In a state where Muslims have generally kept a low profile, militant fundamentalists have taken over the community's leadership. Muslim militants are suspected to have masterminded the bomb blast in trains ..
In March this year, the Tamil Nadu police had seized a huge quantity of explosives from a house at Kodungaiyur, a Madras suburb ... Police ... felt the motive behind the stockpile was to set off serial blasts in important places.
In the five years since the demolition of the Babari Masjid, Tamil Nadu has suffered several devastating bomb attacks. The first was an unsuccessful attempt on the life of the film director, Mani Ratnam, by a Muslim fundamentalist group that was upset with his depiction of Muslims in his film Bombay. Then, in July 1995, several parcel bombs went off in different places, killing the wife of a Hindu Munnani (HM) functionary ... Again, that very year, the HM head office in Madras was blasted. Earlier, in 1983, the state headquarters of the RSS had been blown up with RDX explosives. And all these attacks were believed to have been carried out by members of Islamic fundamentalist organisations such as Al-Umma, Tamizhaga Muslim Munnetra Kazhagam (TMMK), and the Jehad Committee of Palani Baba.
The rise of Islamic militancy in Tamil Nadu coincided with the growth of Hindu fundamentalism spearheaded by HM and the Sangh Parivar. The Hindu backlash had, in turn, been provoked by a large-scale conversion of Dalits into Muslims in the southern Tamil Nadu districts through the early 1980s. These conversions were believed to have been inspired by liberal offerings of Gulf money and a proselytising Muslim clergy. Hindu diehards ... banded together to stem what they imagined was a rising Islamic tide. Since then, Tamil Nadu often experienced an underlying tension, but it's only in the last four years that communal ties have repeatedly snapped with gruesome outcome.
When Jayalalitha came to power, her government was considered to be more pro-Hindu than Kalyan Singh's in Uttar Pradesh. The HM saw her as their own representative. And the way Jayalalitha flaunted her faith did much to alienate the Muslims.
Kerala also played a role in propping Muslim militancy in Tamil Nadu. It has sent wave of Muslim activists from Malappuram - a Muslim-majority district in Kerala ...
According to Tamil Nadu police intelligence, many Kerala activists migrated to Coimbatore and set up shop around Kotaimedu, the city's Muslim ghetto. The police also claim that some of them had received training in the use of explosives from Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence and were ready to work for Muslim fundamentalist organisations in Tamil Nadu.
The fundamentalist groups are determined to preserve the sanctity of their faith and practices, and have struck viciously against any violation of the Islamic social code by Muslims. On 30 June, they targeted a seedy Muslim-owned hotel in Madras, called Light of Asia, for serving liquor. Likewise, Hotel Imperial and Hotel Lucky - also in Madras and owned by Muslims -were bombed for staging cabarets and discos ...
Meanwhile, Hindu organisations are holding the DMK responsible for the rise in Muslim militancy ...
Tamil Nadu today is a vicious breeding ground of the communal virus hitherto unknown. Decades of sectarian harmony that had been ensured by Muslim leaders such as Qaid-e-Millath Mohammad Ismail now appear to have come to an end with younger and less educated leaders setting a different agenda for the community. And if the drift is allowed to continue ... the communal chasm may become too wide to bridge. (Source: The Sunday, 28 December, 1997 - 3 January, 1998)
