Terror under UPA

Two front page reports, several inside articles and the editorial in the latest issue of Organiser are devoted to the multiple terror strikes in Mumbai on July 11

Two front page reports, several inside articles and the editorial in the latest issue of Organiser are devoted to the multiple terror strikes in Mumbai on July 11, and the common thrust is an attack on the UPA government8217;s 8216;8216;appeasement8217;8217; policy. Disagreeing with the BJP8217;s description of India as a 8216;8216;soft state8217;8217;, former RSS spokesman Ram Madhav writes: 8216;8216;A soft state may not act tough with the terrorists, but nevertheless it acts. Here is a State that doesn8217;t want to act. The Government is not just soft; it just doesn8217;t have the will at all.8217;8217;

The editorial is more scathing. The UPA, it insists, 8216;8216;has been steering a sure course towards handing over the nation to the will and villainy of terrorists, anti-nationals and trans-border loyalists.8217;8217; The Prime Minister8217;s refusal to name 8216;8216;the enemy8217;8217; is described as 8216;8216;shameful.8217;8217; But the editorial also makes it clear that for the RSS, Pakistan is not the only enemy. Referring to the lynching of two policemen by a mob in Bhiwandi, it notes,8216;8216;Muslim pockets are becoming increasingly unreacheable for the law enforcing agencies. Some are like veritable mini-Pakistans beyond the reach of law and civilisation. And the security forces always pay a price for facing a mob, which tries to disrupt peace.8217;8217;

Battling history

The RSS-backed Shiksha Bachao Andolan Samiti SBAS held a convention in the capital on July 9 and called upon 8216;8216;the countrymen to pressurise the government through their representatives 8212; MPs and MLAs 8212; to save education from leftist distortion,8217;8217; says a report. The convention was addressed by, among others, former HRD minister Murli Manohar Joshi who reportedly said that unless the 8216;8216;distortions8217;8217; were removed, India8217;s very survival was at stake. 8216;8216;If you wish to secure your very existence, save your history. If you want to teach the correct history to your children, stand firmly today against the distortion. Otherwise in the coming 50 years neither will you survive, nor will anybody be here to tell you all this8217;8217; said Joshi, himself accused of presiding over distortion of history textbooks during the NDA regime.

Minorities and caste

Columnist Sandhya Jain takes the UPA government to task for allegedly contemplating caste-based quotas for Muslims and Christians. Although the Mandal Commission listed Muslim castes among OBCs and there is a long-pending demand to extend SC/ST quota to Dalit Christians, Jain insists that caste is unique to Hindu society and no other community suffers or benefits from it.

According to her, since caste does not exist in the theology of Christianity or Islam, 8216;8216;they cannot be allowed to make a political expedient of caste and use it to undermine Hindu society from within.8217;8217; Jain goes on to assert, 8216;8216;The bottom-line is simple. If either Christians or Muslims accept and practice caste discrimination amongst themselves, the conversion process among such groups or individuals should be legally declared to be inadequate and incomplete. In other words, they may be declared as non-Christians and non-Muslims and asked to either complete the process of their transformation to the new faith, or return to the Hindu fold. There can be no half-way house in this matter.8217;8217;

Chinese designs

Shyam Khosla, another columnist 8212; Organiser has several 8212; slams New Delhi8217;s 8216;8216;insipid8217;8217; response to China8217;s strategic designs. The new railway line connecting mainland China with Lhasa, the opening of the Nathu La pass and the construction of an airport north of Arunachal Pradesh, he writes, 8216;8216;are significant dimensions of China8217;s grand strategic designs that have profound implications for Indian security, economy and territorial integrity.8217;8217; But India has shown no matching imagination or insight because the 8216;8216;UPA government remains obsessed with the notion of Asian solidarity and has failed to project a vision of India as an economic and political pole of the region.8217;8217;

India, he adds, must wake up to the strategic designs of 8216;8216;the not-so-friendly northern neighbour8217;8217; as also to the threat posed by the 8216;8216;Maoists in Nepal and their comrades operating in India.8217;8217;

8212; Compiled by Manini Chatterjee