What can stop the Hindu Pilgrims at Amarnath from being murdered year after year?
- Hindutva News Analysis
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Hindu Pilgrims massacred by Islamic Terrorists at the Amarnath Yatra (Holy Journey)
The Amarnath Yatra is an annual event. So also is massacre of these Hindu pilgrims by Islamic terrorists an annual event. A similar massacre happened last year and the year before last too and most probably will happen next year too. No amount of security is going to prevent this annual morbidity.
Incidentally the Amarnath Yatra is a pilgrimage where Hindu pilgrims ascend the Himalaya mountains in the Kashmir Valley from Pahalgam (Base Camp) via Chandanvadi and Sheshnag to the Amarnath cave. In this cave the Hindu pilgrims worship an ice Stalagmite located in one of the caves at Amarnath. This Stalagmite is a natural formation and changes in its size with the change of seasons. In summer it partially melts and so is smaller in size. But since it is above the snow-line, it never fully melts. (Now with global warming, it may melt entirely one of these days! And then the pilgrims who reach there will have nothing to worship. But then some smart Pujari (priest) can install a stone image and say that it is a svayambhu (literally self-born, divine creation) Murti (image) and pull wool over the eyes of the god-fearing lay Hindus.)
The fact that today it (i.e. the ice Stalagmite) never melts is assumed by the devout among the Hindu to be a divine act. The Stalagmite itself is worshipped since it is considered a divine creation. While one may wonder what is divine about a Stalagmite or a Stalactite, which are natural formations made of ice or any other soluble material like calcium carbonate (these are more long lasting than ice, since they never melt).
Worship of a Stalagmite - as a Shiva-Linga
According to Hindu presumptions, the Stalagmite represents a Shiva-linga. Shiva is a Hindu god and the Linga is the Sanskrit term for the 'male reproductive and urinary organ'. Since any Stalagmite looks like the 'male reproductive and urinary organ', this one is presumed by the god-believing among the Hindus to represent the Linga of their god Shiva. Hence they flock to Amarnath every year to worship the ice Stalagmite!
The Stupidity of the Hindu Pilgrims and the Criminal gravity of their murderers
Anyway whatever one's assessment of this act of worship, it is a free world and the Hindu pilgrims who go to Amarnath are certainly not committing any crime. But the killers of these innocent Hindu pilgrims are certainly committing a crime against humanity. The actions of these killers may be described by the Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf as those of freedom fighters. As would Yasser Arafat describe the acts of terrorism being committed day-in and day-out by the Palestinian terrorists against the citizens of Israel, as those of freedom fighters and compare them with the American Revolutionaries (Arafat had done this many years back when he addressed the UN General Assembly for the first time). But our question to Arafat and Musharraf is:
Deterrence to such Crimes against Humanity
These theology-inspired terrorists go berserk not only at Amarnath in Kashmir but all across the globe, be it at the World Trade Center in the US or the Embassies at Nairobi (Kenya) and Dar-e-salaam (Tanzania), or at Gaza, Mindanao (Philippines), Malaku (Indonesia) and at many other places along the Civilizational fault line that runs across the globe. And the only effective deterrence against the poison that they and their outlook of terror personify; is not an antidote but a surgery that is far more potent, deadly and effective against the theology-inspired terrorists. We need to realize that these theology-inspired scraps of humanity are highly-motivated, thoroughly brainwashed, globally organised and well funded by petro-dollars and the narcotics trade. They cannot be dealt with a National Missile Defense (NMD). They can only be met with more deadly counter-terrorism.
Only Counter Terrorism can wipe out the scourge of Theology-inspired Terrorism
Since they have chosen to behave like beasts, we have two options:
1. To treat snake bite and snake-venom with an antidote i.e. to go on the defensive by deploying more troops at the scene of the crime. But this has proved to be an impotent failure. (In the context of Amarnath, even if one deploys the entire Indian Army to protect the pilgrims, they cannot prevent the slaughter in future.)
2. The second option is to solve the problem of snake bite and snake venom with a stick and smash the snake's head, i.e. to go on the offensive.
Many readers will find this option repugnant, since they would be civilized folks. But here we are dealing with mindless beasts which is what the theology-inspired terrorists are. Say for example if the Hamas, or Hezbollah or Islamic Jihad repeatedly carries out a slaughter of Jewish Pilgrims (similar to that at Amarnath), at the Wailing Wall or at the Yad Vashem memorial in Israel! Then how could the Israelis rightfully react? By shooting down the planes and torpedoing the ships that carry Haj pilgrims? Will this be necessary to bring the theology-inspired terrorist to heel? This, as an instant reaction to the killings like those at Amarnath; finds a parallel in the retaliatory missile attacks on bases of Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan and of the 'medicine' factory in Sudan that manufactured the bombs and ammo which the terrorists used at Nairobi and Dar-e-salaam. Will such a thing be necessary? The time has come to ask ourselves such a morbid question.
Many will censure us for even mentioning this hypothetical possibility. Many others will tell us that two wrongs do not make a right and that violence can be stopped only with non-violence. But for us this advice is like telling a man facing a man-eater tiger to be patient and not violently counter the tiger's moves to eat him up! We need to remind those who have moral scruples that we need a hunter to hunt a wild beast, and if he fails to hunt the beast; the hunter will end up by becoming a meal for the man-eater tiger!!
Despite saying all this, we know that from across the civilized globe, many of us fall for the outcry to 'stop violence'; that is made by former terrorists and aggressors like Yasser Arafat and Pervez Musharraf, we should ask ourselves "Who started the violence in Gaza, West Bank, Chechnya, Kashmir, Kargil, Nairobi, Dar-e-salaam, Malaku, Mindanao, etc.?" Those who started the violence and are perpetrating it will have to pay for it with their lives. Only when this happens can the perpetrators of this cult of violence be brought to their knees. And only then can this cycle of terror stop.
We wonder if there is a third option!
(This Hindutva Site is managed by a Virtual Team of Webmasters across the globe. The articles included at this site do not necessarily represent the views of the Webmasters.)
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