Sangh Parivar: Cultural Nationalism, Hardline Hindutva or Terrorism?

If persons linked to the Sangh Parivar were involved in planning and executing the terrorist attack on Ajmer Dargah, a Sufi shrine that symbolises the unique blend of Hindu-Muslim culture that evolved in India over a period of centuries, it should send the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in a serious introspective mode.

Denial, blame game or terming it a political move won't help. It is very clear that RSS' activists, workers, pracharaks and even godmen have been involved in series of attacks on Muslim shrines including mosque, Islamic gatherings, Muslim-dominated pockets and other places.

The chief conspirators even include Sadhus [or Sants] like the absconding Terror Swami Aseemanand who allegedly planned the attacks or Dayanand Pandey who is in jail. In case of Pragya Thakur, the Parivar first defended her and later disowned her.

Even if a majority of Sangh Parivar activists join the group due to their belief in cultural nationalism, somewhere there is a tendency to drift towards fanaticism which later takes them to anti-national activities and subsequently towards terrorism. If a 'patriotic' organisation gives birth to such individuals, shouldn't this be a cause of worry for Nagpur-based mandarins?

So if there were some Muslims involved in terrorism, there are now several Hindus and that too from a rashtravadi or 'nationalist' organisation. So isn't it more serious for RSS that the nation-builders are turning the destructors?

When Samir Kulkarni's name appeared, the RSS leaders said that he was a hardliner and that was the reason that he had been expelled. But the fact remains that he had been associated with RSS for long. Soon names began appearing one after the other.

Sunil Joshi, Ramji Kalsangra, Devendra Gupta, Sandeep Dange, Rakesh Dhawade, Lokesh Sharma et al. Either it's rogue elements of Bajrang Dal, Sadhus linked to VHP, shooters like Sudhakar Rao Maratha or ideologues like Indresh, the RSS can no longer shun its responsibility.

If it has evaded terror tag, the reason is that the Parivar has expanded hugely in the last couple of decades. It has over a hundred active branches working in almost all sections and it has managed to get sympathisers in almost all walks of life.

But this is no longer enough to keep its name clean. The growing number of fanatics in Sangh Parivar and its affiliate groups should be a cause of concern for the group. The top leaders now express surprise at the development though they must be aware of the trend.

Forget blasts or terrorist attacks, leave aside VHP's rioting in Gujarat or anti-Christian violene in Karnataka & Orissa, even ignore the role of the RSS prior to independence and the charges on it during Mahatma Gandhi's killings, there are enough cases even other wise to prove the involvement of its cadre in subversive activities.

In 1992, the death of a Sangh Parivar worker during blast in the VHP office in Neemuch where bombs were being assembled, is hardly mentioned in media. But many would recall the blast during bomb-making in Kanpur when two Bajrang Dal workers had died a couple of years back.

Or for that matter the blast in Tamil Nadu's Tenkasi. With the arrest of three RSS workers, the TN police had cracked the case and said that the aim was to spark communal rioting. See story in The Hindu. The modus operandi was similar in parts of Malwa and Maharashtra.

Likewise in Nanded, the police had recovered fake beards and skullcaps from the house of RSS worker. This case was closed but reopened later by ATS under Hemant Karkare. Later during Malegaon and Modasa blasts also the motorcycle with Islamic stickers was placed deliberately to give a false impression that Muslim youths were behind the blast.

Besides, organisations ranging from Sanatan Sanstha to Abhinav Bharat who were alleged involved in blasts in Goa, Modasa, Thane, Nanded, Parbhani, Ajmer, Mecca Masjid at Hyderabad, Samjhata Express and a host of other places, are ideologically close to Sangh Parivar with RSS activists' role found in these cases.

What next? Will RSS take a drastic action? With such a huge cadre, it can do a lot of good ranging from anti-corruption drives to forging inter-religious harmony. Why is it letting its cadre go astray and turn anti-national?

[Photos courtesy: Dalip Singh's cover page story in Mail Today and Poornima Joshi's story 'RSS to disown activists if terror links are proved']

Zee Salaam: Another Urdu TV channel from India

Zee Salaam:
Urdu channel or Islamic channel!

Early this year the pioneer TV group in India, Zee, launched Zee Salaam, a channel directed at the Urdu speaking populace.

It was the third* Urdu channel in India after ETV Urdu and DD Urdu. ETV Urdu has successfully completed ten years and is quite popular in India and abroad.

Doordarshan's Urdu channel DD Urdu, which was launched a couple of years back, is also doing well though the cable operators don't relay it everywhere.

With one of the oldest TV media groups in the country, Zee, starting a channel, one expected that it would bring original and high quality content to the viewers.

Though the channel looked promising in its initial avatar, Zee Salaam has lately been resembling more of an Islamic channel than an Urdu channel. Hardly any effort is visible in programmes.

Of course, there is a large section that likes religious programmes but Zee Salaam more and more looks like a copy of QTV or similar other religious channels. They don't need to spend much when devotional programmes are to be aired through out the day.

Perhaps, the idea is that when you can run a channel with few Maulanas, why waste your funds and energy. So there is hardly any news, discussions or infotainment and mostly its clerics who are visible on the shows from morning till late evening.

Once in while you may get to see a programme on movie songs or English learning. Unfortunately, Zee group, that has a wide range of channels and can get reports from its language channels across India, seems to be giving little attention to the channel.

While ETV's programmes particularly Khas Baat, Alami Manzar, serials and shows for women, are quite popular, Zee Salam is yet to make a mark. Urdu is not about poetry alone, it is the language that is understood by almost everybody who speaks Hindi, Punjabi or other dialects.

Zee group should make use of the opportunity and must telecast original content by making use of their correspondents across the world, to strengthen the channel. They can target at least 100 million homes with ease in India alone.

Unfortunately, they seem to have abandoned the channel in the beginning. The Sahara group has been planning to start its Urdu channel for several years and now it seems the channel would be finally on air soon.

Zee Salaam needs to improve and decide whether it wants to run a professional news & infotainment channel or would remain happy competing with the other Islamic channels. [*Some other 'international' Urdu channels were launched but they closed without leaving much impact]

Born in 1890, Going for Haj in 2010: India's Munni Begum ready for pilgrimage

Munni Begum is 120 year old and is all set to go for Haj, after special permission as her name didn't figure in the draw of lots.

The old woman who gave birth to eight sons and daughters, heads a huge family that lives in Kho Nagorian locality of Jaipur.

Family members say that Munni Begum was born in August 1890. She has 52 grandsons and granddaughters apart from 96-odd great grandsons and great granddaughters other than two dozen great-great-grandchildren [and even their kids].

The elderly woman has seen three centuries. And now she is all set for the pilgrimage she has waited for all her life. On Saturday she reached the office of Haj Committee to fill the form. The Central Haj Committee officials from Delhi gave her special permission.

The Rajasthan Haj Welfare Society has requested the Saudia Arabia government that special attention should be paid to her because of Munni's age.

Munni Begum is perhaps the oldest woman on record to embark for the holy journey. She says that she had the wish to go for Haj ever since she was married in her teenage, and thus her wish is going to be fulfilled after over a century.

One wonders if there is a tendency among the Rajasthanis, particularly, the Jaipur residents to live longer.

Earlier, Habib Miyan had gone for Haj at the age of 134. He had suddenly drawn international attention after it was found that he had been drawing pension for over 65 years.

Habib Miyan had retired in 1938. He went for Haj in 2004 when he was 134. Though birth certificates were unknown in the olden days, the bank records proved his age.

As per the pension papers, Habib Miyan was drawing pension since 1938. The documents clearly showed him as born in 1878 and this made him the world's oldest man alive until his death at the age of 138 in 2008. The bank officers delivered his pension at his home.

Now it's Munni Begum's turn though she is not a 'Munni' in the literary sense. [Munni means little in Urdu] In India, it was the tradition that mostly older persons went for Haj, after they had fulfilled their worldly responsibilities.

In recent years the pilgrims have begun going at a comparatively younger age, still a large number of Indians who go to Hejaz [Arabia] are over sixty. And Munni Begum clearly beats them as well. One hopes that along with other Hajis, she also manages to perform the Haj and returns safely. Amen.

Fanatic 'anti-Muslim' shooter Sudhakar Rao's arrest ignored

The near-total blackout of the news regarding arrest of one of the most fanatic and religio-maniac killers, Sudhakar Rao, by the national media is intriguing.

Media persons, security agencies, intelligence-wallahs were all aware of the shadowy Hindutva-inspired sharpshooter known for target killings and 'eliminating' Muslims, local-level particular leaders and those who were into inter-religious marriages.

It has been agreed upon that terrorism has no colour--neither Green nor Saffron-- and it should be treated as crime against humanity but the question is why such cases get unusually less coverage. 

Sudhakar apparently turned radical after his sister eloped with a Muslim youth. He killed his 'brother-in-law' and later committed a series of murders including that of Congress leader RR Khan. Incidentally in this case the police framed one, Gulfam, though Rao has now confessed the crime.

It is all too known that Malwa region [around Indore] in Madhya Pradesh has been the hotbed of both Hindu militants as well as Muslim extremists. It was here that bomb blasts in Modassa, Malegaon, Samjhauta Express, Mecca Masjid Hyderabad and Ajmer dargah and several other case of bombings. In Malwa, the entire SIMI leadership arrested.

Sudhakar Rao whom police call Sudhakar Rao Maratha was close to ex-RSS pracharak Sunil Joshi, the hardliner and breakway group leader who was involved in series of terrorist acts and was later found murdered. The National Investigative Agency (NIA) is investigating the case after MP ATS 'duly' closed it.

In Madhya Pradesh, Anti-Terrorist Squad has yet to catch any right-wing militant though one of the first such cases of terrorism, the failed attempts to bomb Ijtima gathering was planned here way back in the year 2002-2003.

In this case also, it was UP ATS arrested him and handed it over to Special Task Force (STF) and as a result MP police had to accept him. The 'prized catch' didn't enthuse police officials and unlike even petty criminals on whose arrest press conferences are held, in this case a strange hush fell over the officials.

With the exception of a few local newspapers, who published the story, even most of the Hindi publications blacked out the news or it was just a single column news.

In the past, even arrest of a person with a Muslim ex-member of SIMI with no crimes registered against him, the headlines like 'Dreaded terrorist caught' have been splashed.

On this occasion, national media also looked askance. The fact that all these years when Sudhakar Rao was absconding, a senior BJP leader in Madhya Pradesh was in constant touch with him. The cell phone records prove it.  But again, there will be no action or probe regarding the leader's links with the man.

Crime should be treated with the same contempt whether it is linked to a fanatic Muslim group or a fundamentalist Hindu group and irrespetive of whether it originates in Azamgarh or Indore. However, ignoring hardliners of one group is a disservice to the nation, as creates wrong image among the viewers who don't get to see the entire picture and it leads to biased perception.

Is it a deliberate attempt or it happens unknowingly? Either ways it's wrong and media must be fair. Why else there is such a hue and cry when Rahul Gandhi equates RSS with SIMI. The former has been accused of Gandhi' assassination apart from its cadre's role in communal riots as also open involvement of its sister organisations including VHP and Bajrang Dal in rioting in several states.

See past links about Indore's terror connection on this blog here.

[On the top left, is the news published in local Hindi newspaper about Sudhakar murdering five Muslim leaders by shooting them dead. The other photograph on the right is about the crimes committed by him. Apart from these cases, he was wanted in nine other major criminal cases in Madhya Pradesh. He was also wanted in Rajasthan and had a reward on his arrest announced in both states.]

Anisa Sayyed: From Ticket Checker to Shooting Champion

Anisa Sayyed has shot to fame with the gold medal which she won along with Rahi in the shooting event at Commonwealth Games.

It has not been an easy journey for the shooter who hails from Pune. She was employed with the Indian Railways and checked  passenger tickets at Vile Parle station in Mumbai, but despite her pleas railway officials had refused to give her transfer to Delhi after her husband's posting to the national capital.

Determined that she would pursue her passion, Anisa quit the job and left for Delhi. Anisa, who hails from middle-class Muslim family, lived in a small quarter in Pune. It was well over a decade ago that she decided to take up pistol shooting as a professional sport and the medal is a result of her daily toil for almost 12 years.

Micky Aigner reports that how her patience and her coach Ghani Sheikh's able guidance brought the girl to national sporting scene. Anisa won gold at the South Asian Federation Medal in 2004 and has also broken the national record with her score of 585/600 which is better than her commonwealth show 574/600.

Not everybody is born with a silverspoon in the mouth like say Abhinav Bindra [no question of belittling his contribution] whose multi-millionaire father provided him all possible infrastructure and facilities to practise. Rahi Sarnobat and Aneesa Sayyed have battled against all odds, against the system, against unhelpful authorities and then won.

The Indian shooters defeated the Australians 1158-1148 in the 25 m pistol shooting on the second day of Commonwealth Games in Delhi. Rahi Sarnobat is also a small-town girl hailing from Kolhapur. Anisa [her surname has also been spelt as Sayed and Saeed] regrets that all her pleas for transfer fell on deaf years despite all her efforts for two years.

"I am grateful to my husband's company that gave me sponsorship", she tells Ajai Masand in this report. However, she stands vindicated as her former organisation, the Railways, have now announced a reward for her achievement.

Isn't it strange that it's only now that we hear of her after she along with Rahi Sarnobat won the gold. There is no dearth of talent in the country, however, we remain focused mostly on cricket and sports that have glamour attached to them like tennis at the cost of other sports. [Photo: Rahi Sarnobat and Anisa Sayyed]

Congratulations to the Maharashtra girls, Anisa and Rahi, for their performance that took Indian medal tally up. Such success stories will certainly inspire more and more girls to take up sports and bring laurels to the country.