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The Rise of India's Saffro-Nazis Print E-mail
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Written by Sankar Ray   
Tuesday, 11 November 2008
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Worshippers enter a temple in Madhya Pradesh
Hindus and Muslims demand an eye for an eye in an escalating cycle of violence

 


A year before his death in 1964, Jawaharlal Nehru remarked that "The danger to India, mark you, is not Communism. It is Hindu right-wing communalism." Today a wave of Hindu terrorism is raising fears that the country's first prime minister could be right.

Recently, for instance, a young 'sadhvi,' or Hindu woman monk, Pragya Singh Thakur, who rechristened herself as Sadhvi Purnachetnagiri, was arrested by Maharashtra anti-terrorism police in connection with the killing of six and injuring of six at a mosque on September 29 at Malegaon, 280 miles from Mumbai.  She was alleged to be a frontline leader of Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, the student wing of India's opposition Bharatiya Janata Party and, according to the anti-terrorism chief, owned the motorcycle used in the blasts, which took place at Bhikku Chowk in central Malegaon, just outside the sealed office of the banned Students Islamic Movement of India.

There are also disturbing signs that the Hindu militants have connections to India's military. Anti-terrorism interrogators rounded up half a dozen army officers including Lt. Col. Shrikant Prasat Purohit, who is believed to have confessed that he was aware of logistics and explosives to be used for the attack at Malegaon. Purohit was apparently posted at the Army Education Corps Training College and Center of Pachmarhi in Madhya Pradesh, an adjacent central Indian state, although he was actually assigned to military intelligence along India’s borders.

Purohit is said to have been one of the founders of the radical Hindu group Abhinav Bharat at Malegaon and his cellphone memory allegedly contained several conversations with Ramesh Upadhyay, a retired Army major also suspected of being involved in the blast. In one of the conversation, Purohit asked Upadhyay to change his mobile number, presumably to confuse interrogators. Anti-terrorist interrogators have sought permission to question an Army major general and two colonels, and three more commissioned officers below Purohit have been identified with linkages to militants in Kashmir in connection with procurement of RDX explosives.

According to police, the sadhvi was a member of Jai Vande Mataram Jan Kalyan Samiti, another openly anti-Muslim and anti-Christian Hindu terrorist group based in Surat in the adjacent state of Gujarat, which has yet to recover from one of the bloodiest communal riots ever, in 2002. She allegedly also had links with the radical Hindu Jagran Manch in Madhya Pradesh. Both states are under BJP rule and have been accused of torturing non-Hindus.

Although the two organizations issued denials that she was working with them, security forces intercepted 400 minutes of phone calls between them. Two others were arrested and accused of helping to plant the bomb. Two more who were detained are believed to have divulged the names of collaborators.

What is being dubbed “reverse terrorism” by Hindus seeking to get even with earlier blasts perpetrated by Islamists is a worrisome escalation in the cycle of revenge that began with the Gujarat riots, a spasm of communal violence in which as many as 2000 people died and 150,000 were displaced from their homes. But the increasing use of more sophisticated mechanical and electronics devices in detonations against Muslims and Christians is a recent phenomenon.


Comments (6)add
Terror is hunger and Starvation
written by blackjack gambling , January 20, 2009
The terrorist when we are listen this word for a moment every one shivered. But why this violence is spread by terrorism. Even Terrorist don't see or they can't find any difference between the poor and rich people. You can see in India that so many people dies only because of starvation. So what this terror' s wants i think they all hunger for lives of small children or poor people.
GOD will never give peace to all kind of people.

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Caste
written by pepi , November 14, 2008
Caste was never an ingredient of Hinduism. It emerged through a very civilised society of its time where the division and specialisation of labour was at one time India's strength. The Brahmins hijacked this system by claiming kinship and favour with God. Thus, suppressing his/her neighbour by imposing a self-proclaimed social hierarchy that benefited him/herself.
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he Rise of India's Saffro-Nazis
written by Harry , November 13, 2008
i do not think it has anything to do with religion. It has everything to with dynastic policies played by Congress and policies of armchair leftists, who while proclaiming equality were taking over all good jobs for themselves and their family and friends.

Unlike Muslim terrorists, bulk of VHP, Bajarang Dal members are from lower class and from very poor families. The fact is in term of Human development index India competes with Sub-Saharan Africa. Indian media does not represent indian lower classes.

May be what India needs is immidiate 70% reservation for lower castes, tribals etc. in media to make society aware of their plight,, while summarily dismissing the bulk of rich upper caste people from media. only this can prevent large scale violence that India is heading toward.
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Caste Discriminations
written by Gandhi , November 13, 2008
The Hindu religion is the only religion that condemns the large majority of adherents to poverty and discrimination. When the low castes try to shed off the yoke of Hinduism through conversion, the Hindu Nazis used coercion by rape and murder as a religious tool.
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...
written by Chakori , November 12, 2008
Far from the talionic eye for eye or the left cheek proffered to the person who slapped the right one, the deep thinking which underlaid (sorry for the past tense) hinduism carried intelligence and brought many a stunned outsider to admire and be influenced by it. Intelligence defined as the quality which consists in not following stupidly, not espousing the easiest shortcuts to opinion, not escaping contradictions, not considering oneself (and one's group) only, not sinking into material excesses, not choosing the narrow "moral" judgment way – which always demonizes the other outlined another way, a way which would not have brought any of the disasters we know. It knew religion to be an invention of man and god to be just a name on an unidentifiable Whole. Had it survived and evolved, the human being could almost have felt he/she deserved walking on this earth.
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Uphold the good image that Bhudda & Hinduism carry.
written by pepi , November 12, 2008
It is up to moderates in the Hindu government of India to take charge of this foolishness, that of late has been tarnishing the good name of religion. Islamic terrorism is ,was and never a good thing for Muslims, so do not falter into the negative footsteps of Islam. This in fact is a good time for the wise men of all religion to speak up and crush the evil that is tarnishing the name of God.
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