Should Shiv Sena and Bajrang Dal be banned?

The problem with the Indian media is that it is completely lopsided when it reports on Hindu versus minorities issues so I really don’t know what are the ground realities. Just imagine yesterday a news reporter in NDTV India was lamenting the fact that when Kashmiri separatists wave the green Pakistani flag in the valley Hindus protest but when the same Hindu organizations foist a saffron flag atop a church nobody should question them. I’m not saying that forcibly foisting a saffron flag atop a church (after dismantling the church) is a done thing; but you can certainly not compare it to foisting a foreign flag in the Indian territory. Although this is rhetorical I’m just mentioning this fact to demonstrate what a sinister game is being played. And it is not just secular media that plays this sinister game; even the so-called nationalistic and Hindu-oriented newspapers do the same things. Today in The Pioneer instead of reporting what is going on in Orissa their headline reads “Christian bandh shuts down institutions”; they actually have the chutzpah of blaming Christians for protesting the state of rioting going on in Orissa. Man, we are in a real mess when it comes to morality and conscience.

Coming back to the question in the heading: should Shiv Sena and Bajrang Dal be banned just the way SIMI is banned? Based on the records of the past SIMI is a terrorist organization that places bombs at public places to cause large-scale destruction. Shiv Sena and Bajrang Dal instigate people and organize and orchestrate riots. So yes in their own big and small ways all these three organizations aspire to cause public disorder and destruction. They are certainly not concerned about their communities. If they were responsible for the Gujarat riots and if they are involved in the current ongoing violence in Orissa then they should certainly be banned. Since they are not full-fledged terrorist organizations they should be banned for a few years. The leaders should be arrested and they should be put on trial like any other criminal. Similar logic should be applied to Christian organizations if they are causing disorder with their activities – there might be a few and our mainstream media being what it is, it might never be covering them.

We need to keep in mind that whenever a citizen is attacked whether by terrorist organizations or by religious outfits it should be handled like a normal criminal case and no justification should be entertained (oh, we are perpetually being vicitimized, oh, they are making us Christians).