Exclusive: Headlines Today probe reveals Gujarat riots were not spontaneous and sudden - By Ashish Khetan - HEADLINES TODAY

http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/gujarat-riots-2002-godhra-sudden-spontaneous-backlash-frantic-police-warnings-ignored/1/262413.html

INDIA TODAY

Ashish Khetan   |   Headlines Today  |   Gandhinagar, April 15, 2013 | UPDATED 09:49 IST

Exclusive: Headlines Today probe reveals Gujarat riots were not spontaneous and sudden

Tags: Gujarat | Narendra Modi | BJP | Godhra | Gujarat riots | 2002 riots | police control room messages | state intelligence bureau | VHP | Ahmedabad | Naroda | Gulberg Society

 

 

The police had received a constant stream of inputs from its field officers in Gujarat in 2002.

RELATEDS

• JD-U blames Modi for Gujarat riots, says ready to give BJP time to declare PM candidate for 2014 polls
• Congress' efforts to compare 1984 anti-Sikh riots with 2002 Gujarat riots shows it has Modiphobia: BJP
• 2002 Gujarat riots: SIT appeals against Guj HC's acquittals in Dipda Darwaza massacre case
• BJP leader blames Nitish Kumar for 2002 Godhra riots
• The untold stories of 2002 Gujarat riots

In the past 10 years, the Gujarat government and senior BJP leaders have often said that the riots that broke out in the state in February 2012 were an 'instantaneous reaction' to the carnage at Godhra. The chief minister himself in an interview on March 1, 2002 had said, "What we are witnessing in Gujarat at this time is a chain of action and reaction. We want that there neither be action nor reaction."

But now Headlines Today has uncovered the police control room messages and the state intelligence bureau reports which show that the police had received a constant stream of inputs from its field officers about VHP leaders making provocative speeches, about crowds being mobilised and warnings about the possibility of major riots breaking out. Despite the flurry of ground reports and advance warnings, no curfew was imposed in Ahmedabad till noon the next day. The BJP government supported the VHP called bandhs that, as events turned out, proved to be the pretext under which violent mobs were mobilized. VHP leaders were not warned or put under preventive detention.

But the most intriguing aspect of these messages is that while they have been produced before the court as annexures, they don't find any mention in the 541 page closure report filed by the SIT. No attempt has been made by the SIT to reconstruct the sequence of events as they unfolded immediately after the news of Sabarmati train incident broke. The SIT did not assess the adequacy or appropriateness of the state's response in a chronological fashion as the law and order collapsed in large parts of the state.

  


Perhaps, that's the reason that the facts that emerge from these messages are hard to reconcile with the conclusions drawn by the SIT.  

There were two centralised police control rooms in Ahmedabad in 2002 - Ahmedabad Police Control Room situated at Shahibaug in the heart of the city.  Naroda and Gulberg Society, where around 150 people were burnt to death on the 28th of February lay within a radius of 6 KMs from this Police Control Room 9Gulber was 2 to 3 kms from the control room while Naroda was roughly six kilometers).

The second one -- the State Police Control Room -- located at Police Bhawan in Gandhinagar.
The Ahmedabad Police Control Room received messages of the build up taking place in Ahmedabad City. The State Control Room got messages from different districts in the state.

In February 2012 the SIT submitted before an Ahmedabad court, in a sealed cover, only the Ahmedabad City PCR messages... a copy of these are now with Headlines Today. The State Control Room messages are still missing.

There was also a third control room...this was at the State Intelligence Bureau Headquarters situated inside Police Bhawan, Gandhinagar...the  same building where the State DGP's office is located. The SIB Control Room was also flooded with field intelligence reports filed by its intelligence units located across the State including Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar. These SIB reports too have been submitted before the Court by the SIT. A copy of these too is now in the possession of Headlines Today.

By the afternoon of February 27, the Gujarat home department was being bombarded with messages from cops on the ground about mobilisation of VHP and Bajrang Dal cadre.

Rightwing activists across the state were holding public meetings, making provocative speeches and inciting mobs. All this is documented in hundreds of wireless messages sent by policemen to the state intelligence bureau. But the State failed to take any effective steps to prevent the imminent massacres. Within a few hours after the Godhra tragedy, the three senior-most office bearers of Gujarat's VHP unit -Jaideep Patel, Dilep Trivedi and Kaushik Patel-- issued a statement declaring a state wide bandh and containing remarks that were designed to incite the mobs.

A field level officer faxed this statement to SIB headquarters at 20:38 hours on the 27 Feb 2002.

February 27, 2002
Time: 8:38 pm

State Intelligence Bureau Message No: Page No. 188 (Annexure III, File XVIII)

VHP general secreatary Dilip Trivedi & VHP joint secretaries Jaideep Patel & Kaushik Mehta issue a statement.
VHP declares Gujarat bandh to protest killing of kar sevaks.
Statement says Muslims pre-planned Godhra attack.
Innocent ladies were molested and compartments were set on fire and Ramsevaks were burnt alive.
Through out the day on 27th February the SIB control room received messages of provocative sloganeering and mobilisation by the VHP.

February 27, 2002
Time: Not Known

State Intelligence Bureau Message No: Page No. 345, Order No. 24 (Annexure III File XIX)
Sender: D.O, Ahmedabad
Recipient: Intelligence Office, Virangam (Ahmedabad)

75 VHP & Bajrang Dal members gathered at Virangam Town Chali & Golwada area.
Situation in the area very tense.
The PCR messages warned about the tension that was spreading from the moment sabarmati express (the same train that was attacked by Muslim mobs at Godhra and later after detaching the burnt bogies made its way to Ahmedabad) arrived at Ahmedabad station.

February 27, 2002
Time: 6:10 pm

State Intelligence Bureau Message: No. 531 Page No. 19 (Annexure III, File XVIII (D-160)

Sabarmati Express arrived at Ahmedabad station from Godhra at 4:30 pm.
Karsevaks armed with rods & sticks, shouting slogans 'khoon ka badla khoon'.
At 10:12 pm, Police Inspector of CID, Intelligence in Bhavnagar sent a fax to Inspector General, Gujarat State Intelligence Bureau in Gandhi Nagar saying that Sadhu Samaj president Gopal Nand and local VHP leaders exhorted crowds at Junagadh to retaliate. The message said that the VHP leaders delivered hate speeches and called on all Hindus to unite.


 

February 27, 2002
Time: 10:12 pm

State Intelligence Bureau Fax Message: 311/02 Page No.: D-1/ HA/Jaher Sabha/Junagadh
Sender: CID, Bhavnagar
Recipient: IG, Gujarat & Intelligence Bureau, Gandhi Nagar

Sadhu Samaj president Gopal Nand gave provocative speech at Junagadh Kadva Chowk between 7:30 pm-9 pm.
Gopal Nand questioned lack of response from Hindus even 12 hours after burning of train.
Gopal Nand questioned Muslim patriotism to India and incited mobs to attack them.
By the afternoon of the 27th, the riots had begun.

February 27, 2002
Time 17:45

State Intelligence Bureau Fax Message No 273 File XIX Annexure III
Sender: B M Mohit Anand Centre

Sabarmati Express reached Anand Railway Station at 1500 hrs
Karsevaks from the train stabbed 4 Muslims present at the station.
One victim named Abdul Rashid aged 65 years, resident of Anand, died.
Remaining were hospitalised at Anand government hospital.
Reports of violent attacks by karsevaks came from across the state. A VHP mob was reported as swelling at Vadagam village in Modasa that was to become another epicentre of violence. There were desperate SOS messages seeking reinforcements. Mobs were on rampage through the night, setting ablaze houses and vehicles.

February 27, 2002
Time: 11:59 pm

State Intelligence Bureau Fax Message: Com/HM/550/ Out No. 398
Sender: ACP, Gandhinagar Region
Recipient: IG, Gujarat & Intelligence Bureau, Gandhi Nagar

50 kar sevaks on special bus from Ahmedabad reached Modasa, Vadagam village at 6:30 pm.
500-strong mob received kar sevaks.
Karsevaks told mobs about attack on Sabarmati Express.
Crowds swelled to thousands by 9:30 pm.
Police presence insufficient to maintain order.
10 shops owned by Muslims & several vehicles set ablaze by mobs.
Despite these warnings there was no clampdown by the Gujarat government on the mobilisation being carried out by the VHP leadership and neither were VHP and Bajrang Dal members taken under preventive detention.
The Speical Investigation Team in its report accepted that the Modi government supported the bandh called by the VHP.
Page 134 of SIT closure report: "Shri Vijay Badheka, Under Secretary to Home Department has stated before the SIT that both Gujarat bandh on 28.02.02 and Bharat bandh on 01.03.02 were supported by the BJP."
The bandh allowed the VHP cadre a free run even as the SIB kept sending signals of impending riots and sought preventive action.

February 28, 2002
Time: 9am-10am

State Intelligence Bureau Message No: 73/02 Page 365 (Annexure III File XXI (D-166)
Sender: ACP (Intelligence) Surat

VHP, BJP leaders gave provocative speeches at Sardar Chowk, Vapi Town.
VHP's Dinesh Behri, Bajrang Dal's Acharya Brahmbatt, BJP's Jawahar Desai & RSS member Vinod Chowdhary present Speakers exhorted crowds to take revenge for Godhra.
When the Ahmedabad police commissioner P.C. Pande and State DGP K. Chakravarty were questioned by the SIT, they were not confronted with these specific SIB reports. P.C. Pande was not asked why curfew was not imposed in Ahmedabad city on the 27th afternoon itself, particularly in the face of such specific intelligence inputs.
Pande told SIT on page 7 of his statement recorded on 24.03.2010: "The circumstances did not exist on the 27.02.02 or even on 28.02.02 to warrant the imposition of curfew and any hasty decision would have led to panic in the city. Even otherwise with limited forces available imposition of curfew becomes a serious problem and large scale breach becomes common."
Pande and Chakravarty were also not asked why VHP and Bajrang Dal leaders were not put under preventive arrest even as they were threatening violence.
But the SIT has not explained what these specific measures were. General and vague claims made by Gujarat State Officials that all possible efforts were made to control the riots have been accepted by the SIT.
The State Intelligence Bureau repeatedly pressed the panic button, sending SOS' to the home department about the possibility of riots. Bodies of kar sevaks in public display and funeral processions by mobs…proved to be the trigger. But records show the VHP and its cadres succeeded in stoking mass hysteria.
30 minutes past midnight on the 28th of February 2002, the state intelligence bureau received a fax giving a specific warning about possibility of riots with bodies being brought to Ahmedabad. Then VHP state unit president Jaideep Patel was already on his way escorting the 54 bodies from Godhra to Ahmedabad.

February 28, 2002
Time: 12:30 am

State Intelligence Bureau Fax No. 525

Bodies will be brought to Kalupur Railway station, Ahmedabad.
Dead bodies will be carried in funeral processions VHP gave a bandh call.
High possibility of riots in Ahmedabad. Take preventive action.

February 28, 2002.
Time: Not Known

State Intelligence Bureau report to Home Secretary and all Police Commissioner, all SPs

VHP has given a call for "Gujarat Bandh".

Appropriate vigilance be exercised.

The motorcade carrying bodies finally reached Sola Civil Hospital in Ahmedabad at 3:34 AM. By then there was a already a mob made up of VHP and RSS members outside Sola Hospital.
The PCR Van positioned at Sola Civil Hospital sent a message to City Police Control Room situated at Shaibaug. The distance between Hospital and Control Room was 11 kilometres.

February 28, 2002
Time: 4:00 am
Page No. 5790 (Annexure IV, File XIV)

Mob of 3000 RSS members gathered at Sola Hospital.

February 28, 2002
Time: 7:14 am
PCR wireless message (Sola Hospital)
Page No. 5796 (Annexure IV, File XIV)

Mob assembled at Sola Hospital.
The crowds were getting restless. Soon violence sparked off.

February 28, 2002
Time: 7:17 am
PCR wireless message (Sola Hospital)
Page No. 5797 (Annexure IV, File XIV)

Mob of 500 people holding up traffic.
At 8:10 there is a message from the Control Room saying that 3 SRP Companies have been sent to Sola Hospital for extra bandobast.
 
February 28, 2002
Time: 11:55 am
PCR wireless message: Page No 5894(Annexure IV, File XIV)

Mob set vehicle on fire, arson on highway.

February 28, 2002
Time: 11.55 am
PCR message

State Intelligence Bureau: Page No.6162 (Annexure IV File XV)

Riots have started at Sola Hospital & near High Court where bodies were brought.
February 28, 2002
Time: Not known

PCR message (Sola Hospital)
State Intelligence Bureau: Page No.?6172
Sola Hospital staff surrounded by 500-strong mob Please provide security at hospital urgently.
These revelations show how mobs were allowed to congregate at the hospital to take out funeral processions. Though violence had erupted, curfew was still not clamped.
Pande claimed in his statement before the SIT that he visited the Hospital at 10 am and found everything to be normal.
"I went to Sola Civil Hosptal around 10:00 and found that doctors were under pressure to complete the documentation wheras relatives were in a hurry to take the bodies. However, I didn't find anything alarming and as such returned around 11:00 am."
Pande also claimed there were no funeral processions, a claim accepted by the SIT. But the PCR messages show that there were not only processions but also riots at the hospital, nailing Pande's lies.

February 28, 2002
Time: 11:58 am
PCR message (Sola Hospital)

State Intelligence Bureau: Page No. 5907 & 5925(Annexure IV File XIV)


Funeral procession of 10 bodies taken out from Ramol Jantanagar to Hatkeshwar crematorium 6,000 people accompanied procession.
As funeral processions wound through the city, mobs ran amok at Gulbarg Society, Naroda Patiya and Naroda Gaam in Ahmedabad.

February 28, 2002
Time: Not known
PCR message (Khedbrahma, Sabarkantha) Com/538

State Intelligence Bureau: Page No. 258 (Annexure III File XIX)

Funeral procession allowed at Khedbrahma town in Sabarkantha district
Situation tense, 2 Muslims stabbed at Khedbrahma

February 28, 2002
Time: Not known
PCR message (Khedbrahma, Sabarkantha)

State Intelligence Bureau: Page No. 262 (Annexure III File XIX)

150 Bajrang Dal members on way to Khedbrahma.

February 28, 2002
Time: 3:32 pm
PCR message (Khedbrahma, Sabarkantha)
State Intelligence Bureau: Page No. 254 (Annexure III file XIX) Com/574

Funeral procession organised for Godhra train victim Babubhai Patel in Sabarkantha.
Special Investigation Team in its closure report on pages 59 to 64 had concluded there were no funeral processions and gave a clean-chit to the Gujarat government on this count.


PCR messages detailing incidence of violence in Ahmedabad clearly warned about a brewing unrest. Rioting was reported from Naroda and Meghani Nagar where Gulberg Society is located. The PCR messages of violence in Ahmedabad are contained in Annexure IV File XIV. Here are some samples of the several wireless messages sent by policemen on the ground.

Page No. 5798, 5803, 5804
Date: February 28, 2002
Time: 12:30 am

PCR Message: Factory burnt at Ambikanagar on February 27
Area: Odhav
FIR No.80/02
Page No,: 5746
Date: February 28, 2002
Time: 1:10 am

PCR Message: Between 2:30-3:00 pm on Feb 27, mob stoned bus, vandalized shop
Area: Bapunagar
FIR No.: 64/02
Page No.: 5768

Date: February 28, 2002
Time: 2:38 am
PCR Message: Mob torched buses & rickshaws, damaged public property on Feb 27 at 5:15 pm
Area: Odhav
FIR No.:78/02
Page No.: 341, Order No. 534

Date: February 27, 2002
Time: 8:25pm
State Intelligence Bureau Message: Man succumbs to stab injuries on February 27 at 8:25 pm
Area: Meghani Nagar
FIR No.: 65/02
Page No.: 341, Order No. 534

Date: February 27, 2002
Time: Not Known
State Intelligence Bureau Message: Man succumbs to injuries on Feb 27 at 7:45 pm at Saralaben Hospital.
Area: Meghani Nagar
FIR No.: 65/02
Page No.: 347, Order No. 8535

Date: February 27, 2002
Time: 8:30 pm

State Intelligence Bureau Message: Man critically injured after attack at Ahmedabad railway station at 5 pm.
Area: Ahmedabad
FIR No: Not Known
Page No: 348, Order 541

Date: February 27, 2002
Time: 9:30pm
State Intelligence Bureau Message: Juhapura resident attacked at V.F Hospital.
Area: Ahmedabad
FIR No: 116
Page No.: 5807 & 5808

Date: February 28, 2002
Time: 4:28 am
PCR Message: One critically injured near Kathwada Road, Naroda, on February 27 at 7:30 pm.
Area: Naroda
FIR No.: 97/02
Page No.: 5805 & 5806

Date: February 28, 2002
Time: 4:20 am
State Intelligence Bureau Message: One critically injured near Law Garden on February 27 at 8:15 pm.
Area: Ellisbridge
FIR No: 116/02
Page No.: 5801
Date: February 28, 2002
Time: 3:50 am

State Intelligence Bureau Message: One critically injured in mob attack near Mahalaxmi Crossroad, Paldi on

Feb 27 at 8:30 pm.
Area: Ellisbridge
FIR No.: 114/02

Inspite of all of this, the then Ahmedabad Police Commissioner told the SIT that he didn't find the "circumstances on the 27th and 28th fit for curfew."
PCR and SIB reports show that there were regular inputs of VHP and Bajrang Dal led mobs swelling at Naroda and Gulberg Society.
Pande admitted before the SIT that at both these places curfew was declared only after 12:50 pm ...by then the mob had already swelled to between 10 and 15 thousand people in number. It is no wonder that the curfew that was finally imposed remained only on paper - it had no effect on the ground.
Hundred and fifty men, women and children were burnt and hacked to death at Naroda and Gulberg society in the four hours between 2 and 6 PM on February 28.
Police Headquarters at Shahibaug was only 2 to 3 kilometers from Gulberg Society and around 6 kilometers from Naroda Patiya.
Pande admitted before the SIT that through out the day he didn't move out of his office and visited Naroda Patiya and Gulberg only late in the evening...by that time the massacre was over and done with.   
SIB messages show that there were three alerts about the impending massacre at Gulberg.

Date: 28.02.02
Time: 12:15
Sender: Police Inspector CJ Bharwad To: State SIB Control Room


Muslims reside in Gulberg Society.
Mob is surrounding the place.

Strict watch should be kept there.
Date: 28.02.02
Time: 14:50
Sender: Police Inspector CJ Bharwad To: State SIB Control Room

Mob of 3000 rioters has surrounded Gulberg Society, take immediate action.

Date: 28.02.02
Time: 17:00
Sender: Police Inspector CJ Bharwad To: State SIB Control Room

Mob attacked the society from all sides Ehsan Jaffri and women and children burnt alive.
Houses are ablaze. Mob is looting from homes.

In his defence Pande said in his statement: "On 28.2.2002 requests were received from different police stations seeking additional force and SRP and whatever forces were available with me the same were dispatched. However, I found that no feedback had been received by any one of them. This led me to presumption that additional forces reached in time and they were able to control the situation."

SIT accepted Pande's defence and gave him and the Gujarat Administration a clean chit.

The state government told the SIT that the 2002 riots were a spontaneous reaction to the Godhra tragedy, but documentary evidence tells a different story.

Eleven years after the after the horrific incidents as Narendra Modi aspires for the prime minister's chair, Headlines Today has tried to throw fresh light on why his ascension remains so contentious

Read more at: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/gujarat-riots-2002-godhra-sudden-spontaneous-backlash-frantic-police-warnings-ignored/1/262413.html

Thatcher feared Islam By Kuldip Nayar

http://www.kuldipnayar.com/btl/thatcher_feared_islam.html

Thatcher feared Islam


By Kuldip Nayar

April 10, 2013

 

I met Mrs Margaret Thatcher for the first time when I was India’s envoy at London in 1990. At that time she was counting on her achievements, including the triumph in the cold war. I sent her a congratulatory message for having vanquished the communist ideology. But she said she had even bigger enemies to defeat and mentioned Islam. I have always wondered whether the stirrings in the Islamic world were the doing of Great Britain’s.

Around the same time, I knew that Prime Minister Thatcher too was losing her job because the men in “grey suits” had tapped on her shoulder and told her to quit. It was apparent that she had too many enemies in the party. Mrs Thatcher’s sense of self-righteousness and her penchant for the spotlight had made even her most eminent colleagues feel small and deficient. Many of them would have liked to have pulled her down earlier, but they were pygmies who could not measure up to her, colossus that she was.

Mrs Thatcher was required to poll 15 percent more than the majority for an outright win, but she lost the election by five votes. The goings-on behind the scene were as murky as in India. Never once did her party men tell her that she was fighting a losing battle. She did finally send her resignation after ascertaining the facts from intelligence sources. I had heard from her Conservative Party colleague, who later became a minister in Prime Minister John Major’s cabinet, that they wanted her to go in the interest of party unity. But it was her party men who betrayed her, as one minister confessed to me, for she made them what they were.

A ruthless stripping of subsidies, a dose of privatization and a head-on collision with the trade unions had succeeded in sloughing off many of the ills that had made Britain economically stagnant. But the price paid was high—unemployment and a divided nation. I wish Mrs Thatcher had retired after coming back with a majority of over 150 seats in the 1987 election. That was her third consecutive victory.

In 1990, she seemed like a person who had stayed too long in power, just as Jawaharlal Nehru did in 1962, after India’s debacle at the hands of China. She should have taken the opinion polls seriously as the Conservatives had lagged behind by a greater margin than any political party ever had in the past. Nobody backs a losing leader, whatever his or her contribution at one. How can one forget that Winston Churchill was thrown out despite his victory in the Second World War?

My first political report was on the defeat of the Conservatives in a by-election in mid-Staffordshire within days of my arrival. I had a feeling this might turn into a similar situation as the Allahabad by-election after which the caravan of V.P. Singh started rolling till Rajiv Gandhi’s Congress (I) government fell in 1989. However I wished that the rule of Conservatives did not end during my tenure as High Commissioner, Mrs Thatcher lost her prime ministership just before I left London.

 I must, however, admit she was fairly warm in dealing with me when I first met her. The Iron Lady had forgotten what I had written about her. What I noticed during my stay in London and surprised about was that the diplomatic corps openly discussing the challenge that Mrs Thatcher posed to the Queen’s position, considered not only improper but also sacrilegious. There was no love lost between the two. Mrs Thatcher was blamed for it as it was common knowledge that she did not appreciate rivals to her popularity, not even the Queen.

I recall a story told and retold is about a party where the Queen and Mrs Thatcher wore identical dresses. After that, Mrs Thatcher’s private secretary wrote to the Palace asking to be informed beforehand what the Queen would wear at a particular official function so that Mrs Thatcher could avoid being similarly dressed. The Queen’s reply was that she never bothered to even look at what Mrs Thatcher wore!

During President R. Venkatraman’s visit to the UK, I had another chance to interact with Mrs Thatcher more closely when I sat next to her chair and discussed on different subjects for two hours. She told me that she had refused to visit a gurdwara despite many invitations. “Those people killed Mrs Gandhi,” she said, adding, “What kind of people must they be!” Mrs Thatcher compared the violence in Punjab with the Irish Republican Army’s terrorism. “Of course, yours is on a bigger scale,” she remarked. But she was reticent on Kashmir, though she did say that nothing should be done at the expense of India’s unity and integrity.

I remarked that ethical standards were disappearing from politics and that our own experience in India was that politicians enjoyed hitting each other below the belt. Mrs Thatcher said that in Britain it was worse. They would ‘kick you’ and even when you had fallen, they would not stop hitting you. She fondly recalled her intimate relationship with Mrs Gandhi. “Even when we differed, our personal equation did not suffer,” she said.

As our conversation progressed, I also happened to see the softer part of the Iron Lady and felt how vulnerable she had become. She began talking about various issues before shifting to her personal problems, pouring her heart out to a person who had met her only a few times before. Her son, she recalled, had to move to America because of the “wild charges” (of using her position to get favours from the government) made against him. She said she missed her grandchildren but she considered it a price she had to pay to be in politics. She would often admit that she was not a consensus politician, but a “committed politician.” She, indeed, was but nevertheless the one who made Britain click. EOM

How General Zia Went Down! By Edward Jay Epstein - VANITY FAIR

This article, published in June 1989, is about the air crash in 1988 which killed Gen Zia, the U.S. envoy and a number of senior officers. Since then, quite a number of publications came in the market, but this report seems to be the most authentic and incisive. The investigation is thorough and analysis is methodical.

This article about the crash is like Agatha Christie's thriller Murder on the Orient Express, in which everyone aboard the train had a motive for murder. The suspects here are, Americans, Indians, Russians, Afghans and even ''Pakistan Army.''


Please ignore the poor quality of paper as time takes its toll on papers also, human beings no exception.


Please read the thrilling story.

--

The Last Letter: A Message to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney from a Dying Veteran

http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2013/3/21/exclusive_tomas_young_reads_in_full_his_letter_to_bush_cheney_a_message_from_a_dying_veteran


DEMOCRACY NOW

March 21, 2013 

Exclusive: Tomas Young Reads in Full His  

Letter to Bush & Cheney, "A Message From a Dying Veteran"

MP3 Podcast

Printer-friendly

Paralyzed in a 2004 attack in Sadr City, Iraq War veteran Tomas Young recently announced that he will stop his medicine and nourishment, which comes in the form of liquid through a feeding tube — a decision which will hasten his death. Joining us from his home in Kansas City, Young reads in full his letter, A Message to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney From a Dying Veteran. "My day of reckoning is upon me," Young says. "Yours will come. I hope you will be put on trial. But mostly I hope, for your sakes, that you find the moral courage to face what you have done to me and to many, many others who deserved to live. I hope that before your time on earth ends, as mine is now ending, you will find the strength of character to stand before the American public and the world, and in particular the Iraqi people, and beg for forgiveness."

WATCH: Exclusive: Dying Iraq War Veteran Tomas Young Explains Decision to End His Life
WATCH: Phil Donahue on His 2003 Firing from MSNBC, When Liberal Network Couldn’t Tolerate Antiwar Voices
WATCH: Dying Iraq War Veteran Tomas Young on Bush, Missing WMDs, Failed Medical Care

AMY GOODMAN: Ten years later, 10th anniversary of the war in Iraq, Tomas Young, Iraq War veteran, wounded April 4th, 2004, his fifth day in Iraq, shot in Sadr City, is now writing a letter on this 10th anniversary called "The Last Letter: A Message to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney from a Dying Veteran." Tomas, can you read some of your letter to the former president and vice president?
TOMAS YOUNG: Absolutely.

"The Last Letter: A Message to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney from a Dying Veteran."

“I write this letter on the 10th anniversary of the Iraq War on behalf of my fellow Iraq veterans. I write this letter on behalf of the 4,488 soldiers and Marines who died in Iraq. I write this letter on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of veterans who have been wounded and on behalf of [those who bear those wounds. I am one of those.] I am one of the gravely injured. I [am] paralyzed in an insurgent ambush in 2004 in Sadr City. My life is coming to an end. I am living under hospice care.

“I write this letter on behalf of husbands and wives who have lost spouses, on behalf of children who have lost parents, on behalf of the fathers and mothers who have lost sons and daughters and on behalf of those who care for the many thousands of my fellow veterans who have brain injuries. I write this letter on behalf of those veterans whose trauma and self-revulsion for what they have [done, witnessed, endured] in Iraq have led to suicide and on behalf of the active-duty soldiers and Marines who commit, on average, a suicide a day. I write this letter on behalf of the some 1 million Iraqi dead and on behalf of the countless Iraqi wounded. I write this letter on behalf of us all—the human detritus your war has left behind, those who will spend their lives in unending pain and grief.

“Your positions of authority, your millions of dollars of personal wealth, your public relations consultants, [and your privilege and power] cannot mask the hollowness of your character. You sent us to fight and die in Iraq after you, Mr. Cheney, dodged the draft in Vietnam, and you, Mr. Bush, went AWOL from your National Guard unit. Your cowardice and selfishness were established decades ago. You were not willing to risk yourselves for our nation but you sent hundreds of thousands of young men and women to be sacrificed in a senseless war with no more thought than it takes to put out the garbage.

“I write this letter, my last letter, to you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney. I write not because I think you grasp the terrible human and moral consequences of your lies, manipulation and thirst for wealth and power. I write this letter because, before my own death, I want to make it clear that I, and hundreds of thousands of my fellow veterans, along with millions of my fellow citizens, along with hundreds of millions more in Iraq and the Middle East, know fully who you are and what you have done. You may evade justice but in our eyes you are each guilty of egregious war crimes, of plunder and, finally, of murder, including the murder of thousands of young Americans—my fellow veterans—whose future you stole.

“I joined the Army two days after the 9/11 attacks. I joined the Army because our country had been attacked. I wanted to strike back at those who had killed some 3,000 of my fellow citizens. I did not join the Army to go to Iraq, a country that had no part in the [9/11] attacks and did not pose a threat to its neighbors, much less to the [U.S.] I did not join the Army to 'liberate' Iraqis or to shut down mythical weapons-of-mass-destruction facilities or to implant what you cynically called 'democracy' in Baghdad and the Middle East. I did not join the Army to rebuild Iraq, which at the time you told us could be paid for by Iraq’s oil revenues. Instead, this war has cost the United States over $3 trillion. I especially did not join the [Army] to carry out pre-emptive war. Pre-emptive war is illegal under international law. And as a soldier in Iraq I was, I now know, abetting your idiocy and your crimes. The Iraq War is the biggest strategic blunder in U.S. history. It obliterated the balance of power in the Middle East. It installed a corrupt and brutal pro-Iranian government in Baghdad, one cemented in power through the use of torture, death squads and terror. And it has left Iran as the dominant force in the region. On every level—moral, strategic, military and economic—Iraq was a failure. And it was you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, who started this war. It is you who should pay the consequences.

“I have, like many other [wounded and many other] disabled veterans, suffered from the inadequate and often inept care provided by the Veterans Administration. I have, like many other disabled veterans, come to realize that our mental and physical [disabilities and] wounds are of no interest to you, perhaps of no interest to any politician. We were used. We were betrayed. And we have been abandoned. You, Mr. Bush, make much pretense of being a Christian. But isn’t lying a sin? Isn’t murder a sin? Aren’t theft and selfish ambition sins? I am not a Christian. But I believe in the Christian ideal. I believe that what you do to the least of your [own] brothers you finally do to yourself, to your own soul.
“I would not be writing this letter if I had been wounded in Afghanistan against those forces that carried out the attacks of 9/11. Had I been wounded there I would still be miserable because of my physical deterioration and imminent death, but I would at least have the comfort of knowing that my injuries were a consequence of my own decision to defend our country I love—the country I love. I would not have to lie in my bed, my body filled with painkillers, my life ebbing away, and deal with the fact that hundreds of thousands of human beings, including children, including myself, were sacrificed by you for little more than the greed of oil companies, for your alliance with the oil sheiks in Saudi Arabia, and your insane visions of empire.

"My day of reckoning is upon me. Yours will come. I hope you will be put on trial. But mostly I hope, for your sakes, that you find the moral courage to face what you have done to me and to many, many others who deserved to live. I hope that before your time on earth ends, as mine is now ending, you will find the strength of character to stand before the American public and the world, and in particular the Iraqi people, and beg for forgiveness."

 

 

GUEST

Tomas Young, Iraq War veteran and the main subject of the documentary, Body of War. On April 4, 2004, his fifth day in Iraq, Young’s unit came under fire in the Sadr City neighborhood of Baghdad. Young was left paralyzed, never to walk again. Released from medical care three months later, Young returned home to become an active member in Iraq Veterans Against the War. He recently announced that he will stop his nourishment, which comes in the form of liquid through a feeding tube — a decision which will hasten his death.

Filed under  Web Exclusive, Iraq, Veterans, Bush, Tomas Young

India's fantasy of disloyal Muslims may come true - By Pankaj Mishra - Bloomberg.com

www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-19/india-s-fantasy-of-disloyal-muslims-may-come-true.html 

Indian Muslims

By Pankaj Mishra

Mar 20, 2013

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is fond of boasting that not one of India’s almost 180 million Muslims has been discovered to be a member of al-Qaeda.

He could underscore an even more remarkable fact: None of the foreign jihadists caught fighting alongside the Taliban has turned out to be from the country with the world’s third-largest Muslim population.

Indeed, Indian Muslims haven’t bothered to lend even moral support to the anti-Indian insurgency in Muslim-majority Kashmir that has claimed more than 50,000 lives in the past two decades.

According to New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, this is because Indian Muslims “are the product of and feel empowered by a democratic and pluralistic society.”

A more prosaic and less ideological explanation is that Indian Muslims have many of their own problems to deal with, largely stemming from the swift decay of democracy and pluralism.

According to a 2012 book, “Muslims in Indian Cities: Trajectories of Marginalisation,” edited by Laurent Gayer and Christophe Jaffrelot, Muslims are as badly off, if not worse, socially and economically, than Dalits (formerly untouchable Hindus) and tribal peoples.

Meager Minority

Almost 40 percent of Muslims in urban centers live below the poverty line. They constitute almost 15 percent of the total population, but only 5.5 percent of the members of the Indian parliament are Muslims. Gayer and Jaffrelot note the astonishing fact that many of India’s biggest states do not have even one sitting Muslim representative in the Indian parliament.

Underrepresented in the judiciary, Muslims form a meager component of the police force. And that may be at least one reason for what is now a disturbingly common sport in an increasingly Hindu-nationalized India: blaming the Muslims (and locking up a whole lot of them).

The terrorist attacks last month that killed 17 people in the central Indian city of Hyderabad reopened a cornucopia of conspiracy theories. Faux-enraged television anchors fingered a terrorist outfit called Indian Mujahideen, a group whose origins and elements remain murky. The president of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party demanded that India retaliate against Pakistan.

The police promptly arrested four Muslims in Hyderabad.

All this seemed par for the course. Muslims are routinely picked up after terrorist attacks in India and often paraded before eager television journalists, bearing the most conspicuous marks of their religion: beards, skullcaps and striped scarfs.

But there was a problem this time. The Muslims detained last month had been locked up before, after another bomb blast near one of the oldest mosques in Hyderabad, the Mecca Masjid, in 2007. While in prison, one of the accused ran into, in a bizarre twist of fate, the real perpetrator of the crime, a Hindu extremist, whose feelings of guilt pushed him into a full confession. The police case against the Muslims -- an absurdist fiction, actually -- began to collapse after that uncanny encounter.

New evidence came to light, showing how rapidly anti-Muslim Hindu terror networks, which included at least one serving army officer, had grown across the country, while the police and the media ballyhooed the mass arrests of various alleged Muslim terrorists.

False Confessions

Finally, the Muslims accused in the Mecca Masjid attacks were acquitted by the courts, which slammed the police for extracting false confessions from them under torture.

An extensive investigation by the newsweekly Tehelka unearthed many such malign and bogus cases, revealing a countrywide pattern of what its editor, the novelist Tarun Tejpal, called “a chilling and systematic witch-hunt against innocent Muslims.”

Of course, not all Muslims like to see themselves as victims of majoritarian prejudice. Indeed, “Muslims in Indian Cities” challenges the popular stereotype of a stagnant and insular community in thrall to reactionary, self-serving leaders.

Muslims employed in the Gulf remit almost one-third of the $70 billion that India receives annually. A nascent entrepreneurial middle class is emerging in, among other places, Bhopal and Hyderabad.

But they have to overcome great mental barriers in a mainstream culture largely inimical to them. It is not uncommon for Muslim neighborhoods to be popularly tagged as “mini- Pakistans,” or for even relatively affluent Muslims to be denied rented accommodation and school placements.

As Jaffrelot writes, “to alienate those who invested in education in order to be part of the brighter part of urban India may result in the making of ’reluctant fundamentalists,’ to use the title of a recent book.”

Certainly, a demoralized people living on their nerves are prone to see violence and bigotry everywhere.

Even one of India’s biggest film stars, Shah Rukh Khan, recently complained about being constantly “accused of bearing allegiance to our neighbouring nation.”

Khan was immediately assailed by a storm of hostile criticism, including accusations of rank ingratitude. Pakistani politicians, blatantly unable or unwilling to protect their country’s minorities, cynically called upon the Indian government to ensure the safety of Indian Muslims.

Finally, a plainly nervous Khan backtracked with some sad Friedmanesque jauntiness: “We have an amazing democratic, free and secular way of life,” he said.

This is not quite reflected in his own workplace, Bollywood, whose films now depict Muslims as vicious anti- nationals and devious Fifth Columnists.

Secret Hanging

Muslims wondering about their place in India can’t be encouraged by the media’s recent outpouring of awe and admiration for the notorious Muslim-baiter Bal Thackeray, or its eager flattery of the Hindu nationalist prime-minister-in- waiting Narendra Modi, who is accused of complicity in the murder of more than 2,000 Muslims in 2002.

Writing last week about the wrongful and prolonged incarceration of a Muslim defense scientist, Praveen Swami, an Indian journalist known for his close ties to the security establishment, pleaded that “the harm caused to [the scientist] has to be read against the possible harm to the community caused by the investigators’ failure to arrest.”

More alarmingly, the Supreme Court invoked a similarly imagined community of victimized and angry Hindus when it confirmed the death sentence on Afzal Guru, a Kashmiri Muslim accused of logistical support to a terrorist assault on the Indian parliament in 2001. Guru had to die because, as the court put it, India’s “collective conscience” demanded it.

Last month, India secretly hanged Guru. His family wasn’t given a chance for a final meeting with him; his corpse was also denied to them, in violation of a fundamental Islamic custom of funeral prayers.

Many Muslims, even the few who believe that Guru was given a fair trial, are likely to see the stealthy execution as “state vengeance against a co-religionist,” as the deputy editor of the newsmagazine Outlook wrote.

Some Muslims will also wonder why the sacrificial victim of India’s collective conscience was a Muslim, and not, say, former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s Hindu assassins, who had been waiting on death row for much longer.

More than a month after the execution of Guru, most Kashmiris continue to suffer an intensified regime of arbitrary curfews and brutal crackdowns. Last week, two unidentified militants staged a suicide attack on an Indian paramilitary outpost in Srinagar, the biggest such assault in three years.

Clashes between Kashmiri protesters and Indian security forces in recent weeks have also claimed several casualties. This surge in violence -- and there is more to come -- was rendered inevitable by Guru’s dishonorable execution following a dodgy trial, both hailed by a ratings-mad Indian media.

One can only hope that its squalid fantasy about traitorous Indian Muslims doesn’t prove to be self-fulfilling. For the radicalization of even a tiny fraction of 180 million Muslims would not only fatally undermine India’s increasingly unconvincing claims to democracy and secularism. The not-so- reluctant fundamentalists would make the country seem as ungovernable as its neighbor.

(Pankaj Mishra is the author of “From the Ruins of Empire: The Revolt Against the West and the Remaking of Asia” and a Bloomberg View columnist, based in London and Mashobra, India. The opinions expressed are his own.)

To contact the writer of this article: Pankaj Mishra at pmashobra@gmail.com

Hyphens and national unity - By Ashutosh Varshney - The Indian Express, Mumbai, INDIA

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/hyphens-and-national-unity/1090437/0 Hyphens and national unity Ashutosh Varshney : Wed Mar 20 2013, 02:14 hrs In many quarters, democratic politics is often viewed as a contestation over interests, not ideas. Or, ideas are viewed simply as instruments in the pursuit of interests. Against this cynical belief, the ongoing debate in these pages on the nature of Indian identity ought to be viewed with relief. We have had a genuine exchange over India's evolving democratic politics. Nirmala Sitharaman, the official spokesperson of the BJP, has vigorously participated, but others who have written — Harsh Gupta, Rajeev Mantri, Javed Anand and me — are not political leaders. We belong to different walks of life: civic activism, academia and business. Our vantage points have been quite diverse, but we have engaged ideas. It would be impossible to survey the entire gamut of issues covered in the debate. A column is like a three-minute song, not a full blown raga. Books can afford to do a raga, covering the different dimensions of a musical theme. Columns have to be leaner. Columns need the popular brilliance of a Lata Mangeshkar, not the classical virtuosity of a Bhimsen Joshi. Unfortunately, Gupta and Mantri try to force a book into a column. They end up citing so many intellectual and political figures that they are vulnerable to multiple interpretations. Their first column ('One versus group', IE, February 13) cited as many as ten figures: Will Kymlicka, Vrinda Narain, Gary Becker, Karl Marx, Herbert Marcuse, Alexis de Tocqueville, Thomas Paine, Mahatma Gandhi, Deendayal Upadhyay, Jan Narveson. The second column by Gupta ('Against entrenched identities', IE, March 6) added three more, including Gautam Buddha. Several of these figures come from diverse intellectual traditions. Their ragas are not the same; putting them together in a column generates cacophony. Let me give an example. If you seek support both from Upadhyay and Gandhi for your conception of citizenship, as Gupta does, you invite puzzlement about the possibility of coherence. Gandhi would have been revolted by Akhand Bharat Aur Muslim Samasya (Undivided India and the Muslim problem), an important Upadhyay text on India's nationhood. Gandhi was singularly incapable of conceptualising Muslims as a "problem". Gupta often invokes Gandhi, but his stance on Muslims continues to mirror Upadhyay's position. He does not think India practises discrimination against Muslims. Rather, Muslims are responsible for their misery. They treat their women badly, thereby keeping the community backward. "That Muslims are disproportionately unsuccessful even in computer-checked, multiple-choice examinations" is, for him, another example of how Muslim misery is self-inflicted. One may entirely agree with Gupta about the need for women's emancipation in Muslim society, though one should quickly add that the liberation of Hindu women is neither complete nor exemplary. But what is Gupta comparing Muslim performance in "computer-checked, multiple choice exams" to? To Hindus in general, or is he controlling for income and deprivation? Because of a serious divergence in socio-economic conditions, the academic performance of Muslims simply cannot be compared to all Hindus, only to Hindu OBCs. To believe that "multiple choice exams" show an absence of discrimination against Muslims in India, and they are responsible for their misery, is to abjure standard canons of scientific reasoning altogether. Let me turn to two other themes. Sitharaman doubts that America is serious about allowing hyphenated identities, as I had claimed. She points to the struggle of Hindu Americans in recent years as evidence ('The tyranny of hyphens', IE, February 20). American record is undoubtedly imperfect. Almost every new migrant group in the US has historically faced problems — in some cases, also persecution. It should, however, be noted that all such groups — the Irish, the Italians, the Jews, the Asians — managed to find a place under the American sun. Mormons were persecuted in the US, but a Mormon finished second in the recent presidential race. President Obama, elected twice, describes the 1960 biracial marriage of his parents, a black African father and a white American mother, thus: "In 1960, the year that my parents were married, miscegenation still described a felony in over half of the states in the Union. In many parts of the South, my father could have been strung up from a tree for merely looking at my mother the wrong way; in the most sophisticated of northern cities, the hostile stares, the whispers, might have driven a woman in my mother's predicament into a back-alley abortion — or at the very least to a distant convent that could arrange for adoption." (Dreams from my Father). The US, indeed, has a chequered practice of inclusion. But, because its basic national principles allow such inclusion, politics has increasingly reduced the gap between the ideals and the practice. Hyphens, while resisted, sometimes violently, get accommodated. In the end, all arguments that hyphens are anti-American collapse. This leads me to the second point in the debate. Do hyphenated Indian identities undermine national cohesion? If Indians continue to be Muslim Indians, Hindu Indians, Christian Indians on one hand, or Gujarati Indians, Bengali Indians and Tamil Indians on the other, would Indian nationhood suffer? Sitharaman thinks so; Javed Anand and I do not. Gupta now argues that hyphenated identities can exist in society, but the state should not recognise them. "Nobody is saying Indians cannot see themselves and fellow citizens as belonging to any group. The argument is simply for the government to not see Indians as Hindus, Muslims, Christians or so on." It will be instructive to look at the empirical evidence before saying what the state should do. Two research institutions — the University of Michigan and Delhi's Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) — have conducted extensive surveys of identities in India. In 2005, only 35 per cent of India said they were "only Indian"; 41 per cent said they had both an Indian and a regional identity; and 12 per cent called themselves "only regional". Despite that, 88 per cent Indians said they were proud of India, a figure ranking just below the US and Australia and much higher than for Germany and Switzerland. Surveys also repeatedly show that Indian Muslims are as proud of India as Indians in general. Hyphens, thus, have not undermined national pride or unity. It may well be that by permitting hyphens, not suppressing them, India has also allowed national feeling to increase, or remain high. Hyphens signify inclusion; their erasure would have led to an erosion of national feeling. The existence of hyphenated identities does not mean that only one identity is strongly felt, or that the two sides of the identity are necessarily in contradiction. Narendra Modi, after all, keeps emphasising the Gujarati side of his identity, not simply the Indian. He has also often celebrated the Hindu part, not just the Indian. But he appears to deny that hyphenated privilege to Muslims and Christians. Does he by any chance believe, as Savarkar wrote in Hindutva, a founding text of Hindu nationalism, that Muslims and Christians could not be true Indians because, unlike Hinduism, Islam and Christianity not born in India? For Muslims and Christians, said Savarkar, India was a pitribhumi (fatherland), not a punyabumi (holyland). As he rises on the national stage, we need to know Modi's position on who belongs, and who does not. Would the numbers of those feeling "only Indian" go up as India's urbanisation proceeds further and greater prosperity accrues? Comparative evidence is not clear cut. America's urbanisation boomed in the late 19th century, but ethnic politics also stepped up at the same time. Even after reaching high levels of prosperity, Scotland today is going through a Scottish revival. The remarkable enrichment of Barcelona and its surroundings have not taken away the desire for Catalan distinctiveness. Mumbai, India's richest city, has "sons of the soil" politics. Sitharaman is right to argue that an aspirational India is rising. But it does not follow that the rising and prospering youth will shun their hyphens, or that if they kept their hyphens, they would be less proud of India. If young Indians lose their hyphens voluntarily, that is entirely to be welcomed. But a political ideology that pushes minorities to unhyphenate will bring more harm than good. The writer is Sol Goldman Professor of International Studies and the Social Sciences at Brown University, where he also directs the India Initiative at the Watson Institute. He is a contributing editor for 'The Indian Express'

India’s War in Bangladesh - By Dr. Firoz Mahboob Kamal

India’s War in Bangladesh

Dr. Firoz Mahboob Kamal

 

The War in New Phase

Enemy’s war never ends: only changes its strategies and frontiers. India’s war against the subcontinents’ Muslims did not end in 1947, 1965 or 1971. It still continues. And Bangladesh is the perpetual battleground. The Muslims of Bangladesh are given no time to relax. They can only survive such on-going onslaught if they can identify and defeat the enemy strategies, and purge their foot-soldiers. A body cannot live a long life with killer bugs inside. And Bangladesh has enough of them. The political border between Bangladesh and India still exist -even after the break-up of Pakistan in 1971. But Bangladesh Awami League (BAL) and their ally have been very successful to remove the country’s cultural boundary –especially between the BAL followers and the Indians. And culture has a dominant and defining role on politics. Hence, the vision of BAL leaders is seldom different from that of a Bengali Hindu. Bangladesh’s international border has been made irrelevant to belittle such mutual cultural and political bondage. Recent 3 days’ official visit of Mr. Pranab Mukharjee –the Indian President, to Dhaka amidst 3 days’ dawn to dusk wheel-jam strike was primarily arranged to demonstrate India’s commitment to such bondage. Mr. Mukharjee directly delivered the promise of India’s unrelenting support to the troubled Prime Minister Mrs. Hasina Wajed.

Like an Indian Hindu, the BAL people too, attribute Bangladesh’s independent entity on the world map as a legacy of Pakistan and its Muslim heritage. This map itself reminds them the unwanted division of 1947.  Such Pakistani legacy is hindering BAL and it ally to fully fall into Indian lap. However the political map of 1947 is so much deeply rooted in the Bengali Muslims’ psyche that India could not change it in 1971 –even after a full military occupation. They realised, they can undo such legacy only through deleting it from Muslims’ mind-set-only possible through a complete de-Islamisation. And that needs a full cultural conversion. Hence, they brought a full-fledged cultural war in Bangladesh. They consider it a key strategy, and the sure way of isolating its 150 million Bengali Muslims from the whole Muslim Ummah; and thereby to bring their total subjugation to Indian hegemony. Their worry, if Islam survives in Bangladesh, not only the border will survive, rather will get strengthened to build a citadel of Islam on her eastern flank. One on her western flank is already giving her a lot of troubles; hence can hardly afford another one on her eastern border. Therefore, dismantling such a possibility in Bangladesh is India’s most important priority. As a part of the same coalition, India’s crony government in Bangladesh has already launched on her behalf an all-inclusive war against the Islamists. Recent events in Bangladesh must be studied with such holistic perspectives.  

Pakistan's division in 1971 was not the endgame. Rather starting point of the next phase of Nehru doctrine – the Indianisation of the separated East Pakistan. India’s vision is clear. Pakistan has disappeared from its eastern border. But Bangladesh didn’t, and still survives. They believe, if Bangladesh with its 160 million populations sustains as an independent Islamic state, it will work as India’s security threat for ever. The country’s rapidly resurging Islamists can take over at any point of time. That will pose against India not only a strategic threat, rather a civilizational challenge. Threat to mighty Roman and Persian empires did not come from mighty kingdoms, rather came from the poor people of Arabia. Hence they argue, if USA and the Western Europe could consider an emerging Islamic Afghanistan -with less than 30 million people in another part of the glove, a security threat, why Islamic Bangladesh on her border cannot be the same for India?  If USA and her European ally can massively bomb and occupy Afghanistan, why can’t India do the same in Bangladesh? India is selling this view to the anti-Islamic coalition of the west and getting a full support -as evidenced by their support for India’s extremely brutal occupation of Kashmir. India has deployed more than 600,000 forces to suppress the Kashmiri up-rise. India is speculating the same scenario in Bangladesh. Hence, India is getting more aggressive towards her anti-Indian Bangladeshi neighbours. Its Border Security Force (BSF) has killed more than 400 Bangladeshis only in last 4 years. They did not kill even a quarter of that on its Pakistan border in last 60 years. Bangladesh’s weaker military power might have contributed to make her people more vulnerable. Moreover, the crony government of Hasina paid blind eye to that.   

The Cultural War

India’s current war is not for physical occupation of Bangladesh; rather occupation of the people’s conceptual and cultural territory. India wants to mould Bengali Muslims’ mind and mentality prior to any all invasive war. That is through cultural conversion. India is working day and night on such scheme. It has deployed thousands of foot-soldiers on Bangladeshi soil to launch a huge cultural war. Thousands of them are working as music teachers, dance teachers, art teachers and in many other forms in almost all over the country. Highly paid Indian agents are working as university teachers, newspaper editors, TV presenters, columnists, reporters in almost all government and non-government TV channels and newspapers. Most of the country’s media organisations are indeed the Indian occupied territories. They are the real Trojan horses inside Bangladesh. Recently they launched an aggressive media and internet warfare against Islam and the Islamists. Their real picture came to the forefront while the Shahbag drama unfolded against the Islamists. When the huge number of the cultural war foot-soldiers demonstrated the strength in Dhaka’s Shahbag roundabout, these Indian agents cum professionals could not remain hidden in their holes. They came out with their real colour as warrior activists –especially while playing their role as reporters, news casters, talk-show presenters and newspaper columnists. Their colleagues in the internet blogs became so much emboldened by the government support that they did not hesitate to cross the red line. They not only raised slogans for total annihilation of Islamic parties and their leaders, but also started huge abusive campaign against the Almighty Allah Subhana Wa Taala, His great prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), the prophet’s wives and his great companions. To their surprise, this caused a huge Islamic resurgence in the silent majority. Millions of people came to the street. As a consequence, their bubbles quickly fizzled out. They retreated back to their workplaces under the government’s security shield.

The Bengali people are indeed divided into two nations since day one of Muslim advent in this land. Hence, after the end of British rule, both the Hindus and the Muslims are pursuing two incompatible political visions. In 1947, Bengal’s Muslim leaders tried to create an undivided greater Bengal -separated from greater India. But the Hindu Bengali watered down such a nationalist project with a fear that it would bring dominance of the majority Bengali Muslims. In 1947, in Bengal’s parliament in Calcutta, the Hindu members opted for joining greater Hindu India with a pan-Hindu vision. The Bengali Muslims had two options: either to form independent East Bengal or to join Pakistan. In those days, the East Bengal Muslims were known for its non-existent military power and poor economy. If separated as an independent state in 1947, its army would have been much weaker than that of Nizam of Hyderabad. The Bengali Muslims’ presence in civil administration and other areas was also very scanty. Hence the wise Bengali Muslim leaders of 1947 could clearly anticipate Kashmir or Hyderabad-like Indian invasion of an independent East Bengal, thereby quick accession to India. That invasion and accession of East Bengal too, like invasion and accession of Kashmir and Hyderabad could go unnoticed by the world powers. India could have found hundreds of reasons to justify that. Even to catch a thief, one needs to invest huge energy, even endanger his life. Therefore, who would have come to invest their lives and money to save Independent Bengal from such Indian invasion? Did anyone come to save Hyderabad or Kashmir? In those days, the zeal of pan-Islamism in Muslim youths in Bengal was very high, hence inspired to work for Pakistan. This was indeed the background that led the Bengali Muslims to join Pakistan. Indeed, in the making of the greatest Muslim country in the world, the Bengali Muslims’ contribution was the greatest. Even All India Muslim League –the organisation which led Indian Muslims to make Pakistan was born in Dhaka. In 1946 election on Pakistan issue, Muslim League got the strongest support from Bengal –not from any other province of India. But BAL’s thoughtless jingoists have little strategic depth in their thought or intellectual calibre to understand such crucial survival interests of Islam and the Muslims in Bengal. Hence they detest the Bengali Muslims’ decision of 1947.  With such a distance from Islamic belief and non-commitment for the Muslim interests, these BAL’s cultural and intellectual converts now sing the same song with the Indian Hindus.

 

The Hindu Vision & the Lie

The Hindu Bengalis had a vision. They wanted a united Bengal only if merged with India. That way, the Bengali Muslims were offered the slavery of Hindu majority rule in undivided India. The British left in 1947. But since then, the slavery under the Hindu rule has proved to be much worse than the slavery under the British. The brutality has already been much revealing in systematic anti-Muslim genocide in Kashmir, Gujarat, Assam, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Meerat, Aligarh, Allahabad and many other Indian states and cities.  So the anticipation of Allama Iqbal and the Muslim League leaders about the danger of Hindu rule against Muslims proved to be 100% true. So with such anticipation, in 1947, the Hindu project of united Bengal under Indian Hindu majority rule was out-rightly rejected by the Muslims.

But still the Hindu protagonists of undivided India did not move a single inch from their pre-1947 idea, rather they working day and night on the same project. The whole paradigm of India’s current cold war in Bangladesh –even in the remaining part of Pakistan, is based on that pre-1947 Hindu concept. The Indian Hindu accepted the division of Bengal and creation of Pakistan in 1947 for the time being; their next move was to divide Pakistan and then engulf the weaker half –the East Pakistan. This is India's much proclaimed Nehru doctrine. So far, India has taken every calculated move to pursue that strategy. Since 1947, they were waiting for a right opportunity, and even Nehru himself made a move to annex East Pakistan in his life time. But that failed. The real opportunity came in 1971. India skilfully manipulated Pakistan’s internal political crisis to manufacture a full-fledged war to invade and occupy East Pakistan. But in 1972, India had to withdraw its occupying troops under tremendous international pressure. Moreover in 1972, the cultural and political situation of Bangladesh was not ripe enough for India to go further for a full annexation. India needed to do much home works to make the ground quite ripe for a full harvest.

Since the political map of Bangladesh draws its legitimacy from 1947’s division of India, the Indian agents are doing concerted propaganda against the sanity of such division. Even Dr. Zakir Naik –the famous Muslim preacher of India argues openly in his speech that the division of India in 1947 was wrong. It indeed owes to his tunnel vision and gross inadequacy in his political understanding. With such personal constraints, people cannot see a bigger picture. In his public speech, he boasts India as the fast growing superpower and rejoices that India will go far superior to the USA. As if, the Indian Muslims are going to gain much from India’s super-power status. Like an average Hindu Indian, here he turns to a nationalist chauvinist. Such speeches are getting huge audience all over the subcontinent. This way he is doing a great job as India’s cold war warrior against Bangladesh and Pakistan. In fact, India’s such relentless cold war has made millions of such converts not only in India, but also in Pakistan and Bangladesh. 

                                                                                     

Blessings of a Muslim State

But the truth is different. The creation of Pakistan in 1947 brought enormous blessing –both material and spiritual, not only to Pakistan, but also to the people of Bangladesh. India’s Muslim Population is larger than that of Bangladesh. But the number of Muslim doctors, engineers, scientists, academics, lawyers, army and police men, religious scholars, industrialists and big businessman living in only one city of Bangladesh like Dhaka is much larger than the total number of such value-added people in India’s whole Muslim population. Indian Muslims are almost invisible amidst the overwhelming Hindus in the overseas, where as the overseas Bangladeshi are almost ten million. The success of Pakistani Muslims is much higher, because the creation of this largest Muslim country with a pan-Islamic vision worked with much better image among the world’s Muslim population. The middle-eastern rulers, developers and business establishments helped Pakistan in many ways. After 1971’s debacle, they not only opened gates for millions of Pakistani workers to their countries and built hospitals and mosques in Pakistani cities, but also financed Pakistan’s costly nuclear projects. Whereas Bangladesh had to carry the status tag of India-midwifed vassal state for many years.

These are only few material gifts of an independent Muslim majority state. More blessings come in other ways. The Muslims build states not for mere raising homes and businesses, nor for growing cattle and crops. They can do such things even in non-Muslim countries. In life time, Muslims must play the most important role to fulfil the Divine obligation as Allah’s viceroy on earth. That is to bring ultimate supremacy of His law in His land, and contribute his own share to raise an Islamic civilisation. If the land is grabbed by the enemies, a Muslim must do something to end such occupation. The early Muslims made most of their sacrifices not in raising homes or businesses, rather to establish and defend such Islamic state. Indeed, this is the greatest teaching of the prophet (peace be upon him). The Muslims of other times and other lands have a duty to follow such an indispensable prophetic tradition. Living in a non-Muslim state, a Muslim does not enjoy any space to practise such tradition. This is why migration to a non-Muslim state never got appreciation from a true believer. It has been only justified for security reasons; like the migration of early Muslims to Ethiopia. Hence, all Muslims are faith-bound to establish Muslim majority states; then move on to convert those into Islamic state. Indeed, in 1947, the creation of Pakistan was deemed as an obligation to address such a basic Muslim political as well as a spiritual need.

The Muslim majority Bangladesh and Pakistan are not still Islamic; but the opportunities for such change are still profound. The Muslims in these two countries can still dream about that. But such dream is unthinkable in Hindu majority India -even in coming thousand years. At best, the Indian Muslims can practise Islam as devout follower of Tabligh jamaat. But Tabligh jamaat does not replicate Prophet’s complete Islam. They cannot practise Islam as a full Muslim with all the dimensions of prophetic teachings. For that, a Muslim needs to enter into full sharia rule, into Islamic culture, into full Islamic education, into Islamic administration, into jihad, into Muslim brotherhood, so on and so forth. Hence, for such a full Islamic practice, Muslims need an Islamic state. The prophet of Islam and his great companions needed that. Hence today, how a Muslim can be full Muslim without that?

The Indian Hindus may enough reasons to tell a lot of lies against 1947’s division of India. They blame it a British ploy in conjugation with Muslim communalists! But how a Muslim can repeat the same lie? Muslims can commit to such lie only with intense ignorance. This owes to their ignorance of Islamic vision of a true believer. The enemies have a motive. They want to take the Muslims out of the Divine mission; hence they relentlessly tell lies against Islam and the Muslim history. Bangladesh is the home of more than 150 Million Muslims. So the enemies cannot be oblivious of such huge Muslim populations. Indeed they have an agenda. So the country has turned not only to homes of thousands of anti-Islamic NGOs, but also breeding ground for thousands of anti-Islamic bloggers and cultural warriors. They have gained so much strength under the current government that they are now demanding the prohibition of all Islamic parties and their activities. For the Islamists, the life was not so difficult even in British rule. It was unthinkable even 60 years ago.   

The Indian Objectives

India’s political investment in Bangladesh has always been massive. In 2008 election, it went to a diabolic proportion. London’s weekly “the Economist” gave a testimony to that. So far, India’s key strategy has been to replicate its successfully executed Sikkim strategy: that entails buying the political leaders as well as the players in the key positions in the army, media, police and civil administration. In 2006, after the end of Khalida Zia’s BNP rule, India worked with other anti-Islamic foreign stakeholders to install a pro-Indian proxy-military government to manipulate the forthcoming election results in 2008.  Their plan worked very well and their stooges won a landslide victory. After the election victory and quick installation of a coalition government, the AL and its 14 party-alliance were entrusted with the second phase of the work. This time, India and her cronies in Bangladesh did not want to miss this hard-earned opportunity in any way. After analysing the past 4 years’ BAL administration, it is now clear that the government has worked with two-pronged main objectives. These are: a). Rapid de-Islamisation of the people –especially Muslim youths and the school-going children, and b). Breaking down the backbones of the Islamic organisations and their Islamist leaders.

The Strategies

To fulfil the stipulated objectives, BAL and its ally are working on some planned strategies. These can be easily understood from the last four years’ activities. These are as follows:

Strategy 1: Re-framing a secular education policy at all level and re-writing all text books with a special emphasis on curtailing the amount of Islamic knowledge and infusing sentiments against country’s Islamic values and personalities. Raising acceptability and compatibility with India’s Hindu worldviews has been other strategic goal. The Hindu political, intellectual and literary figures like Gandhi, Nehru, Tagore and others were placed in limelight as the figure of highness to be followed by the students. Whereas Islam’s great prophet like Hazrat Muhammad (peace be upon him) and other prophets, the great companions of the prophet, the great Muslim rulers, the thinkers and the reformers who contributed decisively to Islamise Bengal’s landscape were given very little or no importance in the education policy. For eyewash, they added some Islamic flavour by incorporating some stories of folklore fakirs and sufi saints in the textbooks.

Strategy 2: Reducing and restricting the learning of the Holy Qur’an, the prophetic tradition and Islam’s history in both the state run secular schools and in the religious madrasas. With such an objective against Islam, the government reduced the emphasis of learning Arabic language in religious madrasas: made it optional from its previous compulsory status. Moreover, the amount of dis-information on fundamentals of Islam that are passed on to the students through the text books is also huge. Recently it came to the press that it is written in year 9’s text book that meats of animals sacrificed in the name of other deities are also halal.

Strategy 3: Projecting Shaikh Mujib as the greatest personality in thousands of years’ Bengal history. “Bangla academy” and other government bodies run by the tax-payers money were entrusted to publish hundreds of books on Mujib and his family –both for adults and for the youths. Millions of Taka was granted to public libraries to purchase those books. TV, radio and other mass media were used to publicise Mujib’s life and his speeches. Whereas, publishing books on Qur’anic teachings, the prophet’s life, great Muslim personalities and Islamic history were much restricted.

Strategy 4: Keeping constant vigilance on religious sermons in mosques, prohibiting and restricting Quranic tafsirs classes in open-field mass gatherings by the scholars, and prohibiting publication and circulation of books on jihad and sharia. The police and the Rapid Action Battalions (RAB) were the key tools for suppression of any Islamic propagation. They raided houses, offices and bookshops to confiscate Islamic books –especially on jihad and Islamic movement. The books written by Moulana Syed Maudoodi and Syed Qutb are the special target. In Bangladesh, it is a common practice that the people form committees to organise Quranic tafseer sessions in open fields. These happen in almost every nook and corner of the country around the year. In such gatherings, the eminent religious scholars are invited to deliver long speeches on Islamic teaching. Indeed, the Qur’anic knowledge and prophetic tradition survived among people through such public speeches for ages; and thus Islam reached to the doorsteps of the common people in Bengal. But Hasina’s regime has turned its government machinery against such popular tradition. She and her political ally rebuke it as a tool of spreading fundamentalism. Moulana Dilawar Hussain Sayeedi is widely known as the most famous religious speaker that Bangladesh has ever produced. His speech inspired scores of non-Muslims to accept Islam. But such extraordinary skill and Islamic knowledge of Moulana Sayeedi did not impress the government. He was put him behind the bar for more than two years. The government alleged him as murderer, arsonist, rapist and above all anti-liberationist in the war of independence in 1971. Recently the subservient judiciary of the government has passed a verdict to hang him. After such pronouncement, the country has entered into a virtual civil war like state. Already more than 100 people are killed by the police; several thousands are wounded and tens of thousands of people are imprisoned.

Strategy 5: Annihilation of Islamic parties by banning their organisation, killing their leaders, imprisoning their workers, closing their offices and confiscating financial resources. The BAL government has already banned Hezbut Tahrir as a part of the strategy. In Bangladesh, people are dying every day by terrorist attacks. BAL’s student cadres openly carry firearms; they kill people in front of the police. But the police do not touch them; let alone arresting them and putting them behind the bar. Although there is no proof that Hezbut Tahrir has taken part in any terrorist activities, the Government has disbanded them. At Shahbag roundabout of Dhaka, the BAL cadres are openly raising slogan to kill every razakar without any trail, instigating people to destroy the Islamists’ banks and other financial institutions. They have clogged the busy roads for more than a month. In a civilized country, all these are punishable criminal crimes. But in Bangladesh, they are getting government’s blessing. The government not only asked the local schools to supply children to continuously feed Shahbag’s gathering, but also deployed hundred police constables to protect these hooligans day and night from public anger. The government and non-government TV channels have been asked to show day-long live casts to spread their venomous speech. One the other hand, if Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) or Shibir (JI’s student force) or any other Islamic party bring out any peaceful procession, police would apply every possible means to dismantle them. In several occasions, they even opened fire arms to kill the protesters. The Home Minister has ordered the police to resist JI and Shibir where ever found - even if found in peaceful rally or procession. Dhaka’s Metropolitan Police Commissioner has been reported to ask his police to shoot JI and Shibir worker instantly if found anywhere. In a civilised country, a police constable is never given the authority to kill any man or woman on the street. Even Bangladesh’s own law does not allow even a district judge to hang a worst criminal; his judgement needs to be ratified by the high court. But the current government has given such power to political foot soldiers on the street. So the war like situation had returned to Bangladesh’s street.   So JI is not allowed to hold any rally in any part of the country. Already police has killed more than 100 people, and tens of thousands of JI and Shibir workers are arrested. The government is not still happy with such brutal suppression; they now want to ban JI.    

Strategy 6: Using cultural activities like open air concerts, dance show, drama show, film festivals, village theatres, TV shows to deflect people away from Islamic belief and practices. To make this cultural war a big success, India’s investment is huge. It has extensively deployed its cultural foot-soldiers in every nook and corner of the country. India’s film stars, singers, dancers are making continuous visits to Bangladeshi cities. Thousands of people attend those shows. Bangladesh is a country of foreign-funded NGOs. Thousands of these NGOs are working exclusively to train boys and girls in dancing and singing. Along with hundreds of Bangladeshi Hindu girls, thousands of Muslim girls from secular families have joined this huge army of cultural warriors against Islamic faith and practices. All these are happening in the name of cultural activities.

The Imminent Danger                                    

The enemy of Islam understand that the full conversion of Bengali Muslims to non-Islam is difficult. But they also understand that it is very easy make them cultural converts. It is no less harmful either. Indeed, this way they are pulling the Muslims away from Islam’s fundamental belief and practice, and making easy inroads into Muslims’ inner circles of politics and other activities. Since culture itself is the expression of Muslim faith; and many Bengali Muslims are indeed mere cultural Muslim with little Islamic knowledge and aqeeda, such cultural conversion will be highly detrimental to Islam in Bangladesh. Ultimately, that will lead to massive de-Islamisation. And such de-Islamisation would adequately serve the enemy’s political and strategic purpose.

In the past, the Muslims have experienced the calamities caused by this de-Islamised brand of the Muslims. They worked as the most obedient collaborators of the enemies. They fought with the British colonial army to extend their rule in most of the Muslim lands. Like any non-Muslim army, they did not hesitate to slaughter the fellow Muslims. The same brand of people joined British army in World War-I to snatch the Muslim Iraq and Palestine from Muslim Khelafa and placed them in the alter of the British Empire. In 1971, the same de-Islamised brand went to India to get training and arms to dismember Pakistan and slaughter both Bengali and non-Bengali Muslims in Bangladesh. Now they want to hang the remaining Islamists. India still wants the same lot of collaborators with same anti-Islamic zeal. They are working very hard to get them in enough number. The gathering in Shahbag, indeed gave a vivid display of these products. This is the core point of India’s current cold war in Bangladesh. If India continues to win the war with current pace, she will not need any conventional war to colonise this Muslim land. The time will come when these Bangladesh converts, like Bengali Hindu, will ask for the merger. India is cunningly waiting for such a moment. 17/03/13

http://www.drfirozmahboobkamal.com/english-articles/913-indias-war-in-bangladesh.html