Lynching is nothing but terrorism

https://aliahd66.substack.com/p/lynching-is-nothing-but-terrorism

 In Mob Lynching in India: A Record 2014-24, a team of eight Muslim editors and researchers led by Zafarul-Islam Khan, brings forth a dispassionate accounting of the phenomenon since Narendra Modi took office as prime minister. The 744-page tome sponsored by five Muslim and left-liberal NGOs carries a stinging analysis of the several hundred lynching incidents compiled.

The book is the latest in the series by publishers Pharos Media on human and minority rights in India. The collection forms a cogent counter-narrative to the officially propagated view on India’s internal security painting India’s Muslims negatively. The series is a resounding repudiation of the narrative bandied about at high volume in the strategic discourse.

The book presents a prominent perspective held by large sections of India’s Muslims: that lynching is a terror tactic designed to further marginalise Muslims. Lynching is mob violence indulged in on ascriptive grounds. If terrorism is minimally defined as violence with a political purpose to cow-down a target audience wider than the immediate target, then lynching wholesomely satisfies the definition.

Muslims have been in the sights of right-wing perpetrators under guise of cow protection, love jihad or for no other reason than their looks. Some non-Muslims have ended up as victims for being mistaken as Muslim. The targeting is amplified by social media to elicit a wider impact.

The political purpose is the physical, social and psychological invisibilisation of Muslims by constricting spaces of Muslim presence, articulation, visibility, economic activity, social engagement and national contribution. This Othering is a shaping of the battle-field for manufacture a majoritarian nation and state.

The tactic provides a distraction for the masses from the social inequity that revivalism foists on non-minority communities. Participation in collective activity – even if with a negative purpose - gives a sense of identity to substitute for the ennui of modern life and persisting lack of economic opportunity for participants, themselves largely deprived. The participants are conditioned to a ‘call up’ in short order as and when necessary. Having shed their inhibitions, they are ‘on call.’ Their leaders chalk up a manly image in local communties; while their handlers can claim political clout.

Its intellectual legitimation is to avenge historical wrongs. It is to (re)kindle machismo in the majority, considered servile in a particular narrow ideology. The purpose of crafting of a majority for electoral perpetuity and social revivalism is well served.

The impunity attending lynching indicates this larger game-plan, the unsaid part of viksit bharat. Antipathy for the illegal immigrant – read Bengali Muslim – alone is not the driver of back-to-back strategy benchmarks being rolled out: starting with the citizenship amendment bill, through the special intensive revision and set to culminate post-census in a national register of citizens and delimitation. No wonder Foreign Minister Jaishankar says that if he were to reveal the regime’s grand strategy to anyone, it would be necessary to kill the recipient alongside.

The book’s compilation of instances of lynching recounts what happened in each case and the aftermath. Essentially perpetrators were left-off on bail to begin with, before being allowed to proceed scot free; some being feted. Worse, it’s gone a step further with victims being charged for ‘provoking’ the attacks in first place, such as by transporting cattle or striking up relationships with non-Muslims. While laws for cow protection were enacted to place the minority offside, draft legislation prohibiting the proliferating phenomenon of lynching never saw light of day. The complicity of right-wing politics, police and lower courts is copiously documented, showing up state capture.

The book includes instances of lynching as part of one-sided mob violence, as occurred against Muslims in Delhi in 2020, including by members of security forces. It also counts the beating to death by mobs of non-minority victims, mostly from downtrodden communities and of women for alleged witchcraft. It shows the country-wide nature of the practice by including instances such as against alleged child-lifters, when even Hindus were preyed on. The book does not include the encounter killings, that now number in four figures, though any uniformed outfit indulging in such acts is no less than a lawless mob. Since the police that ought to maintain such records abstains from doing so - lest it let the cat out of the bag - the book is a necessary corrective.

In the decade covered, an outsourcing of societal surveillance and disciplining to vigilante groups has taken place. Their foot-print expanded in sync with the ascending electoral fortunes of the ruling party. In sum, the state abdicated on its responsibility of monopoly of violence to ideology-inspired and controlled micro-terror groups.

The result is evident across Delhi’s streets today, when saffronite foot-soldiers with police complicity go about intercepting youth protesting the chief election commissioner’s shenanigans. It also explains the boast by a right-wing heavy-weight once that his organisation can whistle up a militia in a mere three days.

Pharos Media’s preceding publications set out an alternative reading of India’s internal security. Dr. Khan’s earlier works dwell on the weaponization of the kanwar yatra against Muslims along its route and how the disinformation surrounding Covid was used to scapegoat Muslims and divert attention from the colossal tragedy akin to Partition that was the lockdown.

Also in the catalogue are works by intellectuals Shamsul Islam, Subhash Gatade and Ram Puniyani that unmask anti-Constitution ethnic nationalism. The security-centric volumes are by two redoubtable policemen, RB Sreekumar on the Gujarat pogrom and SM Mushrif on an under-studied angle to Mumbai 26/11.

Given the paradigm dominance-like status of the popular security narrative, such works are confined to the margins with mainstream publishing houses – never very steadfast - maintaining a discreet distance. For their part, strategic analysts are loath to give such findings credence, fearful of peer pressure and reputational costs of being termed conspiracy theorists. Settling the jigsaw pieces does not command the attention it deserves since the strategic community has fallen in line, as have all institutions. Thus, a dubious narrative gets a free pass.

What these publications do is to fill a gap in furnishing both facts and analyses to generate a democratically healthy scepticism of the received wisdom on internal security. These have a historical value and stand as an embarassing witness. But, in light of the recent flicker of hope generated by the ongoing street protests against the regime’s hubristic over-reach, such works acquire an immediacy. Civil society has stepped up where the state has stepped back to furnish the arguments against a viksit bharat forged in violence.

Dr. Khan, a product of Al Azhar, Cairo and Manchester universities, is known for the moral courage he demonstrated in his stand as Delhi Minorities Commission chairperson in turning the spotlight on the actual perpetrators in the commission’s investigation of the 2020 violence in Delhi. Clearly, he is unfazed by motivated actors seeking to silence him when he was last in the news lamenting the isolation of Indian Muslims. His book amounts to a guerrilla counter-action to reclaim security studies and strategic good sense.

Zafarul Islam Khan, Mob Lynching in India: A record 2014-2014, New Delhi: Pharos Media, 2026, pp. 746, Rs. 900/-, ISBN 81-7221157-0

https://m.thewire.in/article/government/the-union-govts-counter-terror-policy-paper-raises-more-questions-than-answers

https://open.substack.com/pub/aliahd66/p/shouldnt-north-block-withdraw-its?r=i1fws&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

Shouldn’t North Block withdraw its policy paper on terrorism?

A paper, ‘National Counter-Terrorism Policy and Strategy,’ was recently put out on the home ministry’s website. Since its very first sentence reads, “India has been at the forefront of the ongoing fight against terrorism for several decades now,” it begs the question: Why now? Speculating on the answer yields three prompts: internal, internal-external and external.

The internal prompt has the Delhi terror incident late last year focusing minds. The writing up of this policy-cum-strategy paper is perhaps an outcome. The internal-external prompt was the Baisaran meadow terror incident nine months back. Normally it takes that long to come up with a policy. However, the paper appears to be a rushed job, with at least one spelling mistake and one amendment, betrayed by an insertion in a different font. This brings to fore an external prompt.

The release of the paper coincided with the prime minister’s trip to Israel, which - as it turned out – was just prior to the launch of the ‘unprovoked and illegal’ attack by the United States (US) and Israel on Iran. The paper’s rehashes officiously the old canard, ‘while all Muslims are not terrorists, all terrorists are Muslim.’ Of a piece with the scepticism of Zionism and Hindutva of Islam and Muslims, this perhaps signalled India’s reliable presence in Israel’s corner. Whether that served to incentivize Israeli aggression is moot.

The paper’s deficits

The paper itself is a curious amalgam of policy and strategy, that any public policy undergrad knows are in themselves notably distinct tracts. Ordinarily, the expectation is of an exposition on policy from a ministry. National level strategies follow, but merit separate strategy papers because internal security strategies require addressing the differentiated terrorism variants (proxy war and indigenous) that beset India.

The only policy-level articulation in the paper is the tired refrain: “…the Indian policy of ‘zero tolerance’ against terrorism.” Parenthetically, it is up for an English professor’s input whether it should be rephrased as ‘‘zero tolerance’ for terrorism.’ At any rate, a single-phrase is inadequate to holistically to cover the conceptual edifice, guiding tenets and major considerations. While not being verbose, policy decidedly cannot be merely two-word long, especially in a nation with a continental geography, history and demography. The remainder of the paper carries the counter-terrorism strategy, which incidentally National Security Adviser Ajit Doval once ruled out (1:06:40) as a non sequitur.

Even the phrase ‘zero tolerance’ needs elaboration and guardrails. For instance, while the law provides for banning organisations, it only outlines the process. A policy must set what criteria must inform the state’s decision, to rule out arbitrariness, unilateralism and policy hijack by vested interests and dominant forces.

More significantly, ‘zero tolerance’ is somewhat misleading, given that ‘selective tolerance’ is more apt. Rightly, Muslim-perpetrated and Maoist terrorism has been subject to zero-tolerance. However, terror of regime-friendly right-wing actors – not excluding cow vigilantes, lynch mobs, communal mobs, encounter killings and bull-dozer action – is elided, though within definitional scope.

An international definition – that lacking international consensus is yet to see light of day - includes the overawing of communities through violence as constitutive of terrorism. A definition reads: “criminal acts, including against civilians, committed with intent to cause death or serious bodily injury… with the purpose to provoke a state of terror in the general public or in a group of persons or particular persons, intimidate a population…”

Even the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) acknowledges acts against a ‘section of people’ in its definition meriting the term: “Whoever does any act with intent to threaten or likely to threaten the unity, integrity, security, economic security, or sovereignty of India or with intent to strike terror or likely to strike terror in the people or any section of the people in India or in any foreign country….”

Majoritarian political violence is also terrorism, given that the result and effect is indeed a ‘crushing fear.’ Late Prime Minister Vajpayee’s words need heeding: “No organisation, irrespective of whether it claims to espouse the cause of the majority or the minority community, can be allowed to inflame passions, spread hatred and incite violence.” However, in practice vigilantes enjoy impunity.

Instead, a majoritarian state views any counter-action by communities against majoritarian pressure – such as self-defence against mobs – as terrorism. Even a verbal counter is taken as falling afoul of the clause: ‘causing disaffection against India,’ using expansive UAPA clauses that read: “unlawful activity… means any action taken… intended… to bring about… the cession… or the secession… or which incites… which … questions… to disrupt the sovereignty and territorial integrity… which causes or is intended to cause disaffection…” With a collapsing of India with Naya Bharat or Hindu India, such trends can only get more troubling. A non-parochial policy paper would have mitigated such concerns.

Querying the ‘threat profile’

Ideological baggage from the political market-place has contaminated what ought to be an exercise in ideology-immune policy formulation. This is clear from the one-para long ‘threat profile’ painted in the paper:

India has since long been affected by sponsored terrorism from across the border, with Jihadi terror outfits as well as their frontal organizations, continuing to plan, coordinate, facilitate and execute terror attacks in India. India has been on the target of global terrorist groups such as Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), which have been trying to incite violence in the country through sleeper cells. Violent Extremists operating from the soils of foreign countries have hatched conspiracies to promote terrorism.

There appear to be only two sources of terrorist threat: one is state-sponsored Islamist threat and the other is from non-state actor affiliated jihadists. A possible third site of terror can faintly be gleaned from a passing mention: “…use of Drones, for facilitating terror-related activities and attacks in Punjab…”

In the paper, there is no mention of left wing extremism (LWE) or Maoist terrorism, even though the term terrorism is liberally associated with it. If non-minority groups are not to figure as terrorists, then a policy paper ought to make that clear. Since terrorism is a tactic of insurgency (1:06:15), a distinction must be made between terrorism, terrorism as part of an insurgency and insurgency.

To be sure, at a point some two decades back, a terror threat in the hinterland was manifest. The threat was attributed to Muslim extremists, described as ‘sleeper cells’ both then and in the paper. This is a misrepresentation of self-help groups that organically come up in mohallas, particularly where and when the police plays partisan.

The threat perception disregards the fact that the statistics on terrorism stood inflated by actions of majoritarian extremists designed to pass off as Muslim-perpetrated. Clearly, the paper is missing a significant national security threat.

The latter of the two listed threats – from Daesh and Al Qaeda - has long been debunked. The paper is anachronistic since that global threat is largely passé. As for any residual threat, India now has an obliging security partner in the Afghan Taliban. Or is the paper anticipating an Islamist backlash in wake of renewed US intervention in West Asia, whose possible spillover needs to be deterred? If so, doesn’t the timing of the paper’s release showup Indian foreknowledge?

Querying the ‘principled approach’

The paper holds: “India… has been steadfast in its belief that there can be no justification whatsoever, for violence in the world (italics added).” Other than Jainism perhaps, all four major Indian religions have place for righteous resort to violence, albeit plentifully caveated. Self-defence is a birth-right. Even Gandhian thought is not so pacifist, as his dispelling of self-doubt within British Indian army officers shows. This is also at variance with the regime’s own muscular ideology, evident in the choice of title, Prahaar, meaning ‘strike’.

So, what is the origin of this bland articulation as an Indian ‘ideal’?

Understandably with its minister pronouncing (obliviously of Tamil Tigers) ‘no hindu can ever be a terrorist,’ a paper from the ministry can hardly be realistic. The answer therefore must be seen in light of the pronounced Muslim-baiting in the paper. The ‘ideal’ held out pre-emptively deprives Muslims of any recourse – either verbal or physical – against pressures that can only mount with the Special Intensive Review, the looming census and - who knows - the national register of citizens, national population register et. al. to follow.

Not quibbles

In its homework the ministry may have chanced upon prescriptions out there. Yet, blackholes exist, testifying to lack of due diligence and a standard operating procedure on preparing its flagship products. Providing no executive summary, the ministry enthused by the recent AI summit apparently expects readers to rely on an AI-generated summary.

There is no mention of accountability. For instance in J&K, does the army answer to the defence ministry or the home ministry? There is no mention of a negotiated settlement, though peace processes abound other than in J&K. The ‘no talks with terrorism’ position could have done with elucidation, given the indigenous component of the insurgency persists. There is no mention of mediation using the good offices of interlocutors, when the discord is between two communities, as in Manipur. Finally, there is no mention of how strategy implementation will be audited; for instance, how will the homilies on human rights be evaluated?

Since the catchy acronym – ‘PRAHAAR’ – is only strategy-relevant, an opportunity for accolades on finally putting together its higher-order policy thoughts stands wasted. The democratic scheme of checks and balances bases on intrinsic strength in institutions, which ministries are expected to possess. The paper reveals much more of the ministry than its text lets on; all of which spell ominously for the future.