The Murder of Muslims

In India today, nationalism has a religion. Hinduism. We may pussyfoot around it and refer to it as Hindutva, saffronisation or, what the ruling rightwing Bhartiya Janata Party calls “fringe elements”, but the discourse is clearly embedded in the faith of the majority community. 

Slurs against Muslims have become commonplace. A country that wants to declare the cow as the mother of the nation and where minorities have to prove their patriotism not by allegiance to the flag but to the political party in power is bound to descend into chaos.

Two years ago, a mob brandishing hockey sticks and knives barged into Mohammed Akhlaq’s house in Dadri in north India and assaulted all the family members before killing him because they suspected there was beef in their fridge. The meat was sent to the forensic lab and it was found to be lamb. 

When one of his killers died (of natural causes), he was given a martyr’s funeral; his coffin was draped in the national flag and there were speeches by leaders from Hindu organisations that have direct access to the government. 

Last month towards the end of Ramadan when Junaid boarded the train to return home with his Eid shopping bags, he might not have imagined that the elderly man whom he offered the seat to would egg on a mob punching him and his friends. Abuses flew. “Beef eater”, “antinational”, “mullah”. They pulled at their skull caps and newly-sprouted beards. Knives came out telling them to go to Pakistan. They were bleeding. Nobody came to their rescue. Junaid was stabbed. He died. He was 16.

At the stations en route some of the lynch mob got off, enough to let the cops shrug about little evidence. 

A scuffle for seats got transformed into a fight for political and religious space. Or, perhaps, religious assertiveness is seeking out reasons. 

Meat trader Alimuddin Ansari was beaten up by a mob and his van, ostensibly with cattle meat, was set on fire in Jharkhand. There seemed to have been a dispute with some people who were extorting money from him. Such excuses have become the norm where the victim is invariably Muslim, for it was not a spontaneous act. His movements were tracked for hours before he was murdered. 

Mohammad Majloom and Inayatullah Khan of Latehar were taking their cattle to a fair many miles away. Five men with a mission waylaid them. After they killed the 35 and 13 year old, they tied a noose around their necks and hung them from a tree.

“Prima facie it appears to have been a case of a gang attempting to loot cattle,” the cops said. For those in a hurry to rob and make a quick escape with the cattle to profit from it, they seemed to have relished in committing the murders. Not only did they kill the two, they hanged them. The hanging was a message. To shame. To hold them up as an example. How dare they not respect their gau mata, the cow mother, their religion? 

It is disconcerting that mobs are using cow protection as the higher cause even to settle petty disputes. The shaming has got a further boost because the videos are uploaded and shared. The message gets more traction. What is so evident in these viral videos is that the so-called ‘jihadi mentality’ that Muslims are accused of does not respond in kind. The victims are just overwhelmed by the suddenness of the attack; in some instances they are pleading, in one the man does not even have the energy or presence of mind to protest as they grab his hair and kick him. He just takes it like a stoic who has become accustomed to lie on a bed of nails.

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Narendra Modi, the prime minister of India, has not uttered a word condoling any of these deaths. He tweets mourning for the loss of lives in a fire in Portugal, but makes no attempt to reach out to the families of those killed by men purportedly supporting his party’s Hindutva dream, a dream to reclaim ancient India and transform the country into a Hindu nation.

When he does speak, it is evasive: “All (state) governments should take stringent action against those who are violating law in the name of cow protection.”

How will this happen when some state governments are handing out expensive beef detection kits to the cops to smell for trouble, effectively converting the police force into cow protectors too? The very fact that there are several cow protection groups is worrying, for they aren't animal rights activists but soldiers of the faith.

“Bolo Jai Shri Ram” (Hail Lord Rama), is the war cry. People are stopped in the streets and asked to owe allegiance to their god. A mentally unstable woman was slapped and forced to utter the words; a cleric was pummelled just outside the mosque by a group insisting he chant the phrase; journalist Munne Bharti was driving with his elderly parents. Suddenly, their car was surrounded by a group. They threatened to set the car on fire if they did not chant “Jai Shri Ram”. They did. An adult was frightened, for himself and his aged parents.

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How is this not about religion, then?

It was always about religion, perhaps by a few skewed minds. 25 years ago Bal Thackeray, the leader of the militant Shiv Sena, had asked for the disenfranchisement of Muslims. He would address huge rallies at an open ground referring to Muslims as “katuas”, the cut ones without a foreskin. After the Babri Masjid was demolished in Ayodhya, on the instructions of these political parties, and the riots reached what was then Bombay, the men in the streets would point at the crotches of Muslim men and snigger, “katua”. They were stopped and asked to strip for a random check by random people. Unlike the Sikhs after the riots in 1984 who discarded their turbans and shaved off their hair to protect themselves, Muslims could not get back their foreskin.

At the All-India Hindu Convention held last month in Goa, for 4 days all the cars at the venue were sprayed with cow urine to purify them. “Their car needs shuddhi karan. We do it to all objects — watches, clothes, sometimes even handbags. It’s a spiritual exercise.”

How people choose to practise their faith is a personal matter. But when you have a cow piss soda, cow dung and urine being made a part of ayurvedic medicines and astrologers treating people in hospital OPDs, then it becomes obvious that the cow and beef are incidental here. They are only the more potent batons to beat the minorities. There is also the commercial angle. Giving a charlatan guru called Ramdev land and business rights to run an empire ostensibly selling indigenous products is a strategy to bring the devil close to your home.

Young Hindu women are training in self-defence to protect them from “love jihad”, a bogey created by the rightwing suggesting that Muslim men are luring them to fall in love to later convert them.

In May last year, there was a report about a camp in Uttar Pradesh training the youth wing of militant Hindu organisations to protect the country from terrorists. In the video images they are aiming their air guns and sticks at men wearing skull caps. The governor had justified the drill: “Those who cannot defend themselves, cannot ultimately defend the country and there is nothing wrong if some youths are getting arms-training purely for self defence.”

That instead of urging these fit youth to join the army, they are being brainwashed to target a particular group makes the intention clear.

How is this not about religion?

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The fallout of such brainwashing is not restricted to the extremist Hindutva proponents alone. There is a not-so-subtle attempt to deflect from the Hinduness of the terror by liberals too. An academic who has taken it upon himself to explain India to Indians on social media from his perch in the US has written about the global Muslim victimhood industry by playing victim: “One cannot use the term ‘Muslim terror’ (but Hindu or Christian or Left terror is fine) or even Islamic terror without worry of being termed communal, bigoted, or Islamophobic. The appropriate phrase is 'Islamist terror,' which, we are expected to clarify, has nothing to do with Islam.”

Some commentators have begun to call India Lynchistan, the land of lynching. We do not seem to realise that mobs thrive on notoriety. They are not seeking a popular mandate, because they already are the popular mandate. Paper tiger responses only embolden their cause. The truth is that nobody in mainstream media or in activism or with an outsider’s perspective, like Dr. Amartya Sen, has had the courage or the will to call these planned lynchings as Hindu terrorism. 

Is such nomenclature important? It is. Because it is a systematic attempt to annihilate the minorities, specifically Muslims. (Quite different from Islamist terrorism whose victims are mainly Muslim and, in some cases like the ISIS’s victims, also people who are liberal enough to support Muslims.) 

Muslims immediately distance themselves from any jihad violence, even though that does not assuage their neighbours from seeing them as potential suspects. Hindus are not doing so in large enough numbers, and they are chary of admitting the faith angle because they believe that Hinduism is not a monotheistic faith with allegiance to one book and one god. It is amorphous and therefore fluid, they reason.

The caste system and its treatment of Dalits and the backward castes certainly reveals ‘fluidity’. All the government-engineered riots have been masterminded by a vile intellect that outsources the war to the police and army and pumps up the trading class to decimate minority businesses. The murder of minorities is only a more violent assertion of this sheltered ghettoisation of the elite majority. 

There are many who use their internet liberalism to rationalise their own subtle bigotry. That many of them also have a stake in steak does lend weight to their public “I'm not too Hindu” utterances. 

In one such recent piece, the headline flashed about how Hindu victimhood is a manufactured cry. In the first para itself, though, the writer gave a clean chit to Muslims quoting, of all people, George Bush: “India is a country which does not have a single al-Qaida member in a population of 150 million Muslims.” Hindus do not have to prove whether they have allegiance to any extremist organisation, even if they elect them to power.

The usage of Islamist phrases like fatwa and jihad to explain Hindu terror acts and suggest they are only “mimicking” reeks of another version of Islamophobia and projects violence by Hindu extremists as a reaction to centuries of abuse by Muslim rulers. This historic narrative pushes the ‘tolerate Muslims despite their past’ idea, the moral compass revealing who considers itself the superior side.

These recent attempts to call out Hindu extremists is not organic. They are a response to some of us wondering why we did not link the Hindu word with terrorism. We have woken up or, in good old Hindu speak, and in deference to many of us being converts from the ancient religion, our third eye has been awakened.

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Published in CounterPunch

Whose yoga is it, anyway?

After this Yoga Day is over, nobody will give a damn about it, neither those promoting it nor those opposing it.

As we celebrate the occasion on June 21, it becomes evident that unlike the rest of the world, for Indians it is not only about physical wellbeing. It takes a very simplistic mind to suggest that the sudden interest in yoga is about health. If that were the priority, then our health infrastructure would be revamped and several other cures propagated.

Perhaps those who perform their asanas and deep breathing might have gone about it as they always do but for the added burden of being made the keepers of a cultural heritage. This becomes more potent when you have to deal with what appear to be enemies of yoga. Supporting yoga today is also about patriotism.

"Yoga is the best soft power of India," said external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj. Inherent in the statement is the belief that we can colonise others with it, and indeed with so many other countries adopting it it is possible to indulge in such delusion, especially where the West is concerned.

The same goes for the prime minister. When Narendra Modi suggested to the UN to institute a day celebrating yoga, he was claiming heritage, capitalising on the foreign interest, and appealing to the NRI community by taking care not to use Hindutva evangelism and spoil their case in their adopted lands.

More than culture, it is an assertion of patent rights. Our foreign obsession often takes us to our own cultural moorings only after they've been accepted overseas, largely by the whites. Do we hear about blacks and yoga? There is no way that the foreigners enamoured of yoga are doing so solely due to its physical benefits. They like the exotica that accompanies it — the incense, the spiritual poses, the history and the mythography of finding the self from the navel to the seat of all desire at the base of the lower back, as the kundalini rises.

Added to this is the guilt that they are taking over yoga. There has been much debate for years about the appropriation. This is not quite true for Indian gurus from Maharishi Mahesh yogi to Deepak Chopra made money overseas and gained currency in the land of their origin because of their famous clientele overseas. There might be a few mom & pop type yoga stores, but it is more likely that it is preferred to be first experienced in its 'natural' environment.

The truth is that yoga has been chosen for special attention simply because it is a thriving industry, and not because India wants to culturally invade the world or the minorities. However, the 'yoga is anti-Islam, anti-Christianity' lobbies come in handy because the majority of middle-class Indians, avaricious as they are, like a moral core to justify their greed.

With the subtle implication that this is an ancient art form that needs to be protected and propagated, they feel assuaged. They carry history in their aspiring to be nimble forms.

It was bad enough that certain Muslim groups and individuals started talking about how yoga is anti-Islam, but it is even worse to see the ridiculous attempts to co-opt other Muslims. Photographs of maulvis and people wearing burqas and skull caps holding their noses and contorting their bodies just make it appear like the farce it is turning out to be.

It started with this nonsense about how Muslims can't do the surya namaskar because in Islam you are not supposed to worship any form. Not everybody who does yoga worships the sun or the moon or anything. Why even bring this up? This gave Yogi Adityanath just the kind of opportunity he waits for:

"Sun is the source of life giving energy. Whoever thinks Sun is communal, I would like to humbly request them to drown themselves in the sea or they should stay in a dark cell."

These Muslims deserve his idiocy that misinterprets their intent and even communalises the sun. At the other end is Sakshi Maharaj who called himself a true Muslim and Prophet Mohammed a great yogi. Some others said namaaz is like yoga.

Some Muslims asserted that they are not supposed to say 'Om' while doing deep meditation, and somebody suggested they could replace it with 'Ameen'. You really do not need either, and if yoga is all about health then just get on with it. By creating a controversy, bigoted Muslims have just played into the hands of the other bigots, and made themselves into a laughing stock to be 'saved' by the likes of Baba Ramdev.

Christians too have objected because yoga is "not compatible with Christianity". An event organized by drug rehab NGO Kripa is in trouble because many from the community believe that Fr. Joe Pereira is more like a Hindu yoga guru. A parishioner said, "...yoga is not Biblical. If a priest wants to organise something, he should do it within the framework of the Christian world."

Everyone seems to want to score points.

Mr Modi, despite all the criticism the event has generated, has used what has always been there to garner more attention for himself. He wants to ensure that this occasion gets into the Guinness Book. Large contingents will be out, including police personnel and bureaucrats.

A yoga instructor at the class for public servants was quoted as saying:

“They heard it on TV, and they are running toward the yoga. The prime minister is the king. If the king does something, that is very effective. And this time, our king is doing yoga.”

School students who anyway are expected to participated in Physical Training (PT) classes are being brainwashed. Is this about general wellbeing? One politician, whatever be his motives, seems to have got it mostly right. Karnataka Social Welfare Minister Anjanaiah said:

"Yoga is for lazy people, especially people belonging to well to do families. They do not have time for exercise in the open including taking a walk...People should ask their children to indulge themselves in playing outdoor sports including running and long walks instead of yoga."

Have you seen a poor person practise, much less discuss, yoga? Yoga is essentially for the angst-ridden elite looking for reprieve or the neo-enlightened who think it is a non-invasive body cleanser. Very few use it as an alternative to medicine. And now with the supposed renaissance, it has become a symbol of political opportunism camouflaging as culture. Forget yoga, we need a new culture.

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The Taliban has now objected to Pakistanis celebrating the occasion, so many events have been cancelled. An earlier piece I wrote on Pakistan on an Indian spiritual trip

RIP ISIS – Rot In Purgatory

We seem to have become numb to the dehumanising methods of the ISIS. The response to the Jordanian pilot burned to death has been that is the worst. Is their cruelty to be judged on the basis on degree?

The fake Caliphate is well-organised and the killings are their calling card; they have nothing else to show by way of commitment. When we start comparing the different methods they adopt, it ends up as a stimulus for them to provide more and varied instances of what they can do.

They are adopting the modus of the Middle Ages simply because they claim to want to turn back the clock. Each time they are shown their regressive face, it is a victory for them. Lt. Moaz al-Kasasbeh was taken hostage while on a US-led coalition mission against the ISIS in Syria. They demanded the release of Sajida al-Rishawi, an Iraqi suicide bomber now facing trial in Jordan. There are political analysts who believe that if Jordan sends her to the gallows it would amount to revenge, which isn’t any good. She has been on death row for a while for the attacks that killed 60 people in Amman in 2005. So their logic makes little sense.

The matter of concern here is that she was not a bargaining point at all. Kasasbeh was killed a month ago; it is only the video that has surfaced now. The ISIS is therefore not only brutal, but also vicious. They do not stand for anything, other than a temporary belief in their infallibility.

The response to their actions is often disturbing. Invariably, the victim’s moral prism is exhibited, when that is never a point of dispute. However, it does convey all sorts of messages. How does it matter that he was a devout Muslim? Does it mean that one who is not devout, or not a Muslim, does have some kind of naturally probable victim license in our neatly-arranged conscience? We may RIP the victims, but it should really be RIP ISIS. They need to rot in purgatory. 

I have read comments about how burning is anti-Islamic. Those who argue that ISIS is not Islamic lose a lot of ground with such careless statement that indirectly suggest that perhaps beheading is halal. There are also some comments about how burning alive is prevalent in India for honour killing and dowry. Why do we remember it only now? All crimes committed by terrorists exist in society, so trying to find an opportune equivalence is not only naive but designed to show selective liberalism. 

Burning at the stake was a practice prevalent in France in the 14^th century, primarily for heresy/blasphemy. The ISIS has no locus standi to even judge, but even if they were Kasasbeh cannot be accused of it. It is the arrogance of the ISIS and its belief in its own godliness that needs to be weeded out. Meanwhile Barack Obama has got an opportunity to state: 

"I think it will redouble the vigilance and determination on the part of the global coalition to make sure they are degraded and ultimately defeated.”

Degraded it a typically moral term. It is this that leads the Japanese to refer to the hostages from their country as “another 9/11”.  Has not Japan been through horrific terror in its history? Why does all contemporary terrorism need to be legitimised by the United States of America?

After the beheading of Kenji Goto, an old tweet of his from 2010 went viral:

 “Closing my eyes and holding still. It’s the end if I get mad or scream. It’s close to a prayer. Hate is not for humans. Judgment lies with God. That’s what I learned from my Arabic brothers and sisters.”

The ISIS is not choosing victims who need to be taught a lesson, so emphasising their humaneness is a non-sequiter.  And how does one know about the humaneness of the hostages who do not have much of a visible presence, like say Haruna Yukawa the other Japanese who was beheaded before Kenji?

The public space will once again thrown up a few fake moderate Muslims battling biting cold in fireplace rooms who will post #notinmyname tweets to fight the imminent threat ISIS poses to their cocooned world.

Rape through the politician's prism

Where is Mulayam Yadav's son, CM Akhilesh?

Let us not dismiss these as merely sexist remarks. They are criminal. Let us also, for the sake of the female population we claim to support, look at these comments in totality. They are as bad, if not worse, but it will give us a better perspective.

Why are we shocked? Because these statements have been made during the elections? What about all the rest that are made throughout the year? Is the outrage we feel not pandering to political parties, each more disgusting than the other?

At a rally in Moradabad, UP, the Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav said: “Ladkon se aisi galtiyan ho jaati hain, to iska ye matlab nahin ki phaansi de di jaye (Boys do make such mistakes, but that does not mean that they should be sent to the gallows).” 

Referring to the Shakti Mills rape case, Mulayam Singh, whose party is in power in Uttar Pradesh, said: “Two or three accused have been given the death sentence in Mumbai. We will change such laws when we come to power ... we will also ensure punishment of those who report false cases.”

The first bit clearly reveals patriarchal notions that consider rape and women their property, and men will be boys. (It needs to be noted here that Mamata Banerjee’s attitude is not much different towards rape victims, so misogyny is not the only issue here.) Now, reprehensible as this is, everybody has latched on to it and forgotten their own pleas against capital punishment, including for rape. There is also a group that supports men’s rights against false cases, not to forget the support Tarun Tejpal has got from his friends.

Yadav has put us in an awkward position, for many human rights activists would want a law where people are not given the death punishment. I am not so sure about false cases, because it is rare for women to expose themselves and their bodies to such scrutiny only to wreak vengeance or get some rewards by implicating a man. Rape is a crime and like all crimes there will be evidence. Why is it so difficult to understand?

Have you heard discussions about these following his comment? No.

Soon after, his party’s Mumbai chief Abu Azmi added to it in this conversation quoted in Mid-day. This man is a serial offender where making outrageous comments are concerned. He has brought in Islam, and there is the kneejerk reaction that it is to get the Muslim vote. How pathetic is this. Muslim women get raped too, and they suffer as much. Was Mulayam Singh appealing to the Hindu vote, or do his ‘secular’ credentials make him a quasi-Muslim who was taking up for Muslim rapists? The Congress Party’s Nitish Rane posted this: ‏”All potential Rapists plz contact Samajwadi party female members n family members as its ok to rape them! Green signal mil gaya hai! Enjoy!” (sic) What votebank was he catering to?

Is Abu Azmi's son Farhan
serious about opposing his father?

Why did the reporter think it important to get Abu Azmi’s views on solution to rape, knowing what kind of a man he is? He repeated Yadav’s concern about false cases and a few other aspects:

• “These days, the number of such cases has increased where girls go and complain whenever they want. If one touches them, they complain, and if no one touches them, they still complain. Then, the problem starts, and the man’s honour, which he has earned throughout his life, is destroyed. Rape with or without consent should be punishable as per Islam.”

• “If a woman is caught, then both she and the boy should be punished. As per Islam, if someone has (sex) with consent, it’s the death penalty even then. In India, there’s death penalty for rape, but when there’s consent, there’s no death penalty...If you agree to be with someone, it’s okay. But the moment something goes wrong, and one gets angry and starts blackmailing, then the other person would be hanged; this is a serious issue.”

• “As per Islam, rape deserves death penalty. If someone rapes a woman, she shouldn't be punished, ladki to bechari hai (the girl is helpless). The whole country should stand with her.”

The last part has not been brought up in any discussions, which are a repeat of the sensational headline: ‘SHOCKING! Women having sex should be hanged, says Abu’.

He should have been hauled up for bringing in Islam in a secular country, if any of this can be used in any nation at all. Besides this, he is expressing typical power politics of gender where the woman who ‘consents’ is assumed to be loose or vengeful. It reveals some gumption and I wonder just how these political leaders do not give a damn for the 49 per cent women voters that have become sound bites.

The mainstream and social media have a free run, too. Abu Azmi’s son Farhan is being hailed as the sensitive guy who has taken on his father by publicly dissociating with the comments. His wife, actress Ayesha Takia, also spoke about being “deeply embarrassed”. All well, except that the son is contesting these elections. Is he doing this to assure his constituents? Superficially. The area knows him for his high-end restaurants and glamorous life. They are the ones who sniff into lace handkerchiefs during plays on ‘Nirbhaya’, a victim of the media after the rape. They are bothered about their safety from the pub to home. One is not reducing their concerns, which are legitimate too, but this is what the young Azmi is playing on.

At a time when everybody has a forum to express, we are inundated with the most venal form of support for victims. From bragging about boycotting Azmi’s restaurants to sexual innuendos about the characters in this sorry episode, it is open season. If they wish to express anger, then how does this fit in: “I wish Ayesha Takia would chest bump Abu Azmi?” Is this respect for women?

Those who have a problem with feminism as an “over-reaction” want to join the gravy cart of ‘women’s issues’.

The media is playing the statements on loop. Panellists are talking about all sorts of punishment for the rapists. Some are obviously playing politics. No one can sit on a high moral ground. Unfortunately, not even those who are yapping about misogyny.

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On a different note, is Narendra Modi declaring for the first time that he has a wife in his nomination papers. It proves that he has withheld the truth until now under oath. The marriage took place when he was 17, and she a year younger. Again, the matter should be about bringing this to the notice of the Election Commission, or file a case. Get senior party leaders to explain. Has this happened? I hear a complaint has been filed, but not by any political leader or human rights organisation.

The lady becomes an object. By the BJP – they are crooning that she has gone on a pilgrimage to pray for him because he has finally acknowledged her publicly (even if this could be a hostage situation). By the Opposition – they are feeling sorry for her being abandoned by this big man (even if he was not a big man when he did so). And by the concerned – they feel sympathy for her plight, or give her a certificate for managing so well on her own. All of this reeks of such a patronising attitude. She should be left alone.

In fact, just leave women alone - in so many ways.

© Farzana Versey

Was the Woolwich murder a terror attack?

They hacked a soldier to death. What was as bad as the spectacle of TV anchors giving tantalising sound bites about the possible images of the beheading was the surprise over Prime Minister David Cameron cutting short his visit in France and calling for a special meeting. Is this not what a leader would do, especially since he has preempted it as a terror attack?

I watched a bit of the news, and it is inhuman that anyone would want to kill in this manner. Machetes and knives were used, although the two assailants had guns.

What is surprising and unfortunate is that not only did the men kill the soldier who was returning to the barracks in Woolwich, they had an audience. They asked them to film them. They gave statements about their motives.

What did the people do? They shot the video. Some called the police. The cops took 20 minutes to reach. Whatever the problems, could they not have alerted the barracks that were just round the corner and would not the colleagues of the victim arrive to help?

CNN kept showing one of the murdererers. Worse, it said, "They're black." We could see that. Do they ever specify white?

Surprisingly, they stayed around and so did the people. What did that one guy say?

•“We swear by almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you."

•"I apologize that woman had to witness this today but in our lands woman see this every day." [Apparently, a reference to an eyewitness.]

•"Remove your government - they don't care about you."

The obvious assumption would be that he is a jihadi, a religious fanatic. He is also talking about other lands where this happens — it is not clear whether he was referring to western interference or killings by militants within the countries by rebels or fundamentalists against their own people.

When he said "remove your government", who was he addressing? This was in London. There are many different ethnic groups. Muslims cannot remove the government, so it would seem he was appealing to all the citizens.

From the little that one could gather, it looked like the murderers did not choose the specific target. Was the soldier in army fatigues? If so, then they wanted to hit out at the institution they believe is causing trouble in their land of origin.

Has anyone given them the right to speak on behalf of their people? No. They are disgruntled. Perhaps their families or friends or neighbours back home have been killed. This is no excuse, but a possible reason. If they beheaded him, I wonder why they used this form of vengeance against what they believe is bad government.

One innocent man was killed. Besides the killers, others are already making a killing of it. It has started with a warning that this is a terrorist attack, and Al Qaeda is mentioned. Someone suggested that lone operators could not be ignored. Most certainly. But they are called murderers. 'Terrorism' changes the dynamics. The government has already issued warnings of more attacks.

Instead of making the public feel secure, it frightens them.

As expected, Muslims organisations have condemned the attack. This is all very good as a humanitarian gesture, but could they not wait? Why this rush to prove that the community is not to be blamed? It is not. No one blamed Koreans when a student went on a rampage at a university in the US. The apology plays into the media shrillness, and reaches the people. The message gets distorted along the way.

One family is grieving today. They do not even know why this happened. Think about them too, and not only about the killers. That is the job of the police and the investigating agencies. One hopes they are not influenced by the media's bloody-mindedness.

Updated May 23, 10.50 am IST:

I cannot understand how what takes place miles away lands up at our doorstep. The ridiculous assertions include:

Arabisation of Muslims: What is that? One has to keep repeating that there is no uniform Muslim ethos. The fact that a country is prefixed before Islam while discussing Arabisation makes it clear that there will be ethnic aspects. Even within the Arab world there are different streams.

 People from poor countries go to the First World and then behave like country bumpkins: Besides the obvious ignorance, it reveals a superiority complex. This makes no sense considering their own people are on dole, are homeless, are fighting regressive laws.

They “bite the hand that feeds”: What about the majority that are taxpayers, who contribute to these societies? By this logic, the high profile financial scams would also qualify as “biting the hand” because they loot the country’s economy.

MJ Rosenberg, Washington Spectator’s special correspondent on Middle East affairs explained it succinctly: “Most Muslims, like most everyone else, are horrified by London horror. But 100% of Islamohaters are ecstatic.”

So where does this come from? Why do they not outrage when there are killing by the Taliban or Al Qaida in Muslim countries where the victims are Muslim? Who are the real haters? What do screaming headlines mean except to wallow in violence as porn? And, yes, the man did use the name of Allah. What does Pastor Terry Jones say? Or those who muffle voices in basements wshile they torture their victims? Is this not terrorism?

© Farzana Versey

Firing from Sunil Tripathi’s shoulders

They found his body in a river. He might have been any 22-year-old, but in the past ten days his face and name became the cause of social media speculation. To analyse it as mere online dysfunctional behaviour would be superficial. It reveals deep-seated prejudices.

Sunil Tripathi, a student of Brown University in the US, went missing on March 16, after he quit his studies. He had left behind his wallet and cellphone in his dorm room.  His parents started a search, using every possible avenue, most prominently a Facebook page and YouTube videos. His photograph became familiar.

A month later, on April 16, the bomb blasts happened in Boston at the Marathon. Of the two men in the blurred images, one resembled Sunil, whose face had brought out so much sympathy from strangers. It got linked to the blasts by virtue of the vague similarity, and his disappearance. Devious mischief-makers projected this as a case of 'Hindu terror'.

When it was confirmed that the two attackers were Chechens, and Muslim, there was counter-jubilation. Sunil's unfortunate death at such a young age got transformed into martyrdom. The medical coroner said that there was no evidence of foul play.

There is every reason to believe it, for he had no connection with the Chechen brothers and had made no overt attempts that would reveal where he was. An accident, a mugging gone wrong are possibilities. He was also depressed.

His death and the blasts are far removed and yet in public memory they will be seen together.

Rather surprisingly, it isn't just by outsiders. The Independent reports: 

“The family of Mr Tripathi, who was studying philosophy, said they were trying to seize on last week’s negative publicity and use it in their efforts to trace the young man."

I can understand the situation. But, will anyone say the Tripathis did not care for the victims of the Boston blasts? Or that they are not concerned about terrorism? Of course, they are. They live in the country. Sunil was getting a good education. Their attempt to use the negative publicity could be attributed to desperation.

In fact, except for that one statement, they have shown amazing grace. In a statement where they thanked the public for their support, they also added:

“Take care of one another. Be gentle, be compassionate. Be open to letting someone in when it is you who is faltering. Lend your hand. We need it. The world needs it."

This has not happened among the rabid Hindu rightwing. For them, it became an occasion to bait Islamists, and everyone was seen as such only because of the faith they were born into or pursued. Those who had not even mentioned Sunil were taunted as supporters of terrorism. There is just so much insecurity that no one cares about those who die because of terrorism, wherever they are. To assume that one billion people are terrorists is absurd. To assume that all of these one million support acts of terror is vile. To convey that except for those belonging to the faith of the terrorists, everyone is a natural victim reveals a truly superior delusional mindset.

One might recall the denial about Dhiren Barot, Al Qaida’s “first Hindu operative”. I had written then:

The Barot episode brings the prejudices even more sharply to the fore. The British Indians are distancing themselves from his Hindu origins. The message being that it is only "those Muslims" who indulge in terrorist activities. This is a curious denial of contemporary history, for Indian Muslims have been systematically put to test due to Hindu radicalism. And it has not been done by militant organisations, but by the State establishment in places like Gujarat.

Using a young man's death to gain sympathy for a cause is as bad as those who implicated him. However, the “editors of the Reddit social-news forum apologised for what they said turned into a 'witch-hunt'."

What sort of hunt is on now? It is disturbing because instead of putting matters to rest, as Sunil Tripathi's parents have done — and they should have been granted the privacy to mourn — the web world is not going to let it go. They know little about Chechnya, and the fact that two bomb blasts in Pakistan, one in Peshawar and another in Karachi, were carried out by Chechens. So much for pan-Islamism, Muslim brotherhood and uniformity.

In India, we do know that there is Hindutva terror, either by what people like to call 'fringe elements' or by organised groups, and in rare cases elements within the state machinery.

It most certainly is not to the extent of fundamentalist jihad, and the primary reason is that Hinduism is not practised in as many regions in the world as Islam is. Fanatic Islamists end up as enemies of their own people. Where does the Al Qaida operate from? Where is the Taliban concentrated in? The Hezbollah? What has happened to the Arab nations that strove for democracy? The rebels ended up electing religious leaders.

Where does the anti-kafir stand figure in all of this? We just read about the minaret destroyed in Syria. Mosques are bombed. I don't care much about buildings, although their sanctity lies in what they offer to the devotees, like any other place of worship. But why are people who pray to the same god targeted? This is not collateral damage, for they are planned attacks.

As long as this will be ignored to give forum to an archetype, it will bring out just how inhumane social discourse has become where death become theatre. The baggage of bigotry spares no innocents.

The tragedy of Sunil Tripathi is that he got caught up between other deaths before dying. 

© Farzana Versey

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Also Regurgitating jihad: Boston Marathon