Author: V P Bhatia
Publication: Organiser
Date: April 21, 2002
The Secularist Media has virtually
become a mouthpiece of Jamaat-e-Islami and its Pakistani patrons in its
misrepresentation of the Hindu counter-offensive.
....................For, as Shri
Vajpayee told the press during his Gujarat tour, it was not an ordinary
incident. It was in fact the last straw on Hindu camel's back. So far,
such collective massacres of Hindus have been taking place only in J&K
in a planned way to clear even Jammu region of Hindus after 'purification'
of the Valley of all Kafirs. But now, an act of unparalleled barbarity
of burning to death a whole bogey full of Hindus has taken place. .......
It is in fact the beginning of a new conspiracy to gobble up Gujarat bordering
Pakistan like J&K by Islamic forces within and without the country.
.......
In fact Godhra, with 40 % Muslim
Population has a long history of anti- Hindu offensive. It has been a bastion
of Muslim League even after 1947. As we find in at least two articles of
Gandhiji in his Young India in 1928 the entire state of Gujarat has the
history of being terrorised by Muslim goondas. The Mahatma as usual advised
Hindus to face Islamic violence with self sacrificing non-violence and
get killed instead of killing the aggressors. However, now the Hindu is
not prepared to be such a guinea-pig any more. For, the very survival of
even the truncated India is at stake. There are Islamic time bombs planted
everywhere under secular protection, from Baramulla and Srinagar to Godhra
and from Mumbai , Malegaon and Hyderabad to Coimbatore. Moreover, West
Bengal and even Delhi have become colonies of Bangladeshi infiltrators.
"Hindus being Crushed to atoms in
Godhra"
Anyway, the following article from
Gandhiji's article entitled "What are We to Do ?" in Young India (October
11, 1928) reveals that the Muslims were ever aggressive against Hindus
in that city (as in other areas of Gujarat) in the wake of the Khilafat
fiasco. There was virtually a state of war between the two communities
in which the nonviolent Hindu was the real sufferer. The following are
the exact words of Gandhiji in the said article.
" Two weeks ago I wrote in 'Navajivan'
a note on the tragedy in Godhra, where where Sh. Purshottam Shah bravely
met his death at the hands of his assailants and gave my note the heading
Hindu Muslim Fight in Godhra. Several Hindus did not like the heading and
addressed angry letters asking me to correct it (for it was a one sided
fight). I found it impossible to accede to their demand. Whether there
is one victim or more , whether there is a free fight between the two communities,
or whether one assumes the offensive and the other simply suffers, I should
describe the event as a fight if the whole series of happenings were the
result of a state of war between the two communities. Whether in Godhra
or in other places, there is today a state of war between the two communities.
Fortunately, the countryside is still free from the war fever (no longer
now) which is mainly confined to towns and cities, where, in some form
or other fighting is continually going on. Even the correspondents who
have written to me about Godhra do not seem to deny the fact that the happenings
arose out of the communal antagonisms that existed there. "If the correspondents
had simply addressed themselves to the heading, I should have satisfied
myself with writing to them privately and written nothing in Navjivan about
it. But there are other letters in which the correspondents have vented
their ire on different counts. A volunteer from Ahmedabad who had been
to Godhra writes:
'You say that you must be silent
over these quarrels. Why were you not silent over the Khilafat, and why
did you exhort us to join the Muslims? Why are you not silent about your
principles of Ahimsa? How can you justify your silence when the two communities
are running at each others throats and Hindus are being crushed to atoms.
How does Ahimsa come there? I invite your attention to two cases:
'A Hindu shopkeeper thus complained
to me: Musalmans purchase bags of rice from my shop, often never paying
for them. I cannot insist on payment, for fear of their looting my godowns.
I have, therefore, to make an involuntary gift of about 50 to 70 maunds
of rice every month?'
"Others complained: 'Musalmans invade
our quarters and insult our women in our presence, and we have to sit still.
If we dare to protest we are done for. We dare not even lodge a complaint
against them.'
"What would you advise in such cases?
How would you bring your Ahimsa into play? Or , even here you would prefer
to remain silent!
"These and similar other questions
have been answered in these pages over and over again, but as they are
still being raised, I had better explain my views once more at the risk
of repetition.
"Ahimsa is not the way of the timid
or the cowardly. It is the way of the brave ready to face death. He who
perishes sword in hand is no doubt brave, but he who faces death without
raising his little finger is braver. But he who surrenders his rice bags
for fear of being beaten is a coward and no votary of Ahimsa. He is innocent
of Ahimsa. He, who for fear of being beaten, suffers the women of his household
to be insulted is not manly, but just the reverse. He is fit neither to
be a husband nor a father, nor a brother. Such people have no right to
complain ..." (extract from 'To the Hindus and Muslims', a collection of
articles by Gandhiji from Young India)
