By Joshua Hammer
Jan. 14 issue - Hassan Dil is getting ready to move into his
backyard bunker. A retired, half-blind schoolteacher from the border
village of Golkot in Indian-controlled Kashmir, Dil is in the direct
line of fire of Pakistani soldiers perched in the Himalayan peaks
just three kilometers to the south. During the last skirmish between
Pakistan and India three years ago, a Pakistani artillery shell
slammed into a nearby garden, blowing Dil's neighbor to pieces.
NOW, WITH THE THREAT of another conflict looming, the teacher is
taking no chances. The only question is whether the backyard shelter
Dil built with a $400 government grant will protect him and his
family from radioactive fallout, should it come to that. Squinting
across terraced rice fields toward a snowy massif that marks the
border, Dil, 56, says: "We pray that both sides keep talking."
For now, both sides are. The danger is that in India today, as
elsewhere, the hard-liners rule. Taking a cue from George W. Bush's
uncompromising war on terror, New Delhi is demanding that the
Pakistani president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, cease once and for all
his nation's support for "cross-border terror" groups that have
helped Pakistan wage a fight over the disputed province of Kashmir
against its much larger neighbor. After a deadly Dec. 13 attack on
the Indian Parliament, New Delhi threatened to invade Pakistan to
root out the militants unless Musharraf quashed them himself. That
has led to a tense military standoff between the two nuclear powers
in the past two weeks, driving thousands of people from their homes.
India has severed rail and air links to Pakistan and massed tens of
thousands of troops on the 1,800-mile border-the heaviest military
buildup since the 1971 Indo-Pakistani war. Pakistan, which denied any
involvement in the attack, moved thousands of its soldiers eyeball to
eyeball with its Indian enemy and announced that "it was prepared for
war."
* From the origins of the India-Pakistan rivalry to its modern
nuclear reality.
PERILS AND PROMISE
The confrontation has highlighted both the perils-and the
promise-of the new global crusade against terror. Since the September
11 terrorist attacks and the U.S. military campaign against Al Qaeda
and the Taliban, U.S. allies such as India and Israel are seizing the
opportunity to step up their own wars against Islamic militancy. Last
month Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon marshaled international
pressure along with military action to force Palestinian leader Yasir
Arafat to crack down on the radical Hamas and Islamic Jihad
movements. Now Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee hopes a
similar mix of threat and diplomacy will force his Pakistani
counterparts to rein in the Islamic militants who have been
assaulting Indian-ruled Kashmir-and other parts of India-with
increasing frequency. "This is just like the Israelis upping the
ante," says Shireen Mazari, director general of the Institute for
Strategic Studies in Islamabad, "The [Indians] want to change the
parameters of the Kashmir issue."
But the strategy could backfire-disastrously. And U.S.
officials find themselves reluctantly cast as mediators-or at least
conveyers of messages-between the two governments. The Bush
administration fears India will overplay its hand by continuing to
make public demands that it knows will be rejected. "We have to hope
the Indians don't respond in a ham-handed manner. They can be
ham-handed," says a senior U.S. official. India has said that it has
solid evidence linking the bombers to their Pakistani backers but has
refused to share any data with the United States-or, apparently, with
Pakistan. Bush offered to help, and to send FBI agents to assist
India's investigation. "They turned down the president's offer," says
the U.S. official. India's ultimatum could destabilize or even bring
down Musharraf, who faces still formidable opposition from radical
Islamists. Or the war of words could escalate into an armed conflict
between two bitter enemies whose arsenals are stocked with dozens of
nukes. "Any mistake can ignite a fuse and start a war," says one
military analyst in New Delhi.
India-Pakistan & Beyond
Bush administration officials are also worried for more
selfish reasons. They are concerned that India's brinkmanship could
force Pakistan to ship tens of thousands of troops away from the
Afghanistan frontier. That would make it easier for fleeing members
of Al Qaeda to vanish into the rugged mountains of Pakistan-and
possibly into Kashmir (so far Pakistan has left those troops in
place).
A STIFF HANDSHAKE
Last week the threat of war seemed to recede a bit. In the
first indication that India's pressure tactics may be working,
Musharraf rounded up hundreds of members of Islamic militant groups
active in Kashmir and agreed to withdraw support from two
"nonindigenous" groups, Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Muhammad. And at
a meeting of South Asian nations in Nepal on Saturday, the Pakistani
leader shook hands with a stiff but receptive Vajpayee, pledging his
"genuine and sincere friendship." Reportedly, Musharraf agreed as
well to dismantle the units of Pakistan's military intelligence that
provide support for Pakistan-based rebels. But when Vajpayee demanded
that Pakistan hand over 20 alleged terrorists, Musharraf refused,
insisting that they would be prosecuted in Pakistani courts. At the
same time, Islamic guerrillas showed no signs of easing their deadly
secessionist campaign. Rebels killed an Indian policeman in a grenade
attack in the heart of Srinagar, the Kashmiri capital; India charged
that Lashkar-e-Taiba threatened, in an e-mail to the country's
interior minister, to blow up the Taj Mahal. A spokesman for the
rebel group called the report "a lie."
India is gambling with an existential issue that goes back to the
modern roots of both nations. After the 1947 partition of India and
Pakistan, the maharajah of Kashmir, a Hindu, waffled on whether his
predominantly Muslim state should join India or Pakistan. Pakistan
dispatched troops to occupy Kashmir-triggering an Indian invasion and
a U.N.-brokered ceasefire that established a so-called Line of
Control dividing Pakistani rule from Indian rule. Each side has
refused to relinquish its claim to the territory. In 1989 secular
Kashmiri groups launched a violent independence struggle. Pakistan
later backed them, hoping to exploit the movement to achieve its own
goal of controlling Kashmir. Indeed, the anti-India "jihad" for
Kashmir has been the greatest unifying force in Pakistani politics in
recent years.
So Musharraf is risking his reputation, possibly even his
life, in cracking down. But the Pakistani president is playing for
bigger stakes now. He wants to abandon the semi-isolation his nation
has endured since the cold war, turning it into an economic basket
case. "He knows that if Pakistan is a home to all sorts of extremist
groups, then it's going to remain without a future," said one Western
diplomat in Islamabad. A Bush official adds that "if ever he is going
to move, the time is now."
Musharraf has told U.S. officials he will make a major speech
shortly in which he will discuss why extremists are dangerous to
Pakistan, even while pledging Pakistan will not abandon Kashmir.
"What we have to hope," says one worried U.S. official, "is that the
Indians don't raise the bar."
With Scott Johnson in Islamabad and Roy Gutman in Washington,
(c) 2002 Newsweek, Inc.
It is typical of the clumsy working of India's and Pakistan's foreign
offices that there should be endless speculation over what transpired
in Kathmandu between the two foreign ministers, and during Gen
Musharraf's "informal interaction" with Prime Minister Vajpayee.
Although the camera captured their interaction, New Delhi and
Islamabad both ham-handedly deny it. But it is clear that Messrs
Jaswant Singh, Brajesh Mishra and Abdul Sattar met three to four
times for informal "conversations". They discussed a possible "road
map" for de-escalating their on-going confrontation and resuming
dialogue. Sri Lankan President Kumaratunga facilitated the
interaction, with the US prodding from behind.
New Delhi has since hardened its stand, in line with Mr Advani's US
visit. But one must hope it will respond positively to Islamabad's
latest anti-terrorist moves, which Gen Musharraf is expected to
announce any day. Regardless of his new measures, and their adequacy,
the time has come for both states to radically re-orient their
postures. India has so far pursued a strategy of nuclear
brinkmanship, while Pakistan has reluctantly yielded to
"anti-terrorist" demands.
India's brinkmanship involves an aggressive warlike posture, backed
up by large-scale ground-level military mobilisation, calculated to
get the US to exert pressure on Pakistan. Deliberate ratcheting up of
hostility and harsh diplomatic sanctions are part of this strategy.
India calculates this will deliver more than outright war (to which
there will be significant domestic opposition). Pakistan can be bent
to its will, through American mediation.
Although cynical, this strategy has admittedly had some success.
Islamabad started acting against Lashkar-e-Toiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed
within 48 hours of the US banning them. It has since rounded up 300
suspects. The freezing of terrorists' accounts might not have had
much effect (thanks to the advance notice some got), but that can't
be said about Hafiz Mohammed Saeed's arrest. And yet, the success is
not such that the BJP can declare triumph.
India's brinkmanship is fraught with grave dangers. It is directed
more at the US than at Pakistan, and depends on variables outside the
India-Pakistan relationship. Military build-ups have their own logic.
In the superheated subcontinental context, a skirmish can snowball
into a battle which can precipitate war. India's objectives are
somewhat diffuse and open to subjective interpretation (how effective
is "effective" action?). It is hard to decide where to draw the line.
In New Delhi, there is no clarity about how far Gen Musharraf can go
in meeting India's demands. There is severe underestimation of the
opposition to him from jehadi groups, who have staged bomb explosions
and killed his home minister's brother. Above all, brinkmanship risks
a nuclear conflagration. This itself is a strong argument for a
change in New Delhi's strategy.
For its part, Islamabad must become firmer in its anti-terrorist
action. The wide world knows how deeply implicated its Inter-Services
Intelligence has been in shadowy operations--in India, Afghanistan,
and Pakistan itself. After the Afghan war, "plausible deniability" of
its role is becoming incredible. Gen Musharraf will make a signal
contribution to Pakistan's stabilisation and normalisation if he cuts
the umbilical cord between the ISI and Kashmiri militantsjust as he
did with the Taliban.
Gen Musharraf is under enormous pressure from the US, which in turn
faces pressure not just from India, but from its powerful pro-Israeli
domestic lobby, which is seriously alarmed at the possibility of a
clandestine transfer of Pakistan's nuclear technology to
anti-Western, anti-Jewish militants. The US is deeply suspicious of
the ideological, political, financial and military support Islamabad
has extended over the years to extremist groups in South, Southwest
and West Asia. It has offered special funding to Gen Musharraf to
modernise and secularise Pakistan's madrassas.
However, Gen Musharraf cannot be pushed beyond certain limits without
jeopardising his very survival. His decision to arrest LeT's Hafeez
was an extremely tough call, preceded by consultations and
preparations of a kind never before undertaken. A new US
Congressional research report says that a crackdown on madrassas
could cost him his job. It is one thing to act against the gangsters
and Khalistanis who have taken refuge in Pakistan. But Kashmir is
another matter--because it is linked to Pakistan's core identity and
Partition's "unfinished agenda". No Pakistani ruler can be seen to be
indifferent to Kashmir.
India's leaders probably lack an intelligent, informed assessment of
how much Gen Musharraf can deliver. Pushing him to breaking point
would be extremely counterproductive. What is needed is good, clean,
straight diplomacy. The critical test lies in deciding just what to
settle for in the prevailing conditions--so that what is achieved
conforms to certain principles, and advances both the national and
regional interest. If India were to ask, for instance, that all the
20 named men, including Masood Azhar, be handed over to it, it would
be exceeding the limits of feasibility and legality.
There is no extradition treaty between India and Pakistan.
International law does not compel states to hand over even known
criminals without such a treaty. That too can be only done for
specific offences, not some general category called "terrorist
activity". Indian and Pakistani laws require that extradition
requests be referred to a magistrate who must confirm that a prima
facie case exists.
In the absence of a legal mandate, it should be enough for India if
Islamabad hands over to Interpol or a third party one or more persons
in the suspects list, who have international Red Corner Notices
against them. Once this is done, the two governments should fully
resume dialogue and negotiate other confidence-building measures,
including joint patrolling of the LoC. That could inaugurate a new
era in their relations, based on cooperation and good faith. It is of
paramount importance that the Vajpayee government recognises a good
deal when it is offered one. Or else, a precious window of
opportunity could soon slam shut.
The central question is, will the BJP/NDA leadership muster the
courage to open a new chapter in India-Pakistan relations? For
decades, the Jana Sangh/BJP/RSS have thrived on hostility with
Pakistan, which in turn is linked to their anti-Muslim prejudices.
For Hindutva, Indian Muslims are Pakistan's "Fifth Column", just as
Pakistan is the external expression of Islam's "internal threat" to
Indian "nationhood". No wonder, Mr Vajpayee--who occasionally sounds
"moderate" in New Delhi--becomes indistinguishable from rabid
communalists in Lucknow, as on January 2. Besides ideological bias,
the BJP faces a pressing political issue too--the coming Uttar
Pradesh elections. If it loses them, the NDA could come tumbling down
nationally. By all indications, the BJP is set to do extremely badly
in UP. Its score could be as low as 70 to 100 seats in the 403-member
Assembly, nowhere near what is needed for a halfway-viable coalition.
The BJP has tried every trick in the book to avert defeat in UP--from
browbeating the Opposition to bribing potential supporters. Its last
two trump-cards were, ironically, mandal and mandir. It created
quotas within OBC quotas for the Most Backward Castes, promising
40,000 jobs. But there is no money to back that promise. And the MBCs
aren't taken in by what they consider a "Brahmin-Bania" party. The
March 12 temple "deadline" plank isn't turning out to be a
vote-catcher. The "anti-terrorism" platform seems more productive. Mr
Vajpayee has himself advised the VHP to play down the temple; he is
roping in the Kanchi shankaracharya to further pressure the BJP.
"Anti-terrorism" allows the BJP to combine jingoistic nationalism
with its anti-Pakistan, anti-Muslim agendas. It can claim to be
talking "tough" to Islamabad--to the point of "courageously" risking
war. It also hopes to communally polarise the situation and even put
the secular parties on the mat. These parties, it hopes, will become
less combative, making its own defeat less likely.
This may turn out to be a desperate, even futile, hope. Wars and
macho anti-Pakistan postures are not as popular as might seem. The
Kargil war, despite the politicisation of coffins and of
death-as-a-spectacle, didn't prevent the loss of half the BJP's UP
Lok Sabha tally in 1999. The BJP's opponents, especially the
Samajwadi Party and Congress, are far more upbeat than two years ago.
Eventually, there may not be much purchase in the terrorism plank,
barring a vote gain of one or two percent.
Will the BJP stoop so low and recklessly pursue its brinkmanship for
such a measly gain? Will it be so foolishly mindless as not to
recognise that its best medium- and long-term bet lies in putting
Pakistan firmly on the road to moderation through cooperation, not
confrontation? Will it choose unstable, compromised power in UP over
the abiding national interest in mending relations with Pakistan and
seriously combating the scourge of militant-group terrorism?
Here is Mr Vajpayee's litmus test. If he has any real leadership
qualities, he should seize the present moment to bring about a
breakthrough with Pakistan. This is also his chance to think beyond
provincial calculations. Can he rise to the occasion? Or will he
plunge a billion people into war, and a vicious cycle of unending
terror and yet more violence?
--end--
KARACHI, Pakistan, Jan. 13 -- With their existence suddenly
threatened by Pakistan's promised crackdown on terrorism, Islamic
militants here are going into hiding, altering their identities and
reorganizing their movements into underground cells, according to
group leaders and government officials.
For years, militant organizations fighting to drive India from the
divided Himalayan territory of Kashmir have operated in plain sight
inside Pakistan. But as the Pakistani government has moved to rein
them in over the past three weeks, several groups have relocated
their bases to secret locations throughout Pakistan, where they plan
to continue recruiting members and raising money, leaders said. They
also have moved some public outreach offices to Pakistan's slice of
Kashmir, where they expect the government to tolerate their existence
as long as they keep a low profile.
"We will fight," Abdullah Sayyaf, a spokesman for the militant group
Lashkar-i-Taiba, told reporters today. "If the Indians have the guts,
let them stop us in Kashmir."
Pakistani police say they have detained an estimated 1,500 militants
and religious radicals in the past two days, many of them in this
port city. The roundup was planned in conjunction with a speech given
Saturday by Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who declared
that he was banning five extremist groups and would closely monitor
other militants.
Musharraf's televised address received a cautious welcome today in
India, where the government has demanded that Pakistan curb Islamic
groups staging cross-border attacks. Indian Foreign Minister Jaswant
Singh said that India agreed with the principles laid out by
Musharraf, but that "we have to see if there are any gaps between
what is said and what is done." [Details, Page A14.]
The Pakistani crackdown amounts to a rapid reversal in the
government's stance toward militant organizations. Until recently,
they were allowed and even encouraged to operate in the open. They
kept storefront offices, advertised in newspapers and aggressively
raised money in mosques and on the streets.
Before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States, there
were no restrictions against Pakistani citizens joining such groups.
Indeed, police officials in the southern province of Sindh said the
government had instructed them to allow militant groups in Karachi to
recruit soldiers for guerrilla training and to solicit contributions
for holy wars in Kashmir and Afghanistan.
The new policy has been hard to enforce because the change was so
abrupt, said a senior Karachi police official. "It is too difficult
for us to adjust to the new guidelines," he said.
In his speech Saturday, Musharraf said the militants had done
Pakistan's image and society irreparable harm and would no longer be
tolerated. He announced that five groups would be forced to disband.
Three of them are religious militant organizations that the
government blames for sectarian violence within Pakistan that led to
400 deaths last year.
The two others -- Lashkar-i-Taiba and Jaish-i-Muhammad -- are
dedicated to disrupting Indian rule in Kashmir and were accused of
plotting the Dec. 13 attack on the Indian Parliament in New Delhi
that claimed 14 lives.
Another Kashmiri separatist group, Harkat ul-Ansar, was banned three
years ago but resurfaced as Harkat ul-Mujaheddin, and remains active
despite being banned in October. Two other Kashmiri rebel
organizations, Al-Badr Mujaheddin and Hizb ul-Mujaheddin, have not
been outlawed but are preparing to carry out their activities in
secret from now on.
Senior police officials in the province of Punjab said commanders of
the five Kashmiri rebel groups have ordered thousands of followers to
go into hiding. Many have already changed their identities, police
said.
"We have learned the lessons from the blunders made by al Qaeda and
the Taliban. Those will never be repeated in Pakistan," said a
22-year-old former Karachi University student who gave his name as
Abu Hafsa. "In the future, each one of our registered activists will
use a cover name."
Hafsa said he belonged to Jaish-i-Muhammad and bragged that he had
participated in five guerrilla raids against the Indian army in the
Baramula and Aath Moqam districts of Indian-controlled Kashmir. "I
have seen my Pakistani and Kashmiri friends giving their lives in
Kashmir," he said. "Who is President Musharraf to stop me from waging
holy war against India?"
Several militants said the groups were working to build a
communication network that would enable them to continue their
actions without tipping off authorities.
Abu Nisar, a follower of Lashkar-i-Taiba, said members would keep in
touch via Web-based e-mail, Internet bulletin boards and electronic
paging, as well as short-messaging services on their mobile phones.
"In Afghanistan, it was not possible to do this, but here we use all
means of communication," Nisar said.
Pakistani intelligence officials said they can tap fixed and cellular
phones but lack the equipment and knowledge to intercept the other
forms of communications.
Pakistani officials also have had little success tracking the
financial assets of the militants. For instance, Pakistan announced
last month that it would freeze the assets of Jaish-i-Muhammad and
Lashkar-i-Taiba, but the Central Bank so far has found no money in
the group's bank accounts, according to government officials.
Pakistan's Interior Ministry has estimated that the five Kashmiri
rebel groups have about 5,000 followers, many of them trained in
guerrilla warfare.
A senior Pakistani official said the government was worried about a
backlash from the militants. "A new underground army of 5,000 armed
and trained religious extremists [could] revolt against this
about-face in the government's posture," he said. "They could pose
the greatest threat to law and order in Pakistan for weeks and months
to come."
Pakistani security officials said unemployed, semi-educated youths
form the core of the groups, but they noted that the militants also
attract doctors, engineers and people serving in sensitive government
jobs.
Officials and analysts in India play down fears of the militants
slipping underground, saying they are more concerned whether
extremist groups will continue to be supported by Pakistan's military
and its Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI). India contends that
groups such as Lashkar-i-Taiba and Jaish-i-Muhammad have been funded,
trained and equipped by Pakistan's military, a charge Islamabad
denies.
If Musharraf is serious about putting the groups out of business --
and the military follows his orders -- then it is unlikely the
militants will be able to retain much of their strength, even if they
operate clandestinely, the Indian officials and analysts said.
"The real question is what will the military and the ISI do?" one
Indian official said. "If they really crack down on these groups,
then it doesn't really matter if they try to change their names or go
underground. Where will they get their guns from? How will they get
money?"
Indian officials also argued that it would be difficult for the
groups to stay undetected in Pakistan, given the military's generally
tight control over the country. Even if the groups did succeed in
hiding their activities, Indian officials and analysts said, the
movement of large numbers of militants across the Line of Control
that divides Kashmir could not take place without the knowledge of
the Pakistani army.
"The militants cannot cross the LOC in significant numbers without
the knowledge and the support of the Pakistani military," said
Krishnaswamy Subrahmanyan, a former adviser to India's national
security council.
But a leader of a Pakistani religious party with close ties to Hizb
ul-Mujaheddin said the new government restrictions against Kashmiri
rebel groups would not prevent them from pursuing their cause.
"Musharraf can never stop the freedom movement in Kashmir. No one
can," said Khurshid Ahmad, vice president of the Jamaat-e-Islami
party. "The Kashmiri struggle will not cease. It may have its ups and
downs, but it will not stop."
Whitlock reported from Islamabad. Correspondent Rajiv Chandrasekaran
in New Delhi contributed to this report.
(c) 2002 The Washington Post Company
At the height of the post-Partition Hindu-Muslim riots, Asrarul Haq
Majaz, a legendary poet of the freedom struggle but known today, if
at all, as the maternal uncle of Javed Akhtar, was asked by the
Communist Party of India to take shelter in a friendly Hindu
dharmshala of Mumbai. He was advised to hide there with his other
colleagues from the progressive writers group, including Sardar
Jafri, Kaifi Azmi and perhaps Banney Bhai aka Sajjad Zahir, too.
They were all supposed to pretend to be Saryupaari and Kannauji
Brahmins and it seemed easy to do that since they all came from the
Avadh region of what is now Uttar Pradesh, heartland of a remarkable
variety of the erstwhile priestly class. They could all speak the
Avadhi dialect of Tulsidas with facility, knew more about the legend
of Lord Rama and even of the more involved Hindu traditions than many
Hindus themselves would be familiar with.
But something was to go wrong anyway. And so, after the priest at the
dharmshala welcomed the horde of masquerading Brahmins, and they had
sat down for tea, the portly pundit turned to Majaz and asked: "So,
sir, you are a Saryupaari Brahmin? So am I. And what may your gotra
be, sir?" Majaz, usually a great wit, lost his speech, spat out the
sip of tea in his mouth and wondered aloud to himself, in chaste Urdu
mind you: "Ma'az Allah, Ismey gotra bhi hota hai?" (Goodness
gracious, why didn't they warn me about this gotra business too?)
The complex skein of Hindu social order, whose yet one more hidden
strand was casually re-discovered by Majaz in 1947, is not any more
complicated than what obtains among Muslims, Christians, Jews, even
Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs in India today. If I have left out any
religion, you may include that too in this argument and it wouldn't
alter much. Therefore, in discussing the cut and thrust of Islam
during the passing year, it would be prudent to keep an eye on what
was happening that was different with other religions.
The fact is that there is a rightwing thrust across the world today,
and that includes the world of Islam. If we take a cursory look at
our own neighbourhood, and see the governments that are in charge of
a billion plus people, it would not be difficult to come back to the
issue at hand, wither Islam? Ranil Wickremasinghe, represents the
Buddhist right, the new king of Nepal is by no means a
dyed-in-the-wool centrist. Begum Khaleda Zia, leaning heavily on the
Muslim clergy for support and our own Atal Behari Vajpayee, all have
one thing in common - they represent strong rightward-leaning
religious lobbies although in my humble but potentially unpopular
opinion in India, President Pervez Musharraf seems to challenge the
pattern. This was made amply clear by his landmark and globally
watched address on Saturday.
So Gen Musharraf is a rare exception to this generally overarching
pattern of religious metaphor intruding into the body politics of
nations which no doubt adds to the chagrin of his many detractors,
including the ones in India. (It must surely be rightwing opinion
that gets worried at the thought of Gen Musharraf's unravelling of
the religious obscurantist agenda of Gen Ziaul Haq.) Look beyond the
region and you would perhaps notice that the ascendance of President
George W. Bush and the decay of the British Labour Party into some
kind of ideological rudderlessness are by no means signs of more
tolerant and open societies ahead. Religious intolerance has seen war
and persecution in Europe.
Anti-Semitism was one such reflection of predominantly Christian
Europe not anywhere else. And be sure that it wasn't Adolf Hitler,
but more genial people like William Shakespeare who popularized and
sustained this hatred of Jews for centuries. It may sound banal, and
I confess it may even be a crass analogy, but it remains a fact in
more ways than one that the anti-Semitic Nazis were essentially
Christian Germans, who were eventually defeated not by a determined
Jewish resistance, but by the overwhelming force of a Christian
Britain and a Christian United States.
In India today, the rightwing thrust of Hindu nationalists, including
some very menacing self-pronounced zealots, is not being stalled so
much by Muslims, Christians or other assorted minorities as by the
majority Hindus themselves. In Sri Lanka, too, a complete and brazen
domination of Hindu and Christian Tamils by the majority Buddhist
Sinhalese could not have been thwarted without very influential saner
voices within the predominantly Sinhalese formations.
And yet there is a rising tide of religious atavism right across the
world. What could be giving rise to it? Or is there something
peculiar about Islam that we should guard against in particular? Or
is it possible that "fundamentalism" is actually the natural
progression of orthodox believers, including Muslims? If not, could
it be a calibrated, cynical and deliberately crafted new ideology
that uses religion as a vehicle, regardless of which religion, as
long as the objective to crush a more liberal and socially fair world
order is achieved?
For all practical purposes the word fundamentalist originated in the
energy shock of 1973 when the Arab countries discovered oil embargo
against the West as a weapon to bring their quarry to their knees. It
is here at this stage that we have to take note of the other linkages
in the drama. For example, the Vietnam war was not going too well for
the United States and in fact the 1973 oil crisis and the
Arab-Israeli war that triggered it had a clear if understated hand in
the ignominy for Washington in 1975 in Saigon.
In the Middle East, during this phase of Arab politics, the leading
voices against Israel and its Western supporters had little or
nothing to do with Islam. It was an Arab-Jewish or as the Arabs
prefer to say Arab-Zionist standoff in which the leading lights were
leftist groups of Palestinians and completely secular groups from
other frontline states. Leila Khaled, for example, who became the
world's first woman hijacker when she commandeered an Israeli plane,
no less, in 1968 was the member of the communist PFLP group of
Palestinians.
The secular imprint on the Palestinian movement was so strong in the
early days that even Yasser Arafat, a product of the truly
reactionary Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt, could become acceptable as
its leader only after taking a secular position, not an Islamic one,
as even recently partly reflected in his quest to go to Bethlehem for
Christmas.
The factors that forced a secular movement of the Palestinians to
find itself inexorably overwhelmed by rightwing religious movements
like the Hamas are not different from the ones that marginalized a
secular, albeit leftist, uprising against the Shah of Iran, a feature
that repeated itself in Afghanistan with minor variations and a
longer time-table for creating right royal religious chaos.
The finger of suspicion points to the role of the United States.
Indeed there's no suspicion, it's an accepted fact. In 1998, former
US national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski told Le Nouvel
Observateur that he persuaded president Jimmy Carter to create the
Mujahideen in 1979, with the goal of "drawing the Russians into the
Afghan trap."
Asked how he could justify the subsequent collapse of any government
in Kabul and the Taliban takeover, Brzezinski said: "What is most
important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of
the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Muslims or the liberation of
Central Europe and the end of the cold war?" History will judge. Is
the Northern Alliance of non-Pakhtoons not crammed with former
religious zealots of the Mujahideen days? And was it not the
Pakhtoons who were fighting for a secular Pakhtoonistan not too long
ago, with a little bit of help here and there from the Soviet Union
and India?
What Brzezinski achieved so cynically at a global level, Indian
politicians have been busy crafting for decades at a smaller but
equally vicious scale at home. The kind of support that orthodox and
often reactionary Muslim bodies get from the state, not just the
governments of the day, in their political calculations does not
require mention here.
For its short-term gains, the state of India has systematically
eroded its secular foundations to make room for the more pliable and
manoeuvrable social groups at the cost of the liberal silent
majority. That's one of the many heavy costs we have to pay for the
running of this behemoth called the world's largest democracy. Muslim
vote, Christian vote, Hindu vote, Dalit vote, and then we have Jat
vote, Gujar vote, Paasi vote, Shia vote, Sunni vote.
But look closely again, for example, at the Muslims of India and you
would perhaps notice that not only are they varied in regional
cultures, well beyond the grasp of ordinary parliamentarians, but are
religiously rooted in sects with diverse agendas, that include
Wahhabis, Ahle Hadis, Deobandis, Nadwat-ul-Ulema, Tablighi Jamaats,
Jamiat Ulema-I-Hind, Jamaat-i-Islami, Barelwis, Shias, Ismailis and
why not even Qadianis. All or anyone of them could have inspired
Akbar Ilahabadi, himself an orthodox Muslim, to guffaw thus:
"Wo miss boli ke main milwaa to deti apney father se; magar tume Alla
Alla karta hai, paagal ka maafiq hai."
Why single out Osama bin Laden for madness? As Fidel Castro said:
"The more the world moves to the right, the more leftist I look,
without even budging an inch from my original stance." Gen
Musharraf's crackdown on Muslim extremists in his country could be
the trigger to check this global drift to the right.
To:
General Pervaiz Musharraf
President of Pakistan and Chief Executive
Chief Executive's Secretariat,
Islamabad.
Fax: 051-9203694 / 82009528
(Chief of Staff to CE)
Dear Mr. President,
Pakistan Peace Coalition, Sindh Chapter, welcomes the package of
measures announced by you in your address to the nation on 12th
January 2002 to counter the rising tide of religious extremism,
intolerance and violence in the country.
The truth, Mr. President, is that, had these measures been taken some
years back, these dark forces of ignorance and terror would have
been unable to endanger peace within the country and indulge in
mindless killings of innocent citizens in the name of religion, or to
cause a host of serious and unnecessary complications in Pakistan's
relations with neighbouring countries.
The disastrous policy of creating and sustaining such forces by the
state did reflect in the foreign relations pursued by past
governments, especially in the last two decades.
It has been one of the founding principles of Pakistan Peace
Coalition that peace within the country and society at all levels is
a pre-requisite to the evolution of our foreign relations on the
basis of seeking peace beyond our borders.
PPC hopes that your Government will resolutely ensure the strict
implementation of the measures you have announced, given the
collaborative role played in the past by state institutions.
How India or the international community looks at these measures may,
of course, be important, but what is most of important of all for the
people of Pakistan is the speedy transformation of the Pakistani
society from a terror and violence ridden one into one of peace,
tolerance, justice, progress and democracy.
PPC Sindh Chapter assures you of its support in the successful
implementation of these measures.
Yours sincerely,
B.M.Kutty & Karamat Ali
On behalf of
Pakistan Peace Coalition (Sindh Chapter)
New Delhi, Jan 14:
India, which accorded a cautious, mixed, and ambivalent reception to
President Pervez Musharraf's landmark 'anti-terrorist' speech, will
probably have to change its position and reciprocate Pakistan's
moves. It is certain to come under increasing pressure to appear more
appreciative of Musharraf's actions against jehadi militants, and to
de-escalate the massive military build-up along its western border.
The defusing of tension between the two South Asian arch-rivals, both
nuclear powers, could herald a breakthrough in their deeply troubled
relationship. The ball is now in India's court.
If New Delhi drops the US-style aggressive posture it adopted
following a militant attack on its Parliament building on December
13, it could engage Islamabad in negotiations to ratchet down
tensions, restore normality, and prepare the ground for a peaceful
resolution of all problems, including Kashmir.
If India chooses, for short-term domestic political reasons, to
remain adamant, and demands that Pakistan surrender all the 20
terrorists it has named, it could lose a unique chance for
reconciliation.
Worse, it could contribute to precipitating a ruinous and prolonged
military conflict, with possible escalation to the nuclear level,
with horrific consequences.
India has said that while it 'welcomes' Musharraf's speech, it will
watch if its promises get translated into 'effective action'. Some of
the action is already evident--with arrests of over 900 jehadi
militants in Pakistan's biggest-ever crackdown. Musharraf has
categorically ruled out handing over Pakistani nationals to an
external agency, but said he could consider acting against
non-Pakistani suspects if they are found to be in his country.
The question India faces is how far it should push for the
extradition of terrorist suspects. India and Pakistan do not have an
extradition treaty. Neither can be compelled under international law
to hand over suspects to the other.
A way out could be found if a 'neutral' agency like Interpol is given
custody of suspects for interrogation. But if this is made a
precondition for military de-escalation, India-Pakistan border
tensions could persist for a dangerously long time. World opinion,
especially the United States' view, would seem to be averse to that.
US secretary of state Colin Powell, scheduled to visit India and
Pakistan later this week, can be expected to counsel a quick
resolution of the issue. India will find it hard to resist US
pressure. It has allowed America to become a key player in the
post-December 13 confrontation with Pakistan.
Indeed, India's strategy has been brinkmanship--building enormous
military pressure on Pakistan in revenge for December 13, and
extracting concessions through coercive diplomacy.
This pressure has been exercised through a mediatory agency, the US,
by frightening it with the prospect of a South Asian nuclear
confrontation, and getting it to tell Pakistan to act against
terrorists.
Thus, Pakistan froze the accounts of terrorist groups (Lashkar-e
-Toiba and Umma Tameer-e-Nau) within hours of the US putting them on
its 'foreign terrorist' suspect list on December 23/24. Similarly, it
arrested LeT chief Hafiz Mohammad Saeed soon after India announced
halving the strength of diplomatic missions, and cancelling all
travel-and-transportation links with Pakistan.
Although it has produced favourable results, this brinkmanship has a
menacing nuclear dimension, which is inconsistent with New Delhi's
professed position against 'nuclear blackmail' and threat-mongering.
But in the process, New Delhi has become more vulnerable to US
arm-twisting. It will find it hard to resist the US as a mediator or
facilitator, by whatever name, on Kashmir.
Officially, the Indian stand is that Kashmir is a strictly bilateral
issue which must be resolved through peaceful negotiations. But in
practice, India will have to make some concessions to 'the
international community's' (read, the US's) opinion.
India has been courting the US as a 'strategic partner'. After
September 11, it uncritically supported the new Bush Doctrine
equating terrorists with their harbourers. It entered no reservations
when the US launched the Afghanistan war bypassing the United Nations
system. And it has not had a word of criticism of the construction of
a US military base at Jacobabad in Pakistan.
New Delhi has tried to mimic Washington in numerous ways: by equating
December 13 with September 11 as an attack on 'democracy' itself, by
rejecting genuine multilateral diplomacy, and by targeting, in
keeping with the Bush Doctrine, terrorism's 'supporters' (Pakistan).
India has been partially motivated by resentment at having been
sidelined by the so-called global 'anti-terrorist' coalition, which
favoured Pakistan.
However, an equally important motive has been domestic--related to
the trademark politics of the Hindu-sectarian, right-wing Bharatiya
Janata Party. For the BJP, the 'anti-terrorism' slogan has become a
stick to beat Muslims with, and to mobilise Hindu-chauvinist votes.
These votes are crucial to the BJP's electoral gamble in Uttar
Pradesh, India's largest state, where it faces a make-or-break
contest next month. If it loses Uttar Pradesh, its national coalition
would itself be in jeopardy.
In a desperate bid to avert a rout, the BJP has exploited the
post-September 11 climate by promulgating a draconian
'anti-terrorist' law, and through malicious propaganda equating Islam
with 'terrorism'.
Musharraf's decoupling of Kashmir from terrorism has thrown a spanner
in the BJP's works. It cannot claim that Musharraf's 'concessions'
represent its triumph. Nor can it acknowledge their significance
without losing face.
The BJP would have been in a less unfortunate position had Musharraf
confined himself to banning LeT and JeM. But, on January 12, he
announced a paradigm shift by severing the connection between
religion and politics, and putting Pakistan on to the road to
secularisation and 'tolerance'.
The agenda is probably the most far-reaching programme of change that
any Muslim-majority society has attempted since Kemal Ataturk.
The Indian government cannot claim this is the result of its coercive
diplomacy or military preparations. It will eventually have to
respond by reciprocating Islamabad's moves. The less hesitation it
shows, and the fewer its nitpicking reservations, the better for it.
The main obstacles in India's way are its own right-wing hawks. One
of them is reduced to pleading that India must not 'de-escalate the
crisis' to 'let Pakistan off the hook'. This, he admits, 'will not
only show that it had been bluffing, but also next time it will not
be able to mount a credible threat of force.'
That brutally shows up the limits of brinkmanship. Like a game of
poker, brinkmanship inevitably involves a degree of bluffing. But the
good gambler should know that once one's bluff is called, there is no
point attempting an even bigger bluff. It is time for mutual
give-and-take and dialogue.
Dialogue could open doors that have remained shut in South Asia for
half a century.
NEW DELHI,: With the war against terrorism drawing the U.S. military forces close to its South and Central Asian borders, the Chinese Prime Minister, Zhu Rongji, arrived here this evening to explore possibilities of expanding political cooperation with India. Mr. Zhu, who first landed in Agra, said soon after his arrival here that China had no intention of brokering peace between India and Pakistan. Earlier in the day, the External Affairs Minister, Jas-want Singh, said at a press conference that "China has neither any intention nor will it play any mediatory role between the two countries."
New Delhi, January 13: INDIA WELCOMED General Pervez
Musharraf's stand against the export of terrorism as a major shift in
Islamabad's policy. But before accepting the Pakistani President's
offer of a dialogue, India will await evidence of ground-level
implementation of his promises. External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh
stated this after an informal meeting of the Cabinet Committee on
Security and consultations among leaders of all political parties.
Musharraf s bid to hoist the third-party bogey by de-linking Kashmir
from the terrorism issue predictably evoked an outright rejection
from New Delhi. "Should Pakistan move purposefully towards
eradicating cross-border terrorism, India will respond fully and be
prepared to resume the Composite Dialogue Process that includes
Kashmir," the Minister remarked.
To: The Religious Affairs Minister Dr. Mahmood Ahmed n,Ghazi
We address you as a minister in the Government of Pakistan. We do
this, even though there is a contradiction between the function of a
minister in this government and the Islamic concept of ruling. The
Islamic ruling system does not permit the position of minister as it
has been used in the West and as it is copied in Pakistan. In the
Western system, the minister is a ruler and part of the collective
ruling body whereas leadership in Islam is singular.
We also address you as the head of the religious affairs ministry.
We do so even though the concept of a ministry of religious affairs
is in direct opposition to the Islamic concept about the State. In
Islam, the entire state is responsible for Islam, not just one
ministry. The religious ministries are set up in Muslim countries
only to preserve the separation of Islam from life's affairs.
We address you also as a member of the Musharraf Govt. And this is a
govt that has embarked upon a lengthy program of deconstructing
Islam in this country from the strategic and ideological aspects.
This is also a government that espouses an openly secular agenda,
and whose head, on assuming this position, publicly expressed his
admiration for Mustafa Kamal, the destroyer of the Islamic Khilafah.
Finally, we address you as a student of Islam and a teacher of it.
And it is in this role primarily that we demand that you fulfil your
duty in front of Allah to challenge the policies of the Musharraf
govt and explain their deviation from Islam. We call you to be like
those noble scholars from our history who used their tongues to
speak the truth in front of the rulers and not like the government
scholars of today who use their tongues to justify the evil of the
rulers. In this regard we would like to draw your attention to the
speech of General Musharraf on 12 January 2002, which he is said to
have written personally with the assistance of visiting US
congressmen. We address some of the key points of this speech below:
Your Chief Executive alleged regarding the ulema, "majority of them
are blessed with wisdom and vision and they do not mix religion with
politics."
The separation of religion from politics is a kufr concept that has
no basis in Islam. The Muslim must live his complete life according
to Islam, including his political life. Not only the ulema but even
the ordinary Muslims know that Islam encompasses all aspects of
life, including government and politics. Allah's speech (Subhanahu
Wa ta'ala) in this regard in the Qur'an can be rendered as,
"Do you then believe in a part of the Book and disbelieve in the
other? What then is the reward of such among you as do this but
disgrace in the life of this world, and on the day of resurrection
they shall be sent back to the most grievous chastisement, and Allah
is not at all heedless of what you do." [TMQ Al-Baqarah :85]
Your Chief Executive extensively attacked members of Islamic groups
referring to them as 'extremists'. For example, he said, "These
extremists were those who do not talk of 'Haqooq ul-Ibad'. They do
not talk of these obligations because practising them demands
self-sacrifice."
The word 'extremist' is a Western invention that is used as a label
for anyone that is opposed to the norm. Those who carry Islam are
opposed to the norm throughout the Muslim world because they are
convinced that the rulers of Muslims are Western-backed agents that
continue to implement Western kufr systems of government in order to
impose Western kufr colonialism on the world. In such a situation it
is correct to be opposed to the norm, whether or not the West and
their puppet rulers then insist to call such people 'extremists'.
As regards 'haqooq al-ibad', we would like to ask how the Government
of Pakistan understands that it fulfilled the haqooq of our Muslim
brothers and sisters in Afghanistan. The Government of Pakistan
opened its airbases, airspace, intelligence, logistics, military and
resources to the kaafir Crusaders thereby exposing the Muslims of
Afghanistan to B52 bombers, daisy cutters and cluster bombs.
Meanwhile, it was the Islamic groups in this country that were
foremost in calling for the haqooq of the Afghani Muslims and
leading the opposition to the kaafir Crusade.
Your Chief Executive says about the Islamic State, "do we want
Pakistan to emerge as a progressive and dynamic Islamic welfare
state? The verdict of the masses is in favour of a progressive
Islamic state"
The need to qualify the Islamic State with adjectives such as
'progressive', 'dynamic' and 'welfare' are only attempts to invoke a
meaning that is different to what would be understood by simply
using the words 'the Islamic State'. In truth, Pakistan should
emerge as the Islamic State and the verdict of the masses is in
favour of the Islamic State.
Your Chief Executive said about Jihad, "Have we ever thought of
waging Jihad against illiteracy, poverty, backwardness and hunger?
This is the larger Jihad."
Illiteracy, poverty, backwardness and hunger would be addressed by
removing the oppressive western kufr systems that are currently
implemented over Muslims and establishing in their place the Islamic
ruling system, i.e. the Khilafah. The Khilafah will take it upon
itself to solve deep, widespread problems such as illiteracy,
poverty, backwardness and hunger and will not abandon such problems
to welfare organisations, foreign NGOs and United Nations agencies.
Jihad is obligatory in the case where kuffar attack or occupy Muslim
land. This obligation is foremost upon the state and the armed
forces. Allah (Subhanahu Wa ta'ala) revealed over a hundred ayaat of
the Qur'an on the subject of physically fighting the kuffar and the
mushrikeen.
Muslim rulers today neither solve the problems of illiteracy,
poverty, backwardness and hunger, and nor do they undertake jihad.
Instead they leave all this to individual Muslims and Muslim groups
to undertake.
Your Chief Executive said about intellectual discussion, "I request
them to express their views on international matters in an
intellectual spirit and in a civilised manner through force of
argument. Views expressed with maturity and moderation have greater
convincing power."
The experience of those who express the pure Islamic viewpoint is
that they are hounded by intelligence agencies, locked up in prison,
and entangled in lengthy legal processes. The rulers of Muslims
today cannot tolerate the expression of the Islamic viewpoint so
these rulers respond to intellectual discourse with force.
Your Chief Executive said about the affairs of Muslims in other
parts of the world, "I would request that we should stop interfering
in the affairs of others."
Islam does not permit that we ignore the problems of Muslims in
other parts of the world. The statement of Allah (Subhanahu Wa
ta'ala) in the Qur'an may be rendered as,
"This Ummah of yours is one Ummah, so worship me."[TMQ Al-Anbiyyah: 92]
And the hadeeth of the Prophet (Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam) may be
rendered as,
"The believers, in their love, mutual kindness, and close ties, are
like one body; when any part complains, the whole body responds to
it with wakefulness and fever."
Finally, your Chief Executive said about Pakistan, "Don't forget
that Pakistan is the citadel of Islam".
We would like to ask how it is possible for a state to be 'the
citadel of Islam' if it is not the Islamic State? There was only one
citadel of Islam, and that was the Khilafah, which remained in
existence under various leaderships from the time that it was
established by the Prophet (Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam) in Madinah
until it was finally destroyed by the kaafir and western agent
Mustafa Kamal in 1924.
The Muslims of Pakistan have the capability and the will to
re-establish the Khilafah State and they will succeed in doing this
irrespective of the plans of the kuffar or their agents amongst the
present-day rulers of Muslims, insha'Allah.
Hizb ut-Tahrir
Wilayah Pakistan
14 January 2002
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