------

Will there be more 'Gujarats' now?

Washington DC: July 3, 2002 : Indian prime minister Pundit Atal Bihari Vajpayee's much hyped reshuffle, of the biggest (78 yes 78 member) central cabinet in Indian history has resulted in the Brahmin-fundamentalist BJP coterie's tally increasing to fifty six ministers.

This increase of BJP ministers to fifty six is at the cost of the other members of the NDA coalition government (like TDP, DMK, Trinamul and Samata) who failed to restrain the assertive 'Saffron' (read fascist) BJP hardliners who like the frogs in the old Persian proverb 'are teasing the old snake of a prime minister' and showing contempt not only for their coalition partners but also for the one billion down-trodden people of India a majority of whom live in squalor for under one dollar a day. For a quick backgrounder please see Khalistan Calling dated June 19, 2002, headlined; "Time magazine reveals the meat-eating, whiskey-drinking follies of the 'asleep on the wheel' Indian prime minister Pundit Vajpayee," at: <http://www.khalistan-affairs.org/main/k_calling/kc06192002.htm>

With Monday's (July 01) central cabinet expansion and resignations, the Indian Union council of ministers will consist of 32 ministers of Cabinet rank (only one of whom is a Sikh, Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa, who will be incharge of Chemicals and fertiliser watched over by a Hindu-fundamentalist minister of state, Tapan Sikdar), six ministers of state will have independent charge, and 40 ministers of state will assist cabinet ministers, thus making it the largest 'council of ministers' of any country in the world. It is obvious that the expose` in the June 17, 2002, Time magazine headlined, "Asleep on the wheel", planted by someone (Advani?), has damaged ageing Pundit Vapayee's confidence, reputation and grip on power, as Karachi-born 'hawk' L. K. Advani has been appointed deputy prime minister - a post not even sanctioned by the Indian constitution.

It seems that the real story of Monday's major Cabinet reshuffle in New Delhi is, that the morally repugnant, Hindu-fundamentalist, Swastika-worshipping puppeteers who control the minority-hating Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have realized that the party's political fortunes are withering after the poor showing in the midterm elections in four states, among them Punjab and UP. Some morally repugnant hardliners among them, like L. K. Advani, Yashwant Sinha and Murli Manohar Joshi et. al., for example, believe that doing another 'Gujarat pogrom' on some minority (Sikh, or Christian, or Muslim) elsewhere in India would enhance the BJP's fortunes in any election as would any spat with Pakistan in Kashmir or elsewhere a la Kargil. They see the reshuffle as an effort to do something about it because it signals that they are not going to sink with an ageing one-term prime minister as was the case with the Congress party under Prime minister P. V. Narasimha Rao. Having now asserted its supremacy over its coalition partners in the centre with the reshuffle (where even Foreign minister Jaswant Singh - a Vajpayee confidant - has been replaced by a discredited and tarnished Finance minister Yashwant Sinha) political observors in India believe, the communal BJP is now ready to bring its past fascist agenda out of the closet like for example, its determination to build a temple at the site of the demolished Babri mosque and its desire to scrap Article 370 of the constitution.

Yesterday's appointment of a 'rabid Hindu' like Vinay Katiyar as BJP party president in UP is mark of this. The BJP may even open a new anti-Muslim agitation - or anti/Muslim pogrom - in Delhi to demolish the Quwat-ul-Islam mosque which eight hundred years old structure still stands defiantly under the shadow of the famous Qutub Minar built in 1209 AD by Sultan Qutubuddin Aibak of the Slave dynasty and is located adjacent to a two thousand years old Iron pillar from the Hindu period which may or may not have been part of an ancient temple complex.

The BJP's leadership appears to have convinced - with help from the Time magazine article in their hands probably - the 'red-faced', slow-moving, 77 year old Indian Prime minister, Pundit Atal Bihari Vajpayee, that he should limit his ambitions to one term because of the bad press. The acceptance of Advani as deputy prime minister not only by the NDA coalition, but also by the reluctant Indian prime minister, Pundit Vajpayee as well, was, therefore, crucial - a coup d'etat really. Here George Fernandes played a very important role by successfully mustering support for Advani among the non-BJP ministers in the NDA coalition. In order to do that it seems, he won over the huge, and very influential, defence establishment (over which he presides as defence minister and which group has lobbying links with everyone on the political spectrum) by promising it what every Indian soldier craves for - the 'moon' of accelrated promotion.

In a very synchronized coincidence the Indian Army chief, General S. Pad-mar-abhan, has found it expedient to push for a new senior army rank, just below full general, (according to a PTI report published in the June 30, 2002, Times of India newspaper <http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow.asp?art_ID=14565669> headlined, "Army proposes creation of new rank to retain officers,") under a full scale cadre review he undertook on his own, which he is submiting to Defence minister George Fernandes this week. This cadre review calls for the creation of forty new posts of a new rank of Colonel General just below the rank of General and above a Lt. General. It also recommends that the number of Lt. Generals be increased from the present 60 to 154. The army cadre review also recommends that the number of Major Generals who usually command Army divisions should be more than doubled to 440 from the present 196. As regards the lowest flag officer rank in the army - the Brigadier - the Indian army Chief wants to increase the number of Brigadiers from the present 824 to the huge figure of 1,485 thus inflating the total number of flag officers in the already top-heavy Indian army to 2, 119 from the present 1, 039. The above proposal is only for the Indian army and makes no mention of the Navy or Airforce who have their own ambitions.

The above mentioned Times of India report also omitted to point out, for sake of comparison, that only one Lt. General, twelve Major Generals and thirty six Brigadiers (total of 39 flag officers) command the over a million strong IDF (Israeli Defence Force which includes the Israeli airforce and the navy) in war or a much reduced number in peace time. The Times of India also omitted to give a figure of the cost of this Indian army 'cadre review' proposal as senior flag officers in the army are entitled to batmen, ADC's, quarter gaurds, mess havaldars, bungalows, cars, trailers, railway saloons, etc., etc.

It is obvious from the above that the fascist BJP has reverted to its Hinduvta agenda and hardline politics as it wants to captalise on the new 'favourable international atmosphere' in which the Western powers and the oil-rich Muslim states - to their eternal shame - have generally ignored the horrible on-going state-sponsored Gujarat genocide and ethnic cleansing - since February 28, 2002 - of the peaceful and timid - mostly traders, Rikshaw pullers & labourers - Muslim minority there. We Sikhs, known the world over for our valour, chivalry and God-given muscle, better be prepared for more 'Gujarats' in different states of the world's largest Castocracy - India - and organize ourselves to help the oppressed who ever they may be - Christians or Muslims or lower caste Hindu Dalits.

No one in the international community should have any doubt that the morally repugnant BJP thugs now on the ascend after the cabinet reshuffle will heat up the war of nerves on the Indo/Pakistan border and disputed Kashmir by 'inventing' an event which they will parade as a casus belli a la the phony December 13 attack on the Indian parliament last year. These nuclear-illiterate BJP 'Brahmin-fundamentalist mad bombers' do not realize that one miscalculation, by either side, could lead to a nuclear war in which the battlefield will not only be in Kashmir-Delhi-Bombay but will also envelop the sacred soil of Punjab, its Sikh holy shrines and its people who want no part of any war as the wind direction in summer, or winter, favours Pakistani nukes.

KHALISTAN ZINDABAD : LONG LIVE KHALISTAN