Hindus, by definition, are secular. From times immemorial, they have accepted people of other faith and treated them with respect. Ask Jews. Ask Parsis. Hindus did not interfere with their rites and rituals. Hindus helped Parsis to build their Fire Temples and the Jews their synagogues. They provided them land and enabled them to prosper. This is so unlike Islamic rule in Muslim countries, where temples have been routinely destroyed.
On November 10, 2007, Business Standard reported that the Maha Mariamman Temple in Padang Jawa, in Selangor was demolished leaving Malayasia'stwo million people in deep disress. According to the report ?hundreds of temples have been razed to the ground in the last 15 years?. Not like just one old, discussed masjid in Ayodhya built to insult Hindus by a marauding barbarian general during the first Mughal invasion of India in the 16th century, but ?hundreds of temples? built in the late 20th century by while collared immigrants from India whose meekness distinguished them from other migrant population. The Festival of Lights has been a Festival of Darkness for Hindus Malayasians reported Business Standard. There has not been a whiff of protest from anybody in high office in India. And think of this: Yahoo News reported also on November 10, that the only Hindu judge and one of the senior-most judges of the Pakistan Supreme Court, Justice Rana Bhagwandas has not been allowed to celebrate Diwali with his family. He is under house arrest and in solitary confinement. Haindava Keralam reported also on November 10 that jihadi terrorists have been targetting buses owned by Hindus as part of their mission to foment communal clashes in Kerala. The news did not make any appearance in any of our major dailies.
Muslim fundamentalists presumably have an automatic right to commit these atrocities?and let no one dare question them. One does not have to recount all the bomb attacks perpetrated by Islamic fundamentalists in the last five years, a full account of which has been demanded by Shri L.K.Advani in Lok Sabha, including information on how many miscreants have been caught, tried and sentenced. Does anyone remember the twin blasts in Hyderabad which claimed over 40 lives in August this year or the earlier blasts in the same city in May? Or the serial blasts much earlier in several cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Malegaon and Varanasi that cost 3,674 lives? As The Free Press Journal (August 28) said, ?with sickening regularity, terrorists have been engineering blasts in vulnerable places across the country and the response has become so predictable, paying lip service to combating terrorism?.
Hyderabad has become the jihadi capital of the south but the government lacks the will to act against the extremist elements there fearing alienation of Muslim voters. Instead, sops are given to Muslims in general, plane fares to Haj pilgrims are not raised, never mind if the cost of oil per barrel has risen to $ 100. A round-the-clock Urdu channel has been opened as another gesture of goodwill towards Muslims. Nobody grudges these sops but it is the underlying slave mentality it is that is resented. A terrorist responsible for the attack on Parliament to whom the Supreme Court administered a death sentence is happily living in jail in the sure knowledge that he will never be hanged. And now we have news that a hitherto unknown group, Indian Mujahideen, has claimed responsibility for serial blasts on November 23, in Lucknow, Varanasi and Faizabad (close to Ayodhaya) that killed thirteen and wounded over sixty. No one is going to be caught, one can be sure. Who, incidentally, were ever caught and tried and sentenced in Hyderabad when attempts were made on Taslima's life, right in front of a camera?
And now the cowardly Marxists have refused to let Taslima Nasreen even live in West Bengal, though we now hear to the contrary. That is Marxist secularism. Left Front chairman and CPM leader Bimal Basu even went to the extent of saying that Taslima must leave Kolkata if her stay disturbed peace. He may have retracted that statement but that was under across-the-board national pressure. The Muslim mob that rioted in Kolkata'sstreets had a distinctly communal agenda and it is well to remember that the protests against Taslima'scontinued living in Kolkata were started by a Congress-backed organisation.
As The Times of India (November 23) put it, ?It (the Congress) seems the party has not learnt from its past experience of encouraging communal agendas for short-term political dividends?. And that is a party which boasts of secularism! As for Messers Jyoti Basu, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and Prakash Karat, their party'scriminality ever since it came to power, specialising in inhuman gherao hardly needs recounting. The UPA Government is not only deaf and dumb, but it is blind as well. The Maldive Islands are close to India'swestern shores but, according to the latest reports, militant Islamists are on the rise there and apparently Delhi has not a clue.
According to The Hindu (November 24) ?a rising tide of violent Islamism has begun to surge over Maldives. Dozens of local men who have fought in Islamic campaigns across the region are now preparing to bring home their war?. Experts and many Maldive residents fear that the gathering storm could ?tear apart the island paradise.? What is Delhi doing? Nothing. All this is par for the course. Reports indicate that Pakistan has used ?a significant portion of the US aid since September 11 for a confrontation with India, instead of conducting a war on terrorism.? The Times of India (November 22) quoting the US-based the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) reported that the US-aid money?about $ 10 billion?has been used for procuring high-tech weaponry to arm the military for its confrontation with India. Senior Adviser to the CSIS, Frederick Barton, is quoted as saying: ?It appears that the Pakistan military is continuing to arm more for its confrontation with India than it is for the war on terror, because these weapons really don'thave much application for the kind of low-grade persistent Taliban fighters and al-Qaida fighters?.?.
Has the UPA government lodged a complaint with ?India'sbest friend?, George Bush?? So much for the subservience of the UPA government. No wonder, that the so-called Hindutva philosophy is gaining strength. What is clear is that the UPA is a weak-kneed government that can do nothing for Nandigram, much less for fighting terrorism and that the more it appeases Islamic fundamentalists, the more the latter gain strength and the country as a whole pays for it. The worst enemy of India seems to be our ?secular? Congress, ever bending before terrorism and unwilling to tell the US what its support to Pakistan has done for India'ssecurity. The Bible just it right when it said: ?Where there is no vision, the people perish?. Congress it is clear, is a party without vision.
