NOVANEWS
By Sajjad Shaukat
Since the US started global war against terrorism, after the 9/11 tragedy, various political experts
have opined that as part of the insurgency, terrorism comes in a variety of forms such as religious
terrorism, secular terrorism and so on.
Bruce Hoffman, in his book ‘Inside Terrorism’ writes: “For the religious terrorist, violence is the
foremost divine duty executed in direct response to some demand or imperative.”
Hoffman further explains, “The secular terrorist sense leads to a sanctioning of almost limitless
violence against a virtually open-ended category of targets.”
Although modern insurgency or terrorism has many meanings, but its main aim is to create fear
in order to achieve political or social ends, while a terrorist is one who deliberately creates this
climate of fear by employing violent means.
Judging in these terms, either it is religious terrorism or secular terrorism, or any form of
insurgency, India which claims to be a secular state, has broken all the records of violence,
genocide and massacre against various ethnic and religious groups, entailing the community of
While, the Constitution declares India to be a secular state, granting equal rights to the religious
minorities, but in practice ideology of Hindutva (Hindu nationalism) prevails. Hindu politics and
culture, dominated by the fundamentalists parties such as BJP, RSS, VHP, Shiv Sena and other
similar groups have been propagating Hindutva. Provocative utterances of their extremist leaders
have resulted into unending violence against the Muslim and Christians including other minority
It is notable that in 1992, a large crowd of Hindu Karsevaks (volunteers) in accordance with a
preplanned scheme of the Indian high officials entirely demolished the 16th-century Babri
Masjid (mosque) to reclaim the land known as RAM Janmabhoomi–birthplace of the god. The
destruction of the Babri Masjid sparked Muslim outrage around the country, provoking several
months of inter-communal rioting between Hindu and Muslim communities, causing the death of
at least 2,000 people, majority of whom were Muslims.
Besides previous massacre of Muslims, more than 2500 Muslims were massacred in 2002 in the
BJP-ruled Indian state of Gujarat. Regarding that massive genocide, both Human Rights Watch
in 2002 and Amnesty International in 2003 charged the “Gujarat state administration” for
involvement in “a massive cover-up of the state’s role in that massacres” and pointed out
numerous police officials-specifically ministers, high officials and leaders of the VHP, BJP and
Bajrang Dal as participants.
Similarly, in the recent years, assaults on Christians, their churches and property have been
executed by the Hindu mobs in various cities of India. In this context, at least 100 Christians
have been assassinated by Hindu extremists, mostly in the state of Orissa.
In Maharashtra, non-Hindu communities have lived in constant fear and awe since the advent of
the fundamentalist party, Shiv Sena whose Chief Bal Thackeray (The late) has organized army of
hoodlums to beat up any religious minority, openly directing the Hindu terrorists to loot and
stone any of their shop or house. Lack of serious action by the subsequent governments against
Shiv Sena’s vandalism has clearly defeated the secular echoes of India which is in fact a secular
As regards the forced conversions, Bajrang Dal, an offshoot of the RSS, converted at least 57
Muslim families (200 people) into Hindus at a ‘Purkhon Ki Ghar Vapsi’ (Coming home of the
ancestors) ceremony in Agra, Uttar Pradesh.
Previously, in early September 2014, Christians were also forcefully converted to Hindus which
created unrest among Christian clergy. Three months ago, a similar event in Aligarh saw
Christian families converting to Hinduism. BJP is trying to portray the event as wishful
conversions; however, since installment of BJP government in the center, RSS and its offshoots
have accelerated their efforts for minorities’ conversion into Hindus.
Regarding Hindu insurgency, it is of particular attention that on November 7, 2011, leader of the
VHP, Pravin Togadia, in his furious speech questioned the past of Muslims and Christians, and
further gave a call to Hindus to capture the Islamic holy places in Arab and Vatican of Europe.
And, since 1989, Indian military troops have been employing every possible tactic of state
terrorism and ethnic cleansing to disturb the majority population of Kashmiris. During and after
the so-called elections, intermittent curfews, crackdowns and massacre of the innocent Kashmiri
people by the Indian security forces keep on going to crush the war of liberation of the
Kashmiris. Moreover in the recent years, discovery of thousands of unmarked graves of the
innocent Muslims who were killed by the Indian security forces in the fake encounters in the
occupied Kashmir etc. might be cited as another instance in this respect.
It is noteworthy that on January 20, 2013, Indian External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid and
Home minister Sushil Kumar Shinde confessed the nexus between BJP and the RSS, disclosing
that organized training camps run by these fundamentalist parties were promoting Hindu
terrorism. They also revealed that these parties were behind the Samjhauta Express, Meccca
Masjid and Malegaon blasts including Gujarat and Babri Masjid incidents.
In fact, Hinduvta agenda enabled BJP hardliner, Narendra Modi to get a land sliding triumph in
the Indian elections 2014 and become the prime minister of India. Muslim anxiety in India is
multiplying due the fact that during the election campaign, Hindu majority was mobilized on
‘hate Muslim’ slogans. Hence, Modi regime is likely to target and persecute Muslims in India.
However, as part of anti-Muslim move of the BJP including other Hindu extremist parties, Indian
Prime Minister Modi is giving impetus to Hindu chauvinism. Encouraged by the election-victory
of the BJP, on May 28, 2014, in a provocative act to disturb communal harmony in India,
Rashtriya Hindu Andolan, a little known Mangalore-based Hindutva outfit and activists from
various right wing groups organized a protest in Mangalore in front of the office of Deputy
Commissioner by demanding the authorities to ban the morning Muslim call to prayer (Azan)
Nevertheless, under the mask of democracy and secularism, Indian subsequent regimes
dominated by politicians from the Hindi heartland—Hindutva have been using brutal force
ruthlessly against any move to free Assam, Kashmir, Khalistan, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tamil
Nadu and Tripura where wars of independence continue in one or the other form. In the recent
years, Maoists intensified their struggle, attacking official installments in the major Indian cities.
Undoubtedly, India is witnessing increased incidents of violence and killings related to
communal violence, insurgencies and terrorism. However, such incidents are not covered with
the requisite sensitivity and impartiality by the international media, as it will project security
weaknesses and failures of Indian government in curbing insurgent tendencies and problems of
It is expected that mass conversions of Muslims and Christians minorities at the hands of
extremist Hindu organization RSS and other extremist groups will further give impetus to
weakening of Indian secular outlook. It is highly likely that incidents related to conversions may
also be extended a muted response by the international media.
As compared to India, any terrorist incident happening in Pakistan is covered and commented by
international media in a way that projects Pakistan negatively. In fact, Western media is showing
duplicity and hypocrisy regarding insurgency or terrorism in the Sub-continent. While, silence of
the Western World including their media on various terror-related incidents and developments
inside India have been encouraging Indian top officials and fundamentalist Hindus to continue
their acts of terrorism in intimidating other ethnic and religious communities.
It is the right hour that the West must abandon its double standard by taking appropriate steps
against glaring human rights violations by the Indian security forces and Hindu terrorists.
Otherwise, Hindu terrorists may cause World War 111 or clash of civilizations.
