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