Deganga Intifada?

For three days in September, anti-Hindu violence wracked the Deganga area in North 24 Parganas, only 40 kilometers from the West Bengal capital of Kolkata.  Though the violence has subsided, Hindu residents fear renewed attacks, which could have been the attackers’ intention all along.  West Bengal BJP member Tathagata Roy visited the area twice since the violence began and noted, “What struck me about the pogrom (not riot, because no Hindu hit a Muslim) is 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.”  From that Roy concludes that “this was a well-thought-out, well-executed pogrom whose objective was to terrorize the Hindus no end without committing any major crime beyond arson. The ultimate intention can only be to cleanse the area of Hindus with a view to totally Islamize the area.”  That the matter is now fodder for political bickering instead of effective counter action only furthers the attackers’ objectives.

Bimal Pramanik, Director of the Kolkata-based Centre for Research in Indo-Bangladesh Relations, has noted a steady and deliberate effort to change Hindu-Muslim demographics in West Bengal.  Since the emergence of Bangladesh (East Bengal) as an independent nation in 1971, Hindus in that country have fallen from a little less than one in five to between seven and eight percent today.  At the same time, the Muslim proportion of West Bengal’s population has risen by 25 percent compared to an almost nine percent decline in the proportion of its Hindu population.  Between 1981 and 1991, moreover, Muslim population growth in West Bengal was nearly 35 percent compared to only 25 percent in Bangladesh.  “How can there be such a wide difference in growth rates between the two countries?”  Pramanik asked South Asia Forum’s Amitabh Tripathi and me in his Kolkata office.  His conclusion:  “Illegal immigration from across the border.”

The current political infighting is reminiscent of similar wrangling in the United States.  America reacted to the September 11, 2001 terror attacks by radical Muslims with a wave of patriotism and unity, bringing with it a collective will to defeat those who attacked America.  Over time, however, the initial fervor died down and the same sort of political bickering now taking place in India replaced it.  Democrats blamed the attacks on Republican President George Bush; Republicans blamed his Democrat predecessor, President Bill Clinton.  That the widely praised “9/11 Commission” found largely equal fault with both did not stop the charges and counter charges.  As a result, support for resolutely fighting the Islamists has been plagued by disunity and political jockeying; which also muddies the signal Americans get about their enemies and their intention.  Is this happening in India?

Almost 2000 years ago, ancient Israel was at war with its Roman occupiers.  With most of the country in enemy hands and Roman legions approaching the gates of the Hebrew capital, Jerusalem; defenders holed up in the Jewish Temple, located on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount.  But instead of forming a united front against the enemy, they fell into three factions and spent more time attacking one another than the Romans.  When they eventually united, it was too late and Jerusalem fell.  The Jewish state was destroyed, not to be re-established until 1948.  Is this happening in India?

While the victims of yesterday and today expend their resources fighting one another, their Islamist enemies proceed in a united, strategic, and resolute manner.  The Deganga pogrom makes sense when viewed in parallel with another planned, jihadist event with similar goals:  the 2000 Palestinian intifada.  It also helps to note that Muslims today are given a free pass to express their individual or collective anger however they wish.  If Hindus do it, they are Hindu fanatics; Jews, Zionist oppressors; Christians, Islamaphobic.  If any of these groups attack Muslims, it is their fault.  If Muslims attack them, it is still their fault.  Arab terror attacks on Israel murdered over 1000 Israelis in the first few years of this century but were justified as anger over the so-called occupation.  The September 11th attacks on the United States were deemed expressions of Muslim anger for which Americans must atone.  When Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad recently accused the United States of being the real 9/11 killers, many at the UN applauded enthusiastically.  Finally, virtually every international body and media outlet has determined that the 26/11 terror in Mumbai is insufficient cause to bring anyone to justice.  As American author and analyst 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 pattern is tediously familiar.

   Deganga Pogrom   Arab Intifada

The Pretext  Hindus stopped Muslim activists Then private citizen Ariel Sharon
   from tunneling between the   visited Jerusalem’s Temple Mount
   Deganga Mosque and a nearby
   Hindu Temple.

Background  As the area’s Muslim population Although it is the site of Judaism’s
   has grown, they have tried to stop Ancient Temple, Muslims claim that
   Durga Puja there and claim the  the Temple did not exist and that
   land for their mosque.  the Mount is a holy site for Muslims
        only.

What happened Angry Muslims gathered at the  Angry Muslims gathered on the
   Mosque after Iftar (giving it  Temple Mount by al Aqsa mosque
   religious significance) and began (giving it religious significance) and
   attacking Hindus, their temples, began attacking Jewish worshippers
   homes and shops.  When troops below.  When troops responded to
   arrived to restore calm, they  restore calm, they launched a terror
   moved against defenseless Hindu war against Israel that included
   villages in the interior.  suicide bombings and other terror.

Government  While it stopped the immediate While it defeated the uprising, it     violence, it has not made any  allowed the enemy’s claims to be    arrests, defended Hindu religious given legitimacy.   It has not pressed    sentiments, or defined the    the case for Jewish rights and even     actions or claims as illegitimate. released arrested terrorists as
“goodwill gestures.”

Media   Events have been under reported Media took the case of the Muslim    domestically and blacked out  attackers as a cause célèbre and did    internationally.  No media has mentioned the rights of the Jewish    discussed the rights of the Hindu victims.
   victims.

The Result  The Muslim attackers and their Arab claims to Jewish land are seen
   instigators see that they can   as more legitimate than before the     attack Hindus in India without terror; i.e., terror works.  Their
   consequences.  Their claim to false claim that the ancient Jewish
   Hindu lands remains active and Temples did not exist and that Jews
   stronger, and they can press it have no title to the Temple Mount
   Further.    remains; and both are ongoing
        Arab demands for a cessation of
        violence.

The attackers and their backers frequently object that identifying the pogromists as Muslim and the victims as Hindu violates principles of secularism and unfairly smears an entire faith.  To the extent that religion should not be an important issue, they are correct.  But to the extent that the attackers have made religion important, it needs to be identified.  As noted above, there was a deliberate effort to give the Deganga and Palestinian violence a religious overtone.  It was also on full view in 2004 when Yassir Arafat personally apologized to the father of a 20 year old murdered in a terror attack as a case of “mistaken identity.”  The terrorists were gunning for Jews, and the victim was Christian.  In 2006, there were deadly riots worldwide over cartoons that depicted the prophet Mohammed.  The rioters were not Hindus, Jews, Christians, Buddhists, Sikhs, or anyone else—but Muslims who called the cartoons blasphemous; that is, Muslims, not Jews or Hindus, have made this a religious fight.  More frightening, the rioters were not Al Qaeda; neither were the Deganga pogromists.  They were just Muslims.  Draw what conclusions you may, but the religious component injected by Muslims is a fact.

The Deganga riots might appear to be a blip on the radar screen of life in India; but they are far more than that.

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