The Advani Identity
For once ISI is off the hook! By assuming the appointment of India’s Deputy PM, Advani has discarded the charade of who is the real power in the country. The source of the defamatory article in TIME magazine recently about Indian PM Atal Behari Vajpayee should not have been a mystery, who else stood to benefit other than Lal Krishan Advani? In conducting a pre-mortem of Vajpayee (the whole anatomy was laid bare), TIME reporter Alex Perry had an impeccable source, for good measure his interrogation by Indian immigration authorities shored up his credibility. That Advani’s warped muslim-hunting personality should have his finger (aided and abetted by madcap Defence Minister George Fernandes) as the final authority on the nuclear trigger is scary. Compare the Advani “virility” to the doddering TIME portrayal of “senile” Vajpayee and the thought becomes scarier, this man not only has the penchant but the necessary venom and ruthlessness to initiate a nuclear holocaust in South Asia at the slightest pretext without any inhibitions or qualms whatsoever. His former daughter-in-law, who also served as his confidential secretary for many years, has chronicled his devious, vicious ways in a signed affidavit in a court of law.
India’s democracy prides itself in never have lived under the tutelage of the uniform, as if this is somehow different to being under absolute authoritarian rule under civilian garb, were Hitler and Mussolini army generals? And when Indira Gandhi declared emergency, what happened to India’s democracy? Germany’s Nazis could never be as virulent as India’s Rashtria Sevak Sangh (RSS), incidentally both have Swastikas as their cult’s symbol. Eminent Indian columnist Kuldip Nayar says that Advani, to quote, “is an RSS hardliner and a vociferous exponent of Hindutva Doctrine”, unquote. In layman’s terms, Advani is a charter member of a extreme right wing socio-political religious grouping that not only believes in the Hindu religion’s absolute supremacy over all other religions, it does not permit other religions to even co-exist. And they say fundamentalism exists in Islam! Despite being in numbers many times less than the Hindus they ruled, Islam’s millennium supremacy period is particularly galling for the RSS. When it came to the matter of sacking Gujerat’s muslim-killer Chief Minister Narendra Modi, Vajpayee, supposedly very secular, not only succumbed to RSS pressure within the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) but labelled most muslims in India as “potential terrorists”.
Provocation and Patience
Barely one week of the Ahmedabad carnage taking human toll of hundreds of muslims in India, the Alice-in-Wonderland speeches at the SAARC Information Ministers Conference in Islamabad about the need for amity and friendship in South Asia provides small solace for the dead and dying in Gujerat. Apropos of Nero fiddling while Rome burned, we are hypocritical about how we wish each other eternal bliss. Given that the bulk of India’s Armed Forces are on our doorstep with intentions of grievous bodily harm (or at least threatening it) for over two months now, this charade we could have done without. Only morons would wish war with India but we must be joking if we are happy to see L K Advani’s pet guided missile Pakistan. As hopes and aspirations among the assembled media persons rose to a peak on the second day of the Agra Summit last June, “iron butterfly” Sushma Swaraj was sent by the “hardliners” to do a mid-morning “walkabout” Press Conference through the corridors of the Agra Sheraton, making it quite clear to whosoever would listen that notwithstanding whatever Atal-ji and Jaswant Singh might promise to Gen Pervez Musharraf on Kashmir, it cut no ice with her (and India’s) real boss, the Home Minister. By late the same night, contrary to all expectations, a rather astounded Pakistani President was in the air on his way home without any agreement.
It started with a muslim mob at Godhra Railway Station setting fire to a train carrying slogan chanting VHP activists back home from Ayodhya, the site of the destroyed Babri Masjid. Kindly explain how a mob got onto a moving train before it reached the railway platform? Try these facts for size, the train pulls into Godhra, the chanting pilgrims, on a high after their Ayodha visit, demanded tea from the 6 or 7 tea-sellers. The tea-sellers, all muslim, refused the tea and a verbal brawl turned into a free-for-all, the fracas turned into a riot. Outnumbered by the local muslim mob, the driver backed the train off from the Station. The tea-sellers hurled burning kerosene stoves through the compartment windows. The momentum of the train fanning the flames, it spread rapidly and the Hindu pilgrims were trapped inside. The provocation notwithstanding, the muslim action setting the train on fire was atrocious, condemnable and led to a far greater tragedy. They lacked the common sense to realise they would be condemning hundreds of their helpless fellow muslims, outnumbered badly in the BJP-ruled State, to death. The extremists needed a plausible excuse, the tea-sellers at Godhra Railway Station provided that excuse.
Dilli Hanuz Dur Ust
Within days of a most pleasant invitation for talks by the Indian PM to his Pakistani counterpart, the Indian External Affairs and Defence Minister back-pedalled furiously at a televised Press Conference. Had the hardliners in BJP succeeded in bringing Jaswant Singh into line or was the live charade stage-managed to convey the real message, that India had no intention of bargaining over (Indian-Occupied) Kashmir, and that the Kashmiris themselves had no role in the proposed talks? As an afterthought nail in the coffin of peace, Jaswant Singh added that inviting Pervez Musharraf did not mean that India was recognising the Pakistan’s military regime. So why was the invitation made in the first place, was the Pakistani Chief Executive (CE) only meant to be an “accidental tourist to New Delhi”? “The talks are meant to forget the bitter past between the two countries and begin a new chapter for the future”, said Jaswant Singh, and perhaps to drum it into Pakistan at the highest level to forget Kashmir.