The Swami hasn’t told all

By Irfan Engineer

January 22, 2011

Swam Aseemanand has been allowed to get away lightly, even emerge as a self-purging savant. The investigation agencies are willfully turning a blind eye to his role in whipping up communal frenzy all the way back to Dang 1998

Much has been reported in the media about the confession of Swami Aseemanand regarding the role of certain individuals associated with RSS and Abhinav Bharat in bomb blasts in Malegaon, in Ajmer, Mecca Masjid in Hyderabad and other places.

However, the more serious implications of the terror activities of the groups and individuals involved have not yet been put in the public domain. Swami Aseemanand’s confessions before a Judicial Magistrate (which is admissible as evidence) at best reveals partial facts.

Let us have a brief recall of what the Swami has disclosed after he was informed in open court of the grave implications of his disclosure by the Judicial Magistrate and was made to go back to his cell and reflect on the implications. The Swami has only given a sketchy account of what Sunil Joshi, who was a RSS functionary, told the Swami about his (Joshi’s) or his men’s involvement in the terror attacks. The Swami proceeded to admit that he gave `25,000 to the late Sunil Joshi. The Swami does not appear to be a star witness to the offence of terror attacks. He is only witness to what Sunil Joshi claimed before him. One or two more individuals are named who had conversations with him. The Swami may be aware that such confessions, even though made before a Judicial Magistrate, may merely be treated as hearsay evidence implicating a dead man. At the end of the day, the only good thing to result from the Swami’s confessions may be the release of the innocent Muslim youth implicated in the Malegaon and other terror attacks.

Let us now have a peep into what the Swami is highly likely to have known and whose material particulars have been withheld by him. The Swami settled in the Dangs district sometime in the late 1990s and was closely linked with the Sangh Parivar and Vishwa Hindu Parishad. On December 24, 1998 there was an attack on churches and Christian institutions there. Could the Swami have been ignorant on the motives the organisation/s and individual/s involved in the attack in a small district which has a population less than 1.5 lakh? Who is he saving? Himself?

The Swami was well connected at the highest political level in Gujarat and therefore in spite of attack on Christians and his provocative statements he was given permission to organise the Shabri Kumbh Mela in the Dangs which was attended by the who’s who of the Sangh Parivar. Just as the Swami revealed the role of a dead man in the terror attacks, he could have revealed the information he was privy to about the 2002 genocide and the people he was involved with. After all, he had access to the highest political offices in Gujarat and has often been photographed in their company. Perhaps he was not asked by the investigators to reveal information as they were carrying out selective investigations.

The Swami could have given much better material particulars about the meetings, the individuals involved, the proceedings at the planning meetings about the ultimate objectives of the blasts which was not to take revenge for the bomb attacks in temples and other places targeting Hindus, and which in turn were to take revenge for various communal riots targeting Muslims. The investigators have recovered from the computers belonging to Dayanand Pandey, Lt Col Purohit and others files recording the minutes of the meetings of Abhinav Bharat which reveal their real objectives. Christopher Jafferlot, a academic of repute, has reproduced some of the conversations in the meetings of Abhinav Bharat in his article in the Economic and Political Weekly.

From these conversations it is clear that Lt Col Purohit and other members of Abhinav Bharat were in fact trying to overthrow the Indian State that has been established by law. Jafferlot’s article quotes the report of Lt Col Purohit in one of the meetings that they have been able to establish links with the Israeli military establishment which has agreed to train 400 soldiers every year for Abhinav Bharat’s war and that he has sufficient equipment and resources. All Lt Col Purohit wanted from others in the meeting was proper selection of targets for maximum impact. The terror attacks were testing the military strength and capability of the group and keeping them fighting fit, Muslims being soft targets. How realistic were the objectives and how far they were is another issue but the group had a proper road map to their destination — Akhand Bharat — a militarised authoritarian State structure subsuming Afghanistan, Pakistan, Tibet, Myanmar. They were hopeful of support from the Buddhist Majority countries in South East Asia and Israel.

The more the supporters of Hindu rashtra stigmatise Islam and Muslims, the more they emulate the worst amongst them — the so-called jihadis. The priorities of the BJP governments in Chhattisgarh and MP are warped. While they used the entire resources of the State to crush Binayak Sen, groups like Abhinav Bharat were allowed to flourish.

-- The writer is Director, Institute of Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution

Source: The Pioneer

URL: http://www.newageislam.com/islam,terrorism-and-jihad/the-swami-hasn’t-told-all-/d/3981