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The Gorilla in the Bedroom
Sach Kanwal
Singh
Listen to
India’s complaints and you will be surprised how justified they all
sound. The country is making huge progress and its policies ensured
that it escaped the economic recession. Now that it was trying to
catch up with the slipping rate of growth, Pakistan exported some
smart terror and showed the world how ill equipped was this country
in tackling a bunch of armed assailants in a hotel in Mumbai.
Now that it has
cornered Pakistan and Islamabad is stuck in its own fight against
terrorists,
New Delhi’s
writ is challenged every single day by Maoists in vast swathes of
the country. Why should a government not suppress such elements with
a heavy hand? After all, it is a democratically chosen government
that can legitimately claim to have the mandate of the people to
decide the course of action.
Those who are
challenging the writ of the country’s government cannot be allowed
to go scot-free. So, India’s home minister P Chidambaram is going
all out with force, gunfire, army back up and paramilitary in front,
on a mission to kill and extinguish the Maoist threat.
“Intellectual
support to Naxalites must end,” is the message being given through
private briefings, media reports and electronic media frenzy. What
kind of a government can ask its people to stop thinking or applying
intellect to issues of why some of the people have chosen to turn to
extreme forms of violence? Particularly when these are some of the
poorest, marginalized people?
And when has the
last word been said on who is more violent? The Naxalites or the
Government?
All governments
always have police and army at their command. The police and the
army are professionally trained to commit violence. You can give it
any name. Defence preparedness or some better euphemism. When you
have special army or para military units trained for insurgency, it
shows a government or an establishment’s mindset to remain in a
state of perpetual violence.
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Leading
mainstream Indian political parties are both guilty of either
carrying out pogroms, or shutting their eyes to them, or frustrate
efforts to bring them to a stop, or thwart efforts to apply balm, or
torpedoing any bid to bring justice to the victims or the guilty to
book. |
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Scores of Indian
TV channels had shrieky reporters asking at the top of their voice
recently about what kind of people could have beheaded a government
employee. Their indignation was very well put. As the body of
Francis Induvar, the officer who was beheaded, was brought down from
the truck, the Indian media replayed the scenes in a loop hundreds
of times for many days in an effort to whip up a near war hysteria.
Francis
Induvar’s little son, some 10 year old kid, was on TV, mikes thrust
in his face, crying and vowing to avenge the death of his father.
“Main bhee police banoonga, main bhee aap ko maroonga.” Times
Now television channel’s Arnab Goswami went mad, and tried to push
every debate on his channel to a position where he would almost want
that the panelists declare then and there that anyone who has ever
harbored a kind thought of Maoists be declared a condemned and
doomed terrorist. Other channels were no different.
“What would
Mahatma Gandhi have said or done?” Rajdeep Sardesai on CNN-IBN was
trying to fire India’s most rusted but still trusted gun at
Arundhati Roy. Arundhati did not even duck. “I am sorry, I am
Gandhi,” she said. Of course she should have said she is proud that
she is not.
But it is now
clear that the idea of a reasoned debate on TV channels can safely
be said to be a wishful thought.
There is however
one problem that Indian media is simply not addressing. Every single
day, it dutifully reports violence by Naxal cadres. Naxalites are
very clear on their approach. And their approach has many problems.
Even though they have expressed regret for beheading a police
officer, and we grant that a regret serves little purpose, they hold
that
India is
a semi-colonial polity and no one, least of all the state, bothers
about the Constitution. The Naxalite cadres see their actions as a
revolutionary war. in which morality is suspended and limits cast
aside.
There are a
thousand problems with the articulation and defence of Naxalite
positions, and often their actions are morally repugnant. Like the
state, Maoists have often resorted to truth and falsehood, confusing
one with the other, with mixed results and have hardly followed
higher humane considerations or democratic norms of decision making
that must apply even in war.
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From Left-wing
extremists to right-wing Babu Bajrangis and Narendra Modis to the
Sajjan Kumars and Jagdish Tytlers of the Congress to mosque
demolisher L K Advani and Operation Bluestar apologists in all
parties, we need to ask who gave them the right to kill in the name
of democracy? If they say it was the mandate of the people, then the
people of India
must be told that their mandate if being used to what purpose. |
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But is India
doing anything about the 800 pound gorilla in its bedroom? Which
Indian political party is not guilty of doing or condoning what the
Maoists are doing?
Leading
mainstream Indian political parties are both guilty of either
carrying out pogroms, or shutting their eyes to them, or frustrate
efforts to bring them to a stop, or thwart efforts to apply balm, or
torpedoing any bid to bring justice to the victims or the guilty to
book.
Did or did not
the Congress government of Rajiv Gandhi fail to bring the culprits
of the 1984 pogrom of the Sikhs to justice? Did or did not the mixed
hues government of VP Singh failed to pay adequate attention to this
aspect? Did or did not the NDA government of Vajpayee not only fail
to get justice for the Sikh community but instead heaped more
killings, injustices and pogroms on the Muslim community in Gujarat
and elsewhere?
It was the
Vajpayee government that brought in the idea of scrapping Schedule 5
of the Constitution that protects tribal lands from encroachment.
This Schedule is still being violated. Every one from the mohalla
committee president anywhere in India to the Prime Minister knows
that there is clear, prima facie, incontrovertible and hard tangible
evidence of Congress politicians’ involvement in massacres of Sikhs
in Delhi in 1984 and BJP-RSS-Bajrang Dal-VHP goonda politicians’
participation and leadership in massacre of Muslims in Gujarat and
elsewhere in 2002?
Dilip Simeon, a
Delhi-based historian, has brought out clearly some of the hard
hitting questions including the 1987 killings of 40 Muslims of
Meerut in custody. “Why did the case take 18 years to come to court?
The BJP and the Congress both supported the private army named Salwa
Judum with disastrous consequences for Chhattisgarh’s population.
Even the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court criticised the States’
recklessness. In 2007 the
West Bengal
government despatched an illegal armed force to crush its opponents
in Nandigram.
India’s rulers
regularly protect criminals, and part of the public is complicit in
this. Policemen in dereliction of duty get promoted. Mass murderers
are hailed as heroes. Why are we addicted to double-standard?”
Indeed, that is
a question that everyone should ask of India’s establishment. Not
just the government. Not just the main opposition party, the BJP.
But every hue of politician, every branch of the establishment. They
are all together. That is how a horde of murderers can rule a
country so vast.
From Left-wing
extremists who chopped off Francis Induwar’s head, to the right-wing
Baba Bajrangis and Narendra Modis to the Sajjan Kumars and Jagdish
Tytlers of the Congress to the mosque demolishers L K Advani and the
Operation Bluestar apologists in Congress, BJP and every single Left
party, we need to ask who gave them the right to kill in the name of
democracy? If they say it was the mandate of the people, then the
people of India must be told that their mandate is being used to
what purpose.
For
feedback, please write to worldsikhnews@gmail.com
11
November 2009
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