In recent times we have been hearing
a great deal about the Islamic State (IS) and how it poses a threat to India.
In July, the newspaper USA Today carried a report claiming that the IS was
contemplating raising a terrorist army in Pakistan and Afghanistan and
launching an attack on India which would trigger off the “end of times” war
promised in Islamic theology. This was based on a document written in Urdu,
captured from a Pakistani national close to the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan
(TTP).
According to specialist Jessica
Stern, the document is more of a wish list of the IS, and does not reflect its
actual capabilities in the South Asian region. The idea of an “end of times”
conflict has pre-dated the IS in this region with many of those involved in
fighting with the Taliban believing that they were part of a struggle which
would see the Armageddon-like battle in the region of Khorasan (approximating
north-eastern Iran and northerrn Afghanistan) which would result in the entire
world coming under the sway of the sway of the Mahdi.
With groups like the Taliban afloat
in Afghanistan, such millenarian thinking is not unusual. It also sometimes
reflects the semi-educated Maulvis who dot the landscape of South Asia. But
from here to extrapolate some imminent danger to India from the Islamic State
is a leap too far. However, it clearly seems to be worrying the authorities in
the Union Home Ministry, who called a meeting last month of 12 state government
officials to frame a strategy against the IS threat. According to a newspaper
report, the meeting took up the issue of a new de-radicalisaion strategy which
would use moderate Muslim clergy to create a “counter-narrative” to challenge
the jihadi ideologies while at the same time the intelligence authorities would
maintain a surveillance of cyber space, the recruitment ground of the IS.
As of now, no one is clear as to how
many Indian Muslims have been recruited by the IS. Government estimates put it
at about a dozen. But so far they have managed to lay their hands on only one
returnee Areeb Majeed one of four Kalyan men who returned from Syria earlier
this year. Considering that India has a Muslim population of 180 million, these
numbers are statistically equal to zero.
We also need to take into account
another factor. For the present, the IS orientation is towards the Arab world.
Unlike the Al Qaeda, which was a global franchise, the IS is a proto-state with
a specific geographical location. And, as of now, it is far from India. It is a
big problem for many developed countries because they worry that their young
men who are flocking to the standard of the IS will return and form the core of
a new generation of hardened, violent Islamist extremists. Again, Indian
Muslims, like many other Indians are poor and cannot afford to simply fly off
to Turkey or Iraq and join the IS. Further, in the case of India, the IS’ vaunted
ability to radicalise people through the internet is limited because our
internet coverage is woeful, being virtually non-existent for the poorer
people.
There is, of course, the danger that
exists of the IS taking root in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Both countries are
already awash with jihadi ideologies. Further, the revelation of the death of
Mullah Omar and the possibility that the Taliban will fragment, leaves an
opening for individual Taliban leaders, some of who have already announced a
shift of loyalty to the IS. In Pakistan, the army offensive against the TTP can
also have the consequence of fragmenting the outfit and leaving a vacuum that
can be filled by mullahs aligning themselves with the IS. In either case, that
battle will have to be fought on the ground there. India is not on that front
line. Recall the many alleged intelligence alerts claiming that the Al Qaeda
was entering the battle in India. Nothing came of them.
What the Union Home Ministry needs
to worry about are the growing instances of communal violence in the country in
the past year. They need not concern themselves over the Islamic narrative in
India which, in any case, has produced a remarkable quiescent Muslim community
in an era of turmoil in the Islamic world. Hindutva outfits have stepped up
their pressure on the Muslim community and we are likely to see more violence
in the run up to the state Assembly elections in UP in 2017. This is bad news,
because at the root of radicalisation is usually a sense of grievance. While in
many instances, grievances are manufactured, in the case of India, some people
are bent on creating them through a strategy of overawing the Muslim community
through a policy of violence and discrimination. But, the policy is more likely
to end up tearing the social and religious fabric of the country apart, the
surest way of mortally damaging the unity and integrity of the nation.
Mid Day August 4, 2015
In
recent times we have been hearing a great deal about the Islamic State
(IS) and how it poses a threat to India. In July, the newspaper USA
Today carried a report claiming that the IS was contemplating raising a
terrorist army in Pakistan and Afghanistan and launching an attack on
India which would trigger off the “end of times” war promised in Islamic
theology. This was based on a document written in Urdu, captured from a
Pakistani national close to the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). - See
more at:
http://www.mid-day.com/articles/the-is-threat-india-isnt-on-the-front-line/16424192#sthash.lawr6j09.dpuf
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