Why Home Minister Shivraj Patil must resign
Home Minister Shivraj Patil's job is to keep Indian citizens safe from crime and internal enemies of civilized society, including terror attacks.
He has failed miserably, as attacks keep on occurring with increasing frequency -- Mumbai, Srinagar, Ayodhya, Nagpur, Ghatkopar, Delhi -- several of these cities having seen multiple attacks in the last year itself -- the list keeps growing.
Two weeks ago, I called for the resignation of India's Home Minister Shivraj Patil for his complete all-round failure in doing anything to stop the Islamic terrorist attacks occurring with increasing frequency on innocent Indian men, women, and children.
Aditi Phadnis writes on Rediff explaining how Shivraj Patil got the Home Minister's job, and why he is completely incapable of carrying out the responsibilities of this important position.
Why we don't need a tentative home minister
July 31, 2006
Shivraj Patil's tentativeness comes across too strongly for comfort in his current job.
A home minister represents strength and security. He should speak sparingly but must be seen as someone who does what he says. If he promises justice, justice should be done. He must always play a straight bat, must be able to tell it like it is, must be seen as taking harsh decisions fearlessly and should not be hampered by considerations of looking good -- both literally and metaphorically.
Shivraj Patil is a good man. But he's none of the above.
In his defence it must be said that India has had a succession of less than successful home ministers. Expectations were high of L K Advani. But there were too many in his own ranks -- like the Vishwa Hindu Parishad -- trying to trip him up even then. Whether it was the Graham Staines murder or the Gujarat riots, the National Democratic Alliance government could never shrug off the image of being partisan. In their hurry to pack off Lalu Prasad in Bihar, the NDA let itself be party to the most colossal mismanagement. Although the Kargil intrusions by Pakistan created the opportunity to rewrite history on border management and internal security issues, radical solutions stayed safely between file covers somewhere in the home ministry.
When the United Progressive Alliance government came to power, there was some internal discussion on who the home minister should be. A distillation of conversations with those privy to the selection process in those chaotic days would suggest there were three reasons for choosing Patil for the job. First, it was clear the Congress had to keep the post. Pranab Mukherjee would have been ideal for the post, having been a member of the Home Ministry Standing Committee for years. But he had tried to become prime minister once. P Chidambaram was at that time still seen as an "outsider". Although Arjun Singh's experience as chief minister was valuable, it was felt he might not be able to take the strain of the job. Patil had been Speaker of the Lok Sabha and in terms of protocol, that placed him virtually on a par with the prime minister.
There were two other compelling reasons for choosing Patil. Sonia Gandhi wanted him. And Sonia Gandhi wanted him.
There is a history behind this. In 1999, when Gandhi first came to Lok Sabha, for days she didn't speak, didn't interject, said nothing, did nothing, prompting the NDA to crow about the rediscovery of the goongi gudiya (dumb doll) -- she had the last laugh, but that's another matter. This was quite simply because Gandhi was, understandably, innocent about parliamentary rules, niceties and trickery. It was Patil who was her deputy in the house, who was at her elbow, guiding her, supporting her and mentoring her. He did this selflessly with no axe of his own to grind. Gandhi has never forgotten those days.
Patil has been minister of state for defence and was given independent charge of the commerce ministry between 1982-83, from where he was shifted to science and technology -- a job that he believes he did really well. In the Rajiv Gandhi government, he was minister for personnel, defence production and later held independent charge of civil aviation and tourism. All important jobs in their own right, but hardly qualifications to becoming an effective home minister.
It is crucial for a home minister to have been chief minister: that's where the nitty-gritty of law and order management is learnt. So it was clear to everyone that Patil needed to be given a job but that the home ministry was not it. That's what he got. But with all this, Patil never got over a tentativeness, a kind of self-deprecation that was never there when he was Speaker, but that comes across too strongly for comfort in his current job. One reason for this could be that he is a Rajya Sabha nominee -- he lost the Lok Sabha election and was immediately given a Rajya Sabha seat. The self-confidence of Pranab Mukherjee and the annoying self-righteousness of Kamal Nath derive from the fact that they are both directly elected. Patil lost the election because of Maharashtra politics and local political equations continue to cast a shadow on the home ministry.
Patil is a Lingayat (a minority caste with origins in neighbouring Karnataka) from Latur (a constituency dominated by Marathas). Two other important state leaders, both Marathas, belong to this small town -- former chief minister Shivajirao Patil-Nilangekar and current chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh. The Congress wins elections on the basis of a combination of votes from the Maratha, Muslim and Lingayat communities here. In the 2004 elections, Patil lost to the daughter-in-law of Patil-Nilangekar, which tells its own story about tensions in the local Congress. If Deshmukh ever wants to enter the Lok Sabha, this is the constituency that he will choose. So already from a caste minority, Patil feels hemmed in from all sides. Hence, the lack of assertiveness, the low profile.
This was clearly evident in the handling of the Mumbai bomb blasts. True, law and order is a state subject. Nevertheless, the home minister of India should not be saying that the Centre had the information about the blasts, just not the time and the place. Deshmukh immediately contradicted this. Mercifully, the situation has not reached a point where the chief minister of Maharashtra and the home minister of India are publicly bickering over intelligence. But wait for it.
Looming on the horizon is the Office of Profit Bill. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has gone to President A P J Abdul Kalam four times already to tell him in various ways that the government is preparing to reject his advice. By rights the home minister should be handling this issue. But Patil is too busy roaring at law-breakers, terrorists and assorted villains who are all trembling at the knees.
Wait. Do I hear laughter?
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Pakistani Army's terrorist Major killed when sneaking in Kashmir
Pakistan has carried out terrorism against India for over three decades now, ever since Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and the Pakistani Army realized in 1971 after the three crushing military defeats of 1948, 1965, and 1971 -- in spite of Pakistan having vastly superior American tanks and warplanes to fight India with, and starting hostilities without a declaration of war trying to take India by surprise -- that Pakistan would never win a war against India.
It started using terrorism as an instrument of State policy in Punjab, hoping to capitalize on Hindu-Sikh differences that it (with -- perhaps unwitting -- help from "Divide and Rule"-type Indian politicians) had created and nurtured.
However that failed due to the valiant fight by the Sikhs and Hindus of Punjab in defence of the Motherland, led by people like K P S Gill.
After 1989, Pakistan focused on igniting terrorism on a large scale in Jammu and Kashmir using a large body of Islamic jihadi fighters from countries like Saudi Arabia, Libya, Sudan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, who had been fighting the Soviet Union in Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989, and had been rendered jobless by the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan.
It is no coincidence that Jammu and Kashmir erupted in flames of large scale terrorism in 1989, the same year the Soviet Union withdrew from Afghanistan.
Just as it is no coincidence that Jammu and Kashmir has seen relatively a lot less terrorism ever since the Iraq War began.
The same people and the same terrorist groups that fought USSR in Afghanistan were also fighting Pakistan's terror war for Kashmir's so-called "freedom" (which in truth, if it can be called a "freedom struggle" at all, can only be called a struggle for freedom from secularism and other broad-minded modern values, freedom to practise 7th Century Taliban-style Islam, freedom to torture maim and kill non-Muslims, freedom to keep women as slaves, freedom to behave as barbarians, freedom from Civilization), and those same people and same groups are today fighting American troops in Iraq.
As recent hostilities such as the Kargil War of 1999 show, Pakistan is still using the same policy of producing Islamic fundamentalist jihadi terrorists in the terrorist training camps its Army and its spy agency ISI runs all over Pakistan-Occupied-Kashmir, and sneaking them into India across the Line of Control every day across the mountainous border under cover of night or artillery fire, along with its regular Army soldiers in civilian clothes, and then calling them mujahideen "freedom fighters", trying to pass them off as Indian Kashmiris.
Over the last 30 years, a mountain of evidence of cross-border infiltration has been collected by India and presented to the International Community. A mountain of electronic evidence has been collected that conclusively shows that terror attacks in India are associated with telephone calls, SMS messages, emails, and other electronic communications of instructions and congratulatory messages from Pakistan.
In spite of an enormous body of evidence of Pakistan's culpability in this infamous three-decade-long sting of Crimes against Humanity, the civilized world continues to turn a blind eye.
If 9/11 had not happened, they would probably have been even more blind to Pakistani terrorism against India, if that were possible at all.
USA, UK, and other Western Nations do not care about innocent Indians being killed by Pakistani Government sponsored terrorists, innocent Kashmiri Hindu Pandits living in refugee camps for 30 years. It is not their job to keep Indians safe from terrorism. That is the job of the Indian Government -- the bunch of thieving morons like Mulla Maulayam, Bihar-Democracy-Killer Lallu, Spineless Eunuch Manmohan, and Christian-fundamentalist Sonia Nehru -- elected by the People of India to run their country.
However, the hypocrisy of the Western Nations with regard to ignoring Pakistani terrorism against India continues to erode whatever little credibility and claim to honesty and integrity they still possess.
Rediff reports:
Pak army major among killed infiltrators
Mukhtar Ahmad In Srinagar | July 29, 2006 02:48 IST
Last Updated: July 29, 2006 05:44 IST
A major of the Pakistan army was among the three infiltrators killed in an encounter in Gurez sector of the north Kashmir Baramulla district on July 26.
Defence spokesman Lieutenant Colonel V K Batra told newsmen that Major Mohammad Hyder Turkey alias Abu Bilal a serving major in 9th Baluch batallion of the Pakistan army was among the three slain infiltrators who had crossed over into this side of the Line of Control on Wednesday in Gurez sector.
"The killing of Turkey, a resident of Gujranwalla Pakistan, has confirmed involvement of Pakistan army in the cross border infiltration," the spokesman said.
He identified the other two militants killed in the encounter at Gurez as Mohammad Qasim alias Abu Usman and Mohammad Ayub Khan alias Islam both Pakistan residents.
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Kargil: 7th Anniversary
Hundreds of heroes laid down their lives in Kargil so that India's politicians can continue to steal the poor people's hard-earned money and play Casteist Reservation gains to stay in power.
What has happened to the old parents who lost their sons, the widowed wives who lost their husbands, the orphaned children who lost their fathers ?
Rediff talks to the father of one of the Kargil heroes:
Kargil 7th anniversary: A hero's father speaks
July 25, 2006 13:49 IST
July 26th is Kargil Vijay Diwas, and this year will mark the seventh anniversary of Operation Vijay.
Recalling Kargil hero Major Ajay Prasad's valour, his father, retired defence psychologist R N Prasad, spoke to UNI on the occasion.
'Nothing can aid us now except an aerial attack,' were the words spoken by Major Ajay Prasad on the morning of May 19, 1999 -- the day the Mechanised Infantry officer gallantly fell fighting Pakistani regulars in Avantipur area of Kargil sector.
Pride and grief jostle as Dr Prasad pauses to take off his glasses and wipe away the tears.
"On May 17, Ajay sent a message to his seniors to rush more forces, but it was in vain. The following day he repeated his message as it was his view that the fight was not against terrorists but trained soldiers of Pakistan," the Bhopal-resident says at his Arvind Vihar residence.
"Air strikes were launched only days later but had they started on May 18, many Indian lives could have been saved.
Major Ajay was a fighter, but the situation was unfortunate,'' the martyr's father feels.
Pointing out that insurgency never stops unless struck with a mailed fist, the defence psychologist adds that a comprehensive security cover ought to be provided to Kashmir's local populace so that they overcome their fear and begin disclosing details that will enable the army to emerge victorious in the war against terror.
"While stationed at Akhnoor, Ajay performed his duties so judiciously that not a single jawan under his command suffered any injury even by chance. He was always first to plunge in where danger lurked and kept his men behind him,'' Dr Prasad says.
The drawing room of Dr Prasad's home is decorated with medals bestowed on the officer. One of them is a replica of an ancient warrior presented posthumously on 'Bank Diwas' -- July 1, 1999 -- by the State Bank of India and bearing the legend 'Shaheed Major Ajay Prasad ke balidan ko naman'.
"Commissioned as a second lieutenant into the 18 Rajput Regiment in June 1988 after training at the Indian Military Academy, Dehradun, he was asked to report to the 13 Mechanised Infantry at Trincomalee in Sri Lanka during the Indian Peace-Keeping Force's Op Pawan," Dr Prasad narrates.
While later combating Kuki militants in Manipur, the officer received warnings no less than four times. One of them said: 'Major Ajay, you have old parents, a beautiful wife and a lovely child. You better look after them. Our struggle was on even in the British era and will continue.'
"In the post-Kargil period, the martyr's wife was provided a job as lecturer in the local Sarojini Naidu Government Girls Post-Graduate (Nutan) College but later remarried and shifted to the cantonment town Jabalpur along with her daughter," Lieutenant-Colonel (retd) Suresh Chandra Dixit -- who is District Sainik Welfare Officer and Secretary, District Sainik Board (DSB), Bhopal -- told UNI.
Regarding what the army could do to help the kin of martyrs, he says: "It will be beneficial if the army canteen facilities are also extended to parents of martyr officers."
It is the society's responsibility to look after this segment.'' concludes Dr Prasad, whose other son is a commander in the Indian Navy.
Rediff presents a slideshow:
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| Remembering Kargil's heroes, seven years on July 26, 2006
India was busy celebrating then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's successful Lahore visit. Pakistan was busy putting its pawns in place for war with India. The battleground was high, the terrain was inhospitable, the task was tough. The Indian soldier's resolve was stronger, and the enemy got a fitting battering. And it has been seven years today, seven years since our pride was restored. Because July 26 is Vijay Divas, the day we celebrate our victory in the Kargil War, the day the Indian soldier helped us hold our heads high. Guarding Our Pride: An Indian Army memorial service for Kargil War heroes in Dras, about 180 km east of Srinagar. |
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|  | Units of the Pakistan army had occupied the heights overlooking the strategic National Highway 1 Alpha, the breathtaking road which runs from Srinagar to Leh. The highway is the lifeline to Ladakh and the all-important base on the Siachen glacier. India could not afford to let enemy guns batter this lifeline. The Indian Army was caught unawares. It took a while for it to take stock. For many brave, young Indians, it was their first war. Last Post: Flowers mark the memorial service in Dras. |
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| | Those brave, young Indian soldiers needed to be heroes, not just men. They had to wrench back the high mountain posts the enemy had taken by deceit. Even in aggression, the Indian soldiers were restrained. Their brief was: Do not cross the Line of Control, even if the enemy flees across; win back the peaks. The Indian Army rose to the challenge. Its heroes climbed the perilous slopes with ammunition and weapons. They braved altitudes where just to breathe is a tough task. All the while, enemy gunfire and artillery rained on them. We Before I: Indian Army soldiers at the memorial service in Dras. |
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| | Initially, India suffered setbacks and casualities. But onto the mountains of death climbed its bravest sons. Soon, the peaks began to fall. The recapture of Tiger Hill was when the country knew that its soldiers had not died in vain. Kargil gave the country many young and fearless champions. Names like Captain Anuj Nayyar, Lieutenant, later Captain Vikram Batra, Captain Manoj Pandey became household heroes. The Indian Army lost 600 soldiers. Six hundred families lost sons, husbands, fathers. The country won back its pride. Lest We Forget: Widows of Kargil War heroes at the Dras memorial service. |
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Pro-Palestinians making pathetic economic arguments against Israel's punishment of Hezbollah
People opposed to Israel's punishment of the Hezbollah terrorist group are running out of excuses for why the Islamic terrorists should not pay for the crimes they commit.
They are starting to make up really bad excuses, like this one published on The Economist by an unidentified author who probably was too shamed to put his name on his bogus theory: he is trying to make the case that Israel should not fight Hezbollah because such fighting hurts its stock market in the short-term.
The article claims:
"... An analysis of more than 100 assassination attempts carried out by Israel between 2000 and 2004 shows that the Tel Aviv 25 index dropped by an average of 1.1% in response to an attempted assassination of a Palestinian political leader. The killing of a Palestinian leader from the military wing led to a 0.6% increase in the stockmarket. The market reaction to a large terrorist attack against Israel brought an average drop of 1.2%—a response only marginally greater than if Israel killed a Palestinian politician. ..."
This is an example of anti-Israeli lobbies using pseudo-science and drawing ridiculous conclusions.
Here are the top two major flaws in this particular argument:
1. Israeli anti-terror action might cause stock market fall in short-term, but better performance long-term. The study only looks at short-term falls, which are bound to happen in any situation of uncertainty. By this argument, no war should ever be fought because they will always cause short-term economic losses.
2. Economists consider the stock market to be a "martingale"; it behaves as a random walk. Movements up and down in the short-term are random and cannot be explained by any single or any small number of causes. The rise and fall happen due to such a very large number of causes that it is meaningless to pick on any one or small number of events as the cause. It is best to think of short-term movements happening randomly for no particular cause.
Thus the study attempting to find causal relationships between Israeli action and stock market reaction, is ridiculous. The stock market behaves like a random walk; there is no way to know exactly what factors made it move up or down. This is a scientific conclusion reached by economists; doesn't matter how confidently your financial news reporters claim "Intel's earnings made it move lower" or "FedEx earnings report made it move higher".
The full article from The Economist is as follows:
Counterterrorism and stockmarkets
A calculation of conflict
Jul 20th 2006
From The Economist print edition
When is counterterrorism counterproductive? Ask the stockmarket
THE decline in the Israeli stockmarket as Israel's conflicts with Hizbullah and Hamas have intensified—9.4% between July 10th and July 13th, though it has revived since—may reflect more than the expected financial response to unrest and uncertainty. If a recent study of the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange is any guide, Israel's targeting of Palestinian political leaders in response to the capture of its soldiers has been counterproductive. Although Israel's army says it has been careful to minimise casualties during its latest incursions into Gaza and Lebanon, a study* by Asaf and Noam Zussman, brothers and economists at Cornell University and the Bank of Israel respectively, shows that the stockmarket's reaction to counterterrorism favours attacks on important militants rather than on political leaders or low-ranking militants.
An analysis of more than 100 assassination attempts carried out by Israel between 2000 and 2004 shows that the Tel Aviv 25 index dropped by an average of 1.1% in response to an attempted assassination of a Palestinian political leader. The killing of a Palestinian leader from the military wing led to a 0.6% increase in the stockmarket. The market reaction to a large terrorist attack against Israel brought an average drop of 1.2%—a response only marginally greater than if Israel killed a Palestinian politician.
The stockmarket is an appealing indicator of the effectiveness of counterterrorism measures because terrorism damages the Israeli economy and the market gauges public perception of the news. The goal of Israel's strategy of assassinating leaders is to weaken the capabilities of their organisations without inspiring further attacks. The study concludes that eliminating leaders in the military wing of an organisation is most productive, as these people recruit and train terrorists and plan attacks. Their deaths are a drain on the organisation's resources. Those on the political wing tend to be spiritual, social or political leaders, and attacks against them motivate future violence because they are seen by Palestinians as actions that break the rules of engagement.
Some industries, such as security, benefit from an increase in terrorist attacks. But counterterrorist actions have had a wider impact on the Israeli economy. The effects on the market are not just ephemeral, emotional responses that disappear in a day. The study finds that they can linger for weeks. The violence in Lebanon remains so volatile and fluid, says Asaf Zussman, that it is difficult to divine what the market's initial response means.
Perhaps surprisingly, the assassination study shows that both sides of this coin look alike. The Palestinian stock exchange's Al-Quds index reacted similarly to the Tel Aviv 25, probably because the Palestinian economy is so closely tied to Israel's. Perhaps behind those common numbers is common ground: investors on both sides see that a capable Palestinian political leadership remains in the best interest of both.
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Lashkar-e-Tayiba terrorists have penetrated Indian Army, Air Force
With the weak-kneed UPA Government soft on terror, this was bound to happen.
When you shy away from fighting the enemy, the enemy gets more ambitious and audacious.
Are all those MiG aircraft crashes really accidents ? Or are some people in the Indian Air Force secretly committing acts of sabotage once in a while ?
Were the explosions in arms depots, targetted attacks on troop trains, and large number of accidental deaths that happened when Indian Army mobilized to the Pakistani border after the attack on the Indian Parliament -- all accidents ? Or were they helped by acts of sabotage, or inside information from the Indian Army on troop movements by terrorist or Pakistani spies ?
Does the Indian Government understand how much more dangerous these -- even one -- Pakistani/terrorist agent in the Armed Forces can be at a critical moment in a critical position ?
Rediff reports:
Lashkar has penetrated IAF: Television channel
rediff News Bureau | July 21, 2006 23:07 IST
The Lashkar-e-Tayiba has penetrated the Indian Air Force, the Times Now television channel claimed in a report on Friday evening.
Quoting from a letter which the television channel said National Security Adviser M K Narayanan wrote to the central and state governments in November 2005, Times Now said two Lashkar activists had joined the IAF.
Narayanan's letter was based on an assessment made by the National Security Council Secretariat.
The national security adviser refused to comment if the letter was authentic.
Speaking to the channel from Chennai, rediff.com columnist and former Research and Analysis Wing official B Raman said he thought the language in the letter was authentic and Narayanan's signature appeared to be real.
The IAF told the channel that it checks and rechecks the antecedents of its personnel, making it difficult for a Lashkar operative to infiltrate its ranks.
The Times Now television channel is jointly owned by Bennett Coleman & Co, publishers of The Times of India newspaper, and Reuters News Service.
Times of India reports:
Lashkar cadre in Indian Air Force?
NEW DELHI: Celluloid nightmares may be becoming reality. A letter written by National Security Advisor MK Narayanan to all state chief ministers has hinted at the possible infiltration of the Indian Air Force by Lashkar-e-Toiba cadre.
An expose by the Times Group television channel Times Now revealed on Friday that the NSA's letter dated November 30 last year had drawn the CMs' attention to the possibility that two Lashkar-e-Toiba cadre had infiltrated the IAF.
The letter is based on a 40-page national security report
from the National Security Council Secretariat. Times Now has a copy of Narayanan's letter and has been repeatedly showing it on television since noon on Friday.
Times Now quoted an IAF spokesman as saying that the force conducted minute verifications to ensure there were no infiltrations.
The country is still shaken at the audacity and meticulous planning of the Mumbai blasts last week and the possibility of the armed forces being infiltrated will only add to the fear that terrorist groups are successfully spreading their tentacles through the nation's core.
Reacting swiftly, former Defence Minister George Fernandes has already demanded the resignation of Narayanan. The BJP, meanwhile, has asked the UPA government to change its mindset on terror given the aggressiveness of the terrorist groups and to reassure the nation through a detailed statement on the issue.
Senior party leader Arun Jaitley pointed out that "the armed forces is the last bastion of Indian security" and the revelation should not just "wake up, but shake up this government".
The main Opposition party has repeatedly attacked the Manmohan Singh government for being "soft on terror”. The bone of contention is the Prevention of Terrorism Act that the BJP-led NDA had pushed through in its reign, but which the Congress and its allies are completely opposed to as a "draconian law."
Times of India reports:
Terror in the ranks: 2 soldiers taken in for LeT links
SRINAGAR: Within days of an ominous warning by the country's top security adviser about terrorists infiltrating the armed forces, two soldiers have been picked up in Kashmir for possible links with the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).
In the first such case in 17 years of terrorism in the Kashmir Valley, two policemen were also taken in by intelligence officials, besides the two J&K Light Infantry men. Last week, TOI made public a letter by national security adviser M K Narayanan warning the states that terrorists could have found a way into the Air Force.
Military Intelligence officers picked up the soldiers - identified as Lance Naik Mohammad Shakeel and Sepoy Abdul Haq - to interrogate them about alleged links with a LeT field commander responsible for organising attacks in the border districts of Poonch and Rajouri.
The arrested policemen - Sikander and Kabir - were picked up after a LeT module was busted at Mendhar in Poonch district. Police sources said they had been working for LeT for the past three years.
The depth of their involvement is being probed. Military sources said jawans Shakeel and Haq, who are from Gursai village in Mendhar tehsil in Poonch district, were taken into custody on Saturday following a tip-off that they had been contacted by Pakistani national Abu Osama, who is LeT's divisional commander for the Jammu region.
"Military Intelligence has picked up the two, but facts will come out only after the agency discloses what the erring soldiers said," Army spokesman Lt-Col R K Chibbar told TOI...
The preliminary interrogation report, sources said, reveals the two were contacted by Abu Osama to deliver money to LeT men.
The soldiers were allegedly asked to arrange for SIM cards, batteries and pencil cells, and to deliver letters to other LeT field commanders and operatives.
Shakeel and Haq told interrogators they were forced to help LeT after terrorists threatened to eliminate their families if they refused to carry out instructions, intelligence sources said.
The Army Headquarters in New Delhi, however, downplayed the incident, saying that it was not a case of terrorists infiltrating its ranks.
"In an operation on June 15, two over ground workers of a terrorist group were picked up in the Rajouri-Mendhar area. On interrogation, they named two soldiers for providing them administrative support. When the soldiers were questioned, they said their families in the Mendhar area had provided terrorists food and shelter on being threatened by them," said a senior officer.
Given the likelihood of terrorist infiltration in the Army, a central intelligence agency has suggested that the defence ministry and Union home ministry order a thorough screening of the forces.
Sleuths say terrorists may have also infiltrated the police and paramilitary forces. Also on Tuesday, J&K IG S P Vaid said the two policemen were also being investigated for alleged terrorist links.
"The busting of a LeT module in Mendhar in Poonch has exposed the involvement of two policemen as over ground LeT workers. We have arrested the men, who were posted at Kathua and Surankot in Poonch district respectively. Both had been working for LeT for the past three years, and they had been in the police for just five years.'
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It is not the job of the US to stop Pakistani terrorism against India
Indian Government has made a habit of running to the US each time a new devastating instance of Pakistani terrorism occurs against India.
Just like a beaten-up school-boy runs to the teacher: "Teacher, Teacher, look look, the classroom bully has beaten me up... Aap kucch kijiye naa !!!"
As if it is the job of the US Government to keep India's citizens safe. That is the job of the Indian Government.
These terror attacks are just a small part of a long history of Islamic terror. India has faced a thousand years of vicious and violent attacks from Radical Islamists: Aurangzeb, Alla-ud-din Khiljee, Ghiyas-ud-din Balban, Muhammad bin Qasim, Muhammad bin Tughlaq, Muhammad Ghori, Mahmood of Ghazni, Nadir Shah, Ahmed Shah Abdali, Timurlane, Babur, and Tipu Sultan, and several tens of mass-murderers more over a thousand years of Taliban-style religious oppression and persecution that made an entire "Hindu Kush" ("Hindu killing") mountain range of the mighty Himalayas recollect the horror for all time, culminating in the infamous rule of the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb, and now Musharraf: the people change, their roles remain the same: the ethnic cleansing of the kaafir Hindus and Sikhs from what little remains of their ancestral homeland. While this was difficult earlier because of limitations of destructive and transportation technology, and because of valiant Hindu and Sikh leaders like Chhatrapati Shivaji, Rana Pratap, Rana Sanga, Prithviraj Chauhan, Guru Teg Bahadur and the other Nine Gurus, the Hindus and Sikhs (and moderate Muslims) of India today have elected spineless, cowardly, money-hungry, unprincipled, and character-less eunuchs like Manmohan Singh, Lallu Prasad, and Mulla Mulayam to rule over them, making idiotic noises in press conferences while safely protected by their brave and selfless Black Cat Comando body-guards. So, the elimination of the kaafirs is proceeding with accelerating pace as RDX does the job far more effectively than the sword from a thousand years ago, while the thieving eunuchs who rule India watch on impassively as innocent Indians die, while they calculate how to stay on in power for another five years using the Muslim and various Caste Vote Banks, and check up on how much money they've managed to steal from the pockets of hard-working Indians and hoard in their Swiss bank accounts.
Indian lives don't matter to the US Government (whether Republican or Democrat) because India's own Government does not care about the lives of its own citizens.
India's own Government does not care about the lives of its own citizens because it knows that India's people have a very short memory. They forget the victims of past terror attacks within a couple of weeks, and move on. "Everything goes back to normal".
So, the Home Minister Shivraj Patil sits tight in spite of all-round failure in maintaining the safety and security of innocent Indian lives from Pakistani terror attacks, knowing that Indians will not remember these attacks long enough to punish him for his incompetence and lack of concern about the need to keep Indian lives safe.
Since India's own Government does not care about keeping Indians safe, why should other countries -- like USA -- care ? It is not their responsibility to keep Indians safe from Pakistani terrorism.
Pakistan is useful to them. Pakistan dances to their tune. Pakistan serves as their lap-dog. So they keep Pakistan safe from Indian retaliation. They will never support India against Pakistan, in spite of all the evidence we have given them so far of Pakistani Government and ISI's active involvement in terrorism in Punjab in the past and in Kashmir now.
Why should they ? India's own Government does not care about its own people. India's secular leaders like Mulla Mulayam support and defend terrorist groups like SIMI -- a group that has explicitly called for the establishement of an Islamic state in place of secular India through terrorism as part of violent religious war or Jihad -- immediately after clear evidence of their involvement (along with Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Tayiba) in the Mumbai blasts, and blame RSS instead, without any evidence at all, hoping to emerge champions of the Indian Muslim community.
India's own leaders don't care about what happens to innocent Indians; all they care is who gets how much of the Muslim vote bank.
So why should the US care about helping India save her innocent citizens from Pakistani terrorism ?
Nobody can save people who do nothing to save themselves. Indians have allowed a bunch of morons like Sonia Gandhi, Lallu Prasad, Mulla Mulayam, Arjun Singh, etc, ostensibly led by a reasonably educated economist called Manmohan Singh who has no political power at all and instead acts as a puppet for Sonia, to rule their country. Now they deserve to get what happens to people who select a bunch of morons to rule them.
Blaming the US is useless. The US will only do what is best for itself. Every country has the right to do what is best for itself. The US has no responsibility to help India against Pakistani terrorism.
So it is no surprise that the US prefers to help Pakistan -- by shielding it from punishment from India for the crimes it has been committing aganinst India by killing innocent Indian men women and children through acts of terror -- rather than help India.
Edit: The phrase "wearing saris and bangles" (used to describe Indian politicians) was removed because it is offensive to Indian women.
B Raman writes on Rediff:
'Never trust the US on Pakistan'
July 21, 2006
There has been considerable disappointment in India over what is perceived as the continuing US reluctance to act against Pakistan for using terrorism against India.
The negative attitude of President Bush and the US State Department in the wake of the Mumbai blasts of July 11 is nothing new. Protection of Pakistan from the consequences of its wrong-doing against India has been a consistent element in US policy-making towards India and Pakistan ever since our independence in 1947 -- whichever party was in power in Washington, DC.
To illustrate this, I am giving below instances, which were within my personal knowledge as an officer of the Intelligence Bureau from July 1967 to September 1968, and of the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW) from September 1968 to August 31, 1994:
The Sino-Indian war of 1962 brought out the serious inadequacies in the IB's capability for the collection of technical intelligence about China. After obtaining then prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru's approval, the IB sought the assistance of US intelligence for strengthening its TECHINT capability.
US intelligence, with the approval of John F Kennedy, then the US president, agreed to supply the required equipment and train IB officers who would be using this equipment. However, it imposed a condition that this equipment would be used only for the collection of TECHINT from China and not from Pakistan. When R&AW was formed in September 1968, with the late Rameshwar Nath Kao as its head, the division handling this equipment was transferred to R&AW.
In the 1970s, Kao visited Washington, DC at the invitation of the then director of the Central Intelligence Agency to discuss Indo-US intelligence cooperation.
Some years later, Kao told me that during his discussions in Washington DC, the CIA chief told him as follows: 'Ramji, we all cheat in this profession. I know R&AW will cheat and use the equipment given by us for the collection of TECHINT about Pakistan. Make sure our State Department does not come to know of it. If it does, the State Department will demand that we cancel our cooperation with you and withdraw from you the equipment given by us. I will have to do this.'
Between 1981 and 1984, Khalistani terrorists hijacked a number of Indian Airlines aircraft to Lahore. When one of these aircraft landed in Lahore, Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence found the hijackers had no weapons.
They had intimidated the pilot into flying to Lahore by claiming that they had a weapon which they would use if he did not obey their instructions. The ISI gave the hijackers a German-made revolver. They used that revolver to intimidate the pilot to take the plane to Dubai. The Dubai authorities terminated the hijacking, seized the revolver from the hijackers and handed it over to the Indian authorities.
R&AW sought the assistance of the then West German intelligence to find out who this revolver was sold to by the German company that had manufactured it. After making enquiries, the West German intelligence replied that the revolver seized by the Dubai authorities from the Khalistani hijackers was part of a consignment sold by the West German company to the Pakistan army.
The State Department was not prepared to accept this as adequate proof of Pakistani sponsorship of terrorism against India.
After the Khalistanis took to terrorism in 1981 with the ISI's assistance, the IB and R&AW collected a lot of intelligence regarding ISI training camps in Pakistani Punjab for the terrorists, the arms and ammunition supplied by the ISI to the terrorists etc.
Whenever we produced this intelligence before the US authorities and requested them to act against Pakistan, they would reject it on the ground that the intelligence was gathered during interrogation of suspects, who must have been tortured by the Indian police.
When we produced technical intercepts, they would reject them on the ground that it was difficult to prove their authenticity.
After the blowing up of Air India's Kanishka off the Irish coast on June 23, 1985, Western intelligence agencies got worried over the activities of the Khalistani terrorists. Many of them started monitoring the activities of the terrorists. They collected valuable technical intelligence regarding the ISI's assistance to the terrorists.
One Western agency even collected intelligence that the ISI had given shelter in Pakistani territory to Talwinder Singh Parmar, the leader of the Babbar Khalsa in Canada, who was actively involved in blowing-up the Kanishka.
These agencies (not those of the US) shared with R&AW all the intelligence collected by them about the links between the ISI and Khalistani terrorists. I was asked to visit the headquarters of these intelligence agencies, meet my counterparts and request them to share with the CIA the intelligence collected by them regarding the Pakistani sponsorship of terrorism.
I did so, and told my counterparts: "Look, I have not been able to convince the CIA about the Pakistani sponsorship. Every time I produce any intelligence, the CIA rejects it on some ground or the other. You have collected your own independent intelligence. If you share it with the CIA, it would find it difficult to reject it."
All my interlocutors gave me identical replies: "We know the CIA has more intelligence regarding the Pakistani sponsorship of terrorism against India than all of us together have. The CIA was convinced a long time ago about the ISI's sponsorship of terrorism. The problem is not with the CIA. It is with the State Department, which does not want to act against Pakistan."
In the early 1990s, Lal Singh alias Manjit Singh of the International Sikh Youth Federation clandestinely came to India from Pakistan. The Gujarat police arrested him. He was wanted in a number of cases in India, the US and Canada.
I informed my counterparts in the Canadian and US intelligence that they could send their officers to interrogating him. I assured them that no Indian officer would be present during the interrogation. The Canadians availed of the offer and sent a police officer to interrogate him. The US agencies decided not to avail of the offer.
I came to understand later that the State Department advised them not to send anybody to interrogate him. It was apparently afraid that if Lal Singh gave the US interrogator details of the ISI's role, it would find it difficult to reject his evidence as possibly obtained through torture.
In 1992, under the instructions of (then prime minister P V) Narasimha Rao, the IB, R&AW and the ministry of home affairs mounted a coordinated campaign to make the international community and US political and public opinion aware of the Pakistani sponsorship of terrorism against India.
The IB and R&AW prepared a detailed dossier giving details of all the evidence collected by them against the ISI. A team consisting of two officers of the home ministry and one from the IB was sent to Washington to hand over copies of this dossier to the US authorities and request them to declare Pakistan as a State sponsor of terrorism.
After doing so, they also presented the dossier at a press conference at the Washington Press Club. The State Department summarily rejected the dossier.
In 1992, terrorists belonging to the Jammu & Kashmir Liberation Front attacked a group of young Israeli tourists, who had gone to J&K. They killed one of them and kidnapped another, who was subsequently released. Following this incident, Jewish circles started criticising the unsympathetic attitude of the US towards India's complaints against Pakistan.
Just before the presidential elections of November 1992, President George H W Bush, the father of the present president, reportedly ordered a second look at the dossier against Pakistan submitted by India.
The officials, who did so, reportedly recommended that instead of declaring Pakistan a State sponsor of terrorism, it could be placed in a list of suspected State sponsors of terrorism. Bush, who lost the election to Bill Clinton, did not act on the recommendation. He left the decision to his successor.
After assuming office in January 1993, Clinton placed Pakistan on a list of suspected State sponsors of terrorism. The weighty nature of the Indian dossier played a role in this decision, but there was a more important reason. The CIA had developed a strong dislike of Lieutenant General Javed Nasir, the then director general, ISI, for not cooperating with a drive launched by it to persuade the Afghan mujahideen to sell back to the US their unused stock of Stinger missiles, given to them for use against Soviet troops.
The US used the Indian dossier to force then prime minister Nawaz Sharif to remove Javed Nasir and some other ISI officers, whom it looked upon as uncooperative in its efforts to buy back the Stinger missiles. Nawaz Sharif complied.
Benazir Bhutto, who was then the leader of the Opposition, rang up Peter Galbraith, son of former the US ambassador to India J K Galbraith, and some other university mates of hers, who were close friends of Clinton, to request them to see that Pakistan was not declared a State sponsor of terrorism.
She told them she expected elections to be held in Pakistan later that year and that she was confident of coming back to power. She assured them that if she came back as prime minister, she would stop the ISI's use of terrorism against India.
In July 1993, Warren Christopher, the then secretary of state, announced that the US had decided to remove Pakistan from the list of suspected State sponsors of terrorism for want of adequate evidence. Benazir Bhutto won the elections in October 1993, and returned as prime minister. But she did not ask the ISI to stop the use of terrorism against India. R&AW must have in its archives the transcripts of Bhutto's telephonic conversations with Peter Galbraith and others.
During the investigations into the serial blasts of March 12, 1993 in Mumbai, the IB and R&AW collected the following evidence regarding the involvement of the ISI:
* Photocopies of the manifests of the Pakistan International Airlines regarding the travel of the perpetrators from Dubai to Karachi for training and their return to Dubai after the training;
* Their traveling with visas on plain sheets of paper issued by the Pakistani consulate in Dubai so that their Indian passports did not carry any entry of their visit to Pakistan;
* Evidence of their being received at Karachi airport and driven directly from the tarmac into the city without having to pass through immigration; statements of the perpetrators in which they gave the details of the training and arms and ammunition given to them by the ISI;
*
Evidence that they fled to Karachi via Dubai or Kathmandu after the blasts and from there were taken to Bangkok and kept there for a month by the ISI.
All this evidence was rejected by the US as falling short of proving Pakistani complicity.
The police recovered from the blast site some hand grenades of Austrian design and a timer. Austrian experts flew to New Delhi, examined the hand-grenades and certified in writing that these grenades were of Austrian design and had been manufactured in a Pakistani government ordnance factory with technology and machine tools sold by an Austrian company to the Pakistan government.
They said the Government of India could use their report for any purpose it desired.
American counter-terrorism experts, who visited Mumbai at our invitation, saw the timer and said that it looked like timers manufactured in the US. They wanted to take it to the US for forensic examination. They promised they would return it after the examination. I agreed to it.
After some days, they sent me an unsigned report on a plain piece of paper that the timer had been manufactured in the US and was part of a consignment given by the US to Pakistan in the 1980s.
I pointed out this was the smoking gun which they had been asking for and said they should now be able to declare Pakistan a State sponsor of terrorism.
They said this was not sufficient evidence against the government of Pakistan. They claimed that there were instances of leakage of arms and ammunition from Pakistan government stocks into the hands of arms smugglers and contended that the terrorists could have procured it in the smugglers market. They also said their report could not be used by us in a court of law.
When I asked them to return the timer, they claimed their forensic laboratory had destroyed the timer by mistake and that they were taking action against the lab for negligence.
After my retirement, I used to narrate to Kao and others how the Americans cheated me by destroying the timer. Once, Kao asked: "How were you so naive in trusting them and handing over the timer to them? One should never trust the US in matters concerning Pakistan. The US will never act against Pakistan for anything it does to India."
This is as valid today as it was in the past.
Rediff reports on more evidence of terror camps in Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir:
'Terrorist camps exist in PoK, Pakistan'
July 22, 2006 18:37 IST
Mudasir Gujri, a top commander of the Lashker-e-Tayiba, arrested by Jammu and Kashmir Police, has confirmed that Pakistani agencies were training terrorists in camps across the border.
Mudasir, the mastermind behind the series of blasts in Srinagar, Jammu and fidayeen attack on Congress rally in April, May and July this year, has confessed to the presence of a number of training camps in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, state Director General of Police Gopal Sharma told reporters in Srinagar on Saturday.
He said Mudasir has revealed certain details about the LeT and the direct hand of the Pakistani agencies in training terrorists and organising subversive activities in Kashmir.
Asked if Mudasir had said anything about the Mumbai blasts, the police chief replied in the negative.
Sharma said one Abu Alqama, based in Pakistan, was controlling all terrorist operations in the Jammu and Kashmir. According to Mudasir, it was Abu Alqama who had directed him to target tourists and Amarnath pilgrims.
The Jammu and Kashmir police chief said Lashkar-e-Tayiba had a separate operational chief for other Indian states. "We had information that one Jehangir was heading the operations in other Indian states," he said.
He said Mudasir, who carries several aliases to his name, a resident of Tillar in Kishtwar area of Doda district in Jammu region, was a Pakistani national. Mudasir was motivated by one Abu Osama of Pakistan in 1999 to join the LeT and was taken to Pakistan via Hill Kaka in Poonch.
After spending four years there in different training camps, including Ibn Tamiya and Abdullah Bin Masood at Kotli in PoK, he received religious indoctrination at Markaz Tayiba at Mureed-ke in Lahore where he met top LeT leaders including Abu Abdullah Gazi, Abu Usama and several Inter Services Intelligence trainers before being finally pushed back here in August 2004 via Athmuqam.
Sharma said Mudasir was coordinating and organising attacks in the Kashmir valley, particularly in Srinagar city. He was behind the grenade attacks on Border Security Force and Central Reserve Police Force bunkers in the valley.
Sharma said Mudasir, a resident of Tilar, Kishtwar, in Doda district of Jammu region has admitted his involvement in the militancy-related incidents. It was he who distributed grenades among the militants for carrying out a series of grenade attacks in the city on April 14 and July 11 in which more than a dozen persons, mostly tourists from Kolkata, were killed and scores injured.
The police chief said Mudasir also masterminded the Fidayeen attack on a Congress rally here on May 21 in which seven police personnel were killed and Inspector General of Police K Rajinder Kumar was injured.
He said following the assault on chairman of the breakaway Hurriyat Conference in Jammu by Shiv Sena activists, Abu Alqame directed Mudasir to take revenge. However, on the direction of Abu, Mudasir sent three terrorists -- Master Bilal, Riyaz Babu and Wasim, a resident of Srinagar -- to Jammu next morning.
Sharma said Mudasir and three terrorists, since arrested, reached Jammu at 0230 hours and after hurling grenades near a bus stand returned back to Srinagar. He said Mudasir was responsible for other various grenade attacks, shootings and killings at Sopore, Srinagar and other parts of the valley.
... Read more !
Why I am ashamed to be Indian
I received this article by email from a dear Reader who wishes to remain anonymous. I have made some minor modifications, such as adding the explanatory remarks on the "Fourth World War" at the bottom.
Why I am ashamed to be Indian
By Anonymous
There are many reasons; I'll write just one.
Under International Law, the Geneva Conventions, and the founding principles of the United Nations Organization, a Sovereign country has the RIGHT and OBLIGATION to protect people inside its borders; no other country can threaten them without approaching the government of the latter country and opening up extradition proceedings.
A threat from a country to the people inside the borders of another is an Act of War.
When Salman Rushdie wrote "The Satanic Verses", Iran's Ayatollah Khomenei passed a fatwa against him, calling for his death.
This was an Act of War by Iran against India, under International Law.
India not only ignored this grave provocation and insufferable insult to her by Iran in the interntional community, but also actually invited it, by being the first country in the world to ban Rushdie's book, and by kicking Rushdie out, and refusing to permit him to enter India, or any Indian Mission anywhere on this planet. This inspite of Rushdie having been born in India, and owning property in India.
Rushdie had to appeal to the British Government to protect him. They are still protecting him. Even as less fortunate people like Theo van Gogh have been gunned down, Hithoshi Igarashi -- the Japanese college Professor of Comparative Literature who translated Rushdie's book into Japanese -- has been gunned down; and Taslima Nasreen, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and Rushdie live under the perpetual shadow of death.
When Taslima Nasreen, a Bangladeshi Muslim woman, wrote "Lajja" ("Shame") highlighting the religious persecution of the Hindu minority in Bangladesh: the kidnapping, torture, rape, and forcible coversion of Hindu girls to Islam, the constant low-level rioting and killings of Hindu men ignored by Bangladeshi police and judicial authorities, the forcible eviction of Hindu families and occupation of their property by Bangladeshi Muslim fanatics, her life was threatened by her own Bangladeshi Government.
She appealed to India to grant her political asylum and save her life. India refused to help in any way, and instead banned her book.
The Bangladeshi Government confiscated her passport, and issued a warrant for her arrest.
She feared that she would be killed in jail without even getting a trial, and went into hiding.
After 2 months of suspense, the Civilized world breathed a sigh of relief after learning that she had safely escaped Bangladesh and reached the West.
India claims to be a secular country. It claims to uphold modern values like liberty, free speeh, rational and reasonable discussion free of religious dogma and extremism.
But it has no backbone. It does not have the guts to stand up for its principles and values. And this was just one instance of this lack of backbone.
That is just one reason I am ashamed to be Indian.
There are several more instances to be found almost every day in the way India behaves on the international arena. When Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers, Israel bombed Lebanon for sheltering Hezbollah, and has now gone to full-scale ground war against Labanon to free its captured soldiers. When Indian soldiers are burnt alive by Bangladeshi Rifles men, India does not even make a diplomatic protest, leave alone teach Bangladesh a lesson to show it how to behave in the modern civilized world. When Pakistan captures and tortures Indian soldiers and returns mangled dead-bodies with pulled-out eyes, broken bones and pulled-out finger-nails, India chooses to keep quiet. Indian soldiers risk their lives everyday to keep India safe, but Indian politicians can't risk losing a few votes from rising prices that will be the result of going to war with Pakistan.
When India's Parliament is attacked, India makes a huge show of going to war, keeps troops on the border, and then pulls back meekly. No guts to go to war.
When hundreds of innocent people are killed and maimed in bomb blasts in Mumbai, Srinagar, Ayodhya, Akshardham, Nagpur, Ghatkopar -- all over India -- India pretends to take a big step by breaking off Foreign Secretary level talks with Pakistan.
What a joke. As if Pakistan's life depends upon being able to hold Foreign Secretary level talks with India.
When Israelis go to war to free their captured soldiers, India's leaders openly give the world the distinct impression that nobody in India cares about the lives of other Indians. India's behaviour is openly telling the world: "Come and kill us ! We will not punish you. We are so peace-loving and tolerant that we don't care if you kill us one by one. Slap us on one cheek and we will show the other. We will keep doing this while you take our territory: first Pakistan and Bangladesh, then Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir, then evict the Hindus from Jammu and Kashmir, and keep doing this. Come and kill us ! We are toothless and spineless eunuchs who don't want to fight. We are ready to be wiped out, one by one, one city at a time."
The Fourth World War (see * below) has started, between the forces of secular univeral humanist modernity inspired by people like Salman Rushdie, Taslima Nasreen, Ayyan Hirsi Ali, Theo van Gogh and the people of the United States on one side, and the forces of religious fundamentalist medievalism, led by people like Osama bin Laden, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and groups like Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas, Lashkar-e-Tayiba, Jaish-e-Muhammad, etc on the other.
India is acting exactly like France did during the Second World War. France thought it could save itself by appeasing the Nazis. It paid a far higher price than did UK or USA, who did follow the appeasement policy initially but abandoned it in time.
India today is hoping to escape having to pay a price in this Fourth World War by appeasing the Al Qaeda, and will not only lose all claims to self-respect, but also pay a much higher material price than the United States will pay.
You can see concrete material evidence of India appeasing Al Qaeda in the way India's "secular" leaders like Mulayam Singh Yadav are defending the extremist organization SIMI immediately after the Mumbai blasts hoping to emerge as champions of the Indian Muslim community, even when the vast majority of Indian Muslims themselves don't support SIMI, as evidenced by a multitude of facts, for instance that SIMI's own parents, the Jamaat-e-Islami Hind which created SIMI, has distanced itself from it.
SIMI does not believe in India at all. SIMI has several times called for the restoration of the Global Islamic Caliphate for the unity of Ummah (global Muslim community as a whole) by rejecting the concept of Indian nationalism, democracy and secularism. On all India-Pakistan issues it supports the Pakistani side. SIMI members don't consider themselves Indian at all. Their current manifesto calls for the establishment of an Islamic State in place of secular India, and the establishment of Islamic Shariah Law in India -- just like the Law there was in force in Afghanistan under Taliban, in Somalia today, or in India under the Islamic fundamentalist extremist and anti-Hindu fanatic Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb.
To live with honour, liberty, self-respect, and dignity one has to pay a price: one has to fight for one's ideals and beliefs.
If one tries to cheat by avoiding paying the price, one earns punishment by paying more and getting less. The market is efficient; cheaters always get caught and punished.
India is trying to cheat just like France cheated during World War II. That makes me ashamed.
And India will pay the price, just like France did during World War II. That makes me sad.
* Clarification regarding the "Fourth World War":
Did you think there had been only two World Wars so far ? It is true that there were two World Wars fought with tanks and airplanes and large armies of soldiers massed by countries on both sides.
But do all wars have to involve airplanes and tanks and large armies ? What is the definition of war ? A war is defined as simply a hostile interaction between two sides for superiority.
The Third World War was the Cold War. Wars are not always fought with tanks and airplanes. The Cold War, or World War III, was an economic war of attrition. The Soviet Union lost when its economy collapsed.
The Fourth World War, which is currently being called the "Global War on Terror" is not being fought between countries at all, but between countries one one side, and non-State players -- terrorists -- on the other.
This is an example of what intelligence anlysts call "netwar".
"Netwar" is a war in which your enemy is a shadowy entity of diffuse disparate groups connected and collaborating through modern communications technology like cellphone voice-calls and SMS messages, email, internet, instant messages, and using advanced technologies like encryption and steganography, and carrying out terrorist attacks on civilian or military installations.
Most intelligence analysts believe that "netwar" is going to be the most common type of war in the Twenty-First Century.
Times are changing.
The image of war involving only warplanes and aircraft-carriers is outdated.
Welcome to the Twenty-First Century.
Edit: The phrase "wearing bangles and saris" was removed from the article because it is offensive to Indian women.
... Read more !
Jihad in the classroom
For centuries, the Islamic world has practised and preached killing of non-Muslims, as entire civilizations such as the Christian civilization that once existed in Lebanon, the Buddhist civilization that once existed in today's Afghanistan, the Hindu civilization that once existed in today's Pakistan, the Persian civilization in today's Iran have been wiped out. Even today, as we speak, ongoing religious persecution and genocide of Hindu religious minorities is going on in Bangladesh which once had a Hindu civilization. In the last three decades, the Hindu population of Bangladesh has shrunk from 28% in the 1970's to 12% today, as Hindu girls continue to be abducted, raped, tortured, and forcibly converted to Islam, and their Hindu families terrorized into silence. Murders of Hindu men is ignored by the Bangladeshi police and judicial authorities, and occurs with increasing intensity. Hindu families are forced into penury as their property is forcibly occupied by Muslims.
While the world watches silently, the 5000 year old Hindu civilization of Bangladesh is pushed forward on the final steps to complete annihilation using unforgivable Crimes against Humanity.
Why has this happened ?
For the same reason the 9/11 terror attacks on the United States happened.
For centuries, the Islamic Holy Book, the Holy Koran has openly and explicitly called for killing and torture of non-Muslim men, and the forcible conversion of non-Muslim women into Islam. Here is a collection of verses from the Holy Kuran that explicitly call for torture and killing and violence as mentioned above.
In Islamic countries like Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Libya, Iran, Pakistan and Bangladesh, this religious pogrom, called "Jihad" in Arabic, is not only taught by Islmaic priests in the mosques, but also by teaches in class-rooms in schools.
This kind of religious violence is apparently considered quite normal and acceptable by a majority of decision-makers of these Islamic societies, as evidenced by the popular support for extremist statements from Islamic leaders. A very recent example is the statement repeatedly made by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the popularly elected President of Iran, calling explicitly for the destruction of Israel, simply because its inhabitants have committed the grievous error of following the Jewish faith, because of which the Koran says they have no right to live. Iran is developing nuclear weapon and delivery systems, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has explicitly said that "Israel should be wiped off the map".
The treat is very real. What has happened to non-Muslims in Persia, Lebanon, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh can happen to any non-Muslim on this planet; indeed it can happen to any secular moderate and liberal Muslim who dares to speak against this Islamic totalitarian ideology, like Salman Rushdie, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Taslima Nasreen, etc.
The United States had ignored these medieval and uncivilized acts of religious terror for the last three decades, while the victims of Islamic terror had been countries like India, or the poor Hindus of Bangladesh or Kashmir.
After 9/11, the United States has begun to realize that nobody on this planet is safe from Islamic terror. It has begun to take tentative steps to fight this totalitarian religious ideology, this dangerous enemy of civilized modern secular and tolerant society. But there is still a very long way to go.
CNN reports:
Saudi Arabia promises to revise textbooks
Change is one of several planned steps involving religious freedom
From Elise Labott, CNN State Department Producer
Thursday, July 20, 2006; Posted: 12:02 p.m. EDT (16:02 GMT)
Washington (CNN) -- Saudi Arabia has promised a comprehensive review of all of its educational textbooks and to remove all language promoting intolerance, the State Department's ambassador for religious freedom said Wednesday.
Ambassador John Hanford said Saudi Arabia is already making sincere progress in cleansing its textbooks from bigoted references and added "the Saudis agreed the language is inexcusable."
"We are very pleased with the reforms that King Abdullah and his government have been making," Hanford said.
However, there were still some "repugnant references" in the textbooks targeted at both non-Muslims and Muslims who don't follow the Saudi version of Islam, called Wahabism, he said.
Hanford's comments followed a briefing for members of Congress on a list of policies the Saudis agreed to implement in the area of religious freedom.
The new policies came after weeks of meetings between Hanford's team and senior Saudi officials to address Riyadh's designation of a "country of particular concern" in the last State Department report on religious freedom.
The State Department's last report grading religious freedom around the world said "freedom of religion does not exist" in Saudi Arabia. Because Islam is the official religion of the country, all citizens must be Muslim, the report said.
As a country of particular concern, Saudi Arabia is subject to U.S. trade sanctions. But the sanctions were waived in order to give Hanford and his team the diplomatic space to address the issues directly with the Saudis, and Hanford said the trade sanctions would continue to be withheld.
A senior administration official who expanded on the agreement would only speak on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
As part of the deal, the Saudis promised to ban the use of government funds for textbooks, retrain educators and imams who espouse intolerance and incorporate education on human rights into the school curricula, the senior official said.
The Saudis also said they would protect the right to private worship for all, including non-Muslims, and impose new landmark regulations on the country's religious police to ensure religious worshipers are not harassed.
Saudi leaders also agreed to empower the newly-created Human Rights Commission to investigate and report all violations of human rights in the country and help the country improve its human rights practices.
Saudi Arabia said it had expunged all intolerant language from its textbooks. But a recent review of Saudi texts for the current academic year by the group Freedom House revealed, despite Saudi statements to the contrary, an ideology of hatred toward Christians, Jews and Muslims who do not follow the Wahabi version of Islam.
But the senior administration official said intolerant language had been removed from textbooks used in the United States and the textbooks studied in the Freedom House report were used in Saudi Arabia.
Hanford said the Saudis plan to have a comprehensive review of all educational materials to be completed within one to two years.
... Read more !
India joins elite club of nations, might soon overtake China
Day before yesterday, I wrote
this post yesterday analysing the dangerous step taken by the Government of India in blocking blogs and various other internet sites to surfers inside India, the same way China controls its citizens' access to information on the internet using the Great Firewall of China.
I have also, on this website for some time, been asking my dear Readers to send me their own articles on subjects related to India they feel strongly about.
I am glad to say I received yesterday by email a very interesting satirical article on the UPA Government's latest outrage from a dear Reader who wishes to remain anonymous. I have made some (minor, mostly cosmetic, plus adding some relevant questions and links) changes to the article that was sent in that I hope improved it and I hope my anonymous contributor will agree and not mind.
The article is as follows. Enjoy !
India joins elite club of nations, might soon overtake China
By An Anonymous Indian
India has just proudly qualified to join an elite association of nations -- the Internet Filtering Club -- by blocking access to Blogs, Yahoo Groups, and Geocities webpages from inside India as of July 15 2006.
The 4 illustrious current members of this prestigious club are Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Ethiopia, and China.
This group is half the size of and hence twice as exclusive as the G8 group of rich and powerful nations.
With its current "blanket ban on entire domains" system, India is still far behind some of the other 4 members of this elite club at this point. The filtering system is being refined, and a sophisticated high-technology solution like The Great Firewall of China is the final goal. China is the world leader in this area and India hopes to catch up soon.
This exciting breakthrough was achieved entirely by accident. A number of weblogs and websites were clamouring on the internet asking uncomfortable questions like:
1. Why has Home Minister Shivraj Patil not resigned even after failing to prevent so many terror strikes in such a short time in the recent past: such as attacks in Varanasi, Nagpur, Delhi, Ayodhya, Ghatkopar, Srinagar and now Mumbai ?
2. Why has Government of India been unable to prevent such a large number of gruesome attacks ? Is any preventive action being taken at all ? Why haven't the perpetrators been caught yet ? If the Government of India is unable to protect its citizens from Pakistani terrorism then what right does it have to stay in power ?
3. With no progress on such an urgent issue like terror strikes killing Indians every few weeks, why has the Government of India been more active instead on divisive issues like Caste-based Reservations ?
Faced with questions like these on internet sites, while the mainstream media was careful to avoid asking any of these uncomfortable questions, the Government of India, in a truly inspiring flash of insight, had a brainwave: Filter the Internet, Muzzle the Critics.
In that one flash of insight, India joined an exclusive and prestigious international club of nations. This was a truly stupendous achievement -- perhaps the greatest -- of the current Government.
With this development, India's Government is hoping to count itself among the most technologically-advanced repressive regimes in the world. An Indian Government spokesman was quoted saying "We are in a position other aspiring repressive regimes like the ones in North Korea, Sudan, Libya, Cuba, etc can only aspire to, because they have no internet to filter at all. We are far more advanced. With only China to beat we will soon be the world leader in one more area."
When asked to highlight some of the major achievements of the Government of India in the fields of repression and human rights abuse, the Government spokesman pointed out the impressively brutal crackdown that was launched last month by India's police on school and college students who were protesting against Casteist Reservations.
Indians can now experience Totalitarianism -- an exciting change from decades of boring democracy -- for free sitting at home; no need to travel to Pakistan for that anymore.
This will be a new and improved experience, with no Loknayak Jai Prakash Narayan around to spoil it like he did clamouring for democracy during Indira's exciting Emergency of 1975-1977.
As a bonus, all citizens also get a free life-long lesson in English Literature by experiencing George Orwell's "1984" first-hand, plus, to enhance their knowledge of quality English non-fiction, also F. A. Hayek's "The Road to Serfdom", all for absolutely free: no tuition
fee, no additional tax, no charge at all !
Free education for all. This is the first serious implementation of the Right to Education enshrined in India's Directive Principles of State Policy.
The only cost was a minor technical difficulty with the Fundamental Right to Free Speech. But most people were not using his Right anyway and thus it is not a real problem at all.
The solution is very simple: a Constitutional Amendment to pass, and new NCERT Civics textbooks to print, and that useless Fundamental Right will go exactly where the similarly once-existent Fundamental Right to Property is now cooling its heels: into the garbage-bin.
The mainstream Indian media gets an exciting free gift -- a free course in Orwell's "Newspeak".
What a smart idea -- everybody wins. I love India and the good kind and wise old ladies and gentlemen who rule it. Long live the Nehru Dynasty.
... Read more !
The Road to Serfdom: The Beginning of the Second Emergency
A hundred years from now, when historians look at India in the Twenty-First Century, the date July 15, 2006 will hold special significance.
That would be the day that would mark the undeclared and silent beginning of the Second Emergency.
The Government of India started filtering out stuff it didn't like from what Indian citizens could see on the internet, just like China does with its Great Firewall of China.
Under the Information Technology Act of 2000, a body called the Computer Emergency Response Team or CERT-IN was created to maintain India's Internet and information systems security. However CERT-IN also oversees Internet censorship under a clause that seeks to ensure 'balanced flow of information.' Any Government department can ask CERT-IN to block any website to surfers from India; CERT-IN instructs the Department of Telecommunications DoT to block the site if it finds the complaint legitimate.
Even though Indians have a Fundamental Right to Freedom of Expression, web sites can be blocked if they contain pornography, speeches of hate, contempt, slander or defamation, or if they promote gambling, racism, violence or terrorism.
However, blocking the entire blogosphere is certainly not justifiable under such a clause. The vast majority of sites blocked do not contain pornography, hate speech, contempt, slander, or defamation, nor do they promote gambling, racism, or violence.
What CERT-IN did was beyond doubt arbitrary, unreasonable and unfair, and in clear violation of Articles 14, 19 and 21 of the Constitution of India.
It violated the Fundamental Right to Freedom of Expression enshrined in the Constitution.
This was not a mistake. The action was deliberate.
It happened barely four days after the horrific blasts in Mumbai that killed over 200 and sereverly injured over 700 innocent Indians led a large army of bloggers to ask uncomfortable questions that the mainstream Indian media had not asked:
1. Why has Home Minister Shivraj Patil not resigned even after failing to prevent so many terror strikes in such a short time in the recent past: such as attacks in Varanasi, Nagpur, Delhi, Ayodhya, Ghatkopar, Srinagar and now Mumbai ?
2. Why has Government of India been unable to prevent such a large number of gruesome attacks ? Is any preventive action being taken at all ? Why haven't the perpetrators been caught yet ? If the Government of India is unable to protect its citizens from Pakistani terrorism then what right does it have to stay in power ?
3. With no progress on such an urgent issue like terror strikes killing Indians every few weeks, why has the Government of India, instead of doing anything to improve national security, been more active instead in the last few months on divisive issues like Caste-based Reservations ?
The blogs also raised attention to the fact that the mainstream media was not helping Indians by emphasizing quick return to normalcy, and then not highlighting the lack of action in catching terrorists, and the fact that the terror attacks are happening on a regular basis every few weeks for several years now, with no end in sight, and the Government has not shown any resolve to put an end to this. The blogs urged people to keep in mind that if they keep forgetting about these attacks -- as urged by the media and politicians asking them to return to normalcy -- the attacks will keep on happening, because our enemies know that we will not even remember the attacks long enough to take any action against them. We will just forget the victims and move on.
Unless we become the victims ourselves. But then we will either be dead, or crippled for life. And we won't matter anymore. Those who will matter, the non-victims, will forget us and move on.
And the terrorism will continue as before. And thus the blogs urged the people to remember and force the politicians to take action.
They also relentlessly highlighted the Government's all-round failure on all fronts: security, diplomatic, and strongly contrasted its casual inaction with the strong resolve shown by tiny Israel's Government in risking all-out war with Lebanon and Hezbollah to save the lives of its "just two" abducted soldiers, in contrast to the Government of India that does nothing to save the lives of so many HUNDREDS of its citizens being killed in terror attacks every few weeks, and instead tries to shift their attention to other subjects, by using a shameful Casteist Divide and Rule startegy using the Reservations issue.
The truth is bitter. Faced with so much genuine criticism of its bungling and casual attitude towards a job as important as properly governing a large country with 1.1 Billion poor and hard-working people, from an internet-based diffuse group of bloggers that the Government cannot scare into submission the way it can the mainstream media, the Government took the easy way out: it blocked the blogs altogether.
This was unconstitutional, as it violated the Fundamental Right of Citizens of India to Freedom of Speech and Expression.
However, this UPA Government is not particularly known for its respect for the law.
This is the same Government that has forced the 104th Constitional Amendment down the throat of the people of India, shamelessly trying to divide them into Caste lines using the Reservations issue, trying to create for itself an "OBC Vote Bank".
Casteism is banned by the Constitution of India. Casteism is punishable with imprisonment. That has not stopped this lawless Government from going ahead with its Casteist vote-banking politics. It had the gall to cloak its blatant Casteism in the name of "social development", even when its was obvious that development of any kind is very from its mind in the way its Reservation proposal's chief proponent, the Human Resources Development Minister Arjun Singh displayed complete ignorance on education policy, social impact of Reservations, and even the number of OBC's in India when interviewed on TV.
Its stragegies have backfired as OBC's have refused to be fooled by this blatantly Casteist Divide and Rule strategy.
Indian students from all Castes came onto the streets and carried out nationwide demonstrations against the Government's blatantly Casteist Divide and Rule policy. The Government responded with a brutal Tianenmen Square style crackdown, beating up innocent school and college boys, even girls, breaking bones, causing internal injuries, crushing the spirit of the innocent protesters.
The road to serfdom had now officially begun.
The gradual slide of Indian society under UPA Government rule into totalitarianism accelerated when the UPA Government lied in Supreme Court: when the doctors of the AIIMS were on strike against the Government's Casteist policies, the Government went to the Supreme Court and asked it to instruct the striking doctors to return to work. It promised that no action would be taken against them. The Supreme Court, in the interest of Indian citizens inconvenienced by the halt in medical services at AIIMS, asked the doctors to return to work. In return, the Court promised to look into the Reservations issue. The doctors stopped their strike and went back to work.
As soon as the Government had gotten the doctors to end their strike, it went back on the promises it had made in Court. It refused to pay the doctors their salaries. The doctors had to go back to the Supreme Court and sue the Government, and the Supreme Court responded by severely reprimanding the Government for its blatant two-faced dishonesty.
The Government has not learnt its lesson. It continues to flout the Constitution with this latest outrage -- blocking blogs -- and violating the Constitional Fundamental Right of Indian citizens to Free Speech and Expression.
The callousness with which CERT-IN responded to the Rediff reporter Shivam Vij when asked why the blogs had been blocked as testimony enough to how little it cares about following the law:
Dr Gulshan Rai, the Director of CERT-IN, in a telephone interview to the Rediff reporter, said: "Somebody must have blocked some sites. What is your problem?"
What is our problem ? You have violated our Fundamental Rights, buster.
This seems another outrage in a long list of crimes committed by the morally bankrupt UPA Government. When the outrages will halt is not clear. Whether the outrages will lead to the establishment of totalitarianism in India will depend on how well the Indian people are able to respond to this criminal Government, and force it to back off from the dangerous direction in which it is taking the country.
There are parallels between the conduct of this UPA Government, and the way Hitler behaved during the rise of Nazism in Germany.
Hitler burned down the German Parliament building and blamed the Communists for having done it. This was a ridiculous charge, because the Communists had nothing to gain and everything to lose by getting rid of the German Parliament. They only had Members of Paliament. In contrast, the Nazi Party controlled the Chancellor's position. (Hitler was Chancellor of Germany.) Hitler on the other hand had a lot to gain -- getting rid of the pesky Parliament would have - and did -- make him the unchallenged leader of Germany.
Hitler used the act of terror -- Parliament destruction -- as an Emergency event and exercised the Enabling Act that allowed him to take control of Germany. The Communists were promptly killed off or sent to concentration camps.
Similarly the UPA is seeming to create an Emergency situation where lots of terror attacks are happening in various parts of the country every few weeks -- Ayodhya, Ghatkopar, Nagpur, Delhi, Varanasi, Srinagar, and now Mumbai. No action is being taken to catch the criminals responsible for these outrages. And ridiculous accusations are being made against the RSS.
It sure looks a lot like the second Emergency may already have started. Silently.
... Read more !
Parallels between UPA Government attitude and the conduct of the Nazi Party during Hitler's rise in Germany
Two very uncomfortable events occurred in India recently.
Other commentators seem to have ignored them.
On June 1 2006 police shot dead three heavily armed Islamic terrorists from the Lashkar-e-Tayiba terror group when they carried out an attack on the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh headquarters in Nagpur.
While police investigations revealed that these attackers were indeed members of the Islamic terror group Lashkar-e-Tayiba, Muslim vote-banking politicians in the UPA, like Lallu Prasad and Mulayam Singh made ridiculous accusations against the RSS itself. They claimed that the RSS had carried out the attack on its own headquarters itself. They did not say anything as to why the RSS would do that, nor did they offer any proof of any kind at all.
The accusation was so ridiculous and so completely unsubstantiated by fact that it was difficult to believe that such claims were indeed being made by people who were not inmates of mental asylums.
However, that was not the end of it.
Barely a month later, after the horrific Mumbai blasts that killed over 200 and crippled over 700 innocent Indians in train blasts in Mumbai, Mulayam Singh again alleged that the RSS had carried out those attacks.
Again, he offered no reason why the RSS would do something like that. And again, his accusations were completely unsubstantiated by fact. Indeed, police investigations revealed that the attacks had been carried out by people belonging to the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) -- an extremist Islamic group based in India -- and the Lashkar-e-Tayiba -- a well-known Pakistani terror group.
Even after this, Mulayam Singh and the UPA's Lallu continued their allegations against the RSS. Indeed, Mulayam went so far as to give a character certificate to the SIMI, declaring that SIMI could not have had anything to do with the Mumbai terror attacks -- a ridiculous claim that cannot even be taken seriously unless one also believes that Mulayam actually knows who carried out the attacks through inside knowledge that investigators and the police do not have -- in other words, if he himself were a co-conspirator. Unless Mulayam himself organized those attacks (and therefore knows that SIMI did not do it) how would he know any more than the police investigators as to whether SIMI carried them out or not ?
Lallu and Mulayam -- these two idiots have been regularly making these brainless claims with absolutely no basis in fact, and making the ridiculous allegations against the RSS, for about a month now.
Nobody is putting them in mental asylums. Is somebody -- say the UPA, the so-called "secular" forces -- encouraging them from behind the scenes to make these claims ?
One might almost suspect that there was some ulterior motive being seved through making these ridiculous allegations against the RSS.
Say something enough number of times, and people eventually take it for the truth.
Is the stage being prepared for another outright attack on the RSS by the so-called "secular" forces ?
Falsely blame someone loudly enough, and enough number of times; misuse Government power to put them in jail or kill them off, and thus wipe them out.
[Talking about killing off inconvenient people: Remember Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Rajesh Pilot and Madhav Rao Scindia ? None of them had exactly very above-board fair-and-square deaths. Who benefited from each of those deaths ? A certain very powerful Dynasty in Indian politics that has ruled India for all but 10 years -- 5 years of Narasimha Rao and 5 years of Atal Bihari rule... any guesses ? The Nehru Dynasty. That would be the subject of another article some other time.]
Is the RSS the target of the Nehru Dynasty's "secular" pogrom again ?
If so, it would not be the first time something like this has been done. A glowing example of this can be found from Nazi Germany, fresh in history, just about 70 years ago.
Before Hitler got absolute control of Germany, the German Communist Party was very powerful there. To destroy the Communist power in Germany, Hitler used a clever trick.
Hitler had been sworn in as Chancellor and head of the coalition government on January 30, 1933. His first act was to ask Hindenburg to dissolve the Reichstag so that he could increase the number of Nazi seats in the government. Hitler's request was granted and elections were set for March 5, 1933. Hitler's aim was to abolish democracy in a more or less legal fashion by activating the Enabling Act. The Enabling Act was a special power allowed by the Weimar Constitution to give the Chancellor the power to pass laws by decree, without the involvement of the Reichstag. Under the existing Weimar constitution, under Article 48, the President could rule by decree in times of emergency.
The unprecedented element of the Enabling Act was that the government itself possessed these powers. The Enabling Act was only supposed to be used in times of extreme emergency, and in fact had only been used once before, in 1923-24 when the government used the Enabling Act to rescue Germany from hyperinflation. To activate the Enabling Act required a vote by a two-thirds majority in the Reichstag. In January 1933, the Nazis had only 32% of the seats and thus were in no position to activate the Enabling Act. It had a four-year application and would have to be renewed after this.
During the election campaign, the Nazis had run on a platform of fervent anti-communism, insisting that Germany was on the verge of a Communist revolution, and that the only way to stop the revolution was to pass the Enabling Act. Hitler's platform in the campaign comprised little more than demands that voters increase the Nazi share of seats so that the Enabling Act could be passed. In order to decrease the number of opposition members who could vote against the Enabling Act, Hitler had planned to ban the Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands (the Communist Party of Germany or KPD), which at the time held 17% of the parliament's seats, after the elections and before the new Reichstag convened.
At 9:14 PM on the night of February 27, 1933, a Berlin fire station received an alarm that the Reichstag building, assembly location of the German Parliament, was ablaze. The fire seemed to have been started in several places, and by the time the police and firemen arrived a huge explosion had set the main Chamber of Deputies in flames.
Looking for clues, the police quickly found Marinus van der Lubbe, shirtless, inside the building. Van der Lubbe was a Dutch insurrectionary council communist and unemployed bricklayer who had recently arrived in Germany.
Adolf Hitler and Hermann Göring arrived soon after, and, when they were shown van der Lubbe, Göring immediately declared the fire was set by the Communists and had the party leaders arrested. Hitler declared a state of emergency and encouraged aging president Paul von Hindenburg to sign the Reichstag Fire Decree, suspending the basic rights provisions of the Weimar constitution.
The Reichstag Fire allowed Hitler to accelerate the banning of the Communist Party and was used to confirm Nazi claims of a pending Communist revolution. The Nazis argued the Reichstag fire was meant to serve as a signal to launch the revolution, and warned the German public about the grisly fate they would suffer under Communist rule.
According to the Berlin police, Van der Lubbe claimed to have set the fire as a protest against the rising power of the Nazis. Under torture, he confessed again and was brought to trial along with the leaders of the opposition Communist Party. As a consequence of the Reichstag Fire Decree, the police and the SA, actually a paramilitary organization of Hitler's party, seized all Communist Party buildings in Germany, along with weapons they claimed were to be used in the coup. The KPD was never banned, in case communists switched to the SPD.
With their leaders in jail and denied access to the press, the Communists were badly disorganized. Those Communist (and some Social Democratic) deputies that were elected to the Reichstag were prevented from taking their seats by the SA. The Nazis increased their share of the vote to 44%, which gave the Nazis and their coalition allies, the German National People's Party, a 52% majority in the Reichstag. The March elections were a major success for the Nazis but not to the extent they were hoping for. (The Nazis had hoped to win 50%-55% of the vote.) The Nazis coerced and bribed the remaining parties except for the Social Democrats to give them the two-thirds majority for the Enabling Act, which gave them the right to rule by decree and suspended most civil liberties. Despite considerable pressure, only the Social Democrats voted against the Enabling Act. In the months that followed, all of the non-Nazi parties were either banned or dissolved themselves to avoid arrests and concentration camp imprisonment.
Historians generally agree that van der Lubbe was involved in the Reichstag fire. The extent of the damage, however, has led to considerable debate over whether he acted alone. Considering the speed with which the fire engulfed the building, van der Lubbe's reputation as a mentally disturbed arsonist hungry for fame, and cryptic comments by leading Nazi officials, it is generally believed the Nazi hierarchy was involved in order to reap political gain — and it obviously did.
The similarity between the two cases is troubling. Hitler organized an Emergency situation -- the burning of the German Parliament -- and blamed the Communists for doing it; a ridiculous charge, as the Communists' only political power came from having their Members of Parliament; getting rid of Parliament would have caused them to gain nothing. In contrast, the Nazis controlled the Chancellor's position (Hitler was Chancellor of Germany) and getting rid of the pesky Parliament would have made -- and did make -- Hitler the unchallenged leader of Germany.
Similarly, the UPA is seeming to create an environment where lots of terror attacks are happening every few weeks in various parts of India -- an Emergency situation -- and ridiculous charges are being made against the RSS.
The pattern is very troubling to say the least.
The RSS has been falsely accused and banned three times before, each time by a Congress Government.
The first time was in 1948, right after the murder of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, when with absolutely no evidence, Jawahar Lal Nehru's Government blamed the RSS for the killing and promptly banned it. The RSS challenged it in Court and finally in 1949 Nehru, unable to defend his non-existent case in Court, had to lift the ban.
The second time was when Indira Gandhi declared the Emergency in 1975-1977 after losing the elections and being caught and taken to Court for election fraud and misuse of Government power and machinery for her election campaign. The RSS was seen as a dangerous enemy by the Dictator Indira, and promptly banned.
The third time was after the demolition of the Babri Masjid, when once again, without a shred of evidence the RSS was banned by the Congress Government, and had to lift the ban after failing to prove its non-existent case in Court.
Totalitarianism is not new to India. Indira Nehru almost succeeded in turning India into her personal fiefdom in 1975-1977. She would have surely succeeded if not for leaders like Loknayak Jai Prakash Narayan and his hundreds of thousands of supporters who valiantly fought for Democracy and laid down their lives -- dying in hospitals or jails from police torture, or disappearing altogether from the face of the earth into the dungeons reserved for the political enemies of a Totalitarian State.
Recent acts by the UPA Government, such as the Tiananmen Square style brutal suppression of the school and college students protesting against Casteist Reservations -- something no Indian had imagined would happen in India -- smack of Authoritarianism. The journey into Totalitarianism cannot be ruled out.
Is the UPA Government preparing to ban the RSS again ?
... Read more !
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