Marching Towards The Dark Ages
By Binu Mathew
20 July, 2002
Countercurrents.org
"Recent communal violence in Gujarat symbolised the first positive response of Hindus to Muslim fundamentalism in 1,000 years." This statement was from the VHP leader Ahok Singhal. He was addressing the delegates of the Kendriya Margadarhak Mandal of the VHP, held in Hardwar on the 22nd June. He warned Muslims that "if they continue to take the country towards partition," they would have to stay in refugee camps like in Gujarat. When we see statements like this we wonder whether we have gone back to the dark ages.
The arrogance and ruthlessness of this statement shock us. The shock is as great as the news of the pogrom that is still going on in Gujarat. At a time when every civilised human being is unanimous in their condemnation of the Gujarat violence, the perpetrators of the violence are still unrepentant and points Gujarat as a warning to the minorities in India. If people like Singhal can make such public statements and can go unpunished who can say that Fascism has not arrived in India?
The refugee camp that Singal is threatening the muslims with is not a new torture tool. It had been very successfully used by the Nazis against the Jews. As part of Adolf Hitler's "final solution" for ridding Europe of Jews, the Nazis established Ghettos in areas under German control to confine Jews until they could be executed. Most notorious was the Warsaw Ghetto. The Nazis herded Jews from surrounding areas into this district until by the summer of 1942 nearly 500,000 of them lived within its 840 acres; many had no housing at all, and those who did were crowded in at about nine people per room. Starvation and disease (especially typhus) killed thousands each month. Beginning July 22, 1942, transfers to the death camp at Treblinka began at a rate of more than 5,000 Jews per day.Between July and September 1942, the Nazis shipped about 265,000 Jews from Warsaw to Treblinka.
The refugee camps we now see in Gujarat may not match those highly 'sophisticated' torture tools developed to a nicety by Hitler. But the Sang Parivar are fast learners. What Singhal failed to mention was the 'Final Solution' that the Sangh Parivar is preparing for the delinquent Muslims.
The VHP meeting urged the Centre to ban madrassas (Muslim seminaries) "promoting Islamic terrorism" and other educational centres spreading the "Taliban ideology" in the country. In a resolution on "jehad and conspiracy of another partition of India," it said about 100,000 madrassas being run in the country were preparing millions of "Talibans - fundamentalist students" who would work for another partition.
The resolution, moved by Swami Vigyananand, said "Pakistan's President, Pervez Musharraf's assertion that the next war would be fought on Indian soil indicated that he considered these Taliban students as part of his Army."
But the VHP has never came out with the supporting documents to prove that the madrasas teach islamic terrorism. This kind of statements are highly irresponsible and will put millions of peace loving muslims who live their quiet life at the mercy of militant Hindutwa forces.
In the same meeting the VHP took an aggressive stand regarding the Ayodhya issue. The meeting also announced that the VHP is no longer bound by promise on Ayodhya, that it will abide by the court verdict on the Ayodhya issue. The meeting decided that a letter backtracking on the assurance given on March 8 to the Government through the Kanchi Sankaracharya, Jayendra Saraswati, would be handed over to the Sankaracharya on June 25. It said all State units of the VHP would mobilise Hindus for temple construction from the third week of July. They also maintain that they will not hold any talks with representatives of the Muslim community over the Ayodhya issue.
So the Sangh Parivar is readying itself to throw India again into a period of hatred and turmoil. Whenever there was a Sang Parivar campaign for the Ayodhya temple, there was riots and violence in every part of India. The latest being the Godhra tragedy and the Gujarat violence that followed. It is not going to be different now.
But the most dangerous thing about this time is that the government of India, a minority government led by the Bharatiya Janatha party, is in silent collusion with the fascist designs of Hindutwa forces. Which was manifested in the 'shila dan' where a central government representative came down from Delhi to accept the shila, marking the symbolic beginning of the Ram Temple.
The Sangh Parivar game plan was more revealed when the former Bajrang Dal chief Vinay Katiyar was appointed as the BJP state president of Uttar Pradesh, where the disputed site is located . He took an active part in the Ram Janmabhoomi campaign and personally oversaw the demolition of the Babri Masjid. He was charge sheeted in the Babri Masjid demolition case. The CBI charge-sheet says: "The investigation also revealed that on 5.12.1992, a secret meeting was held at the residence of Shri Vinay Katiyar, which was attended by S/Shri L K Advani, Pawan Pandey, etc wherein a final decision to demolish the disputed structure was taken."
Such dangerous men in such sensitive positions can only spell doom for communal harmony in India. It will be under the leadership of such men like Vinay Katyar and Ahok Singal that India will be marching into the dark nights of fascism.
(Binu Mathew is the editor of www.countercurrents.org, he can be contacted [email protected]
