Indian Defence Review

An opposition leader in the Lok Sabha taunted the capability of the Indian Armed Forces to deal with a two-front threat. The remark was by no means innocent, the message was meant for external and internal consumers. The external clients being Pakistan and China, and the internal consumers are the people who under the guise of anti-CAA activism have activated the ‘Third Front’, i.e. the internal front against India.

In our threat perception, the external and internal fronts are ideologically seamless in the sense that both Jihadi and Maoist ideologies are linked to Pakistan and China respectively.  It is for this reason that some leading members of certain political parties openly asked for Pakistan’s indulgence in dislodging the present dispensation and one political leader was seen sneaking into the Chinese Embassy at the height of Doklam crisis. 

It is also not incidental that a former Prime Minister of the oldest party has stated: “Nationalism and slogan – Bharat Mata ki Jai are being used to construct a ‘militant and purely emotional idea of India’.” His sympathy appears to be with the inimical elements of the ‘Third Front’. What is his problem with ‘emotional nationalism’ after all? Why is he so defensive about the word ‘Bharat’? In fact, in the hinterland of India, particularly rural India, people solely identify themselves with ‘Bharat’ or ‘Hindustan’, not India.

As far as the issue of ‘militant and emotional’ nationalism is concerned, the former Prime Minister must be aware that India is not a jihadi country, which believes in Ummah and Dar-ul-Harm (abode of infidels). The biggest threat that India has today is front the ‘internal front’ or the ‘Third Front’. India’s hinterland was subjected to jihadi attacks incessantly during the first term of this former Prime Minister. The crowning jihadi attack from Pakistan in his first term was 26/11 in 2008. The same Prime Minister is also on record to say that the Maoists are the biggest threat to India.

The former Prime Minister must have surely realized that ‘Shaheen Bagh’ is the microcosm of the ‘Third Front’, where the principal threat i.e. the Jihadis, are calling the bidding of Pakistan, and riding over these jihadis are Maoists, Church and Khalistanis. All these ideologies are inherently anti-India or ‘terrorist’ in nature. The war on the ‘Third Front’ has to be fought by the nationalist and patriotic people of India, which is not possible without ‘militant and emotional’ idea of India. When the ‘Bharat Tere Tukre Honge’ sloganeering refuses to be even tempered by fear of law, the response will, of course be militant and emotional nationalism. The connotation of term ‘militant’ here is not ‘violence’ or ‘terrorism’ but ‘aggressive nationalism’ against the threats of ‘Third Front’ to break India.

It should be realized that a super power like Soviet Union with devastating arsenal of nuclear weapons, missiles, space assets, having thousands of tanks, missiles, artillery pieces and fighter aircraft in its inventory, and a large standing army collapsed because it failed to manage its ‘internal front’. Communist ideology proved to be a very effective glue to hold people together. It was the jihadi ideology, which dealt the fatal blow to the Soviet Union.  Ironically both these ideologies have come together for destruction of Hindustan.

As in the case of Soviet Union, India with thousands of tanks, artillery pieces, fighter aircraft, a large army and substantial well armed para-military forces – could not prevent the exodus of half a million Hindus from the Kashmir Valley in 1991. India has clearly abandoned Bharat! This happened because security planners in the country did not know, ‘what constitutes the Third Front’? After so many years, the Chief of Defence Staff Gen Bipin Rawat, has acknowledged the jihadi radicalization as the main cause of terrorism in Kashmir. If this understanding had dawned earlier, the Hindus would have been saved from exodus and much of the price that we paid in terms of 45,000 security forces personnel would have been saved. Even if just the static elements of 15 Corps had displayed some show-off strength, the exodus could have been mitigated. When threats were being screamed over the PA systems of the mosques, simultaneously throughout the Valley, one wonders if it reached the ears of the senior personnel of the security forces? If it did, posterity will never forgive them for their inaction.

The security planners of the country had no understanding of ‘Dar-ul-Harb’ and ‘Dar-ul-Islam’ in respect of Kashmir. Only if they had read BR Ambedkar, who says: “According to Muslim Canon Law the world is divided into two camps, Dar-ul-Islam (abode of Islam) and Dar-ul-Harb (abode of war). A country is Dar-ul-Islam when it is ruled by Muslims. A country is Dar-ul-Harb when Muslims only reside in it but are not rulers of it. That being the Canon Law of the Muslims, India cannot be the common motherland of the Hindus and the Musalamans. It can be the land of Musalmans—but it cannot be the land of the ‘Hindus and the Muslamans living as equals’. Further, it can be the land of Musalmans only when it is governed by the Muslims. The moment the land becomes subject to the authority of a non-Muslim power, it ceases to be the land of the Muslims. Instead of being Dar-ul-Islam it becomes Dar-ul-Harb.”

Our security planners kept stressing on Kashmiriyat. Those officials, who could not understand and control Kashmir authored several books. They kept harping on Nand Rishi who became Baba Noorudin as single embodiment, without revealing what compelled a Rishi to become a Mullah. The change was inhuman and degrading as all Rishis in Indian tradition have been basically researchers and scientists. Artifacts from Indus Valley civilization depict sages meditating over scientific phenomenon under a peepal tree, because it emanates oxygen 24 hours.

They failed to understand that Jihadism is antithesis of Kashmiriyat, as also jihadi Islam is enemy of composite culture. In this regard, Ambedkar further says: “it is said that there is no difference of race between Hindus and the Muslims. That the Punjabi Muslaman and the Punjabi Hindus, the U.P. Muslaman and the U.P. Hindus, the Bihar Musalman and the Bihar Hindus, the Bengal Muslaman and the Bengal Hindu, the Bombay Musalman and the Bombay Hindu are racially of one stock. Indeed there is more racial affinity between the Madras Musalman and the Madras Brahmin than there is between the Madras Brahmin and the Punjab Brahmin.”  He further says: “…what are pointed out as common features are not the result of a conscious attempt to adopt and adapt to each other’s ways and manners to bring about social fusion. On the other hand, this uniformity is the result of certain purely mechanical causes. They are partly due to incomplete conversions. In a land like India, where the majority of the Muslim population has been recruited from Hindus, the Muslimization of the convert was neither complete nor effectual, either from fear of revolt or because of this method of persuasion or insufficiency of preaching due to insufficiency of priests. There is, therefore, little wonder if great sections of the Muslim community here and there reveal their Hindus origin in their religious and social life.”

Khilafat Movement, which was actually a Caliphate Movement supported by Mr MK Gandhi, gave a fresh lease of life to pan-Islam and Jihad. It indeed revived the ‘religion of the sword’. Mrs Annie Basent in her book, ‘The future of Indian Politics’ says: “Another serious question arises with regard to the Muhammadans of India. If the relation between Muslims and Hindus were as it was in the Lucknow days, this question would not be so urgent, though it would even then have almost certainly arisen, sooner or later, in an Independent India. But since the Khilafat agitation, things have changed and it has been one of the many injuries inflicted on India by the encouragement of the Khilafat crusade, that the inner Muslim feeling of hatred against ‘unbelievers’ has sprung up, naked and unashamed, as in the years gone by.” She further maintains: “We have seen revived, as guide in practical politics, the old Muslim religion of the sword, we have seen the dragging out of centuries of forgetfulness, the old exclusiveness, claiming the Jazirut-Arab, the island of Arabia, as a holy land  which may not be trodden by the polluting foot of a non-Muslim, we have heard Muslim leaders declare that if the Afghans invaded India, they would join their fellow believers, and would slay Hindus who defended their motherland against the foe: we have been forced to see that the primary allegiance of Musalmans is to Islamic countries, not to other motherland; we have learned that their dearest hope is to establish the ‘Kingdom of God’, not God as Father of the world, loving all his creatures, but as a God seen through Musalman spectacles…”.

It was some of our leaders of that era who fancied themselves as ‘freedom fighters’,  ushered in global Islam and Jihad by supporting the Khilafat Movement in 1921. It finally manifested in demand for Pakistan. Therefore, in 26 years between 1921 and 1947, we did nothing to check the radicalization of Muslims. The result was the partition of India and the massacre of millions of people.

What is happening in ‘Shaheen Bagh’ is no different. It has distinct echoes from the past. The tragedy is that anti-India slogans were being raised right under the national flag. It is under this flag that Sharjeel Imam threatened to do ‘halal’ of the Chicken Neck i.e. gradual severance of India’s northeast from rest of the country. The Tukre-Tukre gang has found a new platform. They have raised slogans to parcel parts of India to Pakistan and China, all under the national-flag. It is ironical that the women, who have been unsuspectingly made the spearhead of the protests have been salvaged by the present government from the tyranny of ‘instant triple talak’ and consequently ‘instant nikah-halala’. In a way, they have blocked the road at Shaheen Bagh to open the road for infiltrators from Bangladesh into India. The whole area, as it is teeming with Bangladeshi infiltrators.

As per the CAA, the persecuted Christians and Sikhs from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh are also eligible for citizenship, yet some elements of the Church and Khalistanis have struck common cause with the jihadis in Shaheen Bagh. The Church is against because majority consolidation makes the agenda of conversion difficult and Khalistanis are doing the bidding of their masters across the borders. A Maoist leader in Gaya, Sandeep Yadav, entrusted one Nanahki Devi with the responsibility of galvanizing crowd for CAA protests under the banner of ‘Jan Abhyan’. Nanahki Devi alias Kalawati is a hardcore Maoist. She has been arrested by the police. A perfect example of Church-Maoist-Jihadi combine is Bengaluru’s Amulya Leona Noronha. This 19 year old girl, daughter of a Maoist symphathiser, Osvald Noronha, raised Pakistan Zindabad slogans at anti-CAA rally organized by the AIMIM on 20 Feb. She raised the slogan in presence of Owassi. Of course after having engineered this slogan, after having catered to the pro-Pak constituency, Owassi did the drama of disapproval. It is a hackneyed political tactic. She was later arrested by the Police.

The Maoist-Jihadi combine is to destroy India from within. Euphemistically speaking, the objective is to shut roads within the country to smoothen pathways for the external enemies of India. It also must be pondered that if this phenomenon spreads, what would be the consequences to mobilization and logistics of our forces in case of a war on external fronts. These Shaheen Baghs are sure to act as citadels of fifth columnists.

One radical politician and regular face of Indian television has warned that 15 crore community would crush 100 crore community whenever the imperative. This also has an echo from the past.

Dr BR Ambedkar writes: “In 1926, there arose a controversy as to who really won the third battle of Panipat, fought in 1761. It was contended for the Muslims that it was a great victory for them because Ahmad Shah Abdali had one Lakh of soldiers while the Mahrattas has four to six lakhs. The Hindus replied that it was a victory to them—a victory to vanquished—because it stemmed the tide of Muslim invasions… To prove the eternal superiority of Muslims over Hindus it was proposed by one Maulana Akbar Shah Khan of Najibabad in all seriousness, that the Hindus and Muslims should fight, under test conditions, fourth battle on the same fateful plain of Panipat. The Maulana accordingly issued a challenge to Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya…  If you Malaviyaji, are milking efforts to falsify the result at Panipat, I shall show you an easy and an excellent way (of testing it)… As there are seven crores of Musalmans in India, I shall arrive on a fixed date on the plain of Panipat with 700 Musalmans representing the seven crores of Muslims in India and as there are 22 crores of Hindus I allow you to come with 2,200 Hindus…”

The threat of ‘Third Front’ is not easy to discern and assess, it needs deep understanding of the historical, sociological, theocratic and geopolitical processes that has brought us to this juncture of Shaheen Baghs. Shaheen Bagh is a cumulative challenge to abrogation of Article-370, removal of Triple-Talak and the Supreme Court decision on Ram Janam Bhumi. The anger against CAA is that it puts robust obstacles to India becoming Dar-ul-Islam from Dar-ul-Harb. The US President Trump is visiting India even as the Shaheen Bagh protests against the CAA continues. Only recently, in Nov 2019, the Trump administration had deported 150 Indian infiltrators into US by a special flight, some of them were handcuffed and some even fettered. Any patriotic executive head of state will insulate his country from infiltrators or illegal citizens. Any patriotic Indian prime minister will atone for the sins of his ancestors by giving citizenship to those who had the character not to yield to conversion, and fell on the wrong side of divide amongst the jihadi wolves during partition.