Why are we protesting outside the Pakistani high commission in London?

By Adit Kothari

This 26th November marks the fourteenth year of the dreadful attacks at the heart of our country’s financial capital Mumbai. This is that unpleasant day when ten uninvited Pakistani infiltrators entered the shores of Mumbai via the sea route, embarked at different ports and launched a coordinated attack at five different locations. Upon reaching the five major locations—Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus railway station, Cama Hospital, Nariman House business and residential complex, Leopold Cafe, Taj Hotel and the Oberoi-Trident Hotel, they began a flurry of indiscriminate shooting and bombings which killed 166 people and injured more than 350 people. This episode not only brought the city to a standstill but the entire country to its feet as the rest of the world looked on.

To pay a tribute to the many lives lost and impacted by this absolutely senseless killing, the British Indian diaspora in London has decided to galvanise and encourage the community to come out and stage a protest outside the Pakistan High Commission in Belgravia, London, on 26th Nov, 2022.

 

The background of this protest is really to keep the discourse alive about Islamic Terror which has been responsible for the reprehensible and ghastly attacks the world-over for the last 20 odd years. India, however, has been pleading before the world to take cognisance of our plight of having to fight this menace long before that.

The scope of the protest will be to raise awareness of this and to most importantly ensure “We #NeverForget and #NeverForgive” Pakistan for using terrorism as State Policy.

The 26/11 attack was really India’s 9/11 moment where the attack was not on Mumbai alone but essentially on our collective conscience. `

Through this protest, the endeavour will be to raise the awareness so the world can come together in demanding accountability from Pakistan for being the world’s terror workshop. There is ample evidence available to link Pakistan’s land being used to execute 9/11 also. Three out of the four bombers involved in the dreadful 7/7 London Bombings were of Pakistani origin who received training in jihadist camps in Pakistan. Thus, it becomes more relevant to remind not only the Indians back home but Indians the world-over while raising more awareness within British society on how we’ve endured these vain attacks without substantial retribution and cost.

We Indians also tend to have memories not much better than that of a goldfish and thus we move on too quickly. It’s imperative that we remind ourselves that genesis of the Jihadi/Islamic Terror is directly linked with the birth and foundations of Pakistan. It was on 22nd Oct 1947, that fateful day when the newly-founded Pakistan used its non-State actors to attack Jammu & Kashmir (J&K). The Pashtun tribal/kabailis were essentially irregulars of the Pakistani Army who crossed into J&K, looted, pillaged, raped & killed the local populace. Eventually the charade was off and the Pakistani army formally entered the war in 1948. This plan was called ‘Operation Gulmarg’ planned by Col. Sher Khan and had been hatched as early as 20th Aug 1947, literally five days post-Partition. The reason why it’s imperative for us to remember this war is simply to learn the lessons of deceit.

 

However, our polity combined with our bureaucracy has failed us over and over again to take equitable and proactive measures to thwart these nefarious attacks.

The 1971 Bangladesh liberation war is where things get interesting. The humiliating defeat was too much to swallow for the Pakistani establishment. In an introspective session, it was agreed that to defeat India in a conventional war was impossible so the intelligence wing of the army devoted themselves to carve out a programme called ‘Operation Tupac’. While the ISI was involved with supplying arms to the guerrillas in the North East of India from the 1950’s, the real issues only began post the 1971 war when the plan was strategic and clear – to bleed India with a 1,000 cuts. The scope was clear – create unrest within India and hope it would self-implode and trigger Balkanisation. They exploited porous border areas and even used Nepal & Myanmar to set up bases to train anti-India militants to create sleeper cells. This was the strategy that helped them create insurgencies in J&K and also Punjab—which the Pakistani intelligence called ‘Plan K2’ – Kashmir & Khalistan.

The rest is history thereafter.

Through this strategy, Pakistan has been able to inflict enormous pains through the years. Be it the 1993 or the 2008 bombings in Bombay which cumulatively took over 350 lives or the terrorist attacks in Pune, Akshardham, Amarnath, Samjautha Express. We have been inclined to forget and forgive too easily without demanding greater accountability.

These are just some of the attacks that I have pointed out and one can already guesstimate the overwhelming number of innocents that have lost their lives due to Pak Sponsored terrorism.

Further, it is more important that we as Hindus, never forget this attack as there was a deliberate attempt by the then ruling Congress government to paint this attack as an inside job by the RSS. Had Tukaram Omble not demonstrated absolute bravery by fielding 40 bullets to ensure Kasab was caught alive, the final nails on the coffin for RSS had been arranged and foundations laid to shun the BJP away from Indian politics for good.

RVS Mani who was serving as an under-secretary in the Home Ministry at the time outlined in his book – Hindu terror – how the Congress were unwavering to proving the narrative of the Hindu Terror at the cost of irrefutable facts on the ground pointing this towards Pakistan. He further went on to say that 26/11 Mumbai attacks were a “fixed match between the Congress & the ISI” which no one in India has the gall to debate despite all the merits. This has allowed politicians like Digvijay Singh to continue their political lives with absolute normalcy and business as usual.

Hopefully through this protest, we hope to encourage more discourse and discussion within our communities about our shared predicament which hopefully the government of India and the various opposition parties could reflect on as key actionable items. The message to the world is simple – take a leaf out of India’s sufferings to ensure you too do not tread on the lines of political correctness which will result only in emboldening the Islamic Jihad.

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(Adit Kothari is a London based IT consultant passionate about dismantling a persistent Anti-India & Anti-Hindu narrative)