IDEOLOGY OF TERROR

The terrorist attacks in Mumbai and the serial blasts that preceded it should wake us all from our slumber and bring us face to face with questions of Indian identity and nationalism.
The terror strikes were meticulously planned and had a systematic pattern...
The places chosen for the blasts were carefully chosen by the ideologues of a dominant creed in the middle east which isn’t comfortable with the idea of a resurgent India ...trying to regain its rightful place in the new world order.
BANGALORE...is synonymous with the IT revolution ...this software capital proved to be a soft target
AHMEDABAD... the capital of Gujrat was chosen as the site for the blasts ...the region emerging as the Indian Shangai ...the aim was to debunk the image of vibrant Gujrat as a safe haven for investments .
JAIPUR...the place that figures in every tourist’s itinerary...capital of a state that has the potential of making India a western tourist’s favoured destination
DELHI...the capital city was the inevitable target to send the message of India being unsafe...a “trouble territory”
The attacks on India’s commercial capital were aimed at demoralising the whole nation...stopping the engine of nation’s economic march...accentuating the image of India being an unsafe destination and validating the image of India being a soft nation...
The strikes are a product of an ideology of terror ....This ideology of terror propagated in the name of jihad is a by product of an ideology of hate directed against India...
This ideology of hate propagates schizophrenic hatred against India ...The jihadis indoctrinate the young, naive and the ignorant with distorted interpretation of Islam and the existence of a pan-Islamic brotherhood...a Hindu majority India is perceived as a major threat to the establishment of a utopian kingdom of the pure ....
I believe Pakistan has always been at the epicentre of this anti –India machinery working overtime to destabilise and puncture India’s economic, political and military might...
The very genesis of Pakistan has been on this rabid hatred ....It has always acted as a hostile, recalcitrant, antagonistic bastard son who nurses deep rooted grudge towards his parents...
Pakistan is a failed state ...But the military establishment has been skilfully diverting the public wrath by promoting jihad in Kashmir...and fuelling anti –India feelings
I, like everyone else in India, believe that the terror strikes were planned in Pakistan and executed in India.
For long the so-called non- state actors have enjoyed the covert, at times overt, support of the Pak military and political establishment. But it’s also true, that India has committed foreign policy blunders a number of times (remember who took the Kashmir issue to the U.N.) and has failed to solicit vehement criticism of Pakistan .
India should follow the age old dictum that foreign policy is guided solely by self interest and not by altruism.
A full- fledged war is not needed ...a proxy war should be fought with tit –for –tat policy.
But this is also an ideological war and this can be fought by commitment to our nation .
The leftist ideologues often talk about the commitment to the society ...the lacuna that I find in their thesis is the attempt to separate society and nation ...and also there are attempts to challenge nationhood or concept of nation...The question of nationality is linked to the question of identity...but both questions have acquired negative connotations in our intelligentsia.
For long, the politicians suffering from chronic myopia have promoted caste, regional, linguistic and communal politics. Reconstruction of history by the western read and bred pseudo –scholars has always attempted to disown this country of ours....
“khafile ate gaye Hindustan banta gaya”
It is a fact that cultural hybridisation and a kind of cultural symbiotism have slowly but surely taken place over the ages. Inspite of the creation of Islamic nation of Pakistan out of Bharat, India today has larger number of muslims than in Pakistan. For long the muslims in India have been taken for a ride. Politicians and religious leaders have connived to construct the myth of a muslim solid vote bank. The ideological problem, which the Islamic leadership provided by the likes of Geelani, Osiwi and Madani, has failed to recognise,arises from the rejection of the pre-Islamic past.
The impetus and focus of jehadi ideologues is to create allegiance to a pan –Islamic brotherhood .This allegiance is meant to take precedence over national anal cultural allegiance. The fundamentalist propaganda machinery operates , supported by the petro dollar funding in which drug traffickers and mafia play a pivotal role. Islam in India over the years has become Indianised , it is unlike the Arabic and Iranian versions , not even like the Turkish model where western influence is stark and conspicuous . The clergy and the Islamic leadership in India has mostly opposed this Indianisation and localisation by making efforts to keep the faith close to Arabian model ,curb the other voices(they are highly dismissal of Ahmedias or Qadianas, Sufism is also abhorred by the clergy) and keeping faith hegemonic ,semitic as far as it is possible. The local support that the nefarious, heinous activities get in certain pockets in India is the result of the efforts to create a chasm between the community interests and national interests.
Nation and culture are great unifying factors, perhaps much more powerful than caste , creed or religion. If religion had been such a unifying factor such large population would not have lost lives in the ethnic conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan.
We, the people, need to recognise our collective unconsciousness in which Ram, Buddha, Nanak , Kabir and Viveknanda exist. Indian thought has always been heteroglossic or many voiced where assimilation gains precedence over monolithism. In my personal ideology ,Indian identity and Hindu identity are synonymous. This identity accepts and doesn’t reject the other and his voice. This identity doesn’t believe in only one truth, one way, one book or one saint but accepts many truths , many ways, many faiths. Hinduism is not a religion and has always brushed aside the efforts to convert it into one. If the traits of Indianness ,that essential Indian consciousness are found in person believing in any faith ,he can be called a Hindu .India is secular not inspite of but because of its Hindu majority. If certain sections, due to certain conditioning, abhor and oppose the Hindu tag, let them not accept it or sport it. But national identity and interest should always reign supreme. Loyalty to one’s caste ,creed ,faith which have often been the cause of so many acrimony and dissensions in post- independence India , should be secondary and even tertiary to loyalty towards the nations .Indians need to build a national character and recognize the national consciousness which is lurking somewhere inside them. Not the support of U.S or Russia can make us victorious in the war against terror. To defeat this ideology of terror we need to counter it with ideology of unadulterated nationalism. Centuries of colonial rule resulted in the post independence opinion makers, suffering from colonial hangover, often falling a prey to self doubt and cynical self scepticism. This mindset often led them to dismiss or ignore issues of national pride, unity and identity.
AS SHOWN BY THREE LAC MUMBAIKARS WHO CAME ON THE ROADS TO ANSWER THE IDEOLOGUES OF TERROR,
WE THE PEOPLE OF INDIA CAN BE THE HARBINGERS OF CHANGE...
LET’S FULFILL TAGORE’S DREAM OF A NATION NOT TORN APART BY NARROW DOMESTIC WALLS OF CASTE, CREED, FAITH OR REGION...
LET US MAKE PEOPLE LIKE VIVEKANDA OUR IDEOLOGUES AND WORK TO MAKE OUR MOTHERLAND REGAIN IT’S ANCIENT GLORY
LET US DEFEAT THE FORCES OF TERROR AND DARKNESS...
LET US RECOGNISE AND ACKNOWLEDGE LOVE FOR THE NATION & NATIONAL PRIDE THAT EXITS WITH IN US...