Who’s the new Mogambo?

http://www.dailypioneer.com/134801/Who%e2%80%99s-the-new-Mogambo.html

THE PIONEER
Sunday, November 16, 2008

Who’s the new Mogambo?

By Swapan Dasgupta

There are seasons when the media’s perception of national priorities bear little relation to the average middle-class (I cannot presume to speak for the much-invoked aam aadmi) concerns. My own impression is that there is one overriding preoccupation: The economic downturn and the threat of recession. The insecurity fuelled by jihadi terror comes second.

The media perception is markedly different. Its main focus is on the Mumbai ATS’ sensational unearthing of a “Hindu terror” conspiracy. The Delhi edition of The Times of India on Saturday, for example, had 10 reports on the subject and another three on the miscarriage of justice in cases involving alleged jihadi terrorists.

To be fair to the media, the emerging story is riveting. To begin with there was the arrest of Sadhvi Pragya Thakur, the owner of a motorcycle which was used to plant bombs in Malegaon on September 29. The dashing sadhvi was believed to be the “mastermind”. The plot then came to embrace the Army and led to the arrest of Lt-Colonel Shrikant Purohit of the Military Intelligence. The shock of a serving Army officer being the real “mastermind” of the terror plot was profound. But even before this was fully digested, came the further revelation that a self-anointed shankaracharya Dayanand Pandey, alias Sudhakar Dwivedi, with a penchant for changing mobile phone numbers was the real divine inspiration behind Purohit. In other words, he was this week’s Mogambo. There is a suspicion that next week’s “mastermind” may well turn out to be the person who was all along the intended target — a senior RSS functionary whose responsibilities included J&K.
If all goes according to plan, this is a story that will run till the last round of voting for the Lok Sabha election. It is not merely the colourful conspirators that are of interest. Equally enthralling is the plot that the ATS has supposedly unearthed through extensive drugging and narco-analysis.

It would seem that a group of extreme Hindu nationalists, exasperated by the Government’s failure to control jihadi terror decided that the Muslims must get a taste of their own medicine. The inspirational shankaracharya supposedly requisitioned the services of the like-minded Purohit who he had got to know during his own missions in J&K. Using the Military Intelligence network and, may be, funds, he contacted jihadi groups to persuade them to engage in friendly fire, i.e. bomb their own community. This filmi plot did not succeed and Purohit had to settle for buying RDX from the “enemy”. With the assistance of a retired Territorial Army officer, a collector of antique arms and, of course, Pragya’s bike, the group killed six innocent Muslims in Malegaon.

The ATS now believes the group could have also triggered earlier blasts in Nanded, Kanpur, the first Malegaon blasts in 2006 and even the Samjhauta Express bombing. The net is being cast far and wide. The official spokesman of the Congress has even gone to the extent of suggesting that even the other bombings were outsourced by the RSS to the SIMI and Indian Mujahideen! It would also not be surprising if in the coming weeks some bright secular spark or ridiculous tabloid comes to the startling conclusion that the D-company is actually a covert RSS cell.

Before there is a formal request to the Obama Administration to reopen the 9/11 inquiries in the light of the Mumbai ATS unofficial disclosures to the media, it is pertinent to note a few features of the Hindu terrorist case. First, in its submission to the courts, the Mumbai ATS has pointed to 18 traces of RDX in Malegaon. Yet, it is curious that the Central forensic teams that were despatched to the spot immediately found no RDX. Obviously, both can’t be right.

Second, is it the normal custom of authorities to arrest anyone who has been remotely associated or had telephone links with the accused, subject them to narco-tests casually and then rush to the media? When nothing incriminating is unearthed, it is attributed to yogic skills. In most countries narco-tests are sparingly used to fill in missing links (usually the search for the murder weapon) after the bulk of the investigations are complete. In this investigation, it has become the first act of an otherwise clueless ATS.
Second, in its internal inquiry submitted to the Defence Ministry submitted some 10 days ago, the Army ruled out the involvement of any other officers. It has also refrained from dismissing Purohit from service — a revealing piece of non-action.

The implications of what the ATS has leaked to the media about the role of the Army are horrifying. It suggests that senior MI operatives have no wider accountability and are routinely engaged in clandestine activities with known jihadis. If Purohit had the ability to mount operations without instructions and without the knowledge of his superior officers, it suggests that the emergence of a rogue force like Pakistan’s ISI cannot be entirely discounted in India. Does the ATS and its political mentors in the UPA have any idea of what they are casually implying? Are the media stenographers who are faithfully reproducing every unattributable briefing aware of the long-term costs of trying to establish a moral equivalence between jihadi terror and Hindu terror?

Beleaguered Governments have made a habit of trying to bolster their electoral prospects through dirty tricks. In 1989, there was the elaborate attempt to discredit V P Singh through the discovery of fictitious accounts in St Kitts. Both the agencies and senior journalists were part of the plot. In 1996, there was the Jain hawala case which neither secured convictions nor won the Congress the election. Let us see how far the invocation of Hindu terror takes those who can’t bear the idea of being out of power. Meanwhile, the jihadis are sitting pretty, plotting their next move.