04-07-2006, 12:45 AM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Secular vend for Islamist cause </b>
Pioneer.com
Balbir K Punj
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.George Santayana
The beeline that 'secularists' of various hues - the CPI(M), Congress and Muslim League - are making to the Coimbatore Central Jail to pay their political obeisance to Abdul Nasser Madani will astonish only the uninitiated. The jailed jihadi reportedly masterminded the February 14, 1998, Coimbatore serial blasts that killed 59 people, but narrowly missing the main target, then BJP president LK Advani. Madani's communally inflammatory speeches predate his involvement in the Coimbatore blasts. Because of all these 'qualifications' he is a 'secular' icon in the muddy waters of Kerala's electoral politics.
<b>The 'secularists' strategy is to exploit Madani's influence, real or perceived, on Muslim vote-bank. Madani, on behalf of his People's Democratic Party, has promised support to the CPI(M) dominated LDF coalition.</b> It may well be construed as a political fatwa for Muslims of Kerala - who form 24 per cent of the State's population of 32 million - to vote for the CPI(M) and its allies. In the 2001 Assembly election, Madani had supported the Congress-led UDF. So, in spite of his bloody record and spewing communal vitriol, he is not politically untouchable for any of the 'secular' branded parties.
Similarly, in poll-bound Assam, the UPA Government is engaging in a duplicitous deal with the ULFA (now no more than an extension of the ISI) with the sole objective of garnering votes by projecting itself as the peacemaker in Assam. The UPA Government has reintroduced the IMDT Act through the backdoor by selectively altering the provisions of the Foreigners Act 1946, applicable to Assam alone. The matter is now sub judice in the Supreme Court.
It is rather curious that ULFA has suddenly changed its tone before the election. While earlier it used to exhort people to boycott polls, this time it has called for voting for a party that defends Assam's interests. While refraining from naming any party in particular, ULFA's tacit reference is towards the Congress, not AGP or BJP, if one were to read between the lines. Can protecting infiltrators, as modified Foreigners Act does, be called a step in Assam's interest? The ongoing election in Assam is perhaps the State's last chance to protect itself from turning into a greater Bangladesh. The next Assembly election, coinciding with the next Census, might be a date too late for Assam.
ULFA was a secessionist outfit of insurgents when it was formed three decades ago, and remains so till today. But its degeneration from a reluctant formation opposed to infiltration to an outfit supporting infiltration is worth noting. This changeover occurred roughly 15 years ago. Prafulla Kumar Mahanto's first tenure as AGP Chief Minister (1986-1990) was the high noon of ULFA's destructive activities. Being a product of the same movement, ULFA was known to have access to the corridors of power in Dispur.
But as ULFA overreached itself with extortion activities from the tea-gardens, and Unilever group airlifted to rescue one of its beleaguered tea estate managers, it brought about AGP's embarrassing fall. The relationship between the two was estranged since then. Today ULFA's ISI-commissioned leadership is based in Dhaka, Bangladesh. For the last 15 years, it has been subservient to the forces of jihad. ULFA camps are teaching Assamese to would-be insurgents in Bangladesh. Thus ULFA's care and concern for Assam's 'interests' is totally false.
ULFA has refused to observe the ceasefire with the Government of India and abandon its demand for independent Assam. It has been going around blasting oil facilities, killing police personnel, and kidnapping businessmen in Assam. There is nothing to indicate that ULFA has seen the light of reason (it won't, unless the heat is turned on it).
But now that it has abjured violence on the election eve, calling on people to vote for a party that "defends Assam's interest", isn't there a conspiracy of peace between the ULFA and the Congress? It is thus concluded that the secularists are enlisting Madani's support in Kerala and ULFA in Assam to save 'secularism'. One has still to see a bigger contradiction.
<b>The 'secular' Congress and Communists are today hell bent on a rerun of history that led to partition along communal lines. Recently, the UPA Government amended the Foreigners Act 1946 for selective applicability in Assam to facilitate Bangladeshi infiltrators.</b> Then, the Kerala Assembly passed a unanimous resolution seeking the release of jihadi Abdul Nasser Madani incarcerated in Coimbatore Central Jail.
Why talk to Ms Khaleda Zia about closing down terror camps in Bangladesh when demographic aggression against India continues? Why talk to President Musharraf to rein in his anonymous jihadis when you are pleading the cause of an Al-Ummah middleman?
In 1919, Mahatma Gandhi espoused the cause of the Caliphate, and put the entire weight of the Congress party behind a pan-Islamic movement. <b>Gandhi wanted to rouse feverish Islamic passion for serving the cause of Swaraj by yoking Khilafat with Non-Cooperation movement. But this botched movement ended in massacre of Hindus as the Moplah riots in Malabar (1921) were followed by a string of other violent incidents. Eventually, Gandhi had to concede in frustration that every Hindu was a coward and every Muslim a bully</b>.
All through the 1930s and 1940s, the Communist Party of India supplied MA Jinnah with intellectual justification for his demand for Pakistan. The concepts of the "right to self-determination" and India as a "federation of independent states" came from the Marxists. But ironically, the Marxists were completely cleansed of the newly carved out state of Pakistan.
Today, as Islamic fundamentalism is asserting itself from the US to Australia, 'secularism' is reviving itself with renewed vengeance. But this feverish revival appears to approach only a terminal end. The jihadi fires are stroking India in too many theatres. 'Secularism' will find the burgeoning population of Muslims and their increasing jihadi assertiveness too hot to handle.
In the centenary year of the formation of the Muslim League in Dhaka (1906), Shahi Imam of Delhi's Jama Masjid Ahmed Bukhari has called for the formation of a federation of Muslim organisations, eschewing 'secularism'.
'Secularism' has always been a distasteful compromise for Muslims in independent India. It has, at best, been a strategy to survive in a truncated country, after having achieved Pakistan and cleansed Hindus and Sikhs from its territories. At worst, it has been inertness. Muslims always have a grouse that 'secularism' has failed them. <b>This seems to be an echo from the pre-independence days when they accused the Congress of "Hindu hegemony" and dissociated themselves from the party. But how the Congress became a 'secular' party from a 'Hindu' one is not difficult to understand if we address the issue methodically</b>.
After the departure of the British and creation of Pakistan, many Muslims in independent India faced a dead end. The fundamentalists had not migrated to their dreamland and were citizens of a country for whose dismemberment they had worked in cooperation with invaders. They were sandwiched between guilt and insecurity.
The Congress was now no longer a struggling party they could mock at but the ruler of this land. So vote-for-protection deal was struck with the party. But subsequently, the Congress was overtaken by other secularist brands in cultivating Muslim vote-bank. The Congress and other 'secular' parties have stooped to crude 'competitive' secularism to gain Muslim votes.
<span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'>While many Hindus fear that communal reservation, Sharia'h courts, infiltration, anti-Bush, anti-cartoon rallies turning violent against Hindus presage a repetition of 1947, many fundamentalist Muslims feel they are better positioned now to re-establish Islamic rule in India by letting 'secularists' do their work. The 'secularists' are vending Islamic fundamentalism under the brand name of 'secularism'. With 'secularists' like these, who needs Islamists? </span>
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Pioneer.com
Balbir K Punj
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.George Santayana
The beeline that 'secularists' of various hues - the CPI(M), Congress and Muslim League - are making to the Coimbatore Central Jail to pay their political obeisance to Abdul Nasser Madani will astonish only the uninitiated. The jailed jihadi reportedly masterminded the February 14, 1998, Coimbatore serial blasts that killed 59 people, but narrowly missing the main target, then BJP president LK Advani. Madani's communally inflammatory speeches predate his involvement in the Coimbatore blasts. Because of all these 'qualifications' he is a 'secular' icon in the muddy waters of Kerala's electoral politics.
<b>The 'secularists' strategy is to exploit Madani's influence, real or perceived, on Muslim vote-bank. Madani, on behalf of his People's Democratic Party, has promised support to the CPI(M) dominated LDF coalition.</b> It may well be construed as a political fatwa for Muslims of Kerala - who form 24 per cent of the State's population of 32 million - to vote for the CPI(M) and its allies. In the 2001 Assembly election, Madani had supported the Congress-led UDF. So, in spite of his bloody record and spewing communal vitriol, he is not politically untouchable for any of the 'secular' branded parties.
Similarly, in poll-bound Assam, the UPA Government is engaging in a duplicitous deal with the ULFA (now no more than an extension of the ISI) with the sole objective of garnering votes by projecting itself as the peacemaker in Assam. The UPA Government has reintroduced the IMDT Act through the backdoor by selectively altering the provisions of the Foreigners Act 1946, applicable to Assam alone. The matter is now sub judice in the Supreme Court.
It is rather curious that ULFA has suddenly changed its tone before the election. While earlier it used to exhort people to boycott polls, this time it has called for voting for a party that defends Assam's interests. While refraining from naming any party in particular, ULFA's tacit reference is towards the Congress, not AGP or BJP, if one were to read between the lines. Can protecting infiltrators, as modified Foreigners Act does, be called a step in Assam's interest? The ongoing election in Assam is perhaps the State's last chance to protect itself from turning into a greater Bangladesh. The next Assembly election, coinciding with the next Census, might be a date too late for Assam.
ULFA was a secessionist outfit of insurgents when it was formed three decades ago, and remains so till today. But its degeneration from a reluctant formation opposed to infiltration to an outfit supporting infiltration is worth noting. This changeover occurred roughly 15 years ago. Prafulla Kumar Mahanto's first tenure as AGP Chief Minister (1986-1990) was the high noon of ULFA's destructive activities. Being a product of the same movement, ULFA was known to have access to the corridors of power in Dispur.
But as ULFA overreached itself with extortion activities from the tea-gardens, and Unilever group airlifted to rescue one of its beleaguered tea estate managers, it brought about AGP's embarrassing fall. The relationship between the two was estranged since then. Today ULFA's ISI-commissioned leadership is based in Dhaka, Bangladesh. For the last 15 years, it has been subservient to the forces of jihad. ULFA camps are teaching Assamese to would-be insurgents in Bangladesh. Thus ULFA's care and concern for Assam's 'interests' is totally false.
ULFA has refused to observe the ceasefire with the Government of India and abandon its demand for independent Assam. It has been going around blasting oil facilities, killing police personnel, and kidnapping businessmen in Assam. There is nothing to indicate that ULFA has seen the light of reason (it won't, unless the heat is turned on it).
But now that it has abjured violence on the election eve, calling on people to vote for a party that "defends Assam's interest", isn't there a conspiracy of peace between the ULFA and the Congress? It is thus concluded that the secularists are enlisting Madani's support in Kerala and ULFA in Assam to save 'secularism'. One has still to see a bigger contradiction.
<b>The 'secular' Congress and Communists are today hell bent on a rerun of history that led to partition along communal lines. Recently, the UPA Government amended the Foreigners Act 1946 for selective applicability in Assam to facilitate Bangladeshi infiltrators.</b> Then, the Kerala Assembly passed a unanimous resolution seeking the release of jihadi Abdul Nasser Madani incarcerated in Coimbatore Central Jail.
Why talk to Ms Khaleda Zia about closing down terror camps in Bangladesh when demographic aggression against India continues? Why talk to President Musharraf to rein in his anonymous jihadis when you are pleading the cause of an Al-Ummah middleman?
In 1919, Mahatma Gandhi espoused the cause of the Caliphate, and put the entire weight of the Congress party behind a pan-Islamic movement. <b>Gandhi wanted to rouse feverish Islamic passion for serving the cause of Swaraj by yoking Khilafat with Non-Cooperation movement. But this botched movement ended in massacre of Hindus as the Moplah riots in Malabar (1921) were followed by a string of other violent incidents. Eventually, Gandhi had to concede in frustration that every Hindu was a coward and every Muslim a bully</b>.
All through the 1930s and 1940s, the Communist Party of India supplied MA Jinnah with intellectual justification for his demand for Pakistan. The concepts of the "right to self-determination" and India as a "federation of independent states" came from the Marxists. But ironically, the Marxists were completely cleansed of the newly carved out state of Pakistan.
Today, as Islamic fundamentalism is asserting itself from the US to Australia, 'secularism' is reviving itself with renewed vengeance. But this feverish revival appears to approach only a terminal end. The jihadi fires are stroking India in too many theatres. 'Secularism' will find the burgeoning population of Muslims and their increasing jihadi assertiveness too hot to handle.
In the centenary year of the formation of the Muslim League in Dhaka (1906), Shahi Imam of Delhi's Jama Masjid Ahmed Bukhari has called for the formation of a federation of Muslim organisations, eschewing 'secularism'.
'Secularism' has always been a distasteful compromise for Muslims in independent India. It has, at best, been a strategy to survive in a truncated country, after having achieved Pakistan and cleansed Hindus and Sikhs from its territories. At worst, it has been inertness. Muslims always have a grouse that 'secularism' has failed them. <b>This seems to be an echo from the pre-independence days when they accused the Congress of "Hindu hegemony" and dissociated themselves from the party. But how the Congress became a 'secular' party from a 'Hindu' one is not difficult to understand if we address the issue methodically</b>.
After the departure of the British and creation of Pakistan, many Muslims in independent India faced a dead end. The fundamentalists had not migrated to their dreamland and were citizens of a country for whose dismemberment they had worked in cooperation with invaders. They were sandwiched between guilt and insecurity.
The Congress was now no longer a struggling party they could mock at but the ruler of this land. So vote-for-protection deal was struck with the party. But subsequently, the Congress was overtaken by other secularist brands in cultivating Muslim vote-bank. The Congress and other 'secular' parties have stooped to crude 'competitive' secularism to gain Muslim votes.
<span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'>While many Hindus fear that communal reservation, Sharia'h courts, infiltration, anti-Bush, anti-cartoon rallies turning violent against Hindus presage a repetition of 1947, many fundamentalist Muslims feel they are better positioned now to re-establish Islamic rule in India by letting 'secularists' do their work. The 'secularists' are vending Islamic fundamentalism under the brand name of 'secularism'. With 'secularists' like these, who needs Islamists? </span>
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