07-14-2006, 11:59 PM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Congress to blame </b>
The Pioneer Edit Desk
It helped SIMI recover and regroup ---- It is entirely possible that when the Congress contested the Tamil Nadu Assembly election in alliance with dubious organisations like the Tamil Muslim Munnetra Kazhagam, its political managers were not aware of their antecedents. It is also possible that local Congress politicians in Chennai knew of the company kept by such communal organisations but they chose not to share the information with the party's central leadership. And, it is equally possible that Congress leaders in both New Delhi and Chennai struck a deal with the TMMK and similar organisations fully aware of their credentials, allowing political expediency to ride roughshod over national interest. In any event, given the Congress's strange addiction to a perverse notion of secularism that makes its leaders embrace those who espouse and promote Islamic fundamentalism and are at ease with jihad's blood-soaked consequences, it is only to be expected that the party which presumes to rule India as head of the UPA regime should have no compunctions about supping with the devil. As exposed by this paper on Friday, the electoral alliance that the Congress struck with the TMMK was in spite of the fact that the organisation had been named in the ban order on the Students Islamic Movement of India. Ironically, the order was issued by the UPA Government in February this year, renewing a ban it had allowed to lapse in September 2006 for reasons best known to those who are pressing the alarm bell following the Mumbai bombings, asking State Governments to crack down on SIMI. An attempt is being made to convey the impression that while the UPA Government acted against SIMI in February, State Governments have not been sufficiently tough with this Islamist organisation. That is bunkum. The Prime Minister and his Home Minister owe an explanation to the nation as to why the ban imposed on SIMI on September 27, 2001, by the NDA Government was allowed to lapse, allowing the anti-national organisation to regroup and re-energise its cadre who are wedded to Osama bin Laden's criminal ideology. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav may have gone easy on SIMI for reasons that do not merit elaboration, but that does not absolve the UPA regime of its folly. By letting the ban lapse, and then re-imposing it in the most lackadaisical manner after six months, this regime has helped SIMI sprout fresh poison fangs.
Of course, pushed against the wall for its abysmal failure in protecting India from enemies within and without, an effete Prime Minister and his discredited Government will try to pretend otherwise and claim that they are committed to fighting evil forces represented by SIMI and its clones. That, however, is unlikely to convince many, including drumbeaters of the regime. Look at the pathetic and contemptible manner in which Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh tried to make a mockery of the Mumbai bombings by slyly suggesting that Islamists are not to blame for it; earlier, as the nation mourned the massacre by jihadis, he offered quotas to Muslims, rubbing salt into India's freshly bleeding wound. The Prime Minister cannot but be aware of the dangers of having such sinister men in his Cabinet whose sole preoccupation is to plot and scheme against India's nationhood. That he is unable to act against them is comment enough on the authority he wields.
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The Pioneer Edit Desk
It helped SIMI recover and regroup ---- It is entirely possible that when the Congress contested the Tamil Nadu Assembly election in alliance with dubious organisations like the Tamil Muslim Munnetra Kazhagam, its political managers were not aware of their antecedents. It is also possible that local Congress politicians in Chennai knew of the company kept by such communal organisations but they chose not to share the information with the party's central leadership. And, it is equally possible that Congress leaders in both New Delhi and Chennai struck a deal with the TMMK and similar organisations fully aware of their credentials, allowing political expediency to ride roughshod over national interest. In any event, given the Congress's strange addiction to a perverse notion of secularism that makes its leaders embrace those who espouse and promote Islamic fundamentalism and are at ease with jihad's blood-soaked consequences, it is only to be expected that the party which presumes to rule India as head of the UPA regime should have no compunctions about supping with the devil. As exposed by this paper on Friday, the electoral alliance that the Congress struck with the TMMK was in spite of the fact that the organisation had been named in the ban order on the Students Islamic Movement of India. Ironically, the order was issued by the UPA Government in February this year, renewing a ban it had allowed to lapse in September 2006 for reasons best known to those who are pressing the alarm bell following the Mumbai bombings, asking State Governments to crack down on SIMI. An attempt is being made to convey the impression that while the UPA Government acted against SIMI in February, State Governments have not been sufficiently tough with this Islamist organisation. That is bunkum. The Prime Minister and his Home Minister owe an explanation to the nation as to why the ban imposed on SIMI on September 27, 2001, by the NDA Government was allowed to lapse, allowing the anti-national organisation to regroup and re-energise its cadre who are wedded to Osama bin Laden's criminal ideology. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav may have gone easy on SIMI for reasons that do not merit elaboration, but that does not absolve the UPA regime of its folly. By letting the ban lapse, and then re-imposing it in the most lackadaisical manner after six months, this regime has helped SIMI sprout fresh poison fangs.
Of course, pushed against the wall for its abysmal failure in protecting India from enemies within and without, an effete Prime Minister and his discredited Government will try to pretend otherwise and claim that they are committed to fighting evil forces represented by SIMI and its clones. That, however, is unlikely to convince many, including drumbeaters of the regime. Look at the pathetic and contemptible manner in which Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh tried to make a mockery of the Mumbai bombings by slyly suggesting that Islamists are not to blame for it; earlier, as the nation mourned the massacre by jihadis, he offered quotas to Muslims, rubbing salt into India's freshly bleeding wound. The Prime Minister cannot but be aware of the dangers of having such sinister men in his Cabinet whose sole preoccupation is to plot and scheme against India's nationhood. That he is unable to act against them is comment enough on the authority he wields.
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