Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf‘s decision to allow troops to storm the Lal Masjid in Islamabad to flush out the radical clerics and extremists holed up in it has met with diametrically opposite reactions. OTOH, the US President George W. Bush has backed his “ally” in the war on terror: “I like him, I appreciate him.” OTOH, Al Qaeda’s second in command, Ayman al-Zawahiri has urged Pakistanis to revolt against Musharraf or face annihilation.
Musharraf may have had no more options. Musharraf’s hands may have been tied by his own travails. And maybe it’s too early to see what the ramifications of “Operation Silence” will be. But an interesting point to ponder is whether an Indian government, of any party or alliance, in a similar position have had the courage or resolve to storm a mosque (or a temple or a church or a gurudwara).
Islamic Pakistan could muster the courage to storm a mosque, can secular India? Akshardham notwithstanding, would the BJP allow a temple to be stormed if Hindu goons were hiding there? “Operation Bluestar” notwithstanding, would the Congress (and the Left) allow a mosque to be stormed if Muslim goons were hoarding weapons there? Or have we come too far down the road of votebank politics, of majority and minority appeasement, to see governance and internal security in a clean, clear-eyed fashion?
Well… we kinda did that once, you know in a gurudwara or some such place, and IIRC, there was a bit of a mess afterwards involving bodyguards, and the PM and riots or some such thing. I can’t remember the details, but I guess somebody can look it up or something if we want to storm a temple next.
No, After Indira Gandhi, No one had the Balls or will have the guts to that. Our democracy is littered with petty caste politics. UP election was a case where Mayawati did a so called social enginnering..There is no party in India which is secular. No one of the parties are concerned about the common layman. It is a sad state of affairs….India needs an another freedom movement
You can expect our “SECULARIST” politicians to storm a temple or a church but DEFINATELY NOT A MOSQUE OF ALL PLACES. NOT AT ALL!!. Dont you know that we are a “SECULAR” country guided by the “SECULAR THOUGHTS” of the many “SECULAR STALWARTS” in the country. No way Sar!!
Agree with Subbu. The present lot of politicians are incapable of taking any such decision. The present UPA govt certainly does not have it in them to do anything even remotely like what Musharaf did
The great tragedy of the BJP and its Hindi-Hindu-Hindutva politics is that they have reduced our worldview and turned us into an inward looking species which looks at everything through the prism of Pakistan. And churumuri plays right into their hands with a question like this.
Why should we be looking over our shoulders and comparing ourselves with Pakistan on an explosive issue like this one? Musharraf has been running with the hares and hunting with the hounds and has paid the price for it. So that’s that. Where is a comparitive situation in India for our politicians to act at this point in time?
If the Left parties can kill so many protestors in Nandigram without compunction, if the BJP government in Rajasthan could kill so many Gujjars who were reminding them of their election promises, if the Janata Dal (Secular) can be egged on by the BJP to target innocent villagers in the name of Naxals… it shows that our parties have no steadfast ideology that they stick to. They bob and sway with the political wind as it suits them. And like Indira Gandhi, I am sure, will act as required.
As Soul Truth!
Raking in it aren’t you:)
The framing of the question is faulty– The terrorists all over the world are muslims– But just to write so called even handed report/question mentions Hindu goons etc
Waste of E print– Why feel shy–
rvaidya2000
At least in south Indian states, the Hindu temples are already under effective govt. occupation (in the guise of Hindu Religious Endowment Board or similiar sounding sarkari tag). So-called rationalists and commies are making merry with absolute impunity to do what they want with the temples and associated properties. The question is, can the govt. (both Central and the State) play a similar game with the mosques? The imam at Delhi runs his own feifdom and spouts Friday venom as and when he wants-and gets away without any scratch.
Funnily, We have not seen any marches or demonstrations by the Desi secular-minority combine against Musharraf! Were a similar thing to happen in our country, Karat (B & P) would be leading the wagon to the accompaniment of loud secular noise by their Chennai mouthpiece.
I guess hazrat bal is an example.
The hindu goons are unlikely ever to be armed with AK-47, RDX and suchlike. You don’t need need to storm into a temple or a mutt and use heavy artillery, where the most sophisticated piece of weaponry at the disposal of these goons would be a pig iron sword.
It is a hypotheitcal question and requires no answer as such. However as Aatmasakshi pointed out, we need not look at ourselves thru the prism of our neighbors. Also even though the action is commendable, the situations are not directly comparable.
The real question to ask is if that country were to be ruled by a popularly elected government formed by 15 or more coalition partners often at loggerheads, with the media breathing down their throats and various non related parties ready to protest even before any plan could be formed, what would they have done? And then compare that action with our own or others in a similar situation.
Faldo and SoulTruth
I respectfully disagree. The Pakistan hypenation existed only with Congresswallahs because we were deeply tied down by misplaced Socialist dogmas, the derisive “Hindu growth rate” and a few other factors that made us more inward looking. SoulTruth looks very clever by writing that glittering phase–but as Shakespeare once wrote, “All that glitters is more often than not ‘Kagey Bangara'”—it was always Congress which could never get rid of the hyphenation mindset and made India appear very weak on the international scene, with the NAM and all that. Perhaps, seniors like Ranga can step in and help me out here.
Only and only when BJP came to power, we dispensed with this hyphenation and started engaging the outside world (that is beyond Islamic nations Arab and Iran) and made the breakthrough with USA. All these facts are borne out by facts. Unfortunately, Pakistan wanted so badly to be in the picture, they tried Kargil, parliament attack and instigated Gujarat attacks (Godhra and Akshardham).
Let us have a robust discussion on this,,,,thanks.
agree with AS. like dattanna says in America America.. “ee deshaddU aa deshaddu grammarE bEre..”
unless i am missing something… i just fail to see why closing down the temple/church/gurudwara/mosque, turning off the electricity/water and starving them bad guys inside to either surrender or moksha is not considered an alternative to storming it with artillery.
ya.. well.. if they have hostages, it may not be that simple.. but then what are the chances that hostages will survive a ‘storming’ either?
we did storm Hazarathbal mosque in Kashmir and eleswhere. Golden temple was another case. The question is not whether we can storm.. we will when it is necessary.
In pakisthan Musharaff has staged a drama and nothing will happen to him. he has allowed many militants to escape from lal masjid. He has just enacted a show to please his external bosses. He may politically become strongger. He allowed lal masjid to happen and he knew when to act tocapitalise on that.
What utter crap is this post? You just gave examples of Akshardham and Bluestar and ask for exactly what happened there? If you are talking about kandhahar or the hazratbal biriyani service, thats a different story. thats called ‘resolve’ or the lack of it. keep religion out of this.
No time temples used for bad activity. It never happened and will not happen in future also, because there is no centralized religious head or center for Hindus. Even the idipendent religious heads of Hindus don’t have full controlll over the entire community. Even now,you can abuse hindu gods and religiouse heads and lead a smooth life, Even you will be appriciated!!!
Storming places of worship of majority community in India does not arise at all, as temples are never used as platform to propagate violence. Absolute freedom is there in temples to go and worship. They are not autonomous bodies with out state control. Hindu goons hiding in a temple! What a joke! Aksharadhama incident is a gross misrepresentation of fact. It was seized by terrorists to create panic and confusion among its worshippers, belong to majority community. Entry of the troops in to the temple to snuff out terrorists was hailed whole heartedly and it was never a topic of controversy. So far no such act of terror has been enacted in any of the temples in India by the so called followers of the faith. The mixing up of facts to strengthen the argument is ridiculous.
Rightly said, Vsesh. Now you will have Vinu Malliah after you………