Main Issue
Not many of us in Karnataka have spoken about it. We do not know how much and in what detail the news from here appears in the media in the other states. August 30 will be the third anniversary of Prof. M. M. Kalburgi’s assassination and soon after, September 5 will mark the first anniversary of Gauri Lankesh’s cold-blooded murder. Just when we had thought that the truth about the two killings would slip through the memory hole (as in Orwell’s 1984), the Special Investigation Team (SIT) made several arrests in the Gauri Lankesh murder case. One of them, a Parashuram Waghmare from Vijayapura is said to have confessed that he shot Gauri dead. Moving from one link to another, the SIT has been unearthing the case very professionally. What is unfolding everyday and reported in detail by the newspapers is a chilling narrative. It is a narrative which could easily be dismissed as a brilliant crime fiction by Dan Brown, if not for the solid evidences that are coming up every day. Right in the midst of a democratic republic, you have a right-wing organisation which is meticulously preparing and executing a diabolic plan of eliminating writers and activists who are radical critics of hindutva.
What will probably never be revealed is the cold-blooded decision made by the elite right-wing ideologues to create a perfect killing mechanism which is perhaps operational in all states in India. It is a systematic process and the first step is to recruit the killers and accomplices. For this, the active and dedicated looking young men who attend the hindutva programmes are tracked and approached. In Gauri’s case it was a person from Maharashtra. Very few among the thousands who attend the Hindutva jagruthi (raising awareness) programmes know about the recruitment process. The selected young men are then taken to more such programmes and discussions.
The second stage is brain washing. Waghmare was shown videos of Gauri’s speeches, to which he reportedly said “My blood boiled”. He was then gradually motivated to punish her. When the possible recruits are thus “persuaded”, the next stage begins. These recruits are then trained to use revolvers in many of the hidden forest areas by former police personnel and professionals. The motive is to eventually turn them into sharp shooters. Where do the weapons come from? In Gauri’s case the SIT discovered that it was a person in Karnataka who had built a veritable fortress with three rungs of security gates. He was a respectable citizen but as it turned out, he was also a dealer in arms. Newspaper reports say that the people of his village often noticed men speaking different Indian languages going to his place.
This last, most innocuous detail, as in the darkest of crime stories, is the most chilling. (Brush up your Agatha Christie and Alfred Hitchcock). This is exactly what the ordinary citizens around a notorious Hindutva organisation in Goa said. Strangers and outsiders, speaking non-local languages, visiting places that even the locals have no access to. What is chilling is the truly ‘national’ character of the criminal network. The obvious inference is that these groups are everywhere in India. Young men (usually Shudras and some Dalit) are being recruited every day and trained in the nodal murder centres.
The SIT also discovered that lists of writers, intellectuals and other radical critics of Hindutva were exchanged by participants of the crime. So, you have a veritable who’s who of dangerous intellectuals with the killers. The next stage is the planning and rehearsals. Here also, it is the respectable common citizens who rent out rooms and houses and feed the assassins. A practicing doctor sheltered Gauri’s killers in his clinic. I will not get into details like how the bike carrying the killers was procured because I do not want to ruin the great career of a future of crime fiction writer.
Where does that leave us? The furious debates about secularism, freedom of expression, candle light processions, and TV discussions are for the consumption of imbeciles and morons like me and you. It is the right-wing governmentality and crony capitalism in India which traps you into ‘democratic’ televised discussions which is exactly the distraction right-wing wants. Why? So that a vast and stupendous network of murder can continue to operate all across India. The most cold-blooded decision has already been made to implement the final solution. Kill them. A vast machine works efficiently from recruitment to the clueless disappearance of the killers all across India. As you walk across the nearby lane, the invisible operators are tracking you. On a quiet Sunday morning or a calm evening, a bike is waiting. On it are two people who hardly know each other. One of them will shoot you down point blank. The other will speed away. That is if you are on the list. Dial H for murder.
From August 30 to September 5, an unusual week is going to be observed in Karnataka. From one anniversary of a killing to another. We want to rupture the deafening silence on the most shocking exposé of post-independence India. The SIT in Karnataka has unearthed the greatest crime against Indian democracy and our constitution. I nearly died laughing when someone suggested that the most powerful male in India does not probably know about what the fringe elements are doing. For the first time I understood what I had been explaining to my students while teaching Derrida. It is the margin which defines the centre. The margin therefore is the centre.
P.S.: Dear reader, the facts and details in this write up are not from a dystopian fiction. Every detail is from reports on the disclosures by the SIT investigating Gauri Lankesh’s murder.
Courtesy: Indian Cultural Forum