RSS and BJP Camps Fostering Terror – Indian Home Minister Shinde.

PKKH Exclusive | Zainulabedin Ameer

Militant attacks, wherever they take place, are usually followed by claims from those responsible. Afghanistan serves as a typical example, where attacks on Anglo-American terrorist invaders are claimed by the Afghan Taliban. Whatever the scale of attacks, freedom fighters there make their point known. In sharp contrast, the world is now waking up to India’s homegrown terror aka Saffron Terror, the kind that carries out attacks but never claims responsibility. Their aim is sabotage, letting someone else take the blame. However, Indian Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde has now openly claimed that RSS and BJP camps are promoting Hindu terror. His official statements have opened a Pandora’s Box for politicians and all stakeholders in governance and security.

In response to Shinde’s claim, leaders from the accused camps responded fiercely, warning Congress of ‘serious consequences‘, and in doing so they have apparently reinforced Shinde’s claim. This threat sends chills down India’s spine, given the nature of the terror attacks they are capable of carrying out. While their greater focus has been to orchestrate and perpetrate terror in order to derail Pak-India peace processes, plotting revengeful strikes at local political competitors can’t be ruled-out.

Official Recognition of Saffron Terror Sends Shockwaves Across the World

External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid reiterated Shinde’s statements on the Saffron Terror. He said, “Shinde‘s remarks that terror training was being imparted in camps run by the BJP and the RSS were factually correct.” While Shinde’s statements have emerged as official acknowledgment of Saffron Terror at RSS and BJP camps, periodically, the media has also reported their militant training activity; these reports emerged after investigations into deadly incidents such as the attacks on the Samjhauta express, Mecca Masjid and the Malegaon incident, which Muslims were blamed for. Also, one must not forget that Shinde is not the first government official to warn Indians of the Saffron Terror; in 2010, Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram “cautioned the chiefs of State police forces, security and intelligence officials against continuing attempts to infiltrate militants into India as well as the recently uncovered phenomenon of ‘saffron terrorism’.”

With an expansionist mindset for a Greater India and for never being held accountable for orchestrating and perpetrating the above terrorist attacks and genocide, Saffron Terrorists remain above the law largely due to their inclusion in mainstream politics as well as high level lobbying. Home Secretary R K Singh asserts, “We have evidence against them“, pointing out the government possesses a list containing at least 10 persons involved in all three attacks.

Dozens of Freedom Movements and Insurgencies Brewing in India

To many outsiders and all those souls unaware of the socio-political fractures in India itself; homegrown Indian terrorism sounds totally bizarre. For a country with an international image growing massively when it comes to the IT industry, for example, one fails to fathom the connection. However, to understand the situation, one must take a peek into India’s domestic scenario, including the long standing Brahman barbarism that is akin to Nazism; oppressed groups of India’s backward society such as the Dalits stand testimony to the prevalence of stark social inequalities. Then there are also the Sikhs who are fed-up with Brahman domination, particularly after facing genocide in the 1980s. Another major fracture is visible in India’s Eastern states where deprivation and denial of basic rights have even given birth to robust insurgencies in the shape of the Naxalite Movement that operates in up to 40% of Eastern India, now termed as the Red Corridor. Just last week they reminded the state of their will by firing at and damaging an Indian Air Force helicopter. Freedom struggles and insurgencies of this kind exist in unimaginable numbers, but there is one freedom movement that particularly irks Hindu nationalist, the Kashmir Struggle.

The Kashmir Issue is Moving Up the Agenda

In recent years, the Kashmir issue has received a fair deal of attention, gaining some media presence and few isolated protests held abroad. The mood among the inhabitants in Indian Occupied Kashmir has also shown signs of vibrancy in terms of the demand for independence from India’s tyranny. A land that always had a majority Muslim population is now brimming vigorously with slogans of freedom, so much so that Indian soldiers on the Line of Control stand in fear behind layers of electrified barbed wire and armed with technologically advanced equipment costing millions of dollars. Despite all this, in their hearts these soldiers know that a defensive mindset cannot quite match one that yearns for freedom.

Apart from militant struggles from Kashmir, Pakistan champions the Kashmir cause on the diplomatic front. Many-a-time, there have been hopes of a diplomatic breakthrough. However, for India, surrendering to Kashmiri freedom demands would not only result in a loss psychologically, it would also be a tactical defeat too, as it is through Kashmir that the source of river water runs, upon which India and Pakistan both depend. Additionally, if Kashmir were to be independent, the plethora of freedom movements within India would almost certainly gain confidence and momentum too. Already the Naxalite movement poses a colossal threat to India’s stability, but Kashmiri freedom would mean the beginning of the end for India’s sovereign existence as one knows it. Having said that; is it Kashmiri Independence that Saffron Terror hopes to counter? Are they affecting the Kashmir cause by continuously derailing peace talks that might open doors for Kashmiri independence?

The Idea of Gandhi’s Passive Resistance Has Been Replaced By Nazi-like Ideology

The RSS and BJP have never been as active as they currently are; one suspects that their attention is Kashmir-centric. However, their campaigns are broadly focused, and their attention and policies are believed to largely be Pakistan-centric. Footage of militant training camps is available online, where men, women and children can be observed with a distinct ideology that is quite alien to Gandhi’s philosophy. Their rhetoric is violent, studded with hatred to the very existence of Pakistan. However, their fascism does not end there; they deem lower Hindu castes as degenerates, which is the reason for communal riots and sporadic attacks on some lower caste Hindu villages. To these extremists, sitting at the top of the Hindu racial hierarchy matters far a great deal, something that Gandhi never preached. Today, a great number of middle class youth actually look up to Adolf Hitler’s ideology and call Gandhi ‘a coward’ – One wonders why this is so.

Hitler‘s Mein Kampf is growing in popularity among middle and upper school students, and this auto biography of a mad man is being passed around by none other than extremist Saffron Terror groups such as Shiv Sena. In the recent past, more and more copies of it have been sold, as it is hugely popular and is winning minds and hearts and pulling otherwise innocent people into the fold of a detrimental blend of Hinduism and supremacist thinking. Every sane person observing this trend will know that anything remotely connected to Nazi literature cannot ever spell good news.

Driven by a fascist mindset with a design to counter any Pak-India peace process, the ultimate aim of Saffron Terror is apparently to prevent Kashmiri freedom, by periodically launching mass scale attacks on Muslim towns. Their objective is to keep Muslims living in fear, thereby, quelling any chance of internal support to the Kashmiri freedom struggle. It’s pertinent to mention that they also attack other minorities in similarly brutal ways and impose their supremacist will on Hindu classes as well, lower down in their caste system; Muslims, Christians, Sikhs and lower caste Hindus all suffer at the hands of Saffron Terrorists.

Qudsiya Contractor’s research ‘Unwanted in My City – The Making of a Muslim Slum in Mumbai’ shows how strategically Saffron Terrorists have been busy carving and cementing their position in Indian society. The writer quotes Hansen, 2001: “Shiv Sena offered the rhetoric of ethno-religious unity, regional cultural pride and also a solidarity that repackaged older anti-Muslim myths.” Hansen also assets, “…Nationally, the party also joined hands with BJP to further hindutva and its agenda for a Hindu nation…The Shiv Sena’s spatial strategies widely used public spaces as sites for the display of the Hindu rights violent political strategies and anti-Muslim rhetoric.”

Putting the pieces together, one inevitably finds an eerie reflection of Hitler’s fascism; Hindutva (Hindu nationalism), a growing fascination with Hitler’s Mein Kampf, dwindling popularity of Gandhi’s peaceful approach, and extremist training camps run by RSS and BJP with Hindu expansionist ideology are all ingredients for major regional disturbance. It’s time for India and the world to wake up to this glaring reality before it’s too late. The drumbeaters of war over the recent drama on the Line of Control are the ones to be questioned, particularly because this event has done damage to the Pak-India dialogue once again, something that Saffron Terrorists thrive on. The incident itself has not been investigated despite Pakistan calling for an unbiased inquiry by the UN. India declined an investigation, thereby, raising suspicion and worsening ties.

1. Hansen, TB. (2001) Violence in Urban India  - Identity Politics, Mumbai and the Post Colonial City, New Delhi

Zainulabedin Ameer is part of the PKKH Editorial Team

Discuss this topic on Defence.pk