What India needs, ‘especially at this moment, is the aggressive virtues, the spirit of soaring idealism, bold creation, fearless resistance, courageous attack; of the passive tamasic spirit of inertia, we have already too much. We need to cultivate another train¬ing and temperament, another habit of mind. We would apply to the present situation the manent scar of dread in the Hindu psyche, to the extent that even the mild-mannered Gandhi had to acknowledge that Hindus were cowards (and Muslims bul¬lies, he said)! But this is not the true India;
remember .the Bharat of old, whose poets intoned: “Mother Durga! Giver of force and love and knowledge, terrible art thou in thy own self of might, Mother beautiful and fierce. In the battle of life, in India’s battle, we are warriors commissioned by thee; mother give to our heart .and mind a titan’s energy, to our soul can hope to seize and lead the wild forces that are rising to the surface in twentieth cen¬tury India…”
And the question is: Does India have today this breed of politicians, at a time when in¬tense pressure is brought on the country to end the siege of the Hazratbal shrine? At a juncture when the West has embarked on a military crusade — the second in its history, after the Middle Ages one — to enforce their iaw and what they think is right, on other nations, be it Iraq, Yugos¬lavia, Haiti, or Somalia? At a period where the entire Muslim world could swerve against India and turn again a blind eye, or maybe a helping hand, to another series of Bombay bombings? When India’s own intellectual elite, its top journalists, and hi ireaucrats, are wavering and eye of the public, who suddenly cannot sort anymore the true
-in trie untrue, the facts from the lies. History is full of these events and figures, who are in-carnations of falsehood in the guise of truth.
Yet, the facts are very simple and cannot deceive anyone who used his or her common sense. Indian security forces have long known that the Hazratbal shrine had become a haven for separatists: when I was in Srinagar last August, Hazratbal’s lawns were the very place we went to get an interview with the militants (which we got). But be¬cause of the sacredness of the place, they chose to turn a blind eye. However, when it became obvious that not a few, but nearly a hundred militants fully armed with weapons and explosives had entered the comoound.
The key word is FEAR. The ruthlessness of Muslim conquests left a permanent scar of dread in the Hindu psyche vigorous motto of Danton, that what we need, what we should learn above all things, is to dare and dare again; to dare and still to dare…”
These words of Sri Aurobin-do, India’s great prophet of nationalism, revolutionary, poet and yogi, were written in 1907. But unfortunately they are still very much valid today. And so are these, also penned 86 years ago: “The qualities of a politician (are): robustness, backbone, the ability to will a certain course of action and the courage to carry it out…. No man who shrinks from struggle, or is appalled by the thought of aggression, beginning to question the need to keep Kashmir, in the face of so much bloodshed and international criticism?
Will India’s politicians suc¬cumb to the pressure of Human Rights organisations, the World Bank and Western reprimand?
IS IT NOT TIME NOW TO STAND UP AND HOLD FIRM ON WHAT ONE THINKS IS RIGHT?
Otherwise India might disin¬tegrate In her soul before frag¬menting physically.
Like Ayodhya, Hazratbal is a “trompe-l’oeil”, as the French say, an eyewash, an occult handful of dust thrown into the
using harmless pilgrims as a shield, the Indian government chose to show a firm hand, which was the right thing to do. Any other Western government would have done the same, whatever they say now.
Wny did the militants choose this particularly sensitive time? Is it because a newly elected Pakis¬tani Prime Minister assumes of¬fice — and goes to attend the Commonwealth summit, which is the ideal place to internationalise the Kashmir issue, therefore hog¬ging the limelight? There is no doubt that the whole thing was a well-prepared trap and that India fell for it; but what else could she have done, except make a demonstration of strength? But see how these people are clever at turning things around: those who defile the holiness of Hazratbal, are actually the militants, who hole themselves there, fully arn’ed; they are the
What India needs today is strong politicians, true Kshatriyas, whose only ideal will be to serve Mother India, to help in her spiritual renaissance and guide her through the 21st century
provocators, not the provoked; the aggressors, not those who are aggressed. But in the end, it is not they but the Indians who will be seen the world over as the culprits, the bad boys, the bullies and the violators of human rights. And this not only in the eyes of the Muslim world, but aiau in me Western Press.
The most amazing thing is that Muslims not only succeed in conning the world, but also in deceiving themselves: those Kashmiris who went on Friday in the streets of Srinagar to demon¬strate and got 40 of them killed, really did believe that Indians have desecrated their holy shrine. Where is their reason, their com¬mon sense, their sincerity and clarity of thought gone?
•HOW is this possible? Why this imbalance? Why does Islam, whose civilisation’s greatness and the dignity it gives its fol¬lowers worldwide nobody denies, get away with it?
•HOW Is It that they can destroy with impunity hundred thousands of temples, slaughter millions of Hindus – and crocodile tears are shed all over the world, when a single disused mosque Is razed to the ground by a handful of weaponless Hindus?
•HOW is H possible that India’s own Hindus applaud when Its armed forces shoot down shame-lessly unarmed kar sevaks, as they try to storm a place which they consider to be one of the most sacred of their religions — and the same “secular” Indians advise restraint when fully armed Muslims threaten to blow up a holy shrine?
•HOW is it that when in 1989, the Saudi Arabians, with the help of Western powers, stormed the holiest shrine of all, the great mosque of Mecca, which 250 Sunn) Iranians had taken H over, killing 250 people and sub-sequently murdering In cold-blood all the terrorists that nobody in the West had any criticism to offer?
• HOW come then do the poor Indians today, who dare not enter Hazratbal for fear of antagonis-ing anybody, get so much flak from everywhere?
The key word is FEAR. The ruthlessness of Muslim con¬quests is still very much im¬bedded in humanity’s subcon¬scious. In India, it’ left a per- and intelligence a god’s charac¬ter and force”!
This is the India of the past, India of the Sanathan Dharma. It is this India which has,tojwakeup again, to become once more the land of fearless Kshatriyas, whose men died in countless battles and whose women could, in Chittor, offer themselves to the gods, rather than suffer ig¬nominies at the hands of their in-vaders.
India cannot mould herself to the whims of the anyway crum-| bling civilisation of the West, which sees today all its ideals of communism and capitalism fail them. India cannot surrender Kashmir just because Amnesty International says so. India has to show the world its true strength of character, its deter¬mination to stick to what she feels in her true heart to be right, regardless what, the world says. We need a strong India, which will not buckle under internation¬al pressure.
The Government of India’s offer of safe passage to the militants holed in Hazratbal is the fairest and most generous pos¬sible. Any one in the world who does not recognise that is a fool who needs to have his brain checked. The militants’ counter¬offer of an unconditional with¬drawal of the armed forces, is totally unacceptable. No country in the world, including the holier-than-thou Americans, who went with armoured cars and flame¬throwers in Waco, Texas, againsti a handful of women and children, would accept these conditions. What India needs today is strong politicians, true Ksha¬triyas, whose only ideal will be to serve Mother India, to help in her spiritual renaissance, to obey her soul and guide her through the pits of 21 st century evolution, even in the face of International criticism as the death toll in Kashmir keeps rising.
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