MV Kamath
TO think of how Narendra Modi has been demonised all these years and how, to this day he is the target of our secularists’ diatribes and then to think of what happened in Kashmir some thirty years ago when more than 30,000 Kashmiri Pandits were-brutally displaced from their own homes for no fault of theirs, with our deadly secularists maintaining a discreet silence, tells a lot about the sheer double standards of our liberals. I am quoting now from and article written by Ravi Shankar in The New Indian Express (January 20). I am revealing this because I do not want to be asked where I got my information from.
To quote Ravi Shankar: On January 23, 1983, during the holiest night of the month of Ramzaan, 23 Kashmiri Pandits, four children, nine women and ten men, were gunned down with Kalashnikovs by the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HuM) funded and trained by Pakistan. Seven years later, on January 4, 1990, the HuM created by Jamaat-e-Islami to wage jihad against India and make Kashmir a part of Pakistan, issued a warning through the Urdu press, demanding that all Hindus leave Kashmir. The Hindus had done no harm to any Muslim. They had not set a train coach on fire to kill sixty old innocent Muslim women and children. There were as much Kashmiris as anybody else for centuries. But it didn’t matter to the jidhadis. They forced some 300,000 Kashmiri Pandits to leave their homes. One hundred five Hindu-owned educational institutes were destroyed, 103 Hindus religious institutions—temples and ashrams—were burnt down, 14,430 shops and business homes owned by Pandits were looted and occupied, more than 1,100 of them were raped and murdered and 20,000 Pandit homes were set on fire.
Ravi Shankar quoting a historian, Kaia Leather’s classic study on the killing, dishonouring and displacement of Kashmiri Pandits says that around 400,000 Kashmiris fled their homeland where they had lived for more than five centuries and ethnic violence killed more than 30,000.
Another historian Rebecca Knuth has been quoted as saying that Muslim secessionist groups raped, tortured and killed “thousands of Kashmiri Pandits”. As any one of our loud mouthed secularists aware that even today the displaced Pandits largely continue to live in refugee camps and nobody talks about them?
Now think of what our secularists handle Narendra Modi. Firstly, he has been exonerated of all charges against him by the Suprme Court-appointed Special Investigative Team (SIT). But it has pleased Sonia Gandhi to call him maut ka saudhagar (merchant of death). And how has the UPA government dealt with Modi?
Let me quote Swapan Dasgupta, writing in The Telegraph (January 18, 2013). He writes: “Every attempt was made to encourage the Chief Minister’s (Modi’s ) detractors to attack the State government (of Gujarat) with all guns blazing. Almost every vocal critic of Modi was rewarded with Committee posts, Padma Awards, Rajya Sabha seats and international prizes. Simultaneously, anyone who dared to suggest that there was more to Modi than the failure to prevent the post-Godhra killings, was mercilessly hounded. A former Director of the Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Contemporary Studies was eased out of his job after he wrote a report in 2005 suggesting that Gujarat ranked Number One among the states in terms of economic freedom.”
Then take the case Akbar-ud-din Owaisi who, addressing a Muslim audience of several thousands, insulted Hindu gods and beliefs, spewed venom against India to loud applause from his audience. If media reports are to be believed, Owaisi said he would have killed PV Narasimha Rao with his own hand, had he not died. On Ramjanmabhoomi issue Owaisi asked: “Where did Ram’s mother go wandering and where did she give birth to him?” to loud cheers.
Referring to Ajmal Amir Kasab’s hanging, Owaisi wanted to know why Narendra Modi has not been hanged. Demanding the death of Modi, Owaisi threatened that if his words were not heard, “O India, destruction and ruin will be your fate.” He threatened that India will witness a bloodshed which has not been seen in the last 1,000 years. He also dared Modi to come to Hyderabad. And what has our secular Home Minister done? He is charging the RSS and the BJP with promoting Hindu terrorism. If Vallabhbhai Patel in his time and Jayaprakash Narayan in subsequent years could praise the RSS who is Sushilkumar Shinde to blaspheme the RSS? If the entire Congress Party had done one hundredth of the service the RSS has given to society in its time, one could give the Congress some credit. Over the years it has only created time servers, sycophants and bootlickers, not to mention corrupt ministers. If the country presently has any terrorist outfits, the blame lies totally on the weak, incompetent and pusillanimous UPA government which has obviously now decided that the best way to get Muslim votes in the forthcoming General elections is to belittle Hindus and indulge in name-calling. It is only a sick mind like that of the party spokesman Digvijay Singh that can call Modi a ‘Hitler’. To indulge in cheap, vulgar abuse of Hindus now seems to be part of the Congress election strategy. Digvijay Singh wanted Modi to call his Sadbhavana Yatra as Hitler Yatra and no doubt he received a pat on the back from Sonia Gandhi. Cowardice is the name of the Congress.
Our brave soldiers can get killed by Pakistani jihadists supported by the Pakistan Army and have their heads chopped off, but we have to suffer such insults and indignities in silence. In a television interview, Gen. Pervez Musharraf said headchopping of killed Indian soldiers by Pakistan Army is a lie. He should have been ticked off.
As for Sonia Gandhi’s role in politics, one would like to recommend a careful reading of GS Bhargave’s excellent study entitled Star Crossed India: Let down by leadership which tells us more than what Manish Tiwari and Digvijay Singh would like the country to known. If Rahul Gandhi wants the respectability and credibility of the Congress which has long been lost to be regained, he would do well to depose these two gentlemen who have brought shame to their stock –in-trade.
Seeking to win minority votes by blaspheming the majority community is not only bad manners and poor tactics, but will be self-defeating in the long run. Rahul is being poorly served by men like Sushilkumar Shinde and the party’s spokespersons. To be warned is to be armed.
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