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print version(From: Dawn, 17 May, 2010)
Hitler was a fascist, but was he also a terrorist?
Apart from the thousands killed by Hindu mobs in Gujarat in 2002 and in Bombay in 1993, individual acts of terrorism suspected to be carried out by rightwing Hindu groups are beginning to leave a long trail. — Photo by Reuters
Was Adolf Hitler history’s best known fascist or was he also a terrorist in the sense that terrorism has come to be defined today — the highest form of evil? In other words, is fascism a form of terrorism? The answer to this question will define the strategy India chooses to confront rightwing Hindu groups with. These groups already seem to have moved beyond the state’s reach or control.
The problem of Hindutva seems to have become intractable enough from the point of view of the hitherto indulgent state that columnists and editors in Delhi, who had turned a Nelson’s eye to the connection between Hindutva and Terrorism, are finding themselves compelled to ask for urgent remedies against the growing menace. But, can we contain terrorism without checking fascism? Right from its early days Hindutva has had strong undercurrents of fascism. And it used acts of terrorism to assert its power. Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination was as much a consequence of Hindutva fascism as it was an act of terror.
In the 1930s militant Hindutva supported Hitler as its role model. Its leaders argued that the Nazi method of dealing with the Jews of Germany could be emulated in India to deal with Muslims. In fact, long before the Muslim League argued for a separate homeland for Indian Muslims, Brahmin nationalists like Savarkar were convinced that Hindus and Muslims were indeed two distinct nationalities. It may not be a coincidence that many of the present day “Hindu terrorists†are in fact followers of Savarkar. In states like Gujarat, which Hindutva has used as laboratory to test the efficacy of the most virulent form of ghettoisation of Muslims and Christians, the Hitlerian doctrine of racial and religious segregation is nearly complete.
This is the kind of fascism that the Indian state appears not just indifferent to, but benignly approving of. In other words there is a lack of willingness much less a strategy to remove the prevailing atmosphere of fear suspicion and prejudice. What good can come of carping about Hindutva terrorism without addressing the mindset that prevails not only within the overtly rightwing parties but also just under the surface of the notionally secular parties like the Congress which has a hoary history of cultivating communal tension for electoral gain.
India’s political analysts whose job seems to be to articulate rather than influence state policiy, have been expressing concern about the rise of Hindutva terrorism. Indian Home Minister P. Chidambaram signalled his approval of that line of thinking when he declared last week that Islamic terrorism was “just one kind of terrorism in our country and there are examples of terrorism sponsored by other religious groups, particularly extreme right-wing Hindu religious group†.
Chidambaram’s Congress party colleague Digvijay Singh, a close confidant of the powerful Gandhi family, has been raising the issue of Hindutva terrorism at least since October 2008 when he wrote about it to the prime minister.
“I have been saying for a long time that Hindu radicals and Muslim radicals are two faces of the same coin,†Singh told the Outlook magazine last week. “It is these elements who have brought a divide between Hindus and Muslims and led us to a situation where we have acts of terrorism in the country. We all know that terrorist attacks flared up after the Babri Masjid demolition. This in turn led to the radicalisation of a section of Hindus. There is so much evidence of the RSS/VHP combine operating through various militant organisations.
There have been a number of instances where there’s proof that they have given training in making and planting bombs. So the government has to look at both types of terrorism. Unfortunately, the media mostly goes with a one-sided story. Whenever there is a bomb blast, the same day the media comes out with the names of Muslim boys. They are picked up but the conviction rate is very poor. This kind of action only leads to mistrust and fear in the entire community.†These are welcome words. But is the problem going to be addressed with more than lip service?
Apart from the thousands killed by Hindu mobs in Gujarat in 2002 and in Bombay in 1993, individual acts of terrorism suspected to be carried out by rightwing Hindu groups are beginning to leave a long trail: the Feb 2007 Samjhauta Express bombing which left 68 dead, the October 2007 Ajmer dargah blast case which claimed three lives, the September 2008 Malegaon blast which killed more than 40 people.
In each of these cases, the effort was to make the attacks look as though they were carried out by Muslims. Almost every time the blame was placed on ‘Pakistani’ terrorists. The idea obviously was to sharpen communal tension and win ordinary Hindus over to the side of Hindutva fascism.
At one time, particularly in the aftermath of the 2008 Mumbai Attacks, it was considered outrageous in India to put terrorism in a political or social context, or to suggest that acts of terror usually had a ‘root cause’. So it is a little puzzling to see this issue of Hindutva terror being discussed in magazines and newspaper columns right now.
One explanation being offered privately for the sudden concern about Hindutva terror has to do with P.Chidambaram’s impending visit to Pakistan for a Saarc meeting next month. Preparations are being made so that when he is questioned by Pakistan’s press about Hindutva terrorism in the way Pakistani officials are interrogated by the Indian Press about Islamic terrorism (as they should be), the Indian Home Minister can make it seem as though the Government of India is seized of the problem and is dealing with it. The real point, however, is terrorism and fascism are far too serious to be used in these cynical games of diplomatic one up-manship. They corrode democratic institutions and have the capacity to cause both India and Pakistan to implode from within if they are not addressed seriously and urgently.
