The enemy within is to be feared much more than the enemy without, as events unfolding over the past 20 or 30 years have amply borne out. The external one has a definite face and contour, while the internal one wears many masks and guises. He is more difficult to identify, hence more dangerous. He or she is just hiding in plain sight, because both of them look like us, speak our language, dress like us and even share the same faith and partake of the same food. They are nurtured on the same soil, swear nominally by the Constitution. But there is something deeply diabolical about their relying on half truths and fear mongering to drive their divisive anti-national agenda, through the social media and other platforms.

It is now time to rip the mask off the face of what amounts to intellectual terrorism, more aggressive and insidious than its real life counterpart, which has incalculably damaged the 70-year-old Republic.

The aggrieved aam aadmi has to wait decades for justice, after knocking at the judiciary’s doors, until he is very nearly financially ruined. Yet in an unprecedented midnight drama, these over-ground subversives compelled the apex court to open its doors, in brazen defiance of norms, just to save a terrorist like Yaqub Memom from the gallows mere hours away. This is the kind of guerrilla warfare they have been waging against the state, to defend so-called ‘secular values,’ the first being surreptitiously air-dropped into the preamble of the Constitution, sowing the seeds of disruption. It is now time to rip the mask off the face of what amounts to intellectual terrorism, more aggressive and insidious than its real life counterpart, which has incalculably damaged the 70-year-old Republic.

Some of these so-called privileged elites, spanning the academia, the media, human rights activists, NGOs and politicians, by-products of outdated Marxist and colonial mindsets, comprise the fifth column. They are armed not with lethal weapons but something more diabolical, an outlook that demonizes the Indic identity, the imperishable bedrock that has survived thousands of years of ravages and barbaric invasions. Their posturing as peaceniks, defenders of liberty and persecuted victims, masks the ugly truth of their hidden agenda against India.

It is doubtful whether the ISI could have wished for a more trusted and potent ally than what a reputed military commander has described as ‘termites,’ carrying out the former’s sinister designs on the soil of India. They were the loudest in demanding the Nobel Peace Prize for Imran Khan, following his act of seeming generosity in releasing Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman. By that logic then India should have merited 93,000 Peace Prizes, one each for the safe return of all the PoWs to Pakistan, post 1971!

The resourceful fifth column, deeply embedded in multiple layers within the system, attacks symbols of national pride, revolutionary icons and martyrs with impunity. It is secure in the knowledge that the government is either too apologetic or defensive to act against them, for the fear of antagonizing vote banks.

They will construe any restriction on their vitriolic speeches as a bid to stifle their voice in a democratic set-up. Yet they have fathered the likes of tukde-tukde gang; a toxic mindset that decries a Major Gogoi for saving hundreds of lives or defends the murderous gang of stone-pelters and hardcore terrorists. Or slyly plant a cover story on an alleged coup bid by the Army, an infamy that has gone unpunished by a soft state.

…the government is either too apologetic or defensive to act against them, for the fear of antagonizing vote banks.

‘Intolerance’ is the negative mantra which evokes images of minorities in mortal danger. It is much like the story of a shepherd boy who cries wolf-wolf, mobilizing the entire village community to rush to his rescue. He sheepishly admits having done it in jest. He raises another false alarm after a bout of boredom, but is admonished to be more careful in future. Nobody believes him when he cries the third time and is devoured by the predator that suddenly materializes. The shepherd is undone by his own cunning, proclaims the moral of the story. Lincoln had pertinently noted that “you can fool some people all the time, all the people for some time, but not all the people all the time.” Public perception is undergoing a transformation and will not be influenced so easily by the false narratives being built up by these subversives.

How often are citizens assailed by slogans like ‘Democracy in danger,’ Minorities are scared in India,’ which feeds a spurious narrative. Are they not the last resort of the tinsel town celebrities who forget that their owe their own successes and vast wealth to the very people they demonize, amplified by the voices of the so-called left liberals, their co-travellers and politicians, to paint one of the most tolerant communities as bigoted. If that were true then why would have India welcomed the persecuted Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians and Muslims with open arms. This is the only instance of its kind that resonates in global history, an act of unparalleled magnanimity, of which India can be justifiably proud. It is a sterling endorsement of the ancient Sanatana Dharma which regards humankind as one big family?

Only a few would remember how Bollywood’s biggest producers offered unconditional support to Indira Gandhi when she had imposed the Emergency in 1975, trampling on human rights and jailing thousands of political activists and innocent citizens. The hyperactive media houses and the judiciary too lost their voice and all the crusading zeal. It will go down as one of the most shameful chapters in our democracy. The party of Mrs Gandhi which had sunk to the lowest levels at that time is still unabashedly supportive of scare mongers and a terror sponsoring state like Pakistan. Did the sham secular brigade or their mentors in the US and Europe, who always harp on alleged human rights’ violations in India, protest the massacre of innocent Sikhs in 1984, or when half a million Kashmiri pundits were ruthlessly driven out of their homes by fanatical jihadis?

Beginning with Kashmir, scores of Islamic enclaves are reported to have sprouted in Kerala, West Bengal and possibly Assam, which strictly go by Sharia laws.

Did their selective outrage not evaporate the moment tens of thousands of people from the Northeast were terrorized into fleeing Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad and Bangalore by rampaging Muslim mobs, following Myanmar’s crackdown on Rohingyas. The fanatics also desecrated the Martyr’s Memorial in Mumbai, as the police looked haplessly. They are the first to approach the United States or the United Kingdom, the so called ‘bastions of liberty,’ to hold the nation accountable for acts of ‘intolerance.’ The Anglo-Saxons’ hypocrisy and their controversial record in propping up the most repressive regimes or blatant support to Khalistanis and other hate India elements, are conveniently overlooked.

Above all, both the countries are equally guilty of acquiescing in worst ever war crime after the Holocaust, involving the butchery of three million Bengalis by the Pakistani Army. Uncle Sam even despatched his Seventh Fleet to browbeat India in a blatant show of muscle flexing that went nowhere. Churchill is held up as a global icon of liberty and the free world, one who ‘stood up’ to the Nazi jackboots, vowing to fight them from the sea, air and land with his characteristic bombast. But no glorification or praise can ever whitewash his act of infamy; engineering the starvation deaths of four million people in undivided Bengal, when he impounded all the region’s food grains and shipped them to his badly battered VIIIth Army in North Africa, led by General Wavell.

Beginning with Kashmir, scores of Islamic enclaves are reported to have sprouted in Kerala, West Bengal and possibly Assam, which strictly go by Sharia laws. They are believed to lie outside the pale of Constitution, openly infringing on the sovereignty of the state. This columnist was quite dismissive about such reports until he met a journalist who vouched for their presence, based on his own experiences in Didi’s state. He had boldly ventured to interview the rector of one such Bangladeshi enclave at a grave personal risk, where he alleged trespassers were shot dead. He also filed a report later, detailing their activities. But what would happen if the government takes action against such enclaves.

Intellectuals and left liberals, who have terrorized the public with a dire outlook, would immediately jump into the fray and defend their right to live life according to their beliefs, even if that is a direct threat to the country’s unity and integrity.