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Indian Muslims choose
politics, not terror
By
Siddharth Srivastava
NEW DELHI -
Investigations into the London blasts continue to
reveal militant links to countries such as
Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Afghanistan,
countries long considered fertile ground for
fundamentalist thought, as well as to al-Qaeda.
Inevitably, debate has ensued in India about the
absence of Indian Muslims in al-Qaeda. Indian
Muslims number more than 150 million, in a
population of more than a billion.
Indeed,
in the wake of September 11, 2001 and the London
attacks of July 7, 2005, US intelligence has
traced international terror modules to Pakistan,
Indonesia, Malaysia, Chechnya, Afghanistan and
some Arab countries, but not a single report has
linked al-Qaeda or similar jihadi groups to Indian
Muslims. Similarly, no Indian Muslims are among
al-Qaeda suspects on international lists of wanted
criminals or in prison camps such as Guantanamo
Bay.
Analysts say that the main reason
Indian Muslims have stayed away from international
terror circles is the strong democratic tradition
that exists in the country. Muslims have been able
to give vent to their grievances and grow, unlike
international hotbeds where democracy is not a
norm.
Several Indian Muslims have
flourished in various professions, whether as film
stars, cricketers, politicians or businessmen -
actors Shahrukh Khan, Aamir Khan and Salman Khan;
cricketers Irfan Pathan, Zaheer Khan and Azim
Premji; the owner of Indian software giant Wipro;
tennis icon Sania Mirza. Some of the soldiers who
fought Pakistan's incursion into Kargil in 1999
were Muslim. The President of India, A PJ Abdul
Kalam, is a Muslim. Although Indian Muslims remain
one of the less-developed and poorer sections of
Indian society, they have not been lured by the
pan-Islam radicalism that afflicts many other
nations.
Given the strong and uniform
voting constituency that Muslims provide, Indian
political outfits vie for their support. Different
parties realize that securing a majority and
support of coalition partners can be possible only
by keeping Muslims happy. It is in keeping with
the sentiments of Indian Muslims that India -
under both the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and
the Congress party - has resisted intense pressure
from the US to join the war effort in Iraq that is
widely seen as having prompted the London attacks.
Nevertheless, there have been times when
the machinations of Indian politics have left
Indian Muslims seething, and their faith in
democracy as a weapon to vote political parties in
or out of power has been eroded and tested.
The threshold of tolerance was pushed hard
following communal riots in Gujarat in 2002 in
which more than 2,000 Muslims were killed. The
state government was a mute spectator, indeed a
perpetrator of, and collaborator in, the violence.
In a brute expression of the Hindu majority, the
state BJP government led by Chief Minister
Narendra Modi was subsequently voted back into
power in Gujarat.
One can recall the
sensational suicide attacks on the Indian
parliament, on the Akshardham temple in Gujarat,
and most recently on the makeshift Ram temple at
Ayodhya; in none of these instances has the
identity of the terrorists turned out to be Indian
- they have been renegade mujahideen from
Afghanistan or Pakistan.
One reason for
the rapid rise of the BJP as a political outfit in
the 1990s was due to Hindus being disillusioned by
the Congress's supposed "pseudo-secular" politics
that appeared soft on Muslims and pampered them.
The current dispensation under the Congress, which
has lost out to regional parties in the north that
have won over the Muslims, has floated the idea of
reservations for Muslims in educational
institutions and jobs. The question of quotas has
been mooted by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh,
though the BJP has taken strong umbrage to the
idea. The Congress has also kept a studied
distance on the Imrana rape issue, in which a
Muslim woman was asked by clerics to live with her
father-in-law after she was raped by him. The
Congress believes that pandering to extremist and
conservative elements buttresses its image as a
pro-Muslim party.
While there is no
gainsaying that the BJP could still play the
communal card at the regional level if it suits
its interests, there is a definite rethink at the
national level. Muslim votes play a critical role
in the most populous states of Uttar Pradesh and
Bihar, where the BJP has also lost its hold. The
general elections in 2004 saw the BJP reach out to
the Muslims for the first time. It is widely
believed that the BJP might form an alliance with
a regional party with pro-Muslim proclivities in
Uttar Pradesh in the near future.
The
ongoing crisis in the BJP leadership is also due
to the efforts of its leader L K Advani to take on
a moderate garb, which is being opposed by the
hardliners. Indeed, it is believed that even
aggrieved Indian Muslims do not become terrorists,
imbued as they are by the deep ethos of tolerance
in India as well as political parties vying for
their attention. If at all, they want to be party
to progress as well as economic growth. The
exception is in volatile pockets such as the
Muslim majority state of Kashmir that is seen as a
disputed territory by Pakistan. That too is
changing fast as has been witnessed by the
successful elections, both legislative and civic,
that saw people vote in huge numbers. It is in the
summer months when the snow melts and infiltration
from Pakistan is at a maximum that the frequency
of terror attacks goes up dramatically, as is
happening in Indian portion of Kashmir.
This is not to say revenge killings do not
happen in India. Investigations in London point to
the deployment of British troops in the Iraq war
as the cause of deep angst that drove the bombers,
despite being British Asians. However, in India
the links as well as perpetrators have not been
indigenous. Most intelligence reports point to
Indian Muslims at most being facilitators either
under duress or lured by money.
The Indian
police usually trace terrorist strikes in the
country to Pakistan and its Inter-Services
Intelligence (ISI). Until the late 1990s, the
Hizbul Mujahideen (operating mostly in Kashmir and
having perfected the art of remote-triggered
explosions) created havoc in India. Two of the
most dreaded terrorist organizations that operate
in India are the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and the
Jaish-e-Mohammed, with active bases in Pakistan.
Then there are the henchmen who have their
links with the Mumbai underworld. Such gangs are
led by people such as Dawood Ibrahim, supposedly
headquartered in Pakistan and the United Arab
Emirates, working under the aegis of the ISI.
The police hold Dawood and the ISI
responsible for the serial Mumbai blasts in 1993
that left more than 250 dead. The bombs were
revenge for the destruction of the Babri mosque at
Ayodhya by Hindu fanatics who were buttressed by
the BJP - a party that owes its rise to
upper-caste Hindu votes.
Police described
the Gateway blasts in Mumbai in August 2003, in
which more than 50 people were killed, as revenge
against the Gujarat riots. Likewise the attack on
the Akshardham temple in Gujarat in which 37
people were killed. The ISI is held responsible
for infiltrating poor and unemployed youth in
Kashmir, vulnerable to religious indoctrination as
well as monetary incentives.
Of course the
role of the US remains under scrutiny, though the
meddling in areas without democracy makes matters
worse. A recent analysis said: "A basic reason why
the military or feudal autocrats control these
countries (Pakistan, Saudi Arabia) is that the US
propped them up to serve its economic and
diplomatic interests. It was either the presence
of oil or their utility as frontline states
against the Soviet Union that guided the
Americans.
"As is known, Osama bin Laden,
a Saudi millionaire, was an American ally when his
band of fundamentalists fought the Soviets in
Afghanistan. It is the cynical use of these
countries by Washington that built up a reservoir
of resentment among large sections of their people
against the US.
"This anger may have
become all the more intense because there were no
democratic outlets - no parliament, opposition
parties, a free press and a free judiciary - to
let off steam.''
Siddharth
Srivastava is a New Delhi-based
journalist.
(Copyright 2005 Asia Times
Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us
for information on sales, syndication and republishing.) |
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