Imagine they were Christian missionaries, or Islamic terrorists.....

S Gurumurthy

All four of them were kidnapped, over two years ago, in August 1999. By a leading purveyor of terrorism in Tripura, the National Liberation Front of Tripura. The Indian intelligence knows that the American-powered Baptist Church, which keeps spreading the poison of separatism among the tribals of North East, fully backs this terrorist outfit.

Now, after two years it has been confirmed that the terrorists have snuffed out the kidnap victims. Both the Central Government and the Tripura Government have confirmed their deaths. But most Indians are unaware of the abduction earlier and of their death now.

Why was this abduction the least known? Why no screaming headlines day after day. Why no stinging editorials week after week. No biting criticisms from secular columnists. No statements from secular intellectuals. No accusation from secular leaders or their parties. No adjournment or other motions in Lok Sabha. No storming of the well, no strangulation of the Rajya Sabha asking to dismiss the Tripura government. Why?

Simple. Though highly dedicated social workers, the victims happened to be Hindus. Worse still, they were all RSS men. But, not one of them is an ordinary RSS worker; every one a responsible leader of the organization.

Shyamal Sengupta was the secretary of the RSS for the entire Eastern India. Sudhamoy Dutta was a fulltime worker of RSS in charge of the Agartala segment. Dinendra Nath Dey was in charge of the organisation in South Assam. And Subha Shankar Chakraborty was a full time worker of the organization in charge of a district in Tripura. They were kidnapped and killed precisely because they were fighting the violent separatist elements in the North East like the National Liberation Front of Tripura.

Since Independence, North East India has become the hunting ground for different denominations of the Christian churches for their religious head count through organized and un-resisted conversions. Nowhere in the world churches of all denominations are allowed to hunt the less informed people as in India; more importantly, as in the North East. Most of the foreign churches carry their national flag.

The Anglican Church carries the British Flag. The Lutheran the German flag. The Baptist the American flag. So do the Danish, Dutch and all other national churches. They carry their flags and politics wherever they go. There is more of politics, global politics, than Christianity in the work of most national churches. The geo-political designs of the US internalize the role of the church. It is such geopolitical designs of the West during the cold war, which handed over drugs and guns to the youth of the North East. And this is what extended terrorism and separatism to others in the most sensitive area of our country.

International aid money for religious conversions to drug funds operate in this region to make the tribals believe that they have nothing to do with India, as to disfigure India. The sermon of most of the foreign national churches to the less informed tribals is that they are distinct and separate. So they must become separate from India. This is what these four kidnapped and killed patriots were resisting and fighting against.

But it is workers like them who rush to render relief to the victims of flood or drought, earthquakes or other disasters. When the Russian and Saudian aircraft had a mid-air collision near Delhi, and all mutilated bodies, most of them of Muslims, were strewn around, it was the RSS workers who rushed first to the spot and took charge of everything, including the cremation of the stinking flesh remains, and restoration of the valuables. Even its worst detractors admit that be it war times or at peace time, the work of the RSS has been commendable. But their good work goes mostly unreported by the media. Nevertheless the media puts them on the front page whenever it has t, for precisely the wrong reasons. But anyway they do not work to get the media attention. Like in work, in their kidnapping and death administered by the terrorists also, the four patriots have been denied recognition. But they did not work or die to get the recognition of any.

Imagine it was the other way round. Had the kidnapped and killed been Christian missionaries. Let it be just one missionary, not four. What would the secular editors, newspapers, columnists have not said. "barbaric communalism at work" "secularism in danger" "fascism at play" and what not. What would not the secular political leaders and parties have done? Would they have allowed Parliament to function?

The completely fabricated nun rape case in Jhabua in Madhya Pradesh had debilitated the nation's mind for months and months.

Thanks to the secular megaphones in the media and politics, the whole world was made to believe that it was some kind of pastime in India to rape nuns. Even after the incident was proved fabricated, not a single accuser withdrew his word. Not a single newspaper expressed regret. Not a single political leader regretted his hysterical conduct.

Not a single political party expressed guilt at having misled the nation. The less said about those Christian leaders, who took millions of captive school children on to the streets to protest against the false rape, the better. Now the court in Jhabua has explicitly ruled that there was no communal rape. Most newspapers did not even report the court verdict, thus serving the cause of secularism.

Even if the killed four had been Islamic terrorists, there would be enough secular elites and editors who would walk up to the Wagah border with candles in their hands to plead for peace so that no more killings take place. It is a different matter that they would not have the guts to walk in the streets of Srinagar and Anantnag with the same message of peace. Their struggle for peace is conditioned by assured protection, which the government can give at Wagah, not in Kashmir.

This is the drift in the national mind. This is what made V P Singh who was the prime minister (when the Kashmiri Hindus were thrown out of their domicile of thousands of years on to the streets of Delhi) not to visit the Kashmiri Hindus who had become refugees in their own land of birth.

They were at the refugee camps in Delhi, a stone's throw from the PMs office and home. He knew the rule of Indian polity that it was un-secular to meet the

Jihad victims who belonged to the majority faith. He never saw them till he ceased to be the PM and even after.

It is not without reason that he is an unquestioned leader of the secularists! It is this drift, which makes responsible editors of newspapers to arrange meetings of the Jihad-advocating-Kashmiri separatists with the elites of India. Like V P Singhs, they would not even meet the victims of Jihad, much less arrange the meetings of the victims.

The logic is clear. It will be un-secular to be seen with the victims who belong to the majority faith, but totally secular to work with the Jihadis. With those who religious head hunt in the North East.

Nothing is more indicative of a drifting mind. This is what the four kidnapped patriots had fought to resist, and got kidnapped and killed.