COMMUNALISM, FASCISM AND DEMOCRACY: RHETORIC AND REALITY
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act…..George Orwell
The serial blasts that shook Delhi on the 13th of September killing around 40 people created yet another opportunity for the state to target and incarcerate Muslims, while the sangh brigade went on spreading their communal-fascist politics of hate and violence. The mainstream media has once again demonstrated its loyalty to the state by parroting the police version of the incidents and contributing in the state endorsed profiling of all Muslims as potential ‘terrorists’. The media’s follow up to the blasts and the ‘encounter’ in Jamia Nagar on the 19th of September—leaving two young Muslims and one police personnel dead—with a few exceptions, have conveniently remained silent on the possibilities of this incident being orchestrated by the state and the communal-fascists. With state-sponsored genocides and free-reign of Hindu fascist terror in different parts of the country getting routinely executed, at the same time state and media-run propaganda against the minorities, we need to carefully differentiate the rhetoric from the reality. From Malegaon, Jaipur, Bangalore, Hyderabad to Delhi at least the script of the rhetoric has been the same with the demonizing of the Muslim community attaining a shrill tone.
The Rhetoric and the Reality: In Kanpur this August, two Bajrang Dal activists Bhupendar Singh and Rajeev Mishra were killed while the bomb they were making accidentally exploded. The Kanpur SP admitted to the press that the material used (Ammonium Nitrate) in making these bombs were the same as the bombs that were used in Delhi. The police have deliberately overlooked this aspect and never pursued the links except interrogating a couple of VHP activists. The investigations lead to Awadh Behari (the provincial general secretary of VHP) and Vishwas Kulkerni, an IIT professor and the Vibhag Sanchalak of RSS as being involved in the whole incident. The police however did not pursue these links and investigate their involvement in the subsequent blasts or any other unlawful activities. The recent arrest of ‘sadhvi’ Pragya Singh Thakur and her associates in the sangh-parivar for their involvement in the Malegaon bomb blasts have once again brought to light the right-wing conspiracy to create communally charged atmosphere where it can unleash attacks on the religious minorities, be the Muslims or the Christians. The Hindu fascist murderers responsible for persecuting minorities in Gujarat, Orissa or Karnataka have been left unpunished, and the state has not brought the RSS, Bajrang Dal and VHP to book but came down heavily on the Muslims. No action has been taken against the criminals of RSS, Bajrang Dal, Hindu Munnani or Hindu Jagran Manch, whereas SIMI has been banned without an iota of evidence for its alleged ‘anti-national’ activities. The Jamia Nagar ‘encounter’ in September is only one among a series of pre-planned and cold-blooded murders by the state that has unleashed complete terror in these areas. A feeling of ‘who is next’ plagues the minds of the minority communities. This is further accentuated with the recent arrests of three policemen belonging to the Ghaziabad area (of which two escaped) by the people of Jamia Nagar while trying to kidnap a Muslim youth in a vehicle without number plates. SIM cards and fake ID cards were seized from these guardians of law.
The politics of the ‘War against Terror’: The systematic and well thought out targeting of Muslims and Christians is not just the domain of the fascist Hindu right. The state equally played its part in persecuting minorities, especially targeting the Muslims. Maulana Abdul Haleem, a cleric in Ahmedabad, for instance, had been picked up after the Ahmedabad blasts with far fetched claims that he is a ‘terrorist’ without any concrete evidence. His attempts to rehabilitate some children, orphaned during the 2002 Gujarat riots to an UP orphanage had been deemed by the state as a conspiracy to send potential terrorists to UP for training in seditious activities. Maulana Naseeruddin of Hyderabad has been framed and put behind bars for his crime of ‘leading anti-Bush protests’ in the city! All the male members in his family have been put behind bars under one pretext or the other! Such instances abound all over the country. Even though it is the most fascist manifestation of minority persecution in India, the ruling class is Hindu fundamentalist in nature. This is why when murderous mobs of the sangh-parivar goes on a blood-bath in Gujarat or Orissa against the Muslims and the Christians—killing, raping, burning and destroying—the state remains a silent spectator or even actively participates in such carnages. Mere slogans of ‘secularism’ or ‘communal peace and harmony’ alone therefore is not going to counter this state-sponsored onslaught on the minorities or address the deep fissures of caste in our social fabric. There is no doubt that we must demand the punishment of the perpetrators of the recent attacks on minorities. At the same time, we must also intensify the ongoing anti-feudal and anti-imperialist struggles for a decisive victory over the fascist and communal forces in India backed by its imperialist masters.
