[Reader-list] Fwd: Mumbai under assault: Arundhati Roy, P. Hoodbhoy, A. Patwardhan, Hari Sharma

[taraprakash]

Thanks for forwarding the piece by Mr. Hoodbhoy. The other pieces have been 
circulated on the list several times already. I think Hoodbhoy 
unintentionally ignores high number of Hindus who were killed in the attack 
when he says following about Mumbai attacks: "The goal was to kill 
foreigners, particularly Jews and Americans, although Muslims were also 
collateral casualties."
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Nagraj Adve" <nagraj.adve at gmail.com>
To: "Sarai" <reader-list at sarai.net>
Sent: Wednesday, December 17, 2008 4:57 AM
Subject: [Reader-list] Fwd: Mumbai under assault: Arundhati Roy, P. 
Hoodbhoy,A. Patwardhan, Hari Sharma


> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: SANSAD <sansad at sansad.org>
> Date: 17 Dec 2008 08:22
> Subject: Mumbai under assault: Arundhati Roy, P. Hoodbhoy, A. Patwardhan,
> Hari Sharma
> To: List Suppressed <Recipient>
>
> Dear friends:
>
>
> The Mumbai dust has not settled yet. National jingoism and war cries are
> keeping it afloat and churning. Sonia Gandhi has promised tougher
> anti-terrorism laws, as if that would eliminate the underlying causes of
> terrorism. The RSS Chief is calling for nuking Pakistan; and maybe, a 
> Third
> World War, to "cleanse the world of evil".
>
>
> But other voices are also coming in large measures, from around the world
> and from both sides of the India-Pakistan divide.
>
>
> We forward to you, first, a piece by Arundhati Roy, "The Monster in the
> Mirror". There are phrases and labels in it I disagree with, but it is, 
> once
> again, a charateristic Arundhati Roy piece. Profoundly perceptive,
> passionate, concerned and alarmed. Its poetry gives body to its prose. 
> Thank
> you, Arundhati.
>
>
> The second piece is from the other side of the border. the noted Nuclear
> Physicist, the peace activist, the never-tiring good voice of the people 
> of
> Pakistan, Parvez Hoodbhoy.
>
>
> Then, there is a piece by the celebrated film-maker Anand Patwardhan. 
> Times
> of India refused to publish this excellent article; that's all the more
> reason for us to disseminate it.
>
>
> And finally, there is a link for a podcast of a radio interview I had
> locally in Vancouver, on December 6, the anniversary of the Babri Masjid
> demolition.
>
>
> hari sharma
> for SANSAD
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> 1/4
> *The monster in the mirror*
>
>                                *The Mumbai attacks have been dubbed
> 'India's 9/11', and there are calls for a 9/11-style response, including 
> an
> attack on Pakistan. Instead, the country must fight terrorism with 
> justice,
> or face civil war*.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>   -                         [image: static.guim.co.uk/7F9E2D96.jpg]
>   <http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/arundhati-roy>
>
>
>   -
>                                           Arundhati
> Roy<http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/arundhati-roy>
>
>   - guardian.co.uk <http://www.guardian.co.uk/>, Saturday 13 December 2008
>   00.01 GMT
>   - Article 
> history<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/12/mumbai-arundhati-roy#history-byline>
>
>
>                                                        [image:
> static.guim.co.uk/1216CB21.jpg]
>
>
>
> Azam Amir Kasab, the face of the Mumbai attacks. Photograph: Reuters
>
>
>
>
>
>
> We've forfeited the rights to our own tragedies. As the carnage in Mumbai
> raged on, day after horrible day, our 24-hour news channels informed us 
> that
> we were watching "India's 9/11". Like actors in a Bollywood rip-off of an
> old Hollywood film, we're expected to play our parts and say our lines, 
> even
> though we know it's all been said and done before.
>
>
> As tension in the region builds, US Senator John McCain has warned 
> Pakistan
> that if it didn't act fast to arrest the "Bad Guys" he had personal
> information that India would launch air strikes on "terrorist camps" in
> Pakistan and that Washington could do nothing because Mumbai was India's
> 9/11.
>
>
> But November isn't September, 2008 isn't 2001, Pakistan isn't Afghanistan
> and India isn't America. So perhaps we should reclaim our tragedy and pick
> through the debris with our own brains and our own broken hearts so that 
> we
> can arrive at our own conclusions.
>
>
> It's odd how in the last week of November thousands of people in Kashmir
> supervised by thousands of Indian troops lined up to cast their vote, 
> while
> the richest quarters of India's richest city ended up looking like 
> war-torn
> Kupwara - one of Kashmir's most ravaged districts.
>
>
> The Mumbai attacks are only the most recent of a spate of terrorist 
> attacks
> on Indian towns and cities this year. Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Delhi, 
> Guwahati,
> Jaipur and Malegaon have all seen serial bomb blasts in which hundreds of
> ordinary people have been killed and wounded. If the police are right 
> about
> the people they have arrested as suspects, both Hindu and Muslim, all 
> Indian
> nationals, it obviously indicates that something's going very badly wrong 
> in
> this country.
>
>
> If you were watching television you may not have heard that ordinary 
> people
> too died in Mumbai. They were mowed down in a busy railway station and a
> public hospital. The terrorists did not distinguish between poor and rich.
> They killed both with equal cold-bloodedness. The Indian media, however, 
> was
> transfixed by the rising tide of horror that breached the glittering
> barricades of India Shining and spread its stench in the marbled lobbies 
> and
> crystal ballrooms of two incredibly luxurious hotels and a small Jewish
> centre.
>
>
> We're told one of these hotels is an icon of the city of Mumbai. That's
> absolutely true. It's an icon of the easy, obscene injustice that ordinary
> Indians endure every day. On a day when the newspapers were full of moving
> obituaries by beautiful people about the hotel rooms they had stayed in, 
> the
> gourmet restaurants they loved (ironically one was called Kandahar), and 
> the
> staff who served them, a small box on the top left-hand corner in the 
> inner
> pages of a national newspaper (sponsored by a pizza company I think) said
> "Hungry,* kya*?" (Hungry eh?). It then, with the best of intentions I'm
> sure, informed its readers that on the international hunger index, India
> ranked below Sudan and Somalia. But of course this isn't* that* war. That
> one's still being fought in the Dalit bastis of our villages, on the banks
> of the Narmada and the Koel Karo rivers; in the rubber estate in Chengara;
> in the villages of Nandigram, Singur, Chattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa,
> Lalgarh in West Bengal and the slums and shantytowns of our gigantic 
> cities.
>
>
> That war isn't on TV. Yet. So maybe, like everyone else, we should deal 
> with
> the one that is.
>
>
> There is a fierce, unforgiving fault-line that runs through the 
> contemporary
> discourse on terrorism. On one side (let's call it Side A) are those who 
> see
> terrorism, especially "Islamist" terrorism, as a hateful, insane scourge
> that spins on its own axis, in its own orbit and has nothing to do with 
> the
> world around it, nothing to do with history, geography or economics.
> Therefore, Side A says, to try and place it in a political context, or 
> even
> try to understand it, amounts to justifying it and is a crime in itself.
>
>
> Side B believes that though nothing can ever excuse or justify terrorism, 
> it
> exists in a particular time, place and political context, and to refuse to
> see that will only aggravate the problem and put more and more people in
> harm's way. Which is a crime in itself.
>
>
> The sayings of Hafiz Saeed, who founded the Lashkar-e-Taiba (Army of the
> Pure) in 1990 and who belongs to the hardline Salafi tradition of Islam,
> certainly bolsters the case of Side A. Hafiz Saeed approves of suicide
> bombing, hates Jews, Shias and Democracy and believes that jihad should be
> waged until Islam,* his* Islam, rules the world. Among the things he said
> are: "There cannot be any peace while India remains intact. Cut them, cut
> them so much that they kneel before you and ask for mercy."
>
>
> And: "India has shown us this path. We would like to give India a
> tit-for-tat response and reciprocate in the same way by killing the 
> Hindus,
> just like it is killing the Muslims in Kashmir."
>
>
> But where would Side A accommodate the sayings of Babu Bajrangi of
> Ahmedabad, India, who sees himself as a democrat, not a terrorist? He was
> one of the major lynchpins of the 2002 Gujarat genocide and has said (on
> camera): "We didn't spare a single Muslim shop, we set everything on fire 
> Š
> we hacked, burned, set on fire Š we believe in setting them on fire 
> because
> these bastards don't want to be cremated, they're afraid of it Š I have 
> just
> one last wish Š let me be sentenced to death Š I don't care if I'm hanged
> ... just give me two days before my hanging and I will go and have a field
> day in Juhapura where seven or eight lakhs [seven or eight hundred 
> thousand]
> of these people stay ... I will finish them off Š let a few more of them 
> die
> ... at least 25,000 to 50,000 should die."
>
>
> And where, in Side A's scheme of things, would we place the Rashtriya
> Swayamsevak Sangh bible, We, or, Our Nationhood Defined by MS Golwalkar, 
> who
> became head of the RSS in 1944. It says: "Ever since that evil day, when
> Moslems first landed in Hindustan, right up to the present moment, the 
> Hindu
> Nation has been gallantly fighting on to take on these despoilers. The 
> Race
> Spirit has been awakening."
> Or: "To keep up the purity of its race and culture, Germany shocked the
> world by her purging the country of the Semitic races - the Jews. Race 
> pride
> at its highest has been manifested here ... a good lesson for us in
> Hindustan to learn and profit by."
>
>
> (Of course Muslims are not the only people in the gun sights of the Hindu
> right. Dalits have been consistently targeted. Recently in Kandhamal in
> Orissa, Christians were the target of two and a half months of violence
> which left more than 40 dead. Forty thousand people have been driven from
> their homes, half of who now live in refugee camps.)
>
>
> All these years Hafiz Saeed has lived the life of a respectable man in
> Lahore as the head of the Jamaat-ud Daawa, which many believe is a front
> organization for the Lashkar-e-Taiba. He continues to recruit young boys 
> for
> his own bigoted jehad with his twisted, fiery sermons. On December 11 the 
> UN
> imposed sanctions on the Jammat-ud-Daawa. The Pakistani government 
> succumbed
> to international pressure and put Hafiz Saeed under house arrest. Babu
> Bajrangi, however, is out on bail and lives the life of a respectable man 
> in
> Gujarat. A couple of years after the genocide he left the VHP to join the
> Shiv Sena. Narendra Modi, Bajrangi's former mentor, is still the chief
> minister of Gujarat. So the man who presided over the Gujarat genocide was
> re-elected twice, and is deeply respected by India's biggest corporate
> houses, Reliance and Tata.
>
>
> Suhel Seth, a TV impresario and corporate spokesperson, recently said: 
> "Modi
> is God." The policemen who supervised and sometimes even assisted the
> rampaging Hindu mobs in Gujarat have been rewarded and promoted. The RSS 
> has
> 45,000 branches, its own range of charities and 7 million volunteers
> preaching its doctrine of hate across India. They include Narendra Modi, 
> but
> also former prime minister AB Vajpayee, current leader of the opposition 
> LK
> Advani, and a host of other senior politicians, bureaucrats and police and
> intelligence officers.
>
>
> If that's not enough to complicate our picture of secular democracy, we
> should place on record that there are plenty of Muslim organisations 
> within
> India preaching their own narrow bigotry.
>
>
> So, on balance, if I had to choose between Side A and Side B, I'd pick 
> Side
> B. We need context. Always.
>
>
> In this nuclear subcontinent that context is partition. The Radcliffe 
> Line,
> which separated India and Pakistan and tore through states, districts,
> villages, fields, communities, water systems, homes and families, was 
> drawn
> virtually overnight. It was Britain's final, parting kick to us. Partition
> triggered the massacre of more than a million people and the largest
> migration of a human population in contemporary history. Eight million
> people, Hindus fleeing the new Pakistan, Muslims fleeing the new* kind* of
> India left their homes with nothing but the clothes on their backs.
>
>
> Each of those people carries and passes down a story of unimaginable pain,
> hate, horror but yearning too. That wound, those torn but still unsevered
> muscles, that blood and those splintered bones still lock us together in a
> close embrace of hatred, terrifying familiarity but also love. It has left
> Kashmir trapped in a nightmare from which it can't seem to emerge, a
> nightmare that has claimed more than 60,000 lives. Pakistan, the Land of 
> the
> Pure, became an Islamic Republic, and then, very quickly a corrupt, 
> violent
> military state, openly intolerant of other faiths. India on the other hand
> declared herself an inclusive, secular democracy. It was a magnificent
> undertaking, but Babu Bajrangi's predecessors had been hard at work since
> the 1920s, dripping poison into India's bloodstream, undermining that idea
> of India even before it was born.
>
>
> By 1990 they were ready to make a bid for power. In 1992 Hindu mobs 
> exhorted
> by LK Advani stormed the Babri Masjid and demolished it. By 1998 the BJP 
> was
> in power at the centre. The US war on terror put the wind in their sails. 
> It
> allowed them to do exactly as they pleased, even to commit genocide and 
> then
> present their fascism as a legitimate form of chaotic democracy. This
> happened at a time when India had opened its huge market to international
> finance and it was in the interests of international corporations and the
> media houses they owned to project it as a country that could do no wrong.
> That gave Hindu nationalists all the impetus and the impunity they needed.
>
>
> This, then, is the larger historical context of terrorism in the
> subcontinent and of the Mumbai attacks. It shouldn't surprise us that 
> Hafiz
> Saeed of the Lashkar-e-Taiba is from Shimla (India) and LK Advani of the
> Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh is from Sindh (Pakistan).
>
>
> In much the same way as it did after the 2001 parliament attack, the 2002
> burning of the Sabarmati Express and the 2007 bombing of the Samjhauta
> Express, the government of India announced that it has "incontrovertible"
> evidence that the Lashkar-e-Taiba backed by Pakistan's ISI was behind the
> Mumbai strikes. The Lashkar has denied involvement, but remains the prime
> accused. According to the police and intelligence agencies the Lashkar
> operates in India through an organisation called the Indian Mujahideen. 
> Two
> Indian nationals, Sheikh Mukhtar Ahmed, a Special Police Officer working 
> for
> the Jammu and Kashmir police, and Tausif Rehman, a resident of Kolkata in
> West Bengal, have been arrested in connection with the Mumbai attacks.
>
>
> So already the neat accusation against Pakistan is getting a little messy.
> Almost always, when these stories unspool, they reveal a complicated 
> global
> network of foot soldiers, trainers, recruiters, middlemen and undercover
> intelligence and counter-intelligence operatives working not just on both
> sides of the India-Pakistan border, but in several countries 
> simultaneously.
> In today's world, trying to pin down the provenance of a terrorist strike
> and isolate it within the borders of a single nation state is very much 
> like
> trying to pin down the provenance of corporate money. It's almost
> impossible.
>
>
> In circumstances like these, air strikes to "take out" terrorist camps may
> take out the camps, but certainly will not "take out" the terrorists.
> Neither will war. (Also, in our bid for the moral high ground, let's try 
> not
> to forget that the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, the LTTE of
> neighbouring Sri Lanka, one of the world's most deadly terrorist groups,
> were trained by the Indian army.)
>
>
> Thanks largely to the part it was forced to play as America's ally first 
> in
> its war in* support* of the Afghan Islamists and then in its war*
> against*them, Pakistan, whose territory is reeling under these
> contradictions, is
> careening towards civil war. As recruiting agents for America's jihad
> against the Soviet Union, it was the job of the Pakistan army and the ISI 
> to
> nurture and channel funds to Islamic fundamentalist organizations. Having
> wired up these Frankensteins and released them into the world, the US
> expected it could rein them in like pet mastiffs whenever it wanted to.
>
>
> Certainly it did not expect them to come calling in heart of the Homeland 
> on
> September 11. So once again, Afghanistan had to be violently remade. Now 
> the
> debris of a re-ravaged Afghanistan has washed up on Pakistan's borders.
> Nobody, least of all the Pakistan government, denies that it is presiding
> over a country that is threatening to implode. The terrorist training 
> camps,
> the fire-breathing mullahs and the maniacs who believe that Islam will, or
> should, rule the world is mostly the detritus of two Afghan wars. Their 
> ire
> rains down on the Pakistan government and Pakistani civilians as much, if
> not more than it does on India.
>
>
> If at this point India decides to go to war perhaps the descent of the 
> whole
> region into chaos will be complete. The debris of a bankrupt, destroyed
> Pakistan will wash up on India's shores, endangering us as never before. 
> If
> Pakistan collapses, we can look forward to having millions of "non-state
> actors" with an arsenal of nuclear weapons at their disposal as 
> neighbours.
> It's hard to understand why those who steer India's ship are so keen to
> replicate Pakistan's mistakes and call damnation upon this country 
> by*inviting
> * the United States to further meddle clumsily and dangerously in our
> extremely complicated affairs. A superpower never has allies. It only has
> agents.
>
>
> On the plus side, the advantage of going to war is that it's the best way
> for India to avoid facing up to the serious trouble building on our home
> front. The Mumbai attacks were broadcast live (and exclusive!) on all or
> most of our 67 24-hour news channels and god knows how many international
> ones. TV anchors in their studios and journalists at "ground zero" kept up
> an endless stream of excited commentary. Over three days and three nights 
> we
> watched in disbelief as a small group of very young men armed with guns 
> and
> gadgets exposed the powerlessness of the police, the elite National 
> Security
> Guard and the marine commandos of this supposedly mighty, nuclear-powered
> nation.
>
>
> While they did this they indiscriminately massacred unarmed people, in
> railway stations, hospitals and luxury hotels, unmindful of their class,
> caste, religion or nationality. (Part of the helplessness of the security
> forces had to do with having to worry about hostages. In other situations,
> in Kashmir for example, their tactics are not so sensitive. Whole 
> buildings
> are blown up. Human shields are used. The U.S and Israeli armies don't
> hesitate to send cruise missiles into buildings and drop daisy cutters on
> wedding parties in Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan.) But this was 
> different.
> And it was on TV.
>
>
> The boy-terrorists' nonchalant willingness to kill - and be killed -
> mesmerised their international audience. They delivered something 
> different
> from the usual diet of suicide bombings and missile attacks that people 
> have
> grown inured to on the news. Here was something new. Die Hard 25. The
> gruesome performance went on and on. TV ratings soared. Ask any television
> magnate or corporate advertiser who measures broadcast time in seconds, 
> not
> minutes, what that's worth.
>
>
> Eventually the killers died and died hard, all but one. (Perhaps, in the
> chaos, some escaped. We may never know.) Throughout the standoff the
> terrorists made no demands and expressed no desire to negotiate. Their
> purpose was to kill people and inflict as much damage as they could before
> they were killed themselves. They left us completely bewildered. When we 
> say
> "nothing can justify terrorism", what most of us mean is that nothing can
> justify the taking of human life. We say this because we respect life,
> because we think it's precious. So what are we to make of those who care
> nothing for life, not even their own? The truth is that we have no idea 
> what
> to make of them, because we can sense that even before they've died, 
> they've
> journeyed to another world where we cannot reach them.
>
>
> One TV channel (India TV) broadcast a phone conversation with one of the
> attackers, who called himself Imran Babar. I cannot vouch for the veracity
> of the conversation, but the things he talked about were the things
> contained in the "terror emails" that were sent out before several other
> bomb attacks in India. Things we don't want to talk about any more: the
> demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992, the genocidal slaughter of Muslims
> in Gujarat in 2002, the brutal repression in Kashmir. "You're surrounded,"
> the anchor told him. "You are definitely going to die. Why don't you
> surrender?"
>
>
> "We die every day," he replied in a strange, mechanical way. "It's better 
> to
> live one day as a lion and then die this way." He didn't seem to want to
> change the world. He just seemed to want to take it down with him.
>
>
> If the men were indeed members of the Lashkar-e-Taiba, why didn't it 
> matter
> to them that a large number of their victims were Muslim, or that their
> action was likely to result in a severe backlash against the Muslim
> community in India whose rights they claim to be fighting for? Terrorism 
> is
> a heartless ideology, and like most ideologies that have their eye on the
> Big Picture, individuals don't figure in their calculations except as
> collateral damage. It has always been a part of and often even the* aim* 
> of
> terrorist strategy to exacerbate a bad situation in order to expose hidden
> faultlines. The blood of "martyrs" irrigates terrorism. Hindu terrorists
> need dead Hindus, Communist terrorists need dead proletarians, Islamist
> terrorists need dead Muslims. The dead become the demonstration, the proof
> of victimhood, which is central to the project. A single act of terrorism 
> is
> not in itself meant to achieve military victory; at best it is meant to be 
> a
> catalyst that triggers something else, something much larger than itself, 
> a
> tectonic shift, a realignment. The act itself is theatre, spectacle and
> symbolism, and today, the stage on which it pirouettes and performs its 
> acts
> of bestiality is Live TV. Even as the attack was being condemned by TV
> anchors, the effectiveness of the terror strikes were being magnified a
> thousandfold by TV broadcasts.
>
>
> Through the endless hours of analysis and the endless op-ed essays, in 
> India
> at least there has been very little mention of the elephants in the room:
> Kashmir, Gujarat and the demolition of the Babri Masjid. Instead we had
> retired diplomats and strategic experts debate the pros and cons of a war
> against Pakistan. We had the rich threatening not to pay their taxes 
> unless
> their security was guaranteed (is it alright for the poor to remain
> unprotected?). We had people suggest that the government step down and 
> each
> state in India be handed over to a separate corporation. We had the death 
> of
> former prime minster VP Singh, the hero of Dalits and lower castes and
> villain of Upper caste Hindus pass without a mention.
>
>
> We had Suketu Mehta, author of Maximum City and co-writer of the Bollywood
> film Mission Kashmir, give us his version of George Bush's famous "Why 
> they
> hate us" speech. His analysis of why religious bigots, both Hindu and 
> Muslim
> hate Mumbai: "Perhaps because Mumbai stands for lucre, profane dreams and 
> an
> indiscriminate openness." His prescription: "The best answer to the
> terrorists is to dream bigger, make even more money, and visit Mumbai more
> than ever." Didn't George Bush ask Americans to go out and shop after 
> 9/11?
> Ah yes. 9/11, the day we can't seem to get away from.
>
>
> Though one chapter of horror in Mumbai has ended, another might have just
> begun. Day after day, a powerful, vociferous section of the Indian elite,
> goaded by marauding TV anchors who make Fox News look almost radical and
> leftwing, have taken to mindlessly attacking politicians,* all* 
> politicians,
> glorifying the police and the army and virtually asking for a police 
> state.
> It isn't surprising that those who have grown plump on the pickings of
> democracy (such as it is) should now be calling for a police state. The 
> era
> of "pickings" is long gone. We're now in the era of Grabbing by Force, and
> democracy has a terrible habit of getting in the way.
>
>
> Dangerous, stupid television flashcards like the Police are Good 
> Politicians
> are Bad/Chief Executives are Good Chief Ministers are Bad/Army is Good
> Government is Bad/ India is Good Pakistan is Bad are being bandied about 
> by
> TV channels that have already whipped their viewers into a state of almost
> uncontrollable hysteria.
>
>
> Tragically, this regression into intellectual infancy comes at a time when
> people in India were beginning to see that in the business of terrorism,
> victims and perpetrators sometimes exchange roles. It's an understanding
> that the people of Kashmir, given their dreadful experiences of the last 
> 20
> years, have honed to an exquisite art. On the mainland we're still 
> learning.
> (If Kashmir won't willingly integrate into India, it's beginning to look 
> as
> though India will integrate/disintegrate into Kashmir.)
>
>
> It was after the 2001 parliament attack that the first serious questions
> began to be raised. A campaign by a group of lawyers and activists exposed
> how innocent people had been framed by the police and the press, how
> evidence was fabricated, how witnesses lied, how due process had been
> criminally violated at every stage of the investigation. Eventually the
> courts acquitted two out of the four accused, including SAR Geelani, the 
> man
> whom the police claimed was the mastermind of the operation. A third,
> Showkat Guru, was acquitted of all the charges brought against him but was
> then convicted for a fresh, comparatively minor offence. The supreme court
> upheld the death sentence of another of the accused, Mohammad Afzal. In 
> its
> judgment the court acknowledged there was no proof that Mohammed Afzal
> belonged to any terrorist group, but went on to say, quite shockingly, 
> "The
> collective conscience of the society will only be satisfied if capital
> punishment is awarded to the offender." Even today we don't really know 
> who
> the terrorists that attacked the Indian parliament were and who they 
> worked
> for.
>
>
> More recently, on September 19 this year, we had the controversial
> "encounter" at Batla House in Jamia Nagar, Delhi, where the Special Cell 
> of
> the Delhi police gunned down two Muslim students in their rented flat 
> under
> seriously questionable circumstances, claiming that they were responsible
> for serial bombings in Delhi, Jaipur and Ahmedabad in 2008. An assistant
> commissioner of Police, Mohan Chand Sharma, who played a key role in the
> parliament attack investigation, lost his life as well. He was one of
> India's many "encounter specialists" known and rewarded for having 
> summarily
> executed several "terrorists". There was an outcry against the Special 
> Cell
> from a spectrum of people, ranging from eyewitnesses in the local 
> community
> to senior Congress Party leaders, students, journalists, lawyers, 
> academics
> and activists all of whom demanded a judicial inquiry into the incident. 
> In
> response, the BJP and LK Advani lauded Mohan Chand Sharma as a 
> "Braveheart"
> and launched a concerted campaign in which they targeted those who had 
> dared
> to question the integrity of the police, saying it was "suicidal" and
> calling them "anti-national". Of course there has been no inquiry.
>
>
> Only days after the Batla House event, another story about "terrorists"
> surfaced in the news. In a report submitted to a sessions court, the CBI
> said that a team from Delhi's Special Cell (the same team that led the 
> Batla
> House encounter, including Mohan Chand Sharma) had abducted two innocent
> men, Irshad Ali and Moarif Qamar, in December 2005, planted 2kg of RDX and
> two pistols on them and then arrested them as "terrorists" who belonged to
> Al Badr (which operates out of Kashmir). Ali and Qamar who have spent 
> years
> in jail, are only two examples out of hundreds of Muslims who have been
> similarly jailed, tortured and even killed on false charges.
>
>
> This pattern changed in October 2008 when Maharashtra's Anti-Terrorism 
> Squad
> (ATS) that was investigating the September 2008 Malegaon blasts arrested a
> Hindu preacher Sadhvi Pragya, a self-styled God man Swami Dayanand Pande 
> and
> Lt Col Purohit, a serving officer of the Indian Army. All the arrested
> belong to Hindu Nationalist organizations including a Hindu Supremacist
> group called Abhinav Bharat. The Shiv Sena, the BJP and the RSS condemned
> the Maharashtra ATS, and vilified its chief, Hemant Karkare, claiming he 
> was
> part of a political conspiracy and declaring that "Hindus could not be
> terrorists". LK Advani changed his mind about his policy on the police and
> made rabble rousing speeches to huge gatherings in which he denounced the
> ATS for daring to cast aspersions on holy men and women.
>
>
> On the November 25 newspapers reported that the ATS was investigating the
> high profile VHP Chief Pravin Togadia's possible role in the Malegaon
> blasts. The next day, in an extraordinary twist of fate, Hemant Karkare 
> was
> killed in the Mumbai Attacks. The chances are that the new chief whoever 
> he
> is, will find it hard to withstand the political pressure that is bound to
> be brought on him over the Malegaon investigation.
>
>
> While the Sangh Parivar does not seem to have come to a final decision 
> over
> whether or not it is anti-national and suicidal to question the police,
> Arnab Goswami, anchorperson of Times Now television, has stepped up to the
> plate. He has taken to naming, demonising and openly heckling people who
> have dared to question the integrity of the police and armed forces. My 
> name
> and the name of the well-known lawyer Prashant Bhushan have come up 
> several
> times. At one point, while interviewing a former police officer, Arnab
> Goswami turned to camera: "Arundhati
> Roy<http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/arundhatiroy>and Prashant
> Bhushan," he said, "I hope you are watching this. We think you
> are disgusting." For a TV anchor to do this in an atmosphere as charged 
> and
> as frenzied as the one that prevails today, amounts to incitement as well 
> as
> threat, and would probably in different circumstances have cost a 
> journalist
> his or her job.
>
>
> So according to a man aspiring to be the next prime minister of India, and
> another who is the public face of a mainstream TV channel, citizens have 
> no
> right to raise questions about the police. This in a country with a 
> shadowy
> history of suspicious terror attacks, murky investigations, and fake
> "encounters". This in a country that boasts of the highest number of
> custodial deaths in the world and yet refuses to ratify the International
> Covenant on Torture. A country where the ones who make it to torture
> chambers are the lucky ones because at least they've escaped being
> "encountered" by our Encounter Specialists. A country where the line 
> between
> the Underworld and the Encounter Specialists virtually does not exist.
>
>
> How should those of us whose hearts have been sickened by the knowledge of
> all of this view the Mumbai attacks, and what are we to do about them? 
> There
> are those who point out that US strategy has been successful inasmuch as 
> the
> United States has not suffered a major attack on its home ground since 
> 9/11.
> However, some would say that what America is suffering now is far worse. 
> If
> the idea behind the 9/11 terror attacks was to goad America into showing 
> its
> true colors, what greater success could the terrorists have asked for? The
> US army is bogged down in two unwinnable wars, which have made the United
> States the most hated country in the world. Those wars have contributed
> greatly to the unraveling of the American economy and who knows, perhaps
> eventually the American empire. (Could it be that battered, bombed
> Afghanistan, the graveyard of the Soviet Union, will be the undoing of 
> this
> one too?) Hundreds of thousands people including thousands of American
> soldiers have lost their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan. The frequency of
> terrorist strikes on U.S allies/agents (including India) and U.S interests
> in the rest of the world has increased dramatically since 9/11. George 
> Bush,
> the man who led the US response to 9/11 is a despised figure not just
> internationally, but also by his own people. Who can possibly claim that 
> the
> United States is winning the war on terror?
>
>
> Homeland Security has cost the US government billions of dollars. Few
> countries, certainly not India, can afford that sort of price tag. But 
> even
> if we could, the fact is that this vast homeland of ours* cannot* be 
> secured
> or policed in the way the United States has been. It's not that kind of
> homeland. We have a hostile nuclear weapons state that is slowly spinning
> out of control as a neighbour, we have a military occupation in Kashmir 
> and
> a shamefully persecuted, impoverished minority of more than 150 million
> Muslims who are being targeted as a community and pushed to the wall, 
> whose
> young see no justice on the horizon, and who, were they to totally lose 
> hope
> and radicalise, end up as a threat not just to India, but to the whole
> world. If ten men can hold off the NSG commandos, and the police for three
> days, and if it takes half a million soldiers to hold down the Kashmir
> valley, do the math. What kind of Homeland Security can secure India?
>
>
> Nor for that matter will any other quick fix. Anti-terrorism laws are not
> meant for terrorists; they're for people that governments don't like. 
> That's
> why they have a conviction rate of less than 2%. They're just a means of
> putting inconvenient people away without bail for a long time and 
> eventually
> letting them go. Terrorists like those who attacked Mumbai are hardly 
> likely
> to be deterred by the prospect of being refused bail or being sentenced to
> death. It's what they* want*.
>
>
> 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.
> ******************
> 2/4
>
>
> (This interview of Pervez Hoodbhoy was conducted by Cristina Otten for
> FOCUS. It may be found on-line in German at:
> http://www.focus.de/politik/ausland/tid-12856/pakistan-die-menschen-s
> ind-blind-vor-hass_aid_355157.html
> A more readable pdf version is also attached.)
>
>
> THE MUMBAI MASSACRE AND PAKISTAN'S NEW NIGHTMARES
>
> CO: Tensions between Pakistan and India have been growing after the Mumbai
> attacks. Are we close to a military escalation?
>
> PH: In spite of vociferous demands by the Indian public, Prime Minister
> Manmohan Singh's government has withstood the pressure to conduct
> cross-border strikes into Pakistan. Correspondingly, in spite of the
> bitter criticism by Islamic parties, Pakistan's government has moved
> against the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba (LeT), the jihadist organization that is
> almost certainly behind the attacks. ÝFor now, the tension has eased
> somewhat but another attack could push India over the fence.
>
> CO: What makes the LeT so different from other militant groups? Is
> Pakistan really moving against it?
>
> PH: LeT, one of the largest militant groups in Pakistan, was established
> over 15 years ago. It had the full support of the Pakistani military and
> Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) for over a decade because it focussed
> upon fighting Indian rule in Muslim Kashmir. Today it is one of the very
> few extremist groups left that does not attack the Pakistani army and
> state; in contrast almost all others have turned into fierce enemies. We
> now hear that a few members of LeT, who were named by India, have been
> arrested. Time will tell whether this was a serious move, or if this was a
> ruse to ease the enormous pressure against Pakistan. If serious, then the
> Army and ISI will have earned the bitter enmity of yet another former
> ally. They are afraid of a repeat of their experience with
> Jaish-e-Muhammad, a formerly supported Islamic militant group that now is
> responsible for extreme brutalities against of Pakistani soldiers captured
> in FATA, including torture and decapitations. It's a nightmarish situation
> for the Pakistan Army. Ý
>
> CO: How have Pakistanis reacted to the Mumbai massacre?
>
> PH: The initial reaction was of sympathy. I did not see any celebrations,
> contrary to those that I saw after 911. But then, as the Indian TV
>
> channels started accusing Pakistan and demanding that it be bombed in
> retaliation, the reaction turned to that of anger and flat denial -
> Pakistanis did not want to accept that this attack was done by Pakistanis
> or had been launched from Pakistani soil. Subsequently one saw amazing
> mental gymnastics. Popular TV anchors, and their guests, invoked far-out
> conspiracy theories. Years ago, some of the same anchors had confidently
> claimed that Kathmandu-Delhi Indian Airlines Flight 814 (IC814) had been
> hijacked by RAW to malign Pakistan. They had also ridiculed the notion
> that Pakistan was involved in the Kargil invasion. Now, pointing to the
> RSS hand in the Samjhota Express bombing, they are alternately ascribing
> the Mumbai attacks to radical Hindus, or to Jews and Americans. It is sad
> to see intelligent persons losing their marbles. Ý
>
> CO: Pakistan has always stressed that it will deliver the first nuclear
> strike if it feels threatened by India? Do you see any signs on the
>
> Pakistani sign to carry out its threat?
>
> PH: About a week before the Mumbai massacre, President Asif Ali Zardari
> had given the assurance that Pakistan would not use nuclear weapons first.
> India had announced a no first use policy almost ten years ago. But
> Zardari is not taken seriously by the Pakistani generals who actually
> control the Bomb, and the Indian NFU declaration is frankly of no
> consequence. Cross-border raids by India could well ignite a conventional
> war. If that happens, all bets are off and it could escalate without
> warning into a nuclear conflict. For many years US defence strategists,
> belonging to various think tanks and war colleges, have been simulating
> conflicts between Pakistan and India. They say that a conventional war
> will almost certainly lead to a nuclear conclusion. Fear of nuclear
> weapons has made deterrence work. More accurately, deterrence has worked
> only thus far.ÝNo guarantees can be given for the future.
>
> CO: Why did the assassins choose India instead of committing attacks
> against Western allies in Afghanistan?
>
> PH: LeT is based around Lahore, which is on the Pakistan-India border, in
> a town called Muridke. This has a huge militant training and charity
> complex. LeT's membership is mostly Punjabi, which makes it linguistically
> and culturally quite unsuited for fighting in Afghanistan. You could say
> that LeT is an India-specific, Kashmir-specific group. Indeed, over the
> years it has had many military successes in Kashmir against Indian forces.
> But LeT, like other militant groups in Pakistan, sees a nexus between
> Indians, Americans, and Israelis. Hence they are all seen as enemies and
> fair game. Ý
>
> CO: What did the Mumbai terrorists want?
>
> PH: No demands were made and all hostages were killed. So the purpose of
> the attack was never formally declared. On the other hand, the stated
> goals of LeT and similar organizations based in Pakistan leave little
> doubt. The attack clearly sought to hurt India's economy and its newly
> acquired reputation as an economic powerhouse, and to create a climate of
> war between India and Pakistan. If Pakistan moves its troops towards the
> eastern border the pressure on the Pakistani Taliban in FATA, which is
> close to the western border, would be lessened.  Still another reason
> would be to encourage pogroms against Muslims in India. This would swell
> the ranks of the extremists,Ýand also have the added benefit of
> destabilizing both the Pakistani and Indian states. Finally, the attack
> was a means of releasing hatred against non-Muslims. Ý
>
> CO: What differences and parallels do you see between the Mumbai attacks
> and the attack in the in Marriott Hotel in Islamabad?
>
> PH: They were quite dissimilar in how they were executed. The Mumbai
> attacks were extremely intricate, used GPS and voice-over-internet
> protocols for communication purposes, involved extensive military
> training, and probably required planning over a period of a year. The goal
> was to kill foreigners, particularly Jews and Americans, although Muslims
> were also collateral casualties. On the other hand, the Marriot bombing in
> Islamabad was a relatively simple affair involving a single dump-truck
>
> with a suicide bomber, and its victims were principally Muslims. The basic
> purpose, however, was similar - to destabilize the Pakistani state, take
> revenge on the US (2 of the 58 killed were US marines), and raise the cost
> of war in Afghanistan and FATA.
>
> CO: In the West experts talk about a new dimension of terror in India. Do
> you also see tight connections between Lashkar-e-TaibaÝ and al-Qaida?
>
> PH:  One is naturally tempted to guess a nexus between LeT and Al-Qaida.
> Of course, they do share similar goals. But in the world that extremists
> inhabit, mere similarity is insufficient - it has to be much closer than
> that because small ideological differences are amplified out of
> proportion. As yet there is no proof of joint operations or cooperation.
> So presently this is no more than a plausible hypothesis.
>
> CO: What role does Kashmir play in the current conflict?
>
> PH: Since 1987, Kashmir has been in a state of upheaval. Fraudulent
>
> elections conducted by India led to widespread resentment, followed by a
> horrifically bloody crackdown by Indian security forces. Pakistan's army
> saw opportunity in this, and waged a covert war in Kashmir using jihadists
> to "bleed India with a thousand cuts". The United Jihad Council, which
> oversees the activities of an estimated 22 Pakistan-based organizations,
> acts outside of the domain of the Pakistani state but it has had active
> support from the countryís army and intelligence agencies. The Kargil
> conflict in 1999 brought matters to a head when General Musharraf
> initiated a war with the assistance of jihadist forces. This inflicted
> severe damage on Indian forces but Pakistan was ultimately forced to
> withdraw. Jihadists subsequently celebrated General Musharraf as a hero,
> and vilified Nawaz Sharif for a cowardly surrender.
>
> CO: In January 2002, General Musharraf had declared that no groups on
> Pakistani territory would be permitted to launch cross-border attacks. Was
> this promise fulfilled?
>
> PH: Subsequently there indeed was a decline in cross-border infiltrations,
> and some lessening of the covert support given by Pakistani agencies. But
> this was far from zero and they maintained a strong presence. On a
> personal note: soon after the terrible October 8, 2005 earthquake, I had
> gone to various areas of Azad Kashmir for relief work. There I found the
> Lashkar-i-Tayyaba, Jaish-e-Muhammad, Sipah-i-Sahaba, and other banned
> jihadist organizations operating openly and freely using military-style
> six-wheeled vehicles, as well as displaying their weapons. Their relief
> efforts were far better organized than that of the Pakistan army and, in
> fact, they were pulling injured soldiers out of the rubble. When I
> mentioned this fact to General Musharraf a few months later at a Kashmir
> peace conference, he was very angry at me for discussing a tabooed
> subject.
>
> CO: On the one hand, we have radical extremists in Pakistan who want to
> bring strict Islamic law into force and demonize the West. On the other
> hand, however, the government presents itself as a friend and ally of the
> United States. Could you please describe this antagonism and explain where
> it originates from? What does this tell us about the growth of extremism
> in Pakistan?
>
> PH: Radical extremism is the illegitimate offspring of a union between the
> United States under Ronald Reagan, and Pakistan under General Zia-ul-Haq.
> Twenty five years ago, the two countries had joined up to harness Islamic
> fighters for expelling the Soviets from Afghanistan. The US was quite
> happy to see radical Islam spreading because it served its goal at the
> time. Simultaneously, Pakistan saw a major social transformation under
> General Zia. Prayers in government departments were deemed compulsory,
> floggings were carried out publicly, punishments were meted out to those
> who did not fast in Ramadan, selection for university academic posts
> required that the candidate demonstrate knowledge of Islamic teachings,
> and jihad was declared essential for every Muslim. But today the
> government is in open conflict with the radicals. It has to deal with a
> spontaneous groundswell of Islamic zeal. The notion of an Islamic state -
>
> as yet in some amorphous and diffuse form - is more popular today than
> ever before as people look desperately for miracles to rescue a failing
> state. Even though the government and military in Pakistan are allied
> formally to the US, the people are strongly against the US.
>
> CO: What parts of the Pakistani society support al-Qaida and Osama bin
> Laden?
>
> PH: Baluchistan and Sind are far less supportive than Punjab or the NWFP.
> The amazing fact is that parts of Pakistan's upper class - which is very
> Westernized but also very anti-Western - also support the Islamists. I
> find it tragic that there is no uproar in the country when Taliban suicide
> bombers target mosques, funerals, hospitals, girls schools, and slaughter
> policemen and soldiers. People have become so anti-American that it has
> blinded them to these atrocities. Even the Pakistani left is thoroughly
> confused and mistakes the Taliban as anti-imperialist fighters.
>
>
> CO: And where do you stand on this matter? Do you see anything that the
> Islamists have to offer?
>
> PH: The people of Pakistan need and deserve everything that people
> everywhere else want. This means food, jobs, houses to live in, a system
> of justice and governance, and protection of life and property. Equally,
> people need freedom of worship and thought, education for both males and
> females, and protection of their freedom as summarized in the Universal
> Declaration of Human Rights. These are everybody's primary needs. After
> this - a distinct second - come matters that deal with national
> sovereignty, foreign policy, various global issues, etc. Frankly, I cannot
> see Pakistanís Islamists offering anything positive. They are against
> population planning, educating females, tolerating other sects or
> religions, etc. They neither know the outside world, nor want to know it.
> All they know - and know well - is how to make war. Fortunately, as their
> rout in the recent elections showed, most Pakistanis do not want to live
> under their narrow doctrines and belief system.
>
> CO: President Asif AliÝ Zardari promised to hunt terrorists and to destroy
> terror camps in Pakistan? But his affirmations seem to be halfhearted.
> Can't he do more or doesn't he want do more?
>
> PH: It is not up to him to do more. The real power lies with the Pakistan
> Army, which is still undecided as to who the real enemy is. The Army has
> lost nearly two thousand soldiers in battles with extremists. But it still
> cannot convince itself that they constitute an existentialist threat to
> Pakistan. One can understand this reluctance. Over the years, officers and
> soldiers were recruited into the Army on the basis that they were
> defenders of Islam and would always fight India. Instead they now have to
> fight forces that claim to be even better defenders of Islam. Worse, they
> are no longer being called upon to fight India, which is what they were
> trained for. So there is confusion and demoralization, and practically
> zero public understanding or support. Therefore, Pakistani soldiers are
> not fighting well at all in FATA. Many have surrendered without a fight.
>
> CO: Do you support the government's war against extremists?
>
> PH: This is the first time in my life that I feel the Army should be
> supported, but only to the extent that it fights the extremists without
> killing innocents. Unfortunately, the Army's current tactic is to flatten
> villages suspected of harbouring terrorists. The collateral damage is huge
> and completely unacceptable.
>
> CO: Pakistan has armed and financed the Taliban after the US invasion of
> Afghanistan. The CIA pays Pakistan to arrest al-Qaeda operatives, but
> Pakistan uses the money to fund the Taliban resurgence in northwest
> Pakistan. Any changes under the new president?
>
> PH: It will take time - and perhaps still more suffering - to kick an old
> habit. Even though the Army is being literally slaughtered by the Taliban,
> it continues to make a distinction between the "good" and "bad" Taliban.
> The good ones are, by definition, those who attack only US/Nato or Indian
> interests in Afghanistan, but do not attack the Pakistan Army. The good
> ones are seen as essential for having a friendly Afghanistan when, as will
>
> surely happen some day, the Americans withdraw. Among the good Taliban are
> jihadist leaders such as Jalaludin Haqqani. On the other hand, Baitullah
> Mehsud or Maulana Fazlullah, are considered bad Taliban because they
> attack the Army and the state. Interestingly, Army inspired propaganda
> paints the bad Taliban as Indian agents - which is quite ridiculous. This
> false differentiation is the real reason for the Army's ambivalence and
> inability to deal effectively with the Taliban menace.
>
> CO: Pakistan is a nuclear state. Should we fear that one day the Taliban
> or al-Qaida could get access to the nuclear arsenal?
>
> PH: I am more worried about extremists having access to nuclear materials,
> particularly highly enriched uranium, rather than a completed weapon.
> Because of secrecy requirements, it is very difficult for outsiders to
> monitor the output of uranium enrichment or plutonium reprocessing plants.
>
> Interestingly, we are seeing a shift away from nuclear weapons in the
> West. The unusability of nuclear weapons by national states is being
> recognized even by mainstream politicians in the US and Europe because
> nuclear weapons now no longer guarantee the monopoly of power. This makes
> possible the ultimate de-legitimization of nuclear weapons, and hence
> winding down of fissile material production globally. This may be our best
> long-term hope of countering the nuclear terrorist threat, whether by
> Al-Qaida or other terrorist groups. Meanwhile, in the short term, great
> care must be given to watching over suspicious nuclear activities.
>
> CO: What should India do and what is your forecast for the region?
>
> PH: India should not attack Pakistan. This would be counter-productive in
> every possible way. Even if it wins a war, it will be a pyrrhic victory.
> On the other hand, a small attack can be no more than a pin-prick. This
> would do more harm than good because it will unite the army and the
> jihadists who, at this juncture in history, are in serious confrontation
> with each other. Worse, even a small attack could lead to large response,
> and then escalate out of control. Nuclear armed countries simply cannot
> afford skirmishes. I think India's demand for action against jihadist
> groups is entirely legitimate, but this must be done by Pakistan, which is
> susceptible to international pressure. To get rid of militants and
> extremists - whether Muslim or Hindu - is in the best interests of both
> Pakistan and India.
>
> CO: Will Pakistani extremists win or can the West still bring about a
> rebound?
>
> PH: It's a grim situation but not irreversible. The invasion of Iraq, and
> US imperial policies over the last decades, created a hatred for Americans
> that ultimately translated into support for all who fight them. Most
> Pakistanis do not approve of the Taliban's fundamental and primitivist
> social agenda. But, by virtue of fighting the Americans, popular sentiment
> is still with them. So, reducing anti-Americanism is the key. One hopes
> that Barack Obama will be able to undo some of the harm his country did to
> Pakistan. Let's see. But basically it is for Pakistanis - not Indians or
> anybody else - to fight it out. We Pakistanis have to realize that this is
> a war for our very existence as a civilized nation. Western support for
> Pakistan must be very judicious and not too overt. Similarly, isolating
> Pakistan, or inflicting harsh punitive measures, could easily backfire.
> The Taliban and allied extremists have a real chance of winning in
> Pakistan.  The state is already crumbling in places and it could
> disintegrate quite rapidly, leaving the fanatics in charge. One cannot
> think of a bigger disaster for Pakistan.
>
> -------------
>
> ****************
> 3/4
> *An article written by Anand Patwardhan which was rejected by the Times of
> India:*
>
> *Terror: The Aftermath*
> *Anand PAtwardhan.
>
> *The attack on Mumbai is over. After the numbing sorrow comes the blame 
> game
> and the solutions. Loud voices amplified by saturation TV: Why don't we
> amend our Constitution to create new anti-terror laws? Why don't we arm 
> our
> police with AK 47s? Why don't we do what Israel did after Munich or the 
> USA
> did after 9/11 and hot pursue the enemy? Solutions that will lead us 
> further
> into the abyss. For terror is a self-fulfilling prophecy. It thrives on
> reaction, polarization, militarization and the thirst for revenge.
>
> The External Terror
> Those who invoke America need only to analyze if its actions after 9/11
> increased or decreased global terror. It invaded oil-rich Iraq fully 
> knowing
> that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, killing over 200,000 Iraqis 
> citizens
> but allowing a cornered Bin Laden to escape from Afghanistan. It recruited
> global support for Islamic militancy, which began to be seen as a just
> resistance against American mass murder. Which begs the question of who
> created Bin Laden in the first place, armed the madarsas of Pakistan and
> rejuvenated the concept of Islamic jehad? Israel played its own role in
> stoking the fires of jehad. The very creation of Israel in 1948 robbed
> Palestinians of their land, an act that Mahatma Gandhi to his credit
> deplored at the time as an unjust way to redress the wrongs done to Jews
> during the Holocaust. What followed has been a slow and continuing attack 
> on
> the Palestinian nation. At first Palestinian resistance was led by secular
> forces represented by Yasser Arafat but as these were successfully
> undermined, Islamic forces took over the mantle. The first, largely
> non-violent Intifada was crushed, a second more violent one replaced it 
> and
> when all else failed, human bombs appeared.
>
> Thirty years ago when I first went abroad there were two countries my 
> Indian
> passport forbade me to visit. One was racist South Africa. The other was
> Israel. We were non-aligned and stood for disarmament and world peace. 
> Today
> Israel and America are our biggest military allies. Is it surprising that 
> we
> are on the jehadi hit list? Israel, America and other prosperous countries
> can to an extent protect themselves against the determined jehadi, but can
> India put an impenetrable shield over itself? Remember that when attackers
> are on a suicide mission, the strongest shields have crumbled. New York 
> was
> laid low not with nuclear weapons but with a pair of box cutters. India is
> for many reasons a quintessentially soft target. Our huge population, vast
> landmass and coastline are impossible to protect. The rich may build new
> barricades. The Taj and the Oberoi can be made safer. So can our airports
> and planes. Can our railway stations and trains, bus stops, busses, 
> markets
> and lanes do the same?
>
> The Terror Within
> The threat of terror in India does not come exclusively from the outside.
> Apart from being hugely populated by the poor India is also a country
> divided, not just between rich and poor, but by religion, caste and
> language. This internal divide is as potent a breeding ground for terror 
> as
> jehadi camps abroad. Nor is jehad the copyright of one religion alone. It
> can be argued that international causes apart, India has jehadis that are
> fully home grown. Perhaps the earliest famous one was Nathuram Godse who
> acting at the behest of his mentor Vinayak Savarkar (still referred to as
> "Veer" or "brave" although he refused to own up to his role in the
> conspiracy), murdered Mahatma Gandhi for the crime of championing Muslims.
>
> Jump forward to 6th December, 1992, the day Hindu fanatics demolished the
> Babri Mosque setting into motion a chain of events that still wreaks havoc
> today. From the Bombay riots of 1992 to the bomb blasts of 1993, the 
> Gujarat
> pogroms of 2002 and hundreds of smaller deadly events, the last 16 years
> have been the bloodiest since Partition. Action has been followed by
> reaction in an endless cycle of escalating retribution. At the core on the
> Hindu side of terror are organizations that openly admire Adolph Hitler,
> nursing the hate of historic wrongs inflicted by Muslims. Ironically these
> votaries of Hitler remain friends and admirers of Israel.
>
> On the Muslim side of terror are scores of disaffected youth, many of whom
> have seen their families tortured and killed in more recent pogroms.
> Christians too have fallen victim to recent Hindutva terror but as yet not
> formed the mechanisms for revenge. Dalits despite centuries of caste
> oppression, have not yet retaliated in violence although a small fraction 
> is
> being drawn into an armed struggle waged by Naxalites.
>
> It is clear that no amount of spending on defense, no amount of patrolling
> the high seas, no amount of increasing the military and police and 
> equipping
> them with the latest weaponry can end the cycle of violence or place India
> under a bubble of safety. Just as nuclear India did not lead to more 
> safety,
> but only to a nuclear Pakistan, no amount of homeland security can save 
> us.
> And inviting Israel's Mossad and America's CIA/FBI to the security table 
> is
> like giving the anti-virus contract to those who spread the virus in the
> first place. It can only make us more of a target for the next determined
> jehadi attack.
>
> Policing, Justice and the Media
> As for draconian anti-terror laws, they too only breed terror as for the
> most part they are implemented by a State machinery that has imbibed
> majoritarian values. So in Modi's Gujarat after the ethnic cleansing of
> Muslims in 2002, despite scores of confessions to rape and murder captured
> on hidden camera, virtually no Hindu extremists were punished while
> thousands of Muslims rotted in jail under draconian laws. The same 
> happened
> in Bombay despite the Shiv Sena being found guilty by the Justice
> Shrikrishna Commission. Under pressure a few cases were finally brought to
> trial but all escaped with the lightest of knuckle raps. In stark contrast
> many Muslims accused in the 1993 bomb blasts were given death sentences.
>
> The bulk of our media, policing and judicial systems swallows the canard
> that Muslims are by nature violent. Removing democratic safeguards
> guaranteed by the Constitution can only make this worse. Every act of
> wrongful imprisonment and torture that then follows is likely to turn
> innocents into material for future terrorists to draw upon. Already the
> double standards are visible. While the Students Islamic Movement of India
> is banned, Hindutva outfits like the RSS, the VHP, the Bajrang Dal, and 
> the
> Shiv Sena remain legal entities. The leader of the MNS, Raj Thackeray
> recently openly spread such hatred that several north Indians were killed 
> by
> lynch mobs. Amongst these were the Dube brothers, doctors from Kalyan who
> treated the poor for a grand fee of Rs.10 per patient. Raj Thackeray like
> his uncle Bal before him, remains free after issuing public threats that
> Bombay would burn if anyone had the guts to arrest him. Modi remains free
> despite the pogroms of Gujarat. Congress party murderers of Sikhs in 1984
> remain free. Justice in India is clearly not there for all. Increasing the
> powers of the police cannot solve this problem. Only honest and unbiased
> implementation of laws that exist, can.
>
> It is a tragedy of the highest proportions that one such honest policeman,
> Anti-Terrorist Squad chief Hemant Karkare, who had begun to unravel the
> thread of Hindutva terror was himself gunned down, perhaps by Muslim 
> terror.
> It is reported that Col. Purohit and fellow Hindutva conspirators now in
> judicial custody, celebrated the news of Karkare's death. Until Karkare 
> took
> charge, the Malegaon bomb blasts in which Muslims were killed and the
> Samjhauta Express blasts in which Pakistani visitors to India were killed
> were being blamed on Muslims. Karkare exposed a hitherto unknown Hindutva
> outfit as masterminding a series of killer blasts across the country. For
> his pains Karkare came under vicious attack not just from militant 
> Hindutva
> but from the mainstream BJP. He was under tremendous pressure to prove his
> patriotism. Was it this that led this senior officer to don helmet and
> ill-fitting bullet proof vest and rush into battle with a pistol? Or was 
> it
> just his natural instinct, the same courage that had led him against all
> odds, to expose Hindutva terror?
>
> Whatever it was, it only underlines the fact that jehadis of all kinds are
> actually allies of each other. So Bin Laden served George Bush and
> vice-versa. So Islamic and Hindutva jehadis have served each other for
> years. Do they care who dies? Of the 200 people killed in the last few 
> days
> by Islamic jehadis, a high number were Muslims. Many were waiting to board
> trains to celebrate Eid in their hometowns in UP and Bihar, when their
> co-religionists gunned them down. Shockingly the media has not commented 
> on
> this, nor focused on the tragedy at the railway station, choosing to
> concentrate on tragedies that befell the well-to-do. And it is the media
> that is leading the charge to turn us into a war-mongering police state
> where we may lead lives with an illusion of safety, but with the certainty
> of joylessness.
>
> I am not arguing that we do not need efficient security at public places 
> and
> at vulnerable sites. But real security will only come when it is 
> accompanied
> by real justice, when the principles of democracy are implemented in every
> part of the country, when the legitimate grievances of people are not
> crushed, when the arms race is replaced by a race for decency and 
> humanity,
> when our children grow up in an atmosphere where religious faith is put to
> the test of reason. Until such time we will remain at the mercy of
> "patriots" and zealots.
>
>
> *************
> 4/4
> Mordecai Briemberg of Vancouver-based People's Radio talks with Hari 
> Sharma
>
>
> http://www.rabble.ca/podcasts/shows/redeye/understanding-assault-mumbai
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