The Times of India, 25 October 2008, Editorial
The Maharashtra police believe that they’ve cracked the blast cases in Malegaon and Modasa in end-September where six people were killed. The
police have arrested six people, all of whom belong to an extremist outfit called the Hindu Jagran Manch and have links with Hindu nationalist groups. This is an indication that terror knows no religious boundaries. Just as Islamic terrorists are believed to have been behind the string of blasts that scarred several metros this year, the Malegaon and Modasa incidents show that Hindu radical groups too are turning to terrorism.
This is a worrying trend. Unless these groups are stopped in their tracks, we could face an intensifying period of violence. While the methods employed by Hindu radical outfits are similar to groups like the Indian Mujahideen, there is a vital difference in their functioning. Groups such as the Indian Mujahideen are shadowy in nature and have no identifiable leadership. Indeed, they are opposed to mainstream Muslim political parties. In contrast, those arrested for the Malegaon and Modasa blasts were earlier associated with outfits belonging to the sangh parivar, of which a mainstream party — the BJP — is a member.
The first reaction of the BJP has been to criticise those who have dragged the “name of nationalist organisations in the terror attack”. The BJP must carefully reassess its stand. As a mainstream party, it’s the BJP’s responsibility to condemn terrorists, even when they belong to Hindu outfits. It is equally important for the BJP to use its good offices to rein in or at least dissociate itself clearly from radical Hindu organisations. The BJP must not allow groups like the Bajrang Dal — another sangh parivar outfit — to run amok as they have in Orissa and Karna-taka. If such groups are allowed a free run, the BJP’s image as a democratic mainstream party would be damaged heavily.
The political reaction to the Malegaon blast arrests has been disappointing. In Parliament, the CPM has called for a ban on Hindu outfits such as the Bajrang Dal and the Hindu Jagran Manch. The BJP countered by asking for a ban on SIMI. We’ve written earlier that bans don’t work. Banned outfits usually respond by going underground and metamorphosing into even more radical organisations. Our political parties need to wake up to the fact that there are myriad terror outfits — religious as well as political — operating in the country. They all operate outside our constitutional perimeter and, hence, must be jointly resisted.
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