Violence is means to ultimate goal of Hindu state
Violence is means to ultimate goal of Hindu state
The Toronto Star March 25, 1993, Thursday, AM
Copyright 1993 Toronto Star Newspapers, Ltd.
The Toronto Star
March 25, 1993, Thursday, AM
SECTION: LETTER; Pg. A22
LENGTH: 249 words
HEADLINE: Violence is means to ultimate goal of Hindu state
BODY:
The March 13 article, Bombay ‘in panic’ after blasts, states, “The riots in January also pitted Muslims against Hindus.”
The characterization of the incidents in January and what sporadically still erupt as Hindu-Muslim riots is an erroneous one.
Such a portrayal conveys the wrong image – of two sides fighting – when in fact, it is just the Shiv Sena (extremists including low-ranking police officers) targeting Muslims and other minorities physically, and destroying their property.
Even leading Indian publications such as The Times of India and India Today refer to these incidents primarily as anti-Muslim pogroms.
The Hindu radicals, including their foreign patrons – such as the Overseas Friends of the Bharatiya Janata party in Canada – seek a total levelling of the secular foundations of the state as laid down by the fathers of independence, Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru.
The violence is the means to the ultimate goal of a Hindu chauvinist nation. Such a state will be to the detriment of the silent majority of Hindus, who seek peaceful co-existence.
It will also mean the forced assimilation and conversion of minorities. This is clear from the extremist slogan “Muslims to Pakistan or the graveyard,” and what the general-secretary of the Hindu-chauvinistic Bharatiya Janata party told India Today (Feb. 15, 1993): “In the Hindu Rashtra (nation), we will respect all modes of worship. But all of us will be Hindus.”
FAISAL KUTTY
Ottawa
Short URL: http://tinyurl.com/ykw3mnf
