India, Pakistan and Terrorism

by Dr. M.K. Teng

International terrorism has ravaged India for more than two decades. None, except the Indians themselves, have harboured any illusions about the objectives the terrorist violence, carried out almost everywhere in the country, is intended to achieve. To be fair to the Jehadi war groups they have spelt out the objectives they sought to achieve, in unambiguous terms.

Within the broad framework of the Islamic Revolution, the Jehadi wars have their objectives (a) the liberation of Jammu and Kashmir from the Indian occupation and the unification of the state with the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, (b) the  enforcement of their extra-territorial right to protect the interests of the Muslims in the Hindu India; and (c) integrate the Muslims of Jammu and Kashmir and the Muslims of India into the Muslim movement for the unification of the Muslim Umah into a Muslim International.

Containment of India

Pakistan has been an epicentre of the struggle for the unification of the Muslim Umah and its consolidation into a Muslim International. It has sponsored the Islamic Revolution and supported the fundamentalisation of the Muslim Umah. In fact, Pakistan was conceived by its founders as Muslim commonwealth committed to Islamic order of the society. The foundations of Pakistan were ideological. Not only Sir Mohammed Iqbal but also Quad-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah and the ideologue of the Muslim League, Nawabzada Liaqat Ali Khan, consciously owned the “historic responsibility” of forging a state which was Muslim in composition and Muslim in outlook.

After its foundation, the first task Pakistani state undertook was to Balkanise the Indian princely states and establish a foothold in the heart of the Indian mainland, to divide it further. Pakistan secured the accession of the princely state of Junagarh on one hand and on the other hand prompted the Nawab of Hyderabad to remain out of India. It embarked upon an invasion for the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir barely two and a half months after its establishment to extend its territories eastwards into the north of India. Pakistan failed to swallow Junagarh and help the ruler of Hyderabad to remain out of India. In both the states, military action united them with India. In Jammu and Kashmir the invading army entreched itself in the Muslim majority districts of the state bordering Pakistan  and conspired  to break away the whole of Jammu and Kashmir state from India, but failed in its efforts.

Having failed to use the princely states to Balkanise India, Pakistan followed a three-pronged policy to contain it. First it assumed the role of leading the movement of the unification of the Muslim Umah into a Muslim International. Secondly, it adopted a policy of international alignments to encircle India. Thirdly it put itself on the course of military armament aimed to achieve a military parity with India.

The consolidation of the Muslim Umah into a Muslim International and the participation in the alliance systems achieved the objective of the containment of India to a considerable extent. The effect of the containment of India was visible in the India-China conflict of 1962. The Chinese pushed across the Mc Mabon Line a hundred miles to its south, virtually without any opposition from Indian army.

Pakistan, to  consolidate its ideological basis, proclaimed itself as an Islamic Republic and in the years that followed went through the Islamic Revolution. The Islamic Revolution underlined the fundamentalisation of the Muslim society to provide an ideological basis for the consolidation of the Muslim Umah into a Muslim International. The powers of the western alliance saw the consolidation of the Muslim Umah into a Muslim International as the most effective instrument in the ideological conflict of the Cold War, and the containment of Communism including India.

The Jehad

Pakistan put itself in the forefront of the Muslim Jehad in Afghanistan against the Soviet intervention. While the Jehad against the Soviet power continued, Pakistan embarked upon the militarisation of the pan-Islamic fundamentalism which it claimed was aimed at the liberation of the Muslims living under the subjection of the heathen all over the world. In 1989-90, Pakistan launched the Jehad in Jammu and Kashmir to liberate the state from India. After the disintegration of the Soviet power, Pakistan continued to Jehad in the Aghanistan and built the Taliban. While the Taliban established their hold on Afghanistan, the Jehadi war groups operating in Jammu and Kashmir extended their operations to the other parts of India.

Talibanisation of the Islamic Revolution is a revolutionary movement which provides a military thrust to the Muslim struggle for the unification of the Muslim Umah and its consolidation into a world power.

A logical continuity pervaded the various phases of the Jehad-the religious war waged. The spread of Jehadi war groups in India is an inseparable  part of the Islamic Revolution which Pakistan spearheads. Whereas the Jehadi war groups in Jammu and Kashmir are committed to the liberation of Kashmir and its unification with the Muslim homeland of Pakistan, the Jehadi war groups in India have committed themselves to the liberation of the Muslims from their subjection from the Hindus in India. Ideologically the Jehad claims an extra-territorial right, over and above all international obligations recognised by the international community, to protect the Muslims in India against the dominence of the Hindus.

The bipolar balance of power provided enough space for the Islamic Jehad to wage the religious war, it envisaged, for the consolidation of the Muslim Umah into a Muslim International. However, the end of the bipolar balance of power with the disintegration of the Soviet Union, and the emergence of a new unipolar world order, suddenly dissolved all the space, which the Islamic Jehad had occupied in the bipolar world. The Islamic Jehad drove straight to a head on collision with the unipolar world order. Al Qaeda struck the first blow  when it attacked the United States.

Dangers Ahead

The political and military campaign Pakistan has carried on in Jammu and Kashmir during the last six decades of the Indian freedom is aimed to open the way for the expansion of its power eastwards, into the warm Himalayan rugged countryside. This area stretching in between the river Sind and the river Ravi, formed the part of the Sikh State of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, who had after a long military endeavour fortified it   into the northern frontier of India.

The expansion of Pakistan into Jammu and Kashmir will demolish the Northern Frontier of India and lead to (a) the de-Sanskritisation of the Himalayas strategically the most important factor in their security (b) exclusion of India from any balance of power in Asia and (c) expose the north-Indian States of the Himachal, the Punjab and Haryana to invasion and foreign intervention.

Pakistan is an integral part of the Anglo-Saxon-Muslim alliance. The western powers have built it, to protect their military and political interests in the Middle East, the Far East and South-East Asia and the security of their maritime interests, in the Indian ocean and the Malacca Straights, the water way opening into the Pacific. Perhaps, India is the only country in Asia, which has exhibited scant interests in the security of the Indian Ocean. Had it not been so, perhaps, the Indian Government would have guarded the Ram Settu more closely rather than have clamoured for its demolition.

India has, out of sheer inability to muster courage to stand up to the threat the Pakistan-China. Axis poses to its security and its interests. For India, the Indian ocean and the straight on Malacca, should have been the first concern of any strategic plans, as the Himalayas should have been. Any  foothold Pakistan gets in Jammu and Kashmir will open the way for the expansion of the Taliban in the north of India. The China-Pakistan Axis, is aimed to close India into a pincer hold in the north as well as the south. Intriguingly, India has never questioned the silence America has maintained on the implications of the  China-Pakistan Axis, for the security of South-Asia .

The Indian belief that Pakistan could be brought round to settle down to accept a state of peaceful coexistence with India if it was assured of its security and its ideological commitment to Islam was recognised, is highly misplaced. The Indian attempt to seek a compromise on Jammu and Kashmir, to satisfy the ideological commitments of Pakistan to the unification of the Muslim Umah will only strengthen the China-Pakistan Axis further.

India has to realise that Pakistan has in recent years, embarked on a war of subversion in India with the aim of bringing about the fundamentalisation of the Muslim social organisation in India. India continues to be a largely un-integrated political culture and more exposed to subversion. The spread of terrorism to rest of India which Bombay attack underlined can be ignored by India at its own peril.

Source: Kashmir Sentinel