ROOTS OF TERRORISM
By V Sundaram

News Today, India
May 25 2006

Terrorism is simply the name of a technique:

Intentional attacks on civilians.

I understand that a ‘Symposium on Roots of Terrorism’ was held in
Washington DC on 28-29 April. It was sponsored and organized by
America Truth Forum. A large number of prominent and highly-placed
intellectuals and experts on Islamic studies attended the symposium.

Many of them were celebrities and known personalities on national
TV and radio stations. A forceful Indian and Hindu view point was
presented by Dr Babu Suseelan, a psychologist and Director of Addiction
Research Institute, Pennsylvania and board member of Indian American
Intellectuals Forum (IAIF) on that occasion.

What is very gratifying to note is that more than 375 intellectuals
and US opinion makers, many of them Jewish and Christian Americans,
took an active part in the Symposium. To quote the words of Narain
Kataria in this context: ‘This was a rare occasion for IAIF members
to interact with American mainstream personalities and exchange
the Indian viewpoint openly on the menace of terrorism. It was,
probably, for the first time that the presence and scholarship of
Hindu Americans was recognized and appreciated by renowned global
experts on counter-terrorism’.

Dr Babu Suseelan insisted that it was absolutely essential for the
world to understand the deadly ideology that successfully transforms
the simple human beings into deadly suicide bombers and terrorists. He
said that we cannot deal with the problem of terrorism until and
unless we completely comprehend the ideology which extols the virtues
of killing and preaches hate, incites violence and enjoins on its
followers to instill terror in the hearts of those who do not believe
in Allah (8:12); insists on its followers to make a war on unbelievers
who dwell around them (9:123); compels its followers to be harsh
to unbelievers; tells them that ultimate abode of infidels is Hell,
directs them to lay hold on infidels; bind them; burn them in the fire
of Hell, then, fasten them with a chain seventy cubits long. The only
fault of infidel was that he did not believe in Allah, the Most High.

Jihad, fundamentally, is a do or die doctrine of permanent
warfare. Jihad, Holy War and Terrorism are all interchangeable words
in all contexts and all situations relating to so called infidels
or non-believers or what Islam calls Kafirs. He pointed out that
Muslims have been in a state of perpetual war wherever they live,
be it Afghanistan or Iraq, Chechnya or Sudan, Kashmir or Thailand,
Indonesia or Bangladesh, Philippine or Spain, USA, UK, or India. Dr
Prithipal, Professor of Comparative Religion, University of Alberta,
Canada has categorically observed: ‘Muslims will only live as an
oppressive majority and in turbulent minority’. This is because of
the supremacy and paramountcy of the Islamic Jihad.

Surveying the History of India, Dr Suseelan pointed out that the
Afghanistan was once Hindu and a part of the original India of that
time. In 1947, Pakistan too was forcibly carved out of the Indian
Territory by Islamists. Now, feverish efforts are on by all Islamic
nations to wrest the Indian Kashmir from the Hindu India.

Threats of violence, loot, murder and rape of Hindu people all familiar
tools of terrorism have become a routine thing in the Indian Kashmir
today.

Many people are under the mistaken impression that terrorism in
the world began on 11 September, 2001. This assumption is based on
total ignorance of the known facts of history. Dr Suseelan added:
‘India has been experiencing terrorism for hundreds of years. Even
the so-called Moghul King Akbar-the-Great had killed 30,000 to 40,000
innocent Hindus in one day’. He then referred to 14,000 young Hindu
girls who had to immolate themselves in fire in a city named Chittor
in Rajasthan in India when Hindu soldiers were not able to defend
the honour of their womenfolk against the barbarian Islamic forces.

1,00,000 Hindu prisoners in one day were put to death by
Timur-the-Terrible.

The sword of Islam was washed in the blood of the infidels of India
ever since the Arab conquest of Sind in 712 AD.

To quote Dr Suseelan in this context: ‘The whole world knows that
six million Jewish people were murdered by Nazis. It is also known
that 1.2 million Armenians were butchered by Turkish Muslims.

But nobody knows about the Hindu Holocaust. There are various estimates
on how many million Hindus have been slaughtered by Islamic invaders
inspired by holy Quran. Prof Bill French of the Centre for the Study of
Political Islam, Tennessee, who has conducted an in-depth research on
the subject, told me that Muslims have killed 120 million human beings
around the globe (including 40 million Hindus in India alone). Hugh
Fitzgerald of Jihad Watch says that in sheer numbers, no group of
people has suffered from Islam like the Hindus. He further said that
it is amazing how few Americans and British of Indian origin seem to
know the history of their own ancestors. Prof K S Lal writes that 60
to 70 million Hindus were murdered by Muslim rulers’.

In conclusion, Dr Suseelan said that Hindus and Hinduism are
under siege in India. At present the Muslim population in India is
rising by leaps and bounds. There are 162 million Muslims living in
Pakistan. There are approximately 150 to 160 million Muslims in India;
Bangladesh has another 147 million Muslims. Roughly one-third of the
world Muslim population lives in the Indian sub-continent.

This is a very frightening scenario for India. Enlightened members of
the audience in the high-profile Symposium were horrified and shocked
by the detailed and documented information provided by Dr Suseelan.

Returning to the Indian context, since 1989, more than 13500 civilians
and 5300 security personnel have been killed by terrorists in Jammu
and Kashmir. By contrast, over the same period, till December 2004,
just 62 persons have been indicted for terrorism in the State. Our
Courts of Law don’t and won’t deliver. When someone at the greatest
risk to his life acts to save the country, a shriek is sent up,
Human Rights Violation.

During the last 20 years about 64,000 have been killed in terrorist
related violence within the territory of India. By the end of 2004, 220
districts, covering 40 to 45 per cent of the country’s territory had
come to be affected by insurgencies of one kind or another. K.P.S. Gill
has given three reasons for these killings: i) Islamic fundamentalism;
ii) Left wing extremism; and iii) Ethnic Fundamentalisms in the North
East. Arun Shourie has rightly observed that it is more or less taboo
to talk about the first. The second is explained away in fashionable
circles as the counter to State-terrorism as a direct consequence
of Land Reforms not having been implemented. The third is lauded as
‘The rise of consciousness among indigenous people’.

India is a State in denial, a State which has withered away for good
or for evil.

Against this crumbling edifice of national security situation, it is
shocking to see our pusillanimous Prime Minister offering on bended
knees with supplication an offer of a new deal to the terrorists and
quislings of Kashmir today. The same Prime Minister treats the striking
students of IITs and Medical Colleges as quislings, ably assisted by
the Human Resources Destruction (HRD) Minister and a known page boy of
the Nehru family. The Hindu victims of Islamic terrorism in Kashmir
are being treated like disposable consumables in the crucible of an
artificially sponsored peace process founded on a superstructure of
sanctimonious humbug. We have a weak government; we have a weaker
economy; we have puny men at the highest levels of governance with
contempt for our own nation and her people. Is this a sign of our
tolerant culture? Is it a sign of our being a democracy? Is it a sign
of confidence and strength? Or is it a sign of our being confused,
of our having been fed guilt, and of our having internalised it?

It is in this context I am reminded of the strong stand taken by Deng
Xiaoping, President of China when the Western nations spoke about
violation of human rights in China, after the suppression of the riots
in Tiananmen. Deng Xiaoping said that the troubles had been executed
by ‘so called democrats’ who were in fact the scum of the Chinese
nation. Deng Xiaoping gave a warning as follows: This turmoil has
been a lesson for us. We are more keenly aware that first priority
should always be given to national sovereignty and security.

Some Western countries, on the pretext that China has an unsatisfactory
human rights record and an irrational and illegitimate socialist
system, attempt to jeopardize our national sovereignty.

Countries that play power politics are not qualified to talk about
human rights. How many people’s human rights have they violated
throughout the world!… They are not the United Nations. What grounds
have they for interfering in the internal affairs of China?

Who gave them power to do that? The Chinese people will never accept
any action that violates norms of international relations, and they
will never yield to outside pressure.

One million of our so-called Nethas cannot equal one Deng
Xiaoping. When are we going to get tall leaders with judgement,
courage, vision and above all political integrity?

(The writer is a retired IAS officer)

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