Digvijay Singh and the many shades of terror

The problem with Digvijay Singh’s recent statements about saffron terror is that they seem tangential. The question is most certainly not the veracity of what he has said, but it is also rather convenient to ignore what he is saying. It has resulted in a bizarre blame game with both sides claiming to be beaten up with rods and sticks. Then, there is the banter of “Is the Congress party with him or does it distance itself from his comments?”

No one cares about the initial spark when the Indian Mujahideen were seen as natural suspects. Here are quotes from some reports:

The government's refusal to speak on the nature of groups behind the terrorist attack saw Muslim leaders object to conclusions about an IM hand. Some even hinted at saffron terror.

While Congress did not speculate on the identity of terrorists behind Mumbai attacks, the party did not take kindly to IM being named without official confirmation. The party reaction came in response to questions about terror outfits being named within minutes of the recent Mumbai incidents.

AICC spokesman Shakeel Ahmed said, "You should ask this question to mediapersons sitting left and right in the room because they have named the group. Only they can answer how the culprits are identified within minutes of an incident." Terror outfits should be named only after the government had confirmed their role, he said. "This is a sensitive issue. So one should not speculate on it, it vitiates the atmosphere."

For the past few days we have seen a veritable line-up of all possible names – SIMI, HuJI, LeT, ISI, Kashmir extremist groups, IM. So, why is there such a reaction when saffron terror is mentioned? Digvijay Singh did not implicate them, but said in response, “I do not rule out anything”. It was only later that he said:

"I have been saying that RSS was spreading terrorism in the country and it has been making bomb factories.”

He clarified that it was not about these blasts.

In a rather well-timed move Swami Aseemanand who had confessed to his role in several blasts has said he is “innocent”.

The rightwing is getting all hot and bothered and its party spokesperson Shahnavaz Hussain stated:

"The BJP condemns the disgusting statements of Digvijay Singh and seeks an apology from Congress chief Sonia Gandhi on this.”

Well, there are a lot of people who are disgusted with a lot of things. Instead of an apology, ask Digvijay Singh to produce the evidence he says he possesses regarding the role of saffron terror.

I am a bit curious about the Gujarat IM angle. I think there is a concerted attempt to push the Gujarati idea deliberately. The IM’s role is probably the most obvious from the perspective of observers, but I find this portion from a report datelined Ahmedabad rather intriguing:

Terror outfit Indian Mujahideen has tied up with Taliban for sinister plans in India. Crime branch officers, who arrested a key IM operative, Danish Riyaz, in June claim to have unearthed details of the joint venture between the IM and the religious militia in Pakistan-Afghanistan.

A senior crime branch officer said, “Emails and correspondence of Danish with five top terror operatives, including Haroon of Kolkata, have revealed this conspiracy across international borders. Haroon had also been to Hyderabad to meet Danish to discuss their plans.”

These developments had taken place before Danish was arrested from Vadodara railway station in June. “According to Haroon’s emails, 10 handpicked youths from across the country were to be sent to Pakistan and then Afghanistan for terror training,” said another senior officer of the crime branch.

This sounds like some corporate tie-up. Danish was in Gujarat, a state that is known to be quite hard on any form of terrorism. It is a known fact that chief minister Narendra Modi spends a good deal of money on spying.

If their plan was across international borders, was Mumbai their testing ground? (Do note that they were to go to Pakistan and then Afghanistan for training – does it mean there is a hierarchy in this schooling?) Since Danish did not get to meet with his colleagues, did they carry out the attacks without any ‘leader’? It is extremely pertinent to keep track of what happens when a key member of a group is arrested soon before a major attack takes place.

I find it rather interesting that while Digvijay Singh’s comments allude to the fact that terrorism has no colour and he is pulled up for it, the liberals saying so are seen as, well, liberal. Shabana Azmi said it on a TV panel discussion.

Let us get real: Terrorism has a colour. It has an ideology. It has motives. It has specific targets. It has enemies. It comes about due to several reasons – from anti- majority to anti-minority to anti any other.

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In fact, the term terrorism has gained popular currency and is used for just about anything – from fashion to pop culture to food to activism.

Terrorism is a word that is used carelessly.

Imagine a group of citizens who do not want a flyover on their road. The Peddar Road residents have been fighting against it for several years. Earlier singer Lata Mangeshkar, who lives on the main road, had said that the pollution would affect her voice and had even emotionally blackmailed the authorities by saying she would leave the city if it came up. This is a tony locality and it is fair to raise doubts about kickbacks and pollution, even if it might do these people some good if they checked the number of cars per family in these same areas before grumbling about pollution. However, I am plain disgusted to read someone from the residents’ association say:

“If a high-intensity bomb is exploded by terrorists on and under the flyover, it will fall in our compounds. Also, the area lies on a fault line. In case of any calamity, even the rescue vehicles won’t be able to reach people.”

Actually, I am not disgusted. It is expected. Pollution does not sound grand enough. Think of bombs falling in their compounds.

And here is the Times of India. Look at the picture, see who is in it and the caption they have used with it:

SECURITY ABOVE ALL ELSE: A policeman tells a biker that he can’t park his vehicle at Zaveri Bazar on Monday

No comments from me.


End Note:

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Make up your minds, Mumbaikars. You either laud the 'spirit of Mumbai' or you rubbish people who continue their plans to host functions. The Shiv Sena has taken Shahrukh Khan to task for celebrating some film release. He is not in it and has no stake and it was planned much ahead. People have watched the film, eaten popcorn, laughed and joked.

It will be the film community that will attend police functions and be tapped for money, and they will contribute. There is much to critique about Bollywood, but when the Sena and other parties hold their special meetings and have chai-pakoras and start planning on their next move, they too are celebrating the possibility of their victory in the next polls. If they are not, then shut up and promise you will not contest elections riding on the back of this incident. I will say the same applies to Digvijay Singh, who I am reasonably certain will not win. Shabana Azmi can.

Contradictions anyone?

Rahul’s 99%, Bloodied Diamonds and Guinea-pig Children

He is so stupid. Why did he say that? Now? Rahul Gandhi made the mistake of in some circuitous way accepting vulnerability and in a manner of speaking, one hopes, accepting responsibility:

"It is very difficult to stop every single terror attack in the country. Terrorism is something that is impossible to stop all the time. But 99 per cent of terror attacks had been stopped due to strong vigilance and intelligence efforts.”

There is the usual hoo-haa. It demoralises the force. (No one mentions sniffer dogs.) It means anyone can come in. (No, it means more people can come in because we have porous borders and enemies within.) It means the government has no spine. (It does not for other reasons, but do we want a war?) It means politicians are ignorant. (Quite a few are, but check out how many insurgent groups are inside our shores and how many governments help them along.)


For those who have been crying for accountability, Rahul Gandhi’s statement can be read as such, and I hope he does not say he was misquoted. It does not mean the government must not do anything. It only conveys the facts as they are in countries that are as fractious as ours.


I am surprised he said something like this, though, and did not let some syrup drip out of his mouth.

Right corner of TOI's masthead a day after - a headache?

Are politicians the only opportunists? People were bending down over bleeding bodies of strangers. The city was alive to helplessness. Or so we thought. Until the cameras closed in on hands rummaging in pockets looking for diamonds.


Cameras dripping with rains captured the sorrow and the anger. It was raining tears from hair. Umbrellas do not convey pathos.


Computer graphics twirled many times over, large white chunks like ice blocks in bold font dated: 26/11 – 13/7. This is history. History that you can reach out to, archived like loose leaves where autumn is spring.


There were no terrorist attacks before that. Remember. What you have not seen extensively on television does not exist.


Anupam Kher was talking about the common man and not “socialites”. He was among them in November 2008. Those same people who were talking about the fucking spirit of the city as they came out are now asking, “What resilience?” It is unbelievable. Have they really changed even if their chants remain the same against the powers that hides their power? Bhaag, bhosdi ke, bhaag. That’s the gut reality. D.K.Bose is in fact a successful mofo, an internet trawler downloading mishit doi cum.


Studios were trussed up for mourning. I did not watch the khabardars and the vardats, where men and women scream about “Hatya”, murder.


Kher was representing the Mumbaikar. He sometimes represents the smalltowner from Shimla, sometimes the Kashmiri Pandit. He can represent anything. He was also representing America. See how after 9/11 nothing happened there and they finally killed the man who perpetrated it, he said. I liked perpetrated. It sounded good.


V Balachandran, former cabinet special secretary, wrote in the Times of India:

After 9/11, the US totally re-oriented its earlier internal security doctrine of placing responsibility only on government agencies such as FBI and state police. It found out that 100 different departments, including private infrastructure, communications and transport bodies, had a vital role to play in internal security. So, the DHS set up joint management centres across the country, enlisting all these agencies in deciding strategy and implementation of all aspects of internal security, especially terrorism. Regular training exercises are held by them.

All very good. But, has anyone bothered to check how many attempts have been made at all on the US? What America did was to make people strip down to their socks, to generate hype and, worst of all, to order pre-emptive strikes only because it was afraid. The US was safe because it was hitting other countries. Osama will get Obama the votes. Maybe.


But, the US model is a mirage. It looks nice, but isn’t there.


Everything sounds good on a rainy day in Mumbai.


No, wait, it does not.


Mumbai Mirror, the city newspaper, reached the nadir of opportunism: 

“Bogeymen, monsters and unnameable made children of the last generation wet their pants at night; this generation has the terrorist. Omnipresent terror has weighed on young minds and we asked them to put a face to it.”

They put up those paintings with descriptions by the children. How can anyone do this? Do we want this terrorism to stay to sell our papers, our TV shows, our souls?


The paper had the gall to pontificate:

Reassuring is the fact no faith or race was associated with the terrorists - they were just male adults, with shades of feared teachers and a job that involves explosives and bombs.

A child's work

Here are a few descriptions:

• That's his blood on his clothes. Women terrorists plant bombs and men terrorists shoot people. Terrorists are in their 20s.

• Terrorists are from foreign countries and are jealous of us — of how big Mumbai is, how we live peacefully and our big buildings. That's why they want to take revenge and attack us.

• They kill and want others to kill too. That’s why they call the good, bad; and the bad, good. They are uneducated that’s why they kill others with guns and bombs.

• A man is planting a bomb in a school. He is a little tall and his job is to blow up places and kidnap people. 9.30 is the time on the bomb which I saw in a bomb-wala movie. He wants to kill every one. If I get scared about terrorists, I close my eyes and go to sleep.

• A terrorist looks like a very scary man. In my drawing, I have made a train station because I think that is what they want to attack. He looks ek dum kala. He is a tall man who is bald and has a thick beard.

• Terrorists are bad. Like pure evil. He has big ears, sharp, evil eyes and a mole. He’s dark and of medium height. He always attacks people.

All the negative emotions and stereotypes are there. You want to talk about innocence and make them regurgitate your fantasies? This is beyond sick.


Bhaag...and puke. 

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Updated, July 16, 6.58 PM:

"Why did you use that word? If you had to you could have just added dots." I got this in the mail. Let me explain. It is a Hindi cuss word. I used it deliberately. "Bhaag, DK Bose, bhaag" is a song in the film 'Delhi Belly' and it is a cleverly used so that when it is repeated fast it sounds like the cuss word I mentioned. I am not Aamit Khan or a socialite and I was exposing hypocrisy at several levels. There are people who want to curse the shit out of politicians and won't use the word as it is, even with dots. Besides, cussing does not solve the problem. But then, who wants to?

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My poem 'Blind' written in 2009 still seems relevant.

Mumbai blasts: No time for hype

Mumbai blasts. Wednesday, July 13. Time 6.50-7.00 pm. Within ten minutes three densely populated areas of the city were targeted. (There is some information that the timeframe was longer, contradicting reports.) This was coordinated despite the places being not in close proximity - Zaveri Bazaar, Dadar Kabutarkhana and Opera House. 21 people have died and 113 injured according to the last reports.

Gruesome pictures are being posted. Will it solve the case or just add spice to the tragedy?

Worse, politicians, the media and public had open access to the areas and were walking around them. The police had not placed barricades in time and crucial evidence could be lost.

A few points:

1. Why are political groups and people demanding to know who is behind it when the chief minister and home minister have already announced it is a terrorist attack?

2. Why are some people connecting it with the November 2008 attacks?

3. Why is it that each time there is a terrorist attack in India people are asked to maintain communal harmony? Can we not make a bloody difference between the two aspects?

4. News channels have emphasised that the areas were mainly populated by Gujarati businessmen. Dadar is not. And there are others working in these places. Unless there is information that the idea was to target Gujarati businessmen, such information is counterproductive. Does it not negate the call for harmony?

5. How important is it for celebrities to be quoted barely a couple of hours later condemning the attack?

6. The helpline numbers and blood donations should be used only by those and for those in need. Choking hospitals won't help.

7. Why are some people smirking over how there will now be conspiracy theories? The fact is that such acts are conspiracies.