Rajnath exposes Congress

After peddling incrementalism and repackaging Congress policies for 14 months, the Bharatiya Janata Party government has decided to show some spine and take on the grand old party. Home Minister Rajnath Singh has rightly castigated the United Progressive Alliance government for introducing the red herring called ‘Hindu terrorism’ in public discourse.

“In this House in 2013, the then home minister [P. Chidambaram] had coined the new terminology ‘Hindu terrorism’ in order to change the direction of probe. It weakened our fight. As a consequence, Hafiz Sayeed [Lashkar founder] of Pakistan had congratulated the then home minister. Our government will never allow such a shameful situation again,” a combative Singh said in Parliament.

He is absolutely correct, for the Muslim-appeasing UPA wanted to demonstrate that the security forces and intelligence agencies were acting not just against Muslims, who were anyway behind most terror activities, but also against non-Muslims, even if they were not in terror activities—which seems to be the case with several accused in the Samjhauta blasts.

Earlier (http://jagohindu.in/article-details.aspx?id=149), I quoted an official release by the US Department of the Treasury. On January 7, 2009, the Department “targeted the support networks of al Qaida and Lashkar-e Tayyiba (LET) in Pakistan by designating four individuals, Fazeel-A-Tul Shaykh Abu Mohammed Ameen Al-Peshawari, Arif Qasmani, Mohammed Yahya Mujahid, and Nasir Javaid… The designated individuals have provided direct support to al Qaida and LET and have facilitated terrorist attacks, including the July 2006 train bombing in Mumbai, India.”

Further, the Treasury Department release said, “Arif Qasmani is the chief coordinator for Lashkar-e Tayyiba’s (LET) dealings with outside organizations and has provided significant support for LET terrorist operations. Qasmani has worked with LET to facilitate terrorist attacks, including the July 2006 train bombing in Mumbai, India, and the February 2007 Samjota Express bombing in Panipat, India.”

Against this backdrop, it must have come as a pleasant surprise for Pakistan and loathsome creatures like Sayeed that the Indian government itself comes up with the Hindu terror theory and, in effect, exonerates them of guilt of Samjhauta blasts.

It was gallant of Rajnath Singh to have spoken this truth, for doing this has become the most dangerous activity in this age of secular mendacity.

The truth hurts, so the GOP bristled and accused Singh of diversionary tactics. “It’s a completely diversionary argument. The fact is that he was referring to Mr. Shinde who made a statement outside Parliament. He [Shinde] didn’t use the phrase Hindu terror in the manner Rajnath Singh quoted… He was referring to Rightwing extremist groups who had been implicated and some of them charged in several bomb blast cases,” senior Congress leader and former union minister P. Chidambaram told NDTV.

This is typical hair-splitting our politicians are infamous for. Does a statement made by a minister outside Parliament have no meaning? Even if the technicalities mentioned by Chidambaram are accepted, isn’t it a fact that the Congress has tried to downplay Muslim terror and overplay the so-called Hindu terror? So-called because it existence is yet to be proved, while jihad is a worldwide phenomenon. Didn’t Rahul Gandhi try to prove that Hindu terror was more dangerous to its Islamic counterpart to the US envoy, as exposed by Wikileaks in 2010?

BJP leader and Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad did well to respond to Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad’s statement Singh was trying to polarize society. “Congress party has not learnt right lessons. Had it done so, its flip-flop on terrorism would not have been there,” Prasad said.

Prasad quoted the 2010 news report about Wikileaks.

One hopes that BJP Ministers continue to expose the Congress’ ignominious role in neglecting national security.