Can BJP call for sanctions on Sri Lanka?

Latheef FAROOK

BJP’s treatment towards minorities remains problematic. AFP

Yashwant Sinha, senior leader of Baharatiya Janata Party, (BJP), the political face of Hindu extremist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, (RSS), has demanded that India imposes sanctions on Sri Lanka for its treatment of Tamil civilians trapped in the war zone.

No doubt and no question that these civilians, as citizens of this country, deserve safety and protection. However, the question is whether India, of all countries, and the BJP, of all the political parties, can ever speak of minority rights in view of their treatment of the largest minority of around 150 million Indian Muslims.

Violence on minorities

Politics in India has been systematically hijacked by the RSS and its numerous front organizations known for their intense hatred and violence towards the minorities especially the Muslims. In their drive to set up a mythical Hindu Raj the BJP has committed some of the worst crimes against the country’s Muslims under their dream ideology that Muslims give up Islam and either embrace Hinduism or leave the country.

This is sheer madness. Those who espouse this destructive ideology have been in the driving seat of Indian politics that has descended to such low depth that the road to political success is by fanning the flame of hatred and committing atrocities against Muslims.

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The latest to join this anti-Muslim racist politics is late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s diabolical grandson Varun Gandhi, a BJP candidate for Lok Sabha seat. Varun Gandhi, is the son of Sanjay Gandhi who played havoc with millions of poor Indians who were forcefully castrated and their settlements bulldozed during the infamous emergency.

In a clear exhibit of his paternal traits Varun, born to a Sikh mother Menaka Gandhi, whose kindness to animals better known than to human beings, especially Muslims, declared in public meeting that “Hindus stay here; send all non-Hindus to Pakistan.

This is the lotus, BJP, hand and it will cut their throats after the elections. If somebody lifts a hand against Hindus or thinks they are weak, there is no body behind them, and I swear by Baghwat Gita that I will cut off their hands. He also taunted the Muslim candidate contesting against him by describing him as Osama bin Laden”.

Whatever may be the reason behind Varun Gandhi’s pronouncements, he has degraded the corrupted, criminalized and commercialized Indian politics down to one more level.

Tracing the background to this anti Muslim rhetoric, columnist Sandeep Pandey said” the BJP, which was feeling rudderless with infighting and uninspiring leadership before the General Elections suddenly got a shot in the arm.

The party has been electrified. It is back to its basic anti Muslim agenda after trying very hard to project itself as a genuine progressive alternative to the Congress Party.

It is common knowledge that Varun and his mother Menaka have no place in the Congress Party with her strained Italian - born cousin Sonia Gandhi as its Chairman and her son Rahul stealing the limelight in the national politics. It was becoming increasingly clear that Rahul Gandhi is certain to be become Prime Minister. Varun was isolated with inferior complex.

A short cut

This is the reason why many believe that the mother and the son, Menaka and Varun planned this communal card to win over the Hindu votes as a short cut to fame in the footsteps of RSS leaders such as Murali Mannohar Joshi, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Opposition Leader L.K. Advani, Gujarat’s Chief Minister Narendra Modi and several others.

As pointed out by Sandeep Prasad “until yesterday Varun Gandhi was an ordinary BJP member. Today he is a nationally important leader and in the same league as Advani and Narendra Modi known for their virulent anti minority ideology. The pro-BJP Indian media started projecting Varun as the new Hindutva leader”.

The BJP and larger Sangh Parivar have always used vitriolic language to attract attention and used violence to make their presence felt, starting from Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination, Babri Masjid demolition, Nuclear test, massacre of Muslims in Gujarat and many more.

The speech that ended with the battle cry “Jai Shrei Ram” took the memories back to December 1992 when the present Prime Ministerial candidate Advani, went on his chariot journey ‘rath yatra’, whipped up anti Muslim sentiments, polarised society, generated hatred and passions before destroying the Babri Masjid on December 6, 1992 and triggered off nationwide religious riots which killed thousands of Muslims.

As rightly Prime Minister Manmohan Singh pointed out Advani was the Home Minister when his erstwhile friend Narendra Modi unleashed an organized anti Muslim pogrom in 2002.

Thousands of Muslims were killed. The mob used knives, axes, swords, iron and wooden rods, acids, gas cylinders and all sorts of inflammable materials and every possible weapon to slaughter Muslims in the cities and villages. In some cases, they got the entire Muslim populations in certain areas electrocuted.

Carnage

In many urban centres, explosives were used to blow up houses, shops, dargahs and mosques. Structures that could not be razed by the mobs were mowed down by trucks.

The barbarity was such that 53-year-old Maya Kodnani, a gynaecologist turned Minister, perhaps a grandmother, led a mob of around 17,000 that slaughtered 95 Muslims.

Describing the carnage, columnist Praveen Swami said, “with images of charred bodies and burnt homes, what Gujarat witnessed was a fascist pogrom, conducted by organised death squads of the Hindu Right with the entire State apparatus at their disposal.

The pogrom was initiated with two objectives - to ensure that the State’s Muslim population remained confined to its ghettos, and the authority of the Hindu Right remained stamped forever on Gujarat’s political landscape.

Unchecked power

The scale of violence was not the worst the country has seen, but its significance is unmistakable: if Hindu fascists ever wield unchecked power, Gujarat is what India might look like”.

Police in many cases were part of the mob. Judge after judge questioned the role of the police and their failure to prevent the anti-Muslim carnage. Of the more than 45,000 cases filed, only around 75 have been pursued while the rest were closed down citing lack of evidence.

Narendra Modi

These victims had some ray of hope when the Congress Government came to power in the centre. However, even the Congress Government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has not given the Muslims any relief.

Instead hailed Modi’s Gujarat as the best-governed and most business friendly state in India, although Supreme Court ordered to probe the role of Modi in the carnage.

Narendra Modi of BJP who presided over the Gujarat genocide was reelected twice and is deeply respected by India’s biggest corporate houses. Even Advani said this week that “he is proud when Narendra Madi was praised”.

Organized violence against Muslims has been a common feature in India ever since the country was partitioned in 1947. The RSS strategy has been two pronged-aggressive penetration of administrations, armed forces, police, judiciary and all other such key sectors with RSS cadres, eliminate Muslims from all these areas while ruthlessly executing planned attacks on Muslims.

Organized crime

Under these meticulously planned attacks Muslim men, women, children and the aged have been killed; Muslim women raped; Muslim owned industries, trading establishments and other such activities destroyed to cripple their economic base and reducing them to nothing.

They even stripped Muslim women, paraded them naked and video filmed as disclosed by the mainstream Indian media. These RSS goons never thought of the feelings of the young relatives of these unfortunate Muslim victims who had witnessed these shameful and heinous crimes in the name of Hinduism.

Some reports even estimate the total number of attacks on Muslims all over India since partition at around 40,000, most of them organized and orchestrated by the RSS.

Calling for sanctions

Detaining innocent Muslims, especially youths, under various pretexts for long period, torture and slaughter them have become common feature in this world’s largest democracy.

So much so, in one such case, even the New York-based Human Rights Watch said police in the Southern State of Andhra Pradesh should be prosecuted for torturing 21 Muslims; among 100 arrested after the 2007 blasts hit the main city of Hyderabad. The State Government admitted that 21 men had been tortured and would each receive 600 dollars as compensation. This BJP, immersed in killing Muslims, is the main opposition of this largest democracy.

This Advani is the Opposition Leader and prime ministerial candidate and this BJP’s senior leader Yashwant Singh is calling for sanctions on Sri Lanka.

Perhaps, Yashwant Singh is aware that Sri Lanka has been bleeding for the past quarter century or so due to Indian interference triggered by the short-sighted policies of late President J.R. Jayewardene and his draconian Constitution that created an all-powerful presidency not accountable to the nation.