Author: Tavleen Singh
Publication: The Afternoon
Date: September 4, 2003
Worldwide Islamic jehad has India,
second only to America and Israel, as 'enemy number one'.
In my mail every week, I receive
a document called the South Asia Intelligence Review. It comes from
the South Asia Terrorism Portal which is doing what the Home Ministry
should be doing and does not appear to be: monitoring terrorism.
This week's review had a courageous,
politically incorrect analysis of the spread of Islamic terrorism
in India, which I believe important enough to share with you. Why
do I describe the analysis as politically incorrect? Because most
of us of the secular, liberal, mainstream media do not dare say the
words Islam and terrorism in the same breath.
Listing the acts of terrorism of
the past week, the review begins with the August 25 attacks in Mumbai
that killed 50 people and injured 185. Hours after the blasts more
than 100 detonators were found in a railway tunnel at Ghatandevi
near Igatpuri, 60 kilometres from Nashik. The review mentions that
the find came an hour before 'an express train carrying a large number
of pilgrims was to pass'.
Gun battle
Next, on August 27, while the prime
minister was holding a meeting of the Inter-state council in Srinagar,
two terrorists entered the Greenway Hotel three kilometers from the
venue and engaged security forces in a 12-hour gun battle.
On August 30, acting on a tip-off,
the Border Security Force engaged in another gun battle which resulted
in the killing of terrorist mastermind, Ghazi Baba.
On August 30, two terrorists were
killed in an encounter in Delhi. The encounter came after a truck
carrying explosives was intercepted and three terrorists arrested.
This led the police to further arrests in Bulundshehr, Uttar Pradesh
on August 31 and the recovery of 23 electronic detonators and three
remote control devices.
Ajay Sahni, editor of the review,
writes, 'Despite the geographical spread of these various incidents,
and the firepower expended or recovered, this is barely the tip of
the iceberg of Pakistan- sponsored Islamist terrorism in India. In the
wake of the Mumbai blasts, a great deal of poorly informed 'analysis',
both in the Indian and the international media, sought to link the
incidents to proximate triggering events including, among others,
the Gujarat riots last year and the disclosure of a report by the
Archaelogical Survey of India, on the very morning of the twin explosions
in Mumbai, which claimed that 10th century temple lay under the
foundations of the disputed Babri Masjid (mosque) site in Ayodhya,
Uttar Pradesh. These analyses fail to comprehend the sheer enormity
of the Islamist enterprise in South Asia, the continuity of motives
that underlie a long succession of incidents, and the complexity
and number of cells and networks that have been established across
the country to secure a sustained and subversive strategic agenda'.
I could not agree more. On account
of political correctness and some bizarre idea that you become anti-secular
if you criticize anything Islamic we in the media rarely have the
courage to admit that nearly every act of terrorism on Indian soil
in the past ten years has been Islamist. We also rarely have the
courage to admit that the worldwide Islamic jehad has India, second
only to America and Israel, as "enemy number one".
Analysts more liberal than your
columnist believe that we must understand the reasons why Islamic
terrorism has spread in India. Remember what happened to the Babri
Masjid, they say, and then there is the Kashmir problem.
Yes, the destruction of the Babri
Masjid was medieval, barbaric and wrong and yes there is a problem
in Kashmir created by the mistakes of Indian leaders. But, terrorism
is terrorism and cannot be excused. If we spent as much time analyzing
the methodology of the jehad as we do trying to understand why it
happened we would get a lot closer to dealing with terrorism. In
understanding methodology one of the first things we are likely to
discover is that even if the terrorists themselves are Pakistanis
it is entirely (I use the word consciously) because of the support
local Muslims provide that terrorist acts become possible.
Anybody who doubts what I say should
spend a couple of days in the vicinity of mosques and madrassas in
your city of choice and just listen to conversations among ordinary
people. I say this because while doing last week's piece on the bomb
blasts in Mumbai I spent some time talking to Muslims in Mohammad
Ali Road. No matter how hard I tried to get people to admit that
there was such a thing as Islamic terrorism I could not. The men
I talked to, both young and old, religious and not so religious,
said it was their view that no Muslims could be terrorists because
Islam did not allow terrorism.
So, who were these people all over
the world who were going around killing innocent people, I asked,
and they said they did not know about the international situation,
but they were certain that in India the killers were doing the bidding
of politicians. It is happening, they said, because political leaders
want to heat their bread in the cauldron of communal violence.
When I pointed out that it was not
just in India that Muslims were being viewed with suspicion they
said, 'This is written in the Hatith, it is written that Muslims
will suffer because they will have moved away from the basic teachings
of the Prophet'.
Breeding ground
Much of the conversation went in
similar, medieval vein with examples invoked constantly from the
writings and times of the Prophet. How does this link itself to terrorism?
For a start as a fertile breeding ground, as long as Indian Muslims
remain mired in the idea that the world must be ordered according
to the sayings of the Prophet we have a justification for jehad.
At one point I asked if there were
still registers of those ready for suicide missions being kept in
the mosques. I had heard of these shortly after the Babri Masjid
was torn down but never actually saw any. Nobody I talked to that
day could confirm that any existed now either but when I mentioned
the Babri Masjid everyone said they were ready to die if anything
like that happened again or if there was any perceived assault on
Islam.
Well, as a religion that considers
itself under siege everywhere, since September 11, it is not difficult
to persuade the semi- literate and the devout that a terrorist is really
only a mujahid.
So it is that mujahideen have got
safe houses and support in Kashmir since the armed 'freedom movement'
began in 1989 and so it is that they get support now in the rest
of India where an atmosphere of grievance and minorityism creates
the right mood for jehad. We will not be able to fight terrorism
unless we acknowledge this.
