How many faces and colors do the Indian leaders and policymakers have? Shouldn’t their crimes be regarded as crimes? These questions surfaced, after ultra-extremist communal RSS-cum-BJP leader Subramanian Swamy threatened to send Indian forces to Bangladesh to occupy it to protect the Hindus though they are the most advantageous community in Bangladesh.
Subramanian Swamy shared such a link of a video footage with the comment, “Bangladesh Govt. needs to be sternly told: Crack down or India can send troops and crack down for you.”
Such a strong worded demand came after ransacking five houses along with a temple situated at Korbanpur village under Muradnagar Upazilla of Comilla district. Neither was any woman raped nor any Hindu killed.
Local people, even the media, confirmed that this incident occurred due to a provocative Facebook post of a Hindu, named Shankar Debnath of the same home, who supported the defamatory remakes of France President Emmanuel Macron defending cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed (pbuh). So the said Hindu is totally responsible for the incident.
But RSS leader Swamy and his associates exaggerated the issue and instigated and instructed the Hindus all over the world to stand against Bangladesh. ‘The Global Bengali Hindu Coalition’ also demanded that the Hasina government intervene quickly and deliver justice against the attacks on Hindus in Bangladesh. It also organized widespread protests outside the Bangladesh Embassy and High Commission in India and several other countries of the world. It also protested outside the United Nations Building in New York.
If such a strong worded demand and demonstrations, integrated media campaign, above all, occupying Bangladesh for ransacking five houses of two households, along with a temple, are logical to occupy Bangladesh, what type of punishment does India deserve for anti-Muslim or anti-Christian riots or casualties since 1947?
Does Swamy know or can any Indian historian present any data of how many million Muslims were killed, wounded, widowed, orphaned and raped in India or how much of their assets were burnt or looted? Swamy and his accomplices should be ashamed for their crimes against humanity. Swamys allow, encourage and let loose the communal Hindu gangsters to swoop on the Muslims. For this reason, India is recognized and branded as the cruelest communalist country in the world.
No one, not even the historians can bring to light the exact data of anti-Muslim riots and their causalities. Still, whatever is available now is horrific and requires volumes of books to describe. Due to constraint of space, let me reproduce the data of some major anti-Muslim riots that occurred from 1971 to 2020:
Assam (1983) dead officially 2,191, but unofficially more than 10,000; Gujrat (3,130); Maharashtra (1992) dead 900 & injured 2,036; Gujrat (2002) dead 2,000; Gujarat (1969 & 1970) dead 630 & 2,500 respectively; Bhagalpur (1989) dead 1,000 & displaced 50,000; Bombay (1992, after the demolition of Babri Mosque) officially dead 900 & injured 2,036; Gujrat (2002) dead 2,000 & displaced 200,000.
Muslims are killed in India just as though it were a festival. Can Swamy cite a single riot in 50 years that occurred in Bangladesh?
The most notorious criminality of the RSS is to sue its cadres to attack Muslims’ religious places and blaming and arresting the Muslims for such misdeeds. The Mecca Masjid (of Hyderabad) bombing occurred on 18 May 2007. Fourteen Muslims were reported dead. The National Investigation Agency Central Bureau of Investigation and Anti Terrorist Squad (of India) questioned former members of the RSS. On 19 November 2010, the Central Bureau of Investigation produced Swami Aseemanand before the court in connection with the blast. But later he has retracted the confession citing mental and physical pressure to provide that confession. The Special investigation Team (SIT) of Hyderabad Police arrested the ‘South India Commander’ of the LeT (Lashkar-e-Taiba), identified as Shaik Abdul Khaja alias Amjad, from Afzalgunj area of the city. Police said that the arrestee was linked to Mohammed Abdul Shahid Bilal, key suspect in the bombing. In 2013, Yasin Bhatkal confessed that the Indian Mujahideen had bombed two other places in Hyderabad and later in August 2007 to avenge Mecca Masjid blast, which was then allegedly attributed to Hindu fundamental groups.
The South Asia Terrorism Portal, the Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses, the National Counter Terrorism Centre the United States, and the United Nations reported that Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami was actually behind the attacks while excluding involvement by any Hindu group. Noting this, security analyst Bahukutumbi Raman has questioned “the two different versions that have emerged from Indian and American investigators.” The South Asia Terrorism Portal cited Vikar Ahmed as a main suspect in the blast. Mohammed Abdul Shahid Bilal, former chief of HuJI’s Indian operations, is also regarded as a key suspect in the Mecca Masjid bombing.
The NIA (National Investigation Agency) began the probe in April 2011 after the initial investigations by the local police and the charge-sheet filed by the CBI. 226 witnesses were examined during the trial and about 411 documents exhibited. The verdict was pronounced by a special NIA court acquitting all the (Muslim) accused due to lack of evidence.
The above stories uncovered the reality that India’s entire administration, political parties, media and even the judiciary suffer from anti-Muslim communalism. It was proven that pro-RSS terrorists were the masterminds of many horrendous terrorist crimes, but India blamed and victimized the innocent Muslims who suffered a lot inside the jails and lost their precious time and fortunes.
In September 2006, a series of blasts in Malegaon in Maharashtra left 37 people dead and another 25 injured. Almost two years later, the Mumbai Police Anti-Terrorism Squad arrested Sadhvi Pragya Thakur on October 10, 2008 and then serving army officer, Lieutenant Colonel S.P. Purohit, believed to be the leaders of Abhinav Bharat. Their alleged agenda: to target Muslim crowds.
Purohit, during interrogation, stated that a man named Sunil Joshi was behind the Ajmer blast. The Rajasthan police found Sunil Joshi was an RSS pracharak in Madhya Pradesh’s Mhow area who had links with Devendra Gupta, the first suspect arrested in the Ajmer Dargah case. Joshi, a resident of Indore, was killed in Dewas in December 2007 (probably by the same group to keep its involvement with blast secret). But phone call details of Gupta unveiled that both maintained close contact.
“Colonel Purohit, arrested for Malgaon blast, confessed that Sunil Joshi had organized the Dargah operation with the help of Devendra Gupta,” Rajasthan Home Minister Shanti Dhariwal told the Hindu newspaper on May 2.
One of such plans and attacks carried out by Abhinav Bharat at the Ajmer Dargah near Jaipur (of India) and five months later at the Mecca Masjid in Hyderabad in 2007. These attacks killed three and nine people respectively. The Indian police and government immediately blamed Pakistani-based terror groups like the (LeT (Lashkar-e-Toiba) and HuJi (Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami) that killed 12 Muslims due to bomb blasts. Some Muslim were arrested branding them as the terrorists of the LeT and HuJi. Three years later, new evidence prompted the Indian intelligence CBI (Central Intelligence Agencies) to fins that Abhinav Bharat blasted those bombs for which Muslims were imprisoned.
According to released documents by WikiLeaks, Congress(I) party’s general secretary Rahul Gandhi remarked to the US Ambassador Timothy Roemer at a luncheon hosted by the Prime Minister of India at his residence in July 2009, that the RSS was a “bigger threat” to India than the Lashkar-e-Tayiba.
At the Annual Conference of the Director Generals of the Police held in New Delhi on 16 September 2011, a special Director of the Intelligence Bureau (IB) reportedly informed the state police chiefs that Hindutva activists have either been suspected or are under investigation in 16 incidents of bomb blasts (their targets were Muslims) inside India.
A newest wave of harassment, assault even killing against the Muslims started in India centering on cow vigilante violence under the cover of “cow protection“. Since 2014, mob attacks targeted mostly illegal cow smugglers (on November 17, 2020 CBI arrested two BSF officers, including commandant Satish Kumar for smuggling cows to Bangladesh), but in some cases, even licensed cow traders were either killed or assaulted. Cow vigilante groups, claiming to be protecting cattle, caused a number of deaths.
According to a Reuters report, a total of 63 cow vigilante attacks had occurred in India between 2010 and mid 2017, mostly since the Modi government came to power in 2014. In these attacks between 2010 and June 2017, “28 Indians – 24 of them Muslims – were killed and 124 injured”, Reuter reported.
The frequency and severity of cow vigilante violence has been described as “unprecedented“. Human Rights Watch has reported that there has been a surge in cow vigilante violence since 2015. The surge is attributed to the recent rise in Hindu nationalism in India. Many vigilante groups say they feel “empowered” by the victory of the Hindu nationalist BJP in the 2014 election.
Swamy cannot prove when and where in Bangladesh a Hindu mandir was turned to mosque or any Hindu was converted to Muslim. He cannot even prove there was any anti-Hindu riot in Bangladesh or any Hindu was killed due to religious belief.
Swamy’s long-standing dream is to turn Bangladesh not only to occupy Bangladesh, but also turn this territory to a Hindu majority one. During an interview with a TV channel in 2020 he said, any country having 30% Muslims is a danger. This is the reason why Modi allowed non-Kashmir Indians to buy land, open businesses to marry the Kashmiris and to get jobs with a view to turning Jammu and Kashmir to a Hindu-majority region. India’s indiscriminate brutal killings are also directed to reduce its Muslim population.
Swamy seems to be a spokesman of RAW operatives. RAW’s main goal is to turn Bangladesh to a Sikkim-like satellite state by controlling all sectors to merge it with India or occupy it sending its troops.
Problems that Bangladesh faces like anarchy, terrorism, secret killings, kidnappings, street vandalism, political insatiability, arson and deliberate attacks on the Hindu community are directed to keep Bangladesh economically poor, politically chaotic and unstable and culturally bankrupt so that Bangladesh cannot stand against India. Swamy and his gang will continue anti-Bangladesh propaganda, conspiracy and sabotage to reach their goal.
Bangladeshis should take Swamy’s threat to occupy Bangladesh for ransacking five houses and one mandir as a dangerous signal for Bangladesh. Bangladeshis without fearing India should take appropriate and bold steps to having strong relations with all the neighboring countries to dismantle India’s hegemonic paw.
*The writer is a Bangladesh-origin American journalist & researcher.
November 24, 2020
The viewpoints expressed by the authors do not necessarily reflect the opinions, viewpoints and editorial policies of Aequitas Review.
