South Bengal Herald: Make India “bleed through a thousand cuts”

If contemporary events are brought under a constant, efficient scanner free of any preconception, it has got to be deduced that Islamists’ power is on the rise in the Indian state of Bengal and with each day its passes, Islamist notion of usurping power, owing to both incompetence and gutlessness of administration, not to speak of imbecile Hindus, is gaining a stronger footing. Well, myriad of articles can be written of how to stop these and what should be done by the administration; nevertheless, at each time, administration and social order (eventually) turn into the greatest casualties.

Islamist persecutions on Hindus or muscle-flexing are getting higher all over Bengal; while its rural sector has become breeding-grounds of such activities by now, Kolkata, one and only bastion of Bengali Hindus across the globe, is also falling apart steadily. How can this be explained? Indeed, a brilliant implementation of Ziaul-Haq’s (former President of Pakistan) policy of utilizing terrorism to make India “bleed through a thousand cuts” is taking place these days. And if the discontent mob can be used terrorism can be brushed aside for the time being. After all, any act of terrorism entails amounts as well.

The recent Islamist experiment in Kolkata that stalled the entire metropolis and even its outskirts is fresh still. A picture, published on Monday in t2, the entertainment supplementary of Kolkata-based English daily The Telegraph, was accused for defiling own faith by Islamists. The picture, to be precise, displayed nude image of a model holding a frame of Lord Vishnu (face replaced with that of Sachin Tendulkar) and a Pakistani cricket player (in green dress with the cricket team’s star insignia ) performing a ‘sajda’ before it.

Kolkata, as a result, turned into a hapless witness of a complete stalemate. Roads were blocked by people to have a justice whereas Raja Bazar and Park Circus area, traditional Islamist bastions in Kolkata, perceived greater wrath. The same fire was observed in two premier districts of the state, 24 Paraganas (North) and Howrah. By the way, Hindus had enough reasons to protest since it was a morphed picture of Lord Vishnu,

face being replaced with that of Sachin Tendulkar and holding a cricket bat, a cricket ball, a trophy and a helmet. But Islamists took the cudgel of responsibility to react.

The trouble was controlled within hours; but it was neither a defeat of Islamists nor a victory of administration and even if the administration prefers to deem it as victory, it’s nothing other than a pyrrhic victory (victory that is won by incurring terrible losses) virtually. And the reasons behind this are not unfounded. Similar problems, even more vicious in capacity, did rise up in the last few years; police and administration, hell-bent to cajole governmental parties only, acted naively to deal with those and the same tradition of committing mistakes in a row has been going on.

The Islamist protestation against Taslima Nasrin on November 21, 2007, and its intensity remains a scourge for inhabitants in Kolkata still. The violent protest was led by “All India Minority Forum”; its force was such that Army was called in to deal with the fast deteriorating law and order situation. To quell any more crises, administration succumbed to Islamists completely then and Taslima Nasrin was expelled outright.

Again, on February 11, 2009, Ravindra Kumar and Anand Sinha, the editor and publisher of the Kolkata-based English daily The Statesman, were arrested for "hurting the religious feelings" of Muslims. All they did was to reprint an article from The Independent - "Why should I respect oppressive religions? “by Johann Hari (eminent columnist). The main focus of the article was Hari’s belief that the right to criticize any religion was being eroded across the globe.

The editor and publisher were charged under section 295A of the Indian Penal Code, known for prohibiting "deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings". Later the duo was bailed out and Mr. Ravindra Kumar released an apology in public for reproducing the article. But what reigned supreme in this regard were the fervid protests of Islamists that almost paralyzed various areas of Central Kolkata for almost a week and the capitulation of administration to it.

Meanwhile, though not in Kolkata, but in Deganga, in the month of September, 2010, Islamists unleashed a complete hell on Hindus there – an incident that rocked both the Indian and global scenarios.

All these prove with onslaughts of Islamists more, administration is turning out to be more and more fragile and unless apposite measures are adopted before long, horrors of days of 1946-47 may turn up.

But the pertinent question is – who can complete the task and save India from the fast impending danger.