Whilst many in the mainstream Hindu Indian society are shocked, or in some cases feigning shock, the reality is Modern India has been transformed by the fascist inspired Hindutva ideology and there is a long history of Hindu-inspired pogroms, massacres and genocide against the Muslim minority, dating back to the ill conceived partition of 1947.
He confessed, "I told everybody that we should answer bombs with bombs," 59-year-old Swami Aseemanand, whose real name is Naba Kumar Sarkar, told a magistrate during a closed hearing in Delhi. "I suggested that 80 per cent of the people of Malegaon were Muslims and we should explode the first bomb in Malegaon itself. I also said that during partition, the Nizam of Hyderabad had wanted to go with Pakistan so Hyderabad was also a fair target. Then I said that since Hindus also throng [a Sufi shrine in] Ajmer we should also explode a bomb in Ajmer which would deter the Hindus from going there. I also suggested the Aligarh Muslim University as a target."
The testimony of Swami Aseemanand, suggests many of those involved in the bombing plots were members of religious organisations, such as the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).
The RSS is considered the BJP's ideological parent. This week, the RSS's leader, Mohan Bhagwat, claimed extremists had been forced out. "Elements nurturing extremist views have been asked to leave the organisation," he said. "A majority of the people whom the government has accused... had left voluntarily and a few were told that this extremism will not work here."
Who are the blood soaked RSS? Prabhat Patnaik, in his book 'Fascism of our times', states that many Indian Marxist sociologists have described the Hindutva movement as fascist in the classical sense, in its ideology and class support specially targeting the concept of homogenised majority and cultural hegemony.
The RSS is also the parent organisation of the VHP, the organization behind the destruction of the Babri Mosque and also blamed for acting as foot soldiers in the state sponsored genocide in Gujrat, under the watchful eye of the BJP, the mainstream manifestation of Hindu nationalism.
When speaking about the Genocide in Gujrat, Anil Patel, a VHP Departmental Chief, said:
'Our war cry was: Lock the door from outside and burn the Muslims from the inside.’
The VHP has recently engaged in several programs to reconvert Hindus, who had previously converted to Christianity. VHP has advanced that conversion to Christianity had earned them no significant benefits and so their return to Hinduism was relatively straightforward.
In this fundamentalist India, it comes as no surprise to Muslims that right wing Indian nationalists have declared war on Muslims. After all the fake condemnation by the Hindu leaders, commentators and opinion formers and TV hosts, will anything really change for the oppressed Indian Muslim; or will they always be blamed for acts of violence, even when violence is committed against them, in the world's largest hypocrisy?
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