Shinde’s Shenanigans Grievously Damage National Unity, Integrity and Security

Home Minister Shinde has given comfort to India’s enemies with his reckless assertions at the Congress Party’s Jaipur chintan shivir that the BJP and the RSS were running “terror training” camps to spread Hindu terror throughout the country.

Clearly, Shinde’s comments lend credence to the belief that it is a clumsy attempt to cause communal polarisation simply with an eye to winning Muslim votes by instilling a sense of deep insecurity and victimisation among them.

In the process, he has not only provided grist to the propaganda mills of Pakistan’s state and quasi-state Jihadists and media mujahideen to portray India as no different from Pakistan in its involvement with terrorism. They are also being used to deepen communal cleavages in the country and provide justification to acts of terrorism by Pakistani sponsored groups like the Indian Mujahideen. These comments have furthermore politicised terrorism and thus, undermined national security, which ironically Shinde is sworn to defend as the Union Home Minister.

Sadly, in this he enjoys the dubious company of the newly anointed Vice President and heir-apparent of the Congress Party. Rahul Gandhi betrayed his shocking ignorance about the challenge posed by Pakistani-based international terror groups like the Lashkar-e-Taiba/Jamaatud Dawa when he told a former US Ambassador that more than the Pakistani Jihadists who had spread murder and mayhem in India over two decades, he saw a bigger threat from the growth of radicalised Hindu groups.

If indeed Shinde has evidence of any terrorist training camps being run by the BJP and RSS, then he must explain why his government has not acted against them. The fact that despite investigating the Samjhauta, Malegaon and Mecca Masjid blasts for a couple of years now, and arresting dozens of alleged conspirators, the Congress-led government has not even been able to bring these cases to the trial stage, increasingly suggests that these investigations are bogus.

Shinde must furnish proof to back up his charges, failing which he needs to consider his position and do the honourable thing.