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Leftier ideals

In the crazy world of the Internet, one never knows what foul matter could invade one's hard disk. I'm not talking computer viruses, but the fetid effluvium of the pathogens known as leftist journalists. And so it was that I received a forward stemming from Teesta Setalvad and Javed Anand of Sabrang Communications and Publishing Pvt Ltd, the august body that issues Communalism Combat.

The communique begins with: "We will hereafter be institutionalising a Sabrang ALERT every Friday and would need the help of friends like you, Harsh and FOIL to put it out. With the fast deteriorating situation in many states we think we should make use of our documentation services and do it."

Good. FOIL is Forum of Indian Leftist. It's nice to have proof about an international pinko network aiding a supposedly neutral press to influence Indian affairs.

(FOIL was one of the "secular" orgs that had endorsed a letter denouncing the Asia Society, NY, for inviting Atal Bihari Vajpayee to speak in November 1997. That letter said: "The BJP remains one of the very few parties outside the lunatic fringe in any parliamentary democracy in the world whose genealogy can be traced directly back to European fascism... You have also in past years provided a venue for such scholars as Asghar Ali Engineer, where they have set forth their analyses of the unique cultural accommodations... Parliamentarian Vajpayee, here to drum up support for his party, is a different matter."

Too bad that while covering the PM's visit to the US last week, ToI's Dilip Padgaokar was forced to report that "the text of the Prime Minister's speech at the Asia Society in New York -- a speech which has been widely acknowledged as one of the clearest, most lucid and forthright articulations of India's vision of its relations with the outside world."

I wonder why our nonpartisan friends never found a "fast deteriorating situation" in Kerala. A 1997 appeal by the Cochin- based Yogakshema Trust states, "Karyakarthas have been murdered on the streets, at their work places, and in schools. The Communist government and the police have always been shielding the attackers and not protecting the victims. The statistics is horrifying. More than 150 swayamsevaks and parivar workers have been killed by these brutal attacks."

Forget about raising a din, no newspaper even investigated it. Nor did any NGO. Nor did any human rights group. Loftier ideals? Bah. Leftier ones.

So also in West Bengal. The CPI-M has been ruling for 21 years and continues to tom-tom its ability to maintain communal harmony. But how much have we heard about the communal riots that broke out on May 30, 1996 during Muharram? The clashes were so fierce that Jyoti Basu had to call in the army. Now picture the scenario if the incident had occurred under a BJP/Sena regime...

The Indian Express records: "(Mulayam Singh's) rule was marked by as many as 24 murders a day, one kidnapping for ransom a day, and a road hold-up every other day. Highest number of women were raped, molested and kidnapped during the Samajwadi Party rule between December 1993 to June 1995. Every day, on an average, 5 women were raped, 8 molested and 7 kidnapped. "However, no calamity was detected by our activists. It was a secular government, you see."

The alert continues: "Four nuns were brutally raped by 20 miscreants in Madhya Pradesh. The blatant attacks on minority persons, Christian religious persons, innocent persons, Dalits is getting out of hand. AICU and others are planning a delegation to the President and the Home Minister on this."

See the double-standards at work: The Radhabai Chawl arson and Mathadi workers murders weren't deliberate acts against Hindus even during an ongoing communal riot (that's established by the Srikrishna Gita). However, when nuns are robbed and raped, it instantly becomes an organised attack on "minority persons." Only when a non-Hindu assaults a Hindu, or a Hindu attacks another Hindu, is the act a worldly crime. The caucus charges that there appears to be a "well-planned strategy" to target minorities, and voila -- we have our suspects...

On September 30, in Patna, a 15-year-old girl was kidnapped in public and gangraped through the night by youths belonging to "VIP families." She later informed the police that she was taken in a car to the house of an advocate. The police found evidence in the car, but no arrests have been made. How many alarms have been raised about the law and order situation in Bihar...? Don't we know that rape, assault and murder have become a way of life there? Thing is, Laloo is a secularist. The girl is a Hindu. Ergo, Bihar is immaterial.

Alert: "UP: Over 400 encounter deaths in the last six months. Dalits and Muslims are 'targets.' This follows Chief Minister Kalyan Singh's open exhortation on April 20, 1998 to the police to 'liquidate' all criminals. Top sources in the UP police inform us that 32% of the existing police force in the state have criminal backgrounds, and half of that, that is 16%, actually have cases pending against them in the courts."

I've little to say on those whom Majeed Memon and the gang of goody-two-shoes are fighting to save -- we know the vote-bank motivations. But criminal police...? When do our lefties object to even criminal ministers (as long as they are "secular")? In the infamous 1994 Guest House case, five MLAs were abducted and hauled before Mulayam; the Allahabad high court observed that evidence verified Mulayam's guilt. Still, Sharat Pradhan writes that the politician-criminal nexus in UP "was never as blatant and open as it is now." Hahahaha... At least Kalyan Singh was "overjoyed at the elimination of" gangster Prakash Shukla (neither a Muslim nor a Dalit). Mulayam ordered the CBI to release known terrorists!

Secondly, have the criminal cops been recruited after Kalyan Singh's arrival ...?

Such a tangled web they weave. It's no wonder that Darryl D'Monte plugs the intrepid one's role in the Srikrishna Commission: "If any clinching evidence is needed, it is surely the transcripts which Teesta Setalvad, now editor of Communalism Combat, procured of messages from mobile police vans where there were open references to targeting the 'circumcised' and other inflammatory remarks."

It's no secret that some Hindus refer to Muslims as "landey." Point is, does the Muslim community have a Vijay Tendulkar who'll publicly admit how some Muslims refer to Hindus? In Bombay, the derogatory word is "koof." But then, these pooh-bahs would suffer from a sudden and undetermined loss of hearing...

The Srikrishna Report notes: "Efforts of the police to control the situation brought forth forceful violent reaction from Muslims against them... Muslim mobs appear to have come out with the intention of mounting violent attacks as noticed from their preparedness with weapons of offence. There were violent attacks on the policemen in Muslim dominated areas..." In such a state of combat, are the police going to say "humare bhai"...? I am *not* saying that name-calling is okay; I'm saying that humans react in certain ways when the adrenaline surges. But if political mileage has to be made, trust our pinkos to make the best of it...

Actually, Marxists value murderers: In June 1997, a powerful campaign was waged by Leftists in Andhra Pradesh, including the Civil Liberties Committee, PUCL and People's Union for Democratic Rights, to save the lives of two goons who had burnt 23 bus passengers to death and were thus sentenced to be hanged. Statewide propaganda resulted in intervention by the Supreme Court as well as Home Minister Inderjit Gupta and saved the mass murderers from the gallows. By their own confession, the plan to rob the deluxe bus was simply a get-rich scheme...

This year, in January, the CPI-M's Harkishan Singh Surjeet actually justified the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre of students, saying it was incited by "imperialist forces."

In July, former Aligarh Muslim University V-C KM Bahauddin, Karnataka PUCL's Hasan Mansur, Karnataka Citizens for Democracy's Russel Chandran, TN PUCL's Sudha Ramalingam, and Kerala Confederation of Human Rights Organisations' Mukundan Menon submitted a memorandum to Chief Minister Karunanidhi, urging him to revoke the NSA detention order and release Abdul Nasser Madani. He of the Coimbatore serial blasts...

Even so, please note how the 'alert' ends: "Shiv Sena leader and chief minister of Maharashtra has yesterday announced that the government will drop all criminal cases against individuals related to the Ramjanmabhoomi agitation. We know what that means."

Yes, tell me, WHAT does that mean? Do you think Hindus must consider the reacquiring of Ramjanmabhoomi a crime? Does bringing down a derelict structure even come close to the savage acts cited above? If it's mercy that your kind advocates for known butchers, what's this thing against karsevaks...?

Now, Nishant Natya Manch, a Marxist street theatre group led by Shamsul Islam, and POW, a gaggle of pinko females, have alleged that Muslims and Christians of Gujarat are being systematically terrorised by the BJP, VHP, Bajrang Dal and a number of Parivar organisations. The oracles have spoken. Problem is, they've cried "Parivari wolf" so often that I ain't buying it anymore.

Why can't Indians see the plain politics of it? Why do common people take pinkos at face value? What attracts people to Communism? Is it a desi phenomenon? The answer was partly provided by Taki in The Spectator:

"Communist totalitarianism was sexy, and to hell with those busy- bodies who objected to the greatest experiment in government through mass murder: 72 million dead in China, 20 million in Russia, 2.3 million in Cambodia, 2 million in North Korea, 1 million in Vietnam, 1.7 million in Africa and so on. So what's 100 million dead, give or take a million? In the smart salons of America and Europe, not much! What was important was to be with it: progressive and liberal."

"Recently, The New York Times ran a quaint little human interest story about a bunch of aging radicals living together in a place called Sunset Hill in California. The NYT quoted them proudly recalling the good old days when Stalin ruled the roost. Now I ask you, would any newspaper run a cute story if it had discovered a bunch of lovable but wacky old Nazis living in California with a bust of Hitler discretely displayed, and quote them recalling the good old days when the Fuehrer went prancing in his Lederhosen? Er, I do not think so."

Uff, it's a bloody universal plague!

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