Stop mudslinging at Savarkar

By Omkar Dattatray

The UPA Government led by Manmohan Singh is influenced and dictated by leftists. It can hardly displease the kingmakers except at its own peril. So Congress is playing to the leftist gallery. One can definitely say that kingmakers are safe but not the kings (coalition ministry) as Sita Ram Yachury has said that the leftists can not only bark but they can bite as well. Any way the two stalwarts of the Congress Arjun Singh and Mani Shanker Aiyar have ignited unncessary storm and controversy over RSS and Veer Savarkar. It is only to defame and denigrate the BJP and its cherished ideology if at all they have kept it intact in this power game. Senior Congress leader Arjun Singh and his junior colleague and petroleum minister Aiyar wants to please two bosses- the Sonia, Rahul on the one hand and Marxists and Communists on the other over RSS and Savarkar. These self-proclaimed messiahs of secularism and minorities want to kill two birds with one stone. They want to keep the left parties in good humour and to gain minority votes.

But in mudslinging at RSS and Veer Savarkar the two Congress leaders are hardly serving any purpose either to their party or to the country. Unwarranted and uncalled for remarks on RSS and unfortunate removal of Veer Savarkar's plaque with quotation will definitely boomerang on the Congress party in the long run. Removing the Swatantra Veer Savarkar's plaque from cellular jail is an insult to the national pride, the revolutionaries and to the cause for which they have fought and sacrificed their lives. It seems that by accusing RSS of Gandhi's murder, Arjun Singh has given a pat at the back of the young scion of his party-Rahul Gandhi. Rahul just after winning elections had accused RSS and its political offshoot of being responsible for the murder of Mahatma Gandhi. Leveling of such baseless charges on RSS is not new. The so-called secularists are habitual of leveling such false charges on RSS from the very beginning. The fact of the matter is that the Courts have exonerated RSS and Veer Savarkar of Gandhi's murder and this controversy has been settled long ago.

So raising of such non-issues of RSS and Savarkar being responsible for the killing of Mahatma Gandhi does not hold any water and the people of the nation are the best judges to decide what is what. So raising of un-necessary controversies by Congress is akin to giving the NDA a handle to obstruct the proceedings of the Parliament and is a case of bad politics.

Damoodar Veer Savarkar was a great patriot and a nationalist. He was a great thinker, social activist, poet and above all an unmatched revolutionary. He was a great freedom fighter who has fought for the cause of the nation. Savarkar has sacrificed his whole life for the freedom of the country. Yes he had an ideological difference with Mahatma Gandhi as Savarkar did not believed in non-violence only. But then no one can belittle Savarkar's contribution to the freedom struggle simply because he believed both in Shastra (Scriptures) and Shistra (Weapons) and differed from Gandhi-Nehru thinking. Mani Shankar Aiyar had done a great insult to national pride and freedom fighters by removing VD Savarkar's quotation from Swatantra Jyot in cellular jail. Does it not speak volumes about the myopic knowledge and narrow mindedness of the petroleum minister and his party. It is very unfortunate that the present day Congress leaders by and large are treating freedom fighters with disdain and scorn. Yes Mani Shankar Aiyar may have differences with the approach and philosophy of Savarkar but insulting the great crusader of Indian freedom movement will surely recoil on the Congress party's political fortunes in the future.

Veer Savarkar is held in great esteem in Maharashtra and infact in whole of India. Is it mandatory that all Indian's should accept Mahatma Gandhi's non-violence and philosophy and those who differ are not Indian's and patriots? Didn't Ambedkar and even Tagore had serious differences with Mahatma and do they cease to be nationalists? Communists had also difference of opinion with Gandhi and what then? Aren't they Indian's? Is Congress justified in glorifying one category of freedom fighters and in denouncing other revolutionaries who had equally participated and contribution their might for the liberation of the country? Are Congressmen only freedom fighters and not others? What about Madan Lal Dingra, Rani Laxmi Bhai, Shivajee Marhatha, Ram Prasad Bismal, Tatai Topai Sananee and hundreds of sung or unsung crusaders of the freedom struggle who have fought for the noble cause of freedom even before the fight led by Congress? Freedom fighter status cannot be confined to Congressmen only.

If Aiyar, Arjun Singh and their Congress party likes to confine freedom fighters status to Congressmen only, they are living in a fool's paradise and such a definition of freedom fighter is based on short sightedness and bias. Savarkar was a torchbearer of Hindu-Muslim unity as well as is evidenced from his earlier years of life. He was imprisoned for his revolutionary and seditious activities by the British Government and was sent to cellular jail in Port Blair of Andaman. Cellular jail is associated with Savarkar as Sabarmati Ashram is with Gandhi. Savarkar had undergone eleven years rigorous imprisonment in cellular jail in Port Blair. Savarkar was a great organisor and crusader of social unity in our caste-ridden society. During the days of plague in Maharashtra, he accompanied funeral procession five times a day and he was so tired and fell asleep at the cremation ground.

He was daring and brave from his birth and bodily he was frail and weak due to the hardships and sufferings at the hands of British for his involvement in freedom movement. True Savarkar may have used the tactic of ends justify means during his release from jail and that too for his burning desire to see the motherland free from British yoke. But how does that diminish his contribution to the freedom struggle?

It is very unfortunate that the so-called secularists are up in arms against the revolutionaries like Savarkar. He has remained the eyesore of the secularists even before the freedom. To our super-secularists Savarkar was a communal, while as Suliman Seiths, Shab-ud-Dins, Geelanis, Yasin Maliks, Shabir Shahs and others of their ilk are secular. What a double standard and hypocracy of secularists? It is for arguments sake though there cannot be a comparison between Veer Savarkar and these communal separatists.

If Savarkar had advocated Akhand Prachand Bharat (United powerful India), what was communal in it? Let me give the English translation of the Savarkar's quotation, which is somewhat as under, ''We have not taken the vow of patriotism with our eyes closed. We have tested this path through historical flame. Deliberately we have taken pledge of self sacrifice.'' Where is communalism involved in it? It is no fanaticism either. It is pure patriotism and revolutionary zeal of this great son of India. Congress is discrediting all those freedom fighters who had adopted a separate path from Gandhi-Nehru thinking for the liberation of their motherland.

Minority separatism externally inspired

By B. Raman

There is no separatist movement in the Muslim community of India outside the State of Jammu & Kashmir (J&K). A separatist movement amongst the minorities---whether ethnic, linguistic or religious --- generally arises due to feelings of discrimination and feelings of unhappiness/anger and both ultimately leading to feelings of alienation. Successful separatism also requires national minorities constituting the regional majority in definable geographical areas. Outside J&K, such a contingency does not exist at present except in some bordering districts of Assam.

By and large, Indian Muslims, despite all their grievances, unhappiness and anger against the Government for various reasons, have kept themselves miles away from pernicious pan-Islamic ideologies advocated by jihadi terrorist organisations such as Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda and his International Islamic Front (IIF) because, for them, their cultural and political identity as Indians is as important as their religious identity as Muslims.

Indian democracy and the liberal Indian society have provided them with adequate and effective means of ventilating their grievances and having them redressed. In times of distress for their community, their greatest supporters and defenders have been liberal leaders of the Hindu community, the media, the National Human Rights Commission, the National Minorities Commission and many non-governmental organisations.

However, there is a separatist movement in sections of the Muslim community in J&K due to historic, political, geo-political and religious reasons. The Indian State had in the past been confronted with insurgent-cum-terrorist movements in Nagaland and Mizoram in its North-East to which it managed to find a political solution through negotiations with the insurgents and by convincing them that violence would not pay. The militants/insurgents of the past in these areas have given up their resort to insurgency/terrorism and have taken their due place as responsible and enlightened political leaders of their communities.

A similar outcome in J&K is being impeded by the infiltration and operation in Indian territory of thousands of Pakistani jihadi terrorists in the name of Islamic solidarity and in pursuance of bin Laden’s pan-Islamic ideology, which advocates the division of the Islamic world into Islamic Caliphates in different geographical regions.

It is, therefore, not surprising that it is taking the Indian State a long time to find a political solution in J&K. There is, however, no doubt that it will find a political solution to the indigenous aspect of the problem in course of time in accordance with its ideals of democracy and secularism.

India is a pluralistic society. Its people speak different languages and practice different religions. The Muslims of India speak the languages/dialects of the provinces/areas in which they live. And they generally used to dress like the people of those areas. However, in recent years, under the spreading influence of religious assertiveness, growing numbers of Muslims in different parts of the country have started adopting a distinct dress code, but a large number are still indistinguishable from others from the way they dress.

The Muslim population of the pre-1947 undivided India had two components: The descendents of the Muslims, who had migrated to the sub-continent from outside-----mainly from Afghanistan and Central and West Asia. They were in a majority in the areas which now constitute the State of Pakistan.

Those and the descendents of those, who had been converted to Islam from Hinduism. They were in a majority in the Muslim communities of what constitutes the present India, including J & K, and Bangladesh.

Before 1947, Muslims constituted the majority of the population in what is Pakistan of today, in certain districts of undivided Bengal, which form Bangladesh of today, and in the Srinagar Valley and certain areas of the Jammu Division of J & K. The remaining Muslims were spread over the rest of the country and constituted a minority in the areas of their habitation.

The Indian National Congress (INC---now called Congress (I) )---headed by Mahatma Gandhi, which led the struggle for independence from the British rule, realised that the unity and territorial integrity of a country like India----with its plurality of ethnic, linguistic and religious groups--- depended not only on its political and territorial integration, but also on the emotional integration of all sections of its people---to whichever ethnic, linguistic or religious group they belonged. It also realised that social harmony in such a pluralistic society depended on the protection of the religious, cultural, economic and other rights of all sections of its people. This realisation marked the policies of the party, which drew its members and leaders from all sections of the people.

The two parts of Pakistan, widely separated by Indian territory, were called West and East Pakistan. Cultural incompatibility between the Urdu-speaking Muslims of West Pakistan and the Bengali-speaking Muslims of East Pakistan and between the descendents from the migrants into the sub-continent from outside, who were in a majority in West Pakistan, and the descendents of converts from Hinduism, who were in a majority in East Pakistan, led to a movement for the independence of the Bengali-speaking Muslims of East Pakistan, ultimately resulting in the formation of Bangladesh in December, 1971, after a violent struggle. The separation of Bangladesh after the loss of thousands of lives showed that where emotional integration is lacking, religion alone cannot be a uniting factor and that cultural solidarity is as important as religious solidarity, if not more.

The ML, re-named the Pakistan Muslim League on August 14, 1947, Pakistan’s Independence Day, was a political party based on religion as the motivating factor for political action and not a religious party for political involvement. The Jamaat-e-Islami Hind, a religious party for political involvement, which was the precursor of today’s Jamaat-e-Islami of Pakistan as well as the tribal elements of the NWFP and Balochistan, headed by the late Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan of the NWFP and the late Abdus Samaad Khan Achakzai of Balochistan, rejected the two-nation theory and opposed the demand for partition for different reasons.

While the Jamaat-e-Islami Hind opposed the demand for partition on the ground that this would put in jeopardy the future of the millions of Muslims living in other parts of India, who would not seek to migrate to Pakistan, the tribal leaders of the NWFP and Balochistan opposed it because they believed in Gandhiji’s advocacy of the emotional integration of people belonging to different religions and did not accept that the Hindus and the Muslims constituted two irreconcilable communities. Their views did not prevail and Pakistan became a reality.

The attempts of Pakistani jihadi organisations allied with Al Qaeda in the IIF, which are in the forefront of the terrorist movement in J&K since 1993, to spread their pan-Islamic ideologies and activities to members of the Muslim community in other parts of India outside J&K.

They have been responsible for a number of acts of terrorism in other parts of India such as the attack on the Indian Parliament in December 2001 and the series of explosions in Mumbai (Bombay). Their clandestine cells have been detected even in the South, particularly in Hyderabad in Andhra Pradesh. (ADNI)