By Aparna Pande
This article appeared in Indolink on August 1, 2006
India is not only the world’s largest secular democracy and one of the world ’s fastest growing economies; it is also home to the second largest Muslim population in the world. But India is not known to have produced homegrown terrorists or Jihadis. This phenomenon is explained by Indians by the fact of India granting and guaranteeing freedom and fundamental rights to its religious minorities –something Pakistan and Bangladesh have failed to do so far.
On closer inspection, however, India’s assertion of not having homegrown terrorist or jihadi networks may not entirely be true. Organizations like SIMI (Student Islamic Movement of India), one of the organizations most likely to have perpetrated the recent Bombay blasts is definitely homegrown. While looking for sources of terrorism in India, Indians should examine domestic factors, such as the disenchantment of India’s religious minorities, instead of focusing exclusively on the foreign hand.
It is true that a number of the organizations – whether SIMI or the Muslim United Liberation Tigers of Assam (MULTA) or the Islamic Sevak Sangh –receive funding and support from foreign countries (especially Pakistan). But it is still important to figure out why Indian members of terrorist outfits accept external backing. If they did not have a grievance of their own, disenchanted Indian citizens –however extreme their views – would have little reason to seek funding and training from abroad.
If as is claimed by our politicians and leaders India is a truly secular democratic republic in which it does not matter whether you are a Hindu or a Muslim then these groups should not accept funding against their own country. When two brothers fight, they tend to unite in the face of outsiders trying to enter the dispute, unless their grievance is truly very deep or their anger towards the other simply too great. If, however, the bonds tying the two brothers are weak then either side would welcome aid from outside.
All one needs to do is look at Kashmir. If the Pakistani Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) were the sole reason for the rise of terrorism in Kashmir and other parts of India then militancy in Kashmir would not have found its roots only after 1989. Pakistan made attempts right from 1947 onwards to appear as the savior of Kashmir, both to the international community and to the Kashmiri populace. Two wars later it was still not able to achieve its goals. However, the mockery of democracy in Jammu and Kashmir State by the Indian government in the form of rigged elections in 1972, 1984 and 1987 and sheer disregard towards the feelings of the common people turned the tide.
Before 1989, separatist movements, like the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), demanded autonomy and even independence from India. They received little popular or widespread support. After 1989 that there was a growth in the number of organizations in Kashmir supporting violent action; they received public support. That there was support from across the border and that the jihadi camps set up for the Afghan jihad of the 1980s were used to train Kashmiri militants cannot be denied. But what also cannot be denied is that initially those camps only had foreign terrorists and it is mainly after 1989 that they gained local recruits.
We, as Indians, may have fallen into one of our oldest weaknesses: complacency. Former Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh recently observed that the humiliation of Muhammad Ali Jinnah by the Congress led to the partition of India and the creation of Pakistan. Complacent Congress party leaders disregarded the views of the Muslim League in the 1920s and 1930s on grounds that a democratic secular polity would ensure equal opportunities for everyone and that ‘separate electorates’ was a divisive colonial tactic. Had some attention been paid to the concerns of the League leadership in time, history might have been different.
During the independence struggle, Congress ignored the difficulty faced by erstwhile Muslim elite in accepting its loss of political and economic power after the start of British colonial rule. The notion of majority rule was new to India and threatening to the Muslims. Congress leaders of the time did not understand that as long as the majority is sensitive towards the minority, the minority never feels like a minority and does not demand safeguards or privileges. People with big feet must tread softly to avoid making others insecure.
Even today, 60 years after Partition, instead of acknowledging that the Muslim community has genuine grievances, there is the same ‘all is fine’ attitude. The Justice Sachar Report on the ‘Social, Economic and Educational Status of the Muslim Community in India’ and the reports by the National Human Rights Commission, however, show otherwise.
It is in the context of increasing Muslim grievance that one should look at the rising number of Indian recruits available to terrorist and militant organizations like SIMI, Lashkar e Tayyaba, Hizbul Mujahideen, and MULTA.
The training and the funding of India’s Jihadis may come from outside but their recruits are local. The RDX used for the blasts and the Jihadi ideology used to justify it might come from across the border but the disenchanted and disgruntled young men and women who use the foreign supplied material and who believe in this ideology are Indian.