CHINA WATCH: The China Imperative? - By Subramanian Swamy

Swamyhttp://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=283&page=12

Any two large nations have competitive aspirations and needs, and if these cannot be resolved satisfactorily then it weakens bilateral relations even if it can be cemented in the other dimensions.It is constantly said that in many ways, India and China are natural partners, being neighbours with a long boundary. More importantly, for more than 5000 years of history, the two nations were culturally and religiously interacting with each other, peacefully and normally, except for a relatively brief period of 20 years [1958-78]. This peace reigned even when India's Hindu influence spread all the way to Vietnam to countries on the periphery of China. In fact even China came under the heavy influence of Hinduised Mahayana BuddhismIndia, being a democracy, is more expressive about China than China is about India, since the press there is controlled. For example, Indians and Chinese view themselves citizens of a rising global power, and that therefore each nation should be treated as a central player in a "polycentric" multi-polar international community. Yet while many Indians openly regard China as such, the Chinese in internal Chinese language media have not articulated the same sentiment about India, leaving the impression that China does not take India seriously.The core inference from the facts narrated therein is simply this: Neither China, nor indeed India, had been honest to the other about the facts about the border throughout the decade of the 1950s, nor either had a case of any undisputed merit in the border cartographic claims. That is why Sardar Patel wrote a letter to Nehru after the Communists came to power in Beijing that India should not settle the Tibet question until the border demarcation already in the existing maps had been explicitly agreed to. Nehru in reply to Patel had rambled out a lecture on how foreign policy was different from maintaining law and order.The first requirement of an effective Indian policy towards China is to build a national consensus on how in a globalised world we define our complex of interests vis-à-vis China, to deal with the situation on the border that has dramatically changed since 1962, and also how best to communicate this consensus candidly to Chinese leaders. It is significant that while China denounces the McMahon line on the Sino-Indian border as `imperialist' it has accepted the same imperialist line in toto with Burma (Myanmar). This contradiction is explainable by the issue of Tibet.The most crucial determination in the 21st century for India is the content of the nation's relation with China in the context of the US strategic over reach and volatility of the globalised economy.It is constantly said that in many ways, India and China are natural partners, being neighbours with a long boundary. More importantly, for more than 5,000 years of history, the two nations were culturally and religiously interacting with each other, peacefully and normally, except for a relatively brief period of 20 years (1958-78).This peace reigned even when India's Hindu influence spread all the way to Vietnam to countries on the periphery of China. In fact, even China came under the heavy influence of Hinduised Mahayana Buddhism so much so that the famous poet and President of Beijing University delivered an address to Harvard University in 1936, published in the Tricentennial Celebration volumes, titled The Indianisation of China detailing disapprovingly how deep Hindu influences had penetrated in Chinese minds.No two neighbours of any size, in any continent for any period of history thus can claim such a long period of peaceful co-existence and cultural contact. This is an encouraging fact of history, that except for the bitter memory of 1962 conflict, there is no deep seated sentiment mitigating against a future strategic partnership between the world's two large continental size, fastest growing, and most populous Asian neighbouring and ancient civilizations. But are the relations chilling again?India, being a democracy is more expressive about China than China is about India, since the press there is controlled. For example, Indians and Chinese view themselves as citizens of as a rising global power, and that therefore each nation should be treated as a central player in a "polycentric" multi-polar international community. Yet, while many Indians openly regard China as such, the Chinese in internal Chinese language media have not articulated the same sentiment about India, leaving the impression that China does not take India seriously. Although for China, India could, at a future date, become a strategic partner or formidable adversary, or an economic collaborator or fierce competitor, and yet China's perception of India has not yet been explicitly articulated.Will then, in the long term, a strategic India-China relation be forged for mutual benefit be forged , and if forged today, be abandoned by China at a future date? Indians cannot be sure because of Chinese opaqueness in discourse with India. There is large trust deficit between India and China today that stands in the way of such partnership.Once China attains the economic status it wants, its leaders may want to assert its political and military clout in South Asia against Indian interests by calling in its IOUs. At present China assists Pakistan, Burma, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka with military supplies, but has not openly exercised its clout in these countries, so far, against India. But the option to do so, has been kept open by China. There is also the pending festering Sino-Indian Border Dispute that first requires resolution.The Question of Sino-IndianBorder SettlementIt would be thus appropriate to first consider the centrality of the Border Dispute in the future prospect of a durable Sino-Indian strategic partnership, as this dispute can be a triggering factor for adverse Sino-Indian relations.Between 1949 and 1957, the media in India mostly had gone by Nehru's glowing pronouncements on Sino-Indian relations. Because of his perspective, the broad masses of India had regarded the relations between the two countries as extremely cordial. But this was only apparently so, since the seeds of discord had been sown early. How these seeds had germinated since is described in my earlier study of the subject [see Chapter 3 of: India's China Perspective (Konark, 2001)].The core inference from the facts narrated therein is simply this: Neither China, nor indeed India, had been honest to the other about the facts about the border throughout the decade of the 1950s, nor either had a case of any undisputed merit in the Border cartographic claims. That is why Sardar Patel wrote a letter to Nehru after the Communists came to power in Beijing that India should not settle the Tibet question until the border demarcation already in the existing maps had been explicitly agreed to. Nehru in reply to Patel had rambled out a lecture on how foreign policy was different from maintaining law and order.China did not reveal its territorial claims, even when the two countries had negotiated and signed the 1954 Agreement on Tibet. Though it was an agreement on trade and intercourse, it was concluded in order to settle all outstanding issues and to consolidate the friendly relations between the two countries. One of the Five Principles of Peaceful Co-existence (Panchsheel) was "mutual respect for each other's territorial integrity and sovereignty," which clearly implied that the borders of each party to the treaty were already known to the other. Had China believed that there was a substantial territorial dispute about the Sino-Indian boundary, then that was the time to have raised the question, before solemnly pledging to respect mutually the "territorial integrity" of the other. Equally wrong was Nehru for not having explicitly raised and then clinched the border issue especially when we were clearing out of Tibet and recognising it as a province of China.In October 1954, Prime Minister Nehru while in Beijing mentioned to the Chinese leaders that he had seen some maps published in China which showed a wrong boundary between the two countries, but added that he was not worried about it, because the boundaries of India were quite clear and not a matter of argument! Such ostrich like policy is what led to the disillusionment of 1962.It was on January 23, 1959, that Mr Chou Enlai first wrote to Mr Nehru admitting that it was "true that the border question was not raised in 1954 when negotiations were being held between Chinese and Indian sides for the Agreement on Trade and Intercourse between Tibet region of China and India. This was because conditions were not yet ripe for its settlement." This was an amazing admission. Why did time become `ripe' in 1959 for the dispute to be raised? That Premier Chou did not make that clear in the letter.After administering a blistering defeat in 1962, the Chinese forces withdrew 20 kms behind the McMahon Line, which they called "the 1959 line of actual control" in the Eastern Sector, and also 20 kms behind the line of their latest position in Ladakh, which they further identified with the "1959 line of actual control" in the Western Sector. This left the Chinese in possession of 23,200 square kms of territory in Ladakh. India asked for restoration to the status quo ex-ante as of September 8, 1962 in all sectors which the Chinese rejected. A stalemate thus resulted in stated positions on the boundary dispute, that in effect remains so even today.Towards the end of December 1964, Prime Minister Chou Enlai, speaking to the National People's Congress in Beijing, called the suggestion of restoration of status quo as of September 8, 1962 "an unreasonable Indian pre-condition" and declared that China would never dismantle its posts from this area. Chou also reminded India that China had not relinquished its claim to an additional 90,000 sq. kilometres of India territory south of the McMahon Line. This territorial demand was in addition to the 23,200 sq. kms of territory in Ladakh already with China by then. Thus, the border issue, if made central to further development of Sino-Indian relations, will effectively freeze any progress toward a Sino-Indian entente.The first requirement therefore of an effective Indian policy towards China is to build a national consensus on how in a globalised world we define our complex of interests vis-à-vis China, to deal with the situation on the border that has dramatically changed since 1962, and also how best to communicate this consensus candidly to Chinese leaders. It is significant that while China denounces the McMahon line on the Sino-Indian border as `imperialist' it has accepted the same imperialist line in toto with Burma (Myanmar). This contradiction is explainable by the issue of Tibet.Second, Tibet will thus continue to play the defining role in Sino-Indian relations. The Indian government has reiterated its policy of regarding Tibet as an autonomous region of China, and that anti-China political activities by Tibetan elements would not be permitted on Indian soil. This statement of policy has been repeated during the exchange of visits by the Prime Ministers of China and India. In 2003, Prime Minister Vajpayee specifically and categorically confirmed this position while on a visit to Beijing. Yet the Chinese view the émigré government of the Dalai Lama nominees in Dharamshala, H.P., with deep suspicion. The Tibet issue enables the US to roast the Chinese dragon's belly off and on. We have to resolve this contradiction. Another contradiction is the Chinese support to Pakistan in strategic, tactical, military, civilian, nuclear and conventional dimensions. But Pakistan is increasingly looking like a failed state and primed for a Taliban-Al Qaeda take-over. Thereafter anything is possible including nuclear war. This is a contradiction that China must resolve.The third is in the resolution of competitive interests between China and India both in the economy and spheres of influence. Any two large nations have competitive aspirations and needs, and if these cannot be resolved satisfactorily then it weakens bilateral relations even if it can be cemented in the other dimensions.And finally, the fourth dimension is in matching of expectations that will exist between the peoples of the two nations. If one nation assumes that friendship means totality of convergence or submergence of all national interests, while the other nation expects it to be on purely give and take principle, then the relation between such two nations is bound to sour sooner or later because the expectations are not matched. That unfortunately is what happened in Sino-Indian bilateral affairs.The scenario of Strategic partnership between India and ChinaA fundamental problem in Indian policy-making towards China is that there is no apparent consensus in India even today, on the "end" objectives of engagement with China. The domestic strategic discourse in IDSA and other think tanks so far has also failed to come up with a clear criterion for evaluating the "means" to be adopted in this regard. There is also as yet no clear China perspective inside the Indian Government. It is in this context that a review of contemporary Sino-Indian relations is urgently necessary before developing a stable strategic `Sino-Indian Partnership', that everyone blandly talks about nowadays.In particular, a crucial choice will have to be made soon by us: Whether India should form a compact with China (Choice I) or become a part of the US efforts to keep China `contained' (Choice II). How and why that choice is to be made must of course be subject to in depth of the analysis and wide national debate. I am of the view that either India befriends China in a fundamental and strategic sense, or Indian confronts China. There is no third way.The upshot of the entire analysis given above can thus be summarised in three parts: [a] A strategic partnership between India and China has to be viewed in dimensions of economic, global influence, and national security. Hence, to opt for such a partnership there has to be a holistic approach.[b] For historical, cultural and geographical reasons, it is natural for India and China to be partners in global affairs. It is, however, too early for India to clinch a strategic partnership with China because of some unresolved contradictions, the upheaval in the international economy triggered by globalisation and more importantly the imminence of a financial crisis in China and India about which I have written elsewhere [see my Financial Architecture and Comparative Economic Development of China and India (2007) Konark Publishers]. Thus, bilateral discussions for this partnership at all important levels should take place only after all scenarios are visualised and issues are thrashed out to avoid future misunderstanding.[c] For the time being, the US is important as a market and as a pioneer in innovative technology. Hence, it is not a feasible for either India or China to come to any understanding that is inconsistent with US global interest. This is more true for China than India because the former is more vitally interlinked with the US economy and foreign trade with the West and pro-US East Asia. Thus, mature and nuanced sequencing of our relations with China to a level of a stable and sustained strategic partnership is the urgent imperative of India's new age or 21st century diplomacy.(The writer is former Union Cabinet Minister for Commerce, and is currently Janata Party President.)

Truth About Doctored CDs and Gita For Gandhis: Election Potpourri RK Ohri

The mysterious appearance of an allegedly ‘doctored’ CD is being used by our Hindu-bashing media to defame and condemn Varun Gandhi, the bright young B J P aspirant wanting to contest election for the Lok Sabha seat from Pilibhit. In this comical debate the media has conveniently forgotten that a number of similarly doctored CDs are being openly sold in hundreds across Pilibhit and several U.P. towns. According to a news published on March 22, 2009, in Hindustan Times, New Delhi, a CD of the so-called ‘hate’ speech of Varun Gandhi was being sold for Rs. 15,000 and several political parties and mediapersons were lapping up the coveted CDs.1 On top of it, the buyers are openly telling the CD seller, one Maqbool, to “delete this scene, it will not serve my purpose”. And such openly ‘doctored’ CDs are being unabashedly purchased by the election campaigners for three well known political parties. Yet not one media analyst has tried to fathom the origin of the ‘dubious’ CD, nor who prepared it and why, nor where is the original CD. All these questions have been left unanswered by the Indian media as well as the Election Commission.

How is it that the Election Commission and our voluble media analysts have not bothered to investigate what made the cyber café owner, Maqbool of Pilibhit, openly doctor and modify CDs of Varun’s speech for selling them like hot cakes to all and sundry ? Most mysterious, however, is the inaction of the somnolent Uttar Pradesh police who have neither caught Maqbool, nor interrogated him. One does not know either how many Maqbools across Uttar Pradesh have ventured into the dubious CD doctoring business and are busy hawking the modified CDs.

We are indeed living in bewildering times. True to their anti-Hindu agenda, some media mavericks have even tried to pitch Priyanka Gandhi against her cousin, Varun, by bringing into question Varun’s knowledge of Gita - a subject on which a lot can be said.

Frankly, not many media analysts appear to have any sound knowledge of Gita, nor of the bold message of recourse to karmic action it gives to Hindus like Varun. No wonder they fail to realize that in not too distant past the same message had fired the imagination of the renowned stalwarts like Lokmanya Tilak, Aurobindo Ghosh, Ras Behari Bose and hundreds of revolutionaries and freedom fighters, including Chandra Shekhar Azad, Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev, Rajguru, Ram Prasad Bismal and lakhs of foot soldiers of our freedom movement.

After conversion to the hollow western creed called ‘secularism’, most media WOGs (i.e., West Oriented Gentlemen) have lost their civilizational moorings. In their

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static minds ‘ahimsa parmo dharmo’, a truncated shloka popularized by Mahatma
Gandhi, remains etched as the central theme of Gita. They seem to be blissfully unaware that Gita goes far beyond ‘ahimsa parmo dharma’ and gloriously sanctions the use of violence as a sacred duty in the cause of righteousness, especially for protecting ‘Dharma’. As highlighted by Swami Chinmayananda in a soul stirring article, the correct Shloka in Gita is ‘Ahimsa Parmo Dharma, Dharmah Himsa Tathaiva Cha’, meaning thereby that recourse to violence for protecting ‘Dharma’ is an equally important duty enjoined upon all Hindus.2 The learned sage bemoans that frequent misuse of this truncated sacred verse has reduced us Indians (read Hindus) to the status of “poltroons and cowards”.3 By over emphasizing non-violence, says Swamiji, “we have reached the pathetic situation of today when thousands, in cowardly fear take to precipitate flight, leaving their innocent children to be butchered and their unarmed helpless women to be converted or killed”.4

The rousing speech of Varun Gandhi has to be understood in the context of the pitiable condition of Hindus of Pilibhit. In recent months there have been innumerable complaints by Hindus of Pilibhit alleging oppression by Muslim gangsters of the area, including scores of instances of cow slaughter which is forbidden by law. But no one listens to Hindus because the District Magistrate and Additional District Magistrate of Pilibhit, being Muslims, are perceived to be ranged against the majority community. In such a dismal scenario, the courage shown by Varun came like a whiff of fresh air for the beseiged Hindus of Pilibhit.

It is time that voluble journos and politicos realized that there is a healthy unanimity of views between what Varun Gandhi told the beleaguered Hindus of Pilibhit and what the learned Swami Chinmayananda upholds as our grand civilizational ideal, enshrined in Bhagvad Gita.

Though Priyanka Gandhi did not say anthing about her own understanding of Gita, apparently she does not know much about the bold and valorous message to fight the forces of evil given by Sri Krishna to Arjun on the battlefield of Kurukshetra. Gita does not preach passivity or renunciation, nor submission to tyranny. It preaches action, bold and purposeful, for achieving victory against tyranny. Instead of faulting Varun, she would do well to listen to the sagely advice of Swami Chinmayananda when he says that “the only solution for the day’s internal chaos is to bring home to the people the significance of the much neglected teaching of ‘dharma-himsa’. Gita gives the message of victory through valour to every Hindu, loudly and clearly, exhorting them to join the battle when no other option is available.

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And that is what Varun Gandhi has been trying to do by relaying the wake up call to oppressed Hindu masses, besieged by jihadi terrorists and enemies of Dharma. It is time that our ignorant media analysts devoted a little bit of their time to re-reading of the Gita, instead of faulting Varun’s knowledge of the sacred Song Divine.





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References:

Rajesh Kumar Singh, ‘Varun speech a bestseller”, Hindustan Times, New Delhi,
March 22, 2009, p. 9.

Source: chinmayananda.org

Ibid.
Ibid.

PRISM ON PAKISTAN: Pervez spoke in India to be heard in Pak BY Vikram Sood

http://www.asianage.com/presentation/leftnavigation/

opinion/opinion/pervez-spoke-in-india-to-be-heard-in-pak.aspx
March.24 : Pakistani performers — singers and musicians — unable to get a break in their own country would often come to India. Ghulam Ali, Mehdi Hassan and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan made it big once they had entertained and been appreciated by Indian audiences. It is here that their art flourished and only then were they recognised in their own country. Pervez Musharraf was only the latest of such performers. His goal, however, was different. He was here to impress dwindling audiences back home with his belligerence on "enemy soil" and regain relevance in Pakistani politics. One does not know whether this was the audacity of hope or the harsh reality of a future imperfect of a floundering Pakistan that continues to seek enemies. After the usual bellicosity, meant for his hardline audience in Pakistan, he offered himself as its next President, provided that he was made a "real" President. This was a humble offer to serve the nation in any post so long as he could live in the Aiwan-e-Sadr.Many do not know that the general has been a fan of Clint Eastwood, but the difference is that this general shoots from the lip. That is why he got into all sorts of tangles during his marathon and excruciatingly boring session at the India Today Conclave in New Delhi earlier this month. It was obvious that the general does not know how to answer awkward questions except by being offensive. After he gave his rambling and muddled worldview (he did refer to South America to show the breadth of his vision), he talked of confidence-building measures between India and Pakistan. When it was suggested to Gen. Musharraf that Pakistan make a declaration of faith by handing over Dawood Ibrahim, a clearly flustered general, after the usual evasive tactics, said even if Dawood were handed over relations would not improve. This was a tacit admission of fact. His argument was that since India was supposed to be in touch with Brahmdag Bugti, this allowed Pakistan to harbour an international criminal. Unfortunately, no one then asked him about the various Sikh extremists like Lakhbir Singh Rhode of the International Sikh Youth Federation who continues to live under Pakistan's loving care in Lahore, or Wadhawan Singh Babbar of Babbar Khalsa International and others whose well-being is supervised by Lt. Gen. Javed Nasir (Retd), a former director-general of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).Later, he elevated himself as an arbiter between India and Pakistan but also threatened more Kargils if Pakistan was not granted what it demanded. A man cannot be a peacenik and also threaten war. However, the general promised that relations could improve if Kashmir was handed over to Pakistan. Justice thy name is Pervez Musharraf!The general also feigned injured innocence about how Bangladesh got its independence — alluding to Indian intervention but conveniently omitting the fact the Pakistan Army had killed three million innocent Bangladeshis before the Indian Army stepped in. Other contradictions featured. For instance, according to the general, the ISI and the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) are alike, and he later went on to say that the Army and the ISI were the centres of gravity in Pakistan. That is the core issue in Pakistan — the power of the Army as an institution and the pelf of Pakistan Army officers. Surely, the general must know that in India neither the Army nor RAW are "centres of gravity". The people are the centre of gravity.Gen. Musharraf, imaginative with the truth, also said that terrorist organisations like Lashkar-e-Tayyaba and Jaish-e-Mohammed were born because of India. He did not add that weapons and training for the Lashkar came via the ISI and loads of Saudi money went into the Jamaat-ud-Dawa. But the world knows this.The one person who immediately understood what Gen. Musharraf was trying was Rajya Sabha MP Maulana Mahmood Madani. And he was quite forthright when he said that the general was beginning his career in Pakistani politics in India. Mr Musharraf was livid with rage when the maulana proceeded to tell the general that his gratuitous advice about how to handle problems was not only not needed, it was detrimental to Muslims in India, where the majority had defended them. A flustered, angry and truculent Gen. Musharraf then accused the maulana of hypocrisy. Yet the general's Army and its terrorist surrogates have killed more Muslims in Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and Afghanistan than any other country anywhere else in the world. And since it is still a work-in-progress, Pakistan has ceased to have the right to call itself a "defender of the faith" a long time ago.In his autobiography In the Line of Fire (which borrows its title from Clint Eastwood's Academy Award-winning film about a psychopath wanting to assassinate the US President), the general modestly describes himself as a statesman, a quality that was singularly absent when he answered questions about the Mumbai massacre. He did not have a single word of sympathy for the innocents who were killed; there was no condemnation of the act of terror, nor the terrorists. Instead, he launched into a tirade against the Indian media, politicians and everyone else for this war "hysteria" against Pakistan. But for decades now Pakistan has inculcated enmity and obscurantism by consistently teaching its young jihad and hatred in madrasas and mainstream schools; leaders of various jihadi outfits have constantly spoken of the need to conquer and divide India; and the general himself, when in power, had referred to India as the "enemy".Events seem to have upset the general's ambitions to make a triumphant return to Pakistan politics as the now-rejuvenated Supreme Court may want to ask a few awkward questions about his unconstitutional orders in November 2007. One wonders if he still has space in Neharwali Galli.
Vikram Sood is a former Cheif of RAW, India's external intelligence agency

TIME TO DETOXIFY AS WELL AS DISCIPLINE PAKISTAN

VIKRAM SOOD


Pakistan is in deep trouble. As has been said before, the trouble this time is worse than in 1971. This time there is no fall back position because in 1971 there was a West Pakistan to come home to. The retreat from the Swat Valley by the Pakistani state is a sign of the troubled times and was perhaps pre-ordained. In intelligence parlance it is called ‘blowback’ – the unintended consequences of unacknowledged actions in other peoples countries.’

This time the admission comes from on high when the President of Pakistan says he fears a Taliban take over in Pakistan and that Pakistan was fighting for its survival. He should worry because the Taliban control Swat which is 160 kilometers away from Islamabad. To put this in the Indian perspective, it is like them sitting in Agra or a little beyond that. Simultaneously, there have been reports in Pakistan of the Taliban having infiltrated into the Punjab and Karachi. Killings and kidnappings continue, in FATA, in NWFP and in Balochistan where a nascent nationalist struggle is again visible. Worried that the Taliban were infiltrating into the Punjab province, Pakistani authorities have sent their Elite Force to the borders with NWFP and Balochistan to prevent these infiltrations. The economy is collapsing there and is no succour forthcoming either from the Americans or from the Friends of Pakistan unless Pakistan shows good faith.

Pakistan has shown progress only in one category. The Washington-based Fund for Peace now lists Pakistan at 9 in the list of failing/failed states, up from 10 two years ago. Thus we have a delinquent state that is also a failing state as our neighbour and that too a neighbour where hatred for India has been a habit. The sooner we accept this unfortunate reality the better it will be or easier, one hopes, to formulate serious long-term responses and immediate pre-emption. Today, Pakistan is a metaphor for “ground zero of terrorism” or “epicenter of terrorism.”

Pakistanis themselves have been in denial for long and so have we been; assuming that Pakistan was a moderate liberal state and that what was happening in that country would eventually pass. This is not going to be so. For this one has to read what Pervez Hoodbhoy, the well known physics professor at the Quaid e Azam University in Islamabad, says in his essay ‘The Saudi-isation of Pakistan’. He begins his essay with the ominous prediction – “The common belief in Pakistan is that Islamic radicalism is a problem only in FATA, and that the madrassas are the only institutions serving as jihad factories. This is a serious misconception. Extremism is breeding at a ferocious rate in public and private schools within Pakistan’s cities. Left unchallenged this education will produce a generation incapable of coexisting with any one except strictly with their own kind. The mindset it creates, may eventually lead to Pakistan’s demise as a nation state.” Hoodbhoy’s anguish is obvious when he says “Grain by grain the desert sands of Saudi Arabia are replacing the rich soil that had nurtured a magnificent Muslim culture for a thousand years….. Now a stern unyielding version of Islam (Wahhabism) is replacing the kinder, gentler Islam of the Sufis and saints who had walked on this land for hundreds of years.” This is an essay every Indian, and any one else who cares must read; not to exult in what is happening in Pakistan but to worry.

It is true that Pakistan was formed in the name of Islam and all its various leaders have used Islam for political ends. Quite early in Pakistan’s life criticising Pakistan meant criticism of Islam. This weakened the civil society. Undoubtedly Zia was the one who converted this into a strong instrument of state policy but right from the beginning Pakistan’s leaders tried to deny history and even geography when they sought their moorings elsewhere. Fear of India, the urge to be different and the search for an identity that was non-India led to the rise of the Army with the result that today the Army is the institution that owns Pakistan. And it looks increasingly that Pakistan’s latest attempt at democracy is about to flounder.

Many Pakistani leaders have been spreading the theory that India is about to reverse the partition and gobble up Pakistan. They flatter themselves. It is also a self-serving argument that encourages the retention of a huge self-aggrandising Army and feeds a feudal system. No right minded Indian would ever dream of taking over that desolate piece of territory whose sole harvest now is jihadi terrorists and hatred towards others.

Pakistani leaders never wanted to or failed to understand that their country would remain the safest when they confined themselves to adventures within their own boundaries. Pakistan becomes unstable the moment it pretends to be the inheritor of the Empire and seeks suzerainty over Afghanistan or seeks to cut India down to size. The pursuit of policies other than in one’s own national interest usually damages that national interest.

The US will most likely continue to repeat earlier mistakes – not having learnt anything and forgotten everything. Only the other day Richard Holbrooke was telling us (even though he was on a learning mission) that India and Pakistan face the same threat. Not quite, Mr. Holbrooke. We are victims of Pakistani-inspired, funded and equipped terrorism. Pakistan, on the other hand is a victim of its own policies, which for long spells were ignored and indirectly abetted by the US by the very fact that they were ignored. Anxious to achieve results in Afghanistan as soon as possible, it is likely that the Americans will be satisfied if Pakistan shows results in the war on terror, west of the Indus. This will be a mistake. Unless the Pakistanis tackle terrorism east of the Indus, dismantle the large infrastructure of terrorism and hunt down the terrorists the problem will never go away. Instead of this, what we have are peace deals even on the other side of the Indus facing the Afghan border. The US needs to change policy too from the earlier one of routinely plying the country with funds for misuse and arms for regional adventurism. Maybe Pakistan needs to be starved of both for some time till it is adequately disciplined and detoxified.

Meanwhile, Pakistan is looking more and more like a failed joint venture of the Anglo-Americans who spent most of the second half of the last century investing more and more in keeping this country afloat. The Pakistani melt down looks increasingly like the Lehman Brothers collapse and this country too must go into international receivership with stern conditionalities of sustained good behaviour which, above all, must make India safe from future depredations – sub-conventional, conventional and nuclear – by that country and Kashmir is not on the table.

Vikram Sood is a former Cheif of RAW, India's external intelligence agency

THE RELENTLESS MARCH OF DOGMA-JP Sharma

Commenting on the extraordinary development of a religious institution ( Lal Masjid and its Jamia Hafsa seminary) in Pakistan’s capital city seeking to order the local populace to observe the Islamic mores of conduct and morality, Pakistani human rights activist I A Rehman highlighted (Dawn 5 April 2007) the basic problem with which rulers of Pakistan have been trying to grapple ever since the creation of the state.

“Within yards of the avenue in the capital where the concrete symbols of all the organs of the state are guarded by large contingents of gendarmerie, some lathi-wielding female students take the law into their hands, and announce their assumption of authority to detain and punish the ‘sinners’, and a pathetic-looking state apparatus sues for forgiveness. This is Pakistan after seven years of stability, economic progress, genuine democracy, suppression of obscurantism and enlightened moderation…”

Rehman asserts that the development is only yet another stage in the evolution of the Theory of Two Sovereignties which has been gradually gathering strength in Pakistan. According to Rehman the Theory postulates that “every Pakistani Muslim has a right and a duty to bring his fellow-beings under a regime he thinks his belief prescribes even if this involves a defiance of the state-made (that is, man-made) laws and rules”.

GENESIS OF THE PROBLEM

Rehman argues that the seeds of the problem were contained in the politics which led to the creation of Pakistan. The demand for a separate homeland for the Muslims of India was plainly based on religion. The leaders who whipped up communal frenzy to gather support for their project did not spend much time elaborating the constitutional features of the new country they were trying to create. Most of the slogans raised during the 1945-46 elections explained the idea of Pakistan only in religious terms. Throughout its history the use of highly emotive Islamic slogans (e,g, Pakistan ka matlab kya; La Ilah Illillah ) by the religion based parties/groups for mobilizing the faithful has been a constant feature of politics in Pakistan.
Jinnah was by no means a staunch Muslim. It appears that having used the appeal of Islam for securing support of his co-religionists, he quickly realized the dangers of creating an Islam dominated state and sought to put the new state on a safer course with his famous Constituent Assembly speech of August 11, 1947, declaring that all citizens of Pakistan will be equal regardless of their religious affiliation. Jinnah did not live long enough to steer Pakistan in its early years. Most Pakistanis paid homage to Jinnah as the Father of the Nation but Jinnah’s lone speech, which went completely against the tenor of the Pakistan movement stood little chance of finding acceptance by the large body of the fired up soldiers of Islam. The Objectives Resolution passed by the Constituent Assembly in March 1949 sought to please the Islamists by declaring that “principles of democracy, freedom, equality, tolerance and social justice as enunciated by Islam” shall be fully observed and ..” the Muslims shall be enabled to order their lives in the individual and collective spheres in accordance with the teachings and requirements of the Holy Quran and the Sunnah”. The Resolution simultaneously sought to assure the minorities that everyone
“.. shall be guaranteed fundamental rights including equality of status, of opportunity and before law, social, economic and political justice, and freedom of thought, expression, belief, faith, worship and association, subject to law and public morality; and
“… adequate provision shall be made for the minorities to profess and practice their religions and develop their cultures;” and,.
“….. adequate provision shall be made to safeguard the legitimate interests of minorities and backward and depressed classes;..”
THE DILEMMA OF CONSTITUTION MAKERS
The Objectives Resolution aptly illustrates the dilemma faced by the constitution makers of Pakistan. Produced by politicians still swearing loyalty to the departed Jinnah, and possibly not to wanting to upset the western progenitors of Pakistan, the Resolution attempted to reconcile the utterly contradictory demands of Islam and secularism although the language used made the primacy of Islam quite apparent. In actual practice, however, Islam unquestionably predominated and the provisions in favour of the minorities remained only pious, ornamental, paper declarations.
WHAT THE MINORITIES ACTUALLY GOT
A direct consequence of the overarching position accorded to Islam was the power and prestige accruing to those who could authoritatively spell out the "teachings and requirements of Islam as set out in the Holy Quran and the Sunnah;” Experts in the Islamic field, the ulema, were in plentiful supply and lost no opportunity of practising their art. To press for the observance of Islamic injunctions in matters of governance, the Ulema of different schools organized themselves into political groupings with their respective agenda. Prominent among such parties were the Jamaat-e-Islami (led by Maulana Abul Ala Maududi, widely regarded as the greatest modern ideologue of Islamic fundamentalism), the Jamiat-ul- Ulema Islam, (JUI) led by Mufti Mahmood, representing ulema of the Deobandi school, and Jamiat-ul Ulema Pakistan (JUP) representing the Barelvi School of ulemas. There were some minor religious parties also.
HINDU-SIKHS
Even though Pakistan was not formally declared an Islamic state until 1956, Islamism was on the march right from the beginning. Islam does not look kindly on dissent and treats unbelievers harshly. The passions roused by the Partition and the widespread violence and misery that followed in its wake naturally took their toll on the Hindu-Sikh minorities who could find safety of life, liberty and honour only beyond the borders of Pakistan. The Population of Hindus and Sikhs estimated to range around 15-25% in 1947 fell quickly coming down to about 1.5% by the 1990’s.
CHRISTIANS
Christians had a relatively comfortable time in Pakistan’s early years. This was due to several factors. Christians of Punjab and Sind had vigorously supported the demand for Pakistan. Christian journalists like Pothan Joseph had been particularly helpful to the Muslim League. The influence of Pakistan’s western benefactors must have also counted. Again, Islam regards Christians and Jews as ahle-kitab (people of the Book) and places them in a class higher than the unbelievers.
With the growth of pro-Palestine and anti-American feelings in Pakistan the local Christian community also started feeling the heat. But it was the notorious blasphemy laws enacted under Zia-ul-Haq regime that made the life of Christians miserable. Christians and churches too became targets of attack. As the fundamentalist organizations gathered strength such attacks became more frequent..
AHMADIS
It was not only the religious minorities that were subjected to persecution. Minority sects among the Muslims too became victims of the puritan zealots. The first such group to suffer were the Qadianis or Ahmedis. Founded by Mirza Ghulam Ahmed of Qadian (a small town in Gurdaspur district of Indian Punjab) in 1889, the sect propagated a milder version of Islam and won many adherents from the ranks of educated Muslims. Pakistan’s first Foreign Minister Zafarullah Khan and Nobel Laureate Professor Abdus Salam were both Ahmadis as also were many of Pakistan’s 1965 war heroes. In 1953 a fundamentalist group called Majlis-e-Ahrar-e-Islam raised the demand that Ahmadis be declared to be non-Muslims as they believed in the Prophethood of Mirza Ghulam Ahmed. Other Mullahs led by Jamat-e-Islami’s Maulana Abul Ala Maududi supported the demand. Fierce anti-Qadiani riots broke out in Lahore in which could be quelled only after the declaration of Martial Law. The Mullas however kept their agitation alive and there were countrywide anti Ahmadi riots in 1974. P M Z A Bhutto who led the PPP government, bought peace by enacting a law declaring Ahmadis as Non Muslims. More stringent anti Ahmadi laws were enacted under Zia ul Haq’s Islamization programme.
SHIAS
Hostility between the Sunnis and the Shias, the two major sects of Muslims, originating with the dispute regarding the succession after the death of Prophet Mohammed had been continuing throughout Islamic history. With Khomeini’s successful revolution in Shiite Iran in 1979 the Shia Sunni rivalry received a big boost. Sunni dominated Pakistan, where Saudi Arabia was a big player, became the theatre where the policies of the patrons of the two sides led to persistent violent sectarian clashes. The Shias suffered not only because they were in a weak minority but also because of the blatantly partisan attitude of the Pakistan government
DISPENSATION OF JUSTICE
IA Rehman’s article vividly describes the situation obtaining in Pakistan after the enactment of the blasphemy laws;
”During the latter half of the eighties a new idea for enforcing amr-bil-ma’aroof wa nahi-anil-munkir was introduced to Pakistan’s conservative lobby after the insertion of the blasphemy provision into the Penal Code. According to the groups dominant in Pakistan, apostasy is punishable with death and any Muslim is supposed to be free to act as the prosecutor, the judge and the executioner although no law permits this. This view was confirmed when a judge reprimanded a person for only accusing a man of blasphemy and not killing him.”The case of a non-Muslim does not fall in the category of apostasy and yet it has been assumed that a Pakistani Muslim has a right to execute a non-Muslim as well as a fellow Muslim by declaring him guilty of blasphemy. The state has been guilty of criminal inaction and silence over the actions taken by individuals under cover of belief. Zafar Iqbal died in jail in circumstances that suggested murder, the killer of Naimat Ahmar was lionised in prison, a blasphemy accused was killed in a Lahore prison, another was lynched by a mob in Gujranwala, and a third was killed by the policeman who was supposed to protect the wretch from the mob and take him to a lock-up……”
PROGRESSIVE RISE IN THE INFLUENCE OF ISLAM IN JUDICIAL SYSTEM
During the 1950’s the Constitution attached comparatively greater weight to protection of people’s fundamental rights as against the requirement of no law being repugnant to Islam. As the years went by the Islamic sentiment kept getting strengthened. An important step in the modification of the judicial system was the setting up of the Council of Islamic Ideology which was authorized to decide whether any law was repugnant to Islam and to recommend corrective measures. Zia-ul Haq lifted the movement to a higher level by setting up Sharia Courts although his plan to enact the 9th Amendment which sought to make the injunctions of Islam the supreme law of the land and source of guidance for legislation and policy making could not be put into practice before his death. Yet another attempt to introduce amr- bil- ma’aroof wa nahi- anil- munkir (the authority to prescribe what is right and to forbid what is wrong) into the Constitution was made in 1998 by the Islamist democratically elected Prime Minister Nawaz Sharief while another Islamist, Rafiq Tarar ,was holding the office of the President of Pakistan. Commanding a huge majority in the National Assembly, Nawaz Sharief could get the 15th Amendment Bill passed by the Lower House but the Senate rejected the Bill. The MMA led NWFP government has been trying to introduce the same laws by its proposed HASBA Bill.

RELENTLESS MARCH OF DOGMA –II

Current reports in the English press in Pakistan reflect considerable concern over the growing Talibanization of Pakistan. In its editorial of 25 May 2007 The Daily Times lamented the people’s failure to realize that Pakistan is losing territory to the Talibanization wave which having won the Tribal areas is now threatening the settled areas and even Islamabad. Blaming the military for nurturing the Taliban in pursuit of their policy of “strategic depth” the editorial observes ..
“ Much before “strategic depth” came to grief, these military leaders allowed the city of Karachi to be taken over repeatedly by the local “Taliban” trained in the seminaries there. Pakistan could not “deal” with the Taliban; it could only surrender to them. The seminaries that trained the Taliban leaders of Kandahar and prepared their minds were in Pakistan.”

PERSECUTION FOR BELIEF

The worry over the impending Talibanization seems to be restricted to the liberal segments of the Pakistani “civil society” who wish to preserve their available freedoms in mundane matters of dress, appearance, eating, drinking, entertainment or the other innocent pleasures of life. It is not known how numerically large this segment is or how strong is their commitment to the cause of liberalism. There are of course some well known fearless crusaders for human rights and freedoms but they seem to be in a microscopic minority.

The Pakistani press and political leadership routinely seek to convince the world that except for the Mullahs, Pakistani people are by and large secular and broadminded in their outlook as evidenced by the fact that the religion based parties have never achieved any significant success in any election. Equally common is the prescription of democracy to meet the looming Talibanization threat. Both these facile propositions seem to proceed from the desire to avoid a discussion of the real cause perhaps because that would involve treading on dangerous ground. The stark truth is that irrespective of the character of the government, legislation in Pakistan on matters of faith has moved only in one direction--- becoming more and more harsh and oppressive for those who happened to subscribe to beliefs other than those approved by the dominant majority. Appropriation by the Islamic vigilantes of the authority to enforce the sharia or to punish the errant Muslims for acts deemed to be forbidden by Islam is only a higher stage in the progression which started with the Objectives Resolution, led to the enactment of blasphemy laws, setting up of Sharia courts and the growing clout of the devout clerics and their followers.

RELIGION RELATED OFFENCES AND ATTITUDES OF THE JUDICIARY

Besides the constitutional changes declaring Pakistan to be an Islamic State, Islam being declared as the state religion, debarring members of the minority communities from holding high offices etc. many new laws were put on the statute book which in effect negated the so called guarantees to minorities and resulted in their persecution for their beliefs and practices. The most glaring examples of such laws are the provisions in the Pakistan Penal Code dealing with “Offences relating to religion” viz. sections 295-B (Defiling ,etc. of copy of Holy Quran ), 295-C ( Use of derogatory remarks etc. in respect of the Holy Prophet) , 298-A (Use of derogatory remarks, etc. in respect of holy personages ), 298-B (Misuse of epithet, descriptions and titles, etc. reserved for certain holy personages or places), and 298 –C (Person of Qadiani group, etc, calling himself a Muslim or preaching or propagating his faith). While sections 295-B, 295-C and 298-A are of general applicability, sections 298-B, 298-C are specifically applicable to Ahmadis/Lahoris. Anybody accused of having committed any of the offences dealt with in the above sections can be arrested without warrant and held without bail. Blaspheming the Prophet carries an obligatory death sentence. The vast sweep of the offences makes accusation quite easy and defending against accusation extremely difficult. Section 298-C for example prescribes that “ Any person of the Qadiani ….. who directly or indirectly, poses himself as a Muslim, or calls, or refers to, his faith as Islam, …… or in any manner whatsoever outrages the religious feelings of Muslims….…shall be punished...”

The Islamic fervour is shared by many judges and is reflected in their judgments. In 2000, a judge of the Lahore High Court is reported to have publicly stated that anyone accused of blasphemy should be killed on the spot by Muslims as a religious obligation and that there was no need for any legal proceedings in such cases.(The statement was later reportedly retracted)

THE SUPRA LEGAL ZEALOTS

The situation is compounded by the courts and defence lawyers being threatened by Muslim zealots. In fact a High Court Judge who courageously acquitted two Christians accused of blasphemy ended up being assassinated. For those accused of blasphemy, acquittal by court is not the end of the story. Mullahs are quick to issue fatwas enjoining the killing of alleged blasphemers even after their acquittal by courts. And to cap it all the state refuses to interfere. According to The Daily Times (27 May 2007) --..

“ …..The man who scared everyone off the Sangla Hill crime is Lahore’s most powerful cleric and the government literally whimpers obsequiously when confronting him. In Karachi, the judge who threw a number of Shia in jail for possessing a classical account of their imams, could have been beaten up by the clergy waiting outside if he had let them go. Blasphemy is no vent for private grievances; it is a crime of a religious state that no ruler has the guts to eliminate…”
CAN DEMOCRACY BE THE SOLUTION
While the military is rightly blamed for being largely responsible for the present situation it does not appear that restoration of democracy will bring secularism or at least arrest the trend towards Talibanization. Leaving aside the chaotic period 1949-58 during which the bureaucrats ruled the country under a democratic façade, Pakistan has had a few spells of democracy--- normal democracy under ZA Bhutto (1972-77): and limited democracy (with military oversight) under Benazir Bhutto (1988-90) and (1993-96) and Nawaz Sharief (1990-93) and (1997-99). None of these democratically elected leaders could be accused of having promoted secularism or done anything to check the propagation of hate. During the ZA Bhutto watch the Ahmadis were legally declared non-Muslims: Benazir Bhutto presided over the creation of the Taliban: and Nawaz Sharief (in addition to having the Supreme Court stormed by his goons) almost succeeded with his 15th Amendment of the Constitution seeking to make the Holy Quran and Sunnah the supreme law of the land and directing the government to enforce amr bil ma’roof wa nahi anil munkar (prescribing what is right and forbidding what is wrong).

NO MORE THE LUNATIC FRINGE

Two unmistakable and constant features of Pakistan’s polity have been---(a) the vigorous hold of Islam on the masses and (b) the resort to Islam by Pakistan’s rulers to mobilize support for their purposes. Having been constantly fed the Islamic diet from the press, platform, pulpit and schools (government run or the deeni kind), the desire for Talibanization of the Muslim society has come to be shared by increasing sections of the Pakistani Muslims. Again to quote the Daily Times (02 June 2007)
…. “There is a lot of confusion in Pakistan over understanding the nature of violence in the country. What the Taliban want in the Tribal Areas is articulated in the mosques of the big cities in the settled areas. At any given time in Lahore, for instance, you will hear demands for the setting up of precisely the kind of governance demanded by the Taliban and implemented in the tribal areas. Most of us think that this kind of worldview in Lahore comes from fringe elements, but on close examination more and more people are embracing this discourse as their key to replacing the present “America-enslaved” system.”

Obviously it will require much more than the replacement of Musharraf with a civilian politician at the head of Pakistan government to pull the country back from the brink of the abyss.

THE DARUL ULOOM ANTI- TERRORISM CONFERENCE-II

THE DARUL ULOOM ANTI- TERRORISM CONFERENCE-II

THE ISLAMIST NEWSPEAK
JP Sharma
The most interesting part of the Anti-Terrorism Declaration issued by the Conference hosted by Darul Uloom, Deoband is the enunciation of the virtues of Islam contained in the opening paragraph of the Declaration. Those having some knowledge of Islam’s scriptures and history could easily be left wondering whether this part of the declaration was a satirical interpolation by some mischievous elements. However a visit to the Darul Uloom website is enough to establish the genuineness of the opening paragraph like the rest of the Declaration.
SOME DIFFICULT QUESTIONS
Darul Uloom Deoband is unquestionably the most prestigious institution of Islamic learning in India, something like Cairo’s AL AZHAR. However the sweeping claims that the Declaration makes in favour of Islam happen to be so blatantly contrary to well known facts that they can not be passed over as just the clerics’ rhetorical flourishes. What are these known facts forming such a serious challenge to the credibility of this part of the Declaration? These include (just to mention a few)—the actual treatment of non-Muslims and minority Islamic sects by the State as well as the non state practitioners of Islam, the historical experience of non- Muslims who were subjected to invasions by Muslim conquerors, views expressed by authoritative theoreticians of Islam, the injunctions in the holy Quran, and Sunnah etc. This is a vast field but for reasons of space, the discussion here will be confined only to the most significant points.
CLAIMS MADE IN THE DECLARATION

The Declaration claims that (i) Islam is the religion of “mercy for all humanity”, the “fountainhead of peace, tranquility, security (ii) Islam makes no differentiation between human beings on the grounds of caste and creed, (iii) “ Islam has taught its followers to treat all mankind with equality, mercy tolerance, justice”. (iv) Islam sternly condemns all kinds of oppression, violence and terrorism”.(Emphasis added)
ISLAM AS PRACTICED BY MUSLIMS
The first difficulty in accepting the Deoband Declaration arises when one sees Islam in actual operation. The leaders (Osama bin Laden, Ayman Al Zawahiri, Khalid Sheikh Mohammad etc.) and the constituents groups (Al Qaida, Markaz Dawa Al Irshad , Lashkar-e- Toiba, Jaish- e -Mohammad, Harkat ul Mujahideen etc) of the International Islamic Front for Jihad, and also smaller groups and individual followers across the Islamic world, all claiming to be the true representatives of Islam, have long been using terrorism and violence as the instruments of Jihad against the perceived enemies of Islam including Jews, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists etc. The laws and regulations enacted and enforced by the Governments of Muslim majority countries led by Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan, Sudan etc. do not even remotely suggest “treatment of all mankind with equality, mercy, tolerance, justice”. The notorious blasphemy laws of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan are a thorough rejection of the commonly perceived notions of equality, justice or mercy.
TESTIMONY OF DEMOGRAPHY
One incontrovertible piece of evidence against the Deoband Maulanas’ proclamation of the compassionate, egalitarian, and just nature of Islam is provided by the steady decline in the population of non- conformists in Muslim majority countries. As is well known the population of Hindus and Sikhs in what is now known as the Islamic Republic of Pakistan which was about 20% of the total in 1947 has come down to about 1%. The continuing slaughter of Hindus was again confirmed by the murder of Jagdish Kumar, a factory worker in Karachi, by a, crowd of Muslims in the presence of policemen on 8 April 2008. The Christians who had enthusiastically supported the demand for creation of Pakistan have also been victims of persecution by Islamic zealots. The Ahmadis (Remember Zafrullah Khan the first Foreign Minister of Pakistan?) have not only been declared to be non –Muslims but are liable to be imprisoned just for claiming to be Muslims. Even the minority Islamic sect of Shias (who are in power in adjacent Iran and whose leader Khomeini heralded the Islamic revolution in Iran) have been fighting a bloody but losing war against the majority Sunnis, some of whom want the Shias too to be declared non –Muslims. Nor is the decimation of religious minorities confined only to Pakistan. In what was earlier known as East Pakistan and now known as the Islamic Republic of Bangladesh the population of Hindus has come down from about 30% to about 9%. Even in the Muslim ruled state of Jammu and Kashmir within the secular Republic of India a systematic programme of religious cleansing has resulted in the Kashmir valley having been purged substantially of the Hindu Pundits. The same pattern can be seen almost all over the Islamic world.

INDIA’S EXPERIENCE OF ISLAMIC CONQUERORS
Islam first came to India in the shape of Arab invasions of Sind around the time of Caliph Umar (634-644 AD). The first 500 years saw invasions by Muhammad Bin Qasim, Mahmood Ghazanavi, etc. culminating in the conquest of Delhi by Shahabuddin Ghori in 1192. India remained under Muslim rule till the deposition of Bahadur Shah Zafar by the British in 1857. Beginning with the defeat of Dahir’s forces at Debal in 712 AD Muslim victories were usually followed by slaughter of defeated troops and Hindu civilians, rape of Hindu women, enslavement and forcible conversion of Hindu men, women and children, destruction of temples, and imposition of religion based penal taxes like the jaziya. A Muslim slayer of Hindus was exalted as a Ghazi. Many Muslim victors delighted in erecting towers made of skulls of the vanquished Hindus. The “History of India as told by Its Own Historians” by Eliot and Dawson gives umpteen quotations from the writings of the court historians of various Islamic rulers to provide graphic details of the atrocities perpetrated following each victory. According to Will Durant "The Islamic conquest of India is probably the bloodiest story in history”. The fact that none of the famous Hindu temples has survived Muslim rule in north India, the ruins of the Martand Temple in Kashmir, the still standing carved columns (taken from destroyed Hindu and Jain temples) of the Quwwat-ul-Islam mosque in the Qutub Minar complex , Mehrauli, the ruins of the burnt down Nalanda university in Bihar etc. etc. are not shining examples of the peacefulness, mercifulness and universal egalitarianism of Islam. The slaughters, the towers of skulls, the caravans of slaves, the harems full of captured women, have all receded, away from public memory, into the dark pages of history but the grand mosques standing majestically over the sites where the holiest Hindu shrines once stood at Mathura and Varanasi, continue to proclaim loudly the utter untruth of the Maulanas’ protestations.

The experience of the old Persian and Egyptian civilizations and of European countries invaded by Muslims was not much different either. In its attempt to bring as much of the world as possible under the domain of Islam, the sword of Islam dealt with infidels in east and west with equal ferocity. The poet philosopher Allama Iqbal, who still continues to have many admirers in India, extolled the role of Islam’s sword in several of his poems;

“teghon ke sae men ham pal kar jawan huey hain
khanjar hilal ka hai qaumi nishan hamara”
(Tarana-I-Milli)
“par tere naam par talwaar uthaee kisne…
………………………………………………….
“kaat kar rakh diye kuffaar ke lashkar kisne”
(Shikwa)

VIEWS OF AUTHORITATIVE ISLAMIC SCHOLARS

The claims of the Deoband Maulanas are also in contradiction of the writings of some of the most highly regarded scholars of Islam. For example the classical Muslim jurist al-Mawardi explains the Islamic rules for infidels taken prisoner during jihad campaigns:
“As for the captives, the amir [ruler] has the choice of taking the most beneficial action of four possibilities: the first to put them to death by cutting their necks; the second, to enslave them and apply the laws of slavery regarding their sale and manumission; the third, to ransom them in exchange for goods or prisoners; and fourth, to show favor to them and pardon them. Allah, may he be exalted, says, 'When you encounter those [infidels] who deny [the Truth=Islam] then strike [their] necks' (Qur'an sura 47, verse 4)”....Abu’l-Hasan al-Mawardi, al-Ahkam as-Sultaniyyah." [The Laws of Islamic Governance, trans. by Dr. Asadullah Yate, (London), Ta-Ha Publishers Ltd., 1996, p. 192.
EVIDENCE OF THE HOLY QUR’AN AND SUNNAH
According to the Holy Qur’an, those who do not believe in Allah, His Prophet and the Last Day will go to Hell to be roasted there in Fire forever. Allah has also commanded the believers to fight the unbelievers till Allah’s religion prevails everywhere. There are hundreds of Ayats in Quran containing such injunctions. A few samples are reproduced below;


2:161” Those who reject Faith,
And die rejecting
On them is Allah’s curse,
And the curse of angels,
And of all mankind;”

8:39.” And fight them on
Until there is no more
Persecution or oppression,
And religion becomes
Allah’s in its entirety ”

8:67. “It is not fitting
For a Prophet
That he should have
Prisoners of war until
He has thoroughly subdued
The land. ”

9:5. “ But when the forbidden months
Are past, then fight and slay
The Pagans wherever you find them,
And seize them, beleaguer them,
And lie in wait for them
In every stratagem (of war), ”
…………
9;29 “ Fight those who believe not
In Allah nor the Last Day,
Nor hold that forbidden
By Allah and His Messenger,
Of Truth, (even if they are)
Of the People of the Book,
Until they pay the jizyah
With willing submission,
And feel themselves subdued”

98;6 “ Those who reject(Truth),
Among the People of the Book
And among the Polytheists,
Will be in hell-fire,
To dwell therein (forever),
They are the worst
Of creatures”

[The Holy Qur’an Translation by Abdullah Yusuf Ali, Published by GOODWORD BOOKS,1,Nizamuddin West Market, New Delhi 110013]

The record of the sayings and the doings of the Prophet, the Hadis (or Sunnah) is believed to have authority equal to that of the Quran.” The Prophet was the interpreter of the Qura’an and its living example.” A study of the Hadis reveals that the Prophet dealt with his opponents not with compassion but with ruthlessness. The killing, instigated by the Prophet, of poetess Asma while suckling her child in her bed, and of Abu Afak a poet more than one hundred years of age, both for having written seditious poetry, are not examples of Islam’s mercy. The Prophet’s dealing with Jewish tribes of Madina area was not kind either. The beheading of the entire male population of some 600-700 of Banu Qurayza tribe after their unconditional surrender is a prime example of Islam’s brutality.

WHY THE FALSE CLAIMS?

It is not that the venerable Maulanas who had assembled at Deoband and issued the Declaration were unaware of the falsehood of the claims they were making. Being among the front rank leaders of the Faith, and aware of the bad name that Islam was getting due to the actions of the Jihadi terrorists, they sought to serve the cause of Islam by using the Qur’an sanctioned practice of Taqiyya (dissimulation) used by many Islamic scholars and clerics as a tactic of outwitting opponents, avoiding straightforward debate or deflecting criticism by using obfuscation. The Maulanas’ effort has apparently had some success also.

THE ISLAMIST NEWSPEAK

Some readers may recall that among the many devices that the totalitarian state visualized in George Orwell’s novel “1984”, used to control the thinking of the subject population was the evolution and use of a new language called newspeak in which old words like peace, freedom or equality took on totally different new meanings. The use of the words mercy, peace, justice, security, equality, tolerance, oppression, violence etc. in the opening paragraph of the Deoband Declaration appears to be the Islamist version of newspeak.

The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi

INDIA’S DEFENCE AGAINST TERROR

INDIA’S DEFENCE AGAINST TERROR
J P Sharma
The deadly spate of terrorist blasts in Bangalore, and Ahmedabad and the timely discovery of cars laden with bomb making materials averting a repeat performance in Surat have once again turned the spotlight on the threat to the security of Indian citizens and the economic prosperity of the country. More than 500 people have lost their lives in terrorist attacks during the last three years. Not one of these cases has been successfully investigated. The media is quick to pin the blame on “Intelligence Failure”. Central and state security agencies often blame each other. The Government of India routinely issues statements condemning the attacks, praising the spirit of inhabitants of the hit town, reiterating its resolve to bring the offenders to book, announcing compensation to victims, some VIPs visit the affected areas and then it is business as usual. The same pattern keeps on being repeated with sickening regularity. Is there any hope of any better performance?

The fact that our preventive and detective agencies have not been successful in preventing terrorist attacks nor in getting adequate proof against the alleged perpetrators of the attacks makes it clear that our capabilities to prevent and detect terrorist attacks are severely inadequate. We have been facing terrorism for almost two decades now and should have known what needs to be done. Who is responsible for keeping our security agencies in such a woeful state? And what does the government propose to do beyond mouthing the usual platitudes? It is time that these questions are asked and our rulers made to answer.
KARGIL REVIEW REPORT
The GC Saxena Committee which examined the question of upgrading the intelligence capabilities of the country in the aftermath of the Kargil War had recommended quite a few measures including substantial augmentation of the manpower available to the Intelligence Bureau. Only a fraction of the required addition has materialized. Another was the creation of two new wings—a Multi Agency Centre whose job would be to collect and coordinate terrorism related information and the Joint Task Force on Intelligence which was to pass on the information to the state governments in real time. According to Dr. Ajai Sahni Executive Director of the Institute for Conflict Management “both MAC and JTFI remain under-staffed, under-equipped and ineffective, with even basic issues relating to recruitment and administration unsettled. Their principal objective, the creation of a national terrorism database, has made little progress. The JTFI was also given the responsibility of upgrading counter-terrorism capabilities in the State Police Forces, as part of its mandate to improve intelligence gathering across the country, but no actual programme of training or capacity enhancement has been initiated.” The reasons for this lackadaisical manner of dealing with a matter so vital to the security of the country are yet to be explained.
If this is the state of the premier intelligence agency of the country, the conditions prevailing in the state police forces could well be imagined. The police –population ratio in India stands at half of the UN norms. And much of the available manpower is deployed in providing protection to the VVIPS, VIPs and their relations and on making arrangements for their smooth travel. Special laws, terrorism countering agencies, training, equipment etc. can all wait.

POTA AND ITS SUCCESSORS

The NDA Government had enacted a special law –Prevention of Terrorism Act in 2002 giving the police the authority to detain suspects upto 180 days and making confessions made to police officers admissible as evidence during trial. The law was opposed by some political parties, civil and human rights activists groups on the ground that the law had been misused against the minorities. The first act of the UPA government on coming to power in 2004 was to repeal POTA. Since then no special law calculated specifically to curb terrorism has been enacted.
In November 2006, during the conference of the police chiefs of India, the Director Intelligence Bureau had mooted a proposal to enact a special law to deal with terrorism stressing that the existing laws had been found to be inadequate to deal with the emerging situation. Although both the Home Minister and the Prime minister expressed grave concern at the multi faceted and growing threat of Terrorism, DIB’s proposal, based on inputs from the government agencies responsible for countering the threat of terrorism, was summarily rejected by the Prime Minister Man Mohan Singh saying that the existing laws were quite adequate for the purpose. The proposal was not considered fit even for being taken up for further examination. Of course the Prime Minister declared emphatically that his Government stood “firmly committed to enforcing ‘zero tolerance to terrorism’ within the framework of our existing legal system”.For good measure the Prime Minister added that “certain and swift punishment” was an effective deterrent to potential wrongdoers, and that which was why the judiciary had a vital role in ensuring that cases related to terrorism were tried “expeditiously” and offenders brought to justice without undue delay. The question one would like to ask is” Where exactly is that blessed land in which there is “the zero tolerance” to terrorism and the “certain and swift punishment” of wrong doers? Certainly not India, may be in the dream world of the PM.
In the following period, several experts have suggested the creation of a central agency to collect, coordinate and disseminate intelligence and also to investigate cases involving terrorism. Nothing has so far been done largely on the pretext that law and order was a state subject under the constitution and it is only with the consent of the states that any such agency could be created. What message does the Government’s refusal to take strong measures against terrorism send to the terrorist network?
FORMULATION OF A PROPER ANTI- TERROR MECHANISM
The first requirement for formulation of an adequate anti –terror mechanism is for the planners to have a fairly accurate idea of the problem. Our difficulty seems to lie in our failure to comprehend fully the problem facing us. Some of our experts while good at tracing the origin of the terrorist groups and their links with their local and foreign patrons and supporters seem to argue that the acts of terrorism against Indian targets are the work of a few misguided Indian Islamists seeking revenge for the perceived anti Islam actions of the Indian state e.g. maintaining close relations with Israel or supporting the anti Islam actions of USA in Afghanistan or Iraq or the biased/unfair treatment of Muslims by Indian security agencies/Courts. Of course the two unfailing sources of Muslim anger, always to be quoted , remain the demolition of Babri Masjid and the post Godhra anti Muslim riots in Gujarat. This is the line the secularist media and the NGOs, the civil libertarians, human rights activists and many other well funded quarters who hold almost a monopoly in the Indian media keep pushing. The leading foreign journals like Time also hold the majority Hindus guilty of atrocities on the poor Muslims. Blatant lies constantly repeated by politicians, print and electronic media are bound at some stage to be believed as the truth.
For understanding our problem, we have to start with understanding the reasons for the creation of Pakistan as the homeland for Muslims of undivided India, the religion of Islam and the duty it prescribes for its followers living in a state not governed according to the laws of Islam. Unless our experts invest their time and energy in acquiring a reasonably sound grounding in the teachings of the Quran, and the Hadith, the concepts of Darul Harb and Darul Islam, the obligations of Jihad and the Islamic view of treaty obligations etc. their expertise on dealing with jihadi terrorism will remain superficial. How many of our experts have seriously studied the Quran, the Hadith or Brigadier S K Malik’s book “the Quranic Concept of War” of which Gen Zia ul Haq contributed the Foreword. How many understand the implications of the verse which says “I will strike terror into the hearts of unbelievers”?

Let there be no mistake, we are in the midst of a war launched by Pakistan with the object of dismembering India. After more than fifteen years of fighting the Pakistan launched proxy war and having suffered the repeated Pakistan inspired attacks on the symbols of our state’s power,places of worship, railways and buses, markets full of shoppers, and even on our Parliament ,we declared at Havana that Pakistan too was a victim of terror and agreed to set up a joint mechanism with Pakistan to counter the problem of terrorism !!! There could be no sane explanation of such behaviour other than the obvious i.e. we were acting on the instructions of USA. We could perhaps follow USA’s advice also if it had been successful in turning Pakistan away from being the epicenter of global jihad. But after spending over 10 billions of US taxpayers’ money the US is nowhere nearer achieving its objective than it was in 2001 .
Pakistan’s undeclared war against India is being fought on several fronts. Subversion of the loyalties of Indian Muslims by heightening the feelings of victimhood, having a separate and supervening identity as members of the Umma and infiltration of foreign Muslims into India are important prongs of this war. Madrassas, mosques and maulanas who propagate that Islam is the only true religion and the entire earth belongs to Islam are all soldiers in this quiet war. The flood of petrodollars provides the wherewithal for enabling the enemies to carry on their offensive. What counter measures have we taken? We are afraid of speaking the truth for fear of damaging our secular credentials. Our government even though knocked repeatedly by Jaipur, Kabul, Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Surat, Chennai still believes in carrying on the “peace process” and adding to the “Confidence Building Measures” hoping that Pakistan will become a peaceful neighbour. What else can be expected from a government composed of parties whose blinkered eyes can see nothing beyond Muslim votes as the only means of retaining power.
This nation has been quietly absorbing bloody blow after blow for the last two decades. Let our rulers understand that even a worm can sometimes turn. (The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi

THE DIVIDE IN KASHMIR

- Borders are relevant till the reasons to violate them disappear
Kanwal Sibal

The current turmoil in Jammu and Kashmir began with the blatantly communal reaction in the valley to the decision to transfer a mere 40 hectares of land to the Amarnath Shrine Board for creating temporary structures for the convenience of the pilgrims. That the valley Muslims could at all believe that this decision could have the potential, even remotely, to change the demographics of Jammu and Kashmir, is astonishing. For 60 years the government of India has meticulously observed its constitutional obligations to not disturb the demography of Jammu and Kashmir by permitting Indians from the rest of the country to purchase property and settle down permanently in the state. That separatist propaganda can so easily negate this record of good faith shows how futile it is to continue making core concessions to win the hearts and minds of the valley Kashmiris.
China, in Tibet next door, has changed the territory’s demography by settling Hans there in large numbers, reducing the Tibetans to a minority in Lhasa. It is ruthlessly exploiting Tibet’s natural resources, ignoring environmental norms. China has interfered with the practice of Lamaist Buddhism, destroying numerous monasteries during the Cultural Revolution in a bid to “modernize” Tibet. Its policies are guided essentially by security considerations, to establish an iron grip on the territory and neutralize any challenge to its authority there.
India’s policies have been incomparably more humane than China’s. India could have steadily changed the state’s demography, early after Independence, by settling there the Sikh population displaced from Pakistan. After 1965 and 1971, India could have taken hardheaded security-related decisions to ward off future dangers. India took no decisions with demographic implications even with Pakistan openly abetting terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir post-1990 and introducing a new level of challenge to the Indian State. The reverse demographic change brought about by the eviction of the Kashmiri Pandits from the valley has still not been undone.
The land in question at unlivable heights belongs to the Jammu and Kashmir state, not to any single religious community. Those “nationalist” Kashmiri leaders, who argue that their opposition is not “communal” as they oppose not the yatra but the transfer of land, are being specious. How can they oppose the yatra? Even the Chinese government allows the Mansarovar yatra, and that too in Tibet, the source of territorial tensions between India and China. Why does the valley oppose the land transfer? Because the decision is not that of a legitimate government? Because displacement of already settled people will take place? Because no precedent exists for any transfer of “forest” land for a public purpose? Because the reason for transfer is not good enough as more facilities for the pilgrims are not necessary? Or do the valley inhabitants consider that the land itself is “Muslim” and its use for offering better facilities to Hindus from outside is simply not palatable? Don’t the Hindus of Jammu and Kashmir have a say in the matter as citizens of the state?
Many ascribe the alienation of the Kashmiris to India’s shortchanging them regarding democracy by rigging elections. But any “rigging” affects the entire state, not a particular community. Why should one community feel specially aggrieved? Have the people of Jammu or Ladakh been alienated because Indian democracy has let them down? Once again, the real reasons are being obfuscated in order to find an exculpation for the militancy of the Muslim community. Separatist feelings in the valley existed long before any disenchantment with Indian democracy set in. Militancy was inspired by the rise of religious extremism in the region following the success of the Taliban. Sheikh Abdullah was not a paragon of democratic conduct. Those who practise mosque-based politics are not democrats. The insistence on Article 370 was motivated to a degree by a desire to rule Jammu and Kashmir as a fiefdom, outside the influence of India’s more egalitarian constitutional democracy. During the current turmoil, the street mobilization of people through the network of mosques is not democracy in action. Is Geelani’s Islamic ranting compatible with democracy? Mirwaiz is by no means a secular democratic leader. The demand for self-determination should not be conflated with democracy. After all Pakistan, whose own democratic credentials are questionable, has been in the forefront in asking for self-determination in Jammu and Kashmir — but not in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. Self-determination is a political tool for the separatist agenda. If the Muslims were not in majority in the valley would they ask for self- determination?
The Indian government, faced with the extremely difficult challenge of controlling a state with separatist leanings buttressed by powerful foreign forces, may not have always acted according to the democratic rule-book. But in so many other ways it has shown remarkable sensitivity to Kashmiri aspirations, and so a total view should be taken. The problem in essence is the capacity of the valley Muslims, with their overwhelming local majority, to pursue a self-centred agenda, unmindful of the larger interests of Jammu and Kashmir, its Hindu and Buddhist population, or of the nation as a whole. If the population of the valley were Hindus and not Muslims, would shortchanging them of democracy have led to secessionism? Would reconciliation have eluded both sides for 60 years? Why is a compromise not possible?
The powerful agitation in Jammu against the decision to rescind the land transfer and the temporary dislocation of movement of goods to and from the valley has incited full-blown secessionism there. Propaganda about the so-called economic blockade of the valley was unleashed to provoke a separatist surge. The aim of the secessionists was to go on the offensive by creating an emotive issue and deflecting attention away from their own initial guilt. The valley Muslims have long disowned any responsibility for the exodus of the Pandits. The government of India’s inability to redress the situation has in all likelihood contributed to the lack of regard in the valley for the religious sentiments of the Jammu Hindus on the land transfer issue. The moment there was some show of strength in Jammu, the valley Muslims have retaliated with a seditious campaign of massive proportions, knowing killings in police firing will reinforce the sense of victimhood of the community, besides drawing international attention to their cause.
India’s internal peace and security and its international reputation have suffered at the hands of the Kashmiri secessionists for decades. Their challenge to the Indian State and popular sentiment continues unabated. The government’s task is no doubt inordinately difficult. But laws must be enforced, otherwise democracy, already a ‘soft’ system of governance, can slip into non-governance. Why are we giving a free run to the secessionists? Their pro-Pakistan demand for opening the Muzaffarabad road mocks at our sovereignty. It is a logical extension of policies to encourage cross-contacts over the line of control without first firmly controlling the political situation on the ground on our side. Why nurture the notion of a united Kashmir? Why help the Kashmiris create a common platform with Pakistanis in PoK? Will this make the Kashmiris as a whole more loyal to India? Borders remain relevant until the reason to violate them disappears.

The writer is former foreign secretary of India
THIS ARTICLE WAS WRITTEN A WEEK BEFORE THE AMARNATH AGREEMENT

India’s Security Concerns and Ongoing Jihad - RK Ohri

Before dwelling on the main subject of ISI sponsored Islamic jihad against India, it would be appropriate to briefly identify some major security concerns for the Indian nation. In view of the fast changing geopolitical scenario and growing impact of globalization across the world, in recent years the distinction between internal security perspectives and external threats has become somewhat blurred. For instance, the serious threat to our national security emanating from several foreign based non-State actors like Jaish-e Mohammad, Lashkar-e Tayeba, Harkat-ul Jihad-e Islami and Al-Qaeda, etc., has a tremendous bearing on the internal security of our country. And not surprisingly all these non-State actors based outside India for waging jihad against India have been promoted and nurtured by Islamic States like Pakistan and Bangladesh - even Saudi Arabia. For clarity of thought, however, it will be desirable to analyse the internal and external security concerns separately, as discussed below.

Internal Threats (Perspective 10 to 20 years)

India has a long list of multiple internal security problems some of which are enumerated below.
1. The ongoing virulent jihad against the Hindu identity of India reflected in the growing attacks on temples, Hindu yatris and innocent worshippers plus
targeting of centres of scientific and economic excellence by jihadis.
2. Fast-paced demographic decline of Hindus, as revealed by Census 2001.
3. Diabolical dimensions of incessant illegal infiltration from Bangladesh.
4. Ethnic cleansing of Hindus from Jammu & Kashmir and border districts
of Assam, West Bengal, Tripura and other eastern States.
5. Shrinking borders of India, especially in the districts adjoining Bangladesh
and in Jammu region of Kashmir, particularly in Doda district.
6. Alarming increase in the number of ISI cells and fifth columnists across India, and their attempts at infiltrating the country’s defence forces, as hinted at by the National Security Adviser, sometime ago..


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7. The looming threat of increase in communal clashes spiraling into outbreak of
of civil strife, especially in eastern States, including Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.
8. The growing menace of Maoist insurgency and their sinister plan to establish
a Compact Revolutionary Zone from Nepal to Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka.

External Threats (Perspective 10 to 20 Years)
Some of the major threats to national security from external sources are enumerated below:
1. Threat posed by the activities of several ISI sponsored non-State actors
like Lashkar-e Tayeba, Jaish-e Mohammad, Al Qaeda, Harkat-ul Jihad-e
Islami to India’s internal security. These threats have substantially increased in recent years and given a fillip to jihad against India..

2. Threat caused by the likely outbreak of war in the Middle East between Israel and a nuclear-powered Iran can have a major bearing on the internal
security perspective of India, especially in view of the recent nuclear agreement between India and he USA. . One has only to recall the massive mobilization of Muslim mobsters witnessed during the visit of the U.S. President, George Bush, to India in March, 2006, when violent demonstrations broke out in several cities.

3. Threat of outbreak of hostilities with Pakistan due to latter’s traditional
hostility and a sudden attempt to yank away the State of Jammu and Kashmir by large scale infiltration of Jihadis and launching of increased terror attacks in Kashmir and several States across the entire country.

4. The likely support to Pakistan by China in the event of an all out war,
including the possibility of a nuclear confrontation.

Global Jihad, Battleground India

Today India is trapped in the crosshairs of a virulent Islamic jihad. It needs to be realized that today jihad is by far the most globalised enterprise. To be candid, I refuse to agree with the commonly used nomenclature which describes the ongoing mayhem as ‘terrorism’. In fact, jihad is a far more comprehensive term to describe the savage phenomenon. It is time to understand what jihad is, and how it is a much bigger menace - far more diabolical than mere terrorism. Terrorism is only one of the several
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tools of jihad which aim at instilling terror into the hearts of the so-called infidels (read Hindus in the case of India). The other tools of jihad are repetitive predatory raids on infidels and their places of worship, planting spies in the enemy camp and across their homeland, laying in ambush for them, disorienting them spiritually and psychologically for forcing them either to convert to Islam, or to make them run away and retreat farther - as happened to Hindus of Pakistan and Bangladesh. Recourse to ‘taqiyah’ or deception is yet another sinister strategy used by the jihadis. We have a crop of young security experts and strategic analysts who have apparently neither read any non-sanitized version of holy Quran, nor studied the complex doctrine of ‘Jihad’, which is Islam’s permanent war against infidels. Please remember that throughout history Islam has been a long distance runner and its holy war, i.e., jihad, is continuum. Most Indian security experts are unaware of Islam’s grand strategy called ‘Taqiyah”, nor have they read Pakistani Brigadier S.K. Malik’s somewhat obscure, but highly strategic tome, The Quranic Concept of War. Interestingly, the Foreword of Brigadier Malik’s aforesaid book was written by the former fundamentalist dictator of Pakistan, late General Zia, who had masterminded the finer nuances of Islamic jihad against ‘Hindu’ India.
For comprehending the precise meaning of jihad all doubting Thomases, of whom there is no death among our sham-secular political class, media mandarin and middle class chatterati, are advised to read and understand Brigadier Malik’s lucid exposition of jihad. On pages 95-96 of his book he has proclaimed that “the Holy Prophet’s operations against the Pagans are an integral and inseparable part of the divine message revealed to us in the Holy Quran”. He adds, “They are, in addition, an ‘institution’ for learning the application of the art of war prescribed for us by the Almighty Lord”. Referring to the famous Battle of Badr on page 51, he has quoted Quran’s verse 8.12 (from Surah Anfal) in which the Prophet announced, “I am with you: give firmness to the Believers: I will strike terror into the hearts of Unbelievers”. Elucidating the doctrine of jihad, Brigadier Malik proclaims that the war which the Prophet planned and conducted “was total to the infinite degree.” It was “waged on all fronts, internal and external, political and diplomatic, spiritual and psychological, economic and military.” That is what makes jihad a highly strategic and comprehensive
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doctrine. May I point out that a recent study has revealed that one third of the Muslim students in the U.K. believe that killing the infidels in ‘holy war’ is a legitimate activity. They also believe in the need for establishing an Islamic caliphate. I am sure if a secret survey is made in India the results will be equally startling. What we are facing today is a grim war ; jihadis call it their ‘holy war’. No other religion preaches permanent war against people belonging to other faiths. In essence, the pacifism-doped religions like Hinduism and Buddhism have no antidote to the time tested concept of jihadist war which can be countered only by taking up arms – as was tersely told to a wavering Arjuna by Lord Krishna on the battlefield of Kurukshetra.

My humble submission is, make no mistake, what we are facing today is not mere terrorism, but Islam’s holy war called ‘jihad’. It is the same jihad which had killed millions of innocents, plundered cities and countryside, razed temples and holy places and carried helpless women and children to the bazaars of Ghazni and Baghdad for sale. It is the same jihad which had ruthlessly oppressed millions of Indians and reduced them to the status of hewers of wood and drawers of water during one thousand years of savage alien rule.

Writing in the June 2000 issue of Bharatiya Pragna, a Hyderabad-based publication, the well known Islamic scholar, Dr. Walid (now declared an apostate), has explained how because of the legitimacy conferred by Sharia and Islamic scriptures, the use of deceit, duplicity and bluff and bluster have been sanctioned by taking recourse to ‘Taqiyah’ for securing victory in jihad against infidels. Taqiyah is a fascinating strategy of subversion used for bluffing the ‘kaffirs’. Taqiyah entails that Mujahideen are authorized to infiltrate into Dar-ul Harb (enemy country defined as ‘war zone’) by deception, occupy vital places in cities and towns of Islam’s enemies, sneak into fora of the opponent’s strageists and intellectuals for planting seeds of discord and sedition in the ranks of infidels and thereby destabilize their social economic and military systems. Dr. Walid clarified that these infiltrators are to be treated as soldiers of Islam, or “Mujahideen” for all practical purposes, even if they denounce the basic tenets of Islam
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for bluffing and weakening the ‘kaffirs’. Among other activities, they are supposed to work for causing split and dissidence among ‘kaffirs’, while downplaying the issues relating to the true nature and aims of Islam. To quote Dr. Walid, they will say that “Oh,
that is not Islam, you are mistaken, there is so much misinformation.”, “Oh, it is in the interpretation.” “Brother, Islam is all about peace and love”. They will try to convince the gullible audiences “that jihad is not aimed at them”. Dr. Walid has explained by citing concrete examples from Islam’s history how in the formative years of Islam the Christians and Jews were befooled and outsmarted by poisoning the one against the other through clever use of taqiyah. The result was that within a short span of 4 to 5 decades Islam was able to overrun the entire Middle East.

Apparently the efforts of some leaders of Indian Muslims to use and set up some members of the Scheduled Castes against high caste Hindus by manipulating certain leaders, and also to use the Christians against Hindus by joining hands with the former, are clear instances of taqiyah. At the same time, recourse to taqiyah by proclaiming that Islam is the religion of peace is widespread across India. I have myself come across some taqiyah practicing peace-preaching Islamic scholars at many public discourses and fora, including the prestigious India International Centre in New Delhi.

Our security experts have totally forgotten that more than 65 years ago, in 1940s, Chaudhry Rehmat Ali, a close associate of Jinnah, had issued a ‘Millat and Mission Statement’ containing “Seven Commandments of Destiny”, which makes interesting, but forboding, reading. The aforesaid Millat and Mission statement, issued in the wake of the passing of Pakistan Resolution, outlined a long term strategy. The most important objective of that Islamic plan was to convert the sub-continent of India into ‘Dinia’ which should ultimately form part of a bigger Muslim orbit called “Pakasia”. Rehmat Ali proclaimed that in future the Muslims must write “finis” to the “most deceptive fiction in the world that India is he sphere of Indianism”. That strategic goal has been followed systematically and assiduously by the ISI of Pakistan ever since the birth of Pakistan. In accordance with Rehmat Ali’s vision the single-minded resolve of ISI has
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been to torture, deceive and destroy the Hindu identity of India by waging a war of “a thousand cuts”. The question therefore arises that why and how did the Indians forget that historic declaration outlining the Islamic strategy to write ‘finis’ to the fiction called
India, as pompously declared by Chaudhry Rehmat Ali in 1940s. My one line answer is that the debilitating infection caused by the deadly, mind-benumbing, virus called secularism is by far the most important contributory factor for our near fatal forgetfulness and poor judgement in identifying the challenge of the ongoing jihad and meeting it head on No nation, no country can deal with a crisis situation unless they are able to identify it and then analyse the finer nuances of the problem.

It is time we stopped calling the ongoing jihad as “terrorism”. Let us display even now, though belatedly, the moral courage to call a spade a spade. What we are facing today is jihad proper, raw, savage and macabre, in its medieval form. We must therefore be honest enough to speak the truth. There are any number of ignoramuses, including a famous lady anchor of a prominent television channel, and some politicians too, who keep on reapeating, almost moronly, that terrorists have no religion. Anyone who cares to study the doctrine of jihad will know, almost instantaneously, that terrorist do have a religion. They also have the requisite scriptural sanction for killing the innocents, if they happen to be ‘kaffirs” like you and me. Then there are other analysts who routinely keep on mouthing that nobody should question the loyalty of Indian Muslims and try to hold them responsible for the fast escalating jihadi mayhem. They forget that no single ISI agent cming from Pakistan or Bangladesh can carry out even one single bombing in any city or town of India, without massive assistance of local modules and ISI moles. They fail to understand the even the elementary mechanics of multiple blasts regularly staged in Indian cities with increasing frequency. For every one Pakistani or Bangladeshi infiltrator to succeed in his mission a minimum local support of 10 to 20 persons, read Indians, is required. That is the stark truth.

In recent years the tempo of jihadi attacks across India has multiplied manifold. On August 15, 2004, there was a huge bomb blast in Assam on the Independence Day in
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which 16 innocents, mostly school children, were killed. On October 29, 2005, on the eve of Dashehra, 66 innocent persons were killed in three serial bomb blasts in Delhi and nearly one hundred were injured. On March 7, 2006, in serial bomb blasts in Varanasi,
15 persons were killed and 60 wounded, including several innocent worshippers at the historic Sankat Mochan Temple. Mumbai was rocked on July 11, 2006, by seven bomb blasts on railway stations and in suburban trains in which 180 persons were killed and more than 200 injured. The dastardly crime was followed by serial bomb blasts in Malegaon in which 32 persons lost their lives. On August 25, 2007, three serial bomb blasts rocked an amusement park and a busy roadside food shop in Hyderabad claiming 40 innocent lives and injuring scores of innocents. To cap these dastardly crimes, there have been serial bomb blasts in recent months in Jaipur, Bangalore and Ahmedabad. Serial bomb blasts on May 13, 2008, rocked the pink city of Jaipur in Rajasthan causing death of nearly 63 persons. Till a few years ago jihadi attacks were limited to J & K State, northeastern India and parts of north India. Due to sheer collapse of governance steadily but surely the jihadis have now extended their reach all over the country by expanding the war zone in Dar-ul Harb called India, right upto the southernmost States and cities.

Most recently on two successive days, July 25 and 26, 2008, there were 24 serial bomb blasts in Bangalore and Ahmedabad. The low-intensity bombings in Banglaore on July 25, 2008, claimed 2 lives and caused injuries to more than 15 persons. Next day Ahmedabad was rocked by 16 serial bomb blasts in which 49 persons were killed and more than 100 injured. The Ahmedabad bombings were marked by the savage strategy of staging bomb blasts in two prominent civil hospitals for targeting the patients admitted in Trauma Centre and doctors treating them. The executioners of twin blasts was executed with ruthless precision by synchronizing explosions in hospital vehicles with the arrivals of the injured. The brutal incident matches the morbid savagery which Indian masses had experienced in medieval times. Obviously the intention was to kill the injured persons being rushed to the two hospitals in a most inhuman and gory manner. The jihadis had also planned serial bomb blasts in Surat, often described as the diamond capital of India where two cars packed with bomb making material were found
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abandoned, apart from nearly 20 live bombs which were defused. Thus the jihadis, claiming to be Indian Mujahideen, had made plans for successive bomb blasts in three prominent cities of India, namely, Bangalore, Ahmedabad and Surat in one single sweep.

The Prime Minister and the Home Minister routinely keep on condemning the killings of innocents by jihadi warriors of Islam. They dumbly indulge in inane praise of the courage and “resilient” spirit of Indians. Interestingly the clueless secularitis-benumbed media keeps on finding fault at the drop of a hat with the so-called fundamentalist Hindus groups by citing irrelevant reasons which they feel could have led to the growth of jihad. This routine drill has been perfected into an artless art of singing soothing lullabies for keeping the defenceless masses in stupor and fear. Just look around to assess the frightening collapse of governance. Hundreds of temples all over the country are being security protected and every Hindu festival is celebrated under the fearful shadow of jihadi bomb blasts. No city is safe, no citizen feels safe anywhere today. At this rate, the day is not far off when the jihadi modules spread all over India, presently running into quite a few hundreds, will succeed in staging multiple bomb blasts simultaneously in 8, 9 or 10 major cities thereby announcing the demise of the inefficient and pusillanimous Indian State. I fervently hope that this foreboding premonition of mine proves wrong ! But that possibility remains deeply etched in my mind because of the newly acquired “killer” capability of jihadis to strike at anyone and everyone at will.

We must understand that Islam has an ambitious goal of establishing a caliphate from Indonesia to the Balkans via Malayasia, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and West Asia for capturing Europe, now being called Eurabia because of its terminal demographic decline. It is time to recall how immediately before and after July 7, 2005 bombings of the London Tube (underground metro), the capital of U.K. was being referred to ‘Londonistan’ by jihadi groups based in the United Kingdom. Though China has a very small Muslim population, confined mostly to its eastern region, it too is facing the threat of jihadi attacks during the forthcoming Olympics. Videotapes announcing the threat to
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bomb the games, purporting to be from the militant Turkistan Islamic Party, have surfaced during the last few days.

In entire South Asia, India is the only non-Muslim country, a bulwark of democracy, which constitutes a major impediment to the ambition of jihadis to convert the world into Dar-ul Islam. There is no point in mincing words, or hiding this simple truth. People must know what the Indian Mujahideen have been shouting from housetops and conveying through their repetitive e-mails, namely their resolve to destroy the Hindu civilization and “to demolish your faith in the dirty mud, in the name of Hanuman, Sita and Ram”. The latest e-mail, running into 14 pages hurls drivel and insults on Hindus, describes the Gujarat Chief Minister “a spineless coward” and openly exhorts the Muslims to fight the Hindu groups like VHP and RSS. In my humble opinion, any attempt to underplay the intimidatory language and tone down the open ultimatum served by jihadis will be downright foolish and and exercise in self-defeatism, especially with the backdrop of their recent spree of ruthless bombings.

Turning attention to the urgent task of suggesting an effective strategy for meeting the challenge of jihad, the first and foremost imperative is to create awareness across the country in cities, towns and far away villages that India’s civilizational identity is in grave peril due to relentless jihad unleashed at the behest of our hostile neighbours. Without waking up the masses in this hour of crisis, the menacing threat cannot be easily countered. People need to be reminded that we are facing the same ruthless jihad which our forefathers had fought against for more than 1000 years during which the entire country was ravaged and laid waste.

It is equally important to formulate and implement a national security doctrine based on ‘zero tolerance’ of jihad, routinely being described as terrorism by journalists and analysts. In doing so the government must work out a proactive approach by smashing up hundreds of “No Go” areas located in scores of cities and towns where police are unable to enter and enforce law, or carry out searches, because of the likely
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physical resistance by the fundamentalists and their political supporters. to police Most of the jihadi modules and ISI agents are able to operate from these ‘No Go’ areas where
they are sheltered and nurtured by criminals and anti-national elements. Unfortunately due to the prevalent culture of political correctness and minority appeasement, in recent years there has been a phenomenal growth in ‘No Go’ areas all over the country. As a retired police officer, I can confide in you that for all practical purposes the policing of these ‘No Go’ areas’ is virtually superficial - totally ineffective. The need for taking proactive and demonstrative measures to effectively police all pockets of anti national activities, is absolutely necessary for re-establishing the authority of the Indian State and reinforcing the sagging morale of security forces. It has become fashionable to find fault with police and security agencies. But I must humbly point out that no police officer can be stronger than the government which he serves. He is a strong as the government which supports him and as weak and ineffective as the government which lets him down because of political correctness ! Believe me, I hold no brief for the incompetent and the faint-hearted, who certainly deserve to be sidelined - or even sacked. The battle against the virulent jihad troubling the Indian nation can be joined and won only by those bravehearts who are willing to lead personally from the front.

The next important measure to meet the challenge of jihad is to upgrade our tottering legal system by enacting stringent laws and evolving an effective system of speedy trial of the culprits, including jihadi warriors and spies of foreign agencies. There is no scope for dillydallying in enacting a strong law for meeting the serious situation. The foolish argument often mouthed by some politicians, including some Ministers and some journalists, that even POTA could not prevent attacks by jihadis on Indian Parliament and Akshardham temple is a classic example of reductio ad absurdum. By the same reasoning can we argue that because The Indian Penal Code enacted in 1860 has failed to prevent even common thefts, leave alone the serious crimes of murder, rape and dacoity, now time has come to abolish it ? Laws are meant to act as deterrents to lawlessness and facilitate proper investigation and prosecution of crime and criminals. Let the government repeal the Indian Penal Code and see its consequences ! That will
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surely plunge the entire country into the abyss of anarchy. Frankly, the abolition of POTA has certainly added grist to the mill of jihadi violence. The enactment of a strong
Law should be accompanied by the establishment of special courts for speedy trial of the perpetrators of bombings and senseless killings. Attention may be drawn here to the large scale rioting in October-November, 2005, in suburbs of France in which nearly 30,000 cars were burnt and more than 200 public buildings, including several nursery schools, were damaged by rioting mobs of disgruntled Muslims who resented the attempt of police to enter their ghettoes which had become “No Go” areas for law enforcement officers. After 4 days of intense rioting, the situation was controlled only after the police were ordered to smash up all ‘No Go’ areas. In the operations carried out by police more than 3,000 mobsters and their leaders were arrested and after speedy trials nearly 400 of them were handed down prison sentences within a short span of 4 to weeks of trial. Additionally, some 20 ring leaders of rioting mobsters were stripped of their French nationality and externed. I often wonder if France can act so decisively, why cannot we do the same in our country. This example shows that the real solution to the problem lies in the realm of political leadership and not in the hands of security forces.

The proposal to set up a nodal federal agency as suggested by intelligence agencies, is most welcome. But that alone cannot overcome the crisis facing the country. There is a pressing need for reorganizing and upgrading the intelligence apparatus. Better training and more manpower are the two most important requisites for strengthening the collection and dissemination of intelligence, both covert and overt, in States as well as at the central level. Funds are usually a major constraint for augmenting the manpower, especially in States. The central government should allocate additional financial resources to States for reorganizing and upgrading their Intelligence departments. A regular mechanism for advance planning and continuous ‘risk analysis’ at central level is a must. For achieving better results, two important components of intelligence, namely, ‘Humint’ and ‘Elint’ need to be modernized from time to time. At the same time, there is a need for adopting a proactive approach, radically different from the current passivity,

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while planning counter measures to thwart the attempt of jihadis to overwhelm the Indian nation.

Only those who have studied the diabolical doctrine of jihad in depth will understand that fighting jihad is a daunting task. Many more measures, including some radical ones, can be suggested for countering the threat. But I must refrain from enumerating them here due to various reasons. The most important requirement is a ‘resolute political will’ to fight the menace boldly for winning this war. Unfortunately that happens to be the Achille’s heel of the Indian nation.
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Copyright @ R.K. Ohri