India: A Perfidious State

Ishrat Jahan: This name will be etched in bold black letters in the annals of Indian history as to how political correctness has corroded the very edifice of our great nation.

Fact File: Ishrat Jahan a 19 year old college student was killed in an encounter with police on June 15, 2004. The encounter took place on a road connecting the cities of Ahmedabad & Gandhinagar in Gujarat state of India. Three other bodies were recovered which were identified as Javed Ghulam Sheikh Alias Pranesh Pillai, Zeeshan Johar & Amjad Ali Rana. Javed Sheikh was a Hindu who converted to Islam to marry a Muslim woman & the other two were Pakistan nationals.

Claims & Counter Claims: The police claimed that the victims were shot dead in an encounter but a judicial enquiry concluded that the encounter was not genuine and the four were killed prior to the date of the encounter. According to police the four were part of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) one of the most active anti-India Islamic terrorist organization operating out of Pakistan. LeT is banned by major countries across the world like USA, UK, EU and Russia. It carried out some of the most audacious & dastardly terrorist attacks like the 2001 Indian Parliament attack, Mumbai 2008 carnage besides recurrent attacks in Kashmir and other parts of India. This LeT module was tasked to carry out terrorist activities in India and was targeting to attack the Somnath temple, Akhshardham temple and Siddhi Vinayak Temple. The police also claimed that the module was planning to eliminate the Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi targeted by Islamic terrorist organizations being responsible for the 2002 Gujarat communal riots.

Genesis: Incidentally the 2002 Gujarat riots were triggered when a train carrying Hindu pilgrims returning from the sacred city of Ayodhya was set on fire at Godhra station by Muslim mobs. It resulted in the death of 58 people including 25 women & 15 children. Ayodhya is the ancient city where Hinduism’s revered deity Lord Ram was born. The disputed structure now known as Ram Janmabhoomi/Babri Masjid is the place where according to Hindus Lord Ram was born and a temple commemorating this was demolished to construct the Babri Masjid. This structure is the cause of conflict between Hindu & Muslim communities since the time the British ruled India.

There is no denying the fact that the four people killed were LeT terrorists since the Home Ministry, Government of India has clearly stated so in an affidavit filed in Gujarat High Court. The point to ponder is why the sudden interest in hoisting a killed terrorist as a beacon of human rights violation.  

Ishrat Jahan was an innocent college student hardworking & sincere. She was gunned down in cold blood by Gujarat cops, which is a blot on the human right credentials of a free & democratic country like India where individual rights are enshrined in our constitution. In India it’s good to mouth such lofty statements and be considered a conscientious citizen and if you are young you will be considered “fashionably liberal”. Leave aside the fact that most people confuse liberals with leftists which is a fallacy to be explored separately.

   

The above statement is likely to convey an impression of a vindictive state police machinery taking liberties with individual rights. Nothing could be more further from the truth. Truth is the ultimate victim and not Ishrat Jahan in this travesty of human rights as being practiced by a perfidious state tottering on the brink of a moral collapse. This moral decline has been preceded by an equally embarrassing economic slide which threatens to dislodge India from its comfortable perch in the BRICS bracket.   

When Ishrat Jahan was shot dead in 2004 the knives were yet to be sharpened for the Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi who is now the ruling party Congress’s bête noire. What was simply a routine case of extra judicial killing of criminals & terrorists which are routinely carried out in India this became a full blown case of protecting innocent Muslims from the marauding hordes of Hindutva hardliners patronized by a communal BJP Gujarat Government. Just to give a perspective the so called encounter killings in neighbouring Maharashtra state ruled continuously by Congress Party since 1960 interrupted only twice for short period between 1978 -1980 & 1994 -1999 are well documented & even celebrated in celluloid by our normally devoid of original ideas Bollywood film industry. In fact there were special police officers acting as encounter specialist with a competition ensuing amongst them of who is a better “striker”. Each of these police officers aspired for the magic figure of 100 kills with only one having attained this while the rest languished in the range of 50 to 80 kills. Of course now these special killing machines have been defanged as it’s out of fashion & politically incorrect to snuff out lives of anti-nationals, criminals & terrorists.

If this is the scene in Maharashtra ruled Congress the all India statistics also depicts a dismal picture. According to the National Human Rights Commission of India, the state wide count of encounter killings during 2008-2011 was as follows: - Uttar Pradesh (111), Manipur (60), West Bengal (23), Tamil Nadu (15) and Madhya Pradesh (15) the total recorded cases being 369.

So with this surfeit of encounter killings which is a recurring theme year on year across states why this intense scrutiny only on Ishrat Jahan’s encounter one wonders. The only fathomable reason is that it is a convenient stick to beat the incumbent Chief Minister of Gujarat Narendra Modi. Once entrapped he can then be labelled as a “Hindu” communalists currying favour with the Muslim masses enticing them to vote for the Congress party for emotional reasons rather than on any plank of development. The minders in Congress party have realized that Narendra Modi is no ordinary BJP leader. He is a charismatic leader who has dazzled the bureaucrats & businessmen alike with his development agenda, farsighted policies & almost missionary zeal to strike out on his own with his new catchy slogan “India First”. Even in tragic circumstances like the Bhuj earthquake, Surat floods & the now recent tragedy Uttarakhand floods, Modi has shown how able governance can rebuild lives of people and provide succour in the face of nature’s wrath. His chant of development as opposed to the mantra of inclusive development mouthed by the politically correct politician’s increasingly resonates with the youth of the country. He evokes extreme passions on both sides of the political divide. His volunteers on social media can drown out any competition within a couple of hours. His utterance on any national issue is bound to raise the hackles of the ruling coalition. He acts decisively and ostensibly favours no religion or community although he belongs to a Hindu backward class which are now the new political nabob’s of a politically conscious India. Congress realizes Narendra Modi is the single biggest stumbling block in their bid to capture power in 2014 general elections. He evokes extreme fear in them because he champions a much bigger constituency than Congress and that is Indians who want development & progress. In such a scenario the traditional political calculations of caste & community tend to fail. Hence they have tried to get him embroiled in various court cases on account of the 2002 Gujarat communal riots which were a regular feature in Gujarat before him and all across India. The way the 2002 Gujarat riots have been projected it would seem as if this is the only riot to take place in India after independence. Indian government aided by intellectually bankrupt leftists & academicians have actively canvassed for Narendra Modi to be barred from visiting other countries notably US & UK. It’s a shame that these western democracies lay out a red carpet for Islamic dictators with human rights record that would put even Chairman Mao to shame and ban a democratically elected head of Indian state. It’s actually a no brainer why the blood hounds are after Narendra Modi.

The more insidious part of this charade is that we have managed to elevate an ordinary Islamic terrorist as a symbol of human rights violation. Why was a 19 year old innocent girl so interested in studies roaming around with two Pakistani nationals who were Lashkar-e-Taiba foot soldiers sent to foment mayhem in India which incidentally has been a consistent foreign policy of a recalcitrant Pakistani polity right since independence? To top it the Pakistani terrorist David Coleman Headley conveniently blessed with a white Caucasian ancestry that was enough to hoodwink Indian authorities identified Ishrat Jahan as a LeT suicide bomber. In a rare Taqiyya even Lashkar-e-Taiba immediately after the encounter blundered that Ishrat Jahan was its activist. Of course once the implications were clear they immediately recanted.

All these corroborative evidences would have enabled any government to decide the case purely on merits. But the witch hunt launched by Congress to implicate Narendra Modi in this communally twisted saga has eliminated any chance of a free & fair probe into killing of a terrorist. The debate on killing of a terrorist even in normal times would not graduate beyond cursory mention on prime time television leave aside the sustained campaigning as seen in the case of Ishrat Jahan. Congress in its age old wisdom of pandering to the baser instincts of Muslim minds thought it prudent to champion the cause of an Islamic terrorist. It’s ably supported in this game plan of “Catch Modi” by a pliant media ever willing for government handouts & assorted do-gooders with an agenda.          

This internecine one-upmanship has now been elevated to a level that the ever willing handmaiden of the Government - Central Bureau of Investigation is actively targeting police officers from the Gujarat cadre as also officers in the Intelligence Bureau who were involved with providing Intel on this case. That the morale of the police force and Intelligence Bureau is going to suffer is a given thing but now the constabulary will think twice before acting on Intel even about dreaded terrorists for the fear of reprisals from a vengeful Central Government. It is ironical that rather than decorating the police officers for eliminating criminals & terrorist who have no regard for rule of law & kill innocents ruthlessly, the state is hounding them chasing the chimera of minority vote bank.

This vitiated air has left most of the media commentators dumbfounded since speaking straight would expose them to the taunt of being communal. Being communal in Indian context means either speaking for the Hindus or most of times speaking the plain truth. This unholy nexus of fundamentalist Islam backed by hungry for vote banks politicians is the bane afflicting India in this century.

  

Originally published in    Fair Observer    on 19th July 2013 www.fairobserver.com