Author: Tarun Vijay
Publication: The Hindustan Times
Date: September 16, 2003
URL: http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_377009,0008.htm
The Mumbai blasts are yet another
display of hate-in-action. Intelligence agencies feel more such attacks
could take place in other metros soon and there is little they can do about
it.
Yet, the history and social dynamics
of the last thousand years show that hate has never succeeded; no matter
what the form, ideology, religion or movement it surfaced from, it has
always been finally condemned to lie in the inglorious dustbins of history.
If there is one reason why Hindus
have survived centuries of foreign invasions and attacks, it is their all-encompassing
tolerance and strong dislike of extremist action. I like and adore Savarkar,
yet Hindus en masse accepted Gandhi hundred times more than they did Savarkar.
Mumbaikars are being applauded for
springing back so soon after the blasts. Yet, it's always been like that.
Hindus have been facing hate attacks for the last many centuries. When
Md Bin Qasim attacked Sindh, it was not an act of revenge - as some seculars,
blind to their faith and history, have justified the Mumbai blasts by linking
it to the Gujarat riots (why, then, did Godhra happen?). Some even linked
it with the ASI report on Ayodhya excavations!
Md Bin Qasim was followed by Gazhni,
Ghori, Taimur Lang, Nadir Shah, Abdali and the French and Portuguese. None
of the Indian kings they attacked had offended them.
Yet, so intense was their hate for
us that each attack was followed by demolitions of temples, religious conversion
of Hindus, mocking of our gods, goddesses and rituals, creating terror
by public executions, rapes of women and gruesome killings of children.
Even recently, while our soldiers dug graves for dead Pakistani soldiers
and buried them with honour, they tortured ours. The modern day jehadis,
educated, born and bred on this soil, are simply replicating the deeds
of their predecessors. They have no respect for human values and no heart
for the helpless.
It was the hate factor that led
to a section of Muslims demanding the partition of our common motherland.
They were one of us. They shared the same stock, race, blood, language,
attire, social norms, cultural ethos, ancestors, history, soil and the
sky under which we grew. Yet, they hated us and went off to Pakistan with
swords in their hands and acid on their tongues.
Immediately, they demanded a loan,
a hefty sum of about Rs 55 crore. Nehru, the large-hearted secular, and
Sardar, the hard ruler, both denied it till Gandhi sat on a fast, compelling
the release of money to the newly-born Pakistan. And then they attacked
us. We lost two-thirds of Kashmir. Women, children and men were brutally
massacred by the so-called tribal aggressors from Pakistan. Infants were
tossed in the air and balanced on spears in a gruesome game of savagery.
Subsequently, they fought four wars
with us and stabbed us in the back several times. Is there anything that
could have prevented us from turning against Muslims en masse, declaring
a sovereign Hindu State and putting Muslims on a second-class citizen level,
like Pakistan did to Hindus? None of the Muslim leaders or parties empathised
with Hindu pain and anguish; still we continued to regard them as our brothers.
That's how we have always been.
We hate to be hateful. We continued to turn a blind eye to the reducing
number of Hindus in Pakistan and Bangladesh. The great rashtravadis, who
got power raising 'Hindu' issues, turned 'mature' and 'pragmatic' politicians.
A Muslim is our president; a Muslim is the head of the council responsible
for spreading Indian culture worldwide; a Muslim was, till recently, head
of India's public television agency; in the past, they've been appointed
as the chief justice, cabinet secretary, home minister, air force chief
and so on. They are one of us and enjoy the same rights. That's our Hindu-ness.
We did not establish a Hindu man's
photograph - with folded hands, begging for mercy before jehadis - as an
icon of Hindu pain and anguish against Muslim butcheries. The best icon
would have been that of the mullahs and bearded Muslims torching the ill-fated
railway compartment at Godhra. Can you imagine the kind of jehadi madness
reigning on their faces, the slogans they might have been raising or the
pleas of the Hindu women, children and men locked inside the steel-framed
inferno? Would that not make a powerful icon of Hindu helplessness before
jehadis?
None of the dependents of those
burnt alive were brought to Kolkata for press briefings or their plight
advertised by our noble-hearted media foundations, ever so eager to help
people in distress. Why? Because they were Hindus? Or because they were
returning after having committed the sin of visiting Ayodhya?
They never cared when Kashmiri Hindu
women were raped and killed in Habbakadal, Doda and Poonch. Never sighed
when a six-year-old girl, Seema, had to witness the killing of her father,
mother and elder brother (who was in Class VIII) near Jammu. Can she be
made an icon of hate against Muslim savagery? Why don't we do that?
Thank god, we are Hindus and not
secularists.
(The writer is Editor, Panchjanya.
Write to tarunvijay@vsnl.com)
