South Asia Citizens Web

All day I have been getting calls from television channels asking me for a bite on the Afzal case. I have refused. Whatever I wanted to say has been written in my book Framing Geelani, Hanging Afzal: Patriotism in the Time of Terror.

The Maoists’ unconscionable attack on a passenger bus once again underlines the urgent necessity for a new approach to the problems of Dantewada. Even if the SPOs on board the bus were returning from an operation in Gumiapal where they allegedly killed two innocent civilians, nothing justifies the bombing of a vehicle known to be carrying civilian passengers. But if Maoists have lost the distinction between civilians and combatants, the government must ensure that its own counterinsurgency practices stringently make the difference. The line is important not because combatant deaths are any less mourned, but because even war has rules.

One year has passed
– The war snatched away too much that was precious
– Let us remember all those we have lost
– Let us rebuild a Sri Lanka
– That respects equality for all Sri Lankans

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.

Pakistan will have to undo the Maududian infiltration of its state and society. It means liberating our campuses of organisations like the IJT. It means purging the state and its machinery of elements that are furthering the Jamaat’s hate-filled agenda