INDIA'S SOFT FACE NOT ALL THAT SOFT
Political experts remark, “Terrorism comes in a
variety of forms, but these days religious
terrorism is the most common and leads to the
most destruction. Not all terrorism is
equal…there are significant differences between
religious and secular terrorism.”
Bruce Hoffman, in his book ‘Inside Terrorism’
writes: “For the religious terrorist, violence
is the foremost divine duty executed in direct
response to some theological demand or
imperative. Terrorism thus assumes a
transcendental dimension, and its perpetrators
are consequently unconstrained by the political
and moral constraints that may affect other
terrorists.”
On the other hand, Hoffman further explains:
“The secular terrorist sense leads to a
sanctioning of almost limitless violence against
a virtually open-ended category of targets: that
is, anyone who is not a member of the
terrorists’ religion or religious sect. This
explains the rhetoric common to ‘holy terror’
manifestos describing persons outside the
terrorists’ religious community in dehumanizing
terms as, for example, “infidels” or “mud
people.”
Judging in these terms, since the 9/11 tragedy,
irresponsible attitude of Indian, Israeli and
some Western politicians have introduced
dangerous socio-religious dimension in their
societies by equating the “war on terror” with
“war on Islam” and acts of Al Qaeda with all the
Muslims. Their media have also heightened the
currents of world politics on cultural and
religious lines with the negative projection of
Islam. In this regard, reprinting of the
caricatures about Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and
release of a Dutch film against the Holy Quran
might be noted as an example.
In this context, on October 19, 2007, the real
cause behind was revealed by the the special
issue of South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic
Journal, under the caption-‘Working for India or
against Islam? and it wrote:“In the past few
years, Indian American community has gained an
unprecedented visibility in the international
arena and now constitutes influential ethnic
lobbies in Washington. Among other factors,
Hindu aligned with Jewish pressure groups in
relation to the war against terrorism and to
further the India-Israel-US strategic
partnership play a major role in exaggerating
Islamophobic overtones in the Indian American
lobbies”
Particularly since 9/11, India which joined the
vile propaganda campaign of Western countries in
equating Muslims with fundamentalism and in
creating Islamic phobia is itself practising
terrorism under the shadow of secularism. This
could rightly be called secular terrorism.
However, although terrorism has many meanings,
but its main aim is to create fear in order to
achieve political or social ends, while a
terrorist is one who deliberately creates this
climate of fear by employing violent means.
So either it is religious terrorism or secular
terrorism, India which claims to be a secular
state, has broken all the records of violence,
genocide and massacre against various ethnic and
religious groups, entailing the community of its
own lower castes. Hindu politics and culture,
dominated by the fundamentalists parties such as
BJP, RSS, VHP, Shiv Sena and other similar
groups have been propagating Hindutva (Hindu
nationalism).
Provocative utterances of their extremist
leaders result into more violence against the
Christians and the Muslims including other
minority groups. Although violence against the
other communities has been used by Hindu
terrorists as a normal practice since partition,
yet anti-Christian and anti-Muslim bloodshed in
the last decade coupled with the dissemination
of Hindutva has intensified.
Besides previous massacre of Muslims, more than
2500 Muslims were massacred in 2002 in the BJP-ruled
Indian state of Gujarat where horrible scenes of
arson, mutation and rape were perpetrated by the
Hindu extremists against the unarmed Muslims.
Regarding that massive genocide, both Human
Rights Watch in 2002 and Amnesty International
in 2003 charged the “Gujarat state
administration” for involvement in “a massive
cover-up of the state’s role in that massacres”
and pointed out numerous police
officials—specifically ministers, high officials
and leaders of the VHP, BJP and Bajrang Dal as
participants.
Meanwhile, various investigations failed in
indicating the real culprits of Hindu terrorism
in Gujrat as they were high officials or police
officers of the Indian government. Hence, the
Supreme Court of India had ordered a fresh probe
on March 25, 2008, but the same also remains
inconclusive due to concealment of evidence
against the culprits who are members of the
dominating political parties of the country.
Besides Gujrat, onSeptember 13, 2008, during the
communal riots in Uttar Pradesh more than 200
Muslims were murdered. In the most tragic
incident in Assam, Hindu terrorists burnt alive
six members of a Muslim family.
In Maharashtra, non-Hindu communities have lived
in constant fear and awe since the advent of the
fundam
entalist party, Shiv Sena whose Chief Bal
Thackeray has organised army of hoodlums to beat
up any religious minority, openly directing the
Hindu terrorists to loot and stone any of their
shop or house. Silence of the subsequent
governments on every challenge of Shiv Sena and
lack of serious action against Thackeray’s
vandalism have clearly defeated the secular
echoes of India which is in fact a secular
terroist state.
More alarming point is that Bajrang Dal has also
been imparting arms training to its members near
Ayodhya where the fundamentalist Hindus want to
build Ram Mandir on the site of Babri Masjid
which was demolished deliberately in 1992 with
the official backing. Notably, a few weeks ago,
a leakage of the report of the Justice
Liberation Commission of India admitted the role
BJP’s leadership for the destruction of the
Babri Masjid, and over other human rights
violations in the Indian-held Kashmir including
violence against the Muslim and Christian
communities.
It is mentionable that after the BJP came to
power in February 2006, unlike the previous
similar tragic events, Christian persecution
rose to new heights in the state of Karnataka.
Attacks on Christian holidays became common in
the state like other areas. On the Christmas Eve
of 2007, Hindu extremists led a series of
violent attacks on Christians and their property
in the state of Orissa, killing six Christians
and razing at least 800 houses and 100 churches.
According to a report of the Global Council of
Indian Christians (GCIC), “in one of the events,
in March, 2008, more than 150 intolerant
nationalist Hindus stormed two Easter Sunday
services and beat at least 16 Christians
including two pastors in Bangalore and in
Shimoga district…before almost every assault,
the mob of the Hindu extremist of RSS, VHPand
Bajrang Dal, armed with bamboo poles, sticks and
rods, while beating drums shout slogans in
Hindi—he “who talks in favour of only Hindus
will rule the nation.”
Nevertheless, assaults on Christians and their
property have continued by the Hindu mobs in
Orissa, Assam, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh. Even
the year of 2009 witnessed a number of incidents
of religious intolerance. In this respect, at
least 60 Christians have been assassinated in
the recent past by Hindu fundamentalists in
Orissa.
Recently more than 2,700 unmarked graves of the
unidentified bodies were uncovered in villages
of Indian-held Kashmir near the Line of Control
(LoC). It is not the new event, in the past
three years, the International People’s Tribunal
on Human Rights and Justice (IPT) has discovered
unmarked bodies buried at various places. Last
year, discovery of nearly 1000 graves of the
unmarked Muslims in the Indian held Kashmir was
also notable. Sources have suggested that these
graves include bodies of extrajudicial
executions committed by the Indian military and
paramilitary forces.
In fact, the ideology of Hindutva is being
encouraged by the government officials. Besides,
attacks on the other ethnic and religious
communities including their establishments,
appointment of extremist Hindus in top positions
in various institutes and alteration of courses
in accordance with the Hindu ideology have
reflected the intentions of the BJP and the
Congress rulers.
No doubt, violence against the other communities
has been used by Hindu fundamentalists as a
normal practice since partition, but intensity
of the anti-Muslim and anti-Christian bloodshed
in the last decade coupled with the
dissemination of Hindutva has displayed India’s
‘secular terrorism.’
Sajjad Shaukat is a regular writer for Opinion
Maker. He writes on international affairs and is
author of the book: US vs Islamic Militants,
Invisible Balance of Power: Dangerous Shift in
International Relations |
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