The leader of the ruling coalition government Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh needs to do some rethinking if his government is not to be accused of total hypocrisy in its globally advertised battle against terrorism. Leader of the Opposition L. K. Advani'sletter to him has reminded the Prime Minister that his government has made no progress in pinning down the perpetrators of the one-year old Mumbai train blasts. The government did not even had the concern for the 187 victims of the blasts as was seen in its ignoring the anniversary of the event.
The same government is hell-bent on teaching the Australians how to deal with human rights of one of the suspects in the foiled terrorist bombings of London and Glasgow airports. The same Prime Minister is losing sleep over the plight of the mother of the suspect who is worrying about her son now detained by the Australian authorities. The Prime Minister went to the extent of summoning the Australian High Commissioner here and lecturing to him on how badly they were treating the suspect who happens to be an Indian doctor in the UK.
This palpable ignoring of the daylight murder of 187 people by terror mongers right at home in Mumbai contrasts with the great concern the same government is showing for one single individual detained in Australia as suspect in a terror plot in the UK. The detention may perhaps be totally uncalled for but the due process of law must establish it to be so. And Australia is not a country under dictatorship. The government could have served the purpose of helping an Indian citizen abroad by providing him with adequate legal help.
New Delhi is behaving as if Australia is some sort of a lawless country. It contrasts with how the same government behaves indifferent when Indian citizens are detained in authoritarian countries of the Middle East like Saudi Arabia. Recently an Indian journalist was jailed in Saudi Arabia, for the simple reason that as a sub-editor in a newspaper in Jeddah he allowed a cartoon to be published which had a character questioning existence of God, and New Delhi did nothing, its Prime Minister never lost sleep?it was only the Indian media whose protest forced the Saudi government to release him and deport him.
Is this government concerned over an Indian citizen only if he is a Muslim? Or is its supporter CPM that has now openly allied with the Islamic extremists pressing it into a corner? When the Congress produced a list of its likely nominees for the President'spost, the CPM vetoed all of them?Dr. Karan Singh was vetoed because CPM does not want a scholar of Hinduism and spirituality like the former ruling family member of J&K. But the same CPM readily proposes Hamid Ansari who keeps company with Islamic extremism. And then the same Congress that submits to CPM objection to Dr. Karan Singh tamely agrees to Hamid Ansari for vice-president'spost. What a contrast!
Opposition Leader Advani'sletter to Dr. Singh raises the growing suspicion among many political analysts that the Centre has capped all investigations into terror attacks where the trail leads invariably to Islamic extremism. That blocking is seen in action in the investigation into the Bangalore IISc outrage also. In that terror action, the local police were able to trace a Bangladeshi terror agent and two of his Indian accomplices. But soon afterwards the investigation seemed to have been wound up. In the Mumbai blasts even the finding that two Indian local agents of terror were also responsible was enough to stop further investigation. New Delhi, which claimed that it had irrefutable evidence linking Pakistani agents to these blasts, cut a sorry figure when the Pakistani government demanded solid proof. But why has the Prime Minister, after blaming Pakistan, not bothered to find out why the investigation has come to a dead stop?
The ruling alliance including the Congress is more concerned over its vote bank than discharging its constitutional obligation to protect the state against terrorists and other elements bent on destroying the republic in the hope of establishing an Islamic state here. The UK police at least traced the conspirators behind the failed airport attacks within a few days of these incidents. Out of four main suspects in this case three are Indian doctors or professionals in the UK. At least in one case you cannot say that suspicion is unfounded because he was the one who was recovered alive with 90 per cent burns from the flaming jeep that was driven into the Glasgow airport.
The structure of the present government at the Centre and the context of growing tentacles of Islamic extremism and its terror organisations in the country can no longer be ignored as a passing phase. This government depends upon the support of the Left parties more especially the CPM. The CPM is now deeply aligned with the same Islamic extremism. This was proved in the last Assembly elections in Kerala when CPM backed the extremist elements against the Muslim League in such sensitive places as Vayanad in particular and Malabar area in general. In West Bengal the CPM has been for long on the side of Islamic extremism. The Kolkata police have revealed arms caches in the heart of the city linked to these extremist elements but their real owners still remain at bay. In districts like Murshidabad with 60 per cent Muslim population, it is the Sharia law that prevails and the writs from the state government in Kolkata are ignored.
Now that sort of extremist views would be ensconced in the heart of power with Hamid Ansari becoming vice-president. It is significant that CPM ignored the claims of its own leader and present Speaker Somnath Chatterjee in naming the vice-president candidate of the ruling coalition. It did not give even a second alternative to the Congress to choose.
It is the official position of New Delhi that terrorism is a huge threat to organised society and to itself as well as to the world at large. Yet the same government is seen as becoming increasingly soft and accommodative to the extremist thinking behind the terror plots, the ideas that fire people to become suicide bombers. At the other end there is the Naxalite menace. As many as 160 contagious districts in central, east and south India are under Naxalite influence where a parallel government of the militants is functioning. This is almost one-fourth of the total districts in the country and of the land area. Thinking citizens might wonder what will become of the country when the gun and bomb culture people fired by their respective ideals have sympathizers, fellow travelers, and active adherents in the power structure at the Centre.
Advani has posed two questions to the Prime Minister: Which evil mind was behind the 11/7 train bombings? How soon will the conspiracy be busted and justice meted out to the perpetrators? A third question can also be posed?and that question arises primarily by the ruling coalition'sbehaviour in the recent presidential and vice-presidential elections: Is the government turning a Nelson'seye to the growing clout of extremism and Left armed militant power within the country and within its own fold? Perhaps Dr. Manmohan Singh is disabled from answering these questions. And that is the greater matter of concern for the country as a whole. For, he is the head of the government. At least de jure.
(The writer can be contacted at bkpunj@gmail.com)
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