The time.com article on the 'plight of the Muslims' in India
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1862650,00.html
in the hands of the majority Hindus as being the cause of the terrorist attacks
is anything but laughable.
The confession of the captured terrorist that he did it for money hits the nail on its head
that there is nothing wrong with the Hindus nor is there any plight of the Muslims.
http://www.dc-epaper.com/DC/DCC/2008/12/02/ArticleHtmls/02_12_2008_008_001.shtml?Mode=0#
The goal of the terrorists is not even an ideology that is decently civic.
All they have is 'hate-India' policy.
Even before they can think of painting it with a 'Muslim plight',
our political class is ready to manufacture the 'Hindu- terror'
that is set to threaten the Muslims.
The following is the reader response to the times.com article
detailing the past on how it was the other way round.
India is perhaps the only country in the world
that continues to bear an assault on its culture and
now on its own identity in its own soil.
The kind of patronage this assault is getting from the politicians is such that
even this thought as expressed above will be branded
as Hinduistic or communal by the parasitic politicians.
- Jayasree
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Reader resonse:-
November 30, 2008
Dear Sir,
The statement attributed to one of the terrorists by Aryn Baker about the plight of Muslims in India is highly suspect and does not stand to scrutiny considering the remarks made by the TV media including CNN and several hostages about the motives of the terrorists in carrying out the mayhem and cold blooded killing of hundreds of innocent people in Mumbai. The terrorists were looking specifically for the Americans and British citizens. They also targeted Jewish Shabad House which clearly confirms that the Islamic terrorists were not interested in the conditions of Indian Muslims in India as mischievously portrayed in the article by the author. Obviously, Aryn Baker has shamefully built her case to justify the recent Islamic Jihad in Mumbai by using alleged quote from one of the terrorists.
The rest of the article lacks the in-depth journalistic analytical standard and is one sided and based on distortions and misinformation. Besides, the author seems to be completely ignorant of India's history, particularly of the last 1200 years.
India has suffered Islamic terrorism from the seventh century onwards. The American historian Will Durant said: "The Islamic conquest of India is probably the bloodiest story in history." French historian Alain Danielou said in his Histoire de l' Inde: "From the time Muslims started arriving, around 632 AD, the history of India becomes a long, monotonous series of murders, massacres, spoliations, destructions. It is, as usual, in the name of 'a holy war' of their faith, of their sole God, that the barbarians have destroyed civilisations, wiped out entire races."
Mahmoud Ghazni, was an early example of Muslim ruthlessness, burning in 1018 of the temples of Mathura, razing Kanauj to the ground and destroying the famous temple of Somnath, sacred to all Hindus. His successors were as ruthless as Ghazni: 103 temples in the holy city of Benaras were razed to the ground, its marvelous temples destroyed, its magnificent palaces wrecked."
Indeed, the Muslim policy vis a vis India, seems to have been a conscious systematic destruction of everything that was beautiful, holy, refined." Based on the Islamic evidences, several million Hindus were killed, thousands were taken as slaves and many temples were destroyed between 7th to 18th centuries by the Islamic invaders. All along, the iconoclasts remained convinced as per their own records that they were putting into practice the highest tenets of their religion.
Jinnah said in Lahore on 23 March, 1940: "The Hindus and Musalmans belong to two different civilizations which are based mainly on conflicting ideas and conceptions." Though the majority Indian Muslims had voted for the creation of Pakistan on the basis of religion, many of them decided to stay back in India. While the Muslim population in India has grown from about 10% in 1947 to nearly 17%, Hindu population in Pakistan has come down from 26% in 1947 to about 2% now. The census of 1951 reports that Hindus constituted 22% in East Pakistan (Bangladesh), but 2001 it is 9.2 %. Can this be called persecution of Muslims by Hindu majority as the article implies?
At the economic level, as per The Economic Times' Survey, "Hindus and Muslims, at a national level, run neck-and-neck on average annual household income (AHI) of Rs. 61, 423 and Rs. 58,420, respectively".http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Economic_State_Hindu_Muslim_equal_in_income/articleshow/1858719.cms. The survey thus completely demolishes the argument that Indian Muslims are economically poor.
Indian Muslims have done very well socially and politically by any world standard. There have been Muslims Presidents, cabinet ministers, attorneys, doctors as well as rich businessmen like Azim Premji, owner of Wipro, one of the largest IT houses in the world.
The Muslims in India, though in minority, wield considerable power as they exploit their self-imposed victim status and demand special privileges under threats of uncontrollable violence. As a result, they are given Haj subsidy ( going to Mecca for pilgrimage) which is denied to Hindus for their pilgrimage. Whereas Hindu temples and their funds are controlled by the government, Mosques and Madressas are allowed to run independently without any interference from the government. Muslims are allowed to divorce their wives by calling 'Talaq' three times and marry four wives. Rajiv Gandhi (ex-Prime Minister of India) altered the Indian constitution to overrule the Indian Supreme Court's decision in the divorce case of Shah Banu just in order to please the Muslim mullahs.
The Indian politicians, particularly the current Indian government in power, have been using Muslims as a vote bank and hence their appeasement by sacrificing the welfare and interest of the majority community, Hindus. As a matter of fact, it is India's Hindus who are facing the real crisis in their own homeland and not Muslims since the political power is in the hands of anti-Hindu politicians.
Finding the roots of Islamic terrorism in India and other parts of world requires study of the Islamic scriptures and the history of Islam which play a central role in promulgation and advancement of a comprehensive political ideology which the author has completely ignored to justify the Mumbai terror to suite her personal agenda.
It is indeed sad and disappointing that a magazine of the Time's stature has allowed itself to be used by the apologist of Islamic Jihad to propagate the hateful political ideology of killing innocent non-believers.
D. Shah
GA, USA
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Inflicting wounds on patriotism
M Rama Jois
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
http://dailypioneer.com/138558/Inflicting-wounds-on-patriotism.html
Hindus world over have remained loyal to the country they live in and have never indulged in any anti-national activities. The term 'Hindu terrorism' maligns the community
The statement made by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to the effect that assigning the name of any religion to any of the terrorist activities was wrong, is very timely. The statement is of utmost importance being in the interest of maintaining the feelings of different religions and is full of wisdom. This advice by the Prime Minister should be followed by all political parties and the print and electronic media without any prejudice. Such a code of conduct is absolutely necessary to be followed in the interest of unity and integrity of the nation.
However, unfortunately, in respect of an incident which took place in Malegoan on September 8, 2006, some politicians and the print and electronic media have been describing the incident as "Hindu terrorism" and on that basis huge propaganda is being made. After a careful examination of this kind of propaganda, it is crystal clear that those who are making such allegation have not realised the enormous injury they are inflicting on national unity, feeling of fraternity and the desire to live harmoniously, among the people belonging to different religions.
Before Malegaon there were deadly terrorist attacks perpetrated by anti-national elements in Jammu & Kashmir, New Delhi, Jaipur and Ahmedabad and other cities. Apart from mass casualty, there was also colossal loss to property.
It is the foremost duty of a State to give protection to its people. The Central and State Governments have been unable to prevent such activities and afford protection to innocent people. These incidents have caused mental agony to a large number of citizens. If such inhuman and anti-national activities caused provocation to a few persons to retaliate on account of anger and agony, they cannot be dubbed as terrorists. Malegaon incident is one such retaliation for anti-national terrorist activities.
On the other hand, these are only patriotic retaliation for anti-national terrorist activities. To describe such activities as 'Hindu terrorism' is to add insult to injury. The damage caused to the nation by those who are indulging in making such propaganda is much more than the damage caused by terrorist activities. Consequence of this is disastrous to the reputation and interest of the nation.
In this land of Mahatma Gandhi, it is unfortunate that a few individuals have developed the expertise in the quality of suppressing the truth and suggesting falsehood. There are examples galore to prove that. The most cruel example of this is to coin the phrase 'Hindu terrorism' after Malegaon blast probe became public. This is an injury inflicted on peace-loving people who always believed in "Sarve Bhavantu Sukhinah (let all be happy) and Loka Samasta Sukhinobhavantu (let the entire World be happy) as part of their dharma. Hindus, as the whole world knows, are peace-loving people and by nature never inflict any injury against co-human beings just for the sake of satisfying their hatredness towards other religion and they do not indulge in violence against them. Even now Hindus are living in as many as 60-70 countries throughout the world. They have remained loyal to the country where they live in and have not indulged in any anti-national activities.
During the freedom struggle, Mahatma Gandhi adopted the path of non-violence. However, there were people who were charged with sense of patriotism such as Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev, Madanlal Dhingra, Chandrashekhar Azad, Satyendra Basu and Chapekar Brothers. In the course of their struggle for freedom, they adopted the path of revolutionaries with the object of attacking the foreign invader and rulers. Just as it is the height of perversity to call such patriots as terrorists, it is also equally perverse to dub persons like Pragya Singh Thakur and her supporters as terrorists and malign the entire Hindu society by calling it as 'Hindu terrorism'.
According to the criminal jurisprudence, no person can be considered or declared to be guilty until he is convicted by a court of law for the offences alleged against him/her. Even on the basis that Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur and her supporters have committed the offence falling under the Penal Code, when we consider as to why they had done so, it becomes clear that they were provoked by the large number of killings by several terrorist attacks committed by anti-national individuals. It was only a patriotic retaliation to anti-national terrorism.
Such activities done by certain individuals on account of patriotic fervour and due to provocation provided by anti-national terrorists canot be brought under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crimes Acts. Such a step taken is wholly arbitrary and unreasonable. This is nothing but part of vote-bank politics which is being used in view of the fact that elections are being held in some States of north India. This is nothing but a political tool to divide and rule the nation.
-- The writer is a Rajya Sabha Member and Former Chief Justice of Punjab and Haryana High Court and former Governor of Jharkhand and Bihar.
Did it for money, says held terrorist
BY DIPPY VANKANI
http://www.dc-epaper.com/DC/DCC/2008/12/02/ArticleHtmls/02_12_2008_008_001.shtml?Mode=0#
They promised that once I was successful, my family will get lakhs'
The lone arrested terrorist, Mohammed Ajmal Aamir Kasav, has stunned the Mumbai police interrogators by saying that he did all this for money and had developed cold feet after agreeing to become a suicide terror raider. He added that he hijacked the police vehicle to escape into anonymity.
Kasav, son of an impoverished street vendor, also spilled out chilling details of the operation, the worst of which was that he and his accomplice had been asked to sleep the night if possible at CST if they reached at a time when it wasn't crowd ed enough to kill too many.
This newspaper has got an exclusive access to the videographed first statement of Kasav who was arrested after a firefight at Girgaum Chowpatty, a stone's throw from the Chowpatty beach, on Wednesday night. While the world might have thought of Kasav and his accomplices as hardened jehadis, Kasav shocked the cops saying that if the cops paid him enough and fed him, he (Kasav) would create the same bloody mayhem for the police that he just did for his handlers in Pakistan.
Kasav admitted to the police that though he was a fidayeen, the blood and gore had frightened him. This prompted him to hijack the police jeep to escape and sneak into some quiet corner of the city, hoping that he could lead a life of anonymity without his handlers knowing anything about him.
Kasav, in his statement, which officers from the D.B. Marg police station videographed and took down in writing, said that he and his accomplice Abu Ismail, who was killed at Girgaum Chowpatty, were briefed to carry out their operation at CST railway station only if they reached Mumbai before 11 pm. "They were told to open fire at the railway station only between 7 pm and 11 pm either in the day or the evening which are the peak hours. They were told by their handlers that in case they reach Mumbai after 11 pm on Wednesday they should take rest and carry out their operation the following morning," said an officer present at the time Kasav's statement was being recorded, but requested anonymity.
Speaking about why he turned a fidayeen, Kasav said, "Humko kaha gaya ki hamara 'bada bhai' Hindustan kitna amir hai aur hum yaha bhook aur garibi se mar rahe hai. Mere abbajaan dahiwade ka thela lagate hai Lahore mein aur unki kamai se hamara pet tak nahi bharta. Mujhse wada kiya gaya tha ki jaise hi mere operation ki kaamyaabi ki khabar unhe milegi woh mere ghar walo ko lakho lakho denge.
(We were told that our big brother India is so rich and we are dying of poverty and hunger. My father sells dahiwada at a stall in Lahore and we did not even get enough food to eat from his earnings. I was promised that once they knew that I was successful in my operation, they would give lakhs and lakhs to my family)."
Kasav said that they were fidayeens and were sent to die. Kasav told the police, "Kisiko mat bataiye ki main zinda hoon. Varna who mujhe maar denge. Unhone humse kaha tha ki agar hum wapas Pakistan gaye toh bhi who humein maar denge.
(Please do not tell anybody that I am caught alive otherwise they will kill me. They had told us that they would shoot us even if we returned to Pakistan)." He said that he could not pursue his education because of the meagre income of his father.
