[Reader-list] Indian Mujahideen: poison fruit of saffron politics, jehadi mindset

[Lalit Ambardar]

 If only the calender was stretched only a little a bit in to the not so distant past. Pan Islamism inspired terrorism erupted  in Kashmir in 1989-90. Wonder "secularists'"/"liberals'" justification for ethnic cleansing of hapless minority Kashmiri Hindu Pandits in the land of their ancestors at the hands of Kashmiri jihadists?
Rgds all 
LA
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> Date: Sat, 11 Dec 2010 20:25:16 +0530
> From: subhachops at gmail.com
> To: reader-list at sarai.net
> Subject: [Reader-list] Indian Mujahideen: poison fruit of saffron politics,	jehadi mindset
> 
> Indian Mujahideen: poison fruit of saffron politics, jehadi mindset
> By Amulya Ganguli, IANS,
> 
> Two factors have complicated the terrorism problem in India. One is
> Pakistan's, or rather, the Pakistan Army's implacable hostility. This
> animus has acquired a nihilistic dimension with the involvement of
> suicide squads patronised by the army and Inter-Services Intelligence
> (ISI), which has been described as a rogue agency by none other than
> A.Q. Khan, "father" of the Pakistani nuclear programme.
> 
> The other factor is the saffron brotherhood's sustained role in
> fostering anger among Muslims by its longstanding anti-minority
> philosophy, which led to the demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992
> and the Gujarat riots 10 years later. For years before the demolition,
> the Hindutva lobby led by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) had
> carried on a relentless campaign to portray Muslims and Christians as
> unpatriotic.
> 
> Arguably, if the RSS and its political wing, the Bharatiya Janata
> Party (BJP), had not been so persistent in their venomous
> anti-minority propaganda, the only form of terrorism which India would
> have had to face was the one sponsored by Pakistan. In that event, the
> Lashkar-e-Taiba would have been the main terrorist outfit endangering
> India.
> 
> But the humiliation and anger bred by the saffron targeting of the
> Babri Masjid, and then again by the Gujarat riots, have undoubtedly
> played a part in the formation of the Indian Mujahideen (IM) by
> disaffected and alienated Muslims. The IM, therefore, can be said to
> be the poison fruit of saffron politics - the right-wing politics of
> Hindu nationalists.
> 
> What is interesting is that the diminishing electoral returns from
> this kind of frenzied, fascistic policies have convinced even the BJP
> today that pluralism remains the best bet for success. As a result,
> the man who is suspected to be behind the Gujarat outbreak, Chief
> Minister Narendra Modi, has virtually turned over a new leaf since
> 2002 to focus on development.
> 
> The same rejection of religious sectarianism in favour of development
> helped Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar rout his rivals in the recent
> elections in the state and emerge as a front-runner for leadership of
> the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) because of his secular
> credentials.
> 
> If the BJP leaders had realised this basic truth of the virtues of
> multiculturalism in the 1990s, then they might have desisted from
> playing such an incendiary pro-Hindu role. But now it is too late. The
> seeds of communal divisiveness have not only been planted but seem to
> have taken root among a small section of Muslims. The latter are also
> undoubtedly aided and abetted by Pakistan-based terror groups.
> 
> Banned outfits like the IM and the Students Islamic Movement of India
> (SIMI) could have been gradually weaned away from their destructive
> path if the BJP was forthright in its rejection of its policies of the
> 1990s, which were based on the stridently anti-minority philosophy of
> Savarkar and Golwalkar. But while the BJP is either unable or
> unwilling to break away completely from the past, the RSS and other
> rabid constituents of the Sangh Parivar like the Vishwa Hindu Parishad
> (VHP) and the Bajrang Dal continue to be devoted followers of
> Savarkar's and Golwalkar's sectarian line.
> 
> The recent Allahabad High Court judgment's virtual acceptance of the
> site of the Babri Masjid as the birthplace of Hindu deity Ram has been
> grist to their mill.
> 
> To quote from an article in the RSS journal Organiser, "the
> temple-favouring verdict ... will never be acceptable to the Jilanis,
> Ansaris, Bukharis, Shahabuddins, who along with Babar's descendants
> will sooner or later reveal their true colours".
> 
> What such a provocative stand means is that the IM and SIMI will
> always have enough inflammable material in their hands to persuade
> their gullible followers, however small in number, to pursue the
> jehadi path of indiscriminate violence aimed at setting off communal
> riots.
> 
> It is another matter that an overwhelming majority of Hindus and
> Muslims have woken up to the realities of their mischievous plans and
> learnt to ignore such acts of provocation, as the calm reaction to the
> Dec 7 blast in Varanasi showed. Even the Mumbai mayhem of Nov 26,
> 2008, did not disturb communal peace.
> 
> But the fact remains that the IM and SIMI cannot be wiped out, as the
> Khalistani outfits of the militant Sikhs have been, as long as the RSS
> and other members of the Parivar do not give up their cherished dream
> of converting India into a Hindu Rashtra (nation). To quote from
> Organiser again: "We shall engage ourselves in the godly mission of
> freeing the entire country...the entire Ramjanmabhoomi, the entire
> Mother India from the clutches of every shade of traitor".
> 
> The misuse of religion for political purposes has been the bane of
> Indian politics. It led to the partition of 1947 because the Muslim
> League's poor performance in the 1937 elections convinced it that it
> could make no headway without concocting the slogan of "Islam in
> danger" in a Hindu India. Similarly, the BJP's reduction to a party
> with only two Lok Sabha seats in 1984 made it turn to the RSS-VHP line
> of "freeing" Mother India from the Jilanis, Ansaris and their
> co-religionists. The militancy of the IM and SIMI has been the result.
> 
> (11.12.2010 - Amulya Ganguli is a political analyst. He can be reached
> at aganguli at mail.com)
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