Threat to Modi's Fort in Gujarat

Democracy is such a field in which even a tallest person has his limits. People are wise enough to decide. Rulers are changed as per the people's aspirations. By spending huge amounts, leaders enhance their heights. One such person is Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi who tries to become an icon by using the media, though his greatest achievement is the carnage of Muslims in 2002, killing 2,000 people. Even today, Gujarat's land is not permissible for Muslims but Modi erected his palace on their corpses.
Right from day one, Modi had decided to annihilate Muslims, divide them from Hindus, and by creating aversions, rule the state. He got the success through their game plan and in every election he plays this trick. Since aversions is not in the DNA of the Indian people, this formula will, therefore, not work for long.
Communalism Trick Failed
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Sangh Parivar had used the pretext of the Babri Mosque to come to power for once but subsequently people got sensible to understand their play and thus showed them the door. Since Modi knows that this trick of communalism is not longer lasting, he is now shifting toward development. To achieve this aim, Modi has been organizing conclaves by inviting nonresident Indians (Gujaratis) to invest in Gujarat. Whereas the truth is truth and it prevails.
People have now recognized Modi's real face and have hatred toward him. The proof is Modi's defeat in the recent Gandhinagar municipality elections, in which the BJP got 15 seats against 18 of the Congress party. This is a sensitive and worrisome matter for Modi as this area is of BJP leader L.K. Advani, from where he has been winning for the past 18 years. To capture the Gandhinagar municipality, Modi left no stone unturned.
Fight for Secularism
On 13 April, Modi and Advani organized a big congregation at the Town Hall. After capturing this, the Congress party has occupied two out of eight municipalities of the state. On this defeat, Modi and his henchmen are experiencing the fits of anxiety and are amazed to what happened and how? This puzzle was solved by a former officer, Prem Shankar Bhatt, member of Nagrik Parishad. He says that most of the voters in Gandhinagar are government servants, who implement government schemes. As Modi lied to a great extent about false schemes and these voters being in government knew the truth, hence they voted against him.
Modi could not have continued for long had the Congress party been firm on its ideology. He played a communal card and the Congress party became the 'B' team of the BJP. Modi is a transgressor. If the Congress party resolved to fight for secularism, equality, fraternity, and human values, then this flame will one day become a storm and will demolish the fort of Modi and Advani.

BJP Returns to Old Agenda

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has yet again trumpeted the issue of construction of Ram Temple at Ayodhya. This was strongly asserted at the party's national executive meeting currently being held at Indore in Madhya Pradesh. Although the session is being held under the presidentship of new president Nitin Gadkari, yet, for once, the party avoided spitting venom against Muslims. Whatever the party has said on issues like Ram Temple and reservation for Muslims is glaring evidence that the party is not at all prepared to change its color, and continues to hold on to its earlier stand and principles.
While reiterating its stand on construction of Ram temple at Ayodhya, the BJP made an appeal to Muslims to facilitate its construction. This implies that the BJP wants that Muslims should give up the case of Babri Mosque. It is a different issue whether Muslims would give up the case, but Nitin Gadkari has commented on the issue that the "case is pending in court where it appears difficult that the court would give a satisfactory ruling."

Faith and Confidence in Judiciary
Why does Gadkari feel that the court may give a ruling known only to him? Yet, as far as Indian Muslims are concerned, they have full faith and confidence in judiciary. Further, they have maintained from the beginning of the Babri Mosque dispute that they would abide by court ruling, whatever it be. The issue, however, does not relate to Indian Muslims alone, but it concerns everyone who has confidence in the country's judicial system. Every person, who may belong to any faith or religion, believes that the parties concerned should abide by court ruling in this dispute.
While speaking on the Ram Temple issue, the BJP has offered that should Muslims leave the place for the construction of the Ram Temple at Ayodhya, the BJP would extend all help in construction of a huge mosque by acquiring nearby land. It is not appropriate to speculate on how the common Muslim feels about the issue, or how the Muslim leadership would react and respond to the offer.
Nitin Gadkari, however, deserves to be commended that he avoided the use of provocative language. This is because the way the BJP and its allies have so far been raising the issue, has always served to vitiate the atmosphere of peace and amity.

Muslim Reservation Issue
Coming down heavily on reservation for Muslims, Nitin Gadkari maintained that such a measure would create differences and dissension. Only the BJP president can answer in what way reservation for Muslims would create the divide.
Should one take that the BJP is greatly afraid of reservation for the Muslim community? Wherever any reservation has been granted or wherever there is a proposal to do so, the basis of such a reservation is not religion but backwardness of the people belonging to some sects among Muslims.
Since the Indian Constitution envisages that all citizens should be accorded and afforded equal opportunities, it implies that all backward people in the country should be granted reservation, irrespective of their caste or creed, religion or faith. It is baseless even to think that it would create a divide among people. One wonders whether the divide in Hindu society has widened by the grant of reservation to the weaker and backward sections of Hindu society?

Gap Between High Caste Hindus and Dalits
Certainly, it hasn't. It is a hard fact that because of reservation, the gap between high caste Hindus and Dalits has reduced, as Dalits have risen out of their backwardness and deprivation because of reservation.
Anyway, whatever be the tone and tenor of the BJP and its president Nitin Gadkari at the meeting of the party national executive, it is certain that the BJP is not at all prepared to change its stand toward minorities, particularly Muslims. It also makes it clear that issues like construction of Ram Mandir abrogation of Article 370 and opposition to Muslim reservations, continue to be on its agenda.

Repellent Faces of Secular States

Will the news coming from Switzerland that they have decided to permit the preaching of Islam, allowed the construction of mosques and are thinking of permitting the construction of minarets in mosques be able to remove the scars that had come on the liberal face of the country after the laws regarding the ban on the construction of minarets was passed in Switzerland?
The meaning of a secular state is that the state has no religion i.e. the state does not have anything do with religion. The state does not interfere in the matters of religion; in fact it is totally independent in this case. The citizens of such a country are free to practice their religious obligations. If a person wants to go to the mosque then they can go, if a person wants to go to the temple then they can go, and if a person wants to go to the church then they can go there.

Beliefs and Traditions
Everyone is free to go to any place of worship. If a person does not believe in any religion or god, then it does not have any impact on the state. The state has to run all the affairs according to the constitution of the country. In a secular state, if every person is free to practice their religion then this also means that a person is allowed to construct their places of worship according to their own beliefs and traditions.
On contrary, the things that happened regarding the construction of the minarets in mosques in the most respectable country in the world, Switzerland, is not only unbelievable but it is also a slap on the face of Switzerland which calls itself a secular state, the 62 plus Islamic countries in the world and the 1.5 billion Muslims in the world.

Referendum on Constitution Amendment
On 29 November, 57 percent of the Swiss voters in the referendum voted in favor of the constitution amendment aimed at banning the construction of minarets in mosques. This issue started in 2005 when the Turkish cultural association asked for the permission to build a 6-meter high minaret on the Islamic cultural centre, which led to protests and agitations. This case was then taken up by the local responsible institutions, who allowed the construction of the minaret but the so called most respectable, independent and secular Swiss nation did not accept this decision. This protest was given a political flavor by calling the minarets as symbols of political strength.
The case was finally taken up by the federal Supreme Court, which also gave the go-ahead signal to the Muslims. So, finally, the 6-meter minaret was constructed in July 2009. After this, a well planned and coherent campaign was launched. The minarets were shown as a missile tearing apart the flag of the Swiss flag on the banners held up by the protestors. This campaign was done by the political parties.
It is interesting to note that there are only 0.3 million Muslims in Switzerland which has a total population of 7.7 million. In addition, there are only three mosques that have minarets. They could not even tolerate this. It is correct that Islam is not dependent on the minarets but this fiasco revealed the true face of secular Switzerland. On one hand, there is talk of a dialogue between the different religions of the world, on the other, how much care was taken of the emotions and sentiments of the 1.5 billions Muslims by the most independent and peaceful country in the world.

Ban on Hijab
After 9/11, the Muslims have been subject of repression by the United States, but Europe is also not lagging behind America. Muslim teachers and students in Europe are not allowed to work/study because they are wearing hijab. They have gone to different courts for this purpose. Initially this protest was limited to the public but the ex-foreign minister of Britain has taken this issue to parliament by rejecting it. Now, a constitutional ban is being placed on wearing hijab in France. Similar movements are taking place in Italy, the Netherlands, and other European countries.
A respected Egyptian lady was martyred by a German by repeated attacks of the sword in a court house filled with lawyers, judges and police officials. Surprisingly, no one in the court tried to stop the mad person from killing the lady. The police did not even try to stop it. The husband of the martyr lady tried to stop the attacker but he was also injured. This is the condition of the world states who have so called no link with religion.

Hindu State Mindset
There is a secular state in our neighborhood as well. It is also the so called largest secular and democratic country in the world. Yes certainly, India, which lays claim to be the largest secular and democracy in the world, treats the minorities in an inhumane way and are deprived of their fundamental rights in such a way that no other country in this respectable world cannot even imagine to do those things. In reality, India is not a secular and democratic state, it is a Hindu state. The philosophy of this state is simple and very threatening as it states, "Hindustan is for Hindus," which means that only Hindus are only allowed to live in India. The non-Hindus will have to become Hindus again. They are against all religions except for extremist Hinduism but Islam and Muslim are particularly their targets. These Hindu extremist groups have 1.7 million plus Hindu agents. The political wing of this Hindu state mindset is the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is led by Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, who had supervised the martyr of 5000 Muslims in Gujarat, of which 2500 Muslims were burnt alive. The institutions of the Muslims were looted and burnt. The rulers of the secular state were proud of these acts and they ordered more such actions.
There was excessive usage of state machinery in these acts. These actions gave Modi the status of a god and he was a candidate for the Prime Minster spot in the BJP in the elections held last year. The police officials involved in these riots were given awards for bravery and promotions. This Hindu state has martyred the Babri Mosque and thousands of Muslims. The secular state has taken no action against the people involved in these acts despite the fact that such a long time has passed since these events have taken place and different reports of investigation committees have come forward. The army of this secular state has taken the lives of more than hundred thousand Muslims in Kashmir alone since 1988.
The army of this secular state has killed 250,000 Sikhs since 1984. This secular India has killed 300,000 Christians since 1947 in the state of Nagaland alone. Two years ago, forty thousand Christians were subject to extreme violence and repression in the state of Orissa, which forced them to migrate from their homes. Hundred people were killed and thousands were injured. Their houses were looted, numerous churches were burnt and priests and nuns were burnt alive. Thousands of Christians were forced to live in jungles for weeks. The Sikhs in collaboration with the secular Hindus of India committed violence and killed one million Muslims at partition.

Inhumane Behavior and Attitude
In this secular state of India, the high caste Hindus have an extremely dreadful behavior with their low caste Hindus. It is even a distant thought to give them the fundamental rights of human beings; they are not even treated as humans. The high caste Hindus cannot have food, worship at the same place, cannot marry, cannot talk on equal terms, sit with each other or even touch the low caste Hindus. The only work of the low caste Hindus is to clean the streets and sanitation systems. The treatment given to them is even worse than that given to animals. This inhumane behavior and attitude of the high caste Hindus towards the low caste Hindus and minorities is like a bad scar on the name of humanity.
The humanity is shameful on this attitude of a group of people with other persons. This is not something which the Indians are showing to the world, the world does not see this and the world is not even interested in watching these things. They are also viewing these things from the perspective of their benefits. They can only see the market of 1.15 billion people.
The things that have been done by the court of one more secular state with Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, they are not even capable of being called a secular state. Have the evil faces of these nations not been revealed completely? Are these people not mad and extremist? Is not the treatment given to non-Muslims by Muslim countries better than the treatment given to Muslims in non-Muslim countries? Despite this, the Muslims have to face the entire storm. The stature of the 1.5 billion Muslims is not even equal to the 14.6 million Jews spread across 104 countries.

NHRC Rubs Salt into Muslims' Wounds

The two youth, Atif and Sajid, were rightly killed at Batla House on September 19, 2008. The police was justified in killing them. Whatever the police did was in self-defense. The youth fired at the police first, therefore, the police retaliated in self-defense.

There is no lacuna in the police story. Almost after a year since the incident at the Batla House in Delhi in which two Muslim youth were shot dead, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has given a clean chit to the Delhi Police.

Clean Chit to Delhi Police
Had the report come from a police officer, he could not have given the clean chit to the police so shamelessly. The NHRC did not feel the need to visit the incident site, nor did it talk to eyewitnesses or investigate their colleagues in jail.

The NHRC did not even examine the postmortem reports. It did not talk to the defense council of those children or paid any heed to the reports that appeared in the media. What it did was to give a clean chit to the Delhi police in one stroke of the pen.

Raising Doubts and Concerns
Sweeping all doubts and concerns under the carpet, the NHRC reported what the police wanted. The NHRC clearly stated that it spoke to the police, served its report, and jumped to conclusion. Shelving all bleeding questions and queries, it decided to thumb its nose to justice and the truth.

During the past 60 years, whenever any tyranny was perpetrated against Muslims, the Government, instead of meeting out justice to them and hanging the culprits to death, constituted only one commission, and the commission that does not aim at revealing the truth, instead it woks to hide it, and throw cold water on the annoyance and anger of Muslims.

Blackening the Truth.
Commissions of investigation are, in fact, toys given to Muslims to satiate them. Whether it is the Srikrishna Commission on Mumbai riots, or the Nanavati Commission on Gujarat riots or the Liberhan Commission constituted after the demolition of the Babri mosque, all these commissions worked for the same purpose, to sweep the truth under the carpet, save the killers, and by satiating Muslims, make them raise slogans for the murderers. All commissions constituted in the past were only for the sake of it. They superficially acted, but in the case of the Batla House, by putting all norms of justice and morality in backburner, shamelessly and without any qualm, blackened the truth. It did not even feel the need of making Muslims look satisfied.

The Government has understood that the annoyance of Muslims is like soap lather that subsides soon. Else, Muslims residing in Okhla would not have so enthusiastically voted for the Congress.

Until now, all had great reliance on the NHRC, particularly at the time when Justice Ranganath Mishra, who hails from Allahabad and is a former Supreme Court judge, heads the NHRC. None of its members is a Dalit or a minority. These are the communities whose human rights continue to be violated everywhere. Yet, the present Government had the cheek not to take any member of Dalits or minority into it. It appears that the federal Government has constituted the commission in such a way that instead of being a protector of human rights, it becomes a protector of murderers. Its term of reference is not to bring out the truth, but to throw the truth behind the curtain.

Some believe that NHRC is working under Delhi police pressure. Yet, it cannot be true. The NHRC has powers similar to that of the Supreme Court and, therefore, it cannot at all work under pressure of the Delhi police. The home ministry nominates its members and they work under its pressure. Certainly, there are some members on it who perform their duty honestly, sincerely, and responsibly. Yet, it is clear that in the Batla House case, it was under the home ministry's pressure. The home ministry and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh do not want that the truth of the Batla House and other similar encounters should come to public knowledge. They want that the lid on the truth should continue to be on and the mask of secularism that they have adorned continue to be there. Had it not been so, responsible NHRC members would have certainly attempted to reach the bottom of the truth.

Contradictory Statements
The NHRC office is hardly a 30-minute drive to the Batla House. Yet, it appears that the commission was aware from day one that it has to sweep the truth under the carpet. If the commission has been largely dependent on the police statements, it should have paid attention to the contradictory statements made by senior police officers. It should have made a reference to it in the report. Additional Police Commissioner R.B. Upadhyaya and Joint Police Commissioner Karnail Singh have made contradictory statements, which manifest that the police is certainly hiding something.

Additional Police Commissioner Upadhyaya has said in his report of 23 October 2008, "Inspector Mohan Chand Sharma of Sepcial Cell had entered along with his colleague into the L-18 building, Batla House, to arrest some suspected terrorists. While other members of the raiding team stayed behind to keep an eye on the building, the team knocked at the first floor house revealing their identity, but the door was not opened."

Joint Police Commissioner Karnail Singh submitted his report on 19 November 2008. He said that a police team led by Inspector Sharma reached the place of incident to arrest the culprits. A helping team wearing bulletproof jackets and armed with AK47 rifles was stationed at some distance. Inspector Sharma asked Sub-Inspector Dharmendra to enter the flat in the guise of a representative of a mobile company that had come to investigate about the phone number 9811004309. Dharmendra went up the staircase. He heard some voices in the flat, came down to tell Inspector Sharma, then the two of them went up to the flat.

There is a world of contradiction between these stories put up by the police. In Upadhyaya's report no mention of Dharmendra has been made. His report maintains that Sharma went up alone, leaving the team behind while Karnail's report says that he stationed two teams at some distance and went up.

It appears that the NHRC did not take the trouble to study postmortem reports of Atif and Sajid. Both of them were shot at from a close range. Atif received two bullets in his chest while Sajid received five. Three of which were on is forehead, one in the middle of the head and one on the shoulder. Experts say that only a sitting person can receive bullets in such a position and not a person who is standing. They were fired upon with the intention to kill. The NHRC report discusses the postmortem report of Inspector Sharma in detail, but has swept the contradiction in the postmortem reports of Atif and Sajid under the carpet.

Exploit Innocent Minorities
Instead of applying some balm on the wounds of Muslims, the NHRC is attempting to scratch them yet again. How long would the Union Government and Manmohan Singh continue to keep the lid on the truth? How long would they try to appease Muslims by giving them toys to play with? How long would the Congress Government continue to derive mileage from the opportunism indulged in by the Muslim leaders and exploit innocent Muslims.

The NHRC report has made it clear that the Government would no longer attempt to protect the minorities. If the minorities do not comprehend that they are being subjected to a game plan, a time would soon come when there would be none to raise his voice against the tyranny perpetrated against them.