I talked about changes in me in the last four months and one welcomed change is the growth in my interest and understanding of politics, though the understanding of real world politics cannot be conclusively claimed ever. I am grateful to the wizards of 307 BH3, the quasi human (super human rather) quizzers Abdaal and Anjaney for instilling in me the basic political understanding, and yeah, Nehaa for pol sci xeroxes :D!
Today I was watching this very interesting debate being telecasted in Times Now in a show called 'Versus' hosted by Arunabh Goswami and the topic, well officially at least, was Malegaon Blasts: Investigation versus Politics, which, as expected, got converted to simply terrorism and politics, probably one of the daintiest topics to be discussed on nationally televisioned debates. The holistically diversified debating panel included people from possibly all relevant fields: Abhishek Manu Singhvi, the M.P. from Rajasthan and Indian National Congress spokesperson, Swapan Dasgupta, a senior and renowned journalist, Vinod Mehta, the Editor in Chief of Outlook, some retired Colonel of Indian Army Mr.Shankar, Sitaram Yechury, Polit Bureau Member of CPI(M) and Ram Madhav, the spokesperson of RSS with a typically RSS rogue-sounding-brogue!
Abhishek Singhvi started off the debate with his introductory comments stating that terrorism as talked and treated today should not be looked at from any specific perspective but should be treated in abstraction regardless of any religion, cause, any possible justification and political nexus. Agreeing with him, the very enthusiastic and excessively zealous Swapan Dasgupta ironically put forward his proposition of potentials of religious terrorism such as Islamic or Jehadi terrorism, Hindu terrorism, etc. and other potential factions and categories of terrorism such as military terrorism (wtf!); and with Ram Madhav's defence for the coining of the term 'Hindu terrorism' as a plot for the benefit of INC incepted the discussion on the Malegaon blasts and all the alleged violent activities of radical hindutva supporters being 'Retributive Terrorism'. This indeed was a genuine matter of consideration in the debate in light of the Malegaon blasts and ATS allegations on RSS leaders like Sadhavi Pragya Singh, Swami Dayanand Pandey, etc. However, just when Ram Madhav was in vain though but trying to justify any 'aggressive hindutva activities (as he puts it!)', following the left ideologies, Sitaram Yechury sensibly claimed that 'terrorism shouldn't be compartmentalized as good, bad and very bad'. While these people were engaged in this interestingly loud struggle to get one's point through, the military person remained silent untill he was explicitly given a chance to speak and all that he spoke was in defence of Indian Military and in condemnation of the generalized tarnishing opinion against the Army generated due to Lt.Col. Purohit's alleged involvement in the Malegaon blasts. He put forward the three refrains imposed on all army officials and soldiers which were about discussing politics, religion and women(strangely though!) and he kept on insisting till his ending words of the discussion that the Indian Army is apolitical. That, however, was evident from his idleness in the political debate - proving that actions do speak louder than words, especially in a struggle to utter words!
Coming back to the core of the discussion, the questions which arose and some deliberately raised viewpoints did question the basis of terrorism and the basis and validity of actions against it. Swapan Dasgupta asked a very good question (the gravity of which was lowered owing to the hyperactive mannerism) to Abhishek Singhvi on the uniformity and abstractness of terrorism as put forward by him earlier in the debate. His question was that should we equate the external terrorism existing as a threat to our nation as a whole with the internal terrorism which was being suspeted as the 'retributive terrorism'? There does exist a marked difference when both forms of terrorism are compared. While the Kashmir issue has seemingly been made as vast as the 'India' issue and the threats which such explicitly anti-Indian groups as SIMI and it's different terror branches such as HuJI, LeT, etc. have posed to the existence of this country, let alone the peace, the last thing which would be desired was the aggravation of almost a hopeless situation to a Hopson's chioce by internal terrorism preached and practised by such implicitly anti-Indian groups like RSS, Bajrang Dal, VHP, ABVP and remotely though but enough to be mentioned in ejusdem generis, BJP. As reported in NDTV, the information of the ATS, though not supposed to be directly outsourced to the public but through political sources and reporters, revealed the direct nexus of Sangh Parivar members such as Aseemanand, Dayanand Pandey and Pragya Singh in Malegaon blasts and also in Ajmer Dargah Blasts and Samjhauta Express blasts and were reported to have met somewhere in Gujarat in February 2006 to discuss these 'retaliatory attacks'. Now that Lt.Col.Purohit's involvement in these incidents and RDX being sourced by him for the blasts are being claimed by the ATS, Vinod Mehta addressed it as a wake up call for the Army (which was taken as an indication rather than a 'wake-up-call' by the retired Col.) of people coming from a school of radical divisive political thought joining the Army.
Mr. Vinod Mehta also compared the fight against terrorism in India with that in the United States of America after 9/11 and questioned the failure of India as opposed to US success. Again, Abhishek Singhvi's notion of fight against an abstract terrorism and perception of any form of terrorism with a blind eye figured in to answer United States' successful reaction to 9/11; however condemned in a human rights perception, it practically worked for the nation. However, this view seemed to be sardonic in two ways - one was that it was coming from the spokesperson of a party which was responsible for havocs like operation blue star and consequent gruesome and ruthless genocide; the other was that the condition in US is uncomparably different from that in India as here - due to the constitutionally secular nature of our country radical pseudo secularism which comes from the right wing hinders any mitigating conclusion and intiates discussions like these while in the US the President can even go to the extent of claiming their war against terrorism as a 'crusade' and manage to go scot-free!
As far as the question of terrorism existing at two different levels goes, I think that the exterior threat, which is not totally exterior now, is the genuine and mindless hatred and ill-will while the interior and implicitly explicit 'retaliatory' or 'retributive' terrorism totally arises out of political motives. The Babri Masjid demolition issue was the perfect example of sheer shameless radical communal vote bank politics and so was the Khalistan movement. Terrorism even at local levels are borne out of 'dirty politics' and nation's cause goes for a toss when it comes to retaining power and selfishness.
As long as any doubts on radical Hindutva being justified remain, certain latest developments seem to vanish them. Though the ATS is yet to provide evidences to their conclusions and with the IB being on the contrary by alienating those alleged by the ATS from any such charge, the matter is becoming more vulnerable to being politicized. Till the court's verdict or any fool-proof information, let's wait and watch any further developments and hope for some enlightenment of the mindless radical groups so that they may try to reason out their actions and find none to realize the futility or rather, the malignity of their immature actions.
No comments:
Post a Comment