Hindu Al-Qaeda: India’s New ‘Terror Central’

Here is the hottest Indian story, neatly concealed under the well constructed –and expensive- veneer of ‘Incredible India’ advertisements on international television news channels: The rise of Asia’s new Terror Central.

By AHMED QURAISHI

Tuesday, 18 November 2008.

WWW.AHMEDQURAISHI.COM

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—While America’s ‘Wag The Dog’ media is busy in demonizing Pakistan, and the CIA focuses on pushing the beleaguered American soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq into a new war with Pakistan, India is quietly emerging as a new ‘terror central’, with disturbing new developments that continue to escape the glare of the American/British media.

Neatly tucked under the well constructed – and expensive – veneer of ‘Incredible India’ advertisements on international television channels is the hottest Indian story: The fast rise of Indian religious terrorist organizations that have penetrated India’s military and politics. The movement is so strong, resourceful and organized that it warrants the label India’s Hindu al-Qaeda.

The arrest last week of a serving Indian army colonel who along with some other officers has allegedly transferred military funds, material and training to terrorist groups is a matter that should not escape the attention of India’s neighbors, since it is directly linked to New Delhi’s new desire for expanding its reach beyond its borders and to serve as the regional policeman for American interests in the Asia-Pacific.

One more reason to closely watch what’s happening in India is that there is some evidence that parts of the Indian government are busy reading CIA’s Latin America handbook of patronizing client militias and using them for strategic objectives. In India’s case, this means Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, and most importantly Pakistan and China.

The changes taking place in India are truly breathtaking. This is a nation and culture that never espoused violence. Until 1947, the Indians lived for ten centuries under foreign rule –Muslims, British, Dutch and Portuguese- without major resistance. This is the only major civilization in the region that never expanded beyond its natural borders. That’s why it is important to understand that the new rise of Hindu militancy has everything to do with India’s new interest in creating an image of a superpower.

The world’s first religion-based genocide in the 21st century occurred in India, where in 2002 more than 2,500 Indian Muslims were burned alive in riots by Hindu terror groups, according to a hearing conducted by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom on communal riots in India and the U.S. response, held on 10 June, 2002.

While CIA director Gen. Michael Hayden was accusing Pakistan over the weekend of becoming the hub of all terrorism in the world, a newspaper in Malta on Sunday published the chilling story of an Indian priest who escaped death and recounted to his audience how India’s Hindu terrorist organizations burned ordinary Christians alive and raped nuns on the streets of Orrissa in east India in August.



Pakistan gets a lot of bad press mainly from the American and the British media for religious extremism. Certainly we have a problem and we’re dealing with it. But it pales in comparison with India’s. Consider this: Since the start of this century, almost nine years ago, India has seen the targeted murder of over 600 Christians, most of them in riots this summer, not to mention the genocide of Indian Muslims. Hindu terror groups, like Shiv Sena, Bajrang Dal, and the Durga Vahini have established militant training camps across India where members are indoctrinated against other religions and Indian Hindu supremacy is emphasized. Recently, the Durga Vahini has proudly distributed pictures of its female members wearing the sari and brandishing guns at an indoctrination camp. In Kashmir, the Indian government and military are recruiting poor Hindu peasants into Hindu militias armed to confront Muslim majority’s demand for an end to Indian occupation.

There are reports now that the arrested Indian army colonel and some other officers linked to Hindu terror groups might have had something to do with the burning alive of tens of Pakistani tourists aboard the so-called friendship train service Samjhota Express in 2006.



In short, Pakistan is America’s and Britain’s favorite punching bag, but India is fast becoming the new terror central. And not all of it is by accident. The Indians have used this technique in Sri Lanka, where Indian money, weapons and indoctrination kept a civil war alive for decades. In China, the Indians are recruiting, training and arming Tibetan rebels fighting Beijing. And even American commentators are admitting now that India is meddling in Pakistan using contacts with old friends in the Karzai government.

There is also no question that the mythology that has surrounded Pakistani intelligence agencies’ purported links to religious groups in Afghanistan and Kashmir might have impressed some Indian security officials and played a role in influencing Indian thinking.

But the problem with this genie that the Indian political and military establishments have apparently unleashed is that it is bound to feed on India’s massive poverty problem, especially in the next few years when India’s economy is projected to considerably slow down, starting next year, as a result of a global recession.

This religious extremist surge in India is also a matter of concern because Hindu organizations have found unexpected friends in America’s Christian right and the conservatives, who are using political connections to help Hindu Indian-American organizations insert activists in key positions in American government and media. The Israeli right has also established strong ties to the rightwing Hindu militants.

It’s all right for the Indians to think in terms of projecting power and adopt whatever means necessary to do it. The problem with this thinking is that expensive showoff space shuttles to Moon –when almost no one else in the world is doing it for now- won't reduce poverty among the world's largest single concentration of poor people on earth. In India.

Footnote:

An Indian citizen, Najid Hussain, testified on June 10, 2002, in front of the U.S. COMMISSION ON INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOUS FREEDOM HEARING ON COMMUNAL VIOLENCE IN GUJARAT, INDIA AND THE U.S. RESPONSE:
“During my last visit to India in March while Ahmedabad was still burning, I met a young man at Ahmedabad Railway Station with a child in one arm and a little bag in the other. He asked me if I needed my shoes polished. I did not, but said yes. He did not have the foot-rest or a stand on which I could rest my foot while he polished the shoes. So I just put one foot forward and he started to polish. All the time that he was polishing my shoes, the child did not let go of his arm and he did not force her either. He polished the shoes just with one hand holding the child in the other. I advised him that he should buy a little shoe stand that could help him polish better and with ease. With tears in his eyes, he said he lost that when the rioters burnt his house a week ago. His wife and the mother of the child was also burnt along with the house. The little child was traumatized. That was the reason she would not let go of his arm. He said he puts her down only when she is asleep.

That man was not a terrorist. That man was not a fundamentalist. That man was not an anti-national. That man had no time even to think about any of these activities. He was only an innocent, hard working and poor Muslim who had a hard time making a living and raising the family. But he was targeted just because he was a Muslim.

“In the aftermath of the killing of my father-in-law, the former Member of Parliament Ahsan Jafri, it is an unavoidable conclusion that the government of Gujarat did not just give a tacit approval to the perpetrators of the violence against Muslims, but connived in the pogrom. There are evidences that the police, the judiciary and the hospitals, all became a part of that operation in ethnic cleansing by Hindu extremists and Sangh Parivaries (BJP, VHP, RSS, Bajrang Dal) in Gujarat. The carnage carried out in Gujarat in the aftermath of Godhra incident was pre-planned. The detailed and meticulous preparation of that operation, the availability of weapons, the list of houses and businesses to be targeted based on voters lists and ration card records, the availability of bottled water for the rioters, and mob leaders getting riot instructions and help on cell phones, suggest that Godhra was only a convenient excuse. These extremists were fully prepared and on standby to carry out the violence against Muslim men, women and children, and were only waiting for the opportunity.”

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