Very much like "Muslim terrorism" or "Islamic
terrorism", the term
"Hindu terrorism" is highly objectionable.
It falsely suggests that (i) this brand of terrorism
has the sanction,
if not an automatic and inevitable product, of Hindu
religion and (ii)
it has the sanction of the bulk, if not all, Hindus.
That's of course ridiculous and also
counter-productive.
It is counter-productive in two ways.
One, it'll unnecessarily, and of course unfairly,
irritate a large
number of Hindus who have got nothing to do with these
terrorists and
at no point of time endorsed such acts.
Two, it straightway plays into the hands of the gang
of terrorists by
deepening and widening the fault line separating
"Hindu" and "Muslim"
identities and foregrounding the religious identities
overshadowing
all other multitude of identities so very necessary
for the
actualisation of the Hindutva project.
So use of this term is either plainly stupid or just
fiendish.
Not for nothing the Saffron Brigade is trying to foist
this term on
the collective discourse in the name of countering it.
As opposed to "Radical Islamist terrorism", "Hindutva
terrorism" or
simply "terrorism of the Hindutva Brigade" appears to
be far more
appropriate.
Sukla
On 11/19/08, Countercurrents
<editor@countercurrents.org> wrote:
>
>
> http://www.countercurrents.org/raina191108.htm
>
> Hindu Terrorism
>
> By Badri Raina
>
> 19 November, 2008
> Zmag
>
>
> Epigraph:
>
> "underlying these religions were a common set of
beliefs about how
you treat
> other people and how you aspire to act, not just for
yourself but
also for
> the greater good"
>
> (Obama in his interview about Religion given to
Cathleen Falsani,
> March,27,2004; cf. to his mother's teaching about
the validity of
diverse
> faiths and the value of tolerance.)
>
> I
>
> So, now, India is home to "Hindu" terrorism.
>
> Departing from the more usual banner-appelation,
"Saffron Terror", I
wish
> the fact to be registered that saffron is drawn from
the stamin of a
> delicate and indescribably pretty mauve flower grown
exclusively in
my home
> valley of Kashmir, and exclusively by Muslims. My
inherited memories
of it
> are thereby sweet and secular to the core.
>
> Also, saffron when used to grace milk products,
Biryani, or to brew
the
> heavenly Kehwa is a thing of the gods truly.
>
> It is only when it is coerced against the use of
nature to colour
politics
> that it rages against the sin. Then, don't we know,
what gruesome
> consequences begin.
>
> I think it proper, therefore, to stick with the more
direct and
honest
> description "Hindu" terrorism, since, much against
their grain, even
India's
> premier TV channels are now bringing us news of
"Hindu" terrorism, so
> compelling the materials gathered by the
investigating agencies thus
far.
>
> This despite the fact that in my view the term
"Hindu" trerrorism is
as
> erroneous as the term "Muslim" terrorism. Even
though not a religious
man
> myself, I am able to see that being Hindu or Muslim
by accident of
birth has
> no necessary connect with how one's politics turn
out to be in adult
life. A
> plethora of specific contexts and shaping histories
are here provenly
more
> to the point.
>
> II
>
> It was way back in 1923 that Savarkar, never a
practicing Hindu
(indeed a
> self-confessed atheist) had first understood that
from this benign
term,
> "Hindu," could be drawn the toxic racial concept
Hindutva, and made
to serve
> a forthrightly fascist purpose. That Brahminism had
always been a
socially
> toxic form of Hinduism was of course an enabling
prehistory to the
new
> project.
>
> He it was who established Abhinav Bharat in Pune
(1904), that
theoretical
> hotbed of twice-born Brahminical casteism against
which low-caste
social
> reformers such as Phule, Periyar, and Ambedkar were
to struggle their
whole
> lives long.
>
> Such casteism was made the instrument of communalist
politics to
serve two
> major objectives: one, to overwhelm and negate the
specific cultural
and
> material oppressions of the low-caste within the
Hindu Varna system ,
and
> two, to elevate the low-caste as a warrior of a
common "Hindutva"
army
> against the chief common "enemy," the Muslim.
>
> Such an army has been seen to be needed to salvage
the "real" nation
from
> this so-called common enemy who continues to be
represented to this
day by
> the RSS and its hydra-headed "educational" front
organizations as an
> "invader" still bent on seeking to convert India
into an Islamic
theocratic
> state.
>
> Aided in these mythical fears and constructions by
the British during
the
> crucial decades leading upto Independence, India's
majoritarian
fascists
> continue thus to keep at bay all consideration of
secular oppressions
based
> entirely in the brutal social order of Capitalist
expropriation.
>
> Savarkar thus counseled how a resurgent nation could
result only if
> "Hinduism was militarized, and the military
Hinduised."
>
> Clearly enough, the serving army Colonel, S.P.
Purohit and the other
retired
> Major, one Upadhyay, who the Mumbai ATS
(Anti-Terrorist Squad) tells
us, are
> at the centre of the Malegaon terrorist blasts of
September 29, 2008,
> alongwith Sadhvi Pragya and the rogue-sadhu,
Amreetanand—and very
possibly
> complicit in half a dozen other blasts as well—seem
to have heeded
> Savarkar's advice to the hilt.
>
> Indeed, in his Narco-test confessions, Colonel
Purohit, sources have
told
> some TV channels (Times Now), admits to his guilt
and justifies his
actions
> as retribution for what he thinks SIMI (Student's
Islamic Movement of
India)
> have been doing. He is understood to have further
indicated that the
rogue
> sadhu, Amreetanand, nee Dayanand etc., has been the
kingpin and chief
> coordinator and devisor of several other blasts
carried out by this
cell,
> including the blasts at the revered Ajmer Dargah
(Mausoleum of the
12th
> century Sufi saint, Chisti, which to this day draws
devotees across
faiths
> the world-over), and at Kanpur.
>
> The ATS are now busy exploring the routes through
which huge sums of
money
> have been brought into the country for such
terrorist activity as
Hawala
> transactions, and whether the RDX, suspected to be
used in the
Malegaon
> blast, was procured by Colonel Purohit through army
connections. It
is to be
> noted that Purohit has been in Military
Intelligence, and serving in
Jammu &
> Kashmir, where it is thought he made contact with
the rogue sadhu,
> Amreetanand.
>
> (Indeed, as I write, news comes of the ATS claiming
that Purohit
actually
> stole some 60 kilos of RDX which was in his custody
while doing duty
at
> Deolali, and that in his Narco-test confession he
admits to passing
it on to
> one "Bhagwan" for use in the blast on the Samjhauta
Express train in
> Feb.,2007.)
>
> Needless to say, that alongwith the courts, we will
also require that
the
> ATS is actually able to obtain convictions rather
than merely pile on
> evidence which may not be admissible in law.
>
> To return to the argument:
>
> As I suggested in my last column, "Notions of the
Nation" (Znet,
Nov.,4),
> Hindutva militarism since the establishment of the
Hindu Mahasabha
and the
> RSS has been inspired by the desire to emulate and
then better Muslim
> "aggressiveness" seen as a racial characteristic
that defined
"Muslim" rule
> in India, and rendered Hindus "limp" and "cowardly."
>
> Thus, if Savarkar established Ahninav Bharat,
Dr.Moonje, an avowed
Mussolini
> admirer who in turn inspired Dr.Hedgewar to
establish the RSS on
Vijay
> Dashmi of 1924 (victory day, denoting the
liquidation of the
Dravidian
> Ravana by the Aryan Kshatriya warrior, Ram)
established the Bhondsala
> Military Academy at Indore (1937). It now transpires
that this
academy has
> been playing host to the Bajrang Dal for militarist
training routines
etc.,
> and its director, one Raikar, has put in his papers.
>
> Unsurprisingly enough, both these institutions are
now under the
scanner.
>
> III
>
> Over the last decade, terrorist blasts have occurred
in India across
a wide
> variety of sites and in major cities and towns.
>
> Many of these blasts have taken place outside
mosques and known
Muslim-
> majority locations, as well outside cinema halls
that were thought to
be
> showing movies inimical to Hindu glory.
>
> Briefly, these sites are: cinemas in Thane and Vashi
in Maharashtra,
Jalna,
> Purna, Parbhani, and Malegaon towns, again all in
Maharashtra—and all
areas
> of high Muslim density, in Hyderabad outside a
famous old mosque, and
in
> Ahmedabad and Surat in Gujarat.
>
> Curiously, in the Surat episode, some sixteen odd
bombs were found
placed
> along the main thoroughfare in tree branches, on
house-tops, on
electric
> poles and so forth. Not one of them however
exploded. This was
thought to be
> the result of defective switches. Curious
circumstance that; besides
the
> wonder that Ahmedabad's Muslims could find such
sprawling access to
such
> strategic locations without Modi knowing a thing.
>
> Yet, regardless of where the blasts have taken
place, almost without
> exception the Pavlovian response of state agencies
as well as, sad to
say,
> media channels has been invariably to point fingers
of suspicion and
> culpability towards one or the other "Islamic"
outfit.
>
> Often, young Muslims men have been rounded up in the
scores and held
for
> days of brutal questioning without the least prima
facie evidence.
Nearly in
> all such cases, however reluctantly, they have had
to be let off.
>
> The most recent case is that of some fifteen young
Muslims picked up
after
> the Hyderabad blasts. Tortured with electric shocks,
they have
nevertheless
> been found to be innocent and let go.
>
> Indeed, after the gruesome blasts in the Samjhauta
Express—a train
service
> of reconciliation and confidence-building between
India and
Pakistan—in
> which some 68 people were burnt to cinders, 45 of
them Pakistani
citizens,
> fingers were immediately pointed towards the SIMI.
>
> Yet, the ATS of Mumbai now suspects that this may
also be the doing
of the
> "Hindu" terrorists in custody. These speculations
have been raised by
the
> circumstance that the suitcases that held the bombs
had Indore labels
on
> them.
>
> Just as the ATS now suspects that more than half a
dozen blasts (the
two at
> Malegaon, in 2006 and 2008, at the cinemas in Thane
and Vashi, at
Jalna, at
> Purna, at Parbhani, provenly at Nanded and Kanpur)
have all been the
> handiwork of "Hindu" terror groups.
>
> IV
>
> For some years, reputed civil and human rights
organizations, and
individual
> members of civil society that have included
journalists, judges,
lawyers,
> writers, artists, teachers, students, and labour
organizations,
besides
> organized Muslim fora and Left parties, have been
cautioning both
state
> agencies and media conglomerates to:
>
> -- desist from the Pavlovian haste with which some
one or other
Muslim group
> is immediately named and labeled literally within an
hour of the
occurrence
> of a blast, thus contributing to the maligning of
the entire Muslim
> community;
>
> --to consider the possibility that groups other than
those involving
Muslims
> could be involved;
>
> --to refrain from covering up prima facie evidence
which points to
such
> possibilities; indeed, where such evidence seems
conclusive, as the
> complicity of the Bajrang Dal at Nanded and Kanpur;
>
> --to ponder the question as to why Muslims should
effect blasts
within their
> own localities or outside their mosques;
>
> --to weigh the consequences for the Muslim psyche of
the failure of
the
> state to prevent repeated pogroms against them, and
to find or punish
the
> guilty; not to speak of active state connivance in
those pogroms
(Moradabad,
> 198o; Nellie, 1983; Hashimpura, 1987; Bhagalpur,
1989; Mumbai,
1992-93;
> Gujarat, 2002, to cite just the more recent ones);
>
> --to permit transparency in the matter of police
investigations with
due
> regard for the Constitutional rights of those held
in custody—such as
> visitation, access to legal defence, norms of the
recording of
confession
> and other evidence etc.,
>
> --to respect the obligatory presumption of innocence
until anyone is
> juridically found guilty;
>
> Time and again these cautions and rightful
prerogatives have been
trampled
> under foot.
>
> Aided by the loud biases of the corporate media
which have tended to
reflect
> the predilections both of free-market imperialism
and comprador urban
middle
> class sentiments in India's metropolitan towns,
India's state
agencies and
> that "all-knowing" species, the Intellegence expert,
who seems ever
present
> to reinforce anti-Muslim prejudice, have tended to
feed massively
into the
> politics of the Hindu right-wing.
>
> For years on end, India's chief malady has been
sought to be seen to
reside
> in "Islamic" terrorism, and in the complicit refusal
of the
secularists to
> allow draconian preventive laws to be brought back
on the books. Not
in
> poverty, malnutrition, disease, absence of health
care or clean
drinking
> water, or lack of steady work among the urban poor,
or the ousted
tribals,
> disenfranchised farmers, chronic failure of primary
schooling and so
forth
> among some 75% of Indians. And most of them
belonging to the Muslim,
Dalit,
> and Tribal communities.
>
> And to repeat for the nth time, this three-fourths
of Indians able to
spend
> just or under Rupees Twenty a day, all according to
the governments'
own
> Arjun Sengupta Committee Report.
>
> Not to speak of the venomous communalization of the
polity, the
alienation
> and ghettoisation of the minorities, and the state's
failure or
> unwillingness to carry through schemes that could
redress these
maladies.
>
> As to new terror laws, the government of the day may
protest that it
has all
> the laws it wants, and more; as well as the fact
that the worst
terrorist
> attacks took place when laws like the dreaded POTA
(Prevention of
Terrorism
> Act) was on the books during the tenure of the NDA
regime led by the
> ultra-"nationalist", BJP. Small dent is made by any
regime of
> empirically-founded facts, or fair-minded arguments
on the right-wing
> fascists and their fattened constituency.
>
> V
>
> Now, of course, a radically transformed milieu is
unraveling.
>
> Photos and Videos are doing the rounds that show the
"Hindu"
terrorists
> currently under investigation in close and intimate
proximity to top
leaders
> of the RSS, the VHP, and the BJP as well.
>
> Had POTA indeed been on the books today, such
evidence would have
authorized
> the police to put them all behind bars on the charge
of associating
with
> those under investigation for "terrorism." And all
that without any
recourse
> to bail either.
>
> Predictably, nonetheless, after some days of
dumbfounded
crestfallenness
> (remember that the main electoral plank of the BJP
in the elections
now
> under way in several states and in the
soon-to-be-held parliamentary
polls
> is the failure of the Congress to eradicate
"terrorism" because of
its
> "minority appeasement" policies), the right-wing
fascists are back to
brazen
> form.
>
> Even as the projected Prime Ministerial candidate,
Advani (the
high-point of
> whose career remains the successful demolition of
the Babri mosque),
party
> hard-liners have taken to peddling outrageous
theories.
>
> As a complement to the well-known Pavlovian hunch
that "all
terrorists are
> Muslims," we are now told by the likes of Rajnath
Singh, the party
> President, that "no Hindu can be a terrorist," that
is to say even
when he
> or she is found to be one.
>
> This for the reason that what the ordinary man calls
"terrorism" is
infact
> "nationalism" where any Hindu be involved. Live and
learn.
>
> Other than that, it is both interesting and
laughable that spokesmen
and
> women of the BJP are today reduced to gurgitating
every single
argument that
> Muslims and civil rights organizations have to this
day voiced:
>
> --presume innocence until found guilty;
>
> --desist from the "political conspiracy" to malign a
whole community;
>
> --do not let enemies of the Hindu -right propagate
fake evidence
against
> them, since all evidence against them must be fake
in principle;
>
> --and most outlandishly, do not communalise
terrorism; that from
India's
> rank communalists who have done nothing but
communalise terrorism
ever since
> we remember!
>
> VI
>
> Even as these new developments point to a
potentially mortal combat
among
> "Hindu" and "Muslim" terror groups, I venture to
think that the
situation
> also offers opportunities of far-reaching redressal
for all three
axes that
> matter: the state and its agencies, the
party-political system, and
the
> polity generally.
>
> First off, if, as has been the case, the Congress's
secular
credentials have
> consistently been vitiated by, willy nilly, playing
second-fiddle to
> Hindu-communalist appeasement, the denuding of the
Hindu- right
offers it
> the opportunity of a lifetime to assert the
supremacy of the
Constitutional
> scheme of things, without fear or favour.
>
> It is indeed a circumstance that can now help the
Congress and other
secular
> parties to come down like a ton on communalism of
all shades that
underpin
> the fatal subversion of the secular republic without
the need for
apology.
>
> In this endeavour, its greatest inspiration must
come from two
factors on
> the Muslim side of the issue:
>
> one, that over the last year every single major and
influential
Muslim
> cultural and religious organization has publicly,
and repeatedly,
denounced
> through speech, act, and fatwa "terrorism" as
un-Islamic and a
rightful
> candidate for punishment under law;
>
> and, two, that without exception they have pleaded
only and ever for
fair
> and just treatment at the hands of the authorized
instruments of
state, both
> when victimized by pogroms and suspected as
culprits; and for
credible
> pursuit of those that persecute them.
>
> Not once has any Muslim organization worth the name
suggested that
Muslims
> have any claims that override the Cosntitutional
regime of laws and
> procedures pertaining to all citizens of the
Republic.
>
> All that in stark contrast to the refusal, however
camouflaged or
> strategised, of the RSS and its affiliates to accept
either the
secular
> Constitution or the notion of secular citizenship.
>
> It is to be recalled that the RSS tactically
acquiesced to
acknowledging the
> primacy of the national flag over its own saffron
one in 1949 as a
quid pro
> quo to its release from the ban imposed on it after
Gandhi's murder.
>
> To this day it seeks to overthrow the Republic as
Constituted by law
and to
> replace it by a theocratic Hindu Rashtra wherein the
prerogatives of
> citizenship will be determined not by secular,
democratic equality
but
> racial difference among Indians (all that brutally
codified in
Golwalker's
> two books, We, Our Ntionhood Defined; and, the later
Bunch of
Thoughts which
> explicitly designates Muslims as the nations's
"Enemy Number One" in
an
> exclusive chapter.)
>
> However Hindu cultural politics may have come to
infect sections of
the
> fattened urbanites, the Congress must show the
conviction that none
of these
> in this day and age would be willing to back what is
explicitly
"terrorist"
> activity, indistinguishable from any other, once the
matter is
proven.
>
> This then is a fine moment to release a new
energetic politics that
> recharges the conviction and inspiration of the
non-discriminatory
humanism
> that informed the leaders of the freedom movement,
and thus to
disengage
> whatever popular base the Hindu- right has built
over the years since
the
> demolition of the Babri mosque from its fascist
leaderships and
cadres.
>
> Just as, infact, many BJP supporters are busy
thinking whether they
are
> indeed willing to carry their love of Muslim-haters
quite to the
point where
> those other dreams of Indian super-powerdom are
seriously jeopardized
by a
> war of competing terrorisms.
>
> It is also a golden opportunity for the Congress-led
UPA, should it
come
> back to power, to take a hard look at the
communalist virus that has
> infected law-enforcement agencies over the decades,
and to make bold
to
> effect reforms of a far-reaching character, such as
include the
recruitment
> of Muslims and other "minorities" in due proportion
to the forces,
and not
> just among the lower ranks.
>
> Speaking of the army, some 3% Muslims are today
among its ranks—some
sixty
> years after Independence. And I won't make a guess
as to how abysmal
might
> infact be its share among the officer core, colonel
and above. And
wouldn't
> I dearly like to take a peek into what sort of
Indian History is
taught
> India's future officers at Khadakvasla and Dehradun.
Truly; and who
does the
> teaching as well.
>
> VII
>
> As to the BJP: it has another opportunity as well;
namely to
reconstitute
> itself as a secular party on the right, bearing full
allegiance to
the
> Constitution in letter and spirit (remember now that
among other
things on
> the street-level, the NDA regime led by the BJP did
constitute a
> Constitution Review Committee—an ominous enough move
that,
thankfully, was
> duly aborted in course), and shunning once and for
all its
enslavement to
> the RSS and its fascist vision of India, its
history, culture and
state.
>
> Failing to do so, the BJP may succeed in causing
further mayhem; but
it is
> highly unlikely now to attain the sort of ascendance
it seeks through
fair
> means and foul.
>
> Most of all, the BJP must understand that the
Muslims of India, and
> Christians as well, have the inalienable right to
live and work in
the
> country on the terms set by the Constitution, not by
the RSS or the
Sangh
> Parivar.
>
> And, conversely, that the BJP itself is as subject
to those
Constitutional
> stipulations as any another collective of Indians
who practice their
beliefs
> and politics.
>
> Let the BJP notice the epigraph chosen for this
column; it comes from
the
> new President-Elect of the one country that the BJP
adores. Or will
it now,
> with a black man at the helm?
>
> A different voice floats from there.
>
> Time for the BJP to change its langoti, and say "yes
we can" also be
> peaceable and law-abiding citizens of the Republic
of India. And to
prize
> and protect its magnificent plurality like all
sensible and humane
Indians.
>
>
> badri.raina@gmail.com
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