Author: B. Raman
Publication: South Asia Analysis
Group
Date: October 3, 2002
URL: http://www.saag.org/papers6/paper526.html
Islamic terrorism in India is a
bye-product of the US-inspired and orchestrated jehad of the 1980s against
the Soviet troops in Afghanistan. To make the Soviet troops bleed, the
USA's Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) encouraged Islamic fanaticism and
incited unemployed Muslim youth all over the world to go to Afghanistan
to carry on a jehad against Communism. Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence
(ISI) was entrusted by the CIA with the task of religiously-motivating,
training and arming the jehadi mercenaries from different countries and
sending them into Afghanistan for fighting against the Soviet troops.
2. It is estimated that between
6,000 and 10,000 mercenaries thus participated in the anti-Soviet jehad.
The majority of them were Arabs, but a small number came from India, Bangladesh,
Myanmar, Indonesia, Malaysia, the southern Philippines, Chechenya (Russia)
and Xinjiang (China). Some unemployed Muslim youth from the South Asian
Muslim diaspora in West Europe and the USA and Afro-American youth from
North America and the Caribbean also joined.
3. The majority of the Muslims from
India (about a hundred) who went to Afghanistan to fight against the Soviet
troops came from Jammu & Kashmir (J&K). A smaller number (hardly
a dozen) came from other parts of India. They became the hard-core of the
now banned Students' Islamic Movement of India (SIMI). The ISI motivated
them against India, gave them jehadi inolculation in Afghanistan and sent
them back to India for starting a jehad.
4. The CIA was aware that the ISI
was diverting part of the funds and arms and ammunition received by it
from the US, Saudi Arabia and other countries for use against the Soviet
troops to India to instigate a jehad there. It did not stop it; nor did
it alert the Government of India to it.
5. However, the Government of President
Najibullah of Afghanistan, which was then in power in Kabul, alerted the
Rajiv Gandhi Government to the ISI's machinations and to the dangers faced
by India from these elements. The Rajiv Gandhi Government, then engrossed
in Sri Lanka, did not pay serious attention to the warning signals from
Kabul. India has had to pay a heavy price for it in the form of Islamic
terrorism sprouting not only in J&K, but also in other parts of the
country.
6. In the early 1990s, warning signals
also came from Israel. The Israeli agencies picked up a Palestinian student
studying in South India who had been sent to the occupied territories to
organise acts of terrorism. His interrogation revealed the possible presence
in South India, particularly in Tamil Nadu, of Islamic extremist cells
enjoying the support of the locals. The Israeli warnings were rejected
as uncorroborated by the local Police and intelligence set-up.
7. Taking advantage of India's lack
of seriousness in dealing with the emergence of extremism in sections of
the Muslim youth, the ISI and the various Islamic fundamentalist parties
of Pakistan, which are used by the ISI for its operations against India,
systematically went about the task of creating a jehadi network in J&K
and other parts of India. The ISI's primary objective was the annexation
of J&K with their help; the secondary, to keep the Indian security
forces bleeding and preoccupied with internal security duties in different
parts of India.
8. Lt.Gen. (retd) Hamid Gul, who
was the Director-General of the ISI in the late 1980s, used to claim that
keeping the Indian security forces bleeding with the help of the jehadis
was equivalent to the Pakistan Army having an extra division at no cost
to the Pakistani exchequer. Gen.Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's present military
dictator, and other officers of the Pakistani military- intelligence establishment
share this belief.
9. The Islamic fundamentalist parties
of Pakistan, which had created a number of pan-Islamic jehadi organisations
with the ISI's help and the CIA's encouragement in the 1980s for use against
the Soviet troops, had their own agenda against India. They wanted to use
these jehadi groups for "liberating" not only J&K, but also the
Muslims in other parts of India. The ISI encouraged them in their jehadi
adventure against India. Starting from 1992-93, motivated and trained cadres
of these organisations infiltrated in increasing numbers into J&K and
other parts of India and ultimately took over the leadership of the terrorist
movement in J&K.
10. After the US started its war
against international terrorism in Afghanistan on October 7,2001, , the
surviving cadres of these organisations fled to Pakistan where the ISI
re-located them in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (POK) and the Northern Areas
(Gilgit and Baltistan) in order to use them to replenish the strength of
the jehadi mercenaries in J&K and other parts of India.
11.Since 1992-93, the ISI has also
been using the Kashmiri as well as Pakistani organisations in J&K to
train the cadres of the Students' Islamic Movement of India and disgruntled
Muslim youth from South India in their camps in J&K so that they did
not have to go to Pakistan for training. Imam Ali, of Al Ummah of Tamil
Nadu, who was killed in an encounter in Bangalore on Sept.28, 2002, was
thus among the non-Kashmiri Indian Muslims trained in J&K. The ISI,
which has close linkages with the Bangladesh military-intelligence establishment,
also used the latter for training the non-Kashmiri Muslims.
11. The Mumbai blasts of March,1993,
marked the beginning of the use of trans-national crime groups, such as
the one led by Dawood Ibrahim, by the ISI for adding strength to the activities
of the Islamic terrorists in India and for weakening the Indian economy.
12. As the result of a lack of a
coherent and determined response from different Governments which had ruled
in New Delhi since the late 1980s, Islamic terrorism has grown into a hydra-
headed monster, with innumerable tentacles which include:
* The indigenous Kashmiri organisations,
whose objective is limited to J&K--either merger with Pakistan or independence.
They have no linkages with Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda.
* The pan-Islamic Pakistani organisations.
These are essentially four in number--the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM), the
Harkat-ul-Jehad-al-Islami (HUJI), the Jaish-e- Mohammad (JEM) and the Lashkar-e-Toiba
(LET). All of them are members of Osama bin Laden's International Islamic
Front For Jehad Against the US and Israel. Their agenda extends to the
"liberation" of Muslims all over India and to working ultimately for the
creation of an Islamic Caliphate in South Asia.
* The SIMI, which has a following
in North India and Kerala. Some of its initial office- bearers came from
Kerala. It has linkages with the Kashmiri and pan-Islamic Pakistani organisations,
but not directly with bin Laden's set-up.
* Al Ummah of Tamil Nadu, which
too has linkages with Kashmiri and possibly Pakistani jehadi organisations.
It is also suspected to have linkages with Islamic extremist elements in
Malaysia and Singapore. There is no evidence of its having any direct nexus
with bin Laden's set-up.
* New groups, which have been sprouting
up in the North East by taking advantage of the presence of a large number
of illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.
* Dawood Ibrahim's gang and other
trans-national crime groups working for the ISI, which provide logistic
support to various Islamic terrorist elements.
13. Of these, the SIMI and Al Ummah
do not seem to have any strategic objective such as the "liberation" of
the Muslims of India. Their objective till now has been more tactical,
namely, to protect the Muslims of India from excesses by the Government
and the Hindu community and to carry out acts of punishment terrorism in
retaliation for the atrocities against the Muslims. They accept assistance
from the ISI, but do not act as the surrogates of Pakistan. At least not
yet.
14. None of the Governments of the
past nor the present Government in New Delhi have had a clear understanding
of the dangers to our national security and unity from these elements.
Secularism is mistaken for softness towards terrorist elements, if they
happen to be from the Muslim community. The vast majority of the Indian
Muslims are nationalist, patriotic and do not associate themselves with
the anti-national elements in their community, whatever be their anger
against the Government for failing to protect the lives, property and human
rights of the Muslims-- whether in J&K, Gujarat or elsewhere.
15. The number of Muslims---mostly
youth--- outside J&K, who have taken to anti-national activities and
terrorism is still small, but their number is steadily increasing. Our
concern for the welfare of the Muslim community as a whole and our anxiety
to preserve the secular image of India should not inhibit our taking strong
action against the Islamic terrorists, while at the same time taking care
not to drive the law-abiding Muslims into the hands of extremists through
over- reaction. .
16. The task is rendered difficult
by the presence in our midst of an increasing number of pan- Islamic Pakistani
terrorists and by the assistance received by this hydra-headed monster
from the ISI---either directly or through Nepal, Bangladesh, the United
Arab Emirates or other third countries. The blood vessels of this monster
originate from Pakistan. Unless those roots are destroyed, we will never
be able to crush Islamic terrorism in India.
17. For destroying those roots in
Pakistani territory, India has to exercise its right of active defence,
that is, taking counter-terrorism operations into the territory of Pakistan
since all diplomatic and other means of pressurising Pakistan to destroy
those roots have failed. The right of active defence could be exercised
either overtly through the Armed Forces as Israel has been doing now or
covertly through our intelligence agencies as Israel used to do in the
past.
18. Overt and direct military response,
while spectacular and satisfying public clamour for action, could be messy
and may end up by making the problem more complicated. Deniable covert
action, while unpublicised and slow to make impact, can produce better
results. The objective of the covert action should be not only to destroy
the roots of these organisations in Pakistan, but also to make the State
and the military-intelligence establishment of Pakistan pay a prohibitive
price for using terrorism as a weapon against India. This writer has been
stressing this point again and again and again since 1999, but his has
been a voice in the wilderness. He continues to be in a minority of one.
19. Unfortunately, the Government
of India seems disinclined to try the covert action option and continues
to count on the diplomatic option through the US, despite its having failed
to produce satisfactory results so far.
(The writer is Additional Secretary
(retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, and, presently, Director,
Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai ,E-Mail: corde@vsnl.com)
