Mumbai Attack leads to a one-dimensional debate on Islamic fundamentalism

Press Statement

JAMIA TEACHERS’ SOLIDARITY GROUP

13/12/2008

"No More Hindutva Terrorism": Mumbai Attack leads to a one-dimensional debate on Islamic fundamentalism

All right thinking individuals must unequivocally condemn the recent Mumbai attack. However, under the cover of Mumbai attack both the Congress and BJP have conveniently pushed the issue of Hindutva terrorism under the carpet. The Mumbai attack has also further pushed the Indian state into the imperialist camp where America on the plank of Islamic terrorism is almost dictating the terms for India to indulge in the rhetoric of war with Pakistan .

Unfortunately, in the wake of Mumbai attack the regular secular forces in India – barring some organizations of the Left - have been largely forced to follow suit – they even forgot to remember the demolition of Babri Mosque on 6th of December this year.

It is in the light of the present circumstances that Jamia Teachers’ Solidarity Group demands:

1. Probes into Malegaon , Nander and other cases related to Hindutva terrorism be earnestly pursued and the unfinished investigation of Karkare and his team be completed without any delay;

1. The report of the Librahan Commission on the Babri Masjid demolition be placed without any further delay as the issue is already in the backburner.

1. We reiterate our demand for a judicial inquiry into the Batla House ‘encounter’ under the sitting judge of the Supreme Court and the case of MD. Sajid – a minor killed in the said ‘encounter’ be transferred to the juvenile justice court.

It is an unfortunate paradox into which the political discourse on terrorism has been pushed. While minority scapegoating and majority victimhood had become the ruling order of the day, the Mumbai attack has suddenly swerved the entire terrain of deliberations on Hindutva terrorism and its connivance with the institutions of the State. While the findings of the Maharashtra ATS led by Hemant Karkare indicated the communalization of the army at some level owing to right-wing infiltration, CBI findings in one case against two Muslim youth picked up as Al Badr terrorists by the Delhi Special Cell turned out to be a false one since records indicate that they were police informers, quite contrary to what they were alleged with. Some of the officers involved in this incident were also in-charge of the Batla House ‘encounter’ in which two students were killed and five are in police remand in Gujarat for more than a month now. The voices of resistance so long heard reiterating the need for secularism, democracy and justice suddenly seems to have died down to a whimper for what has always been addressed is the symptom of the malady and not its root cause.

Selective amnesia of secular forces in this country however, has had a long and chequered history. The evils of 26/11 has wiped out from collective memory the trail of blood and terror unleashed on 6th December 1992 by the Hindu right wing of this country and political parties who had so long observed a black day on 6th December every year were seen either lighting candles for the victims of the Mumbai attack or busy taking peace initiatives as a new ritual around the event seems to have immense potential at the given hour. It seems strange that all debates around the slaughtering of Christians in Orissa including the rape of a nun, humiliation and torture of Muslims in several parts of the country, in recent times, Malegaon findings about the involvement of Sadhvi Pragya Singh and other Hindutva forces behind different terror attacks on common people has taken a back-seat while India’s relation with Pakistan coupled with war rhetoric on both sides of the border has taken centre stage. While all sensible citizens of this nation would question how had this massive security failure occurred and condemn in one voice the terrible spectacle of violence that was primetime news for almost the whole of the past week, there are questions surrounding the incident that trouble the critical intelligentsia. The death of Hemant Karkare and his team just before the submission of his findings of the people involved in the Malegaon blast not in the Taj or the Oberoi which were the centres of action but in a peripheral site is only the first one to begin with. Mrs. Karkare’s refusal of Narendra Modi’s offer of money amounting to one crore is an indicator that perhaps her response is more than a denial of allowing her husband’s death to be an incident that can be politically bartered in the election market. While the electronic media is busy organizing CEOs and film stars on the silver screen to give their sound bites to the cacophony all around, some odd print media reports how the DTC bus driver who had lost his limbs while trying to save his passengers from the bomb planted in his bus by physically throwing it out during the serial blasts that happened in Delhi around Diwali and Eid in 2005 suffers the humiliation of trying to get his pending medical bills cleared while the small compensation granted to him when public sympathy was high has been long used up as the terror of the escalating prices in the market has hardly left anyone unscathed.

What needs to be reiterated at this hour is that while religious fundamentalism of all shades must be condemned unilaterally, one needs to critically re-think why one issue of terror pushes the scale of the history of violence perpetrated on the religious and ethnic minorities of this country to an oblivion as if prior to 26/11 we had a clean slate. Only a few weeks ago the army in Manipur gunned down a journalist. Do the Imas of Manipur again need to walk naked on the streets to become news? Has the five decade long AFSPA rule been able to solve the problem there? While the North-east is the country’s hinterland Mumbai is the economic chord of the nation. The impact of 26/11 has severe repercussions. The question that needs to be asked therefore is - what are the implications of 26/11 regarding the foreign policy to be followed by the MEA? At this hour of global economic recession it seems that 26/11 is the right cherry needed for the war pie on the making? And of course if war is round the corner, it’s a boom for certain sectors of the economy both before and after it. As far as civil rights are concerned, one can take a holiday as far more stringent measures are being advocated as if those already on board were not enough. L-18 and Batla House – justice for ‘encounter’ victims … who is listening to the din after all?

Anuradha Ghosh
 Neshat Quaiser
 Adil Mehdi
 Manisha Sethy