NEW DELHI: It remains to be seen whether Prime Minister Narendra Modi reins in his newly appointed Rajya Sabha MP Subramanian Swamy, and thereby makes it clear to the party and the government that he is standing by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. Swamy’s tweets, and irresponsible statements have created a stir within the party and the government with his attack on Jaitley finding few supporters.

A Mumbai BJP meet where Swamy was to speak on the Emergency was just cancelled, leading to speculation that perhaps the party top brass has taken a stand. However, publicly there has been no response from the BJP to contain him, with spokespersons as silent as PM Modi on a MP who is directly attacking his party’s Finance Minister and the officials appointed by him.

Swamy has established a reputation for publicly attacking all who cross his path, and with whom he has had some quarrels or ego-hassles making wild allegations rarely backed by sufficient substance. He has not been taken too seriously in the past, but given the perception within the BJP that this time he has the backing of PM Modi and BJP President Amit Shah, he is basking in newfound legitimacy. He was a known Atal Bihari Vajpayee baiter, with Jaitley in the current dispensation being his target.

The latest news from BJP sources is that Swamy has been asked to stop the attack on Jaitley. The increasing perception, however, is that he is close now to the RSS which is backing him. This however, could not be confirmed but is the BJP grapevine rumour seeking to explain why Swamy has been allowed to get away with such strong remarks in a government where silence is considered golden. And those who violate the rule do so at their own risk.

In 2011 Swamy had hit an unexpected low with an article, using strong language against Muslims that was printed by DNA newspaper. Harvard University of which Swamy is an alumni, dropped his summer courses after a particularly vitriolic article attacking Muslims,written by him and published in India’s DNA newspaper. A meeting of the faculty of arts and sciences at Harvard University in the United States voted in 2011 December to remove the summer economic courses taught by Janata Party leader Dr Subramanian Swamy.The decision was taken after a heated debate, according to The Harvard Crimson, the campus newspaper at the time.

Rediff and the media per se reported at the time that two PhD students, Umang Kumar and Sanjay Pinto, started an online petition asking for the removal of courses taught by Swamy, which received more than 450 signatures from students and faculty. Many faculty members felt the article was not free speech, but hate speech. "Swamy's position on disenfranchisement is like saying Jewish Americans and African Americans should not be allowed to vote unless they acknowledge the supremacy of white Anglo Saxon Protestants," said History Professor Sugata Bose, a grandnephew of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose was quoted as saying.

Umang Kumar and Sanjay Pinto's petition was launched under the banner of Coalition Against Bigotry at Harvard. It said 'Swamy's views are deeply offensive; they are also dangerous. The measures he proposes -- far out of step with the everyday secularism and tolerance embodied by most Indians -- would threaten to tear apart the basic fabric of India's pluralist democracy. And, as Indians know too well, the brand of rhetoric that he employs has fueled violence against religious minorities in the past.'

Dr Swamy told the Crimson that he was a religiously tolerant person. 'I can't condemn all Muslims. I'm not against them. I never said Muslims as a whole are terrorists.'

His ‘tolerance’ was reflected in the following article published by DNA in the winter of 2011 that gave a new dimension to his politics at the time. And was a precursor clearly to what was to follow:

How to wipe out Islamic terror: Dr. Subramaniam Swamy

The terrorist blast in Mumbai on July 13, 2011 requires a decisive soul searching by Hindus of India. Hindus cannot accept to be killed in this Halal fashion, continuously bleeding every day, till the nation finally collapses.

Terrorism, I define here as the illegal use of force to overawe the civilian population to make it do or not do an act against their will and well-being.

There are about 40 reported and unreported terrorist attacks per month in the country. That is why the recent US National Counter-Terrorism Centre publication A Chronology of International Terrorism states: ‘India suffered more terrorist acts than any other country’.

While the PM thinks that Maoists’ threat is most serious, I think Islamic terrorism is an even more serious existential threat. If we did not have today the present Union Home Minister, PM, and UPA chairperson, then Maoists can be eliminated in a month, much as I did with the LTTE in Tamil Nadu, as a senior minister in 1991, or MGR did with the Naxalites in the early 1980s. Islamic threat to the nation is different.

Why is Islamic terrorism our number one problem of national security? About this there will be no doubt in anyone’s mind after 2012. By that year, I expect a Taliban takeover in Pakistan and the Americans to flee Afghanistan. Then, Islam will confront Hinduism to ‘complete unfinished business’. Already the successor to Osama Bin Laden as the Al Qaeda leader has declared that India is the priority target for that terrorist organisation and not the USA.

Fanatic Muslims consider Hindu dominated India as “an unfinished chapter of Islamic conquests”. I may be recalled that all other countries conquered by Islam became 100% converted to Islam within two decades of the Islamic invasion. India is the exception. Undivided India in 1947 was 75% Hindu even after 800 years of brutal Islamic rule. That is jarring for the Islamic fanatics.

Let us remember that every Hindu-Muslim riot in India since 1947, has been ignited by Muslim fanatics — if one goes by all the Commissions of Inquiry set up after every riot. Even the Gujarat riots were triggered by the brutal killing of 56 women and children by setting fire to a rail coach in Godhra.

By today’s definition these riots are all terroristacts. Muslims, though a minority in India, still have fanatics who dare tolead violent attacks against Hindus. Other Muslims of India just lump it, sulk or rejoice. That is the history from Babar’s time to Aurangzeb. There have been exceptions to this apathy of Muslims like Dara Shikoh, in the old days, or like M J Akbar and Salman Haidar today who are not afraid to speak out against Islamic terror, but still they remain exceptions.

Blame the Hindus

In one sense, I do not blame the Muslim fanatics for targeting Hindus. I blame us Hindus who have taken their individuality permitted in Sanatana Dharma to the extreme. Millions of Hindus can assemble without state patronage for Kumbh Mela completely self-organised, but they all leave for home oblivious of the targeting of Hindus in Kashmir, Mau, Melvisharam and Malappuram and do not lift their little finger to help organise Hindus. For example, if half the Hindus vote together rising above their caste and language, a genuine Hindu party will have a two-thirds majority in Parliament and Assemblies.

The secularists now tout instances of Hindu fanatics committing terrorist attacks against Muslims or other minorities. But these attacks are mostly state sponsored, often by the Congress itself, and not by Hindu ‘non-state actors’. Muslim-led attacks are however all by ‘non-state actors’ unless one includes the ISI and rogue elements in Pakistan’s army which are aiding them, as state sponsoring.

Fanatic Muslim attacks have been carried out to target and demoralise the Hindus, to make Hindus yield that which they should not, with the aim of undermining and ultimately to dismantle the Hindu foundation of India. This is the unfinished war of 1,000 years which Osama bin Laden talks about. In fact, the earliest terror tactics in India were deployed in Bengal 1946 by Suhrawady and Jinnah to terrorise Hindus to give in on the demand for Pakistan. The Congress party claiming to represent the Hindus capitulated, and handed 25 per cent of India on a platter to Mohammed Ali Jinnah. Now they want the remaining 75 per cent.

Forces against Hindus

This is not to say that other stooges have not targeted Hindus. During the last six decades since Independence, British imperialist-inspired Dravidian movement led by E V Ramaswamy Naicker, in the name of rationalism tried to debunk as irrational the Hindu religion, and terrorised the Hindu priestly class, ie, the Brahmins, for propagating the Hindu religion.

The movement’s organisational arm, the Dravida Kazhagam (DK), had venerated Ravana for 50 years to spite the Hindu adoration of Rama and vulgarise the abduction of Sita, till the DK belatedly learnt that Ravana was a Brahmin and a pious bhakta of Lord Shiva too. Abandoning this course of defaming Ramayana, the DK have now become stooges of the anti-Indian LTTE which has specialised in killing the Hindu Tamil leadership in Sri Lanka. Of course the DK has now been orphaned by the decimation of the LTTE.

Civil war situation

In the 1960s, the Christian missionaries had inspired the Nagas. The Nagas also wanted to further amputate Bharat Mata by seeking secession of Nagaland from the nation. In the 1980s, the Hindus of Manipur were targeted by foreign-trained elements. Manipuris were told:give up Hinduism or be killed. In Kashmir, since the beginning of the 1990s, militants in league with the Pakistan-trained terrorists also targeted the Hindus by driving the Hindu Pandits out of the Valley, or killing them ordishonouring their women folk.

Recognising that targeting of Hindus is being widely perceived, and that Muslims of India are largely just passive spectators, the foreign patrons of Islamic terrorists are beginning to engage in terrorist acts that could pit Muslims against Hindus in nation-wide conflagration and possible civil war as in Serbia and Bosnia.

Muslims cannot be divided into ‘moderates’ and ‘extremists’ because the former just capitulate when confronted. Recently, Pakistan civilian government capitulated on ‘kite flying’ and banned it because Taliban considers it as ‘Hindu’. Moderate governments of Malaysia and Kazhakstan are now demolishing Hindu temples.

Collective response

Hence, the first lesson to be learnt from recent history of Islamic terrorism against India, and for tackling terrorism in India is that the Hindu is the target and that Muslims of India are being programmed by a slow reactive process to become radical and thus slide into suicide against Hindus. It is to undermine the Hindu psyche and create fear of civil war that terror attacks are organised.

And hence since the Hindu is the target, Hindus must collectively respond as Hindus against the terrorist and not feel individually isolated or worse, be complacent because he or she is not personally affected. If one Hindu dies merely because he or she was a Hindu, then a bit of every Hindu also dies. This is an essential mental attitude, a necessary part of a virat Hindu (for fuller discussion of the concept of virat Hindu, see my Hindus Under Siege: The Way Out Haranand, 2006).

Therefore we need today a collective mindset as Hindus to stand against the Islamic terrorist. In this response, Muslims of India can join us if they genuinely feel for the Hindu. That they do, I will not believe, unless they acknowledge with pride that though they may be Muslims, their ancestors are Hindus.

It is not easy for them to acknowledge this ancestry because the Muslim mullah would consider it as unacceptable since that realisation would dilute the religious fervour in their faith and also create an option for their possible re-conversion to Hinduism. Hence, these religious leaders preach hatred and violence against the kafir i.e, the Hindu (for example read Chapter 8 verse 12 of the Quran) to keep the faith of their followers. The Islamic terrorist outfits, e.g the SIMI, has already resolved that India is Darul Harab, and they are committed to make it Darul Islam. That makes them free of any moral compunction whatsoever in dealing with Hindus.


Brihad Hindu Samaj

But still, if any Muslim does so acknowledge his or her Hindu legacy, then we Hindus can accept him or her as a part of the Brihad Hindu Samaj, which is Hindustan. India that is Bharat that is Hindustan is a nation of Hindus and others whose ancestors are Hindus. Even Parsis and Jews in India have Hindu ancestors. Others, who refuse to so acknowledge or those foreigners who become Indian citizens by registration can remain in India, but should not have voting rights (which means they cannot be elected representatives).

Hence, to begin with, any policy to combat terrorism must begin with requiring each and every Hindu becoming a committed or virat Hindu. To be a virat Hindu one must have a Hindu mindset, a mindset that recognises that there is vyaktigat charitra (personal character) and a rashtriya charitra (national character).

It is not enough if one is pious, honest and educated. That is the personal character only. National character is a mindset actively and vigorously committed to the sanctity and integrity of the nation. For example, Manmohan Singh, our prime minister, has high personal character (vyaktigat charitra), but by being a rubber stamp of a semi-literate Sonia Gandhi, and waffling on all national issues, he has proved that he has no rashtriya charitra.

The second lesson for combating the terrorism we face today is: since demoralising the Hindu and undermining the Hindu foundation of India in order to destroy the Hindu civilisation, is the goal of all terrorists in India we must never capitulate and never concede any demand of the terrorists. The basic policy has to be: never yield to any demand of the terrorists. That necessary resolve has not been shown in our recent history. Instead ever since we conceded Pakistan in 1947 under duress, we have been mostly yielding time and again.

Bowing to terrorists

In 1989, to obtain the release of Mufti Mohammed Sayeed’s daughter, Rubaiyya who had been kidnapped by terrorists, five terrorists in Indian jails were set free by the V P Singh’s government. This made these criminals in the eyes of Kashmiri separatists and fence sitters heroes, as those who had brought India’s Hindu establishment on its knees. To save Rubaiyya it was not necessary to surrender to terrorist demands.

A worse capitulation to terrorists in our modern history was in the Indian Airlines IC-814 hijack in December 1999 staged in Kandahar. The government released three terrorists even without getting court permission (required since they were in judicial custody). Moreover, they were escorted by a senior minister on the PM’s special Boeing all the way to Kandahar as royal guests instead of being shoved across the Indo-Pakistan border.

Worse still, all the three after being freed, went back to Pakistan and created three separate terrorist organisations to kill Hindus. Mohammed Azhar, whom the National Security Advisor Brijesh Mishra had then described as “a mere harmless cleric”, upon his release led the LeT to savage and repeated terrorist attacks on Hindus all over India from Bangalore to Srinagar. Since mid-2000, Azhar is responsible for the killing of over 2,000 Hindus and the attack on Parliament on December 13, 2001. Omar Sheikh who helped al-Qaeda is in jail in US custody for killing US journalist Daniel Pearl, while the third, Zargar is engaged today in random killings of Hindus in Doda and Jammu after founding Al-Mujahideen Jingaan.

This Kandahar episode proves that we should never negotiate with terrorists, never yield. If you do, then sooner or later you will end up losing more lives than you will ever save by a deal with terrorists.

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