Islam phobias in India

 

Islam phobias in India; JAN 08, 2023; Between the 17th and 19th of December last month, a large collection of major religious leaders, right-wing activists, fundamentalist militants and Hindutva organisations came together at Haridwar. The event they held, called ‘Dharma Sansad’or ‘religious parliament’, witnessed an extraordinary outpouring of hate speech calling for a genocide of the Muslims of India. But despite the violent exhortations hurled over the course of three days, authorities in India did not make a single arrest. Under the regime of Narendra Modi, right-wing hate and violence against India’s Muslims has acquired a sense of normalisation. But while they, along with India’s Dalit community, make the usual targets, it was only a matter of time till the hate spread on to other minority groups as well. On January 2, a mob in Chhattisgarh vandalised a church after right-wing leaders accused the Christian community of carrying out ‘forcible conversions’. While the global community has been slow to react to India’s slide towards Hindu nationalism, observers in Western capitals too are beginning to notice. As the year 2022 came to an end, outgoing Democratic Congressman Andy Levin warned: “I have been a vocal advocate for human rights in places like India, which is in danger of becoming a Hindu nationalist State rather than a secular democracy, the world's largest democracy.” In an exclusive interview with The Express Tribune, renowned Indian-American anthropologist and professor at the New York University Arjun Appadurai unpacked the historical ingredients that enabled an environment widespread right-wing Hindu nationalist sentiment in India. In conjunction with a global erosion of democratic ideals and yearning for quick results, he explained how India has found itself in a perfect storm of Hindu majoritarianism: I am among the very large number of people who are trying to tackle this big question of a kind of a worldwide trend, which is very apparent, although the differences among the locations where this is happening cannot be ignored.

 

It's difficult to see this in the way that one might, for example, see the Coronavirus where you can actually see it moving. The thing about the shift to autocratic authoritarian governments is you cannot see an obvious sort of circulation path although many of the leaders in these cases are aware of each other. But it's not easy to say that they're sort of mimicking or learning something, and we are forced to look for deeper trends.My main view is that though there are huge differences in the electorates and the populations in these different countries, a common element might be that many of these populations whether in Turkey or Hungary or the US, or India, have lost patience with the slowness of liberal democracy, to deliver whatever it is they want. There's a loss of patience and consequently, they are more ready than ever to vote for leaders who promise quick, essentially overnight results. The cost of writing that cheque is that we will have to get rid of this and that procedural hurdle. But other ideological attachments to these leaders then creep in and in many cases, that lubricant which lets people accept the promise that results will be delivered overnight is some form of majoritarian racism – a sense that some majority, however defined, has been poorly treated, and now their moment has come to restore their place.I used the word democracy fatigue in an essay I wrote about four years ago soon after Trump was brought into office, saying that people are exiting democracy by democratic means that is through elections and so on. In some other places, of course, even elections are dispensed with, but the disturbing phenomenon is places that have ostensibly democratic institutions, democracy itself is being dispensed with. The conventional storyline is not at all wrong, which is that for some reason, institutions – the democratic ones, the courts, the media, the press, the legislature and indeed the executive – in India by all accounts were quite healthy, vibrant and strong in the decades up to let's say, the early 2000s, when we begin to see the rise of the BJP culminating now in the in the very troubling situation under Modi. But in that long story, we must recall, of course, that even under Indira Gandhi's rule, we had the emergency, which was only a year but still showed a certain readiness on the part of even the liberal Congress to crack down hard on dissent. Likewise, the 1984 opprobrium on Sikhs or the whole Kashmir position of the Indian state starting with the birth of the two nations has been a very hardline position. I think it had some potentially flexible moments in Nehru’s early years, but quite quickly became the rigid view that we see today. There is a mystery about why this descent into right wing religious fundamentalism and majoritarian autocracy could happen relatively fast. You could make a longer history from Babri Masjid to today or you could make a shorter history from Modi's period as chief minister in Gujarat to today. But in any case, you can say it was obvious from 1947 that India was doomed to become a right-wing majoritarian state. It's hard to fully spell out what has happened, but its consequences are clearly massive and it has clearly led to the rise of very militant Hinduism, which has historical precedent. And it's a history that is now closely tied to a very powerful centralised state – it's not just regional rules, or doing little wars and business here and there, it's got a kind of elevator straight to Delhi.  India is a land only of minorities. Not also of minorities, but only of minorities. There is nobody who has a big writ. Even if you take these big categories like Hindu, Muslim, and so on, they have slowly crystallised over time, especially during the colonial period. It is very difficult to see a macro idea of Muslims and Hindus and so on as big identities. If you look even closely at riots in places like Lucknow in the 16th, 17th or 18th century, it's Shias vs Sunni. Nobody is holding up the flag of you know, the Ummah or some massive global Hinduism. It's all highly fragmented and this relates to caste as well, but not only to it.

 

No one was not a minority in India over a massive part of its history. The big question is how does a majority get produced in this place? In a place like Serbia or Japan, there are of course minorities, but you can also see there is some objective basis for a certain group of people to say we are the majority. We look and talk the same, and eat the same and these ‘untouchables’ in Japan or Okinawans, or Kosovars in Serbia, are different. Now, in all cases, it is my belief that the majority has to be built, whether it's Serbia, Germany or here. It is not off the shelf. But in a place like India it is a huge task because of the minoritisation or the fact that you're in small cells, which have this quality that is so hardwired. I don't think we have fully plumbed the dynamics of the way a credible majoritarian identity has been not only created but also installed, you might say in digital terms, into the population. I think the big force, which I don't understand well enough personally, is the RSS and its affiliates. They have clearly done a huge job in installing this majoritarian software on a place-to-place basis. And of course, Modi was a lifelong RSS person, a fact we sometimes forget. Each of these answers raises more questions. Still, I would say a preliminary shot at it would be that the BJP did the wise thing to keep the RSS relationship very alive. Otherwise, it would be like every party going up and down with electoral fortunes. So, whether you go slightly up in Punjab or down in Rajasthan or down in Bengal, there is a steady force keeping your political apparatus in place as a national affair and it's not the BJP alone, because the BJP alone, you know its leadership has a very particular configuration of essentially Gujarat, UP, and a couple of other states and the key actors. But RSS is in all those places. So somewhere there may be an answer to your question. I think he deserves to be taken very seriously. For one thing, he's the only person I would say at the national level who has genuine large-scale appeal and charisma. If you made a charisma index, he's close to 100 and everybody else is below 50, and most people are below 20. No one can take away from it. He's an incredible speaker. He knows how to make his appeals; he's also mastered how to make the cocktail of visibility and invisibility. He’s there all the time in front of you, but never at press conferences. You'd never see him with his hair out of place or him laughing. He's a purely hologrammed brand and you can't escape him. Modi has mastered what in the US in the 50s was called image politics. I admire that skill. He's also been extremely shrewd, considering that he's not a scientist – to put it mildly, not highly educated. He's been extremely smart on the IT front. These BJP IT cells are amazing to me. The IT game has totally been lost. He also has made a considerable effort, though this I think has largely been a failure, to bring the military in which is the big X Factor. The military is the 800-pound gorilla slightly off scene. General Bipin Rawat was the first exception, the line crosser, who lined up with the regime and said, hey, you know, this is the way to go and I'm at the service of this regime and its vision. But it's not clear how far down you see that interest in getting into the frontline of politics is in the Indian armed forces. But there are many other things in which Modi has been very shrewd, one of which is the question I still ask myself: how could this man in especially Europe and the US have a very benign reputation to this day? Erdogan has not achieved this. Nobody else has achieved this. Orban has not achieved this, Trump has not achieved this. Boris Johnson has not achieved this. But Modi is still seen as a wise and strong leader in developing countries. So he also gets credit there. I don't know whether credit is at the sending end in how he manages his image and statements or the receiving end that there is some, which has been my theory, that the receiving end has India locked in a kind of 1970s image, struggling democracy, developing country, and they just don't understand that a new chapter, a new drama has been going on for 10 to 15 years. There's a kind of arrest on the reception side. That's my private theory or my personal theory. But there too, we have to go because he's not allowed his image to correspond more to the reality of his policies. Gandhi represents the exact opposite of what Modi represents in terms of tolerance, abhorrence of violence and so on and so forth, commitment to truth. All these really put him in the opposite place. Conceptually, he's still the main alternative because Nehru was too much involved in day-to-day politics. Gandhi still has a certain special status, which sometimes is used to also distance him and say who cares, he's somewhere up in some other realm. But still, he is a kind of conscience for India. There is however, another side which is more tricky for where Gandhi feeds into the hardwiring of Indian politics and society in a way that is not totally separate from the world of Modi or others and that has to do with these ideas about Hindu and Muslim. Even if he had a different idea how they should connect, the idea became, I think, quite important him. Several people also have complained about Gandhi over the decades that while he was extremely humane, especially at partition towards the Muslim population of the Subcontinent, he never really understood Islam much in the way that he understood, say Christianity. There was a kind of imagination limitation – not a genocidal impulse but something soft, a lacking. Gandhi also had a certain social conservatism on caste on the order of things. You can attempt to reinterpret his writings but the landscape is there, such as the idea of Harijan, a term the Dalits hate. Although someone like Modi is not a subtle intellectual or historian, I think at a gut level he knows that Gandhi had a conservative Hindu side. Gandhi made it as humanistic and universal as possible, but the DNA was there. Modi just took that social conservatism and put it on steroids. Having said that, Gandhi was not genocidal or believed in majoritarianism – that's a Modi copyright. Gandhi would have been horrified and would literally be turning in his grave seeing this. I'm a firm believer that Mahatma Gandhi would have not supported what is happening in India. No doubt. I was recently stimulated by a colleague with whom I was in one-on-one correspondence to look at the election results for Modi over the last two elections. The numbers are not staggering – 40% or fully 45%. I mean, Nehru sometimes had 70 or 80% vote. So, the question is who's in that 40 or 45, and who's in the 60 or 65? Modi has managed to get a large part of the population to overcome their parochial or localised sectional interests to go for this big message that is true. No one has succeeded in mobilising the other side in the same way, which is made up of bits and pieces. Modi’s side have been successful aggregators. The numbers are not overwhelming but it's a number enough to dominate the parliament. He has leveraged that number in a brilliant way. I think one thing has to be kept in mind and it holds not only for Modi, but all his predecessors Manmohan Singh, Narsimha Rao, basically the Indian Congress leadership, which is the topic of corruption. What do we mean by it? How do we measure it? Is it getting worse or better? No one would deny the flow of black money and other dubious money into Indian elections is one of the scandals of all democracies today. If you take the amount of rupees flowing in from black accounts, unknown people both used to manipulate elections and to launder that money in elections. That is a very large amount of money so we need to be cautious about fetishising elections, because this is not just a Modi issue. Modi has been very smart about how to capture elections, because elections without cash in India are a thing of the past. Modi has captured the national pot so that means he also captured the election machinery. The place where we can see his brilliance as far as elections are concerned is in Gujarat. He showed himself as the master of Indian electoral politics in terms of speeches, rhetoric, and mobilisation, and also how you control the money flow. This is definitely true about that aspect of the whole Indian electoral system that responds to national and international issues. Of course, a lot is going on, which is totally local. When those things are subordinated to issues of a bigger scale, I think what you say is absolutely true. The observation I would add to that is it is the same coin, which has two sides. One is creating a uniform commitment to Modi and to the BJP among people who have a lot of sectional interest but getting them to transit, in other words, producing a majority of some kind. The other side of the coin is that somebody has to be denigrated. So polarisation always means one side is becoming solid and the other side has to be liquefied, conceptually speaking. For me that is the most basic kind of anthropological sociological human issue I've been struggling with more or less my entire career. What is the ‘we’ they think, to produce a strong and aggressive ‘we’? Why is there always a need for ‘they’? Why can't I just say we are all Hindus and we are good people, let's all be together. No, until you say that those other people are responsible for all our troubles - they are spies or Pakistani agents, this or that. In a slightly different way, it applies to Christians and in a murky way to Dalits as well, who are both ‘us’ and ‘not us’ – ‘us’ as long they remain quiet and obedient, but not as soon as they talk back. But Muslims are in a permanent default state of ‘otherness’. The deep question that very few social scientists have been able to answer and I certainly cannot answer is why is a ‘they’ required in order to produce a ‘we’, both perennially in human history and in the era of modern nation states. The ‘they’ involved can be a religious idiom or an ethnic one. It can be a migrant idiom. But no one can say they promote a vigorous nationalism without any sense of some dark spectral figure that needs to be managed in prison or eventually removed. In India, this genocidal impulse exists because the numbers are so large. It’s not like there are a handful of Muslims. And the minute you think about Muslims this way, you ask, “what about Dalits, are they on our side?” People have pointed out to me that BJP has succeeded in co-opting a significant number of Dalits. But I still think that number is not large and those in the Dalit community who think radically against the BJP are many, and very vocal. However, it's obvious that BJP has not co-opted Muslims and the Muslims are quiet because they are afraid in India. The ‘we/they’ problem [in this region] is a historical question. Why has Modi succeeded in mobilising or intensifying that feeling which clearly has a longer history? There was always some deeper issue, at least as far back as Jinnah and Nehru. Modi did not manufacture the ‘us vs them’ problem but he has leveraged the hell out of it. I think the elected government has made inroads into the other independent branches of government massively. That's why I think, just as in Pakistan, you can talk about the establishment, we can talk about the BJP regime because there's more than just the prime minister's office doing its job with the court keeping an eye and the legislature doing its own work. It's become all too close and too tight. That's my reason for using the word. It is too deeply involved in the others for it to be a healthy democratic condition. Separation of powers is at the very heart of the idea of democracy. When all of these are very closely aligned with the current ruling party you have to find some word for that. My fears are that we are approaching something resembling a tipping point, which will go in one of two ways. One of them is where the BJP and Modi consolidate this regime and dissent is more or less eliminated. While the talk we have been noticing from some quarters is technically genocidal, that project is impossible in India with its 200 million people. Rather, it’s about producing fear and compliance on a large scale. Will that happen? Or will Dalits, farmers, urban intellectuals, Marxists, women, Sikhs, etc. find a way to make common cause and push this government out. I think that would require a new order of leadership – either one person or a few, who can rise to Modi levels of credibility. But the tipping point could go that way as well. It's a very troublesome and troubling question. I haven't really thought about that. Calling for genocide is one thing and carrying it out is another thing in the current year. The numbers are too big to make it possible. I think all these tactics are ways to produce fear. They are threats and statements of impunity about the vision, not the execution. Anybody in their right mind knows it cannot be done and is an extremely risky path to embark on. You can trigger many things, including overseas intervention. Do Modi and his allies want to run those kinds of risks? I think that the pragmatic, utilitarian part of this current government, which is also deeply concerned with facilitating massive corporate profit making, sets limitations to the actual execution of a genocidal vision. I take great comfort in that. But I still think the ability to say these things is alarming. And we have to ask, what is that agenda about? And secondly, how can we nip that in the bud – through legal means, public opinion means, elections or whatever else is possible? https://tribune.com.pk/story/2394796/the-makings-of-a-hindu-nationalist-state

The Hindu Right; Jan 17 2022;

 

                                                        The Hindu Right 

 At a conference in India last month, a Hindu extremist dressed head-to-toe in the religion's holy color, saffron, called on her supporters to kill Muslims and "protect" the country."If 100 of us become soldiers and are prepared to kill 2 million (Muslims), then we will win ... protect India, and make it a Hindu nation," said Pooja Shakun Pandey, a senior member of the right-wing Hindu Mahasabha political party, according to a video of the event. Her words and calls for violence from other religious leaders were met with a roar of applause from the large audience, a video from the three-day conference in the northern Indian city of Haridwar shows.  Pandey and several others are being investigated by local police for insulting religious beliefs, a charge that carries a possible sentence of up to four years in prison, Haridwar police officials told CNN. Late Thursday, police in Uttarakhand state, where Haridwar is located, arrested a man who spoke at the event, senior Haridwar Police official Shekhar Suyal told CNN. It is unclear what the man said at the event. Police have not formally charged anyone with any crime. Analysts say the Hindu Mahasabha is at the tip of a broader trend in India which has seen an alarming rise in support for extremist Hindu nationalist groups since Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power nearly eight years ago. Although these groups aren't directly associated with Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), his own Hindu nationalist agenda, and the lack of repercussions for these groups' previous vitriolic comments, has given them tacit support, making them even more brazen, analysts say. Analysts fear this rise poses a serious danger to minorities, especially Muslims -- and worry it may only get worse as several Indian states head to the polls in the coming months. "What makes the Hindu Mahasabha dangerous," said Gilles Verniers, an assistant professor of political science at Ashoka University near India's capital, New Delhi, "is that they have been waiting for a moment like this in decades." Founded in 1907 during British rule at a time of growing conflict between Muslims and Hindus in the country, the Hindu Mahasabha is one of India's oldest political organizations. The group didn't support British rule, but it didn't back India's freedom movement either, led by Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, who was particularly tolerant of Muslims. Even now, some members of the group worship his assassin, Nathuram Godse. The Hindu Mahasabha's vision, according to the group's official website, is to declare India the "National Home of the Hindus." The website says if it takes power, it will not hesitate to "force" the migration of India's Muslims to neighboring Pakistan and vows to reform the country's education system to align it with their version of Hinduism.   was in 1991. According to Verniers, their "strength is not to be measured in electoral terms." And in the past eight years since Modi came to power, they appear to have expanded in numbers and influence based on the size and frequency of their meetings, he said. While the group does not publicly disclose how many members it has, Verniers said they are "comfortably in the tens of thousands." Hindu Mahasabha targets rural communities in northern states, where there is a large BJP presence, encouraging them to vote for parties that align with their Hindu-nationalist ideology, including Modi's BJP, Verniers said. Modi, in turn, has publicly honored the Hindu Mahasabha's late leader, Veer Savarkar, for "his bravery" and "emphasis on social reform."  And as Hindu Mahasabha has grown in recent years, it has become more outspoken. In 2015, Sadhvi Deva Thakur, then a senior member of the group, caused widespread controversy when she told reporters Muslims and Christians should undergo forced sterilization to control their population growth. CNN has reached out to her for comment. Pandey, who spoke at the December conference in Haridwar, was arrested in February 2019 after a video showed her shooting an effigy of Gandhi Photos uploaded to her official Facebook page last May show her worshiping a statue of Gandhi's assassin. CNN has not been able to confirm whether she was formally charged over the February 2019 incident. Hindu Mahasabha isn't the only right-wing Hindu nationalist group to espouse violent sentiment toward liberals and minorities -- including India's 200 million Muslims, who make up 15% of the country's 1.3 billion population. At last month's conference, several speakers called on India's Hindus to "defend" the religion with weapons. Another called for the "cleansing" of India's minorities, according to video from the event. But according to Verniers, Hindu Mahasbha one of the largest right-wing political groups aiming to make India the land of the Hindus. And while the group's campaigns and ideas are decades old, they're more bold about them now. "The escalation of their hate speech is reflective of the state of affairs in India," said Verniers. "But they are able to get away with it more."  The reason extremist groups appear to be on the rise is clear, according to experts: they have impunity and support. India prohibits hate speech under several sections of its penal code, including a section which criminalizes "deliberate and malicious acts" intended to insult religious beliefs. According to lawyer Vrinda Grover, any group inciting violence is barred under Indian law. "Police, states and the government are responsible to ensure (inciting violence) doesn't happen," she said. "But the state, through its inaction, is actually permitting these groups to function, while endangering Muslims who are the targets." Pandey's rant and some of the other calls for violence were the "worst form of hate speech," according to Verniers. "This is the first time I find myself using the term 'genocide' in Indian politics," he said, referring to the comments made at last month's conference. "They have tacit support in the form of government silence." That's because Modi also has a Hindu nationalist agenda, experts say. Starting from his first term as Prime Minister, minority groups and analysts say they began to see a significant shift in India's ideology from a secular to a Hindu nationalist state. The BJP has its roots in Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a right wing-Hindu group that counts Modi among its members. Many RSS members are adherents of the Hindutva ideology that the Hindu Mahasabha preach -- to make India the land of the Hindus. In 2018, India's current Home Minister Amit Shah said Muslim immigrants and asylum seekers from Bangladesh were "termites" and promised to rid the nation of them. The BJP's Yogi Adityanath, the chief minister of the north Indian state Uttar Pradesh, known for his anti-Muslim views, once compared Muslim Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan to Hafiz Saeed, the alleged planner of the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks . Between 2015 and 2018, vigilante groups killed dozens of people -- many of whom were Muslims -- for allegedly consuming or killing cows, an animal considered sacred by Hindus, according to a report from Human Rights Watch. Modi publicly condemned some of the killings, but the violence continued, and in 2017, his government attempted to ban the sale and slaughter of cows --currently illegal in several Indian states -- nationwide. Human Rights Watch said many of the alleged murders went unpunished in part due to delayed police investigations and "rhetoric" from ruling party politicians, which may have incited mob violence. In 2019, India's Parliament passed a bill that would give immigrants from three neighboring countries a pathway to citizenship -- except for Muslims. It led to extended protests and international condemnation. In December 2020, Uttar Pradesh enacted a controversial anti-conversion law, making it more difficult for interfaith couples to marry or for people to convert to Islam or Christianity. Other states, including Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, and Assam, introduced similar laws, leading to widespread harassment and, in some cases, arrests for interfaith couples, Christian priests and pastors.  All of this has only served to encourage extremist groups like the Hindu Mahasabha, say experts. Zakia Soman, a women's rights activist and co-founder of the Muslim group Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan, said "a failure of governance" had given rise to more right-wing extremists. "Our community is realizing that we have become second-class citizens in our own country," Soman said. "Minority bashing and hate is becoming regular and normalized. As the intensity increases, the venom and violence in their language also increases." A 21-year-old Muslim student in Delhi, who chose to remain anonymous for fear of backlash from right-wing groups, said Muslims are filled with "a sense of fear" every time right-wing Hindu groups make hateful comments."It gives us a sense that we don't belong here," he said.  Despite police investigations and public outrage, legal action against those who spoke and were present at December's event have been slow. In a letter submitted to Modi on Friday and seen by CNN, students and faculty of the prestigious Indian Institute of Management in Bangalore and Ahmedabad said his silence "emboldens" hate, adding there is "sense of fear" among minority groups in India. Some experts agree the government's silence has only emboldened these groups further. "Hate speech precedes hate crimes," Grover, the lawyer, said. "And we are witnessing a crescendo of hate crimes. These groups are rapidly spreading poison through society." A 2019 US intelligence report warned that parliamentary elections in India increase the possibility of communal violence if Modi's BJP "stresses Hindu nationalist themes." It added that state leaders "might view a Hindu-nationalist campaign as a signal to incite low-level violence to animate their supporters." Analysts fear the BJP's divisive politics will could lead to increased violence against minority groups in the lead up to pivotal state elections this year. And reported episodes of violence against Muslims have already increased ahead of this year's state elections. In December, crowds of India's Hindu-right confronted Muslims praying on the streets in the city of Gurugram, just outside of Delhi. They prevented Muslims from praying, while shouting slogans and carrying banners in protest. "It is an electoral strategy," said Verniers, the political scientist. "Create religious tension, activate religious polarization and consolidate on the Hindu vote." Grover, the lawyer, said criminal laws are "weaponized" in India, adding anyone who challenges those in power "face the wrath of the law." "Muslim lives in India are demonized," she said. "The Indian state is in serious crisis." On January 1, Pandey held a live broadcast for her more than 1,500 Facebook followers. The subject was "Religious Parliament," her post said. For the 21-year-old student, it is difficult to "expect any sense of justice" for Indian Muslims. He says even having a Muslim name is enough to make him feel unsafe. "It is really scary to carry the Muslim identity in India today." https://edition.cnn.com/2022/01/14/asia/india-hindu-extremist-groups-intl-hnk-dst/index.html

The brutality and savagery of Gujarat massacres (Chachi) by Nishrin Jafri Hussain (JR 156 NH 03)

The brutality and savagery of Gujarat massacres (Chachi) by Nishrin Jafri Hussain (JR156NH03)

 On the eve of Indian elections

In 2015, after my third cup of delicious ginger tea at Sanjiv Bhatt’s house, he had convinced me that I should write, that if no one else he will read and yes will ignore the grammar. So here is one such truth. Tragic but it will make you think of the system, the evils of our society and if this is how we want us to be and if so, for what.

Kaun Banega Crorepati:

I didn’t get to watch Kaun Banega Carorepati, also known as KBC that started in 2000 I believe until very late after few seasons had passed. But when I started watching it, at every episode there was only one person on my mind, “Chachi” (Aunty). At every episode I imagined I was entering the KBC stage holding Chachi’s hand, helping her to the tall chair facing Mr. Amitabh Bachchan preparing her so she can tell her story. Story of her love, courage, life and what she lost.

I honestly don’t know her name to-date. I just know her as Chachi, she was Anwar Mamu ki biwi, (Anwar Uncle’s wife). My childhood friend Salma though called her “Mumani” as she was related to her. She was just a neighbor to us, I have always known them to be in that house. Their three-story bungalow was right next to ours in Gulberg Society, simply separated by a small alley and a Neem Tree that is still standing tall and green after 18 years today since 2002.

Her story defies all rules of “you get what you deserve”.

I have always known her to be in that house. It’s not like I could write she married and came to live here. She was already living in that house with Anwar Mamu and her in-laws, a big family. She had a room and kitchen in her possession on the ground floor of the house. She kept it very neat and clean, including the front and back yard. I went to the house now and then to give or bring something on Ammi’s orders.

A lot went through my mind when once in 2017 Raveena Tandon tweeted on how those who wear Saree in India are true Indians. Chachi could have received special consideration had the Hindutva mob that surrounded her house on that day known she had never worn anything but a saree all her life. Never a Punjabi or a nighty that most house wives commonly wore. A true national in one sense. But that didn’t help.

I didn’t know much about her but from Ammi I knew she was the only child, her parents loved her dearly, she was all they had. I had seen her parents now and then. They also lived in Ahemedabad and were very humble people. They didn’t visit her much, maybe once or twice in a year and she didn’t visit them much either. I had heard that they had put in their entire retirement money in completing this house for her. She lived a simple life. Anwar Mamu was a tailor and had lost one leg on the train tracks a long time ago. She was also mother of three kids, two boys and a girl. The reason I was called “Jafri Saheb ki Nargis” (my house name is Nargis, Nishrin is official school name) was because we had two other Nargis in Gulberg Society, her daughter and also Mohammed Kaka’s daughter who was also Nargis, whom we called “Nargis Ben”. Chachi loved Nargis dearly, but Akhtar, her youngest was her star. Her older Son Aslam was a trouble maker, for her and for others in the Society. But Akku, as she and we all called him was her darling. I often played with him. I grew up playing marbles, “gilli danda” (not sure what it is called in English) with the society boys. Sometimes we made a fire and sat around outside throwing paper and twigs in the fire until I was called inside. At a young age Akku had started spending time at his father’s shop and was learning the trade of tailoring. He was soft spoken and hard working. After I left home and when I visited in summers with my little boys, I often sat on the swing outside in the backyard and starred at their backyard. Ammi would fill me in by saying how finally Chachi has found peace in her life. That is because Chachi’s married life was a painful one. But she always looked contained. She kept herself busy with her house work. She did go to a movie or two with my Aunt Suraiya and her sister-in-law Najma once in a blue moon. Otherwise she never went out not even to Dargah’s. I don’t remember her doing any religious rituals such as Niyaz or mujlis. But even in this simplest of life in this corner of the world of the 80’s with no TV or YouTube she had a secret, something or someone she dearly loved besides her son Akhtar. And I was one of the few that knew this secret.

She took pride in taking care of her house and family. Her kitchen had few utensils, all shiny steel vessels and a kerosene stove. Her room had one bed made of iron frame, always covered with a neat bed sheet. Under this bed was a green metal trunk or like we called it “patre ki peti”. This I believe was her only possession and no one was allowed to touch it. Not sure if it had a lock. But for whatever reason she had opened the trunk in front of me several times. I would sit comfortably with my legs folded neatly on the floor spreading my frock and covering my knees with it as she would open the trunk. And their he was, Mr. Amitabh Bachan. Small and large photos stuck on the inside of the trunk, almost every inch of it was covered with his photos. I also had contributed to her collection now and then when I found some pictures in some magazines as I knew she collected them, though in those days we had few filmy magazines. Large photos of Mr. Bachan were kept at the bottom and several of them neatly straitened under her neatly folded sarees. She had to spread a newspaper first on the floor, remove all her Saree’s to get to them. But we always had time. Some very large posters were rolled and kept. Ah the times and situations. I never questioned why she never displayed her love and passion on the empty walls of her room. As if I knew without anyone had said or explained to me that in her situation it was not possible. I just knew that this was a secret. I don’t think I ever told this to Ammi or anyone. She called Mr. Bachan “lambu” out of love, just in front of few chosen people, one of them was me. Can you imagine the times, the situations, the surroundings and the people?

So here I question as to which God Almighty had an issue with her and her life. What sins she had done that she was so dearly punished for.

On March 1st, 2002 when I called, I was told Anwar Mamu was beheaded. Nani was also found burned and dead in her room. Akhtar and his wife were found in pieces in my backyard, they tried to hide in the bathroom in the back of our house but were pulled by the Mob and cut to pieces by the swords. And Chachi? Chachi’s body was not found. This is reality I am writing, this is no fiction, no story. This was in Ahemedabad, Gujarat the model city and state of India. Several days later they found Chachi, alive. She was but some 50 kgs., not sure how she survived the burns. The Mob thought she was dead as she lay with her burned back in the back yard of her house among other dead bodies.

On February 28th, 2019, on 18th death Anniversary of her husband and beloved son Akku, I finally met her at Gulberg Society. She was as slim as she was always, wearing a neat saree. Our eyes met, we didn’t say anything, she smiled and hugged me tight as if we could hear each other, as if she was asking me “how are you, you must miss Abba so much” and as if I was asking “how did you learn to live without Akku”.

She sat next to me holding my hand and slowly we walked towards our houses, still smelling of our loved ones among the ruins. We entered her room from the front verandah. She glanced through the room and said, “There I had my trunk under the bed, you remember” without looking at me. “I do remember" I said, "and I also remember what was in the trunk”, she immediately looked at me, “sab “lambu” ki photo bhi jal gayi” (All Mr. Bachans photo’s burned too).

My countries, my people, my friends, close your eyes and think for a moment:

What have we become?
What have we done?
How did we play God?
Who are we?
And Why?
Again, for what?

Pulwama: India’s False Flag Operation in Kashmir, Danger of Nuclear War? By Sajjad Shaukat (JR 139SS 28)

Pulwama: India’s False Flag Operation in Kashmir, Danger of Nuclear War? By Sajjad Shaukat (JR 139SS 28)

At least 44 Indian soldiers were killed in the Pulwama district of the Indian Occupied Kashmir (IoK) on February 14, this year when a suicide bomber rammed a car into a convoy of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF).

Next day, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi blamed Pakistan for the Pulwama terror attack and warned of a strong response, ratcheting up tension between the nuclear-armed neighbors. New Delhi also removed the most favored nation (MFN) trade privileges that had been accorded to Pakistan-though annual bilateral trade between the two countries.

Islamist militant group Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) claimed responsibility soon after the assault.

Without any investigation and evidence Indian high officials and media started accusing Islamabad, saying that the attackers had come from Pakistan to stage the assault.

The Indian foreign ministry said in a statement, “We demand that Pakistan stop supporting terrorists and terror groups operating from their territory and dismantle the infrastructure operated by terrorist outfits to launch attacks in other countries.”

Speaking in the Indian tone and remaining silence on the CIA-Mossad-RAW anti-Pakistan secret terror-network in Afghanistan, the White House also shared Indian blame game, urging Pakistan “to end immediately the support and safe haven provided to all terrorist groups operating on its soil”.

On the other side, Pakistan’s Foreign Office spokesperson said: “We have always condemned acts of violence anywhere in the world…We strongly reject any insinuation by elements in the Indian media and government that seek to link the attack to Pakistan without investigations.” Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Quereshi also rejected Indian false allegations.

Speaking to the Indian media, former Chief Minister of the Indian Held Kashmir Farooq Abdullah stated: “I was saddened to hear about the deaths of the soldiers…This is not something happening for the first time. These incidents happen everyday there…India should talk with Kashmiris, because using the force of guns and army is not the solution…Don’t blame Pakistan because local people are joining Kashmiri fight” [War of liberation].

Meanwhile, on February 21, 2018, India was humiliated once again at the diplomatic level when Pakistan’s name was not mentioned in the declaration by the UN Security Council condemning Pulwama attack. New Delhi tried everything possible to involve Pakistan’s name in the statement and tried to use American influence as well. Multiple countries were briefed in New Delhi regarding the attack.

However, various contradictory developments and reports proved that Pulwama terror attack was a false flag operation, conducted by New Delhi to malign Islamabad in order to obtain various designs.

In this regard, quoting the report of the daily Kashmir Times of September 10, 2017, Pakistan’s media and even some leading newspapers of India revealed that the Indian drama was exposed after the disclosure that the alleged suicide attacker of the Pulwama attack Adil Ahmed Dar was already in the custody of the Indian army. “The Indian army had arrested Adil Ahmed Dar during an operation in Shopian on September 10, 2017… It is a big question that how he carried out the suicide attack when he was already in the custody of Indian army.”

Blindly alleging Pakistan, some Indian newspapers, especially India Today wrote: “Intelligence agencies in Jammu and Kashmir believe Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed commander-Ghazi Abdul Rasheed-is the mastermind behind the gruesome Pulwama terror attack that rocked the nation on February 14. He is one of the closest aides of Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) chief Maulana Masood Azha.”

It is notable that religious cleric Abdul Rasheed Ghazi was killed in 2007 during the Lal Masjid operation in Islamabad, launched by the then President Gen. Pervez Musharraf.

It is of particular attention that Indian Prime Minister Modi’s extremist party-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had got a land sliding triumph in the Indian elections 2014 on the basis of anti-Muslim and anti-Pakistan slogans. Therefore, since the Prime Minister Modi came to power, he has been implementing anti-Muslim and anti-Pakistan agenda with the support of fanatic coalition outfits.

Now, double game has become the BJP strategy to win the Indian general elections 2019. In this respect, BJP leadership seems to have geared up its activity for forthcoming poll-2019. Hence, suicide assault of Pulwama which is false flag operation is also election stunt of the BJP.

In the aftermath of the Pulwama terror attack, across India, many Kashmiri people, including students have been arrested and attacked and their shops looted by the Hindu extremists. Young people have been charged with sedition for criticizing the Indian Army, and Indians are lashing out at Pakistani civilians, including Bollywood actors. A wave of jingoism has been created by the BJP-led fanatic parties against the Muslims and Pakistan.

It is mentionable that on September18, 2016, New Delhi had staged the drama of the terror attack in the IOK at a military base in Uri, close to the Line of Control (LoC) with Pakistan. After the episode, without any investigation, India’s top civil and military officials, including their media started propaganda against Pakistan, it Army and primary intelligence agency ISI by accusing that the militants who targeted the Uri base came from Pakistan’s side of Azad Kashmir. By manipulating that false flag terror attack, the BJP-led Indian Prime Minister Modi had also accelerated war-hysteria against Islamabad and instructed Indian forces to continue shelling across the LoC and Working Boundary, which have killed many innocent civilians inside Pakistani side of Kashmir and other nearby villages. Now, in order to win the elections of 2019, Indian forces are continuously violating the LoC through intermittent shelling and have compelled Pakistan Army to give a matching response.

In fact, failed in suppressing the indigenous Kashmir movement, Indian central government imposed President’s rule in Jammu and Kashmir which began from December 20, 2018. The main purpose is to accelerate atrocities on the Kashmiris who are demanding their genuine right of self-determination in accordance with the UNO resolutions.

Besides, India’s another aim is to deflect the attention of the international community from the new phase of Kashmiri Intifada, while in this connection; pressure has been mounting on the Modi government both domestically and internationally to settle the dispute of Kashmir with Islamabad. While, New Delhi is still showing its intransigence to resolve Kashmir issue by also neglecting the fact that Kashmir remains a nuclear flashpoint between both the neighbouring countries.

Nevertheless, taking cognizance of Indian blame game and war-like posture, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan said on February 19, this year, that Pakistan will take action, if New Delhi shares any actionable evidence, concerning the suicide bombing in the occupied Kashmir’s Pulwama area which targeted Indian paramilitary soldiers. Offering cooperation and another chance at a dialogue over the Kashmir issue, the premier also warned India against any act of aggression, saying Pakistan will not hesitate in retaliating to a provocation.

But, Indian extremist government of the BJP rejected any cooperation in this respect, and has continued threatening diplomacy against Islamabad.

Following Indian war-like strategy, Prime Minister Imran Khan on February 21, 2019 chaired a key meeting of the National Security Council (NSC) attended by Pakistan’s Army chief Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa, services chiefs, heads of intelligence agencies, security officials and the concerned federal ministers—during which the country’s security situation was discussed, amidst heightened tensions between India and Pakistan following the Pulwama terror attack. NSC said that the country was not involved in any way in the Pulwama terror attack and it was conceived, planned and executed indigenously, as Prime Minister Imran Khan authorised the military to respond decisively to any aggression by India.

Addressing a press conference on Friday (February 22, 2019) in relation to the situation arising after the Pulwama attack, Director General of Pakistan Army’s media wing, the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), Maj-Gen. Asif Ghafoor warned India to not mess with Pakistan. He elaborated: “On February 14, a Kashmiri youngster targeted Indian security forces. After the incident, India starting bombarding Pakistan with allegations without any proof…Whenever the situation improves in Pakistan, India tries to destabilise the country…In February, when the Pulwama attack happened there were important events in Pakistan—Saudi crown prince’s visit, Afghan reconciliation process, UNSC talking about terror financing, EU deliberating on human rights violations in occupied Kashmir, Kulbhushan Jadhav [Indian spy arrested in Pakistan] hearing…The elections are upcoming in India and the indigenous struggle in occupied Kashmir is high…We do not wish to go to war but please be rest assured should you initiate any aggression, first you will never be able to surprise us. But let me assure you, we will surprise you. We shall also dominate the escalation ladder.”

Nonetheless, without bothering for nuclear war, in the aftermath of the terror attack in Pulwama, India is deliberately increasing war hysteria against Pakistan.

It is noteworthy that BJP leader Dr. Subramaniam Swami had stated on July 12, 2014 that India needed only two years to defeat Pakistan militarily, and the only solution of Kashmir was war, as “there is no peaceful, democratic solution.” Responding to the withdrawal of the US-led NATO forces from Afghanistan, he remarked, “Americans will hand over Afghanistan to Taliban and go…India should send at least 200,000 troops to Afghanistan.”

It is wishful thinking of the BJP leader that India can defeat Pakistan. While, both the adversaries are nuclear powers, New Delhi has been ignoring the principles of deterrence, popularly known as balance of terror.

After the World War 11, nuclear weapons were never used, and were only employed as a strategic threat. During the heightened days of the Cold War, many crises arose in Suez Canal, Korea, Cuba and Vietnam when the US and the former Soviet Union were willing to use atomic weapons, but they stopped because of the fear of nuclear war which could eliminate both the super powers. Therefore, the two rivals preferred to resolve their differences through diplomacy.

Political strategists agree that deterrence is a psychological concept which aims to affect an opponent’s perceptions. In nuclear deterrence, weapons are less usable, as their threat is enough in deterring an enemy who intends to use its armed might. In this context, a renowned scholar, Hotzendorf remarks that nuclear force best serves the interests of a state when it deters an attack.

In the present circumstances, BJP-led government of Modi is badly mistaken, if it overestimates India’s power and underestimates Pakistan’s power. As Pakistan lacks conventional forces and weapons vis-à-vis India, so, in case of a prolonged conflict, Pakistan will have to use nuclear weapons and missiles which could destroy whole of India, resulting into Indian political suicide.

In the past too, Indian rulers had intended to implement their doctrine of limited war in Kashmir or to fight a conventional war with Pakistan, but they could not do so owing to Pakistan’s nuclear weapons.

Unlike the former Soviet Union and the USA, war-like situation exists between New Delhi and Islamabad due to the perennial firing by the Indian forces across the Line of Control and the Working Boundary in wake of the unresolved issue of Kashmir.

It is worth-mentioning that at present, fanatic leaders are in power in the US, India and Israel and they are in collaboration against the Muslims, Islamic World, Russia and China. And it is also part of Zionist agenda to ‘denuclearize Pakistan’, as she is the only nuclear country in the Muslim World. 

Notably, Israel does not want the two-state settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian issue and will prefer atomic war between the US and Russia. Similarly, in order to avoid the solution of Kashmir dispute, extremist Prime Minister Modi can take the risk of nuclear war with Pakistan.

In these terms, we may conclude that Pulwama terror attack was a false flag operation, conducted by the Indian security forces to crush the war of liberation in the Indian Occupied Kashmir and to implicate Islamabad in this regard. So, in wake of India’s war-like threats, danger of nuclear war remains between India and Pakistan, as even a conventional conflict can result into an atomic war.

Sajjad Shaukat writes on international affairs and is author of the book: US vs Islamic Militants, Invisible Balance of Power: Dangerous Shift in International Relations

Email: sajjad_logic @yahoo.com