Mr Mootable Modi

“The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all convictions, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.”

These verses were allegorically used by W B Yeats in “the second coming” to define the despair and dismay of the First World War in Europe. This quatrain also can aptly delineate the atrocity of Gujarat riots provoked and structured by hardliner Hindus against Muslims in February 2002. Intense rampage has left gory hand-prints on the page of history, in particular, when despairing Muslim men and children were indiscriminately slaughtered with impunity and women were mercilessly raped and burnt alive.

Although after a protracted legal battle in the lower courts, the Supreme Court of India had finally rejected Narendra Modi’s involvement in the Gujarat pogrom. Independent investigations, however, unanimously proved: the episode of Gujarat riots against Muslims had its backing by the then chief minister of Gujarat whose hands were found dipped in the “blood” of “trampled” Muslims. Democratic dangers were rightly anticipated by political pundits after the BJP’s juggernaut victory, simply because of Modi’s tainted image of possessing anti-Muslim and anti-minority sentiments. Modi himself nurtured in the nursery of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a mother organisation of the BJP, as a true Pracharak (a full-time devotee), and it seems next to none for him to break the shackles of the RSS bondage. On becoming premier, he became more authoritative to implement the BJP’s agenda of  “Akhand Bharat” (Greater India). Last year in June, Mr Modi spit out his choked anguish and anger against Pakistan in the capital of Bangladesh, where he openly confessed and appreciated India’s draconian role in the so-called liberation of East Pakistan in 1971.

His shallow statements in a speech on India’s independence day on August 15 on the Red Fort in New Delhi, about Balochistan, Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan (G-B) once again exposed Modi’s and his BJP’s chronic hidden hatred against Pakistan. Such statements simply signify that Mr Modi is admitting and convincing the whole world that India is behind fuelling, controlling and orchestrating Balochistan insurgency and other terrorist activities in Pakistan.

With such a disposition, he has not only been spawning extremism in the region, but also venting on his hackneyed war mongering mantra by directly attacking the territorial integrity of Pakistan. It was rather dubious of him to make a surprise visit to Pakistan last year in December, with the promise of talks on peace, and then to point the finger at Pakistan for purported violations in G-B and Balochistan, while Indian security forces continue their terror streak in Kashmir and at the LoC.

Pakistan must stay alert against the current cementing of Indo-US ties. It is startling that the US officials denied giving a visa to Mr Modi in 2005 over “grave suspicions” that remained over his failure to stop the 2002 massacre of Muslims. He is now respected and admired to the utmost in the West and especially in the US. This simply signifies as to how the political realities twist over time and even the savagery of a ruler is ignored by the civilised world, just for multiplying the bilateral economic gains. It also seems that New Delhi in reality is deeply perturbed about the CPEC, and out of sheer panic, exercise monkey playing tactics to hinder its progress. Strategy of encirclement against Pakistan with an evil alliance with Afghanistan, Iran and Middle Eastern countries is a clear reflection of following the footprints of Kautilyan grand strategy. But such Indian despicable designs are a complete fiasco.

The world has finally realised that the Taliban, the IS and other extremist ideologies in South Asia is a temporary threat whose roots are not very deep and they are likely to vanish with time. Internally, the renewed uprising in the Indian-held Kashmir and handling the protest rallies so viciously is yet another sign of their extreme fright. But sadly, the BJP’s way to deal with all these problems are based on adherence to Savarkar’s political Hindutva, which is filled with a range of fiery slogans and hatred against minorities of India. Such policies, relying on radical religiosity, can bring devastation by promoting animosities within India’s own territory but also with Pakistan and other neighbouring states. It is high time for Pakistan to stay vigilant, and notice the rise and maturation of Hindu fundamentalism in South Asia. Islamabad must convince the world that pampering India and encircling Pakistan or China, just for economic ascendancy is a more dangerous proposition compared with Islamic extremism.

Of late, Mr Modi and his fellow freaks carried on with the anti-Pakistan rhetoric, especially after a poorly perpetrated dramatised Uri attack to eclipse the brutalities in Indian occupied Kashmir which the world has been witnessing for the last couple of months. Threats of surgical strikes from India pumped up the media with their frothy mouths bickering against Pakistan and panicky speech of Sushma Swaraj at the UN with a pack of lies against Pakistan along with Modi’s spuriousness to isolate Pakistan, including threats of water terrorism by terminating the Indus Waters Treaty to dry out Pakistan and yet again dismantling the peace process by boycotting Saarc conference in association with India’s allies like Bangladesh, Bhutan and the Maldives. Contrary to Indian wills and whims, how well Modi and his BJP members, the media, Indian establishment and the diplomats have served to internationalise the Kashmir cause; it is so recognisable now that the more India tries to ditch down Pakistan, the more the Kashmir cause will rise from the dust of ashes, and Kashmiris will finally be freed from the brutal clutches of India once and for all.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 1^st, 2016.

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