South Asia Citizens Web

Bitterness. When I started receiving calls that Alex Paul Menon, the collector of Sukma, had been kidnapped, that was my over-riding feeling. Bitterness and a cold anger. Menon is one of the best collectors I have met, and doing what he could to make life better for the people of his district,
even in the face of an overall counter-insurgency policy designed for the opposite. Though kidnapped by the Maoists, Menon joins the ranks of several other hostages who have paid the price for their efforts to bring about peace. . . . It is men like Menon, Joga and Panda, who can broker peace at an everyday level, and yet these are precisely the men who are being turned into hostages by ruthless revolutionaries and an equally ruthless security establishment, both of whom see nothing beyond the use of military force.

It is with great concern that we the undersigned protest against the growing trend of increasing religious intolerance in Sri Lanka with regard to minority religions. We specifically condemn the recent violent attack on the Mosque in Dambulla by a group of anti social actors. The Hindu community has also been asked to move their temple from the vicinity. The Dambulla Khairya Jummah Mosque had been in existence for over 60 years and the mosque trustees have legal documents regarding its construction. On Friday the 20th of April 2012 a tense situation arose as regular Friday prayer at the Mosque was prevented by a gang led by Buddhist monks who claimed that it was an illegal construction. The group stated that both the Mosque and Hindu shrine were built on sacred Buddhist ground. It is further regrettable that law enforcement authorities could not take appropriate action to stop the forceful entry into the mosque and the intimidation of the community.

It is apparent that at least in the 21st century, Hindutva terror has been far more active in India than Islamist terror. Why, then, has this fact not been appreciated more widely? The answer to this question is extremely disturbing, and opens up the possibility that other terrorist attacks too that have been attributed to Muslims have actually been perpetrated by Hindutva terrorists. There is a striking resemblance between this situation and pre-Nazi Germany as described by Arthur Rosenburg in his essay ‘Fascism as a Mass Movement’ (translated by Jairus Banaji in Historical Materialism 20(1), 2012). Here it is pointed out that the fascist ideology which was later exploited by Hitler and the Nazis was widely prevalent decades earlier. In the case of India, the corresponding ideology is communalism. Unless Gatade’s urgent call for ‘an uncompromising struggle against communalism’ (GC 342) is heeded, India could be heading in the same direction.

On April 27, Zohra Sehgal, born 1912, completes one hundred years of her amazing frolicking in this world

If the Maoists care for the tribals and if they have any respect for human rights, they should release both Alex Paul Menon and Jhina Hikaka immediately and unconditionally