Daily Times, November 26, 2008
Hindu violence
by Brian Cloughley
There is a certain ambivalence in the international media’s treatment of events in the sub-continent. When terrible things happen in Pakistan, there is wringing of editorial hands in New York and Berlin; sighs of horror in London and Paris; varying degrees of condemnation in the blogosphere from Ottawa to Auckland; and, alas, a hint of satisfaction in Delhi. But when horrible things happen in India, there doesn’t seem to be quite as much international concern.
In India, in August, over a hundred Christian churches, orphanages and schools in Orissa were burned to the ground by Hindu mobs. About 30 people were murdered, including a Hindu woman thought by the fanatics to have been a Christian nun. And in September, anti-Christian mobs ran riot in Karnataka where the capital, Bangalore, is the showpiece of India’s amazing hi-tech development. But there was nothing hi-tech about the viciousness of the mobs that hounded Christians to death.
Gauri Prasad Rath, the president in Orissa of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, an extremist Hindu movement, declared: “I do not condemn the violence against Christians. I condemn the killing of Hindu sage Swami Laxmananda Saraswati...Christians killed him.”
Christians did not kill the “sage” who preached hatred against all those who are not Hindus. As recorded on October 28: “In an interview given to a private television news channel in Orissa, the Secretary of the Communist Party of India (Maoist), Orissa State Committee, Sabyasachi Panda, said that it was the CPI (Maoist) who had killed Vishwa Hindu Parishad [VHP] leader Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati and four others...”
But the loonies of the VHP are never at a loss to justify their evil excesses. Last year, as reported by Ashok Sharma, “Hindu extremists attacked Christians celebrating Christmas in eastern India, ransacking and burning at least six village churches. One person was killed.” (And, to be fair, this story did appear in the UK’s Independent.)
But all was explained by Giriraj Kishore of the VHP, who declared that “The situation was aggravated by some Christians forcibly stopping the 80-year-old Hindu leader Laxmanananda Saraswati and attempting to attack him... When they were prevented from attacking him by his followers, the Christians hit someone with an axe and one Hindu died.”
So, by the VHP’s weird standards of religious belief and social conduct, it is perfectly acceptable that Hindu mobs “went on a rampage on Christmas Day, chasing people out of churches and setting the buildings ablaze.”
It isn’t only Christians who come in for this sort of rabid and vicious stuff. Muslims in India are blamed, almost automatically, for bombings and other atrocities.
On September 8, 2006, there were several bomb blasts in Malegaon, a town 300 km northeast of Mumbai, killing 40 people. At once, blame was placed at the door of the Students’ Islamic Movement of India, or SIMI. Then the columnist B Raman wrote that “there have been attempts by some leaders of the Muslim community to create a divide between the community and the police by questioning the impartiality of the police and levelling other allegations against the investigating officers.” How insightful.
It was perceptive because on September 29 this year, there was another blast in Malegaon, this one killing six people and injuring 90, after which it was reported in the Indian Express that “policemen...have stated ‘It is an established fact that Muslims are the masterminds behind all terrorist activities across India’”. Then, in charging a Muslim accused of promoting violence, “the police stated that what the Hindu group had done [during the riots] was ‘mere retaliation to what has been happening in the country for past few years’”.
(Although, to be fair, a senior policeman said, “We cannot...engage in such stereotyping... If such an act has been done by our men, we will see how to contain it immediately.” But there has not been any action reported so far.)
In a dramatic development, Lieutenant Colonel Shrikant Prasad Purohit of the Maratha Light Infantry was arrested by police “after questioning him for his alleged role in supplying money and explosive material for the explosion”. Purohit is a member of the Abhinav Bharat Society, an extremist Hindu group headed by a woman called Himani Savarkar, whose wisdom can be assessed from her declaration that “the Malegaon blast should be viewed as a reaction against the unending terrorist activities in the country.”
Retired Lieutenant Colonel Jayant Chitale, a friend of Purohit, fuelled the flames of intolerance by asserting that “several [army] officers are thoroughly disenchanted with the rulers of the country for their lack of political will to sternly deal with terrorism and are itching to do something.” Like exploding more bombs, no doubt.
Joining him in fantasyland, a Shiv Sena chief, Nana Wadekar, declared: “We do not know whether the accused really planted bombs as alleged. But if they had done so, we are proud of them as it should be seen as an act in defence of Hindus.”
There is something very wrong going on in India, but the blame for the surge in fanaticism cannot be laid at the door of the moderate and sensible Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. He and his government are hated and reviled by those wild savages whose recipe for nationalism is to kill Muslims and Christians. There are to be elections in India next May, and Hindu supremacists are stoking the fires of extremism, which is bad news for those who seek to abide by the Constitution’s injunction to “secure for all its citizens... Liberty of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship.” It is also bad news for neighbouring countries, but it seems to be no news at all for the foreign media.
Brian Cloughley’s book about the Pakistan army, War, Coups and Terror, has just been published by Pen & Sword Books (UK) and is distributed in Pakistan by Saeed Book Bank
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