All muslims are not terrorists: some are
The print and electronic and vast sections of Muslim friends have confronted me with the questions: Why all Muslims are painted as terrorists? This is a painful question to face and more painful to answer. My efforts have always been to say as persuasively as possible that a few Piranhas do not make all the fish carnivorous. Piranhas are Piranhas and prawns are prawns. Terrorists are terrorists and Muslims are Muslims; a few Muslims appeared to have been swayed away by the call of jihad sponsored by the Inter Services Intelligence and United Jihad Council (a lose body of most Islamist Jihadi Tanzeems). In case some people belonging to some other religious faith give a call for ‘Crusade’ and ‘Dharmyudh’ they would also be categorized as terrorists.
We have had experiences of battling ‘Naga terrorists,’ ‘Meitei terrorists,’ ‘Bodo and ULFA terrorists,’ and ‘Sikh terrorists.’ Describing ethnic unrest by the ethnic tag of the people is also a wasteful and injudicious exercise. All Nagas, Meiteis, Bodos, Ahoms and Sikhs are not terrorists: some of them were and are. Such sweeping application of descriptive vocabulary drives in a sense of total injustice in the affected community and ethnic group. Ethnic unrest arises out of certain political, economic, and social fault lines of the country, which affects marginal sections of the particular ethnic entity.
Ethnic terrorists have mostly targeted symbols of governance. However, on occasions they have used mass terror methodology to terrorise, kill, and maim innocent people. Such targeted actions are intended to deliver messages of presence of the groups and their capability to indulge in ‘mass control’ through violence. At the apogee of its popularity, the ULFA had developed ‘ideological mass control’ by spreading its messages and by immobilising the state machineries. At the perigee of its prowess, the ULFA has, like any other spent force, started targeting innocent people to reestablish ‘mass control’ (controlling public mind through fear of punishment). This is a trade mark of all terrorist organizations. To combat this governments use superior ‘mass control’ methods through removal of grievances, assuring adequate security and reestablishing ‘military superiority’ (law and order enforcing agencies). Therefore, ‘mass control’ theory works both ways. Gandhiji had achieved this through ‘satyagraha’ and ‘aamaran anshan.’ These were his weapons of war. Modern terrorists use killer guns and do not kill themselves by facing government bullets and ‘aamaran anshan.’
While battling ideological terrorism, we normally avoid sweeping vocabulary and stigmatising a particular group confronting the government with armed prowess. We simply call the Naxals and Maoists. All tribal people of Chattisgarh and Jharkhand are not Naxals and all Naxals are not tribals. The high priests of Naxal movement Charu Majumdar and Kanu Sanyal were not tribals. Ideological terrorism follows the path of economic, social, and political fault lines, irrespective of ethnic and racial complexities.
Acts of terrorism in Kashmir that ensued Indo-Pak standoff in the territory from 1947 has also not been branded by the media and intellectual pundits as Muslim terrorism. Though an ethnic upsurge, Kashmir terrorism took the tinge of religious colouration because it arose out of the Muslim League’s Two Nation theory behind the partition of the country. Pakistan’s claim on Kashmir hinge on a couple of thesis its rulers continue to nurse since the days of Jinnah:
• Kashmir is a Muslim majority state;
• Pakistan had achieved control on certain areas of Kashmir by military action and by deceitful connivance with British officials serving the Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir:
• Kashmir is at the core of Indo-Pak dispute for which Pakistan fought two wars etc, etc.
Islamisation of the Kashmiri psyche had started well after 1965 war, when Pakistan realised that open war was not enough to attain political control of the rest of J&K under Indian control. Subversion of Kashmiri Muslim minds through Wahaabi preaching and teachings by the Deobandi and Jamait-e-Islami forces could alone erode the Sufi Kasmiriat of the Muslims of Kashmir. Starting from the regime of Z A Bhutto to the present day Pakistani religious tanzeems were funded, trained and guided to operate inside Indian held Kashmir. Since 1980, when Pakistan got involved in Afghan jihad at the behest of the CIA and Royal Saudi Intelligence the Jihadists in Pakistan acquired trans-national and international character. The emergence of Al Qaeda and Taliban fortified these forces and low key Kashmir agitation for plebiscite and self rule entered into the state of Islamist Jihad.
Between 1980 and 2000, Pakistan tried all the tricks of proxy war in the North East (in collaboration with Bangladeshi intelligence and jihadi out fits), Punjab and Kashmir. In between, it started subverting segments of susceptible elements in the Indian Muslim community with a view to expanding the arch of jihad from Kashmir to the rest of the country. Between 1990 and 2000, several Islamist units and agencies sprouted in India with congregational and umbilical ties to compatible Pakistani and Bangladeshi tanzeems like Laskar-e-Tayeba, Hijb-ul-Mujahideen, Jais-e-Mohammad, Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami, Al Badr and United Jihad Council etc. Boarding the vehicles of SIMI, Jamait-e-Islami, Ahl-e-Hadith, Ahl-e-Jammat Salafia, Muslim Brotherhood, and other indigenous agencies, which have international rooting, Pakistan succeeded in establishing huge numbers of cells and modules almost all over the country. This garlanding effect of boundary less Islamic tanzeems across the former subcontinent, now divided into three countries, created a unified field of Jihadi interaction. This kind of Jiahdi interaction has not only infected the sub-continental Muslims, but also the Islamicised Muslim communities in Africa, Europe, America, and South East Asia and even in parts of China.
The Inter Services Intelligence of Pakistan and Directorate General of Forces Intelligence of Bangladesh and their front tanzeems mobilised recruits from madrassas, SIMI, Tablighi Jammat units, Jamait-e-Islami followers, and economically and socially disadvantaged groups of Muslims. The pivotal Muslim seats of sectarian groups like the Darul-Uloom-Deoband, Jammat Barelvi, Jamait Ahl-e-Hadith Hind, Jamait al Salafia, Firangee Mahalli, Nadwatul Islam and modern Muslim platforms like All India Muslim Personal Law Board and Milli Council etc did precious little to stem the jihadi thrust from Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Obviously, Jamait-e-Islami and Tablighi Jammat continued to be the focal arches of inspiration behind the growth of strident jihadism in sections of Indian Muslims.
As the movement picked up momentum after the demolition of the Babri mosque and Bombay serial bomb blasts, Pakistan and its Jihadi allies started recruiting volunteers from educated sections of the youth and some fringe professionals. It is not correct to assume that sections of Indian Muslims have leaned towards jihad only after the Babri mosque incident. The CIA initiated the ambience for resurgence of Islamic Jihad amongst Sunni Muslims. The Shiia jihad resurgence was initiated by Khomeini in Iran against the USA backed Pahalvi regime. That had arisen the Muslim consciousness that religion along with Oil Power could humble a big force like the USA. The actual ferment in Sunni world started with the Afghan jihad backed by the USA, its Western allies, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. Almost the entire Muslim world was sucked into the vortex of jihad in Afghanistan, right from Africa, entire Asia and parts of Europe and the USA. India being in the geostrategic proximity of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh by and large escaped serious physical brush with the jihadists.
Nevertheless, the idea of jihad and the idea that Muslims anywhere in the world can use this tool for political and economic ascendance caught up as a viral infection. Infection at the ideological level was not limited to Kashmir alone. This process has accelerated through insidious contamination spread by electronic media-the Internet websites and email facilities. Over one thousand Islamist web sites preach militant jihad at the behest of International Islamist agencies including Al Qaeda, Muslim Brotherhood etc Wahaabi and Salafi bodies. In addition to electronic propaganda, liberal funding is also done from Saudi and other Arab country based agencies and Muslim Diaspora. Essential military training is provided by the Pakistani and Bangladeshi tanzeems and the ISI and DGFI of Bangladesh.
From 1980 onwards, Islamic jihad has acquired several new connotations. Regionally it meant jihad in Afghanistan against the Soviet regime and Pakistan’s own agenda in Kashmir. Globally the idea of jihad had embraced the South East Asia, Europe, Africa, and the USA. The combined jihad of Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and USA in Afghanistan, Chechnya, Dagestan, and Bosnia had later generated self-multiplying forces of jihad in Bangladesh, India, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines. Everywhere these clones of Pakistani and Arab jihadis were drawn from the Muslim communities.
In whatever sense and means the faith in the efficacy and inevitability of jihad is followed these are pursued through Islamist tanzeems, which try to transform the Muslim psyche by interpreting Islam the way it suits their new revolutionary programme, new concepts of jihad and obviously new incentives to separatism.
Therein comes the nametag of Muslim terrorists as different from Naga terrorists, Bodo terrorists and Sikh terrorists. The word Muslim, as applied to acts of terrorism by Islamist tanzeem members is not connotative of religious affiliation of the persons perpetrating the acts of crime. The connotation is one of ‘segmental, ethno-racial.’ It is not a religious nametag, though the word Muslim carries the inevitable connectivity to Islam. Only the adherents of Islam are Muslims and Muslims are the adherents of Islam.
This is an unfortunate Catch 22 situation. This stigmatises the complete religious community. Prejudices created by such holistic impressions are cocktailed with the lingering prejudices of original civilisational conflicts and the pains of partition. The resultant effect is one of permanent bias against the whole community. I have no hesitation in voicing that Muslims of India are Indian Muslims and they have not taken part in Afghan jihad and jihad in European, African and South Asian theatres. Yet, a small section has been infected by the strenuous efforts of Pakistan, Bangladesh and other Arab countries. It is painful for a population of over fifteen crores to be stigmatised like this. It is like branding the whole community which cannot be unbranded only by state efforts. The Indian Muslim community has a binding obligation to come forward and fight against such stgmatisation by taking part in mainstream struggle against jihad being exported from Pakistan, Bangladesh and other countries.
I had the opportunity of associating with certain stalwarts of Darul-Uloom-Deoband, Jamait-Ulama-e-Hind, All India Milli Council, All India Muslim Personal Law Board etc leading Muslim organizations of India in organizing two-day-long majlis at the Parliament Annxe on August 20 and 21, 2006. The majlis was addressed by the Prime Minister and the Union Home Minister. Over 150 Ulamas and Muslim elites from all over the country attended the majlis to discuss the problems of branding of the entire Muslim community and other problems faced by Indian Muslims.
A day before the event I had arranged a private meeting of the leading Muslim leaders with a couple of former heads of IB, R&AW and a few senior journalists. In free and frank discussions, it was realised that the Muslims of India want to maintain their distinct geographical, political, and locational identities. They want to be treated as Indians first and Muslims second. They want to be equal Indians sharing everything with the majority Hindu and other communities.
Islam does not believe in political boundaries. It believes in borderless religious brotherhood, Ummah. However, in modern times the dream of a universal khilafat and a united global Muslim political entity is not a practical ideological concept. Even at the height of Muslim ascendance, the Arabs were Arabs, the Turks were Turks and Indians were Indians, functioning within their geographical and political boundaries. Muslim regimes in India during the Turkic Sultanates, Afghan interludes and Mongol (Mughal) regimes identified themselves as Indian Muslims and coexisted with the vast Hindu majority. They realised that it was not possible to convert each and every Hindu to Islam. Such coexistence had brought about some synthesis, which was later fragmented by the separatist Muslim leaders in collaboration with the British Imperialists. Even today, the basic system of governance in India is a unique mixture of Muslim and Hindu legacy with certain European trappings.
Partition had created a neo-reality of separatism. Those who wanted to be separate have gone over to Pakistan and Bangladesh. Those who remained in India are Indian Muslims. No Indian Muslim wants to rejoin their fellow faithful in Pakistan and Bangladesh. They want to share the Indian prosperity, progress and take plunge into the process of rejuvenation. They do not want their shares to be grabbed by Pakistanis and Bangladeshis. This prevailing psychology of the Indian Muslims should not be buried under historical prejudices. India is home to Hindus, Muslims, Christians and Sikhs etc. Without all these components, India cannot remain India. If someone thinks of Akahnd Bharat, he has to draw a new map of the country. What map? A map in mind or a map at the geopolitical scale? They have to decide.
However, the recent reports of Sachar Committee have brought out certain stark facts about the backwardness of the Muslim community in most fields of national activity. Amidst loud publicity and propaganda of politicization of the minority problem in India, several allegations have been made. While Congress wants to use the finding for political mileage, especially in the forthcoming UP elections, the BJP wants to strengthen its Hindutwa platform by generating bias against the Muslims. Fearful doubts have been created that the Congress party is pushing the country towards another partition by introducing reservations for Muslims, which the same party opposed during the independence movement and after installation of an independent governing system. The chief minister of Andhra and Manipur have had already declared reservations for the Muslims. If the Quota ministers like Arjun Singh and A.R. Antulay were permitted, they would fragment the country into quota components and push Indian back to pre-medieval ages. The ugly efforts of the political parties to polarize the country on the issue of Muslim backwardness are palpably visible. They are pushing the country towards another phase of religious polarization, a prelude to more partitions.
However, no one has asked questions and made efforts to answer to the following problems:
• Who had prevented the Muslims to take advantage of modern and liberal education?
• Who had prevented them from joining professional education?
• Who had prevented them from joining different layers of government services, armed forces, police forces and services of the nation?
• If there were discrimination against the community, why was this not taken up by so many Muslim Parliamentarians, legislators, and ministers, Presidents of the country, senior government servants and members of Muslim intellectuals? Why did they remain silent till a Sachar invented new stories out of old wool balls of history?
• Why had not the representative bodies of the Muslims taken up these issues all these years?
• Why Sachar report is not being used for bringing back equilibrium through political and economic actions?
• Why the Muslim bodies, both religious and otherwise call upon the Muslim community to awake and arise and march along with the Time? Why do not they point out that adherence to Islam is by no means is detrimental to material progress?
• Why the Congress led government does not want to establish another fact finding committee to answer all the whys that have not been addressed by a biased Sachar?
If I understand properly the Sachar Committee wants the following actions to be taken:
• Set up an Equal Opportunities Commission to look into grievances of deprived groups
• A carefully conceived ‘nomination’ procedure is required to work out fair representation at all levels of government
• Remove anomalies with respect to reserved constituencies under delimitation schemes
• Set up a ‘diversity index’ which will ensure equal opportunities to all socio-religious communities
• UGC grants to be linked to universities/colleges that provide admissions to diverse groups
• Experts drawn from the community to be put on relevant interview panels and board
• Work out mechanism to enable madrassa students to shift to regular/mainstream schools
• Promote policy initiatives that improve share of minorities
• Improve infrastructure for Muslims
• Provide financial, other support to occupations with Muslim concentration, where there is growth potential.
The Sachar recommendations are politically oriented and are initial steps to segregate the country on religious lines in addition to caste lines. It does not address the root causes and does not suggest ways and means within the mainstream ambits of national growth engines. Sachar reports are a veiled and toned down repetition of Muslim League demands. This is a prescription for long-term disaster for the nation.
These steps are not going to help to unify the Indian Muslims with Indian identity. Rather these will give incentive to Pakistan, Bangladesh and other Islamist countries to drive the wedge of separatism amongst Indian Muslims. This is likely to add to the ambience of jihadism as spread by the Islamist forces. Instead of unifying the nation, these steps will divide the country more. Perhaps a day will come when we will not be in a position to assert that Indian Muslims are Indians and all Muslims are not terrorists and only a few have taken to the creed of jihad.
That would be a fearful day, and might lead to a Day After Tomorrow of Another Day of Partition and Separation. Who can save India? Obviously not its political parties, not surely a Congress in death throes, trying to use any tool to get only a few more votes. Unified Indian minds are required to think over these important issues. Merely branding Muslims would not unify the country. And mere quota raj also is not the correct prognosis. Muslims require extra support from the governments, societies and from themselves, their Mullahs, Ulamas and their own societal leaders.
May 31st, 2008 at 7:19 pm
It is a balanced article. As an Indian setteled in UK I should confess that our mullas kept us away from the mainstream. Our political leaders did not press the governments to look into the plights of post-partion Muslims in India. They just enjoyed power and became rich at the cost of the poor Muslims. India should now try to bring the Muslims up and help them to integrate.