It is strange that someone should look at the misogynist Savarkar as a hero let alone as the father of the nation. When his wife died, he refused to see her dead body. That is what the biographer of Savarkar wrote in his book, a biography of Savarkar in Marathi. That the writers of Freedom at Midnight Dominique-Lapierre have quoted Gopal Godse about his sexual orientation is even more shameful. That he gave the guns to kill Mahatma Gandhi is history.
Terror came to India through Savarkar. The assassination of the magistrate of Nasik by the gun supplied by VD Savarkar. It happened in 1909 Arthur Jackson had earned a name for his scholarship in Sanskrit, his scholarship in orientalism and praise by the ‘nationalist’ leaders of India then. But those who subscribed to the Abhinav Bharat Society of Savarkaer were extreme radicals. Ganesh Savarkar was the elder brother of Savarkar. Anant Laxma Kanhere and the eldest of Savarkar’s Baba Rao Savarkar who published 16 pages of Kavi Govind’s poetry drew the attention of the Magistrate and he recommended the prosecution of Baba Rao that angered Ganesh.
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Understanding a well-planned conspiracy
Anant Kanhare was a student in Aurangabad. The Abhinav Bharat Society founded by VD Savarkar was busy in sedition. Babarao had printed 16 pages of poetry by Kavi Govind. Jackson recommended the prosecution of Babarao. Krishnaji Karve and his group decided to assassinate Jackson about ten days later. Fate intervened when Jackson was promoted to become the Commissioner of Bombay. A grand function to give a farewell to Jackson was arranged by the people. Anant Kanhere threw himself before Jackson and shot him dead. There were two officers Palshekar and Todalmal who attacked Anant.
Shortly after it, Anant was hanged, Vinayak Deshpande and Karve were also hanged for hatching the conspiracy. Even, their ashes were thrown into the sea near Thane. This is the primordial prototype of terror in the subcontinent. There were three-tier terrorists. Anant was the first. He tried to poison himself after killing but was prevented; the second was Vinayak next and the third was Karve. So inveterate they were!
In contrast, is the compulsive ideology of President George Bush vis-à-vis “either you are with us or against us”. In fact, even earlier Pakistan had facilitated the US to establish a relationship with the Chinese. But then the Russians invaded Afghanistan. Al Qaida was not the figment of Pakistan’s imagination. But to drive them out Pakistan was coerced to ‘terrorism’ that was the hallmark of the US. President General Musharraf had to side with the US against the Al Qaida. This was Hobson’s choice imposed on Pakistan by the Americans.
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They used them to drive the Russians out of the subcontinent and then turned against those Taliban who was brothers-in-arms against the communists. Osama bin Laden and his followers were armed for this. Pakistan was used against Russian hegemony and then against the Taliban and Osama.
Foreign policy is a fickle business
PM AB Vajpayee and Narendra Modi came under the influence of Samuel Huntington and Bernard Lewis who opined that even the innards of the Muslims are full of blood of their victims including their neighbor. Vajpayee went to the Goa conclave in 2002 to dismiss Modi on account of the genocide of Muslims earlier in the same year. Within a week of the 9/11 attack in a debate attended by Dr. Rafik Zakarya, Narendra Modi, Rajdeep Sardesai, etc; a new coinage appeared on the scene, Islamic terrorism that has provenance in the Islamic scripture.
This was planted by Modi and thus began a pursuit of blaming Muslims as terrorists while Hindus cannot be terrorists because it is not in their blood. This is the most pernicious doctrine from hell. Revenge from hell as was Satan’s. This has willfully persisted into our own time where India has sided with Afghanistan. The Americans are leaving Afghanistan and Indians are replacing the Americans in the vacuum. The fallout came on a platter: the bombing of the head office of Inter-Services Intelligence coinciding with PM Imran Khan’s scheduled visit there.
The departure of the US forces from Afghanistan is now another chessboard spread before the subcontinent. Towards the end of June, there were events that show that old rivalries between India and Pakistan and Afghanistan have reappeared. The front of Hafeez Saeed’s house was bombed. This is obviously a provocation by the Indian side. The reprisal was quick when drones dropped bombs on the Jammu air force base.
The assassination of Arthur Jackson or Delhi February 2020pogroms of Muslims has assumed hiatus insignificance. The first was the killing of a single person while the latter is manslaughter on a much larger scale of those who were Indian. Their regretful situation is that they were humiliated by Anuraj Thakur and Kapil Mishra. The Indian Nero once again fiddled away his time and did nothing. But the situation in the face of India sending 50000 more troops to eastern Ladakh and bombing air force base in Jammu have different implications. It was very narrow-mindedness of the government of rightwing Hindus to throw all precaution and fair mindedness to the wind.
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Exhorting to shoot the “traitors” means Indian Muslims
The world also neglected what was transpiring in India and the whole subcontinent. India’s stance on Pakistan especially on the Kashmir issue leaves out much that is desirable. Moreover, India is confronting China without being aware of the economic strength of the Chinese. It was Modi who had invited the Chinese President XI Jingpin to India especially to his own Gujarat state raising the heckling of the local regional parties like Shiv Sena. And India is so provincial and sectarian can hardly face China.
Moreover, their economic development of theirs is far greater than India’s. Bombing Hafiz Saeed’s house in retaliation to the Mumbai attack in 2008 but ignoring the grafted liquidation of Heman Karkare raises an ugly head of suspicion. Why did the government ignore the affidavit in which the accused in 2006 terror attack in Malegaon mentioned that ATS officers had told him that they would take him out of prison after those who were casting aspersion (meaning Hemant Karkare who assumed office on August 1, 2008) on their earlier investigation report in which SIMI was blamed for the bomb attacks in Malegaon on September 8, 2006, were removed from their path! This kind of official behavior is typically subcontinental where national matters are subsumed under sectarian consideration.
Now that election is the largest state in UP is near. India has not taken into consideration what Karkare recorded that Abhinav Bharat officers of the right-wing Hindu party had a meeting with Yogi Aditynath and the Nepalese royal family was planning to establish a Hindu government and seek help from Israel. They wanted to overthrow the government and establish a Hindu government.
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Radha Kumar of Delhi Policy Group believes that it is Pakistan whose stand would have greater leverage on Afghanistan and not India’s the time has come to jettison the familiar hobby horse of blaming Indian Muslims for terrorism! And not to forget that it is Pakistan which is a neighbor of Afghanistan and not India! Riding hobby horses is an effete policy in the changing scenario.