Indian Defence Review

In two days there were two vicious assaults on India, in Kupwara in Kashmir Valley and in Sukma in Chhattisgarh. Both assaults were product of murderous ideologies. If jihad targeted Kashmir, Maoism orchestrated the dance of destruction in the heartland. The mélange of these two ideologies can only be ignored at the peril of Indian nationhood.

This bonding of jihad and Maoism has been in ferment for some years. It was witnessed on several platforms wherein characters like Sussane Arundhati Roy and Gilani were most prominent. It then travelled to JNU, Jadavpur and Osmani University. It needs to be reiterated that these universities are neither located in tribal areas nor are impacted by Pak sponsored jihadi terrorism. How then these two ideologies made a tryst in JNU and subsequently in other universities.

As known to this author, the recent Maoist-Jihadist tryst in universities was planned and effected by the Pakistan High Commission with the main role being played by one Iqbal Cheema of the ISI. Apart from money, the common jihadi and Maoist ideology of destruction of India was leveraged to bring together Kanhiya and the jihadis. Cheema was subsequently compelled to leave India. But later in Jadavpur University, in addition to the slogans ‘Bharat Tere Tukre Honge’ (India will be torn to pieces) and ‘Kashmir Mange Azadi’ (Kashmir demands independence), there were also slogans of ‘Bastar Mange Azadi’ (Bastar demands independence).

The demonstrations that we witnessed in JNU and Jadavpur Universities manifested into a bloody form in Kupwara and Sukma.

If the cancer is not discerned and treated, India will continue to decay. After all, how is it that these two ideologies, jihad and Maoism has been playing their murderous game on the limbs and now the heart of India for several decades. The cruel irony is that both these ideologies are alien to the Indian soil. Any ideology, philosophy or revolutionary concept that is foreign and not borne out of this soil is bound to cause havoc.

If the jihadis draw their sustenance from Pakistan, the Maoists receive support from China, Church and Europe. The Maoists have both regional and global organization. Coordination of Communist Parties of Asia (CCOMPOSA) is their regional organization which has its meetings in different parts of Asia. In 2012, a global meet of Maoist organizations was held in Hamburg, Germany, wherein the Indian model of Maoism was hailed for its achievements. European countries, more so Scanidivian, lent crucial support to the Maoists in Nepal in covert pursuit of evangelism. It may be recalled that a team of European Commission had descended on India to watch the trial of Binayak Sen for his criminal links with the Maoists. Italians and French tourists have been apprehended for hobnobbing with Maoists in remote areas of India.

The capacity of Maoists to churn out white-collar criminals is phenomenal. They come in shades of pseudo-intellectuals, authors, lawyers, activists and of course teachers. I have been contemplating how are leftist intellectuals created? So suave and sophisticated in their without, but lovers of bloodshed within! They could barely conceal their pleasure on the killing of 26 CRPF personnel. Finally, I came to the conclusion that such white-collar criminals are compulsions of their DNA.

The Red-Corridor is the darkest shadow of terror in India, the length of the shadow being 150 distircts, one-fourth of India. Villages have been abandoned. Many schools have shut down. Acres of agricultural land lies untilled. Terror is all round, terror is in air. In the ‘liberated zones’ a bird ventures flight in scare. I swear I have personally sensed this.

In reaching India, Islam travelled through Persia, Central Asia and Afghanistan. These civilizations and cultures were far more developed than Arab Islam. These cultures therefore disdained and rejected the scarce and bigoted culture of Arab Islam. India being the oldest civilization also rejected it. Most civilizations through which this Islam travelled rejected the jihadi version. Nonetheless, Arab Islam was always knocking or trying to make onslaught on India. In fact whenever Islamic countries or Islamic cause has suffered major setback, it has blamed it on syncretic Islam and fell back on more radical Arab Islam. This was the case in Pakistan after it lost East Pakistan. The Arabised Deoband seminary in India was fall back on same Islam after they failed to restore Mughal rule after 1857 uprising.

Historically two characters who aggressively propagated traditionalist Islam were Sirhindi during Akbar’s reign and Shah Waliullah in the post Aurangzeb period. Sirhindi considered Akbar as heresy and emphasized on Shariah and was of the belief that “what is outside the path shown by the prophet (Sharia) is forbidden.” This includes music as well. It was Shah Waliullah who played the key role in forging a united Muslim front against the Marhattas in the Battle of Panipat in 1961. He was the one who invited Ahmad Shah Abdali to invade India.

These assaults by Arab Islam on India turned into sustained attack once the patron of Wahabi Islam, Saudi Arabia, became neo-rich by the deluge of petro dollars in the 70s. Realising the potential of radical Wahabi / Salafi ideology , the US,in compact with Pakistan chose to defeat another violent and global ideology ‘Communism’ in the battlefields of Afghanistan. It was finale of the Cold War. But in the aftermath of the Cold War India began to be buffeted intensely by both the victorious and defeated ideologies i.e Jihad and Communism. Communism tried to desperately regain its space and influence in India by increasing and tacit reliance on Left Wing Extremism i.e. Maoism. At the same time the Jihadists, fresh from victory against the Soviets, decided that Kashmir was a low hanging fruit, waiting to be plucked, but hit against a wall, The Indian Army.This US proxy war against Soviet Union engendered the birth and growth of organizations like Al Qaeda. Today most Sunni jihadi outfits consider Al Qaeda as their mother organization. This includes Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT), Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HuM) and Islamic State (IS). Large chunks ofthe Kashmir Valley have since been consumed by the Al Qaeda and its affiliates.

Generally the tendency is that any recommended solution to the ongoing terrorism in the Valley devolves, either on more effective methods of counter-insurgency, or having more formidable security curtain, or acquisition of more sophisticated arms and equipment. There are also people who never cease to proffer that the solution lies in political and economic realms. These are at best pedestrian observations and in effect distract from the seriousness of the level of terrorism and secessionism that brutalizes the Valley. If people living in 7.2 percent of the geographical area lord over the remaining 93 percent, and if per capita consumption of meat in the Valley is the highest in the world, then surely the problem is not political and economic.

The real issue that torments Kashmir Valley is one of Islamic radicalization. The real poison is the Wahabi or jihadi ideology. The real culprits are the separatists, the Hurriyat leaders and the leaders of mainstream parties in the Valley, who under the influence of Pakistan have ensured the proliferation of Wahabi Madrasas and Masjids. Mullahs from UP and Bihar were facilitated to man these madrasas and masjids in order to kill Kashmiriyat and establish jihadi and militant factories. The same mullahs of UP and Bihar lent their weight behind Jinnah’s Pakistan ptoject.

Therefore, the implosion of Kashmir Valley is not due to lack of alertness of security forces nor because any inadequacy of the security apparatus, and also not because of lack of appropriate arms and equipment. If later was the case, then the European countries and Russia from where we source our weapons would not have been grappling with jihad.

The Valley has been under perpetual attack by suicide bombers who are a product of jihadi factories in Pakistan and to some reciprocal facilities in India. The last of Kashmiriyat is being bled by jihadi ideology spawned by Wahabism. We never could muster up the intellectual courage to address this murderous ideology. Consequently, it has now begun to impact on most parts of India.

In a very recent development Saudi Arabia has pledged to provide $ 2 billion to Bangladesh for the purpose of construction of Wahabi mosques in every town of the country. Presumably,this fundamentalist religious Saudi outreach has been because Sheikh Hasina was seen to be getting increasingly committed to the cause of secularism and Bengali culture. The votaries of Wahabism were concerned about its impact in global jihad. The forces of global jihad, which includes Pakistan’s military, strategically value Bangladesh as a base for jihad in the eastern parts of India and Myanmar. They have been disconcerted by capital punishment to prominent Jamait-e-Islami (JeI) leaders and other Jamait-e-Mujahideen Bangaldesh (JMB) cadres under the Hasina dispensation.

The moot question before India is: Can it be said that the nation has seen the last of religions or cults? Have religions completely evolved to the extent that there is no scope for any new religion or faith? If not so, then why should we be burdened by such narrow definition of secularism, which allows death and destruction in India, impelled by religious ideologies that are not intrinsic to the soil of this country.

Hence for security and prosperity, leaders and thinkers in India have to take the responsibility to study, monitor and judge the impact of the brand of global Islam that impacts this country. This responsibility cannot be left to Muslims who pretend to be leaders of the community, as if it is a monolith. No leader in India emphasizes on the Indonesian brand of Islam, which has Indian underpinnings.

There is no alternative but to aggressively address Wahabi ideology by counter -narrative. Particularly the English speaking ideologues of these ideologies need to be treated as criminals acting at the behest of global jihadi forces. Central Asian States like Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, and China have confronted the Wahabists in their own way. Pakistan does not have the guts to question the religious restrictions imposed by China on Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang province.

Similarly Communism, which arrived in India through the bridge of at least fifty million human corpses in Soviet Union and China, is an equally violent and terrorizing ideology. As per the renowned political scientist Joseph Rummel, the total number of people killed by governments was 212,000,000, of which communist regimes accounted for 148,000,000.

Maoism draws its basic ideology from Communism. Recently, a CPI leader Vishwam attended the last rites of two Maoist leaders killed in Kerala and justified his attendance by saying that they were after all ‘comrades’. Therefore, the Maoist attack in Sukma is also an ideological attack. The Indian authorities need to act against the English speaking ideologues or over-ground Maoists to cut the supply of oxygen to the brains of the Maoist armed cadres. They need to be declared as ‘Anti-Nationals’.

A professor of Delhi University, GN Sai Baba, convicted recently sent a student to Gadchiroli in Maharashtra to fetch Rs. Five lacs extorted from tribal for the ostensible purpose to spread Maoism in urban setting. There are so many such Sai Babas in Delhi University, JNU and universities across the country. The over-ground Maoists include journalists, certain media houses, activists, pseudo-intellectuals, politicians and political parties. All those who showered love on Kanhiya have some symbiosis with the Maoists. Large numbers of leaders have been using the extortion industry of the Maoists for electoral purposes. Post prohibition, the Maoists have emerged as the biggest bootleggers in Bihar.

Wahabi inspired jihad is a global phenomenon. If this murderous ideology is not crushed it will continue to bleed India. Maoist ideology is even more dangerous in terms of its terror potential. Women and children are increasingly being used for carrying out Maoist attacks, i.e. more than 30 percent. Innocent souls are fast extinguishing. Humanity is at a premium in the worst affected districts of Maoism. At least we need to reclaim the land, so that the seeds of humanity can be re-sown.

In one of the seminars this author attended, the former Chief of Nepal Army, Rukmangat Katwal, said in the presence of Maoist leaders of Nepal that the Maoists are the biggest sinners on the earth. On so many occasions, he said: “We had a chance to destroy them, but then some people said that they are your own people”. He further said that it was a mistake, which India should not repeat. He was of the opinion that at the moment, India does not feel the heat because India unlike Nepal is a big country which can trade space for time. The former Commander of the Maoists of Nepal ‘Mr. Pun’ was also present in the seminar.

As far as the Red Corridor is concerned, it is no sagacity to insist on a force like the CRPF for counter-insurgency when it lacks the capability. It can only be effective after the Maoist citadels are uprooted by a much more lethal force in terms of training, equipment and youth profile. It is not that we have not used Army in the past to tackle naxalism. In 1970-71 the army had launched Operation Steeple Chase after Mrs Gandhi was informed that China was priming the naxals to act as fifth columnists in case of a war with Pakistan.

We must treat Maoism as an internal war, which has to be won at all costs. The war initiated by the State must aim to ruthlessly crush the ideology that has kept Naxalism alive since last five decades.

Large numbers of Muslims in the world are today undergoing a crisis of identity because of pan-Islamic philosophy. Thus they find the countries of their residence alien. This feeling of separateness has also been infused in some of the tribal and other Maoists in the Red Corridor by the missionaries. In Kashmir, after so many years of having converted to Islam, the debate as to who is a true Muslim and who is not rages on. A population, which cannot decide on what form of religion is beneficial, how can it ever know, which country it should align with. It is the duty of the Indian State to stress unambiguously that with religious conversion, the land does not change nor the names of the rivers or mountains. And it has the right to decide which brand of Islam runs contrary to nation-building.

The problem of jihad and Maoism therefore have to be dealt overwhelmingly at the ideological level. The firmness and force levels, with which we deal with these ideologies and their murderous manifestations, may become increasingly become unacceptable in future, in case we dither now.

Some years ago, the district magistrate of Gaya district that in a school, a girl of Class VIII was so incensed by the Maoist diktat of hoisting black flag on Independence Day that she tore the black flag and unfurled the tri-colour. Her family was compelled to leave the village. This is a war between Tiranga and black flag. This is a war between Tiranga and Islamic State flag. It is for the Indian flag that 26000 of 60,000 Indian National Army (INA) personnel laid their lives. Tiranga means India,and if India suffers democracy suffers and we will between the red flag and black flag we shall be minced.