The current stage in the Kashmir conflict can be dated to 1989, when the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) inaugurated an armed struggle against Indian rule in the state. By the mid-1990s, however, the JKLF had been increasingly taken over by Pakistan-based Islamist groups. One of the leading Islamist groups active in Kashmir today is theLashkar-i-Toiba, or 'The Army of the Pure'.
The Lashkar is the military wing of the Pakistan-based Markaz Da'wat wa'l Irshad ('Centre for Invitation and Instruction') with its headquarters at the town of Muridke in the Gujranwala district in Pakistani Punjab. Established in 1986, it is affiliated to the Ahl-i-Hadith school of thought, a reformist Islamic movement, which had its origins in early nineteenth century India.
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The founders of the Ahl-i-Hadith believed that they were charged with the divine responsibility of purging popular Muslim practice of what they saw as un-Islamic accretions and borrowings from their Hindu neighbours, which they considered as bid'at, unlawful innovations, and as akin toshirk, the sin of associating anything with God. They insisted that Muslims must go back to the original sources of their faith and abandon all beliefs and practices not sanctioned therein. They called for Muslims to abide strictly by the Islamic shari'ah and to abandon 'imitation' (taqlid) of the schools of Islamic jurisprudence. Besides, the Ahl-i-Hadith also bitterly critiqued Sufism, which they saw as abid'at, for, they argued, it had no sanction in the practice of the Prophet. Given the immense popularity of the Sufi traditions and the influence of the Hanafi 'ulama among the Muslims of South Asia, it was hardly surprising that the Ahl-i-Hadith faced stiffed opposition, being banned from worship at mosques and condemned as apostates and enemies of Islam. For their part, the Ahl-i-Hadith appeared to have revelled in controversy, not losing any opportunity of attacking their Muslim opponents for what they branded as their 'un-Islamic' ways.
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The Ahl-i-Hadith in Pakistan and the Rise of the Lashkar
Following the creation of Pakistan in 1947, the Ahl-i-Hadith began making gradual progress in the country, establishing mosques and madrasas of its own. It tended to have a more visible presence in urban areas, its strict scripturalist literalism appealing to groups such as urban traders who were not tied down to local Sufi shrines.
Although the Ahl-i-Hadith still has a limited following in Pakistan, from the 1980s onwards it was able to make considerable inroads in Pakistani society. A number of factors have combined to make for this. Firstly, the growing appeal of 'Wahhabism', as a result of the rapid expansion in the number of Islamic seminaries in the country in recent decades, many of which are sponsored by the Saudis and preach a conservative yet militant form of Islam that has a close resemblance with that of the Ahl-i-Hadith. Secondly, the active sponsorship of such madrasas by the Pakistani state, under and after General Zia-ul Haq (d. 1988 ). Thirdly, and most importantly, the Afghan jihad against the Soviets, which saw a great expansion of resources for groups such as the Ahl-i-Hadith, with massive amounts of aid, in the form of money and arms, pouring in from Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries. Many Ahl-i-Hadith and other Sunni madrasas emerged at this time as training grounds for militants active in the Afghan jihad. After expelling the Soviets from Kabul, these mujahids turned their attention to fresh pastures, Kashmir being one of them.
Thus, from being a relatively minor group in Pakistan's Islamic landscape, the Ahl-i-hadith grew, by the end of the 1980s, into a major force, with scores of madrasas all over the country, and several newspapers and journals articulating its vision of an Islamic revolution. With new 'enemies' to target-the Russians in Afghanistan and the Indians in Kashmir-the Ahl-i-hadith, hitherto marginalised and shunned by most Hanafi Muslims, now began carefully expanding its own support base in the country. Mobilising Muslims against external 'enemies of Islam' provided it with vastly expanding opportunities for making new converts within Pakistan, including among sectors that had traditionally been hostile to the Ahl-i-hadith's bitter critique of Sufism and the Hanafi fiqh. 'Christian Crusaders', 'Hindu Racists' and 'Jewish Zionists' were now to take the place of Sufis and Hanafis as its staunch enemies, thus making for a greater appeal to other Muslims than before, this marking a marked departure from past precedent.
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Along with other Islamist groups, the Ahl-i-Hadith immersed itself in the jihad in Afghanistan. In 1986 it set up the Markaz Da'wat wa'l Irshad, based in a sprawling 160-acre campus at Muridke, a town some 30 kilometres from Lahore, to train mujahidin to fight the Soviets. Money for the establishment of the centre is alleged to have been received from among other sources, from the Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden. As the Markaz's activities rapidly grew, it was decided to divide its work into two separate but related sections: the educational and the jihadist. Thus, in 1993, the Markaz established its separate 'jihadic and warfare' wing, the Lashkar. The Lashkar later set up four training centres in Pakistan and Afghanistan, where, 'thousands of mujahidin from all over the world are being trained'. Markaz authorities claim that the militants produced at these centres have played a leading role in armed struggles, first in Afghanistan, and then in countries as far afield as Bosnia, Chechenya, Kosovo, the southern Philippines, Kashmir and 'in other areas where Muslims are fighting for freedom'.1
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According to one report, in recent years the spread of the Markaz/Lashkar in Pakistan has been 'phenomenal', and today it has some five hundred offices all over the country, most of them in Punjab, which operate as recruitment centres for would-bemujahidin.2 At its Muridke headquarters, the Markaz runs an Islamic school and university, most of whose students are local Pakistanis, with some from both POK and Kashmiris from the Indian part of the state, and several Afghans and Arabs. Established in 1994, several hundred students have already graduated from the school. Scores of smaller schools run on the same lines have been set up in various other parts of Pakistan, and, by mid-2001, their number was said to be almost 130, with some 15,000 students and 800 teachers on their rolls. Young boys of the age of eight are taken in and are given a 12-year training, which includes the standard Islamic disciples, taught from an Ahl-i-Hadith perspective, English, Arabic, and Science, as well as the handling of weapons and techniques of armed combat.
Lashkar Ideology
The Lashkar sees Islam as a perfect, all- embracing system. For establishing an Islamic system, an Islamic state is necessary, which will impose the shar'iah as the law of the land. If such a state were to be set up and all Muslims were to live strictly according to 'the laws that Allah has laid down', then, it is believed, 'they would be able to control the whole world and exercise their supremacy'.3 Since Islam is seen as the very antithesis of nationalism, it demands the establishment of one universal Islamic state, ruled by a single khalifah. Thus, the present division of the Muslims into many nation-states must be overcome.
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The struggle for the establishment of the Islamic Caliphate can take various forms, peaceful as well as violent. Islam, the Lashkar admits, is 'a religion of peace and harmony', and seeks to 'eliminate mischief and disorder, and to provide peace, not only to Muslims but to the entire humanity'. However, Muslims are commanded to take to armed struggle, or jihad, to defend their co-religionists suffering from the oppression of others. Such a situation is said to prevail over much of the world today. While jihad in defence of Islam and of Muslims labouring under oppression is presented as a liberation struggle, it is also seen as a means for Islam to 'prevail on this earth', for Islam is seen as the only true religion.4 Armed jihad must continue 'until Islam, as a way of life, dominates the whole world and until Allah's law is enforced everywhere in the world'.5 The subject of armed jihad runs right through the writings and pronouncements of the Markaz/Lashkar and is, in fact, the most prominent theme in its discourse. Indeed, its understanding of Islam maybe seen as determined almost wholly by this preoccupation, so much so that its reading of Islam seems to be a product of its own political project.
Kashmir jihad
The Markaz sees its active involvement in the armed struggle in Kashmir as only one stage of a wider, indeed global, jihad against the forces of disbelief, stopping at nothing short of aiming at the conquest of the entire world. As the former amir of the Lashkar in Indian-controlled Kashmir, puts it, 'We will uphold the flag of freedom and Islam through jihad not only in Kashmir but in the wholeworld'. In Markaz/Lashkar discourse, the conflict in Kashmir is seen as a war between two different and mutually opposed ideologies: Islam, on the one hand, and disbelief[kufr], on the other. This is portrayed as only one chapter in a long a struggle between the two that is said to have characterised the history of Hindu-Muslim relations for the last 1400 years ever since the advent of the ProphetMuhammad. The Prophet is claimed on the basis of a hadith to have singled out India as a special target for jihad. 'Whosoever will take part in jihad against India', Markaz leader Muhammad Ibrahim Salafi claims that the Prophet had declared,'Allah will set him free from the pyre ofhell'.
India is a special target for the Markaz's mujahidin. According to the amir of the Markaz, Hafiz Muhammad Sa'eed, 'The jihad is not about Kashmir only. It encompasses all ofIndia'. Thus, the Markaz sees the jihad as going far beyond the borders of Kashmir and spreading through all of India. The final goal is to extend Muslim control over what is seen as having once been Muslim land, and, hence, to be brought back under Muslim domination, creating 'the Greater Pakistan by dint of jihad'. 6 Thus, at a mammoth congregation of Markaz supporters in November 1999, Hafiz Muhammad Sa'eed declared, 'Today I announce the break-up of India, Inshallah. We will not rest until the whole of India is dissolved into Pakistan'.7On the same occasion, Amir Hamza, senior Markaz official and editor of its Urdu organ, ad-Da'wa, thundered: 'We ought to disintegrate India and even wipe India out'.8 Those who take part in this anti-Indian jihad are promised that 'Allah will save [them] from the pyre of hell', and 'huge palaces in paradise' await those who are killed in fighting the 'disbelieving enemies'. 9
The Lashkar's Involvement in Kashmir
The Ahl-i-Hadith has not been able to take deep roots in Kashmir valley, primarily because of its opposition to Sufism and taqlid. Rather, it remains a largely elitist phenomenon, with its core support base among a limited section of the urban lower-middle and middle classes. Despite this limited support of Ahl-i-Hadith-style Islamic purism in Kashmir, the Lashkar has today emerged as the single most powerful militant group in the region, owing principally to the arms and resources that it commands.
The Lashkar's direct participation in the Kashmir conflict dates back to the end of the Afghan war in 1992, in which an estimated 1600 of its militants are said to have participated. After the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Lashkar shifted its attention to Kashmir. In this, it was assisted by the Jama'at-i-Islami of Pakistan and the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). In 1994, following the laying down of arms by the JKLF, the Lashkar began sending large numbers of its fighters into Kashmir, most of them from outside Kashmir, mainly Pakistanis and Afghans. It also began recruiting a small number of Kashmiris from the Valley as volunteers, probably through existing Ahl-i-Hadith networks. By mid-2001, the Lashkar claimed, it had killed 14369 Indian soldiers in Kashmir, losing in the process 1016 of its ownmen.
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In mid-1999 India and Pakistan almost came to war after Pakistan-based militants occupied certain strategic heights in the Kargil sector in the Ladakh region in northern Kashmir. The four principal militant groups taking part in this operation, all Islamist and manned mainly by non-Kashmiris, were the Harkat-ul Mujahidin, the Tehrik-i-jihad, al-Badr and the Lashkar. The Pakistani failure to enter Kashmir through Kargil did not deter the Lashkar, however, which announced what it called 'the second stage' of the Kashmir jihad-taking the battle against the Indian army right inside the Kashmir valley itself. As part of this new strategy, the Lashkar came up with a new means of attack-suicide bomber operations, inflicting heavy losses on the Indian forces.
The Limits of jihad: Its Implications for Kashmir, India and Pakistan
Given the limited support for the Ahl-i-Hadith-style Islamic reformism in Kashmir, it appears that its emergence as a major actor in the region owes almost entirely to the role of the Lashkar in resisting Indian rule. In contrast to the earlier Ahl-i-Hadith activists in Kashmir, the Lashkar has consciously refrained from engaging in intra-Muslim disputes or from openly attacking what it sees as 'un-Islamic' beliefs and practices among the Kashmiri Muslims. In this way it has sought to broaden its appeal beyond the narrow and restricted circle of Ahl-i-Hadith followers in the region. The support for the Lashkar in Kashmir must, then, be seen as essentially a result of its stern opposition to Indian 'colonialism', rather than as representing any considerable acceptance of its theological vision. On the other hand, the consistent opposition of the Lashkar to any negotiated settlement of the Kashmir issue, insisting that the only solution of the question is carrying on with the jihad till the region finally merges with Pakistan, certainly limits its potential support base. The fact that the Lashkar is almost entirely in the hands of Pakistanis and Kashmiris from POK and that it refuses to recognise the possibility of an independent Kashmir, means that it has a very limited appeal to those Kashmiris, probably the majority, who cherish the dream of an independent, sovereign state.
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A further obstacle in the path of the Lashkar in Kashmir is its own understanding of Islam, rigid, regimented and vehemently opposed as it is to Sufism. 'Sufism', the Lashkar insists, 'has been designed with no other purpose than to dampen the spirit of jihad'.10Since jihad is seen as integral to Islam, Sufism is regarded as un-Islamic. The Lashkar's vehement opposition to Sufism, in line with the Ahl-i-Hadith position on the matter, seems at striking odds with Kashmir tradition, where Sufism, in the form if veneration of saints, centred on their shrines, is still deeply rooted. The Lashkar is even less likely to find warm support among the Shi'as of the region, who form the majority in the Kargil district of Ladakh and are a sizeable minority in the Kashmir Valley, for the Shi'as are seen by the Ahl-i-Hadith as non-Muslim heretics.
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If the odds seem so heavily weighed against the Lashkar in attempting to win support for its own vision of Islam among the Kashmiri Muslims, it can still continue to play a pivotal role in the conflict in the region. The Lashkar insists that dialogue with the 'disbelievers' is prohibited in Islam, and that hence the only way ahead is through jihad.11 This intransigence has serious implications for all three parties to the Kashmir dispute-India, Pakistan as well as the people of Kashmir. While carrying on with the armed struggle in order to inflict maximum damage to India might suit the short-term interests of the Pakistani establishment, it might, as some commentators have warned, have major consequences for Pakistan's own future, the full implications of which do not seem to have been appreciated by the managers of Pakistan's Kashmir policy. It is quite possible that the growing strength of groups like the Lashkar might mean that Pakistan, too, could soon be engulfed in civil war, with armed groups seeking to take over the country in the name of establishing an Islamic order.
The Present Crisis in Afghanistan and Its Implications for Kashmir
The American reprisals against the Taliban and the people of Afghanistan following the 11 September, 2002, attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, have been fiercely opposed by Islamist groups, including the Lashkar. In the wake of the attacks, the Lashkar is said to have despatched several of its armed volunteers to Afghanistan, to supplement the 600 Lashkar special guards who had earlier been specially appointed as personal security for Osama binLaden.
