Author: N. Kunju
Publication: Organiser
Date: August 20, 2006
URL: http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=144&page=23
Our so-called secularists have been proudly
shouting from housetops that when Muslims in other countries were attracted
to terrorism to vent their anger, the 150 million Indian Muslims were patriotic
and had nothing to do with terrorist activities. The maximum they would concede
is that some disgruntled Kashmiri youth might be playing a part in the militancy
in the state, but then Kashmir's was a unique case.
The rest of Indian Muslims were nationalists,
they contend, enjoying democratic rights and need not resort to extra-constitutional
means to get their grievances redressed. Leave aside Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister
Mulayam Singh Yadav who is more Muslim partisan than the Maulanas. Even Prime
Minister Dr Manmohan Singh said not long ago "not even a single Muslim
was on the rolls of Al Qaeda".
This myth got strengthened by revelations
in earlier terror attacks of suicide squads when some of the attackers were
shot dead by security forces and were identified as foreign nationals, mostly
Pakistanis. Moreover, terror outfits like Lashkar-e-Toiba were based and their
cadres trained in Pakistan.
However, the 11th July (7/11) series of bomb
blasts in the crowded local trains in Mumbai has burst this myth - the balloon
inflated and floated by vote-bank politicians to please the Muslims in general
and appease their religious leaders in particular. It would not have been
possible for that many Pakistanis to infiltrate into India and organise simultaneous
bomb blasts in seven trains in different parts of the city, in which some
200 persons were killed and many wounded. The assumption is that the Al Qeada
directed the operation and the actors were locals trained for the purpose.
A few hundred Muslim youths, specially belonging to the banned SIMI, suspected
to have a part in carrying out the bomb blasts, have been rounded up by the
police.
No one with some common sense can believe
that there are no anti-nationals among 140 million Indian Muslims. It is as
absurd as saying that all 800 million Hindus in the country are all patriotic
persons. All those who were caught for spying for foreign countries recently
in the intelligence set-ups like RAW and Defence establishments like Naval
Headquarters were high-ranking Hindu officers. And some of the secrets they
leaked could have been used by Pakistan in her plots of hostility against
India.
So, patriotism is not anybody's monopoly.
Many Muslims partook in the freedom struggle and had stood steadfast for a
united India. No Hindu leader was more pained than Abul Kalam Azad or Ghaffar
Khan (Frontier Gandhi) when India was partitioned in 1947. There were Muslim
heroes who fought wars for India valiantly such as Brigadier Usman (Maha Vir
Chakra) and Havildar Abdul Hamid (Param Vir Chakra) and laid down their lives
for the Motherland.
Nevertheless, there is a difference in susceptibility
between Hindus and Muslims as far as attraction to anti-national acts are
concerned. The latter are more vulnerable. This is an uncomfortable fact on
which politicians in general are reluctant to agree. They feel that believing
in this proposition will be discrimination against Muslims, rather vilification
of Muslims as a whole.
But the truth cannot be denied and it is based
on the ideology and outlook of the two religions. For a Hindu, the lure to
betray the country's interest is material - money, better position and opportunities
for himself and his children. He does it against his conscience and always
with a feeling of remorse, besides fear of the consequences. And if he is
religious, the fear of retribution for the sin will haunt him in this life
and thereafter.
Not so to the Muslim who turns anti-national
or terrorist. He could be fired by religious fanaticism to make him believe
that the crime he does is his duty towards his God, his Prophet and the cause
of Islam. The noted scholar on Islam Bernard Lewis writes: "In the western
world, the basic unit of human organisation is the nation... virtually synonymous
with country. This is then subdivided in various ways, one of which is religion.
Muslims, however, tend to see not a nation subdivided into religious groups,
but religion subdivided into nations." The basis for this is historical,
for the Prophet of Islam was not only a religious leader but also a ruler.
The concept of secularism, separation of religion from politics, is alien
to Islam. Therefore Christ's dictum "Give unto Caesar that is Caesar's
and give unto God what is God's" do not apply to Muslims. Moreover, Muslim
terrorist does not suffer from a feeling of remorse for his act of killing
innocents; on the other hand he is told that he was doing his duty as a jehadi
and the eternal joy of jenneth waits for him even if he is killed in his endeavour.
This does not mean that all Muslims are potential
jehadis ready to take to terrorism. Religious sanction does not mean that
every Muslim takes advantage of the sanction or indulges in the sanctioned
deeds. People, irrespective of their religion, are generally led by common
sense. Islam may sanction four wives, but how many Muslims take advantage
of the sanction? Perhaps one in ten thousand. So also an infinitely small
per cent of Muslims are attracted to terrorism, which of course is more dangerous
than marrying four women. But then, one in ten thousand constitutes a sizeable
number in the 150 million strong population. And the resources and capacity
of foreign fundamentalist organisations are enormous to misguide them to make
them scapegoats at the altar of jehad.
The making of a jehadi often starts from the
innocuous Madrasas that are supposed to teach religion along with general
education and ends up in the training fields of terrorist camps in Pakistan,
especially in Pak occupied Kashmir (PoK). Not that everyone who studies in
Madrasa becomes a terrorist. But at least the Madrasa teaching helps one to
make him a fundamentalist fanatic. And one with such a mindset is more vulnerable
to the jehadi influence.
Coming back to the 7/11 Mumbai blasts, the
government is now convinced that there are Indian hands that the foreign terrorists
used to carry out their nefarious designs. The so-called secular politicians
including the Prime Minister no more claim "there is not a single terrorist
in the 150 million strong Indian Muslims". The needle of suspicion points
to organisations like SIMI which is banned for spreading disaffection among
Muslims. The police have found the SIMI cadres that went underground have
become the agents of Al Qeada. Raids of SIMI dens and arrests of its members
have become a daily occurrence and several of its senior leaders are absent
from their homes for years and are said to be out of the country working for
international Islamic terrorist organisations.
This revelation demands a new approach in
fighting terrorism. Firstly, preventing infiltration of foreign jehadis into
India at the borders alone will not do; internal vigilance and extermination
of their Indian agents is equally important. Terrorism is no more a cancer
in one part of India's body; it can't be cured by a local operation in J&K
or elsewhere. It has spread almost all over the country and indigenous cells
vulnerable to the disease exist almost everywhere. Therefore, the infection
calls for a holistic treatment.
Also panicking and knee-jerk reactions can't
help. Blaming Pakistan, halting Indo-Pak peace talks, asking Pak President
Musharraf to close down terrorist outfits and breast beating at international
forums are the usual exercise resorted to by the government after a terrorist
attack. But these will have hardly any effect because Islamic terrorism is
an international phenomenon that the Pak President can't stop. And even if
he can stop, why should he do it? Religous terrorism has been a threat to
Musharraf himself and several attempts have been made on his life. So, he
will be only too happy to see some of the jehadis going across the border
so that the menace is reduced inside Pakistan.
Immediately after the Mumbai blasts, the Prime
Minister had gone to attend the G-8 meet at St. Petersburg in Russia. Normally
India would have been content to talk of environmental damage that the industrial
nations are causing because of their unchecked exploitation of natural resources,
unprecedented oil price hike, etc. But the Islamic terrorist attack on Mumbai
trains made a disturbed Prime Minister Manmohan Singh shift the focus to terrorism.
There were fervent appeals to member countries to work together to help India
to eliminate terrorism. Of course all the countries condemned the terrorist
bomb blasts in Mumbai and showed sympathy to India. However, no one mentioned
the name of Pakistan, the terrorist launch-pad against India, and the condemnation
remained impersonal.
Is there any use of breast-beating at international
forums for what the terrorists do to India? Others, including Pakistan, will
join to condemn terrorist attacks. But India will have to fight its own battle
against religious terror and cannot depend on international community to do
it for us.
There is need to change the present strategy
and tactics of the fight against Islamic terrorism in the light of the new
revelation that it is not entirely foreign, that there is a prominent indigenous
component in the terror machine. We have several models of fighting religious
terrorism successfully and not so successfully. There is the Israeli one of
war with no holds barred, our own Kashmir model of reacting rather than acting,
the K.P.S.Gill model of encounter extermination of Sikh terrorists in Punjab,
etc. However, entirely copying any of these models to confront the hidden
enemy spread out in a vast country like India's size and large population
may not be effective and sometimes could prove counter-productive.
Israel is fighting a war with an enemy based
in foreign lands and could afford to be unscrupulous because of the unqualified
support of the USA. The Kashmir experiment has failed because it has alienated
a major part of the population, which is a bad development for a democracy.
This writer, as a soldier serving in an ordnance depot in Srinagar in the
1950s has seen the humility and loyalty of the Kashmiri employees, mostly
Muslims, who worked under him. The atrocities committed by the Pak raiders
were still fresh in their minds and they had nothing but hatred for the Islamic
state. How the alienation of such a docile people over the years happened
cannot be described here, but suffice to say that it was not only cross-border
support but also bungling by successive corrupt state governments and the
indecisiveness of the central government that led to the crisis.
As for Gill's method of ruthless extermination,
it was no doubt successful in Punjab. But India is not Punjab where half the
population as a religious group had no part in the anti-national crusade and
the small number of terrorists among the other group could be easily identified
and dealt with a heavy hand. Such an action on an all-India basis may not
be feasible.
India's fight against foreign-inspired indigenous
Islamic terrorism has to be at two levels - prevention, and pro-active remedial
measures. The strategy has to be developed through national expertise and
not political expediency. Religious terror should be identified as a national
danger and people should unite irrespective of their religion, political division
and regional differences. Trying to score political points on successes and
failures, earning the applause of one section by spewing the venom of hatred
against another, and above all, apathy of the general public are all obstacles
to be overcome. Fighting terrorism is a national goal, rather than something
to be made aware of through police advertisements.
However, the Indian Muslims will have to play
a more prominent and pro-active role in fighting the menace. They are the
worse sufferers of terrorism than other communities. The first danger to them
is increasing alienation and becoming suspect for no personal fault of theirs.
Secondly, there can be collateral damage to the community because of police
raids and preventive action. Thirdly, the community's frustration and insecurity
could spread and it would help the foreign terrorist groups to get more Indian
recruits.
What the Indian Muslims should do to save
themselves and the nation from the danger of terrorism that goes in the name
of their religion, is best spelt out by a young Muslim IPS officer Asif Jalal
in an article in the Indian Express (July 30, 2006): "The Muslim community
must take the extremists' act more seriously because the consequences of terrorism
on Indian soil, in a multi-religious society, are enormous... A situation
where boys born and brought up in UP and Bihar plant explosives in temples
and trains would certainly script a terrible destiny for over 140 million
Indian Muslims.
"To eradicate this ideology, the Muslims
need to take serious, perceptible and relentless efforts. Counter-terrorism
requires a systematic plan of action to insulate the general youth and de-toxicate
those infected with the ideology. The thinking Muslims will have to go out
of the comforts of homes and work in gallis, seminaries, mosques and other
public places to acquaint common Muslims of the dangers of such an ideology...
Terrorism is also a battle within the Muslim community; a battle between the
life instinct of the many and the death wish of a handful of lunatics. A Muslim
has reason to fight and win this battle for the good of the many of their
brethren, besides the larger interest of India."
(The writer is a veteran journalist and can
be contacted at 42-B, Pocket 1, Mayur Vihar Ph.1, Delhi 110091.E-mail: janunkunju@sify.com)