Lashkar's Jihadist Agenda

The Lashkar is the armed wing of the Markaz Dawat wal Irshad ('Centre forInvitation and Instruction'), an organisation affiliated to the Ahl-i Hadithsect, which follows a version of Islam almost identical with that of the SaudiWahhabis. It is today the single most powerful militant outfit operating inKashmir. Its involvement in Kashmir goes back to the early 1990s, when Pakistanbegan patronising radical Islamist outfits to counter the influence of the Jammuand Kashmir Liberation Front which had inaugurated the armed uprising againstIndian rule. The Front’s agenda of an independent and secular Kashmir wasclearly not to the liking of the Pakistani establishment, who saw in radicalIslamist outfits a more reliable ally, with their opposition to Kashmirinationalism and their advocacy of Kashmir’s union with Pakistan. In setting upthe Lashkar the late Abdullah Azam a close aide of Osama bin Laden, thenassociated with the International Islamic University, Islamabad, also played akey role. Funds for the organization are said to have come from Saudi Arabia andPakistan's secret services agency, the Inter Services Intelligence.

Like other radical Islamist outfits, the Lashkar sees Islam as a perfect,all- embracing system. Islam is said to govern all aspects life in the form ofthe shari'ah. For the establishing of an Islamic system an Islamic state is seenas necessary in order to impose the shar'iah as the law of the land. If such astate were to be set up and all Muslims were to live strictly according to 'thelaws that Allah has laid down', then, the Lashkar argues, 'they would be able tocontrol the whole world and exercise their supremacy'. Since Muslims throughoutthe world are members of a global ummah, the Lashkar insists that there shouldbe a single global Islamic state with one Caliph ruling over all the faithful.

The struggle for the establishment of the Islamic state can take variousforms, peaceful as well as violent. Islam, the Lashkar says, is 'a religion ofpeace and harmony', and seeks to 'eliminate mischief and disorder, and toprovide peace, not only to Muslims but also to the entire humanity'. However, itstresses, Muslims are commanded to take to armed struggle, or jihad, to defendtheir co-religionists suffering from the oppression of others. As the Lashkarsees it, such a situation is said to prevail over much of the world today. Whilejihad in defence of Islam and of Muslims labouring under oppression is presentedas a liberation struggle, it is also seen as a means for Islam to 'prevail onthis earth', for Islam is seen as the only true religion. Armed jihad mustcontinue, the Lashkar insists, 'until Islam, as a way of life, dominates thewhole world and until Allah's law is enforced everywhere in the world'. SinceIslam is meant for all peoples, the Islamic State must spearhead a movement tospread Islam all over the world, so the Lashkar believes. In the course of thisstruggle, it is expected that it will encounter conflict with other states andtheir ideologies. The conflict can be resolved through peaceful diplomacy, but,if that fails, then, the Lashkar argues, the only course left open is armedjihad. In this sense, the Lashkar believes, jihad is 'the foreign policy' of theIslamic State.

The subject of armed jihad runs right through the writings and pronouncementsof the Lashkar and is, in fact, the most prominent theme in its discoursealthough it has traditionally not been included as one of the 'five pillars' ofthe faith. Indeed, the Lashkar’s understanding of Islam maybe seen asdetermined almost wholly by this preoccupation, so much so that its reading ofIslam seems to be a product of its own political project. In the writings andspeeches of Lashkar spokesmen jihad appears as violent conflict waged against'unbelievers' who are said to be responsible for the oppression of the Muslims.The Lashkar claims that 'There is so much emphasis on this subject that somecommentators and scholars of the Quran have remarked that the topic of the Quranis jihad’.

The global jihadist programme of the Lashkar presents itself as a'liberationist' project, basing itself on widespread feelings of discontent andsuffering among many Muslims. 'All Muslims', the Lashkar believes, are oppressedtoday, by such 'enemies' as the Hindus, the Jews and Christians. 'Wherever youlook, you will find that non-believers are everywhere trying to enslave Muslimsand destroy them', it argues. Hence, it says, Muslims must form a 'solid bloc'to defend themselves from these 'enemies', and if all peaceful means fail theymust resort to armed jihad for their liberation. This Muslim bloc, it suggests,should be led by both Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, and have its headquarters atMecca.

The Lashkar sees jihad as the secret of Muslim power in the past when much ofthe known world was under Muslim rule, and it is argued that when Muslims'abandoned jihad and other injunctions they began to degenerate'. In Lashkardiscourse, jihad is projected as a religious duty binding on all Muslims today.Thus, it is claimed that the prevailing global situation warrants all Muslims tobe involved in some way or the other in jihad against non-Muslim 'oppressors'.In this grand enterprise there are different roles for different people to play.Muslims are promised that they would receive great rewards, both in this worldand in the Hereafter, if they were to actively struggle in the path of jihad.Not only would they be guaranteed a place in Heaven, but they would also 'behonoured in this world', for jihad is, according to a Lashkar spokesman, also'the way that solves financial and political problems'.

The Lashkar sees its involvement in the armed struggle in Kashmir as only onestage of a global jihad against the forces of ‘disbelief’, stopping atnothing short of the conquest of the entire world. As Qari Abdul Wahid, formeramir of the Lashkar in Indian-administered Kashmir, puts it, 'We will uphold theflag of freedom and Islam through jihad not only in Kashmir but in the wholeworld’. Likewise, Nazir Ahmed, in-charge of the public relations department ofthe Markaz, the Lashkar’s parent body, declares that through the jihad thatthe mujahidin have launched in Kashmir, 'Islam will be dominant all over theworld, Inshallah (God willing)’.

In Lashkar discourse the conflict in Kashmir is seen not as a territorialdispute between India and Pakistan, but as nothing less than a war between twodifferent and mutually opposed ideologies: Islam, on the one hand, anddisbelief, on the other. This is portrayed as one chapter in a long a strugglebetween the two that is said to have characterised the history of Hindu-Muslimrelations for the last 1400 years ever since the advent of the Prophet Muhammad.The Prophet is claimed to have singled out India as a special target for jihad,or so the Lashkar insists. 'Whosoever will take part in jihad against India',Lashkar leader Muhammad Ibrahim Salaf claims that the Prophet had declared,'Allah will set him free from the pyre of hell'.

The Lashkar sees the roots of the Kashmir problem as lying in its Muslimrulers having been replaced, first by the Sikhs and then by the Hindu Dograsthrough British assistance. With India (the 'Hindus') having taken over Kashmirin 1947, a long reign of bloody terror is said to have been unleashed on theKashmiri Muslims. This is seen as a direct and logical consequence of theteachings of Hinduism itself, because, it is alleged, 'the Hindus have nocompassion in their religion'. Hence, the Lashkar argues, it is the duty ofMuslims to wage jihad against the 'Hindu oppressors', for, it insists, 'it isthe Hindu who is a terrorist'. All Hindus are tarred with the same brush,described in such essentialist terms as 'terrorists', 'traitors', 'cowards','enemies', etc.. Thus, Lashkar chief Hafiz Muhammad Saeed declares, 'In fact,the Hindu is a mean enemy and the proper way to deal with him is the one adoptedby our forefathers, who crushed them by force. We need to do the same'.

India is a special target for the Lashkar. As Hafiz Muhammad Saeed argues,'The jihad is not about Kashmir only. It encompasses all of India'. The Lashkarsees the jihad as going far beyond the borders of Kashmir and spreading throughall of India. The final goal is to extend Muslim control over what is seen ashaving once been Muslim land, and, hence, to be brought back under Muslimdomination, creating what the Lashkar calls 'the Greater Pakistan by dint ofjihad’. Thus, at a mammoth congregation in November 1999, Hafiz Muhammad Saeeddeclared, 'Today I announce the break-up of India, Inshallah. We will not restuntil the whole of India is dissolved into Pakistan'. On the same occasion, AmirHamza, senior Lashkar official and editor of its Urdu organ, ad-Da'wa,thundered: 'We ought to disintegrate India and even wipe India out'. Those whotake 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 arekilled in fighting the 'disbelieving enemies'.

If indeed the Lashkar was behind the Delhi blasts, it indicates that thesebombastic anti-Indian and anti-Hindu appeals of the Lashkar are no emptyrhetoric and that it is deadly serious about its designs of exporting terrorbeyond Kashmir into the rest of the country, inflaming Hindu-Muslim conflict andmaking the solution to the Kashmir dispute even more intractable.

Quotations used in this article have been taken from the official website ofthe Markaz Dawat wal Irshad/Lashkar-iTayyeba, which has been shifted after 11 September, 2001 to an unknown locationon the World Wide Web. Yoginder Sikand is the author of Sacred Spaces: Exploring Traditions of Shared Faith in India and Inter-Religious Dialogue and Liberation Theology: Interviews with Indian Theologians and Activists