The Missing Muslim Army Officers

Vol. 53, Issue No. 4, 27 Jan, 2018

The second highest grosser of 2017, the blockbuster Tiger Zinda Hai, has an actor playing a Muslim army officer working in the Research and Analysis wing(R&AW). He is selected by the team leader played by Salman Khan, for his expertise in sniping. In one of the scenes, another teammate questions the Muslim army officer’s patriotism, who is shown fishing out an Indian flag from his rucksack to prove his nationalist credentials. Presumably, the Muslim director of the film wanted to show that Muslims can be patriots too. The moot question is: Why the doubt?

The Muslim army officer is an endangered species. Official figures are unavailable as to the number of Muslims in officer ranks in the army. Innovative ways, therefore, are to be found to get an approximation. One such attempt has been made by going through the Indian Military Academy’s (IMA) biannual commemorative volumes for each passing out course (Ahmed 2012). The number of Muslims could be tallied from the name and one-line description of each Gentleman Cadet (GC) of the passing out course beneath the squadron-wise course photos.

It being relatively easier to pick out Muslim names, it is possible to be more confident of the numbers, than, say, if educated guesswork is done to compile the numbers for those belonging to the Scheduled Caste from lists of names, as was the methodological problem faced in one such exercise (Aggarwal et al 2015).

While there are multiple officer entry streams apart from the IMA, such as short service commissions from the academies at Chennai and Gaya, these would take the absolute tally up, but are unlikely to change significantly the relative presence of Muslims in officer ranks.

A perusal of six editions of the biannual IMAjournal over the period 2005–11, covering about half of the seven-year period, led to a tally of 50 Muslim officers having passed out of the IMA. This suggests that about 2% were Muslim, excluding those from friendly foreign countries. In the academy journal’s Spring term 2016 edition, on the 137th Regular and 120th Technical Graduates’ course, nine out of 469 or 1.9% of the officers having passed out were Muslims. The figure from the 2016 Autumn term is five GCswith Muslim names out of 403 GCs. The figure goes up thrice over, to 14 GCsfor the following course, Spring 2017, that had 423 GCsin all. In effect, Muslims constituted 2.1% of those taking the Antim Pag, the “final step” of training, also the first step as an officer, to the lilt of “Auld Lang Syne.”

If one contrasts these figures to the figures on GCsfrom Afghanistan—with which India has a strategic partnership agreement since 2011—who have passed out of the IMA, the journals indicate that India has trained some 50 Afghan GCsper term; thereby, training about five times more Afghans than Indian Muslim GCswhile its own Muslim population is five times larger than that of Afghanistan.

The consistency in dismal numbers of Muslims obtaining the President’s Commission suggests that there is little know­ledge, leave alone an understanding, that this is a problem calling out to be remedied. Recall, Muslims, at 172.2 million in India, account for 14.23% of India’s population. It is apparent that Muslims are under-represented. The unfortunate part is that this is unsurprising.

The Sachar committee—the Prime Minister’s High-Level Committee for Preparation of Report on Social, Economic and Educational Status of the Muslim Community in India—was set up to seek an answer, among other things, to: “What is the Muslims’ relative share in public and private sector employment?” (Sachar Committee Report 2006).

The answer it reportedly received from the army was that the army had 29,000 Muslim troops (Unnithan 2006), which adds up to 2.63%. These are embarrassingly low figures.

A Continuing Decline

The problem appears to be worsening. The latest National Defence Academy course at Pune commencing in January 2018 and consisting of 371 cadets (including those bound for the air force and navy), has only 4 Muslims. Only two Muslims joined the 153 cadets of the 10+2 Technical Entry Scheme course that commenced in January 2018 in Gaya. In the Direct Entry course that commen­ced at the IMAin January 2018, only one Muslim GCfeatured in the list of 103 names. Only one of the nine who joined the Army Education Corps course commencing in January was Muslim. One Muslim ­figured in the list of the 59 who joined the Technical Graduates course at the IMA. Of the 705 Indian youth signing up for an army officer career at the start of 2018, Indian Muslims could not even make it to ­double digits.1

Further, Muslims’ lack of visibility at the academy is manifest in all dimensions. Not only do too few Muslims make it to the academy’s portals, but, while there, their performance is indifferent. The IMAjournals perused for data reveal only one Muslim as having figured in the top GCappointments (34 appointments per course) at the battalion and company levels.2

In the two recent courses examined (Autumn 2016 and Spring 2017), only two Muslims held a “tabbed” appointment as the lower-rung Junior Under Officers, responsible for a platoon (the subordinate grouping to a company). The appointments are indicative of the relative order of merit of the GCthat is fixed on passing out. Of the surfeit of academy awards, only one Muslim GCreceived a mention for meritorious performance in equestrian sports.

The effects of under-representation and underperformance persist into their careers. Since only professionally sound officers land instructional appoint­ments at the IMA, it is possible to see how Muslims are faring by examining whether they find representation in the IMA’sfaculty. Lt Gen (Retired) Ata Hasnain, the notable defence commentator, was once an instructor at the IMAas a major. The instructional staff names appear in lists below the group photos of the training faculty and academic staff in the IMAjournals. There were no Muslim officer instructors in two of the terms examined, one each in 2008 and 2011. In the latest two editions of the journal, there was a single Muslim major visible in the Autumn 2016 edition and two in the Spring 2017 edition.

Not tenanting such prestigious appoint­ments early on in careers, results in fewer making it to higher ranks since the steep pyramidal structure of the army weans off underperformers early. It is apparent that there is a cascading effect of the deficit in Muslim youth making it into the academy. It is no wonder that the only Muslim officer who reached the army commander level in this century
is recently retired Lt Gen P M Hariz, one of the two generals controversially passed over for promotion to army chief in late 2016.

The situation is equally appalling when the non-officer instructor lists are examined in the journals. In eight of the journals (six of the earlier set from 2005–11 and two of the latest (2016–17), of the non-officer instructor staff in the consequential training section comprising 100 ustads (non-officer instructors), none were Muslim. The only field having consistent Muslim presence is equestrian, owing to the instructors largely coming from the only horsed cavalry regiment that traditionally has had Muslims in its ranks, 61 Cavalry.

Not a ‘Minority Problem’

Is whistle-blowing on this score warranted? The army values its apolitical and secular image. It believes that it can only work on the youth the communities themselves forward, and that it is an ­all-volunteer army of a free country into which any eligible citizen can step up for recruitment. Given that it does not acknowledge that a problem exists, it is unlikely to take any steps to mitigate it.

However, under-representation is not only a “minority problem,” as Muslim issues are usually clubbed together. Any claim that the army is an equal-opportunity employer is questionable. The biannual media write-up on the passing out parades at the IMAinvariably provide a state-wise break-up of the officer commissions. At the last passing out parade in December 2017, of the 409 GCspassing out, 76 GCs were from Uttar Pradesh (UP), 58 from Haryana and 29 from Uttarakhand (ToI2017a). The June 2017 passing out parade had 423 GCspassing out, with 74 from UP, 49 from Haryana, 40 from Uttarakhand, 30 from Rajasthan, 28 from Bihar and 23 from Delhi (Pioneer 2017). Thus, a substantial proportion of the officer corps appears to be coming from a ­narrow, if populous, segment of India’s sub-nationalities inhabiting North India.

At the last passing out parade—one reviewed by the Bangladesh army chief—there were only six Bengalis. This implies that a majority of Indian communities, taken socially (as in case of Muslims) and geographically (East and South Indian communities), are under-represented. A research scholar writes, “Just as Muslims are under-represented in the army, so are the Bengalis, Biharis, Oriyas, South Indians or Gujaratis. And just as Sikhs are over-represented, so are the Jats, Dogras, Garhwalis, Kumaonis, Gurkhas, Marathas and others” (Saksena 2014). Arguably, the army does not reflect India’s diversity sufficiently.

The soldiery is not the focus here. As military sociologist Samuel Huntington (1957: 8) reminds us, the significance of officership to military professionalism is critical. Being apolitical and remaining so is a critical aspect of military professionalism. An officer corps that is non-representative socially or ethnically opens itself to the possibility of losing its apolitical and secular character.

It is liable to unwarily reflect the political inclinations of its catchment areas. Over this decade, right-wing ideological trope and memes have been liberally exchanged on the army’s social media networks (Ahmed 2017). The army chief recently has had to remark that keeping politics out of the army was necessary (ToI2017b). Since he did not clarify his remarks, there are two possibilities. Either he is apprehensive of the right wing’s penetration into the military, or he is against the emerging pushback within the army against such penetration. The latter reflects the discourse within the middle class, a step back from their falling uncritically for the so-called Modi wave initially.

Perception of Muslims

Reverting to the scene in Tiger Zinda Hai, it can be inferred that the MuslimR&AWofficer’s teammate perhaps did not have sufficient professional and social interactions with Muslims owing to there being very few Muslims in theR&AWand Muslims over the past two decades having been increasingly pushed into urban ghettos, respectively. TheR&AWbeing in the intelligence agency keeping a keen eye on the shenanigans of Pakistan, he has perhaps acquired a prejudiced mindset in this organisation. A similar effect can be apprehended within the army too. There are too few Muslim fellow officers whose professional showing can help dispel the negative stereotypes that have come to be associated with Muslims in general. The army also has a cloistered social space, restricting social interaction outside its cantonments. Virtually every officer has rotated out of operations in Muslim-dominated Kashmir, where, in one popular perspective in the army, he is up against a jihad (Hasnain 2016: 157). Army Chief Bipin Rawat, interacting with the press on the eve of Army Day, hazarded that Kashmir’s education system is suspect and that its madrasas (religious seminaries) and masjids (mosques) bear watching (Business Standard 2018).

More Muslims in the officer corps could be preventive, leading to greater self-regulation in social media exchanges that forge the negative perception of Muslims and Islam. An increase in their numbers on the ground in operations could mitigate any adverse fallout, such as, for instance, egregious violence inspired by misinterpreting problems with Pakistan and in Kashmir as a religious or civilisational war.

Since the army can be expected to be less than forthcoming on change—especially since ethnicities that are well represented apprehend a loss of employment opportunity, power, and the welfare slice of the defence budget—for now, only a sensitisation to the problem at hand can be done. Change can await democratic ousting of the current day government, not known to be predisposed to the minority in any way. Take, for instance, the discontinuing of the publishing of the numbers of Muslims in the police force early in its tenure. The decline by one percentage point of Muslims in half a decade—from 7.55% in 2007 to 6.55% in 2012—was put out by the National Crime Records Bureau (Sheikh 2015). This was during the United Progressive Alliance’s (UPA) rule, which the then opposition and current day ruling dispensation had held to be guilty of the appeasement of Muslims.

Change should not be read as affirmative action, but focused on recruiting processes targeting India’s missing mino­rities, ethnic and social. An Equal Opportunities Commission and a National Data Bank, both recommended by the Sachar Committee, are needed. For now, the army’s outreach programs could be redirected towards absent communities. For their part, Muslim communities across the country need to identify service in the military as an area for diversifying their presence and contribution to national life. Quite like how Muslim communities are endeavouring to get their wards into the civil services by setting up coaching centres, such centres also need to be set up for cracking the army officer entry exams. A long-term effort should be to encourage Muslim boys to attend Sainik schools run by states. Alongside, Muslim girls must be encouraged to opt for the Officers Training Academy, Chennai.

Pluralism and a rejection of intolerance are the sine qua non for Indian demo­cracy. These stand gravely threatened. The pernicious challenge to democracy that majoritarian extremism represents has not left any institution unscathed, including the army. Internal diversity, both social and geographical, can help insulate security organisations from the ongoing attempt by cultural nationalists to collapse “Hindu” and “Hindustan” into one.

Notes

1 “Merit Lists, Joining Letter Status,” Join Indian Army, Government of India, http://joinindianarmy.nic.in/alpha/~/merit-lists.htm.

2 A company is equivalent to a “house” in schools. Three GC companies make one battalion.

References

Aggarwal, Ankita, Jean Drèze and Aashish Gupta (2015): “Caste and the Power Elite in Allahabad,” Economic & Political Weekly, Vol 50,
No 6, pp 45–51.

Ahmed, Ali (2012): “The Army: Missing Muslim India,” Mainstream, Vol 50, No 27, http://www.mainstreamweekly.net/article3529.html.

— (2017): “Dark Side of Army’s Social Media Groups,” Tribune, 2 March, http://www.tribuneindia.com/news/comment/dark-side-of-army-s-social-media-groups/371308.html.

Business Standard (2018): “Army Chief Bipin Rawat Calls for ‘Some’ Control over Mosques, Madrasas,” 13 January, http://www.business-standard.com/article/current-affairs/army-chief-bipin-rawat-calls-for-some-control-over-mosques-madrasas-
118011300059_1.html?ref=pbn.

Hasnain, Ata (2016): “A Counter Proxy War Strategy for Jammu and Kashmir,” The New Arthashastra: A Security Strategy for India, Gurmeet Kanwal (ed), New Delhi: Harper Collins.

Huntington, Samuel (1957): The Soldier and the State: The Theory and Politics of Civil–Military Relations, London: The Belknap Press.

Pioneer (2017): “After UP, Haryana, U’khand Tops List with Contribution of 40 GCs in Indian Army,” 10 June, http://www.dailypioneer.com/state-editions/dehradun/after-up-haryana-ukh....

Sachar Committee Report (2006): “Summary of Sachar Committee Report,” PRS Legislative Research, http://www.prsindia.org/administrator/uploads/general/1242304423~~Summary
%20of%20Sachar%20Committee%20Report.pdf.

Saksena, Amit (2014): “India’s Muslim Soldiers,” Diplomat, 20 May, https://thediplomat.com/
2014/05/indias-muslim-soldiers/.

Sheikh, Zeeshan (2015): “Data on Muslims in Police Will No Longer Be Public,” Indian Express, 30 November, http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/data-on-muslims-in-police-will-no-longer-be-public/.

ToI (2017a): “IMA POP Today, Maximum New Officers from UP, Haryana & U’khand,” Times of India, 8 December, https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/dehradun/ima-pop-today-maximum-new-officers-from-up-haryana-ukhand/articleshow/61986724.cms.

— (2017b): “Military Should Be Kept Out of Politics: Army Chief,” Times of India, 6 December, https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/military-should-be-kept-out-of-politics-army-chief/articleshow/61946177.cms.

Unnithan, Sandeep (2006): “Sachar Committee: Congress Minority Agenda Comes under Scrutiny,” India Today, 27 February, https://www.indiatoday.in/magazine/nation/story/20060227-sachar-committee-congress-minority-agenda-comes-under-scrutiny-785928-2006-02-27.

The Army: Missing Muslim India

MAINSTREAM, VOL L NO 27, JUNE 23, 2012

http://www.mainstreamweekly.net/article3529.html

by ALI AHMED

This article begins with a set of statistics and thereafter proceeds to discuss these. The Platinum Jubilee issue of the magazine of the Indian Military Academy, published in 2007, has some revealing tidbits of information. From the lists of various officer alumni who have done the Academy proud, it is obvious that Muslims are few and far between. Only six Muslim officers, who have passed out of the IMA, have made the supreme sacrifice for the country since the 1971 War. Only one, late Captain Haneefuddin of Kargil fame, has been awarded a higher gallan-try medal, a Vir Chakra, ever since then. Only one Muslim Gentleman Cadet has won the Academy’s Sword of Honour post-independence, with the award being won way back in 1973.

These achievements appear somewhat meagre in the light of the Indian Muslims forming the country’s largest minority numbering over 175 million. It naturally raises the question: Why?

An answer can seen in a further set of statistics gleaned from the biannual magazines of the Indian Military Academy, published at the end of the Spring and the Autumn terms respectively. In the magazines a one-line pen-portrait is given of each Gentleman Cadet (GC) passing out, below the course photo of each company (equivalent of a House in schools). From the two magazine issues in 2005, it is evident that only eight Muslims passed out of the portals of the institution to become commissioned officers. In the Spring Term 2006, there were eight Muslims commissioned. In the Spring Term 2007, nine Muslims took the ‘Antim Pag’ or ‘Last Step’ as GCs but their first step as commissioned officers out of the 555 taking commission that term. The following Spring Term, 11 Muslim GCs passed out of 611. In the Autumn Term 2011, the latest one for which the magazine is available, 14 Muslims passed out. However, this last figure includes those from friendly foreign countries such as Afghanistan, the numbers for which have gone up since the strategic agreement with that country.

In other words, of the six magazines perused for ascertaining the numbers of Muslims gaining the officer commission from the IMA, 45 have made the grade. Assuming some were from foreign countries, less than 40 Indian Muslims have made it over two-and-a-half years into the Army from the IMA, that commissions more than 1200 officers a year. This compares somewhat poorly with the civil services yearly list on which 30 Muslims figured this year amongst about 900 who ‘made it’. Admittedly, there are other routes for officer commission these days into the Army, such as through the Officers Training Academy and through the Technical Officer 12th class entry stream. This means that the numbers making it into the Army are marginally higher and must be viewed against the total getting commissioned in a year, which a back-of-the-envelope calculation puts at 1800 plus a year.

Clearly, the overall number can only be as abysmal as the statistics accessed here reveal. While reckonings elsewhere place the percentage of Muslims at three per cent of the overall total of Muslims in the Army, the statistics in regard to officer numbers have been uninformed guesses at best. It is perhaps for the first time here that a figure of about 1.1 per cent of officer commissions being of Indian Muslims has been arrived at. The numbers of Muslim women officers can easily be imagined, with the OTA magazine being the right place to look for exact numbers in the absence of the government owing up to a problem.

The absence of information suggests that the statistics that are no doubt known to the government are somewhat embarrassing to reveal from the point of view of India’s and its Army’s secular credentials. It is no wonder then that a former Chief, General J.J. Singh, had put his foot down in revealing the details of Muslim representation in the Army when approached by the Sachar Committee for its report. The laconic answer given then was that the Army, being a secular institution, does not maintain such records. This explanation begged the question of how the mortal remains of dead soldiers were to be disposed-off in a war if the community to which a dead soldier belonged was not known?!

The intake being so limited into the commi-ssioned ranks, it is no wonder then that the martial achievements of Muslim officers can be covered in less than a paragraph as in the first paragraph here. The Autumn Term 2011 issue can be mined for more telling statistics. For instance, not a single Muslim name occurs in the list of names below the group photos of the Academy faculty, the administrative staff, the training team and, worse, even the academic department. This is the same case in the Spring Term 2008. Among the non-officer instructor staff in the drill, physical training, weapons training and equitation sections, there are nine Muslim instructors. Incidentally, even at this non-officer level there are no Muslims in the consequential Training section. The relative absence of Muslims is of a piece with the fact given in the Platinum Number that the IMA has had only one Muslim Commandant and one Muslim Subedar Major post-independence. (For the record the National Defence Academy, a feeder institution to the IMA, has had two Muslim Commandants.)

•

WHILE the numbers are few, the performance of Muslims at the Academy is also revealing. All six magazines carry photos and write-ups of the 34 top GC appointments, no doubt as incentive. Of the 136 appointments scanned only one was Muslim. Beginning with this leadership deficit, it is easy to reckon as to why there were no officer instructors in the two terms examined, 2008 and 2011. Not tenanting such prestigious appointments early on, the problem persists with very few making it to the higher ranks. This is accentuated by the steep pyramidal structure that the Army has. In other words, there is a cascading effect of the deficit of Muslim youth making it to the Indian Military Academy and beyond. The Army’s stock answer to this can be anticipated. The Army merely selects from those self-selecting to it as a profession. The onus is on India’s various communities to offer up their best youth for the noble profession of arms. This could easily have been accepted but for two facts. One is that General V.K. Singh’s exertions over the past year suggest that ‘community’ is a consequential factor, at least in the higher ranks. The second is that, given this under-representation, it is clear that this is compensated by over-representation of some other communities. What are the effects of such under/over-representation?

In case the answer to this question is found to be negative and consequential, then there is a case for correction. This is a controversial point to make since it is suggestive of affirmative action. This is not how this article recommends corrective action. But, first, it is necessary to ascertain whether a diverse country such as India is better off with its Army reflecting its diversity. The reflexive answer of a traditionalist would be, ‘Why fix what ain’t broke?’ In other words, if the Army is working as an apolitical and secular organisation, there is no need to tinker with it. The answer offered here is an impressionistic one to the contrary. It is that the internal health of the Army does not give ground for comp-lacence. The Army officer corps is from the lower middle class and confined geographically to North India and more narrowly to a certain set of communities traditionally advantaged by the recruitment patterns over at least a century-and-a-half. The officer corps will therefore reflect the opinions and attitudes of the social class to which it belongs. It is no secret that there has been a churning in Indian society over the past two decades, brought about by liberalisation and the ascendance of cultural nationalism. This influence has been in the face of the Army’s involvement in counter-insurgency and anti-terrorism in J&K. While, as is the wont of armies universally, the Indian Army can be expected to exhibit a conservative-realist bias, this is accentuated by the social origin of the officer class. The discourse in this social space has the Muslim ‘Other’ taking on greater dimensions, the proportions of which have been enhanced by the global security discourse centred on Muslim extremism. A terror-based ‘inside-outside’ linkage between the Muslim Indian and Pakistani intelligence, sought to be established by the media and some political formations, has greater play than otherwise would be the case. A content analysis of in-service publications can prove this to an extent. (That is not gone in here for want of space.) The absence of Muslims from an officer’s social space as colleagues and peers does little to dispel misinterpretations. The problem that occurs is in the perception of the social class in which the officer corps is anchored being elevated to the institutional threat perception and at one remove that of the state.

The disadvantage for under-represented communities is that they are unable to take advantage of the expansion in the security sector, incidentally the only sector growing in neoliberal climes. The Sixth Ppay Commission bonanza thus gets channelled narrowly to those advantaged, reinforcing the inequity. Given that Muslims have been shown up as under-represented here and knowing that most are from the equivalent of backward classes, it can be surmised that the problem afflicts the backward classes in general as well as SC/STs, given that the military does not have reservations (and rightly so). This means that the only government sector that is expanding caters for a certain section of society. (The Army has expanded by two divisions over the past three years and is set to add 86,000 men as part of a mountain strike corps over the next five year plan.) Continuing with the present intake pattern can deepen divides.

It is therefore with a view to correcting this perceptual and attitudinal bias that it is recommended here that the telling statistic of a mere one-to-two per cent of officers being Muslim be taken seriously by both the state and Muslim community. As a first step, the pattern of intake must be ascertained in-house to find out if what is surmised here carries water. Its implications, as discussed, can also be thought through. The Army, if the reasoning given in the previous paragraph is persuasive, must for its own reasons carry out a campaign to make itself attractive to a whole host of communities that are under-represented. These include those from the North-East and South India, leave alone Muslims. Civil-military liaison conferences in these States must be geared to energising the State administration to take corrective measures. This could include establishing Sainik Schools, increasing the representativeness of Sainik and Military school intake etc.

Additionally, commu-nities, such as India’s various Muslim commu-nities across the country, can rig up swotting classes to help its youth qualify and clear the induction hurdles. This is how States over-represented in the officer cadre prepare the youth. The Chancellor of Jamia Millia Islamia and the Vice-Chancellor of Aligarh Muslim Universities, coincidentally being military men, can guide the community’s reaction. Affirmative action is not being suggested here, only targeted advertisement campaigns being followed up suitably by state and civil society action.

Ali Ahmad, Ph.D, is an Assistant Professor, Nelson Mandela Centre for Peace and Conflict Resolution, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi.

Alternative Perspectives

http://www.thebookreviewindia.org/articles/archives-98/2010/february/2/alternative-perspectives.html

Ali Ahmed 

COMBATING TERRORISM: SAUDI ARABIAS ROLE IN THE WAR ON TERROR 
By Ali S. Awadh Asseri 
Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2009, pp. 196, Rs 450.00

VOLUME XXXIV NUMBER 2 February 2010

It can be inferred from the author’s profile on the dust jacket that he is bassador in Lebanon, he has earlier been the Saudi kingdom’s ambassador to Pakistan between 2001 and 2009. His earlier career was in the police prior to his moving to appointments in which he looked after the security of Saudi diplomatic assets. With an increase in the threat and incidence of terror, this background as an ‘insider’ no doubt placed him at a vantage point for authoring the book. The book can be taken as reflecting the official Saudi perspective on the issue of terrorism. This is evident from the author’s acknowledgement that he is indebted to the Assistant to the Minister of Interior for Security Affairs, Prince Naif, for ‘guidance’, ‘material’ and ‘numerous meetings’ (p. xii).

Asseri’s attempt, in his words, is an articulation of ‘an alternative Saudi or Muslim perspective’ on ‘various conceptual and contextual issues relating to terrorism’. It is interesting that he does so without a mention of Wahabbism or the context of absence of democracy in his country.

In the first four chapters, the author discusses terrorism in theory and practice, the Islamic perspective on terror and root causes. He ably counters a view, originating in Islamophobic sections of the West and purveyed by the western media, on the ‘Islamic’ roots of contemporary terrorism. He distinguishes between the Islamic concept of Jihad and its appropriation by Islamists for their own political and ideological purposes. This distinction is important. However, there is a tendency towards extremism inherent in a narrow reading of Islam such as is the Saudi backed Wahabbi interpretation. This version of Islam lends itself to terror, as is seen from the perpetration of terror by its adherents both in Arabia and elsewhere.

In his discussion of ‘root causes’, of interest to Indian readers is Asseri’s mention of Kashmir: ‘in the absence of an early political settlement, the Kashmir issue may continue to provide the political context for deviant groups to engage in terrorist activities…’ (p. 77). This is in the same breath as Chechenya etc. This mistakes an essentially territorial issue between India and Pakistan as a religious, identity related one. This is the manner in which Pakistan has utilized religion to further its irredentist case. Pakistan’s use of terror is not so much religion inspired as a proxy war strategy in its ‘balance of power’ game with India. The author’s reductionist approach to the contrary apparently legitimizes terrorism. It shows that he has not been able to balance the context that he deems legitimizing, and violence against civilians which he condemns. This conceptual confusion is characteristic of those who claim that one man’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter. Their position would be less confused if terror targeting civilians is condemned, irrespective of any rationale provided by the context.

In the following two chapters Asseri discusses Saudi initiatives against terror, in the domestic and international dimension respectively. In the internal dimension, the Saudis follow a three-pronged strategy: prevention, cure and care. The measures include restrictions on financing, legal and security sector measures, social sector reforms, regulation of the internet and media and, lastly, a reform programme in prisons. That no section is devoted to political reforms indicates the glacial pace, if not a complete absence of these.

On the international plane the initiatives include bilateral and multilateral cooperation in pursuing the Al Qaeda, particularly with the patronstate, the US. The author expends considerable space dealing with the Saudi organized conference on countering terrorism and the first interfaith dialogue held at Makkah. He discusses the contribution Saudi Arabia has made in shaping the perspective of the Organisation of Islamic Conference. The role of the Israel-Palestine issue as a ‘root cause’ and Saudi Arabia’s role in attempting to solve it are covered in some detail.

In his last chapter, Asseri reviews anti-terror measures in countries such as Indonesia, Egypt and Pakistan in the light of the Saudi Arabian experience. He is complimentary and informative on the ‘war on terror’ waged by Indonesia describing the national effort undertaken by the Yudhoyono regime; its enlisting and use of former terrorists in the campaign; the employment of elite police, Detachment 88, to lead the fight; and lastly the judicial steps that have had a positive effect on public opinion. The de-radicalization programme of Egypt is covered in the manner the ideologue and compatriot of Ayman al Zawarhiri, Sayyid Imam Abdulaziz al Sharif, converted to moderation. By writing a slim volume, Advice Regarding the Conduct of Jihadist Action in Egypt and the World, he has considerably reinterpreted his earlier work, The Basic Principles in Making Preparations for Jihad, said to be the constitution of jihadi radicalism. The author opines that the Indonesian and Saudi model has much to offer Pakistan as it engages with terrorism. His critique of the NATO operation in Afghanistan is that, ‘There is hardly any effective governmental initiative in sight that aims to win the ‘hearts and minds’ campaign…the problem is likely to conflagrate in the absence of a strategy that prefers a non-military solution to a military solution (p. 164).’ The author does not reflect on the most significant cause of international terrorism, that of lack of democracy in most states across the Middle East and Maghreb ruled by varying shades of authoritarian regimes largely supported by the US. This was the original critique of the Al Qaeda.

The level of popular endorsement of the extremists owes in part to disillusionment with the repressive regimes, particularly their neo-colonial linkages with the US. In the Middle East in particular, the perception of access of the authoritarian regimes to a US umbrella requires dispelling by the US itself. The West has interfered with democratic outcomes in Algeria earlier and in Palestine. This suggests that it is unlikely to countenance a change in the status quo. The status quo is instead preferred by the West for control of oil prices, for energy security and preservation of their way of life. Given its influence and the grip of these regimes, the counter gets restricted to violence. While the likes of Al Qaeda cannot be expected to bring democracy to their lands, they have an argument that can only be dispelled by the advent of democracy.

Given the constraints of the author’s background, it is understandable that the political approach to defusing terrorism does not find mention in this critique. It is similarly silent on the Saudi regime’s links with spreading Wahabbism, a doctrinaire version of Islam. This has had a particularly baleful influence in Pakistan, where originally syncretistic Sufi Islam held sway. Not dwelling on these two aspects detracts from the merit of the book; one that is otherwise strong on the shortfalls of the approach and prescription of the West as witnessed in Afghanistan and Iraq.