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Ill winds that blow through Deganga
October 21, 2010 5:12:46 PM
A heady cocktail of minority appeasement and rank communalism has sent this West Bengal town on a spin, says Richard L Benkin
For
three days in September, anti-Hindu violence wracked the Deganga area
in North 24 Parganas, West Bengal. Though the violence has subsided,
Hindu residents fear renewed attacks. West Bengal BJP member Tathagata
Roy visited the area twice since the violence began and observed, “that
no Hindu was physically hurt, and no Hindu woman was molested, a regular
feature in all Muslim attacks. But destruction of property and threats
were both rampant….This was a well-thought-out, well-executed pogrom
whose objective was to terrorise the Hindus no end without committing
any major crime beyond arson.” That the matter is now fodder for
political bickering instead of effective counteraction only furthers the
attackers’ objectives.
Mr Bimal Pramanik, Director of Kolkata’s
Centre for Research in Indo-Bangladesh Relations, has tracked a
decades-long effort to change Hindu-Muslim demographics in West Bengal.
Since the emergence of an independent Bangladesh in 1971, East Bengal’s
Hindus have fallen from under one in five persons to between seven and
eight per cent today; while the proportion of West Bengal’s Muslims has
risen by 25 per cent, exceeding Muslim growth in Bangladesh. Mr Pramanik
attributes the population shifts to anti-Hindu attacks and “illegal
immigration from Bangladesh”.
The political infighting over
Deganga is reminiscent of similar wrangling in the US. Americans reacted
to the 9/11 terror with a wave of patriotism, unity and a collective
will to defeat those who attacked them. Over time, however, that fervour
was replaced by the same political bickering now taking place in India.
Democrats blamed the attacks on Republican President George W Bush;
Republicans blamed his Democrat predecessor, President Bill Clinton. The
result: Support for resolutely fighting the Islamists has been plagued
by disunity and political jockeying.
Islamists, meanwhile,
proceed in a united, resolute manner and Muslims get a free pass to
express their anger however they wish. If Hindus do it, they are ‘Hindu
fanatics’; Jews, ‘Zionist oppressors’; Christians, ‘Islamaphobic’. If
they attack Muslims, it is their fault. If Muslims attack them, it is
still their fault. Arab terror attacks that murdered over 1,000 innocent
Israelis were justified as anger over the so-called occupation. The
September 11 attacks were deemed expressions of Muslim anger for which Americans must
atone; and when Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad accused the US of
orchestrating them, many at the UN applauded enthusiastically. And
virtually every international body and media outlet determined that the
26/11 Islamist terror in Mumbai is insufficient cause to bring anyone to
justice. As American author Michelle Malkin wrote, “The eternal flame
of Muslim outrage was lit a long, long time ago.” Woe to any people it
burns because the world’s elites will blame them for it.
The Deganga pogrom can be viewed parallel with another planned, jihadist event: The 2000 Palestinian intifada.
The Pretext
Deganga Pogrom: Hindus stopped Muslims from tunneling between the Deganga Mosque and a nearby mandir.
Arab Intifada: Private citizen Ariel Sharon visited Jerusalem's Temple Mount.
Background
Deganga Pogrom: As the area's Muslim population has grown, it has tried to stop Durga Puja and claim the land for their mosque.
Arab Intifada: Muslims claim the Jewish Temples never existed, and claim the Mount as a holy site for Muslims only.
What happened
Deganga Pogrom: Angry Muslims gathered at the Mosque after iftar (giving
it religious significance) and began attacking Hindus, their temples,
homes and shops. When troops arrived, they attacked undefended Hindu
villages in the interior.
Arab Intifada: Angry Muslims
gathered on the Temple Mount by Al Aqsa mosque (giving it religious
significance) and began attacking Jewish worshippers below. When troops
restored calm, they launched a bloody terror war against Israel.
Government
Deganga
Pogrom: Stopped the immediate violence, but made no arrests, defended
Hindu religious sentiments, or defined Muslim actions or claims as
illegitimate.
Arab Intifada: Defeated the uprising, but
allowed enemy claims to be given legitimacy, until recently, did not
press Jewish rights; even released terrorists as ‘goodwill gestures’.
Media
Deganga Pogrom: Events under reported domestically and blacked out internationally; no discussion of Hindu rights.
Arab Intifada: Took terrorists’ case as cause célèbre; no mention of Jewish rights.
The Result
Deganga
Pogrom: The Muslim attackers and their instigators see they can attack
Hindus in India without consequences. False Muslim claim to Hindu lands
stronger.
Arab Intifada: Arab claims to Jewish land are
given more legitimacy — that is, terror works. False Muslim claim about
the Jewish Temples stronger.
The attackers and their backers
object that identifying pogromists as Muslim and victims as Hindu
unfairly smears an entire faith. While religion should not be an
important issue, our enemies, not us, made it so. There were deliberate
efforts to give the Deganga and Palestinian violence a religious
overtone. In 2004, Yassir Arafat apologised to the father of a
20-year-old terror victim because he was Christian and they were gunning
for Jews. In 2006, there were deadly riots worldwide over cartoons
depicting the Prophet Mohammed. The rioters were not Hindus or Jews, but
Muslims who called the cartoons blasphemous. Muslims, not their
critics, have made this a religious fight. More frightening, few were Al
Qaeda and most were just Muslims. Draw what conclusions you may, but
the religious component injected by Muslims is a fact.
The
Deganga riots are more significant than we might believe. The violence
and the decades-long demographic change speak of a deliberate effort to
reduce India piece by piece, no less so than Islamists’ effort to do the
same to Israel. If Indians do not awaken soon, as Israelis have, they
might find that international elites have defined Bengal as they have
Kashmir.
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