That over 2000 odd innocent Muslims have been roasted alive within last few days in India , under the pretext of revenge attacks and social justice, is no news. So, when I am not breaking news, I tend to narrate stories. Here is one:

There was an emperor who ruled over India in Medieval ages. His Queen, once inadvertently killed a poor man. It happened at some hunt, when a washer man, straying into her line of fire, was hit and mortally wounded. When he died, the matter was brought to court, where the Judge in the court of the king, passed the death sentence on the Queen. Neither the king nor the Queen dared refuse the Judge's sentence. Finally, the issue was resolved only when the washer man's wife pronounced herself willing to accept the blood-money, as was provided for under the, then court's law - Shariah (present day Islamic law is the same, i.e. if the victim's next-of-kin refuses to accept the blood-money, the culprit is sentenced to death - murder for murder).

Now let us take an example of conduct which is the very opposite in spirit. A British ruler, a contemporary of the then Indian emperor, whom I have cited above, claimed that he was above the law and could exercise his judgement independently. The then British chief Justice, Sir Edward Cook, differed with him on this issue, so that when John Beat, a British merchant, once refused to pay tax on imported currants (an order given personally by the ruler) because no law to this effect had been passed by parliament, Sir Edward took the side of Beat. Enraged, the King exclaimed, 'Am I subject to the law? To say so, is treason!' Justice Cook did not waver from his standpoint. As a result he was removed from his post by the King. It is a matter of historical record that legal differences with the king eventually broke his judicial career. When the case of the King and Justice Cook came to the British privy Council, the then Attorney General, Francis Bacon, upholding the legal supremacy of the king said: 'Judges should be lions, but yet lions under the throne.' (1/92). 

The Indian emperor was the Mughal ruler Jahangir (1605 - 1627) and the British ruler was James 1 (1566 -1625). Such were the disparities in meting out Social Justice in those times too. Such is the history of some of our rulers in the past, seldom told or totally discarded.

   Coming back to contemporary times, late last year, when I read about the unusual Internet alliance of two extreme religious philosophies from two very distant parts of the world, the fundamentalist Hindus of India and radical Jews of Israel, at first, they seemed to have little in common except their hatred for everything Muslim. Both consider the roots of all their problems lies in - Islam, and the only way out is, to eradicate Muslims or subdue them to their wishes. So tight is their anti-Muslim bond that some of the Hindus marched alongside the Jews in the annual Salute to Israel Parade on Fifth Avenue at Brooklyn, held in May 2001. Little did I realize, the bonding goes in following the strategies on ground and power politics too. When I tried to make comparisons, it seemed like the parties trade monthly guides and journals of 'How to', bring maximum destruction and economic reversals to their respective Muslim communities. 

The similarities and modus operandi are way too many to be passed of as mere co incidences.

Part of Middle East History:- In 1990, Jewish extremists planned to start building a Temple at the site of Mosque Al Aqsa in Jerusalem. Their claim is that Temple of Solomon once stood there and was demolished by Muslims albeit any archeological or historical evidence. In 1996, the Israeli government opened an archeological tunnel just outside the compound, sparking riots in which 80 people, most of them Palestinians, were killed.

Provocation: In a very cynical and willful manipulation of an extremely volatile situation, Likud Party leader Ariel Sharon visits the Aqsa mosque area on 28th of Sept 2000. Violent clashes break out in the West Bank and Gaza. In three weeks there were 135 deaths, 127 of them Palestinian. Here is a man with blood on his hands, who had been held indirectly responsible for the massacres at Sabra and Chatila refugee camps and he had now entered one of the holiest sites of Islam. It was an act of unashamed and deliberate provocation. Yet, Sharon maintained, his visit was to promote amity amongst Jews and Muslims.

Base Motive: Mr. Sharon's base motive was less obvious to many: i.e. to steal the limelight from the former prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, who was planning to go ahead to become a challenger for the Likud party leadership after Israel's then attorney general had decided not to prosecute him for corruption.

Muslims Provoked: That visit of Sharon sparked a clash between Palestinians and Israelis on Sept 28th 2000. More clashes erupted near the Jewish settlement of Netzarim in Gaza, not far from a spot where two bombs had killed an Israeli soldier and wounded another earlier. In east Jerusalem, Palestinians burned at least two Israeli vehicles. The 2^nd Intifada (uprising) had begun.

Disastrous Results: Muslim life is universally cheap these days. Over an year of Intifada, it has brought the Palestinians 850 deaths and increasing, also 200 Israelis killed and increasing, but for Palestinians there is little political advantage. This is partly due to Israel's military superiority in apache helicopters, F-16 fighter planes, armored tanks etc., and partly because the new US President George W. Bush didn't want to burn his fingers. This allows Israel's new hard line Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, to set the agenda.

Bottom line: Palestinians say it was widespread frustration that ultimately triggered the 2^nd Intifada. They maintain that the violence can only end when Israel terminates its illegal occupation of Palestinian territories as demanded by UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338. That's International Law being defied by Israelis.

Now, Let's go over to South East part of the world - Secular and Democratic, Republic of India

Part of Indian History:  Since 1984, the World Hindu Council (VHP) and other fundamentalist Hindu organisations have been waging a battle against the Babri Mosque. The fanatical segment of the Hindus unequivocally claimed that the present Masjid was once the site of a magnificent temple which the Mughal emperor Babar demolished in the 16th century. The VHP also asserts that the Babri Masjid stands on the "undisputed" spot of Rama's birthplace. Irrespective of facts that prove all these theories as baseless and ridiculous, the VHP and RSS cadres, in order to redress the wrongs committed by the over 1000 yrs of Muslim rule over India, they destroyed the Mosque completely on December 6th 1992 to build a "new" god Rama temple. In the riots that followed the same year, almost 3000 Muslims killed and another 15000 were injured.

Latest provocation: VHP ( World Hindu Council) leader Mahant Ramachandra Paramhans said on Feb 8th 2002, that the VHP would go ahead with its plan to start construction of a grand Ram temple at the site of the destroyed mosque, notwithstanding, the site has a fully functional makeshift temple already. According to him the construction could begin on any date after March 15th 2002. Kar sevaks (Temple builders) started to pour in from all parts of India in the middle of Feb 2002, defying the Indian court orders of maintaining the status quo of the disputed site and started the preliminaries of Temple construction. The VHP also, like Sharon of Israel maintained all along that it was not against Muslims and wanted good relations with them. BJP was 'requesting' VHP to wait for the court's decision. Muslims had nothing to gain or lose, as the Mosque was already gone. But their passions were again whipped for no reason.

Base motive: Both parties said publicly that the issue had nothing to do with the UP state assembly polls that were due in India and BJP secured a poor third place. But senior BJP and VHP officials conceded in private that the temple agitation is being orchestrated to consolidate the Hindu vote thereby benefiting the BJP. They want to push the Samajwadi Party to champion the cause of the minority and provoke a backlash in favour of the BJP.

Muslims Provoked: Feb 27, 2002: About 60 innocent people were feared killed when a 'Muslim' mob attacked the Sabarmati Express at Godhra station in Gujarat and set ablaze several coaches. The attackers were presumably Muslims and the train passengers were said to be kar sewaks who were returning from Ayodhya after attending newly initiated Ram Temple related religious ceremony. Washington Post reported that these 'kar sevaks' exposed themselves to other passengers. They pulled headscarves off Muslim women. They evicted a family of four from their berth in the middle of the night for refusing to join in chants glorifying the Hindu god Ram. They failed to pay for the tea and snacks they consumed at each stop. When the train pulled into this hardscrabble town in western India on the morning of Feb. 27, the reputation of its rowdiest passengers preceded it. Independent News of UK reported that a Muslim woman was hauled into the carriage by the karsevaks, who slammed the door and would not let her go. An eyewitness says that she was the 16-year-old daughter of the abused tea-seller whose beard was pulled by these 'karsevaks'  and then beaten up. This girl had come forward and tried to save her father. When they refused to free this girl and locked the bogie doors from inside, Muslims among the vendors at Godhra station stormed the train and put two carriages on fire killing all inside. Curfew was imposed in Godhra town.

Disastrous result again : The cheap, the Muslim lives are, Over 2000 Muslims have lost their lives in the past weeks and the death toll is mounting. No one is counting the number of maimed and injured as there is virtually breakdown of state machinery. The city is ruled by thugs, looters and murderers while police and law enforcement agencies either collaborating or simply standing as mute spectators. The ideas of brutally killing Muslims are innovative too. Unlike Israelis using missiles and F16s, the VHP goons are using electrocutions, and burnings en masse. This is all being termed as revenge killing. This VHP's version of revenge on innocents has set a precedence, whose stories when told, might shake the heart of rocks, but the magic word 'revenge' keeps the VHP powered, death counter spinning. Apart from the loss of human lives, Muslim places of worship have also been desecrated or totally destroyed. Just as no provocation tactics can justify the attack on Sabarmati Express, no talk about Muslim Personal law, division of India post independence or the ever present hand of ISI can justify this carnage of 'innocent' and law abiding Muslim citizens. And I want to make the exact point that some ministers in Gujarat are making. That anger is no excuse to kill innocents. Muslims in Ahmedabad are not responsible for what some lunatics did in Godhra. The Muslim mob in Godhra had no right to burn a train even if the people inside were hurling abuses at them, let alone just shouting slogans. No provocation, short of an armed attack, can justify what the Muslim mob did at Godhra. Likewise, regardless of how angry one is at what happened, it gives no Hindu mob the right to kill Muslims in Ahmedabad.

It should be noted that in every incident in Gujarat over the past few days, the mobs leading the attacks were not the usual riot mobs and it wasn't just Modi's adapted Newton's law coming to fore. They were mobs of 5-15,000 that collected swiftly and with precision, wrecked total destruction of life and property in brief periods and brutal ways. It is not easy to collect such large mobs even in a city like Delhi or Bombay, let alone Ahmedabad and scattered villages. Where violence does or doesn't break out is no accident, there is no such thing as a spontaneous riot. To really get it going you need organization and political patronage; you need to unleash the goons and spend some money. Strong indications of such a militia poses a challenge to Indian civil society and the secular Indian state - how will we cope? The development has raised other incendiary questions: do India’s 120m or so Muslims truly belong in a land of 820m Hindus? Does faith pre-empt the law?

In this zealously practiced 'Clash of Civilizations', crazy rules seems to have come to fore. Goal posts are being shifted at will and nobody cries 'foul play'. When Timothy McVeigh exploded a truck load of ammunitions at Oklahama City Centre building on April 19-1995, killing 168 people, he was acting alone according to FBI but when Mohd. Atta and his few colleagues were implicated (posthumously) behind the WTC attacks of 9/11, half of Afghanistan population and all of American Muslim community stands as collaborators. ( *USA is yet to show the whole world, the evidence that conclusively pointed to Bin Laden.) When the Taleban destroyed the statues in Bamiyan, there was an outcry from the whole world. The present Indian prime minister was also a most vocal critic of the Taleban's action. Now that one of this own party members, the Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, has embarked upon a phased programme to destroy all religious symbols belonging to the minorities in his state, the Indian leadership is silent. After the demolition of hundreds of such monuments during the recent carnage in Gujarat, the extremists, with the approval of Modi, recently demolished a 100-year-old shrine in Ahmedabad. Again, there has been not a word of condemnation from Vajpayee or the World.

When an Australian missionary Graham Stuart Staines and his sons, Philip, 10, and Timothy, 8, were burned to death January 23, 1999, as they slept in a jeep, a judicial commission investigating the murder last January reported to have found no evidence to link Hindu activists to the killing and said that the prime accused, Dara Singh, though a confessed activist with the radical Hindu group Bajrang Dal, was acting alone. Whatever explains the adulatory sites which sings praises and asks for Human Rights for criminals like Dara Singh acknowledging his cause for skewed up Hindutva ideology? On the contrary, when a train's bogey is burned killing 58 Hindus inside, it's a pre-planned conspiracy by the local Muslim community leading to the arrests of practically all the prominent Muslims in the town and provokes more than 700 Muslim deaths throughout the Gujarat state, with government showing no inclination to bring Hindu culprits of the riots to book. How hypocritical is this civilized side in this 'Clash of Civilizations', how dubious are it's standards?

Nevertheless, we should beware of excess pessimism. That is not to let the BJP off the hook, but Indian democracy may yet be strong enough to resist the sectarian forces trying to pull the country apart. Some saner voices amongst Hindu priests , influential writers , prime time news networks and other minority groups of India have emerged to condemn this ghastly face of the fanatics that hide behind the mask of patriotism.

Bottom line: As is the case in Israel where International laws are openly flouted while Palestinians are termed as terrorists for trying to uphold UN conventions, In India too, R.S.S. chief Balasaheb Deoras and VHP leaders have asserted that Babri Mosque issue cannot be decided by the country's supreme court. The highest judicial body in any country is the court of law. If the law of the land is not qualified to impart justice in a secular state with regard to religious issues -- who else can? Will it not be a free for all affair? Is this law of the jungle, where the strong crushes the weak? No responsible leader or politician will make such an arrogant statement in the press. This is a sample of the Hindu fanaticism which blatantly copies everything from an equally dangerous ideology of Fascism and Zionism. The Muslims continue to be sacrificed on the alter of state politics. 

To justify all this, we are told that the Hindu backlash in India is due to the years of partial policies and appeasement of the minority Muslims. A few jihadis operating in Kashmir, Bin Ladin in Tora Bora and Pakistani ISI agency operations in India is a good enough cause to condemn all Indian Muslims as an internal security risk. The picture of 3yr old Sabir Abdul Aziz (below) is a horrid reminder of how hundreds of young children and adolescents have seen their families being burnt alive in front of their eyes while they hid in a corner or survived the trial by fire. With every passing riots, we're practically inviting maniacal hatred to be unleashed against fellow Indians. And since these so moved will not likely have police forces to stand by and help them giving vent to their hatred, neither have any armies or navies at their command, their methods will be covert and their targets will be civilians.

And then we will term them as, 'terrorists', 'Jihadis' or 'suicide bombers' blowing themselves up to have pleasure with 70 virgins in paradise. 

For those Muslims, who are filled with rage and anguish at this disgusting carnage of fellow brothers and the silence with which the whole world watches, will find solace and direction in these magnificent words of Allah(swt) : -

Left: VHP backed looters carry away the belongings of murdered Muslims in Gujarat while a policeman on duty stands as a mute spectator. Outnumbered or Biased? (Newspaper photo - Gulf News) Right : Three-year-old Sabir Abdul Aziz plays with cups of ice cream at the Shah Alam relief camp in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, on March 4, 2002, while his mother, with 80 percent burns across her body, fights for her life at hospital. Will he grow up to become any better than those who ruined his life? (AFP)

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