National or Internal Security
During a recent encounter with a representative of the US Department of Homeland Security, the important Capitol cog tried to explain to me that India’s Internal Security concerns were confined to narrow indigenous problems. The USA, on the other hand, linked threats to its homeland security with malevolent forces from the Islamic world, Jurassic remnants of the Cold War countries and certain countries in Africa, Asia and South America controlling the energy resources.
I was not surprised by his forceful arguments before an awed-eyed Indian audience attending a sumptuous seminar organised by a reputed think tank, whose fuel supply is reportedly shipped from the US. The western powers, especially the post-Second World War neo-imperial block had pitted itself against a lurching juggernaut called the Iron-Curtain countries and the Muslim nations in the Middle East, Africa, South and South East Asia.
I tried to explain that while the West took over fifty years to dismember the Iron-Curtain power block, the political geography of the Muslim nations in Middle East and elsewhere were mutilated soon after the First World War with a view to maintain West’s hegemony on the energy resources, for exercising strategic control and for establishing client nations to serve the neo-colonial masters. They fought wars everywhere and war and war related industries had steadied the economic spines of these countries.
Fossil-fuel from these countries and prospects of extending the imperial snouts to the fossil-fuel fields in the CAR, African and South American countries had blinded the USA and its friends to the fact that their intervention in Afghanistan, Iraq and threatened intervention in Syria and Iran had generated tremendous forces in the Muslim worlds which were not ready to live with the post- War World political geography imposed on them. These forces had peaked in the 9/11 attack on the USA and subsequent attacks in other European countries.
This inevitable historical “bounce back” is an inseparable part of the universal theory of special relativity applied to the physical world. This very force multiplied by the grim reality of demographic resurgence of the Islamic people in the European countries have added newer dimensions to the concept of Homeland Security in the USA and similar institutions formally and informally structured in the European countries.
They are of unanimous opinion that Homeland Security of the USA and its “white” allies arise out of threats from Salafi, Wahhabi, Deobandi Islamist jihadi groups, especially the new philosophy of violence preached by the Al Qaeda al Sulbah and the Taliban. Countries like India, my US interlocutor emphasised, suffered from Internal Security problems because of mismanagement of internal affairs and incapability to restore equilibrium between the majority rightist reactionary Hindu nationalist forces and the minority Muslims. Arrogance is a disease that cannot be cured by reason. Indians know it well from the demeanour of the Australian Cricket captain and his team mates.
However, I tried to enlighten the US friend that India has had a longer history of foreign interventions in its Internal Security matters. Though some Internal Security concerns had arisen out of neglected internal fault lines, most of these Internal Security threats were exploited by neighbouring foreign countries. While the Black unrest in the USA were not exploited by Ghana or Congo or Cuba, ethnic unrest in Indian northeast were exploited from day one by Pakistan, China and Bangladesh. Therefore, it would be difficult for the USA to appreciate the universal theory of “external input in internal disaffected movement.” This formula was tried by the COMINTERN and the USSR in certain countries with a view to export communism. The US friend, associated with the Homeland Security perhaps found it difficult to digest the facts of history that plagued India for nearly 60 years.
The US looking glass, according to him, was trained at the Salafi, Wahhabi, Deobandi (Pakistan and Bangladesh) jihadis and the pregnant shadows of the Talibani and Al Qaeda forces operating from Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan, Somalia, Pakistan and Palestine. It was a renewed Islamic Jihad against the Christian world represented by the USA.
Big brothers are mostly closed-minded brothers. My pleading with him touched two raw chords of the West. The Islamic world, especially in the Middle East, Africa and elsewhere, was geopolitically, strategically and economically exploited by the West, often foisting on the people ruthless dictators. The USA selectively decided to impose democracy on Iraq while maintaining silence on the dictatorial regimes in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Libya and other African countries.
The US, I pleaded, should abandon the pretension that Israel-Palestine imbroglio is a localised issue and does not require international intervention to give back the home to the Palestinian people that were robbed by the western powers and later by Israel. It is a global issue and is a part of the soul of the on going jihad movement against the western powers.
It was pointed out to the Big Brother that India’s Internal Security concerns are primarily conditioned by the forces operating from its immediate neighbouring countries-Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and geopolitically contiguous countries like Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Waziristan and even Iran.
The so-called Kashmir dispute was being continually exploited by Pakistan with the help of its rogue intelligence agency, the ISI and madrasa bred tanzeems. A handful of disaffected Indian Kashmiris were being used to repeat the refrain of partition-eve song-India should be divided on the basis of religion. This stale araq has become the elixir of existence of the nation called Pakistan.
The Afghan jihad saga was turned against Indian Punjab and Kashmir and now the home-baked jihadi tanzeems and their Talibani and Al Qaeda associates are being directed to activate the Indian heartland. The tabulated figure of jihadi attacks in mainland India did not stun the US official. He threw on my face what is now know as the ‘Sachar Shariat’, report of Sachar Commission that has sent panic wave amongst the “secular” political parties. They now shed tons of crocodile tears for the minority Muslim community pushing them back to the expectation levels of the community heightened 70-80 years ago by Mohammad Ali Jinnah and his separatist colleagues. There was no ‘Black’ and ‘White’ nation tussles in the US even though a former African-American Obama Barrack (with some Muslim family background) was daring to challenge a blue-blooded Clinton. Trivialising history is a privilege of the Big Brothers.
However, I pointed out that most recent jihadi attacks on India were engineered by Bangladesh based HUJI and even Lashkar-e-Toiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad activists were taking the Bangladesh and Nepal routes to perpetrate crimes in mainland India. In addition, the Maoist forces in Nepal are extending material and ideological support to the Indian Maoists. Most of the weapons were not surrendered by them. A large quantity were diverted to the Indian groups on pay and carry basis. The western powers so rabidly poised against Maoist threats have so far not interacted with the government in Kathmandu to stop the funnelling process that has added sinews of war to the Indian Maoists.
I had to, finally, point out to the friends of the USA and the US representative that their Homeland Security problem had arisen out of the inevitable “blow back” process of blatant intervention in the internal and regional affairs of the Islamic nations. The birth of Salafi jihad in Egypt, and its marriage with the Wahhabi and Deobandi activists had taken place for the dual purpose of fighting the ‘near enemy’, the despotic internal regimes and the ‘distant enemies’, the West and its allies who had foisted tyrannical regimes, exploited the economic and energy resources and had armed the jihadis to fight against the ‘communist devils’.
India could not be a partner in this war against ‘global terror’ unless and until the West recognised that Islamist nations around India were foisting jihad on Indian soil with a view to rejuvenate the ‘Frankenstein’ of nationhood based on religion. India has its own wars to fight against regional jihadis now irretrievably connected to the global jihadi forces represented by Al Qaeda and the Talibani forces. These Salafi-Wahhabi-Deobandi jihadis were likely to take control of Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan and create serious security concerns for India. A destabilised India would add to the security concerns of the West. It is the West that are required to assist India to fight terrorism
For India, the thin line between strategic National Security that encompass major defence preparations and the Internal Security that are supposed to be localised law and order problems have been obliterated by blatant intervention by the neighbouring countries and unintended neglect of the umbrella regional security concerns by the countries like Nepal and Myanmar.
For India Internal Security is synonymous with National Security. The Big Brother was not convinced.
