No one can ever clean the Augean stables of terror because so much water that has flowed down the river cannot flow back into even the biggest river to wash all the ills, violence, inhumanity, cruelty and injustice that have taken place in all over India in particular and the world around which has been in touch with us.
Narendra Modi has been the longest-serving chief minister before he came to the post of the PM. His terror streak goes to even before he came to chief ministership. He was a pracharak or chief of a unit of RSS. ”What Gujarat does, India will have to do tomorrow”, became the fatalistic truth of decades that will eclipse all other achievements as far as terrorism is concerned.
And looks like for the kingdom to come. And, therefore the intensity of terrorism in India. Now terrorism has entered the newly passed bill into law called Gujarat Control of Terrorism and Organized Crimes — GCTOC. Such was the pet dream of Modi that he and his party pursued the bill since 2015. It was neither RSS nor VHP who would call the matter to a head, but Modi.
Among the architects of the demolition was head of the terrorist organization Bajrang Dal which is not recognized as terrorist organization in the country, Vinay Katiyar.
It has resulted in suppuration. Like the situation of the squirrel in the mouth of the snake. Neither you can swallow nor vomit. That is the metaphor of Indian democracy. It was Modi who engineered and powered the launch of the rath yatra of his mentor LK Advani in 1990 from Gujarat. Wherever it passed through there was a trail of terror.
He and his groups again tried to revive the momentum of building Ram temple on the site of Babri mosque in 2002—decade-anniversary of the demolition. The activists of building the temple returning from Ayodhya were behind what happened at Godhra. It was a reign of terror, nothing else but that.
Can he as PM use the draconian GCTOC through his handpicked RSS pracharak as CM Rupani on his own people if the situation revives terror? They were at the forefront of the Ram temple movement. “Terrorism” was added to the bill. Was it not terrorism there in 1992 and 2002? What surety that the Babri verdict of SC will not lead to another reign of terror?
Read more: Killings at Pathribal: Indian RSS led Terrorism exposed before World
How far has the movement been from what Modi told Swami Asimanand “I know that Keshubhai is troubling you. He will soon be out of power and I will become the CM. Then I will do your work.” That is how the impunity was shaped in the smithy of Gujarat. The work hasn’t stopped for even a while. This came out in the debate between US lawmaker Ilham Ommar and Indian journalist Aari Tikoo Singh.
“Throughout these thirty years of conflict, Islamic jihad and terror in Kashmir perpetrated by Pakistan has been completely ignored and overlooked by the world press, there is no human rights activist and no press in the world which feels that it is their moral obligation to talk or write about the victims of Pakistani terror in Kashmir.”
She is saying that Islamic jihad and terrorism have been ignored by the world. In those 30 years, there has been the support of Pakistan for the US war on terror. It was waged by the US to which the government of President Pervez Musharraf helped. The Taliban were used by the US/Pakistan to fight the occupying Russian army. Suddenly the so-called Islamic jihad had a volte-face.
Such was the pet dream of Modi that he and his party pursued the bill since 2015. It was neither RSS nor VHP who would call the matter to a head, but Modi.
At the same time, India also joined the US in the war on terror under Modi who called an attack on the US is known as the 9/11 attack Islamist terrorism when no Muslim from India was involved in it. As far as our country is concerned it had no choice as Pakistan had to make. India turned against the Muslims of India who was wrongly suspected as terrorists.
Ilham Omar wondered at The Times of India as a consequence of this: “You have an enormous audience at The Times Of India and you have an enormous responsibility to get it right. I’m aware of how the narrative shaped by reporting can distort the truth. I’m also very aware of how it can be limited to sharing only the official side of the story. The press is at its worth worst when it is a mouthpiece for the government.”
The government of India did not have a well-thought definition of terror. Huge hordes that descended on Babri mosque and demolished it included Sadhvi Pragyasingh and yet Modi gave her ticket to fight election! She also defied and rejected that the bomb attack in Malegaon 2008 was terror although she was involved in it and within hours wondered why so few ( 7) were killed.
Read more: Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Pangs of Terrorism
Among the architects of the demolition was the head of the terrorist organization Bajrang Dal which is not recognized as a terrorist organization in the country, Vinay Katiyar. Last year he said this: “Another revolution like the one in which several people were killed in 1990 during police firing and in 1992 when the mosque was demolished, is needed. The Hindu community should be ready for this sacrifice.”
The Sadhvi was an active member of the Bajrang Dal. Even the Director-General of Police, Maharashtra, Dr. PS Pasricha had said a day after the Malegaon attack in 2006 that it was the work of Bajrang Dal. He had also admitted that a Maharashtrian leader was behind the July 11, 2006 attack in Mumbai. In both the events, the general perception of terror was that Pakistanis were responsible.
India’s most famous attack was November 25, 2008, on the Taj Hotel. One who was accused of drawing the map to guide the attackers like Ajmal Kasab was Faheem Ansari who was acquitted of this and other roles in terrorism. He came out of the jail on as recently as October 31, 2019.
This miscarriage of justice is on account of the impunity enjoyed by Indians who are either politicians or members of RSS, Bajrang Dal. So the need of the hour is to define terrorism and abolish impunity. To let sanity prevail there is also a necessity to heed what Arshad Madani remarks: “Every justice-loving person wants the case (Babri) to be adjudicated on the basis of hard facts and evidence, not on the basis of faith and belief.” We had once been swept over our feet and hence need to cogitate.
Mustafa Khan holds a Ph.D. on Mark Twain. He lives in Malegaon Maharashtra, India.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Global Village Space.