Author: M.V. Kamath
Publication: The Free Press Journal
Date: March 14, 2002
Hundreds of senior editors, journalists
and academicians marched to the Parliament on Monday in solidarity
with the victims of the communal carnage in Gujarat, demanding that
the Government should stop the violence immediately" says a report
in The Telegraph. (5 March). The only trouble is that it was not
the government that started the violence. Some one else did. And
our intellectuals do not want to face up to that fact.
This was noted by none other than
J. Jayalalitha, the new Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu who in a statement
said that "it is saddening and strange that when acts (like the torching
of the Sabarmati Express) are perpetuatedagainst the minorities,
all political leaders rush to condemn, but when the majority community
is attached "not a single political leader" condemns it. The point
must be made that the Ahmedabad riots and killings followed the Godhra
carnage and did not precede it, but that, apparently does not register
on our secularists. The focus in the entire English media is on Ahmedabad.
The reaction of our secularists to the Godhra killings in which over
58 people were killed including 25 women and 14 children has been muted.
Consider what happened when Graham Staines and two of his sons were
torched by tribals, in Orissa. All hell broke loose. The VHP, the
Bajrang Dal and the BJP were damned. Never mind if subsequently the
Wadhwa Commission in its report ruled out their involvement, but
Hindu bodies got a bad name. These 25 women and 14 children in the
Sabarmati Express had done no harm to anyone. Their husbands and
parents were not engaged in any missionary activities. And just like
the Staines trio these 39 - not three - unfortunates were burnt alive.
There is not a word of condemnation from minority leaders.
One can only imagine what the outcry would have been if those torched
were Muslims or Christians.
To press home the alleged viciousness
of Hindus the American weekly Newsweek (March 11) quotes "graffiti
on a wall on the outskirts of Ahmedabad where more than 400 lives
have been lost in Hindu-Muslim clashes" that says: "Learn from us
how to burn Muslims". One can be sure that none of our secular intellectuals
would raise their voice against Newsweek. After all those burnt in
Godhra were Hindus, weren't they? They are the majority community
in India, aren't they? So what is there to complain about?
The secular media virtually justifies
the killing of the Kar Sevaks allegedly because they "raised slogans".
In a secular India, Hindu lives are expendable. It is always the
Hindu who is in the wrong. Consider the case of the rape of nuns
in Jhabua. It was again established to be an intra-tribal and intra-Christian
affair. But the secular media and the minorities blamed the Hindu
and the RSS. Or take the case of Catholic Church being vandalised
in Bangalore. It was attributed to the Bajrang Dal. It was only when
an unheard of Muslim sect was discovered to have been behind the
crime that the chant of hatred against the Hindus stopped. No apology
was ever given by minority leaders, let alone the secular media.
Hindus are soft targets. BJP workers are regularly murdered in Kerala
by the communists. Indeed a few months ago a BJP school teacher was
hacked to pieces in front of school children right in the class.
There was no hew and cry.
On March 3 The Hindu reported that
"two RSS workers were hacked to death by suspected CPI(M) activists
at Melur, near Palayad under the Dharmadom police station limits".
Hacked to death. It couldn't have been an easy death. The men must
have screamed in agony. But do these murders affect anyone? They
are RSS workers, aren't they? Deserve to be killed, don't they? And
consider what the CPM government is doing in West Bengal. Says a
report in TheTelegraph )5 March), a Kolkata- based secular paper: "After
its unsuccessfulattempt to dictate terms to the Ramakrishna Mission-run
primary schools three years ago, The state government is now threatening
to impose its writ on institutions run by Christian missionaries.
Around 10 such schools in the city, followed by several in the districts,
find themselves in the line of fire for not abiding by the government's
directive to employ teachers appointed by the CPM-controlled primary
councils. The provident fund and other post-retirement benefits of
the headmistress of Ushagram School in Asansol have been blocked
by the government after the institution refused to employ a teacher
appointed by the Burdwan District Council". It is a long story of
harassment. Imagine what a shindig would have been raised if a BJP
government tried to impose party-oriented teachers on Christian mission
schools. There would have been screams of 'saffron tyranny'. If the
communists attempt to undermine missionary hold in their own schools
hardly any notice is taken of it. Of course, if there is a Maoist
rebellion in Nepal or in the heart of India that is dismissed as
just one of those things. The proletariat, one must know, has the
right to kill. In Nepal 48 soldiers, 75 policemen, four civil servants
and one civilian were killed in cold blood by Maoists but the story
died the next day. How can Maoists be wrong? They are revolutionaries,
aren't they? And revolutionaries have the right to kill, don't they?
On March 3 The Times of India woke
up to the fact that two tableeq Jamaat preachers from Kashmir had
come to twin towns of Godhra and Dahod earlier in December 2001 to
make provocative speeches, forcing the seven mosques in Dahod to
put up sign boards saying: "Outsiders shouldn't come to the mosques.
Delivering provocative speeches is strictly prohibited".
That bit of information never saw
the light of day in any newspaper. Even news agencies apparently
had never heard of Dahod and what has been going on there. So much
for our news agencies and media reporting.
There is something sick with our
secular media that calls for explanation. Ayodhya has been deliberately
seen as a point of explosion when even such a respectable person
as justice Ram Jois, former Chief Justice of the Punjab and Haryana
High Court has pointed out in an article that the Ram Janmabhoomi
Nyas is the undisputed owner of the 43 acres of land near the Babri
Masjid site and that it is on this undisputed land that the VHP proposes
to start reconstruction of the Ram Temple to fulfil the aspirations
of the People. That point is deliberately disregarded. It does not
serve the intentions of our secularists bent on damning the BJP and
the VHP. Again and again the point is made that there is no evidence
of a temple having been demolished by Babar's general in Ayodhya to
build a mosque on the site, when every evidence points to that. There
is, for example, the statement made by the Deputy Superintendent
Archaeologist (Madras Circle), K. K. Muhammad (Indian Express) 15
December 1990 that said: "I can reiterate this (i.e. the existence of
the Hindu temple before it was displaced by the Babri Masjid) with
greater authority - for I was the only Muslim who had participated in
the Ayodhya excavations in 1976-77 under Prof. Lal as a trainee. I
have visited the excavation near the Babri site and seen the excavated
pillar bases.
The JNU historians have highlighted
only one part of our findings while suppressing the other. I often
wondered why Prof. Lal is keeping quiet about it while JNU group
went on a publication spree". Muhammad was to add; "Ayodhya is as
holy to Hindus as Mecca is to Muslims; Muslims should respect the
sentiments of their Hindu brethren and voluntarily hand over the
structure for constructing the Rama Temple". Everyone keeps saying
that they will respect a Supreme Court judgement. But when is that
going to be delivered? in March 2103 - a century later? Judgement
can be delivered in ten minutes flat. All the evidence is there and
only the blind can ignore it. But why are our courts silent? Are
they afraid to speak out lest they offend the secularists? Are they
afraid of a Muslim backlash if the truth is told? And who believes
the Muslim leaders when they say that they will obey a Supreme Court
order? Did they obey such an order following the judgement given
in the Shah Banoo case?
Besides, one is tempted to ak: what
is so special about the Babri Masjid that tears should be shed over
its demolition? Masjids are routinely demolished even in Saudi Arabia
and in Pakistan to make way for development.
On 22 February The Asian Age carried
this item: "Some 12 unauthorised mosques were demolished in different sectors
of Islamabad on Wednesday. The operation was jointly carried out
by the Capital Development Authority, Islamabad Territory administration,
district auqaf department and the Islamabad police. Official sources
told Dawn that these mosques were razed as part of its ongoing drive
against illegally constructed mosques and madaris in Islamabad...
The mosques' management committees tried to protest during the operation
but no untoward incident as reported". The Babri Masjid was imposed
on the Hindu people of Ayodhya by a conqueror to show who was the
ruler, and it had no legal or moral sanction. It could have been dismantled
and subsequently rebuilt at VHP cost but the Muslim community would
not hear of it. They had the backing of the secularists to whose
pig-headedness must be attributed what has happened since then.