from Pakistan: Now or Never?:
Comparing Pakistan’s Islamists to India’s Maoists
One of the more controversial arguments doing the rounds is the question of whether you can compare Pakistan's Islamist militants to Maoist insurgents in India. Both claim to champion the cause of social justice and have been able to exploit local grievances against poor governance to win support, and both use violence against the state to try to achieve their aims.
The differences are obvious: the Islamist militants come from the religious right; the Maoists from the far-left. In Pakistan, the militants have become powerful enough to strike at the heart of the country's major cities. In India, the Maoists remain largely confined to the country's interiors, although their influence is spreading through large parts of its rural hinterland.
In Pakistan, the military initially nurtured Islamist militants to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan - with U.S. and Saudi support - and later to fight India in Kashmir. In India, the Maoist movement has grown organically from its origins as a local 1967 uprising by communists over a land dispute in the village of Naxalbari in West Bengal, from where its followers derive their name as Naxalites.
In Pakistan, the question of whether support for Islamist militants is underpinned by local grievances over social injustice is highly contentious. Many in Pakistan dismiss the Pakistani Taliban as right-wing ideologues, fired up by an alien religious philosophy imported from the Middle East by al Qaeda, and joined by a motley crew of criminals and thugs bent on the pursuit of pursuit of power and money.
In India, even those who oppose the Maoists' violent methods acknowledge that poverty and the alienation of its rural poor - especially among the indigenous tribal people - have contributed to their appeal. (I have rarely been so powerfully struck by the desolation of hunger than on a trip some years ago to Chhattisgarh, the heartland of the Maoist revolt. It is a state where deep in the forests you find children with the protruding bellies and vacant eyes of the seriously malnourished, whose fathers use bows-and-arrows to catch animals (see pix). It also has vast mineral resources which villagers hope might one day make them rich, and which Maoists argue will be exploited by international mining companies.)
But granted the obvious differences, some of the similarities offer a perspective which at the very least allows room for discussion about the challenges faced by national governments in dealing with insurgencies, both from the Islamist right and the far left.
In Pakistan, the Islamist militants are recognised by many as an existential threat to the state. In India, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has described the Maoist insurgency as "perhaps the gravest internal security threat our country faces".
The dark side of Hindu nationalism?
The slow peeling of the onion around the involvement of Hindu militants in the Malegaon and Modasa bomb blasts last month in the western states of Maharashtra and Gujarat in September has shown a murky network of religious radicals that may have both implications for India’s politics as well as its anti-terrorist policies.
For years, bombs in India have mostly been blamed on Islamist militants. Even attacks on mosques were often blamed on Islamists seeking to spark communal tensions between India’s majority Hindus and minority Muslims.
Both national and international press have focused on the growing Indian-born Islamist militants who are trying to attack the Indian state.
A widespread crackdown on suspected Islamist militants following the bomb attacks this year that killed scores of people in several Indian cities led Muslim leaders to accuse authorities of conducting a witch hunt and reinforcing stereotypes about their community
you are so true arumbhu (regarding first comment ).
nicely summed up .
Are Indian Muslims leading the way in condemning terror?
For those Western critics that say Islam does not enough to to condemn terrorism, perhaps they should look at India, home to one of the world’s biggest Muslim populations — around 13 percent of mainly Hindu India’s 1.1 billion people.
On Wednesday, it was the turn of Khalid Rasheed, head of the oldest madrasa in the northern city of Lucknow — a traditional centre for Muslims and religious scholarship. He rejected terrorism as anti-Islamic after he and his colleagues had been accused of apostasy over their pacifist stance by at group that calls itself the Indian Mujahideen.
Indian Mujahideen made threats against the madrasa in which they also claimed responsibility for last week’s bomb blasts in Jaipur, western India, which killed 63 people.
“The reaction of terrorists to our stand against terror has shown that we were moving in the right direction,” Rasheed said.
Apparently a “Movement Against Terrorism” has been created by clerics to exhort imams to use Friday prayers at mosques across India to speak out against terrorism.
This was no flash in the pan. Earlier this year, tens of thousands of clerics and students from around India attended a meeting near Delhi at the 150-year-old Darool-Uloom Deoband — whose strict interpretation of Islamic law is said to have inspired the Taliban in Afghanistan — and denounced terrorism as against Islam.
It is not surprising that Rasheed said they had received support from Darool-Uloom Deoband, Indian clerics appear to be increasingly outspoken, perhaps not surprising in a country where there is a centuries-old tradition of preaching religious tolerance.
Deoband is often wrongly accused inspiring the Taleban in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The early madrassas established in the NWFP were, in fact, modeled after Deoband as their founders themselves received education in Deoband prior to 1947. However, all of this changed with the US/Pakistani (CIA/ISI) efforts to recruit, train and equip the students of these madrassas to fight the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The divergence between the Indian and Pakistani Deobandis became very clear when the religious leaders from NWFP and Deoband met for a summit in mid-2001 (just prior to 911) and disagreed strongly on the strategies/tactics used by the Taleban in Afghanistan. In fact, Maulana Marghoob, the leader of Deoband, condemned the destruction of Buddha carvings in Bamian by the Taleban. The Indian Deoband leaders clearly understood that they could not condone the destruction of Buddha statues in Afghanistan while at the same time protest against the destruction of Babri mosque in India.
Time for India and Bangladesh to work together
For years India has always looked west to Pakistan when bombs exploded in its cities, powerless to influence its old foe.
Now, it is talking peace with Pakistan, and casting aspersions eastwards to Bangladesh, a country it helped establish and should have much more leverage over.
Isn’t it time for some serious diplomacy, to improve relations with Bangladesh and work together to combat violent Islamist extremism?
While homegrown Indian Islamists may have carried out the attack in Jaipur, and a previously unknown group calling itself the Indian Mujahideen has claimed responsibility, initial investigations have also thrown up a possible link to Bangladesh .
Police have released a sketch of a man in his mid-20s who was seen near the site of one of the bombings, who was apparently speaking Bengali. Dozens of Bangladeshi migrant workers have also been rounded up for questioning.
Police say they also see similarities between these blasts and others in Uttar Pradesh and Hyderabad last year, which were blamed on Indian Muslims backed by the Bangladeshi group Harkat-ul-Jihad al Islami.
HuJi, whose name means the Movement of Islamic Holy War, was first established in Pakistan to fight in the jihad against the Soviets in Afghanistan, and then moved into Kashmir.
Look, Bangladesh handeles terrorism cases better than any country in the region. When Bangladesh was attacked by fundamentals, it took the crinals to justice and hanged them (some HUJI top leaders are also being trialed). Some of the stupids in India say that Bangladesh govt. is a fundamental islamist govt. They should know that People of BD have never elected a right wing religious party like INDIANS (as they elected hindu nationalist BJP) to power.So get your info. right first before commenting. And BANGLADESH also have the best record in communal relationship in the region (way better than india as we never had any incidents like gujrat) and it is termed as the MOST PEACEFUL NATION in the region according to WORLD PEACE INDEX.
@ Dara,
“I read Sen’s “The Argumentative Indian” and freely admit that very often had to read portions repeatedly to even understand the gist.”
I’m glad you said that. I picked up a copy of “The Argumentative Indian” recently and am finding it very hard to get through. Do read his book “Identity and Violence” if you haven’t already done so as it is much clearer.
One thing that did come across in “The Argumentative Indian” is Sen’s view that India suffers from western misconceptions of India. He does not say this, but I’ve been wondering whether the foreign investment view of India as BRIC economy belongs in that category? (I am going way off topic here, but it has been interesting to see that nobody who has commented on this post has recommended foreign investment as the solution to poverty in Chhattisgarh and other places.)
@ Rajeev,
You are right. I should read Khushwant Singh’s “A History of the Sikhs”. (I agree that Kashmir is not terribly relevant here, but it just happens to be the area I’ve read about since I’ve been studying 19th century Kashmir history for an entirely separate project.)
“I have personal experience. During my visit to Venice, standing at a bridge was an elderly couple who overheard us talk in Hindi/Punjabi and they were Punjabis from Lahore, settled in Vancouver. We talked for 20minutes and felt as if we know each other for a long time and departed with invitation next time we visit Canada BC. But my issue is discussing hate, the problem for which we need solution.”
Much as it is risky to generalise, I’ve always had a sense that Punjabis are a bit like people from Glasgow and the west of Scotland (which is where I am from). The sectarian divisions there between Catholics and Protestants used to be extremely powerful, in part, but only in part, because of the Northern Ireland issue. That has changed only in the last few decades. But certainly when I was growing up Catholics and Protestants did not mix, went to different schools, supported different football teams (Rangers is protestant, Celtic is catholic) etc etc.
Obviously in the case of Indian and Pakistani Punjabis you have a division between two different countries, along with all the pain caused by partition that many people still carry. But it’s definitely a subject worth looking at a bit more closely.