Summary: This is the first post in a series. The next is 4GW in India – more people who want to watch the world burn. It’s not about India, or specific religions. This is the dark side of humanity, a battle that has to be fought each generation. Sometimes the battle goes poorly, as these killers find homes in both sides of the many non-trinitarian (or 4th generation wars) that rage across the globe.
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Many people who have neither traveled through the third world nor read Martin van Creveld’s new book, Culture of War, did not take this seriously:
“He can’t be bought, bullied or negotiated with… some people just want to see the world burn.”
— Alfred (Michael Caine) speaking of the Joker, in The Dark Knight (2008)
What would they make of this insight in the CIA? Perhaps their reaction would be like that of critic James Bowman:
Are there such men? Conceivably. But history affords no example of them, outside of comic books and the movies, attaining the sort of power it would take actually to burn the world, or even any very significant part of it.
Reality seems to provide a natural check upon such people in the form of a shortage of those who both (a) share their psychosis and (b) are willing to play the part of humble assistant — rather than starring as the evil genius themselves — in accomplishing their purposes. This problem for the would-be evil geniuses — a reassurance to the rest of us — is what creates the distinctive unreality of Mr Nolan’s movie.
How wonderful it would be to live in Mr. Bowman’s world. A world in which there would be no people like Babu Bajrangi, who says in this interview published on 3 November 2007 in the Indian newspaper Tehelka (Wikipedia entry). These people flourish in our world, finding homes in all sides of all 4GW conflicts. These are our enemies. The practitioners of real-politics who ally with them betray our civilisation and do us no good.
Not so, as we see in the thread and on sites like Bill Quick — who just require that kills have a good excuse. See the update at the end of this post.
Back to the interview:
Bajrangi: My role was as follows: I was the first to start the [Naroda] Patiya operation… We and the local residents were all together. Patiya is just half a kilometre away from my home… I had gone to Godhra when it happened… I could not bear what I saw… The next day, we gave them a fitting reply…
TEHELKA: What were you unable to tolerate in Godhra?
Bajrangi: Any person who saw the Godhra kaand [massacre] would have felt like just killing them at once, hacking them apart… that’s how it was…
TEHELKA: You were there?
Bajrangi: Yes, yes, I was with them… So the Godhra kaand happened and after what I saw, I just came back to Naroda and we took revenge. … We and the Chharas carried out the Patiya massacre… After that, we all went to jail… People gave us a lot of money after we were jailed.
… TEHELKA: The day the Muslims were killed…
Bajrangi: I spoke to Jaideepbhai 11 or 12 times… aur humne tabiyat se kaata… Haldighati bana di thi [and we killed at will, turned the place into Haldighati]… And I am proud of it, if I get another chance, I will kill even more.
TEHELKA: Where was Jaideepbhai camping then?
Bajrangi: Jaideepbhai was sitting at Dhanwantri, which is Pravinbhai’s dispensary, he was there… in Bapunagar… There he was and I didn’t even tell him that we were going to do this… In Naroda and Naroda Patiya, we didn’t spare a single Muslim shop, we set everything on fire, we set them on fire and killed them… That’s what we did… Up till then, they didn’t know what was happening; when they got to hear of how many had been killed, they got scared • • • There is a distance of about half a kilometre between Naroda [Patiya] and Naroda Gaon… We did a lot at both places… must have butchered not less than… Then we dumped the corpses into a well…
TEHELKA: Tell us how it was all done… revolvers… cylinders…
Bajrangi: The cylinders were theirs [the Muslims’]… Whichever house we entered, we just grabbed the cylinder and fired at it, and, dhadak, they exploded… We had guns in any case… I can’t tell you what a good time it was… But four of our activists died in it… No hearing took place even in that…
TEHELKA: Did you climb to the top of a masjid and tie a pig there?
Bajrangi:We rammed an entire tanker into it… the tanker was fully laden… We rammed that tanker inside…
TEHELKA: It was a petrol tanker, no?
Bajrangi: It was diesel… We drove a whole diesel tanker in and then set [the mosque] on fire…
TEHELKA: Meaning, it was the tanker explosion which set Patiya on fire?
Bajrangi: In the masjid…
TEHELKA: In the masjid…
Bajrangi: As for the rest of it, I was in charge at the time… Whatever I wanted to do, I did…
TEHELKA: At the pit, was oil… Those people had gathered there…
Bajrangi: It was a huge pit… You could enter it from one side but you couldn’t climb out at the other end… They were all there together… They started clinging to each other… Even while they were dying, they told each other, you die too, what are you going to be saved for, you die too… so the number of deaths increased.
TEHELKA: Then people poured oil in…
Bajrangi: Oil and burning tyres…
TEHELKA: Where did the oil come from?
Bajrangi: Oh that… We had lots of material with us… we filled lots of jerrycans in advance… From the petrol pump, the night before… Petrol pump owners gave us petrol and diesel for free…
• • • TEHELKA: Muslims were hacked to pieces…
Bajrangi: Hacked, burnt, set on fire, many things were done… many… We believe in setting them on fire because these bastards say they don’t want to be cremated, they’re afraid of it, they say this and that will happen to them… I have just one wish… one last wish…. Let me be sentenced to death… I don’t want to be incarcerated… I don’t care if I’m hanged… Give me two days before my hanging and I will go and have a field day in Juhapura [a Muslim dominated are], where seven or eight lakh of these people stay… I will finish them off … Let a few more of them die… At least 25-50,000 should die…
TEHELKA: How many witnesses have testified against you?
Bajrangi: Fourteen Muslims and 16 policemen… Out of the 14 Muslims, some have moved to Juhapura… They’ve left Patiya, they don’t have the guts to stay there, defying us… The rest have gone to Karnataka… They got money after all, Rs 7 lakheach… Narendrabhai never said how much they would be given… He announced [the compensation package] then gave out cheques of Rs 20,000 each and that’s where things got stuck… Afterwards, he gave nothing to anyone… But then the Central government supported them…
• • • TEHELKA: In other words, the way [you] have killed will go down in history.
Bajrangi: Arrey hamari FIR me likha gaya hai… ek woh pregnant thi, usko to humne chir diya thha b*******d sala… Unko dikhaya ki kya hota hai… ki hum log ko tumne maara to hum tumko kya pratikaar de sakte hain… hum khichdi kadhi wale nahin hai [It has been written in my FIR… there was this pregnant woman, I slit her open, sisterf****r… Showed them what’s what… what kind of revenge we can take if our people are killed… I am no feeble rice-eater]… didn’t spare anyone… they shouldn’t even be allowed to breed… I say that even today… Whoever they are, women, children, whoever… Nothing to be done with them but cut them down. Thrash them, slash them, burn the bastards… Hindus can be bad… Hindus can be bad, and I’m saying that because, as I see it, Hindus are as wicked as those people are… Many of them wasted time looting… Arrey, [the idea is] don’t keep them alive at all, after that everything is ours…
TEHELKA: And some people also raped…
Bajrangi: No, there were no rapes…
TEHELKA: One or two Chharas may have…
Bajrangi: If some Chharas took some women, that’s a different matter… We were marching in groups… There was no place to rape anyone there… Everyone was on a killing spree… we were killing, hacking… There were lanes where we had to face Muslims… there would be a confrontation, they’d fight back with all their strength…The moment we’d killed a few, we’d move on… In this melée, if some girl was trying to run away and if a Chhara caught her, then that’s another matter… That day, it was like what happened between Pakistan and India… There were bodies everywhere… it was a sight to be seen, but it wasn’t something to be filmed, in case it got into someone’s hands… There was a video-wala there, some mediawala, we set him on fire too… Lots of those miyas [Muslims] deceived us… They’d chant Jai Mata Di and get away… that happened too… they’d put tilaks on their foreheads and shout Jai Shri Ram, Jai Mata Di….
… Today too I am fighting against Muslims and will continue to do so… I have nothing to do with politics… What I say is this: the VHP is an organisation… a Hindu organisation… Our politics should be limited to killing Muslims, beating them up…
TEHELKA: How do you feel after you have killed Muslims…
Bajrangi: Maza aata hai na, saheb [I enjoy it]… I came back after I killed them them, called up the home minister and went to sleep… I felt like Rana Pratap, that I had done something like Maharana Pratap… I’d heard stories about him, but that day I did what he did myself.
Forgiveness
Many people forgive these killers if they have a good excuse. For example Bill Quick at the Daily Pundit says {change notice: Quick says that the original excerpt did not fairly represent his comments; so I have changed this to show his entire entry}:
Since the specific example chosen is a retaliatory massacre of Muslims, I’d agree this wouldn’t be my first choice for nihilistic evil, either.
In fact, I think it is quite wrong-headed. As reported, it’s not even a good example of what Fabius thinks he is talking about. His example of “Joker-style” evil says (in repeated variations):
Bajrangi: My role was as follows: I was the first to start the [Naroda] Patiya operation… We and the local residents were all together. Patiya is just half a kilometre away from my home… I had gone to Godhra when it happened… I could not bear what I saw… The next day, we gave them a fitting reply…
TEHELKA: What were you unable to tolerate in Godhra?
Bajrangi: Any person who saw the Godhra kaand [massacre] would have felt like just killing them at once, hacking them apart… that’s how it was…
In other words, the villain of Fabus’ piece makes it clear the massacre he led was in response to a previous massacre committed on his people by Muslims.
Fabius seems most upset by the savagery of the response, and the lack of contrition on the part of the leader of the respondees. But that is not Joker-style “let the world burn” evil. That is human-style “let the enemy burn for what he has done to us.” And that response is what such savagery as practiced by Islamofascist terror eventually pushes even highly civilized peoples to do.
If your god tells you that you must slaughter innocents, don’t be surprised if the god of the innocents tells them they must reply in kind. Or, less irrationally, a millennia-deep form of common sense – kill them lest they kill us again.
I think Fabius, normally a perspicacious observer of the world, is confused here.
Well I guess the killing was OK then, since it was in response to a previous massacre! I thought it was just soft-headed liberals who excused crimes on the basis of such things. Perhaps Quick will write a similar note about “human-style desire to have nice things” when his house is burgled, or “human-style desire to spread his genes” when his daughter is raped.
M Simon says something similar in comment #41:
The Islamics did unspeakable things to India. I suppose that could all be left in the past if the Islamics gave up the sword. So far no sign of that. Before forgiveness must come repentance.
So massacre follows massacre, each justified by the previous round. I have a different theory about these things:
- These “killers for the sake of killing” are with us always.
- They join causes that give them the opportunity to kill.
- They are the enemies of civilization, no matter under what flag they.
The enthusiasm with which their killing is greeted — as seen on this thread and in Quick’s comment — shows that they need not worry about their welcome in the 21st century.
Warm up your pens to excuse the next tide of bodies washing up on the headlines! So long as we forgive these killers, they will always find a new “reason” to kill.
Bill Quick responds:
My goodness, these pompous puffheads scream when you poke them, don’t they? And then, as such folks often do, resort to mischaracterizations and outright lies.
A repeat, for those keeping score: Fabius wrote a post that purported to talk about Joker-style “let the world burn” nihilistic violence – in other words, violence for the sake of violence. If he had any other meaning, it certainly wasn’t obvious to any fair-minded reader, or so it seems to me.
Then, as an example of such nihilistic violence, he coughs up a bloody massacre that occurred in response to another bloody massacre. This is hardly “nihilistic” violence, or violence simply for the sake of violence. This is violence with a cause and an intended effect.
And when I point this out – in tone that are for me quite muted and reasonable – Fabius responds by claiming that I excuse the second massacre, that I think it was “okay.” No, but I do understand why it happened, and that as an example of Joker-style, let the world burn, nihilistic violence, it was a real flub.
And despite Fabius’ even more wrong-headed response to me, it still is.
Note: I think my original excerpt gave a fair summary of Quick’s statement. Quick sees massacre as a response that he “understands”, because “that response is what such savagery as practiced by Islamofascist terror eventually pushes even highly civilized peoples to do. That he sees no other alternatives shows why history has so many rivers of blood. There are people who like to kill, and they find people who produce word salads justifying their actions.
Simon’s comment is similar. A reprisal massacre was needed because “Before forgiveness must come repentance.” As a justification for reprisal in kind, it is bizarre. Forgiveness and repentance come later in the process of conflict and its resolution. Before them comes use of force, which can be applied in ways other than massacres.
For more information
To read other articles about these things, see the FM reference page on the right side menu bar. Of esp interest these days:
Some posts on the FM site about India and Pakistan:
- Is Pakistan’s Musharraf like the Shah of Iran? (if so, bad news for us), 8 November 2007
- Terrorism in India, a roster of incidents, 16 May 2008
- NPR tells us more about America’s newest war, in Pakistan, 14 September 2008
- Pakistan warns America about their borders, and their sovereignty, 14 September 2008
- Weekend reading about … foreign affairs, 19 October 2008
- To good a story to die: eliminate legitimate grievances to eliminate terrorism, 9 December 2008
- About the 4GW between India and Pakistan, 6 January 2009
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