From the Communists to Mulayam Singh Yadav'sSamajwadi Party to the dyed in the wool Congress have all shed tears at the hanging of the overthrown dictator of Iraq, Saddam Hussain. The Muslim community is stated to have risen in anger and demonstrated everywhere from Delhi to Damascus.
The Left parties as well as SP are known to be propagating the so-called Muslim cause for electoral reasons. The Communists tears are no more than the proverbial crocodile?s. For none of them shed any tears when their compatriots clubbed to death (literally) millions of teachers, doctors, engineers and everybody else who is a graduate in Cambodia, not long ago nor did they shed tears when Communist China mowed down hundreds of protesting students demanding democracy at Tinamain Square in Beijing in the 80s. Mulayam Singh Yadav'sconcern for Muslims did not find any ex-pression when the same Saddam Hussain ordered chemical gas to exterminate Kurds in his own country, or simply shot without any worthwhile trial any protesting Shia Muslim. The Congress sentiments for Saddam can be understood as it has been beneficiary of the oil coupons he bestowed on the party (even though it is only poor Natwar Singh who has been sacrificed for this transaction). And not one of these political class shed any tears when the Pandits were wholesale evicted from Kashmir at the point of the gun by Muslim terrorists. Even today these parties have failed to say a single word for the victims of this genocide in their own country.
All this apart, what is the justification these supporters of Saddam advance for mourning for his hanging? If the claim is that he was executed by the (democratically elected in a multi-party system) Iraqi Government at the instance of the United States, then there should have been equally protests when in Afghanistan in the 70s three (Muslim) Presidents were overthrown and executed one after the other by the Muslim rebels backed by the Soviet Union. No tears were shed then.
But subsequently when the Taliban Government in Kabul fully did not back the Muslim terrorists who hijacked the Indian Airlines flight and demanded release of their detained leaders from India neither Mulayam Singh Yadav, nor the Communist leaders nor the Muslim leaders said one word of support for the hapless Indian passengers of the hijacked plane. However, the moment the regime changed in Afghanistan when the Americans backed the Afghan rebel forces to overthrow the Taliban regime after the destruction of their Word Trade Centres by the agents of Osama bin Laden whose terrorists were being incubated by the Taliban regime, all hell broke out in India. Communists, Samajvadis and Muslim leaders were prominent in attacking the United States.
Even today they condemn the present Kabul regime which is an elected government in a multi-party environment through a ballot overseen by UN observers. The fact that as against the totally anti-Indian Taliban regime in Kabul we have a very India-friendly regime in Afghanistan, seems to be of no consequence to these three political and religious forces. Interestingly, these are the very forces that are condemning the death sentence handed over by the Indian courts to one of the many conspirators who programmed the attack on Parliament House in 2003.
They are even threatening to paint the country red if Afzal is hanged. The conspirators, including the ones who were acquitted have publicly said that they have no faith in the Indian system. They are by their own words for separating Kashmir from India and join it to Pakistan. We are yet to see one word of sympathy from any one of these three forces when across the world any injustice was done to non-Muslim individuals and movements. On the other hand, there are some prominent Muslim countries that even routinely jail, torture and even execute simple non-Muslims (many of them Indian workers) who are even so much as recite their prayers or carry a Gita or Bible in their baggage. Again, there is no sympathy or protest when in Iraq itself Sunni extremists are daily killing hundreds of Shia Muslims. This invidious sympathy for Muslim extremism is a national danger in our country. It has nothing to do with any principles whatsoever because it has never been seen in sympathy for non-Muslim events or where non-Muslims have been receiving ill-treatment at the hands of Muslim regimes.
Why are they not protesting at the imminent execution of an Indian who strayed into Pakistan and has been condemned as an Indian spy? Is it because an Islamic country against a hapless Hindu is doing it? We ignore such anti-national, brazenly communal attitudes and actions at our great peril in an environment where Islamic extremists have been attempting for over a decade now to subvert Indian democracy. It is even a greater pity when self-styled Indian liberals who otherwise intervene in every issue that affects Muslims, keep silence when non-Muslims are denied human rights either in India or in Islamic states.
(The writer can be contacted at bkpunj@gmail.com)
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