I had described the White Paper on the Kovai blasts as a whitewash, in these columns yesterday. A minor update may be made as repeated readings of the document reveal that it is rather a grand white wash to cover the black coatings underneath. The innocuous ease with which the Paper glosses over vital issues and the blatant attempts to lend new twists to the gory tale of Muslim fundamentalism, all reek of a dirty trick on the part of the authorities to trivialise the intensity of the unprecedented tragedy at Kovai.
The report itself has been quite obviously subjected to the expert touch of a script writer; only that the master ‘editor’ at the top had used his mighty pen more to score off important but embarrassing details than to add anything of consequence.
The abridged version of the White Paper fails palpably to build a bridge between speculations and truth and on the contrary comes out as a document offering even more incitement to the unholy elements. The entire undercurrent of the document is all about how the fundamentalists were ‘provoked’ into doing what they did owing to the ‘oppression’ of the majority community. But then what else could be expected of a CM who ‘ rationalised’ on what would happen if someone were to bring down the Thanjavur Temple? Even if the ISI had prepared a White Paper, it would not have been able to match the present one in evoking sympathy for the cause of the terrorists.
Never has there been such an overt, official justification for a violent retribution and the government’s efforts to drive home the point that it was just natural reaction for the terrorists to bombard the citizens of the State hits you in the face. Apparently, the powers that be in Fort.St.George were also of the view that these elements have been wronged by the majority and had therefore kept their hands off. No other explanation seems plausible for their culpable, costly and catastrophic inaction despite being adequately forewarned to the last detail of the extremist plot.
The White Paper seeks to identify the Babri Masjid demolition as the root cause for the growth of Muslim fundamentalism in Tamilnadu, thereby suggesting that the DMK had after all only inherited a legacy of terrorism from the earlier regime. And to substantiate this discovery, it lists out various incidents of Muslim violence, besides chronicling the history of bomb culture in the State.
There is, of course, no attempt to explain why those ‘defenders’ took more than five years to react to the Ayodhya outrage with such vengeance, that too when peace had descended on all other parts of the country long back, but that is besides the point. Here in lies the truth, the real truth about the intent of the terrorists, not only the hardcore Muslim outfits, but also every group or individual who have at some points of time in the State’s history held the people and peace to ransom.
It is quite striking and significant that all such points in history tend to coincide with the tenure of the DMK and the outlaws of the land, and even beyond decide to surface everytime a DMK government comes to occupy the seat of power.
If in 1989, it was the LTTE who even while fighting the army of sovereign India, were allowed to gain a foothold in the ‘enemy’s’ land, the current regime is marked by an increase in the activities of the Muslim terrorists, albeit belatedly. There is also the evergreen forest brigand Veerappan, a law breaker who was emboldened by the present government’s softness towards him, to entertain ambitions of a stint in politics, if one were to go by his own admissions.
The entire underground of the State, ranging from rowdies to brigands to terrorists appear to singularly agree that there could be no better climate for them than a DMK regime which could be trusted to look the other way even as they go about their nefarious activities as well whenever the Thaanai Thalaivan and his co-borns storm the Secretariat? it brings in its wake security, sympathy, understanding and acquiescence all under the guise of ethnic affinity, as in the issue of Muslim fundamentalism or plain impotence that was on parade in the Veerappan episode, But whatever the case the fact remains that all the violence mongers decide to make hay while the benevolent Sun shines on them. Strange coincidence indeed.
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