India: A Fistful of Follies
A Perspective on Maharashtra incidents, bomb blasts and the current political crisis
By Amaresh Misra
After writing so much and achieving at least something, on the recent spate of violence/bomb blasts/attacks on minorities, the Maharashtra and Assam events leaves writers and commentators like Ghulam Muhammad and me numb. The arrest of Pragya Singh, and the whole needle of suspicion towards ex and serving army officers in the 29thSeptember Malegaon blasts has confirmed what we have been saying all along: that terror indeed has a face; that the Indian Mujahideen and SIMI were creations of the Indian security forces and the real wires of terrorism are linked inextricably to the hate/fascist ideology of the RSS-BJP. RSS-BJP in essence is a home grown, terrorist-fascist force par excellence―and it is not the first time that they have bared their fangs.
I still remember a meeting with the anti-RSS, pro-Muslim Shanakaracharya Swami Swarupanand, the Shankaracharya of Dwarika and Badrinath. In this, the Shankaracharya had stated clearly and I quote, `Amaresh these Sanghis are the most criminal of all forces. They run a secret wing of assassins. They have been indulging in murder and arson since their birth. They are adharmis like Ravana and they dare to pose as Hindus! They have even tried to assassinate me!’
This is the Shankaracharya speaking―it is also clear that there was a secret nexus between the RSS and the British during the 1947 partition riots. In an article published earlier, Akhilesh Mittal, the columnist of Asian Age and Covert, has exposed the entire conspiracy by highlighting a true case which I am quoting from the original article:
Hard evidence of the nexus between the British government of India and the RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh) is available in A Life of Our Times, the memoirs of Rajeshwar Dayal, ICS published by Orient Longman in 1998.
The RSS was supplied detailed maps of towns and villages to enable them to attack Muslims.
Dayal says: “At a cocktail party, in early 1946, the Chief Secretary told me, almost casually that I would be the next Home Secretary of the U.P. I happened to be the first Indian officer named to the post which had hitherto apparently been reserved for British officers.”(Page 77).
As Home Secretary Rajeshwar Dayal became privy to the most confidential information “I must record an episode of a very grave nature. When communal tension was still at fever pitch, the Deputy Inspector General of Police Western Range a very seasoned and capable officer, B.B.L. Jaitley arrived at my house in secrecy.
He was accompanied by two of his officers who brought with them two large steel trunks securely locked. When the trunks were opened, they revealed incontrovertible evidence of a dastardly conspiracy to create a communal holocaust throughout the western districts of the province.
The trunks were crammed with blueprints of great accuracy and professionalism of every town and village of that vast area prominently marking out the Muslim localities and habitations. There were also detailed instructions regarding access to the various
locations, and other matters which amply revealed their sinister purport.”
Dayal took the incriminating evidence to the Chief Minister Gobind Ballabh Pant “There, in a closed room, Jaitley gave a full report of his discovery backed by all the evidence contained in the steel trunks.
Timely raids conducted on the premises of the RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh) had brought the massive conspiracy to light. The whole plot had been concerted under the direction and supervision of the Supremo of the organisation himself.
Both Jaitley and myself pressed for the immediate arrest of the prime accused Shri Golwalkar, who was still in the area. Pant decided to put the matter before his cabinet. There were RSS sympathisers in the Congress and the presiding officer of the Legislative council, Atma Govind Kher was a sympathiser and his sons were known to be members of the RSS.
The action taken was not arrest but a letter to Golwalkar stating the evidence and asking for an explanation. As could be expected Golwalkar slipped away and managed to elude the couriers. “This infructuous chase continued from place to place and weeks passed.”
The next paragraph, on page 94 of the book speaks for itself “Came 30th January 1948 when the Mahatma, the supreme apostle of peace fell to a bullet…”
These maps could have originated only in the British Surveyor General’s office. The British administration was known for the passionate zeal with which they guarded maps. That these were made available to the RSS is evidence of the link.
Further, in a book written by Alex Von Tunzelmann, called `The Indian Summer: secret history of the end of an empire’, the author has exposed how the 1947 August-September-October Delhi `riots’were no riots―they were in fact an armed uprising conducted by RSS in alliance with retired army officers and personals against the secular basis of the new Indian nation state. Nehru was aware of the RSS plot, as was Patel―and Nehru gave Patel a stern warning to choose sides at this very moment. Patel caved in―then the Indian army was brought in to crush the anti-Muslim RSS rising, which left hundreds of thousands of Muslims of old Delhi dead.
These two instances show that RSS’ criminal character has a long history. In contemporary times, since 1990, with Advani’s first Rath Yatra these forces have persisted with just one agenda: anti-Muslim, anti-secular, anti-constitutional tirade. In the process, they have given birth to the Mumbai riots, then the backlash the Mumbai Bomb Blasts, then a whole spate of terrorist activities when the NDA was in power, and then the 2005-06-07 Mumbai, Malegaon, Nanded, Nagpur, UP terror attacks and then the latest spate of violence beginning with the 26th July Ahmedabad Blasts. Since that date in less than six months India has seen 64 serial blasts in six states leaving 215 dead and 900 injured.
To further elaborate an earlier point: What has become now of Indian Mujahiden and SIMI? Why is the media not screaming about them after the latest Assam Blasts? Which new `terror’ organization and which devilish scheme the Indian security forces will come up with now?
In India there is a clear alliance between a large section of Indian State (bureaucrats and security officials), the communal/fascist forces, the opportunist elements in the Congress and the BJP, the two main parties, and a large section of the Indian corporate pro-US, business class and leading media houses. The latter in fact have emerged as a major rallying point for fascist forces. Imagine after the death of several North Indians in lynch-style Ku Klux Klan marka attacks in Mumbai, Rajdeep Sardesai, the editor of CNN-IBN writes a letter to `his dear friend’ Raj Thackeray in Hindustan Times (31-10-2008) hailing him for representing Marathi sentiments but then advising him not to resort to violence against North Indians! Sardesai goes on to mention that after all he to is a migrant in Delhi!
Now Delhi liberals, who hate UP and Bihar wallasas much as any elite in Mumbai, will welcome Rajdeep Sardesai’s article as a voice of sanity or something. But Rajdeep does not even question Raj Thackeray’s attempts to project himself as a protector of Marathi Manoos. Rajdeep nowhere raises the issue of backward caste and Dalit Marathis and how they have been cruelly suppressed in the name of Marathi unity and how the latest attack on North Indians is also a ploy to deflect the growing power aspirations of Dalits and the Marathi OBCs and MBCs―power aspirations which would threaten ultimately the unchallenged rule of the Marathi-Maratha forward castes.
In Maharashtra, the Congress, NCP and the Shiv Sena, as well Raj Thackeray all represent the Marathi forward caste―so does Rajdeep Sardesai and a whole lot of other Marathi intellectuals. The voice of the Vijay Tendulkar type Marathi liberal has been suppressed―now Rajdeep type individuals with a new, Anglicized, neo-forward caste tinge are in the field. However much they might not like the `violence of it all’ they share certain basic, elitist, anti-North Indian assumptions of the Maratha and Indian metro city forward castes. This neo-liberal/city elite is also mortally afraid and will continue to act buddy-buddy with Raj Thackeray, a clone of the even the most second rate Nazi trooper.
The larger question is why are North Indians being targeted systematically? And what is the role of corporate houses?
Since 2006, more than Rs. 80, 000 crore investment, mainly in the auto industry, is coming Maharashtra’s way. Concentrated in the Mumbai-Thane-Nasik triangle, this investment seeks to edge out especially the small auto part, indigenous manufacturers dotting the triangle. The only way to do so is to encourage the large scale migration of the labor of the region―who happen to be North Indians!
This scheme fits in well with the Congress game of making one Sena (MNS) compete against the other (Shiv Sena) with an eye to the next elections. Rajdeep of course has not mentioned the Congress-NCP game or the linkages with the corporate lobby―it is clear that in this win-win situation the corporate lobby and the Maharashtra Government as well as the communal fascist forces are hand in glove. If the North Indians die in Ku Klux Clan Style attacks; so be it.
Perhaps these actors realize, or perhaps they do not, that a wider game is being played in India; the British East India Company came and colonized India through India’s eastern shore; the new game of global/US/finance capital is to effect an East India Company kind operation from the western shore. In this, first communists are browbeaten―like they were during the rise of Bal Thackeray―and then fascist, anti-Muslim forces are encouraged―and now North Indians are targeted. The aim is to create a situation where the Central or the Federal Indian power loses its grip over at least Gujarat (where Modi, the great friend of corporate-fascist India is ruling) and Maharashtra. The failure of the Central Government to act against Raj Thackeray is a deliberate move by the arch criminal Shiv Raj Patil, India’s Home Minister who also hails from Maharashtra, to suspend his own powers and that of the Indian State!
But―again―why North Indians and people of UP and Bihar? The reason is simple―UP and Bihar are the centers of anti-colonial resistance in 1857 and beyond. During the Mughal, Gupta and the Mauryan period too these two areas constituted the heartland, the base of India’s rise as a world empire. These areas are very fertile and peasant dominated with abundant resources, scope for development and Industrialization and a proud people who never gave up their freedom. What is more, UP and Bihar are home to the most stable, truly traditional and humanist-modern sections of Sanatan Dharma and Islam, the two great religions of India.
These religions and Hindi-Urdu Belt peasantry resisted not just the British forces in 1857; they also struck a mortal blow to the world’s first corporate state―the East India Company. In fact, from 1857 till the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, private corporate state ceased to exist.
The 1990s and after are periods when under the IMF-World Bank, global capital went on the offensive against the state power as a whole in different countries. The idea was to dismantle/discredit state power as such and pave the way for the gradual privatization of entire, social-public and state sectors.
In this, the concept of nation and nationhood was a major problem; nations of the developed world were still fine; but, according to the new emerging corporate logic, third world country states presented an anomaly partly because their overall orientation, despite several distortions, was socialist and nationalist―and partly because the global private sector found dealing with third world bureaucracy and respecting sovereignty a problem. This has been laid out bare in several books and plans, chiefly the PNAC (Plan For a New American Century), made by Neo Cons who acquired power under George Bush.
The 9/11 attack forced global forces to pause and take a second look at the dismantling of state process. But in the name of war of terror, even war, warfare and military equipment was privatized. Right now in Iraq a large, parallel mercenary force run by a Christian Right Wing Company called Blackwater almost equals the US army strength. Through Blackwater and other such companies, Bush outsourced not just prisons and tortures but military operations. Blackwater is a profit making company like the British East India Company. When it operates on foreign soil, it is exempt from American laws, from Geneva conventions―as the latter concerns States only!
Now if we come to India and the Ken Haywood angle in the Indian Mujahideen story, ignored by the Indian media, we see that Ken Haywood was an employee of a private multinational company called Campbell White, which was linked to the right wing Potter House Church in Arizona, which in turn was close to the most virulent, fundamentalist sections of America’s bible belt.
Now it is not too incredible I hope to at least think that terror in India has been outsourced to private companies who for the moment are operating covertly for the time being.
While the arrest of Pragya Singh and the exposure of her network is a welcome step, the total neglect of the Ken Haywood angle makes the Indian State susceptible to manipulations of private, International outfits, who are partly controlled by the CIA and the Mossad but are also capable of wringing themselves out of the control of any state agency. So it is possible that even RAW and the ISI do not have control over what is happening in India, and by extension in Pakistan. Only a thorough investigation, by a JPC can reveal the truth as to who started this process of privatizing terror. Organizations like Abhinav Bharati and the Bhonsale Military Academy found to be linked with Pragya Singh and the Malegaon Blasts are like Blackwater only―they are private outfits, which adhere loosely to the RSS and the Hindutva ideology, but are also capable of becoming a loose cannon.
The Assam blasts may also be a work of private forces beyond the control of ULFA or HUJI.
In this entire conspiracy, the Congress, the BJP, media houses and communal forces are primarily to blame―for they have supported privatization of media, security and terror―everyone knows how Lal Krishna Advani allowed a number of private organizations, bearing loose adherence to the Sangh ideology, to hold armed training camps during his tenure as the Home Minister.
So there are two types of forces working against India and the idea of India―a section of the fascist forces inside and outside the state forces are targeting minorities―in the name of combating terror, they have institutionalized Muslim persecution in particular.Their long-term goal is to stem the tide of social change in India, roll back the OBC-MBC-Dalit assertion and create a chaotic situation in which the Parliamentary form of Government may get suspended and a Presidential form is instituted, suited more to the bipolar Congress VS BJP polity. In this conspiracy to roll back parliamentary democracy and suspend/change the Indian constitution written by Baba BhimRao Ambedkar, both the Congress and the BJP are hand-in-glove. The corporate sector is backing this line of thought.
Then there are private forces, supported by foreign money, which are working sometimes in tandem with state forces and sometimes independently, to create fissures, and divide Indian society at all possible communal, regional and other levels. The role of Indian corporate houses and security elements in furthering these forces is paramount.
In certain situations, these two forces―State-communal and private-communal-mercenary―come together as in the Malegaon blast, the Mumbai incidents and the Assam blasts. It can be seen that the Assam blasts occurred just when the heat on Raj Thackeray got intense and investigations in the Praggya Singh case were revealing the face of real actors like the private Abhinav Bharati militia.
In Mumbai, the Maharashtra Government is behind Raj Thackeray and the corporate lobby is behind the Maharashtra Government. The UP Bihar labor is labor-intensive and the new foreign investment coming into Maharashtra is technology-intensive. This is the economic reason behind the fake encounter of Rahul Raj of Bihar, the killing of Dharmadeo Rai and several other people from UP and Bihar.
The Indian State therefore is being held hostage by two forces―a section of its own personal and secondly by private, national and International players working either with an ideology to create instability in India and Pakistan, or just like mercenaries working to create anarchy and perpetuate the forces of darkness as per their calling.
Despite the American economic crisis and the world financial meltdown, foreign capital needs enclaves in India where things like sovereignty do not interfere with its activities. The Mumbai-Thane-Nasik triangle is one such enclave―so Raj Thackarey has powerful International backing and International forces have reached a point where after weakening the central Indian State during the liberalization era they are now dealing directly with states, encouraging them not to follow central dictates. Hence the scenario that Vilasrao Deshmukh is not listening to Man Mohan Singh or the Central cabinet and Maharashtra seems to have seceded from India. Hence the scenario in Gujarat and Orissa as well where too State Governments are not listening to the Center.
The Center of course is weakening itself―in India we are seeing a war of Center against Center, state against center, state against state. The ultimate aim of anti-national foreign and domestic players is to encourage the security forces and government elements of various states to seek Independent actions and ultimately secession.
The media is not even reporting cases like that of Allahabad and UP where an Islamic preacher named Zakir Naik was transported suddenly from Mumbai to create controversies about Imam Hussein and his status in Islam and polarize and divide Muslims also; this modern exercise was in stark contrast to earlier crude infightings between different Muslim sects, which did not carry the Zakir Naik type modern-political implications.
Hindus have already been divided between Hindutva and Sanmatan Dharma―despite knowing that Sanatan Dharma is the Hindu religion, media and other forces have always depicted Hindutva as representing Hindus.
Similar ploys are on to divide Indian Sikhs and Christians; the folly of Yogendra Yadav type figures is apparent in that while writing about how injustices produce terrorism and the like, they do not even hint at the wider conspiracy against the nation. Then they create non-issues like the unease felt by Hindus over minority communalism where no such unease exists―and moreover has Yogendra Yadav spoken to Sanatan Dharma leaders to find about their unease? It is obvious that Shri Yadav is bothered mainly about Hindutva forces and thinks they represent Hindus!
In America, the military-Industrial complex is fighting back to hold on to `privatization of war and misery’ agenda against the espousal of more State intervention by Obama. The Obama Vs right wing conflict will determine in a way whether private corporate forces, and the military-Industrial complex will rule the roost. In India the communal-fascist-media-private corporate- nexus fears losing their grip over India―Shivraj Patil, the Home Minister is their leader―notice how the media has let him off!
These forces have somehow convinced the Congress and the BJP to go in for a Presidential style of Government as in that it will be easier to control the OBCs, MBCs, Dalits, women and minority aspirations. Failing that, a military-fascist coup cannot be ruled out.
In this grave crisis, defeating the Congress and BJP is the main task of all secular-democratic, constitutional forces. Before that getting rid off the enemy number one of the Indian nation and people―Shivraj Patil―and then the enemy, number two―Raj Thackeray―is essential.
Intellectuals in west and North India do not realize that they are playing with fire. Shivraj Patil, Raj Thackeray, and Rajdeep Sardesai do not know the power of UP and Bihar people. If the police was not backing Raj Thackeray, UP and Bihar people would have retaliated in so many words to telling effect.
Remember that UP and Bihar fought as a social structure to combat fascism and economic liberalization―see how the BJP has been marginalized in both the states. The pro-US, foreign-Indian corporate lobby will never forgive UP and Bihar for standing for Indian sovereignty, honor, deen and honor. UP and Bihar will resist forever corporate homogeneity and the rule of Ambanis and Tatas and Thackerays.
The UP-Bihar angle links the Raj Thackeray episode, with bomb blasts and fake encounters like those of Batala House in Delhi and Rahul Raj in Mumbai. All are different sides of the same coin. In fact by killing Sajid and Atif in Delhi and Rahul Raj in Mumbai, the Delhi and Mumbai Police have de-communalized encounter killings―the sight of two similar fake encounters―one in which innocent Muslims were killed and another in which a Hindu fell to police bullets are before the nation to see and review.
The parallels are glaring and too close for comfort.
In India, Muslim persecution is now synonymous with persecution of North Indians. These two are synonymous with the persecution of Indian honor, sovereignty and dignity. In Raj Thackeray, the Maharashtra Government has created a Bhrindanwale. But this time, not the Indian army but the people of India, particularly of the North will exercise their supreme sovereign right to kill the state-sponsored paper tiger.
Understand this: people of UP and Bihar fought and resisted against the British almost single-handedly for 200 years. Raj Thackeray and Shivraj Patil are nothing before them; note this: people of Bihar have asked Lalu to give them just two trains to Mumbai. They have nothing against ordinary Marathis. But they will show Raj Thackeray who is what; also the father of Dharmdeo Rai, the UP boy lynched in Mumbai, has returned the 2 lakhs offered to him by the State Government. He has declared a Rs. 20,00,000 supari on Raj’s head. And let me make this clear―in the coming war Marathi Dalits and MBCs will ultimately supportUttar Bharatis.
The answer to the question as to why 1857’s 150thcelebrations did not take place, and why such a historic opportunity of celebrating national sovereignty was let go off by the Indian State is this: 1857 created problems once it was `appropriated’ from the perspective of criminal-intellectuals like Swapan Das Gupta and Chandan Mitra by a Left nationalist like me―after all I wrote a 2000 page two volume magnum opus on the subject which no one could ignore. Giving importance to a subject like 1857 meant giving importance to me, which meant giving importance to Muslims, North Indians and Marathi Dalits OBCs and MBCs―the three forces behind 1857 and persecuted the most under the current dispensation.
Of course liberals like Rajdeep Sardesai, Vinod Mehta and Yogendra Yadav too did not utter a word of support for, me, or 1857.
The silver lining is that the Congress and the BJP have not been able to polarize the situation. The BJP has fallen down the electoral ladder; the Congress hopes to scramble up but it is doubtful whether it will be able to form the next government without the Left or the third front.
In this scenario, the task is to form a new patriotic, democratic front, a people’s movement for civil rights and national sovereignty. Whether you call it the All India Patriotic Front (AIPF) or the Indian Patriotic Civil Liberties Union (IPCLU), this exercise will be friendly towards efforts aimed at building a new democratic political platform such as the Jan Sangharsh Morcha (JSM), the beginnings of which are already seen in UP where the JSM is organizing a huge rally on 10th November 2008. The next phase is to organize a march against Shivraj Patil in Delhi―and then a giant civil rights march early next year in Delhi to highlight two issues: enactment of civil rights laws like `atrocities against minorities (prevention)’ act and `torture and compensation’ act.
GhulamMuhammed.Mumbai 