Extremist Islam is anathema to the overwhelming majority of Indian
Muslims. The roots of jihad lie across the border
BY AJAI SAHNI
India has many and enormous social, political and economic
problems. Among these, certainly, is the
relative poverty and backwardness of the Muslim community, the causes of
which are many and complex but that include at least a measure of
discrimination.
These are compounded by political mischief, including
efforts to electorally exploit communal polarisation and cultivate
communal vote banks – both of the majority and minority community.
From time to time this pernicious politics has exploded in
communal riots and other patterns of violence but India has strong and
inherent defences against any possibility of civil war.
These are nevertheless serious challenges for the nation
on other grounds and need to be urgently addressed; but it is not here
that we will discover the ‘root causes’ of jihadi terrorism.
The roots of the jihad lie in Pakistan and in its
relentless strategy, sustained over decades, to penetrate every
concentration of Muslims in the country with the subversive – and for the
overwhelming majority of Indian Muslims, culturally offensive – ideology
of extremist Islamism.
Kashmir has been the most dramatic success of this
strategy where more than 40 years of systematic subversion transformed a
heritage of Sufi and Rishi Islam into an extremist jihadi perversion which
exploited the spaces generated by political incompetence and opportunism.
Despite the history of its direct intervention in Jammu
and Kashmir, Pakistan today finds it impossible to sustain the movement on
indigenous support; it is Pakistanis who now constitute the belligerent
mainstay of the ‘Kashmiri’ terror.
The geographically dispersed Islamist terrorist attacks
across India are only the more visible evidence of a war of attrition by
Pakistani state agencies and their jihadi surrogates. Dozens of terrorist
and subversive ‘modules’ are detected and disrupted each year before they
can translate their violent intent into action.
It is crucial however that despite occasional and
inevitable ‘successes’ this relentless strategy – which has targeted
virtually every concentration of Muslim populations in India – has
overwhelmingly failed to secure a base within the Indian community, beyond
a minuscule radical fringe; most such modules are now increasingly manned
or led by Pakistanis and Bangladeshis.
The Pakistani strategy nevertheless exploits fault lines
and vulnerabilities within India. The greatest bulwark the Indian nation
could seek against such mischief already exists: it is our Constitution.
It is in fact only to the extent that we dilute or stray
from a transparent and non-discriminatory constitutional order in our
practices – and this has been an increasing trend over the decades – that
we grow more vulnerable.
Even after the most extreme deviations, such as the Delhi
or Gujarat riots and the enormity of state collusion in those cases, the
anger of India’s minorities was eventually assuaged and moderated by the
inherent justice of the Indian constitutional order – though not of Indian
society and politics. This order must be continuously strengthened.
Egyptian reformer, Tarek Heggy, notes: "The most important
point is that the Muslim community in India is the only Muslim community
(in the world) which lives in a genuine national democracy… India has
proven that when Muslims (like any other human beings) exist in a public
climate that allows them full participation in political life they do not
turn to underground activities… and they do not leave (their country) to
blow up a plane, a train or a bus full of innocent civilians…"
In the economic sphere, again, it is non-discriminatory
development and equal opportunities for all communities that offer the
best course of action.
Special concessions and reservations have done more harm
than good to their target populations, becoming alibis for neglect and
discrimination in other spheres. India’s minorities must be made equal –
and not privileged or underprivileged – partners in our many economic
enterprises. n
(Dr Ajai Sahni is founding member and executive director
of the Institute for Conflict Management. This article was published in
The Economic Times on March 14, 2006.)