India: Civil Rights or Civil War?

            

The recent series of bomb blasts that have rocked India – a series which has become a proverbial dark tunnel where no end is in sight – denote a new pattern. Till now communal riots were engineered by communal forces and the fascist part of the Indian state machinery to polarise society. This trend reached its apogee in the Gujarat 2002 riots.

The communal forces both inside and outside the Indian State machinery learnt some important lessons from Gujarat; chiefly that in this time and space, in the 21st century, it is very difficult to get away with organised pogroms – ultimately you have to pay a political price which the BJP did in the 2004 elections.

The communal forces then conjured a new phenomenon – why not start engineering bombs first in Hindu dominated areas, and then in Muslim areas?

The trend began with the July 2006 Mumbai serial train blasts in ‘Gujarati Hindu dominated’ first class compartments of the Mumbai metro rail; soon there were blasts in Muslim areas of Malegaon and Hyderabad.

In 2008, with elections just around the corner in April-May 2009, and the BJP getting relegated to the third position in electoral calculations in the post-nuclear deal vote phase, the bomb blast phenomenon has become endemic. From July 2008 at the time of writing this piece here have been several blasts – in the past week, blasts have occurred almost daily.

One thing is clear – it is not that bomb blasts are being engineered to create communal riots. That (communal riots following bomb blasts) simply has not happened – the new mantra seems to be of bomb blasts replacing communal riots. This means that if in the past riots were engineered to create communal polarisation the same kind of polarisation is being sought to be created by engineering bomb blasts.

So the pattern – 4 blasts in a Hindu dominated area; then one or two in a Muslim dominated area – Malegaon and Modesa after Bengaluroo, Ahmedabad and the two blasts in Delhi.

This is a foreign pattern for even Indian communal forces; this trend has been seen in areas where Mossad and CIA operate; a similar/exact phenomenon was seen in Lebanon where Beirut, a beautiful and cosmopolitan Asiatic city was turned into an arena of sectarian Muslim-Christian conflict with bomb blasts being engineered every day in respective Muslim-Christian areas, something which now even Hollywood films (see ‘Spy Game’) admit as a CIA ploy to destroy Lebanon.

The post-American invasion Iraq situation too sees a similar thing – of sectarian Shia-Sunni violence being generated by the bomb blast phenomenon, engineered by the CIA, private US mercenary firms like Blackwater and the US forces.

A third region is Pakistan where too blasts take place respectively, in Shia or Sunni, Sindhi or Mohajir, NWFP or Punjabi or Baluchi areas alternately and with regularity. Here the western game is clear – America and Israel have been working for decades to dismember Pakistan and control its nuclear arsenal.

India was spared of this ordeal till 1991 as Prime Ministers like Jawahar Lal Nehru and Indira Gandhi, and even Rajiv Gandhi, did not allow Mossad-CIA penetration.

Before liberalisation during Narasimha Rao’s regime, Indian passport holders could not travel to two places: Israel and South Africa. India was at the forefront of the International crusade against apartheid and the denial of a homeland for Palestinians.

Why is it that after liberalisation, which was initiated soon after Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination, India recognised Israel and established diplomatic relations – and then the Babri Masjid demolition incident occurred? 

So three things are related – liberalisation of the Indian economy, the change in Indian foreign policy from an anti-Imperialist, pro-Third World position to a pro-American, pro-Israel stance, and the increasing persecution of Muslims, in an institutionalised form.

See that these three developments occur side by side – and now in 2008 we see India being turned into another Lebanon.

The biggest delusion of the RSS-BJP is that by blaming organisations like SIMI or Muslim ‘terrorists’ for the recent blasts they are doing some service to the nation. On the contrary, by not exposing the foreign Mossad-CIA hand, they are going against the interests of India. Why did the BJP-RSS not cry foul over the flight of Ken Haywood from India after the email sent by the so-called ‘Indian Mujahideen’ group was traced to his computer in Navi Mumbai? Why was there no demand for a probe into the role of this dubious American national with shady evangelical, anti-Hindu and anti-Muslim connections in America? These connections can be seen by clicking on links like http://www.phillyimc.org/en/node/71510  or http://www.stlimc.org/newswire2008/yahooindiabombingkenneth-haywoodcampbell-white039s-computer-and-strange-fox-news039-fr or http://www.indianexpress.com/story/348646.html  or http://szamko.gnn.tv/blogs/29130/Haywood_Escapes or

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hvHOJNxzhM&feature=related  and on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaZejnHLhrc&feature=related

Let this be very clear and loud – today, supporting the persecution and the arrest and the torture of thousands of Muslim youth, is tantamount to being anti-national. Today being anti-Muslim is tantamount to being anti-national.

What India needs today are not just protests – we need a special prevention of atrocities against minorities act – something which makes refusal of housing and flats to minorities, refusal by a Police officer to register an FIR by minorities, or to act in their protection, failure of a District Magistrate or a Senior Superintendent of the Police to prevent a riot or a bomb blast, the picking up of Muslims and other minorities without a formal charge, the very idea of detention of Muslim youths after blasts, or encounter killings, the calling of Muslims by the name Laandiya or Katua, a stringent crime with due punishment.

India already has a prevention of violence/atrocities against Scheduled Castes act – it is a crime to call a Dalit a Chamar; or not to register his or hers FIR. Why can’t a similar act, be enacted for the minorities?

In India the so-called war against terror, against SIMI or the Indian Mujahideen is a fictitious, bogus war – the recent bomb blasts were engineered by security forces, and foreign agencies and RSS-Bajrang Dal. The real war is against Muslim/minority persecution, the appropriate response to Batla House type fake encounter killing, and the extension of civil liberties guaranteed in the Indian Constitution. See the history of nations – in America and Europe mere constitutional guarantees were not enough – specific new laws had to be enacted from time to time to abolish slavery, protect minorities, and end persecution, segregation and racism.

America passed through its civil rights moment in the 1960s – India has to confront its own civil rights moment now. There is a simple message to Indian liberals – either support the demand for a special civil rights act for minorities or perish – for soon the fascist forces persecuting Muslims will turn against you.

If there is a civil war in India on this issue – so be the case; in any case with direct American intervention in Pakistan, conflict between America and India is very near. Liberals do not understand this but the Indian army does – so there is bound to be a double civil war in India – one against foreign intervention in the Indian sub-continent and the other against anti-national fascist forces.

                   

       

Allahabad Diaries

The Town India Forgot

ALLAHABAD today is a stagnating city which refuses to decay. The whitewash on the Romanesque arches and Greek columns of the bungalows is wearing off. The famed broad roads, structured on a grid-like pattern even in the old city area (once the envy of north India), stretch like abandoned dance floors of the great hotels of yore—still grand but less proud, jaded but not faded. This was a city with an ice-cream parlour, the Guzders, before which Bombay joints looked like stalls at a village fair. Snobbery came natural to aficionados of El Chico’s movie-like restaurant decor. There was a class cabaret, the Gaylords, in the civil lines in the ’60s when Delhi hid its night life behind sleazy doors. Delhi was Punjabi, crude and downtown. Allahabad was intellectual, upmarket and aristocratic; the girls were stoic, alluring, upper class and exclusive—a living amalgam of Brahmavarta elitism, modernity and westernism. During the day black coats of High Court barons flashed with condescending aura in the pillared halls of their great Georgian villa. In the evening, the men in black quoted Shakespeare and Voltaire while smoking foreign cigars. They had a way of drinking beer and a way of watching the mujra at exclusive haunts near the Ganga. Both the cabaret and the mujra, the west and the east, rubbed shoulders as non-colonial cousins. Old timers still remember Janki Bai ‘chappan churi’ (she had 56 knife wounds on her body, courtesy a sour lover) singing, full blast on a public crossing, about the jalwa (honour and sheen) of the beauty walking with ‘das gunda aage’ and ‘das gunda peeche’!

A Touch Of Reality

IN a recent visit of a senior BJP leader, the city was expected to go ecstatic over Pokhran II. But a BJP supporter surprised an ‘ignorant-arrogant’ reporter when, instead of exhibiting Hindu pride, he said: “Don’t take celebrations too much to heart. Indians and Pakistanis are the same. We just got bored at the same time.” Perplexed by this display of ‘composite’, complex thinking in a supposedly saffron city, the reporter was confronted with a self-styled post-modernist Allahabadi who told him more astonishing facts. Like January 26th, 1993, when students of the Allahabad University obstructed VHP president Ashok Singhal’s entry into the Union hall, for “his head was too swollen” after December 6. Like the forgotten fact that Nehruvianism was once called the Allahabad School of Socialism. In the ’30s, the Bengal School of History had made it a colonial privilege to deride the medieval period. The Allahabad School of History then went ahead and specialised in Mughal history. They were perhaps establishing a mnemonic link with the past, for the city was first established as an intellectual and administrative centre by Akbar and Jehangir. But academism went hand in hand with conflict and sobriety with fun. Nehru was respected and booed and Indira Gandhi found Allahabad too irreverent to attempt a husting shot, a bit perturbed at the way she was often thumbed down at the tables of the great institution of political and literary humour—the coffee house.

Take That, Koirala

THUMBING down pretensions of actresses and romantic idols is also a timepass with attitude. The city still offers solid resistance to yuppieism. In the underworld of youth and lumpen culture, the little guy has always been a rebel with a mind. During a screening of Bombay, a viewer could not take Manisha Koirala’s pretensions of crossing the river in a boat everyday to study. After a pregnant pause, he burst out: “Bada Lal Bahadur Shastri bani hai (trying to be Lal Bahadur Shastri)!” Now, India’s second prime minister was an Allahabadi who swam across the Ganga in his struggling days to study. No lumpen anywhere in India—this is where Bombay, Delhi, Madras, Calcutta all fail—would have had the information or the perspective to give Manisha Koirala’s inconsequential act a historic dimension.

Poesy, Sweet ‘N Sour

BEFORE the bowdown, Amitabh Bachchan’s defining qualities were sensitivity, power and humour—in a mysterious way,the city of his origin is known for its romantic, anti-romantic-didactic and ribald poetry. The city poet, Akbar Allahabadi, who loved guava, the sour and sweet fruit of Allahabad, spelled out the reality of power in fashion, progress and courtship. Before a poet, he was a civil servant. Later, Firaq Gorakhpuri carried forward this Yamuna current of rational professionalism. The eminent Ganga current was symbolised by the sensitive and akkhad Nirala who died in penury after sculpting Chayavaad with Sumitranandan Pant and Mahadevi Verma. Akbar’s anger could turn to satire in a way the angry young man became the comic with deadly, deadpan wit. Now is it clear why Allahabad is the most political, literary and sarcastic of cities?

Of Cynics And Gymnasts

THE mafia here is political and impersonal but has intruded slowly into high society. Infrastructure collapses every day like an overpacked house of cards and satire turns to vengeful, vicious cynicism. When a culture declines thus with an unseem-ing aggressiveness, it speaks of a great disillusionment with the past, a sense of being fooled by idealism. And yet there are thriving women entrepreneurs making the best of a limited market and old shopkeepers still showing off the Allahabadi style of sober glamour in sarees and dresses. The city boasts of the country’s best rock magazine, Uttar Pradesh’s best fast food joint, the Hot Stuff, and an “all-India fame” sex journal, all set by young entrepreneurs, plus the most saleable Hindi pulp magazine. The ‘dead’ life is often revved up by astonishing revelations about the existence of a freemason’s club, the cultural potentialities of the Sangam site and the emergence of Olympic gold-hunters in gymnastics. There was a time in the late ’60s when the daughters of Allahabad used to rock and roll on basketball courts. Even now the city’s defunct airport at Bamrauli looks like a chapter out of an early ’60s lifestyle life album. Wonder which economic reform package forgot the savvy potential of small-town north Indian cosmopolitanism.

Lucknavi Liasions: Outlook magazine, 2000

Lucknavi Liasions

Lucknow is a functioning anarchy that refuses to slide into chaos. A developing, mini-Delhi sans broad roads, Uttar Pradesh’s capital, also the prime minister’s constituency, now resembles a dismembered jhanki (tableaux). Ill-planned avenues and buildings ram their way through crumbling but proud edifices; a haphazardly uniform urban pattern evolves out of a panoramic layout. Many rare buildings have vanished while protected asi monuments are in danger of falling down. Some of them are still strikingly neoteric, almost bourgeois in intent and concept. A Borges-type labyrinthine, the Bhulbhulaiya, haunts the Bada Imambara – its plush ceiling invokes early ’60s restaurant decor. The Romanesque arches, Egyptian designs and amazingly 20th century brickwork of Dilkusha (an early 19th century building) shocked a newly-arrived European delegation of architects. They were reminded of a 20th Century Fox set, being unaware that Lucknavi tastes have long seeped into Indian cinema. Remember Leena Chandravarkar’s rust cenna sharara, Asha Parekh’s dupatta tied to the chignon, Sharmila Tagore’s jaali blouse, even Helen’s slit lehngas, in the ’60s and the ’70s? The classical, wheatish, gudas badan, sensational (sansanikhez) Lucknavi beauty struck a rugged stance in a sophisticated manner. She defined the Lucknavi ada evident in Urdu shairi, the Dussheri mango, jinsiyat (sexology), Hindi scriptwriting, Begum Akthar, the UP school of hockey, tennis and humour, Hindustani detective fiction – and private attitudes. The decapitating, ‘aliberal’ Lucknavi response to English writing in India? Khafifa adalat mein ullu ke patthe, raage gul se bulbul ke par baandhte hain (a famous, early 20th century couplet by Braj Narain Chakbast that translates loosely as ‘The owls (fools) of the lower-law-court that represents the real world, tie the wings of the ‘metal world nightingale’ with floral veins’!). Rs 1,000 for getting the present connection right.

More Than Pehle Aap

The subconscious boundary of the city’s stylistic terrain has been marked, traditionally, by Urdu literature. Recently dream and reality coalesced in the imperceptibly Lucknavi short stories of Dr Naiyyer Masud (English translation by Katha). The sixth-sense world of the Sheeshaghat (glass wharf) was revealed, a world where the essence of camphor takes on a forlorn presence of its own. Where inconsequential, ordinary places in Hindi-Urdu belt houses hides domains of fear, incest and voyeurism. It’s hard to recall any other literature that so positively symbolises, in contemporary terms, the Indian attitude of sensual mystery. Not mystery so much as design if you consider this: faced with the threat to Indian culture, King Wajid Ali Shah forcibly elevated the lowly, temporal, oblique, Avadhian arts – Thumri, Rekhti, Dadra, Tappa, Hazal Goi, Kathak (only a form of storytelling then) – to stylised power. He transmuted Lucknow into an outpost of Asiatic modernity, pitting Hindustan’s material diversity against western corporeal imports after all, loha lohe ko kaat-ta hai (only iron cuts iron). The stiff upper lip never knew what hit it in 1857. A lesson there for cultural nationalists and socialists battling chic ‘videshi’ with counter-clockwise, spiritual ’swadeshi’. A reprimand to Nehruvians and Leftists for failing to place secular nationalism in the achkan and the garara. And you thought Lucknow was only Chikan and Pehle-aap.

Ruled By Contradiction

An Indian writer in English, sceptical about Lucknow being the world’s last integrated culture, went to Ameenabad. She found Hindus and Muslims eating tunde kebabs, then bowing their heads to one god in a Shahi Masjid named after a Brahmini. In Aliganj, she stumbled upon a Nawabi Hanuman temple with a crescent atop the kalash. This year, the power and frenzy of Moharram, held amidst Shia-Sunni tensions, dumbfounded a woolly-eyed communal harmonywala. And then he discovered women of a famous, orthodox Muslim Taluqedari house observing Navratra. In closed-down courtesan quarters old madams (some still involved with dance and music, their daughters studying in convents) play bridge with retired colonels, reminiscing about the old days when the kotha did duty as a finishing school. The secret of A.B. Vajpayee’s victories – in Lucknow although Atalji is not a Lucknavi Vajpeyi – lies in the city’s Kanyakubja Brahmin constituency. Yet the feral, meat-eating, pro-Muslim habits of the Avadhian Kanyakubja Brahmins (who top the Brahmin hierarchy) are legendary. In April this year, Hindu traders diffused a communal issue in the old city. Asked about Lucknaviyat, I prefer to keep quiet. A nagging doubt persists whether the coeval, informed Indian mind is capable of perceiving its own reality.

Not-So-Sweet Surfeits

Responding to a bet, a North Indian politician known for his ferocious appetite ordered 2 kilos of Jauzi after consuming a huge quantity of tunde kebabs. Two hundred grams later he began panting, shouting that the devil had seeped into the wheat-based saffron bonbon. With the controversial Ambedkar Park, ex-chief minister Mayavati tried emulating the opulence of past rulers. She ended up with an epitaph to Mandalite dreams. Its tawdry grandeur typifies the unformed style and unfinished agenda of the political classses that emerged in the ’90s. This potential capitalist dynamo of a city was partly de-industrialised during the nep years. A violent, parvenu takeover of culture slammed creativity into silence. But since this is not a cynically stagnant city, a volatile, khamosh Lucknow simmers, like its Dampukht mode of cooking, below the surface. A resilient inventiveness keeps throwing up computer freaks, VJs, connoisseur bureaucrats, dynamic women professionals and entrepreneurs in a new middle class. Only in Lucknow could I hold Sham-e-Avadh, a programme of book-reading, music and dance of my book Lucknow: Fire of Grace. And get away with a fusion of English prose, Urdu Ramayana, Avadhi poetry and Sufi dance on the ‘Haveli-numa’ poolside of a 5-star hotel.

Even Stevens

While performing his ‘Shakespeare’s villains’ in a city auditorium, Steven Berkoff made a trademark quip Luck-now; do you have? Later, a gentlemen remarked within earshot of Berkoff – ‘Shakes-a-peer’; this is what Steve does all the time!

Ties that bind 1857 and 1947: Indian Express column

The year 2007 is special in that it marks both the 150th
anniversary of the first war of Indian independence and the 60th
anniversary of achieving it. The link between these two events,
however, seems tenuous, since they appear to arise from different
historical impulses. But new research reveals that there was in fact a
semblance of continuity between them. Alex Von Tunzelmann’s new book,
The Indian Summer, with plenty of hitherto unpublished material,
suggests as much. Two other books by well-known British historians
Christopher Bayly and Tim Harper, entitled Forgotten Armies: Britain’s
Asian Empire & the War with Japan, and Forgotten Wars: The end of
Britain’s Asian Empire, also emphasise this point.

During the centenary celebrations of 1857, Nehru in his famous Red
Fort speech argued that British colonialism was fundamentally different
from other armed incursions into India: while the Mughals made India their home and contributed to its prosperity, the British drained India’s wealth, enslaving the country.

here is an interesting episode related by Forbes Mitchell, who
was part of the 93rd Highlander Regiment which fought in 1857-8 in
Kanpur, Lucknow and other theatres. In 1891, Mitchell visited India and
was struck by a story doing the bazaar rounds. It was said that Suffur
Ali, a sepoy who was humiliated and hanged by Brigadier Neill at Kanpur
in July 1857, had issued a revenge call on Neill’s descendants in the
name of his infant son, Mazar Ali. In the 1870s Mazar Ali joined a
British regiment and became close to Major A.H.S. Neill, Brigadier
Neill’s son, without knowing his antecedents. One night, a fakir
visited Mazar Ali and informed him of Major Neill’s background. On
March 14, 1887, in Augur, Ali shot Neill’s son in broad daylight.

Bayly and Harper’s work showcase the rumblings in the Indian army
that made the British realise the possibility of ‘another 1857’. In
1915, Indian army units revolted in Singapore following the Ghadar
party propaganda. Then during the 1930-32 Civil Disobedience movement,
the Garhwal Regiment refused to fire on Indian freedom fighters in
Peshawar. Bayly and Harper also profile how Indian army personnel
fighting for the British in the 1940s were “nationalists” and “made
clear to their British officers early on in the war that the writing
was on the wall for Imperial rule”.

During the 1942 Quit India Movement, T.B. Dadachanji, a Parsi
VCO, “disobeyed an order to take a mobile column into a riotous city on
the grounds that he might be forced to shoot his own people”. Yet
Dadachanji was not court-martialled. Drawing a parallel between 1857
and 1942, Bayly and Harper note wryly that “if a new Indian Mutiny were
to break out, would it not be in Lucknow where the Union flag still
waved over the ruins of the old British residency?”

A tale of 3 battles from 1857- Indian Express

In 1857studies, military history is neglected. In the Bengal Army, Avadh and Bihar-based Poorabia Sepoys, the main force behind the 1857 movement, were not allowed to move beyond the non-commissioned subedar rank. As a result, by 1857 even senior sepoys had not commanded more than a company of 100 soldiers. Suddenly, after killing their officers and proclaiming Bahadur Shah Zafar’s rule, they found themselves leading whole regiments of often 1,000 soldiers, mixed with several Irregular Regiments and ill-equipped peasant militias into open-field battles against trained British troops. The British, in contrast, followed classic, elite European war tactics, refined by such illustrious names as Frederick the Great and Napoleon.Kanpur was the first test. Here, in June 1857, the British Commander Wheeler went into trench warfare mode, moving women, children and his forces into a well-dug entrenchment. The entrenchment lay behind the barracks; it had the Ganges at its rear and it formed three well-marked sides. It was actually a British military square of mud and lime. Wheeler’s gunners had managed to push more than half a dozen artillery pieces in the fortification; provisions capable of lasting for months were stored.

It was difficult to attack or carry the position by storm; the sides of the square prevented that. Wheeler could hold out as long as help arrived from Calcutta or Benaras. At one point he was confident enough to send troops to Lucknow for assistance. Commencing on June 6, the Indian attack answered volleys with volleys. In the first few days, sepoys operated three guns from a 500-yard distance. By June 8, the number increased to 10. Wheeler had stored a lot of ammunition. Though not deficient in this field, Nana’s troops were short on spare ammo. By June 11 and 12, despite occasional sorties by British troops, the incessant Indian fire made Kanpur unbearable for the British. On June 12, the sepoys invented the method of firing carcasses; the barracks meant to cover the entrenchment were set on fire.

Wheeler surrendered. British men, women and children were allowed safe passage to Allahabad on condition they give up their arms. On the June 27th morning, the day of the British retreat at the Kanpur Satichaura Ghat, the sepoys collected on the Ganges bank were fired upon. Nana’s treaty had stipulated that the British would be allowed safe passage only if they disarmed. Getting the wind of the British plan, the Indian sepoy leaders decided to surround the ghats from both sides. The British were decimated in close quarter fighting.

The real Mumbaikar

The recent attacks on North Indians in Mumbai and other Maharashtra districts hide a political and socio-economic pattern. Appeals made by Raj Thackeray — and seconded grudgingly by the Shiv Sena — for unity of the Marathi manoos on an anti-North Indian plank are also meant to cement the increasing divide within Marathis themselves — between Marathi OBCs and forward castes, a political chasm so subversive and threatening for the forward caste Marathi elite that political analysts see it as capable of changing the discourse of Maharashtrian politics.

What has gone unnoticed is the opposition of NCP Minister Chhagan Bhujbal to Raj and Uddhav Thackeray. Bhujbal belongs to the OBC Mali caste. A quick glance at Mumbai’s history shows that it was never a ‘pure’ forward caste ‘Marathi’ city. As ‘Bombay’, it was a string of islands first under the Portuguese, and then from the mid-17th century, under British control. Shivaji Maharaj, the personality whose movement provided cohesion and status to the Marathi identity, never developed Mumbai as his base. Shivaji’s base was Raigad in the Konkan. During the 18th century, the time of the Peshwas and the great Maratha expansion to all corners of India, Pune was the Marathi cultural and political capital.

In fact there is a large section of Marathi intellectuals who believe that the ‘Bombay-isation’, now ‘Mumbai-isation’ of the Marathi identity, has led to the decline of Marathi culture. A paranoid focus on Mumbai has led to the marginalisation of Pune, Kolhapur and Satara, the traditional centres of Marathi scholarship. There was a time when all these districts boasted of an active theatre movement, a rich art and poetry scene. There was even a cinema that reflected the indigenous Marathi ethos and not the hotchpotch Bollywood-Mumbai culture.

Raj Thackeray is on a weak wicket when he rails against Bhojpuri cinema while talking of the way Marathi cinema has suffered. Marathi culture in general has suffered because of the Shiv Sena, which started the process of the goonda-isation of the Marathi ethos. It is not for nothing that major Marathi literary figures never found their voice reflected in the Sena movement. It is also significant that an actor like Nana Patekar, who did gravitate towards the Sena in the 1990s, finally had to withdraw. Nana’s parting comments that Bal Thackeray is pursuing a ruinous course as far as Marathi culture is concerned, still haunts the Sena.

Raj’s mentions that he is expressing the sentiments of the ‘Mumbai Street’. Which Mumbai street is he talking about? Currently, out of the 1.9 million population, North Indians, both Hindus and Muslims, constitute between 30-40 per cent of the total figure. South Indians make up 20 per cent; the Marathi component is only 28 per cent. So the Mumbai Street is a hybrid mix of many cultures — it cannot by its very nature express a singular, anti-North Indian sentiment. Also within the 28 per cent Marathis, OBCs and Dalits constitute the majority. They form part of the remnants of the Marathi work force that was once a major player in the city.

Coming round the mountain

e was once criticised by his party for his fondness for momos. Along with the regular Gregorian calendar that we all follow, he also uses the Hindu Shaka calendar. He is a Maoist who has beaten all Marxist-Leninists to emerge as the leader of the world’s first elected far-Left party.

The irony of the impending Maoist electoral victory in the Nepalese constituent assembly led by this man, Pushpa Kamal Dahal aka Prachanda, never ceases to amaze. This was a force that every communist and democratic formation of the subcontinent had written off as a ‘bunch of anarchists’. The Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) — the CPN(M) — was, in fact, painted as yet another terrorist outfit.

But Nepal had not yet given its verdict. The pro-democracy movement in 1990 had ushered in the concept of a multi-party democracy in this landlocked, feudal country where bourgeois impulses were weak and where monarchy flourished. But as years went by, the Nepali Congress and the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist) — CPN(UM-L) — the two mainstream parties in the country, were unable to address the people’s concerns. The power of the king was curtailed, but a move to impose constitutional monarchy was shot down as the Royal Nepalese Army (RNA) became ambitious and the king too became a willing tool in the hands of the United States, which was keen on  building Nepal as a buffer between India and China. The RNA-backed monarchy started clawing back to power in a bid to regain privileges lost during the pro-democracy movement. The pro-democracy mainstream parties, with no armed cadre to respond to the violence unleashed on the Nepalese people by the Palace-RNA combine, felt helpless.

It was at this point in 1996 that the Maoists stepped in. Realising that pro-democracy parties had been taken for a ride and were becoming irrelevant in the new situation of counter-revolutionary offensives, they retired to the villages, jungles and hills to mobilise the Nepalese peasantry. At first, the Maoists did not have weapons either. During the 1990 pro-democracy movement, they were part of the general ‘Left impulse’, which had laid emphasis more on mass movement than on armed struggle.

Adopting classic Maoist tactics of capturing arms from the enemy, Nepal’s Maoists captured the Dang barrack of the RNA. Now they had enough arms to last for four years. In February 2005, when the bloody palace coup installed  King Gyanendra on Nepal’s throne with covert American and overt RNA backing, democratic rights and the parliamentary process were suppressed. The people of Kathmandu and those of Nepal’s villages were overwhelmingly against the official version that Prince Dipendra committed the massacre. As pro-democracy parties vacillated, the Maoists came up with the firm political slogan of abolishing the monarchy, restoring democratic rights and setting up a national people’s republic. This stance struck a chord as it was widely believed that Gyanendra was a usurper. The monarchy had lost the reverence and support of the people like never before.

The Maoist strategy worked. In the post-February 2005 situation, Maoists were the only power taking the RNA and Gyanendra head on. Yet, this was clearly not enough. Despite leading a backward, feudal-bourgeois State, the Nepalese ruling clique was part of the new post-9/11 global environment. The Nepalese ruling clique, fighting against the Maoists that the US perceived to be a ‘terrorist group’, had the support of Washington in terms of arms, material and ‘advice’. The sounds of fights in the hilly villages of Nepal between the Maoist People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and RNA forces echoed in India and even in Washington.

But Nepalese Maoists were fighting a different kind of ‘people’s war’. Following the new far Left path of Prachanda, the CPN(M) and the PLA stopped being confined to isolated areas and the grassroots. Their anti-feudalism had a village-level character as well as a national-mainstream character. The restoration of democratic rights and the removal of the monarchy remained the final political target of the armed struggle. The CPN(M) was also being perceived as a ‘patriotic force’ by a growing number of Nepal’s people.

Prachanda declared a unilateral ceasefire  when in 2006 Gyanendra was going to address the United Nations. The move robbed Gyanendra off propaganda value against the Maoists. After that, the Maoists showed tactical flexibility in suspending their armed struggle, and started engaging the mainstream parties in a dialogue. In the process, they started to show a willingness to become part of the mainstream democratic process, proposing a whole range of options including participation in direct elections to a new constituent assembly, and even the merger of the PLA in a new Nepalese army.

Within the overall ambit of abolishing monarchy, the Maoist position kept changing as per the demands of the situation. They even accepted to be part of an interim government under the present king. This assured middle-class support. Criticising VHP leaders from India like Ashok Singhal for visiting King Gyanendra in the name of ‘firming up Hindu glory’, the Maoists appreciated the anti-Gyanendra stand of the UPA government. When Prachanda visited India in 2006, several far-Left organisations actually believed that he was here to cut a deal with the Indian government.

Prachanda and his cadres have a long-term strategy in mind. The CPN(M) states that the major reason behind the collapse of the Left movement in the 20th century was the failure of various communist parties in power to guarantee constitutional-civil rights to the people. Thus in Marxist terminology, the CPN(M) while retaining its militant character, stood for a ‘strategic commitment’ to a competitive multi-party democracy even after the revolution.

The implications of this innovative and yet orthodox strategy can be huge in our neighbourhood. Nepal’s electoral results have caught many in India — the government and our own communist party leadership included — on the backfoot. For India, the strengthening of democratic traditions in Nepal can only augur well. Never mind the pessimists who will hedge their bets by saying that ‘it is too early to say’.

Caste, a crooked eye

For a student of history, the ongoing Gujjar agitation in Rajasthan
carries a profound level of sadness. Last year, more than a dozen
Gujjars had lost their lives in an attempt to demand Scheduled Tribe
(ST) status for their community in Rajasthan. This time, 36 people have
died in police firing. A lot of justified noise was made when 14 people
died of police firing in Nandigram. But Gujjar deaths do not seem to
evoke the same kind of media sympathy.

Historically, the Gujjars are effectively ‘1857 forces’, in the same
league as Lodhs, Banjaras, Ramoshis, Dhangars, Mewatis, Kols and Gonds
who fought in the 1857 Uprising against the British as a community. On
May 10, 1857, when the 3rd Cavalry threw off allegiance to the British
in Meerut to kick-start what is now recognised as the 19th century’s
greatest anti-colonial revolt, the Meerut cantonment had a sizeable
60th Her Majesty Regiment composed of crack British soldiers. The 3rd
Cavalry sowars and 11th and 20th Bengal Native Infantry sepoys did not
have artillery; but the 60th Foot Regiment was well supplied with
cannons. The 60th HMR men could have easily pursued and cut the march
of Meerut revolutionaries towards Delhi. But it was the turbulent
Gujjars of the Meerut countryside who surrounded the British cantonment
in such large numbers that British soldiers found it difficult to
advance.

The Imperial Gazetteer of India states that throughout the “Indian
Rebellion of 1857, the Gujars and Musalman Rajputs proved the most
irreconcilable enemies of the British. A band of rebellious Gujjars
ransacked Bulandshahr after a revolt by the 9th Native Infantry on May
21, 1857.  The British forces were able to retake the town with the
help of Dehra Gurkhas, but the Gujars rose again after the Gurkhas
marched off to assist General Wilson’s column in another area. Under
the leadership of Walidad Khan of Malagarh, the British garrison was
driven out the district. Walidad Khan held Bulandshahr from July to
September, until he was expelled after an engagement with Colonel
Greathed’s flying column. On October 4, the Bulandshahr District was
regularly occupied by the British Colonel Farquhar and measures of
repression were adopted against the armed Gujars.”

During the revolt of 1857, the Muslim Gujjars in the villages of
Ludhiana district showed dissent towards the British authorities. The
British interests in Gangoh city of Saharanpur District were
‘threatened’ by the rebel Gujjars under the leadership of Raja Fathua.
The Gujjars of Chundrowli rose against the British, under the
leadership of Damar Ram. The Gujjars of Shunkuri village, numbering
around 3,000, joined the rebel sepoys.  According to further British
records, the Gujjars plundered gunpowder and ammunition from the
British and their allies. In Delhi, the Metcalfe House was sacked by
the Gujjar villagers from whom the land was taken to erect the
building.

Gujjar turbulence owed a lot to their nomadic status and the British
attempt to settle them as peaceful land revenue paying peasantry.
During the Mughal era, Gujjars were known for their entrepreneurial
role — they not only exchanged milk and other commodities but also
guarded the trade routes of North India. The colonial-British State,
keen to turn every rural element into a peasant, did not understand the
community’s entrepreneurial role. So after 1857, the British classified
the Gujjars (and around 150 other Indian communities) as ‘criminal
tribes’ through the Criminal Tribes Act, 1871. In this move,
communities that had fought for Bahadur Shah Zafar in 1857 were openly
targeted. Several other forces like the Pardhis of Vidarbha and the
Dhangars and the Ramoshi-Berads of Maharashtra and Karnataka also
suffered. Most of them were warrior-nomads or warrior-hunters of the
Mughal and Maratha era. During the colonial era, basic human rights
were denied to these communities. They were literally given an
‘anti-social’ tag. Their position became worse than that of many Dalit
communities in the country.

The Government of India repealed the noxious British act in 1952.
But the after-affects of the social exclusion of these communities
impacted heavily when it came to granting them reservations. Listed
separately as De-Notified Tribes (DNT), they were not at first put in
the Other Backward Classes (OBC), the Scheduled Caste (SC) or the ST
category. By the 1970s, Gujjars of several areas, including Rajasthan,
were granted OBC status. But this created a discrimination as the
Gujjars of North India and the Dhangars of West India were unable to
compete with upwardly mobile OBCs like the Yadavs, the Kurmis, the Jats
(in Rajasthan), the Kunbis (Maharashtra), and the Lingayats and
Vokalligas (Karnataka). A special category of Most Backward Caste (MBC)
with a ‘quota within quota’ situation ought to have been created for
them.

In Bihar, Karpuri Thakur, the MBC Chief Minister of the state in the
late 1970s, created ‘Annexure 1’ and ‘Annexure 2’ especially for the
MBCs. If applied to areas like Rajasthan, this formula could have gone
a long way in ameliorating Gujjar grievances. But apart from Bihar no
other state took the pain of adopting this methodology.

The Gujjars are not alone in agitating. The Kurubas of Karnataka and
the Dhangars and the Ramoshi-Berads of West India, too, have been
demanding ST status for long. So the Gujjar agitation touches a wider
political nerve. Slowly, the ST/SC categories have become more the
monopolies of certain sub-castes within the Dalits and the Adivasis.
While the ‘Chamars’ of Uttar Pradesh and the ‘Mahars’ of Maharashtra
have received the maximum benefit of the SC category, the Meenas of
Rajasthan have exercised a near monopoly in the ‘ST-reserved’ tag in
Rajasthan. So much so that there is a powerful Meena lobby in Delhi and
Rajasthan structures — powerful enough to make even Chief Ministers and
Cabinet Ministers sweat.

The game gets murkier when one comes to UP. Here the Kols,
designated as ST in Bihar and Jharkhand, are listed in the SC category,
where it is almost impossible for them to compete with upwardly mobile
Dalit groups. The Gonds of UP are tagged as ST — but ST is not even a
recognised category in UP! So there are no jobs or electoral
reservations for UP Gonds while Madhya Pradesh Gonds can take advantage
of these privileges as MP recognises the ST category. 

The political leadership in the country does not seem interested in
the problem of MBCs, who constitute more than half of the OBC
population  and about 30 per cent of India’s population. Either the
Bihar formula should be followed everywhere, or special provisions
should have been made for them. Unless this is done, the desperately
poor and backward MBCs, who unlike Dalits have failed to create their
urban middle class, will continue to agitate over their exclusion from
the ST or other beneficial categories. Their agitation now holds the
prospect of altering political equations. It’s time to take a look at
the ongoing demand before it spills further out of control.

The curious case of Karkare, Salaskar and Kaamte

                                           

        After a long time, AR Antulay has

spoken, and he has shaken the Mumbai Police

version of the 26^th November terror attack. If

there is a question mark over who sent

Karkare literally to his death, and this is

what the minority affairs essentially said, than

there is a question mark about Kasab’s

statement that Ismail and he killed Hemant

Karkare, Vijay Salaskar and Ashok

Kaamte—which means there is a question

mark over the entire Police version of the 26^th

November attack as such. 

        It is a right of every citizen of India to

raise questions about the Police version in any

case. But that right becomes a duty as far as

the Mumbai Police is concerned. After all this

is a Police force, which as per the Mumbai

High Court, killed Khwaja Yunus, an accused

in 2002 Ghatkopar Blast case,  in cold blood.

This is again a Police force which produced

the likes of Daya Nayak and Pradeep

Sharma—the latter, an ex-encounter

specialist, is currently in Tihar Jail and his

own superiors DGP AN Roy and Police

Commissioner Hasan Ghafoor have given a written affidavit to the relevant Court stating

the extent and nature of his criminal

activities.

There are more than hundred affidavits of torture and miscarriage of injustice against

Rakesh Maria, who is the chief investigator in

the 26^th November attack. Can we leave

such an important investigation in his

hands? We need an officer of Karkare’s integrity to probe the case.

The Malegaon Blast investigation was important; so much as to have international implications. Pause for a second and think—by arresting Saadhvi Praggya, Raj Kumar Purohit and Dayanand Pandey, and Indranesh, Karkare has started the process to unmask before the world a new face of terror. This face did not wear a skull cap or a long beard and did not speak Arabic or Urdu. It wore a tilak on its head and was dressed in saffron robes.

        There is a note in Karkare’s file that Indranesh took Rs. 3 Crore rupees from the ISI. So just before his death Karkare was doing the impossible—establishing the links of Hindutva terrorist groups with the ISI, something borne out by several statements given by the Lashkar-e-Toiba that they would like to see the BJP come back to power.

The impact which Karkare was making world-wide can be gauged by the kind of interest he was generating on the net. Here one Jewish American commented: “I thought only Muslims were terrorists. I am a law abiding liberal Jew; I am not a Zionist. Yet it was very clear to me that Muslims have some grouse not against me but the entire world. But then I read that someone in the Indian Police was talking about a whole new face of terror—that of Hindu fundamentalists planning and executing bomb blasts. I thought to myself—my God! Then I started investigating the role of Mossad—and I found that even Jewish fundamentalists had been used by Mossad to plan and execute bomb blasts and then blame the event on Muslims. And I again thought to myself—there is more than meets the eye than Muslim terrorism. Terrorism does not have a religion or name”.

        Here an American Jew is saying what

many of us Indians said after the 26^th

November events—that terrorism has no face

and that Hindus and Muslims are one in their

fight against the menace, whether it comes from within India or Pakistan or any other place in the world.

        The unity shown by India during this hour of crisis has shocked the world—it is one of India’s greatest strength and the reason why, despite grim predictions we have survived as a secular nation-state.    

        But that unity requires justice—and a large number of Muslims and secular Hindus and Indians feel that the Malegaon investigations have received a terrible set-back after Karkare’s death. Since 2006 several prominent secular personalities have been trying to place before concerned authorities, evidence of the involvement of Sangh Parivar and other such elements in bomb blasts. If, as is commonly held,  the fight against terrorism is not against any religion, then from a liberal humanist or even a conservative nationalist perspective, the scope of investigation in terror attacks ought to be widened to include misguided individuals of other religions. When the Malegaon investigations revealed the stunning face of what has been called `Hindu terror’, moderate Hindus did not buy the RSS-BJP logic that a Hindu cannot be a terrorist. In fact, while commenting on the pre-26^th

November uproar over Malegaon investigations, the Shankaracharya of Dwarika, Swami Swarupanand clearly said that “if any Hindus are found indulging in criminal acts, they should not be spared. We cannot have two criteria in this country—one for Hindus and another for Muslims”.

        This is now Indian democracy’s acid test—are we going to ridicule Antulay and `conspiracy theories’ or look at the issue dispassionately and in a fair manner? Mumbaikars and educated Indians are asking hard questions: where was Karkare’s Z security when he was asked to go into the field on that fatal day? Who ordered him there? Karkare’s death robbed the Mumbai Police of a leader—his staying alive might have saved at least some lives. Then how come PV Vishwanath, a Jew of India/Mumbai origin was able to talk to terrorists in the Nariman House without the knowledge of Indian officials? Who owns the boats Kuber, Alpha and Al-Kabir? What is their relationship with Narendra Modi? How did the terrorists reach India through the sea route when the National Security Advisor (NSA) and the ex-Home Minister had been briefed by the security agencies that such a thing might happen? Why was the testimony of Faheem Ansari given in Rampur ignored? If there is a security lapse, then why is the NSA still sitting on his chair?  

        National security is not achieved by siding with whatever the State is saying. It is achieved by a vigilant citizenry which asks hard questions. We should become a Police State and face more terror attacks. Or we should start taking seriously the alternative perspective on the Mumbai carnage and ask for a separate investigation into the death of Hemant Karkare.    

                         

   

            

Was the Mumbai attack a contractual-terrorist operation?

A new revelation, which actually repeats a pattern seen before, casts its own shadow over the Mumbai terror attack.

A report, appearing on several Indian and International news agencies claims that, persons who probably brought SIM cards used by Mumbai terrorists could have been Police informers and people working for different Indian State Police or intelligence forces:

“One of the two Indian men arrested for illegally buying mobile phone cards used by the gunmen in the Mumbai attacks was a counterinsurgency police officer who may have been on an undercover mission, security officials said Saturday, demanding his release. The arrests, announced in the eastern city of Calcutta, were the first since the bloody siege ended. But what was touted as a rare success for India’s beleaguered law enforcement agencies, quickly turned sour as police in two Indian regions squared off against one another.

Senior police officers in Indian Kashmir, which has been at the heart of tensions between India and Pakistan, demanded the release of the officer, Mukhtar Ahmed, saying he was one of their own and had been involved in infiltrating Kashmiri militant groups. Indian authorities believe the banned Pakistani-based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba, which has links to Kashmir, trained the gunmen and plotted the attacks that left 171 people dead after a three-day rampage through Mumbai that began Nov. 26.

The implications of Ahmed’s involvement – that Indian agents may have been in touch with the militants and perhaps supplied the SIM cards used in the attacks added to the growing list of questions over India’s ill-trained security forces, which are widely blamed for not thwarting the attacks.

Earlier Saturday, Calcutta police announced the arrests of Ahmed and Tauseef Rahman, who allegedly bought SIM cards by using fake documents, including identification cards of dead people. The cards allow users switch their cellular service to phones other than their own.

Rahman, of West Bengal state, later sold them to Ahmed, said Rajeev Kumar a senior Calcutta police officer.

Both men were arrested Friday and charged with fraud and criminal conspiracy, Kumar said, adding that police were still investigating how the 10 gunmen obtained the SIM cards.

But the announcement had police in Srinagar, the main city in Indian-controlled Kashmir, fuming.

We have told Calcutta police that Ahmed is “our man and it’s now up to them how to facilitate his release,” said one senior officer speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the information. Other police officials in Kashmir supported his account.

The officer said Ahmed was a Special Police Officer, part of a semiofficial counterinsurgency network whose members are usually drawn from former militants. The force is run on a special funding from the federal Ministry of Home Affairs.

“Sometimes we use our men engaged in counterinsurgency ops to provide SIM cards to the (militant) outfits so that we track their plans down,” said the officer.

Police said Ahmed was recruited to the force after his brother was killed five years ago, allegedly by Lashkar-e-Taiba militants for being a police informer.

About a dozen Islamic militant groups have been fighting in Kashmir since 1989, seeking independence from mainly Hindu India or a union with Muslim-majority Pakistan.

India and Pakistan have fought two of their three wars over the Himalayan region, which is divided between them and claimed by both in its entirety.

The Calcutta police denied the claims from Srinagar. “This is not true,” said Kumar.

The bungling and miscommunications among India’s many security services comes as police said they were re-examining another suspected Lashkar militant who was arrested nine months before the attacks carrying hand-drawn sketches of Mumbai hotels, the train terminal and other targeted sites”.

It is a standard and understandable practice of Indian security forces to use captured militants or ex-militants with grievances for counter-insurgency operations. What is strange is that SIM cards purchased by these agents working for Government agencies were used by Mumbai terrorists. We can see here a direct clash between the Kashmir and the Calcutta Police.

This could have been dismissed as a one off instance were it not for the fact that even earlier there have been reports of Police informers and even Pakistanis working as double agents for RAW being framed in terror attacks in India.

One such affair is the strange case of the Red Fort terror attack, resembling the Parliamentary attack, in December 2007. A man named Muhammad Arif alias Ashfaq was caught and sentenced to be hanged for being the mastermind. The Court let all other `terrorists’ go.

Tehelka has this to say in a report:

“Arif candidly acknowledged that he was a Pakistani in his statement under Section 313 of the CrPC. But he also explained in detail the circumstances under which he came to India. Arif claimed that he was an operative for RAW, India’s external intelligence agency. His statement reads: “I used to work for the ‘X’ branch of RAW since 1997. On the last day of June 2000, I went to Kathmandu to give some documents to Sanjeev Gupta. I reached there from Pakistan by a PIA (Pakistan International Airlines) flight on my passport number 634417… Sanjeev Gupta accompanied me to Raxaul and from there I came to India by train. He gave me the address of one
Nain Singh and his telephone number (6834454), saying he would accommodate me. Nain Singh gave me a room in his own house. He advised me not to tell my real name and address to anyone, and to say that I was a resident of Jammu.”

The evidence gathered by TEHELKA indicates that Arif wasn’t lying. He did stay with Nain Singh, who was working for RAW and who admitted before the court that he was employed with the Cabinet Secretariat, the usual euphemism for RAW. Arif stayed for oneand- a-half months in Nain Singh’s house in south-east Delhi’s Okhla village. While Nain Singh acknowledged Arif’s stay in his house, he explained it away by saying that the house belonged to his mother. “Azam Mailk was a tenant in the house. He brought Arif to my mother. I was not in Delhi at the time. Arif informed me that he was a resident of Jammu. I told my mother that the house should not be rented to a Kashmiri. Thereafter he vacated the house within one-and-a-half months.” When the court asked Nain Singh about what he did, Singh replied: “I cannot disclose my present official address. I cannot produce my identity card in the open court (the identity card was shown to the judge and returned). I am working for the Cabinet Secretariat. I cannot disclose whether I am working for RAW.”

But this aspect and Nain Singh’s credentials were not probed:

“Nain Singh was not cross-questioned. The police did not deem it fit to investigate what a Pakistani national charged with a terror attack was doing staying in the house of a RAW operative. Instead, the Special Cell made Singh a government witness. The Delhi High Court took strong exception to this. Says the High Court judgement, “Nain Singh, who appears to have been working for some intelligence wing of the government, definitely cannot be made a prosecution witness. It cannot be expected that he wouldn’t have known that the person to whom he let out his house was a foreigner who had gained illegal entry to India.” Why are Arif’s links with Nain Singh not being enquired into? Are those working for intelligence agencies above the law? The High Court raised objections but went ahead and endorsed Arif’s death sentence. Arif may well be guilty but can he be hanged when so many questions remain unanswered?

There are more loopholes. Phone records indicate that Arif and Nain Singh did not sever their relations after the Pakistani moved out of the RAWofficers’ home. Not just this, Arif was in touch with two officials in the Special Cell ― Inspector RS Bhasin and Ved Prakash ― because they had been introduced to him by Nain Singh. The Delhi High Court in its judgment, however, says: “It appears to us that the accused must have taken some advantage of his acquaintance with the police and intelligence officials, and under the shelter of that acquaintance must have been carrying out nefarious activities.”

The court recognises the fact that Arif was getting some leverage from the Special Cell but stops short of critically examining the phone records according to which Arif and the Special Cell officers were in regular touch with each other. Another question rises over how a man acquainted with members of the Special Cell could have plotted and carried out the attack without their having any idea of it? At any rate, the fact that Arif was in touch with the officers even before the attack casts serious doubts on the objectivity of the investigation”.

In the light of such evidence, it is pertinent to look at what Arif has to say. He denies any role in the Red Fort terror attack. Instead, he alleges that the Special Cell operatives, whom he was in touch with, have falsely implicated him in the case. In his statement, Arif mentions an amount of Rs 7 lakh sent to Nain Singh through Sanjeev Gupta for Arif’s use. “But Nain Singh did not admit to receiving the money… I spoke to Sanjeev Gupta and opened an account with HDFC Bank. My chequebook remained with Nain Singh. Whenever I needed money, I used to take it from Nain Singh. My asking for money used to annoy Nain Singh, and he ultimately got me falsely involved in this case.”

A bank account was indeed opened in Arif’s name at HDFC with the help of fake documents. Arif had a fake ration card and a fake driving licence. His bank account number, 0891000024344, had Rs 5,53,000 at the time of his arrest. According to the police, the money had come through hawala transactions. A person who had access to his account would have gained if Arif was not in the picture.

Arif told the court he had become adamant in demanding his money from Nain Singh. He alleged that on December 25, 2000, Nain Singh called him to his residence, where he met Bhasin and Prakash. The two took Arif to the Lodhi Colony police station and, along with a Sikh officer, interrogated him. “They asked about my entire background,” Arif told the court. Thereafter, he was dropped off at Singh’s house from where he went to his home in Ghazipur in East Delhi. He was arrested there later that night.

The key evidence that links Arif to the site of the crime are the call records of his two mobile phone numbers (9811278510 and 9811242154), which the police claim were used from a single handset (IMEI number 445199440940240). However, TEHELKA’s investigation shows that the records were tampered with (see box). The tampering was done in such a manner as to show that both numbers were used from one phone in Arif’s possession.

There are several inconsistencies in the police version. The time of Arif’s arrest is not the same in the FIR and the arrest memo; the pistol number recovered from Arif recorded in the seizure memo is different from the one mentioned in the expert examination report ― the High Court called it “an inadvertent error by the writer”. There were no public witnesses when the evidence was collected, either at Red Fort or at Arif’s house. While Head Constable Satbir Singh claims that an AK-47 was found near Vijay Ghat, his colleagues claim it was an AK-56.

There is confusion over the route the terrorists are said to have taken to enter Red Fort. While Captain SP Patwardhan says they would have entered from the Saleem Garh Gate/Yamuna Bridge, the cops says they came from the Lahori Gate. The two gates are at opposite ends of the Red Fort complex. The rope the terrorists allegedly used to let themselves down from the walls of the Fort was found lying in a coil on the Fort’s terrace. Nobody saw the terrorists’ faces. The only description available is of two men dressed in black. The chowkidar on duty at the Lahori Gate was never questioned. A call was made from the number 9811278510 to BBC journalists in New Delhi and Srinagar just after the Red Fort attack. The caller said the attack had been carried out by the LeT. Mool Chand Sharma, an inspector in the Special Cell, said in his statement: “I reached Red Fort along with my staff at about 10:45pm.

The commissioner of police and senior army officers were already there. There I came to know that terrorists belonging to the LeT had shot dead three army personnel and escaped.” How did Sharma know the attackers were from the LET even before the investigation had started? To send a man to the gallows on the basis of such flimsy evidence is nothing if not a mockery of justice. Is Arif an easy scapegoat, or is he just a pawn in some greater conspiracy? Hanging him will not provide the answers”.

So what do we make of all this? Has anyone mentioned the Red Fort case? There have been so many instances when several Police agents etc have been double crossed and killed. The pattern seems to be that either these forces are being used by Indian State actors who are aware of their existence or that our security forces have been infiltrated or both.

The second shock comes from the state of Uttar Pradesh (UP); there an India Today report discloses that the Rampur Police has disclosed that much before the Mumbai attack, they had caught a terrorist in Rampur who had confessed about impending attacks not just in Mumbai but Taj and other destinations:

“Mumbai Police had clear intelligence inputs on an imminent terrorist attack, according to the Special Task Force (STF) of Uttar Pradesh police. Contradicting Maharashtra Home Minister R.R. Patil’s claim, the STF said Lashkar-e-Tayyeba terrorist Fahim Ahmed Ansari, presently lodged in Rampur jail, had revealed the plan to it and to Mumbai Police which had interrogated him in February-end.

Fahim was nabbed by the STF on February 10 this year, along with two others, for his involvement in the Rampur CRPF camp attack on January 1, 2008 in which seven soldiers and a civilian were killed. UP police had proclaimed him mastermind for the planned Mumbai attack right after it recovered a map of Mumbai with important establishments earmarked and railway tickets from Lucknow to Mumbai from him. On Thursday, additional director general of police (STF) Brij Lal reiterated the claim: “Fahim was mastermind for the Mumbai attack. He was assigned to make arrangements for terrorists in Mumbai and had visited it several times in this regard. He had revealed all this to us and to Mumbai Police.”

Two terrorists had been nabbed along with Fahim on February 10 – Muhammad Anwar and Arshad Ali. The U.P. STF had arrested three others of the group from Charbagh Railway Station in Lucknow on the same night (February 10) and identified them as Sabauddin Ahmed, Abu Zar and Abu Sama. Sabauddin was also involved in attack on Bangalore’s Indian Institute of Sciences (IISc) on December 28, 2005 in which a professor had died.

The U.P. STF had said that they were fidayeens, trained to attack military camps, police establishments and important civilian centres and were on their way to Mumbai. Brij Lal said when the information was conveyed to Mumbai Police, it took Fahim on remand in the last week of February before he was sent back to Rampur jail in March. “He had revealed during interrogation in Mumbai that he and Anwar had visited all important centres in Mumbai, including the Bombay Stock Exchange and the Taj Mahal Hotel,” he said.

U.P. police also believe the Fahim link gets credence from the fact that the attacks in Mumbai bear a striking resemblance to the attack in Rampur as terrorists ran amok in the city and took people hostage. “Since the Mumbai and Rampur attacks have the same pattern, we believe the terrorists had shelved their Mumbai plan for some time only to execute it to deadly effect now with minor changes in the blueprint,” said a top U.P. police officer. Sources in Uttar Pradesh home department say now Fahim and Anwar would be brought to Lucknow from Rampur jail in a day or two for fresh interrogation”.

Rakesh Maria of the Mumbai has confirmed that “Fahim might be the mastermind behind the Mumbai attack”.

So, if this is Rakesh Maria’s attiude, then what about all the stories that Kasab the terrorist caught by the Police is telling? For the record, Kasab did not mention even once the name of Faheem.

This might be because Kasab did not know about the existence of Faheem―if that is the case, then the Mumbai attack seems much more and more a contractual-mercenary operation, during which the direct executors, people like Kasab, do not know either the `mastermind’ or the mastermind behind the mastermind, who would have given the supari or the contract for the operation.

So, the question which no one is asking, that was this a contract operation? And who might have given out the contract?

This again brings the question of who would benefit from Karkare’s death and the timing of the Mumbai attack―it is important to emphasize that all contractual terrorist operations are, and I am quoting a CIA manual here (the CIA and the Mossad excel in contract terrorism as can be seen from several books, especially on CIA-Mossad operations in Beirut and Lebanon) “in essence a question of gamble. We do it to achieve multiple objectives. But it is almost impossible that all those objectives will be met; even if one or two are met, the operation is a success”.

The Mumbai attack has the appearance of a `multiple objective’ strike, in which some objectives like Karkare’s death were met and some, like BJP’s winning elections in Delhi and Rajasthan were not.

 

 

The Attack on Mumbai

Doubts and People

Some people have raised doubts about the `theory’ I am circulating supposedly on the net. They have every right to question and doubt anyone and anything. After all doubt is the mother of all kinds of right thinking.
I have recevied dead threats, hate mails–but more, I have received praises for courage and conviction.
I am not surprised and I do not mind people ridiculing me or anyone else–but I do mind when that ridicule actually goes a long way in hiding the hypocrisy and criminal face/intent of several prominent politicians and corporate figures.
Yes–corporate figures as well; what people do not understand is that in complex situations such as the Mumbai terror attack, new lines of thought will emerge as more facts emerge. But that should not stop anyone from offering critiques of the official or media version.
My initial theory that basically the Sangh Parivar elements instigated the terror attacks is stronger now. In fact more than the Sangh Parivar, it was Modi–yes he is the new, modern face of Indian fascism. He is the one to have a cozy relationship with Ratan Tata, one of the most ruthless and anti-Indian business man, whose family earned its money while smuggling opium to China during the 19th century, and sided with the British in 1857, when 10 million Indians, Hindus and Muslims, lost their lives fighting the British.
In fact, Modi has left the RSS behind in many ways–he is Mossad’s number one man. Recently, a top RSS functionary told me that “Amaresh we have lost control over out cadres. We never wanted to let things get out of hand in Orissa and Karnataka. In Orissa, we had even planned a joint declaration with Christian leaders. But there was a revolt from below. The VHP and Bajrang Dal refused to fall in line. Then they got the subtle support of that man Modi. We were helpless”.
Basically, the RSS lost control over the Frankestein they created.
In Modi’s form this Frankestein struck a deal with Mossad–now remember Mossad has links in the faction torn ISI–remember also that several `Jihadi’ groups, in Pakistan, Afghanistan and the Middle-East are still remote comtrolled by either the Mossad or the CIA. In a recent case, a Muslim `Jihadi’ organization in Yemen was found to be a Mossad set-up.
That is why it is possible the several young men who attacked Mumbai used Pakistan as a base. But their nationality is varied. Some might be Muslims from the UK as well; at least there is one with a Mauritius passport.
Now it is coming to the fore that someone from Saudi Arabia (called Maulana Bedi for now) probably collected and sent these `Jihadis’. That mastermind must have been paid by an Indian/Modi interest. These masterminds have no ideology. They are creations of America who now work for money, and even against American interests. This is again a complex but stark reality.

Also Nanda, the owner of Oberoi, is a close friend of Modi. He has millions invested in Gujarat. How come terrorists were holed up in Taj and Oberoi for days before the operation? How come arms and ammunition were stored for days in the two 5 star Hotels? Can the common man do this? Is all this possible without some sort of a connivance (known or unknown) of Hotel authorities? And is it too incredible to suppose that Hotel owners will not, knowingly or unknowingly, encourage the destruction of their own property? Taj maybe great for us–but what is its emotional or financial value for Tata? Modi’s acceptance of the Nano plant in Gujarat on extremely favorable terms might be more important for Tata.
I leave this aspect to you all.
Coming to the Nariman House, I am really surprised at the perception that why would a Mossad backed operation kill Jews? Why not? In any case Mossad backs aggressive Zionism, which is very much a modern religo-fascist ideology like Hindutva. Zionism is not part of Judaism, just as Hindutva is not part of Sanatan Dharma, the real religion of Hindus. In the Praggya Singh affair, Sanatan Dharmis opposed Hindutva especially when they were maligning Hemant Karkare.
So Mossad and Zionists are known to have killed ordinary Jews–after all Hindutva ideology killed Mahatama Gandhi–can anyone deny that? Also Modi without a qualm masterminded the killing of several of his own people in the Godhara train incident, in order the create the atmosphere for large scale anti-Muslim and anti-India riots.
Remember evil thrives in the world because the `good’ lacks imagination. Evil triumphs because it is capable of out-thinking `good’.
Those who call themselves supporters of Modi and Advani, they are also supporters of the killers of Gandhi. Hindutva ideology and politics since its inception has been opposed to the idea of a secular Indian nation-state since 1947. They staged an uprising against Indian state in 1947; proof exists that Golwalkar the RSS chief was hand in glove with the British army in carrying out anti-Muslim attacks. This was brought to the notice of Rajeshwar Dayal, the then Home Secretary of the United Provinves (present day UP) who took the case to Govind Ballabh Pant, the the then UP Chief Minister.
Muslims who stayed back in India after 1947 did so because of choice. There was an acute polarization within Muslims between Jinnah and the Muslim League on one side and the Muslim Ulema and its supporters who sided with the Congress.

Karkare’s death

Now the Karkare incident–two versions are already coming out. It is unclear how he was killed–and foul play is suspected. Karkare’s mother came onto TV and wanted to know how her son was killed. Salaskar’s cousin raised the same issue.
So the relatives of the brave martyrs are asking for justice. They feel that there is more than meets the eye–and that somehow Karkare’s death, and that of Kaamte and Salaskar, was related to the Malegaon blast investigation conducted by Karkare.
Why has Karkare’s son refused the 1 crore announced by Modi? The latter came to Oberoi when the firing was still on; he made a very petty statement disliked by everyone. Modi was probably feeling that he had pulled off an ace by triggering this crisis just before elections in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Delhi, areas in which the BJP was clearly losing before the terror attacks.
Think–the boat to Mumbai could not have come without the co-operation of the Gujarat Government!
The fact is that Hindutva forces who were castigating Karkare and the entire Mumbai ATS team as villains and `enemies of Hindus’ are now suddenly hailing them as heroes? What double standards man–people have send me mails, saying that they support Advani and Modi. All these people are supporting the killing of Karkare, just as they supported the killing of Gandhi.
Karkare and Kaamte were true Hindus and the most secular elements within the strife-torn, and highly communal Mumbai Police. They were men of integrity–how come Karkare died while wearing a bullet proof vest? Or like Sharma in the Batala House encounter, was he not wearing that vest? Was he shot in the heart or the neck? Probably we will never know.
But we should know–we have a right to know. Karkare was hated by Hindutva elements. And they masterminded his killing–they are responsible. Karkare is a great hero, a martyr in the cause of secularism.
Modi, Advani and all the anti-Sanatani Hindus posing as Hindus on the net have a distorted mind. In their blind or soft anti-Muslim hatred, they are unable to see how, to suppress the Malegaon Blast investigation, in which Karkare was about to take the name of Praveen Togadia and even Chota Rajan, Karkare was eliminated.
Communal forces backed by foreign agencies are hell bent on destroying India–America wants to dismember Pakistan, gherao China etc. and for that it needs India firmly in the US-Israel orbit. That is why Americans, British and Israelis were targeted. Nariman House was a hub where according to eyewitness reports, several suspicious Israelis were seen coming and out; it is possible that these people were involved in the terror attacks and that they killed their own people.
The Mumbai terror attacks were a gigantic exercise, a fight between those forces within the Indian establishment who want to take India towards the dangerous and suicidal US-Israel nexus and those who want India to stay Independent and have good relations with Pakistan, China and Iran.
Everyone in this battle would not everything or all the countours. But the pattern is becoming clear slowly and steadily.
Indian nationalism has to be redefined–India’s slow drift towards a pro-US and a pro-Israel policy and towards Hindutva gives the ground for people like Maulana Bedi and Mossad to attack India. India has to go back to the anti-Imperialist, Hindu-Muslim unity, anti-Hindutva 1857 nationalism.

Why were the 1857 150th anniversary celebrations downplayed in India? Why was my book on 1857 downplayed? Because the pro-US and pro-Israel lobby did not want 1857, the nodal point of true Indian nationalism to resurrect.

Think…just think…we owe this to Karkare and all brave NSG men and army men…

Thanks to Bush, global terrorism has become an industry, a money making machine. It has other phenomenon like outsourcing war and terror to mercenaries attached to it. Mossad excels in forming armies of private mercenaries and destablizing states the world over. Just go to the net.