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.
