From the Archive, 14 Mar 2005

JIHAD AND REVOLUTIONARY WAR

 

This traces broadly the evolution of revolutionary war in theory. It first explicates Maoist doctrine, outlines departure from Maoism in the ‘foco theory’ and thereafter turns to jihad to outline similarities and differences.

 

The evolution of Maoist doctrine

 

1.        Mao perfected his doctrine through experience in the late Thirties. The communist forces were ousted from their holdouts by Chiang Kai Shek’s forces and forced on the ‘long march’ of about 6000 km towards the north. The experience taught the communists of the importance of a building a base and ensuring its security so as to bring about and expand the revolution elsewhere in China.  Since hardened cadres survived the ordeal, there was a nucleus on which the communists could rebuild their movement. Mao’s theorizing dating to the period dealt with the manner of making the base on consent of the people generated by participation of cadres in all activities of the people. This would not only legitimize the movement, provide it recruits and resources, but would also stand as a contrasting system of governance to the corrupt Chinese warlord dominated regime elsewhere on the Chinese mainland. The base was to spread outwards through subverting Chiang’s area politically as also taking it on militarily.

 

2.        Mao’s military doctrine posits three phases: Strategic Defensive; Strategic Stalemate and Strategic Offensive. In Phase 1, when the base is under preparation, revolutionary forces were to be on the defensive. After consolidation of the base, generally seen as being in the peasant dominated countryside, they were to engulf the town in Phase 2. This involved military action in guerrilla style against government forces. With the government forced on the defensive, the guerrilla forces were to acquire characteristics of conventional forces and take the initiative in the third and final phase of the revolutionary war.

 

3.        This doctrine was based on conditions that obtained in China. While nationalist forces were weakened in fighting the Japanese and warlords in Second World War, communists deepened there base areas in the remote North and expanded to the level of even taking on the Japanese army in the later phase of the Second World War. Their legitimacy thus bolstered, communists were able to expand into the vacuum left behind by the Japanese in their retreat to their islands towards the end of the War. Thereafter, the communists drove Chiang’s forces out of the mainland onto Formosa. Thus was demonstrated the power of Mao’s revolutionary war doctrine.

 

The departure from Maoist doctrine in the ‘foco theory’

 

4.        This served as a model for other revolutionary forces in the post Second World War period. Further evolution in the revolutionary doctrine thereafter took place in Latin America and Africa in the fifties and sixties. In Latin America, the triumph of Fidel Castro led up to the conceptualization of the ‘foco’ theory by Che Guevara. This theory relied on the Cuban revolution led by Castro that overthrew the Batista regime in 1958.

 

5.        The departure here from Mao’s theory was in the dispensing with the first phase of building up of a base. The idea was that the governments in the area being generally corrupt and incompetent, it would require only a small group of motivated cadres to mount the revolution. This small group would form the ‘foci’ of the revolutionary movement, thereby the name ‘foco’ theory. The people fed up with oppressive dictatorial governments would welcome the change thereby according legitimacy to the new revolutionary dispensation. This doctrine was borne out by the Cuban revolution. However, when confronted with firmer governments elsewhere in Latin America, it proved less successful leading to the death of its proponent Guevara at the hands of Bolivian security forces in a vain attempt to make the theory work.

 

The impact of Revolutionary War theory

 

6.        Frantz Fanon in Africa and Marighella in South America further added to revolutionary war theory by centering it in an urban industrial context obtaining in the area of their operations, thereby taking revolutionary thought further away from its antecedents in Mao’s thinking.

 

7.        Ever since the demise of communism as an inspirational doctrine with the eclipse of the Soviet Union and the Chinese adaptation of capitalism, revolutionary war theory has found limited impetus. This however has not precluded its adaptation by groups fighting perceived oppression and injustice all over the globe, be it in Columbia, Nepal or the Philippines. Of interest however is the influence revolutionary war theory has had on the jihadi ascendance from their origin in evicting the Soviet Union from Afghanistan to taking on the hyper-power in a global contest.

 

Jihadi war as a historical phenomenon

 

8.        In Afghanistan, it is well documented that the jihadi forces were a creation of the CIA engaged in paying back the communist Soviet Union for its role in America’s debacle in Vietnam. The conduit was the ISI of Pakistan, catapulted by the Afghan war into being a ‘frontline’ state. In terms of Mao’s theory, a base already existed in Pakistan from where jihadi forces were launched into Afghanistan. In Afghanistan, base areas were carved out by warlords in remote areas. These base areas were used to interdict and harass Soviet and government forces. An example is the Panjshir valley controlled by Ahmed Shah Massoud and its influence on the arterial route through Salang tunnel. In the base area, there was adequate cannon fodder in terms of refugees and also under privileged Pakistani youth graduating from madrassas. Escalation of the war with the influx of radical Islamists from elsewhere in the Muslim world, additional weaponry and its qualitative upgradation such as through the induction of Stinger missiles, ensured the move from strategic stalemate to strategic offensive by the end of the eighties. This military pressure combined with the Gorbachev initiated perestroika and glasnost within Soviet Union ensured its departure from Afghanistan. 

 

The revolutionary context of jihadi war

 

9.        By the end of the war radical Islam was a political and military reality amounting to a threat to US backed conservative regimes elsewhere in the Islamic world. The victory over the super power gave inspiration to the jihadis that the remaining super power could also be humbled similarly through asymmetric war. The philosophy of jihad was relied on to inspire and mobilize cadres from disaffected and deprived peoples in Muslim countries. Militarily, the Quranic injunction to strike terror into the hearts of the enemy was fore grounded. Thus terrorism was the strategy in a global war mounted by the jihadis or Arab Afghans who rendered under employed by the retreat of the Soviet Union.

 

10.      The target of the war was mainly conservative Arab regimes including Algeria and Egypt. The US intrusion into Saudi Arabia and its patron status to clientelist regimes made it also a target. The ever present Israel and its hard-line actions under right wing regimes through the nineties added to the angst capitalized on by radical Islamists to expand into Arab political space. Local factors in South Asia and South East Asia led to their ideological and military intrusion in these areas also. The high point of this war was the attack on mainland USA known to history as 9/11.

 

Jihad in Revolutionary War theory

 

11.      The theoretical basis of jihadi war and its linkage with revolutionary war theory explicated above have not been conclusively established. That the jihadis are inimical to communism indicates that their overt inspiration is not Mao. However Maoist thought, the ‘foco’ theory and of urban guerilla warfare does appear to inform jihadi theorizing and action.

 

 

12. Jihad and Maoist doctrine.  Their doctrine is based instead on Islamic mythology associated with the rise and spread of Islam under adverse circumstances. The period of strategic defensive can be discerned to being the early period of the propagation of the faith leading up to the Prophet’s exile. The ‘base’ in the Prophet’s time can be taken to be Medina. The period of strategic stalemate can be taken as lasting between the Prophet’s exile from and reclaiming of Mecca. The subsequent expansion of Islam in the peninsula in the time of the ‘rightly guided’ caliphs can be taken as the period of strategic offensive. Thus while there is a correlation between Maoist doctrine and the inspirational fount of Islamists, it would be an exaggeration to say that the jihadis have hijacked Maoist doctrine.

 

13. In far as ‘hijack’ is concerned, jihadis have indeed redefined the strategic agenda with the terms of reference shifting from communism to Islamism. They have substituted the Cold War opponent in the post Cold War era. They also have a wide spread with a presence ranging from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The difference is that they are contesting strategic resource rich terrain instead of the earlier proxy wars fought in marginal areas.

 

13.      Politically, they are also feeding on the ennui, angst and the persecution complex of the deprived classes. They are also proto nationalist elements in that they are seen as combating clientelist regimes. They are also seen as the underdog in a global face off with the sole super power. They also have a universalistic ideology.

 

14.      Jihad and the ‘foco’ theory. Their military organization is also based on a loose cellular structure reminiscent of Fanon and Marighella. Their tactics correspond to guerrilla tactics with an admixture of technology. The influence of the ‘foco’ theory can be discerned in the jihadi core being taken as the revolutionary vanguard for the masses. However, the departure with the ‘foco’ theory is in jihadis also having a long term agenda in preparing the masses as a Maoist ‘base’ through social work and Islamist education in their midst, witness the Hamas in Palestine.

 

15.      Thus similarities with secular revolutionaries abound to the extent that the Islamist revolutionary program can be seen as extending revolutionary war as a strategy into the twenty first century.

 

 

JIHADI WAR AND FOURTH GENERATION WARFARE

 

This chapter deals with the relationship of jihadi war with fourth generation warfare. Fourth generation warfare conceptualization requires to be meshed with asymmetric war theory to arrive at the challenge posed by jihadi war to the global strategic order. There is possibility of transition already to the ‘fifth generation’ of warfare already discernible.

 

The concept of generations of warfare

 

1.        There are varying conceptualizations on the evolution of warfare – one being its classification into four generations of warfare by two Marine Corps officers in conjunction with a civil military theorist in the Marine Gazette, circa 1989. In their postulation, the first generation comprised the Napoleonic ear when the smooth bore musket dominated the battlefield. The advent of machine guns and barbed wire in the American civil war lead up to the second generation of warfare with its high point in the First World War. The third generation of warfare had its inception in thinking on breaking through the trench lines of the Great War. It comprised the use of mechanized forces in conjunction with air power in a battle of maneuver. The ultimate was reached in Norman Swarzkopf’s ‘Hail Mary’ maneuver in Iraq War I. Prognostication on the direction of warfare led these theorists to conjuring up Fourth Generation Warfare which was in effect a return to the old manner of war that has recurred even as warfare moved through the preceding three generations of technology induced innovation - the manner the Spaniards fought Napoleon, the Boers fended off the British, and the Slavs held down the Nazis. In effect fourth generation warfare is the original form of warfare though not technologically innocent in that it innovates in the field of information rather than steel.

 

2.        An extract below from a document forming part of an inaugural publication of the Army’s Center for Land Warfare Studies, ‘Army 2020’ (New Delhi; Knowledge World, 2005)  makes clearer the concept of ‘generations of warfare’:

 

 “While military development is a continuous evolutionary process, the modern era has witnessed three watersheds in which the change has been qualitative. The first generation warfare was reflected by the tactics of the era of the smooth bore muskets and the linear battle of lines and columns. The second generation warfare was a response to the rifled musket, breechloaders, barded wire, and machinegun and indirect fire. Tactics were based on fire and movement and they remained essentially linear. The third generation warfare was also a response to the increase in battlefield firepower. The Germans were, in World War I, aware that they could not compete in a contest of material because of their weaker industrial base; hence, they developed radically new tactics, which were based on maneuver rather than attrition…

 

Military analysts in the USA are now deliberating and reflecting on a fourth generation warfare in which the target will be the whole of the enemy’s society (ideology, culture, political, infrastructure and civil society).  This generation of warfare, they say, will be characterized by dispersion, increased importance of actions by small groups of combatants, decreasing dependence of centralized logistics, high tempo of operations and more emphasis on maneuver.  Masses of men or firepower may become a disadvantage, as they will be easy to target.  Small, highly maneuverable, agile forces will tend to dominate.  The aim would be to cause the enemy to collapse internally rather than physically destroying him.  There will be little distinction between war and peace.  It will be non-linear, possibly to the point of having no definable battlefields or fronts.  Major military and civil facilities will become targets.  Success will depend heavily on joint operations.  If we combine these general characteristics with new technology, we see one possible outline of the new generation of warfare.”

 

 

Is the fourth generation of warfare unique?

 

3.        The fourth generation of warfare retains some of the characteristics from earlier generations. For example, the Total Wars of last century were also aimed at structural and ideological changes. Likewise, the Cold War was neither peace nor war and was a global physical and ideological contest between capitalism and communism, but was fought through proxy in the Third World so as not to disturb the central strategic balance across Europe. Civilian targets were not spared and joint operations were pursued to the extent material was available.

 

4.        Crystal ball gazing in 1989 however has not captured the essence of the conflict well underway by the turn of the century for it was focused on conflict between state actors. In the ongoing global conflict, the chief characteristic however is of non-state actors combating a ‘coalition of the willing’. Non-state Islamist cells embedded in society have waged a technologically sophisticated war, best exemplified by the coordinated attacks on the symbols of American capitalist, political and military might on Sept 11, 2001. Their transnational linkages are as yet subterranean and their organizations impervious. The plethora of writing that addresses these issues is largely incestuous and based on motivated Western sources. A greater felicity with Arabic and Middle Eastern (South West Asian) Area Studies would have obviated this lacuna in analysis. Nevertheless, the generation of warfare theorizing does provide the necessary conceptual tools to grapple with the phenomenon of jihadi war.

 

Not quite.

 

4.        This dimension of the latest form of war has not been adequately covered in fourth generation warfare conceptualization indicating that at the turn of the penultimate decade of last century, America was interested in discerning contours for employability for its massive military power. Towards this end fourth generation warfare conceptualization provided a blueprint, while Huntingtonion theorizing provided the rationale for a new enemy in the form of radical Islam. The unfolding of the last decade appears to have borne out the authors even if Huntington has had his share of valid criticism.

 

An admixture of Asymmetric War theory is required.

 

5.        An admixture of asymmetric war theorizing drawing on Maoist revolutionary theory helps flesh out the concept of fourth generation war in its adaptation by jihadis. The asymmetric dimension is implicit in the David versus Goliath analogy exploited by the jihadi opposition, while the lead nation in the ‘coalition of the willing’ engages in the war its military is best configured for – that of fourth generation war towards regime change in ‘rogue states’. The US has demonstrated its competence in this kind of war against forces both conventionally configured forces as in Iraq as also the more irregular Taliban. The aimed for ‘internal collapse’ was achieved, however the jury is still out whether the war is quite over in both cases.

 

Linkage between jihadi war and fourth generation warfare

 

6.        It is here that the linkage between jihadi war and fourth generation war can be established. In order to take on the military might and cultural hegemony of the USA, its allies and client states, the Islamist opposition has to rely on the jihad doctrine to mobilize its supporters for the encounter. As with any universalistic movement, Islamism also has a comprehensive ideological frame affixed on Islam. That Islamic doctrine obtains in many narratives and that privileging any does not command a consensus is not material. Instead the ‘foco theory’ referred to earlier is being relied on to energize the opposition to the USA. The actions of the USA in this regard have only deepened the skepticism with which they are received. The point is that ascendance of jihadi war owes to the asymmetric dimension of fourth generation war being engaged in between Islamism and the USA.

 

7.        While the jihadi war against the West and the West’s ‘War on Terrorism’ occupy strategic thought, there is also the contention within Muslim societies for the soul of Islam that could also constitute a dimension of fourth generation warfare. Societal space is presently witnessing an ideological tussle between secular liberalism and conservative revivalism. This is not confined to the Islamic crescent but is a globalization induced world wide phenomenon that is incident in countries ranging from India to interestingly also the USA. Militarily, states from the Arab Maghreb to Indonesia have been witness to insurgencies, the principal characteristic of which has been brutalization of both belligerents – the government forces and the jihadis. While in no state have the jihadis made a lasting impression, they remain a threat most prominently to their erstwhile sponsor state – the Saudi kingdom. It is owing to the ‘clear and present’ threat they pose thereby to energy security of the West that they have acquired a larger than life image.

 

The strategic problem of jihadi war

 

8.        The problem the USA is faced with in tackling this threat owes to its military being configured for fourth generation warfare. Thus its resort to stand off firepower is regardless of collateral damage. In effect, the fall of Falluja creates Fallujas of the future. The demonstrated superiority of military power with the US only serves to inject the jihadi mission with life and meaning since the moral high ground, the center of gravity of this conflict, has seemingly been lost sight of by the White House. The point that emerges is that fourth generation warfare theory as envisaged and adopted by the US requires extension to cope with the strategic problem posed by jihadis at war. A refocus on psychologically influencing opposition planners and public opinion is required not only through means of military might and information warfare but also through ensuring legitimacy of aims and methods. This would help best the terrorist networks franchised by Al Qaeda, who appear to have transited into ‘fifth generation warfare – devoid of morality, humanity or sense: but mindlessly destructive and violative of every tenet of Islam’ (Prof Richard Bonney; ‘Jihad: From Quran to Bin Laden’; Palgrave, Macmillan).

 

 

JIHAD: THE PRESENT STATUS

 

This chapter intends to outline the growth and prospects of demise of jihadi war over the past two decades. Its decline would however be predicated on the degree of enlightened policies followed by the sole superpower in its engagement with South West Asia.

 

The origin of jihadi war

 

1.        Driving the Soviet Union out of Afghanistan and at one remove being responsible for its implosion has been seen as a victory for jihadi forces. These comprised a conglomerate of Afghan refugees, Arab Afghans, a motley group of foreign fighters and Pakistanis who were graduates from its madrassas, were ISI agents or Army veterans. This would also not have been possible without the sponsorship of the US and Saudi Arabia. Many did not identify with the jihad associated with the Afghan war, such as the nationalist forces of what later constituted the Northern Alliance. Therefore it is to stretch credulity were the Afghan War to be taken as a victory for jihadis alone, though to discount the jihad factor is to make an error of equal proportion.

 

2.        The subsequent inattention of the USA owed to its quest to manage the aftermath of the Cold War. The outbreak of a rash of conflicts in the wake of a retreating Russia, most prominent one being the one in the Balkans, resulted in the relegation of Afghanistan to strategic backwaters. The country was reduced to providing the elusive ‘strategic depth’ for Pakistani elite. The dispensation of Benazir Bhutto, under her astute Home Minister Babar, launched the Taliban to wrestle Afghanistan from the warlords. These were graduates from the seminaries in Pakistan that had come up through a combination of Saudi money and Zia’s Islamisation program. Their religious energy thus found an outlet outside of Pakistan, thereby suiting the Establishment in that state.

 

The beginning of the end?

 

3.        The Talibanisation of Afghanistan resulted in it being a sanctuary for jihadis driven out of other havens, such as Osama bin Laden after his earlier removal from Saudi Arabia in the wake of Iraq War I and subsequently from Sudan. The jihadi veterans from the Afghan war had in the interim carried their agenda to their home states to include Algeria and Egypt. Faced down by ruthless regimes, the 9/11 conspiracy was launched by their umbrella organization, the Al Qaeda (The Base) under bin Laden, against the state seen as patron of the authoritarian regimes in their home states. The bombings of US embassies in Africa and the USS Cole in harbor were a prelude to the final act. Afghanistan provided a ready refuge for providing direction to the global spread of the cells that comprise the Al Qaeda. In the event, this vestige was dislodged in Operation Enduring Freedom that heralded the US led War on Terror. Osama and his benefactor, Mullah Mohammad, have since absconded from their remote fastness of Tora Bora to the under administered areas of South Waziristan on the Durand Line.

 

Pakistan as implicated in the jihadi ascendance

 

4.        Pakistan has thus reacquired center stage in the jihadi scenario – poetically so, in that it was most responsible for giving rise to the phenomenon. Its indigenous jihadis are largely graduates of Pakistan’s forty to fifty thousand madrassas, beneficiaries of Saudi funding, Muslim piety in the form of zakat, Zia’s attempt at Islamic legitimacy to his dictatorship and the Pakistani Establishment’s strategic design. They are veterans of training camps in both Pakistan and Afghanistan set up during the Afghan War through ISI channeled CIA funds or private enterprises such as that run by Osama bin Laden. Religious organisations such as Jamaat I Islami, Markaz Dawa and Tabligi Jamaat are affiliated to militant groupings as Hiz bul Mujahedeen, Lashkar e Toiba and Harkat ul Ansar. Their turf wars, armed rivalry with Shia militants and increased political visibility in wake of President Musharraf’s restrictions on mainstream political parties has rendered them in the post 9/11 period a political liability and a potential national security threat.

 

The end of Pakistan’s flirtation with jihadis?

 

5.        The latter was fore grounded in exposure of Pakistan’s instrumental usage of the jihadis in Kashmir through launch of Operation Parakram – India’s reaction to its very own 9/11 equivalent of 13 Dec 01. President Musharraf’s speeches of 12 Jan 02 and 27 May 02 contain ingredients of fresh thinking on the jihadis both internally and at one remove those directed at Kashmir. Continuing pressure from the US and incentives astutely offered by India have contributed inter alia to a winding down of Pakistani support for the jihadis in Kashmir. However, the situation bears watching as it is dependent in some measure on the international configuration of forces as also the longevity of President Musharraf, who has reportedly been subject to eight assassination attempts thus far by those he had intimately associated with in his earlier Army assignments.

 

Learning of the right lessons by the US

 

6.        International equations are largely dependent on the perceived legitimacy or otherwise of the actions of the US in its War on Terror. Its motivated use of the rationale for gaining control of oil resources has only attracted skeptical comment on the Arab street, the recruiting ground of jihadis engaged in the global jihadi war. The stability of the recently installed regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq is dependent on the US staying the course. The present day defensive posture of the jihadis may herald their decline and elimination in case the US demonstrates that it has learnt the right lessons from its original abandonment of Afghanistan.

 

JIHAD IN THE INDIAN CONTEXT

 

Jihadi war has been waged against India in Kashmir and elsewhere in the Indian mainland both as part of and independent of Pakistan’s proxy war. This chapter examines the extent to which the jihad doctrine is implicated in the Indo-Pak conflict over Kashmir.

 

Jihad as a political football

 

1.        Jihad has its political utility, a characteristic put to self interested use not only by its proponents but also by other actors. This motivated use of the jihad doctrine is best exemplified by the use of jihad in Kashmir as a moblisation strategy by the religious extremists in Pakistan for their political purpose of moving to center stage in Pakistan. Jihad has been employed by the Pakistani state to export its destructive energy outside its borders into Kashmir as in Afghanistan for its grand strategic design. The logic of jihad has been used to legitimize untold human rights violations by terrorists of foreign origin in Kashmir. The threat of jihad has prevented timely steps to address the resulting situation in Kashmir meaningfully by India. There has also been motivated rightist commentary in India on the supposed wider allegiance to jihad in the rest of India thereby complicating minority management. The perspective advanced here is that ‘jihad’ has been rationally used for political ends by most parties in South Asia.

 

A jihad in Kashmir? Or a war by ‘jihadis’?

 

2.        Kashmir figures among the usual lists of battle grounds for jihadi war that generally include Chechenya, Palestine and the Balkans, among others. Foreign fighters of Afghan war experience of various nationalities have figured among the casualties in operations launched by security forces in Kashmir since the mid Nineties. Most are of Pakistani Punjabi origin or hail from POK. Their motivations vary, from mercenary to pathological. As to the proportion inspired largely by the jihad doctrine per se there exists no hard evidence. There is certainly a legitimizing smoke screen built up for information war purposes by their handlers in Pakistan, both state and non-state, implicating jihad. As to the extent this is the primary motivating factor among the multiplicity of influences has not been conclusively proved. However that the terrorists are self confessed jihadis is enough to implicate jihad as a motivation and list the Kashmir conflict as a jihadi war in addition to it being a proxy war waged by Pakistan.

 

Pakistani internal politics to blame

 

3.        There is ample evidence of the linkages between religious parties in Pakistan and the ISI with the jihadis in Kashmir. The objectives of these groups differ. Some such as the HM aim for the liberation of Kashmir, while for the HuM and the LeT the aims are wider with Kashmir being only a stepping stone towards the greater glory of Islam. However, that these groups are controlled by Pakistani political formations indicates that there is an internal politics angle to the jihad that has little to do with Kashmir. The religious right in Pakistan has been a marginal presence in Pakistani politics. Leaders both civil and military have used these factions for their own purpose such as for gaining legitimacy for undemocratic rule.

 

4.        In the process these forces have acquired a base that amounts at best to a nuisance value and at worst to an internal threat. To these groups Kashmir is a stepping stone not so much for a grab at power in India but for gaining center stage in Pakistan. Being at the vanguard in an issue area seen as defining Pakistani national identity provides these forces both political capital and funds. It is their threatening presence at the flanks that partially keeps Pakistani Establishment minded by its military engaged in proxy war in Kashmir even when a rational cost benefit analysis may demand otherwise. The calculus of costs has increased exponentially in wake of India’s Op Parakram and US pressure. This has contributed to Pakistan partially turning in on itself lately.

 

Jihadi war as terrorism in Kashmir

 

5.        Internal to Kashmir, jihad war has been utilized by separatist forces to pressurize the Indian state. Earlier in the mid Nineties the romance associated with ‘azadi’ and ‘jihad’ had witnessed an embrace of the ‘mehman’ terrorist by Kashmiris. These elements had succeeded in prolonging the insurgency by hijacking it. Over time their agenda overshadowed both the local terrorists and the Kashmiri cause. The power of the gun and resulting gun culture perverted the Kashmiri social fabric. Their wahhabist affiliation was also averse to the sufistic Islam practiced in Kashmir. In order to survive, they spread fear through elimination of Kashmiris identified autonomously as hostile. Their brutal methods have also proven revolting to the sensibilities of the masses. Their misdemeanors with respect to women folk have multiplied. There is thus a definite disillusionment within Kashmir with jihadi war and culture. This has been appropriately capitalized on by New Delhi for building bridges through the security forces turning their ‘human face’ as also for making political overtures to separatist forces.

 

Have jihadis penetrated India?

 

6.        The Kashmir issue played unfolded in the Nineties with the larger question of India’s minority management as backdrop. There was an indirect interplay between the two, even if in some quarters there were attempts to trace a more intimate connection. Such commentary had a political purpose of dislodging the minorities as a ‘vote bank’ and creating for the ideological opposition a ‘vote bank’ of the majority. This culminated in the demolition of the Babri Masjid. The resulting aftershocks in Mumbai created the impression of jihadi and ISI penetration of the Muslim minority elsewhere in India. Pakistan has taken advantage of this suspicion by directing high profile attacks by suicide squads of the LeT against high visibility targets as the Red Fort, Akshardham temple, Srinagar Assembly, national Parliament and the infamous hijack of Flight 814. That these are exceptional and carried out with foreign operatives only proves that the larger Muslim community remained out side the pale of influence of jihadis.

 

Not quite.

 

7.        Alternative narratives have it that the minority-majority violence is a politically inspired localized phenomenon. A case to point is the Godhra episode and the Gujarat riots that punctuated the Operation Parakram period. Investigations since have revealed much that was not public earlier. Further, there have been only exceptional instances of Indians figuring in the terrorist cells possibly associated with or drawing inspiration from the Al Qaeda and none has figured on the ‘most wanted’ list let out by the US in wake of 9/11 even though Indian Muslims comprise the second largest Muslim concentration in the world.  Lastly, the earlier concentration by the media was on the fundamentalist element of the community, giving rise to the impression of a community at odds with the mainstream. This media creation has since been jettisoned for a more balanced picture in which Sania Mirza and Irfan Pathan epitomize the community rather than Syed Shahabuddin and Imam Bukhari.

 

Jihad as bogeyman, though jihadi war is a fact

 

8.        In summation it can be said that ‘jihad’ has had at best a marginal presence in Kashmir where the proxy war facet predominates as the defining one. In the rest of India there is no evidence of a jihadi mindset in the religious minority more interested instead of partaking of India’s economic miracle. This owes largely to India’s secular democratic credentials that have withstood the test of the communally difficult Nineties.

 

JIHAD THROUGH THE CRYSTAL BALL

 

Hazarding the future is a fraught pastime. However, mentally conjuring the future helps bring it about. A jihadi war less future requires identifying the path and timelines. This chapter attempts this mind game.

 

The USA has the answers

 

1.        It would be imprudent to write the obituary on jihad. Its future is largely contingent on the conduct of the sole superpower. This would impact on the global jihad that will have a knock on consequence on the jihadi forces in India’s neighborhood. Its future penetration into Kashmir is dependent on India’s distance from the US and its actions in case these incite jihad by being violative of international law. Within India, international forces are less likely to have an impact as the internal balance of polity between the left and right of the political spectrum.

 

2.        Henry Liu, chairman of the Liu Investment group in New York, has an instructive comment with regard to the future of jihad world wide:

 

‘Terrorism can only be fought with the removal of injustice, not by anti ballistic missiles and smart bombs. It is a straw man argument to assert the principle of refusal to yield to terrorist demands. It is a suicidal policy to refuse to negotiate with terrorists until terrorism stops…The solution lies in denying terrorism any stake in destruction and increasing its stake in dialogue…This is done by having an inclusive economy and a just world order in which it would be clear that terrorist destruction of any part of the world would simply impoverish all…The US can increase its own security and the security of the world by adopting foreign and trade policies more in tune with its professed value of peace and justice for all.’

 

A global ‘how to do’ kit

 

3.        To expect this of the Bush administration, currently engaged in unilaterally reforming South West Asia, would be politically naïve. There is a fair possibility of the US perpetuating the attractions of jihad for the subject people into the future. This is reminiscent of the early years of the Cold War in which ‘communism as threat’ amounted to a self fulfilling prophesy. In case the White House defies expectations and does adopt a non-hegemonistic and multi-lateral approach, after perhaps burning its fingers in some future crisis that increases the isolationist tendencies within its polity, the alternate outcome of a regime change towards a democratic order in Arab lands can be hazarded. For this to transpire a coordinated engagement of a united Europe, an assertive Old Europe, China, Russia, Japan and India is a prerequisite for balancing the ‘rogue’ superpower.

 

A Pakistan dependent Indian future

 

4.        At the regional level, there likewise exist two scenarios. In case the US runs riot in the Muslim world, its frontline ally, Pakistan may well be driven into a civil war with the jihadis having a reasonable chance at seizing power. India would not be able to insulate itself from the fallout, as it has been able to say with respect to the ongoing events in Nepal. With India existing as an internal political question in Pakistan and Kashmir being its ‘jugular’, India cannot escape being drawn into containing nuclear armed Pakistan in league with the US however much rational strategic argumentation may deem otherwise.

 

5.        Alternatively, Pakistan could proceed down the path of restraining its jihadis. Its actions on this score have been met with undeserved skepticism in India strategic circles. It is in the midst of reforming its madrassas; it is engaged in eliminating terrorist havens in its North Western provinces; it has tried to coopt the religious parties through giving them a stake in power and governance; it has purged the jihadi element in its Army; and it continues to be headed by a leader who takes pride in styling himself after the reformist Kemal Ataturk. The advantage of having such a Pakistan on its border for India are obvious. As corollary, India’s actions should be to engage and thereby strengthen the current regime. A return to controlled democracy may proceed at Pakistani pace, with India keeping its channels open to all shades in Pakistani polity, even while taking care to cauterize Kashmir.

 

Kashmir on the mend

 

6.        In Kashmir the incidence of Jihadi war is on the wane owing in part to the Indian military’s wresting of the initiative through the border fencing, tactical successes in operations and a velvet glove policy towards the people. The jihadis are unlikely to register an upswing under the circumstances. India’s political, economic and developmental initiatives will also wean away the people from separatists. However, the greatest influence within Kashmir will be the nature of India’s economic trajectory that will cause Kashmiris to bandwagon with it. Thus regardless of the international and regional scene a return to jihadi war in Kashmir can be ruled out as a future scenario.

 

The making of India’s future

 

7.        In larger India, the relegation of majoritarian revivalism from national consciousness will ensure the impenetrability of India to jihadi influence. India’s autonomous role in international affairs wherein it is seen as independent player rather than a client of the US will contribute to its isolation from any jihadi backlash. To this end India requires to take care in maintaining a profile that helps bring about a multi lateral world order and an open trading regime with respect to oil flows. Its strategic community requires fleshing out its overly western inspired perspective on the Muslim world that gives a larger than life role and image to the jihad phenomenon. India requires relying on its strengths comprising representative democracy, plurality and constitutional freedoms to wait out the US-jihadi contest and emerge in the aftermath to claim its century.