The war against the merchants of death and violence such as the Islamic State, the Al Qaeda and the Indian Mujahideen has to be won with the cooperation of patriotic Indian Muslims. There are many of these, just as there are a few traitors
Many in the country expressed surprise and shock as a protester in Srinagar recently waved an Islamic State flag after Eid prayers. A similar incident had taken place in the valley in July also. However, as usual, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah appeared unperturbed and attributed the episode to “an act of some idiots”, a theory which many in New Delhi appear to have lapped up.
However, the security establishment, which has been closely involved with the situation in Kashmir, does not seem to agree with this contention by the Chief Minister and other pseudo-secularists.
“The emergence of IS flags merits concern and deserves highest attention of the security agencies to prevent the youth of Kashmir from getting lured (into the IS). The ability of the IS to attract a large number of volunteers is a matter of concern. There are believed to be 10,000 to 15,000 volunteers at present fighting for the IS,” said General Officer Commanding of Srinagar-based 15 Corps, lt Gen Subrata Saha.
lt Gen Saha’s concerns about the IS’s appeal are not misplaced. Security agencies estimate that roughly around 30 youth from across the country may have joined the fundamentalist group in Iraq and Syria. One of them, Adil Fayaz, a Kashmiri, died fighting in Syria. Incidentally, he was neither illiterate nor did he belong to a poor family, as such profiles are generally portrayed. He hailed from an educated business family in Srinagar’s upscale Jawahar Nagar, and who believed that their eldest son was working for a Turkish NGO to help Syrian refugees.
Fayaz, 26, reportedly joined the civil war in Syria last year after he was brainwashed by Islamic fundamentalists while pursuing his MBA course at a Queensland University. Interestingly, his family did not have the name of the NGO or its contact details, and Fayaz spoke to them on Voice over Internet Protocol. The police in Jammu & Kashmir, which has often been accused of connivance with terrorist groups in the past by critics, claims to have no knowledge about any Kashmiri youth having joined the jihad in Syria.
But Fayaz was not the only educated Indian youth who got attracted to the jihadi movement. Indian security agencies have reportedly identified no less than 10 Muslim youngsters who have left lucrative jobs in their quest for the establishment of an Islamic caliphate. Apart from four youngsters from Kalyan, near Mumbai, who are believed to be fighting alongside IS terrorists, a Kerala youth studying in Dubai and a Hyderabad student from Texas are among the Indian Islamist fighters in Syria.
It is to be noted here that the flag-waving incident also comes close on the heels of fugitive Al Qaeda commander Ayman al-Zawahiri announcing the formation of a new wing of his terrorist group dedicated to waging jihad in the Indian sub-continent. The new outfit has been named as Jamaat Qaedat al-jihad fi’shibhi al-qarrat al-Hindiya, or Organisation of The Base of Jihad in the Indian Sub-Continent.
last year, Al Qaeda in Iraq and Syria organisational chief Asim Umar had issued an appeal directed at Indian Muslims: “You who have ruled India for eight hundred years, you who lit the flame of the one true God in the darkness of polytheism: How can you remain in your slumber when the Muslims of the world are awakeningIJ If the youth of the Muslim world have joined the battlefields with the slogan ‘Sharia’h or martyrdom,’ and put their lives at stake to establish the Caliphate, how can you lag behind themIJ Why is there no storm in your oceanIJ”
There are also disturbing reports suggesting that the terrorist outfit Indian Mujahideen is planning to team up with Al Qaeda. Both the terror groups are reportedly in the final stages of reaching a deal. Only few modalities like whether the IM would be an assisting outfit of Qaeda in India or merge with the terror group is being worked out.
No wonder then that, last Thursday, Director General of National Security Guards Jayant Choudhury, warned of a joint plan by Al Qaeda and the IS to target Indian cities. “Now that they (Al Qaeda) have declared an intention to attack India, they might combine with outfits like lashkar-e-Tayyeba, the IS and the IM. If they do have combined operations, we have to prepare for multi-city, multiple terror attacks,” he said, adding that tourist hubs like Goa, Bangalore and Amritsar are on the terror radar.
Much like the rest of the country, Jammu & Kashmir too was a Sufi-dominated area but its contact with Wahhabi/Salafi ideology has served to fasten the process of alienation and radicalisation over the years. Wahhabi/Salafi influence is growing in the valley since the early seventies. Pakistani/Talibani terror groups have been targeting Sufi centres such as Charar-e-Sharief, the most famous and revered Dargah of Nund Rishi or Sheikh Nooruddin Noorani besides Sufi clerics, politicians and intellectuals with the primary objective of damaging the traditional Sufi Culture which has the potential to bring back peace and harmony in Kashmir.
Some of the activities of a few prominent Indian Muslim scholars/clerics elsewhere in the country are also adding fuel to fire. Recently, noted scholar Maulana Salman Al Husaini Nadwi wrote an open letter to IS chief al-Baghdadi, greeting him on becoming the Caliph of Muslims. Salman Nadwi is the great-grandson of noted Islamic scholar Maulana Abul Hasan Ali Nadwi and teaches at the lucknow-based Nadwatul Ulama seminary. In the letter, published in Urdu daily Aag and circulated through WhatsApp, Nadwi referred to al-Baghdadi as Amir-ul-Momineen (leader of Faithful Muslims) and prayed: “May Allah protect you.”
He urged Syria-based jihadi organisations to end their differences, spoke of “good news of victories” in Iraq by al-Baghdadi’s fighters and advocated that Muslims “abide by” the Amir-ul-Momineen “if he follows Allah’s Sharia’h.”
Thus, while Prime Minister Narendra Modi had correctly stated that “Indian Muslims will live and die for India”, the fact also remains that a miniscule but growing section of youth are increasingly becoming vulnerable to international Wahhabi/ jihadi propaganda, and that India can ignore it only at its peril.
As noted strategist Sushant Sareen apty put it, “For far too long, India has been in denial over the growing attraction of jihadi ideology and propaganda for Indian Muslim youth. Partly out of the ignorance of the phenomenon of jihadism that is sweeping the Islamic world and partly out of political correctness and a fallacious understanding of the concept of secularism, India has peddled the fiction that its pluralism and democracy is a perfect antidote to the jihadi virus.”
It is high time India wakes up to this epidemic which is spreading like the dreaded Ebola virus, mostly through social media which is dishing out mischievous and misleading information to influence impressionable young minds. While on the one hand, there is an urgent need to engage the Muslim community, its intelligentsia and influential clergy in general and the Muslim youth in particular, on the other, any attempt to incite passions, misleading or indoctrinating Muslim youth should be crushed with an iron fist both by the central and state Governments in tandem.
The Government should also closely coordinate with progressive Sufi Muslim organisations such as All India Ulema and Mashaikh Board, which has openly exhorted Muslims to hand over to the police any person preaching hatred or violence in their midst.
The war against the merchants of death and violence such as the Islamic State, the Al Qaeda and the Indian Mujahideen has to be won with the cooperation of patriotic Muslims.
(The author is Senior Fellow & Editor with the Vivekananda International Foundation)