Dark shadow of jihad

Paush Shuddha Shashthi

By Sandhya Jain

Afzal Guru of India, convicted for his role in the attack on Parliament House on December 13, 2001, and Ajmal Amir Kasab of Pakistan, seen striking terror at Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus on November 26, 2008, are the symbols of 21st century jihad against India.

Besides a common commitment to jihad, their separate acts of aggression against an India perceived as Hindu, establish the reality of a universal ummah determined to subjugate all to Islam. This is why Pakistan and Bangladesh — given a share of Hindu ancestral territory after bloody violence in the mid-20th century — have failed to evolve as viable states and have repeatedly returned to unleash mayhem on a non-threatening mother country, despite persistent failures to win overt or covert wars.

The Afzal-Ajmal cases prove partition was no solution to the British Raj-instigated communal formula, and that the spectre of 1947 will remain with us until we assert our identity as a vibrant Hindu nation that can shrivel its oppressors. A viable Indian riposte will, therefore, have to await the rise of a political leadership that recognises ‘secularism’ as a dirty word, and does not kowtow to the Western masterminds of our current woes.

No words can adequately condemn the UPA’s shameless outsourcing of the task of chastising Islamabad to Washington and London, or BJP’s acquiescence in this surrender of sovereignty. The revelation of Mr Amar Singh’s generosity towards the Clinton Foundation — a sharp contrast to the dud cheque he gave late Inspector MC Sharma’s family —completes the picture of a supine India where secular and minority-communal forces readily collaborate to hurt Hindu sensibilities.

Poignant instances of this partnership today centre round some of the most flagrant instances of jihadi strikes in recent times — the Parliament House attack, the Batla House encounter, the Mumbai massacre; a thread of perversity pervades all.

Secularists were quick to recover from the shock of the attack on Parliament House, and mounted a puissant defence of those accused in the conspiracy. The judicial process that followed saw the release of Delhi University lecturer SAR Geelani (hailed by the human rights jholawallahs), but conferred death penalty upon Afzal Guru. This was loudly reviled by Hindu-baiters, who lamented the ‘inadequate defence’ given to the convict, and even published a tome with articles by leading legal luminaries, faulting the entire judicial proceeding.

This eminently un-saleable book featured prominently in a current affairs programme on television. I made just one point — when leading jurists were convinced of his innocence, there was no bar on any of them coming forward to defend the accused to their satisfaction. They cannot sit on the fence and later castigate the legal process.

Now, seven years later, Afzal remains unrepentant, and the Indian state cannot find the courage to hang him due to vote-bank considerations. Grief-stricken families of police constables who sacrificed their lives to defend Parliament House have returned the gold medals of valour to the Government in anger; this scandalous regime has kept the medals, and refused to hang the jihadi.

Hindus, enraged after Mumbai, are clamouring for justice. Activists have collected over 1,200 signatures on a petition to the President regarding public sentiment that terrorists be shown no mercy; to date Rashtrapati Bhavan has not granted them an appointment. The President was quick to meet a Christian delegation after the murder of Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati in Kandhamal, Orissa, earlier this year, but never tried to meet his orphaned bhaktas. The Hindu Jagruti Sabha had previously submitted 18,000 signatures to then President APJ Abdul Kalam regarding Afzal Guru.

Meanwhile, after the bombings in Varanasi, Faizabad and Lucknow two years ago, public opinion asserted itself in the form of local bar associations refusing to defend the accused in these trials. This compelled Muslim lawyers to come forward to defend those accused of jihad, and face the attendant public odium.

A piquant situation currently prevails over the defence of Ajmal Kasab, Mumbai’s lone surviving terrorist. The most distinguished jurists, with status in international human rights circles, would not like to defend him personally because corporate clients may melt away due to a desperately-brewing sense of victimhood among the rich and affluent. Some of these advocates have loftily condemned local bar associations for roughing up accused in emotionally sensitive cases.

Kasab killed three of Mumbai’s top police officers before he was captured; he was engaged in an act of war against the Indian nation. While there can be no dispute that he must have an advocate to represent him, an inflamed public opinion is determined to ensure that no non-Muslim lawyer defends him. Many are of the view that the Mumbai commando attack should be treated as a war crime against India, because all terrorists were Pakistani nationals, trained, armed, and sent across by the ubiquitous ISI. In other words, the state of Pakistan used non-state actors to wage aggression against unarmed civilians in India.

Jihad is a foreign ideology; its objective is world dominion. Islam made impressive strides in the early centuries of its birth. But in the modern period, most Muslim nations lack the ability to defend themselves, and modern jihad has been a tool whereby the West controls both Muslim and non-Muslim societies. The ISI’s Western patrons are well-known; its local cells in India are part of the same axis that once partitioned the country. Only an overtly conscious Hindu Rashtra can tackle this menace. This applies equally to the issue of conversions, which remain a foreign policy objective of the Christian West.

Minority Affairs Minister AR Antulay’s questioning the martyrdom of police officers Hemant Karkare, Ashok Kamte and Vijay Salaskar continues a trend begun in October, when even the death of Inspector MC Sharma in the Batla House encounter in Delhi’s Jamia Nagar did not deter West-looking viragos from making wild allegations against the deceased. Immediately, the Jamia Millia Islamia Vice-Chancellor espoused the cause of students accused of involvement in the encounter; many community and secular voices supported the ‘fake encounter’ theory. Jamia thus marked the emergence of a dangerous trend among a section of India’s articulate Muslim elite — to deny violence; to confront the law; and, to affront Hindu sentiment. The atmosphere is reminiscent of 1947, only this time Hindus will not heed the peddlers of non-action.

Source: Daily Pioneer

Also See

• Hang mohd. Afzal Campaign
• Hindu Genocide in Kashmir & Bangladesh
• Achalpur Riots : Kashmir in Maharashtra