kanchan gupta: This is Jihad!

july 17th, 2006

from the pioneer. kanchan pulls no punches.

this is, of course, jihad.

pontificating about the 'mumbai spirit' does not obscure that fact, nor the fact of the shikhandi nature of the UPA government.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Kanchan Gupta
Date: Jul 17, 2006 2:33 PM
Subject: This is Jihad!
To:

http://www.dailypioneer.com/AGENDA1.asp?main_variable=SUNDAYPIONEER%2FAGENDA&file_name=agen1%2Etxt&counter_img=1

 

Cover story / Agenda / The Sunday Pioneer / 16.07.06

 

 

This is jihad

 

The holy warriors who carried out the 7/11 bombings in Mumbai may be members of local sleeper cells of the LeT and SIMI but the battle they are fighting is part of the global war being waged by Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda. With Islamism finding an increasing number of converts in India, Osama and his generals will now find it easier to deploy foot soldiers in our country to push the frontiers of jihad, writes Kanchan Gupta

 

I don't speak, of course, to the vultures who seeing the September 11 images scornfully giggle 'Good. Americans-got-it-good'. I speak to the people who, though neither stupid nor evil, delude themselves in pietism or uncertainty or doubt. And to them I say: Wake up, folks, wake up! As intimidated as you are by the fear of going against the stream... you don't understand or don't want to understand that a Reverse Crusade is on march. As blinded as you are by the myopia and the stupidity of the Politically Correct, you don't realise, or don't want to realise, that a war of religion is being carried out. A war they call Jihad..."

Celebrated Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci in The Rage and The Pride

 

There is a certain predictability to the manner in which we in India respond to Islamist terrorism. The lib-left intelligentsia unleashes a propaganda offensive with the aim of painting the criminals as victims and placing the blame at someone else's door. Every time a bomb goes off, leaving in its wake death and destruction, we get to hear the familiar refrain: Babri demolition, Gujarat riots, poor Muslims. We also get to hear, as we did during the hours following the Mumbai bombings, wide-eyed television news anchors breathlessly asking all and sundry: "Do you think this was a terrorist attack?" Perhaps the anchors hoped to hear someone say, "No darling, it was fireworks to celebrate Italy's victory in the World Cup." Within days of the jihadi attack on Sankat Mochan Mandir on the eve of Holi in March this year, a Hindustani classical music concert was organised and telecast live to show that the outpouring of rage across the country was quite misplaced as the people of Varanasi were busy listening to Hori and Thumri. Similarly, after the slaughter in Mumbai, the emphasis has been on how life in that city has not been affected. Boys will be boys, why bother about a bit of harmless mischief?

 

Meanwhile, the Government is busy doing what this regime does best: Pretending hurt innocence and slyly pointing fingers at "external forces", darkly hinting at Pakistan's role in the bombings but fighting shy of lifting the veil and exposing Islamabad's nasty face. Instead, colourful stories are being planted of how shadowy Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Tayyeba activists carried out the bombings with the help of the banned Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) and then "fled the country". What is not being mentioned is that this Government had allowed the ban on SIMI to lapse for six months, allowing the Islamist organisation to regroup and rearm its cadre. And while the Government looks for convenient stories to dilute anger over its abject failure, Union Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh and Minority Affairs Minister AR Antulay wave away all suggestions of the Mumbai bombings, and the bombings and attacks preceding Terror Tuesday, as manifestations of jihad.

 

Notwithstanding the crafty propaganda of the lib-left intelligentsia and the cunning disinformation campaign of the UPA Government, the writing on the wall is clear: Global jihad has arrived in India. We have the choice of either reading the message and acting accordingly, or demolishing the wall and pretending that all is fine and such "minor irritants" cannot be allowed to come in the way of the peace process with Pakistan. The enormous human cost, it would seem, is a small price to pay for those of us who, to quote Oriana Fallaci, "don't understand or don't want to understand that a Reverse Crusade is on march", who are "blinded... by the myopia and the stupidity of the Politically Correct," who "don't realise, or don't want to realise, that a war of religion is being carried out. A war they call Jihad".

 

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