N Nagaraja Rao, Hyderabad
“Retaliation is the only way to handle and root out terrorism from the country as terrorists don’t understand any other language,” said Dr Subramanian Swamy. Delivering a talk on “India in crisis: How do we save our nation?” in Hyderabad on 21st June 2012 at the Sundarayya Vignana Kendram auditorium hosted by Pragna Bharathi AP and Social cause, the city based NGOs.
Janata Party president attributes all major problems of the country to lack of able leadership. In Kashmir, some of the decisions the powers at the helm took succumbing to the threats of Kashmiri militants led to despondency. On December 8, 1989, just six days after her father Mufti Mohammad Sayeed was sworn in as India’s Home Minister, Rubaiya Sayeed was abducted by the militants of the Jammu & Kashmir Liberation Front and demanded release of five militants. VP Singh government decided to free the militants. Rubaiya Sayeed was released within an hour of the release of five militants in downtown Srinagar. It was the watershed in the insurgency in Kashmir. India had been brought to its knees at gunpoint and since then the state has become more turbulent. He suggested let our ex-servicemen amounting to at least 10 lakh should go to settle in Kashmir and occupy the houses vacated by the Kashmiri Pundits in the Valley. Let our brave well armed ex-servicemen take on insurgency and needless to say Article 370 is indeed a temporary provision aimed to ensure autonomy and religious composition.
He recalled how China resolved its Muslim majority province Xinjiang, that had more similarities with our own Kashmir. China has successfully altered the demography of the region by repopulating it with Han Chinese, now the majority. As has been evident in other parts of the world, Islamists deftly graft their agenda onto regional political struggles to form unholy alliances and advance their pan-Islamist agenda. To curb the influence of Islam, even the Australian government engages in surveillance of mosques, restricts the participation of youth and women in mosque activities, monitors the content of services. In Western countries, Muslims adopts to the Common Civil Code and sadly in India even if they agree for a Common Civil Code our own secular leaders would negate the idea.
He termed Islamic terrorism is India’s major problem of national security. Islam will confront Hinduism to “complete unfinished business”. Already the successor to Osama bin Laden as al-Qaeda leader has declared that India is the priority target for that terrorist organisation and not the USA.
The country has been facing a leadership crisis and it needs a decision-maker who can take risks to overcome the challenges like terrorism and corruption. “If the present crises are managed properly, no crisis will stare at the country for the next many years,” he felt. He linked the spread of terrorism to corruption of our politicians as one of the major reasons.“Those in power can’t take tough decisions as they keep their huge ill-gotten money in other countries through Dubai-based ‘hawala’ operations which are controlled by Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI),” he said. He also said terrorism should be dealt with strongly. “You have to make a resolve that you will not negotiate with terrorists until they are ready to surrender. This is the fundamental decision you have to make,” he said.
On corruption, Dr. Swamy said it could be stopped by cancelling all licenses given for exploitation of mineral resources, utilising spectrum and others. As a signatory to the 2005-UN resolution on black money, the country could nationalise bank accounts of Indians in 77 countries where secret banking was allowed to bring back Rs 70 lakh crore kept there. By doing this, people could avoid paying taxes for 14 years, he said. All accounts held by Indians abroad in Swiss banks, be nationalised and legitimate claims need to be addressed thus bringing back lot of black money parked in tax havens, he articulated. Calling for cancellation of all coal mining licenses, he claimed approximately 10 lakh crores can be pumped into economy by calling for fresh leases, similarly 16 lakh crores can be earned by calling for fresh tenders in the Krishna Godavari Gas basin.
“Hinduism is the oldest and third largest religion of the world with a rich philosophical thought, he reminded how Julia Roberts, an Oscar winning English actress embraced Hinduism. The 42-year-old American actor, who was born to Baptist and Catholic parents, is now a practising Hindu after visiting India. Unlike many countries, India’s civilization heritage and memory transcends several millennia and is a product of its timeless and peaceful coexistence of the Hindu society. Hinduism is more of a philosophy with full freedom of thought and action, with each individual pursuing liberation of the soul via the medium of truthful self-discovery. In a true sense, Hinduism is more a way of life than a religion stressed Dr Swamy. Asserting that a war with Pakistan was certain in future he predicted that along with Afghanistan it would be taken over by Taliban sooner than later.
This meet was presided over by former Union Secretary Shri Padmanabhiah and Dr TH Chowdury chairman introduced the subject under discussion calling for a collective Hindu mindset, even if half the Hindu voters are persuaded to collectively vote as Hindus, and for a party sincerely committed to a Hindu agenda, then we can forge an instrument for change. Dr Susheela Somaraju, president, Social Cause proposed the vote of thanks.
