Faith in India's army shaken by blasts
By Sudha Ramachandran
BANGALORE - Investigations into recent bomb blasts in India have led to the
arrest of several Hindus and for the first time ever, a serving officer of the
Indian army.
The arrests have triggered heated debate on whether the arrests indicate the
existence of "Hindu terrorism". More worryingly, the probes point to the
possibility of the hitherto secular and apolitical Indian army being infected
by the communal virus.
Six people were killed and over 80 injured in blasts on September 29 in the
Muslim-dominated town of Malegaon, about 260 kilometers from Mumbai. A few
hours later, a bomb went off near a mosque in Modasa town in Gujarat, where
Muslims were
offering special Ramadan prayers, killing two people.
Investigations have led to the arrest of about 10 people, including Ajay
Rahirkar, Sameer Kulkarni, Rakesh Dhawade (all members of the Hindu extremist
organization, the Abhinav Bharat), Dayanand Pandey (a self-styled Hindu "guru")
Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur (an "ascetic" who is a member of the Durga Vahini -
the women's wing of the Vishva Hindu Parishad - and the Akhil Bharatiya
Vidyarthi Parishad - the students' wing of the Bharatiya Janata Party - BJP).
These were not members of fringe, underground outfits but people with links to
the BJP and its fraternal organizations. Thakur, for instance, is known to be
close to BJP president Rajnath Singh and Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj
Singh Chauhan. There are photographs of her with these BJP bigwigs.
Investigations are revealing that their activities might have been funded by
business houses as well.
Neither Hindu extremism nor the involvement of Sangh Parivar (a group of
organizations that espouse Hindutva or Hindu supremacy) activists in acts of
terrorism is news. Activists of Bajrang Dal and the VHP have engaged in attacks
in the past that should have been described as terrorism. They were not. On
several occasions in the past couple of years when bombs went off in mosques
and Muslim-dominated areas, in shrines and trains, the needle of suspicion did
point in the direction of Hindu terror outfits. But investigations into these
blasts never led to the arrest of Hindus.
That has now changed with the investigations into the Malegaon blasts. The hand
of Hindu right-wing organizations in terrorist attacks in India has now been
laid bare.
But even as Indians are heatedly debating whether "Hindu terrorism" exists,
another worrying issue has been thrown up by the investigations. Three men
arrested in connection with the Malegaon blasts are from the armed forces. They
include one serving officer, Lieutenant Colonel Prasad Shrikant Purohit, and
two retired officers, Major Ramesh Upadhyay and Colonel Shailesh Raikar.
Thirty-eight-year-old Purohit has the dubious distinction of being the first
serving officer of the Indian army to be arrested in connection with a
terrorist attack. He has been described as the "mastermind" of the Malegaon
blasts. He allegedly procured the explosives (he is said to have provided RDX
from the army depot) and funding for the blasts, provided training and
co-ordinated the blasts. He is said to have arranged for fake military ID cards
providing access for Abhinav Bharat activists to army bases. Purohit is said to
have worked several stints in military intelligence. His role in several other
terrorist attacks over the past few years, including the February 2007 bombing
of the Samjhauta Express or Friendship Train linking Delhi with Lahore in
Pakistan, is now under the scanner.
Upadhyay, the head of the Abhinav Bharat's political wing, was Purohit's link
with the organization. He is said to have provided training in bomb-making to
the blast suspects. As for Raikar, he is said to have allowed the Abhinav
Bharat and other Hindu extremist groups to hold training camps on the campus of
the Bhonsala Military School in Nashik of which he was commandant.
Reports in the media suggest that more serving military officers could be
detained in the coming days. A senior officer is believed to have had prior
knowledge of the Malegaon blasts.
The arrest of serving and retired army officers in connection with terrorist
attacks has triggered a spate of worrying questions. Have Hindu supremacist and
extremist ideologies penetrated the hitherto secular Indian army? Are Purohit
and others an aberration or do they point to a growing trend in the Indian
armed forces?
Serving and retired army officers - irrespective of their religious backgrounds
- fiercely defend the army's secular credentials. "There is no communalism in
the army. In my 37 to 38 years of service, I came across just one or two odd
individuals who had a communal mindset," retired Major General Afsir Karim
recalled in a recent interview. He drew attention to the fact that Indian army
regiments are organized along ethnic lines not based on religion and that in
the army you are identified by the regiment to which you belong. "Who are you?
I will say I am Kumaon. That's the ethos that prevails in army, even now," he
said.
"The terrorism-related activities of three army men cannot be taken to be
reflective of the entire armed forces or even of a sizeable section," a serving
officer in the Northern Command told Asia Times Online. "Soldiers do practice
their faith and visit places of worship but their faith is their personal
business. The army allows practice of religion but discourages communal
sentiments," he said.
This view is echoed by Maroof Raza, an ex-army officer. While the officers'
corps has become more representative of the middle class and therefore more
"easily influenced by hardline religious propagandists, right-wing sentiments
are certainly never aired," he writes in the newsmagazine Outlook. "Those that
fall prey to propaganda of the Sangh Parivar and its jingoistic outfits are
still ... few and far between in our uniformed forces. ... To paint, therefore,
the entire olive green force with a saffron [the color of the Hindu right-wing
organizations] brush is rather unfair."
Indeed, the actions of a fringe should not be seen to be reflective of the
institution itself. The army has a long and proud tradition of being a secular
and apolitical force. Unlike other armed forces in the region, it has stayed
away from assuming a political role and its soldiers are known for their
professionalism. And unlike the country's police, who are known to have
supported the majority Hindus in communal riot situations, the armed forces
have always acted as a neutral force, especially in communally polarized
situations. Could the presence of officers with links to Hindu extremist
outfits - however few these might be - change this?
There have been instances in the past when soldiers reacted to issues as
members of their religious community rather than as Indians. The army's
storming of the Golden Temple in Amritsar in 1984 to flush the Sikh holy shrine
of terrorists who had set up base there triggered an angry response from a
section of Sikh soldiers in the army. Their religious sentiments hurt by the
army's destruction of their shrine, some of them mutinied. Some are even said
to have joined the ranks of the Sikh militants. But even that serious breakdown
of discipline did not have long-term implications for the armed forces.
That seems to have changed in the 1990s. That was the decade which saw India
plunged into serious communal polarization, riots and terrorist violence. That
was also the decade that saw a spectacular rise in the political fortunes of
the BJP. There are any number of examples from the 1998 to 2004 period (when
the BJP led the coalition government) of the army being involved in the BJP's
political/religious activity. A report in the Outlook points out that in 1999,
for instance, the 3rd Division of the army "worked overtime to facilitate the
Sindhu yatra, an event that was planned and executed by the Dharma Yatra
Sangh, an arm of the VHP".
Not only did the BJP draw the armed forces into its politico-religious
activities, but in the years since several retired officers have joined the
BJP. The presence of ex-army officers in extremist outfits linked to this party
was to be expected.
But what of serving army officers? Armed forces the world over are conservative
institutions. Their personnel are drawn to right-wing ideas, however apolitical
the army as an institution might be. In India, the BJP's "muscular approach"
strikes a chord among a section of the soldiers. The communal and hate politics
practiced by politicians in India was bound to have its impact on at least a
few soldiers. To expect the armed forces to remain completely impervious to the
virus of communal politics is rather unrealistic.
Investigations into the Malegaon blasts have revealed the involvement of a
handful of serving and former army officers. But to brush this aside as an
aberration would be a blunder.
Criticism of the armed forces' violation of human rights in insurgency-wridden
areas and of their corruption has often been frowned on in the country. "It
will weaken the morale of the armed forces," is a cry that is raised to silence
criticism. In the process, rot has been allowed to set in.
The investigations into the Malegaon blasts reveal that the armed forces are
vulnerable to communal and extremist ideologies. To ignore this would be
disastrous not just for the armed forces but also for India as a secular
democracy.
Sudha Ramachandran is an independent journalist/researcher based in
Bangalore.
(Copyright 2008 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
contact us about
sales, syndication and
republishing.)
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
