archive: Jihadi mentality: Its recoil and danger
Jihadi mentality: Its recoil and danger
Arun Shourie
The Observer
July 16, 1999
Title: Jihadi mentality: Its recoil and danger
Author: Arun Shourie
Publication: The Observer
Date: July 16, 1999
The war in Kargil has ignited an intense reaction across the country.
War does. War that results from aggression by the other does even
more. This time round two factors have caused the reaction to be even
more intense. There is the element of betrayal: India had extended the
hand of trust and friendship; Pakistan, it now turns out, merely
pretended to reciprocate. And then there is the effect of television.
This is the first war which has been brought into our living rooms: we
see the extreme conditions in which our soldiers are defending our
country, we see the majesty and beauty of our sacred mountains which
the enemy has violated, we see the bodies arrive, we see and hear the
valour of the bereaved parents and wives.
There is another reaction. We are all humbled: by the valour of the
soldiers, by the fortitude of the relatives. Would I agree to begin
the trek up some God-forsaken, distant hill, each of us is forced to
think, knowing that as a result, within three-four hours, I may be
dead?
The form the reaction has taken is just as telling. Each time a body
is taken back thousands upon thousands stand in reverence along the
route. When it arrives in a city or a village, thousands come out to
pay homage. Neighbours and others visit the family of the soldier.
Contributions to funds have exceeded all expectations.
The visits are out of empathy. The funds are for caring: to care for
the soldier who has been disabled, to care for the wife and children
of the soldier who has been killed.
The papers of Pakistan, especially the Urdu papers, on the other hand,
have been full of reactions of an entirely different kind. Of "Jihad
conferences" being held, of "Jihad centers" to be opened for
recruiting volunteers, of collections for yet another "Jihad fund".
The volunteers are not to care for anybody, their mission is to go
across, and vanquish and destroy the land of kufr, the Hindu-India.
The funds are not for caring, they are to destroy and dismember the
land of kafirs, the Hindu-India. The speeches that are made at these
gatherings, the slogans that are raised -- "Kashmir banega Pakistan"
-- the very words that are used -- "Hindu-India, the birth-enemy of
Pakistan," the "Battle for Hind" -- contain a venom, which we cannot
comprehend.
But it is something we should learn to comprehend. For our neighbour
is saturated with it. The venom, and the actions it triggers, will
recoil on Pakistan of course. But that will take decades. In the
meanwhile, unless we develop antigens to that poison, untold costs
will be inflicted on our country. Moreover, if we falter in crushing
every single action which that poison triggers, the poison will
acquire greater and greater potency in the eyes of the Jihadis - see,
it is because of the Jihadi-spirit that our mujahideen have given
those banias such a licking, they will conclude. So, every single
action that is spurred by that sort of spirit must be completely
crushed. But how will be ever ensure that it is crushed if we turn our
eyes from what triggers it?
Lt. General Javed Nasir is one of Pakistan's "thinking Generals". He
has been head of the ISI. He is among the Generals who were associated
with Pakistan's successes in Afghanistan. Not just a typical voice,
therefore, a crucial one. Recall that Nawaz Sharif made his desperate
flight to Washington on July 3, that he signed the capitulatory
joint-statement with Clinton on July 4. On July 1 -- that is, just
three days before Nawaz Sharif had to accept that Pakistan would
withdraw behind the Line of Control -- Lt. General Javed Nasir was
telling Pakistanis that India was on the brink of defeat and collapse
and disintegration! Readers would have concluded that the Indian
defeat was so overwhelming that Vajpayee had as good as lost his mind!
Defeat in Kargil will spell disaster at the polls, that is what is
what is staring Vajpayee in the face, this former controller of the
ISI wrote. "He was angry," the General wrote, describing, no doubt
from secret sources of the ISI, a meeting of the Indian Prime Minister
with our Service Chiefs, "froth coming out of his mouth, shaking with
anger, a little bit stammering [sic.], he let the Khakis have it.." "I
order you to throw them out.., otherwise there will be large-scale
sackings irrespective of ranks."
The Kargil operation has already inflicted unbearable cost on India,
the General calculated. Each shell of Bofors costs a thousand dollars,
his spies told him; in just one week India has fired nearly 30,000
rounds, his sources on the front told him. That means India has burnt
up three billion dollars in just one week, his calculator indicated.
And now India will have to spend another ten billion dollars to
replace the barrels of the guns.. Four days earlier, in another
article, the General had recalled how, at the time of the Lahore Bus
diplomacy, in an article in The Nation, "I had implored the Pakistani
Army and Mujahideen to interdict the Srinagar-Drass road to make
things more difficult for the Indians in Siachin. The Mujahideen
executed a brilliant plan.." His brilliant plan having been executed
so brilliantly, Indians are on the run, the General informed his
countrymen.
And for good and obvious reasons, he said. "Whereas the Mujahideen are
fighting for a just cause and Shahadat is the greatest honour they can
receive and as such they are fighting for this noble objective, the
Indian soldiers are highly demoralized. Most of them have already
completed their Kashmir tenure and want to go back to the safety of
the mainland. They are being forced into the attacks and kept in
Kashmir against their will. They only fulfil the formality of
attack.." This plain truth was being portrayed by Pakistan TV, he
said, and that is why the Indian Government banned it! But Indians
continue to watch Pakistan TV "for factual and correct situation",
using dish antennas, he said, "despite house raids by police"! All we
have to do is to keep the road to Siachin closed, he wrote the next
day. That will force India to spend Rs. thirty to forty crore a day,
"which will break the Indian back"! The General painted even rosier
gardens. If the Indian Army can be prevented from retaking the Kargil
positions, Vajpayee will be forced to lunge into Pakistan crossing the
LOC. This prospect "offers the Pakistan Army the opportunity of the
century to redeem its honour and take revenge for Dhaka." Once
Pakistan makes a major penetration into India, the Sikhs will get and
grab "the opportunity of the millennium to rise and play havoc with
India's lines of communications." And once there is a major setback to
India in Punjab, "the Sikh dream of Khalistan will become a reality."
And that will induce the Tamils to revolt in the South, and the Nagas
and the Mizos to proclaim their Unilateral Declaration of
Independence"!
Faced with disintegration, Vajpayee will have to opt for the nuclear
option, the General forecast. Therefore, he counseled the world,
before India reaches that point, the world should solve the Kashmir
problem "in accordance with the resolutions of the Security Council."
Q. E. D.!
Not only has Pakistan the opportunity of a century because of the bind
in which India is caught, Allah has conferred a special boon on
Pakistan to enable it to avail of this opportunity, the General's
reasoning went.
And what is that boon? "In Parvez Musharraf we have an excellent
General," he explained, "who has the blend of dynamism (his SSG
background) and superb professionalism.. Allah chose him for this
occasion. He will not only deliver but deliver beyond expectations of
all. He is the gift of Allah to the nation.."
The only thing to guard against is American perfidy, the General
wrote. On his reckoning, the Pakistan Army has won each and every war
with India, and it is only the USA, "which has a history of betrayals
towards Pakistan," that has compelled Pakistan to forgo what it had
won on the ground!
General Hamid Gul, an even more formidable former head of the ISI, was
announcing victories in even more vivid colours. "General Gul predicts
Indian troops surrender," ran the headlines of The Pakistan Observer
on 27 June. That the Indians were concentrating so many troops in the
area is all to the good, General Gul told the paper. Soon, the monsoon
will set in, and they will be trapped in "the hills, dales and jungles
of Kashmir while this terrain is familiar and friendly to the
Mujahideen."
"He said," the paper reported, "it is pre-ordained that this military
machine that subjected Kashmiris to terrorism will be humiliated and
disgraced at the hands of a handful of Mujahideen."
These are the analyses of Pakistan's "thinking Generals," of its
"strategic thinkers," these are analyses appearing in the country's
"responsible, sober" English papers. The Urdu papers of course carry
reports of even more glowing victories -- as I write this I have at
hand reports from Nawa-e-Waqt, al Dawa, Ausaf, Jasarat, Khabrein, Din
-- they give even more Allah-ordained reasons on account of which
India is about to disintegrate before the might of the Mujahideen.
"Enemy is being thrashed from all sides;" "These militants are
battle-hardened having fought in Afghanistan for over ten years;" "The
Mujahideen have been waiting for open war with India since long. Now
they have the opportunity with the opening of the Kargil front;" "The
Amir of Markaz Dawat wal Irshad, Professor Hafiz Mohammed Saeed,
further claimed that the foolish Europe does not know that Mujahideen
have arrived there also in a clandestine manner;" "Maulana Mohammed
Azim Tariq, President Sipah-e-Sahaba, said that the moment Government
declared Jihad the Sipah-e-Sahaba would provide 50,000 trained
Mujahideen for fighting alongside the Pakistan Army;" "The meeting of
the Jamiat Ahl-e-Sunnat-o-al-Jamat held in Islamabad under the
Chairmanship of Qari Abdul Malik decided that the Jamiat will send
20,000 volunteers;" "Qazi Hussain Ahmed, Amir Jamiat-e-Islami has
started collecting Jihad-e-Kashmir funds, and JI is issuing pamphlets
urging people to obtain the blessings of Allah by taking part in the
Battle of Hind;" "A pamphlet issued by Abdur Rashid Turabi, Amir of
the Jamiat-e-Islami in Azad Kashmir says that the shadows of war are
deepening, and Pakistanis should give a fatal blow to the birth-enemy
of Muslims, India, the Mujahideen have reduced the pride of the enemy
to ashes, he says;"
Ausaf reports that according to its survey ninety five per cent of the
people in Islamabad and Rawalpindi believe that the Kashmir issue can
be solved through war and not through negotiations; according to the
survey, ninety nine per cent of the people in the North West Frontier
Province want the Government to declare Jihad against India for
solving the Kashmir issue; "Thousands of armed tribals at a public
meeting on 27 June at Miran Shah in Northern Waziristan Agency
announced Jihad against India and took an oath that they would not
restunless they hoist the Islamic flag in Delhi"..
The article of faith, that India is the "birth-enemy of Muslims," the
conviction that the opportunity of the century has come, that Allah
has given them an instrument for availing it, the hallucinatory
reports that the enemy is being routed, the conviction that Jihad is
the solution, the fever for it..
And the foundation of all this: the conviction that everything that is
being done is in the cause of Islam. The Ausaf of 30 June: " A group
of Al-Badar mujahideen left Mansehara for Kashmir on June 29 for
taking part in the Battle of Hind..Bidding them farewell, Commander
Ejaz Ali, Amir Lashkar-al-Badar, instructed them to eliminate Indian
troops and hoist the flag of Islam in Kashmir. They had to fight the
Indian Army from Kargil to Delhi.." Two days later, on 2 July, the
Ausaf reported, "Pakistani ulema, including Mufti Nizamuddin Shamzai,
Mufti Jamil Khan and Dr. Abdur Razaq issued a Fatwa of Jihad against
India in Islamabad on July 1. In the Fatwa, issued in response to a
query from the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, they said that students should be
sent on Jihad by shutting down all religious schools.."
Ideologies become blinkers: believers keep looking at the world
through one pair of pre-fabricated spectacles, they keep fitting
developments into one straitjacket when in fact the world is changing
inside out. The adherents are therefore "pre-ordained", to snatch
General Hamid Gul's expression, to flounder. Hallucinatory reports of
non-existent victories can only make the ultimate defeat more certain,
more thoroughgoing, and swifter. But that very preconditioning
predisposes believers to invade and assault.
That is what we must see, at last. 1948, 1965, the brutality unleashed
on East Pakistan in 1971, the terrorism they caused in Punjab
throughout the 1980s, the insurgency they spawned in Kashmir in the
1990s, Kargil now: is it right to be surprised each time?
And, other things apart, Pakistan is by now the hub of what can only
be described as an "International Islamic Rapid Action Force": Jihadis
from various Islamic countries, available for one Jihad after the
other. Afghanistan, Chechnya, Bosnia, Kosovo, and, of course and
always, Kashmir.
"Taliban Minister for Communication, Naimatullah Khan Naumani,
Minister Hajj-o-Auqaf, Maulana Abdul Wali, Special Force Chief, Maulvi
Gul Zarin, I.G. Police, Maulana Anwar, addressing a function on the
occasion of the 14th death anniversary of Maulana Irshad in Kabul (on
29 June) announced war against India alongside Kashmiri mujahideen,"
reported the Ausaf on 30 June. "They said that the help of Kashmiri
and Pakistani mujahideen during Russian aggression was a debt on them,
and it was now high time to clear this debt. They did not fear India,
they said, nor any other power. They would fight alongside Kashmiri
mujahideen for the freedom of Kashmir and their preparations in this
regard are complete.."
In a word, Kargil is but one step for the Pakistan Army and the
terrorists Pakistan has spawned. We must see that defeating them in
Kargil can be but one step for us.
(Arun Shourie is a member of the Rajya Sabha as well as a member of
the election campaign committee of the BJP)
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