Whose Who of the Hindutva Army?

By Adnan Gill

Before the self-loathing Pakistanis jump on the Indian bandwagon of ‘Pakistan is bud of all evils’, we need to wait to see if the terrorists involved in the (deplorable) Mumbai attacks were, as usual, carrying their Pakistani national identity cards in their pockets, or if they turnout to be Bajrang Dal’s shinning stars, like Anti-Terrorism Squad’s (serving) Indian Army Lt Col Prasad Shrikant Purohit? However, the purpose of this column is not to pin blame, rather to familiarize ourselves with the heavyweights of the Hindu extremist parties, who are training and using thousands of terrorists to systematically use terror as means of coercion।

A Hindu umbrella group, ‘Sangh Parivar’ (SP) is built around an extremist Hindu party, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)। Its members includes parties like the RSS, Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and Bajrang Dal (BD, also known as the Monkey Brigade).

Bal Thackeray, an admirer of Adolf Hitler and Nazism, is the founder of an extremist Hindu party ‘Shiv Sena’ (SS, meaning Army of Shiva)। Only his hate for Muslims surpasses his love for Hitler. In 1984, in an interview with the ‘India Today’, he said, "[Muslims] were spreading like a cancer and should be operated on like a cancer. The...country should be saved from the Muslims and the police should support them". According to the Asia Times, Thackeray called on the Hindus to form suicide squads “to take the Muslims head on. Trouble-making Muslims should be wiped out from the country... kick out the [40 million] Bangladeshi Muslims and then the country will be secure". In a deposition before the Srikrishna Commission, Yuvraj Mohite said, Thackeray coordinated much of the January 1993 Mumbai carnage. He claimed, “Balasaheb was sitting and he was getting calls from various places. He would ask what was happening at that particular place… and then he would say, 'Kill them. Send them to Allah'”.

Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh is an Indian extremist party that believes in terrorism। Its involvement in Mahatma Gandhi's assassination got it banned in 1948, only to be banned again during the 1975 Emergency, and then in 1992 for demolishing Babri Masjid. It has an estimated 4.5 million active members.

Vishwa Hindu Parishad, an offshoot of the RSS, is another Hindu extremist cum terrorist party। Their stated objective is to protect the ‘Hindu world’ from other religions. It was formed by Swami Chinmayananda and a former RSS member S S Apte.Apte declared, “The world has been divided to Christian, Islam and Communist… It is necessary in this age of conflict to think of and organize the Hindu world to save it from the evils of all the three।” According to the Human Rights Watch (HRW), VHP was deeply involved in the 2002 Gujarat massacre.

‘Bajrang Dal’ is the armed youth wing of the VHP। The group boasts it has 1.3 million active members. They run terrorist training camps, called ‘Shakhas’, where thousands of Hindu men are trained in using weapons and explosives. In January 1999, BD’s men killed a missionary and his two sons for allegedly converting Hindus to Christians. In 2006, while putting a bomb together, two Bajrang Dal activists were killed in a premature explosion. Its terrorists were also involved in the 2003 Parbhani Musjid blasts.

A member of Sangh Parivar, Bharatiya Janata Party has the largest following of the mainstream Indians। In an anti-Muslim and bigoted statement, BJP’s website states, “The vibrancy of Hindu society was noticeable at all times in that despite such barbarism from the Islamic hordes of central Asia and Turkey, Hindus never played with the same rules that Muslims did... The destruction of the structure at Ayodhya was the release of the history that Indians had not fully come to terms with. Thousands of years of anger and shame, so diligently bottled up by these same interests, was released when the first piece of the so-called Babri Masjid was torn down... The future of Bharat is set. Hindutva is here to stay.”

One of BJP's coalition partners was Shiv Sena। It’s widely believed to be a Fascist party. Its ideology is 'Bhumiputra' (Maharashtrians deserve more rights than others). In 1993, Srikrishna commission accused its leader Bal Thackeray of "commanding his loyal Shiv Sainiks to retaliate by organized attacks against Muslims."

Not to be left behind, the Indian entertainment industry and news media are also fanning the Hindu extremism. Bollywood is churning out movies in which villains are either Muslims or Pakistanis. Every time a firecracker goes off in India, without presenting even circumstantial evidence, the media joins the government’s chorus of Muslim bashing or Pakistani involvement. For example, within hours of Samjhota Express blast the Indian media declared the so-called Muslim fundamentalists were behind the blasts।

During the Gujarati riots at least 2000 Muslims were massacred by the Hindu mobs। Witnesses testified before the Nanavati commission, that the BJP leader Maya Kodnani and BD leader Babu Bajrangi were inciting the mobs. According to another HRW report, mobs of thousands dressed in the RSS uniforms and "armed with swords, sophisticated explosives, and gas cylinders" were guided by the voter lists and printouts provided by the local municipal administration to burn down the Muslim-owned properties.

The New York Times reported, the police "watched the events taking place and took no action against the attacks on Muslims and their property." Gujarati government’s complicity in the pogrom was also reported by the US Department of State, “NGOs report that police were implicated directly in nearly all the attacks against Muslims in Gujarat, and in some cases, NGOs contend, police officials encouraged the mob.” The Telegraph reported, the Indian “Intelligence officials admitted, however, that there had been a deliberate delay by federal and state governments in deploying the army to give Hindu militants a free hand [to kill Muslims].” Instead of showing remorse, the Gujarati Chief Minister Narendra Modi (BJP), shamelessly said, “Every action has an equal and opposite reaction।”

Within couple of hours of Samjhota Express bombings, Indian authorities were pointing fingers at Pakistan। Turned out, the gruesome massacre was the handy work of the Hindu extremists, like Col Purohit. There are countless other, serving or retired Indian military officials, like Lt Col (r) Jayant Rao Chitale and Lt Gen P N Hoon who also train and form the Hindu Suicide Squads. Surprise, surprise! It turns out, besides Muslims; Hindus too can be quite proficient at suicide bombings.

Sadly, none of the Hindu fascist leaders, nay terrorist masterminds, including Bal Thackeray and Narendra Modi, who planned and led the massacres of the minorities were ever arrested or convicted for the crimes against humanity। Even more sadly, neither the United Nations, nor the Western nations have even dared to call these Hindu fascist parties (BJP, VHP, RSS, HSS, Bajrang Dal, and Shiv Sena) for what they are, terrorist parties.

In contrast, if there is even the slightest chance of a Muslim link to an act of terrorism, the West and the Indians go into overdrive of unsubstantiated allegations against the Muslims in general and Pakistanis in particular। Their media is always ready to give an endless coverage, packed with gory details of the incident, along with venomous commentary of the so-called anti-terrorism experts, who never miss an opportunity to squarely point fingers at the Pakistanis. Conspicuously, their governments too frequently break speed records in placing the Muslim charities on the lists of terrorist organizations. Despite the blood of hundreds of thousands of Muslims, Dalits (untouchables), Siri Lankans and Sikhs on their hands, can anyone name a single Hindu extremist organization marked as a terrorist organization?

So what if, year after year, several thousands of Muslims are shredded to pieces by the Hindu mobs, daisy cutters, or by the Predator attacks? But then again, why blame them when the glorious leaders of the Muslim world dispatch their own subjects to Hotel Guantanamo for the ransom money? At least, it’s not like Mr। Zardari tried to handover his ISI Chief to the Indians for the ransom!