Dithering As Policy

Jihadi terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) has passed through four stages,

In the first stage (1989-90), the J&K Liberation Front (JKLF), whichdemanded independence for the state, was in the forefront. 

In the second stage (1990-93), Kashmiri organisations sponsored by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) such as the Hizbul Mujahideen (HM), which called for the transfer of thestate to Pakistan, took over the leadership.

In the third stage (1993-98), dissatisfied by the ground performance of the Kashmiri organisations, the ISI infiltrated into the state Pakistani jihadi organisations, consisting largely of Pakistani nationals, to step up the jihadi terrorism against the Indian state. 

Initially, the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) and the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM) infiltrated. These were followed by the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI) and the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JEM). These are pan-Islamic organisations, whose agenda is not confined to only J&K. They have a much larger agenda of Arabising/Wahabising Islam in India by weaning the Indian Muslims away from their cultural roots and "liberating" the Muslims living in different parts of India and creating new independent "homelands" for Muslims in North and South India. They envisage the eventual incorporation of the independent Muslim "homelands" thus created in an Islamic Caliphate encompassing the entire global IslamicUmmah.

In February,1998,  Osama bin Laden announced from Kandahar in Afghanistan the creation of an International Islamic Front (IIF) For Jihad Against the Crusaders and the Jewish People. The HUM and the HUJI initially joined the IIF. The JEM and the LET joined the IIF subsequently.

In the fourth stage, which started in 1999, the Pakistani jihadi organisations, which have joined the IIF, have taken over the leadership of the terrorist movement in J&K. They have introduced suicide terrorism as a strategic weapon in their jihad.

There has been a similar evolution of non-Kashmiri jihadi terrorism in the Indian territory outside J&K. Jihadi terrorism made its appearance in the Indian territory outside J&K for the first time in 1993, but preparations for it had been going on since the late 1980s when a small group of the Students' Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) went to Pakistan and was got trained by Pakistan's Jamaat-e-Islami (JEI) with the help of the ISI.

In the first stage (1993-98), the Jihadi terrorist movement in the rest of India was largely in the hands of the Indian Muslim youth owing allegiance to the SIMI, the Al Ummah of Tamil Nadu and other similar organisations. The ISI's role was confined to the provision of training, funds and arms and ammunition.

In the second stage (1999-2005) the ISI-supported Pakistani jihadi terrorist organisations spread out to other parts of India from J&K in order to better motivate the Indian Muslims and beef up their jihad against the Indian state and society. They gave a pan-Islamic orientation to the jihad, began a campaign for the Arabisation/Wahabisation of the Indian Muslim youth and started guiding organisations such as the SIMI. They started preaching a two-culture theory, holding that the Muslim culture, which (according to them) owes its inspiration to the Arab world and Central Asia, cannot co-exist with Hindu culture. They sought to weaken the cultural solidarity of the Indian people, which, in their view, stood in the way of the Indian Muslims identifying themselves with their co-religionists in the rest of the world.

The third stage started in April, 2006. In an audio message disseminated by the Al Jazeera TV channel, Osama bin Laden projected the global jihad as directed against the joint conspiracy of the Crusaders, the Jewish people and the Hindus against Islam. Thus, the process of making the jihadi terrorism in India part of the global jihad began.

More than 50 per cent of those involved in acts of jihadi terrorism in the Indian territory outside J&K are Indian Muslims. The remaining are Pakistani and Bangladeshi nationals. The Pakistani military-intelligence establishment has been clandestinely helping in the spread of this terrorism to other parts of India outside J&K in order to create pockets of political and economic instability in India and to prevent the emergence of India as a major economic and military power on par with China.

The recent blasts in Mumbai on July 11,2006 were the consequence of our failure to counter the spread of jihadi terrorism to other parts of India. .This failure is due to not only the inadequacies in our intelligence and physical security infrastructure, but also the dithering of our political leadership in the face of the determined attempts of the states of Pakistan and Bangladesh, the Pakistani jihadi organisations and Al Qaeda elements to weaken our state and multi-ethnic and multi-religious society and sow the seeds of its break-up.

The dithering is reflected in our failure to strengthen our counter-terrorism capability, our reluctance to empower the police and the security agencies to act firmly against the terrorists, our hesitation to expose and counter the venomous propaganda indulged in by these jihadi elements lest we be accused of being anti-secular and our closing our eyes to the dangers posed to national security by the large number of illegal Muslim immigrants from Bangladesh in our midst, who provide sanctuaries to the foreign jihadi terrorists. It is also reflected in our reluctance to act against the flow of money from Saudi Arabia and other countries of the Ummah for promoting the Arabisation of Indian Islam.

It is also seen in our pusillanimous response to Pakistan's continued use of jihadi terrorism as a weapon against India. We face a three-pronged danger to our nation and society arising from the growing number of India Muslims gravitating towards foreign jihadi organisations and their ideology, the increasing number of Pakistani and Bangladeshi terrorists taking advantage of the pusillanimity of our state and its political leadership and the states of Pakistan and Bangladesh, which are determined to keep us bleeding in the hope that this will pave the way for our disintegration.

Our political leadership continues to be in a denial mode. It fails to admit the presence in our midst of elements working against our nation and society. It hesitates to act against them. Partisan political considerations have assumed ascendancy over national interests. The guiding principle of all our actions is the hope that somehow jihadi terrorism will lose its steam and our Muslim youth will refuse to be lured by it. This hope is likely to be illusory.

Unless public opinion asserts itself and forces the political leadership to stop dithering and start acting, blood will continue to flow. Samshayatma vinashyathi--those who dither, ultimately perish. That is the lesson of history.

B. Raman is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai.