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The Tuesday conclave of Chief Ministers on internal security came and went. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on Tuesday that intelligence agencies had warned more terrorist attacks were likely, possibly on economic and religious targets as well as on nuclear installations. The Centre has presented a grim picture by admitting that cross-border terrorism has spread to the hinterland. Offstumped has analyzed the Prime Minister's speech and here you go.

The Prime Minister's speech spanned 18 paragraphs. It opened with the need for improving center state co-ordination in dealing with security as “Law and Order” is a state subject. Right of the Prime Minister made it clear that his Government thinks Terrorism is a “Law and Order” problem and by implication a conventional crime requiring conventional responses. Let us take a further look at what the Prime Minister had to say.

The Prime Minister informed the CMs about the Home Minister Shiv Raj Patil's Proposals on how to deal with Terrorism. The main stress was on capacity building and improving the capability of the States and Centre. In a pitiable 3 sentences the Prime Minister disposed off the new proposals by asking the States to hire more policeman and to improve intelligence. The Prime Minister then moved on to make clear once again where his Government's priorities lie. Left wing extremism, terrorism, and how to assuage feelings of insecurity among our minorities, specially Muslims.

That was it folks, not a single word on Mumbai or the 200 Mumbaikar deaths.

The Prime Minister's address while offering no new vision or strategy for securing the homeland and defeating terrorism was loaded with obtruse language. The Prime Minister's choice of word's also reflected almost a reluctance to take terrorism head on when he said

Concern about the increasing activities of externally inspired and directed terrorist outfits in the country is justified .

While recognizing that terrorist modules and 'sleeper cells' exist in some of our urban areas, all of which highlight the seriousness of the threat, the bureuacrat in the Prime Minister once again came to the fore with the setting up of formation of a special panel of ministers, which would include the federal interior minister and chief ministers of select states to monitor the spread of Maoist violence and coordinate efforts to counter it.

The meeting comes in the aftermath of the serial blasts in Mumbai after which Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had observed that the past responses to deal with terrorism and naxalism had been "inadequate".

So if “Past Responses were inadequate“ how much better is the present. From the Prime Minister's speech it is clear that his Government continues to be intransigent. To him Terrorism is a Law and Order. What about the Opposition and the media have they fared any better in establishing accountability for 7/11.

Offstumped takes a critical look at how the Opposition BJP and CPI-M have responded as well as how the media has responded since the 55 days after July 11th.

First a hard look at the BJP and how it has let the CPI-M subvert the political debate in a completely different direction/

For weeks now the Bharatiya Janata Party, the only political hope for the Indian Right has been flogging the Vande Mataram horse to death while going completely silent on the Mumbai Blasts.  In an exclusive interview to CNN-IBN, BJP General Secretary Arun Jaitley, however, rejected suggestions that his party had reversed the position its leaders L K Advani and Atal Bihari Vajpayee had taken in 1998 against moves by the Kalyan Singh government on mandating Vande Mataram singing in UP schools. Admitting that the BJP is in the process of undergoing change where the second generation leaders would emerge on top, Jaitley admitted public opinion has not leaned towards his party over the past two years. He said the party is required to concentrate "exclusively" on issues like price rise, economy and security, "rather than allow every third day some irrelevant controversy within us to surface, which diverts public opinion from the UPA's failures."

So why is the BJP so obsessed with trying to make a political point on the Vande Mataram issue while relegating the Mumbai Blasts to the back burner ?

Part of the reason is to polarize political opinion in UP by forcing the muslim political leadership to take a sharp stance on the issue. But how is this helping the BJP across the country. Not a whole lot if one were to go by how the Left has pretty much donned the mantle of Opposition and is setting or rather subverting the agenda. Jaitley complimented the left when he said claiming that it was only the BJP and the Left parties, which has “structured political set-up” in the country.

While the BJP is resting on its laurels the Left has charged ahead and completely subverted the political debate away from  Terrorism and Mumbai Blasts. Offstumped has analyzed how the Left has stolen a march on the BJP.

The CPI-M has completely the shifted the public debate away from security and terrorism by holding the UPA Government to ranson.

CPI-M leader, Sitaram Yechuri, on Friday said the Left parties would withdraw support to the Central government if it moved away from the Common Minimum Programme."Left parties are with the government till it abides by the CMP. GENERAL SECRETARY of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) Prakash Karat today said that any formal decision on the issue of the proposed corporatisation of defence factories would be taken only after consultations with the trade unions associated with the party. The CPI(M) general secretary also targeted the former NDA government for starting ‘future trading’ in the country, which had led to the increase in prices of all essential commodities. He also criticised the foreign policy of the UPA government specially the nuclear deal with the USA. He said India’s vote on the Iran issue was an example of the growing US influence on India’s foreign policy.

So how has the Sitaram Yechury, Prakash Karat duo managed to claim the opposition space from the BJP and shift the debate to irrelevant topics like Iran, Israel Lebanon Hezbollah Conflict rather than 7-11 ?

First an Offstumped refresher on the real political strength of the CPI-M. In the 2004 Lok Sabha elections the CPI-M won a whopping 44 Lok sabha seats an increase of 14 seats. However its vote share was just 5.77%. Contrast this with the BJP's vote shares of 22%. The NDA as a whole garnered 35.9% and the UPA as a whole 35.8%. Further closer look is warranted at where the CPI-M's 43 seats come from. West Bengal - 26, Kerala - 13 and the rest from Tripura, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. Where did the bulk of the 5.69% vote share for the CPI-M come from - again West Bengal where it pocketed 50.7%.  The contrast between the BJP and the Left is even more stark when we recognize that is a party which only truly represents 2 states in India lead by 2 individuals who have never really won a real election pretty much holding all public debate and the agenda of the Manmohan Singh UPA Government hostage to their left of center ideology. On issue after issue, ranging from Defence Privatization, Election Commission, Economic Reforms, Foreign Policy they have injected their insiduous world view to subvert the national debate, lend legitimacy to discredited trade union mafioso and even doctor NCERT Text Books.

So while the BJP Gen-Next are busy doing the rounds of TV Studios how does the CPI-M get away with this kind of subversion with its meagre political strength. It does so partly on account of the critical support it lends to the Manmohan Government for its survival. But more so it is its friends in the media that have been lending it a helping hand along the way, giving undue coverage to its subversive agenda every step of the way. So who are these closet communists ?

At the one end of the spectrum is N. Ram, chief editor of The Hindu. A rather ironic name for this newspaper to cling on to, for neither in its political colors nor in its editorial slant is it in anyway Hindu. N. Ram delivering the Naren Sen Memorial Lecture, 2006, on "the Danger of Imperialism and the role of the Media" made amply clear where his political moorings lie. Offstumped has analyzed his lecture and the recurring theme in his lecture "Imperialism" brings to mind images of Don Quixote battling imaginary wind-mills. Point to note Naren Sen in who's memory the lecture was being delivered was a Communist Trade Union Leader form Kolkota. The parallel universe that the likes of N. Ram and his fellow leftist psuedo intellectual dwell in became quite apparent when Ram went on to rant that the

“Government of Iran has stood up to imperialism much better than the Manmohan Singh Government."

 

This is where the hypocrisy of the left in India comes to the fore. These allegedly godless, atheist, rational non-believers are the most fervent defenders of the rabid, unapologetically Islamic Clerical Regime of Iran. So in their perverse value system a repressive regime that swears by religious fundamentalism is more righteous than a democratic regime elected by universal adult franchise in a secular state. So much so for rationality. The callousness and indifference of the psuedo intellectuals epitomized by N. Ram to Indian Citizens Lives is highlighted amply when N. Ram goes on to lament loss of life in Lebanon

"where Israel continues to demonstrate its contempt for international law, where was the voice of the Indian Government,"

 

but not a word of regret, remorse, anger, or accountability on the 200 Mumbaikar deaths during the 7-11 Mumbai commuter train serial bomb blasts. So in the Left's value system Indian and mostly Hindu Deaths at the hands of Islamic Terrorists are not even worth the Hezbollah Islamic Terrorist Deaths in a remote foreign country at the hands of a Jewish Military. The first while not worthy of even a mention, the second is an international crime.

 

N. Ram's hypocrisy becomes crystal clear when he alludes to the "five news filters" referred to by Noam Chomsky for Offstumped has on multiple occassions exposed how The Hindu's Harish Khare, Siddharth Varadarajan, Vidya Subramanian manufacture consent.

Offstumped has analyzed the editorial page in The Hindu from July 11th to date to highlight the extent to which The Hindu has manufactured consent by taking the CPI-M's line on focusing on the Israel Lebanon Hezbollah conflict and completely ignoring the 7-11 Mumbai Bomb Blasts.

Op-ed columns on Anti-US, Iran, Israel Lebanon Hezbollah Conflict - 2/9, 26/8, 25/8, 22/8, 21/8, 19/8, 14/8, 13/8, 11/8, 10/8, 9/8, 8/8, 7/8, 4/8, 3/8, 2/8, 1/8, 29/7, 28/7, 26/7, 25/7, 24/7, 22/7, 21/7, 20/7, 18/7, 15/7, 12/7

Op-ed columns expressing Muslims Concerns - 29/8, 23/8, 18/8, 16/8, 15/8, 14/8, 5/8, 26/7, 19/7, 17/7, 14/7, 12/7

Op-ed columns on accountability for 7-11 - 17/8, 5/8, 21/7, 18/7, 17/7, 13/7, NO Lead editorial on 12th July.

N. Ram signed off his lecture giving a clear signal to his fellow closet communists in the media that the role of the media was "agenda building" and more specifically "left of center pro-communist agenda building". It can be seen from the above analysis what kind of agenda building N. Ram is referring to. The kind that toes the CPI-M's line, ignores Indian Hindu deaths at the hands of terrorists butgoes out of its way to defend terrorist regimes in the middle east. N. Ram did not just stop with this signal but he also outlined for his closet communist buddies in the Indian Media, Newspapers and Television News Channels how they could accomplish this - by not just reporting and of course coloring the reportage with one's opinions, biases and prejudices but to go a step further and unapologetically campaign. So who are these close communist buddies that N. Ram was signalling to help his pals Karat and Yechury. Well one just has to look at the anchors and op-ed columnists across the Hindustan Times, Outlook India, NDTV, CNN-IBN to spot them. Offstumped has taken up the crusade to out these closet communists in the coming days. Keep an eye on this column.

 The effect of the N. Ram CPI-M line is quite evident in how the larger news media like Indian Express and the UPA Government and more specifically Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi have reacted to the Mumbai Blasts. This is quite evident in the recent spate of news articles on Muslims as a community being targeted in Mumbai and how the Mumbai Blasts investigation is hardening attitudes and encouraging ghettos. While it is not anybody's case that the Muslim community must be harassed, it is quite apalling that seems to be pretty much what everyone from the Media to the ruling dispensation are talking about. The Indian Expess has been running a daily series on this subject by Seema Chisti and today had an op-ed piece. The Hindustan Times has 3 articles on this subject alone today.

Laudable as maybe the concerns around harassment what about the accountability for the blasts ? The situation has an eerie parallel with 1993. Sharad Pawar's admission that he had invented a fictitious blast in a muslim neighbourhood to maintain communal harmony exemplifies the mindset with which the Congress addresses terrorism. It is a mindset that puts the Cart before the Horse.  

The Prime Minister in his remark's at the Chief Minister's conclave confirmed this mindset with his repeated assertions on muslim sensitivities. This leads one to question if the Congress UPA Government has a strategy at all to tackle terrorism. The Prime Minister has told us what we already know and has asked state governments to do what they have already been doing. So if everything the Prime Minister has said and done is the same as the past, which by his own admission was inadequate what guarantees is he offering for the future. With friends like The Prakash Karat, Sitaram Yechury lead Left and their buddy N. Ram it is clear that the Congress as adopted their perverse value system. It is a value system where security for Indian Citizens amounts to nothing specifically when amongst dead on 7-11 in Mumbai were Hindu Gujarati Diamond Merchants. In their perverse value system dead Islamic Terrorists matter more.  It is unfortunate that an intransigent government and a misplaced media outrage have allowed this perverse value system to shift the debate away from Terrorism completely onto addressing Muslim sensitivities

Offstumped Bottomline: Clearly present response from the government, media and opposition is no different from the past despite Manmohan Singh's wishful thinking.  Terrorism has been reduced to a Law and Order Problem While There is a misplaced outrage all around on Muslim Sensitivities.

What about accounting for the 200 Mumbaikar Deaths ? Why arent tough questions being asked of the Intelligence Failures leading upto the Blasts, the emergency response in the immideate aftermath of the blasts and the floundering investigation subsequently. Why arent tough questions being asked on how the Intelligence is being overhauled, how terrorism is going to be pre-empted ?  Why isnt anyone asking the real question if we are any safer since July 11th 2006 ?