New Hindu terrorists emerge, feeding on intolerance.

The cult of intolerance is growing in the state. A small bomb explosion at a theatre enacting an irreverent and allegedly blasphemous play, and an attack on a newspaper editor show that people, who owe allegiance to  certain ideologies, cannot digest criticism or dissent.

The bomb went off and injured seven people at the parking area of Gadkari Rangayatan theatre in Thane, minutes before the play Amhi Pachpute (We, The Pachputes) began on June 4. A few days earlier, a bomb had been defused at Navi Mumbai's Vishnudas Bhave theatre, where the same play was being staged.

The state Anti Terrorist Squad (ATS) arrested four persons after the blast. Two of them, Ramesh Gadkari (50) and Mangesh Nikam (34), were members of Sanatan Dharma Sanstha, a Hindu organisation, and had joined protests against Ashutosh Gowarikar's film Jodhaa Akbar and a Marathi stage spoof on the Mahabharata. Two others, Vikram Bhave and Santosh Angre, were members of Hindu Janajagruti Samiti as well as the Sanstha.

Both organisations had questioned M.F. Husain's paintings which depicted Hindu gods in a controversial manner. ATS officers said these groups were behind a small explosion on February 20 in a Panvel theatre that was showing Jodhaa Akbar, which they believed glorified the Mughal emperor. In the case of Amhi Pachpute, they had a grudge against the playwright Santosh Pawar, who also penned Yadakadachit, a spoof on the Mahabharata.

ATS chief Hemant Karkare said all three bombs contained ammonium nitrate and gelatin sticks. Nikam acquired the chemicals and made the bombs at Bhave's place, and Gadkari went to Rangayatan and placed it in a motorcycle in the parking lot. Though Nikam and Gadkari told the police that they worked full-time for the two organisations, there was no other evidence connecting either of the groups to the blast. "We have also not found any link between the duo and Sangh parivar organisations," said Karkare.

The ATS found that Hindu Janajagruti Samiti officials had written to the Thane police commissioner urging him to stop the play as it depicted Hindu gods in a poor light. Besides, the motorcycle in which the bomb was planted was registered in the name of Gurukripa Pratishthan, which runs the Sanatan ashram at Panvel, Raigad district.

Sanatan Dharma Sanstha was founded by Dr Jayant Athavale in 1990 and has ashrams in India and abroad. It runs a newspaper called Sanatan Prabhat and claims to work for the revival of Hindu spirituality. Hindu Janajagruti Samiti was formed by Dr Uday Dhuri in 2002. Their top leaders, who allegedly fled to Karnataka after arrests in the blast, have denied involvement in the incident.

An intelligence officer said the two organisations had come under police scrutiny following a small bomb blast in Ratnagiri district in 2006. "These attacks may not be as powerful as the one carried out by Islamic fundamentalists, but the basic motive of intolerance remains the same. By admitting the crime, the accused want to emerge heroes in the eyes of the Hindu youth who are being cultivated by similar organisations," he said. He said the four arrested persons could be called Hindu terrorists.

The arrests came as a relief for the Congress-NCP government. Both the ruling parties have demanded that the Samiti and the Sanstha be banned. Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh said the arrests shattered the belief that terror attacks were carried out only by a certain community. The BJP, however, was not willing to accept that the Samiti and the Sanstha were behind the attacks. True to form, the Shiv Sena's mouthpiece Saamna called for a Hindu suicide squad to counter Islamic ?fundamentalists.

Another intolerant attack was on the house of Kumar Ketkar, editor of Lok Satta, a leading Marathi daily of The Indian Express group.  After a recent government decision to erect a statue of Chhatrapati Shivaji in the sea off Nariman Point, Ketkar had written a sarcastic editorial titled Avatarali Shivshahi (Emergence of Shivshahi). The reign of Shivaji in the 1600s was one of the best in Maharashtra. Ketkar's editorial said tongue-in-cheek that all problems of the state had ended and that the Deshmukh rule was nothing short of a Shivshahi.

The next day, activists of Shiv Sangram, an organisation headed by former NCP legislator Vinayak Mete, attacked Ketkar's residence in Thane. Mete justified it saying the editorial had criticised Shivaji. Groups of journalists held demonstrations demanding Mete's arrest, but only some of his followers were booked. While the police claimed that he had absconded, he was in fact present at the NCP headquarters along with Deputy Chief Minister R.R. Patil. He has since been sacked from the post of NCP vice-president.

The bomb and the attack are danger signals for a society that reveres the 16th century poet-saint Tukaram who said, "Nindakache Ghar Asave Shejari" (The critic should ideally reside next door).





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