Who Benefits from the Bomb Blasts

Indian Muslims are passing through an extremely difficult time right now. A situation has been created in which the whole community finds itself under trial. No one is above suspicion and even the most respected Muslim citizens can be picked up for police investigation. That educated Muslim youth are being arrested on flimsy grounds and tortured to accepting crimes which they have not committed. But what worries the most is the fact that the countrymen have willingly accepted that only Muslims indulge in violence and unleash reign of terror. This alone explains why the larger society is a mute witness to the atrocities being meted out to the Muslim youth in BJP-ruled states and elsewhere.
Serial blasts have taken place in all parts of the country and scores of innocent people including children and women, have been killed or injured, even paralyzed for life. Killing the innocent is a crime which can not be forgiven and the culprits must be brought to book. As responsible and civilized citizens we condemn this mindless terrorism in strongest words.
But we also take exception to what the police and the intelligence agencies are doing to the Muslim youth. Why the needle of suspicion must always point in the direction of the Muslim community. Our secret agencies have failed any number of time in detecting conspirators who carry out bomb blasts at will. But immediately after such tragic incidents they quickly become wiser, even super intelligent and arrest the ‘culprits’ in no time. It has become a boring, yet disturbing, routine. They quickly arrest some Muslim youth and declare him to be the mastermind behind this or that blast. Sometimes they are released but only after their image is tarnished.
This time the Muslim community has rightly raised questions about the police version of the mastermind behind this or that blast. A few weeks back the notorious Gujarat police arrested a certain Mr. Abu Bashar Qasmi whom it declared to be the mastermind behind the Ahmadabad blasts. In less than a month Delhi is jolted by murderous blasts despite the fact that the Delhi police was already looking for some Abu Zar and others whose names were disclosed by the Ahmadabad blasts’ mater mind. The sketches of the criminals who carried out blasts in Delhi are surely not of Abu Zar, the car-parking attendant whom the Delhi police, at the tip of Gujarat police, was looking for as prospective terrorist and bomber. This means either the Gujarat police was telling a lie or the mastermind Abu Bashar had lied and misguided them. The Delhi police can believe the notorious Gujarat police only at its own risk. The Delhi police also must keep in mind that a few days back all the Muslim youth arrested in Gujarat, alleged before a court of law that they were tortured to sign plain papers and confess crimes they had never committed. It is possible that the Gujarat police obtained by torture ‘tips’ from Abu Bashar Qasmi about the wrong people and provided them to their counterparts in Delhi. How can we forget the track record of the Gujarat police who have refused to work justly even after reprimand from the court. Time and again they have worked as loyal servants of Modi whose fascism is well-known.
The Muslim community is bewildered why only they are targeted as suspects and not the activists and leaders of the Bajrang Dal. Recently two Bajrang Dal leaders were killed while making bombs in Kanpur. Earlier skull caps and artificial beards were recovered from the houses and offices of Bajran Dal activists. We are at a loss why the needle of suspicion is never pointed in their direction? Why they can not be culprits? After all who or which party is going to benefit from the communal polarization which the murderous blasts are expected, even intended, to bring about?
The police, inept, and also biased against Muslims to a great extent, can not be expected to investigate impartially. Surprisingly the media are also not very helpful as none of them has bothered to independently investigate the involvement of the Bajrang Dal whose two leaders were recently killed in Kanpur while making bombs. Barring one or two leaders the political class also does not seem to be coming to our rescue. By all indications the Muslims alone have to fight out the battle ahead. The time is, therefore, difficult and the community is required to keep its cool, analyse the whole affair in an objective manner and chalk out the future course of action even more objectively and intelligently. It is possible that in trying circumstances some of our young men might have gone astray and adopted violence as a methodology. We must impress upon such elements that killing the innocent is not only un-Islamic but also counter productive. It must be borne in mind that a bomb here or a blast there can not annihilate the Indian state. On the contrary it would harm us the most. Our educated youth should also know that today’s India abounds in opportunities which are waiting to be grabbed by those who have decided to excel in education. And the market is increasingly becoming so competitive that it would be difficult for it to practise discrimination against talented Muslims.
Finally the Muslim community and leadership must see to it that contrary to the wishes of the Sangh Parivar the country must not be allowed to get polarized on communal lines. Many Muslims have rightly voiced that the purpose of the bomb blasts in various parts of the country is to arouse Hindu sentiments with a view to reaping rich electoral dividends. The general election is round the corner and the bomb blasts are thus well-timed. We must see the design behind the mysteriously carried out bomb blasts and frustrate it electorally. This is essential for our survival as a community as well as our future in the country.

[September, 2008]

Soft Hindutva Would Never Work

BJP cuts a sorry figure today. All its efforts, of mind and body (and soul it doesn’t have) to communalise the country’s atmosphere and disturb its social fabric for political gains are meeting with grand failure. Despite its best efforts, the communally charged agitation for giving back the forest land to Amarnath Shrine Board has remained, by and large, a local state phenomenon as the rest f the country has refused to be impressed by their nefarious agenda and propaganda. The cash in Parliament episode has also not worked in its favour, for its “holier than thou” image received a severe beating during and after the trust vote which the UPA government won with comfortable majority. And its latest drama through the good offices of the notorious Gujarat police to convince the common public that all terrorists are Muslim would also backfire. The media, by and large, have danced to their tune but sooner than later they would realize that the Gujarat police has falsely implicated the SIMI activists. The media may have forgotten, but the Suhrab episode is still fresh in public memory.
BJP is in haste to grab power at the centre. The problem is that India’s common public is not impressed by their credentials. Political commentators with insight know well that the road to Delhi passes through U.P. where the BJP is in bad shape. By all indications the fight in the next general elections in U.P. would be between the BSP and the SP-Congress alliance which is most likely to be formed in near future. It was BJP’s huge success in U.P. which had catapulted it to power in the 1990s. But for about the last one decade it has been declining gradually, in fact, it seems to have been marginalized in U.P. And the Muslim community, almost 18 per cent in U.P. must receive a pat on its back for marginalizing the BJP in the state. In the wake of the demolition of the Babri mosque a good number of Hindus were swayed by the BJP’s passionate temple propaganda on the one hand and the Muslims had deserted the Congress to stand solidly behind the SP on the other. They would vote only for the SP candidates, even in constituencies where they were not in winning positions. But gradually the Muslims realized the value of their votes and decided to vote for the SP, BSP or Congress candidate whom they found to be in a position to defeat the BJP. Being 18 per cent in U.P. afforded them to be the decisive factor in good numbers of constituencies. The Muslim cause was also helped by the reassertion of caste politics in U.P.
BJP knows that the 18 per cent UP Muslims are not only a big number but are also politically mature as they vote with a mission to defeat the communal outfit. They also know that the temple issue would no longer help them electorally. This is the reason that they want to communalize the U.P. atmosphere and polarize the Hindu majority in its favour. The propaganda against the SIMI and the arrest of its activists in mainly the BJP-ruled states are parts of their strategy to whip up the Hindu passions and impress upon the majority community that Islam and Muslims are a threat to the unity and integrity of the country. Unfortunately a section of the media is unwittingly helping the BJP in its design.
But the most worrying fact is that the Interior Ministry headed by a senior Congress leader is also unable to see through the BJP design. It has wrongly convinced itself that the lifting of ban from SIMI would give BJP an opportunity to criticize Congress as being soft on terrorism. Congress must learn a lesson from some of its partners in UPA whose open advocacy of SIMI has never harmed them electorally. The reason is that they ably expose BJP’s communal face and convince their electorate that SIMI was a victim of BJP’s communal electoral design. Why Congress is shy and hesitant in taking a fair stand on SIMI. It must analyse how many terrorist activities the SIMI cadres had carried out before being banned and what it has done after going underground. A banned SIMI is not only dangerous but is also liable to be used by BJP to its advantage. Moreover, it is now a common knowledge that only a tiny minority of the SIMI activists is militant in its thinking and approach which may be further undermined by lifting the ban as it would give an opportunity to the moderates to take full control of the organization and put it again on the right track.
BJP’s negative ideology is on the wane. It succeeds here and there not because people have begun to subscribe to its fascist ideology but because they find no other alternative to a failed BSP, SP or Congress regime in one or another state.
This is an obvious political reality which Congress, like the SP and RJD, must realize for its own advantage as also for safeguarding the national interest. Soft Hindutva has never helped any one other than BJP in the past and will do it no good in future as well.

[August, 2008]

Muslims and the Trust Vote on the Nuclear Deal

The D-Day came and went off, smoothly in the end. Surely there were ripples, even a storm-like situation but finally the Manmohan Sing emerged victorious. His government won the trust vote amid all kinds of dramas, allegations of bride, sale and purchase of Members of Parliament. Surely, as some MPs said, Tuesday (22.7.2008) was the saddest day in the history of India’s Parliament. But perhaps it was the most defining moment also.
The government’s convincing victory will not only accelerate the process for signing the nuclear deal with USA but would also enable it to push for economic reforms on the domestic front. And, of course, we shall witness a spate of populist measures as the next general election is not far away.
Politicians are given to speaking all kinds of things, relevant or irrelevant. The debate over the trust motion moved by the Manmohan Singh government was no exception. MPs from the opposition benches chose to speak on a variety of subjects detailing out the government’s failures on a number of crucial issues. But one can hardly miss the point that the trust vote was sought for justifying the government’s stand on the nuclear deal with USA. There was hardly anything new in the speeches delivered by either side of the divide in the House. The treasury benches sought to project the nuclear deal in the interest of the nation as it would put an end to India’s nuclear isolation in the world. On the contrary the opposition leaders, particularly of the Left and the Third Front, condemned the deal as being an instrument of surrender to the U.S. The two diametrically-opposed arguments have been known for quite some time through the print and electronic media.
Whenever there is a polarization even on an otherwise secular issue, the Muslim community finds itself in the crossfire. The Left has been opposing the nuclear deal tooth and nail and some of its leaders in their enthusiasm called it as being anti-Muslim. And the Muslim community felt obliged to clarify the matter. As could be expected, there were differing voices. But the overwhelming opinion has been that the Muslims were not a nation within the nation and therefore whatever was in national interest was also in their interest.
Politics is the art of the possible. It enables politicians as well as governments to be flexible. But the political flexibility is sometimes stretched so much that it begins to resemble what the opposition leaders have described as surrender. The UPA government surely committed such a mistake when it voted against Iran at the IAEA or delayed the process of negotiation on Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline. The government committed both the mistakes in its zeal to seal the nuclear deal with the US.
It must be emphasized that the Indian Muslims are tied up with the larger Muslim Ummah by faith. But the Ummah is not a supra-national concept, rather it is a social order that gives the global Muslim community the identity of universal brotherhood. It must be borne in mind that this social order is not above the political order of nation-states. This explains the reasons for differences in the foreign policies of the Muslim nation-states.
Yes, there could be issues on which the Muslim opinion may be different from that of the government of the day. The Indian Muslims rightly feel that India’s current military cooperation with Israel is not desirable. But the reason for holding this opinion is not a blind hostility to the Jewish State. The Muslims are rather opposed to the racist ideology of Zionism which seeks, and has always sought, to either eliminate or enslave the Palestinian Arabs. Likewise the Muslims are opposed to America’s continuous occupation of Iraq or its current hostile policy towards Iran. But it must be kept in mind that the Indian Muslims do not decide to vote for a party on the basis of its foreign policy only. Instead, their own problems at home, such as the absence of schools and civic amenities in their areas, lack of job opportunities and development which keep them perpetually backward, economically and intellectually, are the major factors which heavily impact their voting behaviour. It was refreshing to see the Young Muslim MPs emphasizing these very points during the debate on the trust vote.

[July, 2008]