Muslim India

India: Civil Rights or Civil War?  

 

                                         By Amaresh Misra

 

 

 

        The recent series of bomb blasts that have rocked India―a series which has become a proverbial dark tunnel where no end is in sight―denote a new pattern. Till now communal riots were engineered by communal forces and the fascist part of the Indian state machinery to polarize society. This trend reached its apogee in the Gujarat 2002 riots.

 

        The communal forces both inside and outside the Indian State machinery learnt some important lessons from Gujarat; chiefly that in this time and space, in the 21^st century, it is very difficult to get away with organized pogroms―ultimately you have to pay a political price which the BJP did in the 2004 elections.

 

        The communal forces then conjured a new phenomenon―why not start engineering bombs first in Hindu dominated areas, and then in Muslim areas?

 

        The trend began with the July 2006 Mumbai serial train blasts in `Gujarati Hindu dominated' first class compartments of the Mumbai metro rail; soon there were blasts in Muslim areas of Malegaon and Hyderabad.

 

In 2008, with elections just around the corner in April-May 2009, and the BJP getting relegated to the third position in electoral calculations in the post-nuclear deal vote phase, the bomb blast phenomenon has become endemic. From July 2008 at the time of writing this piece here have been several blasts―in the past week, blasts have occurred almost daily.

 

One thing is clear―it is not that bomb blasts are being engineered to create communal riots. That (communal riots following bomb blasts) simply has not happened―the new mantra seems to be of bomb blasts replacing communal riots. This means that if in the past riots were engineered to create communal polarization the same kind of polarization is being sought to be created by engineering bomb blasts.

 

So the pattern―4 blasts in a Hindu dominated area; then one or two in a Muslim dominated area―soMalegaon and Modesa after Bengaluroo, Ahmedabad and the two blasts in Delhi.

 

This is a foreign pattern for even Indian communal forces; this trend has been seen in areas where Mossad and CIA operate; a similar/exact phenomenon was seen in Lebanon where Beirut, a beautiful and cosmopolitan Asiatic city was turned into an arena of sectarian Muslim-Christian conflict with bomb blasts being engineered every day in respective Muslim-Christian areas, something which now even Hollywood films (see Spy Game) admit as a CIA ploy to destroy Lebanon.

 

The post-American invasion Iraq situation too sees a similar thing―of sectarian Shia-Sunni violence being generated by the bomb blast phenomenon, engineered by the CIA, private US mercenary firms like Blackwater and the US forces.

 

A third region is Pakistan where too blasts take place respectively, in Shia or Sunni, Sindhi or Mohajir, NWFP or Punjabi or Baluchi areas alternately and with regularity. Here the western game is clear―America andIsrael have been working for decades to dismemberPakistan and control its nuclear arsenal.

 

India was spared of this ordeal till 1991 as Prime Ministers like Jawahar Lal Nehru and Indira Gandhi, and even Rajiv Gandhi, did not allow Mossad-CIA penetration.

 

Before liberalization during Narsimha Rao's regime, Indian passport holders could not travel to two places: Israel and South Africa. India was at the forefront of the International crusade against apartheid and the denial of a homeland for Palestinians.

 

Why is it that after liberalization, which was initiated soon after Rajiv Gandhi's assassination, India recognizedIsrael and established diplomatic relations―and then the Babri Masjid demolition incident occurred?

 

So three things are related―liberalization of the Indian economy, the change in Indian foreign policy from an anti-Imperialist, pro-Third World position to a pro-American, pro-Israel stance, and the increasing persecution of Muslims, in an institutionalized form.

 

See that these three developments occur side by side―and now in 2008 we see India being turned into another Lebanon.

 

The biggest delusion of the RSS-BJP is that by blaming organizations like SIMI or Muslim `terrorists' for the recent blasts they are doing some service to the nation. On the contrary, by not exposing the foreign Mossad-CIA hand, they are going against the interests ofIndia. Why did the BJP-RSS not cry foul over the flight of Ken Haywood from India after the email sent by the so called `Indian Mujahideen' group was traced to his computer in Navu Mumbai? Why was there no demand for a probe into the role of this dubious American national with shady evangelical, anti-Hindu and anti-Muslim connections in America? 

 

These connections can be seen by clicking on links like http://www.phillyimc.org/en/node/71510  or http://www.stlimc.org/newswire2008/yahooindiabombingkenneth-haywoodcampbell-white039s-computer-and-strange-fox-news039-fr orhttp://www.indianexpress.com/story/348646.html  or http://szamko.gnn.tv/blogs/29130/Haywood_Escapes or

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hvHOJNxzhM&feature=related and on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaZejnHLhrc&feature=related

  

This is a question I would like to put before people like Javed Anand―did they write anything on the Ken Haywood angle?

 

This is a question I would like to put before Yogendra Yadav―we were engaged in a debate over SIMI and the wider Muslim question in India―a debate in which Shri Yadav differed on several points but agreed on one that innocent Muslims are being persecuted and liberals, secular forces or any religious group with a conscience ought to fight against the persecution.

 

Now the question is: Is Shri Yadav ready to demand a probe and come out on the streets on the issue of the Ken Haywood angle or the Bajrang Dal angle (that they were caught making bombs which exlodd in their faces)? Is he willing to write as a member of the Governing Council of the ICSSR or otherwise against the total lack of concern in the Indian security agencies towards the Ken Haywood angle and the total failure to investigate into several instances where Bajrang Dal and Hindu Munaani and other RSS outfits have been found making bombs?

 

Another question: Are people like Tavleen Singh, who speak about `Islamic terrorism', ready to even consider discussing the Ken Haywood or the Bajrang Dal angle in the recent bomb blasts and violence against Christians in Orissa and Karnataka?

 

If Tavleen Singh is not willing to discuss the foreign or the RSS angle then there is something seriously wrong somewhere―I have mentioned earlier that SIMI or the Indian Mujahideen is a fiction, a phantom like the WMDs in Iraq―why can't the liberals see this?

 

I was reading Shashi Tharoor's piece in the Times of India; I have also seen Karan Thapar writing against violence perpetrated by VHP on Christians in Orissa. All this is very good and welcome―but why haven't Shashi Tharoor or Karan Thapar ever written on violence against Muslims in India? Why hasn't Karan Thapar ever written on the Ken Haywood angle? In the Times of India piece, Shashi Tharoor makes it a point to condemn `both' types of violence―he is again placing the fictitious `Islamic terrorism' and the invented `Indian Mujahideen' at par with Bajrang Dal and the VHP―he does not even mention the RSS―what kind of a secularism and liberalism is this?           

 

Let me be very clear and cloud―today, supporting the persecution and the arrest and the torture of thousands of Muslim youth, is tantamount to being anti-national. Today being anti-Muslim is tantamount to being anti-national. All newspapers and people in the media have to realize this―including people like Rajdeep Sardesai, Sagarika Ghose, Vinod Mehta―that you will be held accountable personally for Muslim persecution―and for not exposing the Bajrang Dal-Ken Haywood angle in the deaths of countless Hindus and Muslims during the `bomb blast season' underway―by nationalists―and this is coming from me, a left and a religious Sanatan Dharma Hindu figure, not a rootless, westernized pseudo-secular personality.

 

   What India needs today are not just protests―we need a special prevention of atrocities against minorities act―something which makes refusal of housing and flats to minorities, refusal by a Police officer to register a FIR by minorities, or to act in their protection, failure of a District Magistrate or a Senior Superintendent of the Police to prevent a riot or a bomb blast, the picking up of Muslims and other minorities without a formal charge, the very idea of detention of Muslim youths after blasts, or encounter killings, the calling of Muslms by the nameLaandiya or Katua, a stringent crime with due punishment.

 

India already has a prevention of violence/atrocities against Scheduled castes act―it is a crime to call a Dalit a Chamar; or not to register his or hers FIR. Why can't a similar act, be enacted for the minorities?

 

In India the so called war against terror, against SIMI or the Indian Mujahideen is a fictitious, bogus war―the recent bomb blasts were engineered by security forces, and foreign agencies and RSS-Bajrang Dal. The real war is against Muslim/minority persecution, the appropriate response to Batla House type fake encounter killing, and the extension of civil liberties guaranteed in the Indian constitution. See the history of nations―in America and Europe mere constitutional guarantees were not enough―specific new laws had to be enacted from time to time to abolish slavery, protect minorities, and end persecution, segregation and racism.

 

America passed through its civil rights moment in the 1960s―India has to confront its own civil rights moment now. There is a simple message to Indian liberals―either support, the demand for a special civil rights act for minorities or perish―for soon the fascist forces persecuting Muslims will turn against you.

 

If there is a civil war in India on this issue―so be the case; in any case with direct American intervention inPakistan, conflict between America and India is very near. Liberals do not understand this but the Indian army does―so there is bound to be a double civil war inIndia―one against foreign intervention in the Indian sub-continent and the other against anti-national fascist forces.

 

Where do liberals stand in this fight? The anti-national forces want India to be invaded―that is why they are launching Muslim persecution so that when NATO forces  attack India, the country is weak internally.

 

They are of course deluded―as the history of 1857 shows, Indian Muslims are the single most nationalist forces alive in India today―persecution or no persecution, they will fight foreign invasion.

 

 But what is our duty? The best course is to launch a mass movement now to end persecution and guarantee civil rights to Muslims and other minorities; otherwise a civil war, a military response against Modi and the RSS to save the Indian constitution and the Indian republic is imminent. Choose what you want…