Narendra Modi for Prime Minister

Since 2002, when the Gujarat riots broke up a lot of things have happened. The Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi was a villain in my eyes as for others at that time. But over the years, pragmatism and realism have taken over.

I have had this firm realization now that words like Secularism and Communalism have NO meaning. They are bastardized words which people AGAIN use for their self interest...nothing more.

Here is why:

The Massacres

In the Gujarat riots, the break up of the killed was: Muslims - 790; Hindus: 254. 2548 people were injured and 223 are missing. This is as per figures given by the Union Minister of State for Home Shriprakash Jaiswal (Congress Party) in Parliament on 11 May 2005. Some NGOs put the figure close to 2000 but I have as much faith in Indian activist NGOs as I have in the used car salesmen in my city.

The figures in Delhi massacres in 1984 were: Sikhs: 2733 killed in Delhi alone. as per Ahuja Committee, which submitted the report in August 1987.

The barbarity that one saw in both the areas was the same in the ways people killed each other. So, I am taking a common factor to understand the scale and spread of the madness.

It is quite obvious, that the 1984 killings were the biggest in scale and intensity that one has seen in a long time. Mind you, the numbers given were ONLY from Delhi!

Dr. Manmohan Singh who found a new whipping boy in L K Advani in his last speech to the Indian Parliament, had installed JD Tytler, one of the masterminds of the Delhi massacre, as a Cabinet Minister. It finally took protests after the Nanavati Commission had pointed fingers at him to ease him out of the Government.

Of course there is Nandigram, where Muslims and lower caste people were specifically targetted and killed in a genocide as well. There is no number of how many were killed but the killings continue in trickles EVEN today!

Questions

So, obviously one wants to ask a question - How do you define "Religious Fundamentalism" and Secularism?

Is religious genocide when any ONE section of the society is targetted? Or is it when ONLY minorities are targetted?

Or is it when ONLY one minority is targetted? Or is it when THAT ONE minority is targetted by ONLY one party??

When does violence enter the realm of a religious fundamentalism??

These are important questions. But they have been rendered useless. The very Congress which targets BJP was the culprit in the worst killings of any minority! The CPM which points fingers at any one they can find in the 20 mile radius have been even worse at Nandigram!! So, WHO should throw the stones? And WHY?

When Best Bakery case victims change their statements it is a BIG deal. At the SAME time when the 1984 victims change their statements in Delhi, no one even cares for them!

When Rajiv Gandhi justifies the Sikh killings (Jab bada per girta hai.. ), that is a person laden with sorrow and a case of miscommunication. But when anyone who is remotely related to a particular party talks about the Godhra incident ALONG with the Gujarat killings, he is termed a saffronite and a fundamentalist!