19/01/90: When Kashmiri Pandits fled Islamic terror

First they came for the Communists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak out for me.

-- Martin Niemöller on German intellectuals who failed to stand up to Nazi terror. Applies to our intellectuals too who have spectacularly failed to raise their voice against Islamic terror.


'Be One With Us, Run, or Die...'

Srinagar, January 4, 1990. Aftab, a local Urdu newspaper, publishes a press release issued by Hizb-ul Mujahideen, set up by the Jamaat-e-Islami in 1989 to wage jihad for Jammu & Kashmir's secession from India and accession to Pakistan, asking all Hindus to pack up and leave. Another local paper, Al Safa, repeats this expulsion order.

In the following days, there is near chaos in the Kashmir Valley with Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah and his National Conference Government abdicating all responsibilities of the state. Masked men run amok, waving Kalashnikovs, shooting to kill and shouting anti-India slogans.

Reports of killing of Hindus, invariably Kashmiri Pandits, begin to trickle in; there are explosions; inflammatory speeches are made from the pulpits of mosques, using public address systems meant for calling the faithful to prayers. A terrifying fear psychosis begins to take grip of Kashmiri Pandits.

Walls are plastered with posters and handbills, summarily ordering all Kashmiris to strictly follow the Islamic dress code, prohibiting the sale and consumption of alcoholic drinks and imposing a ban on video parlours and cinemas. The masked men with Kalashnikovs force people to re-set their watches and clocks to Pakistan Standard Time.

Shops, business establishments and homes of Kashmiri Pandits, the original inhabitants of the Kashmir Valley with a recorded cultural and civilisational history dating back 5,000 years, are marked out. Notices are pasted on doors of Pandit houses, peremptorily asking the occupants to leave Kashmir within 24 hours or face death and worse. Some are more lucid: "Be one with us, run, or die!"

'Asi Gachchi Pakistan, Batao Roas te Batanev San...'

Srinagar, January 19, 1990. Jagmohan arrives to take charge as Governor of Jammu & Kashmir. Farooq Abdullah, whose pathetic, whimpering, snivelling Government has all but ceased to exist and has gone into hiding, resigns and goes into a sulk. Curfew is imposed as a first measure to restore some semblance of law and order. But it fails to have a deterrent effect.

Throughout the day, Jammu & Kashmir Liberation Front and Hizbul Mujahideen terrorists use public address systems at mosques to exhort people to defy curfew and take to the streets. Masked men, firing from their Kalashnikovs, march up and down, terrorising cowering Pandits who, by then, have locked themselves in their homes.

As evening falls, the exhortations become louder and shriller. Three taped slogans are repeatedly played the whole night from mosques: "Kashmir mei agar rehna hai, Allah-O-Akbar kehna hai" (If you want to stay in Kashmir, you have to say Allah-O-Akbar); "Yahan kya chalega, Nizam-e-Mustafa" (What do we want here? Rule of Islam); "Asi gachchi Pakistan, Batao roas te Batanev san" (We want Pakistan along with Hindu women but without their men).

In the preceding months, 300 Hindu men and women, nearly all of them Kashmiri Pandits, had been slaughtered ever since the brutal murder of Pandit Tika Lal Taploo, noted lawyer and BJP national executive member, by the JKLF in Srinagar on September 14, 1989. Soon after that, Justice N K Ganju of the Srinagar High Court was shot dead. Pandit Sarwanand Premi, 80-year-old poet, and his son were kidnapped, tortured, their eyes gouged out, and hanged to death. A Kashmiri Pandit nurse working at the Soura Medical College Hospital in Srinagar was gang-raped and then beaten to death. Another woman was abducted, raped and sliced into bits and pieces at a sawmill.

In villages and towns across Kashmir Valley, terrorist hit lists have been floating about. All the names are of Kashmiri Pandits. With no Government worth its name, the administration having collapsed and disappeared, the police nowhere to be seen, despondency sets in. As the night of January 19, 1990, wears itself out, despondency gives way to desperation.

And tens of thousands of Kashmiri Pandits across the Valley take a painful decision: To flee their homeland to save their lives from rabid jihadis. Thus takes place a 20th century Exodus.

Pandits don't live here anymore, the Valley has been cleansed of Hindus...


Srinagar, January 19, 2012. There are no Kashmiri Pandits in Srinagar, or, for that matter, anywhere else in Kashmir Valley; they don't live here anymore. You can find them in squalid refugee camps in Jammu and Delhi. At least 300,000 Kashmiri Pandits who fled their home and hearth in 1990 have been reduced to living the lives of refugees in their own country; many have since migrated to foreign shores.

Of those who remain in India, two-thirds are camping in Jammu. The rest are in Delhi and in other cities. Many of them, once prosperous and proud of their rich heritage, now live in grovelling poverty, dependent on Government dole and charity. In these 22 years, an entire generation of exiled Kashmiri Pandits has grown up, without seeing the land from where their parents fled to escape the brutalities of Islamic terrorism, a land they dare not return to, although that land still remains a part of their country.

A large number of them are suffering from a variety of stress and depression related diseases. A group of doctors who surveyed the mental and physical health of the Kashmiri Pandits living in refugee camps, found high incidence of 'economic distress, stress induced diabetes, partial lunacy, hypertension and mental retardation.' Statistics reflect high death rate and low birth rate among the Kashmiri Pandit refugees.

And thereby hangs a tragic tale that has been all but wiped out from public memory.
An entire people have been uprooted from the land of their ancestors and left to fend for themselves as a weak-kneed Indian state shamelessly panders to Islamic terrorists and separatists who claim they are the final arbiters of Jammu & Kashmir's destiny. A part of India's cultural heritage has been destroyed; a chapter of India's civilisational history has been erased.

Had this tragedy occurred elsewhere in Hindu majority India, and had the victims been Muslims, we would have described it as 'ethnic cleansing' and 'genocide.' We would have made films with horror-inducing titles. We would have filed cases in the Supreme Court of India. Our media would have marshalled remarkable rage in reporting the smallest detail.

But, this tragedy has occurred in Muslim majority Kashmir valley, and the victims are all Hindus, that too Pandits. What has been lost is part of India's Hindu culture, what has been erased is integral to India's Hindu civilisation.

Therefore, the Government makes bold to record that the Kashmiri Pandits have "migrated on their own" and their "displacement (is) self-imposed"; the National Human Rights Commission, after a perfunctory inquiry, refuses to concede that what has happened is 'genocide' or 'ethnic cleansing,' though facts add up to no less than that, never mind that at least 300,000 lives have been destroyed.

And, our jholawallah brigade of secular activists rudely turn up their noses to the plight of Kashmiri Pandits: Hindu sorrow, inflicted by Islamic terror, stinks.

Today, on January 19, the 22nd anniversary of the forced flight of Kashmiri Pandits, look back at India's wretched history of secular politics and consider the terrible price the nation has paid at the altar of appeasement because the Indian state has, and continues to, toe the line of least resistance.

(This is a slightly modified/updated version of the first of a two-part essay that appeared on Rediff.com on January 19, 2005.)

Not a matter of faith, but of state!

Mercy petitions can't be decided by Pratibha Patil's 'religious beliefs'

The President of the Republic of India is not the head of Government, but the titular head of state whose decisions and actions are governed by the ‘advice’ of the Union Council of Ministers, headed by the Prime Minister. In his or her official capacity, the President performs ceremonial duties, many of them a legacy of India’s colonial past, and is designated Supreme Commander of India’s armed forces. That apart, the President is the custodian of the Constitution of India and is bound by oath of office to protect and uphold its provisions, unless Parliament decides to amend any one of them. But even amendments moved by the executive and approved by the legislature cannot change the basic character of the Constitution which lays down that India is and shall remain a secular republic. By implication, no decision or action of the state can be dictated by the faith or religious beliefs of those in authority irrespective of the office they hold.

If media reports are to be believed -- and they have not been denied by Rashtrapati Bhavan so far -- President Pratibha Patil is said to have ‘informally’ communicated to the Ministry of Home Affairs that because of her religious beliefs she will not turn down mercy petitions of criminals on death row forwarded to her. Seen in this context, Ms Patil’s decision to commute the death sentence given to nine persons held guilty by the Supreme Court of committing heinous crimes deserving capital punishment into life term in jail, if influenced by her religious beliefs, is at once both outrageous and downright dangerous. The law of the land allows those sentenced to death to file mercy petitions to the President. Contrary to popular belief, the President does not unilaterally decide on mercy petitions. They are studied by the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Cabinet takes a considered view, which is then communicated to the President, who either apends his or her signature to the decision or returns the file for a second opinion. If the Government sticks to its decision, the President is bound to sign on the dotted line or, if he or she feels morally compelled not to agree with the advice of the Council of Ministers, keep the file aside; in the extreme, the President has the option of resigning from office. It would be in order for the Government to clarify whether it had decided to commute these nine death sentences; if it had not, then it must explain why the decision was not reiterated and the files sent back to the President to abide by the Council of Ministers’ advice. Silence won’t do for under no circumstances can the religious beliefs of the President over-ride either the law of the land or the advice of the Council of Ministers.

The issue here is not whether capital punishment is morally right or wrong, or if there was sufficient reason to commute these death sentences. The death penalty can be debated endlessly on other fora, but till such time capital punishment exists on the statute book, it makes little or no sense to seek to upturn the decision of the Supreme Court, unless the Government is convinced that there is compelling reason which, of course, must be justifiable and have nothing to do with either religious beliefs or moral compunctions, to commute the sentence. This has been the practice all this while; of the 77 mercy petitions in the past three decades, only 10 have been considered fit for commutation. The larger issue here is of the undesirability of a President dragging his or her religious beliefs into the affairs of a secular state. Unless contested, this will set a dangerous precedence. What if India faces external aggression and the President were to refuse to authorise the declaration of war, which he or she must by virtue of being the Supreme Commander, because of his or her religious beliefs? Or, if a President, guided by his or her religious beliefs, were to place faith above nation? Or, for that matter, refuse to sign an Act of Parliament into law because it contradicts the religious injunctions to which a President may subscribe?

Since doubts have been raised, the President must disclose the reasons behind her decision to commute the death sentences. If she doesn’t, the Government must make them public and tell the people whether it endorses them; if it doesn’t, then the files should be returned to Rashtrapati Bhavan immediately. Meanwhile, the pending mercy petitions should remain untouched.

What do you think? Register your opinion on this issue by participating in the blog poll in the left column.

[This is an expanded version of the editorial comment I wrote for The Pioneer. My stuff published in The Pioneer can be read here.]

Congress style communal politics

Congress deals Muslim card

Kanchan Gupta

The Congress clearly treats Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s sentiments with utter contempt. Worse, it makes no effort to keep this a secret. So much for Ms Sonia Gandhi praising him sky high this past week. Why else would the Congress have gone and inked an electoral pact with Ittehad-e-Millat Council in Uttar Pradesh? No, there is no reason for Mr Singh to celebrate his party’s alliance with a rank communal organisation which openly preaches Islamic fanaticism in a language not dissimilar to what is heard on tapes containing messages from Ayman al-Zawahiri that Al Jazeera periodically telecasts to keep the jihadi spirit from flagging. For, this is a marriage of convenience, which will be consummated during the Lok Sabha election, and not an extension of the Prime Minister’s odious ‘Muslims first’ policy of appeasement.

The Congress believes that it will be able to consolidate the votes of Muslims by striking a deal with a Muslim organisation headed by a maulana who had openly called for the assassination of Mr George W Bush while the US President was visiting India in March 2006 and offered a reward of Rs 25 crore to anybody who would undertake the ‘holy mission’. Maulana Tauqeer Raza Khan, who appeared at the party office on Thursday to pledge his support to the Congress, now says that the “issue has lost its relevance as Bush is no longer in power”. Which only underscores the fact that he saw it as being ‘relevant’ so long as Mr Bush was in office.

Now, look at the contradiction between the Prime Minister’s feelings and his party’s deeds. Everybody knows that Mr Singh “deeply loves” Mr Bush, that he rarely, if at all, missed the opportunity to declare that love, although he would do it in the most cravenly maudlin manner. His feelings, it must be presumed, have not diminished with Mr Bush’s exit from the White House; honourable men do not disown their friends and benefactors. Yet, the Congress has embraced Maulana Tauqeer Raza Khan, seemingly unmindful of the fact that he had wanted the man whom Mr Singh so admires and for whom he has nothing but fulsome praise, to be killed.

Of course, Mr Bush is not the only person whom the maulana wanted to be despatched to the other world: He had offered a similar reward to anybody who would murder the Danish cartoonists who had allegedly lampooned Prophet Mohammed in the pages of Jyllands-Posten. Just in case you are curious where the prize money would have come from had someone taken up his offer to kill either Mr Bush or the Danish cartoonists, here is what he said on Thursday: “Rs 25 crore is the sum total of one-rupee contributions from each of the country’s Muslims.”

The explanation raises certain discomfiting issues. First, are there 25 crore Muslims in India? If yes, then the Census reports are not to be trusted and should be immediately labelled as bogus. Second, is every Muslim in India as blood-thirsty and hateful as this obnoxious maulana? This question must be answered with a resounding no. Third, does he represent the Muslims of India? Obviously he doesn’t. Then why is the Congress eager to seek his help in Uttar Pradesh? Because the party thinks Muslims are ‘like that only’ and can be influenced by peddlers of hate into parting with their votes on polling day. This is how the Congress has manipulated the ‘Muslim vote’ for six decades; tragically, more often than not Muslims have allowed their vote to be thus manipulated.

The Congress’s alliance with Ittehad-e-Millat Council is of a piece with its strategic decision to pander to the community’s lowest common denominator by lacing its poll campaign with hate speech meant to rouse communal passions and thus consolidate the ‘Muslim vote’. On March 15, the Congress held an election meeting at the ground adjacent to the Jama Masjid in Chandigarh. Ms Mohsina Kidwai, a senior Congress leader, Mr Imran Kidwai, chairman of the AICC’s Minorities Cell, and Mr Pawan Kumar Bansal, Minister of State for Finance and Parliamentary Affairs in the UPA Government and the Congress candidate for Chandigarh parliamentary constituency addressed the meeting, largely attended by Muslims.

And what did Mr Imran Kidwai say in his fire-and-brimstone speech, seeking the votes of Muslims for the Congress? “Arre mujhe to badaa afsos hai yaaron... ki main mufti nahi hoon. Pawan Bhai, main mufti nahin hoon iska mujhe badaa afsos hai, kyunki mufti log hamare yahaan fatwa wohi de sakte hain. Aur agar main mufti hota to sirf ek fatwa deta main. Aur fatwa yeh deta, ki Musalmaan ka BJP ke saath jaana kufr ke baraabar hai... aur main yeh saabit kar sakta hoon... yeh aise hi nahi keh raha hoon main...” (I regret that I am not a mufti... Pawan Bhai, I truly regret I am not a mufti, because a mufti alone can issue a fatwa... Had I been a mufti, I would have issued a fatwa that for Muslims to go with the BJP is similar to going with kafirs.) Pawan Bhai and the other Congress stalwarts nodded their heads approvingly.

The Election Commission of India has in its possession a copy of the CD containing the recording of Mr Imran Kidwai’s hate speech. It has also received an official complaint from the BJP, pointing out the gross violation of the law as well as the model code of conduct by the Congress. But it has not so much as lifted its little finger in admonishment, leave alone seek an explanation from the Congress. Nor has the Election Commission found it fit to take note of the CPI(M)’s alliance with Abdul Nasser Madani in Kerala whose People’s Democratic Party is a facade for activities that are clearly inimical to communal amity and national unity, and who, the police believe, has active links with Islamist terrorists. Madani, it may be recalled, was accused of masterminding the bombings at Coimbatore on February 14, 1998, in which 46 people — 35 men, 10 women and a child — were killed. Thanks to the DMK Government’s secular credentials, the prosecution ‘failed’ to prove the case and Madani escaped the punishment he so justly deserved.

The Election Commission, however, is greatly exercised over Mr Varun Gandhi’s alleged ‘communal’ remarks in Pilibhit, from where he is contesting the Lok Sabha election on a BJP ticket. In an unprecedented move, it has gone to the extent of asking the BJP to drop Mr Gandhi from the party’s list of candidates without even going into the merits of the case or checking the tape of Mr Gandhi’s ‘hate speech’ for authenticity. Such self-righteousness and moral posturing ill suits an Election Commission which has made it a point to gloss over the transgressions of the ‘secular’ parties while attacking Mr Gandhi for standing up for Hindu rights. By doing so, it has betrayed its bias and diminished its stature. From Election Commission of India it has become the Election Commission of Pilibhit.

The Pioneer| Sunday, March 29, 2009 | Coffee Break

READER RESPONSE TO THIS COLUMN:

Congress By Mukesh on 4/2/2009 10:31:27 AM Its an established fact that hindus and muslims do not have any thing in common and they can not live together. History is witnessed to it. also wherever they are in majority they make other citizens life miserable and even led to killing kafirs. so their is no point in promoting them in any manner. Civil war will start if insane like our PM talks about first right of minoirty on its resources. this is clear that he wants hindu community weaken further. Why, who has given him that right?

pandering of no avail By Ganesh on 4/2/2009 7:54:54 AM With all their terror friendly policies like pension scheme for terrorist families,financial aid to Madarasa,unfair upgrading of Madarasa education and so on one might expect the terrorists to be more benign towards congress led govts. But the ground reality shows that the attacks are growing with every passing day.The confused govt announces more doles. This vicious circle goes on and on.This is more on the lines of street level extorsion to sell peace to a timid and pusilanimous govt.

Congress on rampage By sg on 3/31/2009 12:33:51 PM Congress will disintergrate the nation in couple of decades if they continue this appeasemnt of muslims. Rather than knitting them into the fabric of India, they always promote them to be a different species and fuel their irresponcible leaders and community. So much so that they help in hating the hindus, and this has been going on for centuries then continued by the nehru-gandhi family. If the nation does not realize this today, we will end up in a hot pot of violance soon.

Congress deals Muslim card By A.Sathyamurthy on 3/30/2009 9:59:18 PM Mr Gupta's article has thrown light on the designs of the Congress, the party that has been fooling the people for over six decades. The Congress and other 'secular' parties play the Muslim card only because they take the Hindu votes for granted. Once they fear a reaction from the majority of the Hindus--which is highly due now--they will drop the card like hot iron!

Congress deals Muslim card By S.Raguraman on 3/30/2009 7:26:58 PM Mr.Kanchan Gupta has asked "Is every Muslim in Indian is as blood-thirsty and haeteful as the Maulana" and answers with a resounding "no". His answer is right. But, it is also a fact that, Muslims, by and large have sympathy for the fanatics among them, though they may not explicitly express them. How many 'secular' Hindus write to newspapers, condemning the comparitively harmless 'extremists' among Hindus ? But, do you find a single letter from a 'secular' Muslim, condemning the atrocities ?

Godhra Muslim ex-Congressman... By A Resident Of Godhra on 3/30/2009 3:10:32 AM BJP is not highlighting that one of the muslim attackers of Godhra, who burnt hindu Kar sevaks, women and children travelers of the Sabarmati Expresss Train, was a congress counsellor of the Godhra Municipality. This man is still on the run (or in hiding). In Gujarat where more communal incidents took place before Modi (2001), during Congress reign and none of the phony seculars did pay any attention.

Congress practices double standards!. By A.Seshagiri Rao. on 3/29/2009 11:26:01 PM The Congress leaders often talk through their hats. While accusing others they play communal card unabashedly !. Did not Rajiv Gandhi conduct ‘shila nyas’ at Ayodhya , promised ‘Ram rajya’?. If BJP does the same they call it Hindu communalism!. The Congressmen practice double standards and the minorities though placated will not buy their bluff! The Congress has become a ‘private limited company’ sans principles except with only programme ie. to come to power by any means!. God save India.

Shame of India "Congress" By Anand Dubey on 3/29/2009 10:40:34 PM Gandhi vs Gandhi, How members of one family are miles apart in thier ideology and character. Which again is miles apart for the real Gandhi family. Gandhised 'Nehurs" show how much they work hard for the welfare of minority. In fact they work against majority and minority both. This party has never seen country with one eye. This secular congress is most religiously, caste, and regionalism oriented party. If congress wins this election, India will be rewarded with-More bombings inside and outside.

What more could Congress party do to damage India? By Aam Admai on 3/29/2009 6:52:11 PM The Congresss party's electoral pact with ttehad-e-Millat Council in UP speaks for its so called secular credentials. Save India! Save your children!

Congress deals Muslim card By Murali on 3/29/2009 5:05:01 PM Congress will have pact even with the devil to retain power .

Congress Deals Muslim Cards By Murali on 3/29/2009 4:47:58 PM Congress will pact with any devil to destroy India!

secularism in india By darsan on 3/29/2009 4:44:39 PM indian secularism's key tenet is anti-hinduism. the Pope's followers scream secularism as a ploy for conversion.the congress held the butcher's hand in partition and has graduated now.

GREED FOR POWER MAKES. By B S GANESH on 3/29/2009 4:35:36 PM PRESENT DAY CONGRESS IS A TRITOR OF OUR COUNTRY AS IT DIVIDES THE COUNTRY ON THE BASIS OF MINORITY AND MAJORITY, INSTEAD OF UNITING ALL RELIGIONS FOR STRENGTHERN THE COUNTRY. THIS IS WHY FREQUENT TERRORIST ATTACKS ARE TAKING PLACE. GREED FOR POWER MAKES CONGRESS A TRAITOR INSTEAD OF a PATRIOT.

Bleating of Vir Sanghvi By Dr Ramalingam on 3/29/2009 3:00:51 PM Today there was an article in Indian Express where Vir Sanghvi bleated about how a scion of the Nehru Gandhi family had blotted the family escutcheon by saying he is a Hindu and how he showered hatred on Muslims etc. The secular press is really sad that one Gandhi has totally overshadowed the other weak and stupid one, who is not even a college graduate but claims to be an M.Phil!

Cong's propaganda machine more dreadful than Goebbel's By Reader on 3/29/2009 1:07:08 PM The Media is Goebbelised by the Neo-Fascist Communal Junta called "Secularists". Why BJP is not exposing Cong to the people as the mother of all communlisms and the greatest threat to democracy in India?

Congress Minister of Gujarat sent to 20 years jail for planting bombs By Shankar on 3/29/2009 12:31:19 PM BJP is not highlighting this judgement which came in Oct 2008. The court convicted Surti, along with 11 others, in connection with the April 1993 grenade blast at Surat Railway station.

Election Commission (Sonia) By Krishen Kak on 3/29/2009 11:03:28 AM The Varun Gandhi ruling/advice was unanimously agreed to by all three ECs, and Kanchan Gupta incisively details its pseudo-secular bias. It has become the Election Commission (Sonia). Shri Gopalaswami appears to have blotted his copybook at the very end of a distinguished career. He should have resigned when the President rejected his Chawla recommendation. PS Note too the Congress electoral support to terrorism-related convict Sanjay Dutt.

Why is the BJP silent on a Terrorist Congress minister. By Shankar on 3/29/2009 8:36:04 AM Dear Sir, I do not know why the BJP is defensive on many issues.It should highlight that a Congress Minister was actually a terrorist.I have not seen any BJP anchors on analysts mentioning it in the news shows. Pl forward to Mr Ravishankar Prasad,Arun Jaitley,Siddhardh Singh,Praksash Jawedkar.This judgement came recently and therefore can be taken up as an active issues. This should have been hammered during Mayabens arrest.

Article by Mr. Kanchan Gupta By C. L. Sharma on 3/29/2009 5:58:44 AM I found the article by Mr. Gupta extremely enlightening. It reveals that the Congress Party is full of hypocrites and sycophants. It is a communal party that seeks to promote the interests of the dominant minority at the cost of the other segments of the society. It pursues an appeasement policy to stay in power for ever. I hope that the people would unite to defeat its nefarious designs, by giving it a crushing defeat.

Duplicitous By Manish Maheshwari on 3/29/2009 5:58:38 AM This, to my mind, is a matter that should agitate the minds of all Hindus --- there clearly are two sets of laws now in this country: one for Hindus and one for non-Hindus.

Congress plays a divisive politics By Gopal on 3/29/2009 3:42:59 AM Congress is the one who plays communal politics. They are all out to appease minorities at the cost of all other Indians. What a shame? Our weakest PM Manmohan under the the influence of madam Sonia Gandhi advocates for "First Muslim" share on all Indian resources. People should vote BJP Canditates to make India stronger under the able leadership of Sri Advaniji.

Election Commission of India has in its possession a copy of the CD ... By anil on 3/29/2009 1:22:07 AM EC took the decision overnight in Varun's case. How will it take for EC to delve into this. This only paints EC in poor colour and can not but come to a decision that it may as well be hand in globe with some dark forces.

Secularism in India By anil on 3/29/2009 1:13:51 AM Secularisn in India constitutes giving a free hand to Congress & its allies so they can advance their communal, sometime criminal & family oriented agenda every where. One wonders how this party can become a national party and call India the largest democracy in the World.

Malaysia Hindus persecuted

Malaysia, not truly Asia
Kanchan Gupta

Water canons used to disperse protesting Malaysian Indians in Kuala Lumpur
The brutal crackdown on Malaysia’s ethnic Indian community for demanding equal rights and a better deal should have left India incandescent with rage and South Block fuming. Instead, we have heard nothing more than a timid squeak in the form of the UPA Government informing Parliament that it has “taken up the issue” with the Malaysian authorities. There has been no robust statement, nor has there been a gesture of solidarity with Malaysia’s Hindus under attack. Thirty-one of them have been picked up for joining a protest march and charged with “attempt to murder” and equally serious offences which, if ‘proved’ in Malaysia’s kangaroo courts (recall the Anwar Ibrahim trial), could fetch them heavy penalties. The Prime Minister, who spent sleepless nights after an Indian Muslim was detained in Australia for his connections with the two Glasgow Airport bombers (both Indian Muslims), is not known to have shown even the remotest interest in the persecution of Hindus in Malaysia, leave alone utter a single word to register the Government of India’s protest. A conspiracy of silence has been hatched by those who believe even the mildest rebuke would upset the ummah in both Malaysia and India and cast aspersions on the Prime Minister’s ‘Muslims Über Alles’ policy which, funnily though, is yet to swing Muslim votes for the Congress.
It would, therefore, be in order to place on record the salient points made by Mr P Waytha Moorthy, chairman of Malaysia’s Hindu Rights Action Force (HINDRAF), the organisation which has been leading the agitation for a more equitable and egalitarian deal for that country’s ethnic Indians. He was in Delhi recently and made an eloquent presentation about the plight of the “forgotten, marginalised and persecuted” Hindu community of Indian origin in his country. Mr Moorthy stressed on four points that outline the situation prevailing in Malaysia:

• The demolition of Hindu temples on the instructions of Malaysian authorities, who are pro-actively involved with the Islamisation drive, has gathered extraordinary speed. At least “10,000 Hindu temples have been demolished” in Malaysia since its independence 50 years ago. Many of the temples were as old as 150 years and integral to Malaysia’s multi-cultural, multi-religious society; more important, they were a part of Malaysia’s civilisational history. By razing them, Malaysia is not only disowning its past but also stripping Hindus of their dignity and self-respect.


• The Government sanctioned Islamisation drive has moved into top gear. While in office, former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, backed by his party, Umno, had launched a two-point programme to give Malaysia a distinctly Islamic character. The first part of the programme was aimed at promoting Islamic values, setting up Islamic institutions and embracing pan-Islamism by securing a place for Malaysia on Islamic fora. The other part of the programme focussed on reviving the ‘bhoomiputra’ policy of the 1970s by promoting the interests of ethnic Malays, who are Muslim and form just over 55 per cent of Malaysia’s population. As part of this campaign, Muslims got precedence over others in Government, bureaucracy and education. Simultaneously, shari’ah court rulings are being made increasingly binding on non-Muslims, “especially in matters of inter-faith marriages and religious identity of children”.

This point is illustrated by a story filed by PTI from Kuala Lumpur on September 17, which is reproduced verbatim below:
An ethnic Indian Hindu woman has urged Malaysia’s highest civil court to stop her Muslim husband, who had embraced Islam, from converting their sons to the religion against her wishes.
Subashini Rajasingam, an ethnic Indian Hindu married Saravanan Thangathoray five years ago and the couple has two sons — Dharvin and Sharvind. However, Saravanan told Subashini last November (2006) that he had converted to Islam.
Twenty-nine-year-old Subashini, a clerk, attempted suicide and was hospitalised. When she returned home, she found that her husband had left with their son Dharvin, who he claimed had also converted to Islam.
The woman turned to the courts to prevent her husband from converting Sharvind and from seeking a divorce in a Shari’ah Court instead of a civil court. However, the Court of Appeal ruled in March she should argue her case in the Shari’ah Court. She then approached the Federal Court against the verdict.

• More than two-thirds of the people of Indian origin in Malaysia, living in that country for 200 years and forming 10 per cent of the population, are economically deprived because of their ethnicity and religious identity. Seventy per cent of Malaysia’s ethnic Indians are manual labourers and daily wage earners. This vast underclass is oppressed and suppressed by ethnic Malays with more than a little help from their Government. There are no official welfare programmes for the Hindu minority.


• The number of Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam schools has dwindled drastically, even though the population has increased manifold. The Malaysian Government is deliberately callous about the educational needs of the ethnic Indians. This is because the authorities want to “cut off the cultural and spiritual heritage” of ethnic Indians.

Not surprisingly, our national media with its skewered ‘secular’ agenda has not bothered to publicise the details provided by Mr Moorthy. Horror stories emanating from Kuala Lumpur have been suitably downplayed while outrageous comments by those wielding the stick in Malaysia have been front-paged. The overwhelming view appears to be that India should remain aloof and not get tangled with “Malaysia’s internal issues”. As a principle, this is unexceptionable. But since when has the UPA Government begun to live by principles?
The Islamisation of Malaysia should worry India. In fact, the galloping progress of radical Islam in South-East Asia should scare the daylights out of us. Malaysia has officially embraced Islamisation; Indonesia is Islamised; Thailand is putting up a valiant, though some would say losing, fight; and the Philippines Army is locked in a fierce battle with radical Islamists. Both our western and eastern flanks are now inimical to us; to pretend otherwise would be, to use an old-fashioned cliché, tantamount to adopting an ostrich-like attitude. With the Government burying its head in the sand, India is a sitting duck for Islamists of all shades and ethnicities. We would be well-advised to start losing some sleep over this.
December 9, 2007

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Communalism in India -I

Half-truths don't help Muslims
Kanchan Gupta

A Kashmiri Hindu grieves over his children slaughtered by Islamic terrorists

Recently Tehelka released what it claimed to be sensational, never-before details of the post-Godhra violence in Gujarat. These were based on sting operations aimed at trapping those accused of participating in the riots. Little purpose is served by the 'startling revelations' because they do not add to the bulk of what has been alleged for long; the individuals are already facing trial. Three points come to mind after watching television's theatrical presentation of Tehelka's latest 'expose' and reading Friday morning's newspapers.
First, the timing of the 'revelation', which has curiously come within days of the Prime Minister describing the violence as Gujarat's "Holocaust", raises an uncomfortable question: Why did Tehelka wait till a month before Assembly election in Gujarat since it has had the 'information' for some months? Second, the wisdom of resuscitating the ghosts of a communal violence people would rather forget and move on with their lives, more so in Gujarat, defies logic. Third, the ease with which our 'secularists' gloss over other more horrendous killings -- I am not referring to the slaughter of Pandits and the subsequent ethnic cleansing of Kashmir Valley -- while insisting that the 2002 violence in Gujarat is the worst India has seen in its 'modern history' is truly astonishing.
Once again we hear the cacophony of 'secularist' clamour insisting that "thousands of Muslims" were killed in Gujarat. Specific details inevitably fall victim to such sweeping statements. So, let me recall for you what Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Sri Prakash Jaiswal, whose credentials as a Congress loyalist are impeccable, told Parliament while replying to a Rajya Sabha MP's question on the 2002 violence in Gujarat. The details provided by Mr Jaiswal in his reply are in total variance to the outrageous claims of the 'secularists' to which we continue to be subjected ever so often, courtesy news channels and newspapers that can no longer distinguish between information and disinformation. Since the Minister's reply provides some interesting facts that deserve to be placed in the public domain, it would be in order to reproduce the salient portions. Lest I be accused of tampering with the Minister's reply, I have decided to quote the excerpts verbatim from a PTI report. You can't get more kosher than that.
The Central Government informed the Rajya Sabha that 254 Hindus and 790 Muslims were killed in the post-Godhra riots in Gujarat.
Minister of State for Home Affairs Sri Prakash Jaiswal said a total of 223 people were reported missing and 2,548 sustained injuries during the riots in 2002.
He said the Government paid Rs 1.5 lakh to the next of kin of each person killed and Rs 5,000, Rs 15,000, Rs 25,000 and Rs 50,000 for the injured. The amount for the injured was based on the extent of injury, the Minister added.
According to this reply in Parliament, the Minister of State for Home Affairs in the Congress-led UPA Government has pegged the death toll of the 2002 riots at 790 Muslims and 254 Hindus. Yet, these figures are not reflected in the propagandist pronouncements of those who claim to champion the cause of India's Muslims. More often than not we come across claims of 'thousands of Muslims butchered by Hindu fanatics in Narendra Modi's Gujarat.' This is a lie that has been repeated ad nauseam since that terrible day when Hindus travelling by Sabarmati Express were roasted alive after their coach was set ablaze by Muslim fanatics.
It has been repeated the most by India's Marxists who subscribe to the Goebbelsian tactic of repeating a lie till in the popular perception it comes to be identified as the truth. And, it is on the strength of such contrived truth that the Marxists make preposterous claims. For instance, the claim that the communal violence in Gujarat was 'the worst in modern Indian history.' In one grand sweep, our 'secularists' brush aside the far more horrendous riots that have resulted in far more gruesome blood-letting. We do not have to go too far back in 'modern Indian history' to locate some of these riots.
The massacre in Malliana has been conveniently forgotten; brutal memories of the riots in Meerut have been obliterated. The nightlong massacre of Muslims at Nellie in Assam, which witnessed suckling infants being snatched from their mothers' arms and being speared to death, has been erased from the secularists' record of 'modern Indian history.' Stomach-churning details of the Bhagalpur riots -- Muslims were killed, buried in fields and cauliflower and other winter vegetables planted over the rotting cadavers -- no longer feature in the secularists' collective conscience. The anti-Sikh pogrom that followed Mrs Indira Gandhi's assassination is not even talked about any more: More than 4,000 Sikhs were murdered, many of them by placing burning tyres around their necks. Each of these massacres of innocent men, women and children took place when the Congress was in power and did nothing more than twiddle its thumbs as marauders went about their pillaging secure in the belief that they would not be punished.
Yet, the Congress and its 'secular' allies, more so the Marxists, have the gumption to claim that the riots in Gujarat were 'the worst in modern Indian history.' Perhaps they are referring to history after it has been purged of uncomfortable facts by the detox army led by Union Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh. Crass minorityism comes easily to the Congress and its cheer leaders. That is the reason why propaganda disguised as campaign to promote 'secularism' is deployed with such ease, regardless of the truth. And appeasement of the worst variety is projected as 'secular' policy.
Whose interest is served by such Goebbelsian propaganda? Clearly, neither that of India 's Muslims nor that of our nation. It serves the purpose of vote-bank politics, which has become the bane of our democracy. Worse, it perpetuates hate, polarises communities and divides society. There is more: It provides fodder to those who gain the most from gaping, festering wounds -- bigots, zealots and extremists for whom religion is a convenient cover and imagined grievances justification enough to wreak vengeance by killing innocent men, women and children.
It's a pity and a shame that media has now become an instrument of political manipulation. Instead of empowering people, it has elected to disempower them by peddling half-truths and outright lies.