A quick recap on terrorism in sovereign Indian soil sponsored by Pakistan in my adult memory. Interesting, how terror reporting has also evolved over years in India. By Pakistan I mean here, the involvement of Pakistan state, Pakistan army (armed forces) and their intelligence agency ISI who all tirelessly work together to wreck havoc not only in India but around the world.
As India grows and prospers, is terrorism a price we have to pay for our progress?
BOMBAY STOCK EXCHANGE BLAST (1993)
Bharat, my nation, has seen a series of bomb blasts owing to Pakistan terror outfits sponsored by both their military and elected governments over decades. The first earth shattering one happened in March 1993, the Bombay Stock Exchange blast. As a single and working girl about to be married, I recall hearing the radio commentaries in my workplace as my colleagues stayed glued to news bulletins on hourly basis. In those times, many of us were trading already albeit meagerly in equity markets – manually. Only brokers had access to computers (as our departments and workplaces were getting computerized one by one starting that year). BSE was computerized and my male colleagues would be frequently on phones talking to their brokers who then did a roaring business having access to computers in their workstations and internet. (I think I heard the word internet first in real life when a cousin got his dial up internet connection in the city for his new computer that cost six-figure in Indian currency). For the first time in financial markets, stock values were transmitted live which was a feat over a quarter century back. In fact my interest in stock markets perked in that phase of life. Which is why BSE mattered so much to me, especially in that exact point of time. Looking back, I realize how technologically advanced even then India was in a way – for a third world nation. Infosys and HCL and Wipro were starting to make waves. Bank reforms were on cards and the Indian economy was going for a big change. On top gear was BSE driving the growth indices of the India story that was at last kick-started by Narasimha Rao government.
So nothing could have devastated us more than the bomb blast at BSE masterminded by Dawood Ibrahim, planted by Pakistan, now living like a prince in Pakistan with their government and military protection. The blasts killed hundreds of innocent Indian traders and investors in the stock exchange and nerve center of the financial capital of India. The terror attacks aimed at bringing the Indian economy to a stunned standstill and collapse, and India to her knees. Well, the terrorists could not succeed on that ground. If anything, we Hindus are made of sterner stuff. We picked up from the pieces even if we had paid a huge price, and made good the huge human and financial losses through sheer spirited hard work, with a vengeance to succeed.
The Mumbai Stock Exchange blasts got etched in my mind in that young age as exchange brokers became our news bearers from national tv news that was relayed from Delhi. It was an age when credit cards and mobile phones and computers still remained a novelty in the nation, out of reach of the masses, privilege of very few. We had only the print media apart from radio and tv news casts. BSE bomb blast was the first major mass terror attack in India in my adult memory. Things as ghastly as that were unheard of until then. We had had two prime ministers assassinated beforehand, still that did not daze the nation as the bomb blasts did. Only train accidents killed us Indians in hundreds before that. That an Indian muslim and Pakistani govt/military together orchestrated the blasts was incomprehensible for us Indians. Although we put behind the economic losses in days, the shock and dismay stayed with us for a long time. We Hindus learned a hard lesson: who we should NOT AND NEVER TRUST. This is something America and UK and Europe and starting to learn just now.
MUMBAI 26/11 (2008)
MUMBAI, DELHI, BANGALORE, HYDERABAD, COIMBATORE, VARANASI, AHMEDABAD AND OTHER TERROR ATTACKS (VARIOUS DATES) (MULIPLE AND SERIAL BLASTS)
Ever since there have been periodical and multiple bomb blasts in Mumbai (Zaveri Bazaar and other places), Hyderabad, Bangalore, Coimbatore (serial), Delhi (Karol Bagh and other places) and of course in Kashmir. Each killed and maimed hundreds of innocent Indian civilians. The Mumbai 26/11 terror attacks by Pakistanis gained media attention worldwide. Pakistan once again was in denial mode. But their own God spared Ajmal Kasab who would live on to reveal to the world the Pakistani hand in planning and executing terror attacks in sovereign Indian soil. This was one more mission of theirs that had the army and government connivance, sickening. Kasab was later hanged to death. Had it not been for Kasab, Pakistan and China and even our own leftists in India would have blamed Hindutva men for ‘staging’ the Mumbai attacks.
I have to share this on Coimbatore blasts. Friends from Coimbatore reported how they were personal witnesses to funds remittances to Coimbatore terrorists and muslims from Saudi Arabia for a long time after the blasts. These were direct eye witnesses, something that will never be reported by/in the media. The Coimbatore blasts of 1997 revealed to us how sinister the network of terror is and wherefrom it is fueled. All remittances to Indian muslims need a vigilant monitoring especially from offshore.
Everytime there is a bomb attack in India, we Indians go numb; we freeze; terrorism is such a dastardly cowardly act that you forget how to react for a moment. During Mumbai terror attacks in 2008 when Pakistan terrorists got to Mumbai via sea in unearthly hours hoodwinking patrol and laid siege ransacking the city in different locations, no fires burned in our kitchens; nobody celebrated or partied; whole of India went into mourning. I know, because I felt heartbroken, I remained so for days after that. It took time for us to return to normalcy. Social media was not as active then as it is now. Still, I know how India stumbled. There was round the clock news coverage in tv news channels from local to international like the BBC and CNN. Right then we Indians wanted a revenge on Pakistan. To blow up Pakistan. We missed a golden chance.
Mumbai stays fresh in world memory even today because it came after Newyork 9/11 that remained a raw wound in world psyche. By this time, world had woken up to ugly reality of Terrorism and Hatred the way it never did until then.
Through all this, Israel has been a good and trusted friend of India. India benefits from precious Israeli wisdom.When we have Israel on our side, we need none other. Love and respects and prayers from India.
KARGIL WAR (1999)
During Kargil war started by Pakistan, I was a resident of Malaysia. How much we hung on to tv news from India in those days in foreign news channels. Almost everyday we called home to check what was going on. Although we had internet even then by way of dial-up network (year was 1999), news was never up to date. What we NRIs went through then was miserable. Out of India, but our hearts beating for India. India had the moral support of all Asians then, no doubt. To my knowledge no one supported Pakistan at least in theory. No chinese liked Pakistan, at least Malaysian chinese. For one main guessable reason. Terrorism and war were still new vocabulary in the world gaining notoriety since the turn of the millennium only. India however was fighting her own lonely battles already.
At the start of the Kargil war I was in the last leg of our Singapore tour. Grateful forever to Singapore for unbiased news coverage in their television and radio and 100% moral support to India all the way! The tiny nation had the courage to call a spade a spade.
Ethnic Malaysian Indians expressed their solidarity with India and BJP government in particular during our Malaysian days. Hindu interests are important not only for the sake of India, but for the great Indian diaspora spread around the world as well.
INDO-PAK WAR & CREATION OF BANGLADESH (1971)
Kargil is the only Indo-Pak war in my memory as I was barely three during the last one in 1971 when India broke Pakistan into two parts carving Bangladesh out of their east wing. The first war after the 1947 violence was in 1965. PM Indira Gandhi the Iron Lady of India, took on the likes of US President Nixon and Henry Kissinger single handedly in 1971 and led India to a massive victory. America remained anti-India and pro-Pakistan for a long time. Indira Gandhi kicked out Coca Cola and IBM out of India which were to return to the nation after a 20 year hiatus, only in Rao period when Indian economy was opened up after globalization. China deserted Pakistan in the 1971 war and will do it again in future when it really matters. India can count on Chinese cunning and selfishness one hundred percent if not on Pakistan cowardice and ineptitude.
PATHANKOT & URI (2016)
Pathankot and Uri were very recent terror attacks by Pakistan in India. There have been terror attacks in India carried out by Pakistan on daily basis in Kashmir that we have lost count of our martyred brave soldiers ambushed and slain to death in connivance at times with local Indian muslims. This we call Cross-border Terrorism and it is worse than a full scale war. It takes a huge toll on soldiers’ morality and bleeds you gradually. It is proxy war really. This is the dirtiest work and injury inflicted by Pakistan on India. Indian muslim implication is the hardest thing to digest. That your own blood could turn against you. This harsh reality tears your heart. Disloyalty and betrayal are the worst crosses we Indians especially Hindus have to bear. Yes, we breed local terrorists. I hope even America and UK will agree because they are facing a similar situation: homegrown terror.
Social media took over from mainstream media by this time. Social media is a double edged weapon. But it gave common man in India a forum to express his/her wrath on Pakistan and Kashmir during Uri.
KASHMIRIS WILL PAY THE PRICE
I shop for handloom textiles in exhibitions and fairs. We buy routinely from our Kashmiri muslim brothers wanting to give them business. Wanting them to grow.They always return to our cities and towns throughout India selling their wares. We invite them into our homes in case they are street hawkers and they normally invite us to Kashmir for tourism as well. Many have given us visiting cards. To be fair to them, most of them like and respect the Hindu literate and business mind and acknowledge that their growth and prospects are with rest of India only. They speak our language now, quite a few of them. Even a few months back I and my friend were chatting up two Kashmiri muslim men in Chennai. We shopped for 5 minutes but lingered with them for 50 minutes talking this and that. The guys were making us laugh with bits of Tamil they picked up singing to us Tamil songs. I doubt if any Indian will trust Kashmiris in future after Pulwama. Gone to wind is the bonhomie. In handloom expos, every state in India has representation. The Kashmiris never stood out of the crowd. They were one and the same as rest of India. As I frequent these expos, I and my friend are now familiar with our regular Punjabi, Gujarati, Bangali, Maharashtrian cooperative staff. To the extent we exchange pleasantries. The exhibitions are pan India bringing everyone together.
I wish Kashmiri youth who turn to terrorism can come and see for themselves how much they are loved and wanted and included in everything Indian. We send our Kashmir brothers back home with bags of money. Even if they have been stone pelting our soldiers. May be now, we must revise our opinion. I have not come across a single Indian threatening or troubling a Kashmiri in all these years. The Kashmiris know it deep down.
Amidst the Pulwama terror attack, Indian airforce still plied over 300 Kashmir students to their exam centers to enable them take up their GATE exams. Thousands of Kashmiri students attend universities all across India. Many thousands work in Indian banking sector/IT companies etc., earning their livelihood in India. Now how to trust them any longer. What if they are sleeper terror cells.
During Kashmir floods in 2014, the same Kashmiri terrorists were thrown lifeline by Indian army that saved hundreds of lives and restored their damaged properties.
The Hurriyat security is withdrawn finally today by Indian govt. India has been spending a whopping 5000-6000 crores of rupees on their security cover.
Music has started for Kashmiris as their undergrads are evicted from universities and sacked from their jobs across the length and breadth of India. Now this is new: this retaliation.
Every Kashmiri muslim must ask himself/herself, why no Kashmiri Hindu Pundit is a terrorist. Why no Hindu pundit KILLS. After all, the Kashmiri terrorists had raped and killed thousands of Hindu Pundits burning their homes and evicting them from Kashmir. Today, the Kashmir Hindu Pundits are refugees in their own homeland living in pitched tents in and around Delhi in inhumane conditions. So what makes you a terrorist that does not make a Hindu a terrorist who has lost much more than you can ever give back. You have ethnic cleansed Kashmir of Hindus. If anything, the Hindu Pundits must have become hardcore terrorists by your own logic. Why haven’t they? Let me give a one word answer here that you can never bring yourself to admit: HINDU-DHARMA. The corollary is implicit.
PULWAMA (2019)
Pulwama has broken a billion hearts. Not seen such a collective rage and anguish in India in a long time. Precisely I am seeing the same reaction I saw after the 26/11 Mumbai attacks. At that time however, it was Congress govt in power. Now it is BJP headed by Modi. It makes one hell lot of a difference.
History shows how every single Indo-Pak war was initiated by the Pakistanis who were defeated in everyone of them. Every single terror act not only in India but also around the world similarly has a Pakistan hand in it.
Mainstream media has received flak for biased coverage of Pulwama, from Indian public who have gone on to put the anti-nationals in the dock with the aid of Social media. The pro-terror have had it coming, and a virtual war rages in social media where the common man again can express his angst without restraint, directly debating the national issues and security. For a first time, the public voice is heard loud and clear, and it is not one-way like it has been when mainstream media reigned supreme.
Media in India has proved to be untrustworthy as it has now emerged crystal clear how they are owned, managed and run by either pro-terror and terror sympathizers or foreign church/conversion missionaries.
Over 25 years have passed since the Bombay Stock Exchange terror attack. India has come a long way. Now we are a booming economy and we are in driver seat. We command world respect and Hindus are a dominant and acknowledged intellectual community today on the global stage. We have a voice. We have powerful lobbies and we have sympathizers. We have bargaining capacity in the present as we have never had in the past. We can push agendas. We can dictate terms. We can broker and deal what is best for us. We can afford to take some collateral losses as well. And finally we are ready to deliver Pakistan the knock-out punch. At the same time our enemy has been spiraling down and down… that if they are not to be dealt with their death blows by us Indians, they will anyway have it coming from China the friendly neighbourhood backstabber. Either way it is win-win for India.
Hopefully the sacrifices of our bravehearts in Pulwama will not go in vain. The martyrs have laid down their lives for the motherland: 40 of them. It is easy to preach that hate is wrong, but then a venom must be and can be broken only with another equal venom. Adharma does not deserve Dharma. Adharm has to be fought with Adharm only. So says even Lord Krishna in Bhagwad Gita.
A billion hearts lie broken. They will heal only when we avenge Pakistan for our martyred heroes. Jai Hind!
vijiravindran's 