Thank you for the wonderful insights and reflections.
We need to consider insane people who call Islamic terrorists and hindu terrorists.
Terrorists do not have religion. they do not believe in God as they are anti-humans.
I wish to bring to your attention an article sent to me by a friends of mine.
Block A, Room 221
UN Complex, UNON Gigiri
Nairobi, Kenya
http://www.undp.org/ops/offices/nairobi.html
E-mail: wokhardt_undp@excite.com
AN OPEN LETTER TO OURSELVES
It is an undisputed fact that the spate of terrorist attacks on us have been exceptionally well organized and financed. For sometime now, someone out there has been using an immense amount of manpower, brainpower, organization and spending huge amounts of cash to increasingly unleash all this horror on us.
Simply blaming Pakistan is no use. They may have provided an unwitting base for the activities but, as a nation, they have enough serious problems of their own to be squandering their scarce resources on all this.
No. It is some other people, based in Pakistan and elsewhere, and their hatred for us is deep rooted.
To get to the depth of it, it is time we took a hard look at ourselves and ask some unpleasant questions:
Five questions:
Who are these people who hate us so bitterly? And what have we done to them to deserve all this? Have we, in any way, deeply hurt their religious sentiments?
(For an answer, all that one needs to do is to keep track of what the local press in all the Muslim countries, from Malaysia and Indonesia all the way to the Middle East (and even some Muslim pockets in Europe) has been saying about us all these years after our Babri adventure? The real tragedy is that almost all the correspondents have been Indians!)
What have we gained by the Babri Masjid adventure? Demolishing a Mosque or a Temple for the construction of a road is one thing, but making a spectacular show of it is quite another. Never mind the fact that Indian society has got deeply polarized and this has had a serious effect on our image as a secular nation. But what does the Muslim world really think of us? I repeat my above question: Are there people out there who feel their religious sentiments have been deeply hurt?
Why is India the world's biggest target for the terrorist? Maybe because India is the ONLY nation in the world where there are many strong political movements that proudly proclaim, as their national agenda, the marginalization of a large section of our own society, our own brothers, the local Muslims. The world is not blind. People have come here and seen for themselves the sort of systematic pogrom some of us have launched against our own brothers. They go back and write about many parts of our country where an educated Indian Muslim CANNOT get a good job and then rent a good flat. The world sees pictures of signboards in Gujarat proudly proclaiming 'Exclusive Hindu Colony'. How long can we go on like this and hope no one would respond?
Sure, after the Mumbai attack, the feelings against our own Muslim brothers are running high. But, remembering that many of them bravely laid down their lives for our safety and protection, have we reached out to them to make them feel that we are all one?
Do we have the political will for our Muslim organizations to stand up and send out any clear message of solidarity with the rest of us? This is the only message that can bring us some sense of security.
Please remember that people like the D Company are not terrorist organizations. They are pure businessmen and terror is their highly profitable business. The motive is pure profit. Cash.
Let me explain. When we indulge in our political adventures and intentionally hurt the religious sentiments of a large number of people, the businessmen easily stir up passions and create situations where large sums of money suddenly become available for the 'cause'.
Plus, when we in India systemically deny a large section of our people the chance of earning a decent living and leading a respectable life, the youth become an excellent raw material, ripe for brainwashing and inducting into the 'cause'. Sure, the businessmen spend huge sums of money to organize this mayhem and unleash terror on us, but this is only a small fraction of what they make as profit.
Let us look at what our adventures have cost us.
After we took a dilapidated and unknown structure, called it a Mosque and spectacularly demolished it in Dec 1992, India lost hundreds of Indian lives in the subsequent riots that we organized. Instantly the Muslim world sent us their message. Within three months, as per UN records, a little more than 170,000 Hindus found their work permits cancelled all across the Muslim world. Hindus are still not welcome there.
Wait. The worst is yet to come. Security experts have repeatedly said that major terrorist attacks take six to eight months to organize. Well, the Babri adventure was in Dec 1992 and the respond in the form of Bombay blasts was in August 1993!
There are many such 'coincidences', but the last and the most tragic is when we decided to blockade the sole lifeline of one of our own states in August this year. I was in Kashmir at the time on an assignment, and what I heard the local people say about India and Hindus made my blood run cold. Fair enough, the Muslim world has sent us their response, again in Bombay, on schedule.
We do not need anyone to destroy us. We are doing an excellent job of it ourselves.
