It is often quoted that Rajdeep Sardesai wrote an article praising
Dawood Ibrahim in 1993 soon after the 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts. In April
2002 in wake of the
post-Godhra riots (in which
hundreds of Hindus were also killed,
but ignored), member of Parliament Somnath Chatterjee quoted Rajdeep
Sardesai. A BJP member of Parliament at the same instant countered this
argument quoting this article of Rajdeep Sardesai with a copy of it.
In the last passage of this article Rajdeep Sardesai says that
Balasaheb's patriotism test fails since Dawood supported India in
cricket matches in Sharjah. Of course, it would be too much to expect
Rajdeep Sardesai to understand the patriotism test of Balasaheb
Thackeray. The test is not that anyone who supports India in a
cricket match is a true patriot. It is that anyone who supports India's
enemy Pakistan is not a patriot. A traitor may also cheer for India in a
cricket match- all those supporting India need not necessarily be
patriots. But those who support sworn enemies like Pakistan which has
constantly backstabbed India are definitely traitors. But trust
Rajdeep to find flaws and holes in this, and wrongly twist the
patriotism test to defend those who support Pakistan and burn crackers
when India loses a match on grounds of Dawood supporting India in
one-dayers in Sharjah.
(Very few people know that well known writer Amulya Ganguli also
wrote an article in February 1993 saying that there is nothing wrong if
Indian Muslims celebrate India's defeat and Pakistan's victory in a
cricket match. He gave a fake and wrong analogy saying British
Indians in Britain support India in India-England games there but no one
calls them as traitors. This is of course rubbish, since those who do
this are Indians born and brought up here who live in Britain while
Muslims in India were not born in Pakistan to come here and settle.
Moreover there is no conflict between India and Britain but Pakistan is
an enemy of India having done various various anti-Indian activities.)
Rajdeep also of course cannot understand the difference between
attending a party thrown by a Pakistani official (High Commissioner) and
celebrating Pakistan National Day. Celebrating the National Day of
Pakistan on 23 March is completely different from attending a party of a
Pakistani diplomat.
For all those wanting to have the full text, here is the full text of Rajdeep Sardesai's article of 1993.
"MUSLIMS AND THE
BLASTS
Must They Wear A Badge Of
Patriotism?
By Rajdeep Sardesai – 2 APR 1993,
The Times of India
It is possibly the
largest multinational operating in India. In street parlance, it is known
quite simply as the D Company, named after its presiding deity, Dawood Ibrahim.
With interests in gold, films, drugs and real estate, Dawood has built a
multi-million dollar global empire. Sitting in his penthouse in Dubai, he
is believed to direct all manner of nefarious activities in this country.
But Dawoodbhai – as his high society friends refer to him – is not just a
distant underworld don anymore. In the lexicon of Hindu militancy, he
symbolises the Muslim as a criminal with extraterritorial loyalty.
Dawood's name
It is scarcely
surprising that Dawood’s name should come to occupy a central role in the
investigations into the horrific serial bombings in Bombay. As allegedly
the country’s most famous NRI hood. Dawood has been built into a
larger-than-life figure blamed for every crime, from a stabbing incident to a
large-scale terrorist attack. Certainly, Dawood has the men, money power
and international connections to have masterminded a sophisticated bombing
operation. Yet, as the Bombay Police Commissioner, Mr. A.S. Samra has
admitted, there is still no prima-facie evidence to implicate Dawood in the
bomb blasts.
Much of the
information seeping out is based on intelligence sources who till less than a
month ago seemed blissfully unaware that more than 1,000 kilos of RDX had been
shipped into the country. If Dawood is involved, then there is no reason
why the Indian Government should not push for his suo motu extradition from
Dubai. Indeed, questions can be legitimately raised as to why no
concerted effort has been made to have him extradited till now despite at least
two murder cases being registered against him.
But pointing the
needle of suspicion towards the Dawood-ISI-Pakistan axis is one thing, using
this to tar the entire Muslim Community with the criminal brush is quite
another. Unfortunately, as the list of accused has filtered through an
insidious campaign has been started by some sections of Hindu Militants to see
the bomb blasts as a Muslim conspiracy for which the entire community must
share the guilt. It is, in a sense, a damnation not too different to what
the Sikh Community had to face in New Delhi after the 1984 riots when every
turbaned individual was seen as a terrorist, or what the Marwaris were
confronted with during the Assam agitation when the entire ethnic group was
pigeonholed as exploiters.
The motives for
this propaganda are transparent enough. In the campaign of bigotry
launched by the Hindu militants, various historical figures and events have
been invoked to widen the communal divide. Mahmud of Ghazni the
temple-destroyer, Aurangazeb the intolerant bigot, Jinnah the partitioner,
Shahi Imam as a fundamentalist leader, the Shah Bano case as a classic example
of Pseudo-secularism, all have been highlighted to legitimise majoritarianism.
Dawood Ibrahim as the gangster par excellence is part of this demonology.
Predictably, the Shiva Sena has lost no time in accusing Dawood and the Muslim
underworld of triggering off the recent communal holocaust without waiting even
for the preliminary findings of the investigative agencies.
Unfortunately, a
section of Hindus has begun to be carried away by the rhetoric. In the
process, they are forgetting a cardinal principle of the underworld; it is as
Mr. Samra points out, more cosmopolitan than the society. The only
religion it knows is money. Dawood’s own case confirms this
mercenary-instinct. A majority of his key men like Chota Rajan, Raj Koli,
Bhai Thakur, Anna Shetty are Hindus. Dawood’s own rise in the underworld
was built on the systematic decimation of the Pathan gang of Karim Lala.
The tragedy is
that the secularists have done little to blast these myths about the underworld.
The notion of an unvbriegated Islamic terrorism is a concept that has gained
popularity in the West in the light of the growing influence of certain
fundamentalist groups in West Asia and North Africa. Rather than examine
the social and economic discontents underlying these movements, the Western
nations have focused solely on the religious dimension. In the process,
they are seeking to reorient their ideological confrontation and fill up an
enemy gap caused by the collapse of the evil Soviet empire.
Search for Enemy
Perhaps, it is the
search for a similar enemy that has led people to fall for the
religio-terrorist argument in this country too. After all, the Hindu
bigot needs to rationalise the recent orgy of violence. The intensity of
the post Ayodhya rioting had already shown how easily the Muslim had become a
hate object. Now, when most of those found to be indulging in recent
unlawful activities are Muslims the secularists are being pushed on the
defensive even as the rank communalists - have adopted a triumphant I-told-you
so attitude.
But neither the
diffidence nor the self-congratulation is called for instead, what is needed is
an honest examination of why someone like Yakub Memon, who till a few years ago
was a Chartered Accountant living in a single-room tenement, should suddenly
become part of a massive terrorist operation. Unfortunately, some
self-styled champions of Hindu machismo, have not stopped to think of the
impact their sloganeering is having on the Muslim psyche.
Frustrated Muslims
When your loyalty
to the nation is repeatedly questioned, you are discriminated at the workplace,
your businesses and homes are destroyed, the psychological scars are bound to
run deep. There is today, in the post-Ayodhya scenario, a large pool of
frustrated Muslims, especially youths, who feel more and more that they have no
stake left in the system. They feel betrayed by the Government, disgusted
with the emotional blackmailing by their community leaders and threatened by
Hindu bigotry.
All this is not to
deny the burgeoning growth worldwide of Islamic fundamentalism and its
terrorist ways or minimize its capacity for mischief in a communally polarized
India. However, it would be counter-productive, at least in the present
circumstances, to project what is primarily a social problem and crisis of
governance as a religious war. This is precisely what some sections of
opinion, Hinduvta or otherwise, are attempting to do. The result
is that every Muslim is being pushed into a situation where he is expected to
wear a badge proclaiming his patriotism. Take the recent controversy over
the Pakistan National Day Celebrations in Bombay. Warnings were issued by
the BJP-Sena and even the Speaker of the Maharashtra Assembly to Government
Officials to desist from attending the function. The irony is that while
Dilip Kumar and Shabana Azmi were labeled anti-national even though they stayed
away from the function, not a word was said about the BJP President, Mr. Murli
Manohar Joshi attending an Iftar dinner thrown by the Pakistan High
Commissioner in New Delhi.
Indeed, the
loyalty test is so patently superficial that it is bound to be exposed sooner
or later. For example, Mr. Thackeray has always seen support for
the Indian Cricket Team when it is playing Pakistan to be a mark of a true
patriot. He might be intrigued to learn that during the one-day
internationals in Sharjah, one man who speaks fluent Marathi has been spotted
waving the tricolour and vociferously cheering the Indian Team. His name
is Dawood Ibrahim."
Source: http://secularjournalists.blogspot.in/2013/01/rajdeep-sardesais-article-on-dawood.html
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