[Reader-list] "India: Band-Aid for cancer" by M J Akbar

[radhikarajen at vsnl.net]

It is well known fact that the politicians like lalu, Mulayam and Sonia with their psuedo secular facade really do not care or are concerned about welfare of muslims or to that matter any citizens of any community. All these "leaders" aspire is their own safety and comforts in power, at any cost.

   It is to be noted that muslims in general do not want a state of unsafe and terrorised living in the nation. Their leaders have time and again failed them by  use of fear psychosis against BJP and propaganda that "secular" parties are not communal in their vote bank politics and thus put the muslims in ghetto mentality. Laalu and Mulayam can talk about and against BJP only on three issues, -- the demolition of a old dilapidated building known as babri masjid, Bangaru in the sting by tehelka seen taking a lakh of rupee for "the new year party" being given by pimps and prostitutes of tehelka in neo sting operation of journalism, and ofccourse about gujarath riots where both hindus and muslim rioters were shot for the riot acts with these leaders having soft corner for muslim rioters. !

  The very fact that the home ministry and its officials could not put up facts about SIMI and its acts of terror by proper documentation tells citizens a bigger story just as the few channels are on over drive with huge adrevenue about "dreams " of delhi, released to certain channels only at crores of adrevenue to these favourite channels for whatever it takes. A home minister, who is as a speaker supposed to be above party politics, Shivaraj patil, now Home minister talking politics on national security is a national shame, as he has nothing to loose as he has lost credibility with loss in elections , now nominated to rajyasabha, thanks to his Madam. PM who is again, a nominated PM, with defence minister again nominated, madam on sojourn to Beijing, who is interested in national interests and security of citizens. ?

----- Original Message -----
From: Kshmendra Kaul <kshmendra2005 at yahoo.com>
Date: Wednesday, August 6, 2008 5:36 pm
Subject: [Reader-list] "India: Band-Aid for cancer" by M J Akbar
To: sarai list <reader-list at sarai.net>

> QUOTE FROM THE ARTICLE
>  
> The innocents have been killed and maimed by terrorists who have 
> Osama Bin Laden as their inspiration. I could produce a spread of 
> direct and indirect evidence,......................The hate 
> literature spawned by the Indian terrorist groups are full of the 
> anti-Hindu venom that is encouraged by organizations like Lashkar-
> e-Taiba, with its haven in Pakistan.
>  
> Common sense would suggest that those Indian politicians who claim 
> to have some sympathy for Indian Muslims would seek, in their 
> speeches, to create a distance between this deadly extreme fringe 
> and the broad mass of the community, not only because this was 
> wise but primarily because this was true. Instead, such of their 
> ilk who are in the present government in Delhi have indulged in a 
> curious, and inexplicable, dichotomy.
>  
> UNQUOTE
>  
>  
> http://arabnews.com/?page=7&section=0&article=112356&d=3&m=8&y=2008&pix=opinion.jpg&category=Opinion%22
>  
> 
> 
> 
> 
> India: Band-Aid for cancer
> M.J. Akbar 
> 
>  
> 
> 
> In the general elections of 2004 the irrepressible and sometimes 
> irresponsible Lalu Prasad Yadav used to tow around a maulvi when 
> in campaign mode. Nothing particularly wrong with that. 
> Politicians have this tendency to turn mullahs into best friends 
> at election time. What was the particular competence of this 
> maulvi that attracted Lalu Yadav? Was he a great alim, or scholar, 
> erudite in the finer points of Shariah? Was he a fine economist 
> with specialized knowledge in the intricate problems of rural Bihar?
>  
> The reason was less subtle. He was a lookalike of Osama Bin Laden. 
> He even handed out autographs signed “Osama”.
>  
> Lalu Yadav sent out two unmissable signals with his thoughtless 
> pandering. He told non-Muslims that the true role model of all 
> Bihar Muslims, irrespective of what they said in their politically-
> correct avatar, was a person whose name had become synonymous with 
> terrorism. And he told Muslims, particularly their impressionable 
> young, that Osama was a legitimate role model.
>  
> Did Sonia Gandhi, an ally of Lalu Yadav, question him or even 
> raise the subject? Not a word. Votes were more important, even if 
> they came in the name of Osama Bin Laden. Did the subject arise 
> when Sonia Gandhi offered Lalu Yadav a prominent place in Manmohan 
> Singh’s Cabinet? No.
> To be fair to Lalu, this traveling Osama was not by his side in 
> the assembly elections that soon followed the general elections. 
> He had switched over — or, to be more precise, had been purchased 
> by Ram Vilas Paswan. Did the Congress ask questions this time 
> around? Not a chance. Votes, votes, votes: That was the only 
> morality. It was all dismissed as a joke, and the laughter was 
> doubtless very hearty in the comfortable drawing rooms of Lutyens’ 
> Delhi. The joke has soured on the killing fields of Malegaon, 
> Hyderabad, Jaipur, Bangalore, Ahmedabad and a roster of cities 
> that could enter the list of dread. The dead do not laugh even 
> when there is a comedian as rich in range as Lalu Yadav.
>  
> The innocents have been killed and maimed by terrorists who have 
> Osama Bin Laden as their inspiration. I could produce a spread of 
> direct and indirect evidence, from the manifesto of Indian 
> Mujahedeen to the taped speeches of Mohammad Masood Azhar 
> (released by the BJP during the bargain over the hijacked Indian 
> Airlines) to the honorifics used by “commanders” of the terror 
> groups. Maulana Sufiyan Patanigia, once head of the Lal Masjid 
> seminary in Ahmedabad, and now on a revenge mission after the 
> Gujarat carnage of 2002, is known as the Indian Mullah Omar, while 
> his deputy Suhail Khan delights in the nickname “Chhota Osama”. 
> The hate literature spawned by the Indian terrorist groups are 
> full of the anti-Hindu venom that is encouraged by organizations 
> like Lashkar-e-Taiba, with its haven in Pakistan.
>  
> Common sense would suggest that those Indian politicians who claim 
> to have some sympathy for Indian Muslims would seek, in their 
> speeches, to create a distance between this deadly extreme fringe 
> and the broad mass of the community, not only because this was 
> wise but primarily because this was true. Instead, such of their 
> ilk who are in the present government in Delhi have indulged in a 
> curious, and inexplicable, dichotomy. On the one side the Lalu 
> Yadavs tout an Osama to fuel the worst kind of sentiment. And, on 
> the other, there is what amounts to a complete denial that is 
> inconsistent with facts. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh seems to 
> subsist on comfort food, perhaps because the truth is politically 
> indigestible. The most serious instance of comfort food was the 
> formulation he offered to his good friend George W. Bush during 
> the latter’s official visit to India. He said that no Indian 
> Muslim was involved in terrorism, and offered as evidence that you
> could not find any Indian Muslim in Osama’s Al-Qaeda. President 
> Bush, in his wisdom, picked this up as proof of his theory that 
> democracy was a panacea for all ills. Not only did democracies 
> never go to war against one another, but they also managed to 
> secure Indian Muslims from the temptations of terrorism.
>  
> Manmohan had clearly not consulted his intelligence agencies when 
> he came to such a conclusion. Even a check with the Mumbai courts 
> might have persuaded him otherwise. Indian nationals have been 
> involved in terrorist conspiracies at least since 1993, after the 
> trauma of the demolition of the Babri Mosque and the Congress 
> government’s startling indifference to both its loss and the 
> communal havoc that ensued. It is possible that Manmohan meant 
> well. But self-delusion is not diagnosis. It is perhaps such a 
> frame of mind that takes the government toward a soft view of the 
> guilt of Afzal Guru. Guru has been convicted for possibly the most 
> outrageous attack on the Indian state. His conviction has been 
> confirmed by the Supreme Court. There are no more legal avenues to 
> traverse. 
> Look at this situation from the point of view of the veteran or 
> the prospective terrorist. To start with, he knows that in India 
> there is a lot of crime and very little punishment. If the guilty 
> do get caught, it is often fortuitously. For lesser crimes, 
> corruption is the sanctioned solution. For unforgivable crimes 
> like terrorism, there is a pattern. An incident occurs, and lights 
> flare in media. Worthy dignitaries visit the site and trot off to 
> hospital. The home minister of India repeats the same inane things 
> he has been saying for four years. And then everyone retreats into 
> the default mode of complacency. What is there to worry about? And 
> when an Afzal Guru is caught and convicted, the state dithers. 
> Perhaps this is why the Indian Mujahedeen had the belligerence to 
> taunt the government, through an e-mail (sent before the timers 
> wreaked their damage) that they were Indians and that there was 
> little use in explaining this away with alibis.
>  
> The most interesting characteristic about homegrown terrorism is 
> the degree of sophistication it has acquired. The Ahmedabad 
> bombings began with an automobile theft in Navi Mumbai; the cars 
> traveled to Surat and Vadodara to pick up their arsenals before 
> reaching Ahmedabad. The detonators were timed to inflict maximum 
> damage on innocents, with a first, second and third tier of 
> victims. This is a large operation from mastermind to foot 
> soldiers, with a foreign connection but an Indian network. If our 
> police cannot fold in a net, then policing has lost all meaning.
>  
> The battle is in India. India is being poisoned with a cancer. And 
> all the government has as an answer is Band Aid.
> 
> 
> _________________________________________
> reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city.
> Critiques & Collaborations
> To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with 
> subscribe in the subject header.
> To unsubscribe: https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-
> list 
> List archive: <https://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/>