New Delhi: A book by a Left-oriented writer claims that Hindutva terror has emerged and says a Himalayan task awaits the investigating agencies which are yet to nab any of the masterminds "despite ample evidence".
The book titled "Godse's Children - Hindutva Terror in India", written by Subhash Gatade, alleges that the blast in an RSS activist's house in Nanded, Maharashtra, had brought to the fore the systematic manner in which people associated with it and allied groups were engaged in making and storing explosives, imparting arms training and planning to bomb minorities as part of the mission to establish "Hindu Rashtra" in India.
It was on April 6, 2006 when Nanded witnessed a blast at the house of Laxman Rajkondwar, a long time RSS activist, killing his son and another Sangh activist, it says.
"Five years later, investigating agencies are in the know of involvement of Hindutva supremacists in dozens of blasts like Malegaon and Samjhauta Express," it says.
The role of international linkages and networks of different Hindutva formations in collecting funds, mobilising resources and supporting the cause has added further ferocity to this project, says the author, who has extensively written on issues of communalism and Dalit emancipation.
The book has a chapter "First terrorist of Independent India" which details how Nathuram Godse and his accomplices carried out the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi.
The author, however, makes it clear that "this does not mean we are absolving the jihadi terrorists of the criminal acts they are engaged in nor we consider them less dangerous for the furtherance of peace, justice and progress in today's world".
Gatade laments that the "great tragedy of our times is that all such extremisms and fanaticisms feed on each other".
"A focus on the Hindutva terrorism should not be considered as one being soft towards a phenomenon towards jihadi terrorism or other faith based terrorisms, may it be Khalistani desperadoes or Buddhist monks doubling up as Sinhala supremacists or Christian Phalangists or Zionist terrorists...", he writes.
He says till recently, when the phenomenon of Hindutva terror had not made its presence felt with its nationwide network and overseas contacts, blaming any terrorist act in any part of the country on jihadi groups "was the rule".
He contends that looking back, one finds the formations of the Hindutva right were moving on from "terror of riot" to "terror of bomb", but the change in the stratagem remained unregistered and unnoticed by the government agencies and the civil society.
"Biased investigation and a communalised police force have created a situation where hundreds of innocent Muslim youths are still languishing in jails in different parts of the country on trumped up charges of terrorism," he alleges.
Besides, he says "another disturbing aspect" of the whole situation is that terrorist acts by Hindutva groups receive a "kid-glove treatment" by both the security agencies and the media.
Gatade feels that the ruling dispensation at the Centre led by the Congress does not seem to have a "collective realisation" about the danger posed by the majoritarian terrorism before the secular polity.
"This is evident in the half-hearted attempts to take the investigations into such cases to their logical culmination," he argues.
-PTI
The book titled "Godse's Children - Hindutva Terror in India", written by Subhash Gatade, alleges that the blast in an RSS activist's house in Nanded, Maharashtra, had brought to the fore the systematic manner in which people associated with it and allied groups were engaged in making and storing explosives, imparting arms training and planning to bomb minorities as part of the mission to establish "Hindu Rashtra" in India.
It was on April 6, 2006 when Nanded witnessed a blast at the house of Laxman Rajkondwar, a long time RSS activist, killing his son and another Sangh activist, it says.
"Five years later, investigating agencies are in the know of involvement of Hindutva supremacists in dozens of blasts like Malegaon and Samjhauta Express," it says.
The role of international linkages and networks of different Hindutva formations in collecting funds, mobilising resources and supporting the cause has added further ferocity to this project, says the author, who has extensively written on issues of communalism and Dalit emancipation.
The book has a chapter "First terrorist of Independent India" which details how Nathuram Godse and his accomplices carried out the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi.
The author, however, makes it clear that "this does not mean we are absolving the jihadi terrorists of the criminal acts they are engaged in nor we consider them less dangerous for the furtherance of peace, justice and progress in today's world".
Gatade laments that the "great tragedy of our times is that all such extremisms and fanaticisms feed on each other".
"A focus on the Hindutva terrorism should not be considered as one being soft towards a phenomenon towards jihadi terrorism or other faith based terrorisms, may it be Khalistani desperadoes or Buddhist monks doubling up as Sinhala supremacists or Christian Phalangists or Zionist terrorists...", he writes.
He says till recently, when the phenomenon of Hindutva terror had not made its presence felt with its nationwide network and overseas contacts, blaming any terrorist act in any part of the country on jihadi groups "was the rule".
He contends that looking back, one finds the formations of the Hindutva right were moving on from "terror of riot" to "terror of bomb", but the change in the stratagem remained unregistered and unnoticed by the government agencies and the civil society.
"Biased investigation and a communalised police force have created a situation where hundreds of innocent Muslim youths are still languishing in jails in different parts of the country on trumped up charges of terrorism," he alleges.
Besides, he says "another disturbing aspect" of the whole situation is that terrorist acts by Hindutva groups receive a "kid-glove treatment" by both the security agencies and the media.
Gatade feels that the ruling dispensation at the Centre led by the Congress does not seem to have a "collective realisation" about the danger posed by the majoritarian terrorism before the secular polity.
"This is evident in the half-hearted attempts to take the investigations into such cases to their logical culmination," he argues.
-PTI
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