituted by law and to replace it by a theocratic Hindu Rashtra wherein the prerogatives of citizenship will be determined not by secular, democratic equality but racial difference among Indians (all that brutally codified in Golwalker's two books, We, Our Ntionhood Defined; and, the later Bunch of Thoughts which explicitly designates Muslims as the nations's "Enemy Number One" in an exclusive chapter.)
However Hindu cultural politics may have come to infect sections of the fattened urbanites, the Congress must show the conviction that none of these in this day and age would be willing to back what is explicitly "terrorist" activity, indistinguishable from any other, once the matter is proven.
This then is a fine moment to release a new energetic politics that recharges the conviction and inspiration of the non-discriminatory humanism that informed the leaders of the freedom movement, and thus to disengage whatever popular base the Hindu- right has built over the years since the demolition of the Babri mosque from its fascist leaderships and cadres.
Just as, infact, many BJP supporters are busy thinking whether they are indeed willing to carry their love of Muslim-haters quite to the point where those other dreams of Indian super-powerdom are seriously jeopardized by a war of competing terrorisms.
It is also a golden opportunity for the Congress-led UPA, should it come back to power, to take a hard look at the communalist virus that has infected law-enforcement agencies over the decades, and to make bold to effect reforms of a far-reaching character, such as include the recruitment of Muslims and other "minorities" in due proportion to the forces, and not just among the lower ranks.
Speaking of the army, some 3% Muslims are today among its ranks—some sixty years after Independence. And I won't make a guess as to how abysmal might infact be its share among the officer core, colonel and above. And wouldn't I dearly like to take a peek into what sort of Indian History is taught India's future officers at Khadakvasla and Dehradun. Truly; and who does the teaching as well.
VII
As to the BJP: it has another opportunity as well; namely to reconstitute itself as a secular party on the right, bearing full allegiance to the Constitution in letter and spirit (remember now that among other things on the street-level, the NDA regime led by the BJP did constitute a Constitution Review Committee—an ominous enough move that, thankfully, was duly aborted in course), and shunning once and for all its enslavement to the RSS and its fascist vision of India, its history, culture and state.
Failing to do so, the BJP may succeed in causing further mayhem; but it is highly unlikely now to attain the sort of ascendance it seeks through fair means and foul.
Most of all, the BJP must understand that the Muslims of India, and Christians as well, have the inalienable right to live and work in the country on the terms set by the Constitution, not by the RSS or the Sangh Parivar.
And, conversely, that the BJP itself is as subject to those Constitutional stipulations as any another collective of Indians who practice their beliefs and politics.
Let the BJP notice the epigraph chosen for this column; it comes from the new President-Elect of the one country that the BJP adores. Or will it now, with a black man at the helm?
A different voice floats from there.
Time for the BJP to change its langoti, and say "yes we can" also be peaceable and law-abiding citizens of the Republic of India. And to prize and protect its magnificent plurality like all sensible and humane Indians.
badri.raina@gmail.com
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