Author: Balbir K Punj
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: February 14, 2002
It is never a bridge too long between
Lucknow and Kolkata. So it's not surprising that West Bengal experiences
a rumble when Uttar Pradesh goes to polls. Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya,
the reformist face of the Left Front Government, had to eat crow in the
face of concerted agitation by Islamic fundamentalists within his State.
The Muslim fundamentalists and their
ideological cousins in the ruling coalition in West Bengal were incensed
by his statement that all unauthorised madarsas suspected of carrying subversive
activities would be closed down. They were prompt to link it with his earlier
statements at Siliguri and Guwahati, implying that there is an evil nexus
between the ISI, ULFA and Kamtapuri Liberation Movement in north Bengal.
The rabid elements in the Left -and Muslim fundamentalists - ganged up
to bring the Chief Minister to his knees.
Almost simultaneously, a call for
"strategic voting" was sounded to Muslims in UP. It is no discreet call
to vote for a candidate or a party, but to defeat the BJP by all means.
The ones who stand to reap harvest by such communal exhortations are the
so-called secular parties, who are ready to crawl in Lucknow a la Kolkata.
In order to appreciate the subtle
connection between these two seemingly unrelated events, we need to refresh
our fundamental understanding of these elections. It is not merely a question
of which party comes to power in Lucknow, but whether or not a government
wedded to principles of nation's internal security and civil society is
installed in the biggest State of the country. It is a question of determining
the fate of 16.7 per cent of Indians-numerically outstripping our neighbour
Pakistan or several European countries clubbed together.
The Congress agrees with the NDA
Government at the Centre that crossborder terrorism is a serious threat
to the country. While a determined NDA Government is busy fighting this
menace, it is all too clear as to who sponsors crossborder terrorism and
who all act as its agents in India. So when Osama-Masood Azhar pictures
and badges were recovered from the offices of Students Islamic Movement
of India (SIMI), only some self-styled Human Rights activists and Mr Mulayam
Singh Yadav's Samajwadi Party spoke in their defence. For them the rights
of the killers always get a priority over rights of victims of terror.
The US had to reap the fruits at
Manhattan for treating the threat of terrorism too casually for far too
long. Despite its proverbial military might and elaborate intelligence
network, Islamic terrorism struck at its heartland in broad daylight. However,
America retaliated with disproportionate reprisal, with hardly any dissenting
voice being raised at the Capitol Hill. A bipartisan line-up in Washington
and across the American nation helped President Bush mount his campaign
in distant Afghanistan and shatter the spine of the terrorist network.
In stark contrast, most of our political
parties treat the identification of terrorist threat as an opportunity
to either embarrass the ruling coalition at the Centre or garner minority
votes by portraying it as "saffron chauvinism". By extending support to
bigoted and anti-nationalist elements, they ensure that Muslims remain
ghettoised in retrograde mentality. Public memory is short and we seem
to have forgotten that the road to Partition began with the Congress's
support to pan-Islamist Khilafat Party in the 1920s. Partition was a tragedy,
both for India and the Muslims of the subcontinent.
A majority of Muslims in India are
poor and backward. Left to themselves, these deprived Muslims would care
more for carrying their day-to-day mundane existence than being soldiers
of Islamic jihad. It will be more so if the likes of Samajwadi Party do
not misinterpret the establishment's actions (either at the Centre or in
states) against terrorists, as persecution of minorities. Could there be
a bigger disservice to the Muslims and the country?
In India, the battle against terrorism
has reached a crucial point, particularly in the wake of December 13 attack
on Parliament. A government sympathetic to SIMI in Lucknow is all that
the ISI and Al Qaeda remnants desire for, to accomplish their aim of destroying
India through their insidious terror tactics.
Is this an instance of phobic dread?
Or is it merely a coincidence that in the wake of attack on American Center
in Kolkata, the Chief Minister of West Bengal expressed deep apprehensions
about the growing number of unregistered madarsas in the State. As the
steward of West Bengal, Mr Bhattacharya's concerns are genuine. They are
also shared by an enlightened section amongst the Muslims, even though
they are a minuscule minority. One such leader, Mr Moinul Hassan, told
CPI(M) mouthpiece Ganashakti, that there is a motivated campaign to malign
the State Government on the madarsa debate. He sees no wrong if the Government
orders closure of anti-national seminaries instead of patronising them.
Incidentally, in the last few years, the West Bengal Government has gone
out of its way to invest a whopping Rs 120 crore on the improvement of
500-plus madarsas in the State.
Ironically, the Left Front fraternity
condemned Mr Bhattacharya to keep fundamentalists in good humour. In fact,
today's situation is an outcome of such consistent pandering to the jihadis
and their ilk. They are disinclined to learn even from neighbouring Nepal,
that has mounted a strict vigil on the chain of madarsas along UP and Bihar
international border.
Even General Musharraf, in his January
12 speech, admitted to concerns about the lessons of destructiveness imparted
in unrecognised madarsas of Pakistan. Simultaneously, he declared in his
speech that (a) Rules for schools and colleges will apply to madarsas;
(b) New madarsas and foreign teachers therein will need "no objection certificates";
(c) madarsas involved in militancy will be shut down.
This unabashed Leftist policy of
Muslim-appeasement is aimed solely at garnering their votes. Their cover-up
exercise of defending religious freedom is too thin. The subcontinent is
the best example of how there's a thin line dividing religion with extremism
in Islam. The country was partitioned on the basis of religion and undivided
Bengal lost its two-third area to Pakistan in 1947. These Leftists are
in power only because nationalists Like Shyama Prasad Mookerjee and NC
Chatterjee could save at least one-third for India. Had entire Bengal been
conceded to Pakistan, Leftists would have been sent into the Bay of Bengal.
If Muslim fundamentalists can hold
the Government of a strong cadre-based party like the CPI(M) at ransom
in Kolkata, it can well be imagined what they can do to a Government in
Lucknow formed by a one-man-show party, with not even a shadow in any other
part of the country.
History tells us that the British
started building their empire at Calcutta in a small way. This construction
was over when the last Nawab of Oudh was marched to prison helped by the
British soldiers some 100 years later. Our myopic secularists may not care
to read history, but the ISI surely does. In fact, its is hell-bent on
repeating it, going by the inferences of the foothold it has acquired in
the womb of the Left front alliance.
Therefore, the issue in UP is not
whether it is BJP versus SP or the BSP or even the Congress. Seen from
a larger perspective, it is civil society versus terrorism.
(The writer is a BJP Rajya Sabha
MP)
