Is 'Hindu terror' responsible for Malegaon blasts?

A blast at an Islamic dargah at Malegaon in Maharashtra kills over 37 and injures over a hundred. The victims were peaceful worshipers on a Friday, the sacred day for Muslims.

The media begins to purvey of the theory of 'Hindu terrorists' behind the blast. A large newspaper headlines: 'Is it Bajrang Dal or Lashkar-e-Toiba?' and others report on similar lines.

Thus was invented the new phenomenon of 'Hindu terror' as the counter part of Islamic terror! A newspaper even reported that 20 persons have been arrested from a Hindu locality!! The Prime Minister added his bit and said that he 'will not rule in or rule out' Hindu groups!!! It is now as if the existence of Hindu terror modules is no more an issue. Only their involvement in Malegaon is. At one stroke the world, familiar with only one terror brand, came to know of the Indian brand of terror, the Hindu terror.

Another implication was that, with terror having become common to both Muslims and Hindus, it is almost secular - no more Islamic - in character!

In just two weeks this bluff was called but not before it damaged the reputation of the majority people of this nation in the eyes of the world. The Maharashtra police had found within days of the blast that RDX has been used in Malegaon. RDX being the special brand of Islamist terror, it automatically ruled out any other terror as the police itself confirmed later. Yet secular India persisted with the Hindu terror theory. But the arrest of SIMI activists involved in the Malegaon blasts finally clinched who did it. There is no proof, even suspicion, of any organised Hindu terror, nor any unexplained, anti-Islamic terror acts, which could point to possible Hindu terror modules in operation. Yet secular India invented 'Hindu terror' at Malegaon.

The innovation of 'Hindu terror' was no accident. It was a logical sequence of other fabrications. Secular India first invented 'Hindu fundamentalism' and then concocted 'Hindu fundamentalists'. These were founded on the assumption that if Hinduism was a religion like Islam or Christianity should it not suffer from fundamentalism and fundamentalists like the other two? This is where the Secular India missed the point or deliberately misled itself - and also the people of India and the world - about the true nature of Hinduism.

The secular India equated two unequals - Hinduism and Abrahamic faiths - as equals, and from that point everything got distorted. As faiths, Hinduism and the Abrahamic faiths are different in their approaches to other faiths, so different that they can never be equal. This takes us to an interesting case study of how secular India perverted in presenting Hinduism as the comparable counterpart of the Abrahamic faiths. How untrue this presentation is can be established by reference to what, not any Indian source, but, the Encyclopedia of Britannica, produced by Western scholars, says on Hinduism.

According to the Encyclopedia, the critical difference is that belief in Hinduism does not prevent the Hindu believer from believing or practising any other faith, including Islam and Christianity, something which the latter two cannot even think of. The Supreme Court adopted this definition twice, once in 1977 and again in 1994, to hold that Hinduism is more a way of life than a method of worship. Yet secular India continued to equate the inclusive Hinduism and the exclusive Abrahamic faiths.

Once the critical difference between Hindu faith and the Abrahamic ones was missed, the secular India's search for Hindu fundamentalism as the mirror-effect of the Islamic and Christian fundamentalism began. Conceptually, there is, and can be, no such thing as Hindu fundamentalism. Again a study of the phenomenon of fundamentalism, not by a Sankara math or Ramakrishna Mission, but, by the Chicago University in early 1990s established this. In the five-volume study of fundamentalism the editors concluded that "the traits of fundamentalism are more accurately attributed to the 'People of the Book', the Jews, Christians and Muslims than to Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs and Confucians". The editors go on to say that the Books "provide the fundamentalists with a cosmic enemy that serves both to intensify missionary efforts and to justify extremism" (P.820, Vol I 'Fundamentalisms Observed)'.

Thus on a study of what constitutes fundamentalism, the verdict of the global scholars is that fundamentalism cannot be attributed to Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists. Yet, secular India invents the non-existent Hindu fundamentalism. Once this feat was achieved, it became easy to abuse any one, who had the guts to brave the seculars and oppose the natural fundamentalists, as a Hindu fundamentalist. Thus was invented 'Hindu fundamentalism' and thus were concocted 'Hindu fundamentalists'.

The stage was then set for elevating the Hindus certified as fundamentalists to the status of terrorists, so that Islamic tag does not monopolise terror. The first effort to add the Hindu tag to terror was made in Malegaon. It has failed and failed miserably, but not before secular India delivered a message to the world that Hindu terror exists, even though it did not strike at Malegaon. This is the story of graduating concocted Hindu fundamentalism and Hindu fundamentalists to inventing Hindu terrorism.

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