Author: Tarun Vijay
Publication: The Times of India
Date: March 12, 2008
URL: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Tarun_Vijay_Assaulting_Indian_dream/articleshow/2856973.cms
More than a hundred thousand civilians have
been murdered in cold blood since 1986 in ideological hate attacks in India.
Most of them invariably were Hindus. Though Hindus are there in every party
and state machinery, there has been hardly a voice of reason, angst and pain
raised effectively against assaults on Hindus during all these years, as if
Hindus still feel they are living under an oppressive un-Hindu regime and
hence it's better to suffer in silence and be thankful to the oppressors for
small mercies.
It's amazing. The sheer nature of compromise
and an attitude of self-denial , the auto suggestion to keep mum if slapped,
otherwise you will lose votes and power, has de-nationalised governors and
polity to such an extent that a lady minister thinks it beneficial to visit
the office of the assaulters on Hindus, sympathising with the attackers but
chooses to remain silent over the gruesome murders of five Indian citizens
in an Indian town Kannur, just because the governance depends on the support
of the assaulters and victims do not figure in their voters list. Is this
the government for only those who form the ruling coalition or for all Indians?
So much humiliation and insults have gone
deep into our blood that even to say, oh we were attacked not for any other
reason but just because we wore saffron, we were Hindus, makes many of us
feel embarrassed and declare oh, what's the use of remembering what happened
to our ancestors, it will further create bad blood and hatred. But this is
'true' only when Hindus are victims. In every single other incident, its 'prudent',
'wise' and 'essentially readable a thousand times'. Movies on Hindu 'lumpens
and aggressors' are facilitated to bag state awards and included in international
film festivals. I have seen a couple of such aggressively secular 'missionary'
documentaries. It is difficult to appreciate the tone and tenor of utterly
hateful commentaries, which rely more on fabricated unsustainable allegations
and communally surcharged picturisation.
A precipitated hate against Hindus in an influential
part of polity and media showed its first face, post- partition, immediately
after the Tricolour was unfurled at the Red Fort. The Mirpur, Mujaffarbad,
Pindi massacres of Hindus put even the Nazis to shame. It's difficult to re-count
those incidents of blood and gore and unimaginable brutalities on Hindu women
and children. It was so horrifying that Hindus dread even to remember that.
But it figures nowhere in media, though they recount world war, Pol Pot ,Vietnam
but not massacres of Hindus in the erstwhile East Pakistan and Kashmir. In
North East, National Socialist Council of Nagaland (IM), which is fighting
to crate a greater Nagaland for Christ, United Liberation Front of Assam and
many such fronts in Tripura and Manipur, Maoists extremists active from Orissa
to the states of UP, Bihar, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand and Islamist Jihadis
under various banners have been targetting Hindus under different pretexts
like in Assam they call them as Hindi- speaking people and in Kashmir its
just KPs(Kashmiri Pandits).
And now, we have Kannur.
What has changed in this sixty-one-year of
progress, secular rule and increasingly impressive listings in Forbes list?
Hindus being targeted just for their colour
of faith and assertive Hindutwa is a matter of embarrassment.
Two recent incidents have made me feel like
re-visiting Godhra, where Hindus were victims and Hindus were blamed for having
organised their death in a burning inferno! Everyone condemned Gujarat riots
where Hindus and Muslims both were victims, but never even for once we have
seen a secularist answering a question-why were Hindus burnt alive in Sabarmati
express?
Why not a single secular human rightist has
taken up the case of Godhra victims?
Why Gujarat riots means only 'Muslims killed'
and hundreds of Hindus killed are simply forgotten as if they were unmentionable
dirt? Every single Indian facing injustice, no matter what the colour of his
faith is, must get support from all patriots. Why colour of death decides
the hues of support?
In the killing fields of Kannur, five RSS-BJP
workers were hacked to death in a matter of four days ( http://tarun-vijay.blogspot.com/
). Those killed were low income group wage earners like auto rickshaw and
truck drivers. Since CPM has come to power in Kerala in 2006, 20 RSS workers
have been murdered for their saffron leanings. No animosity of any other count
but just belonging to a different and growing ideology was their crime. In
2003, a teacher K.T. Jayakrishnana was hacked to death before the tiny tot
children he was teaching. On 17th September 1996, two ABVP activists, Anu
and Kim, were cornered in a college in Parumala and threatened to be killed
for joining a saffron student's organisation. Fearing death too close, the
students ran and tried to swim across the Pampa river, but the SFI goons stoned
them so severely that they were forced drowned. Even the women washing near
the river tried to throw their sarees to the drowning students, but were stopped
by Communist student leaders. Both the dead youngsters were the only offspring
of their families. The killings of RSS workers in Kannur have a background
to it. It was here that the Communist Party was formed in Kerala in 1940 and
the place is considered a stronghold of the Left in the state. Since early
sixties, the RSS began its work here and soon workers from lower income group,
especially the backward, dalit segment were attracted towards it. This angered
the CPM cadre and leadership and to harass and instil a fear in the CPM workers
who were joining RSS, the first murder of a saffron worker took place in 1967.
His name was Ramakrishnan. I have received a letter describing why violence
is not stopping in Kannur against Hindu workers from Sadananda master, a teacher
in Kannur whose both legs were chopped off in 1994 because he was organising
RSS work there. He is still a teacher, and continues to do RSS work.
From Nandigram to Kannur, Communist terrorism has taken different shapes and
shades. Their ideological cohort Maoists have emerged the largest single murderer-outfits
responsible for killings and looting ( http://www.mha.nic.in/Annual-Reports/ar0607_Eng.pdf
). Yet they have captured the space for peace initiatives and candle light
marches!! They don't know, a worker killed may have a red or a saffron colour,
but the colour of the tears of their mothers remain the same. Ideological
apartheid and a policy to annihilate the differing people is a legacy of the
Communist and Islamic intolerant groups. This creates a chain reaction. Unfortunately
media too takes a narrow sectarian view and sides with groups that thrive
on a secular bias against anything saffron.
The entire Europe and India's anti-fascists
churn out tones of literature against Nazi barbarities and make it sure that
the new generation is taught about how bad Hitler was. This is considered
an essential exercise in secularising the society and building brain walls
against recurrence of such dark periods. But if in the same spirit of building
resistance to the barbarities of Dark Age represented by Aurangzeb, an exhibition
is sought to be displayed, it is uprooted and closed by the secular state
power.
This happened in Chennai where police ordered
forcible closure of an innocuously presented exhibition on Aurangzeb, according
to Mogul documents.
The exhibition was organised by a French journalist
Francois Gautier, who is an ardent devotee of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, an apostle
of universal brotherhood and peace. The purpose was to depict Aurangzeb as
he was seen by Mogul chroniclers and his confidants. The secular politicians
are afraid of two things -showing disrespect to Aurangzeb and showing respect
to his blood brother Dara Shikoh, a noble hearted Muslim whom he got murdered.
Its important to recollect that not only the dreaded terrorists active in
Kashmir like to call their actions of brutality in the name of Islam as continuing
the 'great legacy of Aurangzeb' but in Pakistan the craze amongst the anti-India
leaders is to decorate themselves with the title of Aurangzeb in order to
show their devotion and zeal to the cause of their religion.
This situation says a lot about the dispossession
of the Hindus and their severe loss of memory resulting in disinterestedness
in resisting assaults on their soul. Every party has Hindus as leaders, but
they feel to speak for Hindus is a matter of political loss. They shine individually
but fail collectively. In spite of being the victims of hate and assaults
since centuries, there is not a single museum of holocaust in this land depicting
the long journey of Hindus through indescribable travails and their glorious
history of resistance. There is not a single institution of excellence in
India devoted to the study of Hindu resistance and assaults on their body
and mind. Indian leaders, mostly Hindus, have earned hundreds of crores, amassed
great amount of wealth, but most of it is spent in downsizing their colleagues,
living in extravaganza, launching missiles against their rivals rather than
using it, for once to reawaken the memories of their collective glorious past
and struggles of their ancestors to inspire and lighten up a grand future.
Its an intellectual war to be fought with warriors of wisdom rather than political
gatekeepers and durbans. A community which forgets insults and doesn't make
amends to put up a courageous resistance can't hope to weave a future of respect.
It's not against any other people but on the contrary a Hindu solidarity alone
is a guarantee of peaceful co-existence and equality testified by our long
history. And it certainly means a society without any caste discriminations,
asserting one single identity-the Indian Tricolour. A Hindu observing caste
or region based discriminations and prejudice is less than a Hindu. Make him
feel ashamed of his narrow-mindedness. Breaking the stranglehold of caste
in politics and social mobility corridors is another Independence struggle
to realise the Indian dream.
There can't be an American dream deleting
the memories of Thomas Jefferson, Lincoln and Martin Luther King and making
Americans feel embarrassed about their Latin Christian character that defines
the colour of the land. There can't be an Indian dream by targeting Hindus
for their legitimate saffron assertions.
The author is the Director, Dr Syamaprasad
Mookerjee Research Foundation.
