Two days ago, Jammu and Kashmir Principal Secretary (Education) BK Singh passed an order that will effectively shut down over 300 schools run by the Falah-e-Aam Trust (FAT) that is affiliated to the Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI), an organization that was banned for five years in 2019. However, there is no information so far on what would happen to the teaching and non-teaching staff of the schools.

Why were the schools shut down?

India Today reports that the decision was taken due to two key reasons – unknown source of foreign funding, and alleged “jihadi literature” being part of the curriculum. Times of India, meanwhile, reports that a Special Investigation Agency (SIA) has found that the schools are radicalising youth. However, Deccan Herald reported that the reason for the ban was fraud and large-scale encroachment of government land. The publication quoted a SIA investigation report: “Almost all the FAT schools, numbering in hundreds, have been found to be existing on illegally acquired government and community lands wherein lands were occupied by coercion, at gunpoint as well as colluding with revenue officials who made wrong entries in revenue documents by committing fraud and forgery.”

What does the order say?

The Indian Express quoted an excerpt from the order: “The Jammu and Kashmir government had banned the Falah-e-Aam Trust on May 11, 1990, and also vide communication dated 23-10-2019. All students currently studying in these banned institutions shall admit themselves to nearby government schools for current academic session. All CEOs/Principals/ZEOs shall facilitate the admission of these students.”

Thus, education department officials such as Chief Education Officers and Zonal Educational Officers have been made responsible for ensuring that the fate of students does not get stuck in limbo. However, there is no word on what this would mean for the teaching and non-teaching staff members. The order also prohibits new admissions to these schools and no further registration of such schools. Education officers have been asked to seal the premises of such schools within 15 days.

Poor planning, worse execution

An important point to be considered is how government schools are often overburdened, understaffed and lack basic resources. While some publications place the number of displaced students at 11,000, some others say the number could be as high as 1 lakh. That means anywhere between 30 to 300 children from each FAT school would be looking for a new school. Therefore, wouldn’t this sudden ban be adding yet another burden on an overstretched system? Also, given how the JeI was banned in February 2019, could this shut down of schools not have been planned better?

Jamaat-e-Islami banned in Feb 2019

Readers would recall that the Jamaat-e-Islami was banned for five years in February 2019 for alleged support to terror and secessionist activities. This was just a fortnight after the Pulwama attack where terrorists ambushed a convoy of security personnel on February 14 killing 40 CRPF personnel. On the intervening night between February 22 and 23, police carried out raids against JeI cadres and arrested 100 members including JeI chief Abdul Hamid Fayad and spokesperson Zahid Ali.

The J&K administration banned JeI on February 28 that year. This order was confirmed by a tribunal headed by Justice Chander Shekhar, a Delhi High Court judge in September 2019. According to a report in the Economic Times, the tribunal had found that “the activities of the respondent association, its office bearers and members have been disruptive in character, which threaten the sovereignty and territorial integrity of India. They have been acting in collusion with other similar organisations in India as well as in other countries against their stated objectives in their constitution.” It had therefore concluded, “The central government had sufficient credible material and grounds for taking action under sub-Sections (1) & (3) of Section 3 of the [Unlawful Activities (Prevention)] Act for declaring ‘JeI’ as an ‘Unlawful Association’. Accordingly, it is held that there is “sufficient cause” to confirm the notification under sub-Section (3) of Section 4 of the Act declaring ‘JeI’ to be an “Unlawful Association”.”  

Falah-e-Aam Trust

The FAT, that was set up by JeI in 1972, was also previously banned (May 11, 1990) along with the JeI in 1990 under Section 3 of the Jammu and Kashmir Criminal Law Amendment Act (1983), reports the Indian Express saying that ban was for two years, although the latest ban will be active for five years under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA).

Interestingly, when JeI was banned in February 2019, police and magistrates had issued notices to schools run FAT asking them to close down. However, later, the government issued a clarification that these schools would not be shut, reported Deccan Herald.

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The female Jamaat activists were holding a clandestine meting on Sunday night

 

Police have detained 37 activists of Jamaat-e-Islami’s women wing, including its Narail unit chief, with a huge stockpile of Jihadi books from the town’s Bhouakhali area.

Narail Police Superintendent Rakibul Islam said they had been tipped off about a clandestine meeting of the female Jamaat members at the residence of the party’s district unit chief Ashak-e-Elahi on Sunday night.

He said they had found a large number of Jihadi books and donation receipts at the house.

“We detained 37 female activists, including their district unit leader Hosne Ara,” the SP added.

Republished with permission from Dhaka Tribune.

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Muslim women in Mumbai demanding ban on triple talaq. File picture.

With no hope of help from the All-India Muslim Personal Law Board, Muslim women victims of instant divorce (triple talaq) are approaching Prime Minister Narendra Modi and UP CM, Yogi Adityanath for justice for Muslim women.

Among them is Shumayla Javed, a national-level netball player who is now living with her parents in Peerzada locality of Amroha in UP.

The Hindustan Times, among others in the print and electronic media, reports that married in February 2014, Shumayla gave birth to a daughter in May 2015. That became the reason for her husband to unilaterally terminate the relationship in April 2016 by pronouncing the dread words ‘talaq, talaq, talaq’.

She now believes that triple talaq among Muslims is a social evil which must be eradicated. Accordingly she has written to Modi and Adityanath seeking justice for Muslim women victims of triple talaq.

Since the divorce Shumayla has been living with her parents in Amroha and works as a data entry operator for a living. She claims that the police had refused to lodge her complaint post the divorce but in the changed political climate she is hopeful of getting justice.

Before her, two other Muslim women from her city, Marium and Shaheen have also spoken out against triple talaq and demanded a ban on the practice.

The MLA from Amroha and former minister Mehboob Ali has promised to extend all possible help to the player in her search for justice, according to the Hindustan Times report.

Meanwhile, the Okhla Times has reported that after the recent launch of an exclusive helpline by the All India Muslim Personal Law Board, the Jamaat-e-Islami, Hind, has designed an app to create awareness on personal laws and to “counter propaganda” regarding triple talaq.

Titled Muslim Personal Law Awareness Campaign, the app can be downloaded from the Jamaat’s website, jamaateislamihind.org.  
 

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Hundreds of supporters of hardliner Hefazat-e-Islam staged protests on Friday in Dhaka, Chittagong and Narayanganj, calling for the statue of a Greek goddess installed at the Supreme Court to be destroyed or removed.

This is a part of their ongoing protest demanding the removal of the Lady Justice statue from the Supreme Court premises.

Earlier on February 14, they had submitted memorandums to the prime minister and the chief justice. They stated the “idol” was anti-Islamic and threatened to stage demonstrations and bring out processions if their demand went unheeded.
 

Hefazat-e-Islam activists in a mass procession in Narayanganj city demanding the removal of the Greek statue from the Supreme Court premises on February 24, 2017 Photo: Dhaka Tribune

Court officials, however, defended the statue as “a symbol of justice.” The image of Greek goddess Themis, depicted with her eyes shielded and holding the scales of justice, represents fairness, law and custom across the world.

The Dhaka procession began from Baitul Mukarram National Mosque.

Hundreds of Hefazat supporters chanted slogans and wielded placards with phrases such as “Demolish the statue on the court premises and replace it with the Qur’an,” states a report from AFP.

“If you do not remove this idol, we will be forced to march to the Supreme Court and remove it ourselves.”

Hefazat’s Central Committee Joint Secretary General Junaid Al Habib said the “idol” had to be removed by any means.

In a country with a 92% Muslim population, people would not tolerate any “idol” in the country’s apex court premises, Habib added.

Conservative Bangladesh has seen increasing tension between hardliners and secularists in recent years: A spate of killings of atheist bloggers, religious minorities and foreigners combined with a series of changes in school textbooks, which are overwhelmingly secular, to reflect Muslim traditions.

According to sources, several leaders of Jamaat-e-Islami, a BNP ally which has been absent from recent street demonstrations, and members of its student wing Islami Chhatra Shibir are supportive of the recent radical Islamist moves to remove the Supreme Court statue of Lady Justice, avenge the persecution of Rohingya Muslims and make changes in school textbooks.

“The demands brought up by the Islamist parties are irrational and baseless. There is no reason to think that the sculpture will be removed just because someone demanded that it be so”: Attorney General Mahbubey Alam

Sources also said all paper materials and information for these movements are supplied by Jamaat-Shibir to the other parties, including Hefazat.

Security has been increased in the area around Baitul Mukarram, according to local police official Rafiqul Islam.

He added that at least 1,000 people had joined the rally there and a similar rally had also been held at Chittagong.

‘You too will burn’

Chittagong unit of Hefazat organised their rally at the Anderkillah Shahi Mosque premises.

Hefazat Joint Secretary General Mainuddin Ruhi threatened: “Remove the Greek idol at once from the Supreme Court premises. Please douse the smouldering fire in the hearts of the Muslims. Otherwise, the fire will soon catch you.

“Hefazat believes in systemic movement. We will be compelled to hold another rally at Shapla Chattar if our demand is unheeded.”

Azizul Haque Islamabadi, Hefazat’s organising secretary, said the premier was unaware that the “idol” had been installed on the Supreme Court premises.

“The idol was installed on the advice of a handful of atheists only to put the government in an awkward position,” he said.

He also reminded his audience of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s pledge that the country would run as per the Medina Charter and that installing an “idol” was a direct contradiction of the Medina Charter.

When contacted, Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Nayeb-e-Amir Nur Hossain Kashemi told the Dhaka Tribune that they would launch a tougher movement against the government if their demand was not met.

Narayanganj Hefazat to take action

The Narayanganj unit of Hefazat also held a mass rally in front of the city’s DIT Jame Mosque after Jumma prayers on Friday.

At their programme, they threatened that if their demands went unmet, they would rally their forces and go destroy the Lady Justice statue.

Hefazat’s Narayanganj district unit President Mawlana Abdul Awwal said: “You can establish however many idols at the different temples in Bangladesh, but we will not tolerate the presence of an idol in front of the highest court in the country.”

“The protest to remove this idol from the Supreme Court begins here. It begins today, from Narayanganj,” he exclaimed, adding: “If you do not remove this idol, we will be forced to march to the Supreme Court and remove it ourselves.”

Mawlana Abdul Quadir, secretary of Narayanganj unit of Hefazat, spoke at the rally along with Hefazat leaders Ferdausur Rahman, Mufti Harunur Rashid, Ismail Siraji and Anis Ansari.

On Friday, Islami Andolan Bangladesh Chief Rezaul Karim told the Dhaka Tribune that if the sculpture was not removed, the public would “create a river of blood” in protest.

Also Read- AQIS supports Hefazat on SC statue removal

No justice for Lady Justice

Hefazat is hardly the only group to oppose the statue of Lady Justice on the Supreme Court premises.

Other Islamist parties and groups opposing the installation of the statue are Awami Olama League, Bangladesh Khelafat Majlish, Islami Andolon Bangladesh and Jamaat-Shibir.

Last year, divided Dhaka Hefazat Committee Convener Nur Hossain Kashemi, Islami Oikya Jote (IOJ) leader Abul Hasnat Amini and IOJ Secretary General and Hefazat Central Joint Secretary General Mufti Faizullah met and began working together to unite all Islamist groups.

Recently, Ansar al-Islam, the Bangladesh affiliate of al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS), has also extended support for the ongoing movement of radical Islamists who demand that the “idol” of Lady Justice be removed from the Supreme Court premises.

Yet even with a similar agenda, not all of these radical Islamist groups can see eye to eye.

An al-Qaeda member, Mohammad bin Maslama, accused Hefazat Secretary General Junaid Babunagari of double standards, saying: “You are playing with Islam. Islam is not so insignificant that you will need to submit a memorandum or application to the kufr [government].

“You have cheated the people by signing the fatwa against the mujahids of Islam. You are trying to please the government and Islam at the same time.”

The senior member, however, said they would continue to support Hefazat, disregarding differences, as long as the radical platform was working to continue the spread of Islam.

The flip side reactions

Earlier, civil society members, lawyers and government officials dismissed the demands for the removal of a sculpture installed on the Supreme Court premises, calling it “irrational” and “baseless.”

“The demands brought up by the Islamist parties are irrational and baseless. There is no reason to think that the sculpture will be removed just because someone demanded that it be so,” Attorney General Mahbubey Alam told the Dhaka Tribune.

Former law minister Barrister Shafique Ahmed told the Dhaka Tribune that the sculpture was nothing but the symbol of unbiased conscience of justice, honoured by the countries all over the world, including Islamic countries like Iran.

Khushi Kabir, head of rights organisation Nijera Kori, told the Dhaka Tribune: “There are many sculptures in our country which carry the significance of our identity, history and tradition. They have no authority to demand the destruction of these historical and aesthetic sculptures.”

She feared that if this demand was fulfilled, these groups would raise questions about other sculptures such as Oporajeyo Bangla, Raju Bhashkorjo, or Amar Ekushey.

“The demolition of the Lalon sculpture from in front of Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport [in 2008] encouraged the religious zealots to make such demands,” she added.

Ekattorer Ghatak Dalal Nirmul Committee demanded action against the people who threatened the highest court and judiciary system and stated in a statement: “Calling this sculpture an idol is politically motivated.”

The Islamist groups’ demands came at a time when the apex court issued two major verdicts – a banning of the use of scales as an electoral symbol and the erasing of the names of 20 convicted war criminals and anti-liberation people from roads and educational institutions across the country.

Republished with permission from Dhaka Tribune.
 

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But the justice-seekers were disappointed as the special tribunal handed down life-term imprisonment instead of a death sentence for the notorious war criminal, who was found involved in genocide and rape.

Condemnation poured into social media, especially Facebook, against the lenient sentence. Some youths announced a human chain at Shahbagh at 3pm to demand death penalty for him since he might have walked free if the government changed.

Some organisers also raised the demand for banning religion-based politics, and removing state religion from the constitution, alleging that the provision promotes religious fanaticism and terrorism. But the platform did not adopt them.

Quader Molla was serving as the assistant secretary general of Jamaat that has never apologised for the atrocities committed in 1971.

Jamaat was even in the government for the first time in 2001 as part of the ruling four-party alliance led by the BNP, and two of its senior leaders were made ministers.

It was BNP founder Ziaur Rahman who lifted the ban on Jamaat and religion-based politics after the assassination of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. Earlier, Zia scrapped the Collaborators Act and released over 11,000 razakars being tried under the law.

By 3pm on February 5, 2013, some 50 youths joined a human chain in front of the National Museum in the capital, and the chain of protesters extended rapidly in the next two hours.
 

A protester shouts slogans while clad in the traditional colours of Pohela Falgun, the first day of spring, on February 13, 2013 during the Shahbagh movement Syed Latif Hossain/Dhaka Tribune

The organisers, Blogger and Online Activist Network (BOAN), then decided to occupy the Shahbagh intersection amid a Jamaat-enforced general strike around 5pm, and the participants went to the roundabout with a procession chanting slogans demanding death penalty for all war criminals.

In its first verdict, the tribunal on January 15 the same year had sentenced to death a former Jamaat leader Abul Kalam Azad alias Bachchu Razakar in absentia. Families of martyrs and war crimes trial campaigners expected the highest punishment for Quader Molla as well.

The activists started a sit-in at Shahbagh amid slogans and patriotic songs. Around 6pm, there were several hundred people gathered at the place. Civil society representatives, cultural activists, left parties and some ruling party leaders expressed solidarity with the movement.

Members of the ruling party’s student wing Chhatra League also joined the protests.

The protesters continued their programme throughout the night, and the organisers soon came up with three-point demands: death penalty for all war criminals, ban on Jamaat and its radical student wing Islami Chhatra Shibir, and confiscation of properties of convicted war criminals and nationalisation of Jamaat’s financial institutions and social organisations.

Some organisers also raised the demand for banning religion-based politics, and removing state religion from the constitution, alleging that the provision promotes religious fanaticism and terrorism. But the platform did not adopt them.
 

Activists of Ganajagaran Mancha arrange a candle light display in the capital’s Shahbagh intersection on 14th Feb 2013, demanding capital punishment for the war criminals during the Liberation War of Bangladesh Syed Zakir Hossain/Dhaka Tribune

The BNP initially welcomed the movement that turned into a sea of justice seekers, but soon made a U-turn reportedly after failing to convince the organisers to raise other issues including corruption of the ruling government – like the movements in several Middle East countries – dubbed “Arab Spring” around the same time.

BNP-Jamaat leaning newspapers and TV channels started campaigning against the movement’s organisers terming them “fascists,” “atheists” and “blasphemers.”

Within a week into the movement, people across the country launched similar sit-ins on Shaheed Minar premises and important spots expressing solidarity. Bangladeshis living abroad also staged demonstrations demanding death for all war criminals.

Within a week into the movement, people across the country launched similar sit-ins on Shaheed Minar premises and important spots expressing solidarity. Bangladeshis living abroad also staged demonstrations demanding death for all war criminals.

People and the media started calling the platform Gonojagoron Moncho and the place “Projonmo Chottor.”

The sit-in was held at Shahbagh without a break at least for 17 days and continued for a couple of months with intervals. During that time, people from all walks of life at home and abroad participated in the programmes declared by the Shahbagh organisers including candle light vigils and human chains.

The platform also submitted 10 million signatures to the parliament urging the government to fulfil their three-point demands.

The movement faced its first violent opposition on February 14 when Jamaat-Shibir men killed Agrani Bank staff Zafar Munshi in Motijheel area for unfurling a banner expressing solidarity.

The platform also submitted 10 million signatures to the parliament urging the government to fulfil their three-point demands.

A day later, a group of North University students linked to Chhatra Shibir hacked to death architect Ahmed Rajeeb Haider, an active participant of the movement, in front of his home in Mirpur. Soon after the murder, radical Islamists started campaigning on social media against Rajeeb branding him as an “atheist” – a strategy adopted by the Jamaat top brass and other collaborators during the Liberation War to justify the killings of freedom fighters.

The murder took place only four days after a Shibir-run blog published a list of bloggers and secular activists linked to the movement, urging its supporters to kill them.

In the face of growing demands, parliament passed an amendment to the International Crimes (Tribunals) Act of 1973 on February 17 to allow the prosecution to file appeals against the tribunal verdicts. As per the original law, only the defence was allowed to appeal against the judgements.

Radical Islamist platform Hefazat-e-Islam, formed by Qawmi madrasa teachers and students, groups linked to BNP-Jamaat alliance, started regrouping after the murder. They believed the propaganda against Rajeeb, and staged violent demonstrations across the country after the Jumma prayers on February 22. They vandalised and torched Gonojagoron Moncho stages in different districts as revenge.
 

Protesters during the Shahbagh movement Syed Latif Hossain/Dhaka Tribune

Jamaat and Hefazat supporters created a reign of havoc across the country killing several hundred people and destroying government properties after the war crimes tribunal on February 28 handed down death penalty to another influential Jamaat leader, Delawar Hossain Sayedee, for his war-time crimes committed in Pirojpur.

The Islamists gained support through these activists and later handed over a list of “atheist bloggers and websites” to the Home Ministry seeking stern punishment.

But they did not stop after the police arrested four bloggers for their suspected involvement in “defaming” the Qur’an and the Prophet (PBUH). Hefazat announced a long-march towards Dhaka for April 6 and placed a 13-point charter of demands including formulation of an anti-blasphemy law, banning free mingling of men and women, erecting statues and candle light vigils terming them Hindu culture, and declaring the Ahmadiyya community non-Muslim.

So far, more than two dozens campaigners for war crime trials have been killed. Al-Qaeda affiliated Ansarullah Bangla Team (now Ansar al-Islam) took credit for 13 attacks that killed 11 activists. The terrorist group termed its targets “atheists,” seeking to gain sympathy of the Islamist parties and groups.

So far, more than two dozens campaigners for war crime trials have been killed. Al-Qaeda affiliated Ansarullah Bangla Team (now Ansar al-Islam) took credit for 13 attacks that killed 11 activists. The terrorist group termed its targets “atheists,” seeking to gain sympathy of the Islamist parties and groups.

On the other hand, another group of militants affiliated with the Islamic State, New JMB, has killed dozens of people, mostly non-Muslim and non-Sunni community people, and carried out bomb and gun attacks on Ahmadiyya and Shia mosques and Hindu temples between September 2015 and July 2016. The group also claimed responsibility for the Holey Artisan Bakery attack that alone killed 24 people, mostly foreigners.

Both the groups want to establish Shariah Law in Bangladesh and bring the Rakhine State of Myanmar and parts of India under their Caliphate.

The government has yet to ban Jamaat, whose party registration with the Election Commission was scrapped by the High Court the same year, and an appeal against the verdict is pending with the Appellate Division. But it has taken measures to reform and nationalise the Jamaat-owned business institutions.

After the disposal of appeal verdicts, the government executed five top Jamaat leaders including Motiur Rahman Nizami, and Quader Molla. The appeals of several other Jamaat leaders against their conviction are pending with the apex court.

Republished with permission from Dhaka Tribune.
 

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An unruly mob of hundreds of people armed with locally-made weapons demolished at least 10 temples to the ground along with vandalising hundreds of houses of the Hindu community at Brahminbaria‘s Nasirnagar upazila on Sunday afternoon, reportedly in response to a Facebook post making satire of the Masjid al-Haram, the holy site of Muslims.

File Photo / Representative

Nasirnagar police have so far detained nine attackers and drive was underway to arrest others.

Meanwhile, district Awami League has demanded the withdrawal of Nasirnagar Upazila Nirbahi Officer (UNO) and the officer-in-charge of Nasirnagar police station.

Local citizens have organised a rally to promote communal harmony for Monday afternoon.

More than 100 people were injured in the attacks while six people were detained, according to reports.

Police took control over law and order in the area around 2:00 pm, a police official said. A raid was underway to nab the culprits, last reported.

Several hundred locals staged demonstration at Sarail-Nasirnagar-Lakhai highway on Friday noon demanding hanging of one Rasraj Das who allegedly was behind the FB post.

The temples are Duttobari temple, Nomosomudropara temple, Jagannath temple, Ghoshpara temple and Gouro temple.

Brahmanbaria Superintendent of Police (SP) Mizanur Rahman told the Dhaka Tribune that around 150 to 200 people launched the attacks and vandalised at least seven to eight idols of five temples in the area.

Mizan said a vested group carried out the attack to tarnish the government’s image.

Blaming the Jamaat-Shibir men for the attack, he said: “Those who were behind the attack will be arrested as soon as possible. Already we have detained six persons in this connection.”

Nasirnagar Hindu-Budhist-Christian Oikya Parishad president Adesh Dev, however, claimed to a news portal that in total 15 temples had been looted and destroyed.

“Several devotees were injured in the communal attack and police did not interfere into the looting. A BGB platoon has been deployed but only after the damage was done,” Dev said.

BGB 12 commander Lt Col Shah Ali said the para-military force were deployed on request of the deputy commissioner (DC) of the district to maintain law and order situation.

“A group of Hefajat-e-Islam supporters launch the attack on the Hindu community and vandalised their houses and temples while we were holding peaceful rally,” said Riazul Karim, convener of Nasirnagar unit of Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat.

On information, Brahminbaria DC Rezwanur Rahman and SP visited the spot and assured people of the community of taking stern action against the attackers.

Contacted, Nasirnagar upazila parishad vice chairman Anjan Dev said: “Although the situation is under control at this moment (Sunday evening), members of the minority community are in a panic still. Preparations are going on to file separate cases over the demolition of temples.”

In reply to a query, Brahminbaria DC Rezwan said: “RAB, police and BGB personnel have been deployed in the upazila. Those involved in the attack will be brought to book after investigation.”

Meanwhile, madrasa students of the district staged demonstration at the district press club Sunday demanding hanging of Rasraj Das, detained over the allegation of posting, from his personal FB account, a picture of Masjid al-Haram on which a picture of Shiva was juxtaposed.

Police detained Rasraj on Saturday and produced him before a Brahmanbaria court on Saturday.

The court sent him to jail.

This report first published on Dhaka Tribune is being republished with permission.
 

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To combat growing terrorism in Bangladesh the PM's lament over, 'What kind of Muslims are these people?' is not enough. 

The heinous massacre of innocent men and women peacefully eating their dinner at an up-market café in Dhaka this weekend has at last woken up Sheikh Hasina Wajed to the continuing reign of terror – in Allah’s name – in the country of which she has been prime minister (for the second time) since 2009. Or so we hope.

Eyewitness survivors have said the killers stormed the popular Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka’s posh Gulshan area on Friday evening shouting “Allah-o-Akbar”. “What kind of Muslims are these people? They don’t have any religion… terrorism is their religion,” the prime minister is reported to have stated while announcing the end of the siege which claimed 20 lives.

Begum Hasina would do better to ask herself the question that millions of Bangladeshi citizens have been asking in their own manner for many months now: What kind of Prime Minister are you, Begum Hasina? What kind of Islam do you profess and what does it demand of you?

For the past year-and-a-half her government and police have been mute witness as terrorists have picked their targets at will, one at a time, killing Hindu priests, Shias, Ahmeddiyas, Sufis, Pirs, secular activists, atheists, bloggers, writers, professors, students… One of them was a young student named Nazimuddin Samad. His crime? Organising campaigns for secularism on Facebook.

In an article published on this platform less than two months ago, Bangladesh’s feminist activist Khushi Kabir had pointed to her country’s dangerous drift towards extremist Islam: “The message that there is only one form, a form alien to this land, of belief and practice, that of the Wahabi/Salafis who are not part of the four Mazhabs of the Islamic Sunni belief is now being pushed with full force as the current agenda. Many killed in brutal manner have been believers, Pirs, Shias, Ahmedias, followers of the Sufi tradition, priests from other religions, writers who were not necessarily atheists”.

Kabir had lamented the Hasina government’s myopia over the dark clouds gathering over Bangladesh and the state’s callous naming of the victims as the accused: “Those feeling outraged at this [ongoing] barbarism are asked that one should be careful not to hurt the sentiment of the believers? Whose sentiment are we talking about? Which believers? The misogynists, communalists who preach and breed obscurantism, a group financially strong, having the backing of the powers that be, misrepresenting and misquoting for their own vested interests?”

Kabir had concluded her article with the words: “1971 has taught us that killing cannot stop freedom. It did not then, it will not now”. Her brave words, sadly, have not stopped the Islamists from their murderous misdeeds.

Social activists like Kabir are not the only ones concerned over the cancerous growth of extremism in the country’s body polity. The Dhaka Tribune reported on June 6 (2016) that over 1,00,000 ulema from Bangladesh had issued a joint fatwa against terrorism.

ISIS and the Al Qaeda are currently engaged in a fierce competition across our sub-continent aiming to outdo each other in spreading their terror tentacles. That’s now. But the malignant growth of Islamist extremism in Bangladesh can be easily traced back to the Jamaat-e-Islami (JEB) and its militant student wing, Islami Chhatra Shibir.

The Islamic State which has claimed “credit” for the latest mass murder at Holey Artisa Bakery has also boasted of targeting others in recent months. It and the Al Qaeda are currently engaged in a fierce competition across our sub-continent aiming to outdo each other in spreading their terror tentacles. That’s now. But the malignant growth of Islamist extremism in Bangladesh can be easily traced back to the Jamaat-e-Islami (JEB) and its militant student wing, Islami Chhatra Shibir.

The official website of the JEB continues to protest its innocence, claiming that “Islamists are the most principled, pious, god-fearing and kind people on the earth”. Facts on the ground tell a different tale.

• In March 2013, Amnesty International issued a press statement on the countrywide attack on Hindus in which more than 40 temples were vanadalised and scores of shops and homes were burnt down. Survivors told Amnesty International that the attackers were participants in rallies organised by the opposition Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami (JIB) and its student group Chhatra Shibir.
• In April the same month, an entire galaxy of maulanas affiliated to the Imam Ulema Somonnoy Oikyo Parishad, Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat (Bangladesh) and other religious bodies in Bangladesh publicly denounced the Jamaat-Shibir for their link with terrorist Islamist organisations. “People who believe in Wahabism and Moududism (Maulana Abul Ala Maududi was the founder of the Jamaat-e-Islami) are enemies of Islam as they misinterpret Quran and Sunnah”, the Ahle Sunnat (Bangladesh) secretary general Syed Muhammad Masiuddoula had thundered at a Sunni Ulema-Mashayekh Conference on March 17.   
• In December 2013, the well-known human rights organisation Ain O Salish Kendra (AIN) documented 276 major incidents of attack by the Jamaat-Shibir extremists during the year in which a total of 492 people including 15 police members were killed and around 2,200 others were injured.

The demands of the terrorists in the latest carnage included the release of Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) activists who were sentenced to a 10-year jail term in January this year for their role in a string of bomb attacks in the country in 2005. The JMB which is now a local ISIS affiliate is committed to converting Bangladesh into an Islamic state through armed struggle. On August 17, 2005 it had detonated some 500 bombs, simultaneously across 300 locations in 50 Bangladeshi cities.

While the origin of the JMB in the late 1990s is shrouded in some mystery, the Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh (JIB) has been accused of patronising the former while it was part of the coalition government headed by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). In November 2005, a BNP MP, Abu Hena alleged that the JEB was directly involved in the emergence of the JMB. He even named two JEB ministers in the BNP-led coalition who he claimed "are doing everything for the militants". Hena’s expulsion from the party did not stop BNP’s former minister Oli Ahmed and BNP whip Ashraf Hossain from speaking out and implicating the Jamaat-e-Islami in the rise of extremism in the country.

Recall the vibrant ‘Shahbag movement’ of 2013 (many at the time drew parallels to the ‘Arab Uprising’) which started as a vehement rejection of the International Crime Tribunal’s (ICT) verdict to condemn Abdul Quader Mollah, assistant general secretary of Jamaat-e-Islami, to life in prison. Protestors wanted Mollah, who was convicted for killing hundreds of people and raping a young girl, to be put to death. But the movement soon took the form of a mass civil society awakening which demanded an end to all religion-based politics.

Sheikh Hasina Wajed, Prime Minister of Bangladesh (since 2009) has been leader since 1981 of the Awami Party which spearheaded the country’s 1971 breakaway from Pakistan, rejected the two-nations theory and espoused the ideal of a secular nation and state. Even in this dark moment it should be clear that there are millions of Bangladeshis – from students, professors and activists to a wide spectrum of maulanas wedded to a tolerant Islam – who are staunchly opposed to the Wahhabis/Salafi and the Maududian “enemies of Islam” determined to push the country towards a totalitarian Islamic state. In 2013, the Supreme Court declared the JEB as “illegal” and barred the party from contesting polls. In the past it had never managed more than 4 per cent of the votes in any election in Bangladesh.  

So, to return to where this article began, before the terrorists claim their next victim(s), Sheikh Hasina would do well to ask herself: What kind of a Prime Minister am I? What does my Islam demand of me?           
 

The post What Kind of Prime Minister Are You, Sheikh Hasina? appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The unfolding Modi-BJP-RSS-ABVP nexus in India is but a replay of the Zia ul Haq-Jamaat e Islami-Islami Jamiat e Talaba axis in Pakistan in the 1970s

Ideologically speaking, the ‘Hindu nationalist’ Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) with its Hindu Rashtra agenda is the mirror image of the Abu Ala Maududi’s Jamaat-e-Islami with Islamic state and Shariah law as its goal. It should not be surprising then that the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) – the student body floated by the RSS – is beginning to look more and more, and ominously so, like the Islami Jamiat-e-Talaba (IJT) – the student wing floated by Maududi in Pakistan. 

“If you want to change a country, change its students,” noted American writer and journalism, Dan Brooks in an article, ‘Know your theocrats: Islami Jamiat-e-Talaba’, which he wrote in 2011. The RSS wants to “change India” just as the Jamaat-e-Islami is trying to “change Pakistan”. If the ABVP is the former’s instrument for ‘changing students’ in India, the IJT is the latter’s tool for “changing students” in Pakistan.

The comparison does not end there. The RSS and the ABVP claim that the latter’s real growth in numbers took place during the years that the Congress-led UPA governments were in power, that is, before Narendra Modi’s rise to the top. The Jamaat-e-Islami and the IJT too can make a similar claim. Read, Nadeem F Paracha’s excellent 2009 essay, ‘Student politics in Pakistan: A history, lament and celebration’.

Though left-wing student unions retained their dominant position in Pakistan’s colleges and universities through the 1950s, by the early 1960s the IJT had started “to emerge from the sidelines of student politics and materialise as an affective right-wing force on the campuses”. Until then, though the IJT had been around for more than a decade “it was almost completely overshadowed by DSF (Democratic Students Front) and the NSF (National Students Front),” Paracha writes.

In tune with the movement worldwide, the 1960s are often referred to as the “golden era of student politics” in Pakistan. According to Paracha however, “it is the 1970s that one can truly call the golden era of student politics in Pakistan”. It was in the latter decade that Pakistan witnessed the emergence of a state-party-student nexus. What we are witnessing in India today is a replay of the same devious plot.

“When [after ousting Zulfikar Ali Bhutto] President Zia [ul Haq] brought in members of the Jamaat-e-Islami to form his first cabinet (to help him ‘Islamize Pakistan’), IJT’s notorious ‘Thunder Squads’ that were formed in the 1960s at the universities of Karachi and Lahore to challenge leftist student activists, went on a rampage, harassing and physically manhandling their opponents”.

What the Zia-Jamaat-IJT did in the campuses in Pakistan in the 1970s is exactly what the Modi-BJP-RSS-ABVP has been re-enacting in India’s premier educational institutions in recent months— Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), IITs, Hyderabad Central University, JNU…  The difference: In Pakistan the IJT was fighting the “enemies of Islam”; in India the ABVP is fighting “desh drohis”, or put differently, the “enemies of Hindu Rashtra”.

Though ideologically a mirror image of Pakistan’s Jamaat-e-Islami, the RSS has chosen a different organisational path. The ABVP may not need to form its own “thunder squads” since the RSS has already put in place complementary fronts for the purpose: VHP, Bajrang Dal, sundry other Hindutva-inspired outfits, even rogue lawyers as witnessed in the Patiala court recently

Though ideologically a mirror image of Pakistan’s Jamaat-e-Islami, the RSS has chosen a different organisational path. The ABVP may not need to form its own “thunder squads” since the RSS has already put in place complementary fronts for the purpose: VHP, Bajrang Dal, sundry other Hindutva-inspired outfits, even rogue lawyers as witnessed in the Patiala court recently.

The ABVP may not mimic the IJT’s misdeeds in Pakistan step-by-step. It and the ‘thunder squads’ of the RSS may march separately but they have the same goal in mind: Changing students to change the country. Bearing this in mind, there still are lessons we in India must learn from the IJT’s trajectory post-1970s.

As was only to be expected, Zia’s harsh crackdown on the left-wing student unions in Pakistan discredited the IJT. According to Paracha, “the [Zia] regime’s plans to repress progressive student groups through its allied party, the Jamaat-e-Islami and its student wing… had left IJT in the clutches of uncontrollable violence so much so that the support it had managed to gather through student union elections in the 1970s, now stood eroded, triggering a sympathy wave for the anti-IJT student organisations.”

In the 1978 elections IJT lost out heavily to the Punjab Progressive Students Alliance (PPSA) in Rawalpindi, Islamabad and in many colleges of Lahore. Meanwhile in Karachi and Sind province, the IJT was seriously challenged by the student wings of the newly-formed Muhajir Quami Movement (MQM) of Altaf Hussain and the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP).
With Pakistan heavily involved in the USA-Saudi Arabia backed Afghan struggle against occupation by the Soviet army, to stay relevant the IJT grabbed the opportunity to bring the “AK-47 culture” to the campus.

However, in the 1983 elections to student unions the IJT was comprehensively voted out in a majority of colleges and universities across the country. In 1984, the Zia regime outlawed all student unions and politics. The ban continues till date but that does not mean, the IJT has ceased to exist. Here below are some examples of its recent activities:
 

• February 19, 2016: Baloch students hold protest demonstrations in Punjab, Quetta and Uthal against attacks on students in Punjab by IJT.
• October 13, 2015: Young women playing cricket at Karachi University are beaten by religious thugs. Members of the IJT who had earlier warned the cricket-playing women, broke up a mixed-gender game and beat up both the men and women members of the Punjabi Students Association with batons.
• December 2, 2013: Pakistan TV telecasts footage on how IJT “attacked and tortured teachers in Punjab University”.
• September 2013: Pakistan’s intelligence and law enforcement agencies arrest students belonging to the IJT, also suspected to have Al Qaeda links.  
• March 2013: The founder and leader of MQM, Altaf Hussain demands banning of Jamaat-e-Islami and its student wing Islami Jamiat-e-Talaba for their connections with terrorists… 
• February 2012: Activists of Imamia Students Organization (ISO) stage a protest demonstration against IJT activists for torturing an ISO activist at the Punjab University.
• July 2011: "After philosophy students and faculty members rallied to denounce heavy-handed efforts to separate male and female students, Islamists on campus struck back: In the dead of night, witnesses say, the radicals showed up at a men's dormitory armed with wooden sticks and bicycle chains.

           "They burst into dorm rooms, attacking philosophy students. One was pistol-whipped and hit on the head with a brick. Gunfire rang out, although no one was injured. Police were called, but nearly a month after the attack, no arrests have been made.

          "Few on Punjab University's leafy campus, including top administrators, dare to challenge the Islami Jamiat-e-Talaba, or the IJT, the student wing of one of Pakistan's most powerful hard-line Islamist parties.

"At another Lahore campus, the principal disdainfully refers to the Islamists as 'a parallel administration'."

The few examples cited above are apart from the IJT’s ongoing campaigns against Ahmediyas, celebration of New Year and Valentine’s Day and “forbidding progressive literature from the university libraries”.

The ABVP may not, as yet, be able to match the fine record of its Pakistani counter-part. But with the Modi-BJP-RSS-ABVP axis now in place who can say what lies ahead.

P.S.: In an article which may be accessed on SabrangIndia, Prathama Banerjee reports that in Gwalior a few days ago, a meeting organised by the Ambedkar Manch involving an Ambedkarite professor Vivek Kumar from JNU was attacked by ABVP members, who went on to not only fire gun-shots at the gathering but even burn the Indian Constitution, perhaps to avenge Ambedkar’s burning of the Manusmriti half a century ago!

The post ABVP: In the footsteps of Pakistan’s Islami Jamiat-e-Talaba; ominously so appeared first on SabrangIndia.

 

Post-Kargil, imported mujahideen are pedalling a Talibanised Islam in the Valley. And succeeding in good measure, thanks to the unholy nexus between the BJP-led government at the Centre and an unscrupulous National Conference in the state

There has been a significant change not only in character of the movement but in the mood of  the Kashmiri people post argil. The reason for this is the even deeper and greater sense of alienation and outright bitterness among the local people – in the Valley, in Jammu and in Ladakh. As far as militancy is concerned, there has been a sharp decline in the Kashmiri-speaking people component among the militants. 
 

The actions of the militants, too, signal this sharp shift. Earlier, the victims of militants used to be civilians — soft targets. There used to be harassment and extortion of the local population. This has stopped. Today, post-Kargil, the attacks are directly on the army and BSF headquarters. 
 

The militant activities are more dare devilish, more direct, more desperate in a way. A group has emerged that calls itself Fidayeen (Lovers of God). Unlike the activities of earlier militant groups, their targets are not civilians but the army and security forces. There is now no extortion from the local
population, distinct attempts are being made to ingratiate them and win their sympathy.
 

The Kashmiri movement has, as a result, and very unfortunately, been virtually taken over by outsiders. The Jamaat-e-Islami has never had any faith in the Kashmiri brand of a more liberal Islam. A more standardised version of Islam is being offered to the local population that is completely out of sync with the region, with Kashmiriyat, a characteristic that typified the movement before.
 

This weakness of the Kashmiri movement that is fast-losing its Kashmiri identity — and, for this a variety of factors are responsible — is more than compensated on the other side. RSS and even more extreme brands of Hindu nationalism are gaining currency among Hindus in Jammu, as elsewhere in the country. 
 

What are the factors responsible for this hardening of position on both sides? The sham of the recent elections is one of the most significant contributory factors. It is a sorry tale for any country that is proud to call itself a democracy. Elections were far from free. Official figures themselves reveal a fast-declining rate of voter participation, not only among Kashmiri Muslims, but also Pandit migrants and Jammu Hindus. What does this signify but increasing alienation?
 

In its report published on October 6, 1999, The Times of India revealed that the opinion expressed by me on the recently conducted elections in the state were shared by a team of four IAS officers sent as independent observers to the state. I quote from their report: “Elections were neither free nor fair but full of violence. The electorate was coerced by the security forces to vote. The presiding officer at several polling booths corroborated the charges of coercion made by the voters. The observers found even minors in the queue and several mobile voters”. 
 

The observers saw matadors carrying women voters. They intercepted these matadors. The four senior IAS officers made a demand to the EC to countermand the elections. These demands were not even considered by the EC, while in states like Bihar and elsewhere, more prompt action was taken. 

There has been a significant change in the character of the movement in Kashmir with the presence of a militant outfit like Fidayeen (Lovers of God). The actions of the militants are more sympathetic to the locals and are targeting the Indian security forces

The conduct of the election commissioner (GV Krishnamurthy) on a visit to the state was blatantly partisan, when he commented that the “conducting of the elections was the answer to militancy.” The EC would have performed a far more signal and patriotic service to Kashmiris, residents of Jammu and
the whole country if he had simply concentrated on ensuring that the conduct of the elections was ‘genuinely free and fair’.
 

The boycott call by militants and a heavy presence of the military has been a constant factor in the state since the 1996 elections. How come then, that given these constants in the last three elections, there has been such a sharp decline in voting percentages this time? 
 

Look at the official figures. During the 1996 parliamentary elections, in the Srinagar city segment, 35 per cent of the electorate voted; this was down to 30 per cent in 1998 and touched an all-time low of 12 per cent in 1999. The story is similar for Anantnag. In  1996, 50 per cent of the voters came out; in 1998, this was down to 28 per cent; but in 1999 the voting percentage dropped to 14 per cent. In Baramulla, while 41 per cent of the voters came out to cast their vote in 1996; the turnout was the same in 1998, but this time it plummeted to 27 per cent.     If one goes into further detail and scrutinises figures for the Srinagar segment that has recorded 12 per cent of voters, we see that the Charar-e-Sharif and Badgaon segments recorded 45.50 and 45 per cent of voting respectively while Srinagar city registered barely 3–5 per cent votes. The extent of voter disillusionment or alienation can well be gauged from these statistics. 
 

Jammu and Kashmir also recorded the highest rates of invalid votes anywhere in the country; EC statistics tell us there were 9-12 per cent invalid votes in the state. It is worth analysing the factors responsible for such a low voting percentage and high rate of invalid votes in the state. 
 

As stated before, the boycott call by militants, the heavy and obtrusive army presence, the acute disillusionment of the Kashmiri people over the Kargil episode were the main factors. 
 

But an additional factor was the acute disillusionment of the Hindu migrant voters in the Valley and Hindu Pandits in the Jammu region with the BJP. This is evident from the number of Pandits who voted for the BJP. The BJP vote in the Jammu-Poonch region fell from 7,90,000 in 1998 to 2,90,000 this time. This means that only one-third of Pandit voters who supported the BJP last time extended their support to the same party this time. In Udhampur, too, the Pandit vote for the BJP declined from 5,23,000 votes in 1998 down to 1,94,000 this year. 

If there is such a sharp decline of votes within one year, from a particular segment with a particular party, what does it show? Obviously that, completely disillusioned with the BJP, which is also the ruling party at the Centre, Pandits have turned away from it. The BJP has led them up the garden path with false promises.
 

In the entire state of Jammu and Kashmir, the percentage of Muslim voters is high. Within the Jammu region, too, 30 per cent of the electorate is Muslim.
 

With an open alliance between the BJP and NC, is it really believable that seats with a high domination of Muslim voters would so willingly back the NC’s collaboration with the BJP? There is hardly a constituency anywhere in India where Muslim votes are sizeable in number and where they have wholeheartedly supported the BJP. So, it is hardly believable that they would do so in Jammu and Kashmir.

The disillusioned local population, both Muslim and Hindu, were looking for an alternative, a secular outlet to channelise their protest against the unholy nexus between the BJP and the National Conference
 

In short, both the Hindus and Muslims of Jammu and Kashmir are completely disillusioned with the ruling parties — the National Conference and the BJP.
 

There was blatant coercion of voters at the voting stage and subsequent manipulation of the results. My opinion is corroborated by EC observer’s report. 
 

In the midst of all this, secular parties, particularly the main opposition party, the Congress, that had converted secularism into a mantra all over the country, was conspicuous in that it put up only a nominal fight in the state. Since nothing can be expected from the opportunistic politics and regime of Farooq Abdullah’s National Conference and the communal worldview of the BJP, secular forces within the country must take their share of blame for the situation in Jammu and Kashmir.
 

Why did they betray the interests of Kashmiri Muslims, Jammu Hindus and the migrant Pandits living in the Valley? This is not what secularism is about. They had a wonderful opportunity during the last elections to intervene. They not only squandered an opportunity for themselves but have also compromised the national interest. The disillusioned local population, both Muslim and Hindu, were looking for an alternative, a secular outlet to channelise their protest against the unholy nexus between the BJP and the National Conference. 

The National Conference was a regional party which should have necessarily pitted itself against the insensitive and centrist politics of the Indian state. But, today, it has willingly been reduced to a mere tool of the BJP. It has completely lost the raison d’être of its existence. The Jammu Hindus, who were against Kashmiri Muslim domination, had under certain circumstances arising out of this, supported the BJP in the past. With the BJP shamefully allying with the NC, the raison d’être of this support, too, has also been completely eroded.

Given this state of a huge political vacuum and accumulated discontent what happens? Like I said before, it was the ideal situation for a secular formation with civil liberties, human rights perspective to intervene. 
 

In its absence, the local population has been pushed to the wall and a fresh lease of life has been given to militant activities. Without local support, no sophisticated weapons, no armed training can help militants succeed in any region.
 

This choice has, in my opinion at least, been forced on both the Kashmiri people and the people of Jammu. In 1996, when Farooq Abdullah’s National Conference came before the people, despite his past record, the people were willing to give him another chance. But over the past three years, his rule has been the worst ever, extremely corrupt, allowing no avenues or channels of protest.
 

All this must be seen in the context of heightened ‘national’ and ‘patriotic’ interest on the territory of the state during the Kargil conflict. The earlier ‘conviction’ and ‘assertion’ of the Indian authorities that, after Kargil, militancy would collapse has been disproved comprehensively.
 

Indian arrogance and insensitivity was manifest throughout the Kargil conflict?  The Indian media, most of it, swooped down on Kargil. But none mentioned the people of the state, the people of Jammu and Kashmir, where the war was being fought. Little mention was made then of the displaced persons either. This failure of the Indian media to even cursorily look at the plight of the Kashmiri people, with an ongoing struggle for democratic rights for decades, in my mind, constitutes a significant omission on the part of the Indian media. 
 

Conversely, there was a studied detachment among the local people at the war being waged. Unlike earlier occasions, there was no enthusiasm for the Indian army, throughout the operation, no donations for the jawans were collected, no blood banks held here. No state government ministers, with a few exceptions, even visited the front at the time.
 

I had made a special visit to Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee on this question. This visit was an attempt to apprise the Indian political leadership with the issues crucial to the people of the Valley, the Jammu region and Ladakh. The Shia Muslims who live in Kargil have a continuing disenchantment and discontent with Pakistan across the LOC, so even tactically it would have been wise of India to address their grievances. Though I was given assurances during my meeting with the Prime Minister, nothing has resulted.
 

The Indian government and the Indian people have consistently refused to address the grievances of the state. There is the struggle for Kashmiriyat. There has also been the expression of Jammu Hindus against Kashmiri Muslim domination. There has also been a movement for autonomy within the Ladakh region in which Kargil falls. 
 

For a month or so, things were silent after Kargil. The Pakistan-sponsored militancy movement remained silent. Local disillusionment with Pakistan, US and UN was also simmering. Pakistan had to do something to keep the movement alive. But what helped Pakistan significantly was the chief minister of the state, Farooq Abdullah’s coming out in open support of the BJP. At an RSS-sponsored function, he sang praises for the organisation and went to the extent of declaring that “the RSS is the most patriotic organisation”.
 

The political vacuum, the issue of acute discontent and disenchantment, during Kargil and post-Kargil especially at election-time, was unfortunately not addressed by any Indian political party, not even the so-called ‘secular’ Congress. 
 

The biggest betrayal of the state was in fact by the ‘secular’ Congress, as we can expect nothing from the BJP outside its self-declared divisive agenda. How interested the Congress party is in reflecting the genuine aspirations of the people of the state can be seen from the fact that the party had one member in Parliament and another in the Assembly. It got rid of both leaders, including Mufti Mohammed Sayeed just before the elections simply for suggesting dialogue with the militants. 

Has the party forgotten that during the last Congress government, Prime Minister Narasimha Rao’s cabinet colleague, Bhuvanesh Chaturvedi (then minister of state in the PM’s office), had, around 1995, offered unconditional talks with militants in Kashmir? How do political parties accept a resolution of the Kashmir issue without having such a dialogue?
 

If the government can talk to Naga leaders in Paris, and other people ‘without conditions’ why not in Kashmir? This was the issue on which Mufti Mohammed Sayeed felt let down and resigned, and the Congress put up a token fight during the recent elections in the state.
 

The failure of secular forces to give an adequate response to the ground-level reality in Jammu and Kashmir was most visible in the failure of established political parties and NGOs and civil liberties groups to campaign for Saifuddin Soz who stood as an independent. It was Soz’s single vote on which the BJP’s central government had fallen.
 

None of the national secular parties have raised a single voice against Farooq Abdullah’s support to the BJP. There has been not a word of disapproval for this open and unprincipled collaboration. The Congress goes to town criticising Sharad Pawar and Mulayam Singh for their individual “hobnobbing with the BJP”. But here is a leader who is openly allying with a communal force and there are no comments, no condemnations, no interventions from the top Congress leadership.
 

Former information and broadcasting minister, Pramod Mahajan was blatant about this cosy relationship before elections were held. On a visit to the state, when asked to comment on the prospects of the BJP-led NDA coming to power, he said that the “six seats from Jammu and Kashmir (all these are seats over which the National Conference had claim) are already in the NDA basket.”
 

How can we complain against the BJP and their agenda? Their agenda is clear and open, as is the Jamaat-e-Islami’s. But Farooq Abdullah’s open support to both these ideologies has been ignored and allowed to pass by secular parties. This is a great act of omission on their part.
 

There is every evidence of a serious comeback of militancy in the state. If militants can get at the very nerve centre of the Indian security system, the army, it means they are back. But what needs to be emphasised is that it is out of sheer desperation that local sentiments are being exploited like this. This is the only way they can express their resentment and that is why there is this silent but growing support for militant activities.
 

The political vacuum, if unaddressed, will be filled by extremists on both sides. The process has been assisted by lack of secular commitment on the part of Indians to the state. In Jammu, the BJP’s failure to meet the aspiration of the Hindu section of the population, will, soon give birth to outfits that are more extremist than the BJP even. 

The local Kashmiri leadership, too, is isolated and cannot be heard. Shabbir Shah is a leader who had projected a more tolerant ideology but whose voice was hardly heard in between. Soon after the recent elections, he and others were jailed by the National Conference without any charge. Why? 
 

Personally, I am not inspired by All-Party Hurriyat Conference, especially after they accepted the leadership of the Jamaat-e-Islami’s Syed Ali Shah Geelani, who is openly pro-Pakistan. Yasin Mallik, who once showed so much potential as the young and daring leader of the secular JKLF, has also fallen in with the official Hurriyat line. None of these Kashmiri leaders, by the way, condemned Pakistan’s conduct during Kargil and that I think was a major failure on all their part. 
 

India is obsessed with blocking the Kashmir issue internationally, outwitting Pakistan etc. Why are we not concerned with trying to solve problems within our control? If we regard the people of the state as our own, why do we not espouse or display any desire to hear their legitimate grievances and thereafter attempt solutions?

I now fear the political eclipse and redundancy of saner voices such as mine in such a situation. Physically, too, I am vulnerable. So far, I have been able to communicate with both sides in the dispute. But with the complete shrinking of space for sane and secular dialogue, I fear that with hardening, extremist stances on both sides, I will lose my space completely. 
 

A far stronger figure, like Gandhiji, found himself redundant in 1947 and eliminated in 1948; what chances has a far smaller man like me under the circumstances?
 

Just like the RSS and the BJP have assumed the sole monopoly on the Indian point of view, the Kashmiri protest movement has increasingly been epitomised by a Pakistani Muslim fundamentalist flavour. On both sides, extremists have taken over. The military coup has not helped matters but generated further confusion.

A very stable and dangerous triangle has emerged after the last elections. 
 

The three points in the triangle are Farooq Abdullah, the BJP (driven by the extremist RSS) and the Hurriyat (now openly supported by a pro-Pakistan, Jamaat-e-Islami).  While the three points of this triangle appear to oppose each other, they are in fact supporting each other. Hindu communalism supports Muslim communalism and an opportunistic National Conference makes political gain for itself, crucially dependant as it is on both the extremes. No points ever threaten each other; they depend on the other for their own survival. 

Archived from Communalism Combat, November 1999, Year 7  No. 53, Cover Story 1

The post Talibanisation of Kashmir appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Annexation of Kashmir through sponsored, armed insurgency is not the final goal of Pakistan. The final goal is the transfermation of Kashmiri Muslim society from its somewhat liberal outlook and life style to an absolutely conservative and orthodox Muslim society.

The model of this type of society is of the Taliban in Afghanistan. This model is being thrust on Kashmiri Muslims, and to an extent against their free will.

In the process, foreign Islamists — whom the Kashmiris call ‘guest mujahids’ — sponsored by Pakistan-based religious militia organisations, have two specific roles in the Valley. Firstly, as the soldiers of Allah, they fight a jihad against the Indian infidels, a duty, they say, is enjoined upon every pure Musalman. Secondly, they carry on a well-organised indoctrination programme aiming at converting local Muslim youth from a liberal to a conservative ideology, or from Kashmiriyat to pure faith.

Therefore, what is happening in Kashmir is its Talibanisation. It means reverting to the Islam of the days of Caliphs Omar and Usman. It aims at replacing coexistence by exclusivism, effacing all symbols of pre-Islamic culture, distorting history so as to sever established links between the ancient and the mediaeval and bringing about a sea-change in life style.

Madrassas (Islamic schools) are the cornerstone of propagation of orthodox Islamic ideology, and these have sprung in every town and village in Kashmir. Their curricula have changed from early crude anti-Hindu hatred to subtle distortion of the history of pre-Islamic times. From these institutions sprang a generation of closed-minded fanatics who are in the forefront of separatist struggle today. Though the National Conference governments in 1980s did visualise the consequences of the role of madrassas, yet it had neither will nor skill to restrain them. Finally the NC compromised its position following the execution of Z.A. Bhutto. 

After the NC assumed power in 1996, more than 1,300 new madrassas have been opened in the Valley; many with boarding schools. These bastions of Sunni Wahhabi ideology are playing a crucial role in Talibanisation of Kashmir. After all, the Taliban had also sprung from the Pakistani madrassas, which are the model for their Kashmiri counterparts.

In order to legitimise the madrassas and their sectarian character, the state government has been deliberately criticising its own educational institutions as inefficient. Even the chief minister is on record having expressed adverse remarks on government schools. This was a ploy for indirectly conceding legitimacy of the parochial Jamaat-e-Islami institutions.

The support structure for Talibanisation is to be found in the mosques. The theory of separating religion from politics has never worked in Kashmir, or anywhere in the Islamic world. If the grapevine is to be trusted, the builder of a mosque gets 25 per cent of the total cost of building a new mosque. 

The money reportedly comes from the Wahhabi-oriented Kashmiri Sunni Muslim Diaspora in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf States, or directly from Saudi intelligence agencies through their Kashmiri conduits. The phenomenon of raising mosques throughout Kashmir valley is strikingly similar to the raising of mosques in Central Asian states after they became independent in 1991.

In early 1980s, Allahwale, the all-India level missionaries of Sunni Wahhabi faith, surfaced in large numbers in the Valley and got scattered throughout its length and breadth. They had withdrawn to their shell when militancy broke out in Kashmir. Today, the Allahwale have re-emerged in the Valley and are carrying out their Islamisation agenda — of course, an exclusivist agenda running contrary to the secular Constitution of India.

Another dimension of Talibanisation of Kashmir is the onslaught on its composite culture often labelled as Kashmiriyat. There is a massive campaign of distortion of place names, legends, traditions and history which has something definitely to do with the pre-Islamic period of Kashmiri history. More than 3,000 place names have been changed and adorned with Islamic epithets. 

Pseudo-historians are trying to rewrite the cultural and social history of Kashmir. A strong lobby has been created to sell the theory that the Kashmiri race is not of Aryan but Semitic origin and that its cultural manifestations are not its own and indigenous, but largely or even fully borrowed from Central Asia. The symbols of Kashmir’s spontaneous identity, like Nund Rishi and Makhdum Sahib are being discarded as non-exclusivist and therefore unacceptable. Kashmir Shaivism is being projected as the sequel to the rising Sufi philosophy in Iran and Central Asia with impact on early Hindu spiritualists of Kashmir. 

Thus the Kashmiri Muslim is being taught to reject his past. The idea has been borrowed from the practice in Pakistan where history begins with the advent of Muhammad Bin Qasim in A.D. 712. Prior to that there is a big blank.

In life style, a drastic change has been effected. Young and old grow beard and falling tresses, the style said to have been of the elders of Islamic faith. Kashmiris, old and young, all have adopted the Afghan/Taliban dress — a baggy shalwar, longish shirt half coat, round outward turned headgear and a square piece of cloth folded triangularly and thrown round the neck. This again is in imitation of the Taliban who believe it to be style of the early Islamic conquerors and warriors from Arab lands.

Even in their address and public dealings, there are marked changes. The phraseology is that of the puritanical Muslims. For example, instead of the traditional ‘Khuda Hafiz’ (meaning farewell) now ‘Allah Hafiz’ is said because the word Khuda is of non-Arab origin (Khotaay in Avestic means the Lord).

Any dispassionate observer will have no difficulty in confirming these ground realities. We need courage to speak honestly what we see on the ground. Kashmir has been thoroughly Talibanised. In doing so, Pakistan has realised its essential goal. The “liberation” of Kashmir, according to them, is a corollary to Talibanisation. It has to be remembered that General Pervez Musharraf, the chief executive of Pakistan said it clearly that Kashmir’s annexation could wait. What is of importance is making India weak internally.  

Archived from Communalism Combat, November 1999, Year 7  No. 53, Cover Story 2

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