Kabul 

Luanda 

Canberra 

Dhaka 

Porto Novo 

La Paz 

Sucre 

Brasilia 

Yaounde 

Santiago 

Bogota 

Havana 

Quito 

Addis Abbaba 

Asmara 

Kampala 

Port Stanley 

Libreville 

Gibraltar 

Victoria 

Reykjavik 

New Delhi 

Jakarta 

Tehran 

Baghdad 

Phnom Penh 

Nairobi 

Vientiane 

Tripoli 

Antananarivo 

Kuala Lumpur 

Bamako 

Nouakchott 

Mexico City 

Ulaanbaatar 

Rangoon 

Windhoek 

Kathmandu 

Wellington 

Niamey 

Abuja 

Pyongyang 

Oslo 

Muscat 

Islamabad 

Manila 

Moscow 

Riyadh 

Mogadishu 

Cape Town 

Seoul 

Madrid 

Colombo 

Dar es Salaam 

Bangkok 

Tunis 

Ankara 

Ashgabat 

Kiev 

Washington D. C. 

Montevideo 

Caracas 

Georgetown Paramaribo 

Sanaa 

Kinshasa 

Lusaka 

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Algiers 

Buenos Aires 

Gaborone 

Ottawa 

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Beijing 

Cairo 

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Nuuk 

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Tokyo 

Monrovia 

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Maputo 

Mbabane 

Port Moresby 

Asuncion 

Lima 

Lisbon 

Dakar 

Freetown 

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Pretoria 

Khartoum 

Lome 

Hanoi 

N'Djamena 

FINLAND RUSSIA 

AUSTRIA 

ITALY 

SPAIN 

SWEDEN 

NORWAY 

GERMANY 

FRANCE 

PORTUGAL 

HUNGARY 

ROMANIA 

BULGARIA 

TURKEY 

DENMARK 

POLAND BELARUS 

UKRAINE 

CZECH SLOVAKIA 

GREECE 

CYPRUS 

IRELAND 

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GREENLAND 

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U. S. A. 

CANADA 

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CUBA 

PANAMA 

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GUATEMALA 

BELIZE 

HONDURAS 

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COSTA RICA 

JAMAICA 

HAITI 

DOM. REP. 

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BOLIVIA 

COLOMBIA 

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BRAZIL 

FRENCH GUIANA 

SURINAME 

GUYANA 

CHILE 

ECUADOR 

PARAGUAY 

URUGUAY 

FALKLAND ISLANDS 

SOUTH GEORGIA 

ISLAND 

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ETHIOPIA 

ERITREA 

SUDAN 

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NIGER 

MAURITANIA 

MALI 

NIGERIA 

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SOUTH AFRICA 

TANZANIA 

ZAIRE 

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ALGERIA 

MADAGASCAR 

MOZAMBIQUE 

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ZAMBIA 

GABON 

CENTRAL 

AFRICAN REPUBLIC 

TUNISIA 

MOROCCO 

UGANDA 

SWAZILAND 

LESOTHO 

MALAWI 

BURUNDI 

RWANDA 

TOGO 

GHANA BENIN 

IVORY 

COAST 

LIBERIA 

SIERRA LEONE 

GUINEA 

BURKINA 

GAMBIA 

CAMEROON 

SAO TOME & PRINCIPE 

ZIMBABWE 

CONGO 

EQUATORIAL GUINEA 

WESTERN 

SAHARA 

DJIBOUTI 

SENEGAL 

GUINEA BISSAU 

Canary Islands JORDAN 

ISRAEL 

LEBANON 

ARMENIA 

GEORGIA KYRGYZSTAN 

TAJIKISTAN 

KUWAIT 

QATAR 

U. A. E. 

YEMEN 

SYRIA IRAQ 

IRAN 

OMAN 

SAUDI ARABIA 

AFGHANISTAN 

PAKISTAN 

INDIA 

KAZAKHSTAN 

TURKMENISTAN 

UZBEKISTAN 

CHINA 

MYANMAR 

THAILAND 

KAMPUCHEA 

NEPAL 

BHUTAN 

VIETNAM 

SRI LANKA 

LAOS 

BANGLADESH 

PAPUA 

NEW GUINEA 

BRUNEI 

SINGAPORE 

PHILIPPINES 

TAIWAN 

MALAYSIA 

INDONESIA 

JAPAN 

MONGOLIA 

SOUTH KOREA 

NORTH KOREA 

AUSTRALIA 

NEW ZEALAND 

U. K. 

NEW CALEDONIA 

FIJI 

ARCTIC OCEAN 

ATLANTIC 

PACIFIC 

INDIAN 

OCEAN 

OCEAN 

OCEAN 

Religious Radicalism

and Security in 

South Asia

Religious Radicalism

and Security in 

South Asia

Kabul 

Dhaka 

New Delhi 

Tehran 

Vientiane Rangoon 

Kathmandu 

Muscat 

Islamabad 

Colombo 

Bangko

Ashgabat 

KYRGYZSTAN 

TAJIKISTAN 

IRAN 

AFGHANISTAN 

PAKISTAN 

INDIA 

TURKMENISTAN 

CHINA 

MYANMAR 

THAILAND

KA

NEPAL 

BHUTAN 

SRI LANKA 

LAOS

BANGLADESH 

INDIAN

 Edited by:

Satu P. Limaye

Robert G. Wirsing

Mohan Malik
RELIGIOUS RADICALISM

AND SECURITY IN SOUTH ASIA

EDITED BY

SATU P. LIMAYE

MOHAN MALIK

ROBERT G. WIRSING

ASIA-PACIFIC CENTER FOR SECURITY STUDIES

HONOLULU, HAWAII
ISBN:

Published in Spring 2004 by the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies.

For reprint permissions, contact the editors at the Asia-Pacific Center for

Security Studies, 2058 Maluhia Road, Honolulu, Hawaii 96815.

All views expressed in the chapters of this book are those of the authors

and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Asia-Pacific Center for

Security Studies or those of any governmental agency.
CONTENTS

Chapter 1 Introduction: Religion, Radicalism, 1

and Security in South Asia

ROBERT G. WIRSING

PART ONE: ROOTS OF RELIGIOUS RADICALISM

Chapter 2 Origins and Growth Patterns of Islamic 17

Organizations in Pakistan

MOHAMMAD WASEEM

Chapter 3 Islamic Resurgence in Bangladesh: Genesis, 35

Dynamics and Implications

TAJ I. HASHMI

Chapter 4 Ideology, Organization and Electoral Strategy 73

of Hindu Nationalism: What’s Religion Got 

to Do with It? 

ARUN R. SWAMY

Chapter 5 Madrassa Education in Pakistan and Bangladesh 101

MUMTAZ AHMAD

Chapter 6 Reforming the Indian Madrassas: 117

Contemporary Muslim Voices 

YOGINDER SIKAND

PART TWO: RELIGIOUS RADICALISM AND

THE THREAT OF VIOLENCE

Chapter 7 Pakistan’s Sectarian Violence: Between the 147

“Arabist Shift” and Indo-Persian Culture

SUROOSH IRFANI

Chapter 8 Ethnic Separatism and Insurgency in Kashmir 171

SURINDER SINGH OBEROI
Chapter 9 Dangerous Liaisons: Hindu Nationalism 193

and Buddhist Radicalism in Ladakh

MARTIJN VAN BEEK

Chapter 10 Ethnicity, Ideology and Religion: Separatist 219

Movements in India’s Northeast

SUBIR BHAUMIK

Chapter 11 Ethnicity and the Rise of Religious Radicalism: 245

The Security Scenario in Contemporary 

Northeastern India

SAMIR KUMAR DAS

Chapter 12 America’s War on Terrorism: Religious 273

Radicalism and Nuclear Confrontation 

in South Asia

RODNEY W. JONES

Chapter 13 The Stability of Nuclear Deterrence 321

in South Asia: The Clash between 

State and Anti-state Actors

MOHAN MALIK

Chapter 14 Pakistan’s Terrorism Dilemma 351

HUSAIN HAQQANI

PART THREE: POLICY IMPLICATIONS OF

RELIGIOUS RADICALISM

Chapter 15 Religious Radicalism and State Policies of 365

Democratic Governance and Human Rights

RAVI NAIR

Chapter 16 The Creation and Development of Pakistan’s 387

Anti-terrorism Regime, 1997–2002

CHARLES H. KENNEDY
Chapter 17 Religious Extremism and Nationalism 413

in Bangladesh

BERTIL LINTNER

Chapter 18 Religious Radicalism and Minorities 437

in South Asia

RADHA KUMAR

Chapter 19 Islamic Radicalism and Minorities in Pakistan 447

RASUL BAKHSH RAIS

Chapter 20 Religion, Politics and Security: The Case 467

of Bangladesh

AMENA A. MOHSIN

Chapter 21 Security in Times of Hindutva? 489

NEERA CHANDHOKE

CONTRIBUTORS 515
In the immediate aftermath of its publication, Harvard

University Professor Samuel P. Huntington’s 1993 Foreign Affairs article entitled “The Clash of Civilizations?” generated a firestorm of

debate.1 Critics called it an overstatement, simplistic, even mischievous. A decade later, his central thesis—that conflicts between religion-based civilizations would dominate world politics in the coming

century—seemed to be holding its ground. Indeed, more than a few

seasoned observers of world politics were expressing the view that

Huntington’s argument had been substantially vindicated by events—

that, by almost any imaginable measure, religion had emerged in the

first years of the twenty-first century not only as a central issue of

international public discourse but also as a central ingredient in violent global conflict.2

1

1

ROBERT G. WIRSING

Introduction: Religion, Radicalism, and Security

in South Asia

1. Samuel P. Huntington, “The Clash of Civilizations?” Foreign Affairs 72, no. 3

(Summer 1993).

2. Hoover Institution’s Stanley Kurtz began an essay reconsidering Huntington’s

thesis, published about ten months after the catastrophic events of September 11,

2001, with the comment: “This is Samuel P. Huntington’s moment. The world of cultural and religious strife anticipated by Huntington in his much-discussed (and widely

excoriated) book, The Clash of Civilizations, has unquestionably arrived.” See “The

Future of ‘History,’” Policy Review, no. 113 (June/July 2002), online edition.
2 ROBERT G. WIRSING

It is unlikely that Huntington himself could have foreseen either the

rapidity or extent of religion’s rise to prominence in world affairs. He

had warned, of course, that Islam had especially bloody borders; but

that the rough outlines of a global fault line war pitting the West

against the Islamic world, or at least against its most refractory components, would be in place less than a decade hence was clearly

beyond anyone’s powers of prophecy.

Islamic militancy was already a burning issue in much of the world

by the end of the twentieth century. In late 2001, it quite unexpectedly hurtled to the top of the world threat list, driven there by the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington and the subsequent

launching of the global war on terrorism. The humiliating defeat of

Baathist-ruled Iraq by American-led coalition forces in April 2003

seemed bound to keep it there. Notwithstanding strenuous efforts in

this period by numerous national leaders and a host of intellectuals to

draw a clear distinction between Islam as a major and humane world

religion and Islam as a cloak for politically motivated terrorist violence, the temptation to dilute the distinction has faced increasingly

less resistance. Indeed, there was some danger that a “clash of civilizations” of some sort was no longer mere abstraction.

Religion’s rise in salience was especially visible in world public opinion, where stunning changes in perceived threat seemed to confirm

Huntington’s postulated refashioning of the world order. For

instance, a massive Pew Global Attitudes opinion survey of more

than thirty-eight thousand people in forty-four nations, conducted

roughly a year after 9/11, turned up disturbing evidence of profound

differences in how people from different regions of the globe viewed

the United States and the U.S.-led global war on terrorism.3 Majorities

rated the United States favorably in thirty-five of the forty-two countries in which the question was asked. The most negative opinions of

both the United States and the global war on terrorism were recorded

in predominantly Muslim countries of the Middle East and South

Asia—Lebanon, Turkey, Jordan, Pakistan, Egypt, and Bangladesh.4

3. What the World Thinks in 2002: The Pew Global Attitudes Project (Washington, D.C.:

The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, December 2002).

4. Of Muslim countries in what the survey designated the Middle East/Conflict

Area, only Uzbekistan, where an extremely high 85 percent of those polled gave the

United States a favorable rating, departed from the norm. Majorities in all Muslim

countries in the survey, again excluding Uzbekistan but including Indonesia and

Senegal, opposed the war on terrorism.
INTRODUCTION: RELIGION, RADICALISM, AND SECURITY IN SOUTH ASIA 3

Of these, Pakistan—in spite of its membership of the global coalition against terrorism and key role in the coalition’s war in

Afghanistan—stood out for its people’s apparent disdain for America

and lack of sympathy for the global war on terrorism. According to

the survey, only 10 percent of Pakistanis (the second-lowest percentage among all nations surveyed) had a favorable opinion of the

United States; only 2 percent (the lowest figure among all the nations

surveyed) had a positive impression of the spread of American ideas

and customs; only 9 percent (again, the lowest figure among all

nations surveyed) preferred American ideas about democracy; and

while 45 percent opposed the U.S.-led war on terrorism, only 20 percent favored it. Bangladesh respondents were only mildly more favorably inclined: 45 percent had a favorable view of the United States

(against 47 percent unfavorable); 31 percent preferred American ideas

about democracy (against 31 percent who did not); only 14 percent

had a positive impression of the spread of American ideas and customs; and only 28 percent favored the U.S.-led war on terrorism.

An especially startling finding surfaced in a Pew follow-up survey

question that queried respondents’ view of suicide bombing in

defense of Islam. At least a quarter of Muslims in eleven of the fourteen countries surveyed believed that suicide bombings could be justified in order to defend Islam from its enemies. Support for suicide

bombing had surprisingly sizeable majorities in Lebanon (73 percent)

and Ivory Coast (56 percent); and relatively high minorities supported

it in the two Muslim-majority South Asian countries in the survey—

Bangladesh (44 percent) and Pakistan (33 percent).5

Not surprisingly, the generally negative opinions Muslims around

the world seemed to harbor about the United States and the global

war on terrorism were strongly reciprocated by residents of the

United States. In a summer 2002 poll of 3,262 Americans sponsored

jointly by The Chicago Council on Foreign Relations and the German

Marshall Fund, terrorism topped the list of perceived threats to U.S.

vital interests. Muslim countries had remarkably low ratings on the

poll’s “favorability on thermometer scale”: Saudi Arabia (33 degrees),

Pakistan (31 degrees), Iran (28 degrees), and Afghanistan (29 degrees)

had all fallen in favor or remained stationary since 1998 in marked

contrast with countries like Russia (55 degrees), Britain (76 degrees),

5. What the World Thinks, 5.
4 ROBERT G. WIRSING

or Germany (61 degrees)—all of whom had risen in favor substantially. There were also clear signs of marked increases in wariness

among Americans toward Islam: the proportion of Americans who

considered Islamic fundamentalism a critical threat to vital American

interests had jumped twenty-three points—from 38 percent to 61

percent—since 1998; four out of ten Americans declared the terrorist attacks of 9/11 to represent the “true teachings” of Islam—to a

great degree (21 percent) or to some degree (18 percent); and there

was strong support (76 percent) for tightened restrictions on immigrants to the United States from Arab or Muslim lands.6

Islam, whether combined rhetorically with militancy, fundamentalism, radicalism, or terrorism, without doubt currently occupies the

spotlight in the West’s efforts to beat back the current challenge to its

dominance of the global order. Admittedly, Islam may persist in this

role—or even fill it in yet more catastrophically violent ways—well

into the future.7 It should not be imagined, however, that Islam is the

only religion on the planet able and willing to swell the ranks of religious radicalism or, for that matter, to inspire acts of terrorism.

Militant Hindu and Sikh movements, not infrequently tinged with violence and terrorism, have lengthy histories in India. Religious radicalism is not a rarity amongst Christians, either. On the contrary, there

are indications that the world’s rapidly expanding Christian population

may be acquiring “fundamentalist” traits hitherto attributed mainly to

Islam. Observing that “in the past half century the critical centers of

the Christian world have moved decisively to Africa, to Latin America,

and to Asia,” Pennsylvania State University historian Philip Jenkins

argues that revolutionary change in world Christianity is in progress,

that the motivation for change is conservative and fundamentalist at

its core, and that “in its variety and vitality, in its global reach, in its

association with the world’s fastest-growing societies, in its shifting

centers of gravity, in the way its values and practices vary from place

6. A World Transformed: Foreign Policy Attitudes of the U.S. Public after September 11

(Chicago: The Chicago Council on Foreign Relations, 2002).

7. This is the unsettling message of a recent commentary by a leading American

academic. According to him, “a dialectical and symbiotic connection, perhaps an

escalating and vicious cycle, exists between the [growth of the American Empire and

the growth of Islamic terrorism], and the world is about to witness a titanic and

explosive struggle between them.” James Kurth, “Confronting the Unipolar Moment:

The American Empire and Islamic Terrorism,” Current History (December 2002): 404.
INTRODUCTION: RELIGION, RADICALISM, AND SECURITY IN SOUTH ASIA 5

to place—in these and other ways it is Christianity [not Islam] that will

leave the deepest mark on the twenty-first century.”8

South Asian Regional Perspective

THE GLOBAL WAR ON TERRORISM launched in October 2001 has had a

visibly profound impact on the states of South Asia—on Pakistan

most directly and physically, of course, but in one way or another on

the others as well. However, its impact on these states has been in certain key respects less traumatic—less politically and socially destabilizing, in other words—than in the case of countries in some other

regions. This is in part because South Asia, so far at least, has not been

a primary target in the war: It housed none of the so-called “rogue”

states, none of the notorious “axis of evil.”

In larger part, however, the states of South Asia have taken the war

on terrorism more or less in stride because religious radicalism and its

terrorist offshoots were already staples of the political agendas of

these states long before they reared their heads in New York and

Washington. These phenomena have none of the novelty in South

Asia, to put it simply, that they undoubtedly possess in South Bronx.

Indeed, few if any of the world’s other geographic regions can boast

of more deeply entrenched and widely felt patterns of religious radicalism than have been evident for decades in South Asia. This applies

especially to the two largest and most populous countries in the

region, India and Pakistan, but it also applies, albeit to a lesser extent,

to Bangladesh. Though these states differ greatly amongst themselves

when it comes to the roots, nature, and scale of religion-related radicalism, in all three states these phenomena are now major public

issues. They crop up constantly both in their domestic politics and in

their relations with one another.

INDIA

On India’s domestic front, religious radicalism has found its politically most powerful expression in the so-called sangh parivar—the family of militant Hindu groups (including, most notably, the Rashtriya

8. Philip Jenkins, “The Next Christianity,” Atlantic Monthly (October 2002): 54–55.

Jenkins’ ideas are elaborated in his book, The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global

Christianity (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002).
6 ROBERT G. WIRSING

Swayamsevak Sangh, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, the Shiv Sena, and

the Bajrang Dal) that form the organizational backbone of contemporary Hindu nationalism. The Hindutva ideology of these groups,

having the goal of a united Hindu Rashtra (Hindu Nation)—and

asserting existence of a blanket “Hindu” national identity for all of

India’s inhabitants, be they formally Hindu or not—occupies one side

in a heated and momentous debate nowadays over India’s national

destiny. How one feels this destiny is best served—in regard to such

issues as the disposal of Kashmir, for instance, or the content of

school history textbooks, or the treatment of India’s religious minorities, or the restoration of the Ram temple at Ayodhya, or even the

protection of India’s innumerable “holy cows”9—inevitably turns in

no small measure on one’s understanding of religion and of its relationship to Indian nationalism. Presently well positioned to advance

its Hindutva-oriented understanding of these is the Bharatiya Janata

Party (BJP), the political embodiment of Hindu nationalism and current leader of the country’s ruling coalition government. For all of

India’s political parties, however, no matter how liberal and secular

they claim to be, the matter of religious identity is never very far from

the top of the political agenda.

The radical religious strain in Indian domestic politics surfaced

quite plainly in the legislative assembly elections held in Gujarat State

in December 2002. In these fiercely fought and immensely crucial

elections (the first of ten state elections scheduled in the run-up to the

national elections in 2004), Narendra Modi, the controversial incumbent chief minister, led the BJP’s state unit to a smashing political victory—securing 126 seats (more than two-thirds of the total) against

its Congress rival’s paltry 51. Almost all political analysts have conceded that the Muslim massacre of Hindu pilgrims that occurred at

Godhra earlier in the year in the states’ south, together with the widespread anti-Muslim violence that followed it, bore heavily on the election results. As India’s liberal intellectual class tended to see it, the

election’s outcome was yet another unwelcome sign that India’s secular statehood stood in considerable peril. Yogendra Yadav, one of

9. The University of Delhi historian who first sought to publish a book arguing that

the cow did not achieve sacred standing in Hinduism until the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries reportedly received death threats for his heresy. D. N. Jha, The Myth

of the Holy Cow (New York: Verso, 2002).
INTRODUCTION: RELIGION, RADICALISM, AND SECURITY IN SOUTH ASIA 7

India’s most seasoned election analysts, observed in Frontline, for

example, that “the BJP managed to recover its eroding social base

with carefully crafted and subtly executed politics of hatred. It did

succeed in keeping the damage within limits and offset these against

gains made in new regions and among new social groups. AntiMuslim violence played a crucial role in this process of recovery, damage control and acquisition.”10

On India’s foreign front, New Delhi has traded very heavily in

recent years in accusations of religious extremism against its major

regional rival, Pakistan. The allegation that Pakistan was a “state sponsor of terrorism”—in particular, of Islamic terrorism—in Muslimmajority Kashmir was already a mainstay of Indian appeals for international (especially American) support by the middle of the 1990s;

and it grew steadily more prominent thereafter. In a letter to President

Bill Clinton on 12 May 1998, for example, in which he explained the

rationale underlying India’s initial series of nuclear tests, Prime

Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee complained of India’s “deteriorating

security environment” and, without actually naming Pakistan, of

India’s having been “for the last ten years ... the victim of unremitting

terrorism and militancy sponsored by it in several parts of [the] country, specially Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir.”11 Vajpayee’s External

Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh, echoing these sentiments and capitalizing on the growing international unpopularity of Islamabad’s

patronage of Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, declared in a public speech a

year later in the wake of the Kargil crisis that Pakistan’s action at

Kargil was “an overspill of the ‘Afghanistan disorder syndrome’ ... a

manifestation of this medieval malevolence spilling over from

Afghanistan.”12

Application of the terrorist label to Pakistan gained much greater

credibility in late 2001, of course, when the West’s hugely expanded

apprehensions over the tactics of religious radicals suddenly seemed

to overlap—and thus to validate—India’s pre-existing fear that

Kashmir had been “hijacked” by jihad-motivated and Pakistan-based

10. Yogendra Yadav, “The Patterns and Lessons,” Frontline 19, no. 26 (21 December

2002 – 3 January 2003), online edition.

11. “India’s Letter to Clinton on the Nuclear Testing,” New York Times, 12 May

1998, online edition.

12. Jaswant Singh, “Kargil and Beyond” (speech given at the India International

Centre, New Delhi, 20 July 1999), text reproduced by the Embassy of India web service.
8 ROBERT G. WIRSING

foreign militants. Having survived for years on Western political

agendas primarily as an instance of human rights deprivation, the

Kashmir dispute now seemed in real danger of slipping into the category of just another front in the global war on terrorism.

PAKISTAN

Pakistan’s national reputation has been subjected to a relentless battering in recent years—and not only from its Indian adversary.

Routinely described in the Western media as a politically maimed and

potentially “failed” or “failing” state, Pakistan was said by responsible

observers even before 9/11 to be “drifting toward religious extremism.”13 Prominent American academics and professional analysts

claimed that many Pakistani Army officers “share the religious zeal of

the fundamentalists”14 and that the country’s thousands of madrassas

(traditional religious schools, seminaries or academies) were serving as

massive institutional incubators of religious fanaticism as well as

recruiting centers for the Islamic jihad.15 Prestigious American think

tanks occasionally weighed in with highly damaging country profiles

of their own. For instance, the comprehensive report (Transition 2001)

presented to the Bush administration in its first weeks in office by a

blue ribbon panel assembled by the Rand Corporation contained the

stark warning that 

Pakistan is in serious crisis and is pursuing policies counter to

important U.S. interests. The United States should increase

pressure on Islamabad to stop support for the Taliban, to

cooperate in the fight against terrorism, to show restraint in

Kashmir, and to focus on solving its own internal problems.... Pakistan continues to be beset by unhealthy political,

economic, and strategic trends.... The most disturbing of

these trends has been the growth of Islamic extremism.

Extremist groups thrive because of Pakistan’s continuing

state failures and because they are intentionally supported by

13. Barry Bearak, “Death to Blasphemers: Islam’s Grip on Pakistan,” New York

Times, 12 May 2001, online edition.

14. Sumit Ganguly, “Pakistan’s Never-Ending Story,” Foreign Affairs 79, no. 2

(March/April 2000): 6.

15. See, for instance, Rahul Bedi, “Kashmir Peace Talks Collapse,” Jane’s Intelligence

Review 12, no. 10 (1 October 2000), online edition for Asia.
INTRODUCTION: RELIGION, RADICALISM, AND SECURITY IN SOUTH ASIA 9

the Pakistan military and secret services in the pursuit of the

latter’s goals in Kashmir and Afghanistan.16

Not the least damaging assessment, however, had come on 25

March 2000, not long before the release of the Rand report, directly

and unequivocally from an American president. In his televised

address to the people of Pakistan during a brief five-hour visit to the

country at the end of an India-centered trip to the region, Bill Clinton

came within a hair’s breadth of branding Pakistan a sponsor of terrorism. Specifically, he admonished his listeners to recognize “that no

grievance, no cause, no system of belief can ever justify deliberate

killing of innocents. Those who bomb bus stations, target embassies

and kill those who uphold the law are not heroes.” He noted Pakistan’s

“tragic squandering of effort, energy and wealth on policies that make

[it] poorer but not safer.” On Kashmir, he urged restraint and respect

for the Line of Control. He called attention to what he designated “a

stark truth,” specifically that “there is no military solution to

Kashmir,” then added the biting moral admonition that “it is wrong

to support attacks against civilians across the Line of Control.”17

The advent of the global war on terrorism brought only modest

relief for Pakistan’s beleaguered public image. Indeed, though

Pakistan found itself suitably positioned once again in the frontline of

the West’s fight against a common enemy, Pakistan’s reputation continued to take a beating. The radical Islamist cum terrorist brand clung

to it like a tar baby—even more tightly, it seemed, when linked with

allegations of nuclear recklessness. Witness, for example, the comments of Jim Hoagland, a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist,

in an article appearing in the Washington Post on 24 October 2002,

soon after charges were made that Pakistan had supplied to North

Korea equipment for enriching uranium. Provocatively headlined

“Nuclear Enabler: Pakistan Today Is the Most Dangerous Place on

Earth,” the article declared that

[President] Pervez Musharraf ’s Pakistan is a base from which

nuclear technology, fundamentalist terrorism and life16. Transition 2001 (Washington, D.C.: The Rand Corporation, January 2001), xiii, 45.

17. “Complete Text of President Clinton’s Address to the People of Pakistan,”

Dawn, 25 March 2000, online edition.
10 ROBERT G. WIRSING

destroying heroin are spread around the globe. American and

French citizens and Christians of any nationality, including

Pakistani, are indiscriminately slaughtered by fanatics as occasion arises. This nuclear-armed country is in part

ungoverned, in part ungovernable.18

For those already convinced that the repugnant reputation was

wholly deserved, the results of the October 2002 elections of

Pakistan’s national and provincial assemblies seemed to offer confirmation. The elections catapulted into the political limelight the

Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA), a fiercely anti-U.S. bloc of six ultraconservative Islamist parties. The alliance won an unprecedented 52

of 272 seats (19 percent) in the National Assembly election, lifting the

religious parties into a potentially power-brokering role in the central

government for the first time in Pakistan’s history; and in the provincial elections, the MMA won outright control of the North West

Frontier Province (NWFP) and a major share in power in a coalition

government in Baluchistan—like the NWFP geographically situated

next to the strategically sensitive Afghanistan border. There were a

number of reasons for the MMA’s electoral triumph; and some of

them had very little to do with Islam. Moreover, the fact that the

MMA secured only 11 percent of the popular vote nationwide (and

much less than that in the country’s most populous provinces—the

Punjab and Sindh) argued fairly persuasively against the idea that religious fanaticism was sweeping the nation. Nevertheless, the belief

that Pakistan was not wholeheartedly committed to the West’s side in

the global war on terrorism could not easily be dismissed.

BANGLADESH

Bangladesh has long enjoyed a reputation as an especially moderate Islamic country. Considered by many to be culturally more

Bengali than Muslim, it was a relative latecomer to the list of nations

said by some to be dangerously infected with the virus of religious

radicalism. A number of developments prompted its placement in

this category. One of them was the surprising capture of sixteen

seats in the National Assembly by the rightwing Jamaat-i-Islami (JI)

18. Jim Hoagland, “Nuclear Enabler: Pakistan Today Is the Most Dangerous Place

on Earth,” Washington Post, 24 October 2002, online edition.
INTRODUCTION: RELIGION, RADICALISM, AND SECURITY IN SOUTH ASIA 11

religious party in the October 2001 general elections. In fact, this figure represented only 5 percent of the total number of seats.

Moreover, the JI’s success was mainly the fortuitous product of its

inclusion in a four-party electoral alliance formed by Begum Khaleda

Zia’s Bangladesh National Party (BNP), which won a smashing victory over the Awami League and, besides, an outright parliamentary

majority in its own right. Bangladesh’ Islamists were not in a position,

in other words, to claim an electoral coup even remotely on the scale

of the one scored by Pakistan’s Islamist parties exactly a year later.

A perhaps equally potent reason for ringing of the religious extremist alarm bell over Bangladesh were sensational reports of spreading

Islamic militancy—including attacks on the country’s Hindu minority

(as much as 11 percent of the population)—that seemed to surface

with increasing frequency in world media in the wake of the October

2001 elections. To the great chagrin of the BNP’s leadership, widely

circulated articles warning of the mushrooming growth of militantrun madrassas, of the existence of covert military training camps for

recruits to the Islamic jihad, and of a thickening web of organizational links between militant Bangladeshi groups with al-Qaeda

appeared under such arresting headlines as “Beware of Bangladesh—

Bangladesh: Cocoon of Terror,”19 and “Bangladesh: Breeding

Ground for Muslim Terror.”20 An October 15, 2002 Time magazine

report bearing the title “Deadly Cargo” observed that “signs abound

that Bangladesh has become a safe haven for Islamic jihadis—including Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters fresh off the boat from

Afghanistan.” This article told of a midnight rendezvous in

December 2001 off the coast of Bangladesh, where more than a hundred heavily armed al-Qaeda fighters, fleeing American bombing in

Afghanistan, were allegedly off-loaded and sped to hiding places presumably in the Chittagong Hill Tracts.21 Faced with such reports, the

Bangladesh government fought back, insisting that it was the target of

an internationally orchestrated slander campaign.22 It appeared most

unlikely, however, that the issue of religious radicalism would soon be

19. Bertil Lintner, “Beware of Bangladesh—Bangladesh: Cocoon of Terror,” Far

Eastern Economic Review (4 April 2002).

20. Lintner, “Bangladesh: Breeding Ground for Muslim Terror,” Asia Times, 21

September 2002, online edition.

21. Alex Perry, “Deadly Cargo,” Time Asia, 15 October 2002, online edition.

22. Haroon Habib, “Bangladesh Alleges Slander Campaign,” The Hindu, 18 October

2002, online edition.
12 ROBERT G. WIRSING

removed from the domestic and foreign policy agendas of

Bangladesh.

Workshop on Religion and Security in South Asia

RELIGIOUS RADICALISM was a significant policy problem in most of

the South Asian countries even before the terrorist attacks of

September 11, 2001. From the brief discussion above, one can readily see that it has grown into a yet more formidable problem since

then. This problem clearly presents itself today as a challenge to

domestic policymakers in most of the seven countries of South Asia;

it presents itself also as a challenge at the levels of regional and international security policy. Without doubt, religious radicalism merits

classification, in particular, among the most serious challenges currently confronting U.S. security policy pertaining to the South Asian

region. This holds true even if the scale of religious radicalism’s

threat to the region (or any country in it) in the popular imagination

is grossly overstated.

Recognition of the need for serious examination of the problem

of religious radicalism in the South Asian region prompted the AsiaPacific Center for Security Studies in Honolulu, Hawaii, to hold a

workshop on “Religion and Security in South Asia” from 19–22

August 2002. The workshop focused on the three largest countries

of the region—India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. It brought together

senior policymakers, defense officials, journalists, intelligence analysts, nongovernmental organization (NGO) activists, and leading

academics concerned with South Asia to discuss issues relating to the

phenomenon of religious radicalism in the region. The specific

objective was to advance policymakers’ understanding of the relationship between religious radicalism and security in this region, and

thus to improve their capacity to fashion security policies appropriate to the challenges of religious radicalism in the present period.

Thirty-eight individuals from six nations (Bangladesh, Denmark,

India, Pakistan, Thailand, United States) participated in the workshop.

The workshop was organized into nine panels focused on three

broad themes: (1) the ideological, organizational, and institutional
INTRODUCTION: RELIGION, RADICALISM, AND SECURITY IN SOUTH ASIA 13

roots of religious radicalism in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, (2) the

relationship of religious radicalism to the threat of both domestic and

interstate violence in South Asia, and (3) the policy implications, both

domestic and international, of religious radicalism. Specific questions

considered in the workshop included the following:

• What is the scale of religious radicalism’s threat to the security of

South Asia and adjoining regions?

• What differences exist in the nature and scale of religious radicalism in the three countries under study?

• In organization, ideology, and political impact, how does Islamic radicalism compare with Hindu radicalism?

• Exactly what does religion, understood as a body of beliefs and

doctrine, have to do with religious radicalism? To what extent is religious identity merely a vehicle rather than an inspiration for religious

radicalism?

• How important are madrassas as “incubators” or “factories” of

Islamic militancy and terrorism?

• What are the causes and current dimensions of inter-communal

and sectarian violence in these three countries?

• What is the relationship between ethnic separatism and religious

radicalism—in particular as manifested in Kashmir and in India’s

Northeast?

• What impact has the global war on terrorism had on the growth and

severity of religious radicalism in the three countries? In particular,

what has been its impact on India-Pakistan relations?

• How have the international community and, especially, the United

States government reacted to religious radicalism in South Asia?

How have their policies differed in this regard from country to

country in the region?

• What policy measures should the United States, other countries,

and international organizations take in South Asia to best meet the

challenge of religious radicalism?
14 ROBERT G. WIRSING

The papers assembled in this volume address these issues and others. From the beginning, care was taken to ensure that all topics dealt

with—all of them enormously controversial—would be addressed

from a diversity of philosophical and national points of view. Thus,

no “school perspective”—much less any “school solution”—will be

found herein. The organizers of the workshop, and of the book,

understood that a major challenge was to maintain throughout the

project a commitment to impartial, unfettered, and rigorous scholarly

inquiry. Naturally, this does not mean that a reader will find the argument in each chapter entirely appealing. Were that the case, the organizers would surely have failed in their task. It is the hope of the project’s organizers that the contents of this volume will stimulate closer

attention—by policymakers as well as academic analysts—to the

widespread, multifaceted, and profoundly important phenomenon of

religious radicalism in South Asia.
PART ONE

ROOTS OF RELIGIOUS RADICALISM
17

During the flurry of scholarly studies after September 11,

2001, researchers typically focused on investigation into Quranic

teachings, analysis of jihad and jihadis and interpretations of the

“Muslim mind” in general. This approach was sometimes put in a

larger context of the perceived clash of civilizations. The specific

Islamic civilization was characterized as a relatively emotive, undisciplined, medievalist and essentially irrational force inherently disruptive of the modern civilization led by the West. Often, jihadi parties

and groups, topped by the erstwhile Taliban and its ally al-Qaeda

operating in the region surrounding Pakistan, provided the basic

material for outlining the emergence of a self-propelling motivating

force in the form of Islamic organizations. According to this

approach, this inner state of mind of Muslim terrorists inspired by

jihadist teachings lies at the heart of the problem.

Paul Brass distinguishes this so-called primordial approach from

the instrumentalist or circumstantialist approach, which considers

Islamic ideology as a social construct sponsored by the elite in pursuit

2

MOHAMMAD WASEEM

Origins and Growth Patterns of Islamic

Organizations in Pakistan
18 MOHAMMAD WASEEM

of political objectives.1 While the primordial approach stresses the

innate mobilizing and inspiring strength of the appeal of Islamic values and norms, the circumstantialist approach focuses on state policies and organizational goals. The latter approach has been an obvious casualty in the heat of debate during the war against terror. It has

been generally discounted as irrelevant and inapplicable to the current

Muslim challenge to the world peace and stability. For example, in a

recent opinion poll in the United States, 82 percent of people believed

that terrorism was not related to public policy as pursued by

Washington. In most Muslim countries, including Pakistan, there are

estimated to be as many people or even more who would believe otherwise. In other words, the Muslim self-statement is rooted in the circumstantialist approach to Islamic militancy. According to this, it is

the perceived unjust policies of the United States that should be held

responsible for the emergence of anti-American feelings throughout

the Muslim world. It is argued that the content and style of Islamic

organizational activities can be most fruitfully evaluated in a contextual framework.

We propose to look at the issue of Islamic militancy in Pakistan

with reference to the postcolonial state, which cultivated Islam as a

supreme source of legitimacy. In addition, we shall discuss the emergence of political Islam as an electoral force, a quarter of a century

after independence. Similarly, we want to analyze the political role of

sectarian organizations along with their madrassa-based educational

and training activities. Finally, we shall discuss the input of international Islamic networks in the emergence of the militant thought and

practice.

State and Islam

IN THE CONTEXT OF THE POPULAR RESPONSE to Western policies or to

policies of pro-Western regimes in the Muslim world, there can be

fundamental differences in the potential of Islamic movements to

challenge, reshape or topple the ruling set-up. This depends largely on

the nature of a specific Muslim state. On the one hand, there are the

1. See Paul Brass, “Elite Groups, Symbol Manipulation and Ethnic Identity among

the Muslims of South Asia,” in D. D. Taylor and Malcolm Yapp, eds., Political Identity

in South Asia (Surrey, 1979), 47–48.
ORIGINS AND GROWTH PATTERNS OF ISLAMIC ORGANIZATIONS IN PAKISTAN 19

ex-British colonial societies including India, Sri Lanka, Kenya and

Ghana as well as Muslim states such as Malaysia, Pakistan,

Bangladesh, Sudan, and Nigeria. Here, a kind of “tutelary democracy” prevailed at the time of independence, comprising objectified

sources of authority in the sense of rule of law and rule of public

representatives on the one hand and the power base of traditional

elite operating in the modern state sector through electoral politics on

the other.2 No populist revolution has upturned a government in any

of the Commonwealth countries in the postwar era, from either religious or class perspective.

On the other hand, there are non-ex-British colonies such as

Vietnam, Kampuchea, Angola, Mozambique and Muslim states of

Algeria and Indonesia. Here, the second component of the British

colonial legacy, i.e., the traditional elite acting as a broker between the

state and society, was missing. As the “assimilationist” policies of

colonial governments co-opted the local elite, the latter lost legitimacy

in the public eye and thus rendered initiative into the hands of radical urban intelligentsia. Following the pattern of their modern predecessors who had fought against the French colonial rule, Islamic

groups in Algeria ran a populist election campaign and almost captured the state in the aborted 1993 elections.

At the other end, Muslim countries with a non-colonial past, including Iran, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Syria, lacked the first

component of the colonial state, i.e., objectification of the sources of

authority in the form of constitutional rule. Here, the state depended

in the last resort on a “community of trust” represented by Pehlavi

dynasty, Kabul nobility, House of Saud, Takritis and Alavis, respectively.3 The process of modernization, postwar communication

explosion and horizontal mobility—especially urbanization—created

enormous pressures on these states. They lacked an internally differentiated legal-institutional mechanism to keep the oppositional movements decentralized as well as de-ideologized. Iran and Afghanistan

collapsed in the face of these movements, while Saudi Arabia faces

2. Myron Weiner, “Empirical Democratic Theory,” in Myron Weiner and Ergun

Ozbudun, eds., Competitive Elections in Developing Countries (Duke University Press,

1987), 4–5.

3. Charles Tripp, “Islam and the State in the Middle East” (paper presented at the

Conference on Sectarianism and the Secular State, ICES, Colombo, 1992), 3.
20 MOHAMMAD WASEEM

grim prospects of a populist challenge in the first decade of the

twenty-first century.

Pakistan is a constitutional state, with a colonial legacy deeply

rooted in the rule of law as well as electoral democracy, which was

disrupted by four stints of military rule. Paradoxically, the new state

was carved out of India as a Muslim state in the teeth of opposition

from some Islamic groups and parties led by Jamiat Ulema Hind

(JUH). However, certain lesser Islamic groups became part of the

Pakistan movement and later emerged as an in-built pressure group

within the post-independence state system. We can outline four major

currents of Islamic thinking and activity in British India that together

formed the Islamic tradition as part of the political culture of

Pakistan in its early phase: mass agitation such as the Khilafat movement and Hijrat movement (1920–24); institutions of Islamic learning

such as at Deoband, Breilly and Lucknow, which provided a framework for the Muslim self-statement about classical values and norms

of Islam and the contemporary response of Muslim societies to

Western domination; Islamic revivalist movements led by Wahabis at

one end and Ahmadis at the other, with organizations such as Tableeq

and Tanzim operating in the middle for restoring the glory of Islam;

and mulla activism in the Pakhtun tribal area adjoining Afghanistan,

which characterized the local rebellion against a remote, impersonal

and alien state in a narodnik spirit.4 Islam in Pakistan has represented

all four trends represented by street agitation, anti-Western intellectual

discourse, religious scholarship of madrassas and the potential for a

xenophobic tribal rebellion in the North West Frontier Province

(NWFP), respectively. While the general public displayed these

strands of Islamic thought and action, the official Islam focused on

the “two-nation theory” and later Pakistan ideology as sources of

state legitimacy and profile of national destiny.

For a quarter of a century after independence, the modernist

Muslim elite kept the reigns of government firmly in its own hands.

The logic of Partition as fulfillment of the demand for a separate

Muslim homeland carved out of British India kept Islam at the center

of the nationalist discourse. Additionally, the migrant-led ruling

4. D. Reetz, “Muslim Concepts of Local Power and Resistance: Islamic Militants in

the Indian Frontier Province before Independence” (paper presented at the

Fourteenth European Conference on Modern South Asian Studies, Copenhagen,

21–24 August 1996), 2.
ORIGINS AND GROWTH PATTERNS OF ISLAMIC ORGANIZATIONS IN PAKISTAN 21

elite—including the first governor general Jinnah and the first prime

minister Liaqat, who came from Bombay and United Provinces (UP)

in India, respectively—opted for a model of centralist rule sometimes

described as the viceregal system.5 Governments used Islamic ideology to counter the demand for provincial autonomy in pursuit of

their agenda for national unity. Ulema and Islamists in general occupied a secondary role in public life. While operating from the madrassa

and the pulpit of the mosque, they demanded rule of shari’a in

Pakistan. Under successive parliamentary governments (1947–58) followed by General Ayub’s military—and later presidential—rule

(1958–69), the ruling elite adopted various strategies to control, cajole

or co-opt Islamist elements. The latter condemned the former for

being lackeys of the secular West.

Emergence of Political Islam

THE 1970 ELECTION WAS A TURNING POINT in the history of Islamist

groups and parties. General Yahya’s military government (1969–71)

faced the leftist challenge from Zulfiqar Ali (Z.A.) Bhutto in West

Pakistan and the Bengali nationalist challenge from Mujiburrehman in

East Pakistan. It decided to back Islamist elements in both wings to

stem the tide of anti-establishment feelings. The 1970 election is generally identified with the emergence of politics of the Left in West

Pakistan, not the least because it led to the formation of Bhutto’s

populist government in Islamabad.6 However, the 1970 election also

ushered in an era of politics of Islam. Ulema moved out of their

mosques and madrassas, and managed to get eighteen out of three

hundred seats in the national assembly (NA). Surprisingly, the conservative Jamiat Ulema Islam (JUI)—based on the Deobandi sect—got

seven NA seats in the Pakhtun tribal belt of NWFP and Baluchistan.

It formed coalition governments in the two provinces and even got

chief ministership for itself in NWFP. The relatively less strict Jamiat

Ulema Pakistan (JUP)—based on the Brelvi sect—also got seven

seats, while the Jamaat-i-Islami (JI)—the essentialist party of university graduates—won four seats.

5. See K. B. Sayeed, The Political System in Pakistan (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1968).

6. For example, see S. J. Burki and Craig Baxter, “Socioeconomic Indicators of the

People’s Party Vote in the Punjab: A Study at the Tehsil Level,” in W. H. Wriggins,

ed., Pakistan in Transition (Islamabad: 1975), 64–67.
22 MOHAMMAD WASEEM

While politics of the Left represented the popular wave under

Z.A. Bhutto, the opposition politics took a turn in the 1970s in favor

of Islamic parties. First, they moved from a mere pressure group to

becoming stakeholders in the political system itself, and sought to

Islamize the system from within. Second, they formed coalition governments in the two provincial governments and thus got a share in

state power in terms of resource allocation to their constituents.

Third, in the event of a total defeat of the mainstream Pakistan

Muslim League (PML) factions in the 1970 elections, the mantle of

legitimacy for the role of opposition through the media and public

forums fell on the JI-JUI-JUP representatives in and outside legislatures. They consistently criticized Bhutto for his un-Islamic (read

“socialist”) policies and introduced a comprehensive Islamic discourse for discussing the national agenda in public. Finally, they lent

a religious character to the anti-Bhutto movement after the controversial elections of 1977. The relatively secular ethnic elite and liberal mainstream politicians in the opposition’s Pakistan National

Alliance (PNA) felt obliged to accept the ideological leadership of

Islamic parties, not the least because the latter mobilized thousands

of madrassa students to bring demonstrations out in the street and

used mosques for propagating war against an “infidel” Bhutto.

Islamism almost forced itself as a source of legitimacy for the new

military leader General Zia (1977–88). The more the Pakistan People’s

Party (PPP) leader Bhutto displayed his potential to challenge Zia

from jail, the more Zia manipulated Islamic ideology for stabilizing

his regime. He issued the controversial Hadood Ordinances shortly

before hanging Bhutto ostensibly to pre-empt the much-feared agitation from his party. Zia castigated democracy as an importation from

the West and instead upheld Islam as a source of legitimacy. The

Islamic parties JI, JUI and JUP joined Zia’s military government in an

all-out effort to stop Bhutto’s party from coming back to power in the

event of elections. Cooperation between army and Islamic parties that

started under Yahya came to fruition under Zia. The JI earned the

dubious title of Martial Law’s B team. Islam and democracy appeared

to be incompatible entities.

During the Zia period, Islamist groups and parties gained

immensely in terms of building an image of street power. The first

major agitation of Islamist elements in the 1953 anti-Ahmadiya

movement had brought down the Daultana government in Punjab
ORIGINS AND GROWTH PATTERNS OF ISLAMIC ORGANIZATIONS IN PAKISTAN 23

and subsequently the Nazimuddin government in the Center. In the

following decades, several governments took to their heals in the face

of a threat of Islamic agitation.

In 1962, Ayub accepted the demand from the Islamist group for

changing the name of the country from Republic of Pakistan to

Islamic Republic of Pakistan. In 1974, Z.A. Bhutto obliged Islamists

by declaring Ahmadis—his erstwhile allies in the 1970 elections—a

religious minority. In 1981, Zia conceded to the Shia activists by

exempting Shias from payment of Zakat, which was generally identified with Sunni jurisprudence. In 1995, Benazir Bhutto withdrew her

decision to audit the finances of madrassas, stop guerrilla training of

their students and reform their hate-based curricula in the face of a

nationwide strike. In 1998, Nawaz Sharif met the same fate when he

wanted to implement these reforms. In 2000, General Musahrraf

withdrew his proposal to reform the procedural aspects of the

Blasphemy Law in the face of a threat of street agitation from

Islamists. In this way Islamic parties demonstrated their street power

whenever their interests were threatened.

The war in Afghanistan, which was initiated, financed and sponsored by Islamabad and, indirectly but more effectively, by

Washington, took Islamic politics into its militant mode of operation. Afghan mujahideen and their counterparts from Pakistan

embraced the ideology of jihad against the Soviet Union. Islamic

parties, especially JI but also JUI with its base among the tribal

Pathan population in the vicinity of the war theater, accumulated

immense financial resources, gained access to the diplomatic world

and got hold of lethal weapons in large numbers. However, these

parties progressively lost electoral space. Their combined vote came

down from 21.5 percent in 1970 to 6.7 percent in 1993. In 1997, all

Islamic parties put together got two out of 207 National Assembly

seats. It was clear that their real strength and agenda had moved outside the narrow confines of electoral politics and even the territorial

limits of Pakistan.

The armed might of jihadist parties was rendered ineffective during

the U.S.-led war against terrorism in 2001–02. The loss of direction

for Islamists, combined with despondency, led to reworking of links

with ideological allies at home and abroad. As Pakistan moved to elections in October 2002, the anti-American sentiment provided a rallying ground for Islamic parties.
24 MOHAMMAD WASEEM

Sectarian Dimension

ALMOST ALL ISLAMIC PARTIES and groups in Pakistan are based in specific sects and subsects. Only JI, along with its student body Islamic

Jamiat Talba (IJT), is supra-sectarian in approach and activity.7 This

party represented the Islamist conservative section of the urban middle class, educated in colleges and universities. JI has no constituency

in rural areas, few pockets of support among industrial workers and a

limited electoral strength. It has essentially operated as a pressure

group for Islamizing the state and implementing Sharia. It produced

Islamic literature in the Urdu language, which tried to grapple with

modern issues of politics and administration, education and health,

and manners and morals. JI aimed at Islamizing the state system of

Pakistan through electoral democracy, using the instrument of law. It

established its student wings in the institutions of higher learning

throughout the country. The military elite often used the JI’s endemic

presence in professions—e.g., Urdu press, as well as colleges and universities—to destabilize an incumbent government, especially a PPP

government. The party enjoyed its heyday under Zia who turned its

intellectual, organizational and ideological resources into a great asset

for his agenda to deflect democratic challenges at home and regulate

the support mechanism for the war in Afghanistan. Being educated in

colleges and universities, JI-oriented men and women have a strong

job orientation and indeed already have a considerable presence

within the power-wielding institutions of the state.

However, a sectarian party is the prototype of Islamic organization

today.8 Pakistanis are predominantly Sunni and followers of the

Hanafi school of thought (as opposed to the relatively more strict

Hanbali, Maliki and Shafi schools popular in several Arab countries).

Sunni-Hanafis have their center of gravity in the Indo-Muslim civilization, especially in the two seminaries at Breilly and Deoband in

northern India. Brelvis encourage saint-worship and shrine-worship,

indulge in superstitious practices and uphold the tradition of Sufi

orders established over centuries. They represent the majority in

Pakistan, with a large base in the peasant culture of Punjab. JUP, as

7. For details, see Vali R. Nasr, The Vanguard of Islamic Revolution: The Jamat Islami of

Pakistan (London: I. B. Tauris, 1995).

8. Mohammad Waseem, “Sectarian Conflict in Pakistan,” in K. M. de Silva, ed.,

Conflict and Violence in South Asia (Kandy, 2000), 71–74.
ORIGINS AND GROWTH PATTERNS OF ISLAMIC ORGANIZATIONS IN PAKISTAN 25

the leading Brelvi party, is typically non-militant. Brelvi ulema allow

separation between church and state inasmuch as their followers vote

for local influentials who may not be JUI nominees. JUP has generally kept a low profile, except during the 1977 anti-Bhutto movement.

It held an all-Pakistan Sunni conference in 2000. As an offshoot of

JUP in Karachi, the Sunni Tehrik represents a diehard approach to the

Sunni agenda.

While Brelvis represent oral orthodoxy cushioned by devotional

practices, Deobandis represent literate orthodoxy with a strict adherence to the classical texts of Islam. This sect has produced several

organizations: JUH in the 1920s, Ahrars and Majlis Tahaffuz Khatm

e Nubawat (MTKN) in the 1940s and its leading party in Pakistan JUI,

which was sometimes divided into rival factions, such as Hazarvi versus Thanvi groups and Fazlurrehman versus Samiul Haq groups. As

JUI(s) embraced militant politics during the Zia period, the Sipah-i

Sahaba Pakistan (SSP) emerged as its sectarian outfit. The latter in

turn gave birth to a terrorist group Lashkar-i Jhangvi (LJ), which had

a clear mandate to kill Shias and destroy their infrastructure. As the

main anti-Shia groups for the last two decades, SSP and LJ were

widely held responsible for sectarian terrorism. Nawaz Sharif introduced an Anti-Sectarian Bill in the national assembly in 1993 to control their activities. But the bill was allowed to lapse, ostensibly for the

fear of alienating the pro-Nawaz Sunni establishment. General

Musharraf finally banned LJ in 2001.

In Punjab, the appeal of Deobandis has been limited to some lower

middle class sections of the population. However, Pakhtuns of

NWFP and also Baluchistan emerged as natural followers of

Deobandism. The rigid adherence to Pakhtun tribal customs amply

correlated with textual rigidity and puritanical behavior preached by

Deoband. The popular Deobandi institution of Tablighi Jamat was

concerned with proselytization, correct ritual practice and a jihad of

soul through peaceful means rather than through militant action

against non-believers. On the other hand, the Pakhtun Deobandism,

and later Afghan Deobandism, flourished under war against communist infidels.9 When the chief of the seminary at Deoband and his

entourage visited NWFP in 2001 to participate in the 150th anniversary

9. Barbara Metcalf, “Piety, Persuasion and Politics: Deoband’s Model of Islamic

Activism” (working paper), 5.
26 MOHAMMAD WASEEM

of their school, they were reportedly alienated by the deafening sound

of gunfire that welcomed them. Deobandism, along with tribalism

rooted in the Pakhtun segmentary lineage system, produced a jihadi

culture that soon spilled over to various areas of Punjab and Sindh. A

thriving gun industry in the tribal area and the U.S.-supplied arms in

the hands of Afghan mujahideen built the new jihadi infrastructure in

northwest Pakistan.

Another Sunni subsect called Wahabi, or Salafi, has recently gained

ground in major cities of Pakistan. Jamiat Ahle Hadith (JAH) remains

the major Wahabi party. It is widely known that Salafis represent and

safeguard Saudi Arabian interests in Pakistan. Being very strict about

Islamic teachings and disallowing liberal and modern interpretations of

the Quran and Sunna, this sect has a limited appeal beyond certain commercial and professional middle class sections. After the 1991 Gulf War,

when most of Islamic parties and groups opposed the U.S.-led coalition

against Saddam Hussein, Saudi Arabia felt obliged to shift its patronage

away from parties such as JI and created a string of Salafi establishments

in Pakistan. In the backdrop of the continuing war in Afghanistan and

the emergence of jihadist struggle in Indian-held Kashmir, the new

Salafi outfit Dawat-ul-Irshad (DI) established guerrilla training camps

such as Ma’skar Tayaba in Kunnar province in Afghanistan and

Markaz Tayaba in Muridke near Lahore. Their guerrilla force, Lashkar

Tayaba, claimed several activities in Indian Kashmir. Salafis are ultrafundamentalists in their approach to theological matters.10

The Shia-Sunni conflict has occupied the center stage in terms of

sectarian strife during the last two decades. The Shia, as a minority at

15 percent of the population, became overtly political in the late

1970s. First, Zia’s largely Sunni-based Islamization program shook the

Shia community out of complacency and caused widespread mobilization in the pursuit of sectarian ends. Secondly, Khomeini’s revolution in Iran reinvigorated Shia minorities everywhere, especially in

Pakistan. Shias formed a new party, Tehrik Nifaz Fiqh-i Jafaria

(TNFJ), in a bid to safeguard their religious and economic interests,

and establish an Islamic state in Pakistan. The murder of the Shia revolutionary leader Ariful Hussaini, allegedly at the hands of Sunnis,

was followed by revenge killings on both sides. SSP led a vehement

10. See Guilain Denoeux, “The Forgotten Swamp: Navigating Political Islam,”

Middle East Policy 9, no. 2 (June 2002).
ORIGINS AND GROWTH PATTERNS OF ISLAMIC ORGANIZATIONS IN PAKISTAN 27

campaign for declaring Pakistan a Sunni state, and carried out numerous acts of terrorism against Shias. Some younger Shias formed their

own militant organization, Sipah Muhammed (SM), which, however,

soon lost ground.

One can distinguish between the two generations of Islamists in

Pakistan’s history. The first-generation Islamists, who were generally

supra-sectarian, aimed at changing the law of the land, struggled to

enter the state through elections, operated through the printed word

and dabbled in conceptualizing the West, modernity, science, public

morality and statehood. The second-generation Islamists were sectarian, localist and militant. They lacked intellectual tools for understanding the dynamics of the state, the region, and the world at large. They

focused on simple polarities such as Islam and the West as good and

evil, respectively. They prepared themselves for war against the perceived domination of Christians and Jews over the Muslim World.

The liberal intelligentsia often criticized the first generation for trying

to turn the wheel of history backwards. It condemned the second

generation for attempting to change the rules of game from ballot to

bullet and “externalizing” the public agenda in terms of a grand

polarity between Islam and the West in the world at large.

Institutional Setting

ISLAMIC SEMINARIES (MADRASSAS) have made news headlines ever

since mujahideen organized resistance against the Soviet incursion

into Afghanistan. The number of madrassas in Pakistan increased

from around 700 in both East and West wings to 868 in Punjab alone

in 1975 to 3,874 in the whole country in 1995. In 2002, more than

5,000 madrassas were supposed to be active on the ground.11

In the 1980s, thousands of new madrassas were opened in the

backdrop of state incentives such as allocation of funds through the

Zakat Foundation. Many of these madrassas operated as base camps

for recruiting and training Afghan mujahideen. Typically, madrassas

have been socially embedded in sectarian communities. The five

major federations or associations of madrassas in charge of their

organizational and infrastructural requirements belong to Deobandi,

Brelvi, Salafi and Shia sects, and JI. Apart from a few centers of excel11. Waseem, “Sectarian Conflict,” 66–70.
28 MOHAMMAD WASEEM

lence in Islamic teaching, these madrassas generally lack in quality.

Saudi Arabia and Iran allegedly provided financial and infrastructural

support to Sunni and Shia madrassas, respectively, and thus waged a

proxy war on the soil of Pakistan. Students of madrassas typically

belonged to families living at the edge of the society in terms of

poverty, suppression, economic breakdown and migration from rural

to urban areas. Students were socialized along the message of hostility toward others, including institutional and sectarian rivals and religious enemies, especially Hindus and Jews, the Westernized ruling

elite in Pakistan and the West. There are many respectable madrassas,

such as Jamia Ashrafia, Jamia Rashidia and Madrassa Khairul Ulem,

which impart classical knowledge of Islam. Indeed, madrassas generally remained confined to teaching religious classics and preaching

piety in their respective localities. However, a minority of these

madrassas was engaged in the jihadist activities, especially in the backdrop of mujahideen’s war in Afghanistan, followed by Taliban’s rule

in Kabul from 1996 to 2001.

Benazir and Nawaz Sharif balked over the issue of regulating

madrassas for the fear of inviting the wrath of Islamist groups. The

Musharraf government issued a Madrassa Registration Ordinance in

June 2002 to control foreign funding, improve curricula and disallow

training in the use of arms.12 An umbrella organization of madrassas,

Jamiat Ittehad Ulama (JIU), rejected the ordinance and opted for a

general strike. Its predecessor had been active against all official

attempts at regulation of madrassas from 1995 onward.

The thinking in official circles and in the educated middle class

about madrassas revolves around the idea of bringing them into the

mainstream education program. For that purpose, it has been suggested to introduce computers, science education and other practical

arts in madrassas to enable them to produce students with the potential for productive participation in public life. However, a parallel

mode of thinking points out that such a policy will further

strengthen madrassa people in pursuit of their primitive goals

through militant activity with the help of modern organizational and

technological means. At the heart of the problem lies the inefficiency

and inability of the state to improve the regular school system and

12. Dawn (19 June 2002).
ORIGINS AND GROWTH PATTERNS OF ISLAMIC ORGANIZATIONS IN PAKISTAN 29

link the educational and manpower policies to curb unemployment

and improve social services.

International Dimension

CONTEMPORARY ISLAMIC MOVEMENTS have internalized the technological dynamics of globalization. The speed and style as well as content of messages sent across the world have multiplied the impact and

scope of Islamic movement everywhere. We can outline three major

aspects of this phenomenon. First and foremost, it is the worldview

of Pakistani decision makers (as well as opinion makers) that provides

the conceptual framework for intellectual activity of local Muslims.

The articulate sections of the population in Pakistan have a worldview

characterized by an Indo-centric foreign policy, on-again, off-again

suspicion of the West, and a world of Islam perspective. The unresolved Kashmir Conflict has kept Indo-Pakistan relations at a boiling

point for most of the post-independence period. For eighteen years

after the emergence of Bangladesh, Kashmir remained on the back

burner of Pakistan’s foreign policy. As the last Soviet soldier left

Afghanistan, Kashmir emerged as the new area of Muslim struggle

against the non-Muslim rule in India. A decade of jihad, which

pushed Moscow out of Afghanistan, gave birth to a new doctrine of

armed struggle in pursuit of the goal of national self-determination.

The fact that it was a proxy war between the two superpowers and

that it was the U.S. commitment of financial, military and diplomatic

resources that decisively turned the tide in Afghanistan against the

Soviet Union did not represent the central point of understanding of

the mujahideen’s victory in Kabul, either in Afghanistan or in

Pakistan. A decade of mujahideen struggle in Kashmir started, which

occasionally brought India and Pakistan to the brink of war.

Large sections of Islamic groups and madrassa-trained students

emerged as the new generation of mujahideen committed to rid

Kashmir of Hindu rule. The new pattern of armed activity in Indian

Kashmir produced a variety of militant organizations. Some were

affiliated with Islamic parties in Pakistan, such as Hizbe-ul

Mujahideen with JI, and Lashkar Tauheed and Salafi Group for Call

and Combat with JAH. Others had Arab, Central Asian and Afghan

connections, such as Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, al-Jihad based in

Egypt, Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, al-Qaeda Islamic Army,
30 MOHAMMAD WASEEM

Taliban Islamic Movement and Harkat-i-Islami. Similarly, al-Badr,

Jamiat al-Mujahideen, Harkatul Ansar (renamed Harkatul

Mujahideen) and Jaish-e-Muhammed (renamed al-Furqan) operated

in Indian Kashmir but cultivated close relations in Pakistan and other

Muslim countries. Various new groups have emerged in the triangle of

crisis comprising Kashmir, Pakistan and Afghanistan, including alUsman, al-Omar and al-Saiqa. Others were charity organizations such

as Wafa Humanitarian Organization and al-Rashid Trust, as well as

the controversial Ummat Tameer Nau, led by an ex-chief of Atomic

Energy Commission of Pakistan. One can also mention smaller outfits such as Karwan-i-Khalid, Zarb-Momin and Zarb-Islami. These

organizations operated in the three countries of India, Pakistan and

Afghanistan in pursuit of shared foreign policy and strategic objectives, which were ideologically embedded in the larger civilizational

goals.

Confusion, conflict and suspicion of the West in Pakistan draw on

the colonial past, the historical legacy of the Crusades and, more

recently, the Arab-Israel conflict. All Muslims, Arab and non-Arab,

liberal and conservative, educated and non-educated, share the agony

of humiliation in the form of Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories. Public opinion in Pakistan, as elsewhere in Muslim countries,

holds the West, especially the United States, responsible for this grave

aggression against a classical Muslim land. Israeli occupation of the

West Bank and Gaza has done more damage to relations of Islam

with the West than has any other issue during the last three and a half

decades. Other Muslim causes such as Kashmir, Chechynia, Bosnia

and Kosovo belonged to communities that were once part of Muslim

empires but became politically unprotected after the frontiers of

Islam shrank over the centuries. The dichotomous model of the

world, along the lines of Islam and the West, has taken root in Muslim

societies everywhere, even as their governing elite continue to look

toward the West for financial and diplomatic support as well as

national security. This attitude has crystallized into an Islam perspective whereby Muslims operate in a mini world of their own and seek

to establish institutional networks to unite this world against the wider

world presided by the West.

Secondly, transnational Islamic networking is a major development

in the non-state sector in recent decades. One can outline several
ORIGINS AND GROWTH PATTERNS OF ISLAMIC ORGANIZATIONS IN PAKISTAN 31

nodal points of contact between Muslim activists throughout the

world. First, Islamic militant groups from Muslim societies bear

grievances against the West for causing damage to their territorial

interests such as in Palestine. Second, historical Muslim minorities

struggle to safeguard their cultural, religious, economic and political

interests against policies of their respective majority-based states

such as Russia, India and China. Third, Muslim expatriates in

Western countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom,

France and Germany feel marginalized in terms of employment, cultural autonomy and racial harmony. For example, the second-generation Pakistanis in Britain experienced multiple setbacks, including

loss of identity, loss of culture, and loss of status. Against odds of

all kinds, Islamic identity operates as irreducible minima for Muslim

migrants in the West, who suffer gross alienation from their respective state systems and mainstream educational, cultural and media

systems.13

The response of Muslims in all these situations is the recourse to

the cause of Muslim unity, solidarity and fraternity. There is a reworking of the Muslim project in process, which was initially started by the

Muslim Brotherhood in the first half of the twentieth century.14

Islamic militants in Pakistan, as well as among British Pakistanis and

across the border in Indian Kashmir, tend to see their counterparts in

Hezbollah of Lebanon, Islamic Jehad of Egypt and Hamas of

Palestine. While terrorism in the West is perceived as disruption of a

just society by unjust means, Islamic militants understand terrorism as

a form of mandatory war against the unjust global society presided by

the United States.

Pakistani activist groups and individuals have frequently interacted

with their counterparts in Western societies as well as in other

Muslim communities. In comparison, there is far less activity by way

of transnational networking among civil society activists from universities and the media, as well as lawyers, engineers, doctors, artists,

writers and human rights activists. While globalization is progressing

13. See Yunas Samad, “The Plural Guises of Multiculturalism: Conceptualizing a

Fragmented Paradigm,” in Tariq Modood and Pnina Werbner, eds., The Politics of

Multiculturalism in the New Europe: Racism, Identity and Community (London: Zed Books,

1997).

14. Laden Boroumand and Roya Boroumand, “Terror, Islam and Democracy,”

Journal of Democracy 13, no. 2 (April 2002).
32 MOHAMMAD WASEEM

rapidly through the communications explosion, the integrative and

assimilative activities in the cultural, educational and political fields

have failed to keep pace. The United States is widely criticized by the

liberal intelligentsia in Pakistan, as elsewhere in the Muslim world, for

hoisting a military dictator on top of the nation and for paying lip

service to the cause of democracy.

Thirdly, the self-statement of the West in terms of the perceived

clash of civilizations has not helped matters. The Western input in

the emergence and activation of the dichotomous worldview among

Muslims can be understood in terms of a continuing preoccupation

with the “otherness” of Islam. For example, terrorism is conceived

as a state of (Muslim) mind rather than as an issue related to U.S.

public policy. Similarly, there is rampant cynicism in Muslim countries rooted in the injustice syndrome, drawing heavily on unresolved conflicts such as Palestine and Kashmir. Policies, or indeed

non-policies, about the issue of settlement of millions of

Palestinian and Afghan refugees, among others, have turned their

temporary settlements into breeding houses of hatred and frustration. Similarly, the policy of rendering Muslim countries as rogue

states and thus pushing them to exit from the world system has

mobilized a large number of people in Muslim countries belonging

to South and Southeast Asia, Central Asia, and the Middle East, as

well as historical Muslim minorities and the Muslim expatriate community in the West.

Over the centuries, Pakistanis have lacked a continuous identity that

would have served as a wellspring of territorial nationalism in the

country. They are by definition pan-Islamic in their vision. The

process of moving away from Hindu-dominated Indian civilization,

which started in 1947 and acquired a new impetus in 1971 after the

emergence of Bangladesh, has got Pakistan deeply involved in the

destiny of the Islamic nations and groups the world over. Islamic

organizations in Pakistan thrive on their transnational vision and networks operating within a dichotomous framework of world politics.
ORIGINS AND GROWTH PATTERNS OF ISLAMIC ORGANIZATIONS IN PAKISTAN 33

Conclusion

OUR OBSERVATIONS POINT to the complex origins and patterns of

growth of Islamic organizations in Pakistan. We have discussed the

way Islamic ideology functioned as the supreme source of legitimacy

for the state, and defined the parameters of the political context that

eventually laid down the turf for politics of identity. The Islamic movement changed its character from a pressure group for establishing the

rule of shari’a in the first quarter of a century after independence, to

an electoral and then a militant force in the second quarter. The

regional input in the form of the war in Afghanistan combined with

Zia’s vehement pursuit of the Islamization program in the 1980s to

produce a dynamic pan-Islamic agenda and a vast Islamic network at

home and abroad based on sectarian parties and madrassas.

The army-dominated state apparatus in Pakistan has militated

against providing social, cultural, economic and political space to the

civil society in general and public representatives in particular. On the

other hand, Islamic parties and groups enjoyed a relatively free hand

to operate in the educational, cultural and, increasingly, political fields.

Even more significantly, the state elite sought to provide a role for

Islamist groups against various political forces identified with the

Left, ethnolinguistic communities, provincial autonomy activists and

the liberal intelligentsia. The involvement of Islamic militants in the

wars in Afghanistan and Kashmir contributed to privatization of foreign policy and militarization of Islamic activists. The international

Islamic networks finally provided a global agenda for the movement

in terms of endemic anti-Americanism. The unresolved conflicts

around the world involving Muslim communities, especially in

Palestine, sharpened the boundaries of the conflict. We can conclude

by observing that state policies, regional instability and non-resolution

of conflicts involving Muslims in the region and in the world at large

are the leading determinants of the nature and direction of Islamic

organizations in Pakistan.
35

Apparently, the emergence of Bangladesh in 1971 in the name

of Bengali nationalism signaled the departure of “political Islam” or

Islam-based state ideology of the Pakistani period (1947–71). To

some scholars, the creation of Bangladesh delegitimized the “twonation theory,” which in 1947 justified the communal partition of the

Indian subcontinent into India and Pakistan. Soon after its emergence, Bangladesh adopted the four-pronged state ideology of

nationalism, democracy, socialism and secularism. However, not long

after the emergence of the nation-state, Islam re-emerged as an

important factor in the country, both socially and politically. Although

the not-so-democratic regime of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman (1972–75)

retained secularism, along with democracy, socialism and nationalism,

as the state principles, his assassination and the overthrow of his government by a military coup d’état in August 1975 brought Islam-oriented state ideology by shunning secularism and socialism. Not long

after his ascendancy as the new ruler in November 1975, General

Ziaur Rahman replaced the outwardly secular “Bengali nationalism”

with “Bangladeshi nationalism.” One may argue that “Bangladeshi” is

3

TAJ I. HASHMI

Islamic Resurgence in Bangladesh:

Genesis, Dynamics and Implications
36 TAJ I. HASHMI

inclusive of the different non-Bengali minorities; nevertheless, the

term highlights the Muslim identity of the country, differentiating its

Muslim majority Bengalis from their Hindu majority counterparts in

West Bengal in India.

It is noteworthy that most Bangladeshi Muslims suffer from a

tremendous identity crisis. They are not sure which comes first—their

loyalty toward Islam or toward Bangladesh. It seems, after the failure

of the “socialist-secular-Bengali nationalist” Mujib government in

1975, his successors realized the importance of political Islam to

legitimize their rule; hence, the rapid Islamization of the polity. This

type of state-sponsored Islam, reflecting the hegemonic culture of

the civil and military oligarchies seeking political legitimacy, may be

classified as “political Islam.” This is not typical to Bangladesh and

has happened elsewhere in the Muslim world. Countries such as

Egypt and Algeria, for example, which also went through socialist and

secular phases of their history under Nasser, Ben Bella and

Boumediene before turning to “political/militant Islam” in the recent

past. Very similar to Egypt and Algeria, while the successors of

Nasser and Boumediene have adopted political Islam to legitimize

their rule, the successors of Mujib also adopted political Islam after

the failure of the “welfare state” or the promised socialist utopia. The

case of Pakistan is very different. The ruling classes there have established their hegemony by legitimizing themselves in the name of

Islam—the raison d’être for Pakistan, which has a special significance

for the bulk of the Pakistani Muslims.

Meanwhile, like their counterparts elsewhere, Bangladeshi Muslims

at the different levels have adopted various other types of Islam—

escapist, fatalist, puritan, and militant, for example—as alternatives to

their failed welfare state. An understanding of political Islam and

other variables in the arena of Bangladesh politics requires an intimate knowledge of what the people need and what the leaders have

been promising them since the inception of the separatist movement

for Bangladesh in the 1960s. The gap between what the people have

attained since independence and what the liberal-democrat, socialistsecular and nationalist leaders (both “Bengali” and “Bangladeshi”)

have been promising to deliver is the key to our understanding of the

problem.
ISLAMIC RESURGENCE IN BANGLADESH: GENESIS, DYNAMICS AND IMPLICATIONS 37

1. Bangladesh Observer and Daily Star, October 3, 4 and 5, 2001.

This chapter addresses why and how Islam has re-emerged in

Bangladesh as socially and politically significant by highlighting both

the local and external factors in this regard. This study examines the

nature of Islam in South Asia and elsewhere in the Muslim world. A

historical appraisal of the State-Islam-Ulema (Muslim theologians)

nexus and its gradual transformation are important aspects of this

study. In sum, the study shows that both the state and large sections

of the population have been using Islam for political purpose. While

secularism, democracy and independence are burning issues in the

political arena, nobody can ignore the cultural and political aspects of

Islam in Bangladesh. Various groups of nationalists, sections of the

ulema representing both the political and non-political organizations,

and even members of the armed forces from time to time champion

the cause of Islam—some of them by openly demanding the transformation of the country into a shari’a-based “Islamic State,” and

some by opposing liberal democratic and secular institutions with a

bias toward political Islam. Who will eventually call the shots in the

near future is the question.

Since Bangladesh is the third-largest Muslim country in the world

(after Indonesia and Pakistan), it is only natural to assume that Islam

plays an important role in molding its politics and culture. Around 90

percent of the population is Muslim—most importantly, representing

one of the poorest, least literate and most backward sections of the

world population. If mass poverty, illiteracy and unequal distribution

of wealth have any positive correlation with Islamic resurgence and

militancy, then Bangladesh has to be a fertile breeding ground of what

is wrongly defined as “Islamic fundamentalism.” Of late, the Awami

League (the party under Sheikh Mujib that championed the cause of

greater autonomy for East Pakistan, ultimately leading to the independence of Bangladesh) has been projecting its main political opponents—the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and the Jamaat-iIslami (partners in the BNP-led coalition government since October

2001)—as “fundamentalist” with a view to gaining political leverage

after its abysmal performance in the parliamentary elections held in

October 2001.1 However, despite its poverty, backwardness and the

preponderance of Islamic ethos in the mainstream of its politics and
38 TAJ I. HASHMI

2. James C. Scott, The Moral Economy of the Peasant: Rebellion and Subsistence in Southeast

Asia (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1976), 5, 9, 13–55; Taj I. Hashmi, “Moral,

Rational and Political Economies of Peasants: An Appraisal of Colonial Bengal and

Vietnam” (paper presented at the Second International Conference on Indian Ocean

Studies, Perth, 1984).

3. Hashmi, Pakistan as a Peasant Utopia: The Communalization of Class Politics in East

Bengal, 1920–1947 (Boulder: Westview Press, 1992), 4–20.

culture, Bangladesh is not just another Afghanistan, Iran, Saudi

Arabia or even Pakistan. Despite having many striking similarities

with the Islamic movements elsewhere, their Bangladeshi counterparts have striking dissimilarities with them as well.

The Nature of Islamic Movements in Bangladesh

HERE, ISLAMIC MOVEMENTS have another dimension—they are primarily rural-based, agrarian and reflective of peasant culture and behavior. The country is predominantly agrarian, with more than 80 percent

of the population being rural, mostly impoverished peasants primarily depending on primitive modes of cultivation, having incomplete

access to the means of production, lacking power, security of tenure

and viable means of sustenance and employment. And as we know,

peasants, being traditional, fatalist and religious if not pious by nature,

often resort to religion as a means of identity as well as support and

sustenance. In short, peasants’ political behavior and culture are not

devoid of religion. Their mundane activities, including the political

ones (in power perspectives), are inspired by their “moral economy,”2

which again is subject to their religious belief system. Consequently,

peasants’ violent acts and proclivity to anarchy in the name of religion, often classified as “prepolitical” activities of the “premodern,”3

get the epithets of “Islamic” militancy, fanaticism, and “fundamentalism” if the perpetrators happen to be Muslims. Hence, the significance of the peasant factor in understanding Islam in Bangladesh

society and politics.

Although the “peasants’ Islam,” or what we may call the “little traditions,” to paraphrase Redfield, represents the mainstream of Islam

in Bangladesh, urban Muslim elite and their rural counterparts, representing the “great traditions” of Islam, have been the main custodians and guardians of Islam in the country. It is, however, interesting

that not only are the “little traditions” of Bangladesh very different

from their counterparts elsewhere, but the “great traditions” of Islam
ISLAMIC RESURGENCE IN BANGLADESH: GENESIS, DYNAMICS AND IMPLICATIONS 39

4. Asim Roy, Islamic Syncretistic Tradition in Bengal (Princeton: Princeton University

Press, 1983), passim; Hashmi, Women and Islam in Bangladesh: Beyond Subjection and

Tyranny (London: Macmillan Press; New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000), 60–74.

as believed and practiced here are also very unique. The synthesis of

the two traditions, leading to syncretism, is what prevails as “Islam”

in Bangladesh. Despite their concerted efforts, the Islamic puritan

reformers, the “Wahabis,” Faraizis, Tayyunis and others since the early

nineteenth century, have been able to change little in this regard.

While sections of ultra-orthodox Muslims claim to be adherents of

the Islamic “great traditions,” they have also inherited syncretistic

beliefs and rituals as their forebears were not immune to the “little traditions” of Arabia, Central Asia, Iran and northwestern India and

Bengal.4

Who are the Islamists?

THIS STUDY REQUIRES AN UNDERSTANDING of the two parties that

have been championing the cause of Islam—one, on behalf of the

Government since 1975 and the other, the various Islamic groups,

parties and individuals with both pro- and anti-government inclinations. These groups and individuals may be classified as (a) the fatalist/escapist; (b) the Sufis/pirs; (c) the militant reformist (“fundamentalist”), and (d) the “Anglo-Mohammedan” (“opportunist”/

“pragmatist”). The fatalist/escapist groups represent the bulk of the

poor, unemployed/underemployed people having a next-worldly outlook and philosophy. They often belong to the Tableeq Jamaat; a

grassroots-based puritan movement originated in northern India in

the 1920s, having millions of adherents in Bangladesh. Unlike the militant reformists belonging to the Jamaat-i-Islami (despite their formal

adherence to constitutional politics) and other groups, including the

clandestine ones, the Tableeqis represent a pacifist, puritan and missionary movement. Every winter they organize a mammoth rally or

ijtama at Tungi, near Dhaka, attended by more than a million devout

Muslims from Bangladesh and elsewhere. The Sufis and pirs represent

mystic Islam. They belong to several mystic orders or tariqas, having

muridan or disciples among all sections of the population, especially

among peasants. They exert tremendous influence on their muridan.

They may be politically motivated having renowned politicians,
40 TAJ I. HASHMI

5. Hashmi, “Islam in Bangladesh Politics,” in Hussin Mutalib and Taj I. Hashmi, eds.,

Islam, Muslims and the Modern State (London: Macmillan Press; New York: St. Martin’s

Press, 1994), 103–5; Razia Akter Banu, “Jamaat-i-Islami in Bangladesh: Challenges and

Prospects,” in Mutalib and Hashmi, Islam, Muslims, 80–96; K. M. Mohsin, “Tabligh

Jama’t and the Faith Movement in Bangladesh,” in Rafiuddin Ahmed, ed., Bangladesh:

Society, Religion and Politics (Chittagong: South Asia Studies Group, 1985).

6. Maulana Mansurul Haq, ed., Mr. Mawdudir New Islam (Bengali), Jamia Qurania

Arabia (Lalbagh, Dhaka: 1985), passim; Jamaat Unmasked: The True Colour of a

Fundamentalist Party (Dhaka: The Council of National Religious Scholars [Jatiyo

Olama Parishad], 2001), passim. These publications reflect the views of the antiJamaat Muslim clerics, mainly belonging to the Deoband school of thought, who run

the qaumi madrassas in the subcontinent.

including General Ershad, as their muridan. They are generally

opposed to the Jamaat-i-Islami and Tableeq movements, but there are

instances of Jamaatis and Tableeqis paying respect to certain pirs. While

the militant reformists, including the Jamaat-i-Islami, are in favor of an

Islamic state as an alternative to the existing system of government in

Bangladesh, the “Anglo Mohammedans” are the anglicized or

Westernized Muslims aiming to synthesize Islamic and Western values

for temporal benefits. They can be believers, agnostics and even atheists, but for the sake of expediency, political legitimacy, social acceptance and above all, power, are often vacillating. They popularize political Islam, which could be avowedly anti-Indian and tacitly anti-Hindu.

They are very similar to the Pakistani ruling class who, since the inception of the country, has been promoting the communal, antiIndia/anti-Hindu political Islam for the sake of legitimacy. It is noteworthy that the followers of the above groups might shift allegiance. A

Tableeqi might join the Jamaat-i-Islami (as Jamaat leader Ghulam Azam

did) and an Anglo-Mohammedan might turn Tableeqi one day.5

However, despite their mutual differences and enmity, especially

between the orthodox ulema/pirs and the Jamaat-i-Islami, these groups

have certain commonalities. Excepting the Anglo-Mohammedans, the

other three groups oppose women’s liberation; Western codes of conduct, law and ethics, and even dress and culture; and are in favor of

establishing shari’a or Islamic law. The most important aspect, which is

common to all four groups, is their stand vis-à-vis India and Pakistan.

They are invariably anti-Indian and pro-Pakistan. It may be mentioned

that the ulema belonging to the “Wahabi” school of thought, who run

thousands of madrassas or Islamic seminaries with an ultra-orthodox

and conservative curricula throughout Bangladesh, are inimical to the

Jamaat-i-Islami and its founder, Maulana Mauddudi (1903–79).6 The
ISLAMIC RESURGENCE IN BANGLADESH: GENESIS, DYNAMICS AND IMPLICATIONS 41

7. Hashmi, Pakistan as a Peasant Utopia, chapters 5, 6 and 7.

8. Basant Chatterjee, Inside Bangladesh Today: An Eye-witness Account (New Delhi: S.

Chand & Co., 1973), 155.

counterparts of these seminaries in Pakistan and Afghanistan, known

as qaumi (national) madrassas, produced the Taliban. The “pro-Taliban”

groups in Bangladesh, for ideological reasons, are opposed to the

Jamaat-i-Islami. However, as it happened in Pakistan, they might unite

against common enemies at the height of polarization between Islam

and some other forces, especially in the wake of 9/11, the Afghan War

of 2001 and the Israeli invasion of the Palestinian territory in March

and April 2002.

Historical Overview

A HISTORICAL OVERVIEW of the Islamization process in East Bengal,

along with an understanding of the socio-political history of the

region, especially with regard to the Pakistanization of the region with

peasant, petty bourgeois and middle class support, is essential for

understanding the problem. Muslim peasants and other underdogs

joined the Pakistan movement with hopes to circumscribe the power

of the Hindu landlords, middle classes and traders. Their eventual

overthrow and replacement by the weaker, budding Muslim middle

classes and upper peasantry were parts of the Bengali Muslim “peasant utopia.”7 The emergence of Bangladesh after the overthrow of

the dominant non-Bengali Muslim elites by the subjugated Bengali

Muslims did not signal the disappearance of the age-old fault line

between the Muslims and Hindus of the subcontinent. The creation

of Bangladesh did not destroy the two-nation theory of the founding

fathers of Pakistan. Renowned Indian journalist, Basant Chatterjee,

makes this irrevocable argument:

Somebody should ask these hypocrites if they could give one

good reason for the separate existence of Bangladesh after

the destruction of the two-nation theory. If the theory has

been demolished, as they claim, then the only logical consequence should be the reunion of Bangladesh with India, as

seems to be the positive stand of the Bangladeshi Hindus....

for the people know that had Pakistan not been created then,

Bangladesh too would not have come into existence now.8
42 TAJ I. HASHMI

9. Ibid., 143.

10. Richard Eaton, The Rise of Islam and the Bengal Frontier, 1204–1760 (Berkeley:

University of California Press, 1993), chapters 5 and 8.

Chatterjee further apprehends that with the gradual shifting of

Hindus to India due to the prevalent anti-Hindu feelings in the country, “Bangladesh would by itself become ‘Muslim Bengal.’”9

Consequently, one may argue that with the creation of Bangladesh,

the “Hindu phobia” of Bengali Muslims—a legacy since the British

colonial days, which transformed into “Indophobia” during the

Pakistani period (1947–71)—is still present in the psyche of the average Bangladeshi Muslim. As the peasant factor is important for

understanding the Islamization process in the country, so too is the

“India factor.” An understanding of the predominant petty bourgeois

and lumpen culture is also essential in this regard. They are equally, if

not more, violent, anarchical and vacillating as the peasantry.

Bengali peasant support for the various Islamic movements since

the early nineteenth century not only projects the violent, “pre-political” and non-committal aspects of the peasant community, but also

suggests how vulnerable Muslim peasants have been to the manipulative leaders who mobilize mass support in the name of Islam or any

other ideology. It is noteworthy that before their political mobilization

took place in the early nineteenth century by Islamic reformists-cummilitants, the Wahabi and Faraizi leaders, East Bengali peasants and

aboriginal tribesmen had come under the influence of “warrior-Sufis”

in the late medieval period. The warrior-Sufis were mainly responsible for the rapid Islamization and peasantization of the region in the

sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, converting the bulk of the

indigenous population who had not yet fully integrated into the amorphous Hindu and peasant communities. Sufis played the leading role

in reclaiming land by clearing forests in the deltaic southeastern “frontier land.” They introduced a new religion, Islam, as well as new agrarian implements and technology, such as the plough and other methods to contain the turbulent rivers, which were shifting eastward

during the period.10

The Wahabi and Faraizi leaders, and especially the most influential

Maulana Karamat Ali Jaunpuri (1800–1873), a former Wahabi-turned-

“loyalist” Islamic reformer of the nineteenth century, brought the

syncretistic Bengali Muslims, mainly peasants, into the fold of shari’a-
ISLAMIC RESURGENCE IN BANGLADESH: GENESIS, DYNAMICS AND IMPLICATIONS 43

11. See A. R. Mallick, British Policy and the Muslims in Bengal, 1757–1856, 2nd ed.

(Dhaka: Bangla Academy, 1977), chapters 3, 4 and 5; Muin-ud-Din Ahmad Khan,

History of the Fara’idi Movement, 2nd ed. (Dhaka: Islamic Foundation, 1984), passim;

Hashmi, “Karamat Ali and the Muslims in Bengal, 1800–1873,” in Dhaka University

Studies 23 (June 1976).

based, orthodox and puritan Islam. The Wahabi and Faraizi leaders

mobilized Bengali Muslim masses against British colonial rule as well

as against the local exploiting classes of (Hindu) zamindars (landlords),

bhadralok (professionals) and mahajans (moneylenders). The first step

toward the mobilization process was through the extensive

Islamization of the masses. Karamat Ali and his hundreds of successors, who adopted pro-British loyalist attitude out of pragmatism

after the failure of the Indian Mutiny of 1857–58, not only Islamized

the bulk of the Bengali Muslims but also created a strong sense of

belonging to an amorphous Muslim community of the subcontinent.11 The omnipotence of the Islamic reformers in the absence of

a powerful modern and moderate Muslim leadership in nineteenthcentury Bengal led to the ascendancy of the ulema as political and religious leaders of the Muslim community. The Hindu revivalist movements, as well as the anti-Muslim socio-economic and political stand

of the bulk of the Hindu elites and middle classes in the nineteenth

and twentieth centuries, further strengthened the hold of the ulema

and their patrons, the ashraf (aristocratic, upper-class Muslims), on the

Bengali Muslim masses. The Hindu opposition to legislative and other

government measures to benefit the Bengali Muslims, such as the

Bengal Tenancy Act of 1885, its amendments, the enactment of the

Bengal Free (rural) Primary Education Bill and the establishment of

the Dhaka University in Muslim majority East Bengal, further antagonized the latter toward the Hindus and prepared them as staunch supporters of the communal partition of the subcontinent in 1947.

The re-emergence of the ulema in the arena of Bengal politics in

1919, spearheading the pervasive anti-British Khilafat (Caliphate)

movement with Muslim support at every level, Islam and ulema continued to play very important roles in the political mobilization of the

Bengali Muslims up to the partition of 1947. The Muslim elite, the

ashraf-ulema-jotedar triumvirate, representing Muslim aristocrats, clergy,

and rich peasants/petty landlords, successfully mobilized Bengali

Muslims against the dominant Hindu zamindar-bhadralok-mahajan triumvirate, common enemy of both the upper- and lower-class
44 TAJ I. HASHMI

12. Rafiuddin Ahmed, The Bengali Muslim 1871–1906: A Quest for Identity (New

Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1981), 84–95, 160–65, 190; Hashmi, Pakistan as a

Peasant Utopia, chap. 7.

13. Ahmed Kamal, “A Land of Eternal Eid—Independence, People and Politics in

East Bengal,” in Dhaka University Studies 46 (June 1989): 81.

Muslims. By 1947, this mobilization in the name of separate Muslim

identity led to the transformation of East Bengal into the eastern wing

of Pakistan. The arousal of Muslim communal solidarity among the

bulk of Bengali Muslim masses as an alternative to class solidarity

demonstrates that religion and ethnicity always have the potential to

become more important than class differences.12

It is interesting that despite the constant harping on the themes of

Islamic solidarity and Muslim separatism under the aegis of the

Pakistani ruling classes during 1947 and 1971, most East Bengali

Muslims distanced themselves from “communal/political Islam.” Not

long after the Partition of 1947, East Bengali Muslims started preferring

secular institutions, including democracy, to Islam for the sake of their

Bengali identity. The clash of these two identities—“Islamic” (Pakistani)

and “secular” (Bengali)—ultimately led to the creation of Bangladesh.

This was possible after the mass emigration of members of the Hindu

zamindar-bhadralok-mahajan triumvirate to India and the emasculation of

the rest of the hitherto dominant Hindus in East Bengal in the wake of

the Partition. Not long after the Partition, it dawned upon sections of

the East Bengali Muslim elites that Pakistan, the promised utopia of

Muslim separatist leaders, was nothing but a mirage—the “promised

land” of South Asian Muslims was a deceptive arrangement to exploit

the eastern wing as a colony of the western wing of Pakistan. Gradually,

sections of the masses became aware of the reality. This transformation

was possible as the founding fathers of Pakistan promised “everything

to everyone” with a view to gaining support for Muslim separatism in

the name of Islamic fraternity, liberty and equality. Not only Bengali and

non-Bengali Muslim politicians were selling the idea of the “golden

Pakistan” to the Bengali Muslims, but leading Bengali Muslim intellectuals—academics and writers—also played very significant roles in the

mass mobilization for Pakistan. One may agree with the view that “any

attempt to understand the disenchantment with the Muslim League

[which championed the cause of Muslim separatism and Pakistan] after

independence has to take into account the initial hopes and expectations

that brought the League into power in the first place.”13
ISLAMIC RESURGENCE IN BANGLADESH: GENESIS, DYNAMICS AND IMPLICATIONS 45

Islam, Secularism and Bengali Nationalism,

1972–75

BENGALI NATIONALISM, more precisely, East Bengali nationalism, had

been the guiding principle of Sheikh Mijib’s Awami League, which

eventually formed the first government in independent Bangladesh.

The exclusion of the Indian Bengalis (mostly Hindus, who opted to

live as citizens of the Indian state in the wake of the partition of

1947) as members of the Bengali nation as defined by the Awami

League, practically indicated that the Muslim majority Bengalis of the

erstwhile East Pakistan wanted to secede from the dominant and

exploiting non-Bengali West Pakistan out of sheer economic, political

and cultural differences. By “culture,” the top leaders and the bulk of

the followers of the movement for Bengali nationalism only meant

linguistic and other aspects of culture, excluding religion. This means

they were (are) Bengalis but nevertheless remained (remain) Muslims

at the same time. They never visualized, let alone fought, for a secular/socialist Bangladesh. Had the Pakistani ruling elite in 1971, instead

of killing Bengalis indiscriminately accepted Sheikh Mujib, the leader

of the majority party Awami League, as the prime minister of

Pakistan, “Bengali nationalism” would have got a totally new meaning, by only highlighting the separate ethnic/linguistic identity of East

Bengalis of Pakistan. However, the rulers of the new nation of

Bangladesh for various reasons—mainly political—adopted the fourpronged state ideology of “Bengali nationalism,” socialism, secularism and democracy, à la Nehruvian “democratic socialism” (often

touted as “Mujibism”).

The abysmal failure of Mujibism to alleviate poverty and restore

law and order eventually led to the Islamization of the polity. The failure of the welfare state forced a large section of the underdogs to

cling to Islam either as a means to escape from the harsh reality or to

achieve their cherished Golden Bengal through piety, Islamic justice

and egalitarianism. Without having substantial changes in living conditions (around 50 percent of the population still live below the

poverty line), the tide of Globalization in the post-Cold War period

has not reduced the Islamic fervor of the people. The obsolescence

of socialism/communism as an alternative to “illiberal democracy”

and autocracy in the Third World since the early 1990s, and the sudden rise in the intensity of Islamic resurgence and “Islamic” terror
46 TAJ I. HASHMI

14. Chatterjee, Inside Bangladesh Today, 68–70.

globally in recent years have further intensified Islamism in

Bangladesh.

The overall situation of the country in the wake of the liberation of

1971 was unbearable for the bulk of the people. Although there was

relief from the nine-month-long reign of terror under the Pakistani

occupation army, the liberation did not bring the expected end of suffering and exploitation. Fellow Bangladeshis, genuine and pseudo

freedom fighters, mostly donning the Awami hat, started a reign of

unbridled corruption, nepotism and lawlessness throughout the country. While Awami leaders, in the name of socialism, were busy plundering the nationalized industries, banks and insurance companies,

and “abandoned” non-Bengali properties previously owned by Urduspeaking refugees from Bihar, Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh, the bulk of

the Bengalis were soon turned into the disillusioned, hungry and

angry masses. By 1974, Bangladesh had already become the “basket

case” of Henry Kissinger. The floods and subsequent famine of 1974

eliminated thousands and impoverished most of the population. By

then, the promised “rice at fifty paisa (half a taka) per seer (slightly less

than a kilogram),” contrary to the Awami League promise on the eve

of the 1970s parliamentary elections, was selling at ten taka per seer.

Even during the Liberation War of 1971, the finest variety of rice, the

staple food, was selling at one taka per seer. Other consumer goods

were selling at ten to twenty times cheaper during the last days of

united Pakistan in comparison to the mid-1970s. Hyperinflation, corruption and non-availability of essentials soon turned the average

Bangladeshi into an anti-Indian/anti-Awami Leaguer. This is well

reflected in Basant Chatterjee’s conversation with a rickshaw-puller in

1973 in Bangladesh. The rickshaw-puller blamed the Awami League

and India for his misery: “Ever since the ‘azadi’ [independence] has

come, we poor people are only having our backs broken. In older

times, we made about five takas a day, but then rice was available at

one taka a seer....But now...we need five for the rice only....For us

poor people Pakistan was all right. At least, we had enough “bhat”

[cooked rice] then to eat to our fill....All these thugs [Awami

Leaguers] are looting the country, and along with them their friend

India is also looting the country.”14 Many of them swelled the ranks

of the opposition groups and parties, including the leftist National
ISLAMIC RESURGENCE IN BANGLADESH: GENESIS, DYNAMICS AND IMPLICATIONS 47

15. Syed Jamil Ahmed, “Bengali Nationalism through Sociology of Theatre,” in A.

M. Chowdhury and Fakrul Alam, eds., Bangladesh on the Threshold of the Twenty-first

Century (Dhaka: Asiatic Society of Bangladesh, 2002), 301.

16. Zillur R. Khan, Martial Law to Martial Law: Leadership Crisis in Bangladesh (Dhaka:

University Press Ltd., 1984), chap. 4.

Socialist Party (JSD) and the clandestine Maoist Sarbahara Party of

Siraj Sikdar. A large number of them, including many erstwhile collaborators of the Pakistani occupation forces, joined hands with

Maulana Bhashani (the champion of “Islamic socialism”) who soon

after the liberation started a vitriolic anti-Awami, anti-Indian campaign. Bhashani’s popularity and the sharp decline in that of Prime

Minister Mujib paved the way for the rise of various Islamic groups

not long after the assassination of the latter in 1975. Mujib, on the

one hand, promoting the idea that secularism “did not mean the

absence of religion,” was giving generous state patronage to madrassa

education and, on the other hand, religion for his government “was a

shadow, the ghost of the past one did not know how to deal with.”15

Meanwhile, by early 1975, the Mujib government had crushed both

the JSD and the Sarbahara Party, the secular and leftist opposition

groups. While the bulk of the JSD leaders were behind bars, in

January 1975 Sarbahara leader Siraj Sikdar was killed in police custody.

Justifying his killing, Prime Minister Mujib boastfully raised the question in the parliament (televised nationwide): “Where is Siraj Sikdar?”

The last straw on the camel’s back was the introduction of the oneparty government under Sheikh Mujib, in the name of the so-called

Bangladesh Peasants’ and Workers’ Awami League (BKSAL). This act

established a Soviet-style government where top-ranking bureaucrats,

university teachers, and even the chiefs and deputy chiefs of the

armed forces, had to join the BKSAL. This act in January 1975, on

the one hand killed the remnants of whatever was left of democracy

and, on the other, rendered underground, clandestine politics—both

secular and Islamic—as the only option for the people.16

Political Islam and Bangladeshi Nationalism,

1975–81

IN THE LONG RUN, the Islamic parties outpaced the various secular/leftist parties in the wake of the overthrow of the BKSAL regime in

August 1975. Henceforth, both the military and civil governments of
48 TAJ I. HASHMI

17. Hashmi, “Islam in Bangladesh Politics,” 110–13.

the country promoted political Islam to contain the militant one promoted by the grassroots-based, well-organized Jamaat-i-Islami and

other groups. It is noteworthy that General Zia’s government

(1975–81) withdrew the ban imposed on all Islam-oriented political

parties by the Mujib government for their active collaboration with

the Pakistani occupation forces in 1971. Zia and his successors promoted Islam and Islamic parties, including the Jamaat and Muslim

League, for the sake of legitimacy and for containing the most organized Awami League.17

From the rapid success of President Zia in popularizing his ideals,

programs and most importantly, his regime, among the bulk of

Bangladeshis, it appears that political Islam fetched him rich dividends. Curiously, what “soldier” Zia grasped quite well—that the

country was least prepared for socialism and secularism—was simply

beyond “politician” Mujib’s comprehension. His associates, mostly

sycophants and half-educated political agitators from the countryside

and small towns, were too naïve to understand the reality. Moreover,

the rich dividends from the nationalized industries and financial institutions for them, acquired in the name of socialism, were too lucrative to lose. The collective failure of the Awami leadership also concerned its failure to grasp the implications of discarding the Islamic

character of the polity. One may point out the way the Mujib government replaced a Quranic inscription, “Read in the name of thy Lord,”

with “Knowledge is Light” from the emblem of Dhaka University. In

hindsight, one may mention how the Communist Party, stigmatized as

the promoter of a “Godless” and “un-Islamic” order, failed to break

through in the peasant and worker fronts in the 1940s and afterwards.

We know how the bulk of Bengali Muslims, including peasants and

workers, whole-heartedly supported the Muslim separatist Pakistan

movement in the 1940s. Sheikh Mujib and his over-enthusiastic associates were not clear about how to implement socialism and secularism in Muslim majority Bangladesh, where most of the population

were both religious and in favor of private property. The people had

never been prepared to work for these alien concepts during the

Liberation War. It seems they fought for independence, not for secularism and socialism.
ISLAMIC RESURGENCE IN BANGLADESH: GENESIS, DYNAMICS AND IMPLICATIONS 49

18. “The Proclamation [Amendment] Order, 1977,” Bangladesh Observer, 23 April

1977.

19. Talukder Maniruzzaman, “Bangladesh Politics: Secular and Islamic Trends,” in

S. R. Chakravarty and Virendra Narain, eds., Bangladesh: History and Culture, Vol. I

(New Delhi: South Asian Publishers, 1986), 46.

20. Razia Akter Banu, Islam in Bangladesh (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1992), chap. 9.

The subsequent governments gradually leaned toward the oil-rich

Muslim countries of the Middle East and the West for the sake of

sustained growth and legitimacy. Significantly, the Saudi recognition

of Bangladesh came only after the assassination and overthrow of

Sheikh Mujib. Meanwhile, Bangladesh’s transformation into a quasiIslamic state by discarding socialism and secularism went unhindered

because the West, especially the United States, preferred pro-Western

Islamists to pro-Communist social democrats during the peak of the

Cold War in the 1980s. Meanwhile, President (General) Zia amended

the constitution, replacing socialism and secularism with “social justice” and “absolute faith in God almighty,” respectively. He also had

“In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful” (in Arabic)

inserted at the beginning of the constitution.18

Political Islam, Military Rule and Legitimacy

IN MAY 1981, ZIA DIED in an abortive military takeover. In March

1982, General Ershad, the army chief, toppled the successive, elected

government. Ershad had neither the charisma nor the popularity of

Zia, and is widely known for his promiscuity and unbridled corruption. Consequently, with a view to legitimizing his rule, in June 1988

he amended the constitution by introducing Islam as the state religion. It may be mentioned that with a few exceptions, most Muslim

countries have this constitutional provision, including the secular

countries such as Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Syria and Tunisia.19

However, one may argue that Ershad, of all people, could not be

sincere about his commitment to Islam. He played the Islamic card

for the sake of containing the so-called fundamentalist forces and his

secular opponents by legitimizing his rule among the majority of

Bangladeshi Muslims who, according to one study, favor non-cleric,

English-educated, “anti-Indian” and Islam-oriented politicians as

their leaders.20 Ershad introduced the Zakat Fund to raise poor-tax in

accordance with the teachings of Islam. He also declared Friday as the

weekly holiday and frequently visited mosques, shrines and the
50 TAJ I. HASHMI

21. Maniruzzaman, “Bangladesh Politics,” 71.

22. Hashmi, “Islam in Bangladesh Politics,” 114–16.

23. Holiday (Bangladeshi weekly), 18 April 1988; Sangbad (Bengali daily), 17 April

1988.

Muslim holy places in Mecca and Medina. Ershad played the “India

card” quite well. After having some diplomatic problem with India in

1982, he bitterly criticized India for the construction of the Farakka

barrage across the Ganges and told his people: “It is being said today

that if we do not get water from Farakka the northern and southern

regions of Bangladesh will turn into deserts. I want to remind everybody

concerned that Islam was born in a desert, but Islam did not die. Islam could not

be destroyed.”21

As Ershad failed to legitimize his rule through popular support, he

befriended some influential pirs, those of Atrashi, Charmonai and

Sarsina, for example, and some Anglo-Mohammedan leaders who

congratulated him for the State Religion Act. However, the Jamaat-iIslami and pro-Iranian Maulana Mohammadullah (Hafizjee Huzur),

an influential cleric, challenging Ershad’s legitimacy, condemned the

act as an inadequate sham. However, some obscure Islamic groups

and quite surprisingly, the Bangladesh Teachers’ Federation, supposed

to be secular, favored the act. Curiously, Anglo-Mohammedan Kazi

Qader (Muslim League leader) felt the act was aimed at suppressing

the movement of the God-fearing Muslims. He demanded the immediate declaration of Bangladesh as an “Islamic Republic.”22 However,

whatever he did in the name of Islamization of the polity has

remained unaltered.

Although various feminist and human rights nongovernmental

organizations (NGOs) bitterly criticized the State Religion Act in

Bangladesh, most of the Bengali Muslims have accepted the provision. So far no subsequent government has gathered enough courage

to alter the amendment. Two women’s organizations, Naripakhyo and

Oikyobaddho Nari Samaj, came forward to protest against the act. In

doing so, they stoked the issues of “sovereignty of the country” and

“the spirit of the Freedom Struggle,” presumed to be in danger

because of the act. However, many men jeered at them for holding

rallies, asking them to observe purdah (seclusion of women from public view), presumed to be a requirement by Muslim women. Many

men were even happy about an Islamic State of Bangladesh where

women would not compete with them in the job market.23
ISLAMIC RESURGENCE IN BANGLADESH: GENESIS, DYNAMICS AND IMPLICATIONS 51

24. Ibid.

Not long after the enactment of the State Religion Act, several liberal

democrats and women’s organizations started a campaign to rekindle

the “Spirit of the Liberation War” or secularism to contain Ershad’s

autocracy. Several NGOs, funded by overseas donors, came forward in

support. After failing to repeal the act, a section of left-oriented intellectuals, under the leadership of Ahmed Sharif, a retired Dhaka

University professor, and retired Colonel Nuruzzaman (Freedom

Fighter) lent support to the anti-Ershad movement. Under the banner

of the Muktijuddho Chetona Bikash Kendro (Centre for the Development

of the Spirit of the Liberation War), they spoke at some of the women’s

rallies. Stressing the virtues of democracy, socialism and secularism,

Ahmed Sharif felt that “food in stomach is Islam” and urged that “the

right to be fed be incorporated in the Constitution” instead of Islam as

the state religion.24 While the various Islamic groups, including the

Jamaat-i-Islami, condemned Ershad as an “Indo-Soviet agent and

enemy of Islam,” they did not join hands with the secular, socialist and

liberal democrats, let alone the women’s groups. The latter had been

avowedly anti-Jamaat for its “fundamentalist” tilt and collaboration with

Pakistani rulers in 1971. They turned their attention to discredit the various collaborators of the Pakistani occupation forces in 1971 as the

“enemies of the people.” Meanwhile, by the late 1980s, a Bengali book

had come out in the market with a long list of the “killers and collaborators of 1971.” The polity since then has been sharply polarized

between the so-called “pro-” and “anti-Liberation” forces. The former

represents the so-called secular and liberal parties and individuals who

are soft on India and harsh on Pakistan. The latter, the so-called “Islamloving” groups and individuals, have strong to very strong anti-India

and pro-Islam commitments. Although many of these groups and individuals had soft corners for Pakistan during the Liberation War of 1971,

they also raise the “Liberation-in-danger” slogan, along with the age-old

“Islam-in-danger.” While the secular groups, by “Liberation-in-danger”

mean the alleged Pakistani machination to subjugate Bangladesh, to the

latter, the independence is at stake because of Indian “expansionism.”

Roughly, the Awami League and its secular allies represent the former

while the BNP and its Islamic allies are with the latter.

The parliamentary elections of 1991, held after the overthrow of

Ershad in December 1990, contrary to the expectations of the Awami
52 TAJ I. HASHMI

25. Hashmi, “Islam in Bangladesh Politics,” 125–27.

26. Zohair Hossain, “Maulana Sayyid Abul A’la Maududi: An Appraisal of His

Thought and Political Influence,” South Asia 9, no. 1 (June 1986); M. S. Agwani,

“God’s Government: Jamaat-i-Islami of India” and R. A. Banu, “Jamaat-i-Islami in

Bangladesh,” in Mutalib and Hashmi, Islam, Muslims and the Modern State; Professor

Ahmed Sharif, telephone conversation with author, Melbourne, Australia, 15 June

1994.

League, brought Khaleda Zia, the widow of President Zia, to power.

Her party, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) came to power

with the support of the Jamaat-i-Islami and she became the prime

minister. It is interesting that most political parties, including the

Communist Party of Bangladesh, used Islamic slogans for their success in the elections of 1991. While the “Islam-loving” parties, got

54.13 percent of the votes, the Awami League-led Eight-Party

alliance, despite its Islamic rhetoric, slogans and banners, managed to

poll only around 34.81 percent of the votes in the elections.25 One

may again deduct more than 10 percent minority (mainly Hindu)

votes from the total votes polled by the Awami League-led alliance, as

traditionally the minorities have been voting for the Awami League.

This means that in 1991, around 75 percent of Bangladeshi Muslims

did not vote for the Awami League.

The Jamaat-i-Islami Factor

THE JAMAAT-I-ISLAMI CAME INTO BEING in the 1940s in north India.

Maulana Mauddudi, the founder, who had earlier strongly opposed

the concept of Pakistan, later migrated to Pakistan from north India

and worked for the establishment of an Islamic state, based on the

shari’a law. The Jamaat throughout the Cold War maintained a proWestern and anti-Communist policy. The party collaborated with the

Pakistani occupation army in Bangladesh and is despised by many liberal democrats and others for its role in 1971. Not long after the overthrow of the Mujib government in 1975, the Jamaat emerged as a

legitimate organization in Bangladesh. Unlike its counterparts in India

and Pakistan, the Jamaat in Bangladesh is led and followed mostly by

upper peasants and lower middle classes. It is widely believed that the

Jamaat, having several NGOs, clinics and charitable organizations

across Bangladesh, has been gaining ground, emerging as an alternative to the secular organizations.26 Of late, sections of the Jamaat
27. Hashmi, “Islam in Bangladesh Politics,” 120–22.

28. Jamaat-i-Islami Bangladesh, Bulletin: Jamaat-i-Islami Bangladesh (Dhaka: April

1991), 8.

INTRODUCTION: RELIGION, RADICALISM, AND SECURITY IN SOUTH ASIA 53

workers have adopted an anti-U.S. stand, especially in the wake of the

U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001. Throughout the Cold War,

the United States had a soft corner for the Jamaat and similar Islamic

parties elsewhere, such as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Due to

political repression and lack of any democratic outlet in Egypt and in

some other countries in the Middle East and North Africa, grassroots-based Islamic parties have been clandestine militant organizations. In the post-Cold War era, U.S. indifference and hostility toward

the hitherto friendly Islamic parties for their anti-Israel/anti-U.S. policy, turned them into anti-U.S. By the early 1990s, several militant

splinter groups, mainly representing the unemployed/underemployed

Muslim youths, emerged out of the powerful Muslim Brotherhood.

The likelihood of such a transformation of the Jamaat in Bangladesh

cannot be totally ruled out, either.

Although the Jamaat had faced a three-pronged attack from the

Ershad government, “secular/socialist/liberal” groups, and as mentioned earlier, by a section of the orthodox ulema, mostly belonging

to the conservative Deoband School, the party was gaining ground.

While the “secular/liberal” groups condemn the Jamaat for its obscurantism and “war crimes,” a section of the ulema regard Maulana

Mauddudi, the founder, a heretic and the Jamaat a heresy. The 1980s

through the early 1990s had been the golden era for the Jamaat. By

then their student wing had captured student unions at Chittagong

and Rajshahi universities by defeating the combined groups of their

opponents. This was the period when the party enjoyed the blessings

of Saudi Arabia and, most importantly, the United States.27 The

Jamaat cut a good figure in the parliamentary elections of 1991—capturing eighteen seats and more than 12 percent of the votes (more

than four million votes)— compared to ten seats and slightly more

than a million votes in the elections of 1986.28

The emergence of the Jamaat as the third-largest party in terms of

its share in total votes cast in the 1991 elections alarmed its rivals. In

March 1992, the proponents of the Spirit of the Liberation War,

under the leadership of Colonel (retired) Nuruzzaman (with the
54 TAJ I. HASHMI

29. Badruddin Umar, “Why Has Ghulam Azam’s Trial Emerged as an Issue? [in

Bengali],” Ajker Kagaj (Bengali daily), 1 April 1992.

30. Jamaat-i-Islami, “Nizami Analyzes Election Results,” Bulletin, 7.

31. Hashmi, “Islam in Bangladesh Politics,” 127.

32. Jamaat-i-Islami, “Election Results,” 7.

blessings of Ahmed Sharif) organized a “public trial” of Jamaat

leader, Ghulam Azam, an alleged war criminal, for his active collaboration with Pakistan during the Liberation War. No sooner had

Ghulam Azam been elected as the chief of the Jamaat in Bangladesh,

than the organizers of the “trial” formed the Killer-Collaborator

Elimination Committee (Ghatak-Dalal Nirmul). Promptly, the Awami

League lent support to the Elimination Committee. Obviously, as

some analysts observe, they did so to gain political leverage.29 The

“trial” was embarrassing both for the Jamaat and its allies, the BNP

government. Curiously, the Awami League, which had earlier supported the physical attack on Jamaat leader, Matiur Rahman Nizami,

by some Dhaka University students in May 1991, later asked the

Jamaat leaders to “forget the past and look forward to the future.”

And in early 1991, the party had no qualms about sending its presidential candidate to Ghulam Azam for his “blessings,” as the members of the parliament elect the president of the Republic. The Jamaat

then had twenty members in the parliament with unflinching loyalty

toward Ghulam Azam.30

Islamists in Bangladesh also started facing a hostile West not long

after the Gulf War of 1991. The West must not have relished the way

a large number of Bangladeshi Muslims, including leading politicians

from the so-called liberal democratic parties like BNP and Awami

League, had expressed solidarity with Saddam Hussein. Some candidates during the parliamentary elections of 1991 even identified

themselves as “Saddam’s candidates,” displaying life-size portraits of

the Iraqi dictator.31 The Jamaat, however, opposed Saddam Hussein’s

Kuwait invasion, which, according to a Jamaat leader, cost them dearly

as most Bangladeshi Muslims were supporters of Saddam and bitter

critics of the West.32 However, the Jamaat’s poor performance in all

the previous and successive elections belies this assertion.

Nevertheless, the fact remains that by the 1990s the Jamaat had not

only regained its lost image (despite its anti-Liberation role in 1971)

but also started playing the role of “king maker,” as evident from the
ISLAMIC RESURGENCE IN BANGLADESH: GENESIS, DYNAMICS AND IMPLICATIONS 55

33. Ahmed Sharif et al. (eds.), Ekattarer Ghatak O Dalalra Ke Kothay (Bengali), Mukti

Juddho Chetona Bikash Kendra, Dhaka, 1987; Borhanuddin Khan Jahangir,

Bangladeshe Jatiyatabad Ebong Moulobad (Bengali), Agami Prakashani, Dhaka, 1993;

Aman-ud-Daula, Ghulam Azamer Nagarikatta Mamla (Bengali), Dibya Prakash, Dhaka,

1993; Maulana Abdul Awwal, Jamaater Asal Chehara (Bengali), Agami Prakashani,

Dhaka, 1993; Shahriyar Kabir (ed.), Bangladeshe Shampradayikatar Chalchitra (Bengali),

Pallab Publishers, Dhaka, 1993; Shahriyar Kabir (ed.), Ekattarer Ghatak Jamaat-i-Islami:

Atit O Bartaman (Bengali), Muktijuddho Chetona Bikash Kendra, Dhaka, 1989;

Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council, Communal Discrimination in

Bangladesh: Facts and Documents, Dhaka, 1993; Taslima Nasrin, Lajja (Bengali), Pearl

Publishers, Dhaka, 1993; and Lajja: Shame, Penguin Books, London, 1994.

results of the parliamentary elections since 1991 vis-à-vis the formation of government by the two major political parties, BNP and the

Awami League.

The late 1980s and early 1990s also witnessed the gradual transformation of the cold war between the Islamists (mainly the

Jamaat) and the so-called secular/liberal forces into open confrontation. The latter, the “pro-India” and “pro-Western” lobbies,

respectively, represent the Awami League (and its allies belonging

to the erstwhile pro-Soviet political parties) and the various

NGOs/ human rights groups. They have been opposing the Jamaat

in the name of championing the cause of Liberation, women’s

rights, human rights, minority rights and secularism. The Taslima

Nasrin episode, the NGO-mullah conflict and the mutual mudslinging between the mullah and Awami-NGO lobbies are parts of

the play called the “Public Trial of Ghulam Azam” in 1991. While

the mullah have been vilifying the Awami-NGO lobby as the “enemies of Islam,” “Indian agents” and “agents of neo-imperialism,”

the latter have been portraying the former as “antiLiberation/Pakistani agents,” “fundamentalist/Taliban” and

“Communal” (anti-Hindu and anti-minority fascist). One may cite

scores of scurrilous writings against the so-called Islamic fundamentalist-cum-communal forces, especially the Jamaat.33 The “secular/liberal” group owns most of the well-circulated Bengali and

English newspapers in the country. The Reliance Group of India

owns the well-circulated Janakantha.

Nothing could be more trite than portraying the Jamaat as “communal” and “anti-Liberation” in the post-Liberation period, let alone

as pro-Taliban. Jimmy Carter felt that Islamic parties who believed in

election, despite having “fundamentalist” belief and support for
56 TAJ I. HASHMI

34. Daily Star, 5 August 2001.

35. Maulana Abbas Ali Khan (acting chief of the Jamaat), interview with author,

Dhaka, 21 May 1991.

36. Afsan Chowdhury, “Is ‘Islam in danger’ Slogan Back in Circulation?” Daily Star,

21 May 2002.

shari’a law, could not be classified as “extremist.”34 And those among

them who have accepted the reality of Bangladesh cannot be simply

rejected as anti-Liberation, either. Nevertheless, the fact remains that

some powerful Jamaat leaders do not believe in the democratic way of

coming to power—some of them do not rule out the adoption of the

“other means,” or armed insurrection, to capture power.35 Jamaat

workers’ militancy and their occasional armed encounters with “liberal democrats” (mainly the Awami Leaguers) have alarmed many

about an eventual Jamaat takeover of the country. Many Bangladeshi

intellectuals feel that the BNP-Jamaat coalition government that came

to power in October 2001 has been too soft on the Jamaat. Even the

government’s 2002 banning of a movie, Matir Moina, for its negative

portrayal of the madrassa system of education, is read by many not

as a fear of the Awami League by the BNP, “but of Jamaat-i-Islami

deserting BNP.”36

Popular Islam, Fatwa, Women and NGOs in the

Village Community

THE WRITINGS AND COMMENTS by Taslima Nasrin (b. 1962), a medical

doctor-turned-feminist writer, on Islam, patriarchy and society in

Bangladesh in the early 1990s brought her (and eventually her country) to the limelight. Nasrin is another member of the so-called secular-liberal-democrat group of Bangladesh, reflecting her rabid antiIslamic, pro-Indian and anti-male bias in her writings—both in

literary works (often classified as soft porn) and essays. Already very

controversial and unpopular both among Islamists and others in

Bangladesh for advocating free sex and other maverick ideas, including the merger of Bangladesh with the Indian State of West Bengal,

Nasrin endeared many Indians. In early 1993, for her fiction, Lajja,

which portrays the plight of the Hindu minority in Bangladesh—paradoxically in the wake of the killing of thousands of Muslims in India

during and after the demolition of the Babri Mosque in late 1992—

Nasrin became very popular among Hindu militants in India. This
ISLAMIC RESURGENCE IN BANGLADESH: GENESIS, DYNAMICS AND IMPLICATIONS 57

37. Taslima Nasrin, Lajja: Shame (London: Penguin Books, 1994).

38. Hashmi, “Women and Islam: Taslima Nasreen, Society and Politics in

Bangladesh,” South Asia 18, no. 2 (December 1995); Hashmi, Women and Islam in

Bangladesh, chap. 6.

novelette, soon translated into English and several other Indian languages, grossly exaggerated the plight of Hindus in Bangladesh by

singling out the Jamaat-i-Islami workers as members of the killerrapist-abductor gangs.37 Not long after the publication of Lajja, a

couple of obscure mullahs from the periphery issued the so-called

fatwa-to-kill against the author. Soon, they denied having issued such

a fatwa. Despite their denial, the Indian and Western media publicized

the so-called death threat portraying Bangladesh as another “Islamic”

country with all its negative attributes, turning Nasrin into their

Salman Rushdie and the two mullahs into the protégé of Ayatollah

Khomeini.38 Nasrin’s alleged remarks made to Indian media in 1994

suggesting to “rewrite the Quran” enraged the bulk of the

Bangladeshi Muslims, and this finally led to her expulsion from the

country. The wide coverage of the Taslima Nasrin episode in Indian

and Western media has convinced many that Bangladesh is not different from other “Islamic” countries vis-à-vis their intolerance and

obscurantism.

While the Taslima Nasrin episode was drawing world attention, persecution of rural women in the name of Islamic justice was occurring

in the countryside. The cruel and illegal acts of the traditional village

courts, or salish, was very disturbing to human rights activists and others. The public trial of poor women by village elders and mullahs,

which led to several deaths of the victims, convinced many in the

West and elsewhere about the “impending” ascendancy of the Islamic

extremists to power in Bangladesh. Meanwhile, the proliferation of

Western donors aided NGOs in the country, who have been advancing micro-credit to rural women (albeit at very high interest rates, the

average being around 32 percent), running schools and generating

jobs, mainly for women, polarized the polity between pro- and antiNGO groups. Broadly, the former represents the so-called secular-liberal-democrat people (often the beneficiaries of the NGOs) and the

latter mainly Islam-oriented and anti-West/anti-globalization groups

and individuals. The controversial and extortionist modus operandi of

NGOs, especially the way the Grameen Bank, BRAC and Proshika
58 TAJ I. HASHMI

39. Daily Star, 4 April 2001.

40. Prothom Alo, 2 January 2001.

operate, preferring women to men as their clients in the name of

female empowerment and alleviation of poverty, has alienated village

elders and others from the NGOs. In the common parlance of the

villagers, the various powerful local and foreign NGOs are described

as: “CAREer gari, BRACer bari, Grameener nari, aar Proshikar barabari”

(CARE [An American NGO] is known for its vehicles, BRAC for its

buildings, Grameen for its women and Proshika for its excesses).

Purportedly, mullahs’ and village elders’ dislike for the NGOs was due

to their “anti-Islamic” activities, including bringing women to the

close proximity of unrelated men and for their alleged promotion of

Christian missionaries. The conflict may be explained as another

dimension of the age-old elite conflict between the dominant urban

and weak rural elite. NGO preference for women to men as their

clients has hit patriarchy and the well-entrenched village elders and

mullahs by posing the threat of taking away their traditional clients as

well. The NGO lobby’s projection of the mullahs as “fundamentalists,” “anti-women” and “anti-liberation” led to the proliferation of

anti-NGO fatwas and backlash at NGO workers in the countryside.

Mufti Fazlul Haq Amini, an influential cleric, in a public meeting

demanded the execution of NGO activist Kazi Faruq Ahmed, for his

“anti-Islamic” activities.39

The fatwa controversy came to the limelight in the 1990s after the

local media, NGOs and donors took exception to the persecution of

rural women in the name of Islam. Poor rural women, often victims

of rape by influential villagers or those alleged to have cohabited with

their former husbands after being divorced, are punished for committing adultery. Sometimes influential village elders force them to

remarry someone as penance to committing adultery through the salish. The village mullah, totally dependent on village elders for sustenance, play the vital role in justifying the “judgments” in the name of

shari’a law. In late 2000, one Shahida, a village woman at Naogaon district in northern Bangladesh, fell victim to a salish verdict and was

forced to commit suicide. Wide publicity of the incident led to the

High Court verdict declaring the dispensing of fatwas illegal on

January 1, 2001.40 The influential Jamaat-i-Islami, several Islamic

groups and hundreds of ulema condemned the judgment as un-
ISLAMIC RESURGENCE IN BANGLADESH: GENESIS, DYNAMICS AND IMPLICATIONS 59

41. Daily Star, January 2, 3 and 4, 2001.

42. Janakantha & Jugantar (Bengali dailies), 6 January 2001.

43. Prothom Alo, 6 February 2001.

44. Ibid., 9 January 2001.

45. Daily Star and Prothom Alo, 3 February 2001.

46. Holiday, 9 February 2001.

47. Prothom Alo, 4 February 2001.

Islamic and the judges as murtads (apostates).41 While Maulana Fazlul

Karim, the influential pir (Sufi) of Charmonai (avowedly opposed to

the Jamaat and female leadership, and very soft on General Ershad),

the chief of the Islamic Constitution Movement, condemned the

judgment, Mufti Amini threatened to launch a “Taliban-style

Revolution” in Bangladesh to counterpoise the “enemies of Islam.”42

Islamic zealots were on the rampage at Brahmanbaria, Chittagong and

certain other places, chanting anti-government and pro-Taliban slogans: “Amra sabai Taliban, Bangla habe Afghan” (We are all Taliban and

will turn Bangladesh into another Afghanistan).43 Although most liberal-democrats favored the anti-fatwa judgment, the government,

being apprehensive of the backlash, was thinking in terms of reviewing the judgment.44

Soon the polarized polity witnessed the showdown between profatwa clerics and anti-fatwa, pro-NGO Nagorik Andolon (Citizen’s

Movement). Among others, the Pir of Charmonai, Mufti Amini and

Mufti Azizul Haq, organized a grand pro-fatwa rally in Dhaka on

February 2, 2001. Declaring the NGOs as “number one enemy” of

Islam and Bangladesh, the clerics blamed the Awami League government for appointing judges with bias against Islam.45 The pro-NGO

and anti-fatwa Nagorik Andolon confronted the clerics and asked the

government to ban all religiously motivated political parties.46 Under

quite confusing and mysterious circumstances, a police constable was

killed inside a mosque at Muhammadpur in Dhaka. The government

put the blame on a section of the clerics for the murder and also for

possessing “time bombs,” said to have been recovered from a

madrassa at Muhammadpur.47 According to the government, Islamic

militants killed the police constable while Shaykh-ul-Hadis Azizul

Haq, the chief of the pro-BNP Islamic Unity Front, was present in

the mosque. The government also claimed that the Ulema Parishad

(Council of Clerics), an Islamic organization, had been collecting

money for jihad. It produced a “receipt” for the collected amount
60 TAJ I. HASHMI

48. Daily Star, 5 February 2001.

49. Holiday, 20 April 2001.

50. Prothom Alo, 15 February 2001.

51. Ibid., 18 February 2001.

52. Ibid., 14 January 2001.

53. Hashmi, Women and Islam in Bangladesh, 88–89.

from a madrassa at Muhammadpur. In view of the prevalent situation, while the Awami League has been trying to single out the rival

Islamists and BNP as pro-Taliban terrorists and the BNP has been

singling out the former as opportunist, one may not take the “evidence” seriously.48 The government version of the murder of the

policeman in the mosque lacks credibility as well. Haji Mackbul

Ahmed, an Awami League MP and local godfather, was too powerful

and influential to be overpowered by a handful of clerics and

madrassa students.49

Meanwhile, the government was considering the formation of a

Shari’a Board to issue fatwas in accordance with Islam and on behalf

of the state.50 Liberal democrats and leftists opposed any such move

to institutionalize fatwa through the state machinery.51 However, one

may set aside the liberal-democrats’ reservations about the mullahs’

authority to issue fatwas as they represent the minority view, mainly

belonging to the urban middle and upper classes. The acceptability of

the fatwa-dispensing mullahs in the countryside is reflected in several

violent incidents. In January 2001, villagers at Nandigram in Bogra

district, for example, damaged the vehicle of a Bangladesh Television

crew, who went to interview one Maulana Ibrahim, who in 1995 came

to the limelight for his famous anti-BRAC fatwa stirring up a big mob

against the NGO. Most villagers were in favor of the cleric and

regarded the TV crew as pro-NGO.52

The Muslim community at the grassroots level favors fatwa as the

fastest and cheapest way of getting justice. The average mullah’s

revulsion for NGOs is well taken by Bangladeshi Muslims at the

grassroots level as well. This is reflected in the popularity of scores of

mullah-cum-demagogue, including Maulana Delwar Hussein Saidi (a

Jamaat MP since 1996), Pir Fazlul Karim, Mufti Fazlul Haq Amini and

Mufti Ubaidullah and others. Saidi’s video and audiocassettes containing rustic speeches and extreme views, reflecting the little traditions of

Islam in Bangladesh, sell by the thousand throughout the country.53

One year after the controversial anti-fatwa judgment, Saidi felt that
ISLAMIC RESURGENCE IN BANGLADESH: GENESIS, DYNAMICS AND IMPLICATIONS 61

54. Jai Jai Din (Bengali weekly), 15 January 2002.

55. Prothom Alo, 7 February 2002.

56. Jai Jai Din, 15 January 2002.

57. Hashmi, Women and Islam in Bangladesh, 204.

58. Dainik Dinkal (Bengali daily), 28 February 2001; Holiday, 2 March 2001.

“fatwas should guide the judiciary and not the other way round.”54 On

February 6, 2002 some clerics commemorated the deaths of several

Islamic activists who died in police firing protesting the anti-fatwa

judgment in 2001.55 Bengali Muslim support for the mullah is well

reflected in some popular Bengali songs, played by taxi drivers and

others at the grassroots level. One such song depicts the plight of the

under-employed madrassa graduates and their prejudice against

women and modernization: “What is the use of studying the Quran

and Hadis at the madrassas if they are obsolete in the courts of law?

What is so great about being a man if the country is under female

leadership? What is the benefit of manhood if the universities in the

name of coeducation promote lewdness?”56

Islamic Militancy: Real or Imaginary?

MEANWHILE, URBAN MULLAHS with rural backgrounds and links have

been campaigning against the NGOs and their urban patrons and

associates, mainly professionals and intellectuals, often portraying

them as murtads, enemies of Islam and agents of neo-imperialist

West.57 And as per Islamic law, apostates are liable to capital punishment. Death warrants and bomb attacks on some of the enlisted murtads presumably by Islamic militants became quite common during

1991 and 2001. The ongoing conflict between the pro-NGO “civil

society” and the anti-NGO Islamists in early 2001 alarmed the U.S.

State Department and various donor agencies, including the Asian

Development Bank. Pointing out its adverse effects on the economy

of Bangladesh, they condemned the “violation of human rights” in

the name of Islam.58

While celebrating the Bengali New Year—an “un-Islamic” festival

to some Muslim clerics—on April 14, 2001, a bomb killed several

people at Ramna Park in Dhaka. In June, a village church was bombed

at Gopalganj (Sheikh Hasina’s home district) and soon the police

arrested one Mufti Hannan, the alleged mastermind. The police also

arrested four madrassa teachers for their alleged involvement in the
62 TAJ I. HASHMI

59. Prothom Alo, June 9 and 10, 2001; Daily Star, 15 June 2001.

60. Azadi (Bengali daily), 20 June 2001.

61. Prothom Alo, 12 January 2001.

62. Ibid., 24 April 2001.

63. “Beware of Bangladesh—Bangladesh: A Cocoon of Terror,” Far Eastern

Economic Review, 4 April 2002.

Ramna Park bombing. However, the Hasina government lost credibility for producing contradictory stories and evidence with regard to

the bombing.59 Yet from another newspaper report we learn about

the Harkatul Jihad, an “Islamic militant” group, said to have been

engaged in terrorist activities in parts of Chittagong district in association with several Rohingya Muslim militant organizations from

Arakan, Myanmar. The previous governments up to 1996 (prior to

the formation of the Awami League government under Hasina)

allegedly armed these groups who aim at capturing state power.60

One has to be too naïve to believe the story. As discussed earlier, during the fracas between the pro- and anti-fatwa groups in 2001, some

mullahs threatened to stage a “Taliban-style revolution in

Bangladesh.” The rhetoric, wishful thinking and verbal attacks on secular law and institutions do not prove anything. Despite the sensational reporting by a section of the press, hinting at the “impending”

collapse of law and order, one does not get any conclusive evidence

about the so-called Taliban activities in Bangladesh. The following

reports may be cited in this regard:

One Muhammad Yaqub, a “Taliban militant,” who had been to

Saudi Arabia as an expatriate worker and trained in Afghanistan, was

arrested in Chittagong.61 Members of the Shahadat-i-al-Hikma [hitherto unheard of], a pro-Taliban “martyrs’ organization,” pasted

posters at different places in Rajshahi, including the University campus, exhorting Muslims to learn “the proper use of arms.” Syed

Kausar Hussein, the chief of the group, who had been to Saudi

Arabia as an expatriate worker, was trained in Afghanistan. According

to the police, the posters reached Rajshahi from Dhaka. Hussein is a

former madrassah student and used to run a small business in

Rajshahi.62

A cover story by the Far Eastern Economic Review (FEER) in April

2002 is another reflection of this alarmist view.63 The FEER story

does not comfort the liberal democrats and secular people. According

to Bertil Lintner, the Thailand-based Swedish journalist: “A revolution
ISLAMIC RESURGENCE IN BANGLADESH: GENESIS, DYNAMICS AND IMPLICATIONS 63

64. Prothom Alo, 20 December 2001.

is taking place in Bangladesh that threatens trouble for the region and

beyond if left unchallenged. Islamic fundamentalism, religious intolerance, militant Muslim groups with links to international terrorist

groups, a powerful military with ties to the militants, the mushrooming of Islamic schools churning out radical students, middle class apathy, poverty and lawlessness—all are combining to transform the

nation.” The report also suggested that Western donors and diplomats, more concerned with the problems of governance and development than the rise of Islamic militancy in Bangladesh “seem to have

paid scant attention to the deeper long-term danger” of Islamic resurgence in the country. Citing the indifference and complacence of the

Bangladeshi middle classes and government about the “impending

threat” of Talibanization of the polity, the report considers the electoral success of the Jamaat-i-Islami, having seventeen seats in the

three-hundred-member parliament and two ministers in the cabinet of

the BNP-led coalition government, ominous. According to the

report, more extremist Islamic clerics and groups in Bangladesh, such

as Maulana Ubaidul Haq and the “shadowy” Harkat-ul-Jihad-alIslami, having connections with their Pakistani, Afghan, Chechen, and

Southeast Asian counterparts with the blessings from Osama bin

Laden, have been active in the region. The January 22, 2002 attack on

the American Cultural Centre in Kolkata has been imputed to Harkat

gunmen. The report cited how Jamaat supporters in general and

Ubaidul Haq in particular took part in anti-U.S. protests during the

Afghan War in late 2001. According to the report, while addressing

thousands of Muslims—including the President and several cabinet

ministers of Bangladesh at the Eid congregational prayer in Dhaka in

December 2001—the latter publicly condemned the U.S. president as

“the most heinous terrorist in the world.” “America and Bush must be

destroyed. The Americans will be washed away if Bangladesh’s 120

million Muslims spit on them,” the cleric exhorted. Several local

newspaper reports are corroborative of the reported speech.64

It seems the report has nothing to do with reality. One is not sure

if there is any hidden agenda of individuals or groups behind such

reporting. Soon after the excerption of the Internet version of the

story in local newspapers, the BNP-Jamaat coalition government
64 TAJ I. HASHMI

65. Ibid., 4 April 2002; Daily Star, April 4 , 11 and 12, 2002.

66. “O Secularism!” Holiday, 5 April 2002.

under Khaleda Zia condemned the report as baseless, imposing a ban

on the circulation of the April 4 issue of the periodical in Bangladesh.

However, no sooner had Sheikh Hasina of the opposition Awami

League blamed the BNP-Jamaat coalition government for the “prevalent terrorist image” of Bangladesh than Prime Minister Khaleda Zia

blamed Hasina’s party for “planting” the FEER story.65 A similar sensational report came out in the Wall Street Journal (April 2, 2002) entitled, “In Bangladesh, as in Pakistan, a Worrisome Rise in Islamic

Extremism.” “Militant groups with links with international terrorists”

and “powerful military with ties to militants” are said to have mobilized Islamic militants in the country. One wonders if there is a link

between such sensational writings and what Sheikh Hasina and her

party have been doing, i.e., vilifying the BNP and its allies as “Islamic

fundamentalists” and as local agents of Osama bin Laden. Curiously,

the report portrays the Awami League as “left-leaning and secular,”

ignoring how the party since the early 1990s has been projecting itself

as a champion of Islam and how Sheikh Hasina donned the Islamic

hijab on the eve of the 1996 parliamentary elections and became the

prime minister. The pro-Awami League sympathy of the reporter is

further reflected in his corroboration of Sheikh Hasina that the BNPled coalition government, which came to power after “ousting,” not

“defeating” the Awami League, has established “a reign of terror

across the country.” The reporter blamed the BNP-led government as

“anti-Hindu” and “pro-fundamentalist.” It is curious that he blamed

the Harkat-ul-Jihad al Islami behind the threats against Taslima

Nasrin in 1993 and for “the attempted murder” of popular poet

Shamsur Rahman in 1999. One has every reason to agree with

Enayetullah Khan, the editor of weekly Holiday, that the so-called

attack on the poet was a sham and that he has “lost his face as a tool

of propaganda.” Khan points out Bertil Lintner’s “Indian connection” for embellishing his article “with Indian intelligence quotes as

credible evidence of the Harkat-ul-Jihad nexus between Pakistan and

Bangladesh through the intermediation of the Inter-Services

Intelligence (ISI) of Pakistan.”66
ISLAMIC RESURGENCE IN BANGLADESH: GENESIS, DYNAMICS AND IMPLICATIONS 65

67. Ibid.

68. “FEER’s Prejudiced and One-sided Cover Story,” Daily Star, 5 April 2002.

69. “West’s Islam-bashers Playing into bin Laden’s Hands,” cited in Holiday, 12 April

2002; Daily Star, 16 April 2002.

70. Daily Star, 14 April 2002.

It is interesting that while the BNP-led government sued the FEER

for damages to the tune of one billion dollars for tarnishing the country’s image,67 liberal democrats and the media also condemned the

FEER reports for their anti-Bangladesh stand. The Daily Star of

Bangladesh (a “liberal democrat” daily, soft on the Awami League) in

an editorial mentions “regular and credible elections,” the freedom of

expression, the existence of private TV channels, women’s impressive

turnout in elections, the rise in the literacy rate, women’s representation in the armed forces and their gradual empowerment process in

Bangladesh to portray a liberal democratic image of Bangladesh. The

editor considers the FEER article prejudiced, one-sided and highly

irresponsible.68 The countrywide condemnation of the article (with

the exception of the Awami League corroborating the story) was

soon followed by its rebuttal by foreign reporters, diplomats and others familiar with Bangladesh. According to Philip Bowring, former

editor of the FEER, Western “Islam-bashers” have been responsible

for this type of “media demonization of Islamic nations.” He blames

the avidly pro-U.S. Dow Jones, who owns the periodical, for the sensational story, in line with the Western media in the wake of 9/11.

“For sure, some nasty extremists do exist in this as in all other countries, but the nation’s secular polity and the precedence of Bengali

over Islamic identity is rooted in its independent history,” Bowring

reiterates. To him, there is no point in going after the “make-believe

enemies” in countries like Bangladesh, as the real terrorists live elsewhere, including some of the major Western cities. Bowring is critical

of alienating hundreds of millions of Muslims, whom he thinks “are

far more moderate than Christian fundamentalist zealots such as

Attorney General John Ashcroft in the Bush government.”69 Among

several Western observers, Mary Anne Peters, U.S. ambassador to

Bangladesh, was very critical of the FEER and the Wall Street Journal

for publishing such biased articles on Bangladesh, “a liberal Muslim”

nation. She felt that investigation was essential to find out the truth

behind the story.70
66 TAJ I. HASHMI

71. Prothom Alo, January 1 and 5, 2001.

Despite such claims by Sheikh Hasina and other Awami League

leaders, in tune with the FEER report that there are Taliban elements

in the country and in the BNP-led coalition government formed in

October 2001, the allegations do not make any sense, as the Jamaat-iIslami is not a pro-Taliban organization at all. To Hasina, two cabinet

ministers belonging to the Jamaat and one of her contenders in the

election represent the Taliban. She told this to a BBC reporter in the

United States. Another Awami League leader, former foreign minister

Abdus Samad Azad, told the same thing to the visiting British Prime

Minister Tony Blair in Dhaka.71 And the BNP cannot be singled out

as an ally of the Jamaat. The Jamaat and Awami League were together

against the BNP government of 1991–96.

Conclusions

THE MUTUAL VILIFICATION of the two parties indicates how the country is sharply polarized between the pro- and anti-Awami League

camps, the former representing “liberal democracy” and “pro-liberation forces” and the latter, “pro-Islam” and “anti-Indian” viewpoints.

The Awami League tries to get dividends by projecting the BNP as

“anti-liberation” for its electoral alliance with the Jamaat, which

actively collaborated with the Pakistani occupation forces in 1971.

It seems the circulation of an English booklet on the eve of

President Clinton’s trip to Bangladesh in March 2000 by the Awami

League government was another attempt to vilify the BNP-led opposition group as “Islamic terrorist,” a bête noire to the United States. It

was also an attempt to establish the Awami League as the only liberal

democratic alternative in the country. The booklet contained sensational information about the “impending threat” of terrorist attacks

on Clinton by Islamic militants. One is not sure if this led to the cancellation of the president’s scheduled trip to a village around 30 kilometers off Dhaka to meet female members of a local NGO. It is also

widely believed that the Awami League government resorted to the

same trick immediately after September 11 (on the eve of the parliamentary elections of October 2001) by pasting posters on city walls

in Dhaka, portraying BNP leaders as “pro-Taliban,” “friends” of
ISLAMIC RESURGENCE IN BANGLADESH: GENESIS, DYNAMICS AND IMPLICATIONS 67

72. Oliver Roy, The Failure of Political Islam (London: I.B. Tauris Publishers, 1994),

passim.

Osama bin Laden. And as we know, both major parties of Bangladesh

adopt expedient slogans and policies for the sake of power. As the

Awami League has no qualms about using the Islamic card for political leverage, so is the rival BNP, which does not hesitate to portray it

as the champion of liberal democracy and nationalism. Despite championing the cause of democracy, the Awami League did not accept

electoral defeats in 1991 and 2001 parliamentary elections gracefully.

While Sheikh Hasina imputed the 1991 defeat to a “subtle rigging” by

the rival BNP and its “Islamic” allies, to her, the BNP victory in 2001

was possible because of the “crude rigging” by the “anti-liberation”

forces. With a view to tarnishing the image of the BNP and its

Islamist allies, especially among the Western donors, in early June

2002, the pro-Awami League Centre for Research and Information

published a book, A Rigged Election, An Illegitimate Government:

Bangladesh Election 2001. It is noteworthy that both the elections were

held under caretaker governments under the supervision of international poll observers. However, nothing would be more simplistic

than explaining the rise of Islamism as a mere by-product of the

perennial conflict between the Awami League and its adversaries.

As indicated in the FEER report, one does not totally reject the

presence of Islamic militants, fanatics, “fundamentalists” and even

pro-Taliban activists in the country. In the changed post-Cold War

environment of globalization and market economy, which is forcing

the less developed countries (LDCs) like Bangladesh to adopt World

Bank and IMF recommendations—at the cost of the poor and underemployed beneficiaries of state subsidies and welfare—Islamism has

been emerging as an alternative order. Very similar to Pakistan,

Afghanistan, Algeria and Egypt, among other Muslim countries, the

Bangladesh polity has been divided between the Western and “vernacular elite,” to paraphrase Oliver Roy;72 the latter representing the

underdogs, forced to adopt alternative ideologies for the sake of survival. During the Cold War, socialism, nationalism and separatist ideologies had been quite handy as alternatives to “Neo-Colonialism,”

said to be the root of all evils. Curiously, the West, especially the

United States, during the Cold War promoted Islamism in various
68 TAJ I. HASHMI

countries including Egypt, Pakistan and Afghanistan to counterpoise

communism. Leaders belonging to the upper classes often espoused

radical ideas in the name of establishing the Islamic welfare state.

Some Muslim leaders, such as Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Nur Muhammad

Taraki, Ben Bella, Nasser and Mujib for example, promoted “national

socialism” as their version of the welfare state. In the post-Cold War

era, Islamism has replaced the earlier doctrines with certain modifications—though retaining the same mass appeal—to empower the

underdogs representing the peasantry (and/or tribes) and the “vernacular elite” from the lower middle classes.

While in Iran and Afghanistan the well-entrenched mullah, in the

absence of strong middle classes and modern institutions, succeeded

in installing themselves to power (in both the cases with mass support), things are not that smooth for the Bangladeshi mullah.

However, one finds striking similarities between pre-revolutionary

Iran and Bangladesh since its inception in 1971. In Iran, during the

Allied occupation in the 1940s, impoverished rural masses moved to

the cities. In the 1960s, there was a further influx of peasants into the

cities in the wake of the so-called “White Revolution of Reza Shah

II.” Thus, Islam-oriented people with peasant ways of thinking outnumbered the pro-Shah, privileged and Westernized secular upper

classes. These uprooted rural migrants had close links with the influential clergy and the countryside. And we may agree with V.S.

Naipaul, that it takes more than one generation “to change a village

way of thinking,” and that the sharply polarized population of the

major cities in Iran, having no communication with each other, “were

two tribes living in one country.”73 Apart from the similarities

between Iran and Bangladesh, especially with regard to the influx of

conservative peasants into the urban areas, there are striking dissimilarities between the two. Unlike Iran under the Shah, Bangladesh has

been far more tolerant, democratic and “Islamic.” Here the governments from time to time adopt and sponsor “Islamic” slogans and

characters for the sake of legitimacy. The replacement of Persian

“Khuda Hafiz” (God bless you) by Arabic (more acceptable to the

puritans) “Allah Hafiz,” in government functions and media, for

example, by the BNP-led coalition government in 2001, may be cited

73. V. S. Naipaul, Beyond Belief: Islamic Excursions among the Converted Peoples (New

Delhi: Penguin Books, 1998), 257–58.
ISLAMIC RESURGENCE IN BANGLADESH: GENESIS, DYNAMICS AND IMPLICATIONS 69

in this regard. It seems the major “liberal democratic” parties of

Bangladesh have been competing against each other to prove their

Islamic credentials.

Again, contrary to conventional wisdom, Islamism is no longer the

monopoly of the mullah. In Bangladesh, the bulk of the Jamaat-iIslami cadres, if not the leaders, are not madrassa-educated mullahs,

but are from the various petty bourgeois classes representing the middle and poor peasantry, petty businessmen and shopkeepers, school

teachers and other underemployed and unemployed classes.74 Many

of them can be classified as members of the peripheral “vernacular

elite” or graduates from Bengali medium institutions—the least preferred in the private sector job market. They nourish a tremendous

sense of deprivation and, like their Algerian, Egyptian and Iranian

counterparts, have the potential to turn very violent and anarchical.

And their madrassa-educated counterparts—even poorer and almost

totally unemployable in both the public and private sectors other than

in low-paid teaching positions or as employees of mosques—are also

angry and frustrated with anything that goes in the name of secularism and modernism. Historically, the replacement of Hindu landed

and professional elite in the wake of the Partition, non-Bengali elite

after the Liberation of 1971, and of English-educated elite in the

name of Bengali nationalism by the relatively inferior and unskilled

people, has been responsible for social disorder, political chaos and

economic mismanagement. The ongoing triangular conflict among

modernists in line with globalization, Bengali nationalists and

Islamists in the country is reflective of the situation.

While the well-organized Jamaat has been gaining legitimacy in the

eyes of many—including Jimmy Carter—for adopting constitutional

politics, a section of the mullahs, mainly the pro-establishment pirs

and others without any firm base, has remained vacillating and opportunistic. They are very critical of the Jamaat as well. Pir Fazlul Karim

of Charmonai, for example, on the one hand is critical of female leadership and of the Jamaat for lending support to female leadership

(considering it un-Islamic), and on the other hand he extols the attributes of General Ershad, widely known for his corruption and promiscuity. “Despite all his faults, Ershad has two virtues—firstly, he is a

74. Razia Akter Banu, “Jamaat-i-Islami in Bangladesh,” 84–95.
70 TAJ I. HASHMI

man; and secondly, he has formally repented for his sins,” so goes the

eulogy.75 The pir, among many other clerics, wants to withdraw

female students from all schools in the country, especially those “who

look older than their age.”76 As one does not take these pirs, who have

hardly any political leverage, seriously, so one does not give any credence to the non-cleric politicians with regard to their pro-Islamic

rhetoric. G.M. Qader (Ershad’s brother), an MP from the Jatiya Party

(Ershad Group), having very little influence on the people, for example, wanted to table a bill in parliament to make the saying of prayer

five times a day obligatory for every Bangladeshi Muslim. Otherwise,

he demanded, they should be jailed and liable to pay a hefty fine.77

The mutual admiration of ultra-orthodox mullahs and sections of the

Anglo-Mohammedan politicians, their advocacy of shari’a law and

their tirade against the Jamaat are reflective of their desire to get political legitimacy by using Islam and setting aside the Jamaat. It seems

radical Islamic rhetoric is their only way to make room for themselves

in the political arena of Bangladesh. Otherwise, they know, it is next

to impossible to dislodge the powerful BNP and Awami League to

their advantage. The BNP and Awami League, on the other hand, use

the Islamic card firstly to neutralize the Jamaat and secondly to

appease the vast majority of God-fearing and anti-Indian Bengali

Muslims for the sake of political legitimacy and leverage.

In sum, this study reveals that the people in general have lost faith

in the prospect of a welfare state in Bangladesh. There is more or less

a consensus among the educated people about corruption among

their politicians and bureaucrats. It may be mentioned that in 2001,

Transparency International found Bangladesh to be the most corrupt

country out of ninety-one countries of the world.78 Another study

reveals that in the last thirty-odd years since independence, corrupt

politicians, bureaucrats and their cronies have plundered around Taka

1,350 billion (approximately US$30 billion) or about 75 percent of the

total foreign aid received by the country.79 Every now and then peo75. Prothom Alo, July 13 and 25, 2001; March 11 and 29, 2002.

76. Jai Jai Din, 1 January 2002.

77. Daily Star and Prothom Alo, 7 March 2002.

78. Janakantha and Independent, 28 June 2001.

79. Abul Barkat, “The Economy of Bangladesh in the Thirty Years of the Post-liberation Period: A Legacy of Failure in Human Development”[in Bengali], (paper presented at a seminar organized by the Bangladesh Itihas Parishad [History Society],

Dhaka, 26 April 2002).
ISLAMIC RESURGENCE IN BANGLADESH: GENESIS, DYNAMICS AND IMPLICATIONS 71

ple read in local newspapers about the hundreds of loan defaulters of

the country who have borrowed billions of taka from local banks and

have never returned the money. In view of the above, it is no wonder

that millions of Bangladeshis have turned fatalist and escapist, taking

refuge in religion. Their religiosity and inherent peasant culture are

conducive to the growth of fatalism as well.80

Curiously, despite all the extortion, corruption and the consequential poverty and misery of the people, as reported by the BBC, a survey in 1999 portrayed the Bangladeshis to be “the happiest people on

earth.” As we know, “the happiest people” have no reasons to take

up arms or turn into Taliban for the sake of an Islamic revolution in

Bangladesh. The “happiest people” of the country are actually part of

the Third World poor, always in the state of “pathetic contentment”

reflecting their pragmatism. And seemingly, there is no way out to

experience growth, development and prosperity for the average

Bangladeshi in the near future. According to the Quarterly Economic

Update of the Asian Development Bank in the first quarter of 2002,

about half of the population lives below the poverty line in

Bangladesh, which would need forty-eight years to eradicate poverty

at the existing growth rate of around 4 percent per year. The future

seems to be quite bleak—the figures of 35 percent unemployed, and

more than forty people vying for a single job, do not promise a rosy

prospect for the country. The upshot has been the mass exodus of

landless peasants to the urban areas, especially to Dhaka, the capital

city.

To conclude, we may assume that although the fatalist peasant

masses, resigned to their pathetic contentment, are not possibly posing a threat to the law and order situation, as peasants “never make

history” and are incapable of leading themselves other than organizing short-lived, “pre-political” uprisings reflecting their “class-initself ” mentality; the real danger comes from the disgruntled lower

middle classes and the various lumpen elements in society. The broken promises of the successive governments since independence,

which have delivered more of the same—hollow promises, corruption, unemployment and misery, adversely affecting the loyalty of the

80. Hashmi, “Culture, Governance and Underdevelopment: A Case Study of

Bangladesh” (paper presented at the Thirty-fifth Bengal Studies Conference,

Manhattan, Kansas State University, 18–20 May 2001).
72 TAJ I. HASHMI

petty bourgeoisie and the fast disappearing middle classes—may trigger the rise of the Jamaat as the alternative of the so-called liberal

democratic and secular parties. This, however, would not signal the

ascendancy of Islamic militants and anti-Hindu communal forces to

power. It is highly unlikely that if the Jamaat and its allies ever come

to power, that any threat would be posed to India, let alone to the

West. Despite the alarmist views of some Western analysts, governments and their local adherents in Bangladesh, who seemingly have

been influenced by Huntington’s “Clash of Civilizations” thesis, the

ascendancy of Islam to political power in Bangladesh would not

destabilize the region. However, the persecution and suffering of

Muslims, for example in the Middle East and India, continue to

arouse sympathy for their coreligionists and anger against their actual

and perceived persecutors among the bulk of the Bangladeshi

Muslims. Their solidarity with fellow Muslims elsewhere does not

necessarily mean that Bangladeshi Muslims have turned terrorist, posing a threat to global order and democracy.
73

It is sometimes said that generals fight the last war. Similarly,

political analysts tend to find the most recent global scourge in every

societal ailment they encounter. In the 1940s and 1950s many populist

movements and regimes were mistakenly viewed as “fascist”; in the

1960s and 1970s numerous third world nationalist movements were

perceived as and professed to be communist; and since the Iranian

revolution of 1979 “fundamentalisms” seem to have flourished.

Sometimes more than one of these labels has been applied to the

same movement. In India, Hindu Nationalism was—and often still

is—perceived as fascist, particularly by its Indian critics, while outside

observers have found it altogether too easy to treat it as the Hindu

equivalent of Islamic radicalism. Consequently, before inquiring “how

deep are the organizational roots of religious radicalism in India,” we

have to first settle whether it is religious at all.

The first part of this paper accordingly examines the evolution of

Hindu Nationalist ideology to emphasize a point that has been made

many times: Whether or not Hindu Nationalism is “fascist,” it is most

4

ARUN R. SWAMY

Ideology, Organization and Electoral Strategy 

of Hindu Nationalism: What’s Religion Got 

to Do with It?
74 ARUN R. SWAMY

assuredly not “fundamentalist.” Hindu Nationalists are concerned

with the strength and unity of Hindus as a political community, not

with their forms of worship. They have charged religious minorities

with divided loyalty and have been responsible for organized mass

violence against Muslims. However, they have not, historically, been

concerned with imposing any view of Hindu religion on its practitioners or punishing Hindus who violate the precepts of the “true”

religion.1 In short, for Hindu Nationalists, there are traitors, but not

apostates.

The second part of the paper reviews the evolution of Hindu

Nationalist organizations. The section traces how local militant movements coalesced at the All-India level, how one organization, the

Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) came to be identified as the central organization of this ideological tendency, and the relationship of

the RSS to political parties and other organizations associated with

Hindu Nationalism. The main theme of this section is the enduring

tension in Hindu Nationalism between organizational loyalty and ideological purity on the one hand, and the need to build larger coalitions

on the other.

The final section examines why Hindu Nationalism, which for so

long existed on the margins of Indian political life, came to dominate

the polity fifty years after independence. The focus is on electoral

processes, not on the motives and violence of activists, which are discussed by other papers in this workshop. The argument is that the ideological factors often cited as reasons for the growth of the Bharatiya

Janata Party (BJP)—the broadcast of Hindu epics during the

Congress period of the 1980s, and the movement to replace a mosque

at Ayodhya with a temple—played a permissive role at best. The

growth of the BJP has occurred not as a direct result of these factors,

but because of its ability to exploit material and status grievances

among discrete segments of Indian society, as well as rivalries within

the Congress party and between it and various regional parties. While

most of these issues had a natural affinity with traditional positions of

Hindu Nationalists, the affinity was not with a religious agenda but

with a militaristic approach to foreign policy, a historic preference for

1. The only religious demand made by Hindu Nationalists—that the slaughter of

cows should be banned—also grew out of a conflict between Hindus and Muslims

in northern India and is now downplayed as many southern Hindus do eat beef.
IDEOLOGY, ORGANIZATION AND ELECTORAL STRATEGY OF HINDU 75

NATIONALISM: WHAT’S RELIGION GOT TO DO WITH IT?

2. Christophe Jaffrelot, The Hindu Nationalist Movement and Indian Politics (New Delhi:

Penguin Books, 1996), chap. 1.

3. See Louis Dumont, Homo Hierarchicus (London: Paladin, 1972). Dumont’s famous

view that the criteria of “purity” and “pollution” were the dominant sources of ranking has since been challenged by many other authors.

smaller states (so as to strengthen the central government), and their

historic opposition to affirmative action.

Ideology: Inventing a Hindu Nation

Hindu Nationalism should be distinguished from the nationalism of

the Indian National Congress, or Congress party, often referred to as

“Indian nationalism.” As Jaffrelot has pointed out, while the nationalism of the Congress party was essentially territorial and “civic,”

identifying as Indians all inhabitants of the British Indian Empire,

Hindu Nationalism has sought to identify an Indian nation according

to ethnic criteria.2 For Hindu nationalists, emphasizing Hindu identity

is a way of overcoming the linguistic and regional diversity of India,

by emphasizing a shared cultural heritage that also distinguished most

Indians from non-Indians. There was, of course, an obvious difficulty: not all Indians were Hindus and, moreover, not all parts of

India had a Hindu majority. Of course, for Hindu nationalists, this

obstacle was an opportunity, for it was by casting Muslims as the

Other and the enemy, that they have sought to unify Hindus. The

challenge posed by Muslim-majority provinces was largely, though not

entirely solved by the Partition of British India into India and

Pakistan, but this left a greater difficulty for Hindu Nationalism—the

diversity of Hinduism itself.

Hindus have no central organization, no single religious text and do

not share the same rituals and practices, deities or beliefs. What

Hindus across India shared was a distinctive social structure, composed of hereditary occupational groups or “castes” that were ranked

according to various criteria.3 However, this social structure was as

much a source of division as unity, as local “caste systems” varied

considerably and lower-ranked castes were in the process of challenging it, in any case.

Moreover, to the extent that there was a pan-Indian “Hindu” tradition, it was the preserve of the one pan-Indian caste, the

Brahmins, who formed an elite segment of priests and literati within
76 ARUN R. SWAMY

4. B. D. Graham, Hindu Nationalism and Indian Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 1990), 6. Unlike Graham, I have chosen to capitalize “Nationalism”

to distinguish Hindu Nationalists from Hindus who might be nationalist in the

Congress mold.

5. Graham, “The Congress and Hindu Nationalism,” in D. A. Low, ed., The Indian

National Congress (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1988), 174.

6. Graham, Hindu Nationalism, 44–45.

Hindu society. Consequently, any effort to emphasize a shared

Hindu tradition ran into resistance from both advocates of regional

cultures and the champions of upwardly mobile castes. Not surprisingly, therefore, support for Hindu Nationalism has traditionally

been limited to elite segments of the largest linguistic region, the

Hindi-speaking Gangetic plain, and until recently had difficulty

expanding outside that constituency.

Nonetheless, it is misleading to treat Hindu Nationalism as simply

a conservative ideology aimed at preserving the privileges of the

existing elite. B.D. Graham, who popularized the term “Hindu

Nationalist,” aptly distinguishes “Hindu nationalists” from “Hindu

traditionalists”:

Whereas the Hindu traditionalists were conservative in their

approach, enlisting time-honored values to justify the continuation of a hierarchical social order, the Hindu nationalists wanted to remold Hindu society along corporatist lines

and to fashion the state accordingly.4

Hindu traditionalists “stressed the need to preserve Hindu religious

beliefs and social practices and to foster the study of the Hindi and

Sanskrit languages and their literatures,” while Hindu Nationalists were

“concerned not simply to conserve Hinduism but to develop the latent

power of the Hindu community.”5 Hindu Nationalists, seemingly

“inspired by European fascism” and “concerned with modernization

and industrialization,” sought to “remold” state and society “along

corporatist lines.”6 Hindu traditionalists, in short, might have been

concerned with preserving the social order; but Hindu Nationalists

sought, or at least were willing to remake that social order in order to

promote the unity (sangathan) of Hindus as a political entity.

Despite this fundamental difference of orientation, Hindu traditionalists and Hindu Nationalists are often found in the same organizations
IDEOLOGY, ORGANIZATION AND ELECTORAL STRATEGY OF HINDU 77

NATIONALISM: WHAT’S RELIGION GOT TO DO WITH IT?

7. Jaffrelot, “Hindu Nationalism: Strategic Syncretism in Ideology Building,”

Economic and Political Weekly (20–27 March 1993): 517–20; Daniel Gold, “Organized

Hinduisms: From Vedic Truth to Hindu Nation,” in Martin Marty and R. Scott

Appleby, eds., Fundamentalisms Observed, The Fundamentalism Project, vol. 1 (Chicago:

University of Chicago Press, 1991).

8. John R. McClane, “The Early Congress, Hindu Populism and the Wider Society,”

in Richard Sisson and Stanley Wolpert, eds., Congress and Indian Nationalism (Berkeley:

University of California Press, 1988), 66–67; Sumit Sarkar, Modern India, 1885–1947

(India: Macmillan, 1983), 97; Rajat Kanta Ray, “Moderates, Extremists and

Revolutionaries: Bengal, 1900–1908,” in Sisson and Wolpert, eds., Congress and Indian

Nationalism.

and cooperate politically, a fact that has often presented Hindu

Nationalists with dilemmas over how to enlist a broader constituency.

At the same time, Hindu Nationalists and Congress-style Indian

nationalists also have many concerns in common, which on some

issues makes it difficult to distinguish between these ideologically. A

brief review of the common antecedents of these three tendencies in

the religious and political ferment of the British colonial period might

help clarify these ambiguities.

The ideological roots of Hindu Nationalism, indeed of Indian

Nationalism, lie in religious revivalist and reform movements that

emerged among educated Hindus in the nineteenth century. The first

such responses in India were liberal reform movements especially in

Bengal, which sought to “purify” Hinduism of those traits that

appeared most barbaric to the Western eye. Like other, later movements, early Bengali reformers viewed Indian (Hindu) civilization as

having degenerated from an earlier period of glory because of the

corruption of Hinduism by those features of Hindu society, which

most offended Western sensibilities: caste, untouchability, polytheism,

child marriage and polygamy.7

Later in the century, various regions in India experienced a different kind of religious response to the challenge of foreign conquest.

This combined militant religious revivalism with the political agenda

of ending British rule and was often tied to an economic nationalism

that was at the heart of all Indian varieties of nationalism. These

movements occurred in different regions and typically blended pride

in region and language with their religious revivalism and placed

emphasis on promoting physical fitness, often founding gymnasiums

for this purpose. In Bengal, activities were often conducted through

secret societies that sometimes practiced terrorism; elsewhere they

initiated boycotts of foreign cloth or with social reform.8 In Bombay
78 ARUN R. SWAMY

9. Sarkar, Modern India, 91.

10. Jaffrelot, The Hindu Nationalist Movement, 35–36.

11. The Indian National Congress was founded in 1885. Gandhi took over its leadership in the 1920s.

the Congress leader Bal Gangadhar Tilak was on the one hand

opposing legislation that raised the age of marital consent for girls

and promoting a new Hindu festival while, on the other, attempting

to start a boycott of foreign cloth to protest countervailing excise

taxes imposed on Indian cotton.9 Both Tilak and the terrorist societies of Bengal had a direct influence on contemporary Hindu

Nationalism. Tilak’s Ganesh festival was adopted by the Shiv Sena

party of Maharashtra as an expression of Hindu assertion, while the

RSS was influenced in its organization by Bengali terrorist societies.10

It is important to recognize that the nationalism of the Congress,

too, shared motivations with these early religious reform movements. The secular liberalism of many Congress leaders, such as the

first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, grew out of a conviction

shared with Hindu reformers that caste, superstition, and obscurantism had contributed to the decline of Indian civilization. Congress’

economic nationalism, like that of Hindu Nationalists, was a reaction to the experience of economic backwardness and colonial

exploitation. Congress leaders were also afraid and suspicious of

regionalist and sectarian divisions and, like Hindu Nationalists,

believed that had Indians not been internally divided, they would

never have been conquered. However, Congress leaders, especially

after Gandhi, sought to overcome these differences by emphasizing

the plurality and diversity of Indian civilization, while Hindu

Nationalists emphasized—and if necessary invented—common elements.11

V.D. Savarkar was the first to articulate a coherent ideology of

Hindu Nationalism in a 1924 book titled Essentials of Hindutva. In it

he identified the movement’s objective as Hindu sangathan, or the

unification of Hindus. Hindu Nationalist ideology, as expounded by

Savarkar, was first and foremost an ideology about building a modern nation-state in India, and as such focused on questions that a

doctrine concerned with religious revivalism would have largely

ignored. The principal issues of the day for Savarkar, as for Nehru,
IDEOLOGY, ORGANIZATION AND ELECTORAL STRATEGY OF HINDU 79

NATIONALISM: WHAT’S RELIGION GOT TO DO WITH IT?

12. Gold, “Organized Hinduisms,” 1991.

13. See, e.g., Jana Sangh, Jana Sangh Souvenir (publication issued for the 15th annual

session of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, 25–27 April 1969); Balraj Madhok, “Why Jana

Sangh?” in Ramdas G. Bhatkal, ed., Political Alternatives in India (Bombay: Popular

Prakashan, 1967).

were the political representation of and relations among different

groups, and how to promote economic development. Savarkar justified his answers on the grounds that they would further the

strength and unity of the nation, rather than by appealing to religious values.

What Savarkar sought to define and defend was not a set of religious values or practices, but an Indian nationhood defined in primordialist terms. For Savarkar, an Indian was anyone who viewed India as

both “fatherland and holy land.”12 The definition was self-consciously

crafted to include all religious traditions that arose within the subcontinent, including Sikhs, Jains, and even Buddhists, but to exclude practitioners of “foreign” religions such as Christianity and, especially,

Islam.

This concern for militancy in the face of an “invader” rather than

an “infidel” is reflected after independence, for example, in foreign

policy. Not surprisingly, Hindu Nationalists have been consistently

hostile toward Pakistan, but this has often extended to the Muslim

Middle East generally. Unlike the Congress, which has supported the

Palestinian cause, Hindu Nationalists have long favored an alliance

with Israel. Hindu Nationalists have also generally been more hawkish, calling for a commitment to military strength and often favoring

the use of force and have been advocating the acquisition of nuclear

weapons since the 1960s.13

Hindu Nationalism has also expressed its concern with strength

and unity on a variety of other secular issues. Similar to the Arya

Samaj—and the Congress—Hindu Nationalists have strongly

favored trade protection and government action to promote domestic industry, positions that distinguished them from the conservative

Swatantra Party of the 1950s and 1960s, as well as from opposition

parties associated with farmers’ interests. Unlike the Congress, they

have been staunch defenders of private property but have at times

advocated land reform and corporatist approaches to labor relations with the state mediating between labor and business to ensure
80 ARUN R. SWAMY

productivity. Consequently, Hindu Nationalists can often appear

schizophrenic on economic policy when viewed through a conventional left-right lens, but their views are generally consistent with an

ideology that is concerned primarily with questions of national unity,

power and status.14

Hindu Nationalists have also historically expressed a strong preference for a unitary state and a more uncompromising stance on cultural assimilation in other areas, such as language, where they have

historically favored the promotion of Hindi as a national language.

The last two positions have made it difficult for Hindu Nationalists to

penetrate southern India, whose inhabitants speak Dravidian languages that are unrelated to the Indo-European languages of northern India, although they have often borrowed Sanskrit words.

Concerns over preserving regional identity have also made the four

southern states, and some of the other non-Hindi-speaking states

such as West Bengal, far more concerned with preserving states’

rights. It was not until the 1990s when the BJP began to downplay

these issues and ally with regional parties in these states that it was

able to win elections in them.15

However, the area where Hindu Nationalists are generally

acknowledged as having been consistent, and which defines them in

the eyes of observers, is the relationship between Hindus and religious minorities. The principal question in the 1930s was whether to

grant Muslims and other minorities special electoral representation.

The Congress had agreed to rather limited concessions to Muslims

and certain low-caste groups, but these were still more generous than

Hindu Nationalists were willing to countenance.16 Hindu

Nationalists accused Congress of violating the principles of secular

nation building, a charge that they were to repeat throughout the

post-independence period. Thus, denounced Congress’ acquiescence

in the reservation of seats for Muslims:

14. For a more detailed analysis see Arun R. Swamy, “The Nation, the People and

the Poor: Sandwich Tactics in Party Competition and Policy Formation, India,

1931–1996” (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Berkeley, 1996), chap. 7.

15. Interestingly, S. P. Mookherjee, the first president of the Jan Sangh, the BJP’s

predecessor, who was from Bengal himself, had a more pluralistic view of language.

See Jana Sangh, 75.

16. These “reserved seats” for Muslims were created by the Government of India

Act of 1935, which created elected provincial governments, but were abolished by the

Indian Constitution. Reserved seats continue to exist for certain low-caste groups.
IDEOLOGY, ORGANIZATION AND ELECTORAL STRATEGY OF HINDU 81

NATIONALISM: WHAT’S RELIGION GOT TO DO WITH IT?

They call themselves Indian Nationalists! But every step they

take is communal. They have guaranteed special protection to

minorities....Is that Indian Nationalism?....A truly Indian

National electorate must be only an Indian electorate pure

and simple....17

Savarkar’s charge that it was Congress that was practicing “communal” politics extended also to Congress’ accommodation of caste sentiments: “They mark down Hindu homes even according to castes ...

and then allot their candidates according to their castes.... They appeal

even to caste pride and caste hatred. In the election season they are

communalists of the worst type....”18

This idea that it was Congress, rather than the Hindu right that was

“communal,” has remained an enduring feature of the rhetoric of this

political tendency. Thus, S.P. Mookherjee, Savarkar’s successor in the

1940s, stated in 1945:

Our fundamental difference is that we refuse to surrender on

the basic principle of India’s integrity nor do we subscribe to

pandering to intransigent communalism.... [T]he Congress

policy of appeasement has merely widened the national

resistance and has gravely jeopardized the legitimate rights of

Hindus as such....19

The charge of “pandering” and “appeasement” have since become

staples of Hindu Nationalist criticism of the Congress policy toward

minorities. The present Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee was

attacking “the bane of pseudo-secularism” in the late 1960s.20 In the

1990s the current deputy prime minister, Lal Krishna Advani, coined

the terms “genuine secularism” and “positive secularism” to describe

BJP positions.

17. Presidential speech to Hindu Mahasabha, 1938, excerpted in C. H. Philips, The

Evolution of India and Pakistan, 1858–1947 (London: Oxford University Press, 1962),

362.

18.

19. Ibid., 369.

20. Jana Sangh, 55–59.
82 ARUN R. SWAMY

Organization: Unifying Hindus

Until the 1920s, the only coherent organization expressing militant

Hindu views was a religious reform movement that drew as much on

the reformist tendencies of earlier religious responses as on the militant revivalism of Tilak and the Bengal secret societies. This was the

Arya Samaj (Aryan Society), which was founded in western India in

1875 and struck its deepest roots in the Muslim-majority province of

Punjab. As with earlier reform movements, the Arya Samaj sought to

simplify religious practice and remove untouchability as well as to

incorporate elements of Christian and Muslim religious practice, most

notably a purification ceremony used to elevate the status of lowcaste Hindus and to “reconvert” Muslims and Christians. However,

the Samaj sought the essence of Hinduism more in an idealized vision

of an ancient age of valor than in the later philosophical traditions of

monistic spiritualism, and at times sought to define “Hindus” less in

terms of religious belief or practice than in terms of territorial and

racial identity. Samajists dated the decline of Hindu—and by extension, Indian—civilization as having started with the Muslim conquests of the twelfth century and viewed Muslims as an adversary as

much as the British.21 Finally, the Arya Samaj was both actively political and economically nationalist. In all these respects Arya Samaj

anticipated later Hindu Nationalism, to which it eventually gave

birth.22

Despite its reformist agenda, the Arya Samaj’s anti-Muslim orientation led it to link up with other movements that stemmed from the

growing conflict between Hindus and Muslims in the Gangetic Plain.

A major source of this conflict was the rivalry between educated

Muslims and Hindus over which language or, more accurately, script,

should be used for official purposes. Hindi and Urdu are essentially

the same language but written in the Devanagari (Sanskrit) and Arabic

script, respectively. Advocates of Hindi have also sought to “purify”

the language by removing words of Persian, Arabic and Turkish origin and replacing them with words of Sanskrit derivation; it is this

Sanskritized Hindi that is taught and used for official purposes in

21. Gold, “Organized Hinduisms,” 1991.

22. For example, Arya Samaj leaders started an insurance company and a bank (the

Punjab National Bank), and sponsored Indians to go to Japan for technical education.

See Sarkar, Modern India, 39, 99, 127.
IDEOLOGY, ORGANIZATION AND ELECTORAL STRATEGY OF HINDU 83

NATIONALISM: WHAT’S RELIGION GOT TO DO WITH IT?

India. The choice between Hindu and Urdu made little difference at

the level of spoken conversation but had tremendous implications for

the job prospects of the two groups, as well as symbolic importance.

The language conflict linked up with a militant movement among

Hindus in the northern Gangetic plain for the abolition of cowslaughter. In the 1880s and 1890s, Cow Protection Societies instigated

riots over whether Muslims should be allowed to slaughter cows, in

the towns of Punjab and the United Provinces (UP) along the Ganges

valley, climaxing with forty-five such riots and 107 killed in 1893.23

Ironically, Cow Protection Societies appear to have grown out of

town societies established to defend orthodox Hinduism against the

challenge posed by Hindu reformist movements. These often competing Societies for the Defense of Orthodoxy (Sanatan Dharma

Sabhas) frequently pursued very specific goals such as winning the

right to organize—and control the patronage associated with—particular local religious festivals. Although primarily urban, the cow protection issue allowed the orthodox societies to establish links to the

countryside, often through the travels of itinerant preachers, and

through organizations set up to collect funds from the countryside

and funnel them to town organizations. However, in the countryside

they often targeted not only Muslims but also rising low-caste groups

Hindus associated with cow-slaughter.24

At the turn of the century many of these regional expressions of

cultural regeneration and militant nationalism coalesced into a frontal

assault on the liberal, secular, and gradualist ethos of the mainstream

Congress leadership. The challengers were styled extremists, in contrast to the more liberal moderates, who sought political change

through constitutional means. Extremism reached its peak during the

Swadeshi (“Indigenous”) movement (1905–8), which sought to undermine British power and interests by boycotting foreign goods, especially British cloth, and led to a split in the organization in 1907 when

extremists walked out and launched an India-wide Swadeshi boycott.25

23. Sarkar, Modern India, 79.

24. Sandria B. Freitag, “Sacred Symbol as Mobilizing Ideology: The North Indian

Search for a ‘Hindu’ Community,” Journal for the Comparative Study of Society and History

(1980): 612–13, 615.

25. Swadeshi literally means “national” or “indigenous.” The conflict within

Congress was triggered by a difference over how to respond to a British decision to

divide Bengal between Hindu-majority and Muslim-majority regions.
84 ARUN R. SWAMY

Starting around 1907 provincial Hindu Sabhas (Hindu Councils)

were formed by revivalist groups associated with the extremist tendency26 and in 1915, the All-India Hindu Mahasabha was founded as

an umbrella organization for these organizations.27 (Brown 1985;

228). In 1923, the Mahasabha was given a formal organization modeled after Congress (Brown 1985: 228) and also started to become

more expressly anti-Muslim and began to “show an interest in contesting elections as an independent force.”28 At this time the

Mahasabha incorporated the Arya Samaj’s shuddhi (“purification” or

reconversion) program and “called for Hindu defence squads,”

becoming in effect “an alliance of Arya Samajist reformers with

Sanatan Dharma Sabha conservatives in a common Hindu-communal

front.”29

In the 1920s and 1930s the main achievement of the Mahasabha

was to scuttle any compromises mooted between the Muslim League

and Congress on separate electoral representation for Muslims.

Mahasabha links with Congress continued until 1934—when Hindu

traditionalists and Hindu Nationalists in Congress formed the

Congress Nationalist Party to contest elections. Hindu Nationalism

became more pronounced in the Mahasabha after V.D. Savarkar

became president in 1937.30

However, although Hindu nationalists were found in the

Mahasabha, and Savarkar gave the movement its principal ideas, the

principal organizational vehicle for Hindu nationalists was the RSS.

Founded in 1925 by a medical doctor and former Mahasabha member from Maharashtra, K.B. Hedgewar, the RSS is most famous for its

paramilitary organization and emphasis on inculcating martial values.

The RSS has a hierarchical chain of command and is organized into

local units called shakhas, whose members engage in daily training in

martial arts and cultural activities and are expected to live an austere

life, many remaining celibate. The second head of the RSS, M.S.

Golwalkar, who took over after Hedgewar’s death in 1940, articulated

an ideology of Indian nationhood in ethnic and racial terms that drew

26. Graham, “The Congress and Hindu Nationalism,” 172.

27. Sarkar, Modern India, 235.

28. Graham, “The Congress,” 172.

29. Sarkar, Modern India, 235.

30. Graham, “The Congress,” 175.
IDEOLOGY, ORGANIZATION AND ELECTORAL STRATEGY OF HINDU 85

NATIONALISM: WHAT’S RELIGION GOT TO DO WITH IT?

heavily on European fascism.31 At the same time, in pursuit of Hindu

sangathan, the RSS sought—like the Arya Samaj—to incorporate

low-caste members, a decision unimaginable within the framework of

orthodox Hinduism.32

The RSS viewed—and views—itself as a cultural organization, not

a political party. What this means is that it does not field candidates

for elections although, as we shall see later, it has been closely associated with parties that do. RSS members were forbidden to openly

enter party politics: “The true measure of their importance was in

their agitational work and their unusual discipline.”33 The motivation

for this rigorous ethic of discipline and self-purification was a desire

to overcome the “docility and mildness of the Hindus” (in the words

of an early Mahasabha president) that was held to be the cause of

their long subjugation to foreign (Muslim and European) rule.34

Initially the political strategy of Hindu chauvinist politicians (both

Nationalist and traditionalist) was to capture Congress. There were

Hindu traditionalists in the Congress who, led Deputy Prime Minister

Vallabhbhai, questioned the loyalty of Muslims and held out the possibility of Congress eventually absorbing the Mahasabha and the RSS.

Mookherjee was even in the post-independence cabinet. Nehru, who

was committed to building a secular state, was on the defensive within

Congress until the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi in 1948 by a

couple of former RSS members. Following the assassination the RSS

was banned and, although the ban was lifted within a year, the idea of

an alliance with Hindu chauvinist organizations was delegitimated in

Congress.35

These experiences convinced Hindu nationalists of the need to

contest for power as well as to shed their communal image. When the

Hindu Mahasabha, which was contesting elections, reaffirmed its

decision to restrict its membership to Hindus, Syama Prasada

Mookherjee, Savarkar’s successor as president of the Mahasabha,

resigned from the organization and founded a new electoral party that

would be open to Muslims and would attract RSS members. The new

31. Jaffrelot, The Hindu Nationalist Movement, 50–62.

32. Jaffrelot, “Hindu Nationalism,” 521.

33. Graham, “The Congress,” 334.

34. Jaffrelot, “Hindu Nationalism,” 520.

35. Graham, Hindu Nationalism, 9–12.
86 ARUN R. SWAMY

party was called the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, or Indian People’s Party.

Founded in 1951 just before the first elections to be held under universal suffrage, the Jan Sangh,36 as it is better known, sought to give

Hindu Nationalism a new face, that of an Indian nationalism that did

not exclude minorities but rather made the test of Indianness an identification with the Sanskrit-based cultural heritage.37 Thus, the code

phrase ceased to be Hindu rashtra (Hindu nation) and became

Bharatiya sanskriti (Indian culture).38 This distinction continues to be

made by many Hindu nationalists today. Both the Hindu Mahasabha

and the RSS retained their separate identities, but the RSS was closely

connected with the new party, lending many of its cadres to the Jan

Sangh’s leadership, and continues to be tied to the Bharatiya Janata

Party (BJP), the Jan Sangh’s successor.

While the RSS played a central role in the Jan Sangh from the 1950s

on, it continued to sponsor non-electoral organizations aimed at “unifying Hindus” and inculcating in them the values it thought essential

to strengthen the Hindu nation. Principal among these are the Vishwa

Hindu Parishad (VHP), or World Hindu Council, founded in 1966

and the VHP’s youth wing, the Bajrang Dal. Taken together, these

various organizations with ties to the RSS are often referred to as the

sangh parivar or “Family of the Sangh (RSS).”

The VHP, which is said to receive much of its funding from Indian

immigrants to the United States, has sought to bring the diverse sects

of Hinduism together under a common umbrella, but with little success. The lack of a central organization to Hinduism meant that the

VHP had to convince individual leaders of sects, monasteries to affiliate themselves with it. The major spiritual figures of Hinduism had

no reason to lose their autonomy by submitting themselves to a central authority, so the VHP was only able to attract minor religious figures. Moreover, in its one effort to get these diverse spiritual leaders

to agree on a common set of principles, the VHP was unable to find

36. The party’s official name was rendered in English as “Bharatiya Jana Sangh,”

indicating a Sanskrit pronunciation, but it is usually referred to as the Jan Sangh, indicating a Hindi pronunciation. In the Devanagari script, which is used for both

Sanskrit and Hindi, “Jana” and Jan” are written identically. I use “Jan” except when

referring to documents that use “Jana.”

37. Graham, Hindu Nationalism, 13–28.

38. Donald Eugene Smith, India as a Secular State (London and Bombay: Oxford

University Press, 1963), 470–71.
IDEOLOGY, ORGANIZATION AND ELECTORAL STRATEGY OF HINDU 87

NATIONALISM: WHAT’S RELIGION GOT TO DO WITH IT?

any that could distinguish Hinduism clearly from other religions.39

The VHP eventually turned to other methods to unify Hindus, and

began to champion the building of a temple at Ayodhya (discussed

below). The VHP and Bajrang Dal have often acted independently of

the BJP and are frequently blamed for carrying out violent attacks on

Muslims, such as the massive riot in Gujarat state in March 2002.

Relations between the electoral and non-electoral wings of the

sangh parivar are often strained, as electoral strategies frequently

require reaching a wider audience than the RSS or VHP can appeal to.

The Jan Sangh’s founder, S.P. Mookherjee, who had never belonged

to the RSS, as well as many of the party’s early leaders, had no such

affiliation. However in 1953, Mookherjee died in police custody in the

state of Jammu and Kashmir, where he had gone to champion the

cause of Hindu minorities who sought to eliminate Kashmir’s

autonomous status. The Kashmir issue has remained of vital concern

for Hindu Nationalists to this day, and the BJP continues to call for

the elimination of all special rights enjoyed by the state. Within the

Jan Sangh, the consequences of Mookherjee’s death were to allow the

RSS to exert much stronger control over the party. Although the Jan

Sangh continued to have presidents who were not RSS members, the

real power in the party soon rested with its general secretary, Deen

Dayal Upadhyay. With Upadhyay’s murder in the late 1960s, the leadership of the party eventually passed to the two men who continue to

lead the BJP today: Atal Behari Vajpayee and Lal Krishna Advani,

both RSS members.40

The 1960s saw the emergence of another Hindu Nationalist party,

the Shiv Sena. The Shiv Sena was not associated with the RSS, although

it emerged in the same region that had produced the RSS, the state

of Maharashtra. Unlike the sangh parivar, the Shiv Sena was centered around a single leader, Bal Thackeray, a political cartoonistturned- demagogue who was initially concerned with castigating not

Muslims but South Indian migrants to the city of Bombay,

Maharashtra’s capital.41 The Shiv Sena turned to a militantly anti39. Jaffrelot discusses the VHP and reports that the only common elements they

could find among all Hindu sects was bathing in the morning, and “remembering

God.” See Jaffrelot, The Hindu Nationalist Movement, 196–202.

40. See Graham, Hindu Nationalism, chapters 2 and 4 for a discussion of this period.

41. Mary Fainsod Katzenstein, Ethnicity and Equality: The Shiv Sena Party and

Preferential Policies in Bombay (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1979).
88 ARUN R. SWAMY

Muslim position in the late 1980s and has been allied with the BJP

since. The Shiv Sena has been much more openly and virulently

anti-Muslim than has the BJP. In 1993 the party was blamed for carrying out riots against Muslims in Bombay and its leader, Thackeray,

has frequently threatened to disrupt cricket matches between India

and Pakistan, even when this would embarrass the BJP government,

of which his party is a member.

The Jan Sangh ceased to exist in 1977 when it merged with other

non-communist opposition parties to form the Janata Party. In elections that year, held after an eighteen-month period of emergency

rule when most opposition politicians were put in jail, the Janata Party

won power nationally and in many states, allowing many Jan Sangh

leaders to hold office for the first time. However, the Janata Party was

mired in conflict among its constituent units, and the ties of former

Jan Sangh members to the RSS were one of the principal sources of

concern. The party split twice, in 1978 and 1980. The second split

occurred when former Jan Sangh members, along with some others,

left to form the BJP.

The BJP initially sought to disassociate itself from the RSS, and the

RSS in turn expressed neutrality between the BJP and the Congress,

which was taking an increasingly Hindu turn. At first the party even

declared itself committed to a program of “Gandhian socialism,”

coining a novel phrase containing two words that none associated

with the old Jan Sangh. However, the BJP won only two seats in the

1984 elections, when Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s assassination

gave Congress its biggest landslide victory ever. The party then cooperated with the VHP in a movement to construct a temple on the site

of a mosque at Ayodhya. It has since vacillated between what Jaffrelot

calls an “ethno-nationalist” strategy42 and one aimed at building a

broader coalition of anti-Congress parties. This tension has continued during the BJP years in power.

Electoral Strategies 

DURING THE 1950S AND EARLY 1960S, the Jan Sangh’s electoral strategy was aimed mainly at consolidating the conservative Hindu vote in

North India. Despite occasional efforts to champion more populist

causes such as land reform, it sometimes recruited traditional princes

42. Jaffrelot, The Hindu Nationalist Movement.
IDEOLOGY, ORGANIZATION AND ELECTORAL STRATEGY OF HINDU 89

NATIONALISM: WHAT’S RELIGION GOT TO DO WITH IT?

as candidates in an effort to attract votes. Ideologically, its major focus

was on preventing concessions to Pakistan. The party also supported

the use of Hindi as a link language and is generally identified as a Hindi

chauvinist party, although some Jan Sangh leaders often state a preference for Sanskrit. Finally, the party opposed the attempts to codify and

reform personal Hindu law in the 1950s43 and has continued to object

to the lack of reform in the personal laws of other religions, although

the issue is now couched as a call for a uniform civil code.

The party received a boost from India’s military defeat at China’s

hands in 1962. This experience made the party’s militant nationalism

more acceptable, even resulting in the RSS being allowed to march in

the annual Republic Day parade. The China war also led to contacts

between the Jan Sangh and other opposition parties who believed

Nehru and his defense minister had failed to adequately defend

Indian interests out of a romantic belief in the natural affinity of

socialist China and India. These efforts resulted in their support of a

common candidate to defeat the defense minister, V.K. Krishna

Menon, in a parliamentary by-election.44

By the late 1960s, the Jan Sangh found itself pulled in different

directions. It began to cooperate with other opposition parties in the

Hindi-speaking north in an effort to defeat the Congress party. These

parties shared an antipathy to the economic policy of the Congress,

which emphasized state ownership and heavy industry. Most were

also opposed to the centralization of power under the Congress,

although for different reasons, and likewise favored making Hindi the

national language for different reasons.45 These coalitions were able

to hold power briefly in several states between the elections of 1967,

when the Congress party lost a large number of seats across the country, and that of 1971 when Indira Gandhi led a revived Congress to a

landslide victory on a promise to “Remove Poverty.” As the prospect

of electoral success appeared to improve, the party made efforts to

address questions of distributional justice and to broaden its appeal.

This in turn, however, led to conflicts in the party. The bulk of the

party leadership, led by two successive party presidents who continue

43. Smith, India as a Secular State, 471.

44. Walter K. Anderson and Sridhar D. Damle, The Brotherhood in Saffron: The

Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and Hindu Revivalism (New Delhi: Vistaar Publications,

1987), 172.

45. For an analysis of these alliances focusing on ideology, see Swamy, “The

Nation, the People and the Poor,” chap. 6.
90 ARUN R. SWAMY

to lead the BJP today, Lal Krishna Advani and Atal Behari Vajpayee,

supported the “leftward” moves. However, a leading party ideologist,

Balraj Madhok, who had served as president in 1967, sought to preserve the Jan Sangh’s identity as a conservative party and was eventually expelled.46

In the 1980s, the Jan Sangh’s successor, the BJP, was initially the

least successful of the three major fragments of the Janata Party. The

others, the Janata Party and Lok Dal, had left the Janata experiment

with strong enough bases to compete with the Congress in at least

one state each and in the mid-1980s were able to come to power in

Karnataka and Haryana, respectively. In other states, too, new opposition parties, sometimes breakaway factions of the Congress, were

able to win power. These various regional opposition parties typically

had in common a base among relatively prosperous farmers’ castes

and represented the aspirations of upwardly mobile segments of their

states.47 The BJP, by contrast, despite having a strong presence in

three states (Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Gujarat) was unable to

win power anywhere and, as we have noted, fell to two seats out of

542 in the 1984 election.

However, in the five years following the 1984 elections, the Congress

government of Rajiv Gandhi made a number of decisions that made

middle- and upper-class Indians receptive to a more pro-Hindu and

anti-Muslim appeal. First, under pressure from conservative Muslims,

the government made controversial decisions that clearly violated the

spirit of secularism and offended both Hindu and Muslim liberals.

These included banning Salman Rushdie’s controversial novel Satanic

Verses,48 and passing legislation to overturn a Supreme Court ruling

that had struck down provisions in Muslim personal law concerning

a divorced Muslim woman’s right to alimony.49 On the other hand,

the government’s decision to broadcast year-long televised serials

depicting the Hindu epics undoubtedly helped create a sense of

shared cultural identity among Hindus around the country, appeared

46. Anderson and Damle, The Brotherhood in Saffron, 181–82, 186–87.

47. Swamy, “The Nation, the People and the Poor,” chap. 6.

48. Rushdie, whose family migrated to Pakistan but who himself moved back to

India before emigrating to Britain, was of course sentenced to death by Iran’s

Ayatollah Khomeini.

49. The case was brought by Shah Bano, a Muslim woman who had been divorced

by her wealthy husband of many years. The court granted her alimony under Indian

civil law.
IDEOLOGY, ORGANIZATION AND ELECTORAL STRATEGY OF HINDU 91

NATIONALISM: WHAT’S RELIGION GOT TO DO WITH IT?

to identify the state more closely with the Hindu cultural tradition,

and probably prepared the ground for the BJP’s rise. Most importantly, a court ruling, probably instigated by the Gandhi government,

opened the disputed religious site at Ayodhya to worship by Hindus.

The decision to open the Ayodhya shrine was apparently taken to placate right-wing Hindu politicians who were enraged by the decision to

reaffirm Muslim personal law. It opened a Pandora’s box of consequences that continue to plague India today. The site in question contained a mosque said to have been built by the first Mughal Emperor,

Babur, and hence known as the Babri Masjid (Babur’s Mosque). Since

the middle of the nineteenth century there had been riots over the site

as some local Hindu groups claimed that it had once held a temple

marking the birthplace of the Hindu deity Ram, and that this temple

had been torn down by Babur.50 The site had been declared a disputed

site and closed by the courts since 1949, and had excited little attention

in the interim despite efforts by the VHP to politicize it. In 1988, under

Advani’s leadership the BJP decided to champion the demand for the

construction of a temple on the site—dubbed Ramjanmabhoomi or

“birthplace of Ram” by the movement—and launched a nationwide

movement in support of it. The broadcast of the Ramayana, the Hindu

epic depicting Ram’s life, undoubtedly helped create a broad constituency for the movement—though not necessarily a deep one—and

Advani toured the country dressed as Ram in a car altered to resemble

an ancient chariot. In 1989, however, the BJP suspended the movement

to conclude electoral alliances with the Janata Dal.51

The Janata Dal was formed when the Janata Party (or what was left

of it) merged with the Lok Dal52 and a breakaway faction of the

Congress led by Rajiv Gandhi’s former finance minister, V.P. Singh.

The Janata Dal struck separate deals with the BJP, the two communist

parties, and various regional parties to ensure that the vote against

Congress was united in as many parliamentary constituencies as possible. During the 1989 elections, the campaign focused on the corruption of the Gandhi government and a Janata Dal promise to waive

50. The belief has persisted despite the painstaking efforts of historians and archeologists to demonstrate that there is no evidence of such a temple having existed.

51. For details of this phase of the movement and the BJP’s strategic choices, see

Jaffrelot, The Hindu Nationalist Movement, chap. 11.

52. The Lok Dal, a north Indian farmers’ party, had actually split into two rival factions centered in Uttar Pradesh and Haryana, respectively, but both joined the Janata Dal.
92 ARUN R. SWAMY

loans owed by farmers to government-owned banks. The BJP also

based its campaign on these issues. The election saw the Congress

party drop to its second-lowest seat tally since independence but, with

197 seats in the lower house of parliament, remain the largest party in

the country. The Janata Dal emerged as the second-largest party with

143 seats, followed by the BJP with 86 and the two communist parties at around 50.

What is crucial to realize, however, is that the BJP’s electoral alliance

with the Janata Dal helped it at least as much in the 1989 elections as

had the Ramjanmabhoomi movement. At the national level, while the

BJP increased its seat tally from two seats in 1984 to eighty-six in

1989, its share of the votes increased only from 7.4 percent to 11.5

percent. The 1984 figure was probably lower than it might have been,

as a result of the pro-Congress “wave” following the assassination of

Indira Gandhi, while the 1989 figure is not much higher than the Jan

Sangh’s peak of 9.4 percent in 1967. Significantly, the state where

Ayodhya is located, Uttar Pradesh, saw virtually no change. By contrast, the Janata Dal, with 17.8 percent of the vote, received a higher

share of the national vote than did any party in Indian history other

than the Congress or the original Janata Party, and also increased its

share of the vote in a number of major states.53

After the 1990 state elections, the BJP needed to ally with the Janata

Dal, usually as a junior partner, in every major state where it won a

share of power, except one. These were largely the Hindi-speaking

states of the northern plain. In the 1990 state elections, it was the

Janata Dal that came to power in the two largest states in the country,

Uttar Pradesh—the state where Ayodhya is located—and Bihar. In

two other states, Rajasthan and Gujarat, the BJP and Janata Dal were

almost evenly divided, and agreed to let the BJP form the government

in Rajasthan, leaving Gujarat to the Janata Dal. In Maharashtra, the

BJP emerged as a significant opposition force only because of its

alliance with the Shiv Sena. Only in Madhya Pradesh, a state where it

had established an early presence and the Janata Dal was weak, did the

53. The relevant figures for the elections of 1984, 1989 and 1991 are reproduced

in Tables 1, 2 and 3. For figures relating to earlier elections, see David Butler, Ashok

Lahiri and Prannoy Roy, India Decides: Elections 1952–1991 (New Delhi: Living Media

Ltd., 1991). For a summary of the reservations issue and analysis of its political implications, see Swamy, “The Nation, the People and the Poor,” chap. 7.
IDEOLOGY, ORGANIZATION AND ELECTORAL STRATEGY OF HINDU 93

NATIONALISM: WHAT’S RELIGION GOT TO DO WITH IT?

BJP take power by itself. An examination of the eight states where the

BJP has established a presence in recent years confirms that the major

increase in BJP votes came between 1989 and 1991, at the expense of

the Janata Dal. Only in two states, Gujarat and Maharashtra, did the

BJP vote increase significantly between 1989 and 1991. (See Table 1

on the following page.)

These observations are important, as it is sometimes argued that the

BJP’s 1988 campaign for the construction of a temple at Ayodhya

helped the party significantly expand its base. In fact, there is little reason to think it did any such thing. It was only in the 1991 election,

after the collapse of the Janata Dal, that the BJP reached 20 percent

of the national vote and became a contender for power on its own in

Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat and Rajasthan.

Rather than expanding as a direct result of Hindu Nationalist mobilization, the BJP was able to capitalize on its prominent position following the 1989 elections to exploit various other grievances in Indian

society. Principal among these was the introduction of affirmative

action quotas (“reservations”) for the Other Backward Castes (OBCs)

in 1990, which opened up many more fissures in Hindu society than

are generally recognized. Secondary factors include the resentments

of neglected regions within many Indian states, the persisting breadth

of the Congress party’s electoral support that led many regional parties to prefer to ally with the BJP (which did not challenge them on

their home turf), and the perception among the urban middle classes

that India was not receiving the international respect it deserved.

The turning point came in October 1990. Following the December

1989 elections, the Janata Dal had formed a minority coalition government in alliance with regional parties, with V.P. Singh as prime

minister. The BJP and communist parties both supported the coalition in parliament, allowing it to claim a majority, but did not join the

government themselves. Factional disputes erupted in the Janata Dal

between V.P. Singh and Devi Lal, a farmers’ leader who was deputy

prime minister. V.P. Singh decided to cement his own political base by

unilaterally announcing the government’s decision to implement a

long-standing government report that recommended affirmative

action programs for OBCs.

The Indian Constitution had guaranteed national affirmative action

quotas to the lowest-ranked social groups, the ex-“untouchables” or
94 ARUN R. SWAMY

Table 1. Vote share (%) in national elections, 1984–1991a

State Year Congress BJP Janata factionsb

Bihar 1984 51.80 6.90 13.70 6.7 

 1989 28.10 11.70 37.70 

 1991 23.6 15.90 34.10 

Gujarat 1984 53.20 18.6 16.6 2.3 

 1989 37.0 30.4 27.7 

 1991 29.0 c 50.40 13.7 c 3.40 

Karnataka 1984 51.60 4.70 35.1 

 1989 48.90 2.6 28.3 10.6 

 1991 42.10 28.8 18.5 

Madhya Pradesh 1984 57.1 30.0 2.7 

 1989 37.7 39.7 8.3 

 1991 45.3 41.9 4.2 

Maharashtra 1984 51.2 10.1 7.6 

 1989 45.4 25.0 d 11.0 

 1991 48.4 29.6 d 9.9 1.4 

Rajasthan 1984 52.7 23.7 11.2 3.9 

 1989 37.0 29.6 25.7 

 1991 44.0 40.9 6.2 3.3 

Uttar Pradesh 1984 51.0 6.4 21.6 3.6 

 1989 31.8 7.6 35.9 

 1991 18.3 32.8 21.6 10.1 

All-India 1984 48.1 7.4 6.7 5.6 

 1989 39.5 11.4 17.8 

 1991 36.6 20.0 11.8 3.3 

Sources: For 1984 and 1989 information: David Butler, Ashok Lahiri and Prannoy Roy, India 

Decides: Elections 1952–1991 (New Delhi: Living Media Ltd., 1991); for 1991 information: V. B. 

Singh, Elections in India: Data Handbook on Lok Sabha Elections, 1986–1991 (New Delhi: 

Sage Publications, 1994). 

a This table includes data for Congress, BJP and main Janata factions in major states where 

the BJP vote has increased. 

b The larger faction is listed first; a second is listed only if it received more than 1 percent of the 

vote. 

c Congress and the Janata Dal (G) were allied and subsequently merged. d Includes Shiv Sena with 1.2 percent in 1989 and 9.9 percent in 1991. 
IDEOLOGY, ORGANIZATION AND ELECTORAL STRATEGY OF HINDU 95

NATIONALISM: WHAT’S RELIGION GOT TO DO WITH IT?

“Scheduled Castes,” while allowing states to identify other relatively

disadvantaged groups, or OBCs who also deserved affirmative action

at the state level.54 In the late 1970s the Janata Party government

appointed the Mandal Commission to identify a national list of OBCs

to create national quotas for them. The Mandal Commission used a

combination of social and economic criteria to identify which groups

fell below the state’s mean for socio-economic advancement, and its

list consequently excluded a large number of prosperous peasants

who were politically dominant in many states.55 The Mandal

Commission’s report was shelved when the Congress party returned

to power in 1980.

When V.P. Singh announced he was going to implement the Mandal

Commission report, riots broke out in cities across north India. (The

south had had OBC reservations for some time and was not as

affected.) Shortly thereafter the BJP announced it was reviving the

movement for Ayodhya, and Advani started to lead a march of

activists toward the site. Janata Dal state governments in Bihar and

Uttar Pradesh blocked the march, arresting Advani and even ordering

police to shoot marchers at Ayodhya. The BJP withdrew support

from the government and the Janata Dal split shortly thereafter, with

one faction governing briefly with the support of the Congress.56

When elections were held in 1991, the Janata Dal’s share of the vote

had collapsed and the BJP had benefited tremendously, increasing its

vote share to more than 20 percent and its seats to 120. (Refer to

Table 1 above.)

54. They are referred to as Scheduled Castes because they are enumerated in a list

or “schedule.” Affirmative action quotas are also guaranteed to Scheduled Tribes—

communities that traditionally lived on the margins of settled agricultural society.

55. For a detailed analysis of the politics of OBC reservations, see Swamy, “The

Nation, the People and the Poor,” chap. 7. The groups referred to as “dominant peasant castes” vary from state to state and do not exist in some states such as Bihar,

where the rural social structure was more sharply polarized. The best-known examples are the Jats in northwestern India (Haryana, Punjab—where Jats are Sikhs—and

parts of Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh); Patidars or Patels in Gujarat; Kammas and

Reddis in Andhra Pradesh; Vokkaligas and Lingayatas in Karnataka; Nairs in Kerala;

and Gounders and Thevars in Tamil Nadu. For more details, see the various state

studies in Francine Frankel and M. S. A. Rao, Dominance and State Power in Modern India:

Decline of a Social Order, vols. I and II (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1989 and 1990).

Some of these groups, notably Thevars, have been granted OBC status.

56. For an overview of these events, see Jaffrelot, The Hindu Nationalist Movement,

chap. 12. It should be noted that Jaffrelot differs from the explanation of the BJP’s

rise suggested here by ascribing it in large part to the Ramjanmabhoomi movement.
96 ARUN R. SWAMY

The most likely explanation for the expansion of the BJP’s vote

share between 1989 and 1991 is that many voters from upper or

“dominant” peasant castes—who had supported the Janata Dal

because of its agrarian emphasis but were not eligible for OBC affirmative action benefits—defected to the BJP as a result of the V.P.

Singh government’s decision to implement the Mandal Commission

report. Unfortunately few opinion polls report the views of “dominant” peasant castes separately. However, one major opinion poll

conducted prior to the 1991 election did provide a breakdown by

occupation, which showed that the most dramatic change was the

decline in support for the Janata Dal among “cultivators” and a commensurate increase in support for the BJP in the same group. (Refer

to Table 2 below.) 

Additional support for this explanation is provided by another

major opinion poll conducted after the 1999 election, which reported

the views of “dominant” peasant castes and broke down political support for the BJP by both caste and class. This poll showed that dominant peasant castes were second only to the traditional upper castes

in their support for the BJP, and that this support drops off sharply

as income declines. (Refer to Table 3 below.)

Table 2. Support for major parties by occupational group, 1989 and 1991 

Party Election 

year 

Business/ 

self-employed 

Cultivators Other work 

Congress 1989 37 34 33 

 1991 35 33 25 

Janata Dal 1989 17 28 23 

 1991 11 17 17 

BJP 1989 20 14 17 

 1991 28 25 24 

Source: Frontline/MARG pre-election survey, data used courtesy of Mr. N. Ram. 
IDEOLOGY, ORGANIZATION AND ELECTORAL STRATEGY OF HINDU 97

NATIONALISM: WHAT’S RELIGION GOT TO DO WITH IT?

In years following the 1991 election, the BJP was able to expand

further in some states, notably the largest state, Uttar Pradesh, by

exploiting other conflicts arising from the reservations issue, especially those between more and less disadvantaged segments.57 The

BJP also began to champion the cause of neglected regions within

some of the larger Hindi-speaking states, calling for these states to be

divided, and was consequently able to expand its appeal in some other

states.58

Even with all of these tactical forays, however, the BJP’s share of

the vote largely hit a plateau after 1991. In 1992 the party launched a

movement centered on the Ayodhya conflict again, but the consequent destruction of the mosque by a Hindu Nationalist mob, and

57. Kanchan Chandra, “Post-Congress Politics in Uttar Pradesh: The Ethnification

of the Party System and its Consequences,” in Roy Ramashray and Paul Wallace, eds.,

Indian Politics and the 1998 Election: Regionalism, Hindutva and State Politics (New Delhi:

Sage Publications, 1999).

58. David Patrick Stuligross, “A Piece of Land to Call One’s Own: Multicultural

Federalism and Institutional Innovation in India” (Ph.D. diss., University of

California, Berkeley, 2001), 307–23.

Table 3. Support for BJP by caste and class hierarchies, 1999 

Very high 

income 

High 

income 

Medium 

income 

Low 

income 

Very low 

income 

Hindu upper 

caste 

47 42 44 39 22 

Hindu 

dominant 

peasant caste 

37 33 36 21 12 

Hindu upper 

OBC 

23 27 19 20 14 

Hindu lower 

OBC 

28 18 19 15 16 

Scheduled 

tribes 

53* 44* 22 17 11 

Scheduled 

caste 

26* 23 17 11 7 

Based on a small sample size. 

Source: CSDS post-election survey analysis in Yogendra Yadav, “The BJP’s New Social Bloc,” 

Frontline 16, issue 23 (6–19 November 1999), http://www.flonnet.com/fl1623/16230310.htm). 
98 ARUN R. SWAMY

subsequent riots, led to the party’s defeat in 1993 in three of the four

states it ruled. In 1996 its vote share was unchanged, and the

Congress received more votes, although the BJP won 161 seats to the

Congress’ 140 and emerged as the single largest party in the parliament. Following the 1996 elections it was the Congress’ turn to support a Janata Dal-led coalition government without joining it. When

this arrangement collapsed in 1998, the Janata Dal fragmented again,

and some factions allied with the BJP. Both the alliances, and the fact

that the BJP was the only remaining viable vehicle for anti-Congress

votes, allowed the party to increase its vote share to 25.8 percent, but

this was still behind the Congress, although again the BJP won more

seats.

The government’s decision to test nuclear weapons and build a

nuclear arsenal was popular with the urban middle class, but later that

year the Congress defeated the BJP in two major states on the issue

of prices. When the BJP’s first coalition government fell in 1999, the

following elections demonstrated that the relative vote shares were

still virtually unchanged, and the Congress again regained some states

in which it had previously lacked power. However, by now the BJP

had largely cemented its alliance with a large number of regional parties, including former factions of the Janata Dal and Congress.59

The BJP’s inability to expand its vote share and its abysmal record

in state elections have clearly worried the party’s leadership. Since

1998 when the BJP came to power, the Congress has defeated the BJP

or its allies in Maharashtra,60 Madhya Pradesh (where a Congress government was re-elected), Rajasthan, Karnataka, Assam, Punjab and

Delhi and Manipur. Other parties have defeated the BJP or its

regional ally in Bihar (again winning re-election) and Tamil Nadu. In

59. The BJP’s share of the national vote in 1996 when it increased its parliamentary strength from 120 seats to 161 was 20.3 percent, almost identical to its 1991 vote

share. In 1998, when the BJP began to ally with disaffected regional parties, the

party’s vote share increased to 25.6 percent and remained at the same level in 1999.

The Congress’ vote share in 1996 and 1998 was 28.8 percent and 25.8 percent,

respectively. The Congress did contest more seats than did the BJP but, unlike the

BJP, had few significant allies adding to its tally. For details on the elections from 1991

to 1998, see G.V.L. Narasimha Rao and K. Balakrishnan, Indian Elections: The Nineties

(New Delhi: Har-Anand Publications, 1999), 43; for details on all Indian elections

since 1967, see the Election Commission of India’s web site, www.eci.gov.in.

60. In Maharashtra a coalition government of the Shiv Sena and BJP was replaced

by one of the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party, a breakaway Congress

faction.
IDEOLOGY, ORGANIZATION AND ELECTORAL STRATEGY OF HINDU 99

NATIONALISM: WHAT’S RELIGION GOT TO DO WITH IT?

Uttar Pradesh, the main prize, a BJP government was defeated but

became a junior partner in a coalition government after the elections.

After elections to several states in February 2002, Gujarat was the

only large state where the BJP was in power without coalition partners, and in Gujarat the Congress had recently won local elections

handily.

It is a sign of both the BJP’s weakness and observers’ distrust of

the party, that the March 2002 riots in Gujarat, in which Hindu mobs

burned Muslim neighborhoods and businesses over several days, were

widely interpreted as a BJP ploy to return to ethnonationalist mobilization in an effort to ensure that it did not lose Gujarat.61 The

Gujarat state government’s subsequent decision to go for early elections seems to confirm this analysis. Since February 2002, the VHP

has become increasingly assertive, while the national BJP government

has begun to focus on its hard-line stance and military mobilization

against Pakistan.

Conclusion

HINDU NATIONALISM AS A DOCTRINE has been concerned primarily

with promoting unity and a sense of nationhood among Hindus

rather than religion per se, but this has largely been motivated by and

focused on demonizing minorities, especially Muslims. Although the

doctrine has deep ideological roots in Indian responses to British

colonialism, and it is served by organizations, notably the RSS, whose

discipline, coherence and longevity are well-established, Hindu

Nationalism until recently was a fringe movement limited to certain

elite groups. The movement’s expansion in the late 1980s and early

1990s came about in part because of the errors of other parties, but

the popularity of the BJP, the main Hindu Nationalist party, appears

to have peaked and may be in decline. Today the BJP is in power

largely by default: the Congress is still not strong enough to win elections on its own, and other parties prefer the BJP to the Congress,

which could threaten them in their own states.

61. The riots were ostensibly triggered by a Muslim mob burning on a train compartment carrying VHP activists back from Ayodhya. Most reports, however, suggest

that the riots had been planned for some time and had the active backing of the state

government.
100 ARUN R. SWAMY

However, with elections due in two years, domestic political losses

are driving Hindu Nationalists to take risky actions with potentially

far-reaching international ramifications. Hindu Nationalist electoral

parties have historically oscillated between policies aimed at building

broader coalitions and those aimed at shoring up the support of core

activists. All the signs suggest that the BJP is returning to its militant

strategy. The most obvious potential consequence for regional security is the possibility of a war between India and Pakistan that could

go nuclear. A somewhat more likely scenario might be increasingly

provocative actions at home, especially on the controversial Ayodhya

issue, that lead to an increase in conflicts between Hindus and

Muslims and, conceivably, result in greater tensions with the Muslim

world, especially Pakistan.
101

5

MUMTAZ AHMAD

Madrassa Education in Pakistan and 

Bangladesh

Modernization in the Islamic world has been characterized

by an unusual tension which, if not the result, is at least the concomitant of the contradiction between the persistence of a highly institutionalized tradition and the emergence of vigorous reformist challenges from both within and outside Islam. In the context of South

Asia, two interrelated features of modern Islam remain significantly

relevant to the current debate on the role of Islam in public affairs.

First of these is the inordinate regard in which traditional Islam is

held—a regard that manifests itself in the continued social and political influence of the ulema and their madrassa system. The second feature is the so far very limited legitimacy achieved by most attempts to

re-think and re-state Islam—as opposed to attempts to reform society by simply neglecting Islam.

The persistence of traditional Islam as a significant cultural alternative and as the intellectual mode of still vital religious institutions in

South Asian Muslim societies is nowhere more salient than in the

madrassa system. Madrassas have long been the centers of classical

Islamic studies and the guardians of the orthodoxy in South Asian

Islam.
They are the social sites for the reproduction of Islamic orthodoxy.

Hence, to say that the ideological orientation of madrassa education

is conservative is to state the obvious: they are supposed to be conservative, as their very raison d’être is to preserve the integrity of the

tradition. Indeed, it is fair to argue that madrassas constitute the core

of the religio-cultural complex of Islam in South Asia.

The ulema, as the bearers of the legal and religio-political tradition

of the latter Abbasid period, have four primary concerns: 1) the unity

and integrity of the Islamic Ummah as a universal religious community; 2) the integrity of orthodox beliefs and practices of Islam as represented in Asharite theology and the consensus of the classical

jurists; 3) the preservation of the shari’a, especially in matters pertaining to family laws and religious rituals; and 4) the dissemination of the

Islamic religious knowledge under their supervision and guidance. As

interpreters, they resolve religious disputes and issue fatwas, providing

the faithful with religious guidance on all kinds of issues. As religious

functionaries, they organize and lead congregational prayers, supervise the celebration of Islamic religious occasions, and conduct marriage ceremonies and burial rituals. The madrassa education is critical

for all of these concerns and functions.

The madrassas in today’s Pakistan and Bangladesh, as in India, represent the legacy of the spectacular resurgence of Islamic religious

education in India during the late nineteenth century, beginning with

the establishment of the Deoband Madrassa in 1867. Since then, the

madrassa system has played an important historical role by preserving

the orthodox tradition of Islam in the wake of the downfall of

Muslim political power; by training generations of Islamic religious

scholars and functionaries; by providing vigorous religio-political

leadership; and, more importantly, by reawakening the consciousness

of Islamic solidarity and the Islamic way of life among the Muslims

of South Asia.

The madrassas in Muslim South Asia teach a curriculum known as

Dars-i-Nizami, first introduced by Mullah Nizamuddin Sihalvi (d.

1747) who was a scholar of some repute in Islamic jurisprudence and

philosophy in Lucknow. This curriculum is not the same as that associated with the name of Mullah Nasiruddin Tusi (d. 1064) and the

Madrassa Nizamia, which he established in eleventh-century

Baghdad. Almost all Sunni madrassas, irrespective of whether they

102 MUMTAZ AHMAD
MADRASSA EDUCATION IN PAKISTAN AND BANGLADESH 103

are of Deobandi, Barelvi, or Ahl-i-Hadith persuasion, follow the

same standard Nizami course of studies adopted by the Deoband

seminary in 1867. It consists of about twenty subjects broadly divided

into two categories: al-ulum an-naqliya (the transmitted sciences), and

al-ulum al-aqliya (the rational sciences). The subject areas include grammar, rhetoric, prosody, logic, philosophy, Arabic literature, dialectical

theology, life of the Prophet, medicine, mathematics, polemics,

Islamic law, jurisprudence, Hadith, and Tafsir (exegesis of the Quran).

It is important to note that out of the twenty subjects, only eight can

be considered as solely religious. The remaining subjects are otherwise

secular and were included in Nizami curriculum both to equip the students for civil service jobs and as an aid to understanding religious

texts. Also, facilities for teaching all of the subjects and books are not

usually available in all madrassas. This is particularly true in the case

of subjects such as medicine, mathematics, history, philosophy,

prosody, and polemics. The result is that the students often have to

move from one madrassa to another to complete their curriculum.

This also results in the failure of many madrassas to institutionalize

their grading and promotion procedures.

As is well known, most of the books taught in this curriculum are

very old. Books used in philosophy and logic, for example, were written in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Medicine is taught

through an eleventh-century text that is still considered an authentic

study of human anatomy and pathology. In what we have described

as purely religious subjects, the books used date back to the seventeenth century at the latest and the eleventh century at the earliest.

Books prescribed for astronomy, mathematics, and grammar are more

than five- to seven-hundred-year-old texts.

In most of the madrassas there are no formal admission procedures, and academic schedules are often flexible. Some major madrassas have, however, institutionalized their admission, grading, and promotion procedures and have established some degree of rigor in their

academic schedules. The complete Nizami curriculum runs from

seven to nine years after the completion of the elementary level. The

entire system has been traditionally supported by the community

through trusts, endowments, charitable donations, and zakat contributions. However, since the introduction of the compulsory collection of zakat and ushr by the Zia ul-Haq government in 1980, a large
number of madrassas receive regular financial assistance from the

publicly administered zakat funds. Not only do the students not pay

any tuition, they are provided with free textbooks, board and lodging,

and a modest stipend.

In terms of levels of education, the madrassas in Pakistan are categorized as: (1) ibtedai (elementary), where only the Quran is memorized and taught; (2) vustani (middle level), where selected books from

Dars-i-Nizami are taught; and (3) fauquani (higher level), where the

entire Dars-i-Nizami is taught. In some madrassas where competent

ulema are available, students after their graduation take up post-graduate courses of study in tafsir, hadith, or fiqh.

With the exception of a few madrassas managed by the provincial

government Auqaf departments, madrassa education in Pakistan is

mainly in the private sector. In the majority of cases, madrassas are personal enterprises of prominent ulema who own and manage the

madrassas and make arrangements for their finances. Usually, the

founders of the madrassas are ulema of good standing who have a

degree of influence in the local community, which enables them to

acquire land, housing facilities, and financial resources for the madrassas.

Most of the madrassas are registered with the government as charitable

corporate bodies and have acquired tax-exempt status, thus receiving an

indirect subsidy from the public treasury. Some larger madrassas have

their own board of trustees or executive committees, which consist of

local business elites, landed gentry, and prominent ulema. In most cases,

these are merely ceremonial bodies, meant largely to provide decorum

and legitimacy to the respective madrassas. Major policy decisions

regarding doctrinal preferences, curriculum, and selection of teachers

and students remain the exclusive prerogative of the ulema.

Unlike Pakistan, Bangladesh has two kinds of madrassas: Quomi

madrassas—estimated at more than 6,500 at the secondary, intermediate, and higher levels with about 1,462,500 students and 130,000

teachers. These Quomi madrassas in Bangladesh, which are predominantly of Deobandi persuasion, teach the standard Dars-i-Nizami

prevalent in all South Asian madrassas. The Quomi madrassas are private, receive no financial support from the government, and are supported by religious endowments or by zakat, sadaqa, and donations

from the faithful. This financial autonomy of the madrassa system

has been a major source of the independent religio-political power

104 MUMTAZ AHMAD
MADRASSA EDUCATION IN PAKISTAN AND BANGLADESH 105

base of the ulema in Bangladesh and Pakistan. It has also enabled the

ulema to resist the efforts of state authorities to introduce reforms in

the madrassa system and to bridge the gap between the traditional

system of Islamic education and modern secular education.

The other category of madrassas in Bangladesh is the governmentcontrolled, or Alia madrassa system, a unique system of Islamic religious education with few parallels in the Muslim world. Divided into

five distinct levels—ibtedai (elementary), dakhil (secondary), alim

(higher secondary), fazil (B.A.), and kamil (M.A.), these madrassas

teach all the required modern subjects such as English, Bangla, science, social studies, math, geography, history, etc., along with a revised

version of Dars-i-Nizami. Although they are privately owned and

managed—with the exception of five major Alia madrassas that are

wholly controlled by the government—the Government of

Bangladesh pays 80 percent of the salaries of their teachers and

administrators as well as a considerable portion of their development

expenditures. The 2000–01 budget, for example, allocated TK 4.91

billion for salary support of the non-government madrassas. The

government also allocated considerable funds for the construction of

1,741 new madrassas in the private sector.1 These Alia madrassas are

registered with, and supervised by, the government-appointed

Bangladesh Madrassa Education Board, which also prescribes the curriculum and syllabi and conducts examinations. However, the government has approved equivalence of only dakhil and kamil to Secondary

and Higher Secondary certificates, respectively.

According to the latest data (2000–01) available to the madrassa education board, there are 6,906 non-government Alia madrassas in

Bangladesh with the largest number, 4,826, at the dakhil level. The total

number of students at all levels in the Alia system is 1,879,300. The

number of teachers in these madrassas is 100,732. Unlike the graduates of Quomi madrassas, whose degrees are not recognized by the

government and who pursue their careers in religious establishments

and private businesses, the majority of the graduates of Alia madrassas merge into the general stream of education by continuing their

education in colleges and universities. It is no wonder that a recent survey found that 32 percent of Bangladesh university teachers in the

humanities and social sciences were graduates of Alia madrassas.

1. Daily Star, 9 June 2000.
There are also elementary level madrassas known as maktabs, or

ibtedai madrassas, first formally approved by President Zia-urRahman in 1978. The Madrassa Education Board has approved only

5,150 of all independent ibtedai madrassas, with 23,176 teachers and

377,749 students. But a report in the Daily Dinkal suggested the existence of 18,000 independent ibtedai madrassas with 85,000 teachers

and close to two million students.2 This latter figure should be closer

to reality since a 1992 Ministry of Education estimate puts the total

number of ibtedai madrassas at 17,279. At any rate, the important

thing to note here is: a) the significant contribution of ibtedai madrassas in providing elementary education in areas where no government

primary schools are available; and b) that these ibtedai madrassas are

now acting as feeder institutions for both the Alia and Quomi

madrassas. More than 50 percent of students in Quomi madrassas

and more than 70 percent of students in Alia madrassas come from

an ibtedai background.

Let us at this stage examine some numbers to see the magnitude

and the expanse of the civil society space covered by the religious sector in Pakistan and Bangladesh.

106 MUMTAZ AHMAD

2. Daily Dinkal, Dhaka, 2 March 1998.

Table 1. Profile of madrassa education in Pakistan 

Number of secondary and higher madrassas 6,000 

Senior and graduate level madrassas 4,335 

Deobandi madrassas 2,333 

Barelvi madrassas 1,625 

Ahl-i-Hadith madrassas 224 

Shia madrassas 163 

Number of all students 604,421 

Local students (Pakistani) 586,604 

Foreign students 17,817 

Afghan students 16,598 
MADRASSA EDUCATION IN PAKISTAN AND BANGLADESH 107

This is some civil society! 

Table 2. Growth of higher madrassa education in Pakistan: 1947–2001 

Year Number of 

madrassas 

Number of 

teachers 

Number of 

students 

pre-1947 137 ... ... 

 1950 210 ... ... 

 1960 472 1,846 40,239 

 1971 908 3,185 45,238 

 1979 1,745 5,005 99,041 

 1984 1,953 ... ... 

 1986 2,261 12,625 316,380 

 2001 4,345 * ... 604,421 

* This does not include 655 other madrassas that do not offer complete 

Dars-i-Nizami curriculum. 

Table 3. Profile of madrassa education in Bangladesh 

Number of private (Quomi) madrassas 6,500 

Number of government-funded (Alia) madrassas 6,906 

Number of teachers in Quomi madrassas 130,000 

Number of teachers in Alia madrassas 100,732 

Number of students in Quomi madrassas 1,462,500 

Number of students in Alia madrassas 1,878,300 

Total number of madrassas (Quomi + Alia) 13,406 

Total number of teachers (Quomi + Alia) 230,732 

Total number of students (Quomi + Alia) 3,340,800 

Table 4. Ibtedai madrassas and maktabs in Bangladesh, 2001 

Number of Ibtedai (elementary madrassas) 18,000 

Number of teachers in Ibtedai madrassas 85,000 

Number of students in Ibtedai madrassas and 

maktabs 

1,377,749 
The madrassa system is supporting close to six million students in

Pakistan, Bangladesh and India. An overwhelming majority of these

students come from poor families who cannot afford to send their

children to modern schools because, first, in most cases modern

schools do not exist at an accessible distance, and second, the schools

are either too expensive or too crowded. In the case of Pakistan, the

majority of madrassa students belong to the rural areas of the North

West Frontier Province (NWFP), Azad Kashmir, and the economically depressed regions of Punjab. They are mostly drawn from the

low strata of society. In a survey conducted in 1976, more than 80

percent of the madrassa students in Peshawar, Multan, and

Gujranwala were found to be sons of small or landless peasants, rural

artisans, or imams of the village mosques. They remaining 20 percent

came from families of small shopkeepers and rural laborers. A more

recent survey, conducted in 2000, found that 55 percent of madrassa

students came from peasant families and petty traders. The interesting thing to note is that the number of students whose fathers were

employed in lower level private sector jobs rose from 5 percent in

1976 to 35 percent in 2000. Only 3 percent of students in the 2000

survey said their fathers were imams of the mosques. The majority of

students come from large but low-income families. The 2000 survey

found that 63 percent of madrassa students had five or more siblings,

and 28 percent of them had seven or more brothers and sisters. In the

case of Bangladesh, an overwhelming majority of Quomi madrassa

students (82 percent) come from poor families of rural areas and

small towns. Sylhet, Chittagong, and some northern districts have traditionally been the main base of recruitment for the Quomi madrassas. The student body of the Alia madrassa system is much more

diverse and includes a large number of students from the lower middle classes as well. In India, madrassa education has been the only

education available to Muslims who now face discrimination along

with poverty and illiteracy.”

One must also note that madrassa education has been and remains

one of the surest paths of social mobility for the lower level occupational castes and artisans of the rural areas of Pakistan. Whatever

occupational backgrounds the students have, upon the completion of

their madrassa education, they are certain to take a step forward in the

hierarchy of social stratification, in terms of both income and social

108 MUMTAZ AHMAD
status. Thus the social significance of the madrassa education lies not

only in the fact that it imparts religious education to a large number

of students, but that it also ensures access to employment. It has been

observed that while there has been considerable unemployment

among the youth educated at secular schools and colleges, the graduates of madrassas have rarely faced such problems and usually find

jobs commensurate with their training. A survey in 1979 showed that

among the graduates of the 1978 class of two major madrassas in

Karachi and one in the NWFP, only 6 percent were still unemployed

by the middle of 1979.

Although the ulema have vigorously resisted efforts by the state to

introduce changes in their madrassas, it would be wrong to assume

that madrassas have become petrified forever. Contrary to general

belief, traditional orthodoxy has never stagnated into a kind of intellectual-theological rigidity. Although the madrassa system of education remains an exclusive and relatively isolated phenomenon, there

are, nevertheless, powerful economic, social and political forces and

institutions that cut across socio-economic and cultural strata and

tend to create new linkages, howsoever weak, between the traditional

and modern sectors.

These processes and institutional changes have become more significant in the post-independence era, as the changed political context

has created a series of symbolic and institutional linkages (e.g., shared

religious symbols; government and private-sponsored Islamic educational and cultural activities, projects, and advisory institutions; political parties and elected assemblies; and communication media, particularly the growing vernacular press) that facilitate interaction between

the ulema and the modern educated elite. It is rather surprising that

these interactions (especially in the context of an increasingly mature

democratic political process in Bangladesh) have not so far created a

measure of shared intellectual space and a common language of religious discourse between the ulema and the modern-educated Muslim

intellectuals.

Two recent attempts to establish what was described as “modern

type” madrassas may pave the way for some integration, even at a very

small scale. One is the establishment of Madrassa Darur Rashad in

Mirpur, Dhaka, which gives admission only to college graduates and

has a condensed five-year course of Islamic studies. The other is

MADRASSA EDUCATION IN PAKISTAN AND BANGLADESH 109
Dhaka Cadet Madrassa, which combines all subjects of college education with the usual Islamic sciences, using English as the medium of

instruction for general subjects and Arabic for Islamic religious subjects. The quality of the English language teaching in these two

madrassas is far better than that of public or private sector colleges.

Market forces, it appears, have done something here that government

would not, i.e., these madrassas seemed to have emerged in response

to the increasing demand for English-speaking, modern-educated

ulema to act as imams and khatibs for the Bangladeshi expatriate

communities in the United Kingdom and North America.

Another such example is that of a Nadva-linked madrassa in

Chittagong, where both Arabic and English are used as the medium

of instruction and more than 90 percent of the students merge in the

modern educational stream upon graduation from the madrassa. A

similar example is from Bhera, near Sarghoda in Pakistan, where the

madrassa established by Pir Karam Shah provides all facilities to its

students to pursue college and university degrees.

It is important to note that whatever changes have taken place in

the madrassa education have been initiated from outside of the

madrassa education, or have come as a response to challenges posed

by the state. One such challenge was posed by Ayub Khan’s modernizing regime as to the centrality of the role of the ulema in Pakistan’s

religio-cultural life. The ulema responded to this challenge in a most

creative way. Not only did the number of higher madrassas double

during the Ayub period but also, in order to expand the recruitment

base of students for these madrassas, hundreds of “feeder” madrassas were established in small towns. Management practices and educational procedures of madrassas were rationalized, and all major

schools of thought—Deobandis, Barelvis, Ahl-i-Hadith, and Shias—

organized federations of their respective madrassas. These federations helped introduce reformed syllabi, rationalized the examination

system, and afforded the ulema an effective platform for coordinating

their strategies aimed at countering the government’s efforts to reduce

their social and political influence and social autonomy.

The bureaucratization of the madrassa system also included the

rationalization and expansion of its financial resource base through

the recruitment of the business community into its management

structures, a measure that later proved to be an important source of

110 MUMTAZ AHMAD
funding for the madrassa system. The expanding economy of the

1960s provided ample funds, and the new urban development

schemes provided easy and cheap land for building new madrassas

and expanding the existing ones. The spectacular expansion during

the Ayub Khan era of Oarul Ulum, Madrassa Arabiya Islamiya, and

Dar-ul-Ulum Amjadiya of Karachi; lamia Ashrafiya, lamia Nayimiya,

lamia Madina, and Dar-ul-Ulum Hizbul Ahnaf of Lahore; Madrassa

Khairul Madaaris and Madrassa Qasimul Ulum of Multan; and Oarul

Ulum Haqqaniya of Akora Khatak and Dar-ul-Ulum Sarhad of

Peshawar, gives clear evidence of the relationship between economic

growth, urban development, and religious revival.

The rapid expansion of the economy during the decade of development provided the ulema with new and large sources of income for

their madrassas. This not only mitigated the economic crisis experienced by the religious establishment during the 1950s, but also lessened its dependence on the rural-based feudal class. Its new financiers

were the bazaar merchants, small- and middle-level businessmen,

commission agents, wholesalers and, in Karachi, people like Valika,

Bhawani and Adamji, members of the top twenty-two families in

Pakistan. This meant the religious establishment now had the financial wherewithal not only to face the challenge of the state, but also

to adjust its financial base in accordance with new socio- economic

realities.

The mid-1960s also witnessed important curriculum reforms in the

madrassas. Among other things, the most important reform in major

madrassas was the introduction of the English language and other

modern subjects, especially in the fields of comparative religion, history, and law. Some prominent madrassas in Punjab linked their

courses of studies with the general education curriculum, thus

enabling their students to acquire degrees from the government

schools and colleges and obtain jobs in the “secular” sector also. The

younger generation of prominent ulema families was especially

encouraged to acquire modern (English) education to prepare them

to deal with the state authorities on the one hand, and with their modernist and fundamentalist adversaries on the other. This paid enormous dividends during the Bhutto and Zia periods. Maulana Taqi

Usmani (son of Maulana Mufti Muhammed Shafi) of Karachi, Pir

Karam Shah of Sarghoda, and Maulana Samiul Haq (son of Maulana

MADRASSA EDUCATION IN PAKISTAN AND BANGLADESH 111
Abdual Haq) of Akora Khatak and others among their cohorts, by

dint of their exposure to modern education and facility with the

English language—besides, of course, their traditional madrassa education—were appointed as federal Shariat Court judges, and as members of the Council of Islamic Ideology and many other newly created Islamic institutions, commissions, and committees during the Zia

period.

In the case of Bangladesh also, the ulema have shown remarkable

flexibility in adapting to the changing social, economic, and political

conditions, as is evident in the important changes in the social organization of madrassa education. The Alia madrassa system is a spectacular example of how modern and traditional systems of education

were combined, notwithstanding its well-known inadequacies and

shortcomings. But what is not widely known and appreciated are the

important changes that have been introduced in Quomi madrassas

during the past three decades. The following changes are worth mentioning:

1. Bangla has replaced Urdu as the medium of instruction. This is

an important step in the process of “indigenization” of Islam and

Islamic scholarship and their de-linking from their North Indian

Islamic wellsprings.

2. Bangla has been made a compulsory subject up to the secondary

level (Marhala-i-Sanvia). It is interesting to note that Quomi

madrassas did not teach Bangla at any level before 1972.

3. Subjects such as politics, economics, and history of Islam in the

Indian subcontinent up to the establishment of Bangladesh have

been added.

4. English has been added as a compulsory subject in the primary

section, and several madrassas now provide facilities for English

education at higher levels as well.

5. Elementary school education has now been integrated within the

Quomi madrassas, incorporating all subjects of general education

along with the usual Islamic education.

6. Comparative religion has been added to the curriculum.

112 MUMTAZ AHMAD
7. Bureaucratization of admission and administrative procedures,

and professionalization of management practices, especially in

large madrassas, are being undertaken. Personal computers will

play an important role in this process, and soon several large

madrassas will have their own websites.

8. A major breakthrough has been the standardization of academic

performance evaluation by instituting a centralized system of curriculum, syllabi, and examinations under the auspices of two major

federations of Quomi madrassas: Wafaqul Madaaris, which has

1,500 affiliated madrassas, and Anjumun Ittehadul Madaaris,

which has more than 500 affiliated madrassas.

9. Funding resources have been diversified. Although traditional

sources—zakat and sadakas raised from local communities and

local and Pakistani business communities’ donations—are still

important, the expatriate Bangladeshi workers in the Gulf states,

Western Europe, and North America have now become a substantial source of funding for Quomi madrassas. Similarly, Europe and

North America-based Muslim non-governmental organizations

(NGOs), as well as some individual Muslim philanthropists in the

Gulf and South Africa, are also providing funds, especially for elementary religious education. In the case of a few Ahl-I-Hadith

madrassas—the largest being in Rajshahi—the Saudi-based World

Muslim League (Rabita Alim Al Islami) has also been a generous

donor.

A great deal has been written on madrassas in the West in the wake

of the September eleventh tragedy and the U.S. war on terrorism.

Several reports on CNN and PBS, as well as Jessica Stern’s article in

Foreign Affairs and Jeffrey Goldberg’s article in the New York Times

Magazine, besides several dozen columns of Thomas Friedman, have

suggested that the madrassas in Pakistan have become a hotbed of

Islamic extremism and the breeding ground of terrorism. They have

been variously described as “dens of terror,” “jihad universities,”

“jihad factories,” and, as the Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari

Vajpayee described them, “factories of terror.” In general perception,

madrassas have become synonymous with terrorism and terrorist

training camps. Many journalists and commentators have suggested

MADRASSA EDUCATION IN PAKISTAN AND BANGLADESH 113
that these madrassas teach “jihadi literature” in their course of studies and that their entire curriculum is intended to produce “holy

warriors.” It has also been suggested by many Western scholars that

there is an inherent relationship between what is taught in the

madrassas on the one hand and religious extremism, Talibanism,

militancy, anti-Americanism, and even terrorism, on the other. It is

also argued that madrassa students, through their reading of religious texts, become “soldiers of God” and engage in militant activities against those they consider enemies of Islam. Let us critically

examine these assertions.

First, if the madrassa education is the only or the main cause of

Islamic militancy, radicalism, and anti-Americanism, why did these

tendencies not manifest themselves before the 1990s? The curriculum

of the madrassas has remained the same for about 150 years. Second,

those who suggest an inherent relationship between the madrassa curriculum and Islamic militancy and describe madrassas as “jihad factories” are probably unaware of the fact that this curriculum is the most

pacifist in its orientation. Its approach to Islam is ultra-conservative,

literalist, legalist, and sectarian, but definitely not revolutionary, radical, or militant. It is interesting to note that in the standard syllabus on

the study of Hadith, chapters on jihad in all the six standard collections of the Prophetic tradition are not discussed at all. During the

study of fiqh (jurisprudence) texts also, the entire time is spent on

“problems of menstruation,” laws relating to marriage and divorce,

and other legal hairsplitting rather than on political or jihadic issues.

There is absolutely nothing in the madrassa curriculum that can be

deemed as promoting or encouraging militancy, not to mention terrorism. Radicalism that we see in some madrassas in Pakistan today is

an extraneous phenomenon brought into madrassas by some international and domestic political actors who wanted to use the religious

capital and manpower of these madrassas for their own objectives.

An overwhelming majority of madrassas in Pakistan—as in India

and Bangladesh—are engaged in traditional Islamic studies and are

NOT involved in any militant activities, or even sectarian strife. In

fact, most of them shy away from politics in order to concentrate on

their primary mission. It was only after the Soviet invasion of

114 MUMTAZ AHMAD
Afghanistan in 1979 that some madrassas on the northern and southern border areas of Pakistan—which always had a majority of their

students from Afghanistan—came to be associated with the Afghan

jihad movement against the Soviet Union. One also has to remember

that there were five million Afghan refugees in hundreds of refugee

camps in the NWFP and Baluchistan. It is estimated that 40 percent

of them were school-age children, many of them orphans. These

madrassas provided them with free food, shelter, and basic skills of

how to read and write, along with some Islamic education.

Most of the madrassas associated with militancy and terrorism after

the mid-1990s were established in the 1980s. But what were established for the particular purpose of fighting against the Soviets were

in fact military training camps where some religious education was

also imparted, obviously to strengthen the spirit of jihad against the

Soviets. The point is that they were not the institutions originally conceived as madrassas that later turned into terrorist training camps;

they were, from their very inception, conceived as militant training

camps and were given a cover of a madrassa to Islamically legitimize

their operations and to solicit funds from all over the Muslim world.

The story of these madrassas is thus integrally linked with the story

of Afghan jihad of the 1980s and of the Cold War that created the

political conditions for this jihad. Therefore, the answers to the questions being asked these days in the media and in scholarly and policy

circles—who established these madrassas? why they were created?

who provided them generously with funds? and more importantly,

who revived the so far dormant tradition of jihad as an armed struggle against the infidels?—lie not only in Kabul or Islamabad or

Peshawar or Riyadh, but also in Langley, VA.

As we all know, after the Afghan jihad was over, the “facilities” created for the Afghan jihad in these madrassas came in handy for

another jihad in Kashmir, again with the involvement of the Pakistan

Government. What the Kashmir operation and the proliferation of

jihadi organizations in the mid-1900s did was to bring this madrassabased militancy from the tribal belt of the NWFP to the plains of the

Punjab, where it was linked up with sectarian violence and antiIndianism.

MADRASSA EDUCATION IN PAKISTAN AND BANGLADESH 115
117

Madrassas, or Islamic schools, serve an important function

in the lives of many Muslims in India today. No reliable figures exist

for the number of madrassas in India, but there are estimated to be

several thousand.1 Many of them are just mosque schools (maktabs)

where Muslim children are taught to read the Quran and memorize

parts of it and are also taught Urdu and the basics of the faith. Several

large madrassas also exist, with smaller ones loosely affiliated to them.

Some of these have exercised, and continue to exercise, an important

influence on Muslims in other countries, especially (but not only)

among the South Asian diaspora.

This paper deals with the question of reforms in the Indian madrassas, looking at how the demands for reform are being articulated by

Muslims in India today, both ulema as well as others. It focuses on the

rationale for reform, the forms that these reforms should take and the

impact of these suggested measures, concluding with a brief reflection on the debate in India today about the alleged links of some

1. Manzoor Ahmed, in his study of Indian Muslim education, estimated the number of madrassas at around thirty thousand. See Manzoor Ahmad, Islamic Education:

Redefinitions of Aims and Methodology (New Delhi: Genuine Publications, 2002), 32.

6

YOGINDER SIKAND

Reforming the Indian Madrassas:

Contemporary Muslim Voices
madrassas with outside radical Islamist movements, examining how

this debate has impacted efforts to reform the madrassas.

As Zaman writes in his study of madrassas in Pakistan, the significance of contemporary initiatives at reforming the madrassas has not

been properly appreciated.2 The issue of madrassa reform has crucial

implications for Muslim education in India, the nature of Muslim

leadership, and for community agendas. Because of the links, in terms

of shared traditions that some of the leading Indian madrassas have

with madrassas elsewhere—particularly in Pakistan, Bangladesh and

Nepal—and the influence that Indian ulema have, since the last century, had on Muslims in other countries, reforms in the Indian

madrassa system have a broader relevance than in the Indian Muslim

community alone.

Traditional Madrassa Education in India

ACQUISITION OF ISLAMIC KNOWLEDGE is said to be a fundamental

duty binding on all Muslims. From the time of the Prophet until the

eleventh century, education, principally the study of the Quran, and

later the hadith (Prophetic Traditions), was provided in the mosques

and was, at least in theory, open to all Muslims free of cost. With the

development of Sufism from the third Islamic century onward, education was also imparted in Sufi lodges by Sufi masters. Islamic education was seen as not merely the transmission of knowledge but,

above all, as aimed at the molding of the character of the student,

who was expected to follow as closely as possible the pattern of the

Prophet and his companions.

Although the early Muslim community lacked a class of priests—

for the Quran sternly forbids intermediaries between the individual

believer and God—by the eleventh century, with the establishment of

large Muslim empires, a class of clerics, specializing in the minutiae of

Islamic law, gradually developed. This went hand-in-hand with the

emergence of a specialized institution for Islamic learning separate

from the mosque, the madrassa. Although there is evidence of

smaller madrassas having existed earlier, the first state-sponsored

118 YOGINDER SIKAND

2. Muhammad Qasim Zaman, “Religious Education and the Rhetoric of Reform:

The Madrasa in British India and Pakistan,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 41,

no. 2 (April 1999): 295.
madrassa in the Muslim world, which was to set the pattern for

madrassas elsewhere, is said to have been the Nizamia Madrassa at

Baghdad, founded by the eleventh century Seljuq Vizier Nizam-ul

Mulk Hasan ibn ‘Ali, and called the Nizamia Madrassa after him.

Nizam-ul Mulk later established several other such madrassas, such as

the one in Nishapur. These institutions aimed at the training of a class

of experts in Islamic law, ulema, who would go on to staff the

bureaucracy of the state as judges (qazis) and muftis as well as administrators. Thus, at the very outset, the institution of the officially

sponsored madrassa was seen as serving as an arm of the state, and

over time the ulema attached to the royal courts were to be used to

legitimize state authority. Nizam-ul Mulk is said to have been particularly concerned with the growing popularity of the rationalist

Muta’zilites and the Isma’ili missionaries who were very active in his

time and posed a threat to the Sunni establishment and the Seljuq

state. The ulema of his madrassas were seen as a bulwark against the

threat posed by these groups by upholding ‘Asharite and Shafi’i orthodoxy.3

The syllabus employed at the Nizamia madrassa, which served as a

model for madrassas elsewhere, represented a blend of naqli ‘ulum

(revealed sciences), including the Quran, the hadith, fiqh (Islamic

jurisprudence) and tafsir (Quranic commentary), on the one hand, and

the aqli ‘ulum (rational sciences), including Arabic language, grammar,

logic, rhetoric, philosophy, astronomy, medicine, physics and mathematics, on the other. In medieval times, the madrassas served as the

only available centers of formal education for Muslims. Their graduates went on to assume a variety of occupations, such as administrators and military officers, as well as what would today be called strictly

“religious” posts as judges in religious courts, teachers in Islamic

schools and prayer leaders in mosques (imams).

In north India the earliest available evidence of madrassas dates

back to the late twelfth century, when Sultan Muhammed Ghori conquered Ajmer in 1191, in present-day Rajasthan, and set up a madrassa

in the town. As Turkish rule expanded over other parts of India,

Muslim rulers established madrassas in their own domains, providing

REFORMING THE INDIAN MADRASSAS: CONTEMPORARY MUSLIM VOICES 119

3. Zia ul-Hasan Faruqi, Musalmano Ka Ta’limi Nizam (The educational system of the

Muslims) (Delhi: Maktaba Jami’a, 1992), 6061.
them with extensive land grants (jagirs, madad-i-ma’ash) for meeting

their expenses and scholarships for their students. Muslim nobles and

scholars also followed suit and set up large educational centers. Great

centers of Islamic knowledge emerged in various parts of India, and

the madrassas of Gujarat, Ucch (Sind), Multan (Punjab), Delhi,

Pandua and Gaur (Bengal), Bidar, Gulbarga and Aurangabad

(Deccan) were among the most renowned in the entire Muslim world

at their time. Generally, despite the Quranic insistence on the equality

of all believers, students and teachers at the madrassas were drawn

from the Muslim elite—the ashraf nobility—consisting of migrants

from Central Asia, Iran and Arabia, and their descendants. The thirteenth-century court historian Ziauddin Barani insisted that higher

education must remain a closely guarded preserve of the ashraf. The

“base-born” ajlaf, Muslims of indigenous origin, he insisted, must

remain content with just a basic knowledge of the Islamic faith and

rituals.4

The syllabus employed at the Indian madrassas went through a

process of gradual transformation over time, corresponding with the

changing needs of the state.5 Until the early sixteenth century, the

focus of the madrassas was essentially on fiqh, the details of Islamic

jurisprudence. From then onward, and particularly from the reign of

the Mughal Emperor Akbar, philosophy and logic and other

“rational disciplines” (ma’qulat) grew in importance, while strictly

“religious” disciplines seem to have been less central. With the

efforts of the early eighteenth-century Shah Waliullah, the study of

hadith began to be emphasized. Shah Waliullah, whose legacy is

today claimed by most contemporary South Asian Muslim schools of

ulema, returned from a stay of several years in Arabia, and introduced for the first time the teaching of the six canonical collections

of hadith (sahih sitta) in his father’s school, the Madrassa-i-Rahimiya,

in Delhi. He insisted that the naqli ‘ulum must form the core of the

madrassa syllabus, and was opposed to what he saw as the excessive

120 YOGINDER SIKAND

4. Qamruddin, Hindustan Ki Dini Darsgahe (The religious schools of India)

(Hamdard Educational Society, 1996), 33–40.

5. For a history of the syllabus and methods of teaching of the Indian madrassas,

see Abul Hasnat Nadwi, Hindustan Ke Qadim Islami Darsgahe (The old Islamic schools

of India) (Azamgarh: Dar-ul Musannifin, 1971); Muhammad Sharif Khan, Education,

Religion and Modern Age (New Delhi: Asish Publishing House, 1999), 84–102.
focus in the curriculum on the aqli ‘ulum, particularly Greek philosophy and logic.6

Shah Waliullah’s efforts to reform the madrassa syllabus met with

little success, however, as the center for Islamic education had, by this

time, shifted eastwards, from Delhi to Lucknow.7 In the mid-eighteenth century, Mulla Nizamuddin (d. 1748), scion of a family of

learned Mughal ulema, established himself at the Firanghi Mahal in

Lucknow, a mansion that belonged to a European merchant but had

been gifted to the mulla by the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb. There he

set about preparing a reformed madrassa syllabus, named after him as

the Dars-i-Nizami. The syllabus included new books on hadith and

Quranic commentary, but the focus on the rational sciences remained,

for products of the madrassa were to be trained not only for strictly

religious posts but also as general administrators and functionaries in

the state bureaucracies.8

With the establishment of British rule, the madrassas were faced

with what was seen as a grave threat to their existence and identity. In

the 1830s, Persian was replaced with English as the language of official correspondence by the East India Company in the territories

under its control. State-employed qazis were replaced by judges

trained in British law, as the application of Muslim law was restricted

only to personal affairs.9 A new system of education was gradually set

up, where Islam had no place. Many of these modern schools were

established by Christian missionaries, whose antipathy for Islam was

well known. The endowed properties of several madrassas were also

resumed by the East India Company. Thus, increasingly bereft of

royal patronage and finding their avenues of employment greatly

restricted, the madrassa system and the ulema as a class had now to

contend with a major challenge to their survival.

REFORMING THE INDIAN MADRASSAS: CONTEMPORARY MUSLIM VOICES 121

6. Khalid Saifullah Rahmani, introduction to Dini Madaris Aur ‘Asr-i-Hazir

(Religious schools and the modern age), by Muhammad Rizwan-ul Qasmi

(Hyderabad: Markaz Da’wat-o-Tahqiqat, 1994), 8.

7. Mohammad Akhtar Siddiqui, “Development and Trends in Madrasa Education,”

in A. W. B. Qadri, Riaz Shakir Khan and Mohammad Akhter Siddique, eds., Education

and Muslims in India Since Independence (New Delhi: Institute of Objective Studies,

1998), 81.

8. Francis Robinson, The ulema of Firangi Mahal and Islamic Culture in South Asia

(Delhi: Permanent Black, 2001).

9. Although, of course, under the Mughals and even earlier, the shari’a was never

enforced in its entirety.
The revolt of 1857, in which several Indian ulema are said to have

played an important role, represented, in a sense, an effort on the part

of the increasingly threatened ulema to defend their privileges. With

the failure of the revolt, many ulema turned now to setting up a chain

of madrassas, for it was felt that under alien rule Islam was under

grave threat and that it was only by preserving and promoting Islamic

knowledge that the younger generation of Muslims could be saved

from sliding into apostasy and prevented from falling prey to the

blandishments of the Christian missionaries. Because they perceived

themselves under siege and saw Islam as under attack by the Christian

British, the ulema seem to have adopted a deeply hostile attitude

toward Western knowledge. The “educational jihad” that they now

launched to preserve traditional Islamic learning was seen as taking

the place of the failed physical jihad against the British,10 and as working to train a class of ulema who would take revenge on the British

for having overthrown the Mughals.11 Thus, the madrassas that they

set about establishing closed their doors to modern knowledge, which

was seen as somehow “un-Islamic,” owing to its association with the

British. This was the beginning of the great divide between what was

now seen as “religious” (dini) knowledge, on the one hand, and modern “worldly” (duniyavi) learning, on the other, the two being seen as

opposed to each other.12 Because of the way in which this hierarchy

of knowledge was constructed, the curriculum of the madrassas came

to be seen as almost entirely unchangeable, although in the past it had

been subject to considerable change over time.13

The setting up of the Dar-ul-Ulum Madrassa in Deoband in 1865,

today the largest traditional madrassa in the world, marked a turning

point in the history of madrassa education in India.14 In contrast to

past precedent, the madrassa eschewed all patronage from the state

122 YOGINDER SIKAND

10. Kul Hind Dini Madaris Convention: Pas-i-Manzar, Rudad, Tajaviz-o-Faisale Aur

Rabita-i-Madaris-i-Islamiya Ka Qayyam (The All-India religious schools’ convention,

background, details, suggestions and decisions and the formation of a federation

of Islamic schools’) [henceforth, Kul Hind], (New Delhi: All-India Milli Council,

n.d.), 3.

11. Mumshad ‘Ali Qasmi, Tarikh-i-Dars-i-Nizami (The history of the Dars-i-Nizami)

(Bilaspur: Majm’a al-Bahuth al-‘Ilmiya, 1994), 48.

12. Qamruddin, Hindustan Ki Dini Darsgahe, 45.

13. Mumshad Qasmi, Tarikh-i-Dars-i-Nizami, 45.

14. For a history of the Deoband Madrassa, see Barbara Metcalf, Islamic Revival in

British India 1860: 1900 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982).
and relied entirely on public donations. In the absence of the Muslim

ruler as patron, it was now the ordinary Muslim, with whom the

ulema had, until then, had few links, who came to symbolize the survival of Islam in the country. Thus, the founders of the Deoband

madrassa made efforts to establish close links with ordinary Muslims

in small towns and villages. A few years after its setting up, its graduates had established their own small madrassas in various parts of

India, spreading the Deobandi teachings of Islamic reform.

Consequently, the social composition of the madrassa student body

began undergoing a noticeable change, as many young men from

lower class, ajlaf families began enrolling in Deoband and the network

of Islamic schools that it helped spawn. For these people, access to

the cherished resources associated with the Islamic scripturalist tradition provided a means for upward social mobility in a society deeply

stratified by caste. Further, the free education, board and lodging provided by the madrassas often attracted many poor Muslims who could

not afford to study in schools that charged fees. The hope of getting

employment as muezzins, imams and madrassa teachers, also attracted

many poor Muslims with no other reasonable job prospects. On the

other hand, middle class Muslims increasingly began to send their

sons to modern, English-medium schools, as these provided avenues

for occupations in the new economy. Thus, increasingly, and especially after 1947, the madrassas came to be associated with the lower

classes, and today it is only very rarely that rich Muslims would send

their children to such schools.

As for the syllabus, hostility toward British rule meant that modern

knowledge was viewed with suspicion. It was felt that “worldly”

knowledge might tempt students away from their pursuit of religion,

and hence was to be approached with extreme caution. Although

some of the leading founders of Deoband are said to have legitimized

the acquisition of such knowledge for the sake of the “advancement

of Islam,” it was not incorporated into the syllabus of the school.15

Deoband followed the basic structure of the Dars-i-Nizami, but

REFORMING THE INDIAN MADRASSAS: CONTEMPORARY MUSLIM VOICES 123

15. Muhammad Qasmi, Dini Madaris Aur ‘Asr-i-Hazir, 47–48. According to one

Indian ‘alim, the founders of the madrassa believed that while modern education was

not to be shunned, since the government schools were providing it there was no need

to duplicate the government’s efforts, and that the madrassa should, therefore, focus

only on shari’i subjects (Mufti Ziauddin, in Kul Hind Dini Madaris Convention Souvenir

[henceforth, Souvenir] (New Delhi: All-India Milli Council, n.d.), 32.
made several modifications in the syllabus, by reducing the number of

books on philosophy and logic and incorporating more texts on

hadith, fiqh and tafsir. Efforts to introduce modern disciplines met

with no success. Two years after the founding of the madrassa, in

1859, a committee of the leading ulema of Deoband suggested reducing the length of the course of study from ten to six years, which the

madrassa agreed to. The rationale given was that by doing so, the students would be able to study in modern schools after they graduated.16

However, few, if any, actually did so. It is said that Maulana Qasim

Nanotawi, the founder of the madrassa, had at one stage thought of

introducing the teaching of English in the madrassa so the students

could be trained to engage in missionary work among English-speaking people. This suggestion was, however, later ruled out.17

As a reaction to Deoband’s perceived hostility toward modern subjects, the Nadwat-ul ulema was set up in Lucknow in 1892, to train

ulema well versed in both the traditional Islamic as well as modern

disciplines. Its rector, Shibli Nu’mani, sought to introduce the teaching of English, along with modern social and natural sciences, in the

syllabus, arguing that the early Muslims had not desisted from taking

advantage of the learning of the Greeks and the Iranians; Islam, he

argued, being an eternal religion, had always been open to new developments in the realm of the ‘aqli ‘ulum. However, he encountered

stiff opposition from the conservative ulema,18 some of whom

branded him as a kafir. As a result, Nadwa failed in its mission to

develop a new class of ulema, but Shibli’s vision remained a powerful

source of inspiration for reformers in post-1947 India.

Madrassa Reform in Present-day India

MUSLIM ADVOCATES OF REFORM in contemporary India include both

trained ulema, products of madrassas, as well as men who have been

educated in modern schools. Some of them have studied in madrassas and have then gone on to receive higher education in regular universities. While all of them seem agreed on the importance of the

124 YOGINDER SIKAND

16. Qamruddin, Hindustan Ki Dini Darsgahe, 119.

17. Ibid., 11. Qamruddin writes that in 1925 Deoband started a course in Sanskrit

to train Muslim missionaries to work among Hindus but that it was soon abandoned.

18. Ibid., 42.
madrassas as institutions geared to preserving and promoting Islamic

knowledge and Muslim identity, there is considerable variation in their

approaches to the nature and extent of the reform they advocate.

There seems, however, a consensus that the core of the reform project should consist of modification in the madrassa syllabus and the

methods of teaching. This section looks at the ways in which these

appeals for reform are articulated and expressed by these advocates of

reform.

The rationale for introducing modern disciplines in the madrassas

is framed in principally three ways. First, it is said to be in line with the

Islamic understanding of knowledge as all embracing, covering both

‘ibadat (worship) as well as mu’amilat (social relations, worldly pursuits).

Second, introducing modern disciplines is said to be essential in order

for Muslims to prosper in this world, in addition to the next. Third, it

is seen as essential in order for the ulema to engage in tableeq, or

Islamic missionary work. All three tie in with a new, more activist

understanding of the role of the ulema. The ulema are no longer to

remain restricted to teaching in the madrassas. Rather, they are to play

an important role as leaders of the community. Some writers stress

that the ulema have, in fact, the divinely ordained responsibility of

providing leadership to the entire world as leaders of the followers of

the one true faith.

Islam and Knowledge

ADVOCATES FOR REFORM see the present syllabus used in the Indian

madrassas—generally some variant of the Dars-i-Nizami—as stagnant, in many respects no longer in tune with the demands and needs

of the times. Because the syllabus has remained largely the same for

the last three centuries, with only minor modifications, the ulema are

seen as rapidly losing their relevance for Muslim society, cocooned as

they are in a world that has long since passed.19 The reformists insist

that for the ulema to be able to play the role that Islam has envisaged

for them, as guides of the community, the madrassa syllabus must be

considerably revised. This entails a new understanding, said to be

REFORMING THE INDIAN MADRASSAS: CONTEMPORARY MUSLIM VOICES 125

19. Muhammad Arshad, “Azad Hindustan Mai Musalmano Ki Ta’limi Surat-i-Hal”

(The educational conditions of Muslims in independent India), in Parwaz Rahmani

and Muhammad Arshad, eds., Hindustani Musalman (The Indian Muslims) (New

Delhi: Da’wat Publications, 2001), 101.
more Islamically authentic, of the place of knowledge and the role of

the ulema in Islam.

Reformists insist that knowledge in Islam is one whole, and that

the division between dini (religious) and duniyavi (worldly) knowledge,

with the two opposed to each other, which many contemporary

ulema seem to have accepted, has no sanction in the Quran.20 The

very first revelation to the Prophet, “Read, in the name of your

Lord,” and the numerous hadith stressing the superiority of the

scholar over the worshipper and the martyr, are said to indicate the

great emphasis Islam gives to the acquisition of knowledge.21 The

Quran is quoted as repeatedly exhorting the believers to ponder the

mysteries of creation as signs of the power and mercy of God.

Knowledge of the creation is said to be the means for acquiring

knowledge of God.22 Thus, far from leading to doubt and disbelief,

scientific investigation, if conducted within properly defined Islamic

bounds, can deepens one’s faith and is, in fact, commanded so by

God. The Prophet Muhammed is portrayed as the pioneer of universal literacy and education.23 The circle of followers who learned

the Quran from him, first in Mecca and then in Medina, formed the

first Muslim “school.” Education was considered a duty (farz) binding on all Muslims, men as well as women, rich and poor.24 The education imparted in the “schools” at the time of the Prophet was centered on the Quran, but the Prophet also encouraged his followers

to gain worldly knowledge. This is suggested by the hadith, “Go

unto even China in search of knowledge,” for China was renowned

at that time for its advancement in various sciences. In addition, the

Prophet is also known to have instructed some of his disciples to

learn foreign languages, to communicate the message of Islam to

non-Arab peoples, as well as other subjects such as mathematics and

126 YOGINDER SIKAND

20. Sayyed Abul Hasan ‘Ali Nadwi, ‘Ilm Ka Muqam Aur Ahl-i-‘ilm Ki Zimmedariyan

(The place of knowledge and the responsibilities of the intellectuals) (Lucknow:

Majlis Tahqiqat-o-Nashriyat ul-Islam, 1997), 7.

21. Abdur Rauf Jhandanagari, al-‘Ilm wa’l ulema (Knowledge and the ulema)

(Maunath Bhanjan: Idara Da’wat ul-Islam), 22. The author quotes a hadith to the

effect that on the Day of Judgment, the light of the writings of the ‘alim would weigh

as much as the blood of the martyr.

22. Shihabuddin Nadwi, Hamare Ta’limi Masa’il (Our educational problems)

(Bangalore: Furqania Academy, 1989), 5.

23. Zafar ‘Alam, Education in the Early Muslim Period (New Delhi: Markazi Maktabai-Islami, 1997).

24. Arshad, “Azad Hindustan Mai Musalmano,” 97.
medicine.25 Thus, following the Prophet, Muslims today must consider it a duty to acquire not only knowledge of the shari’a but also of

the world (duniya).

Reformists argue that since Islam is all-embracing in its scope, providing guidance not only for worship and devotion but also rules for

collective existence, ranging from personal affairs to matters of the

state, Muslims must acquire knowledge of all aspects of the duniya,

in addition to that of the shari’a. Since Islam is God’s chosen religion

and is valid for all times, the ulema must remain abreast with changing developments in the world to be able to express Islam anew in

response to changing conditions.26 It is only by acquiring knowledge

of the modern world, of both the natural as well as the social sciences, that Islam, which is seen as a complete “system” (nizam), can

be “implemented” in its entirety over all aspects of the Muslims’ personal as well as collective affairs.27 It is wrong, reformists argue, to

consider that the sciences developed by people of other communities

are necessarily un-Islamic and false. Indeed, they might contain much

from which Muslims can benefit and can be used for the “cause of

Islam,” such as modern technology.28 Hence, the madrassas should be

willing to incorporate new knowledge in the realm of the natural and

social sciences into their syllabus, provided these are in accordance

with the teachings of Islam.29

Since the conditions of the world are constantly changing, so, too,

must the curriculum of the madrassas constantly evolve. While the

core of the syllabus, consisting of the naqli ‘ulum, should remain

unchanged, its aqli ‘ulum component—which is merely a means to

acquiring knowledge of the naqli ‘ulum—must be subject to revision

REFORMING THE INDIAN MADRASSAS: CONTEMPORARY MUSLIM VOICES 127

25. Sayyed Muhammad Salim, Aghaz-i-Islam Mai Musalmano Ka Nizam-i-Ta’lim: Ahadi-Banu Umaviyya Tak (The system of education of the Muslims from the dawn of Islam

until the age of the Umayyads) (Delhi: Markazi Maktaba-i-Islami, 1988), 30.

26. Abul ‘Irfan Khan Nadwi, “Nisab-i-Ta’lim Aur Tariqa-i-Ta’lim: Maujuda Ahad

Ke Taqaze” (The syllabus and method of education: the demands of the present

age), Islam Aur Asr-i-Jadid 12, no. 4 (October 1980): 26.

27. Islam thus comes to be presented in reified terms, as a neatly defined body of

knowledge, almost as a thing in itself.

28. Wahiduddin Khan, ulema Aur Daur-i-Jadid (The ulema and the modern age)

(New Delhi: al-Risala, 1992), 42.

29. Iqbal Ahmad Ansari, “Dini Madaris ka Ta’limi Nizam” (The educational system

of the religious schools) in ‘Arabi Islami Madaris Ke Nisab-o-Nizam-i-Ta’lim (The syllabus and system of education in Arabic Islamic schools) (Patna: Khuda Bakhsh

Oriental Public Library, 1995), 156.
in accordance with the changing context.30 The ulema must realize

that the Dars-i-Nizami, the main syllabus used in most of the Indian

madrassas, was itself prepared in and for a certain historical context,

and since the context has changed, the syllabus can no longer remain

stagnant, as has largely remained the case so far.31 This requires the

introduction of modern subjects in the madrassas, and the deletion of

books that are no longer valid and that were designed for a different

age. In addition to issues of traditional fiqh that have no relation with

the modern world (such as slavery), the present curriculum is said to

teach many subjects that are of no contemporary use or relevance,

such as Greek philosophy, which need to be replaced by modern

equivalents.32

The inclusion of “modern” subjects is said to be necessary in order

to develop a new fiqh attuned to the particular context of contemporary India, for the old books of fiqh deal with many issues that are no

longer relevant and are also silent about matters that modernity has

forced people to deal with.33 For this new Islamic jurisprudence, the

focus of the teaching should shift from the details of jurisprudence

(fur’u) to the principles of law (‘usul). One writer even suggests that

madrassas familiarize their students with international law and comparative legal systems, to “meet modern challenges.”34 Since the traditional fiqh, which forms the foundation of the present madrassa

syllabus, is lacking, in many respects, for a society that is no longer

“closed and isolated,” the Indian ulema must go directly to the Quran

to gain insights into how Islam can be expressed in contemporary

terms.35 Muslims must realize that past interpretations of Islam are

not binding on them, for the classical interpreters were human beings

after all, whose understanding of the scripture was heavily influenced

by their own environment. While what is of value in their interpretations must not be shunned, the ulema today must approach the Quran

128 YOGINDER SIKAND

30. Muhammad Muhsin, “Dini Madaris ka Nisab” (The syllabus of the religious

schools), in ‘Arabi Islami Madaris, 102.

31. Muhammad Salam Qasim, “Dars-i-Nizami Aur Islah-i-Nisab Ke ‘Usul-oMabadi” (The Dars-i-Nizami and the principles of reform of the syllabus), in ‘Arabi

Islami Madaris, 105.

32. Qamruddin, Hindustan Ki Dini Darsgahe, 53.

33. Faruqi, Musalmano Ka Ta’limi Nizam, 86.

34. Muhammad Qasmi, Dini Madaris Aur ‘Asr-i-Hazir, 29.

35. Qamruddin, Hindustan Ki Dini Darsgahe, 140.
without blind reliance on the classical interpreters and seek to discover what message it has for the present, for it is a book with eternal validity.36 Blind adherence to traditional fiqh (taqlid) as taught in

the madrassas must be shunned, and a new class of ulema, with a

knowledge of modern disciplines, must come to the fore who must

engage in ijtihad, the creative interpretation of Islam in the light of

modern conditions,37and thereby refute the allegations of Orientalists

and others that Islam has no relevance to the present day.38 This new

fiqh must be contextually interpreted, taking into account the specific

Indian context, where issues of religious pluralism, and the increased

demands for women’s emancipation and social justice for oppressed

communities provide challenges for which traditional fiqhi formulations have no relevant answers.39 In addressing these new issues, the

ulema might need to work along with pious Muslims who have been

trained in modern subjects and together come up with new solutions.40

This advocacy of introducing modern learning, of course, does not

mean an uncritical adoption of Western paradigms of scientific

knowledge, especially in the social sciences. Reformists make a cautious distinction between the products of modern technology that, as

they see it, could be used to serve the cause of Islam, and the underlying assumptions of Western science—materialism and skepticism in

matters of religion, calling for what is now fashionably called the

“Islamization of knowledge,” stressing the need for suitably

“Islamized,” “modern” disciplines to be taught as “commentaries on

various aspects of the Quran.”41

In the writings of the reformists, Islam’s position on universal education is seen as setting it apart from and above all other religions.

While other religions, such as Judaism and Hinduism, see knowledge

as the close preserve of a small priesthood, Islam stresses the need

REFORMING THE INDIAN MADRASSAS: CONTEMPORARY MUSLIM VOICES 129

36. Muhammad Faruq Khan, “Quran ki Ta’limi aur Tadrisi Masa’il” (Educational

and teaching matters related to the Quran), in Dini Madaris Aur Unke Masa’il

(Madrassas and their problems) (Baleriyaganj: Jami’at-ul Falah, 1990), 14–16.

37. Abid Raza Bedar, preface to ‘Arabi Islami Madaris, 5.

38. Ghulam Yahya Anjum, Anwar-i-Khyal (The lights of thought) (New Delhi,

1991), 120.

39. Fazlur Rahman Faridi, in Kul Hind, 86.

40. Muhammad ‘Uzair al-Mazhari, “Ladkiyon Ki ‘Ala Dini Ta’lim Ka Masla” (The

question of girls’ higher religious education), in Dini Madaris Aur Unke Masa’il, 117.

41. Shihabuddin Nadwi, Hamare Ta’limi Masa’il, 10.
for all people, men as well as women, to acquire knowledge. The contrast with Christianity is repeatedly stressed. Christianity is said to be

radically indifferent to worldly affairs, making a sharp distinction

between what is Caesar’s and what is God’s, and thus between sacred

and profane knowledge. Hence, the church is accused of having a

fierce hostility toward science and reason and to have enjoyed a long

history of persecuting scientists. In contrast to Christianity, the Quran

does not enjoin blind faith but, rather, a faith based on reason (‘aql).

Further, unlike Christianity, Islam does not negate the world or advocate monasticism. Rather, it strikes a harmonious balance between

this world and the next, and so positively encourages the cultivation

of knowledge of the world and both worldly as well as spiritual welfare and progress.42 Hence, in contrast to the Christian world, scientific development occurred on a grand scale at a time when Islamic

civilization was at its zenith, because of—rather than, as in the

Christian case, despite—the deep-rooted influence of religion.43

Thus, the great achievements of early medieval Muslim scientists, in a

range of fields, including medicine, astronomy, physics, mathematics,

biology and engineering, owed essentially to the encouragement provided by Islam to explore the duniya as a “sign” (ayat) of God’s

majesty.44 These scientists are said to have been pious Muslims, seeing their own scientific work as entirely in keeping with the teachings

of Islam. It is also argued that the great universities of the medieval

Muslim world provided inspiration and knowledge to European scientists at a time when Europe was still reeling under the Dark Ages

and the church was vehemently opposed to science. Modern science

is said to have its roots in the medieval Islamic tradition.45 Hence, for

present-day ulema to take to scientific education is not to abandon

their faith or to embrace the alien. Rather, it is to claim what was once

theirs, a return to their authentic roots. In fact, modern science, if

studied cleansed of its “un-Islamic” associations, can only help to further strengthen the Muslims’ faith in Islam. On the other hand, if the

130 YOGINDER SIKAND

42. Aslam Parwez, “Madaris Ke Nisab Aur Science” (The syllabus of the madrassas and science), in ‘Arabi Islami Madaris, 125.

43. Shihabuddin Nadwi, Hamare Ta’limi Masa’il, 3.

44. Ishtiaq Ahmad Zilli, in ‘Arabi Islami Madaris, 32.

45. Aftab Ahmad, “Madaris-i-‘Arabiya Ka Nisab Aur Waqt Ki Zarurat” (The syllabus of the Arabic schools and the needs of the times’), in ‘Arabi Islami Madaris,

143.
ulema continue to ignore the importance of modern disciplines they

would meet the same fate as the church in Europe, and the younger

generation of Muslims would begin to turn away from Islam in the

wrong belief that it is opposed to reason and worldly progress.46

New Roles for the Ulema

SOME MUSLIMS WHO CALL FOR REFORM in the madrassa syllabus,

stressing the need for introducing modern (‘asri) disciplines, consider

it as essential for the activist role they see for the ulema, as deputies

(na’ib) of the Prophet charged with the responsibility of leading the

community, and, indeed, all mankind, in accordance with the Quranic

injunction of “enjoining what is good and forbidding what is evil.”47

If the ulema are to be successful in that divinely appointed task, they

must be aware of modern developments and thereby prove their

value to the community. Armed with religious as well as modern

knowledge, the ulema must play a central part in social reform, and

also as social workers, struggling for justice for all humankind irrespective of religion.48 Modern education, along with religious training, would enable madrassa products to “gain social prestige” and

turn into “useful citizens.” Accordingly, madrassas must also teach

new subjects that would enable their students to play a role in national

development, such as the natural and social sciences, the philosophy

of the Indian Constitution, civics, and the principles of social justice,

human rights, justice, equality and freedom.49 This would lead to a

transformation in how the ulema see the rest of the world and how

the world sees them. Because they are said to be cut off from the fastchanging world around them, the madrassa students, says one writer,

“suffer from an intense inferiority complex, hating everybody with

modern education and being hated by them, in turn.” If they were to

prove their relevance and usefulness in the modern world, they would

be able to recover for themselves the position that Islam gives them

of guides of the community.50

REFORMING THE INDIAN MADRASSAS: CONTEMPORARY MUSLIM VOICES 131

46. Shihabuddin Nadwi, Hamare Ta’limi Masa’il, 8.

47. ‘Abdur Rahman, quoted in Souvenir, 5.

48. Salamatullah, Hindustan Mai Musalmano Ki Ta’lim (The education of Muslims in

India) (Delhi: Maktaba-i-Jami’a, 1990), 145.

49. Ansari, “Dini Madaris ka Ta’limi Nizam,” 165.

50. Moinuddin Ahmed, Ulema: The Boon and Bane of Islamic Society (New Delhi: Kitab

Bhavan, 1990), 105.
Madrassa Modernization and Worldly Progress

INTRODUCING MODERN SUBJECTS in the madrassas is also seen as providing Muslims with real-world benefits. Thus, a leading writer associated with the Jamaat-i-Islami argues, “to keep Muslims ahead of

other communities, it is necessary to have worldly power, which is

possible only through acquiring scientific and technical education.”51

Modernizing the curriculum is also seen as addressing a central problem for many madrassa graduates, that of employment in an economy for which they have little or no training. Typically, the ulema

have responded to the question by dismissing it altogether. Madrassa

students, they insist, should have no care for where and how they

would earn their livelihood, for God shall provide for them.52 Some

writers, however, recognize that employment is a fundamental concern for the students, most of who come from poor families, and are

sent to the madrassas by their parents in the hope that on graduation

they would be able to earn a livelihood as imams in mosques or

teachers in maktabs and madrassas. They see the introduction of

modern education as also helping to address the problem of acute

unemployment among madrassa graduates, because, they argue, the

existing avenues of employment for them, mainly as teachers in

madrassas or imams and muezzins in mosques, are limited.53 It

would allow madrassa students to enter regular schools and colleges

and thereby help the madrassas “become a part of the national education mainstream.”54

Teaching “modern” subjects in the madrassas, the reformists contend, would also help bridge the gap between the ulema and the modern-educated Muslims, who are seen to have fallen prey to “unIslamic” ideologies and ways of life. If the madrassas were to

incorporate modern subjects into their curriculum they might also

132 YOGINDER SIKAND

51. Sultan Ahmad Islahi, Madaris Mai Scienci Ta’lim (Scientific education in the

madrassas) (Delhi: Markazi Maktaba-i-Islami, 1990), 6.

52. Muhammad Taqi Usmani, Dini Madaris: Din Ki Hifazat Ke Qiley (Religious

schools: the forts for the defense of the faith) (Delhi: Farid Book Depot, 2000),

22–27. Usmani is a Pakistani Deobandi whose works have been widely published in

India.

53. Qamruddin, Hindustan Ki Dini Darsgahe, 12.

54. Ansari, “Dini Madaris ka Ta’limi Nizam,” 162. Needless to say, many ulema

react angrily to these suggestions, insisting that madrassa education must be acquired

solely for the sake of God, untainted by desire for worldly gain.
succeed in attracting students from better-off families to enroll and

thus not only help undermine the existing educational dualism, but

also improve the standards of the madrassas and, as one ‘alim suggests, the moral standards of the students.55 This is also seen as helping to rescue those Muslim children who are being subjected to a subtle policy of Hinduization and “intellectual apostasy” in the

government schools.

Some writers see the reform process as ultimately aimed at completely doing away with the division between ulema and moderneducated Muslims, calling for a single, unified syllabus that represents a harmonious balance of shari’i and modern knowledge. In

this way, pious Muslims would be trained to be masters of religious

law, on the one hand, and doctors, engineers, sociologists, economists and so on, on the other, who would be “the envy of the

world,” and help the community attain “success” in this world and

in the next.56

Madrassa Reform and Muslim Missionary Activism 

INTRODUCING MODERN DISCIPLINES in the madrassa syllabus is also

seen as central to the divinely ordained task of tableeq, or the preaching of Islam. Thus, it is repeatedly stressed that the eleventh-century

Imam Ghazali (1058–1111), the most accomplished Islamic scholar

of his times, studied Greek philosophy to refute those Muslims who

had fallen prey to its snares and had dismissed religion as a human

creation. By mastering Greek philosophy, he was able to refute its

claims and establish the supremacy of Islam. Likewise, present-day

ulema must closely study, indeed master, “un-Islamic” philosophies,

not for their own sake, but to expose them and assert the truth of

Islam. A new science of Islamic theology (‘ilm ul kalam) is called for,

one that seeks to present Islam in contemporary terms in order to

appeal to the modern mind. For this, the ulema must be familiar with

various contemporary ideologies and knowledge systems that are

opposed to Islam.57 By teaching these subjects, the madrassas would

help train what one leading Indian ‘alim calls “an ideal ideological

army” whose task would be to “defeat all other religions and ways of

REFORMING THE INDIAN MADRASSAS: CONTEMPORARY MUSLIM VOICES 133

55. Shihabuddin Nadwi, Hamare Ta’limi Masa’il, 19–20.

56. Anjum, Anwar-i-Khyal, 123.

57. Shihabuddin Nadwi, Hamare Ta’limi Masa’il, 15.
life,”58 and to “wage war against falsehood.”59 Numerous writers suggest that the teaching of comparative religions should be introduced

in the madrassas to equip the students with tools to rebut the upholders of other faiths. Some argue that students need to be taught to use

computers and the Internet to engage more fruitfully in tableeq work.

The need for studying English and other “non-Muslim” languages is

stressed as indispensable for successful tableeq and for countering

anti-Islamic writings in these languages.60 While some writers see the

tableeq project in terms of a battle against people of other faiths by

dismissing their faiths as false, others argue that the ulema, trained in

modern subjects and armed with a knowledge of other religions, must

seek to promote peace, love, dialogue and harmony with people of

other communities, for it is only in a climate of tolerance that others

would be willing to listen to the appeal of Islam.61

It is also argued that if the ulema, as leaders of the Muslims, fail to

take to modern education, the community would fall behind other

communities and be turned into helpless victims. The strength of the

contemporary West is said to lie in its command over knowledge, and

the ulema are exhorted to follow its examples if they are to establish the

Muslims as leaders of the world, intellectually as well as economically,

politically and militarily.62 If Muslims were to lead the world in the

development of knowledge, others would accept their leadership and

follow them, and might even be inspired to convert to Islam. By mastering modern knowledge, the ulema would, it is said, also be able to

impress on the non-Muslims that Islam has the perfect solution for all

worldly problems, and this might inspire them to accept the true faith.63

134 YOGINDER SIKAND

58. Ibid., 10.

59. Ibid., 19.

60. Syed Shahabuddin Dasnavi, “Madrasa System: Chand Mashvare” (Madrassa

system: some suggestions), in ‘Arabi Islami Madaris, 25. While the “other” is seen, typically, as “the enemy of Islam,” and tableeq is described in combative terms, some

writers stress the need for a change in how Muslims look at others. One ‘alim calls

for introducing modern disciplines in the madrassas to help equip Muslims to “dialogue through serious and scientific discussion” with other people, “viewing them not

as enemies but as seekers of the truth,” who are to be approached with “love and

concern,” and “words of compassion.” See Wahiduddin Khan, al-Risala, no. 286

(September 2000): 27–29.

61. Mohsin Usmani Nadwi, “Madaris Ka Nizam-i-Ta’lim Aur Naya Challenge”

(The system of madrassa education and the new challenge), Islam Aur ‘Asr-i-Jadid 32,

no. 4 (October 2000): 107–08.

62. Shihabuddin Nadwi, Hamare Ta’limi Masa’il, 8.

63. Nazir al-Hafiz, ‘Arabi Islami Madaris, 38.
The Limits of Reform

ADVOCATES FOR THE INTRODUCTION of modern subjects in the

madrassa curriculum are aware of the limits of reform, but there is

considerable debate about how far reform should proceed. This tension centers on the perceived role and function of the madrassa.

Those who see madrassas as aimed at only training students for professional religious posts argue that modern subjects should be allowed

only insofar as they might help their students understand and interpret Islam in the light of modern education.64 Others, recognizing

that not all the graduates of the madrassas might be able or even want

to become professional ulema, have suggested the creation of two

streams of education in the madrassas. In the first stream, students

who want just a modicum of religious education and then go on to

join regular schools, would be taught basic religious subjects along

with modern disciplines. The second stream would cater to students

who wish to train as professional ulema, and would focus on shari’i

subjects, teaching modern disciplines only to the extent necessary for

them to interpret Islam in the light of modern needs.65 A vocal

minority insists, on the other hand, that an entirely new system of

education must take the place of the traditional madrassas, where a

unified syllabus, based on a harmonious blend of shari’i and modern

subjects would be taught in equal proportions, and whose graduates

could go on to train for a range of occupations, both religious as well

as other, including joining the government bureaucracy, which would

not only give them a source of gainful employment but would also, it

is said, afford them an opportunity of engaging in tableeq among

non-Muslims.66 Some go so far as to suggest that the larger madrassas, after being suitably reformed, be converted into universities,

funded by but autonomous of, the government of India, with the

smaller madrassas being affiliated with them, following in the path of

madrassas in many Muslim countries. This, however, is not a widely

shared view.67

REFORMING THE INDIAN MADRASSAS: CONTEMPORARY MUSLIM VOICES 135

64. Anzar Shah Kashmiri, in ‘Arabi Islami Madaris, 36.

65. Aftab Ahmad, “Madaris-i-‘Arabiya Ka Nisab Aur Waqt Ki Zarurat” (The syllabus of the Arabic schools and the needs of the times), in ‘Arabi Islami Madaris,

144.

66. Nishar Ahmad Faruqi, in ‘Arabi Islami Madaris, 65.

67. Sultan Ahmad Islahi, Hindustan Mai Madaris-i-‘Arabiya Ke Masa’il (The problems

of the Arabic madrassas in India) (Aligarh: Idara ‘Ilm-o-Adab, n.d.), 152.
Reforms in Teaching Methods

BESIDES REFORMS IN THE CURRICULUM of the madrassas, reformists

also argue for suitable changes in the methods of teaching. Many writers are critical of the current stress on parroting entire sections of

books without exercising reason or critical thought, as a result of

which few students are said to actually properly comprehend what

they are taught.68 Critics see the madrassas as discouraging debate,

dialogue and critical reflection,69 and as treating their students as passive students, thus cultivating a climate of stern authoritarianism.70

The stress on bookish learning is said to have deflected attention

from moral development, and some writers bewail what they see as

the low moral standards of many madrassa students. One ‘alim

laments the charged polemics that madrassas train their students in,

remarking that instead of teaching them how to engage in “peaceful

and scientific dialogue” with people of other faiths, treating them as

“enemies” rather than with “love and concern,” they train them in

“heated debate,” although this is said to be against the practice of the

Prophet.71 Another writer points out that madrassa teachers refuse

to let their students read any literature outside the syllabus, and that

this narrows the vision of the students. This, he says, is opposed to

Islam’s stress on general knowledge and its openness to learning.72

He argues the need for madrassas to interact with the wider society,

even going so far as to suggest that they should invite non-Muslims

to their meetings, and strive to establish peaceful relations with them,

enlightening them about Islam and working with them for peaceful

coexistence.73 It is only by integrating with the wider society, including non-Muslims, and by being willing to learn from others, including from people of other faiths, suggests a Muslim critic, himself a

madrassa graduate, that madrassa students can broaden their horizons and develop a proper contextual and relevant understanding of

the faith.74

136 YOGINDER SIKAND

68. Qamruddin, Hindustan Ki Dini Darsgahe, 118.

69. Salamatullah, Hindustan Mai Musalmano Ki Ta’lim, 185.

70. Qamruddin, Hindustan Ki Dini Darsgahe, 149.

71. Wahiduddin Khan, al-Risala, no. 286 (2000): 29.

72. Qamruddin, Hindustan Ki Dini Darsgahe, 53.

73. Ibid., 307.

74. Washim Ahmad, “Psychology of Education: Madrassas of UP,” Economic and

Political Weekly, March 2000, 25–31, http://www.epw.org.in/35-13/comm5.htm.
Overall, then, the rationale for introducing modern disciplines in

the madrassa syllabus is framed in terms of defense, staving off the

creeping influence of other faiths or ideologies, or, in terms of the

Islamic mission, as equipping the ulema to establish the “superiority”

of Islam over other religions. It can be seen as a growing realization

on the part of the ulema that unless changes are brought about in the

system of madrassa teaching, the madrassas would lose their relevance and the influence of the ulema, as guardians of the Islamic

scripturalist tradition, would further decline.

The Pace of Reform

THE ACTUAL PACE OF REFORM in the madrassa system in India has

been slow and halting. Many madrassas have drastically reduced the

number of books on antiquated Greek philosophy and logic in their

syllabus, and have replaced them with more books on hadith and

other naqli ‘ulum. In recent years, several madrassas, including even

the archconservative Deoband, have introduced the teaching of

modern subjects, including basic English, and elementary social and

natural sciences, along with Hindi and, in some cases, a regional language in their syllabus,75 but the standard of teaching leaves much

to be desired. Recently, the Deoband Madrassa launched English

and computer courses for selected students. The Markaz-ul Ma’arif

in New Delhi, affiliated to the Deoband, trains fifteen Deobandi

graduates every year in computer applications, English and comparative religions. Some of its graduates are now running social work

centers, providing medical and educational assistance to poor children, particularly in northeast India, thus charting out a new role for

socially engaged ulema.76 Certain madrassas, such as the Jami’at ulHuda (Jaipur), the Madrassa Falah-i-Dara’in (Surat) and the Jami’a

Sabil-us Salaam (Hyderabad) have also introduced technical training

into their curriculum, thus providing their students alternate sources

of employment. Some larger madrassas have managed to secure

REFORMING THE INDIAN MADRASSAS: CONTEMPORARY MUSLIM VOICES 137

75. Atiq-ur Rahman and Muhammad Shah Jahan Qasmi, “Hindustan Ke Aham

Dini Madaris Ke Nisab-i-Ta’lim: Ek Taqabli Ja’iza” (The syllabus of India’s important

religious schools: A comparative study), in ‘Arabi Dini Madaris, 187–206.

76. S. Ubaidur Rahman, “Markaz-ul Ma’arif: A Shining Example,” Milli Gazette,

16–28 February 2002, 11.
recognition of their degrees by certain government-funded universities, such as the Aligarh Muslim University (Aligarh), the Osmania

University (Hyderabad), the Jami’a Millia Islamiya and the Jami’a

Hamdard (New Delhi), which allows their graduates to enter the

universities at the master’s level. In this way, these madrassas are

being enabled to enter the educational mainstream. However, the

number of madrassa students who manage to join universities is still

abysmal, estimated, according to one source, at only fifty each

year.77

Efforts to reform madrassas have also been attempted by some

state governments, and, as in Pakistan today, the Government of

India has also been pressing for the modernization of madrassas. The

government has been increasingly trying to regulate the functioning

of the madrassas, seeing them in terms of a security threat. This

approach has been further strengthened with the active involvement

of students of Deoband madrassas in Pakistan in the Taliban movement, and the growing radicalization of many madrassas in Pakistan.

Fears have been expressed and accusations have been made of certain

Indian madrassas emerging as “hideouts” and “breeding centers” of

Islamist “radicals,” although evidence for this seems lacking. The

autonomy of the madrassas is seen as a particular challenge by the

state, for this is seen as leaving the madrassas open to radical Islamists

who might use them to challenge the state and promote Islamist militancy. Hence, reform of the madrassas through modernization is

seen as a means to prevent the madrassas from emerging as centers of

oppositional Islamist activity, and, by many Muslims themselves, as a

subtle way to wean the Muslims away from their faith.

Government appeals for modernization of the madrassas seem to

rest on the premise that the madrassas are meant to be institutions

for the general education of Muslims and, therefore, must meet the

generally accepted standards for modern schools to enable their students to enter the mainstream.78 Hence, the need for madrassas to

138 YOGINDER SIKAND

77. Hakim Sayyed Muhammad Hasnan Nagrami, “Farighin-i-Madaris-i-‘Arabiya ka

Mustaqbil” (The future of the graduates of the Arabic schools), in ‘Arabi Islami

Madaris, 183.

78. The government’s case for the reform and modernization of madrassas to

enable Muslims to enter the educational mainstream of the country puts the onus of

Muslim educational backwardness largely on the madrassas themselves. This argument

seems specious, at best, and the concern of the government with the madrassas clearly
introduce modern subjects in their syllabus is stressed. This view

clashes with that of the ulema, who see the madrassas as institutions

meant for the preservation of Islamic knowledge and for the training

of ulema. Hence, they insist that the teaching of modern subjects, if

allowed, must be strictly subordinate to that of religious subjects. This

differing perception of the role of the madrassas—along with the

fear that the introduction of modern subjects would lead to an undermining of the authority of the ulema as interpreters of the faith—

accounts in large measure for the distinct lack of enthusiasm on the

part of most madrassas for the madrassa modernization programs of

the state and central governments.

In India today, the governments of five states—West Bengal, Bihar,

Orissa, Assam and Uttar Pradesh—have set up Boards of Madrassa

Education that frame the syllabus of madrassas affiliated with them,

consisting of both traditional Islamic as well as modern subjects. The

boards also conduct the examinations, enabling the students to join

secular schools after graduation. This has been welcomed by some,

but others argue that in this way the religious content of the syllabus

has been considerably watered down and that, burdened with the

need to learn both religious as well as modern subjects, the students

do well in neither.79

In recent years, the Government of India, as well as some state governments, has launched some small schemes ostensibly to assist some

madrassas, such as providing them paid teachers to teach modern subjects. These efforts have, however, failed to make much of an impact,

and only a few smaller madrassas have taken advantage of these

schemes, for fear of government interference and control, which they

see—and probably rightly so—as aimed at weakening their Islamic

identity by introducing the teaching of government-prescribed books

REFORMING THE INDIAN MADRASSAS: CONTEMPORARY MUSLIM VOICES 139

appears motivated by other factors. If promoting Muslim education was indeed a primary concern of the government, it should have paid more attention to setting up

more modern schools in Muslim localities, which it has failed to do. In fact, the level

of educational provision by the state in Muslim areas is far below the level of other,

particularly Hindu, areas, leaving the state open to charges of discrimination against

Muslims. Then again, proposals to legitimize government involvement in the running

of the madrassas on the grounds of helping to modernize them seem hollow in the

face of what is today a concerted effort on the part of the Indian state to Hinduize

the education system, including introducing subjects such as astrology and Hindu rituals and mythology in the syllabus in schools and colleges.

79. Khalid Saifullah Rahmani, in Kul Hind, 76.
in the social sciences, which generally betray a heavy Hindu and often

anti-Muslim slant.80 Many ulema associated with the madrassas see

the efforts by the state to reform them as a subtle means of

Hinduization, for if modern subjects were to overwhelm and marginalize traditional Islamic subjects, the religious identity of the madrassas, seen as the “forts of Islam,” would be effectively undermined,

and the road cleared for absorbing the Muslims into the Hindu fold.81

Madrassas under Siege?

TODAY, OFFICIAL CIRCLES, fiercely anti-Muslim Hindutva groups and

large sections of the Indian press seem to have mounted a concerted

campaign to dismiss the madrassas not just as bastions of conservatism and reaction but also as training grounds for Islamic “terrorists.”82 This climate of hostility seems to have worked to further

heighten the suspicions of the madrassas and has made the effort to

reform them even more difficult.83 In February 2001, the Indian government brought out a document prepared by the Group of Ministers

on National Security, alleging that madrassas, particularly in some border regions, were working in league with “pan-Islamist militant outfits” and “radical organizations” in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and

some other West Asian states. It suggested that some of them were

engaging in “indoctrination of Muslims in [...] fundamentalist ideology,” which, it said, had grave implications for inter-communal relations and for the stability of the state.84 In the wake of the attack on

the World Trade Center in New York in September 2001, attacks on

140 YOGINDER SIKAND

80. For instance, the suggestion that madrassa introduce the teaching of what is

called “Vedic Mathematics.” See Nizam Elahi, Modernisation of Madrasa Education

Scheme in India (Delhi: State Council for Educational Research and Training, 2001), 21.

81. One prominent Indian Muslim politician even suggests that the real purpose of

the government’s proposals for modernization of madrassas is to “monitor what

goes on inside the madrassas through a government-funded monitor in the form of

a teacher of English, mathematics and sciences.” (Syed Shahabuddin, quoted in

Madhav Godbole, “Madrassas: Need for a Fresh Look,” Economic and Political Weekly,

13 October 2001, 3890.

82. Thus, for instance, in June 2002 a leading Hindu fascist organization, the

Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council) demanded a ban on madrassas, alleging that hundreds of thousands of “fundamentalist students of the Taliban variety

are churned out” from these institutions.

83. Mujahidul Islam Qasmi, in Kul Hind, 12.

84. Quoted in M. Saud Alam, “Modernisation of Madrasa Education,” Radiance

Viewsweekly, 3–9 March 2002, 9.
the madrassas in the Indian press have mounted. Madrassas have been

branded as centers of anti-national, pro-Pakistan propaganda, allied

with the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence, and as dens of Islamic

“terrorism.” The state has sought to introduce new laws to monitor

to growth and functioning of madrassas, particularly in the border

areas, and is considering legislation to regulate funding to them,85 on

the grounds that they might be being used as hideouts of “antinational” elements, although the government has failed to come up

with any solid evidence of these claims,86 even in the case of the

madrassas in Kashmir.87 Some madrassas have been raided by the

Indian police, and staff and students have been harassed.

Faced with increasing opposition from militant Hindu groups and

large sections of the Indian press and the suspicion of the state,

Indian madrassas have had to deal with charges of lending support to

radical Islamist movements in Kashmir, Pakistan and Afghanistan,

many of whose activists are madrassa students. On the whole, the

Indian madrassas have responded by denying any links with these

movements, stressing instead their “secular” and “patriotic” credentials, pointing out the great role of the ulema in the freedom movement against the British, opposing the “two-nation” theory of the

Muslim League, and preaching harmony between Hindus and

Muslims.88 In the wake of the events of September 11, 2001, as

madrassas came under increasing attack in India from right-wing

Hindu organizations and leading sections of the Indian press, the

largest and most influential madrassa in India, the Dar-ul-Ulum at

Deoband, was moved to firmly deny any organizational links with

the Taliban or with other radical Islamist organizations. In June 2002,

the rector of the madrassa, Maulana Marghub ur-Rahman, issued a

statement insisting that persons belonging to madrassas and religious

institutions in Pakistan or elsewhere engaged in promoting terrorism

against India were “outside the scope of ideals.” It declared that

REFORMING THE INDIAN MADRASSAS: CONTEMPORARY MUSLIM VOICES 141

85. “No Survey on Foreign Funds to Border Area Madrassas,” Deccan Herald, Bangalore, 18 May 2002.

86. Yoginder Sikand, “Madrasas: Escalating Witch-Hunt,” Meantime, 15 September

2001, 26–29; Sikand, “Targeting Religious Schools,” Economic and Political Weekly, 1

September 2001, 3342–43; S. Ubaidur Rahman, “Nepal-border Madrassas: No Iota

of ‘Terrorism’ or ‘ISI’ Activity,” Milli Gazette, 16–31 July 2001, 4.

87. “Kashmir Madrassas Have Not Produced a Single Terrorist,” Milli Gazette, June

1–15, 2002.

88. See, for example, the statement by Maulana Abdullah Mughisi, secretary of the

department of religious education of the All-India Milli Council, in Souvenir, 15.
89. “Deoband Ex-Communicates Believers in Violence,”

http://www.milligazette.com/Archives/15072002/1507200259.htm

90. On Osama bin Laden, leading Indian Deobandi ulema are said to believe that he

was engaged in a jihad, but argued only those Muslims living in the lands controlled by

him and the Taliban could participate in the war in Afghanistan. The Indian Muslims,

they maintained, must support Osama, but only through “legal” means, and must pray

for his success. They laid down that it was not allowed for Indian Muslims to actually

travel to Afghanistan to participate in the jihad. Absolving Osama of all charges of terrorism, arguing that his only concern was to establish a “true” Islamic state in

Afghanistan, they insisted that America was “the greatest terrorist state in the world.”

They exhorted the Indian Muslims to undermine American interests, but, again, only

through “legal and constitutional means,” such as boycotting American goods (Shahbaz

Nadwi, “Deoband Se Taliban Tak: Akabir-i-ulema-i-Deoband Kya Kahtey Hain?”

(From Deoband to the Taliban: what do the elders of Deoband say?), Afkar-i-Milli, December 2001, 33–35.

91. Thus, the head of the Deoband madrassa (Waqf), Maulana Salam Qasmi argued

that the decisions taken by the Taliban had no bearing on the Muslims of India.

Another leading ‘alim of the madrassa, Maulana Nur ‘Alam Amini, insisted that

Deoband still adhered to its long-held position of “supporting secularism and a composite nationalism” in India, and asserted, “in the event of a war between India and

Pakistan, we would support India.” He admitted that the madrassa did support the

Taliban, on religious grounds, but differed with it on its understanding of the question

clearly “elements promoting or abetting violence and terrorism

against Islamic teachings cannot be Deobandis,” even if they claimed

to be so. True Islam, the maulana insisted, demanded that Muslims be

patriotic, abstain from harming or killing innocent people and generally lead a pious life. The founders of the madrassa, he stressed, had

exhorted Muslims to work for the unity of India and for harmony

between people of different faiths.89 This denial of links with radical

Islamists does not necessarily mean, however, that Deoband was necessarily opposed to their broader agenda of an Islamic state, in

Afghanistan or Pakistan, but only that it was opposed to the violent

actions of some Islamist groups in and against India, seeing this as

harmful to the interests of the Indian Muslims, living as they do as an

increasingly beleaguered minority. Thus, leading ulema of Deoband

have admitted they did support the Taliban in its opposition to

America and generally welcomed its policies that aimed at establishing a Deobandi-style Islamic state in Afghanistan.90 In this way, the

Deobandi ulema have sought to chart an uneasy balance between supporting the aims of the Taliban and dismissing reports of actually

assisting it.91 To equate the Indian madrassas with the Deobandi

madrassas in Pakistan, as the Indian government seems to be doing,

is, however, misleading, for the contexts in which they operate are

totally different. In Pakistan, the madrassas were supplied with liberal

142 YOGINDER SIKAND
of jihad against India. On the question of the war between the Taliban and the United

States, these Deobandi ulema insisted that it was a legitimate Islamic jihad because

America had allegedly launched a war against Islam and has attacked Afghanistan without proper justification, but pointing out that it is not binding on Muslims other than

the Afghans to participate in it. The argument that all the Muslims of the world must

participate in the jihad was dismissed as “an extremist position.” The other Muslims

must assist the Afghans in their jihad against America, they advised, but only through

“constitutional and legal means.” To talk of launching jihad in India, they stressed, was

“against all wisdom” and could only be “counter-productive” (Ibid., 33–35).

92. Iqbal Khattak, “U.S. Allowed Growth of Seminaries as Part of Bleed-Russia

Strategy,” Friday Times, Lahore, http://thefridaytimes.com/news3a.htm.

93. Thus, government and Hindu propaganda about the madrassas are seen as

aimed at destroying the identity and faith of the Muslims, for, as the ulema see it,

madrassas are the guarantor and the “fort” of Islam in India, and “weapons against

un-Islamic forces” (Muhammad Baqr Hussain Qasmi, in Souvenir, 7; Sayyed Hamid,

“Dini Madaris Ka Nizam-i-Ta’lim” (The system of education in religious schools),

Islam Aur ‘Asr-I-Jadid 32, no. 4 (October 2000): 59.

94. A leading Indian ‘alim estimates that 99 percent of madrassa students come from

poor families, who send their students to them not for the sake of acquiring knowledge

but in the hope of future economic gain (Mujahidul Qasmi, in Kul Hind, 17).

REFORMING THE INDIAN MADRASSAS: CONTEMPORARY MUSLIM VOICES 143

patronage by the state churning out students to participate in the

American-assisted Afghanistan jihad.92 In India, on the other hand,

the madrassas have no such access to funding and armed training.

In the present climate of hostility and suspicion, the agenda of

reforming the madrassas has become particularly difficult, as suggestions for reform are easily dismissed as “anti-Islamic” ploys aimed at

weakening what are called “the forts of Islam.”93 Besides the current

wave of attacks on the madrassas in India, other factors make the task

of reform more difficult. Given the fact that almost all their teachers

and students now come from lower and lower-middle class backgrounds94 and that they remain largely insulated from the developments in the wider society, the need for reform is not felt as urgently

as it should be. Reform is also seen as threatening their privileges and

their position as sole interpreters of normative Islam. The existence

of fierce differences of school of thought and sect has made it

impossible for the setting up of an all-India body to regulate the policies and activities of the schools, and efforts to do so in the past have

all failed. Almost all madrassas are administratively independent,

which means that efforts at reform have so far been scattered and

sporadic. Madrassas that wish to introduce modern subjects often

lack the necessary funds and trained teachers. To add to this, the

growing persecution of Muslims in India can only make madrassas

even more defensive and impervious to change, and might even make

talk of Islamic “terror” in madrassas a self-fulfilling prophecy.
PART TWO

RELIGIOUS RADICALISM

AND THE THREAT OF VIOLENCE
147

At the start of a new millennium, India and Pakistan signify a

virtual inversion of what their founding fathers Mohandas Gandhi

and Muhammed Ali Jinnah stood for. In India, Gandhi’s legacy of

non-violence and Muslim inclusivism has been largely displaced by

communal violence and the rise of the very kind of Hindu fanaticism

that gunned him down in 1948. In Pakistan, Jinnah’s vision of a democratic Pakistan, where religion was to be a personal matter that had

“nothing to do with the business of the state,”1 has been eclipsed by

frequent military takeovers and a rising spiral of sectarian violence

unprecedented in the subcontinent’s history. Indeed, in many ways

both India and Pakistan are like mirrors to each other, where an internal critique of one virtually amounts to that of the other. This is

poignantly reflected in Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Jagmohan’s

critique of an India “that had gone astray almost in every sphere of

life” under “unprincipled and irresponsible” political parties and leadership because its “foundational planks are missing.”2

1. Muhammed Ali Jinnah’s speech at the inaugural session of Pakistan’s Constituent

Assembly, 11 August 1947.

2. Jagmohan, My Frozen Turbulence in Kashmir (New Delhi: Allied Press, 1992). For a

fuller account of Jagmohan’s critique, see pages 618–28.

7

SUROOSH IRFANI

Pakistan’s Sectarian Violence: Between the

“Arabist Shift” and Indo-Persian Culture
Whatever Jagmohan’s notion of the missing planks in Indian polity,

this paper argues that besides other factors, Pakistan’s sectarian violence is partly rooted in the eclipse of an Indo-Persian cultural matrix3

that historically constituted a “foundational plank” of the subcontinent’s Muslim identity. Moreover, the eclipse of this matrix since the

subcontinent’s partition into the independent states of Pakistan and

India in 1947 has been marked by the ascent of an “Arabist shift”4—

the tendency to view the present in terms of an imagined Arab past

with the Arab as the only “real/pure” Muslim, and then using this

trope of purity for exorcizing an “unIslamic” present. Consequently,

the Arabist shift lost the eclecticism and intellectuality that were the

basis of a creative South Asian Muslim identity, and this has led to a

hardening in the understanding of Islam as a result of imagining

Pakistanis in Arabist terms.

The Arabist shift touched new heights through a convergence of

General Zia-ul Haq’s politically motivated Islamization of Pakistani state

and society and the U.S.-sponsored jihad in Afghanistan on the one hand,

and the fallout of the Iranian revolution, the Kashmir dispute, and

uneven development on the other. Such a convergence was also boosted

by romantic notions of an Arab-centric popular imagination as indeed

the ground realities of multiple economic interests. For example, in a

romanticized notion of Pakistan’s breakup in 1971, the secession of

Bangladesh is seen as a consequence of the failure to adopt Arabic as a

148 SUROOSH IRFANI

3. The founding moment for the Indo-Persian cultural eclecticism may be

located in the eleventh century when the city of Lahore in the Punjab province

emerged as a major center of Persianate culture. Persian became the administrative

language of successive Indian rulers even as it sparked a cultural efflorescence

through a synthesis of Sufism with a multicultural Indian society. See Muzaffar

Alam, Françoise Nalini Delvoye and Marc Gaborieau, eds., The Making of IndoPersian Culture (New Delhi: Manohar, 2000), 24. Also see Suroosh Irfani,

“Globalization and Marginality: Between the Blindfolded Bull and Burning Boats,”

in Suroosh Irfani, Durre Ahmed and Eric Winkle, eds., Inside Islam: Politics, Gender

and Culture (Zed Books, forthcoming).

4. As used here, the “Arabist shift” is traced to the onset of the Indian Wahabi

movement in the early nineteenth century. Unlike their more rigid Arab counterparts,

leaders of the Indian Wahabi movement such as Syed Ahmed Barelvi were radical

Sufis representing a degree of spiritual eclecticism of the Indo-Persian cultural

matrix. This is borne out by Barelvi’s promotion of the four main Sufi orders in India

and his frequent references to Jalaluddin Rumi (d. 1273), the icon of Persianate mysticism—a standpoint at a far remove from the sectarian-militant Wahabi-Deobandi

groups operating in Pakistan today. For Barelvi’s Sufism, see Marc Gaborieau,

“Sufism in the First Indian Wahhabi Manifesto: Siratu’ l mustaqim by Ismail Shahid

and Abdul Hayy,” The Making of Indo-Persian Culture, 149–64.
national language; whereas cooperation in defense-related areas at the

level of the state has been augmented by joint Pak-Arab business ventures that include partnership by “political” families, such as the family

of the former prime minister Nawaz Sharif. There has also been a huge

increase in the remittances of Pakistani expatriates from the oil-rich

Arab states.5 Moreover, the Arabist shift is also underscored by the fascination of many Pakistanis and especially the religio-political groups

with Talibanic Islam—generally seen as a slide toward a tribal, anti-intellectual and misogynist view of Islam promoted by a narrow interpretation of the Quran. And although the Taliban is not Arab, Talibanic Islam

is a vigorous manifestation of the Arabist shift, of which Osama bin

Laden has become the icon par excellence in Pakistan today.

Shia-Sunni violence in Pakistan, then, is drawing upon “a generation of social upheaval” and a failure of domestic and foreign policies

in a minefield that Pakistan has been turned into by the internationalization of jihad and the unresolved Kashmir issue. Such violence is

also spawned by a cultural imaginaire of religious triumphalism and a

failure to evolve inclusive forms of Muslim subjectivities in a globalizing moment—a crisis of identity summed up in the Arabist shift.6

The discussion that follows, therefore, touches upon three interconnected strands of history, culture and politics underpinning the sectarian/religious violence today: Where a historical contextualization of

the Shia-Sunni issue suggests that religious/sectarian violence in

Pakistan has assumed different modes at different historical junctures.

Moreover, not only are the modes of religious violence (both sectarian

and jihadi, where sectarian = Shia-Sunni confrontation; jihadi = liberatory struggle, holy war) interconnected, they also are equally a result

of a crisis in cultural identity as well as of concrete economic and

political factors. And finally, the linkages between national political exigencies and the imperatives of international politics indicate that

Pakistan’s internal scene cannot be understood independently of U.S.

and Indian policies vis-à-vis Afghanistan and Kashmir.

PAKISTAN’S SECTARIAN VIOLENCE: BETWEEN THE “ARABIST SHIFT” AND 149

INDO-PERSIAN CULTURE

5. Remittances from expatriate Pakistanis for the year 2002–2003 are expected to

top $3 billion, of which remittances from Arab countries (primarily Saudi Arabia and

the oil-rich Sheikhdoms) are estimated to account for three-quarters of the amount.

See Dawn, 4 October 2002, 16.

6. For the dynamics of the Arabist shift at the level of popular culture and its relationship to religious violence, including attacks by armed Wahabi-Deobandi militants

on qawalli musical concerts, see Irfani, “Globalization and Marginality.”
Shia and Sunni Islam

WHILE BOTH THE SHIAS AND SUNNIS share the fundamental premises

of Islam—belief in Divine unity (touhid), the Prophet Muhammed

and the Quran—the crux of their differences is rooted in the question of succession and leadership of Muslims after the Prophet died

in 632. Shias hold that the leadership (imamat) of the community was

the exclusive prerogative of the prophet himself, and after him,

resided with his descendants, the ahl e bayt. In the Shia view, the

prophet’s son-in-law Ali should have succeeded him, and they claim

that the prophet had in fact designated Ali as his successor. They are,

then, the Shias (partisans) of Ali, or Ali’s party. Sunnis, however,

believe that it was up to the people to elect a leader on the basis of

their own judgment. Consequently, Muslims elected Abu Bakr, a companion (sahaba) of the prophet as the first caliph of the Islamic state.

However, Shias follow a line of religious leadership emanating

from Ali, whom they regard as the first imam (or successor). In all,

there are twelve imams in the Shia lineage, the twelfth imam,

Mehdi, is believed to have gone into occultation, and he will appear

at the end of the world as a messiah. The prophet’s grandson

Hussein was the third imam, who was martyred in the desert of

Karbala by the army of the tyrant ruler Yazid because of his refusal

to yield to Yazid’s demand for political allegiance. The cosmic thematics of the struggle between truth (Hussein) and falsehood

(Yazid) were thereby factored into the tragedy of Karbala, where

Hussein’s memory as a martyr of justice is revered by Shias and

Sunnis alike. The invocation of a discourse of martyrology by

many Shias and Sunnis, as indeed their veneration for Ali for his

humanity and valor, often blurs the sectarian divide at the emotional and psychological levels. A case in point is Tipu Sultan, ruler

of the Indian state of Mysore, whose death in 1799 while defending his capital against the British made him a national icon of the

Indian freedom struggle. Invocations to Ali were inscribed on the

arms of Tipu, who attributed his victory over the British in the battle of 1783 to Ali’s intercession.7 Indeed, so high was Tipu’s veneration for Ali that it gave rise to the notion of his being a Shia,

150 SUROOSH IRFANI

7. Kate Brittlebank, Islam and Kingship in a Hindu Domain: Tipu Sultan’s Search for

Legitimacy (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1997), 44.
“though such an interpretation seems simplistic in the Indian context of spiritual eclecticism.”8

Iran is the world’s only Shia majority Muslim state, and as a channel

of cultural osmosis has given rise to an influential Shia minority in the

subcontinent, even though the first Shias who settled in Sind during

the ninth century were of Arab origin.9 Moreover, it is generally

believed that the Mughal emperor Humayun (d. 1557) was soft on the

Shias out of gratitude to the Persian king who helped Humayun

regain his throne after being chased out of India by the warlord Sher

Shah Suri in 1540. Humayun spent part of his long exile as a guest of

Shah Thamasp of Persia, a Shia,10 and after his return to India in

1555, many more Iranians migrated to the subcontinent and made it

their home.11

The Shia-Sunni divide, however, remained a source of simmering

tension during the Mughal rule, and by the turn of the nineteenth

century had “developed into full-scale polemical warfare, each side

accusing the other of being heretics and infidels.”12 Such a development, however, was part of an intense debate regarding Muslim social

and religious institutions at a moment marked by the ascent of British

power and erosion of Mughal authority, as indeed the contestation of

growing Shia appeal by a newly emergent Sunni reformist movement

that got identified with the puritanical Wahabi movement in Arabia

led by Abdul Wahab (d. 1792), the ideological father of the House of

Saud. Even so, tension between the Shias and the Indian Wahabi

PAKISTAN’S SECTARIAN VIOLENCE: BETWEEN THE “ARABIST SHIFT” AND 151

INDO-PERSIAN CULTURE

8. Ibid., 43. Tipu also used to participate in the ashura procession that Shias traditionally take out on the tenth of the Islamic month of Muharram to commemorate

Imam Hussein’s martyrdom. However, such participation by the Sultan might have

also had the objective of ensuring peace during Muharram, the month when ShiaSunni tensions often lead to violence, mainly because of purist Sunni objections to

the “innovative” rituals of Shia processions.

9. K. R. Malkani, The Sindh Story (New Delhi: Allied Publishers, 1984).

10. Abraham Eraly, The Great Mughals (New Delhi: Penguin/Viking, 1997), 107.

11. That this Indo-Persian political affinity/expediency of the Moghul era has

been subsumed by the Arabist shift today is reflected at several levels: If Humayun

the Moghul king spent a part of his exile as a guest of the Persian monarch, the

exiled former premier Nawaz Sharif is lodged today in a Jeddah palace as a guest of

the Saudi king, while former prime minister Benazir Bhutto has chosen Dubai as

home base for her self-exile. Such an opening of Pak-Arab channels at elitist levels

of the state, government and society was also paralleled by the influx of Arab volunteers in Pakistan during the period marked by the Soviet intervention in

Afghanistan to 9/11.

12. Syed Athar Abbas Rizvi, Shah abd’l Aziz: Puritanism, Sectarian Polemics and Jihad

(Canberra: Marefat Publications, 1982), 3.
movement was somewhat diluted by the Wahabi jihad against Ranjit

Singh, the Punjab ruler who gained notoriety by converting Lahore’s

Badshahi mosque into the stables of his army.

The moving spirit behind the Indian Wahabi movement was the

charismatic Syed Ahmed Barelvi (d. 1831), who remains an icon of

Islamic revivalism in terms of a Wahabi-Deobandi13 nexus, the

dominant force of Islamic orthodoxy in Pakistan and Afghanistan

today. The avatars of such a nexus dominating Pakistan’s religiopolitical landscape include the various factions of the mainstream

Sunni Deobandi Jamiat Ulema Islam (JUI) and several other sectarian

and militant groups generally seen as Deobandi-Wahabi organizations, such as the Sipah-i-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), Lashkar-i-Jhangvi

(LJ), Tehrik-i-Nifaz-i-Shariat Muhammadi (TNSM), Harkat-ulMujahideen (HM), Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET), and Jaish-e-Muhammed

(JEM), besides many splinter factions. The main Shia religio-political groups are the Tehrik Nifaz Fiqh-i-Jafaria (TNFJ) and Tehrik e

Jafaria Pakistan (TJP), besides the well-organized Imamia Student

Organization (ISO) that predates both and was formed in 1972. The

main militant Shia force is the Sipah-i-Muhammed Pakistan (SMP),

now split into different factions.

Sectarian Violence in Pakistan

THE ANTI-AHMADI RIOTS OF 1953

The first sectarian trouble in Pakistan arose during the month of

Muharram in 1950 in the city of Hyderabad in Sindh, in which nine

mohajirs (migrants) who had come to Pakistan from India after 1947,

152 SUROOSH IRFANI

13. The term Deobandi refers to the ulema trained at the Deoband seminary in

India as well as those who follow a conservative orthodoxy identified with

Deoband. After the uprising for Indian independence was crushed in 1857,

Muslims were roughly divided into two groups: those who cooperated with the

British and moved on with the world by opting for modern education, symbolized

by Sir Syed Ahmed Khan’s reformist movement and the Muhammadan AngloOriental college he founded at Aligarh in 1878, and those who held back, refusing

to have any truck with the British rulers, and who founded the seminary at the city

of Deoband in Utter Pradesh in 1867. Deobandi seminaries dominate the religious

landscape in Pakistan’s Northwestern Province and Baluchistan. One of the

biggest Deobandi centers is the Binori Masjid seminary in Karachi, where Mulla

Omer and Osama bin Laden reportedly first met in 1989, under the tutelage of the

seminary’s chief, Mufti Nizammuddin Shamzai, thereby sealing the DeobandiWahabi-Afghan linkage. See Khalid Ahmed, Pakistan: The State in Crisis (Lahore:

Vanguard, 2002), 45.
were killed by police firing. While the violence was rooted in a rumor

that a Sindhi Shia had kidnapped a Sunni mohajir child during the

ashura procession, the daylong disturbances that it gave rise to had

strong underpinnings of mohajir-maqami (local Sindhis) tensions.14

However, the first major sectarian agitation that gripped the country

was the anti-Ahmadi movement in 1953, which led to the imposition of

martial law in the Punjab for the first time. The army had to be called

in to control the riots that had erupted in Lahore following a virulent

campaign against the Ahmadi community led by the Jamaat-i-Islami and

Majlis e Khatme Nabuwwat, a Sunni pressure group.15 Leaders of the 1953

agitation wanted the Ahmadis to be declared a non-Muslim minority,

arguing that in claiming to be a messiah, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (who

founded the Ahmadiyya movement in late nineteenth century) had violated a basic tenet of Islam that holds Muhammed to be the last

prophet of God. They also demanded the removal of Zafrulla Khan,

an Ahmadi who was Pakistan’s foreign minister, and a ban on the

employment of Ahmadis in government service.

Martial law was imposed after rioters in Lahore had gone on a rampage on 5 March 1953, burning two post offices, eight buses and a

police station, besides shooting dead a deputy superintendent of

police. Firing by police left ten persons dead and seventy-four injured,

and there were eleven more fatalities before normality was restored16

on 9 March after hundreds of activists who had barricaded themselves in mosques surrendered—as many as 597 of them in Lahore’s

Wazir Ali mosque alone.17 The three religious leaders who led the

movement (including Maulana Mauddudi, head of Jamaat-i-Islami)

were tried by a military court and given the death sentence, later commuted to life imprisonment under international pressure, especially

from Muslim countries like Egypt.

That the anti-Ahmadi agitation was tacitly supported by the Punjab

chief minister Mumtaz Daultana to divert attention from “the disastrous effects of the [government’s] haphazard economic policies”18

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14. Oskar Verkaaik, “May 1990 and Muharram 1950: Two Cases of Political

Violence in Hyderabad Pakistan,” The Eastern Anthropologist 53 (2000).

15. The pressure group arose from the Majlis-i-Ahrar (which had campaigned

against the Ahmadis since the 1930s), after the Ahrar dissolved itself following

Pakistan’s creation in 1947.

16. Pakistan Times, March 6 and 14, 1953.

17. Ibid., March 9 and 10, 1953.

18. Ibid., Editorial, 15 March 1953.
was borne out by the labor unrest that followed on the heels of the

agitation, and also by an unprecedented budget deficit. Indeed, the

anti-Ahmadi movement became a pretext for the ouster of Prime

Minister Khawja Nazimuddin amid accusations that he had mishandled the crisis because of his sympathies for the Islamic parties.19

However, it was not until 1974 that the campaign against Ahmadis

achieved its primary objective, when Pakistan’s national assembly

unanimously passed a constitutional amendment designating the

Ahmadis as a non-Muslim minority.

By the mid 1980s, however, the focus of sectarian politics had shifted

to Shia-Sunni violence amid an atmosphere marked by Shia activism

and a Sunni extremist demand for declaring Shias a non-Muslim minority. Such a demand, however, was bound to be self-defeating because

notwithstanding Shia-Sunni differences, Shias are generally regarded as

part of the mainstream Muslim community, especially in the subcontinent where Shias were rulers of the various Indian kingdoms and states,

including Awadh, Bijapur, Golconda, Rampur and Hyderabad.

Moreover, some of the best-known leaders of Pakistan had Shia background, such as Muhammed Ali Jinnah and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, while

the presence of Benazir Bhutto and Abida Hussein in the current political scene shows that at the level of national politics, the Shia-Sunni

divide tends to become virtually irrelevant.

Shia-Sunni Violence: The Tribal and Urban Scene 

THE SCALE, INTENSITY AND PATTERN of organized sectarian violence in Pakistan today are in sharp contrast to the anti-Ahmadi

movement of 1953, where public rallies and street processions

went on for several months before culminating in the Lahore riots.

Moreover, the ongoing Shia-Sunni violence is also marked by differences along the tribal-urban divide. In the cities of Parachinar

and Hangu in the tribal northern areas, sectarian strife has at times

virtually taken the form of a tribal civil war, with the army and

paramilitary forces having to be called in to restore order. For

example, Parachinar, a city of five hundred thousand inhabitants

and capital of Kurram Agency bordering Afghanistan, was torn by

sectarian clashes on 5 September 1996, following an incident of

154 SUROOSH IRFANI

19. Ian Talbot, Pakistan: A Modern History (Lahore: Vanguard, 1999), 141.
wall chalking by sectarian students. Confrontation between rival

student groups escalated into nine days of sectarian war, in which

some two hundred people were killed and many more injured.20

While the army moved in and took control of Parachinar, “free use

of missiles, mortars, and rocket launchers forced residents of several villages to take shelter in nearby mountains.”21 There were also

reports of missile attacks from the Paktia province of Afghanistan

bordering the strife-torn area, hitting the Shia villages of Paiwar,

Kharlachi, Burki and Bughday in the upper Parachinar.22 As the

army recovered illegal weapons in Parachinar during a house-tohouse search23 after it clamped a curfew, Interior Minister General

Naseerullah Babar publicly expressed his dismay in the national

assembly for the government’s failure in protecting people because

“two neighboring countries (Iran and Afghanistan) were fighting

their war in Pakistan.”24 He also blamed the religious schools as

“the main cause of bloodshed in Parachinar,”25 and regretted that

the government had given land to the two countries for building

their madrassas.26 Even so, General Babar was only partly right in

attributing disturbances to Iran and Afghanistan and their madrassas, given that the tactical use of the sectarian factor in this strategic region had been perfected by General Zia-ul Haq during the

Soviet intervention in Afghanistan: in 1986, for example, General

Zia allowed the Sunni Afghan mujahideen and their local Sunni

supporters to mow down the Turi Shias of upper Parachinar for

obstructing the use of their territory as a launching pad against the

Soviet-backed government in Kabul.27

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INDO-PERSIAN CULTURE

20. Dawn, 19 September 1996. The number for fatalities given by Nawae Waqt (14

September 1996) is one hundred. The inconsistency is often due to the exaggeration

of numbers by Shia and Sunni combatants, who tend to inflate the casualties each

side has inflicted on the other.

21. Dawn, 13 September 1996.

22. Ibid.

23. Dawn, 15 September 1996. While General Babar regretted the role of

Afghanistan and Iran in Pakistan’s sectarian war, leaders of the Parachinar chapter of

the religio-political group Ahle Sunnat wal Jamaat accused the government for the sectarian clashes for its failure to stop the “supply of arms and ammunitions to the rival

faction from India.” See Dawn, 13 September 1996.

24. Dawn, 16 September 1996.

25. Ibid.

26. Ibid.

27. Khaled Ahmed, “When the State Kills,” Friday Times, September 2001.
The Parachinar28 paradigm of sectarian violence marked by the

use of heavy weapons by both sides, support of Afghan settlers and

Taliban for the local Sunnis, and the deployment of the army for

restoring order, has been replicated in several other clashes in the

tribal areas. In March 1998, sectarian violence erupted in the city of

Hangu, eighty kilometers from Peshawar, after a procession of hundreds of Shias celebrating the traditional Iranian new year (the

spring solstice, naurooz) came under indiscriminate fire, because “the

procession was taken out despite opposition from Sunni militant

group, the supreme Sunni council.”29 Ten people were killed and

twenty-five were injured as the violence spread to the nearby villages

following the failure of the paramilitary forces to restore order.

Army units, therefore, were called in from the Kohat garrison, but

the Shahukhel village near Hangu was razed to the ground by armed

tribal lashkars of the Sunni Orakzai tribe, whose arsenal included

locally made anti-aircraft guns.30 While the district administration

eventually brokered a ceasefire between the two warring groups

using the mediation of a local jirga besides Shia and Sunni ulema

flown in from Peshawar, the ceasefire was all too precarious. The

city was gripped by sectarian violence in the following years, and

most recently again on 2 March 2001, when three Shia shopkeepers

were gunned down in the main bazaar by militants of the anti-Shia

SSP, who had come all the way from Punjab for the act. The shooting took place while the district administration was negotiating with

local Shia and Sunni leaders as to how to ensure peace during the

upcoming naurooz celebrations later that month. In this particular

case, then, it was not so much a local incident that sparked the

clashes but the extension of SSP death squads to the tribal areas. By

killing the Shias in Hangu, the militants were exacting revenge for

156 SUROOSH IRFANI

28. Parachinar sums up the dynamics of sectarian violence in Pakistan’s tribal

areas. Demographic pressures and a rising population have exacerbated the crises of

an area where the presence of an effective Shia minority is routinely challenged by

Afghan settlers and local Sunnis, and where the power of the tribal elders has been

weakened by extremist young militants well trained in the use of sophisticated

weapons. Moreover, given the virtual absence/inaccessibility of government

schools, children are indoctrinated in sectarian hatred at an early age in the Shia- and

Sunni-run madrassas. See Robert Kaplan, “The Lawless Frontier,” Atlantic,

September 2000.

29. Dawn, 22 March 1998.

30. Dawn, 23 March 1998 (editorial) and 26 March 1998.
the execution of SSP leader Haq Nawaz in Punjab’s Mianwali jail,

where Haq Nawaz was hanged on 28 February 2001 after an elevenyear-long trial for the murder of Sadek Ganji, the director of the

Iranian cultural center in Lahore. As the government had taken hundreds of SSP activists in the Punjab into preventive custody prior to

the execution, SSP militants took their revenge in the far northern

city of Hangu.31

In urban Pakistan,32 however, Shia-Sunni violence has mostly

become a contest for body counts among rival sectarian death

squads, claiming 1,287 victims between 1990 and 2002.33 Initially, the

violence was restricted to target killing of sectarian leaders and

activists, teachers and students; then followed attacks on police

patrols, jail superintendents, high-ranking government officials and

judges carrying out investigations against sectarian terrorists. By the

mid-nineties, worshippers in mosques and mourners in cemeteries

were also included among the soft targets of sectarian gunmen,

besides bureaucrats and businessmen, Iranian diplomats, construction engineers and military cadets in the cities of Rawalpindi, Lahore,

Karachi and Multan. By the start of the new millennium, doctors

were also added to the sectarians’ death list—the militants believed

that “a doctor presented a strategic target because of the publicity his

killing generated.”34

To be sure, a defining moment in Shia-Sunni radicalization was

the Iranian revolution in 1979 and General Zia’s promulgation of

zakat (wealth tax) and ushr (farming tax) ordinances under Sunni

Islamic law in 1980. As these laws conflicted with Shia law, General

Zia’s move triggered the first mass demonstration, when thousands

of Shias turned out in Islamabad and demanded the repeal of these

PAKISTAN’S SECTARIAN VIOLENCE: BETWEEN THE “ARABIST SHIFT” AND 157

INDO-PERSIAN CULTURE

31. The daily Aaj, 2 March 2001. Also see Rahimullah Yusufzai’s report in The News,

4 March 2001.

32. The start of urban violence may be dated to the killing of the Sunni Wahabi

leader Alama Ehsan Zaheer in Lahore in 1987, and the Shia leader Alama Arif alHussaini in Peshawar in 1988. Zaheer was head of the religio-political party Jamiat

Ahle Hadith (JAH), while Hussaini was head of TNFJ.

33. The figure is for Pakistani cities and does not include the tribal areas. More

definitive data for the Punjab, the hotbed of sectarian violence, are furnished by the

Crime Investigation Department of the province. It gives the number of people

killed in 1,106 incidents of sectarian violence between 1990 and 2001 as 776—of

which 546 were murdered by the Sunni and 230 by Shia militants. See The News, 18

May 2002.

34. Newsline, August 2001, 40.
ordinances. The protest gave birth to TNFJ (Movement for enforcement of the Jafaria [Shia] Law) as a new force in Pakistan’s politics.35

TNFJ’s emergence also marked a radical shift in the intra-Shia scene

as the center of gravity of Shia politics, traditionally associated with

big landlords, shifted to the Shia ulema and the younger militant

groups. The increasingly confrontational and aggressive posture of

TNFJ, however, led to a Deobandi Sunni backlash that took the

form of Anjuman-i-Sipah Sahaba Pakistan (ASSP), or Association of

the Soldiers of the Prophet’s Companions of Pakistan, founded in

1985 by Deobandi ulema and former members of JUI. The organization was later renamed as Sipah-i-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), or

Soldiers of the Prophet’s Companions. With its alleged Saudi support augmented by Iraqi money and domestic donations, besides the

money from extortion, robberies36 and kidnappings, SSP emerged

as a well-funded extremist outfit and joined the ranks of religious

parties that were becoming like “‘monsters’ in terms of material

resources, fire power, and the pressure they could exert on policy

matters.”37

Further radicalization of sectarian militancy occurred in 1994 after

a group of younger Shia militants broke away from the mainstream

TNFJ that they accused of being too conservative in protecting the

Shias and founded the Sipah-i-Muhammed Pakistan (SMP), or

158 SUROOSH IRFANI

35. TNFJ arose out of the Federation of Shia Ulema and the support of the Shia

Imamia Student Organization. Though still in the political arena under the leadership

of Alama Hamid Moosavi, it has lost much ground to the TJP, a breakaway group

formed in 1993 by Alama Sajid Naqvi and the major Shia organization in Pakistan

today. In 1998, another Shia organization by the name of Shura e Wahdat was formed

with a view of representing all Shia groups and factions under one umbrella.

36. A report by the special branch of the Punjab police points to the involvement

of religious activists in unlawful activities and also notes that criminals wanted by the

police often took shelter as workers of religious organizations. See Azmat Abbas,

Sectarianism: The Players and the Game (Lahore: South Asia Partnership–Pakistan, 2002),

21. SSP leaders claim that rather than Arab states, their sympathizers give them financial assistance. However, intelligence sources have alluded to the secret visits of SSP

leaders to the Saudi Embassy in Islamabad, as well as indirect contacts between them.

See Imtiaz Gul, The Unholy Nexus: Pak-Afghan Relations under the Taliban (Lahore:

Vanguard, 2002), 100.

37. The Herald, May 2000, 53. In March 2001, the chairman of the SSP supreme

council, Maulana Zahid Mahmood Qasmi (son of late SSP founder Ziaul Qasmi),

announced the dissolution of the supreme council after accusing the SSP leadership

of political indifference and embezzlement of Rs.10 million of party funds. At the

same time, Qasmi announced that he had now joined the Jamiat Ulema Islam (Ajmal

Qadri) as its secretary-general. See The News, 11 March 2001.
Soldiers of Muhammed.38 The high point of SMP’s terrorism was the

January 1997 bombing of the Lahore high court where an SSP leader,

Ziaur Rehman, arrested earlier by the police during an anti-terrorist

raid, was being taken for a hearing.39 The bombing killed the SSP

leader, a journalist, and twenty-two police constables. Retaliation by

SSP was swift. Hundreds of enraged activists set ablaze the Iranian

cultural center in Lahore on 19 January, and the Iranian cultural center in Multan the following month, killing seven employees of the

center, including its director.

Responsibility for these attacks was claimed by Lashkar-i-Jhangvi

(LJ), Jhangvi’s Soldiers, an SSP faction formed by the former SSP

information secretary Riaz Basra and named after Haq Nawaz

Jhangvi, a founding SSP member whose murder in February 1990 had

led to the revenge killing of Sadek Ganji that Basra had masterminded. And although Basra was arrested after Ganji’s murder, he was

allowed to escape40 and base himself in Afghanistan, where he trained

militants for the war against Shias in Pakistan, as well as for killing

members of the Afghan opposition in Peshawar. Indeed, the ideological symbiosis of SSP and LJ with Mulla Omar’s Taliban was amply

demonstrated during the reported participation of the SSP and LJ

militants in the massacre of Shias in Mazare Sharif, after the mainly

Shia city was captured by the Taliban on 8 August 1998.41 The killing

of Iranian diplomats and officials in Pakistan was replicated in Mazare

when nine Iranian diplomats were executed by the Taliban after the

PAKISTAN’S SECTARIAN VIOLENCE: BETWEEN THE “ARABIST SHIFT” AND 159

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38. During an interview in 1996, the commander-in-chief (salar e ala) of Sipah-iMuhammed claimed that he had as many as fourteen thousand members in Pakistan,

offices in other countries, and had even seen action in Lebanon along with two hundred other Pakistani Shias. SMP’s aim, he added, was to work for an Iranian-style revolution that could put an end to all foreign interference in Pakistan. See “Ghulam

Reza Naqvi, Salar e Ala,” The Herald, October 1996, 57. However, late in 1996, SMP

split into two factions after a bloody infighting in its leadership. Internal rifts, penetration by pro-government elements, and the turning against SMP by the local Shias

in the SMP stronghold of Thokar Niaz Beg, a Lahore suburb, enabled the police to

launch one of its most spectacular anti-sectarian operations: it broke through SMP

defenses in Thokar Niaz Beg and converted the SMP headquarters into a police station with the help of the locals.

39. Ibid.

40. Basra’s protectors are said to have included powerful politicians, such as the

Punjab chief minister Manzoor Wattoo who “stage managed” his escape (see Abbas,

Sectarianism, 13) as well as “rogue” elements of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence,

the ISI (see The Herald, December 2001, 20).

41. The Herald, September 1998, 32.
Iranian consulate was captured—an act that Iran held Pakistan

responsible for and that led to the first ever anti-Pakistan demonstration in Teheran.

Context for Shia-Sunni Radicalization

PAKISTAN’S SLIDE INTO SECTARIAN VIOLENCE may be seen as the

upshot of several intertwining factors, including domestic politics,

regional upheavals and the Cold War. In this respect, the late president

General Zia ul-Haq’s coup d’état against Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali

Bhutto’s government in 1977 stands out as a marker in the domestic

front. Lacking any political constituency or a social base of his own

other than the army, Zia launched his Islamization drive to carve out

a constituency for himself, even if that meant spawning new sectarian

and ethnic groups and co-opting the religio-political parties. Among

the latter was the Jamaat-i-Islami, a party that had historically stood in

opposition to the creation of Pakistan and had been roundly rejected

by the people in successive elections. However, its alliance with Zia

enabled the party to dig inroads for its totalitarian brand of Islam that

reflected the ideas of its founder, Maulana Mauddudi. Without a hint

of irony, the humorless Mauddudi promoted an Islamic state where

“no one can regard his affairs as personal and private... [because] an

Islamic state is a totalitarian state.”42 Moreover, Mauddudi shunned

democracy and freedom of thought even as he admired the Nazi and

Fascist parties for having achieved power “through deep faith in their

principles and blind obedience to their leaders.”43 Inevitably, the

alliance of Zia’s military dictatorship with the Jamaat and the mosque

stirred up primordial passions, even as it empowered the semi-literate

mullas as commissars of the state and distributors of its largesse

through zakat (wealth tax) funds to the poor. Moreover, in rural areas

the mullas became collectors of the ushr (farming tax) and this

changed their status by turning them into instruments of local government.44 Furthermore, the government’s decision to provide zakat

funds to madrassas led to their mushrooming growth, even as their

160 SUROOSH IRFANI

42. Maulana Mauddudi, “Political Theory of Islam,” quoted in K. K. Aziz,

Pakistan’s Political Culture (Lahore: Vanguard), 265.

43. Ibid., 261.

44. Abbas Rashid, “The Politics and Dynamics of Violent Sectarianism,” in Zia

Mian and Iftikhar Ahmed, eds., Making Enemies, Creating Conflict: Pakistan’s Crisis of

State and Society (Lahore: Mashal, 1997), 36–37.
graduates became cadres of the religio-political parties and functionaries of the various government-funded institutions.

At the same time, the internationalization of the Afghan jihad

turned Pakistan into a frontline state and the center of what Eqbal

Ahmed has aptly termed as Jihad International Inc.45 By funneling billions of dollars into a jihad that mostly favored Afghanistan’s Wahabi

Sunni parties like Gulbuddin Hikmatyar’s Hizb-e-Islami over others,

the canker of Shia-Sunni sectarianism was transposed on the Afghan

jihad; the idea was to marginalize Iran in a post-Soviet Afghanistan

that was to be dominated by forces friendly to their U.S.-SaudiPakistani benefactors. Moreover, local and regional patronization of

the madrassas and jihadi training camps “and support for groups like

Taliban and al-Qaeda by elements of the Pakistani state and society

were crucial in transforming the Shia-Sunni conflict in to a parallel

supra national, supra ethnic sectarian conflict.”46

To be sure, if the Cold War gave General Zia a shortcut to legitimacy and recognition on the international front, the social fallout of

modernization as marginalization, unemployment and alienation gave

sectarianists a shortcut to political power on the domestic front. This

is borne out by the case of Jhang in central Punjab, home base for

SSP and LJ and one of the few cities with a substantial Shia minority.

The Shia community has traditionally dominated Jhang, given that

most of the larger landlords are Shias. However, over the years the

influence of shopkeepers, traders and transporters, as well as

migrants from East Punjab and some industrialists, had steadily

increased.47 In this changing social configuration, politics was articulated in the form of sectarianism, and an active sectarian identity was

superimposed on “an existing divide between the landed elite and the

middle and lower middle classes.”48 In the absence of secular and

socialist parties in the political landscape, as had been the case with

Pakistan in the 1960s and 70s, the contest for access to resources and

status, therefore, was framed in terms of confrontationist sectarian

identities, especially among the young who were “readily swayed by

PAKISTAN’S SECTARIAN VIOLENCE: BETWEEN THE “ARABIST SHIFT” AND 161

INDO-PERSIAN CULTURE

45. Eqbal Ahmed, Roots of Religious Violence in Contemporary Pakistan, 10. See Eqbal

Ahmed on google.com.

46. Iftikhar H. Malik, Islam, Nationalism and the West: Issues of Identity in Pakistan

(London: Macmillan, 1999), 119.

47. Rashid, “Violent Sectarianism.”

48. Ibid.
simplistic ideas and quick to embrace an identity in which they felt

more secure.”49

Moreover, according to SSP’s “creation myth,” the organization was

formed by maulanas Jhangvi, Ziaur Rahman Farooqi, Israrul Haq and

Azam Tariq on their own and without any prompting by outside influences. However, a recent study drawing on independent sources and

the record available with the Punjab police shows that SSP was in fact

created by a group of businessmen from Jhang, “and Maulana Jhangvi

was invited to join only because they wanted to use the religious factor

to fulfill their political ambitions.”50 Consequently, Jhang’s leading

businessman Sheikh Yousaf was elected as a member of the Punjab

Assembly with SSP support in 1985, as was Mian Abid, an industrialist.51 Moreover, the SSP’s formation in 1985 is also significant as it

coincided with the year that non-party elections were held under

General Zia’s rule. Indeed, Maulana Jhangvi launched a virulent antiShia campaign “with the sole agenda of defeating Abida Hussain,” a

Shia politician of national standing, but Jhangvi lost when he contested against her for a national assembly seat in 1988.52 Even so, SSP

emerged as a mainstream political party because of its aggressive

appeal and support from other Wahabi-Deobandi religious groups. It

even joined into electoral alliance with Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan

People’s Party (PPP), as well as the Pakistan Muslim League (PML),

and was given two ministerial positions in the cabinet of the Punjab

Chief Minister Arif Nakai. Clearly, extremism and sectarianism had

homed into mainstream politics as a legitimate player.53

Sectarianism after 9/11

THE ONGOING CRACKDOWN against sectarian outfits and al-Qaeda

suspects has shown that in operational terms, “many of the sectarianists were part-time jihadis and vice versa.”54 This is borne out by the

linkages of sectarian terrorists belonging to SSP and LJ with jihadi

162 SUROOSH IRFANI

49. Ibid.

50. Abbas, Sectarianism, 11.

51. Ibid.

52. Ibid.

53. Ibid. Such legitimacy is also underscored by continuing Saudi support for

Wahabi-Deobandi sympathizers of SSP, a case in point being the appointment of

SSP member Tahir Ashrafi as advisor for religious affairs to the Punjab governor “on

the intervention of the Saudi government.” See page 13.

54. The Daily Times (editorial), 1 July 2002.
groups like HM and JEM in the kidnapping and murder of journalist

Daniel Pearl in January 2002.55 Sheikh Omer, sentenced to death in

July for masterminding Pearl’s kidnapping and execution, was a member of JEM, while the militants who led the police to the graveyard

where Pearl was buried were members of SSP and LJ. Moreover, the

terrorists who are said to have confessed to carrying out Pearl’s execution and are in police custody now are LJ militants.56 Also, the linkage

of members of SSP, LJ, HM, and JEM with al-Qaeda’s Egyptian, Iraqi,

Saudi and Yemeni operatives has been unearthed following a joint

operation of the FBI with Pakistani agencies in Karachi. As the drive

against terrorism inside Pakistan picks up and meets with success, it is

becoming clear “that the proliferation of jihadi organizations was in

fact a result of ‘strategic handling’ and the never ending feuding that

went on with these rather loosely organized outfits. Osama bin Laden

dealt with almost all of them as one Deobandi-Wahabi consensus that

drove the jihad in Afghanistan and Kashmir.”57

To be sure, the relationship of SSP and LJ with jihadi groups,

Taliban and al-Qaeda, predates September 11. Aspects of such a relationship had come to light following LJ’s failed assassination attempt

against Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on 3 January 1999, when a

bomb planted under the Raiwind Bridge that Nawaz Sharif ’s motorcade was to pass blew up prematurely. The three LJ militants later

arrested for involvement in the bombing had received training in

Afghanistan, and one of them was a trainer himself in a camp run by

HM, the militant group active in Kashmir.58

At the same time, the symbiotic relationship of SSP and LJ with the

mainstream religio-political organizations, such as the various factions

of the JUI and its madrassas, suggests the religiosity and aspirations

that sectarian subjectivities exemplify run through sections of the mainstream religious groups as well. Moreover, Shia-Sunni violence thrived

not only because of the sectarian groups’ nexus with jihadi and mainstream Islamist groups in Pakistan and Afghanistan, but also because of

PAKISTAN’S SECTARIAN VIOLENCE: BETWEEN THE “ARABIST SHIFT” AND 163

INDO-PERSIAN CULTURE

55. The Friday Times, 21 June 2002, 5.

56. Dawn, 5 August 2002.

57. See Khaled Ahmed, “The Achievements of Harkatul Mujahideen,” The Friday

Times, 2–8 August 2002, 10. Ahmed also notes that HM chief Fazulur Rahman

Khaleel took his boys to Afghanistan to fight on the side of al-Qaeda and the Taliban:

“Sixty-three of his warriors were killed before the Taliban were routed, Khaleel

returned safely and is living in Islamabad.”

58. Abbas, Sectarianism.
a degree of support from Saudi Arabia and Iran, as indeed the protection extended to the various sectarian leaders by influential politicians

and hard-line government officials, including elements of the ISI.59

Clearly, the destructive impact of sectarian violence goes far beyond

its body count,60 or the number of hard-core terrorists in the country.61 Indeed, the danger that sectarian violence poses to Pakistan is

not only because of the presence of sectarian groups per se, but also

a complicit religious culture that underpins the networking of terrorist groups and the mainstream religio-political parties in the country

and beyond. Such a symbiosis of subjectivities on the one hand and

organizational networking of extremist groups on the other is virtually blurring the boundaries between “extremist” and “mainstream” in

the Islamist spectrum.

For example, if the JUI (Fazal-ur Rahman faction) allowed SSP’s

leader Riaz Basra to contest the 1987 national elections as its candidate, both the JUI (F) and the Jamaat-i-Islami joined SSP in an

effort to prevent the death sentence awarded to SSP’s Haq Nawaz

(for his role in murdering Sadik Ganji) from being carried out.

These Islamic parties reportedly went to the extent of demanding

that if it was not possible for General Musharraf ’s government to

pardon Haq Nawaz, he should be exiled like Nawaz Sharif62 to

Saudi Arabia.

Moreover, both the extremist outfits and the mainstream religiopolitical groups look up to bin Laden as a “hero of Islam.” This is

borne out by the reaction of the religious parties alliance calling itself

Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA), United Action Assembly,63 to the

164 SUROOSH IRFANI

59. The Herald, December 2001, 20.

60. The worst year of sectarian violence was 1997, when two hundred people were

killed and one hundred and seventy-five injured in ninety-seven incidents. A crackdown by the Punjab government brought down the average annual sectarian fatalities

and incidents to around seventy and thirty, respectively. While there was a marginal

decrease in sectarian violence under the military government, the teaming up of sectarianists with al-Qaeda operatives and the jihadi militants has given the whole issue

a new turn.

61. According to LJ leader Akram Lhori arrested in June 2002, there are one hundred and fifty LJ militants in the country. (The Nation, 2 July 2002). As for the SMP,

it has been considerably weakened by infighting, penetration of security agents and

the drying up of funding by Shia contributors who believe that militancy has undermined Shia security. See Zaigham Khan in The Herald, September 1998, 29 and 48.

62. The Herald, March 2002.

63. The six parties are JUI (F), JUI (Samiul Haq), Jamaat-i-Islami, Markazi Jamiat e

Ahle Hadith, Jamiat Ulema Pakistan (Noorani), and the Shia party TJP.
government ads carried in the national print media in June 2002 portraying bin Laden and his al-Qaeda associates as “religious terrorists.”

The ad carried pictures of Osama, his key lieutenant, and sixteen

other al-Qaeda associates and local militants wanted for attacks on

foreign targets in Karachi. Reacting to the ad at a public gathering,

JUI’s information secretary repeated his party’s position that “Osama

is a hero to the Islamic world and the Musharraf government would

not get any sympathy by branding him a religious terrorist.”64 On his

part, Qazi Hussain Ahmed, head of the Jamaat-i-Islami termed the

Osama ad as part of an international conspiracy in which “Pakistan’s

government had sided with the Zionists’ agenda.”65 He went on to

argue that “bracketing of Islamists with terrorists [was] a Zionist conspiracy because Islam is fast spreading in Europe and America.”66

Such lionization of Osama is even more vigorous in the tribal areas.

For example, following the shoot-out in July between the police and

four Uzbek al-Qaeda militants near Kohat in which all the Uzbeks

were killed, scuffles broke out between pro-al-Qaeda demonstrators

and the police over claiming the bodies of the slain terrorists. The

government eventually removed the bodies to Peshawar for secret

burial, even as the spot where the terrorists fell was turned into a

shrine by the locals.67

Inevitably, such glorification of al-Qaeda terrorists by a Talibanic

Pakistan has a corollary among the “Vedic Taliban”68 in India, where

Hindu policemen who participated in the massacre of Muslims in the

recent pogroms in Gujarat were glorified as heroes.69 Clearly then,

such a melding of subjectivities of religious violence across Pakistan

and India suggests that the radicalization of the Arabist shift in

Pakistan and of “Vedic Taliban” in India are two sides of the same

cultural problematic: the eclipse of the subcontinent’s eclecticism of

which the Indo-Persian matrix was a prime expression.

PAKISTAN’S SECTARIAN VIOLENCE: BETWEEN THE “ARABIST SHIFT” AND 165

INDO-PERSIAN CULTURE

64. The Nation, 2 July 2002.

65. Ibid.

66. Ibid.

67. The News, 12 July 2002. See also Rahimullah Yusufzai, Newsline, July 2002, 62.

68. Mukul Dube, “The Vedic Taliban,” Economic and Political Weekly, 18 May 2002.

69. See Pankhaj Mishra, “We Have No Orders to Save You: State Participation and

Complicity in Communal Violence in Gujarat.” A Report by Human Rights Watch.

New York Review of Books, 15 August 2002. According to the report, “the police led

the charge, using gunfire against Muslims ... a key BJP state minister was reported to

have taken over police control rooms on the first day of the carnage, issuing orders

to disregard pleas for assistance from Muslims.”
Conclusion

PAKISTAN’S ROLE IN THE U.S.-LED WAR against terrorism and its rethinking of the jihadi networks are becoming a bone of contention in a

country where the imperatives of domestic security and cultural identity in the context of U.S. military presence in Afghanistan are weighed

down by connotations of a “war between Islam and America”—the

slogan being used by the religio-political opposition for framing its

stance vis-à-vis the Musharraf government in the October elections. To

be sure, President Musharraf’s aligning of Pakistan with the United

States in the war against terrorism has both undercut and radicalized

the Arabist shift. This is reflected by a defiant flaunting of bin Laden

as a primordial Arab and Islamic hero by the religio-political groups and

the MMA, especially in terms of their opposition to Musharraf and his

“secular” government and supporters. A case in point is the full-page

ads that appeared in the Karachi daily Ummate Muslima praising bin

Laden as a “holy warrior and a lion of God whom the 1.4 million

American army has failed to capture and subdue.” The ads appeared on

July 2 and 4 in retaliation to the government’s ads of June 30 depicting

bin Laden as a terrorist.70 Seen in the context of a general radicalization

of the religio-political right, some of whose elements are threatening

that “power can be taken from the army by force,”71 there is an urgent

need to look at the war against terrorism in terms of a comprehensive

campaign on multiple fronts: social and economic, educational and cultural, political and security. Indeed, the crackdown against the terrorists

of today should be accompanied at the same time by a battle for the

hearts and minds of the people for preempting the terrorists of tomorrow. After all, if there are thousands of Pakistanis dying to fight

America, there are thousands of others dying to live in America, as

indeed a great many more who see the present crisis as a battle for

Pakistan’s survival as a sovereign and moderate state.

To conclude, Pakistan’s Shia-Sunni violence has come a long way

from the killings of sectarian leaders, religious teachers and activists,

166 SUROOSH IRFANI

70. See The Friday Times, 19 July 2002.

71. The Herald, May 2000, 52. Such a confrontationist stance marks an unprecedented radicalization of the religio-political parties against the army, inasmuch as

until recently the religious right’s rhetoric was mainly against the secular elements and

“the hateful NGOs,” rather than the army itself.
through the target killing of government officers, members of security forces, businessmen, lawyers, doctors, innocent civilians in

mosques and cemeteries, to a launching pad for a war against

Westerners following the Taliban’s rout in Afghanistan. Even so, it

seems the use of politically inspired religious violence in the country

has not entirely eclipsed a pacifist Indo-Persian culture: For example,

unlike Pakistan’s Afghan-Arabs who pay homage to al-Qaeda terrorists, the villagers near Murree stood in the way of terrorists who were

fleeing after attacking a Christian missionary school on 8 July 2002,

and this led the terrorists to blow themselves up following the example of their Arab role models. However, in addressing the problem of

Shia-Sunni violence in terms of the escalation of its scope and interpenetration with other religio-political forces in the country and outside, the following points need to be considered.

1. Despite the tribal “civil wars” and sectarian death squads, by and

large Shia-Sunni violence lacks grassroots support. Indeed, as a

product and response to the larger dynamics of modernization,

the internationalization of jihad, the standoff over Kashmir and

an Arabist shift in cultural imagination, religious extremism stands

to subvert Pakistan much like Jihad International subverted

Afghanistan, even as Afghanistan was attempting to modernize

with Soviet support. The decentering of power in Pakistan—in the

form of militarization of the religio-political strata, the fragmentation of militant and terrorist groups, and their interstitial nexus

with sections of the mainstream Islamists—is in some ways a

corollary of the atomization of Afghanistan and crumbling of the

Soviet Union. Hence, stabilization of Afghanistan and support for

Pakistan (economic, security) merit the same kind of sustained

involvement by the United States that won it the Cold War. In this

sense, economic development of the region should amount to a

preemptive security policy internationally.72

PAKISTAN’S SECTARIAN VIOLENCE: BETWEEN THE “ARABIST SHIFT” AND 167

INDO-PERSIAN CULTURE

72. Such an approach toward regional and global risk management largely depends

on how the United States views and conducts the war against terrorism: as a unilateral project to secure strategic geopolitical positions, or as an attempt that ensures

other countries have a stake in the international system through equitable international trade, democratization of international institutions, and so forth. See Jan

Nederveen Pieterse, “War on Terrorism: 9/11 and Globalization from Below,” The

Daily Times, 11 July 2002.
2. In a globalizing moment where the local and the global are increasingly intertwined in an interdependent world, forms of religious

violence cannot be wished away in isolation from the historical and

political contexts giving rise to them—be it Afghanistan after the

Cold War/Taliban, Palestine under Israeli occupation, or Kashmiri

aspiration for self-determination. A long-term solution of

Pakistan’s sectarian and religiously inspired violence within the

country and beyond, is therefore contingent upon a radical

improvement in Indo-Pakistan relations. This will make it possible

for Pakistan to focus more on internal security and also to evolve

a more inclusive Muslim identity rooted in the Indo-Persian culture. However, given the tension and mistrust between India and

Pakistan, it is imperative that while the two countries address the

Kashmir question, they should also evolve multilateral cooperative

mechanisms with the United States and the UN on the issues of

education, development and culture for promoting and preserving

peace and security over the long haul.

3. The crackdown by President Musharraf ’s government against sectarian and other militant groups has partly helped in breaking the

organizational structure of the sectarian groups. At the same time,

this has led to a sectarianist infusion into other extremist and

mainstream Islamic groups for a “decisive battle between Islam

and America.”73 Such a radicalization of the Islamic forces has

given rise to an unprecedented defiance on part of the civil society’s religio-political strata against the army. In such a context, it is

vital for the army and the political parties to reach an understanding for power sharing.74

168 SUROOSH IRFANI

73. Terming the forthcoming elections as “a war between Washington and

Medina,” MMA chairman Maulana Noorani called on his supporters at a meeting on

25 July in Islamabad to “expel the U.S.-backed secular elements from the country” by

electing a religious leadership. See The Nation, 26 July 2002. Its rhetoric notwithstanding, MMA’s primary target is to win 10 percent of the seats in the next parliament to

enable it to assume a “kingmaker’s role” in a fractious political scenario. See Ibne

Nasim, “MMA—The Force to Reckon with?” Weekly Independent, 25–31 July 2002.

74. As the results of the October 2002 elections showed, MMA exceeded its own

expectations by winning twice as many seats (fifty-two), even though it polled only

11.10 percent of the votes. By comparison, the PML (Nawaz) won fourteen seats

despite polling more votes (11.32 percent), whereas the People’s Party got the highest number of votes (25.01 percent) with sixty-two seats, and the pro-Musharraf

PML (Quaide Azam) won seventy-seven seats with 24.81 percent of the vote. See

Dawn, “PPP Got Highest Number of Votes,” 18 October 2002, 16.
In the absence of a comprehensive campaign against terrorism that

also addresses its root causes and aims for the hearts and minds of the

people, the explosion of a tribal warrior culture masquerading as religious extremism in Pakistan could well mark a quantum leap in the

destabilization of the region and the world.

PAKISTAN’S SECTARIAN VIOLENCE: BETWEEN THE “ARABIST SHIFT” AND 169

INDO-PERSIAN CULTURE
171

Presently, in the absence of any great political leadership in

Kashmir, the mantle of leadership is falling on religious leaders who

are using the issue of continuing violence in the troubled valley in

their regular congregations. Mirwaiz Molvi Farooq, the head priest of

Kashmir, says, “definitely more Muslim youth are seen in the mosques

because the only place where they get some sort of relief or respect

after being humiliated by Indian security forces (seen as Hindu

troops) is in places of worship.”

This in turn is changing Kashmir into a complex web of inter-confessional problems, as both India and Pakistan are trying to use the

sentiments of a particular sect for their advantage. If Muslim radical

groups in Kashmir have been demanding a merger with Pakistan,

then radical Hindu groups in Jammu are asking for a division of

Jammu and Kashmir into three states on the basis of religion.

Equally, in a post-nineties scenario, Muslims in Kashmir by and by

are being divided on the basis of casteism, sufiism, peerism and fundamentalism. New sections of the al Hadees and Tableeq schools of

8

SURINDER SINGH OBEROI

Ethnic Separatism and Insurgency 

in Kashmir
thought are emerging, their institutions resembling Jamaat-i-Islami,

which does not believe in sufiism or shrine worship.

India and Pakistan are knee-deep in the Kashmir issue and both

countries are using the religious-racial card, thus entangling the issue

and making it more difficult to untie this particular Gordian knot.

Some intelligence agencies, for their own interests, are dividing

Kashmiris into Shia, Sunni, Paharis, and Backerwals. The urban-village

divide is also surfacing in the valley. It is a known fact that the ethnopolitical problems often get aggravated and bring an outside influence

into what could otherwise be regarded as an internal affair. There

have been Sikh and Hindu massacres and killings of laborers from

Bihar and Nepal, indicating clearly that a specific influence intends to

keep non-Muslims away from the valley. The long-term consequences

are that such events may demolish the once-composite and plural

society where cracks are already visible.

Meanwhile, in a knee-jerk reaction after September 11, the administration is coming up against the waves of gun culture in Kashmir

and is chasing foreign militants and trying to break their influence on

society. The administration is also trying to choke the inflow of illegal money into Kashmir by identifying the property acquired by the

new Islamic groups as well as persons involved in bringing in financial help to the separatists. In other words, New Delhi is trying to use

the same measures against terrorists in Kashmir as the United States

used against the Taliban in Afghanistan.

In the early nineties, Kashmiri Pundits (elite Hindu class) were

driven from their homeland.1 The young Pundits growing up outside

Kashmir know only one thing: that their elders were driven out by

militants and forced to leave their belongings and live in refugee

camps. Some Hindus, mostly from rural areas, continue to live as displaced persons in unhygienic refugee camps in Jammu and New

Delhi. Several of them have died of heat stroke, as they were not used

to living in plains or deserts.

In Kashmir, Muslim teenagers have grown up under the shadow of

the gun and a security bunker in their neighborhood, with a feeling

that troops from outside Kashmir are ruling the valley with the barrel

172 SURINDER SINGH OBEROI

1. Kashmiri Pundits constitute only 5 percent of the population of Jammu and

Kashmir.
of the gun. The cycle of hatred thus spans generations, and hope for

Kashmiri Pundits returning to Kashmir seems bleaker with each passing year.

Youth from the scattered generation of Kashmiri Pundits growing

up outside Kashmir for the last thirteen years are shaped in a different culture and are no longer a part of Kashmir. Several of these

youth have not even seen snow or mountains and only hear stories of

Kashmir from their parents or relatives.

These young Pundits, it seems, have said good-bye forever to the

Himalayan valley. Being among the educated class for centuries, they

prefer to be educated outside Kashmir than to live in an atmosphere

of suffocation where today, no one is ready to provide them security.

Daily violence and incidents such as attacks on the Kashmir Assembly

harden their resolve to not return to the troubled valley.

Muslims in Kashmir, on the other hand, are growing up under the

umbrella of a single religion: Islam. The younger generation can

scarcely imagine how their elders used to live with Kashmiri Pundits

or how educated Pundits who maintained secularism in the curriculum dominated the education system in Kashmir.

The six-year-old ruling government, under the chief ministership of

Farooq Abdullah, has failed to create an atmosphere where Kashmir

Pundits can return, despite the government’s election manifesto in 1996

that considered the return to be a priority. The same election manifesto

was used in 2002 (autonomy plus return of Hindus) by the ruling

National Conference, but without participation by the real opposition

(separatists) in the elections, the manifesto remains meaningless.

Pundits, who left Kashmir in early 1990, are now selling their property, never to return. A cursory survey suggests that at least 60 percent of the Hindu property in Kashmir has been sold.

The continuing violence has polarized Hindus and Muslims. For the

first time, the most visible face of an effort by Islamic militants can

be seen by their actions in “Operation Fidayeen” (dying in the name

of Allah while fighting for Islam).

After nearly achieving their goal of changing the demographic

structure in the valley, militants are extending their activities across the

Pir Panchal mountain range in the Jammu division. A series of Hindu

massacres in the Doda, Poonch and Rajouri districts of Udhampur

and Jammu has led to the migration of minorities from the upper

ETHNIC SEPARATISM AND INSURGENCY IN KASHMIR 173
ranges. Militants in these mountainous regions are ruling the roost in

the absence of security positions, as difficult terrain makes it impossible for troops to station themselves on these hilly ridges.

As a coup d’état, the government has come up with Village Defense

Committees (VDCs). Most VDCs consist of Hindus who have been

issued arms by the government to protect the villagers.

This situation widens the split between Muslims and Hindus.

Muslims, scared of militants, are not joining the groups, while Hindus

are dependent on the VDCs. Minor incidents lead to scuffles, which

then lead to communal tensions.

Situation in Kashmir

AFTER THE SEPTEMBER 11 ATTACK on the United States, life on the

street of Srinagar, the summer capital, which had been limping back to

normalcy, once again saw a change. Though the situation seems normal in the daytime, the nighttime hours are tense and abnormal. Those

living near the Line of Control (LOC) have shifted to safer places.

Villages dotting the LOC have been mined, and the presence of security troops has increased manifold. The fear of war between India and

Pakistan, despite the recent de-escalation of tension, continues to keep

the countries’ respective armies and weapons face-to-face on the

1,100-kilometer disputed LOC and the international border.

In this situation, mothers continue to wait for family members that

do not return in time. The warrens and walkways of Srinagar and its

surroundings remain scorched and stationary. People still prefer to

not celebrate night marriages.

The daytime veneer of normalcy seems increasingly dangerous as

the underlying hatred continues to brew. It is just a matter of time

before the volcano of enmity erupts on the streets if the government’s policy to win Kashmiris does not surface, or if meaningful dialogue between Pakistan and Indian leadership fails to take off.

Present Actors in the Conflict

THE TWELVE-YEAR-OLD ARMED STRUGGLE that laid the foundation in

Kashmir under the slogan “Independent Kashmir” has melted into

Islamic jihad, spearheaded by radical leaders bent on installing the rule

of Allah. But after September 11, the Kashmiri Muslim militants, as

174 SURINDER SINGH OBEROI
well as separatist leaders and their sympathizers, are rethinking the

role of foreign Islamic militants in Kashmir.

Is the presence of foreign militants going to help or hurt the freedom struggle? This question is being debated on the streets of

Srinagar, and public opinion is divided. The new generation is in favor

of foreign elements, while saner elements say their role is over. This

was recently witnessed on the death anniversary of Molvi Farooq, on

May 21, 2002, where Hurriyat leader Abdul Gani Lone was shot dead.

A four-hour procession and speeches were punctuated by pro-Jihad

and pro-foreign militant slogans despite the Hurriyat leadership’s discouraging of such actions. The seventy-one-year-old Lone, who earlier had said the role of foreign militants was over, paid the price for

his words, creating renewed fear amid the moderate leadership.

Indian officials presently believe that some one thousand-plus

Muslim mercenaries, mostly Pakistani- and Pashtun-speaking

Afghans, are leading the campaign and have given a new thrust to the

decade-old separatist campaign that shows no signs of ending.

Guerrillas, who are expert in mountain warfare and can live for

months in stocked caves, claim they have a following of thousands

pitted against a huge reservoir of Indian army, paramilitary and

Kashmir police. Carrying ample arms and ammunition, the first thing

guerrillas do is to construct a camouflaged bunker in the mountains;

sometimes they even buy temporary truce with the security troops.

The main fear that foreign militants may have links with the Taliban

of Afghanistan is proving to be truer as there has been an increase of

attacks on security positions after the fall of the Taliban in

Afghanistan. The post-Afghanistan repercussion has seen fissures

among the groups of militants in Kashmir, and internecine clashes

were reported between local and foreign militants.

The second actors are local Muslim militants who number about

three thousand, according to Mr. A.K. Suri, police chief of Jammu

and Kashmir. Most of these militants are also pro-Pakistan but are

somehow people-friendly. For example, the Hizbe-ul Mujahideen militant outfit is divided. One is preaching hard-line Islam and is directly

under the control of Pakistan, while the second—led by Majid Dar,2

ETHNIC SEPARATISM AND INSURGENCY IN KASHMIR 175

2. Dar had announced the cease-fire in July 2000, which continued for two weeks,

and has now lost two of his commanders in mysterious circumstances. It is believed

that foreign militants killed these two local commanders.
who is camping in Kashmir and is considered a moderate—may play

an important role in the future. Dar does not want foreign militants

to control the Kashmir movement. This group is also flexible and

does not believe in Islamic rule in Kashmir despite its slogan that

Kashmir should be a part of Pakistan, but they are ready to compromise on something less.3

The third actors are the separatist political amalgam of some

twenty-three outfits known as the All-Party Hurriyat Conference

(APHC). The APHC is not presently enjoying a marked respect

among the local populace as it has not been able to give anything but

death and destruction to the masses. Still, the APHC constitutes the

main actors in the theater of the conflict, and these actors share the

same emotions as common people on the street. Without Hurriyat

participation there is no solution possible in Kashmir. Professor

Abdul Gani Bhat says, “we live in the masses and not in the bunkers

... some people might be angry with us but they understand our limitations.” Three of the executive members of APHC, Syed Ali Shah

Geelani, Yaseen Malik and Abdul Aziz, along with dozens of secondand third-line leaders, are in Indian jails.

The fourth important actors are Indian security forces, which are

present in large number and do not have a good human rights record.

After September 11 the security troops felt more concerned about the

continuing violence in Kashmir, but became morally encouraged after

the United States declared two top militant outfits as terrorists. Indian

security troops posted in Kashmir now have more pressure from New

Delhi to control the militancy. An international campaign has been

launched to prove that Kashmiri militancy constitutes cross-border

terrorism. Though the vigil on the villages dotting the LOC has

increased to check the infiltration, any tactical change in the militancy

is yet to be seen.

Insurgency in Kashmir—Changing Tactics

AT FIRST SIGHT, there seems to be no marked change in the militants’

actions in Kashmir; however, more foreign militants are getting killed.

The pro-Pakistani groups are still visibly controlling the militancy but

the strategy is changing; local militants with hard-line Islamic ideology

176 SURINDER SINGH OBEROI

3. Interview with Majid Dar.
are seen in the forefront. Outfits use different names to maintain the

discipline of the militant cadre and the distribution of money and

weapons they receive from their elders based in either Pakistan or

other Islamic countries.

The banning of the two terrorist organizations will hardly make a

difference; as evidenced since 9/11, local militant outfits such as al

Umar Mujahideen, Tehrik ul Mujahideen, and Jamiat ul Mujahideen

are more hostile, recruiting local young Muslim boys mostly from

rural and poor areas.

After the declaration of the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA),

locals have been scared to give hideouts to foreign militants. If security troops were to find a foreign militant hiding in a house, the house

would surely be blasted and the militant killed. In recent encounters,

militants were seen hiding in the mosques. In fact, there has been a

proliferation of mosques in Kashmir. One cursory survey suggests

that more than three thousand new mosques have been built across

the valley since 1990.

Prevailing Flux in Kashmir

THE KASHMIR MOVEMENT FOR INDEPENDENCe remains on the front

burner but there are no leaders available to carry the movement forward. Those still in Kashmir are too scared to act as leaders due to

radical militants and their supporters. Unlike in the early nineties, the

present Islamic militant groups have a limited following among the

locals.4 These armed guerrilla groups have no political party.

According to one survey, the role of Jamaat-i-Islami, which once had

less than 10 percent support, is losing its ground. The main scare,

however, remains the growth of the Wahabi and Khilafat type of

Islam and the strengthening of its roots in Kashmir. Already several

organizations named after social workers are new milestones in

Kashmir. Several orphanages and medical centers are being financed

through unaccounted money, which is routed to Kashmir from Gulf

countries. Two dozen top businessmen and social workers were

arrested this year for acting as conduits for hawala (illegal transition)

money. Police recovered large sums of money in July 2002 from a

ETHNIC SEPARATISM AND INSURGENCY IN KASHMIR 177

4. There is always a fear of repercussions. In several cases, houses were blown up

by security troops once they found militants using the houses as hideouts.
commander of Hizbe-ul Mujahideen and a journalist. On their disclosure, a few separatist leaders were arrested for collecting and forwarding hawala money for separatist activities. Two top leaders of the

Hurriyat are also in jail for allegedly receiving hawala money. Police

say more money has been pumped into Kashmir from Islamic countries since the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan. According to Indian

intelligence reports, every executive member of the Hurriyat is getting

Rs. 700,000 per month.

Another activity of the fundamentalist Islamic group is to rope

important, influential, and rich people into its fold as role models in

society. Several such people are falling prey to this design, either intentionally or unintentionally.

One should know that Kashmir’s decade-old freedom struggle is

being used intelligently by fundamentalists to change the kind of Islam

in Kashmir. This is a dangerous trend but no one agrees or suggests

ways to curb it because it is not visible to the naked eye. This policy

received body blows but did not change after the fall of the Taliban.

One important observation is that the population of the Kashmir

valley is now 99.5 percent Muslim. There are no minorities left.5

Scattered massacres of minorities in the last five years of militancy act

as a shield for the return of Hindu migrants. Hindus are encouraged

to sell their properties and are getting a good amount of money from

Muslim Kashmiris.

The bleeding valley has seen an increase in the construction of

mosques across the state. The architecture of these mosques features

domes and minarets, unlike earlier times when mosques had stupatype ceilings resembling Buddhist or Hindu temples. These mosques

are also used as a resting place for militants and have provided jobs

for hundreds of unemployed youth as preachers, priests, or caretakers of the religious places.

Thus, Islamic militant groups in the valley are seen differently by

unemployed and underdeveloped6 youth, who silently respect the

militants because they die for a cause. Youth are told that Muslims of

178 SURINDER SINGH OBEROI

5. In early 1990, two hundred thousand Kashmiri Hindus left the valley. Since then,

only four thousand Hindus and about thirty thousand Sikhs remain in the valley,

whose population is more than six million.

6. Seventy percent of the Muslim youth come from a rural background and are not

well educated. They have a limited vision, which I describe as “valley vision.” Fifty

percent of these youth have not seen any other state of India and live in a closed society and mindset. They have no jobs and easily fall prey to Islamic propaganda.
the outside world are fighting for Kashmir’s independence and dying

for them.

The disappearance of Osama bin Laden and Maulana Omar is fast

turning into a myth of invincibility and stories are floating around

about how Allah has helped them to disappear. Islamic clerics in

Kashmir are using these stories while preaching to the youth in the

rural mosques. The new generations of Kashmiris born in this atmosphere are fast learning the new rules of life, least realizing that these

groups have some different hidden agenda.

The lack of jobs and rehabilitation for former militants7 is increasing the sympathy for foreign militants. Post-9/11 situations have also

seen the recycling of Kashmiri Muslim militants in Kashmir.8 Young,

jobless boys have limited vision and take the recourse of Islam for salvation.

Private discussions among Kashmiri intellectuals reveal a worry

about the unseen powers that are forcing their womenfolk to observe

purdah (wearing of the veil). These forces are also trying to change the

style of education in Kashmir. Some places named after Hindu culture, such as Anantnag and Gulshan Nagar, have been renamed as

Islamabad and Gulshanabad. Ideologically, the locals do not agree

with this type of growing Islamic chemistry but are throttled to

defend their own culture lest they be killed either in the name of an

informer or infidel.

One of the professors at Kashmir University said, “we are afraid

that our culture, both social and religious, is being invaded by outsiders and fear that the new generation is fast learning the Wahabi and

Khilafat type of Islam.” The well-read and secular-minded in

Kashmir recall the last century of Afghan rule in Kashmir, which has

been described by historians as the worst rule in history.

Also, the tribal raid of late 1947 in Jammu and Kashmir is still fresh

in the minds of local people. Poonch, Rajouri and Uri, the three border towns of the Indian Himalayan state, have several memorials that

recount heroic tales of the legends who died fighting to save the

chastity of their womenfolk and to save their native land. Locals now

consider the Indian forces to be more or less in the same league.

ETHNIC SEPARATISM AND INSURGENCY IN KASHMIR 179

7. According to official figures, more than forty thousand former Muslim militants

and their sympathizers were once arrested and released.

8. Police say more local boys since September 11 are either crossing over to

Pakistan or getting locally armed training, which includes several former militants.
The Role of Indian Troops in Kashmir

SECURITY TROOPS ARE CONTENT, their claims concerning the linkage

of terrorism in Kashmir to Pakistan and to Afghanistan having been

vindicated (this is the slogan one hears after visiting any security camp

or office). This sore victory is seen as a great morale booster; the ruling political leaders’ statement in Delhi to wage a war against Pakistan

is like a drip of dextrose to the sagging morale of the security troops.9

But there is a sense of something missing. Enmity exists between

troops and the local populace, and every incident forces them to further dislike each other. The post-Afghanistan situation gives more

confidence to the security troops, who consider Kashmir terrorism to

be similar to that of Afghanistan. Security troops want the world to

allow them to crush the militancy in Kashmir but do not want to see

any other peace-keeping force on their land to monitor their actions.

The local population continues to consider the paramilitaries as

outsiders. Troops, on the contrary, consider Muslims supportive of

militancy. No one is working to bridge the gap, which has turned into

a deep cavity. Incidents such as September 11 and the ensuing war in

Afghanistan have led to more fissures. The misunderstanding

increases with every passing day. After the December 13 attack on the

Indian parliament, Kashmiris have felt scared to travel outside

Kashmir because hotels and guest houses in Delhi and other places

ask Kashmiris to register with local police.

In Srinagar and across the Himalayan state, more than 350,000

troops are directly or indirectly involved in counter-insurgency operations. With the new threat of war and now assembly elections, the

number has increased by 150,000. Indian troops remain alert on the

rugged, porous and snow-capped borders. In towns their vigil has

multiplied. One of the surveys conducted by students of mass-media

communication shows that more than 90 percent of the security

troops, including the paramilitary, are from outside Kashmir. To illustrate the relationship between security troops and the local population, I will describe one of my encounters when I was moving along

with security troops literally on the LOC.

180 SURINDER SINGH OBEROI

9. The issue is being used to woo Americans and to maintain pressure on Pakistan.

The United States is openly mediating the Kashmir issue in the name of facilitator,

and repeated visits of U.S. political leaders to the subcontinent serves to at least start

the first step of negotiation between the two enemy neighbors.
As I was in the border town of Kupwara, 120 kilometers north of

Srinagar and bordering Pakistan-administered Kashmir, a soldier

aimed and yelled, “There, on the roof, it looks one of the militants is

on top of the house.” The patrolling troops dashed toward a threestory residential building just across from the snow-covered, rectangular terraced fields.

Some of the soldiers ran to cover the back of the building, while

two of them pressed against the compound’s brick and mud wall, hitting the main gate with the butt of their automatic rifles. They forced

open the jammed door.

An old woman shuffled out and opened the main gates. Anxious

soldiers raced past her to the top of the floor, found nothing, and

started searching the old mud and timber house. Ten minutes later,

they came down dragging a shrieking and nervous teenager who

begged for mercy, claiming he was a student and had nothing to do

with the militancy. Half a dozen nervous family members, barefooted, mostly women and old men, joined in pleading to leave the

boy alone, as he was innocent. They showed the boy’s identification

card and books as evidence.

“I know the area well,” said the soldier, “You were wearing a white

pheran” (traditional Kashmiri rough woolen cloak used for warmth).

Focusing on us and pointing his gun toward the frightened boy, he

lectured, “I know this house and I know militants visit this house.”

Thinking for a minute and observing the surroundings he ordered,

“next time I have any complaint about the presence of the militants

here, I’m not only going to arrest you but your whole family,” and he

let the boy go.

Relieved but tense family members hurriedly returned to their

dwelling as the soldiers left the area and disappeared in the nearby alley.

In the house, the silence broke with the elderly person scolding his son

for always bringing trouble to them. I saw three more young boys,

trembling and freezing in a corner of a dark and cold room. The elderly members cursed their children for yelling and making the house a

playing field and thus an attraction for the patrolling security troops.

The children were advised in their native Kashmiri language to learn

the new ways of living with the changing scenario in Kashmir.

In a conversion with the family members over a cup of tea, I

learned that the three boys were playing on the top floor of the

house, which resembled a big hall. In the dark hours, because of the

ETHNIC SEPARATISM AND INSURGENCY IN KASHMIR 181
prevailing situation in the border areas, locals do not venture out.

There is also no development. Most of the time there is no electricity, not to mention stadiums, libraries or recreational clubs. Patrolling

troops saw some of the boys dashing in what looked like a hall and

suspected them to be militants.10 As troops approached the house, the

instant reaction of the boys was to remove the pheran and prepare to

face the troops in pants and sweaters, lest they be considered militants.

For many in Kashmir, the above incident is routine. Every day there

are several raids on private houses to arrest militants, and every day a

couple of search and cordon operations take place. Confidant and

trusting steps are lacked by security troops in these operations. The

steps taken by troops are to control mass riots, not to control mass

movement. The occasional and tentative moves toward accommodation between Kashmir and New Delhi have not been promising.

Security Forces Express an Opinion

AFTER SEPTEMBER 11, 2001, security troops have been more vigilant

on the rugged borders dividing India and Pakistan, as it is suspected

that there are more chances of hard-liners escaping Afghanistan to

enter Kashmir. “We have to continue our patrolling to show the militants that we can reach wherever we want and we can control the situation,” said an army officer based at the LOC.

Another army officer, who did not visit his home even after the

birth of his second child, said, “duty is duty. What we really want is

for none of us to be killed or injured so we can all go back to our

homes and families alive.”

There is hardly an Indian paramilitary man or army officer who was

not or is not posted in rotation in the troubled areas of Kashmir to

control the armed struggle since 1989. You find several of the officers in the leisure cocktails comparing their past experiences in violent Kashmir with what is happening today. “I don’t see myself fighting non-professionals as was the case in early nineties. Now I find

them more trained and confident,” said a young captain of the army.

“I was also not trained for this type of job to fight in the towns, nor

do I feel proud to be there on the streets, but I have no choice.”

182 SURINDER SINGH OBEROI

10. Militants cross over from Pakistan-administered Kashmir to Indian Kashmir

through porous border areas of Kupwara and usually mix with the local population

before proceeding to other parts.
He regrets using force on boys who are still in their early teens:

“You feel bad arresting young, innocent kids who are fighting someone’s else war. But you have to apply force to extract weapons and

truth,” confesses the officer, who says foreign militants are instantly

killed even if they are caught alive.

The young captain also does not deny that he lives under the constant threat of a militant attack and that fear has become part of his

life. Militants today are fighting with a changed strategy and find more

support among the rural poor than among the urban rich. Troops

maintain pressure on the residents to keep militants on the run.

“Whenever we arrest someone in the rural areas, nearly all the villagers swarm the security camp, swearing the arrested fellow is innocent and pleading to release him and assuring that never again will he

indulge in any activities ... but you soon sniff out the system of survival the locals have adopted. They sometimes know the militants but

don’t want to share the information with us until they suffer from

them. Behind your back, sometimes, you hear just abuses because

they consider you not very friendly,” admits an army officer. Another

officer explains, “The first month I acted as the most descent guy on

earth and started helping them but the second month turned me

crazy as I was showing too much courtesy, which began altering my

private hours, literally making me a nervous wreck. I then started

beating them to avoid me. I lost my doctrines—I had lost my human

feelings after living in a society that never wanted to see the end of

the violence but believed in leg-pulling and favors, even at the cost of

someone’s life.” He called them the “enemy within.” There have been

several cases in which a soldier runs amuck, killing his own colleagues or committing suicide. The usual explanation by the army is

that soldiers are living under tremendous pressure and tension in

Kashmir.

The above incidents show that there is no policy of security troops

staying in Kashmir for two to three years just looking forward to completing their tenure and returning home safely. The continuity in the

security force policy is lacking. The new officer will criticize his predecessor and make it a point (with some exceptions) to see that he is

moving in a new direction, as he considers that all the steps taken by

his former office holder were wrong because there were no immediate results or improvement in the situation.

ETHNIC SEPARATISM AND INSURGENCY IN KASHMIR 183
Contrary to human tendencies, new bonds or developing relations

are not visible between the local populace and the security troops.

There are hardly any cases of marriages between locals and security

troops, despite their living in Kashmir for more than a decade.

Furthermore, hardly a Kashmiri family maintains friendly relations

with a security person who is transferred out of Kashmir, unlike other

places where new relationships are maintained through correspondence or other ways of communication.

Locals Understand the Language of Survival

LOCALS HAVE LEARNED HOW TO GET BY and prefer to keep their young

ones away from the troops lest they be identified as militants or sympathizers and arrested and interrogated. One hardly finds a Muslim youth

that has not faced some sort of interrogation or been paraded in front

of informers in the infamous “crack-downs” (search and cordon operations). Hundreds of young boys are missing in custody. Presently, two

organizations of affected persons are fighting for their rights in court.

(In private, the soldiers admit they can only scare the young boys and

let them go. They too are equally scared of the militants.) 

Separatist Groups and the General Populace in

Kashmir

ISLAMIC GUERRILLA LEADERS were once proud to exhibit they had

fought against the Russians in Afghanistan. It was like a certificate of

advanced training in guerrilla tactics for the Mujahideen. Before 9/11,

guerrilla leaders used to compare the situation time and time again

with what was happening in Afghanistan, considering themselves a

part of the Muslim Umma and boasting to implement Islamic rule

not only in Kashmir but on the whole planet. Today they speak less

of Afghanistan and do not want to compare their insurgency with the

Taliban lest the Kashmiri struggle too will have to suffer.

Islamic guerrilla leaders say they are struggling only for the freedom of Kashmir. Some separatist leaders say they do not want

Hindu-dominated areas of Jammu or Buddhist-dominated areas of

Ladakh.11 These separatists outrightly reject that any al-Qaeda

184 SURINDER SINGH OBEROI

11. Professor Abdul Gani Bhat said this in his individual capacity and not as chairman of the All-Party Hurriyat Conference.
member is present in Kashmir, unlike in 2001 when every burial procession of a militant killed in an encounter would attract noisy proIslamic and pro-Taliban slogans.

Under the surface, one finds that the sympathetic tone for the

Afghan Mujahideen continues. For instance, locals silently pray for

their sacrifices in their hideouts and vow to take revenge. Although

the lack of verbalizing about Afghanistan or Islamic militants is a tactical change, a layer of hatred is swelling underneath that could, over

time, burst out in one way or another.

“Even Prophet Muhammed bought peace with the infidels on their

terms and conditions for ten years till He defeated them ...

Inshaallaha! We will do the same,” said Mushtaq Sopori, an active

member of the al Hadees sect of Islam in Kashmir that promotes

mosques and educational institutions across the valley.

As the relationship between India and Pakistan spirals downward,

security troops continue to arrest hard-line overground activists in

Kashmir. More than a dozen Jamaat-i-Islami and APHC leaders and

activists were arrested in a four-month period in 2002 under the new

law of POTA.

A diabolic shift is distinctly visible. The future policy or strategy of

the active radical groups in Kashmir will definitely be more clandestine. There is a fear that Kashmir Muslim teenagers will be the future

members of the fidayeen (suicidal squad) if steps for the solution of

the Kashmir problem are not properly addressed.

Secondly, intellectuals are beginning, for the first time, to compare

the Kashmir issue to other Muslim struggles and blaming the West.

One strong view, held by Kashmiri Muslim intellectuals who acknowledge the existence of radical Islam, holds that such movements can

best be seen as an extreme response to the intrusion of the West,

which has seldom tried to solve problems such as those in Palestine,

Bosnia or Kashmir. Kashmiri politicians also want America and its

allies fighting in the war against terrorism in the backyard of Kashmir,

to learn from the mistakes of the British Empire. Kashmiri politicians

blame the British for not tying up the loose ends of the Kashmir

issue, which have, since 1947, festered between the two South Asian

rivals to such a degree that today even the British government is suffering. “What could have been solved in two meetings then is leading

into a nuclear war,” said Nazir Ronga, president of the Kashmir

Lawyers Association.

ETHNIC SEPARATISM AND INSURGENCY IN KASHMIR 185
Most grievances of the Kashmiri Muslims describe Western imperialism against the Islamic world like the introduction of Israel into

the Middle East and the threat to Islamic societies by the spread of

what is often seen as “corrupt Western culture.” In this view, the terrorist acts of September 11 were regrettable but understandable,

flowing from the widespread rage against the West found in many

Muslims. The terrorists were drawn from a much larger pool of discontented and angry Muslims. “‘Good’ Muslims do not approve of

acts of terrorism, which are widely regarded as acts of self-defense,

and are thus defendable morally,” says another leading Muslim advocate in Srinagar.

Most locals in Kashmir were surprised after the September 11 terrorist attacks but some took pride in it. “That Muslims are ready to

die in the name of Allah to defend Islam is seen in itself as a unity

among Muslims across the globe. It is an act of sacrifice and achievement for Islam and we should be happy that the younger generation

of Muslims worldwide is learning from the elder Muslims how to

defend Islam against the unfaithful. They are not falling prey to corrupt Western culture,” says a professor of a college in Sopore town,

North Kashmir.12

The implications of such a view are quite specific, showing that

Kashmiris are not happy with the attack on Afghanistan but they cannot criticize it openly lest they too be dubbed as terrorists by the international community. The only way to release their anger is to criticize

the West and its policies against Muslims.

“The West must stop pursuing a policy with a double standard. It

must change its policies toward Israel, it must support oppressed

Muslim groups around the world, especially in Palestine, Kashmir,

and Chechnya, and it must abandon its support for reactionary and

oppressive Islamic regimes.” These arguments carry much weight in

Kashmir today because Muslims see India as an ally of Israel. They

feel Israel is helping Indian security forces in counter-insurgency

operations.13 Kashmiri people are suffering at the hands of Indian

security troops who are mostly from the other states of India.

186 SURINDER SINGH OBEROI

12. Sopore is a stronghold of Jamaat-i-Islami and was the most affected town in the

last ten years of militancy.

13. Militants kidnapped four Israeli tourists in Kashmir in 1991 and one Israeli

tourist was killed. Since then, Israeli tourists do not visit Kashmir.
Hundreds of human rights abuses have been registered against the

troops but seldom are actions taken against them.

Since the fall of the Taliban, locals have demanded more vociferously that Asia Watch and Amnesty International be allowed to visit

Kashmir as they feel troops have been given more power in Kashmir

since September 11 and are not accountable to their superiors. The

charge was outrightly denied by the troops’ superiors and India does

not allow the entry of the two organizations.

New Reasoning Emerges in Kashmir after 9/11

WITH THE FALL OF THE TALIBAN and the installation of a new government in Afghanistan, a fresh reasoning is emerging among Muslim

separatist leaders: that the Kashmir movement should no more have

the influence of foreign Islamic militants lest the world declare them

too as terrorists. Professor Abdul Gani Bhat, chairman of the APHC,

for the first time asked India and Pakistan to freeze the Kashmir issue.

Farooq Abdullah, chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, has also

moved rapidly to cash in on the confusion. The chief minister called

for strikes across the LOC on terrorist camps, which has been

endorsed by nearly all political parties (ruling an opposition) to go all

offensive against Pakistan and the terrorist groups.

Observers feel that Farooq wants to remain more loyal than the

king and can please New Delhi in all respects to stay in power. Farooq

used the issue for the state elections held in September and October

2002 to sweep the elections once again and rule for another six years.

New Delhi had resisted his move and tried to rope in some separatists

but failed. Americans had pressured India by demanding that the elections be held under governor’s rule and that international observers

be allowed to monitor the elections, but these demands were not met

by India.

The Afghanistan situation has already weakened the position of

separatist organizations; in the coming year, separatists cannot think

of participating in the elections or they will face a miserable defeat

because at this stage they cannot bargain with New Delhi. Thus, all

the bridges and contacts New Delhi gained with separatists through

interlocutors have been burned. The Hurriyat has recently agreed to

participate in elections but for the representative character, considering these elections as the first step for negotiating with Indians.

ETHNIC SEPARATISM AND INSURGENCY IN KASHMIR 187
Another thought of school emerging in the valley is that a fresh

epoch will begin for Kashmir once the situation in Afghanistan

completely settles. The moderate and suffocated intellectual class,

with a cautious optimism and crossed fingers, feels it is the right

time for the international community to mediate and settle the

Kashmir issue. Their voices suggest that the West should no longer

sit on the fence and helplessly watch the dangerous trends emerge

in Kashmir since the present visible opportunity may not exist in

the future. The truth remains that any serious peace process would

need much greater commitment; otherwise, the proliferation of

weapons, terrorism, sectarianism and fundamentalism will grow in

South Asia.

After nearly a decade of violence in Kashmir, the September 11

attacks on the United States and the fate of the Taliban regime are

forcing the locals to visualize a modernistic reasoning to resolve and

mend the dispute between the two South Asian archrivals. Such a resolution will not only keep Islamic fundamentalism out of South Asia

but will also allow Kashmiris to live a respectable life free from fear.

To exclude the dimension of the ongoing Kashmir problem from any

permanent political solution would be folly and would lay the groundwork to reap another generation of violence from the war-scorched

soil of Kashmir. Kashmir should be seen as the overarching concern;

otherwise, the world will again have to assemble to resolve the unfinished partition left over by the British in 1947.

Focal Issue

THE GENERAL CONCERN OF SEPARATIST LEADERS is that they are ready

for any respectable negotiation, but New Delhi will have to keep in

mind the fact that fifty thousand to eighty thousand Muslim families

have lost their loved ones in the last twelve years. Also, more than one

hundred thousand Muslim families have indirectly suffered. The main

argument by these moderate separatist leaders is that they are

accountable to and will not be pardoned by the Kashmiri masses if

they compromise with India by participating in the election just for

the sake of the civilian government administration. “Compromise at

what cost?” asks Yaseen Malik, chief of Jammu and Kashmir

Liberation Front.

188 SURINDER SINGH OBEROI
Conclusions

THE SECURITY SITUATION IN THE KASHMIRI VALLEY is at an alarming

juncture. Meanwhile, a renewed series of attacks on the security positions by the militants in spring and summer of 2002, including a fidayeen attack on the State Assembly and Indian parliament house in New

Delhi, has been a morale boost to the otherwise sagging militancy in

Kashmir. The past experience of the Indian intelligence suggests that

militants may soon do something spectacular to attract international

attention and to keep the local populace under fear prior to the elections. Intelligence officers say whenever pressure builds up among the

militants, they try to ward it off by initiating some action.

The lesson to be learned from the post-Afghanistan situation is that

if a vacuum is allowed in a conflict-like situation, then radical groups

who rule with a religion-and-gun ideology will take advantage of the

circumstances. In the case of Kashmir, all sides in the conflict have

no solution to the problem. So for personal gain, all parties drag on

the strife with no concrete objectives. The longer the conflict continues, the more polarized the sides become. In Kashmir, boys are no

longer boys; they are becoming militant and fluent in the language of

the gun. There is hardly a child in Kashmir who has not seen the

deadly automatic assault rifle or a dead body.

The hatred is not surprising, as more than thirty-five thousand people have been killed in the continuing decade-long conflict. Troops

have killed more than fifteen thousand militants and wounded hundreds more. Also, more than thirty-five thousand people were

arrested under charges of supporting or participating in the militancy.

Thousands of Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims have been forced to flee

the state of Jammu and Kashmir. Distrust between the security

troops and the local population is complete. One wonders how the

Hindu and Muslim communities will again co-exist in Kashmir, even

if the conflict ends.

Hardly any research is being done either in Kashmir or in other

parts of India to tackle the Kashmir situation. “Some of the non-resident Kashmiris have become spokespersons of the Kashmir cause in

the United States or in other European countries where they would

be unimportant and jobless without the Kashmir issue.” These organizations also collect large sums of money in the name of jihad in

Kashmir and would like to see the conflict continue.

ETHNIC SEPARATISM AND INSURGENCY IN KASHMIR 189
As the Kashmir uprising drags on, one of the outcomes is the

growing enmity between Hindus and Muslims, which had never

erupted previously. Today, if the fate of Kashmiris moves us, it is

because it has become a twentieth-century saga. One feels an eerie

premonition and vulnerability before the spectacle. What happens in

Kashmir seems both a reversion and a forecast.

Kashmiri masses are sandwiched between reversion and forecast—

not knowing what their future is or which side they should support.

They condemn the continuing massacres in Kashmir but do not want

to blame anyone. They are leaderless and tired of the ongoing violence.

Today, Kashmir brings hope to none. The environment of hatred

begets hostility and vice-versa. Kashmir is no longer a magical place.

In these circumstances of continuing hostility and non-accommodation, the role of a third party (or parties) becomes a must. The key to

an effective American policy in South Asia depends on Washington’s

engagement with India and Pakistan. India is an emerging major

power and Pakistan, despite its internal economic and political problems, is also a significant state. Musharraf is trying hard to bring economic stability to his country. Washington, since the fall of the

Taliban, is assisting them by lifting sanctions and providing billions of

dollars as loans and donations. The United States is also keeping a

vigil to reduce the risk of accidental war between India and Pakistan.

Three developments in Kashmir that have partially come out of the

ashes of September 11 have influenced Kashmiri perceptions and

have helped, I believe, ripen the Kashmir Conflict for resolution.

First, the defeat of fundamentalist forces in Afghanistan that use

terror as a weapon definitely has ramifications in Kashmir, where

such elements have been trying to impose their ideology. Such forces

should not be allowed to grow in Kashmir; now is the right time to

nip the devil in the bud.

Second, a space has been created for the voice of Kashmir’s indigenous people to once again take center stage. Indigenous Kashmiris

are already re-energizing, emboldened by the expectation that the

international fight against terrorism will not just target terrorist

groups but will also promote an atmosphere of reconciliation and justice in Jammu and Kashmir. Indigenous Kashmiris expect a wellmeaning and ultimately peaceful solution to the conflict by encouraging dialogue between New Delhi and Kashmiri leaders.

190 SURINDER SINGH OBEROI
Third, as a result of coalition building, Kashmir does have some

hope that the West can engage both India and Pakistan in a dialogue

stressing the need to resolve this dispute by emphasizing an incremental peace process that does not necessary mean independence from or

accession to Pakistan.

ETHNIC SEPARATISM AND INSURGENCY IN KASHMIR 191
193

One day, I fear, like in Ayodhya, the lie will outlive

the reality and this magic land of Buddha, where the mountains change colour every time the sun shifts—from green to

orange to purple to suddenly blazing gold at midday—may

become yet another political battlefield where religion will

divide people, create dissonance, change cultures, rewrite history, falsify our past. In the name of truth, patriotism, faith.”

—Pritish Nandy1

ON JULY 1, 2002, a signboard outside the Jokhang Vihara in Leh

bazaar announced a press conference to be held that afternoon at the

headquarters of the Ladakh Buddhist Association (LBA) in the same

complex. There, the president of the LBA, Tsering Samphel, shared

with a handful of local scribes his joy over the resolutions passed a

day earlier in New Delhi by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and

the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) calling for the trifurcation of

9

MARTIJN VAN BEEK

Dangerous Liaisons: Hindu Nationalism 

and Buddhist Radicalism in Ladakh

1. Pritish Nandy, “Ladakh Is Too Innocent for Bloodshed,” Rediff on the Net, 9

November 2000.
the state of Jammu and Kashmir, granting statehood to Jammu and

the Kashmir Valley, and Union Territory status to Ladakh. Tsering

Samphel later explained to me that this was a very happy occasion

indeed, as the LBA now had “support across the length and breadth

of the country.” Soon after, the resolutions were dismissed by Union

Home Minister Lal Krishna Advani, freshly elevated to deputy prime

minister, as trifurcation of the state would weaken India’s case in the

Kashmir dispute. The RSS responded by pledging its support to an

agitation by the Jammu and Kashmir Nationalist Front, led by RSS

supporters, soon after amalgamated in a movement called the Jammu

State Mukti Morcha. A spokesman for the RSS was reported to have

denied that support for trifurcation of the state was communal,

insisting that it was necessary on the basis of geography and the

injustice and discrimination of the people of Jammu and Ladakh.2

In the context of the Kashmir issue, the non-Valley regions and

populations rarely figure prominently in national awareness or public

debates. Ladakhi representatives do not, as a rule, get invited to

participate in discussions on the future of Kashmir; even the Hurriyat

Conference has only recently sought to establish a dialogue with

Ladakhi leaders.3 Internationally, the Ladakh region is practically

invisible, hardly ever earning more than a few lines in the many tomes

dedicated to the Kashmir issue.4 Although Ladakh is by far the largest

constituent region of Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir,

totalling 59,246 square kilometers (58 percent of the territory), its

population of almost 230,000 is a mere 2.31 percent.5 With four

assembly seats and one lone Lok Sabha seat, Ladakh hardly figures in

electoral arithmetic. But Ladakh is also widely regarded as a relatively

unproblematic region: the Kashmir militancy has barely affected the

region directly, and its majority population of Tibetan Buddhists are

widely regarded as inherently peaceful and patriotic. The fact that

almost half the population of the region are Muslims does not

generally find a place in Indian popular imagination, which sees

194 MARTIJN VAN BEEK

2. See, for example, “RSS to Press for Trifurcation” in The Indian Express, 5 July

2002, web edition.

3. The one exception to Kashmiri militant disinterest in Ladakh has been Shabir

Shah, who has repeatedly visited Ladakh since his release from prison in 1995.

4. A notable recent exception is Navnita Chadha Behera’s interesting study, State,

Identity and Violence: Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh (New Delhi: Manohar, 2000).

5. Data from the Census of India, 2001, web site: www.censusindia.net.
Ladakh predominantly as a quaint, colorful backdrop for adventure

holidays, populated by maroon-robed lamas living in whitewashed

monasteries perched on hilltops.

Since 1989, this image of Ladakh as Shangri-La has begun to crack,

first by the launch of an agitation with strong communal overtones in

which the Ladakh Buddhist Association (LBA) demanded secession

from Kashmir and Union Territory status for Ladakh. The level of

violence of this agitation was negligible by comparison with the

bloodshed in the Kashmir Valley, and by 1993 negotiations between

Center, State and the LBA had resulted in a reconciliation between

Buddhist and Muslim organizations and concession of a Ladakh Hill

Development Council for Leh district—although implementation

only took place in 1996. Ladakh, as far as Indian public interest was

concerned, lapsed back into its state of remote, strategic border

region, the site of “routine exchanges of fire” along the Line of

Control. In 1999, the Kargil conflict brought the region international

attention. Bose may well be right that “the Kargil episode may yet go

down as a bizarre if lengthy footnote in the history of the Kashmir

conflict.”6 But in Ladakh, the Kargil conflict has triggered a

significant increase in the flow of central government funds and other

benefits. It also has had important consequences for relations

between Buddhists and Muslims, as well as between Ladakh and

Kashmir, directly and because of the heightened attention for the

region from Hindu nationalists. Political leaders and activists from

both Leh and Kargil used the opportunity offered by the media

attention to promote their demands for a greater share of

development resources and more autonomy; in 2000 the LBA

relaunched its agitation for Union Territory status for Ladakh.

There are significant parallels between the ways in which Kashmiri

militants regard their relationship with India, and that in which many

Ladakhis perceive theirs with Kashmir. Whereas Kashmiri

secessionists consider India as an oppressive, colonial power, Ladakhi

autonomy movement leaders look upon Kashmir as their colonizer;

and just as Kashmir’s accession is regarded as illegitimate by radicals

in the valley, Ladakhi representatives have repeatedly stated that their

DANGEROUS LIAISONS: HINDU NATIONALISM AND BUDDHIST RADICALISM 195

IN LADAKH

6. Sumantra Bose, “Kashmir: Sources of Conflict, Dimensions of Peace,” Survival

41, no. 3, 149–71.
bonds with Kashmir are only those of having been ruled by the same

Dogra maharajas, and hence that Ladakh should now be free;7

Kashmir and Ladakh both claim the right to self-determination,

although Ladakhi leaders have said that they have opted for accession

to India; and while Kashmiri movements seek to free the region from

India, Ladakhi movements have for decades sought to “Free Ladakh

from Kashmir,” as stickers, posters and graffiti proclaimed in 1989.

Most importantly, for the present discussion, in Kashmir as well as

Ladakh, the language and practices of religious radicalism have come

to play a significant role in the respective struggles, suggesting that at

the heart of the matter in both cases lie fundamental

incompatibilities of religious and cultural identity. As pointed out in

many recent analyses of the Kashmiri struggle, religious radicals

hijacked the movement in the 1992–93 period, and over time the

local component among the militants and the local agenda of

independence have been marginalized.8 In the case of Ladakh,

communalism was an important feature of the agitation for Union

Territory status launched in 1989. This communalization was part of

the Buddhist political elite’s strategy to gain the ear of the central

government, although the movement and its aims historically had

been anti-Kashmiri rather than anti-Muslim, and a common

platform with the region’s Muslims was soon re-established after

negotiations with the central government over the Ladakhi demand

for autonomy began in earnest. However, since the rise to power of

the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 1998, and particularly after the

Kargil conflict and the resumption of the agitation for Union

Territory status by the LBA, communal idioms have gained

importance again. The question is, why religious radicalism and

communalist idioms came to play such an important role in Ladakh,

how this development can be understood in terms of both internal

and exogenous factors, and what consequences this may have for

peace and security in the region.

196 MARTIJN VAN BEEK

7. See, for example, the argument as presented in the “Memorandum submitted to

the PM in 1949 by Chhewang Rigzin, President, Buddhist Association of Ladakh on

behalf of the People of Ladakh,” Hindu World 41 (February 1949), 30–33.

8. See, for example, Behera, State, Identity and Violence; Sumantra Bose, The Challenge

in Kashmir: Democracy, Self-Determination and a Just Peace (New Delhi: Sage Publications,

1997); Sumit Ganguly, The Crisis in Kashmir: Portents of War, Hopes of Peace (Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 1999); Tavleen Singh, Kashmir: A Tragedy of Errors (New

Delhi: Penguin, 1996).
The case of Ladakh, despite or perhaps because of the region’s

supposed marginality to the Kashmir question as a whole, illuminates

in multiple ways the causes and dynamics of religious radicalism in

secessionist struggles in the subcontinent. First, as I have argued

extensively elsewhere, the Ladakhi case shows, upon close examination

of the historical and ethnographic record, that identitarian readings of

the movement and its communalization—taking the religious

communities as given and the claims of their representatives at face

value —fail to capture the underlying causes of the conflict and do not

provide a sufficient explanation for the communal form that the

demand for secession has taken in the late 1980s.9 Second, and

relatedly, it is clear that local agency is crucially important for

understanding the communalization of the movement for secession

from Kashmir, but in itself must be placed in the broader context of

the dynamics and idioms of Indian politics. As argued by Paul Brass,

local villagers, or in this case Ladakhi Buddhists, should not be

regarded as innocent victims of exogenous communalist forces.10 Also

in Ladakh, local political actors, as I will discuss in more detail below,

have been actively fostering communalist representations of the

Ladakhis’ plight.11 Local stereotypes and suspicions about other

communities, including perceptions of the character and direction of

the Indian political system, are shaped as well as recast and deployed

in the pursuit of local political agendas. Hansen rightly notes that

“communal consciousness and stereotyes are ... integrated parts of the

social and political imaginary in many parts of India.”12 The point is

not that all Indian politics is communal, but that it is perceived in Ladakh

to be rooted in communalism. The third necessary element of an

analysis of the causes, dynamics, and consequences of religious

radicalism must be the role of this broader context in which local

politics plays out, and which it in turn informs.

DANGEROUS LIAISONS: HINDU NATIONALISM AND BUDDHIST RADICALISM 197

IN LADAKH

9. See, for example, Martijn van Beek, “Beyond Identity Fetishism: ‘Communal’

Conflict in Ladakh and the Limits of Autonomy,” Cultural Anthropology 15, no.

4:525–69, and “Hill Councils, Development, and Democracy: Assumptions and

Experiences from Ladakh,” Alternatives 24, no. 4:435–59.

10. Paul Brass, Theft of an Idol: Text and Context in the Representation of Collective

Violence (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997).

11. In this connection, the fear expressed by Pritish Nandy in the quotation at the

beginning of this essay describes a situation already in existence in Ladakh.

12. Thomas Blom Hansen, The Saffron Wave: Democracy and Hindu Nationalism in

Modern India (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999), 215.
The past decade has seen a dramatic change in the political

landscape in India with the rise to power of the sangh parivar. The

language of secularism may still be deployed by the BJP, but the

political imaginary of Hindutva is obviously reshaping the conception

of nationhood and belonging in India and is giving religion a new and

more radical salience and legitimacy in the political field.13 Ladakh’s

Buddhist political leadership has been quick to seize the opportunities

it sees for promotion of its cause of Union Territory for Ladakh.

Although the LBA strongly condemned the demolition of the Babri

Masjid in Ayodhya and expressed its solidarity with the Muslims of

the country, it has over the past three years actively sought to improve

its links with the RSS and VHP, culminating for the time being in the

resolutions passed by these organizations at their national

conventions in 2002. As I will argue in the following, it would be a

mistake to regard this cozy relationship as expressive of an uncritical

and unbridled enthusiasm on the part of the Buddhists in Leh for the

cause of Hindutva. Rather, as has been the case with the playing of

the communal card in 1989, the LBA believes it can use the sangh

parivar to keep pressure on the Center for its demands, while at the

same time avoiding being swallowed up by the Hindu nationalists. As

I will argue below, Ladakhi Buddhist fears of Islamic radicalism—and

more generally of being outnumbered by Muslims—are paralleled by

similar fears of being overrun by Hindus from the plains.14

Ladakhis, including the population of Shi’ite-dominated Kargil

district, are struggling for a better life, economic prosperity, and

greater political control over their affairs. They fear being

marginalized even further, whether under Kashmiri or Indian

administration. The alliance with radical forces in India, or, as in the

case of Kargil, in Iran, must also be seen in this light, as a strategic

and defensive response to perceived threats to local interests.

Religious radicalism in the region is not, as I have already indicated, a

strictly exogenous phenomenon, but the external dimension is crucial

198 MARTIJN VAN BEEK

13. Excellent accounts of the rise of the BJP and the communalization of Indian

politics can be found in Christophe Jaffrelot, The Hindu Nationalist Movement in Indian

Politics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996) and in Hansen, The Saffron

Wave.

14. The example of the Buddhist regions of Himachal Pradesh, where local

Buddhists take additional Hindu names, where the economy is increasingly dominated by Hindus, and where Buddhism is thought to be in serious decline, is frequently cited as the other danger facing Ladakh.
to its evolution and emanations. The use of communalist strategies

has obvious dangers for local peace and stability, as well as for the

region as a whole, first and most obviously because of the specter of

rising local religious radicalism. As I will discuss in the following, the

increasingly communal rhetoric of the LBA comes at a time when

signals are emerging from Kargil that political leaders and community

organizations there are considering to join the demand for Union

Territory.15 This rapprochement from the side of the Shi’ite majority

in Kargil is jeopardized by the radicalization of the LBA’s rhetoric and

alliances. Beyond such immediate local political-strategic concerns,

the alignment of the LBA with radical Hindutva forces is regarded by

some as dangerous, because Kashmir and Ladakh are pawns in the

political games of more powerful religious radicals based beyond the

region. To the extent that the Ladakhi movement is seen as a struggle

for cultural survival, subsumption by the Hindu nationalists, it is

feared, might well subject Ladakh’s Buddhists to the fate of their coreligionists on the southern slopes of the Himalaya.

Before discussing in more detail the recent rise of Hindutva forces

in Ladakh and their relationship with local political actors and

organizations, it is necessary to go back in time briefly in order to

appreciate the extent to which radical religious movements from

other parts of the subcontinent have shaped political mobilization in

Ladakh.

Organizing the Buddhists

THE LATE NINETEENTH and early twentieth century saw the

emergence of a host of religious community and caste-based reform

movements throughout the Indian subcontinent. Jammu and

Kashmir were no exception: in Jammu, the Dogra Sabha for Hindus

was formed as early as 1903, the Anjuman-i-Nusrat-ul-Islam in

Srinagar was founded in 1905, and the Yuvak Sabha seeking to

DANGEROUS LIAISONS: HINDU NATIONALISM AND BUDDHIST RADICALISM 199

IN LADAKH

15. In the summer of 2002, the two major rival factions on the Kargil scene, the

Islamiya Public School faction and the Imam Khomeini Memorial Trust (KMT),

buried their differences and withdrew their support from the National Conference,

supporting an independent candidate for the Assembly elections instead. There

appears to have emerged consensus for a more forceful pursuit of regional interests,

including the establishment of a hill development council for Kargil and a “regional

council” for Ladakh as a whole. The KMT continues to reject the Leh demand for

Union Territory status.
promote the interests of the Hindu (“Pandit”) community in the

valley in 1915.16

The 1920s and early 1930s were characterized by growing resistance

to the rule of the Hindu Maharaja, and in the wake of violent clashes

in 1931, the British government in India instituted a commission of

inquiry into the grievances and complaints of the different

communities of the state. It was in this connection that the first

organization purporting to represent the interests of the Buddhist

community of the state was formed, the Kashmir Raj Bodhi Maha

Sabha (KRBMS). “Those were the days of political upheaval in the

Kashmir State. The Sabha, therefore, had to devote its attention and

energy to the cause of the forty thousand helpless and downtrodden

Buddhists of Ladakh whose case in the general scramble for

percentages, would otherwise have gone by default.”17 The KRBMS

was not a Ladakhi organization, but the creation of a handful of neoBuddhist Pandits based in Srinagar who had secured the sole right to

representation of the Buddhists of the state from Ladakh’s foremost

religious leader at the time, Skushok Stagtsang Raspa of Hemis

monastery.18 Soon after, in 1933, the first local Buddhist organization,

the Ladakh Buddhist Education Society (LBES), was formed with the

direct involvement from the well-known writer-activist Rahula

Sankrtyayana, who visited the region in 1926 and 1933 in the context

of his work for the Arya Samaj.19 Already during his first visit he had

discussed with prominent religious leaders, including Stagtsang Raspa

and Sras Rinpoche of Ridzong monastery, the dangers of growing

numbers of Muslims and the low birth rate among Buddhists due to

monasticism and polyandry. The LBES was dissolved in 1938 and

200 MARTIJN VAN BEEK

16. See, for example, Alastair Lamb, Kashmir: A Disputed Legacy. 1846–1990 (Lahore:

Oxford University Press, 1992), and Aparna Rao, “A Tortuous Search for Justice:

Notes on the Kashmir Conflict,” Himalayan Research Bulletin 15, no. 1: 9–20.

17. KRBMS, Triennial Report of the Kashmir Raj Bodhi Maha Sabha (Srinagar: Kashmir

Raj Bodhi Maha Sabha, 1935), 4.

18. For details about the KRBMS and the role of Kashmiri Pandits in the early

organization of Ladakh’s Buddhists, see Kristoffer Brix Bertelsen, “Protestant

Buddhism and Social Identification in Ladakh,” Archives de Sciences sociales des Religions

99 (juillet-septembre), 129–51.

19. See Martijn van Beek, “Rahul Sankrtyayana and Early Buddhist Organisation in

Ladakh,” Ladakh Studies 16:23–27 for a more detailed discussion. Sankrtyayana’s own

accounts of his visits to Ladakh were published in Rahula Sankrtyayana, Meri ladakh

yatra (Ilahabad: Kitab Mahal, 1939); Meri jivan-yatra, vol. 1 (Ilahabad: Kitab Mahal,

1950); Meri jivan-yatra 2 (Kolkata: Adhuniya Pustak Bhavan, 1951); and Yatra ke panne

(Dehradun: Sahitya Sadana, 1952).
replaced by the Young Men’s Buddhist Association (YMBA), which

again had strong involvement of Kashmiri Pandits, at least in the

years until independence. From the start, then, modern Ladakhi

Buddhist activism was strongly informed by outsiders and their

understanding of the Indian political system, as well as what they

thought was good for the Ladakhi Buddhists.

A Separate Nation by All the Tests: The Struggle

for Autonomy

PARTITION AND THE TUMULTUOUS disputed accession of Jammu and

Kashmir to the Indian union changed the focus of the Ladakh

Buddhist Association, as the YMBA renamed itself, from a concern

with improvement of the fate of the Buddhists within the state

through the promotion of education and the combating of social

evils, to asserting the right to self-determination and the need for

secession of Ladakh from Jammu and Kashmir State. Ladakh, it was

argued, was “a separate nation by all the tests—race, language,

religion, and culture determining nationality.”20 From a Ladakhi

perspective, the shift from Dogra rule to Kashmiri Muslim rule meant

merely the exchange of one discriminatory regime with another.

Although communal tension and violence in other parts of the

subcontinent did have some impact on Muslim-Buddhist relations in

Ladakh, there was no sustained or widespread breakdown of

communal amity in Leh or Kargil.21

At least during the first two decades after Independence, linking

the demands for autonomy in Jammu and Ladakh appears to have

been part of the strategy of Hindu activists in Jammu rather than

of the Buddhists of Ladakh. In Jammu in 1952, growing

dissatisfaction with the alleged pro-Kashmiri policies of Sheikh

Abdullah led to an agitation against Muslim dominance

DANGEROUS LIAISONS: HINDU NATIONALISM AND BUDDHIST RADICALISM 201

IN LADAKH

20. “Memorandum submitted by Kalon Tsewang Rigzin, President, YMBA, in July

1949 to Jawaharlal Nehru,” reproduced e.g., in Bal Raj Madhok, Kashmir: Center of

New Alignments (New Delhi: Deepak Prakashan, 1963) and Behera, State, Identity and

Violence.

21. There is disagreement among local scholars and witnesses over whether the

Muslims wholeheartedly joined the efforts to defend Ladakh against the raiders, or

whether they at least initially refused to join the Home Guard raised by Kalon

Tsewang Rigzin and others, as asserted e.g., by Shridhar Kaul and H. N. Kaul, Ladakh

Through the Ages: Towards a New Identity (New Delhi: Indus Publishing Company, 1992),

71–72, 170–72.
spearheaded by the Praja Parishad and drawing support from the

Bharatiya Jan Sangh, the Hindu Mahasabha, the Ram Rajya

Parishad and others.22 The Praja Parishad made explicit reference

to the Ladakhi Buddhists in formulating their grievances against

Muslim dominance, although its agenda for complete

amalgamation of Jammu and Kashmir with the Indian Union was

not shared by Ladakhi Buddhist leaders, who have always preferred

direct rule from Delhi and secession from Kashmir.23 Ladakh’s

political scene at this time was dominated by Kushok Bakula

Rinpoche, the leading cleric of the Gelugpa sect of Tibetan

Buddhism in Ladakh, who was made a cabinet minister in the

Bakshi goverment in 1957. The Bakshi regime gave concessions to

Ladakhi and Jammu demands, while at the same time deftly

sabotaging the emergence of organized regional opposition to his

regime in Jammu.

In 1962, when elections were held for the first time in Ladakh, local

opposition against Bakula Rinpoche emerged, including both

Buddhists and Muslims, and demanding a more forceful approach to

promote Ladakhi demands. A key demand was the introduction of

central administration along the lines of the system applied to the

North East Frontier Agency (NEFA). In fact, Ladakh did indeed

come under central administration for a brief period in the wake of

the Sino-Indian war of 1962, but this was withdrawn soon after G.M.

Sadiq took over the reins of power in 1964. This in turn triggered

resistance in Ladakh. Sadiq partly coopted Ladakh’s leadership and

simultaneously sought to split Ladakhi Buddhist unity by supporting

Sonam Norbu and Khanpo Rinpoche of Thikse monastery against

Bakula Rinpoche and his followers.24 This faction was known as

Congress “B” in Ladakh and included many prominent Muslims as

well as Buddhists, which illustrates once more the impossibility of

reducing Ladakhi politics at this time to a contest between monolithic

202 MARTIJN VAN BEEK

22. Behera, State, Identity and Violence, 85.

23. The Ladakhi Muslim leaders’ views at this time are difficult to ascertain. At this

time, of course, Ladakh was a unified district with a slight Buddhist majority population.

24. The split between Thikse and Bakula reflected a number of different pre-existing faultlines both within and across religious communities in Ladakh. Sadiq apparently successfully exploited these fissures, rather than creating them. See also Behera,

State, Identity and Violence, 119–20. The intricacies of factionalism in Ladakh are discussed in more detail in van Beek, “Beyond Identity Fetishism.”
religious communities.25 Bakula and his followers launched a

campaign for NEFA-type administration to be restored, but to no

avail.

In 1969, however, a prolonged agitation with decidedly communal

overtones broke out in Ladakh, demanding NEFA-type

administration as well as a host of other concessions.26 The agitation

faded quickly after Bakula Rinpoche and his right-hand man Sonam

Wangyal accepted minor concessions from Sadiq, while most major

demands remained unfulfilled. The agitation and the alleged sell-out

by Bakula Rinpoche to the Kashmir government caused a further

deepening of the rifts in the Buddhist community, while the

communal idiom of the agitation eroded the possibilities for a united

Ladakhi movement for autonomy at this time.

The Normalization of Communalism

THE COMMUNALIZATION of the 1969 agitation is regarded by some

contemporaries as a manipulation by Bakula Rinpoche and Sonam

Wangyal, but the playing of the communal card was also part of the

standard repertoire of Kashmiri and Indian politics, and increasingly

significant. Sheikh Abdullah, albeit advocating a staunchly secularist

political agenda, was well known for citing the Quran in his public

speeches, preferably delivered from the Hazratbal mosque. As

suggested by Behera, G.M. Sadiq had let the Jan Sangh develop in

Jammu, as they were expected to be less of a threat than a regional

party on non-communal lines.27 The Congress, when it came to

power with Mir Qasim, allowed the Jamaat-i-Islami to solidify its base

in the valley while the Jan Sangh continued to develop in Jammu, so

that the Congress could present itself as the guardian of the interests

of the minorities. Sheikh Abdullah, after his return to power, pitched

his vision for the future in terms of a Greater Kashmir, claiming

Muslim-majority Doda and Kargil district (carved out of Ladakh

DANGEROUS LIAISONS: HINDU NATIONALISM AND BUDDHIST RADICALISM 203

IN LADAKH

25. See also B. L. Kak, Chasing Shadows in Ladakh (New Delhi: Light and Life

Publishers, 1978) and Kaul and Kaul, Ladakh Through the Ages, for discussions of

Ladakhi politics in the 1960s.

26. These included, among others, the settlement of Tibetan refugees who had

entered the region in the wake of China’s occupation of Tibet, the recognition of the

“bodhi” language, establishment of a degree college, and representation of Buddhists

in the government.

27. Behera, State, Identity and Violence.
district in 1979) as part of this Kashmir, which shared nothing but

religion. By the late 1970s, the political process in the state, as in other

parts of India, had become thoroughly communalized.28

Despite this process of communalization, the LBA generally kept

its distance from Hindu nationalist forces in Jammu, although it did

accept and welcome expressions of support from that side. During

the 1967 and 1969 agitations, the Jan Sangh had expressed its support

for Ladakhi demands, and also in 1981, when the demand for Union

Territory was raised, Hindu nationalist forces expressed their support

for the Ladakhi cause. However, it was not until the agitations of the

late 1980s that the LBA was in more regular contact with national outfits such as the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the Bharatiya Janata Party.

This was partly the result of a conscious choice by a new generation

of LBA leaders to play the communal card in the struggle for Union

Territory for Ladakh. The new leadership had strong roots in the

Congress party, and had become convinced that communalism was

necessary to get the attention of the national government. Having

watched agitation after agitation fail because of the cooptation of

leaders and the splitting of the Ladakhi front, these younger leaders,

most of whom had been educated at prestigious institutions in India,

decided a more forceful approach was necessary to create a sustained

movement. A more active relationship with Hindu nationalist forces

was an element of this new approach.

In 1988, the alleged abduction of fifty Buddhist children from

Ladakh, who had been taken to Srinagar by Christian missionaries,

made national headlines and drew expressions of support from the

Arya Samaj and the VHP, including demonstrations by “hundreds of

activists” in Delhi.29 In September 1989, the BJP Central Office in

New Delhi sent a delegation led by Ashwini Kumar and Chaman Lal

Gupta to Leh to carry out an on-the-spot investigation of the causes

204 MARTIJN VAN BEEK

28. A well-informed journalist’s indictment of the political establishment’s mishandling of Kashmir and the communalization of its politics is Tavleen Singh’s Kashmir:

A Tragedy of Errors.

29. Press release dated 22 June 1968, Indraprastha Vishwa Hindu Parishad, Delhi.

It is worth noting that a considerable number of the explosions recorded in Jammu

and Kashmir in 1988 took place in Ladakh as part of the anti-Christian agitation.

According to Home Ministry statistics for January 1988 to June 1993, a total of 184

violent incidents resulting in four deaths were recorded for Leh district. See Robert

G. Wirsing, India, Pakistan, and the Kashmir Dispute: On Regional Conflict and Its Resolution

(New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994), 128–31.
of the agitation that had begun in July that year and which in August

had led to the death of three people in police firing.30 Later, the BJP

repeatedly wrote to the prime minister, Narasimha Rao, to press for

the Ladakhi demand, and members of the BJP asked questions in

parliament on behalf of the Ladakhis. In March 1990, a national

convention on the Ladakh issue was held in Delhi, with leading BJP

members such as Ashwini Kumar on the organizing committee. In

August 1990, a delegation from the LBA participated for the first time

in a BJP convention at Jammu. At a Jammu press conference

concluding the meetings, BJP leader Atal Behari Vajpayee expressed

his support for Union Territory for Ladakh.31 Hari Om, in a lengthy

report on the conference, described the Ladakhi participation as

“historic,” as also Kashmiri Pandits expressed their “unstinted and

unqualified support” for the cause of Jammu and Ladakh.32 Thupstan

Chhewang, then president of the LBA, was quoted as saying: “For 43

years the people of Jammu and Ladakh have been denied their

constitutional rights. We have been struggling for justice, but

separately. Let us unite, for our sufferings are common.” But despite

these professions of solidarity and cooperation, the LBA leadership

let the relationship with the Hindu nationalists lapse into nearoblivion, not responding to invitations from the Jammu Mahasabha

for a joint platform and from the BJP general secretary to participate

in the BJP’s All-India session in February 1991. The LBA did,

however, send a telegram congratulating Advani and Vajpayee on

their success in the 1991 Lok Sabha elections, expressing the LBA’s

conviction that the “nation will emerge stronger and Ladakh will

receive special attention under your leadership.”33

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IN LADAKH

30. Their report, dated 19 September 1989, limits itself largely to listing the various

grievances and demands of the LBA, as well as an overview of previous agitations

since 1969. It mentions the arrest of four Buddhist boys in 1988 for “terrorist activity” but does not mention the campaign against the Christians, which included attacks

with explosives on Christian-owned buildings and vehicles. For concise discussions

of the 1989 agitation and its background, see John Bray, “Ladakhi History and Indian

Nationhood,” South Asia Research 11, no. 2:115–33, and Martijn van Beek and

Kristoffer Brix Bertelsen, “Ladakh: ‘Independence’ Is Not Enough,” Himal 8, no. 2

(March/April), 7–15.

31. Daily Excelsior, 2 September 1990, 1.

32. Hari Om, “Jammu and Ladakh: BJP–LBA Unity, I.,” Daily Excelsior, 16

September 1990, 10.

33. Quoted from a carbon copy of the original undated telegram kept in the LBA

archives in Leh.
The sudden decline in the LBA’s and Buddhist leaders’ interest in

openly sharing the dais with Hindu nationalist forces can be explained

by two related developments. First, the central government had made

it clear at an early stage of negotiations for a Hill Council for Ladakh,

which began in January 1990, that such a concession could not be

made unless there was a united (i.e., non-communal) demand for such

an arrangement. In view of this pressure, the LBA lifted at the end of

1992 the “social boycott” that it had imposed on the entire Muslim

population of the region in 1989, and a joint “Coordination

Committee” was formed with representatives from the Buddhist, Shia

and Sunni, and Christian communities. Clearly, this made it difficult to

simultaneously pursue a communalist alliance with the forces of

Hindutva. Especially after the demolition of the Babri Masjid, which

had been condemned swiftly by the LBA, overt alliances with BJP and

VHP were out of the question. Secondly, negotiations with the

Center, especially after the return to power of the Congress (I) under

the prime ministership of P.V. Narasimha Rao, suggested that the Hill

Council would be granted in a matter of months, so that the need for

opposition pressure on the government became less important. The

Congress, despite its role in fueling the flames of communalism in

Jammu and Kashmir, continued to have a public image in Ladakh of

secularism and pro-minority stances. Most of Ladakh’s political

leaders were or had been Congress members, and eventually the

Congress won all thirty elected seats on the Hill Council when it was

finally formed in 1995.

Although it would be an exaggeration to suggest that relations

between Buddhists and Muslims were cordial by the mid–1990s, there

seemed to be little political mileage to be gained at this time from

national alliances with the sangh parivar. At the local level, however,

relations between Buddhists and Muslims remained tense, as

symbolized by a “loudspeaker war” between the Sunni mosque and

the Buddhist Chokhang Vihara, on opposite sides of the main bazaar

of Leh.34 But while there was little immediate interest from the

Buddhist radicals’ side in maintaining or reviving contacts with the

206 MARTIJN VAN BEEK

34. From 1996 until 1999, every time the call for prayer would sound from the

mosque, the LBA switched on a tape with religious chants or songs. The practice was

in retaliation for the fact that several local mosques in the suburbs and villages around

Leh had installed loudspeakers.
Hindu nationalists, there was growing interest from the latter in

developments in Ladakh.

Local political processes and strategic considerations of Buddhist

and Muslim leaders in Ladakh played a major part in the evolution of

communal politics in the region, but this development was informed

to a considerable degree by the broader national political context.

Arguably, national developments have played a still more significant

part in shaping relations between Buddhist radicals and Hindu

nationalist forces more recently. Especially since 1997, the sangh

parivar has taken a more active interest in Ladakh. This interest has

resulted in two major RSS initiatives in Ladakh: the Sindhu Darshan

Abhiyan and the Ladakh Kalyan Sangh.

Sindhu hai ji! The RSS Discovers Ladakh

IN OCTOBER 1997, the first Sindhu Darshan took place, a pilgrimage

to the river Indus in Ladakh. The initiative for the event had been

taken by Lal Krishna Advani, then president of the BJP, together with

Tarun Vijay, the editor of the RSS weekly Panchjanya. During an

election campaign visit to Ladakh in 1996, after the end of president’s

rule in Kashmir, they had stayed in a government guest house near the

river in Choglamsar and had “discovered” that “it was our Sindhu Ma,

the same Sindhu which is our identity [...] from which we derive

Hindu-Hindustani-India,” as the Sindhu Darshan information

materials proclaim.35 The idea for a yatra was developed with the

assistance of then BJP president L.K. Advani, Indresh Kumar and

other RSS leaders. The first Sindhu Darshan did not have any central

government participation, but Advani, Jammu and Kashmir Chief

DANGEROUS LIAISONS: HINDU NATIONALISM AND BUDDHIST RADICALISM 207

IN LADAKH

35. Quotes from Tarun Vijay (1997), “Mother Sindhu, We Have Not Forgotten

You!” (http://delhi.vsnl.net.in/sindhu/tv-leh.htm), downloaded 28 May 2002. There

is a historical precedent for the insight that the Indus flows through Ladakh. Karan

Singh, son of the last Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir, wrote in his autobiography

about his trip to Leh and Kargil with Nehru and Indira in 1949: “From Leh we flew

to Kargil, the second town in Ladakh and the center of the area inhabited by Shia

Muslims. The Ceasefire Line passed very close to Kargil, and the army was more in

evidence. The brigade headquarters where we stayed were situated on the banks of

the Indus. It struck me as curious that although the very name of our country and its

predominant religion are derived from the Indus, the only place where this great river

now flows through Indian territory is Ladakh.” Karan Singh, Heir Apparent: An

Autobiography (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1982), 140. Actually, the Yuvraj was

mistaken: Kargil lies on the banks of the river Suru, a tributary of the Indus.
Minister Farooq Abdullah and Ladakh Hill Council Chief Executive

Councillor Thupstan Chhewang attended, together with several other

national and local dignitaries and a handful of ordinary yatris. The

event received some coverage in the national media, but not much

notice was taken, despite the fact that the organizers tried to pitch it

as part of the celebrations marking fifty years of independence.

The breakthrough for the Sindhu Darshan Abhiyan came in 1999

with the rise to power of the BJP and especially because of the Kargil

conflict, the incursions across the Line of Control in Ladakh that

triggered fierce clashes between India and Pakistan. Sindhu Darshan

took place after the end of hostilities and became an orgy of

nationalist fervor. A stamp was even issued to commemorate Sindhu

Darshan, showing a drawing of the Indus in the Ladakhi landscape

with an impression of the vrishabha and accompanied by a saying from

the Rig Veda.36 By the next year, responsibility for the organization

had been taken over by the central government and the prime

minister himself attended, further cementing the event as a national

one. Pitched as a “celebration of national unity and communal

harmony” and “a movement to honour brave jawans,” Sindhu

Darshan is now held annually on June 1–3, and the Department of

Tourism promotes the event through its website and special brochure,

while government-owned Ashok Travels offers package tours.37 In

2002 the proceedings were broadcast live on Doordarshan and fortyfive non-resident Indians from twelve different countries were

reported to have participated and to have donated money for the

construction of a sprawling Sindhu Cultural Center near Leh.38

The general public in Leh is at best skeptical of the Sindhu

Darshan Abhiyan. In the early years, the event took place largely in

208 MARTIJN VAN BEEK

36. The secretary of the Philatelic Association was quoted as saying: “The multitheme stamp is of interest to varied categories of collectors. The seal will interest

archaeologists, it will hold appeal for students of geography or collectors of landscapes for the gorgeous Ladakhi landscape, river, mountains. The saying from the Rig

Veda has added appeal.” Sushma Chadha, “Philately,” The Financial Express, 15 August

1999, web edition.

37. The official India tourism website for Sindhu Darshan is www.sindhudarshanindia.com. The earlier RSS sites are www.sindudarshan.com and

delhi/vsnl.net.in/sindhu. In 2001, Sindhu Darshan got a counterpart in the northeast

of the country with the first Brahmaputra Darshan, held in Arunachal Pradesh.

Brahmaputra Darshan is organized and promoted by the district administration of

East Siang. See http://www.esiang.com/bdarshan.htm.

38. See PTI reports, 1–3 June 2002.
isolation from the local society and economy, as yatris were given

accommodation and food by the army and spent hardly a single

paisa locally. In 1999, tremendous animosity was caused by the

requisitioning of seats for the yatris on Indian Airlines flights out of

Leh after flights had been canceled for a week due to bad weather,

leaving large numbers of locals stranded.39 Some conservative

Buddhists object to the construction of the ghat at Shey Manla, close

to a site with ancient Buddhist rock carvings and practically next

door to the Dalai Lama’s summer residence (and opposite the new

masjid of Chushot on the other side of the river). Expansion plans

of the Sindhu Darshan organization are viewed with suspicion,

particularly as Tarun Vijay and LAHDC Chief Executive Councillor

Thupstan Chhewang in 2002 flew by helicopter to visit a cave in the

mountains south of Leh, where a natural Shivlingam is found. There

is some concern among the local population that this process of

discovery and appropriation of pilgrimage sites will turn Ladakh

into another Lahul—a Buddhist region where the local religion is

gradually marginalized by Hinduism and where locals have adopted

Hindu names in addition to their Buddhist ones.40 The actual

proceedings of Sindhu Darshan attract few locals other than

political and community leaders and those who have to perform in

the cultural and religious program; even concerts by famous

musicians on Leh’s pologround do not bring out the crowds. The

ritual of Sindhu Darshan, a puja on the banks of the river, has no

parallel in local Buddhist tradition, and the speeches of politicians

do not hold much attraction. Despite the relatively good

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IN LADAKH

39. See also the report by Praveen Swami, “The Other Victims of Kargil,” Frontline

16, no. 1 (3–16 July 1999), web edition.

40. The site is in fact visited from time to time by local Buddhists. The “conversion” of religious sites is not a new phenomenon, of course. Recent examples include

the establishment of pattar sahib gurdwara near Leh, where an impression believed to

have been left on a rock by sixth-century saint Padmasambhava, commonly referred

to as Guru Rinpoche by Tibetan Buddhists, was recognized by the Sikh community

as an impression of Guru Nanakji. The site was converted with permission from

Bakula Rinpoche. See David L. Snellgrove and Taddeusz Skorupski, The Cultural

Heritage of Ladakh, Vol. 2: Zangskar and the Cave Temples of Ladakh (Delhi: Vikas

Publishers, 1980), 76–77. In 2001, the Sikhs purchased a sacred tree just behind the

mosque in Leh, fencing it in and proclaiming the tree to have sprouted from the

toothpick dropped on this spot by Guru Nanak, who is identified on a sign here as

“Guru Nanak Rinpoche Lamaji.” The tree had been owned by one of Leh’s most

prominent Buddhist families.
accessibility of the site in Shey, only a few hundred locals bother to

attend.41

Politicians and tourism operators—and more than a few people are

both—see Sindhu Darshan as a great instrument for promotion of

Ladakhi interests and of Ladakh as a tourist destination. Numbers of

domestic tourists visiting Ladakh had dropped dramatically as a result

of the civil war in Kashmir and the agitation for Union Territory in

Ladakh. The Kargil war and Sindhu Darshan gave a tremendous

amount of national television coverage to Ladakh, and numbers of

domestic tourists have more than doubled since 1999.42 As a Ladakhi

tourism operator put it, “Indians will never come unless there is also

some religious attraction here.” Politically, too, Sindhu Darshan is

regarded as a boon. The Daily Excelsior newspaper from Jammu

wrote—somewhat clumsily but accurately—in an editorial, “never

before there has been so much convergence of Indian polity in Leh

during the Sindhu Darshan or on any other occasion.”43

The annual Sindhu Darshan constitutes an important opportunity

for Ladakhi political leaders to bring their grievances and demands to

the attention of national political leaders and media. In 2002, a joint

Ladakhi statement in support of Sindhu Darshan was published,

signed among others by representatives of the Shia, Sunni, Hindu,

Sikh and Christian communities, the merchants’ and travel agent

associations, as well as the presidents of the local branches of the

Indian National Congress, the National Conference, and the BJP.44 In

the statement, the “enthusiastic participation in the festival by the

people of Ladakh” was noted together with the “deep seethed [sic]

patriotism inherent in each Ladakhi who have proudly sacrificed their

many sons in the defence of the nation.” These official expressions

210 MARTIJN VAN BEEK

41. The disdain of locals for Sindhu Darshan was graphically expressed by the

Ladakhi dance group that performed in 2001. Immediately after their performance

they left the grounds and went home, while the other performers, from Arunachal,

Himachal Pradesh, and Kashmir, remained and eagerly availed themselves of the

photo opportunity with Advani, Farooq Abdullah and other dignitaries at the conclusion of the festivities. Shots with famous Bollywood actor Amrish Puri appeared to

be most sought after.

42. The organization itself claims a four-fold increase, but this is based on the

unusually low number of domestic tourists that visited the region in 1999.

43. “Editorial,” Daily Excelsior, 9 June 2000, web edition.

44. The statement was printed, published, and distributed in press kits by the

Department of Tourism, Ministry of Tourism & Culture, Government of India, and

included the names, organizations, titles, and telephone numbers of the signatories.
of enthusiasm, however, are often qualified considerably in private

conversations, when not only Muslim but also Buddhist leaders

express concerns. Despite the official de-saffronization of Sindhu

Darshan through the emphasis on national unity, communal amity,

and the promotion of Ladakh as a tourist destination, its RSS

antecedents and Hindu-Hindustan-Hindutva character remain

uncomfortable for Buddhist and Muslim Ladakhis alike.

Serving the People

SINDHU DARSHAN WAS BUT ONE, albeit very high-profile, dimension of

the RSS strategy to establish a stronger presence for itself in Ladakh.

Little known to large sections of the general public in Ladakh, a

second important initiative has been the establishment of a local nongovernmental organization called the Ladakh Kalyan Sangh in Hindi

and Ladags Pandey Tshogspa in Ladakhi. This organization, formally

started in 1995, though not really active until 1997, is a “classical” RSS

outfit dedicated to “seva ... sanskar ... ekta,” as one of its brochures

states.45 The Ladakh Kalyan Sangh is staffed by three young

volunteers in Leh: two Ladakhis (one of whom is a monk) and a

young man from Manali, who has been in charge since March 2002.

The parent organizations of the LKS are Vidya Bharati and Seva

Bharati, and operations in Leh are overseen from Jammu. Its main

activity is social work and education, especially targeting children

from poor families.

In addition to sewing and typing classes, the Pandey Tshogspa has

thus far established thirteen sanskar kendra or “coaching centers,”

including two in Shergol Block of Kargil district, the “frontline”

between Buddhist and Muslim majority regions. In the coaching centers, children are provided some instruction in academic subjects;

“moral education,” cultural activities, daily prayers and physical education are also part of the curriculum. Each coaching center has one

teacher, who attends an initial three-day workshop at the organization’s offices in Leh, while by the summer of 2002 seven teachers had

been sent for six-month teacher training courses in Delhi. The LKS

also engages in what it refers to as “student development,” and has

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IN LADAKH

45. Like the early Sindhu Darshan Abhiyan, it too appropriated the logo of the fifty

years celebrations, printed on its official information material.
recruited sixty-five students from villages throughout Ladakh—

apparently including some Muslims—who have been sent to hostels

in Delhi, Haryana, Punjab and Himachal Pradesh run by Vidya

Bharati. In addition to its village-based education activities, the LKS

has also organized seminars in Leh, including one on “The Role of

Vedic Religion and Buddhism for the Unity of the Country,” or

“Hindutva” as a Sangh volunteer pointed out helpfully. In these seminars, local scholars as well as local political leaders have participated.

As the leader of the LKS confided, having explained the

organization’s structure and its activities, “this organization is really

run by the RSS. We are here to stop the Muslims.” According to him,

Ladakh is a high-priority area for the national organization and “we

get anything we ask for.” In addition to imparting education in

academic subjects and “hindutva,” he said the organization tried to

support Ladakhi Buddhists living in or close to Muslim majority areas.

Hinduism and Buddhism, my interlocutor explained, were the same

religion really, although he admitted to some difficulty in convincing

some local people about this. “But we are making progress.” The

presence of posters of the Ayatollah Khomeini and other Shi’ite

clerics in Kargil, he said, showed that it was impossible to trust “these

people,” and this had been confirmed by the “Turtok incident” in

1999. At the time, twenty-four local Muslim youths had been arrested

after illegal weapons had been discovered in the village, which is right

near the Line of Control and had been part of Pakistan until 1974.46

He added that the Khomeini Memorial Trust in Kargil recruited

Muslim youths and took them away. “I suspect they take them to

madrassas,” he added.

Education is a major concern for parents in Ladakh, particularly as

the performance of government schools is abysmally poor—more

than 90 percent of students fail the matriculation exam that gives

212 MARTIJN VAN BEEK

46. In fact, all the accused were acquitted in 2001. The case against them turned out

to be fabricated by the police and fell apart in the Sessions Court. The men had, however, spent two years in the Leh Central Jail, apparently killing time playing volleyball.

Upon their release, they participated in and won a local tournament, beating all competitors with ease. The real culprit(s) who had brought in weapons were never identified. Those arrested were mostly people who had actually led the police to the arms

cache. While the original case received a lot of coverage in the national media and was

exploited to the fullest by the LBA and others, the acquittals were not even

announced on local radio. Two of the accused had been police officers and were reinstated after their release from jail.
access to higher education. The only alternative, private school, is

beyond the means of many rural families. Any organization that

offers free coaching or education in boarding schools in India or Leh

is likely to find many takers in Ladakh—some evangelist Christian

mission schools recruit students in Ladakh today, the backlash of

1988 apparently forgotten. So far, few people appear concerned over

the activities of the LKS/RSS in Ladakh. A Muslim leader told me

that the RSS would not affect his community much, but he did expect

that they would have a major impact on the Buddhists, because, as he

put it, “they have a weak conception of religion.” According to him,

the RSS “will change the mindset of the Buddhists.”

Dangerous Liaisons: Toward Brotherhood in

Saffron?

AS EXEMPLIFIED by the Sindhu Darshan Abhiyan and the Ladakh

Kalyan Sangh, Hindu nationalists have taken a greater interest and

adopted a more active role in Ladakh, especially since the Kargil war.

As already pointed out by Wirsing, Kashmir has succeeded Ayodhya

as an attractive cause for the sangh parivar, allowing it to pursue a

Hindu nationalist agenda in the name of national unity and patriotism.47 The Akhil Bharati Vidhyarti Parishad’s march on Lal Chowk

and Murli Manohar Joshi’s Ekta yatra sought to do just that already in

the early 1990s. Most significantly, and in a clear departure from the

past, the LBA now openly and actively associates itself with the VHP,

RSS, and Panun Kashmir, not merely accepting their expressions of

support, but actually joining a common platform with them for trifurcation—or quadrifurcation, really, if one includes the demand for

Panun Kashmir. The question is how we should understand this

move, and what its consequences might be for a peaceful and durable

settlement of Ladakhi demands, which in turn must be part of any

settlement of the Kashmir issue as a whole.

There are several ways in which the saffronization of the LBA

might be interpreted. First, it is clear that the LBA is seeking to put

pressure on the central government. During the 1989 agitation, with

the Congress in power, it could do so quite simply by adopting simultaneously the language of patriotism and communalism. The eruption

DANGEROUS LIAISONS: HINDU NATIONALISM AND BUDDHIST RADICALISM 213

IN LADAKH

47. Wirsing, India, Pakistan, and the Kashmir Dispute, 165 ff.
of armed struggle in the valley allowed the LBA to stress the

Buddhists’ patriotic credentials while simultaneously denouncing the

Kashmiris and by extension Muslims in Ladakh as secessionists who

could not be trusted. The LBA could maintain that it was not communal, but that “Ladakh’s unique identity”—Buddhist, to be sure—

was threatened by these others, who were “real” communalists.

Playing the national media and politicians with great skill, Leh quickly

managed to obtain significant concessions, although realization of the

Hill Council would take another six years of struggle. In 1989, with

the Congress on the defensive and in need of relative stability in

Ladakh—if only to be able to maintain that the Kashmir problem was

limited to the valley—the BJP could be used by traditional Congress

stronghold Leh to put pressure on the Center. With the BJP at the

helm at the Center, pressure has to be exerted in a different way. On

the one hand, until August 2002, the Ladakh Hill Development

Council was firmly controlled by the Congress party, although the

Lok Sabha seat for Ladakh remains in the hands of Hassan Khan, a

Kargili member of the National Conference—a National Democratic

Alliance (NDA) partner. The district Congress organization had

remained officially secular, seeking to use the national Congress to

exert pressure on the NDA, while the LBA—once dubbed a Congress

front organization by the NC—can follow a harder “Hindutva” line.

Given the Ladakhi Buddhist leadership’s track record in political strategy, it is quite possible that the hardening of the LBA’s communal

stance should be seen as “merely” strategic, as part of a two-pronged

approach—a kind of political good cop/bad cop routine.

There continue to be warm relationships between the LBA and

other Buddhist politicians.48 So far no Buddhist leader has publicly

questioned the LBA’s alliance with Panun Kashmir, RSS and VHP,

although LUTF leaders have insisted that their own campaign for

trifurcation has a non-communal basis. And while the current LBA

president repeatedly has denied the possibility of the imposition of

another social boycott on the Muslim community in Ladakh, his

rhetoric has become more saffronized, and he does not hesitate to

speak disparagingly of a “fashion of secularism.” During the Kargil

214 MARTIJN VAN BEEK

48. It is worth noting that the LBA president, Tsering Samphel, is a former MLA

and district president of the Congress. He has been in the forefront of the fight for

autonomy since the 1960s.
conflict, the LBA Youth Wing demanded that refugees from Kargil

be sent back, as they could not be trusted. In July 1999, the Congress

president made some remarks about the Quran that were regarded as

blasphemous by the Muslim community, and a few days later three

monks were shot dead by Kashmiri militants at a roadblock at

Rangdum. According to the LBA, this was a “retaliatory killing” and

an attempt of the militants to spread unrest to Ladakh, although

indications suggest that it was probably an unfortunate coincidence,

rather than a pre-planned attack, which led to the murders.49

Ever since the Kargil conflict, the LBA has repeatedly denounced

the government’s “pampering” of Muslims. The army, funded by the

central government, began a series of initiatives under the “Operation

Sadbhavna” scheme, including the provision of free transport and the

establishment of schools and vocational training centers. Initially,

these initiatives were targeting villages along the Line of Control.

Upon vociferous protests from the LBA, the program was expanded

to central Ladakh and the Tibetan border areas as well.50 And while

more than 2,500 Ladakhi Buddhists were recruited into the expanding

Ladakh Scouts regiment and paramilitary units, the LBA nonetheless

saw reason to complain because of the discontinuation of the Special

Security Bureau program training Buddhist villagers in the use of

weapons—a program initiated in the wake of the Sino-Indian war of

1962. According to the LBA, the discontinuation was due to Muslim

complaints that only Buddhists were given training and weapons. A

final example of the continued concerns expressed by the LBA over

Muslim advancement involves the census of 2001, the first since 1981

to have been carried out in Ladakh. The new census results are said

to show that the lead of the Buddhist community over the Muslims

has shrunk further.51 The LBA’s fear of being outnumbered by

Muslims is an old one, as mentioned earlier. To counter the threat, the

LBA actively campaigns against birth control measures (officially for

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IN LADAKH

49. Rangdum has been the scene of a long-running dispute between Bakarwals and

locals, who accuse the shepherds of encroaching and stealing fodder. The roadblock

was put up to check trucks for fodder. When the militants’ truck was stopped, they

apparently panicked, shooting the monks manning the barrier.

50. Since the transfer of General Ray earlier in 2002, the scheme is said to be rapidly unravelling, exactly as Kargili activists and politicians had feared it would.

51. I have not yet seen the census figures broken down according to religion. The

official census web site, www.censusindia.org, does not yet provide these tables.
violating Buddhist precepts regarding the sanctity of life). The fact

that the voters’ list in Kargil has more people on it than that of Leh,

despite the latter’s slightly larger population, is taken as further

evidence of Muslim manipulations aimed at dominating the

Buddhists. Perhaps the LBA president has indeed become more

communalist, but undoubtedly such complaints and the

representation of Turtok as “evidence” of the Muslim community’s

treachery and of Rangdum as simply a communal attack must also be

seen as part of the normal representational strategies in Indian

politics.52

New Directions?

IN AUGUST 2002, a new strategy was adopted by the Buddhist political

establishment in Leh. An announcement was made that all district

units of political parties, including the Congress, National

Conference, and BJP, were disbanded. Buddhist ministers in the state

government, Rajya Sabha member Thikse Rinpoche, and the two

MLAs for Leh district all announced their resignation from their

respective political parties. Simultaneously, the formation of a Ladakh

Union Territory Front (LUTF) was announced that would field

candidates for the upcoming Assembly elections. The formation of a

regional party had been a long-standing wish of some members of

the Buddhist political establishment, but had never been achieved

previously, partly due to deep rifts within the Buddhist community.

Muslim leaders of Leh had not been taken into confidence about the

formation of a regional party, but were invited to join the movement.

Although stressing that there was no unequivocal agreement with the

demand for Union Territory, representatives of the Shi’ites and

Sunnis within days announced that they would support the LUTF and

would not field other candidates, so as not to jeopardize communal

amity in the region. Both the LUTF candidates, Rigzin Jora and

Sonam (Pinto) Norbu, could thus be declared elected unopposed.

The assembly elections led to the demise of the National Conference

regime, and on November 1, 2002, a new coalition government of

People’s Democratic Party and Congress (I) was sworn in, headed by

216 MARTIJN VAN BEEK

52. For elaboration on this reading of Indian political discourse, see van Beek,

“Beyond Identity Fetishism.”
former Congress stalwart Mufti Mohammed Sayeed. Great care was

taken to create a coalition that could be seen also to represent the

interests of the Jammu and Ladakh regions. The independent MLA

for Kargil, Haji Nissar Ali, and LUTF MLA for Leh Rigzin Jora were

given positions as ministers of state in the new government.53 In Leh,

the gesture from the Muslim leadership not to field a candidate in the

elections was reciprocated soon after by the appointment of Muslim

Executive Councillor Ghulam Abbas Abidi.54 Kargil’s KMT,

meanwhile, announced that it will not support Union Territory, but

will push for the creation of a Hill Council for Kargil and a common

regional council for Ladakh.

These recent—and at the time of writing still unfolding—developments suggest that a hard-line “Hindutva” strategy is less likely to be

pursued by the political leadership in Leh at this time, although it is

quite possible that the LBA will continue to rattle its sabers to keep

the pressure on the state and central government. The new government appears to have the establishment of regional councils high on

its agenda, and it is not unthinkable that genuine devolution of power

to Ladakh may go some way in assuaging radical Buddhist elements,

although the experiences with the LAHDC under Farooq Abdullah’s

regime have given rise to doubts about the feasibility of “genuine

autonomy.” Not surprisingly, VHP and RSS leaders in Jammu have

expressed their unhappiness with the new coalition, no doubt in part

because its explicit attention to regional representation in the coalition

and to regional imbalances in its proposed program of action takes

much of the wind out of the sails of the sangh parivar. At the same

time, settling regional demands without resorting to communal arithmetic may pose a formidable challenge.

Today, there are radical elements with strong communalist outlooks

in Kargil as well as Leh, among Buddhists as well as Muslims.

DANGEROUS LIAISONS: HINDU NATIONALISM AND BUDDHIST RADICALISM 217

IN LADAKH

53. The choice of these two candidates by the Buddhist leadership suggests a conscious attempt to balance political and communal interests. Pinto Norbu is a longtime National Conference member who commands considerable respect among the

Muslims of Leh. Rigzin Jora is a former Congress man, who most recently served as

LAHDC executive councillor, and previously as general secretary of the LBA. He was

one of the key leaders of the 1989 agitation.

54. According to the LAHDC Act, one of the executive councillors must be a

member of the “principal minority” (i.e., a Muslim), but this had not been honored

since the elections for the second LAHDC in 2001. See the report by Tashi Morup

in Kashmir Times, 20 October 2002, web edition.
218 MARTIJN VAN BEEK

55. AUTHOR ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: This paper draws on research conducted regularly in Ladakh since 1985, most recently in the summer of 2002. My research has

been made possible by the numerous people in Leh and Kargil, among them leaders

of Buddhist and Muslims organizations, officials and “ordinary” Ladakhis, who have

generously shared their knowledge and perceptions of these sensitive matters.

Research in 1999 was funded by the Danish Humanities Research Council. Earlier

research upon which this paper draws was made possible by a United States Institute

of Peace Jennings Randolph Peace Scholar Award. Responsibility for the views

expressed in this essay is solely mine.

However, there is little sign as yet that the overtures from the sangh

parivar to Buddhists in Leh have more than strictly instrumental

appeal. The identification of Buddhism as “identical” with Hinduism,

or as a mere subsect of Hinduism, goes directly against the “Buddhist

pride” agenda promoted by the LBA and the Ladakh Gonpa

Association—the organization representing the interests of the

monastic establishment. The LBA’s religious agenda is aimed at promoting a revitalization of Buddhism through instruction of the general population in the basic teachings of the Buddha, bringing the religion back among the people rather than leaving it up to monks. At the

same time, several monasteries have embarked on recruitment

drives—Thikse Rinpoche going as far as to demand a child from each

family affiliated with his monastery. While this shows that the main

Buddhist institutions do not share the same views about which way

Buddhism should develop, amalgamation with Hinduism is obviously

not a serious option. Thus, while the LBA and some Buddhist political leaders may be willing to share a platform with the sangh parivar

to promote their agenda for Union Territory status, Hindutva as such

would not appear to have much appeal in a region like Ladakh. Yet

despite this limited appeal of Hindutva, the saffronization of education, of the media, and of public life in general are likely to strengthen

even further the perceived validity and necessity of communal idioms.

It is here, perhaps more than in any other sphere, that the long-term

dangers of the liaison with Hindu nationalist organizations lie: the

poisoning of relations between Buddhists and Muslims in Ladakh,

further weakening the opportunities for a united, autonomous

Ladakh. Given the economic and geographical interdependencies

between the two regions, but also in view of their shared history and

culture, such a permanent rift would be a tragedy for all concerned.55
219

The “Northeast,” seen as India’s “Mongoloid fringe,”1 was

one of the last areas to be taken over by the British in the subcontinent. Having conquered almost the whole of it by the first quarter of

the nineteenth century, the British turned to secure the frontiers of

their Indian Empire from the perceived threats of Russian expansion

in Central Asia and from the westward surge of the Burmese Empire.

The debacle in Afghanistan forced them to leave it as a useful buffer

between Tsarist Central Asia and British India, but the defeat of the

Burmese army encouraged them to take over the Northeast of India.

The British decided on limited administration of the Northeast.

The Inner Line Regulations ensured that the hill regions beyond the

plains of Assam were largely left to their traditional chiefs once they

accepted British suzerainty. The princely kingdoms of Tripura and

Manipur were treated as dependencies, remote-controlled by political

10

SUBIR BHAUMIK

Ethnicity, Ideology and Religion:

Separatist Movements in India’s Northeast

1. Nandita Haksar, India’s leading human rights lawyer known for her campaign

against excesses by security forces in northeast India, says “the northeast is very distinct from the rest of India essentially because of race.” See Haksar, “Movement of

Self Assertion in the Northeast,” in Madhushree Dutta, Flavia Agnes and Neera

Adarkar, eds., The Nation, the State and Indian Identity (Kolkata: Stree, 1996).
220 SUBIR BHAUMIK

agents but not administered on a day-to-day basis. For the British, the

Northeast remained a frontier, never a constituent region of the

empire.2 Only Assam was integrated, its rich tea plantations and oilfields, its agricultural output and potential for industries providing

enough justification for direct administrative control.

Even in neighboring Burma, the British followed the same policy.

Lower Burma was administered directly from Kolkata, but the British

chose to extend “limited administration” to the hill regions of Upper

Burma. A rich plain like Bengal, Assam or Lower Burma, thriving on

settled agriculture, rich in minerals and oil, was worth direct control

despite native resistance. But a remote and difficult hill region was

better left to political agents, spies and missionaries to closely watch

rivals across strategic frontiers and convert the tribesmen to

Christianity to secure their loyalty toward the empire. If the plains fed

the economic sinews of the empire, the hills played the buffer against

rivals in the Great Game and provided fighters for the colonial army.

But though northeast India and Upper Burma remained a partially

administered frontier, some senior British officials, in the years before

the final withdrawal, proposed to integrate these two hill regions and

develop it as a “Crown Colony” to ensure a limited but strategic presence in rimland Asia.3 Due to strong nationalist opposition in both

India and Burma, the Crown Colony plan failed to materialize.

Guerrilla War in Rainbow Country

BEFORE THE ADVENT OF THE BRITISH, no empire based in mainland

India had controlled any part of what now makes up the country’s

Northeast. Migration from the Indian mainland was limited to

preachers and teachers, traders and soldiers of fortune. Mainland cultural influence was also limited to Assam, Manipur and Tripura, where

the kings adopted variants of Hinduism as the state religion. The

uninterrupted freedom from mainland conquest for a great length of

2. Alexander Mackenzie first articulated the concept of a “northeast” frontier. See

Mackenzie, History of the Relations of the Government with the Hill Tribes of the Northeast

Frontier of Bengal (1884), reprinted as the Northeast Frontier of India (Delhi: Mittal

Publishers, 1979).

3. J. P. Mills in 1942–43 first proposed the “unification of the hill regions of

Northeast India and Upper Burma.” Later Reginald Coupland fine-tuned the proposal that the area should be administered as a “Crown Colony” even after the British

withdrawal from the subcontinent. See Coupland, The Constitutional Problems of India,

Part 3 (London: Oxford University Press, 1944).
ETHNICITY, IDEOLOGY AND RELIGION: SEPARATIST MOVEMENTS IN 221

INDIA’S NORTHEAST

history, coupled with the region’s racial distinctiveness, gave its people

a sense of being different from those in mainland India. So, India’s

northeast territories “look less and less India and more and more like

the highland societies of Southeast Asia.”4

After Partition, the 225,000-square-kilometer region remains sandwiched between Chinese-Tibet, Burma, Bangladesh and Bhutan,

linked to the Indian mainland by a tenuous 21-kilometer wide “Siliguri

Corridor.” It is a polyglot region, its ethnic mosaic as diverse as the rest

of the country. Of the 5,633 communities listed by the “People of

India” project, 635 were categorized as tribals, of which 213 were

found in the northeast Indian states. This project also listed 325 languages—of which 175 belonging to the Tibeto-Burman and the MonKhmer family were found in northeast India. Some of the bigger

tribes, such as the Nagas, number around one million—the smallest,

such as the Mates of Manipur (population: eight thousand), have just

a few thousand left.5 Even the bigger tribes are often mere generic

identities rather than nationalities, without a common language (as in

the case of the Nagas), held together more in opposition to the Indian

nation-state than by an organic growth of national consciousness.

All of India’s major religions are practiced here, with Christianity

dominating the hills and Hinduism and Islam dominating the plains.

Animistic faiths and Lamaist sects are also found in the region.

Assamese and Bengali speakers are the most numerous—but linguistic preferences in the region have often changed due to political considerations and have sometimes concealed ethnic and religious divisions. In Assam, the migrant Muslim peasantry of Bengali origin

chose to register as Assamese speakers during every census after

Independence to melt into the local milieu. The Assamese also coopted Muslim migrants as “Na-Asasimyas” or neo-Assamese—if

only to ensure a predominant position of Assamese language in the

state; in such situations linguistic predominance is what ethnic domination is often built on. But when these Muslims were targeted by the

Assamese on a large scale during the 1983 riots, many of them started

registering as Bengali speakers, leading to a decrease in the number of

Assamese speakers in the 1991 and 2001 Census.

4. Peter Kunstadter, Highland Societies of Southeast Asia (New York: Alfred Knopf,

1967).

5. Subir Bhaumik, “Negotiating Access: Northeast India,” Refugee Survey Quarterly

19, no. 2 (2000).
222 SUBIR BHAUMIK

In the pre-British era, the population flow into what is now northeast India almost wholly originated from the east. Being closer to the

highlands of Burma and southwestern China than to the power centers of the Indian mainland, this region was exposed to a constant

flow of tribes and nationalities belonging to the Tibeto-Burman or

the Mon-Khmer stock, one settling down only to be overrun by the

subsequent wave. The incomplete process of racial assimilation, the

frequency of fresh migrations and the restrictive nature of empirebuilding in the region account for its current ethnic diversity.

But the direction of the population flow changed with the advent

of the British. The colonial masters brought peasants and agricultural

laborers, teachers and clerks from neighboring Bengal and Bihar to

open up Assam’s economy. The trickle became a tide, and the sweep

was soon to cover states like Tripura, where the Manikya kings offered

Bengali farmers “jungle-avadi” or forest clearance leases to popularize settled agriculture that would, in turn, increase the revenue.6 The

hill regions were protected by the Inner Line Regulations; the plains

and the Princely domains were not. The steady population flow from

mainland India, particularly from undivided Bengal, accentuated the

ethnic and religious diversity and introduced a nativist-outsider element to the simmering conflict.7

The Partition led to a rise in the flow of refugees and migrants from

East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). Tripura’s demography changed qualitatively in two decades, with the Bengalis becoming a clear majority.

The pace of demographic change was slightly slower in Assam than in

Tripura, but it was pronounced enough to upset the “sons of the soil,”

provoking both armed and unarmed protest movements. The fear that

other northeastern states would “go the Tripura way” has weighed

heavily on indigenous peoples and early settlers throughout the

Northeast and provoked the more militant of them to take up arms.8

6. J. B. Ganguly, “The Problem of Tribal Landlessness in Tripura,” in B. B. Datta

and M. N. Karna, eds., Land Relations in Northeast India (Delhi: Peoples Publishing

House, 1987).

7. See Myron Weiner, Sons of the Soil: Migration and Ethnic Conflict in India (Princeton:

Princeton University Press, 1978); Sajal Nag, Roots of Ethnic Conflict: Nationalities

Question in Northeast India (Delhi: Manohar, 1990).

8. Subodh Debbarma, vice-president of the Tribal Students Federation (TSF) of

Tripura, told a news conference in Guwahati, Assam, that “Assam would soon

become another Tripura, where the sons of the soil have become aliens within half a

century.” Reported in Sentinel daily newspaper (Guwahati), 3 June 2002.
ETHNICITY, IDEOLOGY AND RELIGION: SEPARATIST MOVEMENTS IN 223

INDIA’S NORTHEAST

This paper examines the complex interplay of ethnicity, ideology

and religious identity in shaping the insurgent movements in northeast India and examines their external linkages. The paper explores

the degree to which these factors have promoted or restricted the

growth of local nationalisms that could sustain the separatist movements in a position of challenge to the Indian nation-state.

Ethnicity, Guerrilla Warfare and the “Foreign Hand”

A TRADITION OF ARMED RESISTANCE to invaders developed in the

region even before the British came. The Ahom kings fought back the

Mughals, the Tripura kings fought back the Bengal sultans, but when

the British went into the Northeast, they encountered fierce resistance

in the Naga and the Mizo (then Lushai) hill regions in Manipur and in

what is now Meghalaya. The Naga and the Mizo tribesmen resorted

to guerrilla war, holding up much stronger British forces by grit and

ingenious use of the terrain until, in some places of the Mizo hills,

entire villages were “populated only by widows.”9

After the British left, the Indian nation-state faced uprisings in

Tripura almost immediately after Independence and in the Naga Hills

since the mid-fifties. The Communists, who led the tribal uprising in

Tripura, called off armed struggle in the early fifties and joined

Indian-style electoral politics. But since the 1980 ethnic riots, Tripura

has witnessed periodic bouts of tribal militancy, with the Bengali

refugee population its main target. The Naga uprising, the strongest

ethnic insurrection in northeast India, has been weakened by repeated

splits on tribal lines. Talks between the Indian government and the

stronger faction of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland

(NSCN), started in 1997, are continuing, but a possible resumption of

Naga insurgency remains a worst-case scenario for Delhi in the

Northeast.

Armed uprisings erupted in the Mizo Hills following a famine in

1966. A year later, guerrilla bands became active in Manipur and

Tripura. Since most of these rebel groups found safe bases, weapons

and training in what was then East Pakistan, the defeat of the

Pakistani armed forces in 1971 adversely affected the rebels from

northeast India. For nearly seven years, they were deprived of a major

9. Suhas Chatterjee, Mizoram under the British Rule (Delhi: Mittal Publishers, 1985).
224 SUBIR BHAUMIK

staging post in a contiguous foreign nation. China, which trained and

armed several batches of Naga, Mizo and Meitei since 1966, had

stopped help by the early 1980s. By then, however, Bangladesh’s military rulers, foisted to power by the bloody coup that killed the country’s founder Sheikh Mujibur Rehman, had revived the Pakistani policy of sheltering, arming and training rebel groups from northeast

India. Almost all the separatist groups in the Northeast—Nagas,

Mizos, Meiteis, Tripuris, and now even those from Meghalaya—have

subsequently received shelter and support in Bangladesh. On the

other hand, Indian agencies used the Northeast to arm and train, support and shelter the Bengali guerrillas against Pakistan in 1971 and

then the tribal insurgents from Chittagong Hill Tracts against

Bangladesh.10

Since the 1980s, Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) has

also used Bangladesh to establish contact with some of the rebel

groups from Northeast India. A few of them have received

weapons, specialized training in explosives and sabotage, and even

funds. Surrendered insurgents have said the ISI has encouraged

them to take on economic targets such as oil refineries and depots,

gas pipelines, rail tracks and road bridges.11 Burma and Bhutan have

also been used as sanctuaries by some of these rebel groups but

there is little evidence of official patronage from governments of

those countries. There are some unconfirmed reports of Chinese

assistance to the NSCN, the Meitei rebel groups and the United

Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA).12

10. For details of Chinese and Pakistani and then Bangladeshi support to separatist

groups from northeast India, see Bhaumik, Insurgent Crossfire: Northeast India (Delhi:

Lancers, 1996). Also see Sanjoy Hazarika, Strangers of the Mist: Tales of War and Peace

from India’s Northeast (Delhi: Viking, 1994).

11. Munim Nobis, former “foreign secretary” of ULFA, quoted in Hazarika,

Strangers of the Mist. The Group of Ministers (GOM) report in India on security, intelligence and border management categorically mentions use of Bangladesh territory

by the ISI to “destabilize” India’s northeastern region. Report published in 2000.

12. Surrendered ULFA leader Luit Deuri told this writer in a BBC interview on 19

January 2001 that a Chinese agency codenamed “Blackhouse” had supplied them

huge consignments of weapons through Bhutanese territory. Much of the weapons

the NSCN initially procured from the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia between 1988 and

1995 are believed to have been routed to it by the Chinese agencies, the use of the

surrogate designed to conceal the origin of the supply. Recent seizures of a huge

quantity of weapons from the Meitei rebel groups by the Burmese army in

November 2001 from around Tamu—nearly 1,600 pieces of automatic weapons—

have prompted speculations about the supply from January 1990.
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INDIA’S NORTHEAST

By the early 1980s, the whole region was gripped by large-scale violence. There were fierce riots in Tripura and Assam. Separatist movements intensified in Mizoram, Nagaland and Manipur, later spreading

to both Assam and Tripura. India’s young Prime Minister Rajiv

Gandhi took the initiative to arrive at settlements with the militant

students of Assam, the separatist Mizo National Front (MNF) and

the Tribal National Volunteers of Tripura. But other insurgencies

continued and new ones emerged. If the separatist movements such

as those of the Nagas and the Mizos had challenged federal authority, the recent insurgencies of the Bodos, the Hmars, the Karbis and

the Dimasas directly confront the regional power centers—the new

states of Northeast. If the Nagas and the Mizos fought for a separate

country and finally settled for a separate state within India, the smaller

ethnicities such as the Bodos or the Hmars fight for autonomous

homelands they want carved out of the states such as Assam and

Mizoram.

Very often in the Northeast, a negotiated settlement with a separatist movement has opened the ethnic fissures within it. The Hmars,

the Maras and the Lais fought shoulder to shoulder with the Lushais

against the Indian security forces during the twenty years of insurgency led by the MNF. But twenty years of bonding through the

shared experience of guerrilla warfare failed to develop a greater

“Mizo” identity. The Bodos, the Karbis and the Dimasas all joined the

Assam movement to expel “foreigners” and “infiltrators.” But after

settlements with the Indian government, they felt the Assamese “had

taken the cake and left us the crumbs.”13 The result: fresh agitations,

often sliding into violent insurgencies, spearheaded by smaller ethnicities demanding separate homelands. The ethnic imbalance in powersharing has often caused retribalization, which has had its own cascading effect in restricting the growth of local nationalisms that could

challenge the Indian state.14

13. The late Upendranath Brahma (former president of the All Bodo Students

Union), interview by author, Agartala, 16 April 1988. Bhaumik analyzed this phenomenon of minor tribes and clans challenging the preponderance of the bigger ones in

“Northeast India: The Second Ethnic Explosion” (paper presented at the Queen

Elizabeth House, Oxford University, 22 January 1990).

14. Bhaumik, “Northeast: Evolution of a Post-Colonial Region” in Partha

Chatterjee, ed., Wages of Freedom: Fifty Years of the Indian Nation-State (Delhi: Oxford

University Press, 1998).
226 SUBIR BHAUMIK

After fighting India for forty years, Naga “nationalism” remains an

incomplete process, its growth retarded by at least three major splits

within the separatist movement, mostly along tribal lines. Even a

China-trained leader like Muivah, a Tangkhul Naga from Manipur

state, has no hesitation branding Angamis as “reactionary traitors”

and his own tribe, the Tangkhuls—who form the bulk of the

NSCN—as “revolutionary patriots.”15 On the other hand, the

Tangkhuls who dominate the NSCN are seen in the Nagaland state as

“Kaccha Nagas” (impure Nagas).16 The trend has been no different

in Mizoram or Manipur. The Kuki demand for a separate homeland

that pitted them against the Nagas has driven some smaller clans away

from them and led to the emergence of a separate “Zomi” identity.

Tribes such as the Paites prefer to be called “Zomis” and their militias have sided with the NSCN against the Kuki militant groups. The

Hmars, Lais and the Maras have joined the Chakmas and the Reangs

to challenge the Mizos.

In Tripura, the Mizos in the northern Jampui hills demand a

regional council within the Tribal Areas Autonomous Council of

Tripura to preserve their “distinct identity,” whereas their ethnic kinsmen in Mizoram are wary of similar demands by smaller ethnicities.

The Reangs in Tripura resent attempts by the Tripuris to impose the

Kokborok language on them. And they look back at the brutal suppression of Reang rebellions by the Tripuri kings as “evidence of ethnic domination that cannot be accepted anymore.”17 These intratribal tensions have weakened efforts to promote a compact “Borok”

or tribal identity against perceived Bengali domination.

India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, excluded the

Northeast from the process of linguistic reorganization that Indian

states were subjected to in the mid-fifties. Stress on language and ethnicity, he reckoned, would open a Pandora’s box for a remote, sensitive region such as the Northeast. So he let the hill regions stay with

15. Thuingaleng Muivah (NSCN’s general secretary), “Polarisation,” NSCN document, published from Oking (headquarters), 1985.

16. Bhaumik, Nagas, India and the Northeast (London: Minority Rights Group, 1994).

17. Dhananjoy Reang (founder of the NLFT), interview by author, Kumaritilla,

Agartala, 16 October 1999. Reang was earlier vice president of the Tribal National

Volunteers (TNV) and a pioneer in the tribal guerrilla movements of Tripura. But

now he bitterly complains of how Reangs have been intimidated, their women raped

and men killed by the NLFT.
ETHNICITY, IDEOLOGY AND RELIGION: SEPARATIST MOVEMENTS IN 227

INDIA’S NORTHEAST

Assam, and the two former princely states—Manipur and Tripura—

were administered as Union Territories from Delhi. But the Naga

insurrection forced Delhi to create the Nagaland state to take the

steam out of the armed uprising. Once a million Nagas got a separate

state, other ethnicities, some more populous than the Nagas, were to

make similar demands. When refused, they would do what the Nagas

did—challenge the Indian state with arms.

In the five decades after Partition, the Northeast has been India’s

most sustained insurgency theater. The intensity and the focus of the

movements have changed over the years, and a number of the movements have been co-opted by the Indian state through power-sharing

arrangements. But the call to arms has remained a popular option

with the battling ethnicities of the Northeast—either in challenging

Delhi or while settling scores among themselves. And quite often, a

number of armed movements in the region have used separatist rhetoric, despite being essentially autonomist or nativist in character,

merely to attract attention in Delhi.18

Once India carved out the state of Nagaland in 1963, Assam’s role

as a sub-regional hegemon was threatened, its position as India’s political subcontractor in the Northeast destined to end. Within a decade

of the creation of the Nagaland state, Delhi had to affect a political

reorganization of the whole region, through which three new administrative units were formed. These three became full-fledged states in

the 1980s, as India desperately sought to control violent ethnic insurgencies in the area. On the other hand, the breakup of Assam not only

produced fresh demands for ethnic homelands within what remained

of it, but it also drove a section of the ethnic Assamese to insurgency.

With the hills gone, the Assamese turned to their valleys to find they

were fast becoming a minority there. The anti-foreigner movement

rocked Assam between 1979 and 1985 and led to large-scale, free-forall types of ethnic riots. The ULFA, now the leading separatist organization in Assam, was born out of this movement. Its initial credo was

ethnic cleansing—it sought by the force of arms to drive the “foreigners” (read: migrants from Bangladesh) out of Assam.

18. TNV fought for an “independent Tripura” but came to a settlement with Delhi

in 1988 after it agreed to reserve a mere three additional legislative assembly seats for

tribals. Such instances of using “secessionism” more as rhetoric than as a matter of

conviction abound in the Northeast.
228 SUBIR BHAUMIK

But over time, the ULFA’s politics has changed. Sheltered in

Bangladesh, Burma and Bhutan, and having to face the military might

of the Indian state, the ULFA has denounced the Assam movement

as “one that was led by juveniles, who failed to understand that migration per se was not bad and had helped many countries like the U.S.A.

to become what they are today.” The ULFA says that the Bengalis—

Hindus and Muslims alike—have “immensely contributed to Assam”

and “those of them who feel themselves as part of Assam should be

treated as its legitimate dwellers.”19 It is difficult to ascertain how

much of this policy shift—projecting itself as the “representative of

the Asombashis” (dwellers of Assam) rather than the Asomiyas

(Assamese)—stems from tactical considerations such as seeking shelter in Bangladesh and gaining the support of Assam’s huge Bengali

population, and how much of it is a genuine attempt to rise above the

ethnic considerations to forge a secular, multi-ethnic identity to fight

Delhi.

But the ULFA is being pragmatic only in trying to project territory

and a multi-ethnic credo as the basis for a future independent Assam.

It is only acknowledging the polyglot nature of the state of Assam—

and the rest of the region—despite its broad racial difference with the

Indian mainland. It is seeking to restore the multi-ethnic and assimilative nature of the Assamese nationality formation process, which was

ruptured by racial-linguistic chauvinism of the upper-caste Assamese

power-holder elites in the 1960s, as a result of which tribe after tribe

exercised the exit option from Assam, fueling the demands of an

ever-increasing number of ethnicity-based states in northeast India.

Significantly, though the ULFA has targeted Hindi-speaking populations for large-scale attacks after 1990, it has avoided any attack on

Bengalis, Nepalis or tribal groups that it sees as potential allies in the

struggle against “Indian colonialism.” The Hindi speakers have been

seen as “Indian populations supportive of the colonial rule.”20 But its

growing lack of faith in ethnicity as the basis for its political militancy

stems from a realization that there could be no “pure ethnic homeland” in Assam or anywhere else in northeast India. A broad-based

19. Central Publicity Department, “Probojon Loi” (Regarding Infiltration), document issued by the Central Publicity Department (ULFA, 1992).

20. The Assam Tiger Force (ATF) claimed responsibility for attacks on the Hindi

speakers in Assam, but Assam police say it is certain the ATF was a ULFA front.
ETHNICITY, IDEOLOGY AND RELIGION: SEPARATIST MOVEMENTS IN 229

INDIA’S NORTHEAST

Assamese nationalism, unless it caters to the distinct ethnic aspirations of the tribes and other communities in Assam, is a non-starter.

The ULFA therefore, shrewdly enough, projects a future independent Assam as a federal Assam, where Bodo, Karbi, Dimasa, Rabha,

Lalung or Mishing, or even Bengali homelands can exist, so long as the

“basic values of Assamese society and culture are accepted.”21 A security adviser to the Assam government describes this as “a clever ploy

to broaden the support base of the ULFA insurgency against India.”22

But Assam’s political leadership now talks the same language, of the

need to accept the polyglot character of Assam, and of satisfying the

aspirations of the ethnic, linguistic and religious minorities, if not for

anything else, only to stave off another breakup of the state.23

So, though ethnicity has been the mainstay of separatist movements

and often formed the basis for the creation of political-administrative

units in northeast India, its self-corrosive propensities have restricted

the growth of local nationalisms strong enough to confront Delhi.

Meghalaya came into being as a tribal state; today the three major

tribes, Khasis, Jaintias and Garos, fight for the spoils of political

office on ethnic lines, while some militant organizations such as the

Achik National Volunteer Council are fighting for a separate state for

the Garos. Mizoram has problems with its ethnic minorities. The

Reang and Chakma tribes complain of ethnic and religious persecution and allege that the dominant Mizos, almost wholly Christian,

want to convert them to Christianity and the Mizo way of life. The

Lais and Maras want to join the Reangs and the Chakmas to form a

separate unit, a Union Territory, which they want to be administered

from the Centre.24 The Naga-Kuki clashes throughout northeast

India that left hundreds dead in the 1980s and 1990s raised the

specter of Bosnia or Kosovo, of how conflicting homeland demands

could lead to ethnic cleansing in pursuit of the impossible—creation

of “pure ethnic states.”

21. Freedom, ULFA’s weekly e-newsletter, 25 May 2001.

22. Jaideep Saikia (Security Advisor to Government of Assam), Mukhomukhi (Faceto-Face), a chat show hosted on Doordarshan’s Seventh Channel (Kolkata), Rainbow

Productions, 17 February 2002.

23. Pradyut Bordoloi (Assam’s Minister of State for Home), interview by author,

BBC World Service, 29 March 2002. Bordoloi described Assam as a “multi-racial, multiethnic, multi-lingual and a multi-religious entity.”

24. Memorandum jointly submitted by the Lai, Mara and Chakma district councils

to the Indian government on 17 August 2000.
230 SUBIR BHAUMIK

Independence or the Indian Revolution? 

IN SOME PARTS of what became India’s Northeast, Communist parties

subtly articulated ethnic issues to create a support base among the

indigenous tribespeople. In Tripura, the Communists played on the

tribal’s sense of loss and marginalization following the end of sovereign princely rule and the kingdom’s merger with India. Having first

secured popularity in the tribal areas through a powerful literacy

movement (Jana Shiksha or Mass Literacy), the Communist Party of

India (CPI) absorbed into its fold the main tribal organization, Gana

Mukti Parishad, at the peak of its nationwide armed struggle in 1948.

The CPI adopted the Parishad’s political program as its own on questions of tribal rights, loss of tribal lands and the threat to the distinctive social organization of the tribespeople but avoided demanding

secession. Hundreds of Parishad activists and leaders turned into

Communist guerrillas and fought “for the Indian revolution” rather

than for an independent homeland like the Nagas.25

But when the CPI gave up armed struggle and purged those advocating the “adventurist line,” the tribal guerrillas in the Communist

force, Shanti Sena (Peace Army), gave up their weapons and returned

to normal life. And taking advantage of the situation, the Congressdominated state administration started resettling the newly arrived

Bengali migrants in large numbers in the tribal-compact areas of

Tripura. Since the tribespeople were largely supportive of the

Communists, the Congress wanted to alter the demographic profile of

the constituencies by promoting the organized rehabilitation of the

Bengali migrants. It did help the Congress—it won both the parliament seats in 1967 after losing them to the Communists in three successive elections—but as the tribals lost out in the number’s game,

they lost faith in the Communist party and began to turn to militant

ethnic politics.26

Having first manipulated ethnic concerns to build up a party

nucleus and political base, the Communists succumbed to electoral

concerns in Tripura. With other tribal parties and insurgent organizations surfacing to articulate the ethnic issues, the Communists have

25. For details on the Communist uprising in Tripura, see Bhaumik, Insurgent

Crossfire, and Harihar Bhattacharya, Communism in Tripura (Delhi: Ajanta, 1999).

26. Bhaumik, ibid.
ETHNICITY, IDEOLOGY AND RELIGION: SEPARATIST MOVEMENTS IN 231

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fallen back on their support base among the Bengalis. Since 1978,

they have won all but one of the state assembly elections, but their

popular base in the tribal areas has taken a beating. In 2000, for the

first time, the ruling Communists lost the state’s Tribal Areas

Autonomous District Council to a militant tribal party, the Indigenous

Peoples Front of Tripura (IPFT).

The IPFT enjoyed the backing of the separatist National Liberation

Front of Tripura (NLFT). The NLFT’s rhetoric is secessionist but its

leaders have said they are open to negotiations on an “appropriate

power-sharing arrangement for maximum possible tribal control in

the state assembly, the autonomous district council and on the state’s

resources.”27 The IPFT has now been renamed Indigenous

Nationalist Front of Tripura, with two more tribal parties joining it.

One of them is the Tripura Upajati Juba Samity (TUJS), the first

exclusively tribal party in the state, and the Tribal National Volunteers

(TNV), which led a bloody insurgent movement targeting Bengali settlers and the security forces between 1978 and 1988. The ruling

Communists admit that they face a stiff challenge in the next state

assembly elections in 2003 with the INFT tying up with the Congress,

which typically wins some seats in Bengali areas.

The Communists in Tripura used a tribal organization and its leadership to promote their complex ideology in a backward agrarian society where slash-and-burn agriculture was still prevalent and industries

were virtually absent. The Ganamukti Parishad had retained its distinct character even after its merger with the Communist Party organization, but during the two decades that followed the end of the

Communist armed struggle, it played a much reduced role in influencing the Communist political agenda. Having widened their political

base to win elections, the Communists tried to overlook the ethnic

issues until they were forced to support the tribal autonomy movement in the 1980s. The INFT has moved into the vacuum, aggressively ethnicizing the state’s political discourse and questioning the relevance of Communist ideology for the tribespeople. Unlike the TUJS,

which accepted the role of a junior partner in the coalition with the

27. Nayanbashi Jamatia (NLFT leader), telephonic interview by author, used in

BBC Bengali service on 3 March 2002. Jamatia said the NLFT leadership had communicated its desire to negotiate with Delhi through the Assam Rifles, which, he

admitted, had been in touch with them.
232 SUBIR BHAUMIK

Congress that ruled Tripura between 1988 and 1993, the INFT is

likely to dominate the coalition because it is likely to win more seats

than the Congress.

In Manipur and Assam, the Communists continue to win a few

seats in the state assembly. They have strong pockets of support that

were once built up through the struggle for peasant rights, but they

share power only as minor partners in regional coalitions. In Manipur,

the CPI has joined the Congress-led ruling coalition formed in

February 2002 to keep the BJP out of power in the state. But in

Assam, it opposed the Congress and came to power by teaming up

with the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP), a party that grew out of the

“anti-foreigner” agitation of the 1980s, which the Communists had

opposed as “parochial” and “chauvinist.”28 The AGP later ditched the

Communists and forged an alliance with the BJP before the 2001 state

assembly elections.

But the Communist ideology, in its Maoist manifestations, did find

takers among the secessionist groups in the Northeast. The People’s

Liberation Army (PLA) of Manipur, throughout the 1980s, said it was

“part of the Indian revolution,” its stated mission to “bring down the

bandit government of Delhi.”29 Only much later did it limit itself to

fight as the “vanguard of the struggle for the independence of

Manipur.”30 Its reading of Indian polity as being “semi-colonial and

semi-feudal” bears striking resemblance with the class character analysis of the Indian state done by Indian Maoist groups such as People’s

War or the Maoist Communist Center (MCC).

The PLA’s core leadership was trained in China. Though the ethnic

rebel armies of the Naga and the Mizo hills had received military

training in China before them, the Chinese only tried to politicize a

few Naga leaders such as Thuingaleng Muivah, the present general

secretary of the NSCN. Muivah says he had some exposure to

Marxist-Leninist ideology before he led the first batch of Naga rebels

to China in 1966 at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution.31 But

there was no attempt to politicize the Mizos or most of the Nagas,

who were devout Christians. China merely wanted to use them against

28. Peoples Democracy, mouthpiece of the CPI (M), 27 March 1981.

29. Dawn (mouthpiece of the PLA of Manipur), 3 June 1980.

30. Thuingaleng Muivah, “Never Say Die,” interview by author, Mannerplaw,

Thailand, published in Sunday magazine, Kolkata, June 16–22, 1996.

31. Ibid.
ETHNICITY, IDEOLOGY AND RELIGION: SEPARATIST MOVEMENTS IN 233

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India to counterbalance the continued Indian support to the Tibetans.

But the PLA’s core leadership—the first batch of eighteen “Ojhas”

(pioneers)—went through heavy political training. The Chinese had

hopes they would coordinate their struggles with the Indian Maoist

groups and strengthen the cause of the Indian revolution.32

Later, ULFA, a separatist organization committed to Assam’s liberation from India, had voiced the Marxist-Leninist (M-L) “colonial

thesis” of India’s peripheral regions, such as Assam being an “internal colony” of India. Individual ULFA leaders, some of whom came

from left political backgrounds, have expressed admiration for CPI

(M-L) leader Charu Majumdar, hailing him as the “first real hope of

the Indian revolution.”33 The Autonomous State Demands

Committee, which wants an autonomous state for Karbi tribesmen in

central Assam, have close connections with the CPI (M-L)—at least

two of their senior leaders are in the CPI (M-L)’s central committee.

But the ASDC has lost out on influence to an armed insurgent group

in the area, the United Peoples Democratic Solidarity (UPDS). This is

a repeat of the Tripura scenario—pro-Left organizations seeking to

use ethnic issues to build up influence, but finally losing out to groups

directly articulating ethnic concerns and keen to use the distinctive

ethnicity as a plank for political power-sharing or protest.

The Maoist groups in mainland India, despite their very limited

presence in the Northeast, support the “struggle of the oppressed

nationalities” in the region.34 In private, Maoist leaders differentiate

between those struggles led by a “conscious leadership” (meaning

those who repose faith in Marxist-Leninism) and the rest.35 The

Maoists are perhaps aware of the potential for a tactical understanding with the ethnic separatist groups in the battle against the Indian

state—but they have their preferences. The ULFA in Assam, the PLA

in Manipur, or even an NSCN led by Thuingaleng Muivah would be

more acceptable to them than a National Liberation Front of Tripura,

32. Nameirakpam Bisheswar Singh (former PLA chief), interview by author at his

Babupara residence in Imphal, 16 May 1986.

33. Arun Mahanta, an important ULFA functionary in a personal e-mail to the

author, made this comment about Charu Majumdar on 6 May 2000.

34. Biplobi Yug (Revolutionary Age), monthly journal of the Peoples War group’s

Bengal unit, 18 August 2001.

35. Comrade Sagar (real name: Niranjan Ghose), Peoples War’s central publicity

secretary, interview by author, BBC Radio World Today, 19 May 2001.
234 SUBIR BHAUMIK

which not only pursues violent ethnic cleansing against Bengalis and

smaller tribes such as the Reangs and the Chakmas, but also declares

“evangelization” of the tribes of Tripura as a key objective.

The Cross, Saffron and Crescent 

THOUGH ETHNICITY AND IDEOLOGY—the former more than the latter—remain major influences on separatist and autonomist groups in

northeast India, religion is increasingly beginning to influence the

political agenda of some of these groups. Religious distinctiveness,

when coterminous with ethnicity, exacerbated the sense of otherness

in the Naga and the Mizo hills. Since the tribespeople in both these

former head-hunting hill regions had been largely converted to

Christianity since the last quarter of the nineteenth century, they felt

emotionally alienated from the Indian cultural ethos, which was often

equated with the “Hindu entity.”36 Christianity reinforced and complemented, rather than supplanted, the sense of distinct ethnicity and

otherness among the Nagas and the Mizos. Separatist groups such as

the Naga National Council (NNC) and the MNF laced their separatist

rhetoric with free use of Biblical imageries—and the MNF even

christened its military operations (e.g., its first uprising on 28 February

1966 was referred to as “Operation Jericho”). But rebel regiments

were named after tribal heroes such as Zampuimanga rather than after

Biblical heroes.37

When the NNC decided to send the first batch of Naga rebels to

China, the powerful Baptist Church was upset with the rebel leaders.

The NNC as well as the NSCN, which is led by the China-trained

Thuingaleng Muivah (who continues to revere Mao Zedong and

Zhou Enlai as the “greatest leaders of the century”),38 have subsequently made conscious efforts to appease the church. Muivah, much

36. The NSCN manifesto says: “Though as a doctrine, Hinduism is not a recruiting

force, it is backed by a Hindu government. The forces of Hinduism, viz., the numberless Indian troops, the retail and wholesale dealers, the teachers and instructors, the

intelligentsia, the prophets of non-violence, the gamblers and the snake-charmers, the

Hindi songs and Hindi films, the rasgulla makers and the Gita, are all arrayed for the

mission to supplant the Christian God, the eternal God of the Universe. The challenge

is serious.” The Manifesto was issued from the Oking, the NSCN headquarters inside

Burma, on 31 January 1980 by its chairman Issac Chisi Swu.

37. Nirmal Nibedon, Mizoram: The Dagger Brigade (Delhi: Lancers, 1983).

38. Muivah, interview in Sunday.
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less of a practicing Christian than is the NSCN chairman Issac Chisi

Swu (who prays regularly), was the one to coin the phrase, “Nagaland

for Christ,” which found its way into the NSCN’s lexicon. This writer

found the “Nagaland for Christ” slogan boldly hanging over the

churches in the NSCN camps where Sunday services were regularly

performed by the NSCN’s “Chaplain Kilonser” (religious affairs minister) Vedai Chakesang and his team.39 Though personally attracted by

Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong thought, Muivah was quick to

see that most of his leaders and fighters were devout Christians, and

that religion and ethnicity could complement each other to foment

separatism among the Nagas.

The MNF was much more serious about its Christian identity and

much more particular about fostering religiosity. Senior leaders such

as Zoramthanga, then MNF vice president (and now chief minister of

Mizoram state), personally conducted church services in the rebel

camps. Many MNF leaders became preachers after their return to

normal life. Consumption of alcohol and drugs, so easily available in

the Northeast because of its proximity to Burma, was strictly prohibited among the guerrillas, who were encouraged to propagate their

“evil influences” to the rest of the society.40

But MNF chief Laldenga, after becoming chief minister following

the political settlement with the Indian government, snubbed the

church when it started pressurising his government to ban the sale of

alcoholic drinks. Laldenga did not want to lose one of the most

important sources of revenue for his government. The Congress took

advantage and proclaimed in its election manifesto its commitment to

promote “Christian Socialism” in Mizoram.41 The MNF was defeated

in the ensuing elections in 1989 with the church’s support. After

Laldenga’s death, Zoramthanga took over as party president and

repaired the MNF’s relations with the church. He assured the church

leaders of his commitment to continue with prohibition and the

MNF is said to have won the last state assembly elections with church

support.

39. Bhaumik, “Brothers in Arms,” Sunday, 20 June 1987.

40. MNF “order” no. 3 (1986), entitled “Eradication of Drugs and Liquor in Mizo

Society,” issued to all units of the organization.

41. Congress (I) manifesto for the 1989 Mizoram state assembly elections, issued

in Aizawl, Mizoram.
236 SUBIR BHAUMIK

In neighboring Tripura, first-generation Christian converts constituted a large percentage of the leadership and the fighters of the

Tribal National Volunteers (TNV). Its chairman, Bijoy Hrangkhawl,

remains a devout Christian. Non-Christian tribesmen who joined the

TNV were encouraged, though not forced, to convert. But the state’s

strongest rebel group now, the NLFT, insists on conversion of nonChristian recruits. Some of those who have broken away from the

NLFT—such as its former area commander Nayanbashi Jamatia—

are Hindus or animists who say they strongly resent “the leadership’s

interference with personal faiths and religions.”42

The NLFT, in keeping with its stated objective of turning Tripura

into “the land of Christ,” has also issued fiats to tribal communities

to convert to Christianity as a whole.43 That has provoked the predominantly animist Reangs and the Hindu Jamatia tribesmen to resist

them. Even after the NLFT “banned” the worship of Durga

(Goddess of Power), Saraswati (Goddess of Learning) and Laxmi

(Goddess of Wealth) in the hills, the spiritual head of the Jamatia

tribe, “Hada Okrah” Bikram Bahadur Jamatia performed the Pujas

(worship).44 But his followers had to face attacks and Bikram Bahadur

Jamatia escaped two assassination attempts. Some leading tribal

priests, such as Shanti Kali, were killed by the NLFT; even their womenfolk were raped by the rebels. On 7 August 1999, the NLFT kidnapped four senior leaders of the Hindu nationalist Rashtriya

Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). All four are said to be dead. The NLFT

allegedly enjoys the support of the Tripura Baptist Christian Union

(TBCU). According to TBCU sources, both voluntary and forced

conversions to Christianity have increased among the tribespeople in

Tripura since the TNV, and then the NLFT, intensified its activity.45

For many tribesmen, Christianity is a source of a new, extra-territorial

42. Nayanbashi Jamatia (NLFT leader).

43. The Constitution of the NLFT, “Sacrifice for Liberation,” issued on 22

December 1991, talks of its armed wing as the “National Holy Army.”

44. Statement of the “Hada Okrah” Bikram Bahadur Jamatia, reported in Dainik

Sambad, Bengali daily of Agartala, Tripura, 16 September 2000.

45. TBCU sources say the number of Christian converts has gone up sharply since

the TNV and NLF started operating in the hilly interiors of Tripura. In 1981,

Tripura’s Christian population stood at 24,872. By 1991, it had risen to 46,472. TBCU

sources say there are now nearly 90,000 Christians in the state, almost wholly made

up of converts. The TBCU’s mouthpiece, the Baptist Herald, details the major acts of

conversions.
ETHNICITY, IDEOLOGY AND RELIGION: SEPARATIST MOVEMENTS IN 237

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identity providing confidence to challenge the dominant cultures of

the Bengali migrants rather than being absorbed by such cultures.

In Manipur, the Meitei separatists, mostly born Hindus, advocated

a revival of the state’s leading pre-Hindu faith, Sanamahi. They also

tried to undermine the use of the Bengali script for the Meitei language and promote the Sanamahi script to encourage ethnic revivalism for strengthening the appeal of the separatist movement. But

there were hardly any reports of conversion to Christianity among the

Meitei rebel groups. They undermined the role of religion, either in

practice or by abnegation.

In Assam, the ULFA stayed silent on the question of religion, and

its guerrillas played a visible role in containing religious riots in the

Hojai region of the Nagaon district.46 The ULFA has been accused

of recruiting Muslims of Bengali origin in greater numbers in the last

few years, apparently to appease sentiments in Bangladesh, where

Muslims continue to find refuge. But this writer has been to several

ULFA camps and has interacted with a wide cross-section of ULFA

leaders and guerrillas—some still fighting and others surrendered—

and has hardly seen any religious activity in the camps. Hindu, Muslim

and Christian cadres of the ULFA participate in Assamese festivals

such as Bihu, which has more to do with harvests in what is still

essentially a peasant society.47

In Tripura, where the NLFT has run into stiff resistance not only

from Hindu tribesmen but also from left-minded rebel groups such

as the All Tripura Tiger Force (ATTF), religion has also played a divisive role in the Bodo separatist movement in Assam. The National

Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) is predominantly Christian.

It supports the church’s demand for the use of the Roman script for

the Bodo language—similar to the NLFT’s support for a similar

church demand to use Roman script for the Tripuri Kokborok language—and its guerrillas have killed many Bodo intellectuals, cultural

icons and writers who oppose the demand. Their victims include a

46. “ULFA jangira bandhuk uchiye danga thamalen” (ULFA stops riots at the point

of gun), a report in Ananda Bazar Patrika, Bengali daily of Kolkata, 21 December

1992.

47. This writer has extensively visited a number of ULFA camps in Bhutan and

Burma as well as those of other northeast Indian rebel groups. Absence of religious

activity is conspicuous in ULFA camps and those of the Meitei rebel groups.
238 SUBIR BHAUMIK

former president of the Bodo Sahitya Sabha (Bodo Literary Society).

The All Bodo Students Union (ABSU), the Bodo Peoples Action

Committee (BPAC) and the underground Bodoland Liberation Tigers

Force (BLTF) remain committed to the “traditional Bodo way of life”

and oppose the demand for using Roman script for the Bodo language.

The overt Christian religiosity of some separatist groups has provoked Hindu nationalist groups such as the RSS to see a “foreign

hand” behind the ethnic rebellions of northeast India. RSS leaders,

upset with both the spread of Christianity in ever-new areas of the

Northeast as well as rebel attacks on their leaders and institutions supported by them, refer to the church’s use of “liberation theology” slogans like “To Christ through People’s Movements” (used by some

Baptist denominations in the Northeast) as evidence of its connivance with ethnic separatism.48 To counteract this alleged nexus, the

RSS is trying to infiltrate a number of ethnic movements, mostly

spearheaded by smaller tribes who oppose imposition of Christianity

by bigger ethnic groups and rebel armies. Along the Tripura-Mizoram

border, the RSS has a strong presence in the camps where the Reangs,

displaced by violent evangelistic Mizo groups, have taken shelter.

There have been reports that the Reang rebel group, Bru National

Liberation Front (BNLF), has received backing from the RSS—as

have the Jamatias opposing the NLFT. The RSS has even asked the

federal home ministry to provide arms and funds to the Reang and

the Jamatia groups. But most of the organizations supported by the

RSS represent mainland Indian communities.

The Congress had also used the religious factor in the Northeast

when it built up a Zeliang Naga leader, Rani Gaidiliu, to counter the

Naga separatist movement. The Rani’s followers practiced the animistic Haraka faith and were opposed to Christianity. But unlike the

RSS, which sees religion as the major cause of the ethnic divide in the

Northeast, the Congress used religion to promote challenges to separatist movements and weaken them by simultaneously playing on the

religious (Haraka versus Christian) and the ethnic (Zeliangs as different from Nagas) divide.49 Its stand on the religious question in the

48. V. Sudarshan (RSS chief), interview by author, Kolkata, 20 January 2002.

49. S. C. Dev, Nagaland, the Untold Story (Kolkata: Glory Printers, 1988).
ETHNICITY, IDEOLOGY AND RELIGION: SEPARATIST MOVEMENTS IN 239

INDIA’S NORTHEAST

Northeast has been governed by electoral concerns—from the use of

the sects of Anukul Thakur and Anandmoyi Ma, Hindu cult figures, to

win the Bengali Hindu vote in Tripura, to the use of Pir of Badarpur

or Jamaat leader Assad Madani in Assam to win the Muslim vote, to

the championing of “Christian Socialism” in Mizoram—and its use of

religious issues in the Northeast smacks of rank opportunism.

But though the RSS has been stridently vocal about the church-separatist nexus, its preoccupation with the emerging threat of Islamic

radicalism in the Northeast and the rest of the country has occasionally prompted its leaders to try and promote “Hindi-Christian understanding” in the region. The RSS chief V. Sudarshan recently told a

news conference that “the resurgence of militant Islam based in

neighboring Bangladesh and continuous infiltration from that country were the biggest threat to the region that Hindus and Christians

must fight together.”50 But efforts to bridge the Hindu-Christian

divide in the Northeast by playing up the issue of illegal infiltration

from Bangladesh were not very successful after Hindu fundamentalists elsewhere in India attacked Christian preachers, including the brutal murder of Australian priest Graham Staines, which evoked a lot of

protest from the Christians in the Northeast.

By the time India was partitioned, the Muslim population in northeast India was mostly concentrated in Assam with a small sprinkling

in Tripura. Assam, similar to undivided Bengal, was ruled by a Muslim

League government during the Second World War. During that phase,

a large number of peasants from Eastern Bengal were encouraged to

settle down on the “chars” (river islands) of the Brahmaputra and its

tributaries. But just before Partition, Sylhet was detached from Assam

and given to Pakistan. Some Hindu leaders felt that “amputation of

the diseased arm” had been good for Assam.51 But the inflow of

Muslim migrants to Assam has continued even after the breakup of

Pakistan. Some religious parties in Bangladesh still feel that Assam

should have gone to East Pakistan during the Partition because of its

large Muslim population.52 In Assam and princely Tripura, Islamic

50. Sudarshan’s news conference as reported in Shillong Times, Meghalaya, 16 May

1997.

51. Sardar Patel, quoted in R.N. Aditya, Corridors of Memory (Kolkata: KLM Firma,

1970).

52. Jamaat-i-Islami monograph, “Bharat Baghe Mussalmanra ki Hariyeche”

(Dhaka, 1969).
240 SUBIR BHAUMIK

parties tried to merge those territories with Pakistan during and after

1947—and parties such as the Jamaat-i-Islami continue to feel these

areas of northeast India would be a “normal appendage” of

Bangladesh.

But until the rise of the BJP in India and its growth in parts of

Assam by skillful exploitation of the Babri Masjid issue, Islamic radicalism was practically absent in Assam and the rest of the Northeast.

The riots during the Assam agitation, though apparently aimed at

“outsiders” and “infiltrators,” did target the Muslims of Bengali origin in a big way. More than two thousand of them were killed in the

riots at Nellie and Chaulkhowa Chapori from February to March

1983. The ferocity of the violence split the groups leading the Assam

agitation along religious lines, and a number of Assamese Muslim

leaders broke away from the All Assam Students Union (AASU) and

the All Assam Gana Sangram Parishad (AAGSP) immediately after

the 1983 riots, alleging that the agitating groups had been “infiltrated

by the RSS.”53 But there was no violent Muslim backlash. Only some

defense groups, such as the All Assam Minority Students Union

(AAMSU), were organized in the predominantly Muslim area. And

though political parties and the police in Assam made exaggerated

projections of their strength and intentions, and the local Assamese

press floated stories about their linkages to Islamic fundamentalist

groups in Bangladesh, these groups were essentially defensive in

nature.

Immediately after the riots and the Assam accord of 1985 that

brought an end to the agitation, the Muslims of Bengali origin joined

their linguistic Hindu brethren to form the United Minorities Forum

(UMF). Traditionally they had voted for Congress but they felt let

down by the Congress government in 1983. One of the founders of

the UMF said: “For the first time in post-Partition Assam, the Bengali

Hindus and Muslims felt the need to come together to protect their

interests. We found we were in the same boat. Since we were more

than 40 percent of the state’s population, we were sure we could

defend our interests against rising Assamese chauvinism.”54 But after

53. Seema Guha, “Assam Movement: Shadow of the RSS,” Sunday, 28 February –

6 March 1983.

54. Gholam Osmani (former UMF president now back in Congress), interview by

author, 28 May 1995.
ETHNICITY, IDEOLOGY AND RELIGION: SEPARATIST MOVEMENTS IN 241

INDIA’S NORTHEAST

the rise of the BJP, Bengali Hindus in Assam, unlike their brethren

in West Bengal and Tripura, largely turned toward the politics of

Hindutva in a decisive way. The Muslims were left with little

choice—in elections, they began to vote for the Congress and most

of the UMF leaders returned to that party. But the younger and

more religious elements did form some militant groups, defensive

to begin with but now increasingly proactive. The Idgah Protection

Force (IPF) was formed just before the demolition of the Babri

Masjid at Ayodhya, and some of its supporters were responsible

for the attack on the Hindus at Hojai in 1992, in which ninety

Hindus were killed. Incidentally, the victims were mostly Bengali

Hindus who had started supporting the BJP and its campaign to

construct a Hindu temple at Ayodhya in place of the disputed

Babri Mosque.

Following the Hojai riots, a number of Muslim radical groups

have surfaced in Assam, essentially feeding on the community’s

growing insecurity in a state where the power-holder elites see

them as “agents of Pakistan or Bangladesh.” The Assamese fear of

being reduced to a minority in their own land, fuelled by the changing demography of the state during the last forty years, has given

rise to strong anti-Muslim feelings. Assamese political groups

advocate the scrapping of the Illegal Migrants Determination by

Tribunals (IMDT) Act promulgated in 1983 by the state’s Congress

government. These groups say the act, by placing the burden of

proof of someone’s foreign identity on the state, is actually protecting “illegal foreign migrants” in Assam.55 The Assamese

groups have received strong support from the BJP, which, in

Assam now, has a strong base both among Bengali and Assamese

Hindus. Recently, the regional party, Asom Gana Parishad (AGP),

has called for a special session of the Assam legislative assembly to

discuss the infiltration issue. The ruling Congress government has

ruled that out, suspecting a fresh move by the AGP and the BJP to

whip up passions against the IMDT Act, a legislation the Muslims

see as their only source of legal protection against arbitrary and

forced deportations.

55. Sarbananda Sonowal (AASU president), interview by author, aired in South

Asia Report, BBC World Service Radio, 22 August 1994.
242 SUBIR BHAUMIK

In the 2001 state assembly elections in Assam, the AGP and the

BJP worked out a political alliance to fight the elections together. For

the first time, Assam witnessed the politics of “religious consolidation,” as the AGP was now reconciled to the BJP’s political stand of

treating Bengali Hindus as refugees and Bengali Muslims as infiltrators, preferring to shelter the former and push back the latter into

Bangladesh. The Congress came back to power with the support of

its votebanks among the Muslim and the Tea tribes (descendants of

those who came from Bihar’s tribal regions to work the British tea

estates in the nineteenth century), who account for more than 40 percent of the electorate. The BJP’s subsequent efforts to penetrate the

Tea tribes, exploiting the religious divide within the community

(Assam’s tea laborers are largely first- or second-generation Christian

converts, but many remain Hindus), have not met with much success.

Assam’s Muslim and Christian minorities, faced with “religious consolidation” of Bengali and Assamese Hindus who would account for

more than 40 percent of the population, have decided to stick it out

with the Congress. Their combined strength does give them a chance

to share power and ensure security.

But this does not appease some Muslims in Assam who have

formed militant Islamic groups. The Muslim United Liberation

Tigers of Assam (MULTA) is the strongest of these groups.56

Formed in 1997, the MULTA has close connections with the Sunni

radical group, Sipah-i-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP). The MULTA leaders

signed an agreement with SSP leaders at a meeting at Jamait Ul

Uloom Ali Madrassa in Chittagong in February 2001. The SSP

decided to back the MULTA in its militant activities in Assam. At the

political level, the MULTA demands 30 percent reservation in education and employment for Muslims in Assam and also a similar reservation for seats in the state assembly, quite in keeping with their share

56. The Assam police lists a total of seventeen Muslim fundamentalist groups it

says are active in Assam, including the MULTA. The other groups are Muslim United

Liberation Front of Assam (MULFA), Adam Sena, People’s United Liberation Front

(PULF), Muslim Security Council of Assam (MSCA), United Liberation Militia of

Assam (ULMA), Islamic Liberation Army of Assam (ILAA), Muslim Volunteer

Force (MVF), Islamic Sevak Sangh (ISS), Islamic United Reformation Protest of

India (IURPI), United Muslim Liberation Front of Assam (UMLFA), Revolutionary

Muslim Commandos (RMC), Muslim Liberation Army (MLA), Muslim Tiger Force

(MTF), Muslim Security Force (MSF), Harkat-ul-Jihad-al Islami of Bangladesh, and

Harkat-ul-Mujahideen of Pakistan.
ETHNICITY, IDEOLOGY AND RELIGION: SEPARATIST MOVEMENTS IN 243

INDIA’S NORTHEAST

of the state’s population. But at the religious level, they want the

establishment of a chain of Islamic courts in Assam to dispense justice in keeping with the tenets of Shariat.57

The Assam police have arrested some MULTA activists, while some

have surrendered. During interrogation, some of them have confessed to receiving training at al-Qaeda and Taliban camps in

Afghanistan with logistic support provided by Pakistan’s InterServices Intelligence (ISI).58 The MULTA also recently participated in

a convention of Islamic radical groups in Bangladesh held at Ukhia

near the coastal town of Cox’s Bazaar on 10–11 May 2002. Six

Bangladesh-based Islamic militant groups, such as Harkat-ul-Jihad-al

Islami (HUJAI) and Islamic Shashantantra Andolan, were joined by

two Burmese Rohingya Muslim rebel groups and the MULTA at the

convention, which was attended by more than sixty delegates of the

total nine groups who joined the convention. The convention decided

to form an umbrella organization to coordinate the jihad for turning

Bangladesh from a “Dar-ul-Harb” (Land of Infidels) into a “Dar-ulIslam” (Land of Islam)—but it also decided to intensify efforts for

the creation of a “Brihat Bangladesh” (Greater Bangladesh) by incorporating areas of Assam and Burma’s Arakan province that are now

largely settled by Muslims of Bengali origin. Indian intelligence sees

the Bangladesh Islamic Manch as a replica of the United Jihad

Council in Pakistan. While the United Jihad Council coordinates the

struggle for Kashmir’s forced merger with Pakistan, the Bangladesh

Islamic Manch, in its inaugural declaration, says it will work for the

“willful merger” of areas of Assam and the Arakans, which have large

Muslim populations of Bangladeshi origin.59 That Assam has India’s

highest percentage of Muslims in any state other than Kashmir only

reinforces their fear.

At last, the scare scenario that generations of Assamese have been

fed is finally coming true. Groups that would prefer to merge areas of

Assam with a Muslim majority and contiguous to Bangladesh have

finally emerged. Security analysts in Assam envisage the “eastward

surge of the Jihadis”—a projected growth of Islamic militant activity

57. Saikia, “Swadhin Asom or Brihot Bangla” (Independent Assam or Greater

Bengal), in Contours, a collection of his columns (Assam: Sagittarius, 2001).

58. Ibid.

59. “Bangladesh Islamic Manch—Formation and Alignments,” report prepared by

the Special Bureau’s Bangladesh Desk, June 2002.
244 SUBIR BHAUMIK

in the arc that begins at India’s Siliguri Corridor (North Bengal area

that connects India to its Northeast)—goes through Bangladesh and

stretches in India’s Northeast and Burma’s Arakan province with linkages running west toward Pakistan and the Middle East and east

toward Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines.60 The presence of

Islamist parties, such as the Jamaat-i-Islami and the Islamic Aikyo Jote

in Bangladesh’s present ruling coalition, has fuelled fears that the

country founded on the ideals of Bengali nationalism might become

the fulcrum of jihad in the eastern slice of South Asia, which is quite

as sensitive and conflict-prone as its west.61 The repression of Hindu,

Christian and Buddhist minorities in Bangladesh after the change of

guard in October 2001, widely reported in Bangladesh’s vibrant and

largely secular press, has provided substance to such apprehensions.62

If globalization is the mantra of the new millennium, then conflicts, just as economies, are likely to be globalized. And if the religious divide fuels a “clash of civilizations,” South Asia and its regions

will be sucked into it. Religion, which led to the Partition of the

Indian subcontinent but did not overtly influence the “little nationalisms” of northeast India, may begin to play a more important role

in politics of the region. Not the least because ruling entities such as

the BJP in India and the four-party, BNP-Jamaat-led coalition in

Bangladesh are choosing to play up and play by the religious divide.

60. Saikia, Contours.

61. Bertil Lintner, “Beware of Bangladesh: Cocoon of Terror,” Far Eastern Economic

Review, 4 April 2002.

62. Bangladesh press reports detailing atrocities on minorities are quoted in the

Annual Autumn Souvenir of the Bangladesh Hindu-Buddhist-Christian Council.
245

This paper focuses on the complex interconnection between

ethnicity and religious radicalism in contemporary northeastern India

and seeks to derive its implications for the region’s security. While ethnicity is always considered as one of the dominant factors influencing

and shaping the politics of the region, its connection with religious

radicalism has become a subject of discussion only in very recent

years. In most of the writings on politics of the region, religious radicalism—or for that matter any of its kindred variants—hardly

receives any mention.1 In strategic circles, however, religious radicalism in the Northeast is predominantly seen as a major threat sponsored and masterminded by unfriendly foreign powers acting in close

collaboration with, and sometimes at the behest of, forces having no

11

SAMIR KUMAR DAS

Ethnicity and the Rise of Religious 

Radicalism: The Security Scenario 

in Contemporary Northeastern India

1. To cite an example, a recently published book on Assam does not contain any

entry on religion in its index. See Sanjib Baruah, India: Against Itself: Assam and the

Politics of Identity (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999).
246 SAMIR KUMAR DAS

national and territorial base.2 Thus, in sharp contrast to the first genre

of writings, they not only express a particularly alarmist view but also

vociferously deny its internal basis.3 Both of them, however, fail to

appreciate the fact that much of religious radicalism in the Northeast

is embedded in ethnicity and does not exactly manifest itself in the

way it does in other parts of the country. Religious radicalism situates

itself within an ethnic matrix and assumes a highly complex character. This paper highlights the importance of understanding this complexity and its bearing on the security scenario of the region.

Religion, in the sense of a standardized set of ideas and practices,

was relatively unknown to the predominantly tribal-inhabited parts of

the Northeast. The oral nature of tribal religions and traditions allows

a certain degree of flexibility and openness. The ideas and practices

would vary significantly from one area to another, even among the

members of the same family of tribes. Many of them do not feel the

necessity of codifying and standardizing their ideas and practices. The

religion of the Khasis of Meghalaya, for example, describes man’s

relation to God as direct and unmediated. No fixed set of ideas and

practices is expected to govern their inter-relationships. Since there is

a direct “covenant” between man and God from the beginning of

time, there are no scriptures and standard forms required to follow

while communicating with Him.4 As religion becomes standardized, it

rules out the possibilities of flexibility, openness and local variations.

Standardization therefore serves as a means through which the adherents of religious ideas and practices articulate themselves into a relatively stable community. The articulation of a community, in other

words, presupposes a certain standardization of its religious ideas and

2. See, for example, Jaideep Saikia, “Swadhin Asom-Brihat Bangla?” in Contours:

Essays on Security and Strategy (Guwahati: Sagittarius, 2001), 18–20. See also P. V.

Ramana, “‘Networking’ in the Northeast: Partners in Terror,” Faultlines 11 (April

2002): 99–126. Strategists and strategic analysts often accuse the social scientists who

research this region of being insensitive to the threat posed by “terrorism” in general

and Islamic militancy in particular. See Ajai Sahni, “Social Science Research and

Contemporary Conflicts: The Challenge of Research on Terrorism,” Faultlines 9 (July

2001): 131–57.

3. Saikia, for example, observes that the United Liberation Front of Assam

(ULFA), one of the principal insurgent groups operating in the region, has failed to

rope in new cadres deeply committed to its ideology and also in “instilling a growth

curve in its ideology.” See Saikia, Contours, 72.

4. Kynpham Singh, “Khasi Religion and Khasi Society,” in Sujata Miri, ed., Religion

and Society of North East India (New Delhi: Vikas, 1980), 44–45.
ETHNICITY AND THE RISE OF RELIGIOUS RADICALISM: THE SECURITY 247

SCENARIO IN CONTEMPORARY NORTHEASTERN INDIA

practices. For unless the norms are fixed and ideas and practices crystallized, no stable community of adherents can cluster around them.

If people fight among themselves over what the ideas and practices

are or should be, they do not form a homogeneous community.

“Religious radicalism,” to my mind, is a comparatively recent

coinage. Its preference to other adjacent and much-used yet necessarily distinct terms, such as “communalism” and “fundamentalism,”

may not at first sight appear to be too obvious to someone who is not

very conversant with the society and politics of South Asia. While

these terms may not be mutually exclusive, each has its distinctive

accent and emphasis. The term “communalism” is usually reserved

for referring to the political use of religion by arraying one community against another, whereas “fundamentalism” refers to the transformation (often described as “distortion”) at the level of ideas and practices characteristic of any particular religion. Political use calls for

certain flexibility in the realm of these ideas and practices, for their

use must render them serviceable to the exigencies of a given situation. Fundamentalism, by definition, rules out such flexibility for it

freezes off certain ideas and practices by way of accepting them as

“fundamental” and hence inviolate. But if one takes a longer time

frame, one notices that ideas and practices held as “fundamental” to

a particular religion by its adherents at any given time may not be held

as such at another time. The changes in the corpus of so-called fundamentalist ideas and practices, even in the case of such stable and

standard religions as Islam and Christianity, are too obvious to be easily brushed aside.

Religious radicalism, as we have said, is a new currency.5 It first of

all underlines the importance of religion in clustering a body of

adherents around it and making them chart out a separatist path.

Religious radicalism serves as the principle of community formation.

As it brings together a group of adherents, it enables them to supersede the differences that are otherwise internal to them. Nagas, as we

know, are an extremely polyglot and heterogeneous body of people

consisting approximately of thirty-two groups strewn around various

5. Aijaz Ahmed used the expression in 1996. Aijaz Ahmed, “Radicalism of the

Right and Logics of Secularism,” in Praful Bidwai et al., eds., Religion, Religiosity and

Communalism (New Delhi: Manohar, 1996), 37–74.
248 SAMIR KUMAR DAS

parts of the Northeast and bordering Myanmar. They are not only

culturally different but speak languages and dialects sometimes unintelligible to each other. Insofar as the Nagas convert themselves to

Christianity, they are capable of transcending many of their cultural

and linguistic differences. By the same token, the advent of

Christianity introduces new and hitherto unknown sources of division within the same ethnic community (say, between the Christian

and non-Christian Nagas). The rise of “radical” Islamic organizations

in Assam, especially in the 1990s, has its social constituency among

the Muslim immigrants—mostly from East Pakistan/Bangladesh.

This has in fact brought about a sharp division between the Hindus

and the Muslims among the immigrants. The riots that broke out in

Assam in 1992 were confined to these two communities of immigrants. More often than not, community formation goes hand in hand

with the demand for a separate statehood—whether within the Indian

Union or without. As we will see, radicalism and separatism usually go

together. Sometimes separatism is also expressed through a plea for

redefining the nationhood, per se, of a country in a way that implies

exclusion of certain communities hitherto considered as its constituent parts.

Secondly, all this is accompanied by a certain radicalization of the

ideas and practices. Some of the factors responsible for this may be

noted in this connection. One, the newfound zeal in following and

observing them—especially in the Christian-dominated parts of the

Northeast—is not only obsessive but speaks of a certain ethnicization

of an otherwise universal faith. The Christianity practiced by the

Nagas is known as “Naga Christianity.” Similarly, the Christianity

practiced by the Khasis is called “Khasi Christianity.” Even if most of

the Nagas and the Kukis happen to be Christians, they seldom pray in

the same church. Vaishnavism in Assam also has its own peculiarities

and is markedly different from that of Bengal or other parts of eastern India.6 Likewise, Hinduism in Manipur is different from that of

the rest of India.7

Two, this also implies a certain standardization of the norms and

practices of the religion. The early flexibility in the observance of

6. See Suniti Kumar Chatterji, The Place of Assam in the History and Civilization of India

(Guwahati: Gauhati University Press, 1955), 69–71.

7. N. N. Bhattacharya, Religious Culture of Northeastern India (New Delhi: Manohar,

1995), 49.
ETHNICITY AND THE RISE OF RELIGIOUS RADICALISM: THE SECURITY 249

SCENARIO IN CONTEMPORARY NORTHEASTERN INDIA

norms and practices slowly gives way to their standardization. Certain

ideas and practices are taken to be the be-all and end-all of a community so much so that anybody not seen to be falling in line faces various forms of social punishment (e.g., ridicule and rebuff, social ostracization, physical harm or annihilation or the threat of such). In the

absence of a standardized religion among many of the communities

living in the region, some of their ideas and practices are expressly

projected as their own and enumerated to hold the members together

and put up an organized resistance to others—maybe their Christian

counterparts. For them, it is like founding a new religion seen as a

cementing force in the face of a Christian or Hindu onslaught. Brahma

among the Bodos,8 Sanamahi among the Meiteis of Imphal valley,9

Seng-Khasi among the Khasis of Meghalaya10 and Heraka among the

Kacha Nagas (consisting of the three tribal communities of Zemei,

Lingmei and Rongmei, also known as Kabui)11 living in the hills of

Manipur are illustrative of this trend.

Three, radicalization in the Northeast assumes an organized character. The militant Islamic organizations seek to arrogate to themselves

the sole authority of interpreting Islam. Social and political organizations set forth the norms according to which the adherents are

expected to conduct their lives. This involves gradual restriction of

scope for local variations and flexibility in the observance of these

norms. An example may be cited in this context. Professor Leela

Gogoi has classified “the Muslims of Assam” into five distinct categories: the descendants of the prisoners of war held hostage by the

Ahom rulers in course of their operation against the Mughals; the

descendants of pirs (holy men) and their disciples who came to Assam

for preaching their respective dispensations; the descendants of eight

artisan families specially employed by the Ahom dynasts; the natives

8. See Kameswar Brahma, A Study of Socio-Religious Beliefs and Practices and Ceremonies

of the Bodos (Kolkata: Punthi Pustak, 1992), 193–208.

9. See N. Vijayalakshmi Brara, Politics, Society and Cosmology in India’s North East

(Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998).

10. See N. K. Das, Ethnic Identity, Ethnicity and Social Stratification in Northeast India

(New Delhi: Inter-India, 1987), 231–34. Also see Sunil Sen Gupta, “Alienation or

Crisis of Identity: Struggle of the Seng-Khasis” in S. B. Chakrabarti, ed., Social Science

and Social Concern, Felicitation Volume in Honor of Professor B. K. Roy Burman

(Delhi: Mittal, 1988), 346–55.

11. See Stephen Fuchs, Godmen on Warpath (New Delhi: Munshiram Banarasilal,

1992), 136–51.
250 SAMIR KUMAR DAS

(thaluwa) converted to Islam; and temporarily settled, cultivating

(pamuwa) Muslims.12 Since most of the Muslim immigrants are

engaged in farming and cultivation, they evidently belong to

Professor Gogoi’s last category. Interestingly he makes a distinction

between the “Muslims of Assam” (Asomar Musalman) and the

“Assamese Muslims” (Asomiya Musalman). In his words, only the latter

ought to be regarded as “an inseparable part of Assam’s original (mul)

nationality.”13 His hesitation to include the immigrant Muslims in the

“original” Assamese nationality is overt. Today, however, the inclusion

of the Assamese Muslims in the so-called original Assamese nationality is not as unproblematic as Professor Gogoi wants us to believe.14

The examples of harassment and humiliation meted out to such eminent litterateurs as Syed Abdul Malik, whose identity as “Assamese

Muslims” has never been in doubt, were by no means rare during the

days of the Assam movement (1979–85).

This paper makes a preliminary attempt to draw attention to the

formation of radical religious discourses that are slowly gaining currency in the region in recent years. The importance of studying their

historical roots can hardly be denied. The paper of course makes

occasional references to the region’s history. But this should not be

taken to mean that present-day religious radicalism in the Northeast

stands in any simple and linear correlation to its history. In fact, there

are as many histories of religious radicalism as there are radical religious discourses. Thus to cite an example, as many as ten political

organizations “representing the Meiteis and those who speak

Meeteilon” in a memorandum submitted to the prime minister of

India raised the demand for inclusion of Meeteilon in the Eighth

Schedule of the Constitution of India in 1992. They also urged the

central government to recognize “original” Meeteilon script (in place

of Bengali prevailing at that time) as “the only script” to communicate their language. The memorandum seems to have presented a history that not only draws them closer to their Mongoloid and tribal

12. Leela Gogoi, Asomar Sanskriti (in Assamase) [The Culture of Assam] (Jorhat:

Bharati Prakashan, 1982), 273. Note: All translations from original Assamese/Bengali

sources are by the author.

13. Ibid., 279.

14. For an analysis of the crisis of identity faced by Assamese Muslims, see Udayon

Misra, “Immigration and Identity Transformation in Assam,” Economic and Political

Weekly (Mumbai) 34, no. 21 (22 May 1999): 1,270.
ETHNICITY AND THE RISE OF RELIGIOUS RADICALISM: THE SECURITY 251

SCENARIO IN CONTEMPORARY NORTHEASTERN INDIA

neighbors but virtually erases another equally significant “history” of

their incorporation into the Vaishnavite brand of Hinduism since the

beginning of the eighteenth century. Bengali, being the language of

Santa Das Gossain—the meandering monk from Sylhet who had

preached Vaishnavism to Manipur Court—becomes the visible symbol of such incorporation. In other words, the formation of a radical

religious discourse makes certain historical statements possible and

thereby sets forth a trajectory that fixes its limits.

In a region like the Northeast, radical religious discourses are situated within a very complex demographic and ethnic matrix. The

process of community formation inspired by the emergence of radical religious discourses in the Northeast has taken on an ethnic character as much as the prevailing ethnic lines of difference slowly get

translated into religious divisions. To appreciate their complex interconnections, it may be instructive to keep three relatively distinguishable moments in mind. Each moment is characterized by a specific conjunction of ethnic and religious forces. These moments should not be

taken as precise and neatly divided chronological stages. For all of

them can be (and in reality are) simultaneous and overlapping. The

first moment is represented by the tribes’ encounter with the standard

religions from outside. In most cases, such encounters have resulted

in the incorporation of the masses of tribals into some standard religion—whether Hinduism or Christianity. It may be noted in this connection that Islam did not exist as an alternative in a region that never

formed part of Mughal India. As we have seen, the encounter

invested the tribals of diverse groups and sub-groups with some form

of a pan-tribal identity. The second moment is that of resistance. This

is a moment characterized by the tribes’ resistance to the dominant

trend toward their incorporation into the fold of any standard religion. Interestingly, the articulation of tribal religions at this moment

follows the same rules and codes as those of the so-called standard

religions. In a region like the Northeast, where immigration from

across international borders has already assumed alarming proportions, the third moment is represented by the slow and rather imperceptible translation of the citizen-foreigner dichotomy into a plain and

simple Hindu-Muslim divide in recent years. We know that the number of Muslims living in Assam, especially in bordering districts, has

gone up to a point where it cannot be accounted for merely by their
252 SAMIR KUMAR DAS

natural growth. Muslim immigrants are viewed predominantly as a

threat to the language and culture of the Assamese.

The paper also discusses the implications of the rise of religious

radicalism for the security of the northeastern region. The Indian

state faces a threat to its security insofar as its claim to represent the

nation is contested through the invocation of radical religious discourses. Such discourses, as we will see, contest not only the state’s

authority to stake the claim but also the way it imagines the nation into

existence while representing it. As argued elsewhere, the nation that

the state in post-colonial India claims to represent is marked by a certain discontinuity with the one that came into being in the course of

the nationalist movement.15 We view religious radicalism as a threat—

whether actual or potential—to the state’s representation of Indian

nationhood.

Accordingly, the paper is divided into four closely inter-related

parts. The first three parts analyze three distinct moments of religious

radicalism in the Northeast. In the fourth, we seek to derive their

implications for the security of the region.

Before we make any headway, it is necessary to mention at least

three major limitations of this paper. First, it is true that the relative

invisibility of religious radicalism in the region produces a certain

insensitivity to the security threat associated with it. But the paper

does not suggest that we instantly press the panic button. Such reactions, I feel, are extremely premature. Although the combination of

the ethnic with the religious makes for an interesting and in some

sense unique case, no attempt has been made in this paper to compare it with the scenario of the rest of India. Secondly, the main

objective of this paper is to analyze, in very broad terms, the phenomenon of religious radicalism in contemporary northeastern India.

While pursuing this objective, the paper draws on some examples and

cases that may appear to be of a highly selective and arbitrary nature.

The selection of cases was by no means an easy job. But in most

cases, it has been inspired by concern for the region’s security. While

the importance of closer and detailed micro-studies can hardly be

doubted, any analysis of the overall security scenario in the region at

the initial stage calls for an understanding of the phenomenon only in

15. Samir Kumar Das, Ethnicity, Nation and Security: Essays on Northeastern India (New

Delhi: South Asian, 2003).
ETHNICITY AND THE RISE OF RELIGIOUS RADICALISM: THE SECURITY 253

SCENARIO IN CONTEMPORARY NORTHEASTERN INDIA

broad terms. It is also interesting to know whether fragmented and

dispersed micro-studies, by themselves, can at all contribute to any

meaningful understanding of the region’s overall security scenario. In

support of my arguments, I have depended primarily—though not

exclusively—on some of the research I have conducted in various

parts of the Northeast during the 1990s. References to many of these

examples and cases are both brief and sketchy. Thirdly, foreign powers—not quite known for their friendliness to India—reportedly play

a role in aiding and abetting the phenomenon of religious radicalism.

We do not have any independent way of verifying the linkage. This

definitely is one of the major limitations of the paper. It is only likely

that they try to fish in already troubled waters. But to attribute the

entire phenomenon to the activities and machinations of a few foreign powers and external forces is perhaps too simplistic.16

Encounter

CONTRARY TO WHAT THE COLONIAL RULERS and anthropologists

would have us believe, contemporary evidence suggests that the

Nagas, especially those living in the foothills, were in constant contact

with the tribes of the nearby plains in upper Assam. But the nature of

the contact was such that they by and large did not perceive it as a

source of threat to their distinctive cultural identity. Such contacts

involved a wide variety of social, economic and cultural exchanges of

commodities, services and women. But it was only with the colonial

annexation of the Naga Hills during 1832–74 and the advent of the

American missionaries in 1872 that the Nagas felt threatened and

organized themselves against the colonial rule and the American missionaries.17 By all accounts, the early history of the spread of

Christianity in the hills was fraught with frictions and violent conflicts

between the missionaries and the autochthonous tribal groups.18

16. I have criticized the “foreign hand theory” in Samir Kumar Das, “National

Security in the Age of Globalization: A Study of the State’s Responses to Ethnic

Insurgency in Assam,” in Gurnam Singh, ed., Ethnicity and the Emerging International

(Dis)Order (New Delhi: Kanishka, 2002).

17. See Sanghamitra Misra, “The Nature of Colonial Intervention in the Naga

Hills, 1840–80,” Economic and Political Weekly 33, no. 51 (19 December 1998),

3,273–79; Sajal Nag, “The Context of Insurgency in Northeast India” (2002, photocopy).

18. Verrier Elwin, himself associated with the church, chronicles many examples of

such frictions in the nineteenth century. See Verrier Elwin, ed., The Nagas in the

Nineteenth Century (London: Oxford University Press, 1969).
254 SAMIR KUMAR DAS

Contact per se was not a taboo for the Nagas. But the contact that

brought them into an essentially asymmetrical relationship with the

colonial rulers definitely was. Interestingly, it was only after independence of India that Christianity became a formidable force and the

number of Christian converts started growing up by leaps and

bounds.

It is interesting to note how Christianity plays a key role in the articulation of the Naga rebel discourse. Today Naga rebel discourse,

especially the one articulated by the National Socialist Council of

Nagaland (now Nagalim) (I-M), has reached a point where it is impossible to sever it from Christianity. First of all, Christianity serves as

thread that is believed to have bound heterogeneous Naga groups

together into one single Naga “nation.” Now 98 percent of the Nagas

happen to be Christians. The articulation of the Naga rebel discourse

implies an erasure of the pre-Christian past that is marked by fierce

and violent internecine conflicts among various Naga groups. A.L.

Ao, a distinguished Naga scholar, in his recently published book

argues that it is only “through the love of Jesus” that the Nagas “came

to know of each other and recognize the existence of the co-tribes.”19

Secondly, while Christianity could not serve as a unifying symbol in

the battle against the colonial rulers practicing the same religion, it is

looked upon as a potent force that is capable of differentiating Nagas

from the “Hindu state” in India. The Manifesto of the National

Socialist Council of Nagaland (I-M), prepared in 1980, accuses the

Indian state of having “introduced decadent Hindu culture and literature to the Nagas on a massive scale.” This, as Ferdaus Quarishi

argues, may be one of the factors explaining the rising number of

converts in the wake of independence of India.20

It is clear that the Naga rebel discourse shows a tendency of accepting Christianity as an accomplished and irreversible fact of Naga history. While the role of Christianity in bringing the Naga “nation” into

existence in its present form can hardly be denied, its relation to the

constitution of the Naga “nation” is neither axiomatic nor free from

hassles. Some of the problems that continue to act as fetters may be

19. A. Lanunungsang Ao, From Phizo to Muivah: The National Question in Northeast

India (New Delhi: Mittal, 2002), 217.

20. Ferdaus Quraishi, Christianity in the Northeastern Hills of South Asia: Social Impact

and Political Implications (Dhaka: University Press, 1987), 11.
ETHNICITY AND THE RISE OF RELIGIOUS RADICALISM: THE SECURITY 255

SCENARIO IN CONTEMPORARY NORTHEASTERN INDIA

noted at this point: One, it has brought in a new source of division

between the Christians and the non-Christians even within the Naga

rebel ranks. The friction can be traced back to the days of Naga

National Council (NNC), the harbinger of insurgency in the Naga

Hills. In the 1960s when a section of Naga rebels started hobnobbing

with China and sought help from her, the church leaders under Rev.

Longri Ao expressed their concern.21 The tilt toward Communist

China was perceived by the church as a threat to the propagation and

spread of Christianity. In July 1989, Isak Swu and Tuengaling Muivah,

the chairman and secretary, respectively, of NSCN, accused

Khaplang, then vice chairman, of killing dozens of “Christian socialist revolutionaries” who were Tangkhul Nagas. Two, the increase in

the number of Christians in Nagaland is neither sharp nor unilinear.

The abrupt decline in number, especially in some years, actually shows

that some Nagas who had earlier converted to Christianity must have

refused to identify themselves as Christians in subsequent years. If

one tabulates the volume of the Baptist Church’s membership

between 1941 and 1965, one is surprised to discover the sudden fall

in some particular years. For example, in 1944, the membership

dropped to 30,980 from 32,452 in the immediately preceding year. In

1947, the figure stood at 41,237 compared to 50,601 in the previous

year. In 1952, membership declined to 56,272 from the previous year’s

63,392. In 1959, it fell to 72,531 from 74,053 in 1958. Similarly, it

declined from 90,718 in 1961 to 76,840 in 1962.22 It seems that their

conversion makes room for such withdrawals and the path from tribalism to Christianity is extremely slippery.

We may wrap up this section by way of pointing to the transformation that Christianity undergoes while becoming a rallying cry for the

constitution of the Naga “nation.” Christianity among the Nagas is of

course “Naga Christianity.” According to Julian Jacobs, Christianity in

Naga Hills has “a character that is sui generis.”23 Ethnicization of religion deprives it of its universal appeal and prevents them from being

united with other non-Naga Christians (e.g., the Kukis). Even after

21. B. G. Verghese, India’s Northeast Resurgent: Ethnicity, Insurgency, Governance,

Development (New Delhi: Konark, 1997), 93.

22. Figures compiled from P. T. Philip, The Growth of the Baptist Church in Nagaland

(Gauhati: Baptist Mission, 1976), 226.

23. Julian Jacobs, The Nagas: Society, Culture and Colonial Encounter (London: Thames

& Hudson, 1990), 157.
256 SAMIR KUMAR DAS

embracing Christianity, Khasis do not cease to be Khasis. R.T.

Rymbai, for example, argues that of “the three commandments” that

guide the religious life of the Khasi-Pnars of Meghalaya, the third (tip

kur, tip kha) “forms an integral part of their religion.” While paraphrasing this commandment, he writes:

The Khasi-Pnars take their descent from the mother. The

children take their surnames from hers. All those who

descend ka iawbei, the first ancestors, form one composite

clan. Marriage between members of a clan is forbidden. It is

a sin, which is unforgivable....I cannot imagine a Khasi-Pnar

born and brought up a Christian, deliberately violating this

commandment and can hope that this abominable sin, which

the Khasi-Pnars called ka pap ka sang, will be forgiven if he

prays in the name of Jesus.24

Resistance

WE HAVE ALREADY SAID that the tribals’ encounter with standard religions was never free from problems. They found their own religion

insufficiently equipped to put up a resistance to the spread of

Hinduism or Christianity. The eclipse of tribal religions in the wake

of what we call “encounter” has more or less been a universal story.

Tribal religions are commonly categorized as “Others” in government

circles. The figures under this category register what looks like an irreversible decline. In the encounter between the standard and tribal religions, the latter was seen to give way. In Assam, the decrease between

1951 and 1961 was about 7 percent; in Manipur about 22 percent.

Between 1961 and 1971, the decrease in Meghalaya was about 4 percent and in Nagaland about 21 percent.

In most cases, resistance is triggered by the threat tribal religions

face while encountering standard religions from the plains. The

Bodos were the earliest in the region to have embraced Hinduism

under the influence of the Vaishnava gossains (preachers) in the sixteenth century. Before their encounter with Hinduism, the Meiteis of

Imphal valley had their traditional religion that included “total” faith

24. R. T. Rymbai, “Some Aspects of the Religion of the Khasi-Pnars,” in Miri,

Religion and Society, 38–42.
ETHNICITY AND THE RISE OF RELIGIOUS RADICALISM: THE SECURITY 257

SCENARIO IN CONTEMPORARY NORTHEASTERN INDIA

in Lord Sanamahi, the highest local deity of Manipur, homage to

paphal (a particular posture of a coiled serpent symbolizing cosmic

power) and the observance of a number of rituals and festivals. Over

a period of three centuries, the Meiteis were converted to Hinduism

through the introduction of alien Hindu religion under the patronage

of King Garib Nawaj (1707–48). The entire Meitei population was

converted to Hinduism during his time by a royal edict passed in

1717. This was followed by a series of measures to destroy all traces

of the traditional Meitei religion. In 1723, most of the temples of the

lais (local deities) were destroyed. In 1927, all the maichous (local scholars of excellence) were ordered to bring all the books and manuscripts

written in old Meitei script in their possession and all these were burnt

to ashes in an event popularly known as puya maitabha. A strict royal

edict was proclaimed that forbade singing of the devotional songs in

Manipuri. Many people reading Meeteilon script were executed. As

Hodson comments: “Religious dissent was treated with the same

ruthless severity as meted out to political opponents, and wholesale

banishment and execution drove the people into acceptance of the

tenets of Hinduism.”25

It is interesting to note how resistance is organized by way of

“reviving” what the members of a tribe consider to be their traditional (sometimes described by them as “original”) faith. The recent

“revival” of the worship of Bathou as the supreme God and cactus

(sisu) as the emblem of that God is an expression of their eagerness

to differentiate themselves mainly from the Assamese-speaking

Hindus. It is interesting to note that the Meitei resistance to their

gradual incorporation into the Hindu fold took on an essentially linguistic character. During the Meeteilon movement, the Government

of India was accused of having unleashed and perpetrated “linguistic

imperialism.” In November 1991, the All-Manipur Students’ Union

(AMSU) spearheaded a civil disobedience movement that included,

among other things, boycotting of the scheduled languages in educational institutions, rebuffing the national anthem and a ban on screening of the Hindi and other scheduled language films. Mr. K.

Saratchandra, then president of AMSU, warned that if the government failed to concede their demand (for the inclusion of Meeteilon

25. T. C. Hodson, The Meitheis (London: David Nutt, 1908).
258 SAMIR KUMAR DAS

in the Eighth Schedule of the Indian Constitution), “it might harm

the integrity of India.”26 In short, traditional Meitei religion and culture were invoked only to emphasize their role in vitiating the language and posing a threat to the natural continuity of the community.

The Meitei case demonstrates how religion becomes secondary only

to language in the quest for collective identity.

It is in this context that the tribal attempts at reviving their religions need to be examined. We have already said that conversion to

standard forms does not rule out their distinctive ethnic identity.

The “revival” of the tribal elements is possible because “Hindu

eschatology absorbs (rather than obliterates) the tribal traditions.”27

In most cases, tribal religions are seen to undergo some kind of

standardization while organizing their resistance. Stephen Fuchs,

for example, has described the introduction of Heraka among the

Kacha Nagas as a means of “sanskritizing” their faith and keeping

them at par with Hinduism.28 Rani Gaidiliu, one of its principal

mentors, became a member of the All-India Hindu Council in

1962.

Translation

ASSAM REMAINED by and large outside the communal map of India.

While large parts of India were rocked by successive tremors of

post-Partition riots, Assam and many other parts of the Northeast

were surprisingly free from the menace. The state did not fall in line

when communal riots broke out in northern India in 1964 on the

issue of the alleged theft of the holy relic of the Prophet from the

Hazratbahl mosque in Kashmir. It seems that Assam’s inclusion in

the communal map is a comparatively recent phenomenon. It is only

with the demolition of the “Babri Masjid”/“disputed structure” in

1992 that the news of communal riots starts to trickle in from the

state. It is important to understand the phenomenon in its proper

perspective.

26. Hindustan Times, 29 April 1992.

27. Chandra Jyoti Sarmah, “Religious Trends and Identity Crisis: A Cross-cultural

Study among Three Plain Tribes of Assam,” in Sarthak Sengupta, ed., People of

Northeast India: Anthropological Perspectives (New Delhi: Gyan, 1996).

28. Fuchs, Godmen on Warpath, 145.
ETHNICITY AND THE RISE OF RELIGIOUS RADICALISM: THE SECURITY 259

SCENARIO IN CONTEMPORARY NORTHEASTERN INDIA

The Assam movement (1979–85) is usually regarded as a benchmark in the politics of the region on several counts. First of all, it was

perhaps the only one of its kind in post-colonial India that could not

only involve diverse segments of the people of Assam but also sustain itself for six long years. Indeed, the popular base of the movement was so significant that the Assam Tribune, then the largest circulating English daily published from Assam, in one of its editorials

likened it to the Gandhian civil disobedience movement of 1942.

Secondly, it brought to a head for the first time the issue of “illegally

settled foreigners” coming from across the borders. Migration to

Assam is by no means new or unprecedented. Assam’s attraction as a

favorite destination of the immigrants since the beginning of the last

century is by now well recorded.29 With a vast expanse of fertile, alluvial land and population density at its lowest in the-then India, it

became the natural destination of the poor and land-hungry peasants.

Communal considerations might have played a part in bringing in an

ever-increasing number of immigrants—mostly peasants of Muslim

background, from adjoining East Bengal as a means of broadening

and consolidating the support base of the Muslim League reigning in

Assam in the early part of the twentieth century. While sporadic outbursts by the natives against such settlement were by no means rare,30

there was hardly any organized and enduring mass movement of this

magnitude organized against the settlers. The Assam movement in a

way seems to have burst open the lid that had capped, as it were, the

grievances accumulated over the years in the minds of the natives.

Thirdly, it sparked similar movements in many other parts of the

Northeast at about the same time or even thereafter. Tripura,

Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh were rocked by a series of similar

anti-foreigner agitation both in the 1980s as well as in the 1990s. In

many ways, the Assam movement is paradigmatic of many of these

subsequent movements in the region.

Since it was a movement that could successfully draw diverse segments of the people of Assam together under the umbrella of a

29. Amalendu Guha, Planter Raj to Swaraj: Freedom Struggle and Electoral Politics in

Assam 1826–1947 (New Delhi: PPH, 1977), 102.

30. According to Amalendu Guha, Manik Chandra Baruah was the first to have

raised his voice of protest against the dangers involved in indiscriminate immigration

of Muslims way back in 1915. See Amalendu Guha, ibid.
260 SAMIR KUMAR DAS

strong and enduring mass movement (at least during the initial years),

the Assam movement was bound to be of multi-dimensional nature.

The movement seems to have been characterized by the complex

interplay of a number of discourses. All of them converged at a common site, enacted and played out in complex and apparently unpredictable ways. There is a tendency in scholarly circles to lose sight of

this enormous complexity and reduce the movement to any one of

them. We feel that the complexity was irreducible, and it is interesting

to see how these discourses impinged on each other and produced

strange and unanticipated results. At one level, it was a movement that

centered on the opposition between the citizens and the foreigners.

(A “tussle between the citizens and foreigners” as Prafulla Mahanta,

the president of the All-Assam Students’ Union during the movement, who subsequently became the chief minister of Assam, points

out.31)

The three major demands underlying the movement were detection,

disenfranchisement and deportation of foreigners. The leaders and

ideologues of the Assam movement strove hard to keep the opposition from sliding into a simple Hindu-Muslim divide. For example, it

was asserted that the movement was explicitly targeted against the

“foreigners” irrespective of their religious and ethnic identity.32 This

is what encouraged them to describe it as “Indian” and emphasize

their identity as Indian citizens. They congratulated themselves on

being the first to take up a cause of national importance. They also

wondered why such a cause had so long been neglected at such great

expense. As Mahesh Joshi, an ardent sympathizer of the movement,

has put it: “The basic fact of the Assam movement is that the people

of Assam are fighting an all-India battle ... single-handed.”33 It is true

that in some cases, as we have said, the Muslims per se were indiscriminately branded as “foreigners” and those among them whose identity

as Indian citizens was never in doubt were forced to bear the brunt of

the movement. It amounted to a violation of what the leadership had

31. Prafulla Kumar Mahanta, The Tussle between the Citizens and Foreigners in Assam

(New Delhi: Vikas, 1986).

32. All-Assam Students’ Union, The Foreigners Problem: Why a Solution is Still Elusive?

(Panbazar: Lawyer’s, 1983).

33. Mahesh Joshi, Assam: The Indian Conflict (New Delhi: Prachi Prakashan,

1981), 90.
ETHNICITY AND THE RISE OF RELIGIOUS RADICALISM: THE SECURITY 261

SCENARIO IN CONTEMPORARY NORTHEASTERN INDIA

celebrated as the authentic opposition.34 Caught in the grave dilemma

of failing to acknowledge what in practice was widespread, the public

reactions of the Assamese leadership to the incidents of violation

were interesting: sometimes, it simply refused to accept the fact that

violations had taken place at all and chose to adopt an ostrich-like policy. Often it was forced to acknowledge violations at the instance of

others by disingenuously reading them into the authentic one, by castigating the victims as people who might have been Indian citizens

themselves but went out of their way in sheltering and protecting

their co-religionist “foreigners,” thereby jeopardizing Indian interests.

“Good” Muslims are always “bad” citizens. The perceived otherness

of immigrant Muslims remained deeply embedded—yet publicly

unacknowledged—in all such attempts. Besides, the leaders and ideologues seemed to have made a subtle distinction between the Hindus

and the Muslims among the immigrants and went on record saying

that the threat to their language and culture came from the Bengalispeaking Hindu immigrants rather than their Muslim counterparts. As

Homen Borgohain observes: “The problem of outsiders for many of

the Assamese is the problem of Bengali Hindus. Because they believe

that it is only from them that the danger to their culture could

come.”35 The Muslim immigrants have returned Assamese as their

mother tongue in consecutive census operations conducted in the

state especially since Independence. It was only in 1991 that many of

them returned—albeit at the instance of some minority organizations

(e.g., the United Minorities Front)—Bengali as their mother tongue,

thereby forcing a decline in the percentage of Assamese-speaking

people for the first time in Assam’s history.

But at another level, the leaders and ideologues emphasized their

identity as Indian citizens not because the Assamese were any more

Indian than others, but because they looked upon their Indian identity as a vehicle of preserving their distinctive ethnic identity, language

and culture. Most of the documents published by the organizations

34. I have discussed this opposition in Samir Kumar Das, “In Search of a

Community: The Immigrant Muslims of Contemporary Assam,” in C. Joshua

Thomas, ed., Dimensions of Displaced People in Northeast India (New Delhi: Regency,

2002), 350–51.

35. Homen Borgohain, Bahiragatar Samasya (in Assamese) [The Problem of

Outsiders] (Guwahati: Kamal Malakar, 1979), 24.
262 SAMIR KUMAR DAS

leading the movement emphasized the threat that the alarming influx

had posed to the Assamese language and culture and asserted their

“right to place under the sun.”36 In short, Indian citizenship provided

an empty space within which their Assamese identity was enacted and

played out.

Immigration from across the borders has by all accounts gone

down in recent years. Census figures show that Assam’s population

grew by 53 percent between 1971 and 1991 (no census could be held

in 1981 due to the movement), 1 percent lower than the All-India

average. Though decreasing in numbers, there is reason to believe that

immigration has acquired some alarming proportions in recent years.

Research intermittently conducted on the problem of immigration in

the Brahmaputra Valley points to some alarming trends. First, the

migrants no longer come in a haphazard and sporadic manner. They

do not pour in from wherever they can. Nor do they settle wherever

they see vacant land in Assam, which earlier was the case.37 In most

cases the immigrants enter Assam from some well-known points of

entry in an organized and planned manner. They usually take the help

of their local contacts—sometimes people of their own villages settled in Assam, or even Indian brokers or middlemen who make

money by way of getting them transported to their places of destination and providing them with “official” papers as proof of their

Indian citizenship. It seems there exists a well-knit network thorough

which migration takes place. The role of the early settlers coming

from the same village or district of Bangladesh is important in getting

the late-immigrants settled and economically rehabilitated. Since the

entire process works as a chain, their detection and punishment by the

guest-state become highly improbable. By the time their presence

starts being felt in the polity and economy, they are pretty well settled

and it is impossible to single them out and detect them. While the

presence of operatives, middlemen and brokers establishing a network through which immigration takes place and continues unabated

36. See for example, Asom Sahitya Sabha (Asom Literary Society), Eclipse in the East:

An Analysis of the Present Agitation in Assam (Guwahati: Publicity Cell, Asom Sahitya

Sabha, 1980), 8.

37. I have discussed migration in Samir Kumar Das, “Immigration and Agricultural

Modernization: The Case of Assam (1979–83),” Socialist Perspective 20 (Kolkata), nos.

3 & 4 (December 1992–March 1993): 165–75.
ETHNICITY AND THE RISE OF RELIGIOUS RADICALISM: THE SECURITY 263

SCENARIO IN CONTEMPORARY NORTHEASTERN INDIA

can hardly be doubted, their connection to what Hiranya Kumar

Bhattacharyya calls, “Muslim conspiracy” of transforming the demographic composition of Assam is not all too apparent.38

Secondly, the demographic pattern of the Brahmaputra Valley thus

has undergone a distinctive change in recent years. The valley is

known for the presence of some very conspicuous immigrant-inhabited pockets and there is reason to believe that these pockets are

swelling, in terms of percentage of the population living there. The

extraordinary growth of population in pockets known to have a very

high concentration of immigrants is disproportionately greater than

the average growth rate of population in Assam. Two factors continuously work against any neat and precise estimate of the district-wide

composition of population in Assam. The cracking and splitting of

districts, especially since the early 1980s, does not allow us to compare

the population trends in any simple manner. Moreover, since no census operation could be held in Assam in 1981, population data usually

come in the block of twenty years. However, if one chooses to break

up the entire block in order to obtain the average for the decade—

whether of 1971–81 or 1981–91—certain interesting facts become

obvious. Most of the districts, though not all, which during either of

these two decades recorded a growth rate higher than that of

1961–71, are believed to be immigrant-inhabited pockets of the state.

Table 1 on the following page gives us some idea of the population

trends in these districts.

Table 1 takes into consideration only those districts where the percentage of population growth during 1971–81/1981–91 has been

greater than that of the previous decade. Not all cases of unusual

increase can be attributed to the influx of population from across the

borders. For example, the increase in some of the upper Assam districts, such as Jorhat, may have been due to the displacement of population caused by the devastating rounds of annual floods in the

adjoining districts of Majuli and Dhemaji.39 Cachar and Hailakandi,

38. See Hiranya Kumar Bhattacharyya, The Silent Invasion: Assam versus Infiltration

(Guwahati: Spectrum, 2001), pp. 122–28.

39. Studies have been conducted under the auspices of O. K. D. Institute of Social

Change and Development, Guwahati, to survey the impact of floods on the population composition of some of the upper Assam districts. The reports are available for

private circulation.
264 SAMIR KUMAR DAS

though outside the Brahmaputra Valley, are a favorite immigrant destination primarily because of their ethnic proximity to the local population. N.C. Hills has a substantial percentage of tribal population

and of late there is believed to have been a perceptible immigration

of the tribals from the neighboring states of the region. But the districts of lower Assam mentioned above are widely believed to have

contained many immigrant-inhabited pockets. The ethnic divide

between the immigrants and the natives shows signs of coinciding

with a certain territorial segregation in the state. The hitherto noticed

cheek-by-jowl settlement of the immigrants and the natives might

have its pitfalls, but it certainly gave both these groups an opportunity

to know each other and interact. This has led a number of social scientists working on the region to express satisfaction with the process

of social assimilation taking place between the groups. In a sense, this

was true. For example, some recent studies point to a growing assimilation of the people living in the Char (embankment) areas.

According to a report prepared by Assam’s Char Unnayan Nigam

Table 1. District-wide population trends (%) in Assam 

District 1961–71 1971–91 1971–81/

1981–91 

Kokrajhar 8.12 22.48 11.24 

Kamrup 1.07 26.92 13.46 

Darrang 1.51 12.39 6.19 

Sonitpur -8.2 29.52 14.76 

Morigaon 0.38 13.39 6.69 

Nagaon 3.08 12.27 6.13 

Golaghat 4.81 27.27 13.63 

Jorhat 6.7 15.63 7.81 

Sibsagar -3.89 12.29 6.14 

Tinsukia 4.9 16.01 8.00 

N. C. Hills 3.05 58.3 29.15 

Hailakandi -3.62 22.93 11.16 

Cachar 1.36 22.63 11.81 

Source: Statistical Handbook: Assam (Guwahati: Directorate of 

Economics and Statistics, Government of Assam, 1996), 18–19. 
ETHNICITY AND THE RISE OF RELIGIOUS RADICALISM: THE SECURITY 265

SCENARIO IN CONTEMPORARY NORTHEASTERN INDIA

(Embankment Development Corporation) in 1997, an estimated 2.1

million people live in as many as 2,089 Char villages. Muslims constitute an overwhelming majority (about 1.8 million) among them. Most

of their forefathers came to Assam in the late-nineteenth century and

have become, in the words of Dr. Rezaul Karim, “an inseparable part

of the Assamese nation.”40 They have adopted Assamese as their

mother tongue and even sided with the Assamese in the language

movements of 1960 and 1972. But with the change in the demographic settlement pattern, occasions of interaction between these

groups have been considerably reduced. As the immigrants—mostly

Muslims—live in ghetto-like settlements and in the process reduce the

natives to a minority in the immediate neighborhood, they cannot be

expected to “accept Assamese cultural icons and institutions so easily.”41 Hiranya Kumar Bhattacharyya refers to a survey conducted by

Sudhakar Rao on the settlement pattern in the district of Marigaon,

which is known for its high concentration of immigrants. According to

him, during the early 1980s when the Assam movement was at its peak,

as many as twenty-five villages of the district were “totally deHinduized.” Rao analyzed the case of seventy-four other villages, which

were “exclusively Hindu villages until 1983” but which were in the

process of “being taken over by the Muslim immigrants.”42 The rate of

immigration exceeds that of assimilation. In fact, according to Udayon

Misra, it is the other way around. The inclusion of “the neo-Assamese

Muslims” (in an obvious reference to the immigrants who had returned

Assamese as their mother tongue in the consecutive census operations)

has led to the “transformation of the Assamese identity”:

Regarding the majority of the Assamese language, there

seems little doubt because the number of neo-Assamese will

keep on increasing. But while the future of the Assamese

speaker is ensured, the future content and course of

Assamese language and literature is bound to change along

40. Rezaul Karim, “Asomar jatiya jeewan aru char-chaporir musalman” (in

Assamese) [The National Life of Assam and the Musalmans of the Embankments],

Asom Sahitya Sabha Patrika 56, no. 2 (February 2001): 29.

41. Udayon Misra, “Immigration and Identity Transformation in Assam,” Economic

and Political Weekly, 1,264–71.

42. Quoted in Bhattacharyya, The Silent Invasion, 125.
266 SAMIR KUMAR DAS

with the expansion of the cultural determinants of the

Assamese society. While the large majority of the neoAssamese Muslims are today in the process of being integrated with the Assamese community whose cultural determinants are largely Hindu, yet further imbalance in the

demographic structure in favor of immigrant Muslims may

result in the rise of pan-Islamic positioning.43

Thus to conclude, the particular settlement pattern and the waning

of social intercourse between the immigrants and the natives are what

make the present-day immigration particularly threatening.

Thirdly, the immigrant pockets seem also to turn fast into hotbeds

of fundamentalism and insurgency. It is true that fundamentalism

has never been altogether alien to the political practice of the immigrant Muslims. Yet, its present-day version is remarkably different on

many counts. First, there is reason to think that the newly ascendant

Islamic fundamentalism has acquired an organized and militant character. Security agencies in India reportedly have information that

about fifteen militant Islamic organizations are operating in the state,

of which three (viz., Muslim United Liberation Tigers of Assam

[MULTA], Muslim Liberation Army [MLA]—formerly known as the

Muslim United Liberation Front of Assam [MULFA], and Islamic

Liberation Army of Assam [ILAA]) are quite strong. Many of them

are reportedly acting at the behest of such foreign espionage agencies as the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and “ultra-fundamentalist

bodies” such as Islamic Chhatra Shibir and Jamaat-i-Islami of

Bangladesh. Formerly their activities were restricted to the multi-ethnic areas of the Brahmaputra Valley (e.g., Nagaon and Marigaon)

where Muslims have always been in sizeable numbers. But now their

activities have spread out to the vast areas of Barpeta, Goalpara and

Dhubri, and even to such far-off areas as Cachar of the Barak Valley.44

While their activities are engulfing ever-newer areas, they are also

undergoing a certain militarization. The roots of fundamentalist militancy among immigrant Muslims may be traced back to the large-scale

43. Udayon Misra, The Transformation of Assamese Identity: A Historical Survey, H. K.

Barpujari Endowment Lecture 4 (Shillong: North East India History Association,

2001), 82.

44. Dileep Chandan, “Assam: Closing Ranks,” Sunday, May 7–11, 1997, 59–60.
ETHNICITY AND THE RISE OF RELIGIOUS RADICALISM: THE SECURITY 267

SCENARIO IN CONTEMPORARY NORTHEASTERN INDIA

anti-Muslim pogroms in the Brahmaputra Valley organized during

the tumultuous days of 1983. One may recall that the Muslim section

of the AASU leadership, comprising such persons as Nurul Hussain

and Nekibur Zaman, was so deeply hurt at this that it severed all connections with the organization for turning itself into a mouthpiece of

the “chauvinist Hindus” and thereby sacrificing its secular character.

A Muslim Volunteers’ Force was raised in Assam as a vanguard for

protecting the Muslims against attacks from the Hindus. Its stated

objectives are:

... to impart training in the Muslims for self-defense, to form

“death squads” to enroll people and training them for protecting the people belonging to the Muslim community in

buses, trains and in public places, to take suitable measures

against those who by virtue of their power and high ranks are

condemning the Muslims, torturing and killing them, to take

counter-measures then and there, to take steps for restoring

Muslim interests wherever they are in jeopardy, to extend

help to Muslims who are in dire straits, to convert Assam into

the Waterloo of RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) and to

take a constant vigil on government employees and to inform

the authorities about their misdeeds.45

Even Saiyad Azad Madani, widely appreciated for his moderate

views, called upon the Muslims to unite against the Asom Gana

Parishad, a proclaimed successor to the forces loyal to the erstwhile

Assam movement, and to take up arms whenever necessary:

The religion has not prevented Muslims from fighting the

enemies. If someone comes to attack you, then try to make

him understand with sympathy; but if someone does not

understand, then engage him in a frontal battle.46

In the same public meeting held at Doboka, Assam, Madani also

exhorted Muslims to train in karate and kung fu in self-defense and to

spend a minimum of three to four hours a day for arms training. The

45. Saptahik Neelachal (in Assamese), 20 July 1983.

46. Agradoot (in Assamese), 25 February 1990.
268 SAMIR KUMAR DAS

Muslims, he added, should remember that Asom Gana Sangram

Parishad, which had spearheaded the movement, killed “thousands of

their brothers” in earlier years. Muslim fundamentalism has so far

made it a point to see the Indian state as the ultimate savior and protector of Muslim interests. But now it seems that the fundamentalists

no longer show the patience of keeping faith in the state. Their faith

has of late been severely eroded with the effect that they either fall

prey to foreign forces or feel the necessity of standing on their own

and resolving their problems without resorting to the Indian state.

That the faith of Muslim immigrants has considerably eroded in

recent years is evident from the fact that Kalam, which by its own

admission is the spokesman of the Muslims, accused Hiteswar Saikia,

then chief minister of Assam, of falling “victim to the Hindutva-wadi

game plan.”47 The more this feeling gets entrenched, the less they are

likely to approach the state to vent their grievances.

It is true that the opposition between citizens and foreigners shows

signs of being translated into a plain and simple Hindu-Muslim

dichotomy. But still a section of insurgents is not easily reconciled to

this trend. In tune with its “secularist” stand, United Liberation Front

of Assam (ULFA) promises to fight hard against this. ULFA’s designation of the immigrants from East Bengal as “one of the major

parts of the people living in Assam” (Asombasi) is significant. In one

of its most detailed statements on the question issued in 1992, ULFA

argues that Assam has always been a “nation of immigrants” insofar

as the people of diverse nationalities and sub-nationalities came to

Assam at different times and made it their home. The organization

reminds us of the rich contributions made by the immigrants from

East Bengal—whether by rendering vast tracts of fallow land cultivable or by enriching the Assamese language and culture by

embracing them. It is unfortunate that the “All-India political leaders” have used them as “political pawns” and “vote banks” by making false promises. Warning against the commonplace attempts at

condemning and stigmatizing them as “neo-Assamese” or “cultivating Assamese,” ULFA proposes to redefine the word “Assamese”

(Asomiya) and make immigrants of East Bengal one of its inseparable parts. As it maintains: “Instead of referring exclusively to the

47. A. H. Imran, “Anuprabesh: sharayantrer neel naksha” (in Bengali) [Infiltration:

The Blueprint of a Conspiracy], Kalam (Kolkata), August 1992.
ETHNICITY AND THE RISE OF RELIGIOUS RADICALISM: THE SECURITY 269

SCENARIO IN CONTEMPORARY NORTHEASTERN INDIA

Assamese-speaking people, by Assamese we refer to all the ethnic

groups and their combinations, to all those who are committed to the

all-round development of Assam.”48 Two, it actually calls for translating the citizens-foreigners dichotomy into a battle against dilli-bad

(“Delhi-ism” or the “colonialism of New Delhi”). It counts on the

immigrants from East Bengal as a partner in its battle against “colonial domination”: “People who are backward in terms of education

and economy and who are involved in the fierce struggle for existence cannot be our enemies.”49 It seems that ULFA looks upon

them as crucial class allies in this battle.

ULFA’s “secularist” outlook was reflected in the role it played in

course of the communal riots of Nagaon in 1992. On the one hand,

it took upon itself the responsibility of maintaining law and order

and compensated for the reported inadequacy of both police forces

and firearms at their disposal. On the other hand, the “armed” campaign of its cadres against the perpetrators of communal hatred and,

most importantly, for the preservation of peace and communal amity

was, according to newspaper reports, very effective.50 However, the

Front’s self-professedly “secularist” stand on the question of immigrants is not at all free from ambiguities. For one thing, it runs the

risk of alienating the general Assamese sentiments that still largely

weigh against the presence of illegally settled foreigners. ULFA perhaps understands this, and it is because of this that it reportedly

issued a statement in quick succession, overriding the one mentioned

above. A similar statement of Arabinda Rajkhowa (its present chairman), released to the press in late 2001, is reflective of ULFA’s continuing uneasiness with the question of foreigners. Besides, according to some strategic analysts, ULFA cannot afford, for obvious

reasons, to alienate Bangladesh by way of coming down heavily on

the foreigners.51 For ULFA, it is really tight roping insofar as the

question of immigrants is concerned.

48. “Asomabasi Purbangeeya janagoshthiloi ULFA-r Ahvan” (in Assamese)

[ULFA’s Call to the Groups of East Bengal Living in Assam], Budhbar (Guwahati), 24

June 1992, 5–6.

49. Ibid.

50. Subir Bhaumik, “Sena-police noi, Nagaonke banchalo ULFA jangirai” (in

Bengali), [Neither the Army nor the Police, ULFA Militants Saved Nagaon], Ananda

Bazar Patrika (Kolkata), 15 December 1992.

51. Saikia, Contours.
270 SAMIR KUMAR DAS

The Question of Security

RADICAL RELIGIOUS DISCOURSES pose a threat to security on at least

two mutually divergent grounds. First, some of them question the

very raison d’être of the nation-state. When religion is made to serve

as the basis of an Islamic Ummah or Brotherhood, it refuses to be

confined to any particular nation and evidently cuts across diverse

ethnic and national lines. The Taliban is a classic example of this critique. It does not propose to replace one nation-state by another.

Rather, it proposes to do away with the very structure of nationstates.52 Notwithstanding the universalism, its connection with the

Islamic jihadi groups, reportedly operating in some parts of

Bangladesh and the Northeast, is believed to be tenuous. That the

Bangladeshis are not taken by bin Laden as “true Islamic Brothers”

and are castigated as mishkins speaks of the deep yet latent ethnic

divide that marks the movement.53 The mission of Islamic

Brotherhood is likely to take more time to articulate.

Secondly, insofar as religious radicalism serves as a basis of separate

community formation—variously described by its adherents as a

“nation” or a “nationality”—it produces a plea for bringing a separate

state into existence. The nation-to-state trajectory is perfectly in consonance with the classical paradigm of the nation-state. For by establishing themselves as a nation, the members of a community lay their

claim to a separate and independent statehood. What is significant to

note here is that it contests only the Indian state’s claim to represent

them. One of the arguments advanced by a section of Naga rebels is

that since they are Christians, they do not form part of “Hindu

India.” While the claim to nationhood is vindicated by the presence

of a separate religion—separate from that of the “Hindi-Hindu

mainstream”—their presumed nationhood becomes the basis of the

demand for political self-determination and separate statehood. A

section of the immigrant Bengali-speaking Muslims of Assam provides the social constituency of the demand for an independent

“Islamistan” or “the United States of Bengal” comprising the border52. See Oliver Roy, “The Changing Patterns of Radical Islamic Movements,” CSNS

Policy Paper Series, (New Delhi: Jawaharlal Nehru University, 2001).

53. Bhaumik, “Bangladesh: The Second Front of Islamic Terror” (2002, photocopy).
ing districts of Assam and Bangladesh. The very demand of such

states—let alone their formation—challenges the “ideological basis”

of the Indian state.

As a corollary, the discourses question merely the Indian state’s

authority to represent their communities as parts of the Indian

nation. But these do not necessarily question the authority, per se, of

the Indian state to represent the Indian nation. The point is, since they

do not consider themselves as constituent parts of the Indian nation,

they likewise do not like to be represented by an agency that represents it. The Naga rebel discourse is interesting because it not only

wants to assert the right to “political self-determination,” but also

looks upon the enjoyment of this right as a guarantee for promoting

“good neighborliness” between the Indians and the Nagas.54

However, it is firmly entrenched in the nation-state paradigm.

The interconnection between ethnicity and religious radicalism in

the Northeast is far too complex to allow any simple conversion of

the religion-based “two-nation theory” into a multi-nation theory

where Christianity is yet another basis of nationhood or its axiomatic

linkage with external forces. Mediation of ethnicity by the forces of

religious radicalism keeps the process of community formation in the

region perpetually fluid and uncertain.

ETHNICITY AND THE RISE OF RELIGIOUS RADICALISM: THE SECURITY 271

SCENARIO IN CONTEMPORARY NORTHEASTERN INDIA

54. See Kaka Iralu, “Why I Write the Book: A Note to the Reader,” in Nagaland and

India: The Blood and the Tears (Kohima: Kaka Iralu, 2000).
273

The new approach [to Iraq] is revolutionary. Regime change

as a goal for military intervention challenges the international system

established by the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia ... And the notion of

justified preemption runs counter to modern international law ... The

most interesting and potentially fateful reaction might well be that of

India, which would be tempted to apply the new principle of preemption

to Pakistan.1

SECURITY CRISES have defined and reshaped U.S. relations with South

Asia nearly as often as they have with the adjoining Middle East.

Nuclear and war-threatening crises have reemerged in quick succession lately in South Asia. This makes that region arguably as dangerous to international security as the Middle East is—not least when the

shadow of a new preemptive war against Iraq looms on the horizon.

The impact of radicalized religious groups is now a prominent part of

these world-shaking regional crises.

12

RODNEY W. JONES

America’s War on Terrorism: Religious Radicalism

and Nuclear Confrontation in South Asia

1. Henry A. Kissinger, “Our Intervention in Iraq,” syndicated column in the

Washington Post, 12 August 2002.
274 RODNEY W. JONES

To enumerate the most recent crises in South Asia: In May 1998, it

was the overt military nuclearization of India and Pakistan—an ominous watershed. In May 1999, the Kargil Conflict followed, a lowintensity war in Kashmir under the “nuclear shadow.” In October

2001, the United States counter-attacked al-Qaeda and its Taliban

hosts in Afghanistan after the terrible 9/11 terrorist attacks on the

United States—a defining moment for much to come. In 2002, it was

India’s mobilized military confrontation with Pakistan, a defining

moment for relations between India and Pakistan.

The India-Pakistan military confrontation persists today—even

though it seemed to lose some of its sizzle mid-way through the

year.2 In June 2002, senior American and British leaders finally interceded with some conviction in Delhi and Islamabad. What was this

India-Pakistan confrontation all about? What does it tell us about the

phenomenon of religious radicalism and violence in that part of the

world? How close did India and Pakistan get to the beginning of a

hot war before July 2002? What were the odds that the outbreak of

a hot war could have degenerated into a spiral toward nuclear war?

Would this military confrontation have even arisen from the

December 13, 2001 attack on India’s parliament, had the U.S. “global

war on terrorism” not been underway in Afghanistan, nearby? Did

the broader “war on terrorism” shape India’s specific objectives visà-vis Pakistan in this confrontation? Is this current confrontation a

harbinger of more to come? Does it tell us anything about a deeper

issue, namely, whether the ongoing tension between India and

Pakistan would be easily resolved if the element of religious radicalism were taken out of the picture? Or is the conflict deeper than

that?

This paper is an overview of the meaning of the India-Pakistan military confrontation. The analysis necessarily reflects the impact of

religious radicalism and militancy, not only on the confrontation itself,

but also on the relationship between India and Pakistan, and the U.S.

role in that region, since September 11, 2001. It argues that the U.S.

war on terrorism radically increased the potential capacity of militant

2. The confrontation began to subside, though it did not end completely, after elections in Indian-held Kashmir and the national elections in Pakistan, by October 2002.

This chapter was completed in August 2002. The epilogue was added in November

2002.
AMERICA’S WAR ON TERRORISM: RELIGIOUS RADICALISM AND NUCLEAR 275

CONFRONTATION IN SOUTH ASIA

organizations to trigger war between India and Pakistan, a war that

neither side would ultimately benefit from and that almost certainly

would have catastrophic consequences if it went nuclear. It acknowledges that the December 13 terrorist attack on India’s parliament was

a serious provocation, but concludes that it was not sponsored or

engineered by the state of Pakistan and was really as much an attack

on the government of Pervez Musharraf as on the ostensible target

in India.

This analysis further argues that India dangerously overreacted by

choosing to exploit military brinkmanship for coercive diplomacy.

India’s overt aim was to force Pakistan to outlaw militant organizations operating across the line in Indian-held Kashmir and to get the

support of the international community to make this permanent. In

essence India hoped to seal off Kashmir irrevocably from Pakistani

influence, to squelch the Kashmiri struggle for independence at its

roots, and to turn Indian-held Jammu and Kashmir into a normal

state inside the Indian union. India’s underlying aims seem to have

reached even deeper. Taking advantage of the war on terrorism,

India sought to stigmatize Pakistan permanently in the eyes of the

world as a terrorist state, thereby marginalizing its external influence

altogether. India also sought to convince the United States that

India has been the victim all along, partly to defuse the reaction to

its nuclear ambitions. In fact, India largely succeeded in realizing

these objectives, at least for the near term, although how far it succeeded in stigmatizing and marginalizing Pakistan remains to be

seen.

With this Indian strategy in mind, the paper argues further that

while religious extremism has become an ingredient of the IndiaPakistan rivalry, the underlying conflict is political and will not be

resolved merely by restraining religious zealotry. Moreover, India’s

incentives to find a negotiated solution to the Kashmir problem with

Pakistan actually shrink to the degree that Indian and Western perceptions of the problem are expressed in terms of religious militancy and

equated simply with “terrorism.” The most important implication of

this judgment is that the risks of nuclear war between India and

Pakistan will remain at a high level because military crises over

Kashmir are likely to recur, in the absence of serious trilateral negotiating efforts to achieve a political solution.
276 RODNEY W. JONES

As for the changing U.S. role in this region, this paper argues that

the military crisis acted as a post-Cold War catalyst that induced U.S.

leaders to choose sides between India and Pakistan—on ideological as

well as geopolitical grounds. The ideological grounds favored India,

given its reputation as a democratic and constitutionally secular state.

But the geopolitical grounds were crucial. U.S. interests seemed to

mesh with India’s vocal opposition to the same international terrorist

sources (Arab and Islamic) that are now feared most in the West

today.

Pakistan, by contrast, has been stigmatized in the West increasingly, as a consequence of its drift from an essentially secular government before 1977 to one with increments of Islamic content. Its

failure to evolve stable democratic institutions, its increasing sectarian violence, its October 1999 lurch back to military rule, and its

original sponsorship and continued sympathy for the Taliban in

Afghanistan have reinforced an image that does not sit well in the

West. In the wake of al-Qaeda’s attack on the U.S. homeland and

President Bush’s mobilization of the global war on terrorism, it was

ironic but not surprising that the new U.S. administration would

view Pakistan with underlying suspicion and India with greater

warmth.3

The net effect on the core issue of India-Pakistan relations has been

U.S. gravitation toward an Indian perspective on the violence in

Kashmir, and away from a clinical understanding of the legal and

political origins of the dispute. This further adds to the risks that the

subcontinent will be swept up into a holocaust before the Kashmir

problem is resolved on a constructive basis.

3. Several ironies surface upon closer inspection of these issues. The rise of Osama

bin Laden and the Islamic zeal of the guerrilla warfare against the Soviet Union in the

Afghan liberation war of the 1980s were encouraged and partially financed by the

United States, along with Saudi Arabia, China, and Pakistan. The sponsorship of the

Taliban itself, a successor movement that arose well after the Soviet withdrawal, was not

U.S.-inspired, but leading Americans, including some highly placed in the current Bush

administration, were advocates of official recognition and normalization of diplomatic

relations with an aspiring Taliban regime in Kabul during the mid- and late 1990s.
AMERICA’S WAR ON TERRORISM: RELIGIOUS RADICALISM AND NUCLEAR 277

CONFRONTATION IN SOUTH ASIA

U.S. Policy and Military Operations in Afghanistan:

Impact on India and Pakistan

TO UNDERSTAND THE DEEPER MEANING of the current IndiaPakistan military confrontation, it is important to explore the

broader geopolitical context. The impact of the U.S. policy reaction

to 9/11 on Pakistan and India, and the success of U.S. military operations against al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan, did much to

define this context. President George W. Bush declared the global war

on terrorism to be the primary focus of an American effort abroad

for as long as it might take, and challenged every nation to choose

sides—to join the United States against international terrorism, or

side with terrorism as a U.S. enemy.4 Then in the cross-hairs, the

Taliban leaders in Afghanistan faced the same draconian choice, either

to expel Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda network, or face the full

military force of the United States and its allies, backed by the United

Nations.

When Taliban chief Mullah Mohammed Omar rebuffed Pakistani

intercession and defied the U.S. demand to expel the Taliban‘s “honored guests,” President Bush‘s “for-or-against terrorism” demand

required Pakistan and India—as well as China and Russia, the Persian

Gulf states, and the newly independent Central Asian countries—to

choose sides. For most of the other Afghan ethnic factions, especially

the Tajiks and Hazaras of the Northern Alliance who had barely

beaten back Taliban control over the entire country, the choice was

obvious. American pressure on each entity was intense after

September 2001, because their choices could either impede or facilitate effective U.S. military intervention and pursuit of al-Qaeda elements hiding in Afghanistan.5

4. Since dubbed the “Bush Doctrine,” the stark good-versus-evil formula

announced by President Bush in his September 20, 2001 speech to Congress said:

“Every nation in every region now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or

you are with the terrorists.”

5. While this paper focuses on the post-9/11 dynamics of South Asia, it is crucial

to remember that the U.S. response to the terrorist attack on its homeland was comprehensive—politically and financially—using all the tools of diplomacy, intelligence,

law enforcement, and finance to pursue, isolate, constrain, and starve the components of the globally far-reaching al-Qaeda terrorist network. The military operations

focused in Afghanistan have been the most visible part of the war on terrorism, but

are only one part of a long-term, multi-faceted campaign to root out and crush global

terrorist organizations, including others that may cooperate with al-Qaeda leaders.
278 RODNEY W. JONES

Few governments in the region, however, grasped how quickly and

skillfully the United States could employ conventional and unconventional warfare in so isolated and primitive a country as

Afghanistan. In the Gulf War, the buildup to drive Iraq out of

Kuwait had taken months, with the support of Saudi Arabia allowing the allies to stage forces on its territory. Iraqi forces were heavily

equipped, but cumbersome and vulnerable to effective allied air

power. Landlocked Afghanistan, however, was a different situation.

Taliban leaders apparently believed U.S. long-distance air strikes

would be ineffectual against Taliban forces hidden amongst their

countrymen in towns, or bunkered down in mountain fortresses and

caves. The Taliban fully expected to deliver to American soldiers who

ventured on land the same fate Soviet soldiers had suffered at the

hands of Afghan mujahideen in the 1980s. Indeed, Pakistanis,

Indians, and Iranians probably wondered whether the United States

was about to stumble into quicksand and be painfully bloodied by

low-tech, guerrilla tactics.

For Pakistan, making the “right choice” as Bush posed it was not

really in doubt. The magnitude of President Bush’s commitment to

the war against terrorism was conveyed. General Pervez Musharraf

came out unequivocally on the U.S. side from the start, abruptly—

albeit painfully—abandoning the Taliban. An elected government of

Pakistan might well have dithered longer, because the “right choice”

was acutely difficult for Pakistani leaders, for a number of reasons.

The most important was that such a choice meant abandoning the

Taliban not only as a natural ally but also as a creature of Pakistan’s

decade-long efforts to pursue stability and lasting influence in

Afghanistan following the Soviet expulsion. Fortunately Pakistan did

not have a stake in al-Qaeda, and no intimate official ties with Osama

bin Laden and his Arab associates.

PAKISTAN’S STAKES IN THE TALIBAN

As Ahmad Rashid has described so well,6 the Taliban (Islamic student) movement sprang from Pushtun refugees in Pakistan, concentrated in temporary camps in western Pakistan. Pushtun young men

6. Ahmed Rashid, Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia (New

Haven: Yale University Press, 2000).
AMERICA’S WAR ON TERRORISM: RELIGIOUS RADICALISM AND NUCLEAR 279

CONFRONTATION IN SOUTH ASIA

who had grown up in these camps were drawn back to the Afghan

homeland after the Soviet exit, but under civil war conditions in their

country. These youths had been trained in the use of small arms (carrying weapons was a natural legacy of their culture) and taught to

believe they could impose a peaceful, Islamic moral order on their

country. Most had no deep memory of traditional social life in

Afghanistan itself, many had lost their parents and, being displaced,

few were accustomed to the valued roles women played in Afghan

society. The Taliban religious outlook was a product of the free, but

largely Quranic, obscurantist education available to boys in the austere

camp environments. Their teachers themselves typically were religious

leaders (maulvis or mullahs) from Deobandi or Wahabi brands of fundamentalist Islam who ran traditional religious schools (madrassas)

with hostels, frequently using them as recruiting grounds for political

ends.

When the Soviet forces withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989, the

United States essentially washed its hands of responsibility for the

future of that debilitated country. Having defeated Soviet power and

installed a weak Islamic republic under Tajik cleric Burhanuddin

Rabbani in Kabul, Afghan mujahideen groups increasingly quarreled

among themselves on ethnic and tribal lines and most of Afghanistan

succumbed to internal warfare. Pakistan’s elected, bureaucratic and

military leaders could not so easily ignore this turbulence and groped

for a strategy that would restore civil order beyond Pakistan’s borders

in Afghanistan.

Under liberal Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and Interior Minister

Naseerullah Babur in 1993, the government of Pakistan worked out

a two-fold strategy toward Afghanistan: (a) to support the revival of

traditional Pushtun rule in the hope of extinguishing inter-tribal war,

suppressing banditry, reopening roads, reviving trade with Iran and

Central Asia, and securing Afghanistan for Western-financed pipeline

projects that could provide Afghanistan revenue while transporting

natural gas from Turkmenistan to Pakistan and on to India; and (b) to

preempt Pushtun revival of the demand for a separate Pushtun state

(Pakhtunistan) that had threatened Pakistan’s integrity in the northwest tribal belt for many years after Independence, by ensuring the

primacy of Pushtun stakes in Afghanistan’s future.

The Taliban movement emerging from the refugee settlements provided a natural political vehicle for this Pakistani strategy. It depended
280 RODNEY W. JONES

on the cooperation of the Islamist political parties that sponsored the

Taliban in the camps. The task merely involved lightly arming and

training Taliban cadres, and negotiating their entry through Quetta to

join those Pushtun militia leaders inside Afghanistan who deplored

the country’s internal disintegration and aspired, however crudely, to

pacify, reunify and rebuild Afghanistan. The Pakistani military intelligence arm, the Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI)—which had

served as the main American and Saudi conduit for training, financial

support, and transferring arms to the Afghan mujahideen—became

the overseers and managers of Pakistan’s assistance to the Taliban.

This ISI role was secretive, but it was no rogue operation—as some

in Pakistan and the United States may now wish to believe. Rather, it

was the policy of Pakistan’s elected governments from 1993, including that of the Harvard- and Oxford-educated Benazir Bhutto,

Pakistan’s first female prime minister.

The Taliban gained a regional foothold around Kandahar in 1994

and then rapidly spread within southern and eastern Afghanistan,

seizing Kabul and asserting a claim to govern Afghanistan in 1996,

with all but a northeastern tenth of the country falling under their

sway by 1998. Some financial support for the Taliban came from

Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states. The Taliban regime was formally

recognized by Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and United Arab Emirates as

the government of Afghanistan. Other governments and the United

Nations either continued to recognize the first mujahideen (Rabbani)

government even after it fled Kabul, or declined to recognize the

Taliban regime, hoping that diplomacy and United Nations relief

could patch together a workable, coalition government more representative of the country as a whole.

Almost invisible to Westerners at the start, the Taliban project at

first was not considered objectionable in Washington. The Taliban

became anathema only later, after word of its brutality spread. Having

seized power in Kabul, the Taliban’s inhumane governing practices

undercut its once positive reputation for disarming warlord factions

and bringing peace in one locality after another. From Kabul, the new

regime imposed uniquely harsh judicial procedures and tried to force

the surviving remnants of Afghanistan’s battered urban society to give

up music and entertainment. On pain of beating or even execution,

men were forced to grow beards and wear traditional clothes, and

women to leave jobs and whenever outdoors to wear the head-to-toe
AMERICA’S WAR ON TERRORISM: RELIGIOUS RADICALISM AND NUCLEAR 281

CONFRONTATION IN SOUTH ASIA

covering known as burqas. Western revulsion was aroused by media

reports of the Taliban’s draconian interpretation of Islamic law, confinement of women, suppression of female education, arbitrary

arrests, mutilation or execution as punishments, and intolerance of

non-Muslim religious minorities.

However much the Taliban was eventually despised in the West, it

was not the offspring of, nor originally associated with, al-Qaeda.

Osama bin Laden apparently left Sudan in 1996 and moved back to

Afghanistan some time in 1997. Thereafter, al-Qaeda gradually

extended influence over the Taliban by spending its own resources to

win the favor of senior Taliban leaders. Al-Qaeda also provided

armed support and guidance to Taliban fighters who were fighting the

Northern Alliance forces and other autonomous factions elsewhere in

the country. The United States focused only on the significance of the

Taliban’s grant of sanctuary to al-Qaeda after its bombing of U.S.

Embassies in East Africa in 1998.

Toward the end of its tenure, the Clinton administration put considerable pressure on Pakistan to arrange communication with

Taliban officials, hoping to persuade them to expel Osama bin Laden

and his associates. But the Taliban’s counter demand was that it be

recognized as Afghanistan’s de jure government. This price the

United States was unwilling to pay. How deeply the Taliban depended

on al-Qaeda for military operations against the Northern Alliance was

not apparent to ordinary observers until after 9/11. What was clear,

however, was that Pakistan had a major stake in the Taliban’s claim to

govern Afghanistan, was opposed to the Northern Alliance, and

could not disengage from those positions in Afghanistan, short of a

world-shaking crisis. September 11 brought just that crisis.

This analysis indicates that Pakistan’s stakes in the Taliban were not

based on a common religion or on matters or Islamic principle, per

se. Pakistan was interested in geopolitical objectives, not in the religious aims of the Taliban or its parochial justification of a strict

Islamic discipline. Pakistan hoped to foster order through a client

regime in a war-torn country on its borders. In doing so, it aimed to

promote the revival of trade, to link Central Asian energy resources

with the subcontinent, and to extinguish any Pushtun impulse to tear

part of Pakistan away as a separate Pushtun state.

Exploiting reservoirs of Afghan Islamic fervor was useful to Pakistan

(as well as to the United States) against the Soviet forces in Afghanistan,
282 RODNEY W. JONES

and useful again to Pakistan in helping the Taliban come to power, but

the Taliban movement’s Islamic fundamentalist orientation was never

for Pakistan’s government an end in itself. Only a smattering of individual Pakistanis and fundamentalist groups—mainly Pushtun tribes and

Islamic political parties with roots in the Pushtun tribal regions—identified with the Taliban cause emotionally or ideologically. For the

Pakistani authorities, the Taliban’s religious appeal was only a tool.

Far more basic for Pakistan’s government, and painful to abandon,

was the aim of Pushtun dominance within Afghanistan as a means of

resolving the civil war and opening the way to the trans-Afghanistan

energy project. In achieving this aim, to cut off the Taliban even after

George W. Bush threw down the gauntlet was tantamount to sacrificing Pushtun interests in Afghan politics and undermining Pakistan’s

interests in Afghanistan’s stability and its own security. Pakistan’s view

of the power of the Northern Alliance, perhaps mistakenly, was that

it jeopardized stability in Afghanistan. Thus, when Pakistani chief

Pervez Musharraf turned against the Taliban under U.S. pressure, the

decision was acutely difficult. Because Pakistan’s strategy toward

Afghanistan—and its own security on its western borders—was based

on a successful Taliban campaign for power, it required accepting a

fundamentally different calculation of Pakistan’s national interests.

The new calculation was that Pakistan could not afford to be stigmatized by the West as a terrorist state. Once the Taliban refused to dissociate itself from al-Qaeda, Islamabad recognized that the United States

would regard the Taliban as a de facto “terrorist” regime, and a legitimate object of military attack. For Pakistan to be associated with the

Taliban political cause after that would not only put Pakistan on a slippery slope toward international ostracism but could be used, potentially,

to justify military attack on Pakistan itself. Indeed, it was exactly this

sensitivity that India latched onto when it initiated a military confrontation with Pakistan after the attack on parliament in December 2001. But

before we examine that crisis, the dramatic progress of the U.S. war in

Afghanistan and the potential effects on the Kashmir side of Pakistan’s

Afghanistan-related entanglement need separate discussion.

MILITARY CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE TALIBAN AND AL-QAEDA

Pakistan had to decide very quickly whether it would support the

U.S. military effort in Afghanistan. Senior Pakistani officials

announced on September 15, within four days of the 9/11 terrorist
AMERICA’S WAR ON TERRORISM: RELIGIOUS RADICALISM AND NUCLEAR 283

CONFRONTATION IN SOUTH ASIA

attacks on the United States, that they had agreed to give “full support” to U.S. efforts to combat international terrorism.7 President

Musharraf ’s address in Urdu to the nation three days later informed

his people that the United States had demanded military overflight

rights, logistical support, and intelligence cooperation against three

targets—Osama bin Laden, the Taliban, and international terrorism.8 Musharraf noted that the United States had won United

Nations support and confided to the nation that neighboring India

had offered its military facilities to the United States in the hopes of

isolating Pakistan and getting it declared a terrorist state. Musharraf

made it clear to his countrymen that Pakistan had to assist the

United States; otherwise four vital interests of Pakistan would be in

jeopardy—its sovereignty, its economy, its strategic (nuclear and

missile) assets, and its cause in Kashmir. Musharraf and his advisors

7. See Molly Moore and Kamran Khan, “Pakistan Moving Armed Forces: Focus

Shifts from India as ‘Full Support’ for U.S. Is Vowed,” Washington Post, A-9, 16

September 2001. Pakistani officials indicated that Pakistan would “provide detailed

intelligence information to the United States on bin Laden and the Taliban,” seek “to

control illicit fuel and other materials from crossing the border into Afghanistan”

[and] “permit U.S. military logistical and technical personnel to operate at Pakistani

air bases, ports and some other locations in support of attacks against Afghanistan.”

They suggested the United States had not sought permission to bring ground combat forces into Pakistan but that, if asked, Pakistan “would consider a request for a

multinational force that included representatives of Muslim nations.” The article

reported that the Pakistani “military also was preparing plans to protect the country’s

... nuclear facilities ... from the possibility of a stray missile or other aerial accident.”

This last point hinted at a deep Pakistani concern that Indian, Israeli, or even U.S. aircraft transiting from India through Pakistani airspace might use the crisis to damage

Pakistan’s military capabilities.

8. “Highlights of President Pervez Musharraf ’s Address to the Nation,” Dawn, 19

September 2001, online edition. An investigative Washington Post article, the “Afghan

Campaign’s Blueprint Emerges,” 29 January 2002, provides a colorful and pumpedup account of the senior Bush administration officials’ rush on Musharraf after 9/11.

Thinking through what the United States would ask of Musharraf and Pakistan,

Secretary of State Colin Powell and his Deputy Richard Armitage put on their list: (1)

stop all al-Qaeda operatives at the border, intercept all arms shipments to

Afghanistan moving through Pakistan, and end all logistical support for bin Laden;

(2) obtain blanket overflight and landing rights; (3) get access to Pakistan’s naval

bases, air bases, and borders; (4) obtain immediate intelligence and immigration information; (5) get Pakistan to condemn the 9/11 attacks and “curb all domestic expressions of support for terrorism against the [United States], its friends or allies” (knowing such a demand could not be fulfilled even in the United States); (6) cut off all

shipments of fuel to the Taliban and prevent Pakistani volunteers from joining the

Taliban; and (7) get Pakistan’s commitment, in the event the evidence strongly implicates Osama bin Laden and the al-Qaeda network in Afghanistan, and if the Taliban

continues to give him and the network sanctuary, to break diplomatic relations with

the Taliban regime, end all support for the Taliban, and assist the United States in the

aforementioned ways to destroy Osama bin Laden and his network.
284 RODNEY W. JONES

apparently drew the line, however, at inserting Pakistani military

forces into Afghanistan.

Despite concerns about a violent domestic backlash from political

parties and groups that had links with the Taliban as well as the threat

of al-Qaeda or Taliban attacks across the border, Pakistan thus committed itself almost overnight to give the United States valuable

flight corridors over its territory and access to stage U.S. search and

rescue forces at facilities near Karachi in the south and closer to

Afghanistan at the Pakistani military airfield near Jacobabad.9

Pakistani forces also provided backstopping for U.S. operations

against al-Qaeda and the Taliban later, by attempting to seal the

mountainous borders so as to prevent hostile units fleeing across the

border into Pakistan. Pakistani intelligence and security forces also

cooperated with covert U.S. forces in efforts to hunt down those alQaeda and Taliban elements that succeeded in entering Pakistan to

take refuge, or to slip out of the country.10

Operation Enduring Freedom against al-Qaeda and Taliban forces in

Afghanistan began with air strikes on October 7, 2001. Saudi Arabia

9. U.S. access to the Jacobabad airfield reportedly was negotiated as a “semi-permanent” presence. Pakistan agreed to remove from the facility all but liaison personnel

from its own air force, and to allow the United States to build air-conditioned barracks for U.S. military units. See Kamran Khan and John Pomfret, “U.S. Extended

Presence Agreed to by Pakistan: Air Base to Serve as ‘Key Facility’ in Region,”

Washington Post, A-57, 14 December 2001. But Pakistan had to reclaim partial use of

Jacobabad airfield later in late December and January after India launched its military

confrontation. By that time, U.S. access elsewhere, including cities within

Afghanistan, reduced its need to depend so heavily on Pakistani facilities. Kamran

Khan and Thomas E. Ricks, “U.S. Military Begins Shift from Bases in Pakistan,”

Washington Post, A-1 and A-9, 11 January 2002. U.S. forces also operated from the

Pasni, Dalbandin and Shamsi airfields. Pasni airfield, located at the foot of

Baluchistan province on the Arabian Sea coast, ten miles from the Pakistani naval

base at Omara, is one of the oldest airfields in the region, having been used during

World War II by allied forces. Though small with one major runway, it can handle

Boeing 737 jet aircraft. Dalbandin, a small civil airport, is also in Baluchistan, about

230 miles due north of Pasni, and less than fifty miles south of the Afghanistan border. Dalbandin is in use by U.S. forces as a refueling facility for special operations helicopters. Shamsi, in use as a Marine forward operating base, is smaller and in an even

more remote part of Baluchistan, near Washki, about fifty miles south of Dalbandin.

See the following Global Security.org pages: http://198.65.138.161/military/facility/pasni.htm; http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/dalbandin.htm; and

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/shamsi.htm.

10. At the height of operations in Afghanistan in December 2001, the number of

U.S. military and special operations personnel in Pakistan had reached a reported level

of about 1,500. Thomas E. Ricks and Alan Sipress, “Pakistan May Hold Key to

Afghan Result: Musharraf Must Decide How to Deal with Al Qaeda Fighters Fleeing

across Border,” Washington Post, A-20, 20 December 2001.
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CONFRONTATION IN SOUTH ASIA

had vetoed U.S. use of facilities on its soil for the attack and Iran

denied access through its airspace. This put a much greater burden on

U.S. aircraft carriers and other naval forces that assembled in the

Arabian Sea, on bombers that had been flown to Diego Garcia and

some that flew all the way from the United States, and on the prodigious use of aircraft refueling capabilities.11 But to the surprise of

most observers, Russian President Putin gave his blessing to the U.S.

counterterrorist effort and the leaders of three post-Soviet Central

Asian states neighboring Afghanistan—Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and

Kyrgizstan—provided the United States air access and staging facilities near Afghanistan in the north and west. Use of these facilities

greatly eased U.S. cooperation with the Afghan Northern Alliance and

the Uzbek elements that had reestablished a presence under General

Rashid Dostum and that would retake Mazar-i-Sharif.

As a result, not only was the United States able to use its own infiltrated ground spotters and air strikes to destroy exposed Taliban military assets and installations—there were relatively few big targets—

but it was also able to use airborne firepower to break down the front

lines of the Taliban forces opposite the Northern Alliance, enabling

the alliance and the other anti-Taliban forces that reemerged to

advance, taking Mazar-i-Sharif, Kabul, Herat and Konduz in succession. Mazar-i-Sharif fell on November 9. Kabul was retaken on

November 12, and Herat fell the same day. Konduz, where a combined force of about twenty thousand al-Qaeda and Taliban forces

put up a fierce resistance, fell on November 24.

A thousand U.S. marines were airlifted on November 26 into a

remote landing strip (dubbed Camp Rhino) fifteen miles southeast of

Kandahar to provide protection for a buildup of helicopters, armored

personnel carriers, and the entry of additional special operations

units. This also provided the United States with a staging area inside

Afghanistan to pursue operations in the Pushtun areas to the north

and east, including near the border with Pakistan. Coupled with welltargeted air raids, the ground presence of U.S. combat forces helped

break the main, residual Taliban resistance in the south, stimulated

11. While U.S. forces dominated, the British provided an aircraft carrier and helicopter ship and committed 4,200 soldiers to the effort. France and Italy also each

provided a carrier and naval task group, and Germany, Canada, Australia and New

Zealand each made special contributions to the campaign.
286 RODNEY W. JONES

defections, and forced the hard core to disperse into hiding. Kandahar

fell on December 7.

Aided by the Rome political process of negotiating a new Afghan

government, Hamid Karzai’s leadership had begun by this time to

make significant headway among Pushtun elements in the south and

east that could absorb defectors and accommodate the Northern

Alliance in forming a new government in Kabul. The U.S.-assisted

Afghan meetings in Rome helped negotiate agreed steps to constitute

a new, representative government in stages—and made the level of

international commitment to rehabilitating Afghanistan clearer.

Special combat operations shifted once Kandahar had fallen to the

White Mountains, near Khost, adjoining Pakistan, where al-Qaeda

and Taliban forces had taken refuge in fortified and well-provisioned

mountain caves and bunkers. The Tora Bora operations heavily

bombed the cave complexes and ground units then cleared most of

them on the ground by early January 2002. Several hundred al-Qaeda

and Taliban prisoners were taken, with many shipped to Guantanamo

Bay in Cuba for interrogation. A significant number of the al-Qaeda

Arabs at Tora Bora evidently slipped through into Pakistan, however.

In March, U.S. and allied forces gathered in Operation Anaconda to

attack a well-dug-in al-Qaeda/Taliban force of about 1,500 fighters in

the Shah-e-Kot Mountains south of Gardez in northeastern

Afghanistan. Anaconda produced the largest number of U.S. casualties in a single Afghan operation, but apparently took a heavy toll on

the enemy, killing an estimated four hundred to eight hundred opponents. Again, some of the fighters melted away into Pakistan,

although in this case Pakistani forces intercepted and fought small

units, capturing and turning over a number of al-Qaeda members to

the United States for interrogation.

In roughly six months U.S. and allied military intervention, coupled

with the residual anti-Taliban forces in Afghanistan, had radically

transformed the situation. Momentum increasingly favored the formation of a new Afghan government—although it was clear that such

a government would be hard put to establish order throughout the

country and develop the capacity, even with international assistance,

to conduct a far-reaching economic and social rehabilitation program.

Pockets of Taliban and al-Qaeda resistance remained, with a capacity

to harass the emerging Karzai government and foment perceptions of

disorder, but by summer 2002, these isolated elements no longer held
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the capacity to counter-attack the U.S. and allied presence in any

major way.

During that military campaign, the radical Islamic backlash that the

Musharraf government had feared would erupt within Pakistan

launched a handful of demonstrations but then largely subsided during the remainder of 2001. Considerable anti-American feeling and

anger with Musharraf ’s decisions percolated below the surface but

potentially massive, violent agitation was contained. Meanwhile, the

level of violence in Kashmir rose to a degree. Then on December 13,

2001, halfway through the military campaign, terrorists struck the

Indian parliament and precipitated a full Indian military mobilization

against Pakistan.

PAKISTAN’S GAINS FROM RENEWED U.S. ATTENTION

Musharraf ’s quick and essentially unconditional decision to support

U.S. access to Afghanistan through Pakistan’s territory and airspace

paid important short-term dividends to Pakistan. The United States

had been moving away from the sanctions policy toward both India

and Pakistan that it had imposed after each country’s nuclear tests in

May 1998 and used this opportunity to drop many of the provisions

affecting financial and non-sensitive material assistance temporarily.

The United States also approved a financial aid package for Pakistan

that permitted the rescheduling of its international indebtedness, lifting a cloud from its economy.12 But the most important gain for

Pakistan was the sudden U.S. need for Pakistan’s military and intelligence support, a reflection of Pakistan’s geopolitical importance in

pursuing the initial stages of the war against terrorism in

Afghanistan—giving Pakistan an unexpected opportunity to get back

into the good graces of Washington.

During most of the 1990s, the Clinton administration had courted

India assiduously, even before the ascent of the Bharatiya Janata Party

(BJP) and the shock of the nuclear tests in early 1998, and continued

12. The United States provided Pakistan a grant of $600 million in November

2001, after U.S. military operations had begun in Afghanistan. The United States formalized the agreement restructuring Pakistan’s $3 billion debt nearly a year later, at a

signing ceremony on August 23, 2002 in Islamabad. The package included loans from

U.S. Aid, U.S. Eximbank, and the U.S. departments of agriculture and defense. Also

under discussion has been cancellation of Pakistan’s $1 billion U.S. debt. See Farhan

Bokhari, “Pakistan Debt Schedule Agreed,” Financial Times, August 24–25, 2002, 3.
288 RODNEY W. JONES

to seek an improved relationship despite the nuclear shocks. Pakistan’s

covert military operations across the line of control (LOC) in

Kashmir near Kargil in May 2001 precipitated a mini-war with India

that could have escalated. President Clinton’s use of his good offices

to persuade Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to end this conflict and withdraw Pakistani paramilitary forces behind the LOC

measurably improved Delhi’s disposition toward the United States.

Much the same trend toward a closer U.S.-India relationship continued in the Bush administration. The increasing tilt toward India and

away from Pakistan was in sharp contrast to the special relationship

Pakistan had had with Washington during the Cold War years. But the

9/11 crisis showed, at least momentarily, that India’s military and

intelligence value to the United States in launching the war on terrorism in Afghanistan was less than that of Pakistan’s, once it was clear

that Pakistan’s cooperation was readily available.

In addition to reviving Pakistan’s importance, the U.S. military presence within Pakistan, albeit limited and restricted largely to southern

Pakistan, could have been construed to have an implicit deterrent

value against direct Indian aggression on Pakistan, at least while the

tempo of operations in Afghanistan remained high and Pakistan’s

active cooperation in pursuit of al-Qaeda and Taliban elements who

fled into Pakistan was needed. This calculated judgment may have

eased Pakistan’s initial decisions to shift some military capability away

from the east, facing India, to seal the borders and provide a form of

backstopping of U.S. and allied operations against al-Qaeda and

Taliban forces, raising barriers to cross-border infiltration.

It became clear later, however, that this unspoken deterrence was

not comprehensive or robust. It did not dissuade India from mounting a sustained conventional military confrontation in December, and

the United States moved rather slowly in 2002—staying far quieter

about the risk of nuclear war in the subcontinent than its previous

policies would have implied—before it began to press India to

unwind the confrontation in June and July. Nevertheless, the operations in Afghanistan gave Pakistan opportunities to put its relationship with Washington on a more productive footing, and to compete

for Washington’s attention after years of losing ground. If momentum is sustained in repairing this relationship, it could pay very significant dividends to Pakistan over time. It is too early to tell at this juncture whether this will be the case.
AMERICA’S WAR ON TERRORISM: RELIGIOUS RADICALISM AND NUCLEAR 289

CONFRONTATION IN SOUTH ASIA

Judging by the reaction of its media and attentive public, Indians

were greatly outraged by the attention Pakistan got from the United

States after Musharraf signaled his support to Bush and U.S. military

operations in Afghanistan began. This belied the fact that U.S. efforts

to build a broader relationship with India not only stayed in high gear

but intensified, drawing satisfaction from India’s strong rhetorical

support of, and offer of its facilities for use in, the war against terrorism. India’s disarmingly positive reception of Bush’s decision to withdraw the United States from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty,

coincidentally announced on December 13, 2001, was received by the

Bush administration as an unexpected boon.13 Thus, while the war

against terrorism brought Pakistan back to the foreground, it did

nothing to diminish India’s growing influence in Washington,

although this would not have been apparent to an outsider watching

the intense indignation and recrimination portrayed in the Indian

press and television.

AFGHANISTAN, ISLAMIC MILITANCY, AND THE NEXUS WITH

KASHMIR

Musharraf ’s ability, or that of any government of Pakistan, to join

the U.S. war on terrorism and cut off the Taliban next door posed

two other serious risks to Pakistan’s interests. One was that Islamic

extremists could destabilize Pakistan domestically, making it hard to

govern. The other was that Pakistan’s influence with India over the

Kashmir question (Pakistan’s leaders believed this had been revived

by the insurgency that began in Kashmir in 1988–89) would now be

neutralized. Pakistan’s fifty-year-old claims to that disputed territory

might be lost irretrievably. It remains a fundamental tenet of

Pakistani politics that no government that makes deep concessions

on the future of Kashmir, let alone surrenders it to India altogether,

can survive.

13. U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell visited India as well as Pakistan in October

2001 to address U.S. needs and the tension between India and Pakistan, and Secretary

of Defense Donald Rumsfeld visited Delhi in November 2001 to mollify India’s irritation over the renewed U.S.-Pakistan military relationship, as well as to discuss the

possibility of deepening military-to-military contacts with India and U.S. readiness to

expedite specific military sales that had been embargoed earlier due to India’s nuclear

proliferation. Adding Britain’s weight to U.S. efforts to combine Pakistan’s and India’s

contributions in a common front against terrorism, Prime Minister Tony Blair twice

visited the subcontinent in the same period.
290 RODNEY W. JONES

These two threats were intimately intertwined in the aftermath of

9/11. Musharraf had to face the dilemma that Islamic militancy

would be aroused at home by the assault on the Taliban, and extremism could overturn the moderate core and national goals of Pakistan

itself. Yet Islamic militancy operating within Kashmir itself, led in part

by Kashmiri Muslims, was also viewed as a crucial source of pressure

on India to negotiate Kashmir’s future. Moreover, Islamic militancy

was increasingly being seen abroad as the core of “international terrorism,” and this could stigmatize all efforts to free Kashmiris, including native Kashmiri insurgents, as forms of terrorism.

Fundamentalist Islamic political parties and groups emerged in

British India long before India and Pakistan became independent and

have always been a troublesome undercurrent in Pakistan’s modern

politics, much as Hindu extremist groups have been in India. Islamic

extremist tendencies during Pakistan’s early years were restrained or

diffused by the conduct of elections and the moderate outlook on

Islam that was prevalent in the subcontinent, as well as by the usual

bread-and-butter issues of all politics. Islamic fundamentalist parties

collectively have won relatively few seats in Pakistan’s past national

and provincial elections.14

Nonetheless, the potency of Islamic fundamentalist parties and the

violent propensities of their armed militia formations have increased

over time in Pakistan. Contributing factors or stimuli came from the

military seizure of power from Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto by General Zia ulHaq in 1977, the shock effects on the wider region of the Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979, and the mobilization of mujahideen groups to

carry the Afghan war against the Soviets in the 1980s. In the period

since the Soviet withdrawal, the smoldering civil war in Afghanistan,

a secular slowdown in the Pakistani economy, stagnation of the public school system, and the initially spontaneous emergence of a liberation struggle in Indian-held Kashmir have given the Pakistani

14. Competition among the various Pakistani Islamic political parties in past elections has split their vote, ensuring that few would win seats against mainstream parties in “first past the post” election districts. In October 2002, the Islamist parties

formed an alliance and picked single candidates to compete for most seats, consolidating rather than dividing the vote of religious sympathizers. As a result, in 2002 for

the first time, the Islamist parties won a larger number of seats in proportion to their

roughly 20 percent share of the actual vote. In this respect the electoral strength of

the Islamist parties taken together increased only slightly in 2002 over results of the

past.
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Islamicist organizations—and not just Islamic extremist groups—

additional footholds.

A common theme that has emerged among analysts in the wake of

these developments is that a nexus has emerged between extremist

Islamic groups and their allegedly terrorist operations in Afghanistan,

Pakistan, and Kashmir—creating a so-called Kalashnikov culture.

While there may be a kernel of truth here, it is also a gross oversimplification to ascribe the aims of these groups and the political linkages

that may exist among some of them to the singular design, common

inspiration, and coherent direction of Pakistani military and security

organizations, notably the ISI. Where official ties with these groups

may exist to use them externally, the internal objectives are to play

them off against each other and prevent their uniting against the state.

Islamic religious fundamentalism, Islamic political radicalism, and

Islamic armed militancy are distinct conceptually, and their organized

forms seldom if ever exist under a single roof. There is no homogeneous Islamic fundamentalism, but rather a variety of schools of

thought, many cultural variants of each, and even more varieties of

styles of Islamic life and behavior—readily visible when moving from

one Muslim society or community to the next. “Terrorism” as a

generic phenomenon—targeted killing of innocents—is as antithetical to Islamic tenets as it is to the mainstream of any world religion,

or to the norms of modern civilization. Political violence frequently

has a political context without which it is not properly understood. By

understanding political violence in any particular instance, one need

not condone it or justify it, or hesitate to pursue means to stop or

eradicate it. But neither is it productive automatically to equate “terrorism” with freedom struggles against invaders and occupiers, revolutionary actions against perceived tyranny or oppression, or the use

of force in response to force over a historical dispute—whether differences of religion are involved or not.

That said, several Pakistani fundamentalist political groups have

not only willingly joined the Afghan wars and the Kashmir insurgency—against “foreign occupiers” as they see it—but have, like the

ayatollah and pasdaran movements against the secular regime of the

Shah of Iran—developed revolutionary aspirations vis-à-vis the liberal constitution and representative governing institutions of

Pakistan. Their goals are to replace the existing political order with

their own concepts of Islamic society.
292 RODNEY W. JONES

Naturally, the actual content of their visions of Islamic society

varies from group to group, by school of thought and by organizational proclivity. (For an overview of the Islamic political parties and

those that have militant offshoots in Pakistan, see “Map of Pakistani

Islamic Militant Groups” in the Appendix.) In most cases the vision

of an Islamic order is traditional and based on the shari’a, but their

styles of interpretation of Islamic law and tradition vary. One of

Pakistan’s three most prominent Islamicist parties, the Jamaat-i-Islami

(JI), actually has a modernist idea of Islamic revival that accommodates genuine learning and even natural science, and thus has strong

appeal in certain intellectual, professional, and middle class circles.

But the JI counterparts in Afghanistan and Kashmir do not necessarily subscribe to the same program or ideas, or draw from the same

social base, as does the JI in Pakistan. While the government of

Pakistan actively supported the role of these groups in Afghanistan,

their efforts in Kashmir are best understood as an extension of their

efforts to build platforms for the takeover of political power within

Pakistan itself.

Moreover, one should understand the revolutionary aspirations of

these Islamic parties not in terms of how many votes or seats they can

win in national elections but rather in terms of how they build bastions of local influence, incrementally. This is achieved by the largest

and arguably most aggressive of these Pakistani Islamist organizations, the Jamiat Ulema Islam (JUI)—which split many years ago into

two branches led by Maulana Fazlur Rahman and Maulana Sami-ulHaq, respectively. The two JUI organizations use intimidation and

infiltration of authority, the building of mosques, development of

welfare institutions, publication of local language newspapers and

magazines, recruitment of supporters, targeting and acquisition of

disputed land and property, and accumulation of other resources, at

the local levels to aggrandize power and influence in society. JUI leaders pursue these goals in a decentralized way—in districts, towns, and

major cities. The armed militias not only provide protection to the

leaders and their political activities but also serve as agents in putting

the squeeze on vulnerable local property owners and influentials.

Some of these organizations also ruthlessly exploit the sectarian

divisions of Islamic society, especially Sunni versus Shia, confusing

their ultimate objectives with near-term and situational objectives.

The leaders of these organizations are often quite entrepreneurial,
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and some of the most successful also receive funds from Islamic

groups in Saudi Arabia or other Gulf states. In their defensive and

essentially introspective response within Pakistan, Shia leaders and

organizations have also received financial help from Iran. The

Pakistan-based extremist groups that have been most active in the

fighting in Afghanistan, as well as those that have joined the insurgency in Kashmir, are generally Sunni by sectarian affiliation.

Views differ on whether the activities in Kashmir of the Pakistani

militants were also actively sponsored by the Pakistan government, or

provided official assistance by some cabal of bureaucratic and military

officials behind the scenes. But there seems little doubt that successive political and military governments turned a blind eye to the infiltration of these groups into Kashmir to join the insurgency in the

early 1990s. It is also possible that even if the militant formations

were privately recruited and trained, they found tacit encouragement

in Islamabad’s official political and military circles. Mujahideen training of Pakistani recruits, and perhaps some combat experiences with

groups in Afghanistan, were readily transferable to Kashmir. The

influx of light arms and ammunition to support the guerrilla war

against the Soviets left stockpiles that could be put to other uses.

The insurgency in Kashmir began spontaneously in late 1989, led

by native Kashmiri militant groups that recruited fighters from a

younger generation of Muslim Kashmiris who were frustrated with

Indian political interference in state elections and government. It was

some time, therefore, before groups in Pakistan began to react in an

organized way, with the infiltration and support of militants from

Pakistani sources broadly welcomed by most politically active

Kashmiris in the Vale of Kashmir, especially in the initial years.

In the development of resistance objectives and tactics, several of

the Pakistani militant groups developed reputations for taking greater

risk and using more aggressive tactics against Indian security forces

than did their Kashmiri counterparts, but a majority of these groups

shunned wanton terrorism—avoiding direct attacks on civilians and

ordinary Kashmiri property. The Jammu and Kashmir Liberation

Front (JKLF), based essentially in Kashmiris in both Pakistan- and

Indian-held parts of Kashmir, for instance, began with a militant

approach to Indian security installations (avoiding violence on civilians, and never deliberately terrorist) but changed course later to

adopt exclusively political methods.
294 RODNEY W. JONES

A handful of Pakistan-origin extremist groups, however, did cross

the line during the 1990s to terrorist actions, pure and simple, including capture and execution of foreign tourists, as well as other attacks

on civilians and civilian infrastructure. Pakistani-origin groups reportedly associated with such activities in the early 1990s included al-Badr

(sponsored by the Pakistani JI) and Harkat-ul-Ansar, later renamed

Harkat-ul-Mujahideen. (For the denominational and party affiliations

of these groups, see “Map of Pakistani Islamic Militant Groups” in

the Appendix.) The Harkat-ul-Ansar was the earliest of these militant

Pakistani or Kashmiri organizations to be put on the list of terrorist

organizations by the U.S. Department of State. The sponsor of the

Harkats was the Sami-ul-Haq branch of the JUI in Pakistan; this

branch of the JUI is believed to have had closer Afghanistan ties than

any of the other Pakistani Islamic parties and is suspected of having

early contacts with Osama bin Laden, dating back to the late 1980s

during the Afghan war against the Soviets.

In the late 1990s, the Lashkar-e-Toiba (sometimes written Lashkar-iTayyaba), sponsored by the politically invisible but Wahabi-dedicated

Ahl-e-Hadith, and the Jaish-e-Muhammed, a more recent extremist offshoot of the Sami-ul-Haq branch of the JUI, became active in

Kashmir. India pointed to the Jaish-e-Muhammed and the Lashkar-eToiba as the source of the attack on parliament in New Delhi on

December 13, 2001, claimed that the attackers were Pakistanis, and

accused Pakistan of sponsoring their attack. The State Department also

added these organizations to its official list of terrorist organizations in

December 2001. India began a full-scale military mobilization of seven

hundred thousand troops opposite Pakistan—along the entire border

and in the Arabian Sea—and made a series of demands, including total

cessation of Pakistani-origin infiltration and “terrorism” in Kashmir.

Military Brinkmanship: The Indo-Pakistani

Confrontation of 2002

OUR INTEREST IN THE MILITARY CONFRONTATION between India and

Pakistan is not merely in the precipitating events but rather its meaning in the larger context of the war on terrorism, Indo-Pakistani relations, and the knotty dispute over Kashmir. India had adopted a higher

profile since September 2001 in seeking to brand the insurgency in

predominantly Muslim Kashmir as a concerted campaign of foreign
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CONFRONTATION IN SOUTH ASIA

“terrorism” against India—sponsored by Pakistan and possibly linked

with al-Qaeda as well. India had thus set the stage for an intense reaction to Pakistan in the event any major terrorist incident inside could

be linked to Pakistan and used as a trigger.

Does India’s accusation that Pakistan was behind the December 13 terrorist attack on parliament stand up under scrutiny? How did Musharraf

respond to India’s charges? Why did the confrontation last so long? How

close to the outbreak of war did the sides come? If India had launched

a conventional attack, would this have started a chain of events that

might have culminated in nuclear war? Why did it take so long to defuse

this confrontation? Once one steps back from it, how much was this confrontation driven by religious extremism? What lessons does it contain

for the future regarding religious radicalism and conflict in that region?

TERRORIST ATTACK ON PARLIAMENT TRIGGERS INDIA’S

BRINKMANSHIP

Indian security guards effectively disrupted the suicide attack by five

armed terrorists on India’s parliament building before the gunmen could

enter the building. The ensuing shootout resulted in the death of all five

attackers (one committed suicide by detonating explosives on his person) and of nine security guards and paramilitary troops. No members

of parliament were injured, and none, apparently, were even in the line

of fire. Indian intelligence agencies claimed through tracing cellular

phone calls made by the attackers that they belonged to Jaish-eMuhammed and Lashkar-e-Toiba, among the most violent of the organizations active in Kashmir and well known to be Pakistani in origin.15

Since the attackers were all dead and the cellular phone links to collaborators pointed to Kashmiris on the Indian side, there was no

compelling forensic evidence released at that time that the attackers

or collaborators themselves were actually Pakistani citizens.16 But

15. See Rama Lakshmi, “Indians Blame Attacks on Pakistan-based Group,”

Washington Post, A-23, 15 December 2001.

16. India endeavored to convince the media that the attackers were Pakistanis. It even

allowed the three Indian television stations to interview an alleged suspect named Afzal

who reportedly told his interviewers in Hindi that the leader of the operation did a reconnaissance of several possible targets “before their boss in Kashmir chose the Parliament

as the final target.” This prisoner reportedly told the interviewers that the attackers were

from Pakistan and had made calls to their families the night before the attack and

informed them they were embarking on a “big job.” See Lakshmi, “India, Pakistan

Leaders Rule Out Meeting at Summit,” Washington Post, A-26, 21 December 2001.
296 RODNEY W. JONES

whether they were Kashmiris from India’s side or Pakistanis, the terrorist attack on India’s parliament obviously was not in Pakistan’s

interest. It is hard to imagine a situation that could have been more

damaging to Pakistan’s interests at that time.

One can safely assume that the two organizations fingered probably were indeed the perpetrators. But what were the actual motives of

those who sponsored or carried out the attack? The effect of the

attack on India’s parliament clearly was a serious blow to Musharraf ’s

leadership and to Pakistan’s prestige, whether that was a motive or

not. Embarrassing and weakening Musharraf and attempting to get

him to back away from his support of U.S. operations could have

been one of the secondary objectives of the groups that sponsored

the operation, but such a motive would have been more plausible after

Musharraf ’s January 2002 crackdown on extremists. It obviously was

a central motive in the kidnapping and assassination of Daniel Pearl

in January 2002, and in other attacks on foreigners and Christian institutions within Pakistan that increased in frequency from the spring

through the summer and fall of 2002.17

Likely, the attackers of India’s parliament gave no thought, even if

they were Pakistanis, to the stability or welfare of Pakistan’s existing

government. A more ambitious objective might have been inciting an

Indian military attack on Pakistan and provoking war between the two

countries. This theoretically could serve the domestic political purposes of the sponsors of Jaish and Lashkar within Pakistan, by enraging and radicalizing the Pakistani population and making them more

susceptible to aggressive Islamic leadership. But it is not a convincing

explanation for this operation at that time.

Perhaps the most plausible motivation for the attack on parliament

was the aim of weakening India’s determination to hold on to

Kashmir—two militant groups pursuing their own version of the

Kashmir freedom struggle—by striking at India’s heart. Interestingly

even the Indian exhibition of evidence, for what it is worth, suggests

17. This was a more obvious explanation, however, of the January 23 kidnapping

and subsequent assassination of Wall Street Journal journalist Daniel Pearl in Karachi,

six weeks later. It is by no means obvious in the terrorist attack on parliament on

December 13. As to increasing incidences of terrorist violence against Christian

churches and hospitals and Western embassy or consular facilities in Pakistan, see the

list in Kamran Khan, “Attacks in Pakistan Linked: Officials Tie Strikes on Western

Targets to Al Qaeda, Taliban,” Washington Post, A-1 and A-16, 10 August 2002.
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that the operation may have been intended to take members of parliament hostage for a few days—an act that could have elevated the

media visibility of the Kashmir struggle astronomically.18

India’s outrage over this assault on parliament was understandable

and the fact of terrorism in this incident cannot be trivialized, but the

length to which India went in reaction seemed utterly disproportionate to the incident. The proximate terrorist aims of the attackers—to

assassinate elected Indian national leaders—were totally foiled by the

units assigned to protect the parliament building.

India used this occasion, nevertheless, to accuse Pakistan of sponsoring the attack.19 Three days after the attack on parliament, the New

Delhi police commissioner issued a report that tenuously connected

the Pakistani ISI with a collaborator in the conspiracy.20 India quickly

18. The police suspect named Afzal (see note 16) who claimed to be familiar with

the operation, reportedly told his interviewers that: “[The participants in the operation in phone calls home] said the 10-year-long fight in Kashmir had not brought any

good results. ... unless Delhi was attacked, the Indian government would not yield. ...

Afzal also said the attackers were carrying food in their bags in the hope of holding

lawmakers captive inside the Parliament building for a number of days.” If this

account is true, it suggests the aim of the operation was not necessarily to kill but

rather to seize hostages and, in that case, was completely botched. See Lakshmi,

“India, Pakistan Leaders Rule Out Meeting,” A-26.

19. L. K. Advani, Home Minister (responsible for internal security) and apparently

now being groomed as Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s successor as prime minister, went on

record on the day after the attack to claim that “a neighboring country [Pakistan] that

has been spreading terror in India” was the source. Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh

also announced on December 14 that: “India has technical [and credible] evidence

that yesterday’s terrorist attack on the seat of Indian democracy was the handiwork

of a terrorist organization based in Pakistan, the Lashkar-e-Toiba.” Although he

refused to give further details, Jaswant Singh demanded that Pakistan take immediate

action against both the Lashkar-e-Toiba and Jaish-e-Muhammed, by arresting their

leaders and freezing their assets. Lakshmi, “Indians Blame Attacks.” Prime Minister

Vajpayee joined the accusation chorus the next day, saying “a neighboring country

was inspiring the terrorists in carrying out subversive acts in India. The sponsors are

destined to doom.” Naresh Mishra, “Pakistan on Alert as India Steps Up Criticism,”

Washington Post, 16 December 2001.

20. The connection made by the New Delhi police commissioner’s report in this

case offered no evidence that the ISI directed or materially participated in the attack

on parliament but merely alleged that a suspect in police custody [apparently Indianheld Kashmir] had admitted he had been trained at an ISI camp in Muzaffarabad in

the Pakistani-controlled part of Kashmir. Whether this testimony was voluntary,

whether it would stand up in court, and whether it was directly connected with the

attack in question or about an experience long in the past, was not subject to public

examination. Nevertheless, the police commissioner grandly assured reporters: “The

ISI connection is very clear.... The things which have come to notice clearly show that

ISI was connected with this, and if ISI is connected with it then Pakistan must know

of it.” See “The World in Brief: Asia: Pakistani Agency Accused in Fatal Attack,” citing the Press Trust of India and Reuters, Washington Post, A-20, 17 December 2001.
298 RODNEY W. JONES

mounted a campaign of “coercive diplomacy” cloaked in the same

themes that President Bush used in launching the war against terrorism in Afghanistan, implicitly threatening preemptive war on Pakistan

to root out terrorists.21 India dramatically cut all air, rail, and road

links with Pakistan, recalled its ambassador from Islamabad, placed

constraints on Pakistan’s ambassador in Delhi, and initiated a mobilization of the bulk of its armored and mechanized military forces

along the border with Pakistan and began moving the leading edge of

its naval combatants toward the Arabian Sea to hover opposite

Karachi.22 India maintained this war footing for more than six

months, and had only partially relaxed this posture as of this writing

in late August 2002.23

Caught up in the heat of the preemptive war against terrorism in

Afghanistan, the U.S. administration ironically was in no position to

walk back India’s overreaction, and with the shift in mood in

Washington in favor of India, perhaps was not exactly inclined to do

so. No doubt, India analysts will claim soothingly, in retrospect, that

India was never close to launching war, and perhaps this was the message behind the scenes between Delhi and Washington.24 But one can

21. Lakshmi, “India Wages a War of Words: Pakistan Again Assailed for Attack,

U.S. for Its Response,” Washington Post, A-32, 19 December 2001.

22. India also threatened a variety of other measures. India’s deputy foreign minister, Omar Abdullah, said in a December 21 interview that India was considering

revoking the bilateral water-sharing treaty with Pakistan—an important milestone of

cooperation negotiated in the first decade after Independence, might suspend trade

agreements, and could request that the UN Security Council take action against

Pakistan under an anti-terrorist resolution. Two days earlier, the Bush administration

placed Lashkar-e-Toiba on the list of banned terrorist organizations and froze its

assets. See Pamela Constable and Lakshmi, “India Recalls Pakistani Envoy: New

Delhi Signals Its Anger over Attack on Parliament,” Washington Post, A-12, 22

December 2001.

23. Reporting on the scale of the increasing Indian military buildup, and the

Pakistani response, began to appear just before Christmas. By this time, the air in

Delhi was thick with reports of India considering military strikes against Pakistan.

L.K. Advani talked openly about using “hot pursuit” against terrorist camps in

Pakistan as “legitimate under international law.” Rajiv Chandrasekaran, “Pakistan,

India Mass Troops: Tensions Escalate as New Delhi Considers Strike,” Washington

Post, A-1 and A-11, 24 December 2001.

24. That India staged the brinkmanship mainly to force the United States to put

additional pressure on Pakistan was reported at the time as a calculated Indian strategy: “Mindful of the consequences of an all-out war, some Indian officials privately

concede that the troop movements were not part of an offensive strategy, but rather

an effort to get the United States to more forcefully push the Pakistani government

to crack down on militant groups that strike India from bases over the border. ‘We

are keeping up the warmongering to get the U.S. to put pressure’ on Pakistan, one
AMERICA’S WAR ON TERRORISM: RELIGIOUS RADICALISM AND NUCLEAR 299

CONFRONTATION IN SOUTH ASIA

hardly look back at the crisis, whether manufactured or not, without

recognizing that it is a foreboding precedent for how future terroristdriven crises in the subcontinent could erupt and then explode into

war.25 At the height of the tension, a second terrorist attack that actually succeeded in killing top Indian leadership or any urban concentration of women and children would certainly have triggered India’s

opening war at some level against Pakistan.

India set forth a series of escalating demands on Pakistan. In addition to insisting by implication that Islamabad prove it was not

responsible for sponsoring the attack, India demanded that Pakistan

immediately halt what Delhi had long called “cross-border infiltration” (now redefined in slogan-like fashion as “cross-border terrorism”) in Kashmir. India called on Pakistan to ban the organizations

and effectively shut down the operations of the Lashkar-e-Toiba and

the Jaish-e-Muhammed, and extradite to India some twenty persons

(almost all listed as criminals by Interpol, mostly Muslims, but hardly

any Pakistanis) whom India claimed were guilty of acts of terrorism

in India. India also shifted the diplomatic burden of muting its own

response to action by the big powers, suggesting that only their pressures on Pakistan to comply with Indian demands could bring hope

of Indian restraint.

Underneath this Indian brinkmanship, India’s prime objectives were

threefold. First, and probably most important, was to capture Western

energy then being poured into the war on terrorism to vaccinate

India’s position on Kashmir irrevocably against international intervention, and to remold international views of the nature of the problem. This Indian position is that the major part of Kashmir that India

holds is an integral part of India, and codified in India’s constitution;

Kashmir is no longer subject to dispute, and Pakistan’s claims can be

senior official said.” Chandrasekaran, “Pakistan, India Mass Troops.” Early in the

crisis, Brookings South Asia expert, Stephen P. Cohen, also held this view, calling

the Indian moves a “sound and light show” to force the United States to play a

stronger role with Musharraf. Peter Slevin, “Pakistan Groups Called Terrorist

Organizations: Powell Names 2 in Formal Declaration,” Washington Post, A-20, 27

December 2001.

25. India’s military leadership joined the coercive diplomacy showmanship just

before Musharraf made his major conciliatory speech of January 12, 2002. India’s

new Army chief, General Sundarajan Padmanabhan, made unusually bellicose

remarks on January 11; he reported said Indian forces are “fully ready” for war and

the massive buildup on the border “is for real.” Chandrasekaran, “Head of Army

Declares India Is Ready for War,” Washington Post, A-14, 12 January 2002.
300 RODNEY W. JONES

relegated to the dustbin of “ancient history.” India sought to project

the long-standing unrest in Kashmir as solely a product of terrorism

waged against the population of the state as well as against the security forces.

The second and related objective was to seize the opportunity to

draw the United States and as much of the West as possible into

India’s corner, as a strategic gambit, by being “more Catholic than the

Pope” in India’s own approach to the war against terrorism. Indian

officials and publicists subtly reinforced international perceptions that

the core problem in South Asia, as well as between Israel and its

neighbors, is an Islamic one—a malady of a particular desert religion

that invariably goes radical (read “radioactive”) when it is ignited by

politics. Even Osama bin Laden’s vocation of terrorism against the

West is, in this polemical caricature, a natural expression of the belligerent proclivities of Islamic belief, rather than merely a crass

manipulation of religion for political ends. Playing judo, India was

craftily using the West’s new passion for its own ends.

The third Indian objective is as old as Pakistan and independent

India itself: to isolate and marginalize Pakistan in international affairs.

India’s resentment of Pakistan is profound. If Pakistan cannot be

diminished to the status of a banana republic, India would still like to

shrink its relative importance as a thorn in India’s side to Cuba’s level

against the United States, a testy and noisy but easily manageable

problem.

India’s capacity to isolate Pakistan during the Cold War failed

because the East-West struggle gave Pakistan front-line utility in the

Western strategy to contain the Soviet Union, even as late as 1989

when the Afghan war terminated. It failed partly because India’s

diplomacy never looked for equitable, quid-pro-quo bargains, but

rather assumed it should be treated as a unique power with a great

destiny. India traded in prestige rather than geopolitical security and

stability—brushing aside the deeper interests of others. Only the

Soviet Union, as an underdog, got better treatment by India, and even

that was hardly a sterling relationship in Delhi.

Once the Cold War was over, India awakened to a different set of

imperatives. The most important of these new imperatives were recognition of the greatly decreased importance of Russia as a bargaining

instrument against the West, and the acceleration of China’s race to the

stature of a great power—especially, but not only, in international
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CONFRONTATION IN SOUTH ASIA

trade. In this context, India finally adopted a pro-Western outlook. In

this same context, the war on terrorism is a grand opportunity for

India to resume its efforts to marginalize and isolate Pakistan.

Was religion the key driver here? In one sense it was—it is the real

divide between India and Pakistan, the basis for Pakistan’s (and

Bangladesh’s) separateness. But the longer one watches the rivalry

between these states, the more one sees that age-old struggle for

power as the main dynamic, defined now in a national context. It is a

culturally imprinted struggle, in which memories of past civilizations,

Hindu and Islamic, count for a great deal. But this struggle would

exist whether religion were radicalized or not, whether extremist

groups had formed or not. What the radicalization of religion does is

intensify the propensity toward violence, on both sides.

PAKISTAN’S RESPONSE: CRACKING DOWN ON MILITANT

GROUPS

Musharraf ’s immediate response to India’s brinkmanship was

twofold: He put the Pakistan Army on “high alert,” and threatened to

retaliate with force if India took “any kind of precipitous action.”26

He denied any direct role of Pakistan in the terrorist attack and called

on India to provide evidence to support its claims.27 Musharraf

declared emphatically, “We will take action against anybody involved

in Pakistan in these acts, if at all proved. We would not like Pakistani

territory to be used against any country, including India.”28 But

Musharraf sought to protect Pakistan’s equities in Kashmir by maintaining the position that Pakistan’s moral, diplomatic and political support for the political struggle of Kashmiris was legitimate and totally

defensible. He refused to be pushed into a corner that would define

all militant activity on behalf of Kashmiri rights as terrorism.

Despite the fact that India provided no specific or forensic evidence to Pakistan at all, either informally or through diplomatic

channels, Musharraf took bold action by any past Pakistani standards, in a sustained effort to defuse the crisis and reduce the military pressure on Pakistan. On December 24 Musharraf ’s government

26. Mishra, “Pakistan on Alert.”

27. Pakistan’s defense spokesman, Major-General Rashid Qureshi, called for a joint

investigation of the incident. See “The World in Brief.”

28. Mishra, “Pakistan on Alert.”
302 RODNEY W. JONES

froze the assets of Lashkar-e-Toiba, and the following day

announced the detention of Masood Azhar, the Pakistani founder

of Jaish-e-Muhammed.29 Colin Powell’s announcement on

December 26 that both Jaish-e-Muhammed and Lashkar-e-Toiba

had been designated terrorist groups by the United States30 added

impetus to Musharraf ’s crackdown on extremist organizations. On

December 31, Islamabad announced the detention of two dozen

Islamic militants, including Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, head of the

Lashkar-e-Toiba, and Musharraf announced, “I want to eradicate

militancy, extremism, intolerance from Pakistani society. And ... I

would like to eradicate any form of terrorism from the soil of

Pakistan.”31

By the first week of January, Pakistan had arrested about two hundred militants in ten days. It also began to arrest Punjabi leaders of

the Sipah-i-Sahaba and Tehrik e Jafaria,32 Sunni and Shia organizations that fought each other with violence on sectarian grounds, neither being deeply involved in Kashmir. Musharraf used the occasion

to restrain not only externally oriented extremist organizations but

also those that inflicted violence on Pakistanis at home. But the

Indian pressures continued to mount. A meeting on the margins of

the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC)

summit in Nepal had not been productive.33

Musharraf finally made a carefully prepared speech on January 12.

In the context both of the war on terrorism and India’s demands, the

most significant feature was an explicit, wide-ranging condemnation

of terrorism and extremism, both inside and outside Pakistan. He

specifically condemned the December attack on India’s parliament

and the suicide attack some weeks earlier on the Kashmir legislature,

29. Chandrasekaran and Khan, “Pakistan Arrests Islamic Militant: Massood Azhar

Led Group India Blames for Attack,” Washington Post, A-24 and A-26, 26 December

2001.

30. Slevin, “Pakistan Groups Called Terrorist Organizations.”

31. Craig Whitlock and Chandrasekaran, “Pakistan Detains Islamic Militants,”

Washington Post, A-1 and A-15, 1 January 2002.

32. Whitlock, “Pakistan Arrests Scores of Islamic Radicals,” Washington Post, A-18,

5 January 2002.

33. For the early Pakistani interest in holding a summit meeting to reduce the tension, see Lakshmi, “India, Pakistan Leaders Rule Out Meeting,” A-26. For Vajpayee’s

rebuff, see Chandrasekaran, “Pakistani, Indian Leaders Meet, but Tension Remains:

Despite Shaking Hands, Vajpayee Cool to Musharraf,” Washington Post, A-18, 6

January 2002.
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CONFRONTATION IN SOUTH ASIA

and said “no organization will be allowed to indulge in terrorism in

the name of Kashmir.”34

The Pakistani president’s declarations and promised action agenda

went a considerable distance to meet the substance of India’s concerns about acting to prevent terrorist attacks inside India.35

Musharraf announced a formal ban on Jaish-e-Muhammed and

Lashkar-e-Toiba, the two extremist organizations implicated by Delhi

in the attack on parliament. Musharraf went further, however, to ban

three domestic extremist organizations that had little or nothing to do

directly with Kashmir and India. Two were protagonists of sectarian

warfare within Pakistan itself, the radical Sunni Sipah-i-Sahaba and the

Shi’ite rival, the Tehrik e Jafaria Party. The third domestically oriented

group then banned was the Tehrik-i-Nifaz-i-Shariat Muhammadi, an

organization that had channeled misguided Pakistani youth to join the

Taliban in Afghanistan in fighting the incoming U.S. and allied forces.

Musharraf also announced that the government would introduce

other measures to reign in Islamic radicalism domestically, including

new regulations over the madrassas that would require all foreign students to register, establish registration requirements for opening any

new madrassa, impose state-designed curricular requirements, and

restrict the use of mosques and loudspeakers for political purposes or

inciting public protests.

34. See “Mr. Musharraf Speaks,” editorial in Washington Post, A-18, 15 January 2002.

This editorial further applauded Musharraf ’s speech as containing “... a breakthrough

of potentially deeper consequence ... Pakistan’s president passionately denounced the

radical Islamic ideology that fuels terrorism in his country and around the Muslim

world. He pledged to root out not just terrorists targeted by India or the West but

preachers, schools and other institutions that foment religious intolerance [within

Pakistan].... The importance of that agenda, if Mr. Musharraf forcefully pursues it,

can hardly be overstated: It would not only reverse Pakistan’s drift in recent years

toward tolerance of Islamic militancy but would also provide an alternative vision to

that of government who arrest militants but ignore or even support their ideology.”

35. See report by Whitlock and Chandrasekaran, “Pakistan Bans Groups in Reply

to Indian Appeal,” Washington Post, A-1 and A-27, 13 January 2002. These crackdown

measures against extremist organizations were, incidentally, judicially controversial if

not objectionable under the provisions of the constitution. They could be sustained

only by a military regime, and then only temporarily—absent evidence that could be

presented in court of specific crimes, of murder, assault, treason, or the like. If the

shoe had been on the other foot, India would have been hard put to carry out comparable measures itself—absent evidence that could be presented in court, for

instance, against the Tamil Tigers, or Hindu extremist organizations such as the Shiv

Sena or Vishwa Hindu Parishad—given the individual legal protections under India’s

constitution. Musharraf clearly caved unilaterally under Indian (and perhaps U.S.)

pressure to stave off war, but also to keep Pakistan on the moral high ground with

respect to the international war against terrorism.
304 RODNEY W. JONES

At the same time, Musharraf emphasized in his speech the crying

need for India to sit down and negotiate on the Kashmir problem, as

the root cause not only of the conflict between India and Pakistan,

but also of the rise of extremist tendencies related to Kashmir, in the

Kashmir insurgency itself, and within Pakistan’s own Kashmir-oriented Punjabi and Pushtun activist communities.

India’s reaction was mixed. While it welcomed the thrust of

Musharraf ’s measures against extremist groups, it ignored the proposals for negotiating on Kashmir. Moreover, the overall Indian response

was couched to put Musharraf on notice that his sincerity would be

judged by results, a theme also in U.S. official statements but framed

there in more positive and encouraging tones.36 The proof of his

intentions would be in how the promises were implemented. India

also immediately converted the expectations in Musharraf ’s speech

into a test in Kashmir. Indian officials insisted that the infiltration of

Pakistan-based extremist groups into Indian-controlled Kashmir

must stop, extremists still operating in Indian-held Kashmir should be

called back, and the net results would also be measured by whether

the violence there dropped steadily to much lower levels.37

In effect, India kept the military confrontation in place for the best

part of a year, to squeeze maximum concessions from Pakistan during a time of emergency.38 India also used missile testing to attract

36. See, for instance, Alan Sipress and Whitlock, “In Pakistan, Powell Encourages

Action: Musharraf Praised for Anti-Terror Vow,” Washington Post, A-20, 17 January 2002.

37. Whitlock and Chandrasekaran, “Pakistan Bans Groups”; Chandrasekaran,

“India Builds for Long Haul on Border with Pakistan,” Washington Post, A-18, 17

January 2002; Sipress and Chandrasekaran, “Powell ‘Encouraged’ by India Visit: New

Delhi Officials Signal Approval of Pakistan Crackdown on Islamic Militants,”

Washington Post, A-19, 19 January 2002.

38. India also exploited its “fugitive list” to keep the spotlight of the investigatory

media on Musharraf and on the issue of “terrorism.” Otherwise, for India this list

probably was a tactical concern. The twenty fugitives were a motley combination of

Muslim extremists, Sikh separatists, and organized Indian crime bosses who were

accused by Indian law enforcement, in one case or another, of bombings, kidnappings,

assassinations, gun-running, and drug smuggling. India claimed all had taken refuge in

Pakistan. In this context, India did supply to Pakistan some material evidence regarding the violations of these individuals. Pakistan found that only six of the twenty were

Pakistani citizens and insisted that in their cases, if evidence of criminal violations supported it, they would be tried in Pakistani courts. With respect to the rest, Pakistan

denied that they were residing in Pakistan. Five of the six Pakistanis on the list allegedly

were hijackers of an Indian aircraft used in December, 1999, to force the release of

Masood Azhar, who had been imprisoned (without trial) for years by India, for making

inflammatory speeches in Kashmir in the early 1990s. Upon his release triggered by the

hijacking, Azhar founded the Jaish-e-Muhammed militant organization. See
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CONFRONTATION IN SOUTH ASIA

media attention and to stimulate Western anxiety about the nuclear

issue, as a means of escalating the pressure on Pakistan.39 Between

Musharraf ’s bold January actions against extremist groups and the

present, the manipulated and felt risks of nuclear weapons rose and

fell, sometimes in agonizing fashion. However, much of the attention

after January shifted to the backlash in Pakistan against Musharraf ’s

efforts to corral and suppress the extremist organizations. The key

here was the kidnapping and assassination of Daniel Pearl in

January–February 2002, followed at intervals by Islamic extremist

attacks on foreigners, foreign institutions or Christians—themselves

ostensibly as symbols of foreign influence.40

For Pakistan, the effect of India’s perpetuating the military emergency was to keep it in a vice, trying gamely to support the United

States against terrorism on one side (also trying to minimize the injury

to the Pushtun peoples from the sustained assault on the Taliban, and

to limit Northern Alliance influence in the emerging government).

On the other hand, Pakistan was obliged to look over its shoulder at

India, and to worry about possible Indian plans to use air strikes

against Pakistani installations or assets, or, worst of all, to launch an

outright invasion on the pretext of pursuing terrorism in Pakistan.

THE NUCLEAR DIMENSION

This author has addressed analysis of the nuclear instability inherent in the India-Pakistan relationship more extensively elsewhere.41

The underlying risks of nuclear conflict almost certainly were exacerbated by the Indian military confrontation with Pakistan. How close

to nuclear war during the confrontation did the two countries get?

Chandrasekaran and Lakshmi, “Fugitive List Becomes Central Issue for India: Pakistan

Pressed to Hand Over 20 Suspects,” Washington Post, A-10, 22 January 2002.

39. Lakshmi, “Missile Test by India Raises Nuclear Ante: Pakistan Assails Firing ‘at

a Time of Tensions,’” Washington Post, A-17, 26 January 2002.

40. On the January 23 kidnapping in Karachi of Daniel Pearl of the Wall Street

Journal, see Molly Moore and Khan, “Pakistani Group Says It Has U.S. Journalist: EMail Demands Release of Countrymen,” Washington Post, A-16, 28 January 2002.

41. See Rodney W. Jones, Minimum Nuclear Deterrence Postures in South Asia—An

Overview, prepared for DTRA/ASCO, October 2001, http://www.policyarchitects.org

and http://www.dtra.mil/about/organization/south_asia.pdf; also by the same

author: “Conventional Military Asymmetry and Regional Stability among Emerging

Nuclear States: India and Pakistan,” Fourth Nuclear Stability Roundtable: Conference on

Strategic Stability and Global Change, 12–13 March 2002, http://www.policyarchitects.org;

“Force Modernization Trends—India and Pakistan,” Conventional Arms Modernization in

Asia and the Pacific, Honolulu: Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies (forthcoming);
306 RODNEY W. JONES

How likely is it that one or another crisis between these two countries

will lead to war, and potentially to nuclear escalation? Will religious radicalism increase the risks of hot wars and nuclear use between them? 

The key structural factors that inherently pose nuclear instability

between India and Pakistan relate to the asymmetries of their overall

territorial size, strategic depth, and conventional military forces.

Additional factors that are matters of concern in crises—specific

sources of potential crisis instability—are inexperience and the technical and personnel shortcomings in their respective nuclear command and control systems, shortcomings in their early warning capabilities, and serious issues of survivability of nuclear assets, especially

in Pakistan’s case, where its narrow geography leaves fewer secure

concealment options than India enjoys.

As a result, the nuclear postures of both sides are also asymmetrical. Pakistan’s nuclear deterrence calculations require that nuclear

weapons be an immediate backup of its conventional defenses, which

are considerably weaker than India’s and theoretically could be easily

overrun, risking Pakistan’s survival as an independent country. Thus

Pakistan’s nuclear capability is seen not just as a deterrent against the

hypothetical possibility of an Indian nuclear first strike but also as a

deterrent against India’s use against Pakistan of its superior conventional offensive capabilities. Pakistan’s situation is analogous to the

NATO nuclear deterrent during the Cold War against the mightier

conventional armies of the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact.

But the dilemma this presents to the Pakistani leadership, the same

dilemma that NATO lived with, is that it requires Pakistan’s decision

makers to leave open the option of striking India first with nuclear

weapons. Presumably this would be contemplated only if Pakistan

were under concerted Indian conventional attack and presumably

only when Pakistan’s situation had seriously deteriorated—considering nuclear retaliation as the use of weapons of last resort. Without

such a posture, Pakistan’s nuclear deterrent would lack credibility.

“South Asia under the Nuclear Shadow: Is Stable Nuclear Deterrence Feasible?” The

Friday Times (Lahore), 22–28 February 2002, http://www.policyarchitects.org;

“Debating New Delhi’s Nuclear Decision,” International Security 24, no. 4 (Spring 2000):

181–87; “Pakistan’s Nuclear Posture: Quest for Assured Nuclear Deterrence—A

Conjecture,” Spotlight on Regional Affairs 19, no. 1 (Islamabad: Institute of Regional

Studies, January 2000), 40 pages; reprinted in Regional Studies 18 (Islamabad) (Spring

2000): 3–39; “Pakistan’s Nuclear Posture: Arms Race Instabilities in South Asia,” Asian

Affairs: An American Review 25, no. 2 (Summer 1998): 67–87.
AMERICA’S WAR ON TERRORISM: RELIGIOUS RADICALISM AND NUCLEAR 307

CONFRONTATION IN SOUTH ASIA

With enormous conventional military superiority over Pakistan,

India has the luxury of claiming that it will never use nuclear weapons

in a first strike, but only in retaliation against an opponent’s first use

of nuclear weapons.

As long as India does not impose conventional war on Pakistan, the

likelihood of authorized nuclear use is very low. But clearly the converse is also true: that India threatening Pakistan with conventional war

brings Pakistani preparedness to use nuclear weapons to the surface.

In this regard, the Indian mobilization of the bulk of its military

forces to confront Pakistan with coercive diplomacy undoubtedly

raised the risks of a nuclear conflict to a fairly high threshold. India

may have calculated that it would merely threaten Pakistan for political objectives, such as forcing Pakistan to leash Islamic militant and

extremist organizations operating in Kashmir or deeper in India.42

But this was a situation prone to politically inflamed miscalculation,

which could have caused both sides to become trapped in a spiraling

loss of control. A really effective extremist attack on Indian political

leaders—which could have happened at any time—certainly would

have triggered an Indian invasion, quickly bringing the risk of nuclear

use to the fore.

Moreover, the flood of hints from within India during the confrontation that it was considering preemptive attacks on extremist training

camps in Pakistan nearby Kashmir—and also nearby sensitive Pakistani

nuclear installations—had to put Pakistan on a much higher state of

nuclear readiness.43 Prudence in the Indian military establishment

would have meant it too must have moved to a higher state of nuclear

readiness. This drift, not unlike cocking loaded guns, certainly brought

both sides closer to nuclear war. It is worth mentioning, however, that

neither side overtly threatened the other with nuclear attack; nuclear

options were, for the most part, veiled.

42. For reporting on hard-nosed Indian calculations contrary to the conventional

Cold War wisdom, buying instead into the notion that “a conventional conflict would

not necessarily spiral into a nuclear exchange,” see Chandrasekaran, “For India,

Deterrence May Not Prevent [Conventional] War,” Washington Post, A-1 and A-18, 17

January 2002. This report also notes some official Indian views that India could easily ride out a nuclear attack by Pakistan, quoting Indian Defense Minister Fernandes:

“We could take a strike, survive and then hit back. Pakistan would be finished.” Ibid.

43. Indian military brinkmanship and jawboning reached a particularly intense

crescendo on the eve of Musharraf ’s key speech and new policy initiatives of 12

January 2002. See Chandrasekaran, “Head of Army Declares India Is Ready for War,”

Washington Post, A-14, 12 January 2002.
308 RODNEY W. JONES

What is most surprising given this underlying danger—which U.S.

officials did acknowledge publicly—is how relaxed instead of strenuous U.S. efforts were to defuse the confrontation during its early

months. The Bush administration evidently encouraged an information campaign against India’s brinkmanship only in May 2002 when it

became clear that Pakistan’s concerns about the threat on its eastern

border had reduced its capacity to aid U.S. forces in sealing off alQaeda exit from Afghanistan.44 Perhaps U.S. preoccupation with the

deterioration of the Israel-Palestinian relationship partly accounts for

this extraordinarily “laid back” approach. It was tantamount, however,

to turning a blind eye to all dangers in the subcontinent save those of

terrorism, in order to achieve the objectives of destroying terrorist

operatives and sanctuaries in Afghanistan. The consequences of a

major conventional war, or, more horribly, of an India-Pakistan

nuclear exchange, would have made everything al-Qaeda and the

Taliban have done pale by comparison.

U.S. DIPLOMATIC INTERVENTION: DEFUSING

CONFRONTATION

The United States moved rather late in the game to defuse India’s

confrontation with Pakistan. A schedule of visits of senior U.S. officials to the region recently had been planned. The precipitating

events for a more decisive intervention may have been a resurgence

of violence in Kashmir in May 2002, suggesting renewed infiltration

of militants from Pakistan after the usual winter lull. Coinciding with

the India visit of U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia

44. Only in the late spring of 2002, as waves of fresh reports appeared on Indian

military massing its forces on the borders with Pakistan, did an administration-inspired

information campaign regarding the dangers of nuclear weapons get underway, as initial steps to restrain India—because, some alleged, Pakistan could not assist the United

States adequately against al-Qaeda in the west when it had to protect against the Indian

threat in the east. One form this information diplomacy took was technical briefings

on the human and ecological damage that would result from nuclear weapon

exchanges on plausible targets. One assessment had found that a small Pakistani

nuclear weapon on Bombay could kill up to 850,000 people. Undersecretary of

Defense Douglas J. Feith told a conference on American-Indian defense trade on May

13 that the Bush administration was “focused intensely” on the danger posed by the

five-month-old mobilization by Pakistan and India and the prospect of nuclear war.

His remarks became more significant when a paper by Bruce Riedell, an aide to

President Clinton, revealed that during the Kargil conflict U.S. officials believed

Pakistan had readied nuclear weapons for use and surprised Prime Minister Nawaz

Sharif with this disclosure. See Sipress and Thomas E. Ricks, “Report: India, Pakistan

Were Near Nuclear War in ’99,” Washington Post, A-1 and A-23, 15 May 2002.
AMERICA’S WAR ON TERRORISM: RELIGIOUS RADICALISM AND NUCLEAR 309

CONFRONTATION IN SOUTH ASIA

Christina Rocca, on May 14, militants attacked a bus and then

stormed an Indian Army camp in Kashmir where soldiers had their

wives and children present, killing at least thirty and injuring fortyseven, including ten women and eleven children among the dead.45

Two days later, Pakistan put its military forces in the north on the

highest alert, fearing that India was preparing to launch a strike on

Pakistan in retaliation for the violence in Kashmir.46

Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage’s planned visit to India

and Pakistan had suddenly gained a new importance, although it was

still two weeks off. Indian officials complained that the United States

had not adequately brought Pakistan into line, accused Musharraf of

betraying his January pledge to stop the infiltration of extremists from

Pakistan into Kashmir, and threatened heavy retaliation.47 India then

launched rounds of mortar fire into Pakistan-held Kashmir across the

line of control, ostensibly to suppress infiltrators.48 Pakistan soon

responded in kind, following a long-practiced routine. A day later,

India announced the expulsion of Ashraf Jehangir Qazi, Pakistan’s

ambassador to Delhi, giving him one week to leave; India had ceased

communicating with him anyway since the December 13 attack,49 but

this action hinted that India might break relations with Pakistan altogether—an action that often precedes war.

India announced additional steps signaling the seriousness of its

preparation for war. It streamlined the command structure of the

armed forces, putting the border security forces under Army control,

and the Coast Guard under Navy command. The Navy announced

the movement of five warships from the eastern coast to reinforce

the western fleet in the Arabian Sea. Vajpayee toured Army camps

near the line of control in Kashmir to calm the atmosphere after the

assassination of moderate separatist Abdul Ghani Lone, and to boost

45. Lakshmi, “At Least 30 Killed in Raid in Kashmir,” Washington Post, A-23, 15 May

2002. Pakistan condemned the attack immediately. Two groups, Al Mansooren and

Jamiat ul Mujahideen, claimed responsibility. Indian Home Minister Advani said that

Al Mansooren replaced the Lashkar-e-Toiba when the latter was banned.

46. Karl Vick and Khan, “Pakistan Puts Some Forces on High Alert as India Plans

Reprisal,” Washington Post, A-20, 17 May 2002.

47. Lakshmi, “India Links Pakistan to Attack in Kashmir: Officials Vow to Take

Action for Militant Raid,” Washington Post, A-18, 16 May 2002.

48. Lakshmi, “India and Pakistan Trade Mortar Fire: Exchange on Kashmir Line is

Heaviest in Months,” Washington Post, A-16, 18 May 2002.

49. Lakshmi, “India Orders Expulsion of Pakistan’s Envoy,” Washington Post, A-17,

19 May 2002.
310 RODNEY W. JONES

military morale, telling the troops “be ready for sacrifice ... the time

has come for decisive battle.”50

Once again seeking to defuse India’s brinkmanship and to persuade the United States to lend a hand, Musharraf opened himself to

a wide-ranging press interview on May 26 with a senior U.S. journalist.51 Musharraf made several points. First, he insisted that Pakistan

had stuck by his pledges to stop terrorists operating from Pakistan

into India or anywhere else: “We will ensure that terrorism does not

go from Pakistan anywhere outside into the world. That is our stand,

and we adhere to it.” He added that Pakistan’s fight against terrorism

included cooperation with the United States against al-Qaeda and

had a third component of suppressing Islamic sectarian extremism

inside Pakistan itself. He asserted that militant infiltration across the

line of control in Kashmir was not occurring, using the same language four times: “I repeat: There is nothing happening across the

line of control.”

Second, Musharraf demanded India negotiate on Kashmir, with

a dialogue and with a process, and reduce its own atrocities in

50. Lakshmi and Chandrasekaran, “India’s Leader Steps Up War Rhetoric,”

Washington Post, 23 May 2002. The day before, masked gunmen in police uniforms shot

and killed Abdul Ghani Lone in Srinagar. Lone was the senior leader of the All Parties

Hurriyet Conference, a group of Kashmiri political and religious parties that advocate

the separation of Kashmir from the rest of India. Lone himself, in contrast to many

of the other Kashmiri independence leaders, favored dialogue with India and had

become an opponent of the participation of hard-line militants from Pakistan in the

Kashmiri separatist campaign. Lakshmi and Chandrasekaran, “Moderate Separatist

Leader Is Assassinated in Kashmir: Muslim Drew Militants’ Ire for Seeking Talks with

India,” Washington Post, A-26, 22 May 2002. See also Chandrasekaran and Lakshmi,

“Indian Leaders Talk of War over Kashmir: No Deadline Set for Pakistan to Move

against Militants,” Washington Post, A-24 and A-26, 24 May 2002.

51. Steve Coll, “Pakistan Says Raids in Kashmir Have Ended: Musharraf Demands

Response from India,” Washington Post, A-1 and A-21, 26 May 2002. Steve Coll is managing editor of the Washington Post and was seasoned earlier as his newspaper’s correspondent in South Asia from 1989 to 1992. See his trenchant analysis in the same

issue, “Between India and Pakistan, A Changing Role for the U.S.,” Washington Post, Outlook section, B-1 and B-5, 26 May 2002. In his concise policy recommendations,

Coll raises a point that has been brushed aside by virtually every contemporary South

Asia expert, that war in South Asia impacts U.S. vital interests negatively and the point

must be made in no uncertain terms to India and Pakistan both: “The first challenge

facing U.S. negotiators is to convince India to back off from its war threats, while

insisting that Musharraf use the breathing space to dismantle the jihadist networks in

Kashmir. Such an initiative may require high-level talks, backed by private U.S. guarantees, to help push India and Pakistan away from repetitious border scares and

toward sustained political negotiation. It may also require an invocation, whether in

public or private, that vital U.S. interests would be jeopardized if either party launches

another war.”
AMERICA’S WAR ON TERRORISM: RELIGIOUS RADICALISM AND NUCLEAR 311

CONFRONTATION IN SOUTH ASIA

Kashmir by withdrawing forces from the towns and cities. Third, he

called for a reciprocal de-escalation of the military confrontation

on the borders and at the line of control. Fourth, he warned India

that it would pay a price for starting war: “Pakistan is no Iraq. India

is not United States. We have forces. They follow a strategy of

deterrence. [If deterrence fails] we are very capable of an offensive

defense ... These words are very important. We’ll take the offensive

into Indian territory.” He made it clear that he was not talking here

about using nuclear weapons. Musharraf affirmed Pakistan’s interest in peace with honor and dignity. But he also pulled no punches

in describing India’s approach since December as belligerent “chest

thumping.” He identified the basic problem as India’s unwillingness

to accept a strong Pakistan as its neighbor: “They want a subservient Pakistan which remains subservient to them. They are

arrogant and want to impose their will on every country in the

region.”

Coordinated U.S. and British diplomacy finally went into high gear

in South Asia in late May and June 2002, to avert the pressure for

war by bringing about a more decisive outcome on India’s main

bone of contention. This required extracting a still more unequivocal pledge from Musharraf, to actively put a stop to armed extremists moving from Pakistan to the Indian-held part of Kashmir.

Musharraf apparently believed he would receive in exchange “international assurances that India would also take significant steps to

end the decades-old stalemate over Kashmir.”52 President Bush, on

tour in Europe, finally took the stand himself to urge Musharraf

personally to “show results” in stopping incursions into Indian-controlled Kashmir.53 But escalation of tension mounted, with additional violence in Kashmir, missile testing, and a Musharraf speech

on May 27 that was both conciliatory and defiant but that riled the

Indian establishment. Thus, in advance of Armitage’s visit, to be

followed by that of Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, the U.S. State

Department, the United Nations, and a number of advanced

nations urged their citizens and foreign nationals to leave India and

52. Sipress and Khan, “U.S. Presses Pakistan on Incursions: Tensions with India

Dangerously High,” Washington Post, A-1 and A-28, 25 May 2002.

53. Dana Milbank, “Bush Presses Pakistan on Kashmir Raids,” Washington Post,

A-14, 27 May 2002.
312 RODNEY W. JONES

Pakistan—hinting obviously at the rising concern that war could

begin and lead to nuclear war.54

Musharraf and Vajpayee both attended the sixteen-nation Asian

security summit convened by Kazakhstan in Almaty on June 4, where

Russian President Vladimir Putin and China’s President Jiang Zemin

each attempted to take the two South Asian leaders aside while trying

to mediate, but Vajpayee stonewalled Musharraf on any direct dialogue.55

The Armitage visit to Pakistan on June 6 and New Delhi the following day, bolstered by Rumsfeld’s visit beginning on June 11 in

Delhi, appeared to finally soften the India-Pakistan deadlock and

allowed a basis for unraveling the military crisis by stages. Armitage

evidently found the formula in Washington’s employing the key word

“permanent” to clarify the nature of Musharraf ’s pledge to “end”

cross-border transit of militants from Pakistan to Kashmir. In New

Delhi, Musharraf ’s pledge would be understood to mean, by virtue of

U.S. assurance, bringing infiltration of militants to a “permanent

end,” but it would not have been publicly stated that way in Islamabad

itself—a “blue smoke and mirrors” act of diplomacy. In exchange,

Musharraf could count on India’s de-escalation and on the United

States to urge India to enter dialogue on Kashmir. In addition, the

doors that had been closed by sanctions to trade and even military

procurement would be opened somewhat wider.56

While Pakistan could find some satisfaction in this outcome as a

way of making the best of a difficult situation, the real benefits to

Pakistan are not anything like Indian undertakings to move toward a

solution of the Kashmir problem on terms meaningful to Pakistan.

But they probably do add up to the opportunity to begin moving

toward some form of normalcy in relations with India, and go a long

54. Chandrasekaran, “U.N. to Evacuate Families of Staff: Pakistan Plays Down Talk

of Nuclear War,” Washington Post, A-17, 2 June 2002. Since most non-essential foreign

nationals had already been evacuated from Pakistan months before, this action hit

India relatively severely for the first time, by causing a drop in confidence that

affected a wide range of international economic activity.

55. Peter Baker and Sipress, “Kashmir Foes Apart at Meeting: India Declines

Pakistani’s Offer to Meet as Pressure Mounts,” Washington Post, A-1 and A-12, 4 June

2002; see also “Russia Fails to Persuade Pakistan, India to Budget: At Summit Rivals

Trade Accusations, Not Handshakes,” Washington Post, A-17, 5 June 2002.

56. Glenn Kessler, “A Defining Moment in Islamabad: U.S.-Brokered ‘Yes’ Pulled

India, Pakistan from Brink of War,” Washington Post, A-1, 22 June 2002.
AMERICA’S WAR ON TERRORISM: RELIGIOUS RADICALISM AND NUCLEAR 313

CONFRONTATION IN SOUTH ASIA

way to allow Pakistan to count on more positive international relations more generally, especially with the West and with the United

States. The nature of this arrangement sidestepped Pakistani humiliation but there was no doubt that it requires a rather fundamental

shift in Pakistan’s outlook about the likely future of Kashmir—where

the use of violence must not only be avoided but Pakistani volunteers

who would resort to it must be prevented from doing so. From the

standpoint of any Western observer, such a shift, coupled with the

long-term dividends that the other mentioned opportunities could

yield for Pakistan, would seem to be a highly valuable outcome in the

long term.

Epilogue, November 2002

INDIA FINALLY BEGAN TO WIND DOWN its confrontation with

Pakistan in October and November of 2002, standing down a portion of the seven hundred thousand armored and mechanized

troops it had mobilized in Punjab and Rajasthan to exert military

pressure on Pakistan. It did so after further visits by Deputy

Secretary of State Richard Armitage and Secretary of State Colin

Powell to both countries in August and September—to tamp down

another spike in tension between both countries that arose in

August, while furthering the agenda of the war against international

terrorism in Southeast Asia and the Middle East. It became clear in

retrospect that India had maintained its pressure on Pakistan partly

to enhance its chances of minimizing violence in Jammu and

Kashmir while it conducted state elections there in September and

October, 2002. The Kashmir elections were not without violence

but nevertheless were relatively free and unrigged, and displaced the

long-ruling National Conference.57 The elections brought to power

in Srinagar a coalition of the new Kashmiri People’s Democratic

Party (PDP), which favors a lifting of the oppression and greater

57. The chief minister of the new government in Kashmir, Mufti Mohammad

Sayeed, was selected from the PDP and sworn in on November 2. See reporting on

the Kashmir elections in Lakshmi, “Kashmir’s Ruling Party Defeated at Polls,”

Washington Post, A-28, 11 October 2002; Ashok Sharma, “Indian Parties Try to Form

Coalition in Kashmir,” Washington Post, A-26, 27 October 2002; Lakshmi, “Kashmiri

Politics at ‘Crucial Stage’: New Government Raises Region’s Hopes,” Washington Post, A-25, 17 November 2002.
314 RODNEY W. JONES

autonomy within the Indian union, and the Congress Party, formerly

the ruling party of India and the main opposition to the BJP in New

Delhi. This outcome potentially sets the stage for negotiations

between Kashmiris and New Delhi over a new disposition for

Jammu and Kashmir, although steps in that direction seemed slow

to emerge as of this writing in November.

Meanwhile, in Pakistan, national elections were held on October 10,

2002, resulting in a division of seats among the Pakistan Muslim

League, Quaid-e-Azam faction (PML-Q), the Pakistan People’s Party

(PPP), and an alliance of six Islamist parties known as the Muttahida

Majlis-i-Amal (MMA). No party won a clear parliamentary majority.58

The religious alliance, however, won power at the provincial level in

the two provinces adjacent to Afghanistan, the Northwest Frontier

Province and Baluchistan.

After weeks of negotiations, a coalition government with a narrow

parliamentary majority was formed between the PML-Q, smaller parties, independents, and PPP defectors. Zafarullah Khan Jamali, from

Baluchistan, was selected as prime minister. This Jamali coalition, in

contrast to the MMA—which is severely critical of Musharraf ’s relations with the United States in the war against the Taliban and the

restrictions on militant movement into Kashmir—is likely to support

the broad outlines of Musharraf ’s foreign policy.

Although time will tell, the Jamali government may also be more

amenable to a Musharraf-led, step-by-step reduction of tensions in

the relationship with India than one in which the Islamicist opposition figures more prominently. However, the increased strength of

the Islamicists at the national level is likely to circumscribe

Musharraf ’s domestic options, especially in social and reform policy.

Imposing controls over the militant Islamic organizations and the

reservoirs of militant education in madrassas affiliated with the JUI

will prove difficult. Thus, the objectives of setting Pakistan on a moderate and secular governmental course will remain challenged.

58. For Jamali’s emergence as prime minister and the Pakistani national election

results, see John Lancaster, “Musharraf Ally is Named Prime Minister of Pakistan:

Election by Legislators Signals Emergence of Ruling Coalition,” Washington Post, A30, 22 November 2002; John Lancaster, “Musharraf Struggling for Ruling Coalition:

Pakistan’s Religious Parties Emerge from October Elections as Power Brokers,”

Washington Post, A-22, 11 November 2002; John Lancaster, “Islamic Parities’ Gains

May Be West’s Loss in Pakistan Vote,” Washington Post, A-22, 12 October 2002.
AMERICA’S WAR ON TERRORISM: RELIGIOUS RADICALISM AND NUCLEAR 315

CONFRONTATION IN SOUTH ASIA

Conclusions

THE U.S. CAMPAIGN against al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan

was a defining moment for Pakistan and India both. It created new

strategic opportunities for both, but these played more easily to

India’s advantage. It also imposed new strategic burdens. In the first

instance, these fell primarily on Pakistan. In the aftermath, they could

also fall on India as well, on its approach to Kashmir, and in its future

handling of nuclear affairs. How this will play out remains to be seen,

but is of great importance for the future stability and peace of the

region.

In the immediate aftermath of September 11, Pakistan’s advantages

came to the fore. Its geographic position made Pakistan indispensable, especially in the early stages, for U.S. military access to

Afghanistan. Pakistan’s intimate ties with the Taliban (who also sheltered al-Qaeda) meant that Islamabad’s approach to the war on terrorism also could be pivotal to how the United States applied its military

and political options. Musharraf ’s quick and relatively unconditional

agreement to provide the United States logistical access through

Pakistan, and to cut off ties with the Taliban, reopened a relationship

with Washington of great near-term benefit, and potentially longterm benefits as well.

Pakistan’s ready availability to the United States also sidelined India

as far as the immediate military effort in Afghanistan was concerned,

much to India’s chagrin. India, nevertheless, expressed its full support

for the U.S. operations in Afghanistan, a position it never would have

contemplated during the Cold War and actually had withheld during

the Afghan war against the Soviet intervention in the 1980s. The

warming of U.S. relations with India that had been given impetus by

the Kargil episode in 1999 and by U.S. moves to relax the nuclearrelated sanctions, however, gained momentum after September 11.

India too had made clear its readiness to offer the United States the

use of its own military facilities should they be needed. This had

weighed on Pakistan and may have speeded its own decisions.

Musharraf alluded to this in explaining the necessity of Pakistan’s

decision to cut off the Taliban.

While the agitational backlash in Pakistan from religious parties and

extremist groups against his regime did not immediately rise to an

unmanageable level, as had been feared, the animosity against

Musharraf was clear. Musharraf attempted to strike a balance in his
316 RODNEY W. JONES

support for the United States between his actions on Afghanistan and

Pakistan’s policies toward India. While dropping the Taliban, he

steered away from imposing any new constraints on the religious parties and their affiliated militants that would affect their access to the

insurgency in Kashmir.

Islamic extremist groups continued their own operations in

Kashmir. In retrospect, it seems clear that the most aggressive of

these organizations also attempted to provoke India by carrying terrorist operations beyond Kashmir into the heart of India. The motivations of the Jaish-e-Muhammed organization in preparing the

December attack on India’s parliament are still far from clear (and the

same may be said for the Lashkar-e-Toiba, if it was actually part of

the same conspiracy). India’s own forensic investigations provided

hints that the attack on parliament was not thoroughly pre-planned

(other targets in Delhi apparently had been surveyed and considered),

and that the rationale of the participants had been to carry the

Kashmir insurgency to Delhi because their efforts within Kashmir

had not borne fruit in forcing India to negotiate. The founder of

Jaish-e-Muhammed had also been imprisoned by India and may have

had motivations of personal revenge. Also, although no direct evidence of this has surfaced, one cannot rule out the possibility that

those who engineered or directed the attack from a distance may have

hoped that it would arouse India to undertake efforts to destabilize

Musharraf ’s regime.

Whatever the exact motivation, it is clear that the effect of the attack

on parliament was to provoke India to consider going to war against

Pakistan, or at least to retaliate with a major show of force. The Bush

Doctrine and the war on terrorism in Afghanistan provided a precedent that Indian leaders instinctively embraced—that acts of terrorism could be pursued to their origin and rooted out by military force.

Since India alleged that the perpetrators killed in the incident were

Pakistanis, the effect of the terrorism in Delhi was to provoke a

response that would threaten Pakistan directly, and, given the context,

indirectly threaten the Musharraf regime.

India was handed a strategic opportunity on a platter. Rather than

squander this opportunity on a quick, punitive action against terrorist

training camps or Pakistani military installations along the line of control (such action would have been militarily ineffectual and probably

politically counterproductive as well), India mounted a major military
AMERICA’S WAR ON TERRORISM: RELIGIOUS RADICALISM AND NUCLEAR 317

CONFRONTATION IN SOUTH ASIA

confrontation against Pakistan for coercive diplomacy. This effort was

well designed to put simultaneous pressure on the United States to

use its influence with Musharraf, and direct pressure on Musharraf

himself to get him to condemn terrorism and block the emigration of

extremist groups into Kashmir. By Indian calculations, this could seal

off Indian-held Kashmir from Pakistan’s influence and terminate the

anti-Indian unrest there. The confrontation could have led to Indian

military actions, too, if circumstances convinced India’s leadership of

their utility or necessity.

Caught in a vise between the United States pursuing the war against

the Taliban to the west in Afghanistan, and India threatening war

from the east, and under pressure from Islamic political parties at

home, Musharraf faced more than the ordinary dilemma.

Condemning the attack on India’s parliament was easy enough but did

nothing to relieve the pressure. Musharraf ’s problem was to show

Pakistan’s commitment to suppress terrorism on one hand without

undercutting Pakistan’s Kashmir policy. His initial attempts to do this

by the measures announced in his January 12 speech. These banned

the two extremist groups that India had fingered, confined members

of those groups in temporary detention, and declared that Pakistan

would not allow the migration of terrorism from Pakistan’s soil anywhere outside. This was greeted with skepticism by India. India did

not budge from the confrontation. In effect India pocketed

Musharraf ’s promises, but insisted they would have to be monitored

before India could adjust its position.

While the confrontation remained in place, the winter weather cut

down movement from Pakistan to Kashmir, a regular occurrence, and

a modest drop-off in the level of violence in Kashmir followed. But

India revived the crisis of war threats to a high pitch in mid-May

when a bloody attack on an army camp coincided with Christina

Rocca’s visit. India insisted that Musharraf had betrayed his January

pledges. Anger in India was accentuated by the communal riots in

Gujarat, which took an exceptionally heavy toll on Muslims and

BJP’s anxiety as it ran up to certain state level elections. U.S. concerns

were augmented by Musharraf ’s trimming of military support

against al-Qaeda groups slipping into Pakistan. Nuclear threats were

hinted at indirectly by testing missiles (India earlier, and Pakistan

later), during this timeframe. The magnitude of the tension set the

stage for a more active U.S. intervention with Armitage and
318 RODNEY W. JONES

Rumsfeld, Armitage carrying the ball diplomatically, and Rumsfeld

giving personal impetus to promises of continued military cooperation.

Attacks on Americans and other foreigners within Pakistan had

increased after Musharraf ’s January actions. The Daniel Pearl murder

and the killing of French technicians in Karachi received exceptionally intense attention from the international media. This helped mobilize U.S. pressure, too. Thus, under concerted U.S. pressure, and with

the additional challenge of staying in power while preparing the

ground for national elections scheduled for October, Musharraf

became a measure more pliable.

Armitage’s principal contribution in visiting Pakistan and India in

succession was to nail down more definitively Musharraf ’s pledge to

stop emigration of extremists into Kashmir, adding the word “permanent” in front of the word “stop.” Armitage evidently had some

assurances from India that he could convey to Musharraf in return,

together with additional promises of U.S. support for Pakistan, if

Musharraf adhered to his word. This intervention did begin to thaw

the tension between India and Pakistan, although India made it clear

that it would draw down its military confrontation in steps as it monitored Pakistan’s performance.

India won the lion’s share of the benefits that U.S. intervention and

media attention awarded in the coercive diplomacy exercise. India

successfully focused the crisis on extremist infiltration into Kashmir

and related terrorist acts in other parts of India. It not only got U.S.

assistance in defining any terrorist problem linked to Pakistan in

India’s own way, but a more substantial U.S. sympathy toward India’s

own position on Kashmir. India made considerable headway in shifting international perceptions of these problems in the direction of

stigmatizing Pakistan.

On the role of religion and religious extremism, or radicalism, in

this South Asian set of security problems, one must conclude that the

real issues are deeper social and political grievances, which makes it

possible to use religion as a tool. The more radical the operators, the

more terrorism comes into play. Religious hatred and extremism are

not new to the region; they have been endemic. The Islamic world has

more than its share of this problem, but the fires of Hindu extremism are being fanned by politics in India, too.
AMERICA’S WAR ON TERRORISM: RELIGIOUS RADICALISM AND NUCLEAR 319

CONFRONTATION IN SOUTH ASIA

With two countries possessing nuclear weapons in this region, neither can afford to stoke up deeper conflict. Both must turn to resolving real problems, economic, political, and those of fundamental

security. But Kashmir as a core problem stares any objective observer

in the face. Apart from the campaign against terrorism, efforts to

rehabilitate Afghanistan and with Musharraf ’s crackdown on extremism, the most hopeful development during the India-Pakistan confrontation was the dawning realization in the international community

that the process of resolving the Kashmir problem must begin soon.
321

The September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the U.S. mainland have transformed calculations about the threats posed by nonstate actors, especially those who are inspired largely by a global, antistate ideology such as al-Qaeda’s pan-Islamist vision. Post-September

11, the old threat of nuclear holocaust has acquired a new dimension,

i.e., the possible possession and use of nuclear weapons by terrorists

and extremist movements. In Afghanistan, structural designs for

nuclear weapons and other such materials were confiscated from

underground hideouts of the al-Qaeda terrorist group. Much has been

said about the stability and instability of nuclear deterrence between

India and Pakistan since the late 1980s. The proponents of nuclear

deterrence in South Asia, who argue that the introduction of nuclear

weapons has prevented the outbreak of a large-scale conflict between

India and Pakistan, generally belong to the “state-as-a-rational-actor”

school of thought. On the other side are those who worry about the

new threat posed by the intrusion of non-state actors, or perhaps,

more accurately, “anti-state actors,” and their agendas, which are

widely perceived as “irrational” in their ideological orientation

13

MOHAN MALIK

The Stability of Nuclear Deterrence in South Asia:

The Clash between State and Anti-state Actors
322 MOHAN MALIK

(Wahabism today as was Maoism in the 1960s).1 Since their ultimate

stated objective is the destruction of the modern international system

based on nation-states, they should, therefore, be described as antistate actors in nature and purpose.

Why should we pay greater attention to the role and perspective of

anti-state actors in our discussion of the stability of nuclear deterrence in South Asia? Non-state or anti-state actors have twice brought

nuclear-armed Pakistan and India to the brink of a war since

September 11, which could have escalated to the nuclear level.

Despite recent efforts at de-escalation, the danger of war remains

high as Islamist militants in Kashmir and elsewhere have the potential

and reasons to re-ignite tensions between New Delhi and Islamabad

by doing something so outrageous and provocative that India would

feel compelled to retaliate.2 Interestingly, India has now appropriated

the Bush administration’s doctrine of preemption. A number of

recent developments—such as the emergence of pro-Taliban Islamic

parties as the third-largest force in Pakistan’s October 2002 parliamentary elections, Islamabad’s seemingly half-hearted efforts to tackle

the al-Qaeda menace, revelations of Pakistan-North Korea

nuclear/missile proliferation nexus, and last but not least, the Indian

government’s growing disillusionment with Washington’s reluctance

to get tough with Pakistan for fear of destabilizing the Musharraf

regime—suggest that the conditions surrounding the India-Pakistan

nuclear standoff are likely to worsen over the next few years.3 The

two nuclear-armed countries have also embarked upon an arms-buying spree, preparing themselves for the next war.

1. For most Wahabis, the ideal Islamic state was the one in Afghanistan ruled by the

Taliban, where women were subjugated, laughter and song forbidden, and only an

intolerant, absolutist form of Islam permitted. See Craig S. Smith, “A Movement in

Saudi Arabia Pushes toward an Islamic Ideal,” New York Times, 9 December 2002), 1.

2. In a recent interview with British Broadcasting Corporation’s Hardtalk program,

India’s National Security Adviser Brajesh Mishra warned that “if something big were

to happen...” India would not hesitate to hit back. See “Pak’s Done Absolutely

Nothing, U.S. Promised More: Mishra Hardtalk,” Indian Express, 28 November 2002,

1; C. W. Dugger, “India-Pakistani Tensions Subside, but Nuclear Fear Is Far from

Over,” New York Times, 20 June 2002, 1; Rory McCarthy, “Dangerous Game of Statesponsored Terror that Threatens Nuclear Conflict,” The Guardian (London), 25 May

2002, 1.

3. David W. Jones, “India Hits West on Terror Tactics,” Washington Times, 14

November 2002, 1; Sudha Ramachandran, “India: US Credibility on the Line,” Asia

Times Online, 27 July 2002, http://www.atimes.com/atimes/archive/7_27_2002.html.
THE STABILITY OF NUCLEAR DETERRENCE IN SOUTH ASIA: THE CLASH 323

BETWEEN STATE AND ANTI-STATE ACTORS

A nuclear war between India and Pakistan would signal not only the

failure of nuclear deterrence but would also mean the victory of antistate actors and could result in the collapse of the global nuclear nonproliferation regime. Indeed, many security specialists have argued

that the main risk of terrorists obtaining deadly weapons comes from

individuals and groups acting outside state control, people such as scientists and technicians with extremist Islamist beliefs in Pakistan or

criminals and traders in the former Soviet Union.4 There is a growing

consensus that Islamist militants in the region with close ties to

Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network pose a great danger to their

governments, and a credible threat to both regional and global security. Operations against al-Qaeda in Pakistan clearly have been less

than successful, and General Musharraf ’s ability to control jihadi

groups is severely limited. An important objective of the global antiterrorism campaign is to keep nuclear weapons and nuclear explosive

material out of the hands of anti-state actors such as terrorist organizations, rogue regimes, and violent sub-national groups.5

This paper focuses on the linkage between religious radicalism and

nuclear deterrence in South Asia from the perspectives of both state

and anti-state actors. It begins with outlining the conditions of stable

nuclear deterrence and examines the presence or absence of those

conditions by highlighting the growing gulf between the state-centric

perspective and the perspective of anti-state actors, which makes

nuclear deterrence highly unstable in South Asia.

Definitions and Some Caveats

BEFORE OUTLINING IN DETAIL what this paper is about, it will be useful to state at the outset what it is not about. This paper is not about

the effects of a nuclear war in South Asia, nor will it focus on the

nuclear weapons capabilities of India and Pakistan. Nor does it outline different scenarios of a nuclear war in South Asia that have been

4. Paul Richter, “Pakistan’s Nuclear Wild Card,” Los Angeles Times, 18 September

2001, 1; Brad Knickerbocker, “Nuclear Attack a Real, if Remote, Possibility,” Christian

Science Monitor, 31 October 2001; David C. Isby, “When the Last Taboo Is Broken,”

Washington Times, 13 August 2002, 17.

5. Elizabeth Neuffer, “A U.S. Concern: Pakistan’s Arsenal,” Boston Globe, 16 August

2002, 1; Rose Gottemoeller and Thomas Graham Jr., “Dampen Nuclear Dangers in

India and Pakistan,” Christian Science Monitor, 15 November 2001.
324 MOHAN MALIK

extensively discussed elsewhere.6 However, there will be some discussion of possible scenarios of anti-state actors gaining hold of nuclear

weapons in the context of instability of nuclear deterrence in South

Asia.

What is an anti-state actor? An anti-state actor is defined as a religious extremist ideology or movement with political objectives that

seeks to establish regional and/or global supremacy and advocates the

destruction of the modern state system through unconventional warfare, including the use of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). The

phenomenon of weak and failing states in parts of Asia, Africa and

the Middle East and the inability of governments in many countries

to prevent their territories from serving as sanctuary to terrorists and

criminal syndicates, have created a fertile ground for anti-state actors

to engage in terrorism, acquisition of WMD, illegal drug trafficking,

or other illicit activities across state borders. For the purposes of this

paper, the term anti-state actor is preferred because non-state actors

might imply benign actors, sometimes also seen as do-gooders. Above

all, non-state actors, by and large, accept the primacy and legitimacy

of the nation-state actor in the international system. Anti-state actors

such as al-Qaeda, on the other hand, do not accept the legitimacy of

the international system based on nation-states. Their belief in the sovereignty of Allah and the pre-eminence of the Ummah (Islamic community) over the nation-state overrides the primacy of the people’s

will, the government and the state. The state level is “bypassed and

ignored” because, as Olivier Roy argues, “Islamists do not care about

the state—they even downgraded Afghanistan by changing the official

denomination from an ‘Islamic State’ to an ‘Emirate.’ Mollah Omar

[did] not care to attend the council of ministers, nor to go to the capital ... This new brand of supranational neo-fundamentalism is more

a product of contemporary globalization than of the Islamic past.”7

Furthermore, “Islamists see Islam not as a mere religion, but as a

political ideology that should be integrated into all aspects of society

(politics, law, economy, social justice, foreign policy, etc.). This form

6. For example, see Andrew C. Winner and Toshi Yoshihara, “India and Pakistan at

the Edge,” Survival 44, no. 3 (Autumn 2002): 69–86; James Manor, “How a War Could

Go Nuclear,” International Herald Tribune [hereafter IHT], 27 May 2002.

7. Olivier Roy, The Changing Patterns of Radical Islamic Movements, CSNS Policy Paper

2 (New Delhi: Jawaharlal Nehru University, November 2002), 15.
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BETWEEN STATE AND ANTI-STATE ACTORS

of Islamism is de-territorialized, supranational...[and does] not care

about borders and national interests.”8 Arguing that Islam is not only

the only true religion but is also the very antithesis of nationalism,

Islamists demand the establishment of one universal Islamic Emirate,

ruled by a single Caliph.9 Their rhetoric of universal Islamic brotherhood is one that transcends national boundaries and, indeed, seeks to

portray nation-states as un-Islamic.10 This is so because the ultimate

goal of these anti-state actors is to wage jihad (holy war) to establish

a pan-Islamic Caliphate (religious political order) throughout the

world by working with allied extremist groups to overthrow governments they deem “non-Islamic” and by expelling non-Muslims from

Muslim territories or converting them to Islam. A pan-Islamic

Caliphate is supposed to “recreate the golden age of the first decades

of Islam and supercede tribal, ethnic and national divides, whose

resilience is attributed to the believers’ abandonment of the true

tenets of Islam or to colonial policy.”11 To Islamists, since “the

ummah is one,” the present division of the Muslims into many

nation-states is unacceptable. Therefore, “armed jihad must continue

until Islam, as a way of life, dominates the whole world and until

Allah’s law is enforced everywhere in the world.”12 Obviously, there is

nothing holy about the holy war being waged by anti-state actors such

as al-Qaeda, International Islamic Jihad and International Islamic

Front.13 The fact that extremist, totalitarian ideologies have never had

much popular appeal does not seem to discourage these groups and

movements. That is why Russian President Putin recently dismissed

the idea of World Islamic Caliphate as “crazy” as Hitler’s idea of

global dominance.

8. Ibid., 2.

9. It should be added, however, that their opposition to nationalism does not stop

the Islamists from creating more Islamic states. If anything, they see the creation of

more Islamic states as a prelude to a grand unity of all Muslims that will eventually

lead to the establishment of a global Islamic Caliphate.

10. “Democratic System versus Islamic Polity,” http://www.dawacenter.com/magazinevoiceofislam/feb00/democracyvsislam.html, cited in Yoginder Sikand, “Islamist

Militancy in Kashmir: The Case of the Lashkar-I-Tayyeba.” Unpublished Paper,

2002, 7.

11. Roy, The Changing Patterns, 2.

12. Jihad: The Foreign Policy of the Islamic State, http://www.dawacenter.magazines/

voiceofislam/sept99/jihad.html, cited in Sikand, “Islamist Militancy in Kashmir.”

13. See Robert G. Wirsing, “Political Islam and ‘Unholy War’ in Asia” (paper presented at the Conference on Growth & Governance in Asia, sponsored by the AsiaPacific Center for Security Studies, Honolulu, Hawaii, 12–14 March 2002).
326 MOHAN MALIK

Yet another reason for the usage of the term anti-state actors is that

“non-state actor” implies that the actor is either independent or outside the control of the state. The so-called non-state actors in South

Asia have long enjoyed the direct or indirect support of the governments of the day and military establishments. As so often happens in

such cases, many of these non-state actors gradually developed their

own agendas and eventually turned against their own mentors,

thereby assuming the character of anti-state actors. It is worth

remembering that unprecedented terrorist attacks on the U.S. military

and economic citadels on September 11 would not have occurred if

Pakistan’s government had shown zero tolerance for bin Laden and

al-Qaeda’s activities on Pakistani soil and from Afghanistan. The

multinational Mujahideen force, which the United States had supported

against the former Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the 1980s, has now

transformed itself into a multinational hydra-headed Islamist fundamentalist monster. The successive Pakistani governments—civilian as

well as military—created, nourished, maintained and encouraged the

Lashkar-e-Toiba, Jaish-e-Muhammed, Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, Markazdawa,

Dawat-ul-Irshad, Taliban, al-Qaeda’s International Islamic Front, and a

dozen other terrorist outfits on its soil to wage proxy wars in

Afghanistan and Kashmir.14 Pakistan military’s Inter-Services

Intelligence (ISI) is widely believed to have helped engineer the unholy

alliance of pro-Taliban, pro-al-Qaeda Islamic radicals during the

October 2002 elections who now control two provinces bordering and

half the seats in the Pakistani Senate.15 These radical organizations

have played a destructive role in Pakistan’s nation- and state-building

process. They simultaneously pursue anti-state or transnational activity

on behalf of Islam, activity that “blurs the identity and the frontiers of

the nation-state.”16 Whether one calls them an anti-state actor or

transnational actor or supranational actor or a virtual state, the nature

of the threat they pose to two nuclear-armed belligerents with disputed histories and disputed borders cannot be underestimated.

14. As one senior Pakistani bureaucrat had observed in 1999: “Unfortunately our

policy towards Afghanistan has become intimately linked to our policy to Kashmir.

It’s difficult to see how we can disengage from one without harming the other.” Cited

in Far Eastern Economic Review, 25 November 1999.

15 See Stanley A. Weiss, “Which Islam? Reformers Need the Military,” IHT, 19

December 2002.

16. Christophe Jaffrelot, ed., Pakistan: Nationalism without a Nation? (New Delhi:

Manohar, 2002), 145.
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BETWEEN STATE AND ANTI-STATE ACTORS

17. Ahmed Rashid, Taliban: Islam, Oil and the New Great Game in Central Asia

(London and New York: I. B. Tauris, 2002), 212.

An important caveat is that the followers of Islam live in a world

of independent but increasingly interdependent states with competing global and domestic interests, as well as religious and cultural

diversity. It is acknowledged that the foreign policies of Islamic states

are influenced more by geopolitics than by their religion. Even

Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran had emphasized that interests of the

state precede the interests of Islam. A pan-Islamist movement has

never taken root nor is it likely to do so in an increasingly interconnected and interdependent world. The notion of monolithic Islam is

oxymoronic. The Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC) is a

divided house, more often at war within than without. The world

Islamic community (the Ummah) is neither monolithic nor a cohesive political force. The overwhelming majority of Muslims are moderate, peace-loving, and law-abiding and they do not support the radical Wahabi/Salafi/Deobandi/Barelvi version of intolerant/

absolutist/totalitarian/obscurantist/anti-modern Islam. Nor is there

a single interpretation of the Quranic teachings. More and more

Muslims are criticizing radical Islamic groups such as the Taliban

and al-Qaeda and accusing them of “hijacking” their religion in

order to further destructive political goals. Arguing that “the genius

of early Muslim-Arab civilization was its multi-cultural, multi-religious and multi-ethnic diversity,” a prominent scholar Ahmed

Rashid attributes “the stunning and numerous state failures ... in

the Muslim world today” to the abandonment of “that original path,

that intention and inspiration ... either in favor of brute dictatorship or a narrow interpretation of theology.”17 Unfortunately, the

moderates in the last half-century have been progressively relegated

to the intellectual and political margins of Islamic society by Wahabi

Islam. The Wahabis are crude literalists in matters of religious interpretation and promote a simplistic and utopian vision of Islam as

“authentic,” and perceive most of the political and social values of

modernity to be antithetical to Islam. It is a well-known fact that

poor governance, autocratic rule, denial of fundamental freedoms

and lack of education and employment opportunities in the Islamic

societies with growing populations are being exploited by radical

movements offering their perverted version of “Islam as the only
328 MOHAN MALIK

solution.”18 If we are to avoid a real clash between civilizations as

prophesied by Samuel Huntington, it is important that the clash

within Islamic civilization that has pitted fundamentalists, theocrats,

exclusivist and mono-cultural radicals, obscurantists, traditionalists,

clerics and political fanatics on the one hand and progressives,

democrats, secular, inclusivist, multi-cultural and pluralist Islamic

forces and modernizers on the other hand, is won by the latter. Unlike

Christianity, Judaism and Hinduism, Islam has never undergone any

update, reformation or enlightenment from within since its inception

in the seventh century.19 Since the main source of Islamist extremism

is the ideological and financial support provided by the House of

Sauds and other Gulf Sheikhdoms, socio-political reform and liberalization of political culture would be a harbinger of growth and prosperity in the Middle East and South Asia.

And finally, while looking at the impact of Islamist extremist forces

on the stability of nuclear deterrence in the Indian subcontinent, it is

very difficult to ignore related developments in the Middle East and

Central Asia. In fact, the links among these areas have become so

strong in recent years that limiting our discussion to South Asia alone

18. Nearly all Muslim societies without exception have undemocratic, totalitarian

and fascist regimes representing various shades of social, cultural and intellectual

deprivation. Militants are using the language of Islam to challenge the state. The

weakness of the state in responding to the challenges posed by radical movements

has led to the hollowing out of institutions. Even countries that claim to be “moderate Muslim countries” have serious fundamentalist problems (e.g., Turkey, Malaysia,

Indonesia, Bangladesh). The phrase “moderate Muslim countries” says it all. There is

no parallel with “moderate Christian country” or “moderate Hindu country” or

“moderate Buddhist country.” Those who oppose the Islamists argue that there is a

cultural precondition for democracy, including individualism, civility, tolerance, and

willingness to compromise in the interest of harmony, and that Islamists lack these

basic essential qualifications. Eric A. Vas, “The Muslim World and Globalisation,”

Journal of the United Services Institution of India 130, no. 539 (January–March 2000):

138–41.

19. Thomas L. Friedman, “An Islamic Reformation,” New York Times, 4 December

2002. A powerful antidote to Islamist Wahabism could be Islamic Protestantism,

which would rescue Islam from mullahs, mosque and madrassas. “Like Christianity,

Islam is a universal faith that envisions the ultimate transformation of the world in

its image. But unlike large parts of Christianity in our time, Islam has yet to consider

the option of religious pluralism based on the equality of faiths. For Islam, only two

options exist: to dominate or be dominated. Islam’s challenge is to balance its vision

of itself as a faith that dominates the world with humility that concedes the need for

religious restraint in a world threatened with nuclear destruction,” writes Yossi Klein

Halevi, “Islam’s Outdated Domination Theology,” Los Angeles Times, 4 December

2002.
THE STABILITY OF NUCLEAR DETERRENCE IN SOUTH ASIA: THE CLASH 329

BETWEEN STATE AND ANTI-STATE ACTORS

may not be appropriate and we need to find new terms to describe

them. However, what distinguishes South Asia from the Middle East is

the presence of nuclear weapons by both the combatants: Pakistan and

India. The nuclear weapons capabilities of India and Pakistan invariably

have an impact on the security environment of the Middle East and

Asia, and are, in turn, influenced by the developments in the secret-andnot-so-secret WMD programs of Israel, Iran, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia.20

That said, the objective of this paper is a fairly modest one, that is,

explaining the key arguments of those who doubt the stability of

nuclear deterrence in South Asia primarily due to the emergence and

intrusion of anti-state actors whose survival depends on the destruction of states to establish a global Islamic Caliphate based on their

pan-Islamist vision.

The Conditions of Stable Nuclear Deterrence

IN A STUDY PUBLISHED at the end of the Cold War, Lewis Dunn identified a set of conditions, broadly divided into political, technical and

situational conditions, which contributed to the non-use of nuclear

weapons and stable deterrence between the United States and the

Soviet Union during the Cold War era.21 He compared the situation

prevailing in conflict-prone regions such as South Asia and the Middle

East, and pronounced his verdict: the proliferation of nuclear

weapons in Asia will not lead to stable deterrence between combatants. (See Table 1 on the following page.) 

Let us take the political conditions first. If the stakes are limited,

nuclear deterrence can work. If the stakes are too high, for example,

if the survival of the nation-state is at stake, as, for example, in Israel’s

case, then nuclear deterrence cannot work. As for political accountability and stable leadership, in a democracy nuclear weapons remain

under the control of the civilian leadership but nuclear decision making still takes place in a closed circle. However, in dictatorial, militarydominated regimes, military leaders sometimes have a tendency to

link their personal well-being or regime survival with national survival

and could sometimes be prepared to “go down with their state” rather

20. See, for example, Anwar Iqbal, “U.S. Studies Pakistan, Saudi N-ties: Report,”

Dawn (Karachi), 2 August 2002, 1.

21. Lewis A. Dunn, Controlling Nuclear Proliferation (London: IISS, Adelphi Paper no.

263, winter 1991). Discussion in this section is based on this study.
than accept the loss of power and military defeat. Predictability of

opponent’s capabilities, intentions and policies is more difficult and

open to misinterpretation in newly emerging nuclear powers. Long

histories of confrontation, lack of communication, hatred and dislike

at the leadership level, desire for revenge and dangerous notions of

religious/racial superiority could lead to misunderstandings, misperceptions and miscalculations.

330 MOHAN MALIK

Table 1. Conditions of stable nuclear deterrence 

 USA USSR/ 

Russia 

South 

Asia 

Political 

Limited stakes Yes Yes No 

Political accountability Yes Yes Yes/No 

Institutional restraints Yes Yes Yes/No 

Stable leaders Yes Yes Yes/No 

Predictability Yes Yes No 

Low risk taking Yes Yes ? 

Technical 

Stable peacetime operations Yes Yes ? 

Survivable force Yes Yes Yes/No 

High accident proofing Yes Yes ? 

Effective command and 

control 

Yes Yes ? 

Operational effectiveness Yes Yes ? 

Less provocative 

alert/exercise procedures 

Yes Yes Yes/No 

Situational 

Bipolarity Yes Yes No 

No common borders Yes Yes No 

Gradual deployment Yes Yes ? 

Nuclear learning Yes Yes ? 

Source: Adapted from Lewis A. Dunn, Controlling Nuclear Proliferation (London: IISS, 

Adelphi Paper no. 263, Winter 1991), 24. 
Second are technical requirements. There are many questions regarding

the new nuclear powers’ ability to meet the technical requirements of

stable nuclear deterrence. Lack of technical skills, effective command

and control, survivability, safety, untested procedures and plans, and

lack of financial resources could be problematic in achieving stable

nuclear deterrence.

And finally, the situational context. Nuclear deterrence during the

Cold War worked in a bilateral setting. The future of nuclear confrontations in South Asia or the Korean Peninsula may not be limited

to just two parties and would certainly involve China. Managing a trilateral nuclear power balance could be very complex and potentially

unstable. In other respects also, the situational context in the case of

India and Pakistan differs sharply from that between the two nuclear

superpowers. With common (and disputed) borders, limited crises

have the potential to escalate to threaten national survival. The new

nuclear powers also may not share the view of the old nuclear states

that nuclear weapons are of little use in wresting political or military

concessions from others or in changing the territorial status quo.

Though Lewis Dunn did not take into account the role of anti-state

actors such as al-Qaeda or the freelance factor of terrorism when he

outlined his conditions of stable nuclear deterrence in 1991, he

nonetheless provides a sound theoretical framework and a useful

benchmark against which to measure the stability and instability of

nuclear deterrence in South Asia from the perspectives of both

nation-state and anti-state actors.

The State-centric Perspective: Nuclear Peace

THE PAST BEHAVIOR of India and Pakistan shows that there is little or

no danger of either side firing a nuclear weapon in anger or because

of miscalculation. Past Indo-Pakistani wars have been described as

“gentlemanly wars.” In all the three wars, both sides avoided wars of

attrition or deliberate targeting of population and industrial centers.

Despite their penchant for inflammatory and bellicose rhetoric, no

sane leader would willingly commit national suicide. The leaders in

both capitals insist that nuclear weapons are only for deterrence and

are not weapons of war. Besides, history shows that nuclear weapons

are usable only against an opponent that does not have the ability to

THE STABILITY OF NUCLEAR DETERRENCE IN SOUTH ASIA: THE CLASH 331

BETWEEN STATE AND ANTI-STATE ACTORS
retaliate in kind (e.g., the United States against Japan in 1945). The

only exception to this rule might be the case of a state that faced total,

imminent destruction. It is conceivable that Pakistan could use

nuclear weapons if faced with total defeat by India. But Indians argue

that they have no interest in destroying the Pakistani state and incorporating another 140 million Muslims into the Indian state. One

Indian analyst argues that, “since the 1980s, Indian military doctrine

has moved away from the seizure of Pakistani territory in recognition

of the less significant role played by landmass in modern estimates of

strategic strength. Not only does India not have any territorial ambitions on Pakistan, [India is] prepared to permanently concede

Pakistan-occupied Kashmir to Islamabad, and would accept the ‘line

of control’ in Kashmir as the international boundary.”22 And if New

Delhi goes to war with Islamabad, the war will be over Kashmir, not

over the existence of Pakistan. In short, it is claimed that the stakes

are limited and the political conditions are conducive to the maintenance of stable nuclear deterrence in South Asia. Many Indians claim

the West has consistently and deliberately promoted the idea of a

nuclear flashpoint to get India and Pakistan to establish a nuclear risk

reduction regime while beginning a sustained dialogue on Kashmir as

well as meeting their non-proliferation agenda. Pakistan has long subscribed to this idea and publicly articulated its intention of using

nuclear weapons in case India were to launch a conventional attack

across the Line of Control in Pakistani Kashmir.

The presence of nuclear weapons certainly makes states exceedingly cautious; notable examples are China and Pakistan’s post-nuclear

behavior. The consequences of a nuclear war are too horrendous to

contemplate. That policymakers in New Delhi and Islamabad have a

sound understanding of each other’s capabilities, intentions and policies—and more importantly, red lines, and are careful not to cross

them—has been repeatedly demonstrated since the late 1980s.

Despite the 1999 Kargil War and the post-September 11 brinkmanship, both of which illustrate the “stability-instability” paradox that

nuclear weapons have introduced to the equation in South Asia,23 the

332 MOHAN MALIK

22. M. D. Nalapat, “Outside View: Indo-Pakistan Nuclear Myth,” Washington Times,

1 September 2002.

23. For details on the stability-instability paradox and new nuclear states, see Peter

Lavoy, “The Strategic Consequences of Nuclear Proliferation,” Security Studies 4, no.

4 (summer 1995): 739–40.
THE STABILITY OF NUCLEAR DETERRENCE IN SOUTH ASIA: THE CLASH 333

BETWEEN STATE AND ANTI-STATE ACTORS

24. Martin J. Wojtysiak, Preventing Catastrophe, Maxwell Paper no. 25, Air War College

(Alabama: Maxwell Air Force Base, August 2001), 19–20.

25. Devin Hagarty, “South Asia’s Nuclear Balance,” Current History 95, no. 600

(April 1996): 169.

26. Steven Mufson, “U.S. Worries about Pakistan Nuclear Arms,” Washington Post, 4

November 2001, 27.

proponents of nuclear deterrence in Islamabad and New Delhi

believe that nuclear deterrence is working to prevent war in the

region. They point to the fact that neither the 1999 Kargil conflict nor

the post-September 11 military standoff escalated beyond a limited

conventional engagement due to the threat of nuclear war. So the stability argument is based on the reasonable conclusion that nuclear

weapons have served an important purpose in the sense that India

and Pakistan have not gone to an all-out war since 1971.24 It is

pointed out that just as nuclear deterrence maintained stability

between the United States and the U.S.S.R. during the Cold War, it can

induce similar stabilizing effects in South Asia as well.

With regard to the technical requirements of stable deterrence,

questions about command and control and safety procedures continue to be raised. However, both Pakistan and India claim to have

maintained tighter controls over their arsenal. More importantly, it is

not in their own interests to see anti-state actors gaining control of

nuclear technology. Finally, both countries have publicly declared

moratoriums on further nuclear tests, and India’s adherence to NoFirst-Use (NFU) posture and confidence-building measures (such as

pre-notification of missile tests and an agreement not to attack each

other’s nuclear installations) promotes crisis stability. Devin Hegarty

argues that this is responsible behavior that is in stark contrast to U.S.-

Soviet nuclear options, including “deployment of tens of thousands

of nuclear warheads, bombers flying on 24-hour alert status, and the

nuclear safety lapses that characterized the superpower arms race.”25

Post-September 11 measures to promote greater security and control

over nuclear weapons and materials have been accorded the topmost

priority. India’s nuclear arsenal is firmly under the control of civilian

leadership while the Pakistani army has always retained the real

authority over the nuclear weapons, regardless of who is head of

state. Pakistan’s military chain of command appears intact despite

internal turmoil and reshuffling at the top of the government.26 The

United States is reportedly considering offering assistance to assure
334 MOHAN MALIK

27. Nayan Chanda, “Urgent Worries about Pakistani Nuclear Material,” International

Herald Tribune, 2 November 2001, 1.

28. Cited in John J. Fialka and Scott Neuman, “Weapons Experts Agree Nuclear

Arsenal in Unstable Pakistan Is a Major Concern,” Wall Street Journal, 4 October 2001, 1.

29. See James Kitfield, “Nuclear Nightmares,” National Journal, 15 December 2001.

the physical protection of nuclear assets, such as vaults, sensors,

alarms, tamper-proof seals and labels, and other means of protecting

sensitive assets, ensuring personnel reliability, and secure transport of

sensitive items.27

As for the situational context, a slow but steady process of deTalibanization of Pakistani state and society is now underway with the

banning of extremist organizations and somewhat greater control

over the madrassas (religious schools) that had proliferated during the

jihad against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. The proponents

of the “Pakistani-state-as-a-rational-actor” point out that Pakistan’s

nuclear chain of command is imbedded within the higher levels of

the military—which tend to be well-educated, moderate, and secular—and involves rigid and stringent controls. As George Perkovich

observes: “The weapons are their crown jewels, after all. It would take

more than a couple of bad actors to upset that process.”28 One of the

four reasons given by General Musharraf to explain his U-turn on the

Taliban after the September 11 attacks was his desire to protect

Pakistan’s “strategic assets.” Seemingly bellicose rhetoric notwithstanding, there is absolutely no wisdom in sacrificing the well-being of

Pakistan’s 140 million Muslims for the sake of three million Muslims

in Kashmir, claim the Pakistanis.

In short, Indian and Pakistani policymakers and strategic analysts

see nuclear weapons as essential to maintaining state security and

ensuring state survival. From their perspective, nuclear deterrence

prevents conventional wars, keeps peace and brings warring parties to

the negotiating table. (The Lahore [1999] and Agra [2001] summits

are good examples.) The history of post-World War II international

relations is a testimony to the fact that every state that has ever created a nuclear arsenal has come to a sobering realization of what it

possesses, and has established extraordinary levels of security to protect those weapons and India and Pakistan are no exception to this

rule.29 Long-time South Asia-watchers believe the risk of a nuclear
THE STABILITY OF NUCLEAR DETERRENCE IN SOUTH ASIA: THE CLASH 335

BETWEEN STATE AND ANTI-STATE ACTORS

holocaust is deliberately overstated in some quarters, partly to induce

Islamabad and New Delhi to reach a negotiated settlement on the

Kashmir issue. So it is argued that there is no reason to believe that

Indian and Pakistani leaders are less rational and responsible with

their nuclear weapons than are their American, Russian and Chinese

counterparts.

The Perspective of Anti-state Actors: Nuclear Jihad

HOWEVER, IN SHARP CONTRAST with the optimism and confidence of

the “Indian-and-Pakistani-states-as-rational-actors” proponents, the

anti-state actors could care less if nuclear deterrence breaks down and

results in large-scale and unprecedented death and destruction. To

understand their perspective in its proper context, a brief historical

overview is in order before we examine the views and impact of antistate actors on nuclear deterrence in South Asia.

Much like other global ideologies, Islam and its followers also divide

the world into two regions: the world of believers, Dar-ul-Islam, or the

House of Islam, and Dar-ul-Harb, or the House of Infidels and nonbelievers containing all territories ruled by non-Muslims, against

whom no-holds-barred jihad is to be waged by the believers (true followers of Islam) who are destined to dominate and rule over the nonbelievers.30 Such concepts promote ideas of “us versus them” and

generate hatred, hostility, enmity and a permanent state of war.

Interestingly, this concept of continuous struggle (holy war against

non-believers) bears remarkable resemblance to Mao’s concept of

permanent revolution against his perceived enemies—rightists and

capitalists—during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution

(1967–76) in China. The division of the world into two blocs is also

similar to the one made by the followers of other totalitarian ideologies—Fascism and Communism—which ruled out peaceful coexistence with other belief systems. As Cathy Young observes: “Perhaps

every belief system that lays claim to the ultimate truth carries the

seeds of violent fanaticism and intolerance. This is true not only of

religions but of secular ideologies such as Communism.”31 The

30. Yossi Klein Halevi, “Islam Must Challenge Its Dark Doctrines,” Los Angeles

Times, 13 September 2001. Discussion in this section is based on informal conversations and discussions with Pakistani and Indian scholars and policymakers since 1998.

31. Cathy Young, “Does Islam Foster Extremism?” Boston Globe, 19 August 2002, 11.
336 MOHAN MALIK

Islamists see the growing economic interdependence, globalization,

Western cultural penetration, and the notions of liberty (freedom of

speech, expression, and movement) and equality (especially equality of

religions and sexes) as posing a serious threat to the basic tenets of

Islam.

Historically, jihad in the Indian subcontinent was primarily waged

against Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists and later against the Christians

during and after the British rule. In the nineteenth century, Sayyid

Ahmad Barelvi took the struggle one step further and launched an

“eternal jihad” against kafirs (infidels) with his call to Muslims: “Fill

the uttermost ends of India with Islam, so that no sounds may be

heard but Allah Allah Allah!” The long-term objective of Islamists is

to spread the frontiers of Islam eastward to the whole continent of

Asia and beyond. During the 1980s and 1990s, Afghanistan and

Pakistan became the jihadis’ destination of choice, as Islamist warriors coalesced in the two countries to battle the enemies of the faith

(first the Soviet Union, then the United States, Israel, and India). As

noted earlier, Saudi Arabia, in its self-appointed mission to protect

and promote Islam, especially the puritanical Wahabi version, has

been providing much of the financial and ideological support to religious schools, charities and organizations around the world at which

students are taught to develop their hatred for non-believers such as

Christians, Jews and Hindus. They are taught that Islam cannot coexist with other religions and that to kill in the interests of Islam and

the Shariat is a religious obligation and not a sin, even if the killing

involves the use of WMD.32 Verse 191, Sura 2, of the Holy Quran

explicitly enjoins upon the Ummah to punish enemies of the faith in

this fashion: “And slay them wherever ye catch them, and turn them

out from where they have turned you out.” Coupled with “the Medina

Syndrome” (the perception that Islam is perennially in danger from

powerful enemies), the only answer for pious Muslims in despair is

“unity, faith and war.” To put it simply, solidarity for jihad and jihad

for solidarity. As Therese Delpech observes:

32. B. Raman, “Why Must Kashmir and India Bleed?” The Pioneer, 16 August 2002;

Ehsan Ahrari, “Whither Saudi Arabia?” Asia Times Online, 6 August 2002,

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/DH06Ak02.html.
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BETWEEN STATE AND ANTI-STATE ACTORS

Their declared ambition is to annihilate not just religions

other than Islam (the destruction of the ancient Bamiyan’s

Buddhist statutes in February 2001 is an eloquent testimony),

but also anyone who does not accept its perverse version of

Islam (bin Laden’s people have burnt Shi’ites alive in

Afghanistan)...No concession, however great, would be

enough to end [their] “mission” because, unlike many previous terrorist organizations, it does not intend to create a state nor

does it wish to introduce political reforms. Its objective is metaphysical:

a titanic struggle between “good” and “evil” forces, in which any means

can be used to achieve the end.

33

In the India-Pakistan context, the Islamists argue that Kashmir is a

symbol, not the root cause of the India-Pakistan conflict. They point

to General Parvez Musharraf ’s34 statement made as the Chief of

Army Staff in April 1999: “Even a settlement of the Kashmir issue

will not usher in peace in the region. Low intensity conflict against

India will continue because India is a large hegemonic power.”35 This

reinforces the view that the India-Pakistan conflict is rooted in history, religion, culture, and the politics of revenge, epitomizing clashing worldviews and a divide along religious, civilizational fault lines.

Many Islamists are convinced that India, like its erstwhile friends, the

Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, is doomed to further partition and

Balkanization.36 In the aftermath of the Soviet collapse in the early

33. Therese Delpech, “The Imbalance of Terror,” Washington Quarterly 25, no. 1

(winter 2002): 31. Italics mine.

34. Interestingly, a secular and moderate General Musharraf is a veteran of the

Afghan conflict and was to a great deal responsible not only for the establishment of

close links between the al-Qaeda/Taliban militia and the Pakistani army but also for

the Afghanization of the Kashmir dispute and the Talibanization of Pakistan. Also

see Isabel Hilton, “The General in His Labyrinth,” New Yorker, 12 August 2002, 42.

35. Dawn, 10 April 1999, 1. Arguing that “Kashmir is not the central issue in IndoPakistan relations—it is the Islamic Republic of Pakistan,” a noted Indian columnist

agrees, “Kashmir is no longer the cause of Indo-Pak problems, but its pretext.

Pakistani support to terrorism did not begin with Kashmir and does not end there. It

began with Punjab in the early eighties and is now an all-India effort to break up India

into a ‘manageable’ size.” Manoj Joshi, “Agra Flawed from Start: Pakistan Is the Real

Core Issue,” The Times of India, 26 July 2002, 1. Also see Hafiz Muhammed Sa’eed,

“No More Dialogue on Kashmir,” Voice of Islam (Lahore), September 1999.

36. “Sadly, there are elements within Pakistan’s military and intelligence circles who

subscribe to the devilish theory that once Kashmir is wrested away, the whole edifice

of multi-ethnic, multi-religious India will collapse into a chaos of warring fiefdoms

over which Pakistan will somehow prevail,” writes Christopher Kremmer, “Sub-continent Fights Forces of Darkness,” The Age (Melbourne), 29 December 2001, 1.
338 MOHAN MALIK

1990s, there was great optimism in Pakistan about “the coming collapse of India,” which would enable the creation of a large Islamic

state in Central and South Asia with Pakistan as its core. The leader

of Jamaat-i-Islami Pakistan, Qazi Hussain Ahmad, speaking in

Rawalpindi in February 1992, declared, “a great Islamic State spreading from Kashmir to Central Asia would emerge after the independence of Kashmir.”37 Islamists contend that Prophet Muhammed is

said to have singled out India as a special target for jihad—the land of

idol worshippers: “Slay the idolaters wheresoever you find them”

(Sura 9:5). “Whosoever will take part in jihad against India,” Markaz

leader Muhammad Ibrahim Salafi claims that the Prophet had

declared, “Allah will set him free from the pyre of hell.”38

Interestingly, notwithstanding their conflicting perspectives and

interests, both Hindu and Islamist fundamentalists seem to have an

identical interpretation of Indian history: that the ultimate game

plan is not limited to “liberating Kashmir” but to subsume “Hindu

India” into Islamic civilization. In this context, they point out that

Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s threat in 1971 of a thousand-year war with

Hindustan (repeated by his daughter at the height of the 1990 crisis) was not hyperbole.39 Since the beginning of the second millennium, Hindu India has been subjected to repeated invasions by the

armies of Islamic faith. As a result of Islam’s eastward march over

the last one thousand years, ancient India has already been successfully broken up into four states—Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh

and India. Hopefully in another one thousand years, so the argument

goes, the objective of either an Islamic India or the creation of more

Islamic states will be achieved by the end of the third millennium.

37. See Rashid, Taliban, especially chapter 14: “Master or Victim: Pakistan’s Afghan

War,” 183–95. Pakistan’s military ruler General Zia-ul Haq “had dreamed like a Mogul

emperor of ‘recreating a Sunni Muslim space between infidel ‘Hindustan,’ ‘heretic’

[because Shia] Iran and ‘Christian’ Russia. He believed that the message of Afghan

Mujaheddin would spread into Central Asia, revive Islam and create a new Pakistanled Islamic bloc of nations,” writes Rashid, Taliban, 195.

38. http://www.dawacenter.com/ijtimah/Isalaf-e.html, 1, cited in Sikand, “Islamist

Militancy in Kashmir,” 10.

39. See Mohan Malik, “Pakistan: Frontline, Faultline,” The World Today 56 (London),

no. 2 (February 2000): 14–17; and “Dynamics of Pak Hostility,” The Hindustan Times, 21 September 1999, 13. “In Lashkar discourse, the conflict in Kashmir...is portrayed

as only one chapter in a long struggle between the two that is said to have characterized the history of Hindu-Muslim relations for the last 1,400 years ever since the

advent of the Prophet Mohammed.” Sikand, “Islamist Militancy in Kashmir,” 10.
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Indians counter this by saying that their country, one of the oldest

civilizations in the world, has not only survived but thrived during

millennia of invasions, whereas Pakistan could not survive the first

twenty-five years of its existence and is unlikely to survive over the

next twenty-five years if it continues with its self-destructive policies.

The Islamists respond by saying that Ghauri and Ghaznavi may have

lost war several times but they won eventually to subjugate Hindu

India. Likewise, Pakistan may have lost to India in 1971 and 1999 but

that does not mean the end of their attempts to expand Islam’s frontiers eastwards. Islam, if not Pakistan, will eventually prevail. To this

end, “pro-jihadi cells” armed with weapons are being established

throughout India’s minority regions ready to unleash terror and communal bloodbath at an appropriate time in the future when India is

faced with a series of domestic crises and/or external aggression and

is headed by a weak leader (in the mold of Indonesia’s B. J. Habibie)

unable to resist international pressure. Islamists also note that

Pakistan still draws inspiration from the medieval period when

Muslim warriors from Afghanistan used to invade ancient India, evident by the fact that all of its nuclear-capable ballistic missiles—

Ghauri, Ghaznavi and Abdali—are named after the three prominent

Afghan warlords who attacked India frequently between the eleventh

and eighteenth centuries in an attempt to expand their empires.40 As

Zaffar Abbas notes: “[T]he symbolism highlights the official mindset

in the country. For Islamabad, the present conflict with India is a continuation of the battles of the past, wars that are described in

Pakistani history books as the just causes of Muslim invaders against

infidels.”41

From the perspective of Hindu nationalists, nothing could be more

provocative than Pakistanis (including Bhattys, Chaudharys, Dhillons,

Khokars, Naiks, Ranas, Shahs, Sethis, among others) seeing themselves as “direct descendants” of Muslim invaders and plunderers

(such as Ghauris, Ghaznavis, Abdalis and Babbars who looted

Lahore, Multan, and laid waste to the cities in Sindh—all now in

Pakistan) and wanting to wage a no-holds-barred holy war. In

40. This would be like Japan naming its China-specific ballistic missiles after

General Tojo and Germany developing Israel-specific missiles and naming them after

Hitler and Goebbels.

41. Zaffar Abbas, “What’s in a Name?” The Herald (Karachi), June 2002, 25.
340 MOHAN MALIK

Hindutva’s discourse, Islamic religion and civilization are portrayed as

intolerant, hostile to Hindu values, proselytizing, expansionist, repressive, and violent. The Indian response is articulated by a former chief

of the Indian Army: “If a nuclear war can bring an end to the thousand years of invasions of India by the armies of Islamic faith, so be

it. Let’s fight a nuclear war and destroy Pakistan once and for all.”42

Apparently, both countries have become infected with the virus of

religious-based nationalism, increasing the “death or glory” spirit

within their armed forces. For their part, right-wing Hindu nationalists have also not given up their dream of regaining the “lost territories” (“the sacred lands of Hinduism and Buddhism lost to Islam during the second millennium,” as the Vishwa Hindu Parishad or World

Hindu Council puts it) and restoring the Hindu supremacy over the

entire Akhand Bharat (Undivided India). The growing ascendancy of

Hindutva forces in Indian politics is an indication of the radicalization

of Indian society as a result of a two-decade long, Pakistan-backed

proxy war.

Meanwhile, Islamist extremism continues to haunt Pakistani state

and society. Pakistan is, in the words of former Italian foreign minister Gianni De Michelis, “the fuse of the world.”43 The provinces

close to the Afghan border and home to the U.S. military bases are

now controlled by Islamist parties that created the Taliban and are

openly sympathetic to the aims and ideals of al-Qaeda. The concern

is that the radical Islamist worldview of groups like the Jamiat Ulema

Islam, which is supportive of both the Taliban and al-Qaeda, could

become the country’s leitmotif. Violence levels in Indian Kashmir also

continue to rise. Many observers believe that Washington may have to

rethink its strategy vis-à-vis Islamabad if the war on terrorism is to be

won decisively.44 The complete dismantling of the al-Qaeda terrorist

infrastructure in Pakistan seems unlikely because of the apprehension

within Pakistani military that doing so would devalue Pakistan’s

importance in the U.S. security strategy and once again make the

42. See the websites of extremist organizations, notably http://www.taliban-news.com.

43. Cited in Francesco Sisci, “Mega-NATO: China out in the Cold,” Asia Times

Online, 24 May 2002, http://www.atimes.com/china/DE24Ad01.html.

44. George Bruno, “Post-Election Pakistan Unreformed, Unstable,” Baltimore Sun, 13 December 2002, 10; “Pakistan is the new Afghanistan, a privileged sanctuary for

hundreds of al-Qaeda fighters and Taliban operatives,” writes A. de Borchgrave,

“The New Afghanistan,” Washington Times, 2 September 2002, 1.
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BETWEEN STATE AND ANTI-STATE ACTORS

United States turn its back on the country and make the country vulnerable to Western pressure and sanctions over Islamabad’s WMD

proliferation activities. It would also deprive Pakistan of invaluable

Western aid and leverage vis-à-vis Washington and New Delhi.45

As long as anti-state actors subscribe to the “Islamic Caliphate” and

Pakistan to the two-nation theory, and as long as political power in

Pakistan is exercised by the army, the mullahs, and the feudal lords in

the name of jihad, Islam, and Kashmir, there cannot be peace in the

region. A noted author and commentator, M.J. Akbar, in his book, The

Shade of Swords, concedes that Pakistan’s anger against India is larger

than the problem over Kashmir, but contends that the anger of the

“Muslim Street” is not merely socio-economic, as some are positing.46

Muslim anguish is essentially about departed glory, contrasted to

Hindu resurgence after one thousand years and Jewish revival after

two thousand years backed by the secular, but Christian, West.47 As

has often happened in the past, Muslim radicals have latched on to

certain enemies to explain the current decay because they need someone to blame, apart from themselves. This partly explains why and

how Pakistan, a homeland for Muslims, “turned jihad into an instrument of state policy from its inception and became the breeding

ground for the first international Islamic brigade in the modern

era.”48 The fall of the Taliban has transformed the frontline state of

Pakistan in the war on terrorism into its next battlefield, as fleeing alQaeda/Taliban jihadis and their supporters take refuge in Pakistan’s

Wild West with many slipping down into the cities, using networks of

associated groups and sympathizers to reorganize to fight another

battle another day.49 The Islamist fundamentalist groups have repeatedly demonstrated their power with a series of terrorist attacks in

45. For Pakistan, the jihadi network represents an invaluable “fifth column” able to

tie down hundreds of thousands of Indian security forces in Kashmir.

46. M. J. Akbar, The Shade of Swords: Jihad and the Conflict between Islam and Christianity

(London: Routledge, 2002), 162.

47. Charles Krauthammer agrees: “Underlying most of the grievances is a sense

that Islam has lost its rightful place of dominance, the place it enjoyed half a millennium ago. This feeling of a civilization in decline—and the adoption of terror and

intimidation as the road to restoration—is echoed in a recent United Nations report

that spoke frankly of the abject Arab failure to modernize.” See Charles

Krauthammer, “Violence and Islam,” Washington Post, 6 December 2002, 45.

48. Akbar, The Shade of Swords, 198.

49. Ralph Joseph, “Pakistan Acknowledges Presence of al-Qaeda Fugitives,”

Washington Times, 12 August 2002, 1.
342 MOHAN MALIK

India and Pakistan seen as warnings to Musharraf that abandoning

militants in Kashmir and siding with the infidel West would have disastrous consequences. In the worst-case scenario, radical Islamic

extremists, especially those who sympathize with al-Qaeda in the military establishment, could gain control of the nuclear weapons and

delivery systems and launch nuclear strikes. The threatened use of

nuclear weapons by irrational anti-state actors will carry greater credibility than the threatened use of nuclear weapons by nation-states.

India’s nuclear deterrent can deter neither nuclear attacks nor crossborder terrorism conducted by anti-state actors. Interestingly, one

perceptive commentator has argued that in Pakistan’s destruction lies

al-Qaeda’s salvation because anti-state actors can survive and thrive

only in failed, collapsed and war-torn states:50

[Since] al-Qaeda has long used Pakistan as an ongoing base

for its command and control and training functions, it has a

deep interest in Pakistan’s future. Paradoxically, al-Qaeda’s

and Pakistan’s national security interests are not at all the

same. From al-Qaeda’s point of view, a war with India—even

one that led to the destruction of an independent Pakistan—

would be highly desirable for three reasons:

1. As al-Qaeda sees it, the government of President Pervez

Musharraf has become a tool of the United States, supporting

U.S. efforts to destroy al-Qaeda in Pakistan. While Musharraf ’s

support has been far from wholehearted, al-Qaeda is aware

that Musharraf cannot be relied upon to protect the network,

particularly while under heavy pressure from the United States

and India.

2. A stable Pakistan with a strong central government poses a

threat to al-Qaeda’s security [because] a strong government is

less manipulable ...[and] less predictable. It can turn its power

against al-Qaeda quite easily. A Pakistan whose military has been

smashed and whose government ceases to function creates a situation in

which al-Qaeda can stake out and defend remote areas of the

50. Stratfor, “The Al Qaeda Threat and the Indo-Pakistani War,” Stratfor.com, 3 June

2002, http://www.stratfor.com/standard/analysis_view.php?ID=204684.
THE STABILITY OF NUCLEAR DETERRENCE IN SOUTH ASIA: THE CLASH 343

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country from encroachment. From a geographic point of

view, India has the ability to smash Pakistan. Occupying and

pacifying the country, particularly the regions that al-Qaeda

uses for its bases, is far more difficult...With an Indian army

stretched to the limit and no meaningful Pakistani force to

face, al-Qaeda becomes more secure. Even U.S. operations

against al-Qaeda in remote areas without Pakistani collaboration would become extremely difficult.

3. Al-Qaeda has, as its core argument, the idea that Islam is

under attack from other religions. If India were to attack

Pakistan, al-Qaeda would be able to make the argument—convincingly

in the Islamic world—that the Jews, the Christian West and the Hindus

have allied to strangle Islam. The plausibility of this argument

would, al-Qaeda hopes, galvanize the Islamic world into

united resistance. That unification is al-Qaeda’s goal.

From al-Qaeda’s viewpoint, an Indian attack on Pakistan

would be highly desirable. Even an attack involving nuclear

weapons would be acceptable...That is why Pakistani-based Islamic

militants aligned with al-Qaeda have persistently exacerbated the crisis

between the two countries. In the long run, they see a war, even one that

is ruinous to Pakistan, as an acceptable price to pay for their ultimate

goals. What is unacceptable is a settlement between India and

Pakistan that would leave the United States in a dominant

position in both countries as broker and arbiter. Islamic militants have done everything possible to foment a conflict.51

As shown in Table 2 (below), there exists a wide gulf between the

perspectives and interests of state and anti-state actors and this, in

turn, makes India-Pakistan nuclear deterrence highly unstable. In fact,

the two frameworks are so markedly different that mere institution of

confidence-building measures alone will not address the problem.

None of the political, technical or situational conditions identified by

Lewis Dunn apply to anti-state actors. Thus, the entry of anti-state

actors makes the situational context vastly different from that of the

Cold War era. Undoubtedly, the greatest disruption to the equilibrium

51. Ibid. Italics mine.
344 MOHAN MALIK

Table 2. State versus the anti-state: Divergent perspectives on nukes 

Statist Perspective Anti-state Actor’s Perspective 

State security and survival is 

paramount. One of the main 

prerogatives of state actors is to ensure 

the maintenance and preservation of 

their territorial integrity. 

Islam’s spread and survival are of 

paramount importance. The state 

security or national survival is irrelevant 

because the very idea of separate 

nation-states is an anathema to antistate actors.

Nuclear weapons are meant to ensure 

territorial integrity and national 

independence. 

The nation-state is not indispensable. 

The destruction of the modern state 

system may well be a pre-requisite to the 

creation of Dar-ul-Islam. 

Nuclear weapons are to be acquired 

when the very survival of the nationstate is seen as at stake. 

“It is the religious duty of all Muslims to 

acquire nuclear, biological and chemical 

weapons to terrorize the enemies of 

God” —al-Qaeda 

Nuclear weapons are weapons of 

deterrence, not weapons of war.

All weapons, including WMD, are 

useable weapons to achieve victory over 

non-believers and enemies of the faith. 

Nuclearization brings an end to mapmaking exercise and freezes the 

territorial status quo. Nuclear weapons 

may be of little use in wresting politicomilitary concessions from others. 

Nuclearization paves the way for waging 

low-cost, low-intensity conflict without 

fear of retaliation and can help in settling 

territorial disputes on favorable terms via 

coercion, subversion and blackmail.

The resolution of the Kashmir dispute 

will lead to peace, prosperity and 

stability in South Asia. 

The Kashmir dispute is not about 

territory; it’s about religion and history 

and its separation from India will bolster 

the cause of Islamist forces in the region 

and eventually lead to the unraveling of 

the Indian state and pave the way for the 

creation of a pan-Islamic Caliphate. 

Pakistan’s nuclear weapons are Indiaspecific only and are designed to act as 

a force equalizer to overcome conventional weaknesses vis-à-vis India. 

Pakistan’s “Islamic bomb” should be 

used to defend the broader interests of 

the entire Muslim world. 

Nuclear weapons are the “crown 

jewels” and symbols of a strong state. 

Anti-state movements and actors such 

as al-Qaeda are not concerned with the 

status symbols of nuclear weapons; they 

need weak, failing and war-torn states to 

thrive and accomplish their objectives. 

A nuclear war must never be fought. 

The taboo on the non-use of nukes 

must not be broken. 

There is absolutely nothing to fear from a

nuclear war. 
THE STABILITY OF NUCLEAR DETERRENCE IN SOUTH ASIA: THE CLASH 345

BETWEEN STATE AND ANTI-STATE ACTORS

of the nuclear balance of terror emanates from anti-state actors that

may come to acquire “a level of power and technological sophistication once associated only with nation-states.”52 The multinational

mercenary terror network that al-Qaeda and others have assembled

could be regarded as a malignant and mutated form of the “virtual

state” that requires a reconsideration of conventional strategies of

deterrence based on retaliation.53 The traditional theories of deterrence may apply to other states but certainly do not apply to anti-state

actors and rogue regimes. Nuclear weapons were never meant to deter

transnational terrorists. Religious zealots bent on martyrdom have

turned on its head a nuclear doctrine that was based on the deterrent

value of mutually assured destruction.

Why Nuclear Deterrence May Not Work in South

Asia: Ten Reasons

THE PRECEDING ANALYSIS of the perspectives of anti-state actors

shows that deterrence in South Asia may not work in the context of

asymmetric and unrestricted warfare based as it is on surprise, shock

and deception and waged by those who have little or nothing to lose,

particularly when suicide is used as a weapon.54 The instability argument points to the following reasons:

1. The history of four wars, and the intensity, duration and complexity of the animosity, coupled with growing domestic pressures in

each country for action against the other, make nuclear deterrence

unstable. The war on terrorism has encouraged brinkmanship on

both sides with both seeing the U.S. presence in the region as a

safety net. The next nuclear confrontation could be even more

dangerous if the two sides follow the Cold War-era U.S.-Soviet

standoff model—with nuclear missiles on alert, aimed at each

other and ready to launch on warning. As Lee Butler, former head

of the U.S. Strategic Command, has said, it was “no thanks to

deterrence, but only by the grace of God” that the United States

52. James Kitfield, “Nuclear Nightmares,” National Journal, 15 December 2001.

53. See Philip Bobbitt, “The Front Line: The First Terrorist War of the World,”

Financial Times (London), 13 July 2002, 2.

54. Delpech, “The Imbalance of Terror,” 34.
346 MOHAN MALIK

and the Soviet Union survived their crises.55 India and Pakistan

may not be lucky next time.

2. Whereas the Cold War was ideological, the India-Pakistan conflict is

historical and religious. More than disputed borders, India and

Pakistan share disputed histories. The United States and the Soviet

Union never engaged in direct military conflict with each other. Nor

did they have a history of military conflict or animosity prior to the

1940s. Nonetheless, they still came close to war more than once.

3. Territorial disputes and the sharing of a border are rooted in the

deep religious divide going back one thousand years, for example,

to the desire to re-establish Islamic or Hindu supremacy over the

entire subcontinent. Indians and Pakistanis have bitter memories

and highly emotional issues too long to list: invasions, partition,

three wars, religious and border disputes, volatile political cultures,

inflammatory media, and two decades of low-intensity conflict. In

contrast, none of these factors existed as potential fuses to light

the nuclear powder keg during the U.S.-Soviet nuclear standoff.

The United States and Soviet Union never shared common or disputed borders. The geographical proximity also means lack of adequate time to rectify a mistake or for early warning of an accidental missile launch.

4. Neither India nor Pakistan possesses accurate intelligence or warning systems, nor do they have the ability to assure a second strike.

The fear of a decisive first strike “use it or lose it” option, with

short distances, poor warning systems, and small stockpiles amidst

the talk of “nuclear jihad,” makes deterrence very unstable. As a

result, the possibility of a nuclear conflict in South Asia—by

design or accident—cannot be entirely ruled out. Their weak,

untested command and control systems and relative inexperience

in managing nuclear weapons, plus a lack of knowledge about each

other’s military processes, means the “line in the sand” could be

crossed unintentionally. For example, Islamabad has made it clear

that it will use nukes first and in the early stages of conflict, hoping this threat will prevent an Indian attack across the Kashmiri

55. Cited in Zia Mian, R. Rajaraman and Frank von Hippel, “Nuclear Role Models,”

Washington Post, 6 August 2002, 15.
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Line of Control. While India follows a no-first-use policy, a number of strategic analysts during the recent military standoff called

for a reconsideration of the NFU policy in the context of

Pakistan.56 Others claim that India’s armed forces are “prepared to

try to destroy Pakistan’s nuclear capability before it is used, and

seek their own capability to launch a nuclear attack if they believe

that enemy nuclear missiles are armed and ready for launch or

already on the launch pads or are in booster phase. Pakistan, in

turn, may seek to preempt such a situation by using its nukes even

earlier in a conflict rather than losing them.”57 There are also serious concerns over lax security controls in that part of the world.

5. Crisis stability based on deterrence does not apply to South Asia,

where brinkmanship and one-upmanship is part of political life.

The United States and the Soviet Union painstakingly avoided

issuing either open or veiled threats over nuclear weapons—even

though the U.S. nuclear doctrine implied a willingness to do so.

(The Cuban missile crisis of 1962 was the sole exception.) In contrast, Pakistan has publicly flexed its nuclear muscles on four occasions in recent history—in 1987, 1990, 1999, and again in 2002.

Likewise, India has repeatedly warned that it would survive a

nuclear war but Pakistani would surely disappear from the world

map. (The world has not heard such a threat since the 1950s when

Mao Zedong argued that enough Chinese would survive a nuclear

confrontation with the United States to usher in a communist revolution.) In short, neither periodic threats of nuclear annihilation

nor nuclear blackmail bode well for stable nuclear deterrence.

6. The conventional military imbalance, or the lack of prospects for

victory, did not seem to deter Pakistan from initiating three wars,

all of which resulted in clear and quick Indian victories. While

India is a status quoist power, Pakistan is the revisionist power,

extremely dissatisfied with the territorial status quo and frustrated

56. Major General (retd.) Ashok K. Mehta, “Beyond the Lull,” Rediff.com, 1

August 2002, http://www.rediff.com/news/2002/aug/01ashok.htm; Brahma

Chellaney, “Need for Flexible No-first-use,” The Hindustan Times, 25 May 2002.

57. M. McKinzie, Zia Mian, M. V. Ramana, and A. H. Nayyar, “Nuclear War in

South Asia,” Foreign Policy in Focus Report, June 2002, http://www.fpif.org/papers/

nuclearsasia_body.htm1.
348 MOHAN MALIK

and resentful for lacking the means to overturn it. Emboldened by

its nuclear deterrent since the late 1980s, Pakistan believes it can

undertake such confrontations without risking severe Indian punishment. Besides, there is a view in military circles that India no

longer enjoys a decisive military edge that it did a decade or two ago.

The idea of a limited nuclear war may be embedded in Pakistani

nuclear thinking but not in Indian strategic planning. If Pakistan’s

military keeps multiplying provocations as in the past, a weak and

unpopular regime may well stumble into a war that neither wants.

7. There is no greater fallacy than the hope that Pakistan can continue to engage in low-intensity conflict while relying on its nuclear

capabilities to deter the Indian retaliation. Post-September 11,

India believes that it has every right to launch pre-emptive

strikes—much like the United States—against the terrorist bases

and jihadi infrastructure. But many in the Pakistani military are convinced that “Hindu India” would continue to bark but never bite.

This could lead to miscalculation and misperception resulting in a

catastrophe. A “failing state” or a collapsing regime may not behave

like a responsible, rational nuclear weapon state—an essential prerequisite for successful nuclear deterrence. One can imagine a scenario in which the so-called “Kashmiri freedom fighters,” armed

with a couple of nuclear weapons provided by disgruntled Pakistani

army officers, threaten to nuke New Delhi if Indian security forces

are not withdrawn within forty-eight hours, and set off a nuclear

device in the Himalayas for demonstration effect. The nightmare

scenario that we must consider is a collapsing Pakistani state that

might have someone with a finger on the nuclear trigger and a

fanatical desire to destroy its enemies. A loss of control of either

Pakistani or Indian nuclear weapons could be a potential trigger of

a wider nuclear confrontation between India and Pakistan.

Alternatively, “clashes between security forces and hostile groups at

nuclear installations might even result in release of nuclear material

or even conceivably a partial nuclear detonation.”58

58. Lewis A. Dunn, “The South Asian Nuclear Conundrum: U.S. Interests and

Choices” (paper presented at Strategies for Regional Security conference, organized

by the Stanley Foundation, Virginia, 25–27 October 2001). Also see PTI, “India May

Militarily Intervene if Islamists Gain Pak N-Weapons,” The Hindustan Times, 18

October 2002, 1.
THE STABILITY OF NUCLEAR DETERRENCE IN SOUTH ASIA: THE CLASH 349

BETWEEN STATE AND ANTI-STATE ACTORS

8. At the “anti-state actor” level, individuals or groups may violate

security rules for reasons of profit, settling a grudge or religious

and ideological motives. They may try to transfer sensitive items to

some anti-state actors. Two retired Pakistani nuclear scientists with

alleged al-Qaeda connections are currently under custody.59 The

possibility of a civil war fought with nuclear weapons in the Indian

subcontinent cannot be completely ruled out. Another concern is

the possibility of yet another coup in Pakistan. In conditions of

civil war and internal chaos in a nuclear weapon state, nuclear

materials could conceivably be used as bargaining chips in a struggle for internal power, or as negotiating leverage with external

powers. If there were two rival claimants to the government in

Islamabad, for example, we would be inclined to support the side

that claims to control that country’s nuclear forces. The scenario

of Pakistan in splinters, with one piece becoming a radical Muslim

state in possession of a nuclear weapon, is a concern, should alQaeda/Taliban declare jihad against Pakistan—the weakest ally in

the U.S.-led anti-terrorism coalition. Furthermore, the breakup of

states creates the danger of WMD falling into the hands of separatists and religious fanatics. In short, power struggle and instability

in Pakistan also could lead to attacks on the Pakistani military’s

nuclear arsenal by anti-state actors and the theft of nuclear weapons.

9. The freelance factor of terrorism changes the situational context

completely in the sense that anti-state actors may have vested interest in provoking a war between India and Pakistan. With relatively

little radioactive material, obtained from low-level waste from a

power plant or medical facility, terrorists could easily construct a

“dirty bomb” using simple explosives. Such devices, hidden in a

truck or ship-borne cargo container headed for Karachi or

Bombay, could inflict considerable casualties followed by widespread radiation poisoning.

10.Finally, the China factor further adds to unpredictability, complexity, and instability in the subcontinental nuclear power balance.

China has long been the most important player in the IndiaPakistan-China triangular relationship. The Sino-Pakistan military

59. Douglas Frantz, James Risen and David E. Sanger, “Nuclear Experts in

Pakistan May Have Links to Al Qaeda,” New York Times, 9 December 2001, 1.
350 MOHAN MALIK

alliance (in particular, the nuclear and missile nexus) is aimed at

ensuring that the South Asian military balance of power is neither

pro-India nor pro-Pakistan but pro-China. Most war-gaming exercises on the next India-Pakistan nuclear war end in a Chinese military intervention to prevent the collapse of Beijing’s most allied

ally in Asia.60 For Beijing, the most worrisome scenario would be

one which brings the United States and Pakistan on a collision

course, with or without India acting as a U.S. partner.

Concluding Observations

THIS PAPER HAS HIGHLIGHTED THE DANGERS posed by anti-state actors

(primarily religious extremist organizations with political agendas) to

the stability of nuclear deterrence between India and Pakistan. It

demonstrates that conditions of the Indo-Pakistani conflict are qualitatively different from those that existed during the Cold War. The risk of

a nuclear war remains high because of miscalculation and misperception owing to growing religious radicalism in both countries. Should the

India-Pakistani conflict escalate into a nuclear one, neither the geopolitical nor the radioactive fallout will remain limited to Southern Asia.

Once the nuclear taboo is broken either by state or anti-state actors, it

will no longer be business as usual. There is an urgent need to think

about the ways and means of countering the possible use of WMD by

anti-state actors (acting with or without the support of state actors) primarily because established theories of deterrence do not apply to them.

While one can be confident in the Indian and Pakistani states’ capacity

to maintain stable nuclear deterrence, the challenge posed by anti-state

actors falls in an entirely different category and should be a matter of

concern to all. An appropriate politico-military strategy that deals with

the challenge of religious radicalism will go a long way in promoting crisis stability and in preventing the use of nuclear weapons. In a sense,

the task before the international community in the twenty-first century

is the same as it was in the twentieth century: that is, to thoroughly

defeat totalitarian ideologies, such as Wahabi/Salafi/Deobandi militant

Islam, and consign them to the dustbin of history as were the other two

totalitarian ideologies of Fascism and Communism.

60. For details, see Mohan Malik, “China, Pakistan and India: Nervous

Neighbours,” The World Today 58 (London), no. 10 (October 2002): 20–23.
351

For more than a decade, Pakistan has been accused of supporting terrorism, primarily due to its support for militants opposing

Indian rule in the disputed Himalayan territory of Jammu and

Kashmir. Until September 11, 2001, Islamabad was also the principal

backer of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. Although Pakistan has

now become a key U.S. ally in the war against terrorism, it is still seen

both as a target and staging ground for terrorism.

General Pervez Musharraf ’s military regime abandoned its alliance

with the Taliban immediately after the terrorist attacks in New York

and Washington. U.S. forces were allowed the use of Pakistani air

bases for operations in Afghanistan. Pakistani intelligence services

provided, and continue to provide, valuable information in hunting

down Taliban and al-Qaeda escapees. The Pakistani military is currently working with U.S. law enforcement officials in tracking down

terrorists in the lawless tribal areas bordering Afghanistan.

In a major policy speech on January 12, 2002, Musharraf

announced measures to limit the influence of Islamic militants at

home, including those previously described by him as “Kashmiri freedom fighters.” “No organizations will be able to carry out terrorism

14

HUSAIN HAQQANI

Pakistan’s Terrorism Dilemma
352 HUSAIN HAQQANI

on the pretext of Kashmir,” he declared. “Whoever is involved with

such acts in the future will be dealt with strongly whether they come

from inside or outside the country.”1

Musharraf ’s supporters declared his speech as revolutionary.2 He

echoed the sentiment of most Pakistanis when he said, “violence and

terrorism have been going on for years and we are weary and sick of

this Kalashnikov culture ... The day of reckoning has come.”

After the speech, the Musharraf regime clamped down on domestic terrorist groups responsible for sectarian killings.3 But there is still

considerable ambivalence in Pakistan’s attitude toward the Kashmiri

militants. Officially, Pakistan denies that it provides military support

or training for terrorists. But in an interview published in the

Washington Post on June 23, 2002, Musharraf repeated the argument

for making a distinction between terrorists and freedom fighters, leaving the possibility open for supporting the latter.4

General Musharraf ’s switch of support from the Taliban and

Islamic militants to the United States has infuriated the Islamists.

They are now threatening his life as well as targets in Pakistan with

increasing ferocity. There has been at least one major terrorist act in

Pakistan almost every month since the beginning of 2002.

The kidnapping of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in

January was followed by his murder the following month. A suicide

bombing at an Islamabad church in March killed two U.S. citizens. A

car bomb killed eleven French naval engineers in Karachi in May, followed by the June car bombing outside the U.S. consulate in the same

city resulting in the deaths of twelve Pakistani passersby.

Terrorist attacks in Indian-controlled Kashmir have also continued

unabated. An attack on the Indian parliament last December brought

India and Pakistan to the brink of war, as did the May 14 massacre

of Indian soldiers’ families at a military camp. It is apparent that the

1. English Rendering of President General Pervez Musharraf ’s “Address to the

Nation” (January 12, 2002), http://www.pak.gov.pk/President_Addresses/presidential_addresses_index.htm.

2. See, for instance, “President’s Steps, Views Have Full Support: Gov. Sindh,”

Business Recorder, 14 January 2002. The address even caused a rally on the Pakistani

stock market. (“Pakistani Stocks Rise 2.4% on Musharraf ’s Speech,” Agence FrancePresse, 14 January 2002.)

3. For a few examples of the extensive coverage of this crackdown, see “Offices of

Banned Groups Sealed: Over 100 Militants Held in Crackdown,” Dawn, 14 January

2002; “State Bank to Freeze Assets of Militant Organizations,” Dawn, 15 January 2002.

4. “Musharraf: Here’s What I’ll Do,” Washington Post, B-11, 23 June 2002.
PAKISTAN’S TERRORISM DILEMMA 353

terrorist groups are defying General Musharraf ’s new policy of cooperating with the West against terrorism and may even be trying to provoke war between India and Pakistan. The government, on the other

hand, is engaged in a balancing act between fighting terror and keeping Kashmiri resistance alive.5

The complex relationship between the state and the Islamists in

Pakistan makes it difficult for the government to fulfill its promise of

eliminating terrorism even if it had the will to stop all groups. India,

in particular, argues that General Musharraf is willing to fight antiU.S. terrorists affiliated with al-Qaeda only to the extent of securing

U.S. assistance. From New Delhi’s point of view, Pakistan is still

unwilling to clamp down on jihadi groups that it sees as allies in its

long-standing conflict with India.6

Pakistan became a center for Islamic militants when it served as the

staging ground for the West’s war against Soviet occupation of

Afghanistan beginning in 1979.

During the anti-Soviet Afghan resistance, militants from all over the

Muslim world passed through Pakistan to participate in the Afghan

Jihad.7 They were, at the time, supported by the intelligence services

of the West as well as Islamic nations. Some of them created covert

networks within Pakistan, taking advantage of poor law enforcement

and the state’s sympathetic attitude toward pan-Islamic militancy.

Now that al-Qaeda and the Taliban have been uprooted from

Afghanistan, they are using their former transit station as a temporary

staging ground for terrorist operations.8 Domestic terrorist groups

remain active, and at least some of them have developed tactical or

strategic alliances with each other as well as with foreign groups.9

Pakistan has paid a price for not confronting the terrorists in the

past. They brought their battles to Pakistan, while holding out the

promise of helping in Pakistan’s conflict with India. Even before the

current wave of attacks, al-Qaeda’s ally, Egyptian Jihad, bombed and

5. Sumit Ganguly, “Back to Brinksmanship,” American Prospect 13, no. 12 (1 July

2002): 18–19.

6. Celia W. Dugger, “A Nuclear Question Mark: India and Pakistan Face New

Pressures for War, and Peace,” New York Times, 21 October 2001, 4-3; “Do We Have

a Deal?” Economist, 15 June 2002, 39.

7. On Pakistan’s relation to the jihadi phenomenon, see Ahmed Rashid, Jihad: The

Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002).

8. Husain Haqqani, “Al-Qaeda’s New Enemy,” Financial Times, 8 July 2002, 19.

9. Douglas Jehl, “Groups Banned by Musharraf Join Forces for Attacks, Officials

Say,” New York Times, A-12, 1 March 2002.
354 HUSAIN HAQQANI

10. For a thorough history of the conflict over Kashmir, see Alastair Lamb,

Kashmir: A Disputed Legacy, 1846–1990 (Hertingfordbury, Hertfordshire: Roxford

Books, 1991).

11. Musharraf ’s “Address to the Nation.”

12. Victoria Schofield, Kashmir in the Crossfire (New York: I.B. Tauris, 1996), 231–34.

13. For several recent examples of this complaint, see Shaikh Azizur Rahman,

“Officials Admit Army Killed Kashmir Civilians; Report Cites Efforts to Cover Up

Attacks,” Washington Times, A-13, 2 August 2002; “Pakistan Accuses India over

Muslim Bloodshed in Kashmir,” Agence France-Presse, 2 September 2002; Praveena

Sharma, “Indian Police Kill Alleged Militant, Family Claims Execution,” Agence

France-Presse, 22 October 2002.

destroyed the Egyptian embassy in Islamabad on November 19, 1995.

A few months earlier, on March 8, 1995, two employees of the U.S.

Consulate in Karachi, Gary Durell and Jacqueline Van Landingham,

were killed in a terrorist attack on a consulate van.

On April 22, 1996 explosive devices were hurled on the U.S.

Information Service building in Lahore. Four Americans and two

Pakistanis working with the Union Texas Oil Company were killed on

November 12, 1997, again in Karachi. On November 12, 1999 rocket

attacks targeted offices of the United States government as well as the

United Nations in Islamabad.

AT THE HEART of Pakistan’s past support for Islamists is its conflict

with India arising out of the dispute over Kashmir. Pakistan seeks

implementation of UN resolutions for an internationally supervised

plebiscite to determine the future of Muslim majority Jammu and

Kashmir, which India claims as its integral part. India and Pakistan have

fought twice over the territory since their independence in 1947.10

Even while announcing what was billed as a break from the past,

Musharraf ’s January 12 speech highlighted Pakistan’s pre-occupation

with Kashmir. “Kashmir runs in our blood,” Musharraf said. “No

Pakistani can afford to sever links with Kashmir.... We will continue

to extend our moral, political and diplomatic support to Kashmiris.

We will never budge from our principled stand on Kashmir.”11

By 1989, protests over a rigged state election in 1987 in Indian-controlled Kashmir had transformed into an insurgency. By all accounts,

the insurrection was indigenous in its initial phase and represented

Kashmiri frustration with Indian rule.12 India has also been held

responsible for massive violations of human rights in Kashmir, which

Pakistan sees as the instigating factor in the continued militancy.13
PAKISTAN’S TERRORISM DILEMMA 355

International media and human rights groups have been denied

access to the disputed region by New Delhi, which limits the potential for agitating Kashmiri rights through political means. India’s

refusal to discuss Kashmir’s future with Pakistan has been accompanied by international indifference over the issue. This in turn has led

to the belief in Islamabad that militancy and violence may be the

only means of internationalizing the core issue in the India-Pakistan

dispute.

Soon after the beginning of the uprising, Pakistan started applying

the experience gained during the orchestration of anti-Soviet resistance in Afghanistan to the Kashmir insurgency. In addition to

Kashmiri refugees, training was provided to Pakistani and international volunteers who sympathized with their Muslim brethren.14

Thus, Kashmir’s indigenous struggle for self-determination became

linked with the global jihad of the Islamists.

The United States has been alarmed by Pakistan’s involvement with

the Kashmir insurgency since its earliest days. In May 1992, the Bush

Senior administration threatened to designate Pakistan a state sponsor

of terrorism. The focus of U.S. concerns was the activities of InterServices Intelligence Directorate (ISID), which had been the CIA’s

counterpart in providing weapons and training to the anti-Soviet

Afghan resistance.

U.S. Ambassador to Islamabad Nicholas Platt delivered a letter

from Secretary of State James Baker to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif

saying, “we have information indicating that ISID and others intend

to continue to provide material support to groups that have engaged

in terrorism.”15

Ambassador Platt added verbally, “we are very confident of our

information that your intelligence service, the Inter-Services

Intelligence Directorate, and elements of the Army, are supporting

Kashmiri and Sikh militants who carry out acts of terrorism.”

“This support takes the form of providing weapons, training, and

assistance in infiltration ... We’re talking about direct, covert

Government of Pakistan support. There is no doubt in our mind

about this ... Our information is certain. It does not come from the

14. Ahmed Rashid, Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil, and Fundamentalism in Central Asia

(New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000), 186–87.

15. This paragraph, and the five that follow, are based on the correspondence

viewed by the author during his years in the Pakistani government.
356 HUSAIN HAQQANI

Indian government. Please consider the serious consequences to our

relationship if this support continues.”

Prime Minister Sharif responded to the U.S. demarche with assurances that any covert support to militants fighting India would be discontinued. But he also listed Pakistan’s grievances with India over

Kashmir and asked for an active U.S. role in resolving that dispute.

The United States did not carry out its threat, though Pakistan was

subjected to numerous sanctions over its nuclear program and, after

Musharraf ’s coup in 1999, for its lack of democracy.

Ten years later, little has changed in Pakistan’s basic stance. The

government denies direct involvement in supporting the militants,

emphasizes the indigenous character of the Kashmiri resistance and

holds private citizens and groups responsible for any support mobilized in Pakistan for the Kashmiris. Like Sharif in 1992, Musharraf,

too, links the end of militancy to the resolution of the Kashmir question even after the changed circumstances since September 11.16

Over the years, the connection with Kashmir has provided social

respectability to the jihadi movement, which has ambitions beyond

Kashmir and Pakistan. The state apparatus, particularly the Pakistani

military, looked upon the jihadis as low-cost foot soldiers who could

tie down large numbers of Indian troops in Kashmir. In the process,

the jihadis managed to lay the foundations of a vast infrastructure

that includes newspapers and magazines, Islamic charitable trusts, and

religious schools (madrassas). Tolerance and covert support of

extremist groups have allowed them to spread their tentacles throughout Pakistani society and to mobilize large sums of money for their

operations.17

Ideologically motivated religious extremists have also developed

links with organized crime, especially in the city of Karachi.18 At

times, this underworld alliance appears to command greater means

than those of the country’s police or intelligence services.

16. “Musharraf, Here’s What I’ll Do.”

17. For a treatment of this phenomenon since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan,

see Rashid, Taliban, 88–91. On the continuing tolerance of extremism after

September 11, see John F. Burns, “America Inspires Both Longing and Loathing in

Muslim World,” New York Times, 16 September 2001, 1–4; Douglas Frantz,

“Sentiment in Pakistani Town Is Ardently Pro-Taliban,” New York Times, B-1, 27

September 2001.

18. On the Karachi criminal underground, see Ghulam Hasnain, “Karachi’s Gang

Wars,” Newsline, September 2001.
PAKISTAN’S TERRORISM DILEMMA 357

It is also difficult for some members of the law enforcement

machinery to look upon Islamists as enemies of the state, after almost

two decades of treating them as national heroes. One of the accused

in the kidnapping and murder of Daniel Pearl was an employee of the

Special Branch of Karachi police. A member of the paramilitary

Rangers has been charged with plotting to murder Musharraf in concert with the group responsible for the car bomb attack at the U.S.

Consulate in Karachi.

Pakistan has looked upon militant Islam as a strategic option for at

least three decades, going back to the Bangladesh war with India in

1971. The anti-Soviet Afghan resistance fortified the relations

between Islamists and the Pakistan military, which had already been

formed.

During the 1971 war against India and the people of Pakistan’s then

eastern wing, Pakistan’s military rulers had helped create volunteer

militias of Bengali Islamists to fight the pro-Bangladesh militia and

Indian troops. India had backed Bangladeshi fighters, though the

trouble in then East Pakistan had started with Pakistani leaders’

refusal to accept the prospect of Bengalis leading a united Pakistan

after the general election of 1970. Instead of accepting political negotiations with Bengali politicians who secured a majority in that election, the West Pakistan-led military chose to define the issue as a religious war between Islamic Pakistan and Hindu-backed Bangladesh.

The al-Badr and al-Shams Islamist militias could not help Pakistan

retain control of Bangladesh. The Pakistani military saw the bifurcation of Pakistan as the result of collaboration between secular nationalists and India. This led to the belief that Islamists were the most

dependable political allies of the Pakistani state, especially in resisting

Indian ascendancy in South Asia. This belief was strengthened during

the anti-Soviet phase of the Afghan resistance. It also manifested

itself in the form of Pakistan’s support for the Taliban as well as the

Kashmiri militants.19

Pakistan’s involvement with the jihadi groups and its tolerance of

armed extremist religious groups have contributed to generally ineffective law enforcement in the country. Musharraf himself has

19. On the East Pakistan crisis, see G. W. Choudhury, The Last Days of United

Pakistan (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1974), especially chapters 6–8.

On anti-Soviet resistance in South Asia, see Choudhury, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and

the Major Powers: Politics of a Divided Subcontinent (New York: Free Press, 1975).
358 HUSAIN HAQQANI

acknowledged that “Pakistan has become a soft state where law

means little, if anything.”20 Sectarian and ethnic murders as well as

unexplained bombings have been a common occurrence for the last

several years. At least five million small arms are in private hands in

Pakistan.21 The most notable of these is the Kalashnikov assault rifle

that served as the weapon of choice during the anti-Soviet Afghan

resistance.

Even if General Musharraf decides finally to root out Islamic militancy, it will be years before the terrorist networks are completely

eliminated. Resources of the police and intelligence-gathering agencies are over-stretched as the military government uses them to stay

in power and not just to keep crime and terrorism in check. The terrorists know that and take advantage of the state’s weakness.

General Musharraf has clamped down on groups directly linked

with al-Qaeda, and his government has helped the United States in

apprehending foreign fighters, including high-ranking al-Qaeda figures.22 But Pakistan will have to completely abandon using Islamic

militants as an instrument of policy if terrorism is to be rolled back

effectively.

India mistrusts Pakistani intentions, while Pakistan demands guarantees of dialogue over Kashmir before completely closing the chapter on Kashmiri militancy. India’s refusal to withdraw the threat of

military force, initiated after the terrorist attack on parliament last

December, was cited in Pakistan as an argument against reversal of

policy. Supporters of the insurgents within Islamabad’s policy-making

circles said that Islamic militants would serve as an important fifth

column for Pakistani soldiers, sabotaging the much larger and betterequipped Indian army, in case of war.23

More than two thousand members of Islamic militias were detained

after General Musharraf announced the ban on five militant groups

20. Musharraf ’s “Address to the Nation.”

21. Tara Kartha, “Pakistan and the Taliban: Flux in an Old Relationship?” Strategic

Analysis 24, no. 7 (October 2000); International Centre for Peace Initiatives, The Future

of Pakistan (Mumbai, 2002), 63.

22. See, for example, Karl Vick and Kamran Khan, “Raid Netted Top Operative of

Al Qaeda,” Washington Post, A-1, 2 April 2002; Susan Schmidt and Dan Eggen,

“Suspected Planner of 9/11 Attacks Captured in Pakistan after Gunfight; Two Other

Al Qaeda Members Killed, Several More Arrested,” Washington Post, A-1, 14

September 2002.

23. Vick and Khan, “Pakistani Ambivalence Frustrates Hope for Kashmir Peace,”

Washington Post, A-18, 29 June 2002.
PAKISTAN’S TERRORISM DILEMMA 359

in his January 12 speech. Of these, 1,800 were released after signing

pledges of good conduct. The government announced another crackdown in May, though it is likely that the four hundred militants

detained this time around were part of the batch that had earlier been

released.24

The government has arrested some leading militants, and several

sectarian terrorists have been killed in police encounters.25 But

Pakistan remains far from the stage of a complete break with its past

covert support for Islamic militants.

The halfway approach to tackling terrorism has left Pakistan vulnerable to pressure from both the Islamists and the international community. General Musharraf ’s continuing war against domestic political rivals and the ongoing confrontation with India give the terrorists

an advantage. They have nothing to protect, only targets to destroy.

Musharraf, by contrast, must safeguard Pakistan’s interests in addition

to keeping himself, and the military, in power.

Recent clashes between Pakistani forces with al-Qaeda fighters in

the country’s remote tribal areas indicate that there may be no turning

back from General Pervez Musharraf ’s decision to join the international coalition against terrorism. Even if Pakistan wanted to nuance

its position on the issue, making distinctions between terrorists targeting the United States and Pakistan and terrorists opposed to India,

neither its international friends nor the terrorists would allow such

distinctions.

Pakistan must now bravely complete its U-turn and end its reputation as a militant-infested nation. This can be accomplished if three

conditions are met:

First, Pakistan’s relations with India must move toward normalization. The tactical deployment of Islamic militancy as a means of combating Indian military advantage was the starting point of Pakistan’s

involvement with the jihadis. In the absence of peaceful relations with

India, it is unlikely that Pakistan will be able to completely close the

option of calling upon Islamists in case of a confrontation with its

traditional rival.

24. Ian Bruce, “Radical Groups Join Forces in Jihad; CIA Claims Consulate Car

Bomb Was Work of Terror Alliance,” The Herald (Glasgow), 17 June 2002, 10.

25. “Wanted Sectarian Activist Killed in Encounter,” Dawn, 5 April 2002; “Police

Make Public Arrest of Sectarian Activists,” Dawn, 2 July 2002.
360 HUSAIN HAQQANI

From Pakistan’s point of view, normalization of ties with India

would involve the beginning of a process of dialogue about the future

status of Jammu and Kashmir. The international community can

encourage such a process, even without an immediate resolution of

the dispute.

Second, decision making in Pakistan must revert to elected civilian

leaders rather than being vested in the military. Over the last ten years,

the intelligence-military complex in Pakistan has retained control of

key decision making over matters relating to national security. As a

result, conduct of diplomacy by civilians has been hampered by

covert operations run by the military. Civilian leaders have often been

vilified or undermined for seeking to change the course of the country’s Afghan and Kashmir policies.

Since 1999, direct military rule has also subordinated Pakistani decision making to military biases. Given the history of the last thirty

years, in particular, it is clear that Pakistan’s military looks upon the

Islamic militants as its allies against India. Mainstream civilian politicians, on the other hand, are generally secular and less strident about

confrontation with India. Political and economic factors have weighed

more in the calculations of civilians than have the strategic doctrines

propounded by the military.

PAKISTAN’S ISLAMISTS had never been able to do well in electoral politics until the legislative elections of October 10, 2002 when they won

a significant number of seats in parliament and control of the North

West Frontier Province (NWFP) provincial assembly with only 11

percent of the popular vote.26 Their strength in recent years has been

the direct result of covert state patronage and the military’s decision

to assign them a role in its regional strategy. Even their recent election

success resulted from the military’s efforts to weaken mainstream

26. Although Islamists won only 11 percent of the vote in Pakistan’s October 10

parliamentary elections, the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) was able to capture 52

of 272 seats in the national parliament and an absolute majority in the North West

Frontier Province, thanks to low voter turnout and government interference in the

election cycle. Nevertheless, the MMA fared substantially better in 2002 than in 1997,

when it captured two national seats. For detailed results from the 2002 parliamentary

election, see http://www.heraldelections.com. For an analysis of the significance of

the 2002 elections, see Ron Moreau and Zahid Hussain, with Michael Hirsh, “A Big

Vote for Jihad,” Newsweek, 21 October 2002, 39.
PAKISTAN’S TERRORISM DILEMMA 361

political parties. In the long run, however, a democratic political

process is likely to contain Islamist influence, making it easier to isolate and eliminate extremist groups.

Third, Pakistan must disarm all militias and dismantle the jihadi

infrastructure. The international community should use all means at

its disposal to ensure this is done with broad national consensus

within Pakistan.

So far, the military regime has not sought the cooperation of legitimate Islamic groups or mainstream political parties. Instead, it has

antagonized traditional religious and political parties and allowed the

war against terrorism to be cast as a U.S. war being fought with

Pakistan’s help. Domestic political disputes have prevented any

scheme of disarming local militias. For terrorism to be defeated,

Pakistan would have to make a serious effort in re-orienting its

national priorities from military power and militancy toward modernity and development.

Pakistan needs to roll back terrorism to secure its own future. But

that objective cannot be attained through half-hearted measures or

without a paradigm shift in the Pakistani military’s worldview. In the

absence of a constitutional democratic government, Pakistan’s ruling

elite seeks acceptance through Islamic rhetoric and confrontation

with India. Until that changes, terrorists will continue to feel emboldened to challenge the inefficient state apparatus that lacks both legitimacy and broad public support.
PART THREE

POLICY IMPLICATIONS

OF RELIGIOUS RADICALISM
365

The domain of security in South Asia, more conventionally if

not somewhat proudly referred to as “national security,” has come

under pressure from several directions in recent times. A current significant influence comes from the vigorous practice of political and

religious majoritarianism, one that has contributed to the growth of

conflict and instability in almost all of the South Asian states.

Since decolonization of the Indian subcontinent in 1947, South

Asia has witnessed numerous internal armed conflicts across the

region. Even Nepal and Bhutan, which escaped British colonialism,

have witnessed armed conflict in the recent past. Most of the conflicts arise from the states’ inability to ensure the necessary democratic institutional mechanisms to resolve key political problems. The

inherent flaws in the state- and nation-building process have been

accentuated by authoritarian governments that often function beyond

the limits of even the unlawful national security laws they enact.

The large number of low-intensity, internal armed conflicts across

South Asia is testimony to the failure of South Asian states to fulfill

the aspirations of their citizens. The origins of these conflicts range

15

RAVI NAIR

Religious Radicalism and State Policies of

Democratic Governance and Human Rights
366 RAVI NAIR

from the demand for right of self-determination to radical changes in

the state apparatus. Movements such as the Liberation Tigers of

Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in Sri Lanka, Samjukta Jana Morcha (United

Peoples Front) popularly known as the Maoists in Nepal, the

Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM; formerly known as the Mohajir

Quami Movement) in Karachi and many of the armed opposition

groups in the Indian states of Jammu and Kashmir, Assam, Tripura,

Manipur, Nagaland, Bihar and Andhra Pradesh are illustrative of the

ongoing problem. In Sri Lanka the conflict in the north and east of

the country has resulted in the loss of more than fifty thousand lives1

and the displacement of more than a million people both internally

and externally. Another concern is the continuing arrest and detention

of political activists in southern and eastern Bhutan and the

Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh.

The response of governments in South Asia, irrespective of their

geographical boundaries, political stripes or forms of governance to

the radical groups and the civilians who live in these internal conflict

situations, has been similar. The reaction took the form of brutal suppression of political dissent and the violation of various national and

international human rights laws and international humanitarian laws

by security forces. Impunity provided to law enforcement officials has

only encouraged further human rights abuses.

Since September 11, 2001, the ruling dispensations all over South

Asia seem to have identified their own “axis of evil.” In Sri Lanka,

Sinhalese dominant right-wing “nationalism” is seen as a threat to the

newly signed peace document. In Nepal, democracy and freedom of

expression have been throttled in the name of curbing Maoist attacks.

The influx of Bangladeshi Hindu minorities into India due to repression by the Muslim majority in Bangladesh and the migration of

Bangladeshis in search for lebensraum have been devastating for the

indigenous peoples in northeast India. In Bhutan, people of Nepali

origin are facing the danger of forcible expulsion. The hundreds of

thousands of refugees living in conditions of great neglect and suffering in Nepal seem to be nobody’s concern. Similarly, the international community has watched in silence the growth of political and

religious fundamentalism in Pakistan.

1. UNICEF, “Children and Women Affected by Armed Conflict in Sri Lanka,

2000–2001” (Colombo: UNICEF, September 1999).
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GOVERNANCE AND HUMAN RIGHTS

Pakistan

THE RISE OF ISLAMIC FUNDAMENTALISM in Pakistan can be traced back

to 1974 when a constitutional amendment declared the Ahmadis2 a

non-Muslim minority. The Ahmadis have suffered discrimination and

persecution ever since. In 1977, devoid of a democratic constituency,

General Zia ul-Haq turned to right-wing Islamic elements for support.

This move subsequently coalesced with the goal of building linkages

with the Afghan mujahideen after the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan

in 1979.3 The role of Pakistan as a frontline state, serving American

interests in the war against the Communist Soviet Union, had major

consequences for Pakistan and its society. The combination of easy

availability of arms and a growing, motivated cadre resulted in the

rapid spread of violence that continues till the present.

Religious and ethnic organizations representing their respective

communities are increasingly using violent methods, including terrorism, to achieve the ends that they have set for themselves, leading to

a spurt in incidents of violence and terrorism in the last decade. The

authoritarian character of the state has led to the control of state

institutions in the hands of a select elite. The failure of successive

regimes in fulfilling their stated development agendas has fueled ethnic tensions and made the state more dependent on Islam as a binding force for society and polity.

In the past ten years, an important factor in the internal strife in

Pakistan has been the impact of the Afghan war. Its ramifications

include the growth of various Islamic groups accused in running feuds

between the Sunni and Shia organizations, and the drug mafia operating in Pakistan. These pose a threat to state security in the long run.

In the last few decades the MQM in Pakistan has made considerable strides in consolidating its cause and has since grown into a

strong party aiming to further the rights of those who migrated from

India in 1947. Over the years, it “has demonstrated a willingness to

use violence to further its objectives.”4 Since its inception, it has

2. The Ahmadis are members of a religious group founded in the fourteenth century by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian. They consider themselves to be Muslims

but maintain a different view on the finality of the word of the Prophet Muhammed.

3. Ajay Behera, “Pakistan’s Strategic Vision: With or without the Taliban,” Asia

Times, 22 March 2002.

4. U.S. Department of State, “Pakistan” in Country Reports on Human Rights Practices

for 1999 (U.S. Department of State, April 2000).
368 RAVI NAIR

“generated income through extortion and other forms of racketeering.”5 Although the modern MQM has legitimized its means and

worked within the political system, it has been unable to shed its violent and unlawful reputation. As a result, members of the MQM are

continuously at odds with law enforcement agencies and are often

arrested without cause and tortured.

India

IN INDIA, the activities of some armed opposition groups in northeast India, the state of Jammu and Kashmir, and parts of Andhra

Pradesh have become virtually indistinguishable from those of criminals. These groups sometimes commit armed robbery, drug trafficking and extortion, while giving these acts a political cloak. As a consequence of these activities, endemic crime and a generalized

breakdown of law and order has occurred in states such as Bihar,6

causing severe human rights violations.

Flawed state practices throughout the region contribute to fundamentalist activities. India is a case in point. First, by turning a blind

eye to the perfidious activities of upper-caste Hindu fundamentalist and communal (i.e., sectarian) organizations such as the Bajrang

Dal and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad—collectively, the sangh parivar—and regional chauvinist political parties such as the Shiv Sena,

and by ignoring the acts committed by private armies of feudal

landlords in Bihar and Andhra Pradesh, the government has indirectly endorsed the aims and methods of these organizations.7

Second, the state has a direct role in funding and arming its own

auxiliary militant groups in areas such as Jammu and Kashmir in

5. Ibid.

6. “The Fleshless Face of Bihar,” The Hindu, 29 March 1998 (noting that no matter what party is in power, gangsters in Bihar are better armed than police, far better protected, and have been made multi-millionaires through their extortion rackets

and arms deals); “Lawlessness in Lalooland,” The Hindu, 1 March 1998 (noting that

the violence in Bihar leads political parties, without exception, to brazenly play the

caste card, court and field criminals, and resort to malpractices and violence);

“Peaceful End to Repolling in India’s Most Lawless State,” Agence France-Presse, 30

March 1998 (documenting election-related violence in Bihar and calling Bihar India’s

most lawless state).

7. Amnesty International, AI Report 1997: India, http://www.amnesty.org/ailib/

aireport/ar97/ASA20.htm (accessed 16 April 1998) (concluding that in some parts of

India armed militants carry out killings, abductions, and rapes with the apparent connivance of government security forces).
RELIGIOUS RADICALISM AND STATE POLICIES OF DEMOCRATIC 369

GOVERNANCE AND HUMAN RIGHTS

India.8 In the Indian state of Kashmir, the work of the security

forces has been augmented through an insidious strategy of the government—the use of “reformed” or “renegade” militants as part of

the counter-insurgency effort. These pro-government counter-militants are former separatists who have surrendered to the government

but retain their arms and are usually involved in killings and abductions of suspected militants. Their exact number is undetermined but

the official figure ranges between 2,500 and 3,000. They are funded

by the government, which also exchanges intelligence with them and

directs their operations, but at the same time they operate totally outside the purview of the law. Put differently, “their existence traverses

law, crime and legitimate politics but crime is [their] idiom from start

to finish.”9 These irregulars have been responsible for many of the

abuses perpetrated on innocent civilians, and yet with the patronage

of the security forces, they remain free and operational, a sort of

Frankenstein created by the government, which it is unwilling or

unable to control. Indeed, during the last election campaign Farooq

Abdullah, current chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, was fairly

vocal in speaking out against the atrocities committed by these

groups. However, since he has been in power he has implemented a

policy directly contradicting his stated position.

New insecurities have been experienced by minorities in the region

in general and in the Muslim minority in India in particular. India has

one of the largest Muslim populations in the world, second only to

Indonesia. Of the many perceptions of nationalism, the one that has

risen to political rhetorical prominence in India bears the unmistakable stamp of a municipal parochialism, which is not very different

from the cosmopolitan parochialism of the post-September 2001

Western world. The convergence of views on the “war” against

“Islamic terrorism” has now been made a part of the official business

of the rest of the world. As a result, executive functionaries in the

world’s largest democracy have felt themselves a lot freer to use

administrative machinery they command to renew their attacks on

Muslim life, property and freedom.

8. U.S. Department of State, “India Country Report on Human Rights Practices for

1996” (1997) (affirming credible reports that government agencies fund, exchange

intelligence with, sponsor, and direct operations of counter militants in areas such as

Jammu and Kashmir).

9. Institute of Kashmir Studies, “Counter-insurgency in Kashmir,” April 1998.
370 RAVI NAIR

The continuing violence in the Indian state of Gujarat and the

enactment of new “anti-terrorism” legislation (Prevention of

Terrorist Act, 2002, which even before its ratification by parliament

had been invoked with sectarian selectivity against Muslims) do not

just coincide with the new global offensive against Islam. These measures follow on the heels of the mindset that views all Muslims as

“anti-national,” “the enemy within, potential subversives, and infiltrators” and as “owing their allegiance to the ubiquitous elsewhere of a

militant Islam.”10 The global onslaught has merely provided an indulgent climate in which exceptional violations of fundamental democratic rights can take place. Domestic electoral compulsions are seen

to supply the immediate and sufficient impulse for both the riots and

stereotyping, which raises ominous questions about the trajectory of

Indian democracy.

Scratch a Muslim and a fanatic is revealed, goes the argument laid

down with supreme self-assurance by the nationalistic Hindu, laboring

under imagined victimhood. Proof of this was on display in Gujarat

recently, where good, middle-class Hindus, having done their armchair

posturing, finally got a chance to go out and throw rocks at their

Muslim neighbors because it was time “they” were “taught a lesson.”

The state is partly responsible for the reinforcing of stereotypes, as

demonstrated some months ago by the Indian Prime Minister Atal

Behari Vajpayee. At a public rally in the state of Goa, Mr. Vajpayee

was reported as saying that wherever there are Muslims in the world,

there is strife. “Once Islam meant tolerance, truth and compassion—

from what I see now, it has come to mean forcing their opinion

through terror and fear. Islam is run on jehad.”

As the statement made its way through the media, drawing criticism

and making Indian diplomats squirm at international forums, the

Indian government sought to put a spin on it, claiming the prime minister had been quoted out of context. But the message was clear. “We

were secular even in the early days when Muslims and Christians were

not here,” Mr. Vajpayee had said in the latter part of his speech. “We

have allowed them to do their prayers and follow their religion.”

State-endorsed bigotry raised its ugly head in the corridors of

power yet again when in April 2002, Gujarat Civil Supplies Minister

Bharat Barot sent a letter to Gujarat Minster of State for Home

10. The Week (New Delhi), 7 April 2002.
RELIGIOUS RADICALISM AND STATE POLICIES OF DEMOCRATIC 371

GOVERNANCE AND HUMAN RIGHTS

Gordhan Zadaphia seeking to dismantle three relief camps in his constituency, Dariapur-Kazipur, in the city of Ahmedabad. The camps

shelter more than six thousand survivors of the murderous violence

in the city. Hindu residents said they felt insecure because of the large

numbers of Muslims in the camps.”11 Barot’s plea, however, was

turned down, thanks to vehement criticism of the state government’s

obvious disinclination to suppress the rioting.

For many in the ruling establishment, including the prime minister,

Muslims are most definitely “the other.” Furthermore, “they” must

live according to the diktat of “us,” the majority. Several others think

no differently. In a press interview, Dr. Pravin Togadia, general secretary of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) or the World Hindu

Council, proclaimed: “The Indian polity has become a slave to jihadi

vote bank [sic].” This sentiment was reiterated in the latter part of the

interview, in which Dr. Togadia said that Muslims would “have to

prove their credentials if they want to live in peace.”12

Add to this the paranoia that has been needlessly evoked by state

authorities at the highest level and which has predictably, and menacingly, percolated down to the lower levels of the state hierarchy. The

state theory—scratch a Muslim and you’ll find a terrorist—got a

boost after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack on the World

Trade Center in the United States and the December 13, 2001 terrorist attack on the Indian parliament. These incidents led to focused as

well as random targeting of individuals suspected of having committed, or about to commit acts of terrorism. Well-meaning individuals

have been dubbed “pseudo-secularists” and criticized for helping the

ninety thousand refugees across the state of Gujarat, most of whom

are Muslim.

However, political manipulation and state apathy are not the only factors responsible for the rise of religious radicalism. The complicity of

the state apparatus, as was evident during the recent rioting in Gujarat

in India, has ensured that those who targeted Muslim citizens will have

no qualms about taking up arms again at the first opportunity. In the

case of Gujarat, the state did not even pretend to be neutral.

Attempts to deal with the perceived “enhanced security threat”

have resulted in bizarre, and often tragic, incidents. In January 2002,

11. Ibid.

12. “The New Untouchables” (interview) in The Week (New Delhi) April 2002, 36.
372 RAVI NAIR

three young Muslim men were detained at New Delhi’s Indira Gandhi

International (IGI) airport after they were “reported” by a person sitting next to them. The three men, who had come from Rampur in

Uttar Pradesh to pick up their teacher, were speaking Urdu. Their

conversation was about the general problems faced at airports, the

Urdu word for “problem” being masa’il. Struck by the thought that

the three bearded men were talking about missiles, a man sitting next

to them reported the matter to the police, who promptly took the

three men into custody.13 It took the policemen and the Intelligence

Bureau officials twelve hours of interrogation to realize their mistake

and set the men free.

In the same month, police in the northern Indian city of Lucknow

arrested two Jordanians and a Palestinian for possessing false documents and overstaying, both valid grounds for arrest. However, the

police went a step further. The men were declared as Hamas activists.

Officials in the Ministry of External Affairs later clarified that not

only did the three men have no links to the Palestinian organization,

but Hamas was also not on India’s list of watched terrorist organizations. The paranoia, as it turns out, is not confined to the lower levels

of the administration. As a newspaper reported recently, a paper prepared by the Ministry of Home Affairs to justify the ban on the

Students’ Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) claims, “SIMI has maintained links with international organizations like [the] Muslim Students

Union, a pro-Hamas Union of Palestinian Students in India and

Pakistan.” The ministry does not explain why the alleged association is

a crime in the first place. There is no ban on the groups SIMI mentions in its paper; the so-called link therefore is not a justification.14

Another instance was the arrest of left-wing university students distributing pamphlets denouncing the American campaign in

Afghanistan. Six members of the Democratic Student’s Union and

the All-India People’s Resistance Forum in New Delhi were arrested

on 8 October 2001 for distributing pamphlets against the U.S. bombing on Afghanistan. The police justified its actions saying that it

wanted to pre-empt any communal tension that may have arisen on

account of the contents of the pamphlets. The students were arrested

and remanded to ten days’ judicial custody. Conscientious protest is a

13. Times of India (New Delhi), 16 January 2002.

14. Times of India (New Delhi), 1 February 2002.
RELIGIOUS RADICALISM AND STATE POLICIES OF DEMOCRATIC 373

GOVERNANCE AND HUMAN RIGHTS

cornerstone of democracy, which is further protected in India under

Article 19(1) (a) of the constitution (freedom of speech and expression). The obsession with “national security,” however, is being carried to absurd lengths, stifling democratic dissent and jeopardizing the

right to life and liberty.

It is clear that the enforcing of stricter guidelines has been restricted

to Muslims, presumably because of the widespread misconception

that all Muslims are terrorists or anti-nationals. The hostile mood of

the times has been exacerbated by the Indian government’s aggressive

posture on the matter.

For example, a typical reaction to a terrorist strike, or the threat of

a strike, involves police raids on areas where minority communities

are concentrated. Following the attack on the Indian parliament, an

“extensive exercise” was launched to “verify the antecedents” of the

three thousand-odd Kashmiri woolen garment traders staying in the

city.15 The traders arrive in the city every winter and return to

Kashmir after the snow in the Kashmir Valley melts. Many of them

claimed they had been asked to leave the capital immediately, a charge

denied by the police. Any freeze on their businesses, the traders said,

would deprive them of an entire year’s earnings since there were few

employment opportunities available in the valley.

While any attack on the seat of government would call for

enhanced security measures, the near-reflexive targeting of certain

sections of the population has become routine. Being overcautious or

paranoid about finding a terrorist in every Muslim or in every peaceful protestor is no different from the Salem witch-hunts or the

McCarthy-era targeting of communists. Such targeting not only casts

unfair aspersions on the targeted group, but also amounts to a tacit

rejection of the rights of protest and free speech of other groups and

communities.

A recent attempt to bring madrassas (Islamic seminaries) under

scrutiny has been driven by the assumption that these institutions are

partly responsible for fomenting “anti-national” activities using funds

received from Islamic countries, most notably Saudi Arabia. However,

somewhat predictably, governments have shown little interest in promoting economic development projects where madrassa graduates

can find gainful employment.

15. The Tribune, 16 December 2001.
374 RAVI NAIR

There is no denying that a sharp dualism characterizes Muslim education in South Asia today. On one hand are the madrassas, still relatively impervious to change, barring minor, local-level experiments.

On the other hand there are modern, Western-style secular schools.

The Islam the former teach leaves little room for creative interpretation, and it is from this tradition that many political tendencies in the

subcontinent, including the Taliban, have emerged. An overwhelming

majority of the madrassas in South Asia carry on by merely teaching

the compendium of medieval commentaries. Few, if any, have dared

to depart from the traditional focus on jurisprudence or have even

attempted to come up with new ways of understanding Islam in the

light of modern conditions. Nor is there any indication of a widespread desire to break the shackles of “blind conformity” (taqlid) to

medieval Islamic jurisprudence, itself a product of the medieval Arab

world. If other religions are taught, it is merely for polemical purposes

and to prove them “false.”

Given the worthlessness of madrassa education as far as jobs are

concerned, it is not surprising that few middle class Muslim families

send their children to madrassas for higher education. Most are content with the basic religious education the makatib (part-time primary mosque-school) provides to young children if at all they

choose to send their children there. Madrassas were once the preserve of the Muslim elite, providing them an education that trained

them to take up posts in the courts of the erstwhile princely rulers.

Today most madrassa students come from families that can ill afford

the cost of modern education for their children. To make matters

worse, few madrassas, if any, have any facility for vocational training for their students. A visitor to the grand Dar-ul-Ulum, Deoband,

would be appalled to discover that the only vocational training provided in the largest madrassa in South Asia involves book-binding,

calligraphy and watch-repairing classes—all three declining trades

with little or no scope for large-scale employment. Not surprisingly,

many unemployed madrassa graduates have gone on to become

ready fodder for fundamentalist Islamist groups. Given the sort of

education they receive, madrassa graduates may be equipped to

work as imams (preachers) in mosques and teachers in madrassas, but

little else, and even these positions are limited. The bulk of the students are probably led to join the ever-growing mass of the unemployable unemployed.
RELIGIOUS RADICALISM AND STATE POLICIES OF DEMOCRATIC 375

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Leading South Asian Muslim scholars who do not identify themselves with any particular school of thought or system of jurisprudence, such as Maulana Wahiduddin Khan, Nejatullah Siddiqui and

Asghar Ali Engineer, have argued for a more thorough revamping of

the madrassa curriculum to make it consonant with modern demands.

However, their voices are barely heard. In his recent book, Dini

Madaris: Masa’il Aur Taqazey (Religious Schools: Problems and

Demands), the well-known Islamist scholar and leading Jamaat-iIslami ideologue, Nejatullah Siddiqui, writes that the madrassa system

desperately needs to be revamped if it is to have any relevance in the

modern context.

Today, all over South Asia, perhaps barring Afghanistan, Muslims

are increasingly advocating reforms in the madrassa system to make it

more relevant to modern times. Some see reform as the only way to

prevent the madrassas from emerging as breeding grounds of

Taliban-style militants. Several madrassas are now experimenting with

new methods of teaching, including using computers in instruction

and encouraging access to the Internet. Some madrassas have now

begun teaching “modern” disciplines, including English, mathematics,

science and history. Several have introduced texts and tracts by modern Muslim thinkers. Efforts are underway to develop a standardized

syllabus and evaluation procedures for the madrassas, but given the

sharp sectarian divisions, this seems to be an uphill task. Rumblings

of change are now being heard even within the seemingly impregnable walls of the Deoband Madrassa. The madrassa now has a computer section and a website of its own, modern technology being

pressed into the service of a time-tested theology.

Despite these changes and absence of any clinching proof of the

connection between madrassas and Islamic militancy, the suspicion

and paranoia persist. In a recent interview, Rajnath Singh, the former

chief minister of Uttar Pradesh—a state where anti-madrassa tirades

have been at their shrillest—admitted that there was no evidence yet

of madrassas being hotbeds of Islamic militancy. “We are not looking at every madrassa with suspicion,” Singh claimed, “though it is

true that we are getting some complaints from the border.” However,

he added, “we don’t have clinching proof as yet.”16

16. Times of India (New Delhi), 21 February 2002.
376 RAVI NAIR

The atmosphere of distrust was not helped by an earlier pronouncement by Prime Minister Vajpayee that extraordinary measures

were necessary because of the “undeclared state of emergency” the

country found itself in. With this statement, made in the context of

the ongoing confrontation with Pakistan, the prime minister unwittingly echoed the point that an undeclared state of emergency prevails

in the country. A necessary step following such an assertion is to formally acknowledge—and give notice of—a state of emergency

through the relevant domestic and international mechanisms. Barring

that, extraordinary measures cannot be justified. None of this, however, has been forthcoming.

In the absence of a formal process of declaring a state of emergency

and abiding by the requirements of such a declaration, bald assertions

such as the one made by the prime minister serve only to reinforce the

general feeling of insecurity. The injudicious, off-hand use of such terms

such as “emergency measures” gives a trivial slant to a matter that may

have crucial implications for the protection of fundamental liberties.

It should be recalled that there has been no evidence that Islamic

fundamentalist groups operating in Afghanistan had any Muslims

from India in their ranks. Nor have Indian Muslims been involved in

Kashmir militancy in any significant manner. Instead, they have

become a victim of both Muslim and Hindu fundamentalism.

Demonization of a group makes it easy for—and gives reason to—

security forces to act against that group with impunity. State officials at

the lower levels must be made aware of the need to adopt an approach

based on research and intelligence information in the countering of

terrorist activities. The unthinking targeting and harassment of “suspects” will serve only to alienate the targeted groups, leading to resentment and raising the prospect of a violent response to state atrocities.

While Islamic madrassas are being targeted, the state has maintained a

disturbing silence on the role and functioning of the institutions run by

Hindu fundamentalists such as the VHP and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak

Sangh (RSS). Though there are inherent differences, the aims of the

RSS-run shakhas (training cells) and Saraswati shishu mandirs (kindergartens) are strikingly similar to, and no less dangerous than, the madrassas all over Pakistan and Afghanistan, which spawned the Taliban.17

17. Arundhati Roy, “Democracy: Who Is She When She’s at Home?” Outlook India,

28 April 2002.
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The VHP is a key element of India’s right-wing Hindu fundamentalist movement. It runs camps that purport to teach Hindu philosophy, polemics, yoga, physical fitness and other Indian systems for

physical well-being,18 but evidence points to a more radical use of

these camps. In 2000, “The VHP ... completed a week-long training

camp on target practice, held at its headquarters in Ayodhya ...The

site was closed off to all outsiders and the daily schedule has been

kept secret, though some Bajrang Dal sources submit that it was modeled along the lines of Israel’s Mossad.”19 Members said the training

was intended to counter the growing influence of both Pakistani

intelligence and anti-social elements within the society.20 Before the

demolition of the Babri Masjid in December 1992, the VHP and

Bajrang Dal had trained their volunteers on pulling down old but

strong structures. According to some Bajrang Dal insiders, at least

half of the training programs in Ayodhya within the last two years

involved “constructive programs” that taught volunteers how to tear

down old buildings and build new temples.21

The VHP agenda is largely imparted through “moral education”

and “general knowledge” texts that focus on “Hindu” consciousness

and “pride in being a Hindu.” In government-run schools in BJPruled states and in the twenty thousand-odd schools and shishu

mandirs all over the country, the prescribed syllabus presents Indian

culture as Hindu culture, totally denying its pluralistic character and

the contribution of the minorities to the creation of the Indian identity. Everything Indian is shown to be of Hindu origin; minorities are

characterized as foreigners owing their first allegiance to political

forces outside this country.

In 2000, several sangh parivar members visited six thousand (official

estimate; unofficial estimate fourteen thousand) schools to present

books to classrooms.22 Seemingly harmless, there are hidden dangers

18. Venkitesh Ramakrishnan, “Busy at Karsevakpuram,” Frontline 17, no. 13 (24

June – 7 July 2000).

19. See “Beyond the Church Burnings and Priest Killing: Attacks on the Christian

Minorities in India,” Human Rights Feature (HRF/25/00), Joint Initiative of South

Asia Human Rights Documentation Center and Human Rights Documentation

Center (28 August 2000).

20. Ibid.

21. Ramakrishnan, “Busy at Karsevakpuram.”

22. Apratim Mukarji, “How to Rewrite History, RSS-style,” The Hindustan Times

(New Delhi), 5 June 2000.
378 RAVI NAIR

in such acts. Historical facts cited in textbooks are being altered by

the sangh parivar. In the state of Himachal Pradesh, along with the

usual subjects taught to schoolchildren, five additional subjects dealing with Hindu or Hindutva philosophy are taught.23 In 1998 in the

state of Uttar Pradesh, the Saraswati vandana (a hymn to goddess

Saraswati) was made compulsory at all state-funded schools in contravention of Article 28 of the constitution.24 Muslim children have

been forced to sing it, and have, moreover, been humiliated for not

singing it right.25

In 2000, the ruling coalition government dominated by the BJP

introduced sweeping purges in all centrally funded research institutes,

such as the Indian Council of Historical Research, the Indian Council

of Social Sciences Research, the Indian Council of Philosophical

Research and the Indian Institute of Advanced Studies. Breaking

most institutional norms and rules, these bodies have been cleansed

of subject experts and renowned scholars, and packed with men distinguished by RSS sympathies. This would not be a great cause for

worry if the RSS-BJP and its sibling organizations had within their

ranks men and women capable of articulating their ideology. But the

problem for the RSS-BJP is that they do not have any credible ideologues. Some of their chosen mouthpieces, such as Professor M.L.

Sondhi (former member of the BJP’s national executive committee),

are now accusing the party of pushing the country toward obscurantism.26

Elsewhere too in the South Asian region, the ruling political leadership appears bent on suppressing those who dare oppose its theories

of culture and civilization. The speed and ferocity with which political leaders are diminishing the civil and political rights of their constituencies indicates that South Asia is in for a prolonged period of

turmoil.

23. C. Shamsher, “Left to Counter Saffron Teaching in HP Schools,” The Indian

Express (New Delhi), 17 June 2000.

24. Freedom as to attendance at religious instruction or religious worship in certain

educational institutions. (1) No religious instruction shall be provided in any educational institution wholly maintained out of state funds.

25. Tanika Sarkar, “Hindu Rashtra or Secular State,” The Hindu, 24 November 1998,

www.mnet.fr/aiindex/tsarkar.html.

26. HRD Ministry—His Master’s Voice; The Hindu, 29 April 2001.
RELIGIOUS RADICALISM AND STATE POLICIES OF DEMOCRATIC 379

GOVERNANCE AND HUMAN RIGHTS

Bangladesh

DESPITE ITS COMMITMENT to secularism, the Bangladesh government

has tended to protect the interests of the Muslim majority. Several

discriminatory and racist aspects of the law, development approaches

and programs, and the education system remain in effect. The state

appears to be powerless, or at least weak, in its effort to combat religious extremism, to the detriment of Hindus and other minorities.

Since the elections of October 2001, and the installation of a new

right-wing regime headed by Begum Khalida Zia, and backed by the

fundamentalist Jamaat-i-Islami (JI), communal tensions and Islamist

extremist mobilisation have risen dramatically. The militant and proPakistan Jamaat-i-Islami has sixteen members elected to the

Bangladesh parliament. The Jamaat has two ministers in the new government. During the election campaign, the Islamist organizations

had declared that if voted to power, they would make sure Bangladesh

was made an Islamic state. There has also been a sudden escalation in

atrocities against minorities in Bangladesh since the BNP came to

power, leading to increased distress migration into the Indian state of

Tripura. The Hindu-dominated areas in Barisal, Bhola, Pirojpur

Gazipur and Chittagong in Bangladesh have been the worst hit.

The new government has adopted a lame duck approach to the violence. The government’s insensitivity to any scrutiny of its treatment

of minorities is indicated by the detention of Shariyar Kabir, an independent documentary filmmaker. Mr. Kabir, who was returning from

Kolkata after investigating the condition of Bangladeshi refugees in

India, was detained for being “in possession of documents which can

endanger the stability of the country.”27

Mr. Kabir told the BBC that his group, the South Asian Coalition

against Fundamentalism, had collected evidence from the victims

who had fled the country, and would publish its findings soon. Mr.

Kabir was charged under Special Powers Act, 1974, a national security legislation.28

27. “Vested Interest: Dhaka Legalizes Dispossession,” Human Rights Features

(April 2002); Asia Pacific Human Rights Network, special weekly edition for the

duration of the 58th Session of the Commission on Human Rights (Geneva: April

2002).

28. Ibid.
380 RAVI NAIR

Prime Minister Khaleda Zia is now not only sanctioning attacks on

Hindu minorities in her new regime, but has made these attacks a part

of the backlash on the minorities for having supported the Awami

League in the elections. School texts are being rewritten to serve sectarian ends. Women’s rights are being seriously compromised in view

of the ruling party’s alliance with fundamentalists in the new political

regime. The current plight of minorities is at its worst since

Bangladesh’s formation as an independent nation. Though, in theory,

the Constitution of Bangladesh is secular and provides for religious

plurality, in practice this is not so. The government is sensitive to the

consciousness of the Muslim majority; it is Islam that exerts a powerful influence on the politics.

Attacks on Hindus in Bangladesh are not a new phenomenon. The

community has suffered discrimination and harassment since the

1947 Partition of India. In 1965, following the Indo-Pakistan war, the

then Pakistan government introduced the Enemy Property (Custody

and Registration) Order II of 1965. The Defense of Pakistan Rules

identified the minority Hindus in then East Pakistan as enemies and

dispossessed them of their properties.

On 9 April 2001, the parliament of Bangladesh passed the Vested

Properties Return Act 2001 (VPA), intended to return the vested

properties to their original owners. However, in all probability, it will

merely serve to legalize the omissions and commissions committed

under a patently discriminatory law.

The consequences of the continuation of the VPA have been devastating. The Association for Land Reform and Development

(ALRD), a Dhaka-based non-governmental organization (NGO), estimates that a total of 1,048,390 Hindu households have been affected

by the VPA, and estimates that 1.05 million acres of land have been

dispossessed. About 30 percent of the Hindu households (including

those that are categorized as missing households), or ten out of every

thirty-four Hindu households, are victims. These estimates, although

based on various plausible assumptions, should be considered as sufficiently indicative of the gravity of the situation.

With Dhaka’s consistent refusal to acknowledge the fact of discrimination against its minorities, and in view of its record on ameliorating their condition, it is also highly improbable that a regulation—and

a flawed one at that—such as the VPA will be implemented in the

near future.
RELIGIOUS RADICALISM AND STATE POLICIES OF DEMOCRATIC 381

GOVERNANCE AND HUMAN RIGHTS

Sri Lanka

THE SITUATION IN SRI LANKA is no different. The over-centralized

state of Sri Lanka seems to be far removed from the day-to-day existence of its citizens. Being overwhelmed by two contrary forces—

Sinhala Buddhist majoritarianism and Tamil separatism—the state has

used most of its resources in augmenting its military machine. The

social structure and moral fabric at all levels of society have suffered

considerable damage. Fear and insecurity pervade all segments of the

population, as torture, rape and murder have become customary

weapons of war in bouts of violence and retaliation.29

The civil war has placed the nation’s minorities in dire situations.

While the Sri Lankan government generally respects the rights of religious minorities—namely the Hindus (15 percent),30 Muslims (8 percent)31 and Christians (8 percent)32—the continued discrimination

against the Ceylon and Indian Tamils has trickled down to the minority religious groups. Religious and ethnic minority groups such as the

Tamils, Muslims, Christians, Burghers and Veddhas are all feeling the

trickle effect of the war; arbitrary arrest, detention, extrajudicial

killings, rape and torture continue.

While the brutal tactics used by the LTTE have undoubtedly caused

a great deal of resentment and tension between the Tamil people and

the Sinhalese majority, the social response has only abetted discrimination and intolerance toward the Tamil people. The government’s

severe anti-terrorism legislation effectively enabled a nationwide

pogrom of Tamils in Sri Lanka. The systematic absence of investigation, either civil or military, into violations of the right to life has left

security officers unaccountable for their actions. Investigations are

rarely conducted, and when they are, they do not lead to the appropriate convictions or penalties.33 While civilians who peacefully exercise

29. National Peace Council (NPC) of Sri Lanka, “The Economic, Socio-political

and Human Cost of the War in Sri Lanka” (Colombo: National Peace Council Press,

January 2001).

30. See the Religion Around the World website at http://atheism.miningco.com/

religion/atheism/library/irf99/bl_irf_srilanka99.htm.

31. Ibid.

32. Ibid.

33. United Nations Economic and Social Council: “Extrajudicial, Summary of

Arbitrary Executions: Report of the Special Rapporteur, Mr. Bacre Waly Ndiaye, submitted pursuant to Commission on Human Rights resolution 1997/61—Visit to Sri

Lanka, para. 120.
382 RAVI NAIR

their fundamental civil and political rights are charged and sentenced

to years of imprisonment, soldiers and policemen who flagrantly violate the rights of innocent civilians suffer minimal consequences.34

While it is understandable that the Sri Lankan government is focusing its attention on finding a solution to end the ethnic strife, it is

using the conflict as an excuse to place the minorities at the margins.

In the 1972 Sri Lankan Constitution, Buddhism was given a primary

place as the country’s religion, further antagonizing the Hindu,

Muslim and Christian minority groups; most of these minorities are

not ethnically Sinhalese.35 The importance of Buddhism was again

emphasised in Sri Lanka’s 1978 Constitution and Article 9 of the current 1993 Constitution, which accords Buddhism the “foremost

place” and mandates the state to protect and foster the Buddha Sasana

(rule of Buddha).36

Sri Lanka’s post-independence electoral system offers few mechanisms through which the country’s minorities can protect their rights

against the Sinhalese majority, thereby ensuring that Sinhalese-dominated governments remain in power. Some nine hundred thousand

upcountry Tamils were disenfranchised in 1948. The system of territorial representation gives Sinhalese political parties two-thirds of the

government seats.37

Governments portray an international image of equal treatment to

both communities, such as the Sinhalese and Tamils in Sri Lanka, but

it is clear that there are strong biases. Rather than keeping their image

in the international community clean and untarnished, cosmetic policies and behavior have had the opposite effect. Under the guise of

national security, armed forces are misusing the powers they have

obtained from the Emergency Regulations and Prevention of

Terrorism Act, thereby annulling all other national and international

legislation that protects the rights of minorities. These laws enable

political and security officials at all levels to participate in a visceral

and illogical counter-campaign of terror, oftentimes more brutal and

inhumane than the war waged by their counterparts.

34. Ibid., para. 145

35. “Timeline: Sri Lanka,” BBC News, 1 March 2001, http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/

english/world/south_asia/newsid_1166000/1166237.stm.

36. Law and Society Trust, Sri Lanka: State of Human Rights (London, 1993), 310.

37. S. D. Muni, Pangs of Proximity: India and Sri Lanka’s Ethnic Crisis (New Delhi,

1993).
RELIGIOUS RADICALISM AND STATE POLICIES OF DEMOCRATIC 383

GOVERNANCE AND HUMAN RIGHTS

The government has been contradictory in its approach to dealing

with the conflict. Despite stressing its willingness for a peaceful solution and compromise, the government issued a statement in July 2001

warning of an imminent “full-scale war,” leading many to wonder

whether the Sri Lankan government believes the only way to end the

country’s long-running Tamil insurgency is through violence.38 The

large body of ruthless anti-terrorism and emergency legislation in force

suggests that the government is willing to go to all lengths—and even

carry out further suppression of fundamental human rights—to defeat

the Tamils by force. The most recent set of emergency regulations

issued in May 2000 grants more unbridled and unchecked powers to

security officers and adds to those already in place. This trend does not

bode well for hopes for a peaceful solution to Sri Lanka’s woes.

In the name of national security and the war, the Sri Lankan government has misused its powers, annulling all other rights protected

by national and international legislation. Concerted efforts are needed

by the Sri Lankan government, the LTTE and the international community to curb the further degradation of human rights. Until substantial changes take place, discrimination and consequent violence,

insecurity and human rights violations will remain a fact of life for

minorities in Sri Lanka.

A closer examination of the dynamics of the modern nation-state in

the South Asian region provides the key to understanding how the politics of the region together with state mechanisms have produced insecurity for its people. The arbitrary functioning of the states has created

an economic and social crisis, which is not an aberration but a malady.

Most South Asian countries are at the very bottom of the world

league in social and human development. Economic deprivation, illiteracy, and unemployment have spawned intolerance and extremism.

Cuts in subsidies on health and education and other welfare expenditures have eroded subsistence levels, which have contributed in no

small measure to the creation of fertile ground for sectarian propaganda and the manufacture of storm troopers for sectarian killings.

Nepal is a case in point.

38. In an official statement to the LTTE, the government stressed, “It is the duty of

the government to defend the territorial integrity of Sri Lanka. It will do so by every

means at its command.” See CNN News, “Sri Lanka Wars Tigers of Full-scale War,”

http://asia.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/south/07/02/srilanka.tigers/index.html.
384 RAVI NAIR

Nepal

NEPAL IS CURRENTLY STRUGGLING with a strong undercurrent of

social and political instability, with no clear end in sight. The advent

of democracy in 1990 brought about a new constitution full of assurances of freedom and equality, but brought few changes for the common villager. Poverty, a lack of social services, and weaknesses in

basic sanitation and water resource infrastructures remain pressing

problems for rural and indigenous peoples, though economic development and poverty alleviation have been the primary objectives of

the Nepali budget in recent years. In the past fifty years, millions of

dollars in aid have been dispensed to Nepal, yet very little of this

money has led to direct improvement in the lives of Nepali citizens.

While there is almost no limit to the reasons why aid has had such a

limited impact in Nepal, topping the list is the overemphasis of aid

efforts on the Kathmandu Valley, corruption, patronage, and a lack of

accountability. Moreover, there has been a rise of a violent Maoist

movement in which more than 1,700 people, including civilians,

police and rebels, have died. The insurgency, proclaimed a “people’s

war” by the rebels, appears far from over.39

The Maoist war has contributed to tensions between the minority

ethnic groups and low-caste peoples in rural areas and the upper-caste

Hindus who maintain a weakening control of the country. The movement has continued to grow, aggravated by the response of the government to the problem mainly involving authoritarian policies, arbitrary arrests and torture of innocent people. The “encircle and kill”

policy of the police often targets innocent people.40 Sixty-eight of the

seventy-five districts in the country come under this policy.41 This has

led to heightened scepticism of the government and its policies.

Although the government frequently speaks of its development

agenda, “[d]evelopment work has come to a near complete halt in the

hills of Nepal, and even basic delivery programs have been affected

in large parts of the country.”42 While many of the people who most

need development help are in Maoist-affected districts (specifically

39. Kulchandra Neupane, “Maoists Escalate Violence, Kill 5 Policemen in

Tanahun.” The Kathmandu Post, 1 July 2001.

40. Chitra K. Tiwari, “Maoist Insurgency in Nepal: Internal Dimensions,” South

Asia Analysis Group, paper no. 187 (20 January 2001).

41. Ibid.

42. “Day of the Maoist,” Himal (May 2001), 19.
RELIGIOUS RADICALISM AND STATE POLICIES OF DEMOCRATIC 385

GOVERNANCE AND HUMAN RIGHTS

the western hills and mountains), the government programs have

tended to avoid these areas.

The warfare mentality and the apparent sanction of the state to murderers and extortionists to act as they wish, as part of a central government counter-insurgency strategy in Nepal, are not helping the image of

the state machinery in the eyes of the civilian population. Dissatisfied

with the government, the people frequently look to the Maoists for justice and change.43 The Maoists appeal to them by criticizing the government, making broad demands for reform, and cultivating a Robin Hoodtype image by distributing spoils taken from raids.44 It comes as no

surprise then that the Maoist movement gains its strength from the discontent of the common people, particularly members of the lowest

castes and sub-castes (Kami, Sarki, Damai and others), as well as ethnic

janajati people (Rai, Limbu, Gurung, Magar, Tamang, etc.).45

Conclusion

SOUTH ASIA is currently struggling with social and political instability, with

no end in sight. There is a growing realization that separatist tendencies

arise when people feel disconnected from the structures of power.

It is important to remember that there are no quick-fix solutions to

the complex peace and security problems facing South Asia today.

Overemphasis on the extent of these security problems provides little

guidance with regard to the proper course for future policy. The causes

of these problems must be understood more fully, including the degree

to which the government itself contributes to disorder and decline.

It is essential that the vision of good governance go beyond rhetoric. For such a vision to really connect with people, it must be embedded in the essential “Ds” of stable governance: democracy, dialogue,

development, devolution, and disarmament. A new phase of development and reconstruction that addresses the multitude of educated

unemployed would ensure greater participation and accountability

and a greater stake in political normalcy and economic stability.

43. See Human Rights Yearbook 2001 (Kathmandu: INSEC, April 2001), 13; “Mao in

the Mountains,” BBC News, 5 April 2001.

44. See “Nepal: Maoist Insurgency,” South Asia Monitor, 1 March 2001,

www.csis.org/saprog/sam31.htm; “Day of the Maoist,” 11; Pamela Constable,

“Maoist Insurgency Gaining Strength in Nepal,” Washington Post, 1 May 2001,

www.washingtonpost.com (noting the gratitude of some rural Nepalis who see the

Maoist campaign as one against immorality and injustice).

45. Tiwari, “Maoist Insurgency”; “Day of the Maoist.”
387

The purpose of this paper is to examine the policies of

Pakistan relevant to its goal of combating terrorism during the past

five years. Regardless of how one defines “terrorism,” Pakistan is a

particularly appropriate case study when one approaches policies of

“anti-terrorism.” First, the political history of Pakistan is rife with

policies designed to combat terrorism in its various guises. Clearly, the

Ayub Khan regime was no stranger to the use of policies to justify the

suppression of domestic opposition as it PRODA’ed and EBDO’ed

its way through periods of guided democracy. One should also not

forget Z.A. Bhutto’s contribution to the craft. His Suppression of

Terrorist Activities Ordinance, 1975 held the field in the Sindh and

Punjab until its repeal in 1997 and remained the law in the North

West Frontier Province (NWFP) and Baluchistan until August 2001.

Zia ul-Haq was not averse to the use of the extra-judicial device to

counter “threats to the state,” and the democratic tag team of Benazir

Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif transformed the use of the ad hoc special

court into an art form to combat each other and each other’s political

supporters from 1989–97.

16

CHARLES H. KENNEDY

The Creation and Development of Pakistan’s

Anti-terrorism Regime, 1997–2002
Second, Pakistan has had its share—perhaps more than its share—

of domestic violence. The ethnonational violence that eventually occasioned the horrors of the Bangladesh civil war is a case in point. But,

one should not forget the Baloch nationalist movement (really “civil

war”), nor the Movement for the Restoration of Democracy (MRD)

disturbances, nor the bloody Muhajir Qaumi Mahaz (MQM)-Sindhi

riots. Each of these conflicts raised issues similar to those raised during the past five years—the state was challenged by violent opposition;

civil order was threatened; the state needed latitude to respond; departures from “normal” legal practice were justifiable, if not required.

Despite these earlier events, however, the post-1997 policies of

Nawaz Sharif mark a qualitative departure in the nature of Pakistan’s

policies. Nawaz Sharif was the first Pakistani decision maker to craft

an “anti-terrorism” strategy.1 Heretofore, successive Pakistani decision makers had adopted policies designed to target political opponents or to address ethnonational conflict. Such policies, at times,

departed from the norm—they were justified as “necessary” or as

meeting “emergencies”—and, at times, the targets of such policies

were labeled “terrorists.” But, such decision makers did not create an

ideology that justified such departures from the norm, they did not

create permanent institutions that dealt with “terrorism,” and they did

not construct an “anti-terrorism regime.”

Constructing the Regime: Nawaz Sharif as

“Anti-terrorist”

ON 18 JANUARY 1997 Mehram Ali, a foot soldier of the Shia militant

organization Tehrik Nifaz Fiqh-i-Jafaria (TNFJ), planted a remotecontrolled pipe bomb in the grounds of the district court complex

in Lahore. He detonated the bomb. When the debris settled the bodies of twenty-three victims were found, including those of Maulana

388 CHARLES H. KENNEDY

1. It is important to note that Nawaz Sharif had earlier introduced an anti-terrorism strategy, through the vehicle of the Twelfth Amendment to the Constitution,

which added Article 212-B to the document. The latter amendment allowed for the

“establishment of Special Courts for the trial of heinous offenses.” Constitution

(Twelfth Amendment) Act, 28 July 1991. This device was designed as a temporary

expedient that would stand repealed, if not confirmed by the parliament, three years

after its enactment. Accordingly, the Twelfth Amendment and Article 212B expired

on 28 July 1994.
Zia-ur-Rehman Farooqi and Maulana Azam Tariq, both members, the

latter the chairman, of the Sipah-i-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), a militant

Sunni organization. The latter victims had been brought to the

Additional Sessions judge’s office from the Kot Lakhpat jail where

they were serving sentences related to their earlier anti-Shia crimes.

Fifty-five others were also injured in the blast. Mehram Ali was caught

at the scene but his trial before the Sessions court dragged on. The

case generated considerable press coverage and provided the context,

perhaps pretext, for the government’s introduction of the AntiTerrorism Act of 1997, which came into effect on 20 August. The

Mehram Ali case was transferred to the newly constituted special

Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) in late August, where Ali was awarded a

death sentence, convicted for twenty-three counts of murder, and

various other sentences related to the bombing. He filed an appeal

before the newly constituted Anti-Terrorism Appellate (ATA)

Tribunal, also in Lahore. The ATA upheld his conviction. The petitioner then filed a writ petition before the Lahore High Court claiming, among other things, that the formation of the special courts violated provisions of the constitution. The Lahore High Court claimed

jurisdiction to hear the appeal, but held that the conviction should still

stand. Mehram Ali then filed an appeal to the Supreme Court of

Pakistan.2

The Anti-Terrorism Act of 1997 was the brainchild of the Nawaz

Sharif administration, which had been returned to power in February

1997 following a landslide victory that left Sharif ’s party, the Pakistan

Muslim League, with an overwhelming majority in the national assembly. The motives for the introduction of the Anti-Terrorism Act were

mixed. Clearly, Pakistan had suffered from very significant communal

and sectarian violence for the past several years, and the regular criminal justice system had not been able to curb such violence. In this

context, the ATCs, with their “promise” of speedy justice, unencumbered by the procedural niceties of the regular court system, would

serve as a deterrent to would-be terrorists. Also, Nawaz Sharif and his

political allies may have seen merit in establishing a parallel judicial

THE CREATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF PAKISTAN’S ANTI-TERRORISM 389

REGIME, 1997–2002

2. This account is drawn from Mehram Ali versus Federation of Pakistan PLD 1998 SC

1445 and S. M. Zafar, “Constitutional Developments in Pakistan, 1997–99,” in

Charles H. Kennedy and Craig Baxter, eds., Pakistan: 2000 (Karachi: Oxford

University Press, 2001), 14–15.
system in which the numerous ongoing trials of his political enemies

(especially prominent officials of the Pakistan People’s Party [PPP])

could be transferred for speedy disposal. In any case, the AntiTerrorism Act was a bold departure from the normal legal system.3

First, the 1997 act broadly defined “terrorism” to include:

Whoever, to strike terror in the people, or any section of the

people, or to alienate any section of the people or to

adversely affect harmony among different sections of the

people, does any act or thing by using bombs, dynamite or

other explosive or inflammable substances, or firearms, or

other lethal weapons or poisons or noxious gases or chemicals

or other substances of a hazardous nature in such a manner

as to cause, or to be likely to cause the death of, or injury to,

any person or persons, or damage to, or destruction of, property or disruption of any supplies or services essential to the

life of the community or displays firearms, or threatens with

the use of force public servants in order to prevent them

from discharging their lawful duties commits a terrorist act.4

Crimes included within the purview of the act were: a) murder; b)

the malicious insult of the religious beliefs of any class; c) the use of

derogatory remarks in respect of the holy personages; d) kidnapping;

e) and various statutes relating to “robbery and dacoity.”5 Clearly, terrorism as defined by the act was in the “eyes of the prosecutor,” that

is, the terms of the act could be interpreted to include virtually any

violent act, or encouragement of the commission of a violent act.

Second, the act created special “anti-terrorism” courts. Such courts

would be established by the government in their discretion and would

be headed by a judge of a Sessions court, or an additional Sessions

judge, or a district magistrate, or a deputy district magistrate, or an

advocate with ten or more years of experience appointed by the government. Such judges would have no specific tenure of office, serving at the discretion of the government. Strict time constraints would

390 CHARLES H. KENNEDY

3. Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997 (20 August 1997). PLD 1997 Central Statutes (unreported) 535.

4. Section 6, 537.

5. Schedule, 547–48.
govern the procedures of such special courts—the prosecution would

be given seven days to complete the investigation and the court would

be given seven days to try the case. The recalling of witnesses would

be prohibited and no adjournments, beyond two days, would be countenanced. Those accused of crimes could be tried in absentia if adequate notice concerning the dates of the trial were published in the

press. Appeals against conviction and acquittal of such courts would

lie only with special ATA Tribunals, also constituted at the discretion

of the government. Such tribunals would have seven days from

receipt of the appeal, which would have to be filed within three days

of conviction to render a decision. The decision of the Appellate

Tribunal would be final; no further appeal could be entertained. Such

special courts would also have the power to have cases pending before

other courts (regular courts—Sessions courts, magistrate courts)

transferred to its jurisdiction, without the necessity of recalling witnesses.6

As stated above, Mehram Ali’s case was transferred from a Sessions

judge to a special Anti-Terrorism court wherein he was convicted and

awarded a death sentence; he appealed to the relevant ATA Tribunal

where his conviction was upheld; he then appealed to the Lahore High

Court, which claimed standing to hear the appeal despite the terms of

the Anti-Terrorism Act, but still upheld the conviction; and then finally

he filed an appeal before the Supreme Court. In its decision, Mehram

Ali versus Federation of Pakistan,

7 the court upheld Mehram Ali’s conviction and he was later executed, but the court declared the bulk of the

1997 Anti-Terrorism Act to be unconstitutional.

Although the court found nothing inherently unconstitutional in

the establishment of special courts for specific and pressing needs of

the government, such courts would nonetheless be subject to the

rules and procedures of the existing constitutionally established judicial system. That is, (1) judges of such courts would have a fixed and

established tenure of service; (2) such special courts would be subject

to the same or similar procedural rules as regular courts, including rules

of evidence, etc.; and (3) the decisions of such special courts would be

subject to appeal before the relevant constitutionally mandated regular

courts. Namely, appeal against the decisions of the special courts

THE CREATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF PAKISTAN’S ANTI-TERRORISM 391

REGIME, 1997–2002

6. Sections 12, 14, 19, 24–5, 29, and 31.

7. Mehram Ali versus Federation of Pakistan.
would lie with the respective High Courts and ultimately with the

Supreme Court. As Ajmal Mian, then Chief Justice of the Supreme

Court found, the supervision and control over the subordinate judiciary (including the special courts) vests with the High Courts.

Moreover, no parallel legal system can be constructed that bypasses

the operation of the existing regular courts. Despite this finding the

Supreme Court evinced sympathy for the government’s avowed intent

to speed justice. In a concurring opinion Justice Irshad Hasan Khan

stated:

[The] speedy resolution of civil and criminal cases is an

important constitutional goal, as envisaged by the principles

of policy enshrined in the constitution. It is therefore, not

undesirable to create Special Courts for operation with speed

but expeditious disposition of cases of terrorist

activities/heinous offenses have to be subject to constitution

and law.8

In light of this finding, the Nawaz Sharif government had no

recourse but to amend the Anti-Terrorism Act and incorporate the

changes ordered by the Supreme Court. Accordingly, on 24 October

1998 the Anti-Terrorism (Amendment) Ordinance, 1998 was issued.9

The new act met all of the objections raised in the Mehram Ali case.

Therefore, Special Anti-Terrorism courts remained in place but the

judges of such courts were granted tenure of office (two years, later

extended to two and one-half years); the special Appellate Tribunals

were disbanded, appeals against the decisions of the Anti-Terrorism

courts would henceforth be to the respective High Courts; and

restrictions were placed on the earlier act’s provisions regarding trial

in absentia to accord with regular legal procedures.

Unfortunately, civil order in Pakistan, particularly in Sindh province,

continued to unravel. On 17 October 1998, Hakim Muhammad Said,

one of Karachi’s most well-known citizens, a former governor of

Sindh and founder of the Hamdard Foundation (Hamdard Islamicus)

and Hamdard University, was murdered. Under increasing pressure

392 CHARLES H. KENNEDY

8. Ibid., 1497–98.

9. Anti-Terrorism (Amendment) Ordinance, 1998 (24 October 1998). PLD 1999

Central Statutes 143.
from within his own political circle—and most likely from the military—to do something to curb such lawlessness and violence,

Nawaz Sharif chose to impose Article 232 and declare a state of

emergency (Governor’s Rule) in Sindh Province. The purpose of

the order, as expressed in the order itself, was to empower the governor to take all necessary actions “to create a peaceful environment

in which ordinary citizens can conduct their day-to-day affairs in

accordance with their constitutional rights and entitlement within

the province.”10

Such laudable ends, however, led to an invitation to the military, acting in its capacity of “aid to civil power,” to take over law and order

duties in Sindh Province. The result was the introduction of a form

of martial law that was imposed on the province as a whole, but most

enthusiastically implemented in Karachi. Perhaps understandably the

military, asked to assume functions beyond its normal duties, desired

a free hand in its mission. Standing in its way were the civilian courts,

with their procedures and processes and their alleged corruption. The

remedy, they insisted, was the creation of military tribunals. Nawaz

Sharif complied.

The result, the Pakistan Armed Forces (Acting in Aid of Civil

Power) Ordinance, 1998,11 is a remarkable document. Promulgated

on 20 November 1998, the ordinance, which had application only to

Sindh Province, extended broad judicial powers to the military. The

ordinance granted military officers at the rank of Brigadier and above

the right to “convene as many courts as may be deemed necessary to

try offenders.” Such courts could try civilians. Appeals against conviction by such courts would lie only with such appellate tribunals as the

military authorities deemed necessary to establish. Moreover, cases

pending before other courts (regular courts and ATCs) could be

transferred to such newly established military courts. The courts

would have jurisdiction to award sentences, including the death

penalty, for specified crimes. The ordinance also created a “new

crime” punishable with a penalty of up to seven years of rigorous

imprisonment—the crime of “civil commotion.”

THE CREATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF PAKISTAN’S ANTI-TERRORISM 393

REGIME, 1997–2002

10. Constitution of Pakistan (1973) Article 232 (30 October 1998). PLD 1999

Central Statutes 202.

11. Pakistan Armed Forces (Acting in Aid of Civil Power) Ordinance, 1998 (20

November 1998). PLD 1999 Central Statutes 156.
“Civil commotion” means creation of internal disturbances

in violation of law or intended to violate law, commencement

or continuation of illegal strikes, go-slows, lock-outs, vehicle

snatching/lifting, damage to or destruction of State or private property, random firing to create panic, charging bhatha

[protection money/extortion], acts of criminal trespass, distributing, publishing or pasting of a handbill or making graffiti or wall-chalking intended to create unrest or fear or create a threat to the security of law and order....12

On 30 January 1999, the jurisdiction of the ordinance was extended

to the whole of Pakistan. Also, the ordinance was amended so that

accused “absconders” from justice could be tried in absentia by any

military court established in Pakistan.13

Despite the government’s claims that this ordinance was temporary

and necessary given the breakdown of law and order, there was considerable public opposition to the establishment of the military

courts. Political opponents of Nawaz Sharif were particularly hostile

to the implementation of the ordinance as it gave his government

almost unlimited power to harass and imprison opponents. The

invention of the crime of “civil commotion,” particularly subject to

implementation by military courts, was very troublesome—many of

the activities defined as “crimes” could also be interpreted as “normal” political behavior. Numerous constitutional petitions were filed

before the superior courts challenging the validity of the ordinance—

the Supreme Court consolidated such petitions and heard the petitioners. The result was the landmark decision—Liaquat Hussain versus

Federation of Pakistan issued on 22 February 1999.14

The Liaquat Hussain decision is one of the most unequivocal, if not

harsh, decisions ever rendered by the Supreme Court of Pakistan. It

wholly repudiates the impugned ordinance, declaring the Pakistan

Armed Forces (Aid to Civil) Act “unconstitutional, without legal

authority, and with no legal effect.” Furthermore, the court, as per

the unanimous decision of the nine-member full Bench, rejected the

394 CHARLES H. KENNEDY

12. Section 6, 158.

13. Pakistan Armed Forces (Acting in Aid of Civil Power) (Amendment)

Ordinance, 1999 (30 January 1999) PLD 1999 Central Statutes 241.

14. Liaquat Hussain versus Federation of Pakistan PLD 1999 SC 504.
government’s contention that the act was designed to be temporary in

duration and/or limited only to Sindh Province. Indeed, it uses the

evidence of the aforementioned 30 January amendment to the act to

prove the government’s bad faith. The court also rejected the government’s contention that the ordinance was expedient, and defensible

under the so-called “doctrine of necessity.”

It may be stated that it seems to be correct that after taking

over of the executive power by the Governor in Sindh, commission of crimes has been reduced including the acts of terrorism.... Be that as it may ... if the establishment of the

Military Courts is not warranted by the constitution, simpliciter the fact that their establishment had contributed to

some extent in controlling the law and order situation or the

factum of delay in disposal of the criminal cases by the

Courts existing under the general laws or under the special

laws ... would justify this Court to uphold their validity. In

my humble view, if the establishment of the Military Courts

under the impugned Ordinance is violative [sic] of the constitution, we cannot sustain the same on the above grounds

or on the ground of expediency.... The Doctrine of

Necessity cannot be invoked if its effect is to violate any provision of the constitution, particularly keeping in view Article

6 thereof which provides that “Any person who abrogates or

attempts or conspires to abrogate, subverts or attempts or

conspires to subvert the constitution by use of force or show

of force or by other unconstitutional means shall be guilty of

high treason.”15

The court also found the ordinance to be unconstitutional in that:

a) civilians cannot be tried by military courts; b) the special courts cannot perform parallel functions to those assigned to regular courts; and

c) the military’s powers with regard to “aid to civil authority” do not

extend to the creation of courts or the exercise of judicial functions.

The court, and particularly the lengthy concurring opinion of Justice

Irshad Hasan Khan,16 was sympathetic with the dilemma facing the

THE CREATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF PAKISTAN’S ANTI-TERRORISM 395

REGIME, 1997–2002

15. Ibid., 595–96.

16. Ibid., 681–853.
government caused by the breakdown of law and order. But, the remedy was in following the advice of the Mehram Ali decision. The court

also ordered as a procedural amendment to the Mehram procedure

that cases be assigned to special courts one at a time until the case is

decided—that is, that the ATCs should not have a docket of pending

cases.

Given the forcefulness of the Supreme Court’s verdict, Nawaz

Sharif capitulated. On 27 April 1999, the Armed Forces (Acting in

Aid of Civil Power) was repealed—however, “civil commotion” was

made a crime under the Anti-Terrorism Act.17 On 27 August the

Sharif government made its last revision of the anti-terrorism regime

when it further amended the Anti-Terrorism Act to allow for the

establishment of ATCs in any province of Pakistan.18

On 12 October Nawaz Sharif was removed from power by means

of a military coup—General Parvez Musharraf as a result inheriting

the anti-terrorism regime from his predecessor.

Musharraf ’s Anti-terrorism Regime

IMMEDIATE CONCERNS

Parvez Musharraf assumed power in October 1999 saddled with

several domestic and international liabilities. Within the previous sixteen months (since May 1998) Pakistan had tested nuclear weapons

(thus flaunting the long-standing strictures of the non-proliferation

regime and inviting international sanctions), and had initiated a dangerous war (the so-called Kargil Operation) with India, which

arguably risked the use of the nuclear weapons earlier tested.

Moreover, Pakistan’s much-heralded “democratic transition” had

been tarnished by successive governments’ perceived incompetence

and malign neglect. The capstone, however, was the military coup

itself. The coup belied the assumption that Pakistan’s political system

had “evolved” into a permanent democratic form; it also challenged

the belief that the “democratic wave” so popular with Western journalists was a universal phenomenon.

396 CHARLES H. KENNEDY

17. Anti-Terrorism (Amendment) Ordinance, 1999 (27 April 1999). PLD 1999

Central Statutes 289.

18. Anti-Terrorism (Second Amendment) Ordinance, 1999 (27 August 1999). PLD

2000 Central Statutes 2.
In a practical, albeit Machiavellian sense, the new self-styled “Chief

Executive” faced two policy imperatives: (1) he had to deny, finesse,

downplay, spin, and/or otherwise confuse the issue of his assumption

of power by “martial law”; and (2) he had to legitimize the actions he

had taken to seize power—that is, to construct a brief for why the

military (read Musharraf) had no choice but to dismiss an elected

prime minister.

Accordingly, Musharraf ’s first action after seizing power was to

promulgate the “Provisional Constitution Order” (PCO). The intent

of this document was to deny that Musharraf ’s seizure of power constitutes the imposition of martial law. Given the facts, this was a hard

sell. Indeed, the vehicle for the argument was a “martial law pronouncement” (the PCO), which denied that martial law had been

imposed. The PCO claimed that the constitution had remained intact

save for those provisions, which contradicted actions taken by the

new “Chief Executive”:

Notwithstanding the abeyance of the provisions of the constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, hereinafter

referred to as the constitution, Pakistan shall, subject to this

Order and any other Orders made by the Chief Executive, be

governed, as nearly as may be, in accordance with the constitution. Subject as aforesaid, all courts in existence immediately before the commencement of this Order, shall continue

to function and to exercise their respective powers and jurisdiction provided that the Supreme Court or High Courts and

any other court shall not have the powers to make any order

against the Chief Executive or any other person exercising

powers or jurisdiction under his authority.19

It is important to note that Musharraf was careful to give himself

the title of “Chief Executive” as opposed to the more traditional

“Chief Martial Law Administrator” adopted by his predecessors.

Few bought this martial hiyal, but it soon became apparent to the

chief executive that only Pakistan’s superior judiciary had standing to

call his hand. This occasioned the introduction of the 31 December

THE CREATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF PAKISTAN’S ANTI-TERRORISM 397

REGIME, 1997–2002

19. Provisional Constitution Order no. 1 of 1999 (14 October 1999) PLD 1999

Central Statutes 446.
Ordinance that required superior court justices to take a fresh oath of

office under the terms of the PCO, not the constitution.20 Six justices

of the Supreme Court and nine High Court judges refused to take the

new oath and stood retired.21 The reconstituted and now ostensibly

more user-friendly Supreme Court quickly consolidated the numerous

writ petitions that had been filed challenging the constitutionality of

the military coup and on 12 May 2000 issued its landmark finding—

the Zafar Ali Shah decision.22 The decision, among other things, provided legal cover for Musharraf ’s actions. It also granted the regime a

three-year grace period (until 12 October 2002) to hold general elections and to restore the national and provincial assemblies. When the

dust settled following the decision, the military regime (and the chief

executive) had held the field. First, Musharraf ’s seizure of power had

not been defined as constituting an act of “martial law.” An adverse

finding would have occasioned a variety of domestic and international

problems. Second, the military coup was defined as regrettable but

justifiable. Finally, Musharraf ’s regime had been granted legitimacy

and given “extra-constitutional” cover, for at least three years. That is,

Musharraf had accomplished his first policy imperative—to confuse

the issue of his assumption of power by martial law.

The accomplishment of the second policy imperative—to discredit

the civilian regime he had replaced and to therefore provide justification for the military coup—required the use of Nawaz Sharif ’s antiterrorism regime itself. On 2 December 1999, Musharraf introduced

two amendments to the Anti-Terrorism Ordinance. The first

extended the schedule of offenses cognizable by the Anti-Terrorism

courts to include several other provisions of Pakistan’s criminal code.

The courts’ extended jurisdiction would now include: (1) Section

109—abetment of offense; (2) Section 120—concealing a design to

commit an offense; (3) Section 120B—criminal conspiracy to commit

a crime punishable by death or with imprisonment greater than two

years; (4) Section 121—waging or attempting to wage war against

398 CHARLES H. KENNEDY

20. Oath of Office (Judges) Order, 1999 (31 December 1999) PLD 2000 Central

Statutes 38.

21. Those refusing to take the oath in the Supreme Court were Chief Justice

Saeeduzaman Siddiqui, and Justices Mamoon Kazi, Khalilur Rehman Khan, Nasir

Aslam Zahid, Wajihuddin Ahmad, and Kamal Mansur Alam. Justice Irshad Hasan

Khan, who took the new oath, became the new chief justice.

22. Zafar Ali Shah versus Parvez Musharraf, Chief Executive of Pakistan PLD 2000 SC

869.
Pakistan; (5) Section 121A—conspiracy to commit certain offenses

against the state; (6) Section 122—collecting arms with the intent to

wage war; (7) Section 123—concealment with intent to facilitate waging of war; (8) Section 365—kidnapping; (9) Section 402—being one

of five or more persons assembled for the purposes of committing

dacoity; and (10) Section 402 B—conspiracy to commit hijacking.23

The second, 2 December amendment established two new special

courts, one to be located at the Lahore High Court, the other at the

Karachi High Court. Each of these new courts would be headed by a

High Court judge and each would have the power to “transfer, claim,

or readmit any case within that province.” These courts would also

serve as Appellate Tribunals for the ATCs.24

With these two amendments in place, the government turned its

attention to the disposal of the case brought against Nawaz Sharif

and his co-conspirators. The government’s case against the former

prime minister was designed to bring criminal charges against Nawaz

Sharif, which if successful would effectively end his political career,

and to absolve Chief Executive Musharraf from any liability associated with staging the military coup of 12 October. The actual charges

brought by the government, to an outside observer, seem a bit

unusual, if not bizarre. Essentially the facts presented were that Prime

Minister Sharif had made the decision to remove General Musharraf

from his position of Chief of Army Staff (COAS) but delayed the

execution of that decision until Musharraf was away from

Rawalpindi. Therefore, when Musharraf went to Colombo, Sri Lanka

to attend a conference, Nawaz Sharif struck. Allegedly, Sharif was

hopeful that by the time Musharraf had returned the unpleasantness

associated with the dismissal of the COAS would have subsided.

However, Nawaz Sharif ’s plans were foiled when key elements of the

military remained loyal to Musharraf and refused to accept the

actions of the prime minister. When Nawaz Sharif learned that his

dismissal of Musharraf was encountering resistance, and in light of

Musharraf ’s imminent return to Karachi (the latter had boarded a

PIA commercial flight destined for Karachi), Musharraf struck. He

ordered that the flight not be allowed to land in Pakistan. Various offiTHE CREATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF PAKISTAN’S ANTI-TERRORISM 399

REGIME, 1997–2002

23. Anti-Terrorism (Second Amendment) Ordinance, 1999 (2 December 1999)

PLD 2000 Central Statutes 8.

24. Anti-Terrorism (Third Amendment) Ordinance, 1999 (2 December 1999) PLD

2000 Central Statutes 78.
cials of PIA and the airport authority cooperated with the prime minister’s directive, while others failed to cooperate with the directive, but

in any case, the aircraft, carrying not only General Musharraf but also

more than one hundred other passengers, was diverted from its original flight path. This diversion, in turn, “threatened the lives” of the

passengers as the aircraft was running out of fuel and could not comply with the directive to land outside of Pakistan. Eventually, the relevant airport authorities relented, perhaps owing to the involvement

of military personnel who had in the meantime occupied the Karachi

airport. The plane landed, its passengers inconvenienced and scared,

but safe.

Therefore, given the charges that were to be brought against the exprime minister, the 2 December amendments to the Anti-Terrorism

Ordinance were crucial. The crimes for which Nawaz Sharif would be

charged (Sections 109, 120B, 121, 121A, 122, 123, 365, and 402B)

were not cognizable before the ATCs prior to the amendments.

Ostensibly, then, without the amendments such charges would have

had to be filed with the regular courts. Moreover, the apparent venue

of such a prospective trial would have been Lahore, not Karachi

(Lahore is Nawaz Sharif ’s hometown). That is, the aforementioned

amendments were designed to improve the probability of the timely

conviction of Nawaz Sharif. Accordingly, one of the main defense

strategies of Nawaz Sharif ’s attorneys was to challenge the standing

of the Karachi Anti-Terrorism court, to which his case was assigned.

This petition was rejected on 12 January 2000, and the trial was held.

On 6 April the Karachi ATC court announced its verdict—Nawaz

Sharif was convicted of conspiracy to hijack the PIA flight and was

sentenced to life imprisonment. Charges against his seven co-defendants were dropped.25

One could speculate that if this case had been brought before the

regular court system the result may have been different. The thread of

evidence linking Nawaz Sharif to the “hijacking” was weak, at best.

Certainly, a trial conducted through the regular courts would have

taken far longer to complete. In any event, Nawaz Sharif appealed the

decision to the Appellate Tribunal of the Sindh High Court. But the

appeal was never heard; while the appeal was pending, the govern400 CHARLES H. KENNEDY

25. The trial was covered extensively by the major Pakistani dailies. See on-line editions of Dawn and The News (Jang group).
ment struck a deal with Nawaz Sharif and his family. In December

2000 Nawaz Sharif and his family were allowed to leave the country

for Saudi Arabia. It was reported that the Sharif family was fined

more than Rps. 20 million ($400,000) and agreed to the forfeiture of

property worth in excess of Rps. 500 million ($10 million) as part of

the deal.26 It is generally acknowledged that this exile effectively

ended Nawaz Sharif ’s political career. Indeed, neither he nor any of

his immediate family members were allowed to contest the October

2002 general elections. Therefore, Musharraf ’s second policy imperative—to legitimize the military coup—had been accomplished.

With this “mission” accomplished the Musharraf regime turned its

attention to other matters that rarely involved the anti-terrorism

courts. And, as time passed, such courts became increasingly integrated into the legal structure of Pakistan. The ATCs began to

assume the characteristics, both good an ill, of regular courts. The

process of adjudication as specified in the Anti-Terrorism Act, which

had established that cases should be investigated within one week and

that cases once accepted should take no longer than seven working

days to be disposed, was largely ignored. Also, ignored in practice was

the Liaquat Hussain directive that anti-terrorism courts would be

assigned only one case to dispose of at a time. Indeed, by mid-2001

some anti-terrorism courts had very significant dockets; delays of several months in the disposition of cases were the norm rather than the

exception.27

An extreme example of this tendency is provided by tracing the

history of the Hakim Muhammad Said case. As mentioned above, the

murder of Hakim Said, on 17 October 1998, had led to Nawaz

Sharif ’s declaration of the state of emergency in Sindh Province. The

suspects in the case, nine activists in the MQM, were arrested and

their case was tried before an anti-terrorism court in Karachi. They

were convicted and sentenced to death on 4 June 1999. The conviction was appealed to the respective ATA, but before the case could be

disposed it was transferred to the newly created military courts. There

the case stayed until the military courts were disbanded as a consequence of the Liaquat Hussain decision. The case was accordingly

THE CREATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF PAKISTAN’S ANTI-TERRORISM 401

REGIME, 1997–2002

26. See Dawn, 10 December 2000 (online edition).

27. Hundreds of cases were pending before ATCs in August 2001. Dawn reported

on 31 August that 451 cases were pending in the three Sindh-based ATCs. Dawn, 31

August 2001 (online edition).
transferred to the Anti-Terrorism Appellate branch of the Sindh High

Court, which finally disposed of the appeal by acquitting all nine

accused on 31 May 2001. The court accepted the defense contentions that the original trial court had violated numerous provisions relating to the gathering and presentation of evidence—including falsifying relevant evidence. The Hakim Said case belied the

intentions of the framers of the Anti-Terrorism Act—to provide

speedy and effective justice. Not only did the case take nearly three

years to be disposed, but the state had accused and convicted the

wrong people, while those who actually committed the murder

remain unknown and at large.28

Perhaps Pakistan’s anti-terrorism regime would have eventually

expired, the victim of bureaucratic inattention, but international

political events revived the regime in the late summer and fall of

2001.

THE INTERNATIONALIZATION OF “ANTI-TERRORISM”

Although Parvez Musharraf had largely dealt with immediate

domestic threats to his regime, Pakistan—and more specifically his

government—was still viewed by the international community, and

particularly the United States, with concern and suspicion. Pakistan

still suffered from the economic effects occasioned by the sanctions

imposed on the government following its nuclear weapons testing.

Pakistan was also less than a favorite of international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), human rights groups, and financial institutions owing to its non-democratic government. Also, Pakistan was

viewed as unstable, subject to internal disturbances, and generally a

bad business risk. Moreover, the Pakistan military and its shadowy (if

seemingly all-powerful) institutional ally, the Inter-Services

Intelligence (ISI), were generally acknowledged as responsible for the

creation and sustenance of the Taliban to the west and “cross-border” terrorism to the east.

It is in this context that Chief Executive Parvez Musharraf presented his 14 August 2001 Pakistan Day address to the nation. The

address was extraordinary both with regard to its content as well as its

402 CHARLES H. KENNEDY

28. This account is drawn from a reading of Dawn relevant dates. Also see Shamimur-Rahman, “Sindh High Court Acquits All Accused in Said Murder Case” Dawn, 1

June 2001 (online edition).
emotional delivery. In the speech and in his subsequent actions,

Musharraf outlined the adoption of a bold, perhaps revolutionary,

plan to restructure Pakistan’s political and administrative institutions—the Devolution Plan, 2001.29 But, he also outlined a plan to

deal with lawlessness and sectarian violence in the state. The latter

plan directly involved the use of the anti-terrorism courts and introduced a significant amendment to the Anti-Terrorism Act.

The Anti-Terrorism (Amendment) Act, 2001 issued on 15 August

greatly expanded the scope of cases falling under the purview of the

terrorism courts. As per the amended act, an act can be defined as

“terrorism” if:

a) it involves the doing of anything that causes death; b) it

involves grievous violence against a person or grievous bodily injury or harm to a person; c) involves grievous injury to

property; d) involves the doing of anything that is likely to

cause death or endangers a person’s life; e) involves kidnapping for ransom, hostage taking or hijacking; f) incites hatred

and contempt on religious, sectarian or ethnic basis to stir up

violence or cause internal disturbance; g) involves stoning,

brick-batting or any other form of mischief to spread panic;

h) involves firing on religious congregations, mosques, imanbargahs, churches, temples and all other places of worship, or

random firing to spread panic, or involve any forcible

takeover of mosques or other places of worship; i) creates a

serious risk to safety of the public...; j) involves the burning

of vehicles or any other serious form of arson; k) involves

extortion of money [bhatta] or property; l) is designed to

seriously interfere with or seriously disrupt a communications system or public utility service; or n) involves serious

violence against a member of the police force, armed forces,

civil and armed forces, or a public servant.”30

Even more significantly, the amended act empowered the federal

THE CREATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF PAKISTAN’S ANTI-TERRORISM 403

REGIME, 1997–2002

29. See Charles H. Kennedy, “Pakistan’s Devolution Plan, 2001” (paper presented

at South Asian Conference, Madison, Wisconsin, September 2001).

30. Anti-Terrorism (Amendment) Ordinance, 2001 (14 August 2001). As quoted in

Dawn, 24 August 2001 (online edition).
government to proscribe an organization if it has “reason to believe

that the organization is concerned in terrorism.” “Concerned in terrorism” is defined as an organization that “a) commits or participates

in acts of terrorism; b) prepares for terrorism; c) promotes or encourages terrorism; d) supports and assists any organization concerned

with terrorism; e) patronizes and assists in the incitement of hatred

and contempt on religious, sectarian or ethnic lines that stir up disorder; f) fails to expel from its ranks or ostracize those who commit acts

of terrorism and present them as heroic persons; or g) is otherwise

concerned in terrorism.”31

In the days that followed the government implemented this amendment by proscribing two organizations: the Lashkar-i-Jhangvi (LJ),

and the Sipah-i-Muhammed Pakistan (SMP), militant offshoots of the

Tehrik Nifaz Fiqh-i-Jafaria and Sipah-i-Sahaba, respectively. It was

reported that hundreds of the members of these institutions were

arrested.

One fruit of this flurry of activity was the announcement made by

officials of the World Bank in late August that Pakistan would be granted

several million dollars to implement its administrative and political

reforms. “Anti-terrorism” has its benefits—then came September 11.

ANTI-TERRORISM AND CONSEQUENCES OF SEPTEMBER 11

The Musharraf administration was confronted with both a threat

and an opportunity as a consequence of the horrific acts of

September 11 and the resultant U.S. response. Pakistan was “asked”

to comply with the U.S. interpretation of the causes of, and remedies

against international terrorism. In exchange, Pakistan would be “cut a

break” with respect to its lingering “issues.” To be more precise,

Pakistan was asked to: 1) cut its ties with the Taliban government in

Afghanistan; 2) be helpful with respect to U.S. plans to attack

Afghanistan; 3) counter the anticipated extremist fallout likely to

occur from the above within Pakistan; 4) reduce sectarian violence

within Pakistan; and 5) curb alleged Pakistani state support for jihadi

and/or terrorist activities related to the Kashmir issue. In exchange,

the United States would be supportive of Pakistani attempts to

improve its standing in the international community (particularly with

404 CHARLES H. KENNEDY

31. Section 11-A.
respect to international financial institutions),32 and the United States

would not put too much official pressure on the military regime to

“democratize.” The United States also held out the “promise” that it

would at least look with fresh eyes with regard to the Kashmir issue.

Of course, underlying this implicit arrangement the United States

“promised” not to target Pakistan (as a facilitator or harbor for international terror) if it complied with the U.S. anti-terrorism regime.

Any rational decision maker, military or otherwise, would have

quickly accepted the U.S. conditions. Indeed, the conditions were

none-too-onerous to accept. As demonstrated above, the Musharraf

government was already concerned with sectarian violence within the

state. Moreover, it had inherited an intact “anti-terrorist” regime from

its predecessor—it did not have to start from scratch—and international support for such a regime would now help to insulate the

regime from domestic human rights concerns. And, most Pakistani

decision makers (even in the military) had for years been looking for

a face-saving way to disassociate themselves from the support of the

Taliban. Musharraf ’s decision was obvious. But, for domestic and

international consumption it was portrayed as difficult, a bitter pill to

swallow. Such imagery was also encouraged by U.S. policymakers

eager to show that the United States had adopted a no-nonsense

approach and was being proactive. The United States was “putting the

screws” to Pakistan, and Musharraf was “bowing to U.S. pressure.”

In any case, it proved relatively easy for Musharraf to comply with

coalition-friendly policies. With regard to anti-terrorism courts, the

government moved quickly to increase the number of anti-terrorism

courts and to establish such courts in the NWFP and Baluchistan.

Ostensibly, the government was gearing up for the anticipated

increase in the caseload of such courts once the crackdown on terrorism went into high gear.33 Also, the government was quick to arrest

THE CREATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF PAKISTAN’S ANTI-TERRORISM 405

REGIME, 1997–2002

32. The United States waived sanctions and resumed bilateral aid following such

actions. Subsequently, Canada, the EU, Japan and multilateral financial institutions

followed suit. This change has proven beneficial to the Pakistani economy—

Pakistan’s foreign exchange reserves were valued at $700 million in September 2001;

in August 2002 the value was more than $7 billion. See International Crisis Group,

“Pakistan: Transition to Democracy” (Islamabad/Brussels: 3 October 2002), 16.

33. Curiously, the government had decided to close five ATCs before the events of

September 11—two in Baluchistan and three in Punjab owing to the “lack of terrorism cases.” Dawn, 14 September 2001 (online edition). During September and October

eleven new ATCs were established, seven in the NWFP and four in Sindh. By the end

of October 2001 Pakistan had forty-one ATCs. Dawn, various reports (online edition).
and to publicly announce the arrests of hundreds of members of the

outlawed LJ and SMP. Also, there was considerable reportage of the

arrest of “jihadi elements” as well. One discordant note deserves

attention, however. In late October 2001, at the height of U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan, Pakistani paramilitary and police

were inattentive to the thousands of “volunteers” crossing the border

to fight with the Taliban. Most notably, the Malakand-based Sufi

Mohammad, leader of the Tehrik-i-Nifaz-i-Shariat Muhammadi

(TNSM), with perhaps as many as ten thousand “lashkars” crossed

the border with little or no opposition from Pakistani authorities.

Many of these volunteers, perhaps thousands, were killed in

Afghanistan, or at least have never returned to Pakistan. Indeed, some

of the families of the missing staged highly publicized protests and

demanded that action be taken against Sufi Mohammad for enticing

their sons into this hopeless struggle. Under such public pressure Sufi

Mohammad was arrested and tried before a tribal jirga (a special court

of another kind) in Kurram Agency and sentenced to seven years’

imprisonment in April 2002.34 If one were cynical, one might opine

that Pakistani officials turned a blind eye to the TNSM Afghan jihad

because they assumed an unhappy end for the jihadis.

Musharraf was also obliged to turn his attention to the madrassa

system in Pakistan. It had long been the contention of critics of

Pakistan’s Afghan and/or Islamization policy that Pakistan’s madrassas (some of which received state support and funding) were breeding grounds for sectarian violence and jihadi training. After the United

States declared war against the Taliban, it became a nearly consensual

view that the madrassas in Pakistan were directly responsible for the

creation of the Taliban.35 Therefore, the policy implications were

clear—Pakistan had to “clean up” the madrassas. Again, this was a

policy the Musharraf government was not particularly reluctant to

entertain—indeed, it perhaps gave the government the political cover

it needed to apply political restrictions and regulations to the operation of the heretofore largely autonomous madrassa system. It also

allowed the government to proscribe other Islamist groups—declaring them, like the LJ and SMP, to be “terrorist” institutions, and their

406 CHARLES H. KENNEDY

34. Dawn, 17 January 2002; 23 April 2002 (online editions).

35. It is hard to overestimate the influence of the works of Ahmed Rashid on this

view.
respective madrassas (although none of the proscribed groups actually operated madrassas) to be subject to intense government control.

Accordingly, by January 2002 Pakistan had added six new groups to

the proscribed terrorist list: 1) Jaish-e-Muhammed (JM); 2) Sipah-iSahaba (SSP); 3) Lashkar-e-Toiba (LT); 4) Tehrik-i-Nifaz-i-Shariat

Muhammadi (TNSM); 5) Tehrik Nifaz Fiqh-i-Jafaria (TNFJ); and 6)

Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HM). The government also adopted three

other related polices toward the madrassa system. First, the policies

introduced reforms to make the curriculum more “modern” or “scientific.” Second, they placed the madrassas (depending on the size of

the madrassa) under federal, provincial or district control. Third, they

placed additional conditions on visa requirements and related matters

concerning foreign (non-Pakistani students). None of these conditions were inherently unwelcome to the government—indeed, curriculum reform could be (and soon was) pitched as an important, perhaps vital, target for additional international financial assistance.36

The Musharraf government was also happy to join in the international war against terrorism by placing relatively severe restrictions

upon political party activity. As seen above, Musharraf ’s government

was put under a “deadline” by the Supreme Court in the Zafar Ali

Shah case to hold elections to the provincial and national assemblies

by 12 October 2002. Accordingly, the government was obliged to set

up the procedures for the prospective election, including rules regarding political party activity. In this vein the government promulgated

the Political Parties Order, 2002 on 28 June.37 The order substantially changed the rules of the political game in Pakistan; for the purposes of this paper, the following sections are particularly relevant.

Section 3 of the order prohibits any political party from: “c) promoting sectarian, regional, or provincial hatred or animosity; d)

bearing a name as a militant group or section... or e) imparting any

military or paramilitary training to its members or other persons.”

Section 4 also requires that every political party maintain an official

manifesto (“constitution”). And Section 15 provides for the dissolution of a political party if it is “foreign-aided” or is found “indulging

THE CREATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF PAKISTAN’S ANTI-TERRORISM 407

REGIME, 1997–2002

36. For details, see International Crisis Group, “Pakistan: Madrasas, Extremism and

the Military” (Islamabad/Brussels: 29 July 2002).

37. Political Parties Order, 2002 (28 June 2002). (National Reconstruction Bureau

website).
in terrorism.” If a political party is dissolved, members of that party

cannot, among other things, hold political office for a minimum of

four years. They are also subject to criminal prosecution if warranted.

The ostensible target of such provisions is not the institutions proscribed above (they are not political parties) but rather political parties

likely to be opposed to a continuation of military-dominated politics

in the state—most notably parties such as the Jamaat-i-Islami, the

Jamiat Ulema Islam; and the Muhajir Qaumi Mahaz (MQM). If one

“stretches” the ban against “regional parties” one could also contend

that the order may be designed to put pressure on the mostly Sindhibased PPP.38

Finally, the events of September 11 and its aftermath provided the Musharraf government with the political cover it required

to further amend the Anti-Terrorism Act. On 30 January 2002 the

government announced yet another amendment to the act—the AntiTerrorism (Amendment) Ordinance, 2002. The most important

amendment contemplated by this ordinance is the conversion of the

heretofore single-person bench of the ATC to a three-member

bench. The newly constituted ATCs would still have, as in the original courts, a judge who is a High Court, Session Court, or Additional

Sessions court judge as a member, but they would also each have a

second member who would be a judicial magistrate first class and a

third member who would be an officer of the Pakistan Army not

below the rank of Lt. Colonel.39 Ostensibly, the rationale for the revision to the courts is related to the general perception (or at least the

perception of the generals) that the ATCs have not worked very well at

all—and certainly not the way they were intended to work. By increasing the size of the courts, the courts will be better equipped to deal with

their caseload. By placing a military officer in each court, the civilian

members of the courts would be more directly seized with the urgency

of their mission (i.e., would be intimidated) into speeding up the

process and punishing terrorists. The order mandates that the existing

one-member ATCs would be disbanded by 30 November 2002.

408 CHARLES H. KENNEDY

38. If this was the intent the policy failed, as the Islamist parties contesting the election under the banner of the MMA did surprisingly well in the October 2002 general

elections.

39. Rafaqat Ali, “Army Officers to Be Part of New ATCs: Law Amended to

Expedite Terrorism Cases” Dawn, 1 February 2002 (online edition). Also see articles

in Dawn, 13 February and 20 February 2002 (online editions).
This amendment has drawn considerable flak from affected groups.

Dozens of bar associations lodged protests against the act, there was

a boycott of the courts by aggrieved lawyers in Lahore, numerous

petitions challenging the constitutionality of the ordinance were filed

with the Sindh, Punjab, Baluchistan, and NWFP High Courts, and the

ordinance was largely and loudly decried by members of all major

political parties and human rights groups.40 Even Amnesty

International wrote a special note decrying the amendment.41

Eventually the Supreme Court called for the petitions filed with the

four High Courts and consolidated the case in March. The decision

of the Supreme Court remains pending.

One can only speculate as to why the Musharraf government, usually fairly prudent, so blatantly challenged so many domestic interests

with regard to the January 2002 amendment. One factor may have

been the Daniel Pearl murder case, which at the time was moving fitfully through a Karachi ATC.42 Clearly, there are many flaws with the

ATC system. Generally, it has not improved the speed of disposition

of cases. Also, the new courts have until recently been strapped for

funds, understaffed, and perhaps overworked. The ATCs are also not

immune from the difficult environment that bedevils the regular judicial system in Pakistan—incompetence and corruption abound in the

police and legal establishment of Pakistan. Moreover, the most highly

publicized cases concerning the ATCs in Pakistan have involved cases

in which the respective appellate tribunal has overturned decisions of

the courts of original jurisdiction. Therefore, the ATC system is both

relatively ineffective and is perceived as relatively ineffective within

Pakistan. It is clearly not perceived as delivering justice. The

Musharraf government, therefore, was and perhaps remains, fed up

with the system.

On 20 October 2002, during the interim following the general elections but before the national assembly was convened, Musharraf ’s

federal cabinet promulgated yet another amendment to the anti-terrorism ordinance. The Anti-Terrorism (Second Amendment)

THE CREATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF PAKISTAN’S ANTI-TERRORISM 409

REGIME, 1997–2002

40. Numerous relevant articles in Dawn, February–April 2002 (online edition).

41. Amnesty International, “Pakistan: New Anti-Terrorist Courts Breach Fair Trial

Norms” (Amnesty website: 2 April 2002).

42. On 19 July 2002 a Karachi ATC convicted Omar Sheikh and three accomplices

of the kidnap and murder of Daniel Pearl. Omar Sheikh’s conviction is currently

under appeal before the Sindh High Court. A full text of the ATC judgment is found

in Dawn, 16 July 2002 (online edition).
Ordinance, 2002, gives the police wide latitude to detain anyone listed

on the government’s “terrorism list” (activists, office bearers of proscribed groups) for up to one year without filing specific criminal

charges. The amendment also prohibits such suspected terrorists

from visiting “schools, colleges ... theaters, cinemas, fairs, amusement

parks, hotels, clubs, restaurants, tea shops ... railway stations, bus

stands, telephone exchange, television stations, radio stations...public

or private parks and gardens and public or private playing fields”

without the written permission of relevant police officials.43

It is likely that the 2002 amendments will make the system even less

effective. Since the existing ATCs will ostensibly be disbanded in

November 2002, the proceedings of these courts (never a model of

efficiency and expedition) have been disrupted. Also, one may assume

that the Supreme Court, when it finally renders a decision with

respect to the January 2002 amendment, will not wholly accept the

government’s position. The Supreme Court has a history of jealously

guarding its turf; the introduction of military officers as “judges”

within the courts will be resisted as strenuously as the courts are able

given the realities of the political system at the time. The draconian

October 2002 amendment is also likely to be challenged before the

Supreme Court as well.

Conclusions

IF THE PURPOSES of establishing an anti-terrorism regime are to lessen

terrorism, punish terrorists, improve the efficiency of the legal system, and dispense speedy justice, Pakistan’s anti-terrorism regime has

been a complete failure. Conversely, if the purposes of an anti-terrorism regime are to improve one’s position relative to one’s domestic

political opponents, or to improve public relations, or to rehabilitate

one’s standing with the international community, then Pakistan’s antiterrorism regime has generally been a success.

What can one learn from Pakistan’s experience? If a decision

maker’s true goal is to improve the delivery of justice—the last thing

such a decision maker should do is to weaken the regular judicial system. If a decision maker’s true goal is to protect the lives and liberties

410 CHARLES H. KENNEDY

43. Rauf Klasra, “Sweeping Powers for Police to Curb Terrorism” The News, 20

October 2002 (online edition). The article includes the full text of the amendment.
of its citizens—the last thing a decision maker should do is to adopt

laws and policies that challenge and limit the rights of its citizens. The

tortured history of Pakistan’s anti-terrorism regime should give pause

to prospective latecomers to the process (e.g., the United States,

Britain, EU, Australia). If Pakistan’s experience is a guide, anti-terrorism regimes may be expected to cause more problems than they solve.

THE CREATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF PAKISTAN’S ANTI-TERRORISM 411

REGIME, 1997–2002
413

When East Pakistan broke away from the main western

part of the country to form Bangladesh in 1971, it was in opposition

to the notion that all Muslim areas of former British India should

unite in one state. The Awami League, which led the struggle for independence, grew out of the Bangla language movement and was based

on Bengali nationalism, not religion. At the same time, independent,

secular Bangladesh became the only country in the subcontinent with

one dominant language group and very few ethnic and religious

minorities.

It is important to remember that a Muslim element has always been

present; otherwise what was East Pakistan could have merged with

the predominantly Hindu Indian state of West Bengal, where the

same language is spoken. The importance of Islam grew as the

Awami League fell out with the country’s powerful military, which

began to use religion as a counterweight to the League’s secular,

vaguely socialist policies. (Many hard-line socialists, however, were

opposed to the idea of a separate Bengali state in Bangladesh, which

they branded as “bourgeois nationalism.”) The late Bangladeshi

17

BERTIL LINTNER

Religious Extremism and Nationalism

in Bangladesh
scholar Muhammad Ghulam Kabir argued that Maj. Gen. Zia urRahman, who seized power in the mid-1970s, “successfully changed

the image of Bangladesh from a liberal Muslim country to an Islamic

country.”1 M.G. Kabir also points out that “secularism” is a hazy and

often misunderstood concept in Bangladesh. The Bengali term for it

is dharma mirapekshata, which literally translates to “religious neutrality.” Thus, the word “secularism” in a Bangladeshi context has a subtle difference in meaning from its use in the West.2

In 1977, Zia dropped secularism as one of the four cornerstones of

Bangladesh’s constitution (the other three were democracy, nationalism, and socialism, although no socialist economic system was ever

introduced) and made the recitation of verses from the Quran a regular practice at meetings with his newly formed political organization,

the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), which became the secondlargest party in the country after the Awami League. The marriage of

convenience between the military—which needed popular appeal and

an ideological platform to justify its opposition to the Awami

League—and the country’s Islamic forces survived Zia’s assassination

in 1981.

In some respects, it grew even stronger under the rule of Lt. Gen.

Hossain Muhammed Ershad (1982–90). In 1988, Ershad made Islam

the state religion of Bangladesh, thus institutionalizing the new

brand of nationalism with an Islamic flavor introduced by Zia.

Ershad also changed the weekly holiday from Sunday to Friday, and

revived the Jamaat-i-Islami to counter secular opposition. The Jamaat

had supported Pakistan against the Bengali nationalists during the

liberation war, and most of its leaders had fled to (West) Pakistan

after 1971. Under Zia, they came back and brought with them new,

fundamentalist ideas. Under Ershad, Islam became a political factor

to be reckoned with.

Ershad was deposed in December 1990 following anti-government

protests and was later convicted of a number of offences and jailed.

But this did not lead to a return to old secular practices. Zia’s widow

and the new leader of the BNP, Khaleda Zia, became prime minister

after a general election in February 1991. This was a time when the

414 BERTIL LINTNER

1. Muhammad Ghulam Kabir, Changing Face of Nationalism: The Case of Bangladesh

(New Delhi: South Asian Publishers, 1994), 201.

2. Ibid., 189.
Islamic forces consolidated their influence in Bangladesh, but it came

to a halt when the Awami League, led by Sheikh Hasina Wajed, the

daughter of Bangladesh’s founding father, Sheikh Mujib ur-Rahman,

won the 1996 election. Five years later, an electoral four-party alliance

led by Khaleda Zia’s BNP came to power—and the new coalition that

took over included for the first time two ministers from the Jamaat,

which had emerged as the third-largest party, capturing seventeen

seats in the three hundred-strong parliament.

The BNP rode on a wave of dissatisfaction with the Awami League,

which many perceived as corrupt, but the four-party alliance was able

to win a massive majority—191 seats for the BNP and 23 seats for its

three allies—only because of the British-style system with one winner

per constituency, and the alliance members all voted for each other.

The Awami League remains the single biggest political party in

Bangladesh with 40 percent of the popular vote, but it secured only

62 seats, or 20.66 percent of the members of parliament (MPs) in the

election (it now has 58 seats because four were relinquished due to

election of MPs from more than one seat).3

Expectations were high for the new government, which many

hoped would be “cleaner” than the previous one. In June 2001, the

Berlin-based organization Transparency International had in its

annual report ranked Bangladesh the world’s most corrupt country.4

But since the new government took over in October 2001, very little

has changed in that regard. Further, violence has become widespread

and much of it appears to be religiously and politically motivated. The

Society for Environment and Human Development (SEHD), a wellrespected Bangladeshi non-governmental organization (NGO),

quotes a local report that says non-Muslim minorities have suffered as

a result: “The intimidation of the minorities, which had begun before

the election, became worse afterwards.”5 Amnesty International

reported in December 2001 that Hindus—who now make up less

than 10 percent of Bangladesh‘s population of 130 million—in particular have come under attack. Hindu places of worship have been

RELIGIOUS EXTREMISM AND NATIONALISM IN BANGLADESH 415

3. The Eighth Parliamentary Elections 2001 (Dhaka: Society for Environment and

Human Development for Coordinating Council for Human Rights in Bangladesh,

March 2002), 2.

4. http://www.transparency.org/cpi/2001/cip2001.html.

5. Eighth Parliamentary Elections 2001, 161.
ransacked, villages destroyed and scores of Hindu women are

reported to have been raped.6

While the Jamaat may not be directly behind these attacks, its inclusion in the government has meant that more radical groups feel they

now enjoy protection from the authorities and can act with impunity.

The most militant group, the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI, or the

Movement of Islamic Holy War), is reported to have fifteen thousand

members. Bangladeshi Hindus and moderate Muslims hold HUJI

responsible for many of the recent attacks against religious minorities,

secular intellectuals and journalists. In a statement released by the U.S.

State Department on May 21, 2002, HUJI is described as a terrorist

organization with ties to Islamic militants in Pakistan.7

While Bangladesh is yet far from becoming another Pakistan,

Islamic forces are no doubt on the rise, and extremist influence is

growing, especially in the countryside. According to a foreign diplomat in Dhaka, “in the 1960s and 1970s, it was the leftists who were

seen as incorruptible purists. Today, the role model for many young

men in rural areas is the dedicated Islamic cleric with his skull cap,

flowing robes and beard.”8

The Return of the Jamaat-i-Islami

THE IDEA THAT the Muslim-dominated parts of British India should

become a separate country was articulated for the first time in a short

essay written in 1933 by Rahmat Ali, an Indian Muslim student at

Cambridge. He even proposed a name for the new state—Pakistan—

which was an acronym based on the nations that would compose it:

the Punjab, Afghan (the Northwest Frontier), Kashmir, Indus (or

Sindh) and BaluchiSTAN. The new name also meant “the Land of

the Pure.”

However, the acronym did not include India’s most populous

Muslim province, East Bengal, and, at first, most Islamic groups

opposed the idea of religious nationalism. The most prestigious

416 BERTIL LINTNER

6. Amnesty International, Bangladesh: Attacks on Members of the Hindu Majority

(Amnesty International, December 2001).

7. Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Patterns of Global Terrorism 2001

(Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism, 21 May 2002).

8. Bertil Lintner, “Is Religious Extremism on the Rise in Bangladesh?” Jane’s

Intelligence Review, May 2002.
Islamic university in the subcontinent, the Dar-ul-Ulum, was located at

Deoband in Saharanpur district of what now is Uttar Pradesh in India,

and its leaders strongly supported the Indian nationalist movement led

by the Congress. The Jamaat-i-Islami, which was founded in 1941 by

Maulana Abul Ala Mauddudi and had grown out of the Deoband

Madrassa (as the university became known), went to the extent of

“alleging that the demand for a separate state based on modern selfish

nationalism amounted to rebelling against the tenets of Islam.”9

But gradually, the Muslim League, led by Muhammed Ali Jinnah,

won support for the Pakistan idea, and when India became independent in August 1947, two states were born: the secular but Hindu-dominated Union of India—and the Islamic state of Pakistan, which consisted of two parts, one to the west of India and the other to the east.

The Jamaat became one of the strongest supporters of the Pakistan

idea, and, somewhat ironically, the Deobandi movement through its

network of religious schools, or madrassas, developed into a breeding

ground for Pakistan-centered Islamic fundamentalism. Over the

years, the Deobandi brand of Islam has become almost synonymous

with religious extremism and fanaticism.

The Deobandis had actually arisen in British India not as a reactionary force but as a forward-looking movement to unite and reform

Muslim society in the wake of oppression the community faced after

the 1857 revolt, or “Mutiny” as the British called it.10 But in independent Pakistan—East and West—new Deobandi madrassas were

set up everywhere and were run by semi-educated mullahs who,

according to Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid, “were far removed

from the original reformist agenda of the Deobandi school.”11 Much

later, it was from these madrassas that Afghanistan’s dreaded Talibans

(“Islamic students”) were to emerge.

The Jamaat was from the beginning inspired by the Ikhwan ulMuslimeen, or the Muslim Brotherhood, which was set up in Egypt

in 1928 with the aim of bringing about an Islamic revolution and creating an Islamic state.12 When they had come to accept Pakistan as

RELIGIOUS EXTREMISM AND NATIONALISM IN BANGLADESH 417

9. Kabir, Changing Face of Nationalism, 99.

10. For an excellent account of the rise of the Deobandis, see Salahuddin Babar,

“Rise of the Right,” Probe Newsmagazine (Bangladesh), 1–15 March 2002.

11. Ahmed Rashid, Taliban: The Story of the Afghan Warlords (London: Pan Books,

2001), 89.

12. Ibid., 86.
that Islamic state, Bengali nationalism was totally unacceptable. The

Jamaat’s militants fought alongside the Pakistan army against the

Bengali nationalists. Among the most notorious of the Jamaat leaders

was Abdul Kader Molla, who became known as “the Butcher of

Mirpur” (a Dhaka suburb that in 1971 was populated mainly by nonBengali Muslim immigrants).13 Today, Molla is the publicity secretary

of Bangladeshi Jamaat and, despite his background, was granted a

U.S. visa to visit New York in the last week of June 2002. In 1971,

Molla and other Jamaat leaders were considered war criminals by the

first government of independent Bangladesh, but they were never

prosecuted as they had fled to Pakistan.

The leaders of the Jamaat returned to Bangladesh during the rule

of Zia and Ershad because they were invited to come back, and they

also saw Ershad especially as a champion of their cause. This was

somewhat ironic as Ershad was—and still is—known as a playboy

and hardly a religiously minded person. But he had introduced a string

of Islamic reforms—and he needed the Jamaat to counter the Awami

League and, like his predecessor Zia, he had to find ideological underpinnings for what was basically a military dictatorship. The problem

was that the Jamaat had been discredited by its role in the liberation

war—but, as a new generation emerged, that could be “corrected.”

Jamaat‘s Islamic ideals were taught in Bangladesh’s madrassas, which

multiplied at a tremendous pace.

The madrassas fill an important function in an impoverished country such as Bangladesh, where basic education is available only to a

few. Today, there are an estimated sixty-four thousand madrassas in

Bangladesh, divided into two kinds. The Aliya madrassas are run with

government support and control, while the or Deoband-style madrassas are totally independent. Aliya students study for fifteen to sixteen

years and are taught Arabic, religious theory and other Islamic subjects as well as English, mathematics, science and history. They prepare themselves for employment in government service or for jobs in

the private sector, similar to any other college or university student. In

1999, there were 7,122 such registered madrassas in Bangladesh.14

The much more numerous Deobandi madrassas are more “traditional”; Islamic studies dominate, and the students are taught Urdu

418 BERTIL LINTNER

13. Ahmed Salim, “Murders Most Foul,” Newsline (Pakistan), 29 November 2000.

14. Babar, “Rise of the Right.”
(the national language of Pakistan), Persian and Arabic. After finishing their education, the students are incapable of taking up any mainstream profession, and the mosques and the madrassas are their main

sources of employment. As Bangladeshi journalist Salahuddin Babar

points out, “passing out from the madrassas, poorly equipped to enter

mainstream life and professions, the students are easily lured by motivated quarters who capitalize on religious sentiment to create fanatics,

rather than modem Muslims.”15

The consequences of this kind of madrassa education can be seen

in the growth of the Jamaat. It did not fare well in the 1996 election,

capturing only three seats in the parliament and 8.61 percent of the

votes.16 Its election manifesto was also quite carefully worded, perhaps taking into consideration the party’s reputation and the fact that

the vast majority of Bangladeshis remain opposed to Sharia law and

other extreme Islamic practices. The twenty-three-page document

devoted eighteen pages to lofty election promises, and only five to

explaining Jamaat’s political stand. The party tried to reassure the public that it would not advocate chopping off thieves’ hands, the stoning of people who had committed adultery, or banning interest—at

least not immediately. According to SEHD: “The priority focus would

be alleviation of poverty, stopping free mixing of sexes and thus

awakening the people to the spirit of Islam and then eventually step

by step the Islamic laws would be introduced.”17

It is impossible to determine how much support the Jamaat actually

had in the 2001 election, as it was part of an alliance whose various

members voted for each other against the Awami League, but its seventeen seats in the new parliament—and two ministers in the government—suggest a dramatic increase. Its youth organization, Islami

Chhatra Shibir (ICS), is especially active. It is a member of the

International Islamic Federation of Student Organizations as well as

the World Assembly of Muslim Youth and has close contacts with

other radical Muslim groups in Pakistan, the Middle East, Malaysia

and Indonesia. One of its main strongholds is at the university in

Chittagong, and it dominates the Deobandi madrassas all over the

RELIGIOUS EXTREMISM AND NATIONALISM IN BANGLADESH 419

15. Ibid.

16. Society for Environment and Human Development, The Reporter’s Guide:

Handbook on Election Reporting (Dhaka: Society for Environment and Human

Development, 2001), 101.

17. Ibid.
country, from where it draws most of its new members. The ICS has

been implicated in a number of bombings and politically and religiously motivated assassinations.

On April 7, 2001, two leaders of the Awami League’s youth and student front were killed by ICS activists and on June 15, an estimated

twenty-one people were killed and more than one hundred injured in

a bomb blast at the Awami League party office in the town of

Narayanganj. Two weeks later, the police arrested an ICS activist for

his alleged involvement in the blast.18 A youngish Islamic militant,

Nurul Islam Bulbul, is the ICS’s current president, and Muhammed

Nazrul Islam its general secretary.

For many years the mother party, the Jamaat, was led by Gholam

Azam, who had returned from Pakistan when Zia was still alive and

in power. He resigned in December 2000, and Motiur Rahman

Nizami took over as the new amir of the party amid wide protests

and demands that he be put on trial for war crimes he committed

during the liberation war as the head of a notorious paramilitary

force, the al-Badr. In one particular incident on December 3, 1971,

some members of that force seized the village of Bishalikkha at

night in search of freedom fighters, beating many and killing eight

people. When Nizami’s appointment was made public, veterans of

the liberation war burnt an effigy of him during a public rally.19 In

October 2001, Nizami was appointed minister for agriculture, an

important post in a mainly agricultural country such as Bangladesh.

His deputy, Ali Ahsan Muhammed Mujahid, became minister for

social welfare.

The terrorist attacks in New York on September 11, 2001 occurred

during the election campaign in Bangladesh, when the country was

ruled by a caretaker government. The outgoing prime minister, the

Awami League’s Sheikh Hasina and then opposition leader Khaleda

Zia of the BNP, condemned the attacks and both, if they were

elected, offered the United States use of Bangladesh’s air space, ports

and other facilities to launch military attacks against the Taliban and

al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. Many Bangladeshis were moved by the loss

of as many as fifty of their countrymen in the attacks on the World

420 BERTIL LINTNER

18. “Bangladesh Assessment 2002,” Southasia Terrorism Portal (Indian website, 2001);

www.satp.org.

19. Bangladesh Broadcasting Service, 8 December 2000.
Trade Center. While some of them were immigrants working as

computer analysts and engineers, most seem to have been waiters at

the Window on the World restaurant who were working hard to send

money back to poor relatives in Bangladesh. A Bangladeshi embassy

official in Washington branded the attacks “an affront to Islam ... an

attack on humanity.”20

Jamaat’s stand on the “war against terrorism,” however, contrasts

sharply to that of the more established parties. Shortly after the U.S.

attacks on Afghanistan began in October 2001, the Jamaat created a

fund purportedly for “helping the innocent victims of America’s

war.” According to the Jamaat’s own announcements, 12 million

Bangladeshi taka ($210,000) was raised before the effort was discontinued in March 2002. Any remaining funds, the Jamaat then said,

would go to Afghan refugees in camps in Pakistan.21

The Rise of the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al Islami and

Other Extremist Groups 

THE GROWTH OF THE JAMAAT during the Ershad regime paved the way

for the establishment of even more radical groups when the BNP

returned to power in 1991. According to Bangladeshi journalists, in

the early 1990s Bangladeshi diplomats in Saudi Arabia issued passports to Pakistani militants in the kingdom to enable them to escape

to Bangladesh.22 Other extremists from Pakistan—and perhaps also

Afghanistan—appear to have been able to enter Bangladesh in the

same way during that period.

These men were instrumental in building up HUJI, which was first

formed in 1992, reportedly with funds from Osama bin Laden.23 The

existence of firm links between the new Bangladeshi militants and alQaeda was proven when Fazlul Rahman, leader of the “Jihad

Movement in Bangladesh” (to which HUJI belongs), signed the official declaration of “holy war” against the United States on February

23, 1998. Other signatories included bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri

(leader of the Jihad Group in Egypt), Rifa’i Ahmad Taha (aka AbuRELIGIOUS EXTREMISM AND NATIONALISM IN BANGLADESH 421

20. http://usinfo.state.gov/topical/pol/terror/01100321.htm.

21. Holiday (Bangladesh), 8 March 2002.

22. Communication with a Bangladeshi journalist who has requested anonymity,

April 2002.

23. Southasia Terrorism Portal; www.satp.org.
Yasir, Egyptian Islamic Group), and Sheikh Mir Hamzah (secretary of

the Jamiat Ulema Pakistan).24

HUJI is headed by Shawkat Osman (aka Maulana or Sheikh Farid)

in Chittagong and, according to the U.S. State Department, has “at

least six camps” in Bangladesh.25 Similar to the ICS, HUJI draws

most of its members from the country’s Deobandi madrassas and

has shown it is capable of extreme violence. Bangladesh’s Islamic

radicals first came to international attention in 1993 when author

Taslima Nasrin was forced to flee the country after receiving death

threats. The fundamentalists objected to her critical writings about

what she termed outdated religious beliefs. Extremist groups

offered a $5,000 reward for her death. She now lives in exile in

France.

While Nasrin’s outspoken, feminist writings caused controversy

even among moderate Bangladeshi Muslims, the entire state was

shocked when, in early 1999, three men attempted to kill Shams urRahman, a well-known poet and symbol of Bangladesh’s secular

nationhood. During the ensuing arrests, the police said they seized

a list of several intellectuals and writers, including Nasrin, whom

Bangladeshi religious extremists had branded “enemies of

Islam.”26

Bangladeshi human rights organizations openly accuse HUJI of

being behind both the death threats against Nasrin and the attempt to

kill Rahman. The U.S. State Department notes that HUJI has been

accused of stabbing a senior Bangladeshi journalist in November

2000 for making a documentary on the plight of Hindus in

Bangladesh, and the July 2000 assassination attempt of then prime

minister Sheikh Hasina.27

As with the Jamaat and the ICS, HUJI’s main stronghold is in the

lawless southeast, which includes the border with Burma. With its

fluid population and weak law enforcement, the region has long been

a haven for smugglers, gunrunners, pirates, and ethnic insurgents

422 BERTIL LINTNER

24. See ERRI Daily Intelligence report, ERRI Risk Assessment Service, vol. 4 (11 June

1998), 162. The full text of the 1998 fatwah is also available on http://www.ict.org.il/

articles/fatwah.htm and http://www.fas.org/irp/world/para/docs/980223-fatwa.htm.

25. Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Patterns of Global Terrorism 2001.

26. Turkkaya Ataov, Kashmir and Neighbours: Tale, Terror, Truce (Aldershot, UK:

Ashgate Publishing, 2001), 150.

27. Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Patterns of Global Terrorism 2001.
from across the Burmese border. The past decade has seen a massive

influx of weapons, especially small arms, through the fishing port of

Cox’s Bazaar, which has made the situation in the southeast even

more dangerous and volatile.28

The winner in the 2001 election in one of the constituencies in

Cox’s Bazaar, BNP candidate Shahjahan Chowdhury, was said to be

supported by “the man allegedly leading smuggling operations in [the

border town of] Teknaf.” Instead of the regular army, the paramilitary

Bangladesh Rifles were deployed in this constituency to help the

police in their electoral peacekeeping. This was, according to SEHD,

“criticized by the local people who alleged that the Bangladesh Rifles

were well connected with the smuggling activities and thus could take

partisan roles.”29

In one of the most recent high-profile attacks in the area, Gopal

Krishna Muhuri, the sixty-year-old principal of Nazirhat College in

Chittagong and a leading secular humanist, was gunned down in

November 2001 in his home by four hired assassins who belonged to

a gang patronized by the Jamaat.30 India, which is viewing the growth

of Bangladesh’s Islamic movements with deep concern, has linked

HUJI militants to the attack on the American Center in Kolkata

(Calcutta) in January 2002, and a series of bomb blasts in the state of

Assam in mid-1999.31

On May 10–11, 2002, nine Islamic fundamentalist groups, including HUJI, met at a camp near the small town of Ukhia south of

Cox’s Bazaar and formed the Bangladesh Islamic Manch

(Association). The new umbrella organization also includes one purporting to represent the Rohingyas, a Muslim minority in Burma, and

the Muslim Liberation Tigers of Assam, a small group operating in

India’s Northeast. By June, Bangladeshi veterans of the anti-Soviet

war in Afghanistan in the 1980s were reported to be training members of the new alliance in at least two camps in southern

Bangladesh.32

RELIGIOUS EXTREMISM AND NATIONALISM IN BANGLADESH 423

28. Small Arms Survey 2001: Profiling the Problem (Oxford: Oxford University Press;

Geneva: Small Arms Survey, 2001), 181.

29. Eighth Parliamentary Elections 2001, 99.

30. Amnesty International, Bangladesh: Attacks on Hindu Majority.

31. The Hindu, 23 January 2002. See also Subir Bhaumik, “The Second Front of

Islamic Terror in South Asia” (paper presented at an international seminar on terrorism and low-intensity conflict, Jadvpur University, Kolkata, 6–8 March 2002).

32. Far Eastern Economic Review, 11 July 2002.
The Plight of the Rohingyas

THE ARAKAN AREA OF BURMA was separated from the rest of the

country by a densely forested mountain range, which made it possible

for the Arakanese—most of whom are Buddhist—to maintain their

independence until the late eighteenth century. Contacts with the outside world had until then been mostly with the West, which, in turn, had

brought Islam to the region. The first Muslims on the Arakan coast

were Moorish, Arab and Persian traders who arrived between the ninth

and the fifteenth centuries. Some of them stayed and married local

women. Their offspring became the forefathers of yet another hybrid

race, which much later was to become known as the Rohingyas. Like

the people in the Chittagong area, they speak a Bengali dialect interspersed with words borrowed from Persian, Urdu and Arakanese.33

There is no evidence of friction between Rohingyas and their

Buddhist neighbors in the earlier days. Indeed, after 1430 the

Arakanese kings, though Buddhists, even used Muslim titles in addition to their own names and issued medallions bearing the kalima, or

Muslim confession of faith.34 Persian was the court language until the

Burmese invasion in 1784. Burmese rule lasted until the first AngloBurmese war of 1824–26, when Arakan was taken over by the British

along with the Tenasserim region of southeastern Burma.

When Burma was a part of British India, the rich ricelands of

Arakan attracted thousands of seasonal laborers, especially from the

Chittagong area of adjacent East Bengal. Many of them found it convenient to stay since there was already a large Muslim population who

spoke the same language and, at that time, there was no ill feeling

toward immigrants from India proper—unlike the situation in other

parts of Burma, where people of subcontinental origin were

despised. At the same time, Buddhist Arakanese migrated to East

Bengal and settled along the coast between Chittagong and Cox’s

Bazaar. The official border, the Naf River, united rather than separated the two British territories.

But the presence of a Muslim minority in Arakan became an issue

after Burma’s independence in 1948. The Buddhist and Muslim

424 BERTIL LINTNER

33. For a comprehensive account of the Rohingyas and other Muslim communities

in Burma, see Moshe Yegar, The Muslims of Burma: A Study of a Minority Group

(Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1972).

34. Ibid., 19.
communities had become divided during World War Two; the

Buddhists had rallied behind the Japanese while the Muslims had

remained loyal to the British. Some Muslims, fearing reprisals from the

Buddhists once the British were gone, rose up in arms, demanding an

independent state, and the Burmese army was sent in to quell the rebellion. Predominantly Buddhist Burma never really recognized the

Arakanese Muslims—who in the 1960s began to refer to themselves as

“Rohingya,” a term of disputed origin—as one of the country’s

“indigenous” ethnic groups. As such, and because of their different religion and physical appearance, Rohingyas have often become convenient

scapegoats for Burma’s military government to rally the public against

whenever that country has been hit by an economic or political crisis.

In March 1978, the Burmese government launched a campaign

code-named Naga Min (Dragon King) in Arakan, ostensibly to “check

illegal immigrants.” Hundreds of heavily armed troops raided Muslim

neighborhoods in Sittwe (Akyab) and some five thousand people

were arrested. As the operation was extended to other parts of

Arakan, tens of thousands of Rohingyas crossed the border to

Bangladesh. By the end of June, approximately two hundred thousand Rohingyas had fled, causing an international outcry.35Eventually,

most of the refugees were allowed to return, but thousands found it

safer to remain on the Bangladesh side of the border. Entire communities of “illegal immigrants” from Burma sprang up along the border south of Cox’s Bazaar, and a steady trickle of refugees from

Burma continued to cross into Bangladesh throughout the 1980s.

The immensely wealthy Saudi Arabian charity Rabitat al Alam al

Islami began sending aid to the Rohingya refugees during the 1978

crisis and also built a hospital and a madrassa at Ukhia, south of Cox’s

Bazaar. Prior to these events, there was only one political organization

among the Rohingyas on the Bangladesh-Burma border, the

Rohingya Patriotic Front (RPF), which was set up in 1974 by

Muhammed Jafar Habib, a native of Buthidaung in Arakan and a

graduate of Rangoon University. He made several appeals—most of

them unsuccessful—to the international Islamic community for help,

and maintained a camp for his small guerrilla army, which operated

from the Bangladeshi side of the border.

RELIGIOUS EXTREMISM AND NATIONALISM IN BANGLADESH 425

35. For an account of the 1978 refugee crisis, see Lintner, Burma in Revolt: Opium

and Insurgency Since 1948 (Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books, 1999), 317–18.
In the early 1980s, more radical elements among the Rohingyas

broke away from the RPF to set up the Rohingya Solidarity

Organization (RSO). Led by a medical doctor from Arakan,

Muhammed Yunus, it soon became the main and most militant faction among the Rohingyas in Bangladesh and on the border. Given its

more rigid religious stand, the RSO soon enjoyed support from likeminded groups in the Muslim world. These included Jamaat-i-Islami

in Bangladesh and Pakistan, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s Hizb-e-Islami in

Afghanistan, Hizbe-ul Mujahideen in Kashmir and Angkatan Belia

Islam sa-Malaysia (ABIM), the Islamic Youth Organization of

Malaysia. Afghan instructors were seen in some of the RSO camps

along the Bangladesh-Burma border, while nearly one hundred RSO

rebels were reported to be undergoing training in the Afghan

province of Khost with Hizb-e-Islami Mujahideen.36

The RSO’s main military camp was located near the hospital that

the Rabitat had built at Ukhia. At the time, the RSO acquired a substantial number of Chinese-made RPG-2 rocket launchers, light

machine guns, AK-47 assault rifles, claymore mines and explosives

from private arms dealers in the Thai town of Aranyaprathet near

Thailand’s border with Cambodia, which in the 1980s emerged as a

major arms bazaar for guerrilla movements in the region. These

weapons were siphoned off from Chinese arms shipments to the

resistance battling the Vietnamese army in Cambodia, and sold to

anyone who wanted—and could afford—to buy them.37

The Bangladeshi media gave quite extensive coverage to the RSO

buildup along the border, but it soon became clear that it was not only

Rohingyas who underwent training in its camps. Many, it turned out,

were members of lCS and came from the University of Chittagong,

where a “campus war” was being fought between Islamic militants

and more moderate student groups.38 The RSO was, in fact, engaged

in little or no fighting inside Burma.

There was also a more moderate faction among the Rohingyas in

Bangladesh, the Arakan Rohingya Islamic Front (ARIF), which was

set up in 1986, uniting the remnants of the old RPF and a handful of

426 BERTIL LINTNER

36. Lintner, “Tension Mounts in Arakan State,” Jane’s Defense Weekly, 19 October

1991. The story was based on interview with Rohingyas and others in the Cox’s

Bazaar area in 1991. I also visited a Rohingya army camp near the border with Burma.

37. Ibid.

38. Interviews and observations I made when I visited the border in 1991.
defectors from the RSO. It was led by Nurul Islam, a Rangoon-educated lawyer. But it never had more than a few dozen soldiers, mostly

equipped with elderly, UK-made 9mm Sterling L2A3 sub-machine

guns, bolt action .303 rifles and a few M-16 assault rifles.39 In 1998,

ARIF became the Arakan Rohingya National Organization (ARNO),

maintaining its moderate stance and barely surviving in exile in

Chittagong and Cox’s Bazaar.

The expansion of the RSO in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and

the unprecedented publicity the group attracted in the local and international media, prompted the Burmese government to launch a massive counter-offensive to “clear up” the border area. In December

1991, Burmese troops crossed the border and attacked a Bangladeshi

military outpost. The incident developed into a major crisis in

Bangladesh-Burma relations, and by April 1992 more than 250,000

Rohingya civilians had been forced out of Arakan.

Hardly by coincidence, this second massive exodus of Rohingyas

occurred at a time when Burma was engulfed in a major political crisis. The pro-democracy National League for Democracy (NLD) had

won a landslide victory in a general election in May 1990, but the

country’s military government refused to convene the elected

assembly. There were anti-government demonstrations in the northern city of Mandalay, and the ruling Burmese junta was condemned

internationally.

The Rohingya refugees were housed in a string of makeshift camps

south of Cox’s Bazaar, prompting the Bangladeshi government to

appeal for help from the international community. The United

Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) came in to run

the camps and to negotiate with the Burmese government for the

return of the Rohingyas. In Apri1 1992, Prince Khaled Sultan Abdul

Aziz, commander of the Saudi contingent in the 1991 Gulf War, visited Dhaka and recommended a Desert Storm-like action against

Burma, “just what [the UN] did to liberate Kuwait.”40

That, of course, never happened, and the Burmese government,

under pressure from the United Nations, eventually agreed to take

most of the refugees back. But an estimated twenty thousand destitute

RELIGIOUS EXTREMISM AND NATIONALISM IN BANGLADESH 427

39. Jane’s Defense Weekly, 19 October 1991.

40. For an account of the 1991–92 Rohingya refugee crisis, see Lintner, Burma in

Revolt, 397–98.
refugees remain in two camps between Cox’s Bazaar and the border.

In addition, an undisclosed number of Rohingyas, perhaps as many as

100,000 to 150,000, continue to live outside the UNHCR-supervised

camps. There is little doubt that extremist groups have taken advantage of the disenfranchised Rohingyas, including recruiting them as

cannon fodder for al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and elsewhere. In an

interview with the Karachi-based newspaper Ummat on September

28, 2001, bin Laden said, “there are areas in all parts of the world

where strong jihadi forces are present, from Bosnia to Sudan, and

from Burma to Kashmir.”41 He was most probably referring to a

small group of Rohingyas on the Bangladesh-Burma border.

Many of the Rohingya recruits were given the most dangerous task

in the battlefield: clearing mines and pottering. According to Asian

intelligence sources, Rohingya recruits were paid 30,000 Bangladeshi

taka ($525) on joining and then 10,000 taka ($175) per month. The

families of recruits killed in action were offered 100,000 taka

($1,750).42 Recruits were taken mostly via Nepal to Pakistan, where

they were trained and sent on to military camps in Afghanistan. It is

not known how many people from this part of Bangladesh—

Rohingyas and others—fought in Afghanistan, but it is believed to be

quite substantial. Others went to Kashmir and even Chechnya to join

forces with Islamic militants there.43

In an interview with CNN in December 2001, American “taliban”

fighter, John Walker Lindh related that the al-Qaeda-directed ansar

(companions of the Prophet) brigades, to which he had belonged in

Afghanistan, were divided along linguistic lines: “Bengali, Pakistani

(Urdu) and Arabic,” which suggests that the Bengali-speaking component—Bangladeshi and Rohingya—must have been significant.44 In

early 2002, Afghanistan’s foreign minister, Dr. Abdullah, told a

Western journalist that “we have captured one Malaysian and one or

two supporters from Burma.”45

428 BERTIL LINTNER

41. See also Jim Garamone, “Bin Laden and the Al-Qaeda Network,” American

Forces Press Service, 21 September 2001: “Al-Qaeda has cells in Algeria, Egypt, Tunisia,

Bosnia, Kosovo, Chechnya, Dagestan, Sudan, Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania, Azerbaijan,

Eritrea, Uganda, Ethiopia, and in the West Bank and Gaza.”

42. Jane’s Intelligence Review, May 2002.

43. Bhaumik, “The Second Front.”

44. Transcript of John Walker Interview, CNN, 21 December 2001.

45. Lintner, “A Recipe for Trouble,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 4 April 2002. The

comment was made to Michael Vatikiotis, editor of the Far Eastern Economic Review.
In January 2001, Bangladesh clamped down on Rohingya activists

and offices in Chittagong and Cox’s Bazaar, most probably in an

attempt to improve relations with Burma. Hundreds were rounded

up, and the local press was full of reports of their alleged involvement

in gun- and drug-running. Rohingya leaders vehemently deny such

accusations and blame local Bangladeshi gangs with high-level connections for the violence in the area. But the Rohingyas were forced

to evacuate their military camps, which had always been located on

the Bangladesh side of the border. Recent reports from the area suggest that HUJI and other Bangladeshi Islamic groups have taken over

these camps, with the main base being the one the RSO used to maintain near the Rabitat-built hospital in Ukhia.46

Attacks on Secular Muslims and Religious Minorities 

What now is Bangladesh—and initially East Bengal and then East

Pakistan—has undergone dramatic demographic changes during the

past sixty years. According to the 1941 Census of India, Hindus made

up 28 percent of the population of then East Bengal. Twenty years

later, when East Pakistan was well established, the number had

decreased to 18.5 percent. More left during the liberation war in 1971,

when the Pakistani army targeted Hindus specifically. By 1974, only

13.5 percent of the population of independent Bangladesh was

Hindu. According to the latest estimate, the figure is now down to 9

percent.47 At the same time, large numbers of Buddhists from the

Chittagong Hill Tracts—Bangladesh’s other main religious minority—have fled to India.

The fall of the Awami League and the murder of Mujib-ur Rahman

in August 1975, followed by the military takeover by Maj. Gen. Zia in

November of that year, ushered in a new era of Bangladeshi nationalism, where the religious and ethnic minorities had little or no place.

Mujib’s immediate successor, Khondkar Mushtaq Ahmed, who was a

senior member of the Awami League but known for his Islamic and

pro-Pakistan leanings, began to conclude his speeches with Bangladesh

Zindabad (long live Bangladesh, but “zindabad” is a Persian word)

RELIGIOUS EXTREMISM AND NATIONALISM IN BANGLADESH 429

46. I visited the area, including Ukhia, in March 2002.

47. The figures are based on information from Bangladesh’s Ministry of Planning,

Bureau of Statistics. See also Jaideep Saikia, Islamic Resurgence in Bangladesh (paper disseminated by bangladesherdak@yahoogroups.com, May 2002).
rather than the war cry of the liberation struggle, Joi Bangla (both

words being Bengali). This soon became common practice in government announcements and radio broadcasts.

A shift in foreign policy was also noticeable. Bangladesh’s first government had emphasized friendship with India and the Soviet Union.

Zia’s government steered Bangladesh closer to Pakistan, China and

Saudi Arabia.48 Pakistan’s intelligence agency, the Inter-Services

Intelligence (ISI), became active in Bangladesh again, working closely

with its local counterpart, the Directorate General of Forces

Intelligence (DGFI). Pakistan never fully recovered from the loss of

East Pakistan, and never forgave India for the role it played in the

birth of Bangladesh by sending troops to fight the Pakistani army.

The idea of Bangladesh rejoining Pakistan was out of the question

after the extremely bloody liberation war, in which millions died. But

Pakistan was determined to regain its influence over its former eastern part and, especially, to keep Indian influence there to an absolute

minimum. Zia’s policies, including allowing the Jamaat to return,

served these interests, and the Pakistanis, quite naturally, emphasized

the main bond that united the two countries: Islam.

Historian M.G. Kabir argues that Zia’s propagation of a new brand

of Bangladeshi nationalism was a scheme “to simultaneously consolidate feelings of nationhood, provide a series of symbols for unifying

the country, contribute to the enthusiasm with which nation-building

activities are pursued, and, ultimately maintain the identity and

integrity of Bangladesh as a nation-state independent of India.49 In a

posthumously published article written by Zia, he lists seven factors

that he considers to be the bases of Bangladeshi nationalism: territory,

people irrespective of religion, Bengali language, culture, economic

life, religion, and the legacy of the 1971 liberation war.50 There is an

obvious contradiction between “people irrespective of religion” and

“religion,” and that has since been the dilemma for Bangladesh’s nonMuslim population. Ershad’s declaration of Islam as the state religion

made it clear that “religion” in a Bangladeshi context means Islam.

Bangladesh’s Islamic identity has grown stronger over the years, and

after the October 2001 election there has been a marked increase in

430 BERTIL LINTNER

48. Kabir, Changing Face of Nationalism, 196–97.

49. Ibid., 199.

50. Ibid.
the number of attacks on non-Muslim population groups. These

attacks appear to have been prompted by a desire to build a real

“nation-state,” free from minorities, and motivated by political

revenge. Amnesty International reported in December 2001: “Hindus

in Bangladesh have tended to vote for the Awami League. They have

therefore been the target of a political backlash by supporters of parties opposing Awami League.” In Ziodhara, one of the worst affected

villages, several hundred Hindu villagers left the area. In another village, Deuatala Bazaar, gangs of young men wielding sharp weapons

reportedly went from door to door telling Hindus to “go away.”51 In

Chandaikona Bazaar another youth gang damaged Hindu statues and

looted the temple.52

The Amnesty report continues: “Human rights organizations in

Bangladesh believe over 100 women have been subjected to rape.

Reports persistently allege that the perpetrators have been manly

members of the BNP and its coalition partner Jamaat-e-Islami.”53 As

a result, thousands of Bangladeshi Hindus have fled to India, often

leaving their belongings and land behind. The exact number of

refugees is uncertain, as they tend to blend in with the largely Hindu

population of the Indian states of West Bengal, Assam and Tripura.

Other religious minorities have also been targeted. In December

2001, a Bangladeshi newspaper reported that young women from fifty

Christian families in Natoore were living in fear of hoodlums who

would roar past their huts on motorcycles at night. The hoodlums

demanded ransom of 10,000 to 20,000 Bangladeshi taka ($175–350)

from men in the village—or their daughters. The villagers had also

had their crops taken away after the October election.54 In April 2002

a well-known Buddhist monk, Ganojyoti Mohasthobir, was murdered

by a group of thugs who demanded he paid them “infidel protection

tax.”55

But moderate Muslims have also become victims. On November

22, 2001 prominent journalist and writer Shahriar Kabir was arrested

at Dhaka International Airport on his return from Kolkata. He had

RELIGIOUS EXTREMISM AND NATIONALISM IN BANGLADESH 431

51. Amnesty International, Bangladesh: Attacks on Hindu Majority.

52. Ibid.

53. Ibid.

54. Human Rights Congress for Bangladesh Minorities, Give Ransom or Girl, Order

Hoodlums: 50 Christian Families of Natoore Subjugated by Nightmare, 8 December 2001.

55. The Daily Janakantha (Bangladesh), 23 April 2002.
been to India to cover the plight of the Hindus who had fled persecution in Bangladesh and had his video tapes, film and camera confiscated by the police at the airport. He was held in custody for nineteen

days before he was released on bail. In March 2002 two staff members of the NGO Proshika (“a Center for Human Development”),

Omar Tarek Chawdhury and Ajhar-ul Hoque, were arrested on allegations that they had been in possession of “documents” relating to

attacks against Hindus.56

Their arrest came only weeks after the Danish and German ambassadors in Dhaka had asked the Bangladesh government to “take

immediate steps to stop all sorts of repression and attacks on the

country’s religious and other minorities.”57 But there are no signs that

this is about to happen. On the contrary, the future of the country’s

religious and ethnic minorities appears bleak, as “Bangladeshi nationalism” is becoming synonymous with a stronger Muslim identity, and

Islamic groups are becoming increasingly fierce in their public statements and actions.

Conclusion

IN DECEMBER 2001 Maulana Ubaidul Haq, the khatib (cleric) of

Bangladesh’s national mosque, Baitul Mukarram, and a Jamaat associate publicly condemned the U.S. war on terror and urged followers to

wage a holy war against the United States. “President Bush and

America is the most heinous terrorist in the world. Both America and

Bush must be destroyed. The Americans will be washed away if

Bangladesh’s 120 million Muslims spit on them,” the cleric told a

gathering of hundreds of thousands of Bangladeshi Muslims, which

included several high-ranking officials in the new government that

took over in October 2001.58

Despite the virulent rhetoric, it is highly unlikely that Bangladesh’s

120 million Muslims would spit on the Americans, or wage a holy war

against anybody. Bangladesh’s secular roots are holding, at least for

the time being. But the country’s Islamic extremists are becoming

432 BERTIL LINTNER

56. Amnesty International, Press release ASA 13/005/2002, 15 March 2002.

57. News from Bangladesh, 8 March 2002. http://www/bangladesh-web.com/

news/mar/08/08032002.htm.

58. Muktadhara, “a website for Bengalis,” http://members.tripod.com/scohel/

page03.html.
more vocal and daring in their attacks on “infidels,” a worrisome sign

in what is basically a very tolerant society. And it is not the number of

extremists that matters—even a small group can spread fear and terror—but how well organized and dedicated they are.

Bangladesh’s Islamic extremists are becoming better organized, as

the May meeting at Ukhia of nine militant groups shows. The proliferation of small arms and an ensuing increase in violence of all kinds,

especially in that part of the country, are also a growing concern.

These factors have prompted the country’s donors, who met in Paris

in March 2002, to tag aid to an improvement in the law and order situation. In mid-2001, the estimated number of illegal arms in

Bangladesh was 250,000, of which only 5,481 were recovered during

a crackdown in the lead-up to the general election in October 2001.59

In early 2002, three leading local human rights groups in Bangladesh

reported that a total of 258 people were murdered in March alone, of

which thirty-nine were political killings. In the month of February, the

number of murders was 336, including a journalist, according to the

Institute of Democratic Watch, a Bangladeshi NGO.60

A culture of violence, especially among the young, is emerging, and

many young Islamic militants are now armed. The role of the madrassas in shaping the next generation of Bangladeshis also cannot be

underestimated. By including the Jamaat in her cabinet, Khaleda Zia

is playing with fire. On the other hand, Bangladesh remains heavily

dependent on foreign aid and cannot afford to antagonize its most

important donor countries, mainly Japan and the West. It should,

therefore, be in the government’s interest to contain the spread of

Islamic extremism. But so far, very little has been done to counter the

propaganda and activities of the extremists, and Khaleda Zia has publicly—and angrily—stated in response to the inclusion of two Jamaat

ministers in her cabinet that “there are no talibans in my government.”61 By contrast, even in the streets of Dhaka, activists of the

Jamaat, ICS and HUJI used to proudly identify themselves as

“Bangladeshi talibans,” although they stopped using that label, at least

in public, following the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York and

Washington.

RELIGIOUS EXTREMISM AND NATIONALISM IN BANGLADESH 433

59. Eighth Parliamentary Elections 2001, 17.

60. The Hindu (India), 2 April 2002.

61. Ibid., 11 January 2002.
Some Western diplomats in Dhaka also tend to downplay the

extremist threat, viewing local militant Islamic movements as rather

insignificant fringe groups. During a breakfast meeting in May 2002

in Washington sponsored by the U.S.-Bangladesh Advisory Council,

Mary Ann Peters, the ambassador of the United States to Bangladesh,

rejected reports of a growing extremist threat. She termed a report in

the April 2, 2002 issue of the Wall Street Journal as “an example of lack

of understanding on the part of journalists covering the country’s

political and social structure.” She went on to criticize a similar story

in the April 4, 2002 issue of the Far Eastern Economic Review and called

the reporter “lazy” for not working hard enough on the subject and

for his failure to give any “clue” in the article that might help make

further investigations. She also asserted that media reports about violence against the Hindu community were “exaggerations of facts on

the ground.” The U.S. embassy in Dhaka had sent its officers to verify the media reports, and in all cases it was found that the actual situation was less worrisome than what they appeared to be, she said.62

It is uncertain whether the U.S. ambassador’s statements were motivated by a desire to be overly diplomatic, or if they were based on

poor intelligence. But such denials will only exacerbate what undoubtedly is a growing problem. It is also important to emphasize that the

rise of religious extremism and intolerance in Bangladesh is not just a

side effect of military politics. According to Eneyetullah Khan, editor

of the Bangladesh weekly Holiday, the issue reflects the struggle of a

young and fragile nation to find a national identity: “We’re having a bit

of an identity crisis here. Are we Bengalis first and Muslims second,

or Muslims first and Bengalis second? This is the problem. And when

Muslim identity becomes an Islamic identity we’re in real trouble.”63

As Indonesia—another country that until recently was considered a

moderate Muslim state—has shown, an economic collapse or political crisis can give rise to militants for whom religious fanaticism

equals national pride; and a way out of misrule, disorder and corrupt

worldly politics.

434 BERTIL LINTNER

62. A summary of Peters’s talk was posted on the internet (bangladesherdak@

yahoogroups.com) shortly after the event. I was the author of the articles in both the

Wall Street Journal and the Far Eastern Economic Review.

63. Enayetullah Khan, interview by author, Dhaka, 15 March 2002.
Appendix 1.

Main Islamic Groups in Bangladesh

Jamaat-i-Islami

A political party that dates back to the British colonial era and the

(East) Pakistan period (1947–71). It supported Pakistan against the

Bengali nationalists during the liberation war, and most of its leaders

fled to (West) Pakistan after Bangladesh’s independence in 1971. Its

then amir, or leader, Gholam Azam, fought against the freedom fighters in 1971, but returned to Bangladesh a few years later. In

December 2000, Motiur Rahman Nizami, another former proPakistani militant, took over as amir of the Jamaat. In the

October2001 election, the Jamaat emerged as the third largest party

with seventeen seats in the parliament and two ministers in the new

coalition government. The Jamaat’s final aim is an Islamic state in

Bangladesh, although this will be implemented step by step.

Islami Chhatra Shibir (ICS)

Jamaat’s youth organization. Set up in 1941, it became a member of

the International Islamic Federation of Student Organizations in

1979. ICS is also a member of the World Assembly of Muslim Youth

and has close contacts with other radical Muslim youth groups in

Pakistan, the Middle East, Malaysia and Indonesia. One of its main

strongholds in Bangladesh is at the university in Chittagong, and it

dominates privately run madrassas all over the country. ICS has been

involved in a number of bomb blasts and politically and religiously

motivated assassinations. Nurul Islam Bulbul is its current president

and Muhammed Nazrul Islam is the secretary general.

Islami Oikyo Jote (IOJ)

A smaller Islamic party that in 2001 joined the four-party alliance

led by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), which won the

October 2001 election. The IOJ secured two seats in the parliament,

but did not get any cabinet posts. The fourth member of the alliance,

a faction of the Jatyio Party led by Naziur Rahman Manzur, has no

obvious Islamic profile.

RELIGIOUS EXTREMISM AND NATIONALISM IN BANGLADESH 435
Harkat-ul-Jihad-al Islami (HUJI)

Bangladesh’s main militant outfit. Set up in 1992, it now has an estimated strength of fifteen thousand and is headed by Shawkat Osman

(aka Maulana or Sheikh Farid) in Chittagong. HUJI’s members are

recruited mainly from students of the country’s many madrassas, and

until 2001 they called themselves “Bangladeshi Taliban.” The group is

believed to have extensive contacts with Muslim organizations in the

Indian states of West Bengal and Assam.

“The Jihad Movement”

Osama bin Laden’s February 23, 1998 fatwah urging jihad against

the United States was co-signed by two Egyptian clerics, one from

Pakistan, and Fazlul Rahman, “leader of the Jihad Movement in

Bangladesh.” The Jihad Movement is not believed to be a separate

organization but a common name for several Islamic groups in

Bangladesh, of which HUJI is considered the largest and most

important.

Arakan Rohingya National Organization (ARNO)

A political group among Rohingya migrants from Burma who live

in the Chittagong–Cox’s Bazaar area and claim to be fighting for an

autonomous Muslim region in Burma’s Arakan (Rakhine) State.

ARNO was set up in 1998 through a merger of the Arakan Rohingya

Islamic Front (ARIF) and the Rohingya Solidarity Organization

(RSO). Within months, however, the front fell apart. The leader of

what remains of ARNO, Nurul Islam, is considered a moderate. He

also led the ARIF before the merger in 1998.

Rohingya Solidarity Organization (RSO)

Following the breakup of ARNO in 1999–2000, three new factions

emerged, all of them reclaiming the old name RSO. Traditionally, the

RSO has been very close to Jamaat-i-Islami and Islami Chhatra Shibir

in Chittagong and Cox’s Bazaar. In the early 1990s, RSO had several

military camps near the Burmese border, where cadres from the

Islami Chhatra Shibir were also trained in guerrilla warfare.

436 BERTIL LINTNER
437

The South Asian subcontinent has never been regarded as a

particularly stable part of the world. But its instabilities were largely

seen as local, or at worst regional, with a limited capacity to affect the

rest of the world. This view changed abruptly in the closing decades

of the twentieth century, when the India-Pakistan nuclear tests and

the 9/11 attacks in the United States put the subcontinent squarely on

the map of global “hot spots.” In the wake of these two events, South

Asia suddenly acquired the potential to affect not only its wider neighborhood, both to the west and southeast, but well beyond.

While the chief area of concern in both cases is Pakistan—a military regime that secretly exported nuclear materials to North

Korea,1 home to out-of-control jihadis, with “mad mullahs” now in

government—and perhaps because the chief area of concern is

Pakistan, India has come under pressure as well. A recent opinion

poll by the Chicago Council on Foreign Affairs shows that India has

jumped 20 points as an area of U.S. strategic concern in American

1. “Pakistan’s North Korea Deals Stir Scrutiny,” Washington Post, 15 November 2002.

18

RADHA KUMAR

Religious Radicalism and Minorities

in South Asia
public perception, and this jump is largely because India is seen as at

risk of war.2

Moreover, the high level of hostility between India and Pakistan

since the Kargil conflict and General Musharraf ’s coup of 1999, followed by the war on terrorism, has fed into Pakistan’s rapid plunge

downhill. The Islamic right, which gained steadily through the 1980s,

rose sharply again in the late 1990s, this time with India as an avowed

target. If the standoff between the two countries continues, as it has

done over the past four years, Islamic radicalism will grow exponentially in Pakistan. Peace with India, on the other hand, could give

Pakistan the chance to stabilize itself and turn its intelligence services

and religious activists to reform.

But peace with India is harder to achieve today than it was five years

ago. India too has been radicalized by the years of mounting hostility.

The escalation of Islamic militancy in Kashmir,3 backed and increasingly manned by Pakistan, as well as its spillover into terrorist attacks

in other parts of India, including the capital, Delhi, has given Hindu

nationalism an enormous spur. Thanks to the end of state controls

over the media and the rapid growth of Internet communication, millions of Indians are now familiar with the Islamists’ hate speech

against India and in particular against Hindus. As a result, Hindu

xenophobia seems less wild to many Indians than it did earlier.

The Pakistan government’s politics of denial and increasingly

offensive allegations that terrorist attacks in India are engineered by

the Indian government and security forces (“to give the mujahideen a

bad name”) have further fanned Hindu grievance. They have also

contributed to a wider, or perhaps more open, wariness toward Islam,

which has increased after 9/11 and permits quite unrelated issues to

be linked, such as Pakistan-backed terrorism in India and the

February 2002 pogrom against Muslims in the Indian state of

Gujarat.

438 RADHA KUMAR

2. Chicago Council on Foreign Relations, “Worldviews 2002,” a public opinion survey of U.S. and European attitudes on foreign policy, www.ccfr.org.

3. Government figures for people killed in Kashmir-related conflict since 1990

have shot up from around thirty-five thousand in 1998 to about sixty thousand today.

While the jump might also reflect a shift from under-reporting earlier (as widely

alleged by human rights groups), a rough newspaper survey of the period does indicate a sharp rise since the Kargil conflict of summer 1999 till today, with an average

of nine to ten people dying per day. Further, more than 50 percent of the militants

are from Pakistan and Pakistan-held Kashmir, and since the mid-1990s Islamic fundamentalist groups have dominated the militancy.
The Gujarat pogrom, in which more than a thousand Muslims were

killed in a state-tolerated—perhaps even sanctioned—revenge for the

brutal slaying of fifty-eight Hindus, came as a considerable shock

both domestically and internationally. India’s Hindu nationalists, the

general belief was, had moderated with experience in government.

The contentious issues that led to the 1993 Hindu-Muslim riots had

been shelved by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) at the center, and

they would control their more radical Hindu partners. India, after all,

was poised to be a regional and maybe global power.

In the wake of the Gujarat riots, many concluded that this was an

optimistic assessment. The BJP government at the center might have

put aside contentious issues, such as the campaign for a Hindu temple on the site of a mosque that Hindu radicals destroyed in 1992 (the

Babri Masjid),4 but it was unable to restrain its radical wings in the

states. The BJP-led Gujarat government revived the temple agitation

when its allies tried to bury it; at the same time, Gujarat’s extremist

chief minister, Narendra Modi, made great play on Pakistan-backed

terrorism in India.5 Gujarat’s Hindus and Muslims were polarized,

and one of Gujarat’s previous hot spots, Godhra, erupted when

Hindu temple activists came to blows with local Muslims at the railway station. Muslim radicals set fire to a carriageload of men, women

and children, killing fifty-eight. Revenge riots broke out across

Gujarat, many of them led by Hindu activists affiliated with the

Gujarat government. The state government failed to stop the riots

until more than a thousand Muslims were killed, some literally torn

apart.

The Gujarat government’s policy of “turning a blind eye” to the

carnage, and the central government’s decision to opt for pressure on

RELIGIOUS RADICALISM AND MINORITIES IN SOUTH ASIA 439

4. The campaign to build a temple to the widely worshipped Hindu figure Ram on

the site of a seventeenth-century Muslim mosque in northern India was launched in

the late 1980s. The mosque was destroyed by Hindu mobs in December 1992, followed by Hindu-Muslims riots in western India (where extremist Hindu organizations such as the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the Shiv Sena have a strong presence).

When the BJP came to power at the center in coalition with a number of regional

parties, the temple campaign was put on a back burner, but when the BJP came to

power in Gujarat under the leadership of Narendra Modi the campaign was

revived—once again followed by Hindu-Muslim riots.

5. Because the Gujarat border has been relatively peaceful, most observers tend to

forget that Gujarat has an ongoing dispute with Pakistan on the Rann of Kutch, and

that Pakistani authorities regularly arrest Gujarati fishermen for straying into

Pakistani waters. There are more than 250 fishermen in Pakistani custody at present.
the state government instead of dismissing it and placing the state

under Governor’s rule, allowed more than a thousand preventable

deaths. Muslims continued to be harassed after the violence subsided.

It looked as if India was beginning to undergo the same process of

religious radicalization as so many of its neighbors—and with potentially worse consequences for its minorities, especially the 120 millionplus Indian Muslims (by virtue of scale).

The Bush administration especially criticized for not having reacted

to the Gujarat pogrom more strongly than it did. The Europeans, who

had reacted strongly, were under pressure to do more. Were not the

Hindu xenophobes of Gujarat on par with Islamic fundamentalists?

the U.S. and European administrations were asked, in parliament and

by many civil society groups (especially in Britain where the Gujarati

Muslim diaspora is strong). Should Hindu xenophobes not be considered as much a security threat as Islamic militants in Pakistan?

Domestically, Hindu xenophobes in India can be put on par with

Islamic fundamentalists in Pakistan and Bangladesh, or Buddhist

extremists in Sri Lanka and Bhutan. But they do not export terrorism,

as do radical Islamists in Pakistan, nor have they been supported by

Indian security and intelligence services, as are Islamic militants in

Pakistan. In this sense Hindu xenophobia does not constitute a security threat to the world—and certainly not to the United States or U.S.

interests. Indeed, many Hindu xenophobes believe that U.S. and

Hindu interests converge in the “clash of civilizations” that the 9/11

attacks tried to precipitate.

In a wider sense, however, the threat that Hindu xenophobes pose

to Hindu-Muslim coexistence in India is of considerable security concern to the United States. The U.S.-India relationship has strengthened steadily over the past five years, as it was fated to after the end

of the Cold War. Though it is still largely concentrated in diasporahomeland ties, and the two countries will take time to overcome the

estrangement of the Cold War years, the U.S. administration has

worked hard with the Indian administration to chart steps toward a

long-term alliance on several levels, including security and trade. The

U.S. interest, therefore, is in a stable and prosperous India.

It is in this context that the Gujarat pogrom raised fears that India

might be becoming less rather than more stable. It underlined the vulnerability of Muslims in India at a time when India’s Muslims were

beginning to be considered a beacon for the country’s open society.

440 RADHA KUMAR
Indian Muslims did not support al-Qaeda or the Taliban, nor did they

believe the 9/11 attacks were justified in light of U.S. support for

Israel against the Palestinians. Though there was enormous anxiety

about the air campaign on Afghanistan, public protests were few.

In fact, Indian Muslims were beginning to emerge from a partly selfimposed isolation following the terrible violence that accompanied the

partition of India in 1947, the three India-Pakistan wars that ensued,

and the 1992–93 Hindu-Muslim riots that were sparked by the temple

agitation. Over the past decade, Indian Muslims had begun to enter the

mainstream in larger numbers than before. In several southern Indian

states, a government policy to rapidly increase the proportion of

Muslims in the civil services generated enthusiasm and spurred Muslim

enrolment in educational institutions. India produced South Asia’s first

Fortune 500 Muslim billionaire. It looked as if Indian Muslims were

beginning to seek benefits from India’s new economic opportunities.

The Gujarat riots dealt a body blow to this process. Ironically,

Gujarat’s new assembly and service sector opportunities (after economic liberalization in the 1990s) drew a wave of Muslim immigration from poorer regions, in particular to the state capital,

Ahmedabad. Many of these economic migrants died in the riots; others were forced to return to the poverty-stricken villages they had left

in search of a new life.

As subsequent events show, however, Gujarat is an aberration

rather than the norm. Hindu-Muslim violence tends to be heavily

localized in India—the bulk of it takes place in five out of India’s

twenty-one states and in a handful of cities—and it only rarely

spreads to other parts of the country. The Gujarat riots did not trigger violence across India; in fact, 80 percent of the deaths occurred

in Ahmedabad alone.

After the riots, India’s elephantine government slowly lumbered

back to rule. The BJP government at the center acknowledged the

“blot” the riots had stained India with, partly under pressure from

their allies in the ruling coalition. Important watchdog institutions

stepped in to pressure the Gujarat government. The National Human

Rights Commission indicted the state government for its failure to

stop the riots, and the Indian Election Commission forced the state

to restore order by setting benchmarks for an assembly election.

There was, too, enormous domestic outcry against the center’s reluctance to intervene directly in the state to stop the violence.

RELIGIOUS RADICALISM AND MINORITIES IN SOUTH ASIA 441
Human rights and women’s groups combined humanitarian aid with

investigative reports. The media called for immediate government

intervention to stop the riots. Religious groups—in particular, the

Hindu priests who called the Hindu nationalists to account—disavowed the Gujarat xenophobes and led peace initiatives with Muslim

leaders. Business groups such as the Confederation of Indian

Industries expressed their concerns collectively as well as through individual members. And finally, India’s new President Abdul Kalam Azad,

himself a Muslim, brought a healing touch when he chose Gujarat for

his first presidential visit within a week of his inauguration.

Perhaps for these reasons, Gujarat survived a second test peacefully

when terrorists killed some thirty-five Hindu, Muslim and Sikh worshippers at the Akshardham temple in September 2002. This time the

Gujarat government deployed security forces around all vulnerable

areas. More important, there were no mobs baying for blood. Instead,

Gandhians reported crowds of two thousand at their peace meetings.

It would be over-optimistic to conclude from this sequence of

events that Gujarat has turned to lasting peace. The state has suffered

from periodic outbreaks of Hindu-Muslim violence since the late

1970s—a period that is also marked by the rise of Hindu nationalism

in Gujarat. Gujarat’s Muslim-bashing chief minister shows little signs

of post-conflict moderation. Much depends on how the December

2002 Gujarat assembly election turns out.

What we can conclude, however, is that the Indian government and

elites, even under the leadership of Hindu nationalists, realize the

danger of perpetuating Hindu-Muslim violence and will be more vigilant if another Gujarat is in the offing. Whether they are ready to take

the larger lessons of Gujarat on board, however, is another matter.

The literature on ethnic conflict shows that multiethnic societies are

most stable when they have achieved some degree of integration

between their different communities—and the most potentially unstable when earlier integrative networks are in decline. Hindu nationalism rose in Gujarat as its once-flourishing textile industry gave way to

the power loom sector, and the Textile Labor Association, one of

India’s most powerful trade unions, shriveled.6

442 RADHA KUMAR

6. Asutosh Varshney, Ethnic Conflict and Civic Life: Hindus and Muslims in India (New

Haven: Yale University Press, 2002).
Recent research shows that even small steps toward integration can

keep the peace. India’s south, where a large proportion of Indian

Muslims live, is largely free of violence. This is chiefly due to a combination of government and civil society initiatives, such as minority

education funding and open reading rooms, avenues that have crumbled in the five states where Hindu-Muslim violence recurs.7 Gujarat

has become one of the most highly segregated states in India.

In other words, we now know what India can do to prevent riots

such as the ones in Gujarat from recurring, and the task is not

Herculean. Indeed, the majority of Hindu-Muslim deaths occur in a

handful of cities. It is only a few areas that require concerted effort.

We also know that the two most important avenues of integration are

education and employment. Both are highly segregated in India and

there is as yet limited readiness for change among educators and

employers. The issue has, however, begun to be discussed by businessmen, partly thanks to India’s modest information technology billionaire, N. Ramamurthy, who ruefully disclosed that there were no

more than six Muslims among his thousands of employees. The

Reliance Group, too, has just announced a new program to link all

Gujarat’s villages through the Internet. They have yet, however, to

announce a policy to increase minority jobs.

Where education is concerned, the chief culprit is government.

Most primary and secondary schools are government funded, as are

most universities in India. A proactive policy by schools and university boards to increase the enrolment of minority candidates could

make a great deal of difference. India has in any case shown new

commitment to education programs such as universal literacy. Civil

society too can play a useful role here, through pushing for de-segregation initiatives at the local level.

But whether these policies will be undertaken is an open question.

The fact that Hindu-Muslim violence is concentrated in a handful of

areas in the north and west of India is both good and bad news. It is

good news because it indicates that India is unlikely to go the way of

the former Yugoslavia. It is bad news because many of these states

are especially vulnerable to India-Pakistan hostility, either because, like

Gujarat, they border Pakistan, or because they are politically powerful

at the center.

RELIGIOUS RADICALISM AND MINORITIES IN SOUTH ASIA 443

7. Ibid.
In the immediate term it is difficult to imagine India-Pakistan hostilities decreasing. The Pakistan-based jihad groups opposed the

Kashmir election of September–October 2002, which was marred by

a series of terrorist attacks. More than eight hundred people died during the three weeks of the election. The Pakistan election that followed hard on the heels of the Kashmir election yielded significant

gains to the Islamists, who now have a critical mass in parliament.

Their demands include the release of several militant leaders who

were arrested between January and March 2002. In late October the

Pakistan government released the chief of the banned Lashkar-eToiba group, Hafiz Saeed, and placed him under house arrest.8 Soon

after, two alleged Lashkar-e-Toiba militants were killed while trying to

attack a crowded shopping mall in Delhi.

These indications that Pakistan is continuing to lift the curbs that

were imposed on militant groups following the attack on India’s parliament in January 2002 have already rung alarm bells in India. Most

Indian policymakers believe there will be more rather than fewer

attacks in Kashmir and in the rest of India in the months to come—

and the bulk of them will be by Pakistan-based jihad groups.

Yet few Indian policymakers are counting the domestic costs of this

escalation. If, as this paper argues, there has been a general rise in

Hindu-Muslim insecurity during the years of India-Pakistan hostility,

then this trend is likely to continue with more terrorist attacks forecast. How will the Indian government deal with this rise in tensions—

by waiting for another outbreak of rioting and praying it will not be

for another ten years? (The previous outbreak of Hindu-Muslim rioting was in 1992–93.) Or by adopting proactive strategies of containment and prevention, such as rapid reaction to the first signs of

impending violence, and investment in integration? 

It is too early to say yet. But the signs are mixed. The Indian government has shown readiness to take considerable risks in pursuit of

peace with Pakistan (first at Lahore in 1999, and then at Agra in 2000).

But it has not shown the same readiness to make Muslim integration

444 RADHA KUMAR

8. In fact, the Pakistani government released Hafiz Saeed on March 31, 2001, and

his first act was to call on all the subcontinent’s Muslims to launch a jehad against

India to avenge the Gujarat pogrom. Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, “Jihad Is the Best

Defense for Oppressed Muslims,” www.markazdawa.org. Under Indian and U.S. pressure he was taken back into custody in April 2002 but has not been charged with any

offences.
a priority—as it should have—given the sharp escalation of IndiaPakistan hostility. As long as this hostility continues Pakistan is bound

to, and will, support Muslim disaffection in India. It is in India’s vital

interest, therefore, to prevent sources of disaffection. The Indian

government is supporting proactive steps in Kashmir, where the

newly elected state government has released separatist leaders from

prison, counter insurgency is being rolled back, and economic reconstruction and devolution top the agenda. A peace process has begun

in the state and could be strengthened if Pakistan were to support it.

There is too, as stated earlier, new awareness of the need to prevent

Hindu-Muslim tensions India-wide in both government and civil society—though it would appear to flicker where government is concerned.

As an ally with a large Indian American diaspora and a large Pakistani

American diaspora, the United States could play a useful role in supporting Indian preventive action and encouraging Pakistan to do so as

well. Indian government and civil society have been more receptive to

international aid and ideas in the last decade, especially so to the diaspora. U.S. investments in India are low, but they could still be combined

with support for minority and gender employment, as well as desegregated education (an area where the United States has learned its own

hard lessons). International institutions, especially global trade organizations, could work with Indian partners to write minority employment

and integrated education into programs for economic growth.

Much depends, however, on whether Pakistan can be persuaded to

aid rather than hinder India in these efforts. Anti-Indian sentiment

has multiplied exponentially in Pakistan since the 9/11 attacks and the

international spotlight on Pakistan’s role in Kashmir-related terrorism

in India that ensued—which Pakistanis blame on India’s stationing of

a half a million troops on the border.

Though the two countries took the major step of troops’ withdrawals after the Kashmir and Pakistan elections, it was accompanied

by a rise in shrill rhetoric that frittered away its confidence-building

potential. Pakistan has added Gujarat to its litany of Indian crimes, a

move guaranteed to raise Indian hackles further given the sorry state

of Hindus and Christians in Pakistan (indeed, the Gujarat chief minister has already used Pakistan’s statements on the Gujarat pogrom in

his election campaign). More worrisome, there appear to be fresh

Pakistani initiatives to court anti-Indian lobbies in Bangladesh, whose

Hindu population has more than halved since 1947.

RELIGIOUS RADICALISM AND MINORITIES IN SOUTH ASIA 445
India can, and I hope will, take unilateral steps to prevent serious

domestic fallout from hostility with these two Muslim neighbors. But

the political will and resources are likely to be uneven as long as the

threat of Islamic terrorism is high, given that India’s institutions of

governance are already unable to keep pace with population growth

and the rapid social and economic change that is taking place. Here

again the United States could play a helpful role in working with the

Pakistan government to control and eventually decommission and

rehabilitate radical groups, as suggested by several other chapters in

this volume. Sad as it is, especially for Indians who believe their numbers, territorial size and democracy insulate them from their smaller

and weaker neighbors, the subcontinent’s minorities and majorities

impinge on each other across borders.

After Pakistan abolished separate electorates for the 2002 election,

a Hindu friend from Karachi commented bitterly, “Why doesn’t India

welcome this as a positive step for Pakistani Hindus?” The Pakistani

government could take a leaf from his book. Though it does not trigger it, arming and sending Islamic militants into India compounds the

vulnerability of Indian Muslims. This is one more reason for the

United States, increasingly embroiled in Pakistan and more closely

involved with the two countries than before, to support preventive

action in each country as well as at a regional level. At the moment,

and for the near future, containing Pakistani militancy and strengthening Indian democracy are key, especially as the two impinge on each

other.

446 RADHA KUMAR
447

In the past, as well as in our times, religion in multi-religious and

ethnic societies has polarized more than unified societies. Even within

a single religious denomination one may find numerous strands that

never tie up. Doctrinal differences, political contestation for power,

material gains and territorial space can make the religion itself—and

the question of authenticity—quite explosive. The political question

of majority versus minority becomes salient and troublesome even in

a society with one dominant religion. This question is a greater divisive force in states where religion is the source of political legitimacy

or the basis of a state’s identity. Religion turns out to be a dangerous

political weapon when the majority religious communities attempt to

shape culture, social institutions and the state itself according to a

specific belief system. It was not without some learning from history

of bitter religious feuds that the neutrality of the state became the

central element of theorizing about the modern nation-state. The

Western community of nations has accepted secular liberalism as the

defining ideology of state, and this concept has found a considerable

following even in the post-colonial states. But in some states, such as

19

RASUL BAKHSH RAIS

Islamic Radicalism and Minorities

in Pakistan
Pakistan, the role of religion is not a settled issue, which greatly

impacts the statecraft, the status and rights of minorities, and the

larger question of internal peace and security.

Complex historical and social factors have shaped the interaction

between religion and politics in Pakistan. Islam was at the heart of the

political struggle for the creation of Pakistan and has remained at the

center of post-Independence political discourse. Controversy about

the role of Islam in politics continues to trouble the political landscape of the country. Even after half a century, the relationship

between religion and state is still as unclear as the nature and direction

of the democratic enterprise. The question of what type of polity

Pakistan should be—liberal democratic or Islamic—evokes different

responses from different social sectors and political interests. Military

leaders, mainstream political parties, and Islamists have all attempted

to define this relationship according to their vision of democratic

development and the role of religion in society and state affairs.1

Among the three main forces in the country, the quest for shaping the

Pakistani state has added yet another dimension to religious and political polarization in Pakistan. As a consequence of this unending conflict of interests and expedient coalitions, the autonomy of the civil

political sphere and the general question of civil liberties and minority rights have suffered a severe setback. The central argument of this

paper is that the common political strands of identity politics, state

formation processes, and Islamic radicalism have caused marginalization of religious minorities.

True representative democracy and constitutional politics are the

best institutional tools to protect and advance the interests of religious minorities in any set of social conditions. For various reasons,

Pakistan has never applied any of these tools during most of its history. The problem lies in the state formation process, in which the balance of power shifted toward the statist elites, the army and the civil

bureaucracy.2 Historical and geopolitical factors have determined this

shift. At the moment, the army is once again restructuring the political system; the indications are that this will further institutionalize the

448 RASUL BAKHSH RAIS

1. Anwar Syed, Pakistan: Islam and National Solidarity (Lahore: Vanguard Books,

1984), 74–100.

2. Hasan-Askari Rizvi, Military, State and Society in Pakistan (London: Macmillan

Press, 2000), 1–16.
army’s power. The disjointed nature of democratic practice and its

structural problems, which is a result of the army-dominated state

formation process, has not produced a social change capable of

empowering minorities and other disadvantaged groups in society.

Their marginalization is as much a result of the failure of democracy

as it is due to deep-seated social and religious attitudes against them.

Another important aspect of the state formation process in

Pakistan is the contested issue of its identity—whether the state

would be neutral among different religious communities or be

Islamic.3 Answers to this fundamental question continue to generate

religious conflict and political confrontations in Pakistan. To explain

this dilemma, it is necessary to touch upon the Pakistani theory of the

state. The movement for the creation of Pakistan, among other

things, was aided by the acceptance of the demand of the Muslims as

a religious minority. Since Muslims were a substantial minority—

about 25 percent of the population in undivided India—the objective

was to have proportionate representation in the elected assemblies

under the British rule. For this, they demanded and achieved a system

of separate electorates under which Muslims electorates voted only

for the Muslim candidates. Among other social and economic forces

that influenced the growth of Muslim nationalism in British India, the

separate electorates further distanced Muslims from integration with

the majority community on the basis of secular Indian nationalism.

While separate electorates worked to the advantage of Muslims in

undivided India—at least in getting larger numbers of their representatives in the elected assemblies—it was politically divisive and created

a bigger wedge between Congress and the Muslim League. After the

creation of Pakistan, the issue of separate electorates became

enshrined in the character of the Pakistani state. Even though Muslims

became a majority, the state had a formidable task of reassuring religious minorities and integrating them into mainstream national politics. In the 1956 Constitution, and later in the amended 1973

Constitution under the Zia ul-Haq regime, Pakistan practiced separate

electorates against the will of minorities. The following sections

explore minority discrimination and marginalization by examining the

ISLAMIC RADICALISM AND MINORITIES IN PAKISTAN 449

3. Ayesha Jalal, “Ideology and the Struggle for Democratic Institutions,” in Victoria

Schofield, ed., Old Roads New Highways: Fifty Years of Pakistan (Karachi: Oxford

University Press, 1997), 121–38.
legal regimes that sustain discrimination, as well as informal social

structures, values, and culture. The rise of Islamic radicalism during

the past two decades has equally put religious minorities under

tremendous social and political stress, in some cases provoking violence against their members.

Identity Politics and Marginalization of Minorities

UNTIL THE RECENT CHANGES in elections laws, Pakistan had a system

of separate electorates that was introduced by the military government of Zia ul-Haq in 1979. But the political roots of separate electorates go back to the pre-Partition Muslim politics in the subcontinent and also to the early debates after the creation of the country

about how to best protect minority rights. One of the most important

planks of Muslim politics under British rule was to ensure that

Muslims scattered around the length and width of India have representation in the elected councils proportionate to their numbers. For

this, Muslims demanded separate electorates, meaning they would be

allocated seats in the local, provincial, and central legislative bodies

according to their percentage in the population, and that only

Muslims would vote for Muslim candidates. The British in the MintoMarley Reforms of 1909 for India, though vehemently opposed by

the Indian National Congress, finally accepted this demand.4 Muslims

were in fact accorded dual voting rights: to elect their own representatives and to cast their votes in the general constituencies. All elections after the introduction of these reforms were held according to

this system. Some historians have rightly argued that the establishment of separate electorates further strengthened the Muslim separatism that led to the creation of Pakistan.5

After Independence, some leaders of the Pakistan movement continued to press for continuation of separate electorates; others

pushed for ideological consistency, while still others aimed to ensure

adequate representation of minorities in the elected bodies of the

country. The question of separate electorates was one of the focal

points of debate and controversy in the Constituent Assembly of

450 RASUL BAKHSH RAIS

4. Khalid bin Sayeed, Pakistan: The Formative Phase 1857–1948, 2d ed., (Karachi:

Oxford University Press, 1998), 28–33.

5. See, for instance, Ishtiaq Husain Qureshi, A Short History of Pakistan (Karachi:

University of Karachi, 1988).
Pakistan when the first post-Independence constitution was under

discussion. On the issue of separate electorates, the views of leaders

of East Pakistan, where there was a sizeable Hindu minority, were different from those of the leaders of West Pakistan. While the West

Pakistanis stressed the need for separate electorates, the East

Pakistanis insisted on joint electorates. Members of the minority communities were also of the view that separate electorates would cast

them off the mainstream national politics. They demanded equal

political, civic and legal rights that could be guaranteed only under the

joint electorate system.

It is important to probe the reasons for support of the separate

electorates. Why did post-Independence Muslim leaders support separate electorates for minorities? Was the move to protect their democratic interests? A scant look at the arguments presented reveals that

most Muslim leaders thought separate electorates would be consistent

with the two-nation ideology of Pakistan.6 This theory was at the

heart of political struggle that resulted in the creation of Pakistan.

Conservative religious leaders—and even some members of the

Muslim League (the dominant political party at that time)—did not

favor the idea of granting equal rights and status to non-Muslims in

the Islamic polity they wished to establish.7 Some of these leaders

even questioned the loyalty of the Hindu minority to Pakistan and

expressed their distrust of them openly. The religious parties and

their supporters in the assembly refused to accept minorities as equal

citizens with equal constitutional rights.

One wonders how separate electorates would have strengthened the

foundation of Pakistan ideology, promoted national integration and

made Pakistan a progressive, moderate and liberal Islamic nation that

its founder, Quaid-i-Azam Muhammed Ali Jinnah wanted to make it.

It is pertinent to mention here the famous and oft-quoted statement

of the founder of Pakistan before the Constituent Assembly: “You

may belong to any religion or caste or creed—that has nothing to do

with the business of the state. We are starting in the days when there

is no discrimination between one caste or creed and another. We are

ISLAMIC RADICALISM AND MINORITIES IN PAKISTAN 451

6. See the views of the ulema (scholars of Islamic religion) in Sharif Al Mujahid,

Ideological Orientation of Pakistan (Karachi: National Book Foundation, 1976).

7. Government of Punjab, Report of the Court of Inquiry Constituted under Punjab Act

II of 1954 to Inquire into the Punjab Disturbances of 1953 (Lahore: Superintendent of

Government Publications, 1954).
starting with this fundamental principle that we are all citizens and

equal citizens of one state. You will find that in the course of time,

Hindus would cease to be Hindus and Muslims would cease to be

Muslims, not in the religious sense, because that is the personal faith

of each individual, but in the political sense as citizens of the state.”8

There cannot be a more lucid and forceful expression of the

founder’s political ideology than this address to the Constituent

Assembly. The occasion of entrusting the assembly with framing a

constitution—and the forum itself—makes Jinnah’s intent very clear

about the direction and nature of Pakistan’s polity. The liberals and

minorities in Pakistan have taken this statement as the fundamental

principle of the country’s political structure. Those who believe in liberal, secular and democratic values cite this historic address to support

their vision of Pakistan.

Others have taken a long u-turn in reading the history of the

Pakistan movement and have reached opposite conclusions about the

political character of the post-Independence Pakistani nation and

state. In the formative phase of the country, some members of

Jinnah’s own party began to present a distorted, illiberal and retrogressive political map for the country. The argument that minorities

could not be treated as equal citizens in the Islamic republic found a

lot of support among the lawmakers from West Pakistan, many of

whom hid their ideological bias in pleading that in a system of joint

electorates minorities might not get representation in the national parliament and provincial assemblies. The members of the Constituent

Assembly from East Pakistan vociferously contested this view.9 They

were right in arguing that separate electorates would leave minorities

in both wings of the country disenfranchised, and that the system

would work against national integration.

The Constituent Assembly, in the very contentious atmosphere of

framing the 1956 Constitution, failed to reach any agreement on

whether to have separate or joint electorates. After ascertaining views

of the provincial assemblies, the assembly left the matter for the

future parliament to settle. The issue kicked up lot of public debate

452 RASUL BAKHSH RAIS

8. Quaid-i-Azam Muhammed Ali Jinnah: Speeches as Governor-General of Pakistan

1947–1948 (Karachi: Pakistan Publications, n.d.), 8–9.

9. The members of the Constituent Assembly from East Pakistan had vehemently

argued in support of joint electorates, a political battle they later won.
and controversy, and lines were drawn between liberal politicians and

regional parties on one side and religious parties on the other. The

Jamaat-i-Islami (Islamic party) and its founder and prominent leader,

Maulana Abul Ala Mauddudi, were at the forefront of opposition to

the joint electorates.

Other religious political parties and, as mentioned above, some sections of the Muslim League, also supported separate electorates.

Their reasons were as diverse as the leaders and groups themselves.

They argued that some pro-India parties and groups would capture

power with the support of the Hindu minority in a system of singlemember electoral constituencies, mainly in East Pakistan. In their

judgment, more Hindus would get elected to the provincial assembly

in East Pakistan and to the national assembly than would be justified

under joint electorates. They also argued that with the influence of

Hindu lawmakers and their prominence in the political arena, Bengali

nationalism would gain strength, undermine Pakistan’s position on

Kashmir and gradually erode the country’s ideological foundations.10

These arguments were flimsy, unconvincing and evasive of the real

issues. The central principle of democracy is equality among all citizens with equal rights and duties. But a true democracy based on such

principles was the last thing on the minds of many of these politicians, who were more interested in how to prevent religious minorities from becoming equal citizens and how to exclude them from electoral politics.

Why the religious and political parties wanted to build a political

system in Pakistan where minorities would be marginalized and alienated is a question that has bothered true democrats from the beginning of the controversy to its end in 2002. All the major political parties in then East Pakistan supported joint electorates, except for the

Muslim League, which had lost its influence there since the 1954

provincial election. After the adoption of the 1956 Constitution,

when the issue was referred to the two provincial assemblies (East

and West), a different resolution was passed: East Pakistan for joint

electorates and West Pakistan for separate electorates. The national

assembly, feeling the political pulse and opposition from East

ISLAMIC RADICALISM AND MINORITIES IN PAKISTAN 453

10. For details, see M. Rafique Afzal, Political Parties in Pakistan, 1947–58, vol. 1

(Islamabad: National Institute of Historical and Cultural Research, 1986), 185–89.
Pakistani parties, decided to approve two different methods: joint

electorates for East Pakistan and separate electorates for West

Pakistan.

When elections were about to be held under the 1956 Constitution,

the military imposed martial law for the first time in the country, abrogated the constitution and set out to make a new one that would be

“appropriate to the genius” of the people of Pakistan. The issue of

separate or joint electorates lingered on in political debates. The commission that was set up to frame the 1962 Constitution recommended

separate electorates for minorities. General Muhammed Ayub Khan,

the military ruler, did not accept the recommendation and decided for

joint electorates. Pakistan held all subsequent elections under joint

electorates, and formal marginalization of minorities in elections

ended.

After the breakup of Pakistan in 1971, Parliament framed a new

constitution more or less along the same lines as the 1956

Constitution, putting an end to the presidential system that Ayub

Khan had earlier introduced. Pakistan was back to the parliamentary

system but this time around, even in the face of opposition from the

religious parties, procedures for joint electorates were adopted.

After the separation of East Pakistan, the population of religious

minorities shrank to nearly 5 percent of the Muslim population. The

new government of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto introduced additional safeguards into the 1973 Constitution for representation of minorities

in national and provincial assemblies. Six seats were reserved for

minorities in the national assembly. For provincial assemblies, five

seats were reserved in Punjab, two in Sindh, two in Baluchistan, and

one in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP). However, minority legislators were not elected directly, but by the electoral college

of their provincial assemblies. To further prove to the world that

minorities were well represented in the power structure of Pakistan,

the Bhutto administration—and almost all subsequent governments—recruited from the minority community for at least one federal minister of some unimportant ministry. With this system,

minorities had a better sense of participation but were far from

being treated with equality as discrimination continued in many

other forms.

454 RASUL BAKHSH RAIS
A New Religious Minority

AHMADIS WHO CLAIM to be Muslims are a relatively new religious

minority. Mainstream Muslims—both Shia and Sunni—do not accept

Ahmadis within the fold of Islam. The controversy over the Ahmadi

sect is about one hundred years old. At the turn of the twentieth century, Muslim cleric Mirza Ghulam Ahmad from Qadian in Punjab

declared himself a new prophet of Islam. He made many other controversial assertions, such as the claim that he was Jesus Christ resent

to reform the world. People generally regarded Ahmad as an insane

person and ignored him. When the ranks of his followers began to

swell in numbers, mainly after his death, the leaders of Jamiat-iUlema-i-Hind (Association of the Islamic Religious Scholars of

India) took serious notice of the new prophet from Punjab. Maulana

Shabbir Ahmad Usmani, a noted religious scholar, wrote one of the

first comprehensive theses against the Ahmadi sect in 1935. He

declared Mirza Ghulam Ahmad a false prophet and an apostate and

said any person who accepted him as a prophet, or even a religious a

heretic, was liable to be stoned to death. After his decree a number of

Ahmadis were stoned to death in the NWFP. The Deobandi ulema

(religious forefathers of the Taliban) launched a nationwide movement against the Ahmadis by declaring them as non-Muslims and barring them from using Islamic symbols.

After the creation of Pakistan, the efforts of the Deobandi ulema

gained considerable steam, particularly in Punjab, which had begun to

emerge as the center of Ahmadi preaching. The Majlis-i-Ahrar (council for liberation) and the Majlis e Khatme Nabuwwat (council for the

finality of prophethood) were at the forefront of this movement.

They put forward three demands to the government in 1951 when the

constitution of the country was being debated: (1) that Ahmadis be

declared as non-Muslims in Pakistan’s constitution; (2) that Sir

Zafarullah Khan, the first foreign minister of Pakistan, be removed

from his position because he was an Ahmadi; and (3) that no Ahmadi

be allowed to retain any key position in the country because Pakistan

is an Islamic state. So strong was this movement that Mr. Daultana, a

Muslim League leader and chief minister of Punjab, endorsed these

demands. As the central government was unwilling to accede to these

demands, the anti-Ahmadi groups began to agitate in the streets of

ISLAMIC RADICALISM AND MINORITIES IN PAKISTAN 455
Lahore. The state of lawlessness and violence in 1953 provoked the

city’s first occurrence of martial law. Although the movement was

suppressed, it continued to propagate against the Ahmadi sect in the

following decades. A more violent form of the controversy revisited

the country in the early 1970s.

Among the many controversies created by the Bhutto government,

one of the most crippling was the move to declare the Ahmadi sect

as non-Muslims via constitutional amendment. The events during the

debate in the national assembly and later in the cities, towns, and

remote villages would not make any Pakistani proud. While the

national parliament was determining the religiosity of a community

whose following was gaining in strength, the religious parties and

groups pounced on the known Ahmadi families and prominent figures, burning down their houses and businesses. With the state taking

the lead in branding a section of the population as non-Muslims, the

religious groups became emboldened to the point of physically

attacking, harassing and persecuting the suspected Ahmadis.

Thousands lost their lives, and Pakistan created yet another marginalized community despite that community’s following of millions and

well-funded, well-organized religious and social networks. The

Ahmadis’ mosques were closed down and they were debarred from

congregational prayers or showing any sign of being a Muslim in their

places of worship. Ahmadis were added to the list of minorities—

along with Buddhists, Hindus, and Sikhs—and were required by law

to declare their status as Ahmadis in all official documentation.

Although the anti-Ahmadi movement is a perennial problem that

has occasionally led to civil disturbances, the real persecution of this

community started with the declaration that Ahmadis were nonMuslims. Since then, Ahmadis have been barred from naming their

places of worship as mosques or even making them look like mosques.

They are not allowed to make prayer calls or to display Islamic symbols or Islamic religious inscriptions in places of worship. These measures marked the beginning of official religious intolerance.

Persecution of religious minorities—particularly against Ahmadis—

increased with late general Zia ul-Haq’s Islamization project. A pervading sense of Islamic revival in the country fueled another antiAhmadi wave around 1984. To placate the religious right of the

country and keep them on his side of the country’s political divide, Zia

further amended the Pakistan Penal Code by adding sections 298-B

456 RASUL BAKHSH RAIS
and 298-C. These provisions made it a criminal offence for Ahmadis

to pose as Muslims, to preach or propagate by words (either spoken

or written) and to use Islamic terminology or Muslim practices of

worship. Once again, the state took the lead in implementing the

political agenda of the religious political parties. In doing so, Pakistan

has ignored its commitments to the Universal Declaration of Human

Rights and violated its social contact with the minorities that supported the Pakistan movement.11

The wave of religious bigotry and extremism began with Zia courting the religious constituency for political support and legitimacy.12

The Soviet military intervention in Afghanistan and the Mujahideen

resistance based in Pakistan were also factors that influenced the

growth of religious militancy. The flow of arms and money from the

oil-rich Middle Eastern countries to the Islamic madrassa (religious

school) network further contributed to the power and influence of

religious organizations.

ISLAMIC RADICALISM AND MINORITIES IN PAKISTAN 457

11. Tayyab Mahmud, “Protecting Religious Minorities: The Courts’ Abdication,” in

Charles H. Kennedy and Rasul Bakhsh Rais, eds., Pakistan: 1995 (Boulder: Westview

Press, 1995), 84.

12. Mumtaz Ahmad, “Revivalism, Islamization, Sectarianism and Violence in

Pakistan,” in Craig Baxter and Charles H. Kennedy, Pakistan: 1997 (Boulder:

Westview Press, 1998), 118.

Table 1. Population and minorities in Pakistan 

 Number Percent 

Total population 132,352,279 100 

Muslims 127,433,409 96.28 

Christians 2,002,902 1.58 

Hindus 2,111,271 1.60 

Ahmadis 289,212 0.22 

Scheduled castes 332,343 0.25 

Others 96,142 0.07 

Source: Government of Pakistan, Statistics Division, No. SD. PER.E 

(53)/99-449, Islamabad, 16 July 2001. 
Separate Electorates

AFTER HANGING an elected prime minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Zia

appeared desperate to cultivate a support base among the religious

groups to end his political isolation. He took two drastic measures at

that time to bring himself closer to the religious groups: separate electorates and blasphemy laws, two demands voiced by the religious

groups for some time. Zia’s actions are partly explained by his political need to have religious allies with street power on his side. Equally

important is the fact that his vision of Pakistan was not much different from that of most religious political parties. Zia had plans to

remain in power; his only bit besides the military was the religious

establishment of the country. Zia gave the personal image of a pious,

God-fearing, patriotic Pakistani. His Islamization agenda of the

Pakistani state would have little credibility without acceding to the

long-standing demands of the religious right for making provision for

a separate system of elections for minorities. As an unchallenged military ruler, Zia began to give an altogether different orientation to

Pakistan’s political system, which was Islamic in the most conservative

tradition. His ordinances, laws, actions, and acts of omission and

commission were passed through the Eighth Amendment into the

Constitution when the national assembly convened after the 1985

non-party elections. This way the separate electorates became part of

the 1973 Constitution.

The Zia regime increased the number of seats for minorities in the

national assembly from five to ten, but maintained the same numbers

in the provincial assemblies. There was also a change in how seats in

the legislatures would be filled. The entire country was divided into

ten constituencies for minorities, which made it utterly impossible for

them to effectively contest or cast their votes. Since religious minorities are dispersed throughout the length of the country, drawing long

territorial constituencies reduced the exercise of separate electorates

to a mockery. A few influential, wealthy and well-connected minority

figures could win in such a rough and unleveled electoral field.

After the restoration of democracy in the country with the death of

General Zia ul-Haq and fresh elections in 1988, leaders from the

mainstream political parties did not bother to address the issue of

marginalization of minorities in electoral politics. Even with the

unanimous removal of some parts of the Eighth Amendment

458 RASUL BAKHSH RAIS
through the Thirteenth Amendment in 1997, the issue of joint electorates was not touched. Most politicians have not been keyed in to

the issue or have never felt the need to understand the plight of religious minorities. Another reason could be the hesitation to offend the

clamorous religious groups or to kick up a fresh controversy over an

issue that to them seemed politically insignificant.

Blasphemy Laws

NO OTHER LAW has had as grave of social and psychological implications for religious minorities as have the blasphemy laws. These laws

have wide-blanket coverage of acts that may fall within the offences

of blasphemy, the violation of which carries long prison sentences

and death by hanging. Offences include injuring or defiling places of

worship with the intent to insult the religion of any class; deliberate

and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings of any class

by insulting its religion or religious beliefs; defiling a copy of the Holy

Quran; use of derogatory remarks with respect to the Holy Prophet

of Islam; uttering words with deliberate intent to wound religious

feelings; use of derogatory remarks with respect to holy personages;

misuse of epithets, description and titles reserved for certain holy personages and places; a person of the Quadiani group or Ahmadi calling himself a Muslim or preaching or propagating his faith. In almost

all cases, the law does not require any solid written proof, just the

offensive remarks and few witnesses to get a conviction. More draconian is the procedure to file a complaint against an accused person.

In addition to the state functionaries, any private person can file a case

in the police station against any person under these laws. For this reason, blasphemy laws have been repeatedly misused against religious

minorities and Muslims. In almost all cases the complainants have

been private individuals with a personal grudge or religious zeal.

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) monitored the

blasphemy cases registered from January to October 2000. The commission’s newsletter listed fifteen cases against the Ahmadis, five

against Christians and eighteen against Muslims.13 Common accusations against Ahmadis included posing as Muslims, preaching, possessing Ahmadi literature, and building minaret in the place of worship.

ISLAMIC RADICALISM AND MINORITIES IN PAKISTAN 459

13. HRCP Newsletter 11, no. 4 (October 2000): 13–14.
Christians and Muslims were booked for making derogatory remarks

about the Prophet of Islam, writing provocative slogans on the walls,

desecrating Holy Quran or claiming to be prophets. The case of M.

Yusuf Ali from Lahore is worth mentioning. Ali was sentenced to

death in March 1997 for claiming to be a prophet. While his appeal to

higher courts was still pending, a man convicted of sectarian terrorism and on death row himself shot Yusuf Ali dead in May 2002. This

is not the first time a person accused of blasphemy has been murdered. The blasphemy laws have not only increased religious intolerance but have failed to provide any legal or institutional safety net for

religious minorities.14

Religious Intolerance and Violence

THE RISE OF ISLAMIC RADICALISM in Pakistan has greatly contributed

to the growth of religious intolerance even among various sects of

the Islamic faith, and more so against non-Muslims, particularly

Ahmadis and Christians. In recent years, religious extremists based in

the country and outside Pakistan have also questioned the Islamic religious identity of the Isamelis or Agha Khanis. These extremists send

out derogatory material insulting the community and its leader, Karim

Agha Khan. It is interesting to note that only the Deobandi faction of

the Sunni Islam in Pakistan has raised militant outfits such as Lashkari-Jhangvi, and Sipah-i-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP). The Shia sect responded

to the sectarian challenge of the SSP by organizing Sipah-iMuhammed (SP). Both have been brutally murdering religious scholars, political activists and young professionals of the rival sect.

Thousands of Pakistanis have perished in the sectarian violence.

Both the SSP and SP have exclusivist religious imagination and conflicting interpretations of the history of Islam and its doctrines.15

Both question the religious authenticity of the other, each proclaiming the other is out of the pale of Islam. The majority of the members of the Shia and Sunni communities have watched the sectarian

killings with awe and disgust. But the frequency and persistence of

sectarian violence during the last fifteen years cannot be explained

460 RASUL BAKHSH RAIS

14. See, for instance, I. A. Rehman, “A Critique of Pakistan’s Blasphemy Laws,” in

Tarik Jan et al., Pakistan Between Secularism and Islam: Ideology, Issues and Conflict

(Islamabad: Institute of Policy Studies, 1998), 196–204.

15. Qasim Zaman, “Sectarianism in Pakistan: The Radicalization of Shia and Sunni

Identities,” Modern Asian Studies 32, no. 3: 689–716.
without sympathy and support of some influential members from

each community. Sectarian violence that includes murdering fellow

Muslims worshipping in the mosques or in religious congregations

speaks volumes about religious hatred and intolerance. In a comparative sense, more Muslims have fallen victim to religious intolerance of

the rival sects than have members of religious minorities; however,

this comparison may not be fair due to the smaller numbers of

minorities in the population.

More than numbers, the rise in Islamic radicalism confronts the religious community with a sense of exclusion, inferiority, discrimination

and above all, insecurity and fear. Ahmadis, because of their breaking

away from the mainstream Islam and their resourcefulness and organizational strength, have been the major target of intimidation and

violence. Although Ahmadis have faced hatred and exclusion for a

long time, never were they subjected to mass killings until their declaration as non-Muslims in the early seventies. Even after that brief but

troublesome period, Ahmadis lived in harmony with their neighbors

in villages and towns. It is only in recent years that the incidences of

murders, mostly in places of worship, have increased against the

Ahmadis.16

No other non-Muslim religious community has contributed more to

the social sector development of Pakistan than the Christians have.

Both missionaries and local members of the Christian community have

built splendid educational institutions, hospitals and health facilities

throughout the country. They have been peaceful even in the face of

the worst provocation. Poor Christians have faced social exclusion and

discrimination in both the urban and rural areas of the country. They

have endured social inferiority and humiliation with grace and patience,

hoping things would change with modernization and development.

While Christians have yet to achieve social and economic mobility, they

have increasingly become the victim of religious intolerance and terrorism; something this community had previously been spared.

Christians are the new target of terrorism in Pakistan. Lashkar-iJhangvi terrorists attacked Sunday Mass in the Dominican Church on

28 October 2001 in Bahawalpur and massacred twenty-nine worshipers, representing the worst case of terrorism against the

ISLAMIC RADICALISM AND MINORITIES IN PAKISTAN 461

16. Amnesty International, Pakistan: Use and Abuse of Blasphemy Laws (New York:

Amnesty International, 1994), 6–7.
Christians to date. In February 2002, terrorists attacked a church service mostly attended by foreigners in the diplomatic enclave in

Islamabad. On 5 August 2002 terrorists attacked a Christian school in

the Murree hills, killing six persons.

How can one explain the rise of violence against the minority Shia

sect of Islam, the Ahmadis and the Christians? Is it due to declining

capacity of the state? 

The state’s declining capacity is part of the problem; while religious

bigots have been preaching hatred and violence against minorities, the

state has remained silent. Participatory politics and civic culture with

a focus on citizenship rights have suffered gravely due to the repeated

failure of the democratic process in Pakistan. In this democratic vacuum, religious extremism—riding on the wave of jihad in

Afghanistan and with transnational connections with similar

groups—has taken strong roots in society. The war against the

Taliban and al-Qaeda, along with President Pervez Musharraf ’s policies to root out religious extremism, has produced a new wave of

anti-Western feelings. This sentiment, however, is not new. Muslims

thinkers such as Maulana Mauddudi and Sayyid Qutb of Egypt, the

two powerful ideologues, shrouded Islamic revival in historical grievances of Muslims and Western barbarism.17 This ugly sentiment, cultivated among the Muslim youth, was manifested in the killings of

thousands of innocent people in New York and Washington, D.C. on

September 11, 2001. In Pakistan, anti-Westernism has been turned

against foreigners and local Christians. Christians in Muslim societies

are generally affiliated with foreigners and are regarded by many as an

extension of Western religious influence.

Conclusion

NATION AND STATE BUILDING in any country, including Pakistan, is

not about establishing a majority rule or simply holding elections

(which in Pakistan have been few and mostly controversial), but laying a true foundation of democratic polity and society. For any student of democratic thought, nation and state building includes fundamental principles such as institutions and systems, citizenship,

462 RASUL BAKHSH RAIS

17. Amir Taheri, “The Death of bin Ladenism,” New York Times, 11 July 2002.
equality, inalienable fundamental rights, and empowerment of all individuals without any discrimination. In most post-colonial states, ethnic,

linguistic and religious minorities have found themselves at the receiving end of political distribution. Some saw their decline as a privileged

group, while others found themselves reduced in number or branded

as a new minority in the redrawing of boundaries. The example of

Muslims in India and Hindus and Sikhs in Pakistan fits this description.

In Pakistan, the voice of minorities has never touched the heart or

mind of politicians. The tormenting experience of communal violence,

transmigration of religious populations and the young and strident

Muslim nationalism further muted the voice of minorities. In the bouts

of political struggle for power, even liberal politicians remained silent

on the issue of separate electorates. What could be more discriminatory than the classification of the citizen along religious lines? Most of

the political parties decided to push the issue, while the religious groups

feared a reversal of separate electorates would create a backlash. But

the vision of democracy for such politicians was confined to getting to

the assemblies, obtaining ministerial positions and making fortunes,

not laying the foundations for true democracy.

Formal and informal discrimination against minorities has gone

hand in hand; one has encouraged and deepened the other. Separate

electorates have been more than separate electoral constituencies for

religious minorities; they have amounted to the disenfranchisement,

further marginalization and deepening sense among minorities of

being second-class Pakistanis. Mainstream political parties have no

interest in courting minorities and embracing prominent members

and leaders of these groups because they could not vote for them.

Minorities were left to form their own parties, if they so wished. Only

the Christians set up some loosely organized parties. Other minorities

have notable figures but no political organizations.

In a traditional Islamic society such as Pakistan, non-Muslims

hardly enjoy equality of social or religious status. Officially, placing

non-Muslims in another category in the electoral politics further

deepened their alienation. Minority groups never supported separate

electorates and have, for decades, struggled with whatever meager

political capital they had to restore the joint electorates. In a large

number of urban constituencies where mainstream political parties

have traditionally close contests, the balance held by minorities would

make a major difference in joint electorates.

ISLAMIC RADICALISM AND MINORITIES IN PAKISTAN 463
Minorities kept the issue alive via the press, seminars and publications. The explosion of civil society organizations in Pakistan and the

presence of the foreign press and human rights organizations have

maintained a gentle pressure by questioning the authenticity of

Pakistan’s electoral democracy. In the past few years, two issues in

Pakistan have received a lot of foreign attention: the status of women

and the plight of minorities. In examining both these issues, one cannot escape the conclusion that both of these groups have been widely

discriminated against, have hardly any representation in the power

structure of Pakistan, and that there is official as well as society-based

discrimination against both groups. Self-image has become a big

problem in the globalized world media, and Pakistan has found its

image badly battered on many counts.

The contention of this paper is that the practice of separate electorates was the worst case of disenfranchising religious minorities in

the name of having representation in the Parliament and in the

provincial assemblies. The present government has reversed the practice of separate electorates.18 Accordingly, national elections in

October 2002 were held on the basis of joint electorates. The constitutional amendments inserted by the chief executive have also provided for reserved seats for the religious minorities in the Parliament,

as well as in the provincial assemblies. This is the first and most

important step toward empowering minorities and bringing them

back into mainstream national politics.

Another aspect of discrimination against minorities is informal, or

social, which is subtler than the legal, formal process of barring

minorities from the political arena. Pakistan has a long way to go

toward integrating minorities into electoral politics. The next general

elections scheduled for October 2002 will be the first in a quarter of

a century where Muslims and non-Muslims will vote together for the

same candidates. It is a sad commentary on Pakistan’s democracy that

in the 1970 and 1977 elections, which were held on the basis of joint

electorates, not a single member from the minority communities won

any seat. Given the social climate of the country, no political party in

Pakistan in the October 2002 elections offered any ticket to any member of the minority community to contest elections on general seat.

464 RASUL BAKHSH RAIS

18. See Chief Executive’s Order No. 7 of 2002.
Social prejudice is so strong that no party would like to appear to be

supporting a non-Muslim candidate against a Muslim candidate of a

rival party.

The remedy lies in affirmative action and in maintaining reserved

seats for minorities in the provincial and national assemblies. In addition to this formal political process, much more needs to be done at

the social level. Pakistan has to stem the tide of Islamic extremism

through reforming the madrassa network, cultivating civic culture,

promoting democracy, and reorienting the political discourse on

Islam, state, and national identity. This is a tall order, but these issues

must be faced if Pakistan is to protect its society against indiscriminate violence, instability and chaos.

ISLAMIC RADICALISM AND MINORITIES IN PAKISTAN 465
467

The issues of religion, politics and security became intertwined in South Asia, more often than not with negative consequences for human security since the colonial period as the latter

maintained its power on the basis of divide and rule between the

Muslim and Hindu communities of colonial India. The Partition of

the Indian subcontinent, based on the two-nation theory (which

claimed that Hindus and Muslims were two different nations based on

religion), added new dimensions to the issue. On the one hand, the

Partition increased animosity between the people of the two states

and impacted the inter-state security of the two new independent

states. On the other hand, it affected the security of the minorities

within the states concerned. This paper argues that the intertwining

of religion and politics in the context of South Asia is inextricably

linked with the processes of nation building and modes of governance. In other words, it is a problem of politics, not religion. The

above contention is substantiated in this paper through an analysis of

the nation-building process and the predicament and plight of

minorities in the state of Bangladesh.

20

AMENA A. MOHSIN

Religion, Politics and Security: The Case

of Bangladesh
Bangladesh is a predominantly Muslim-populated state. According

to the population census of 1991, Muslims formed 88.3 percent,

Hindus 10.5 percent, Buddhists 0.59 percent, Christians 0.32 percent

and other communities 0.26 percent of the population.1 Minority

communities of Bangladesh dispute these figures and maintain that

their number is higher than those projected in the census. For

instance, according to the census of 1991, the ethnic population of

Bangladesh is 1.2 million, which constitutes 1.13 percent of the total

population of Bangladesh. Gaps, however, exist between the official

figures and private estimates. Maloney has pointed out that according

to the Monthly Statistical Bulletin of Bangladesh (March 1981) the ethnic

population in the five districts in Rajshahi division was sixty-two thousand, but various Christian missions in private censuses found the

number to be double that.2 Members of these communities also dispute the official figures and see such statistics as a government mechanism to establish them as numerical minorities.

Bangladesh has both ethnic and religious minorities. In most

instances the former belong to the latter category as well. In the case

of the religious minorities such as Hindus and Christians, many of the

followers are ethnically Bengalis. The focus of this paper is the religious minorities, specifically the Hindu population of Bangladesh.

This, however, is not to suggest that other minority communities do

not suffer within the state; the selection has been made purely on

methodological considerations which, among other factors, include

the fact that Hindus are the most significant minority both in terms

of numbers and also for political and historical reasons. The HinduMuslim divide has been constructed and is being played upon and

exploited by the political elite of the country most effectively and

almost in a routinized manner for their own benefits in the name of

“nation” and “state.”

This paper is divided into four sections. The first examines the use

of religion for nation building through instituting religious ideals into

the state structure and system. The second section examines discriminatory laws. The third probes the rupture of human security of the

468 AMENA A. MOHSIN

1. Ain ‘O Shalish Kendra, Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust and Odhikar,

Human Rights in Bangladesh, 1997 (Dhaka: University Press, 1997), 116.

2. C. T. Maloney, “Tribes of Bangladesh and Synthesis of Bengali Culture,” in M. S.

Qureshi, ed., Tribal Cultures in Bangladesh (Rajshahi University: Institute of Bangladesh

Studies, 1984), 8.
Hindu community and inter-communal relations as a consequence of

state ideals and laws. Finally, the paper looks into community

responses to address and redress the above.

Religion and the Nation

THE MODERN STATE is predicated on the idea of nationalism. The

post-colonial states, in their endeavor to create a nation or homogenous population, often undertake state-sponsored models of nationhood, which adopt various elements such as culture, language, and

religion as tools of homogenization. These elements are more often

than not the attributes of the dominant or majority community. The

state of Bangladesh has experimented with two such models: Bengali

and Bangladeshi. In both instances minority communities have been

marginalized and alienated. The following clarifies this point.

Though the state of Bangladesh started its journey on a secular

basis of nationhood, religion soon became an important component.

The nationalist movement of the East Bengalis was predicated on

Bengali nationalism, which had a distinct secular orientation based on

Bengali language and culture. Seeds of this nationalism were sown in

1948 when Muhammed Ali Jinnah, the father of the nation, declared

in Dhaka that Urdu would be the state language of Pakistan. The new

state of Pakistan also used religion as a tool for constructing Pakistani

nationhood. Bengali language and culture were alleged to be influenced by Hinduism. Thus, in 1949 the central minister for education

openly proposed the introduction of Arabic script for Bengali. It was

argued that:

Not only Bengali literature, even the Bengali alphabet is full

of idolatry. Each Bengali letter is associated with this or that

god or goddess of Hindu pantheon ... Pakistan and

Devanagari script cannot co-exist. It looks like defending the

frontier of Pakistan with Bharati soldiers! ... To ensure a

bright and great future for the Bengali language it must be

linked up with the Holy Quran ... Hence the necessity and

importance of Arabic script.3

RELIGION, POLITICS AND SECURITY: THE CASE OF BANGLADESH 469

3. Anisuzzaman, Creativity, Reality and Identity (Dhaka: International Center for

Bengal Studies, 1993), 107.
East Bengalis perceived this use of religion as a tool of domination.

To counterpoise this “Islamic” nationalism, a secular nationalism

emerged in East Bengal that was militant in its emphasis on the Bengali

language and culture. The Language movement, which continued from

1948 to 1952, acquired an emotional and politicized content for the

Bengalis on 21 February 1952 when Pakistan authorities opened fire on

students in Dhaka when they were protesting the imposition of Urdu

as the state language, resulting in the death of four. By the mid-1960s

the Bengalis had moved on to the demands for economic and political

autonomy as discrimination and domination of the West Pakistani ruling elite over the Bengalis were evident in all spheres of life.4

The new state indeed based itself on a secular plank. The constitution of Bangladesh, adopted by the Bangladesh Parliament on 4

November 1972, in its preamble paragraph 2 accepted “nationalism,”

“socialism,” “democracy” and “secularism” as state principles. In the

context of Bangladesh, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the father of the

nation, defined it in the following words:

Secularism does not mean the absence of religion. Hindus

will observe their religion; Muslims will observe their own;

Christians and Buddhists will observe their religions. No one

will be allowed to interfere in others’ religions. The people of

Bengal do not want any interference in religious matters.

Religion cannot be used for political ends ...5

To implement the above, Article 12 of the constitution stated that

the principle of secularism shall be realized by the elimination of:

• Communalism in all forms;

• The granting by the state of political status in favor of any religion;

• The abuse of religion for political purposes; and

• Any discrimination against, or persecution of persons practicing

a particular religion.6

470 AMENA A. MOHSIN

4. For details, see Rounaq Jahan, Pakistan: Failure in National Integration (Dhaka:

University Press, 1972).

5. Government of Bangladesh, Parliament Debates, October 12, 1972 (Dhaka:

Government of Bangladesh, 1972), 20.

6. The Constitution of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh, Ministry of Law (Dhaka:

Government of Bangladesh, 1972), 5.
Article 38, paragraph 2 of the constitution further states:

No person shall have the right to form or be a member or

otherwise take part in the activities of, any communal or other

association or union, which in the name or on the basis of any

religion has for its object, or pursues a political purpose.7

As suggested earlier, in the construction of nationhood in Pakistan,

religion had been used as the main tool of domination of the Bengalis

by the Pakistani regime. In 1971 the Pakistani regime again employed

the rhetoric of religion in carrying out one of the worst genocides of

history. Secularism was therefore a logical outcome of the Bengali

nationalist movement. It would thus appear that the new state was set

for a secular start. However, the new state, being a modern or nationstate, has within its very construction the quest for homogenization,

which propels it toward the majority community. Nationalism’s inherent bias toward the majority community compelled Mujib to compromise on the question of religious secularism. It is true that Bengali

nationalism, as it emerged in East Bengal, was secular in its content,

but that was the logical outcome of a situation where Bengalis were

being oppressed in the name of religion. Culture and language at that

moment were the symbol of unity among the Bengali population of

East Bengal, which differentiated them from “Muslim” West

Pakistanis. But once the hegemony of West Pakistanis was removed

with the creation of Bangladesh, the Muslim identity of Bengalis

again came to the fore. India’s role during the liberation war of

Bangladesh and the Awami League’s overt association with India had

revived fears among the general people of Hindu domination.

Furthermore, according to a noted political scientist of Bangladesh,

“secularism in Bangladesh did not reflect its societal spirit.”8 Even in

1971 during the course of the war, people in general sought the intervention of the Divine to succeed. The Awami League had won the

elections of 1970 on the basis of its Six-Point formula, which was a

program for political and economic emancipation of Bengalis. In

RELIGION, POLITICS AND SECURITY: THE CASE OF BANGLADESH 471

7. Ibid., 13.

8. Talukdar Maniruzzaman, “Bangladesh Politics: Secular and Islamic Trends,” in

Rafiuddin Ahmed, ed., Religion, Nationalism and Politics in Bangladesh (New Delhi: South

Asia Publishers, 1990), 69.
1969 the Awami League had pledged that its Constitution for Pakistan

would be based on the teachings of the Quran and the Sunnah.

In most of the post-colonial states, mass media and education (being

state-controlled) are two important sectors manipulated and used by

the state for constructing its brand of nationalism. In Bangladesh the

State Radio and Television discontinued the practice of Pakistan days

of opening the programs with recitations from the Holy Quran and

substituted it with a program of “Speaking the Truth” based on secular ethics. Sheikh Mujib discontinued this religious neutrality of the

mass media. He adopted the policy of equal opportunity for all religions and ordered citations from the Holy books of Islam, Hinduism,

Buddhism and Christianity at the start of the broadcasts by the State

Radio and Television. Citations from the Hindu Holy Book and coverage of Hindu religious festivals created a backlash among the Muslims.9

The policy of secularism also backfired in the education sector.

During the Pakistan period in the primary and middle stage of education (Class VI to VIII) Islamiat (religious education) was made a compulsory subject. After Independence the Education Ministry continued with the same policy. The Mujib government, however, set up an

Education Commission in 1972, which submitted its interim report in

May 1973. The Commission recommended the separation of religion

from education. However, the report was submitted before public

opinion on the issue had been elicited through the distribution of

questionnaires. Subsequently, the questionnaires showed that secular

education was acceptable to about 21 percent of the most educated

section of the people of Bangladesh. About 75 percent opined that

religious education should be an integral part of general education.

These findings revealed the gap between the opinions of Bangladesh

society and those of Sheikh Mujib’s secular polity.10 A perceptible

shift emerged in Bangladesh politics. On 28 March 1975, Mujib

revived the Islamic Academy (which had been banned in 1972) and

elevated it to a Foundation. The Mujib regime was brought to an

abrupt end through his gruesome murder by a group of army officers

on the night of 15 August 1975.

With the change of regime, nationalism in Bangladesh also took an

explicit turn toward religion. The coup leaders obviously wanted to

472 AMENA A. MOHSIN

9. Ibid., 70.

10. Ibid., 71–73.
capitalize on the existing public mood, which was increasingly enthusiastic about the adoption of Islamic values. The coup leaders therefore used Islam to secure—and to a certain extent legitimize—their

position. It is therefore not surprising that the coup of August 1975

was declared in the name of the “Islamic Republic of Bangladesh.”

But Khondokar Mushtaque Ahmed (a cabinet member of the Mujib

regime), who was appointed as the president by the coup leaders, tried

to balance the situation. His first public address on 15 August was

made in the name of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh. The

speech, punctuated with Islamic expressions, evidenced the course

that the Bangladesh polity was about to take. Bangladesh thus shook

off its garb of secularism and began to move toward Islamization.

Following a number of coups, Major-General Zia ur Rahman

emerged as the strong man in government. Zia—a fervent nationalist

and freedom fighter—represented the spirit of the liberation war of

Bangladesh. But Zia was quick to realize that Mujib’s nationalism in

post-independent Bangladesh was guided by its perception of preindependent Bangladesh. Zia therefore opted for a different model of

nationhood for the Bengalis. In this new construction he chose to

emphasize the element of nationalism that would have appealed most

to the majority/dominant community at that moment. The element

turned out to be religion, and the new model of nationhood came to

be known as Bangladeshi nationalism. It must be stressed here that

this shift was primarily made by Zia to secure and consolidate his own

position. In order to remain in power he needed the support of two

sections: the people and the military. The move toward Islamization

was obviously aimed at appeasing the dominant/majority community

of the state. Moreover, through the adoption of Bangladeshi nationalism, Zia could distinctly disassociate his regime from the Awami

League, which was necessary to secure support from military.

A manifesto from the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP, the political party floated by Zia) defines Bangladeshi nationalism as follows:

Religious belief and love for religion are a great and imperishable characteristic of the Bangladeshi nation ... the vast majority of our people are followers of Islam. The fact is well

reflected and manifest in our stable and liberal national life.11

RELIGION, POLITICS AND SECURITY: THE CASE OF BANGLADESH 473

11. Ghoshonapatra [manifesto] (Dhaka: Bangladesh Nationalist Party, 1978).
Proponents point out that Bangladeshi nationalism is territorial—it

draws a line between the Bengalis of Bangladesh and Bengalis of

West Bengal of India. This gives it a totality, which is precisely lacking in Bengali nationalism. This, however, is a mere exercise in semantics; Bengali nationalism explicitly had a territorial dimension.

Bangladeshi nationalism, as it evolved in 1975, was in essence a

reassertion of Muslim identity for Bengalis in Bangladesh.

Accordingly, changes were brought about in the mass media, the education sector and the constitution to expedite and legalize the process

of this new construction.

The change was first apparent in the mass media. Simultaneous

recitals on radio and television from the holy books of different religions continued as before, but the time allotted to the reading from

the Holy Quran (the Holy Book of the Muslims) increased from five

minutes to fifteen minutes. While no religious citation had been made

at the closing of the programs during the Mujib regime, the programs

now closed with recitations from the Quran only. Moreover, quotations from the Quran and the Hadith (the Prophetic Tradition) were

now frequently broadcast between programs.12 Education too

acquired an Islamic orientation. Islamiat was introduced to class I to

VIII as a compulsory paper for Muslim students only and from class

IX to X as an elective subject.

Islamic ideals were also incorporated into the constitution. By the

proclamation of Order no. 1 of 1977, the ideal “Bismillah-arRahman-ar-Rahim” (In the Name of Allah, the Beneficient, the

Merciful) was inserted at the beginning of the constitution above the

preamble. Through the same proclamation, Article 8, clause 1 was

substituted by 

the principles of absolute trust and faith in the Almighty

Allah, nationalism, democracy and socialism meaning economic and social justice, together with the principles derived

from them ... shall constitute the fundamental principles of

state policy.13

474 AMENA A. MOHSIN

12. Maniruzzaman, “Bangladesh Politics,” 74.

13. Government of Bangladesh, The Constitution of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh

(Dhaka: Government of Bangladesh, 1991), 9.
Thus the principle of secularism, as set forth in Article 8 as one of

the state principles, was dropped from the constitution. Article 12,

through which communal political parties were banned in Bangladesh,

was also dropped from the constitution, as was Article 9, which

stressed the lingual and cultural unity of Bengali nationalism. Article 6

clause 2 stated that citizens of Bangladesh were now to be known as

Bangladeshis instead of Bengalis. These changes were given effect

through the Fifth Amendment to the constitution on 5 April 1977.

Changes were apparent in administrative policies as well. The

Second Parliament of Bangladesh met on 21 May 1979 and started its

session with recitation from the Quran only; previously, citations were

made from the holy books of all religions. Zia also encouraged the

use of certain non-Bengali words and slogans. The Bengali slogan

“Joi Bangla,” which was akin to the Indian slogan “Jai Hind,” was

replaced by “Bangladesh Zindabad” (Zindabad is an Urdu word that

means long live), which is closer to “Pakistan Zindabad.” Friday, a

holy day for Muslims was declared a half-holiday. The above measures

helped Zia to consolidate his power base, for Mujib had been accused

of being too close to India. The pro-Islamic leanings were interpreted

as a distancing of the country, which has a predominantly Muslim

population from “Hindu India.” The policies therefore were made to

please the majority community in Bangladesh. This entrenched the

hegemony of Bengali Muslims, for under the new brand of nationalism of Bengalis and Islam, the Bengali cultural heritage too was

patronized. Zia had based his Bangladeshi nationalism on the following elements: race, the war of independence, the Bengali language,

culture, religion, land (geographical area) and economy.

Zia was assassinated in May 1981 by a group of army officers. His

death brought another change in the contours of state nationalism,

which moved from the “liberal Islamic nationalism” of Zia toward

“Islamic nationalism” under General H.M. Ershad, who assumed

power through a bloodless coup in March 1982 by overthrowing the

elected BNP government of Justice Abdus Sattar.

Ershad accepted the Bangladeshi model of nationhood but made it

more rigid and totalitarian by giving it a totally Islamic orientation.

This move was ostensibly taken to secure and legitimize his own

power base; unlike Zia, Ershad was not a freedom fighter and, more

importantly, he was generally considered to be a usurper of power.

Ershad de-emphasized the “Bengaliness” (unlike Zia) of the

RELIGION, POLITICS AND SECURITY: THE CASE OF BANGLADESH 475
Bangladeshi nationalism and instead attempted to consolidate the

Islamic contors of this model of nationalism. February 21, which

stands as the very epitome of secular Bengali nationalism, was given

an Islamic twist by Ershad. In early 1983 he declared that the drawing

of “Alpana” (painted designs) on the premises of the Shaheed Minar

was an un-Islamic practice and should be substituted with recitations

from the Holy Quran. Referring to the significance of February 21 he

declared: “This time the movement is for the establishment of an

Islamic state.”14 This stand negated the very spirit of the day, as it

symbolized the struggle of Bengalis to fight the hegemony of West

Pakistanis in the name of Islam. The policy could not be implemented due to strong opposition from the entire Bengali community,

which cherishes its Bengali heritage as much as its religious beliefs.

But it did suggest the course that the polity was about to take. Ershad

based his policy of Islamization on two planks: (1) mosque-centered

society, and (2) Islam as the state religion.

MOSQUE-CENTERED SOCIETY

In 1986 Ershad raised the slogan of building a mosque-centred

society in Bangladesh. The government officially encouraged the

grant of funds to mosques. The government also encouraged foreign

assistance for the development of mosques. He made it a regular

practice to address the Friday congregations at different mosques and

regularly visited different pirs (Muslim religious leaders).

ISLAM AS THE STATE RELIGION

Through the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution of

Bangladesh on 7 June 1988, Islam was declared as the state religion of

Bangladesh (Article 2, Clause A) with the provision that other religions may be practiced in peace and harmony in the republic.15 Islam

was thus adopted as a cardinal feature of Bengali’s nationalism.

Ershad was using Islam to consolidate his position, for it is a matter

of fact that the very concept of Islam as a state religion is contradictory, as Justice Kamaluddin Hussein has pointed out:

476 AMENA A. MOHSIN

14. Partha Ghosh, Cooperation and Conflict in South Asia (Dhaka: University Press,

1989), 71.

15. Government of Bangladesh, The Constitution, 5.
The question is fundamental, can Islam be the state religion

even in a Muslim-dominant polity? And can a sovereign state

have Islam as state religion? ... If Islam is the state religion

then it becomes the sovereign power, it cannot be subordinate to the sovereignty of the state ... a religion like Islam ...

cannot be controlled by the state, and again a sovereign

nation-state cannot be dictated by the canons of Islam ...16

Ershad also attempted to bring about changes in the education sector. In 1983 he announced that along with Islamiat, Arabic (the language of the Quran) would also be studied as a compulsory subject.

This could not be implemented due to opposition from the students

and political parties. However, he encouraged madrassa (Islamic

schools) education and put it on par with the corresponding level of

general education. The government also introduced the Imam

(Muslim religious teachers) Training Program in 1979, whose objective

was to encourage imams to engage in national development efforts.

Changes were brought about at other levels, too. Friday was declared

a full holiday. The name of the Red Cross was changed into Red

Crescent. The country saw a proliferation of political parties with

Islamic affiliations. Ershad was ousted from office in December 1990

through a popular uprising in which all political parties of the country

participated. This opposition, however, was not based on any ideological contention. The issues involved were Ershad’s usurpation of power

from a civilian regime and widespread corruption at all levels. The political parties had agitated for his ouster from power and for the restoration of democracy in the country. This, however, was a contest among

the Bengali elites for securing and consolidating their own power. This

became evident in the election of 1991, when all the major political parties made liberal use of religious symbols. The Awami League, long considered to be the champion of secular Bengali nationalism, also resorted

to the manipulation of religious symbols. Even the Communist Party

held religious gatherings in its office premises. These moves attest to the

bias of these parties toward the majority/dominant community.

RELIGION, POLITICS AND SECURITY: THE CASE OF BANGLADESH 477

16. Cited in Anisuzzaman, “Dharma Rashtra, Dharma Nirepokkhota ‘O Rashtra

Dharma” (Theocratic state, secularism and state religion), in Muhammad Delwar

Hussein, ed., Bangladesher Rajnitite Dharma ‘O Dharma Nirepokkhota (Religion and secularism in the politics of Bangladesh), (Dhaka: Prerona Prokashoni, 1993), 27.
Discriminatory Laws

THE PARTITION OF INDIA along religious lines (i.e., Hindu-Muslim)

and the subsequent emergence of two nation-states turned out to be

ominous for the religious minorities of the two states. Despite India’s

secularism and Jinnah’s assurance that Pakistan would not be a theocratic state—and that in the new state of Pakistan Hindus would

cease to be Hindus and Muslims would cease to be Muslims under the

rubric of Pakistani nationalism—the divisions became more pronounced and politicized as the state embarked on its policy of nation

building. The new state was based on the ideology of Islam. The

state’s attempt to weave its ideology into the state apparatus and give

it an institutional form through various laws and state principles alienated and worried the non-Muslim population, especially Hindus. This

sense of insecurity intensified as the state formulated specific laws

that marginalized non-Muslims in a systemic way. These were later

inherited and retained by the state of Bangladesh. The Hindu community in Bangladesh feels economically and politically marginalized

by these laws. The exposition below will make this clear.

The Enemy Property Act, which was subsequently renamed Vested

Property Act by the Bangladesh government, is the main cause of

economic marginalization of the Hindu community. It has its origins

in a number of laws and by-laws promulgated by the Pakistani authorities. These originated in the East Bengal (Emergency) Requisition of

Property Act (Act XIII of 1948). In the aftermath of Independence

in 1947, the then provincial government was faced with an abrupt and

acute problem of accommodation for the numerous government

offices and public servants. Under those circumstances the said act

was passed for a period of three years. The act gave the government

power to acquire, either on a temporary or permanent basis, any property it considered needful for the administration of the state.17 Hindu

members of the East Bengal Assembly opposed the bill on the

grounds that it would make the properties of the Hindu community

more prone to acquisition.18 Their apprehensions turned out to be

478 AMENA A. MOHSIN

17. Abul Barkat and Shafiquzzaman, Political Economy of the Vested Property Act in

Rural Bangladesh (Dhaka: Association for Land Reforms and Development, 1997), 27.

18. Meghna Guhathakurta, “Politics in South Asia and the Hindus of Bangladesh,”

in Lipi Ghosh and Moniruddin, eds., Minorities, Nationalities and Identity Formation in

South Asia (forthcoming, Kolkata).
true. The proceedings of the East Bengal Assembly of 1951 evidenced

the fact that the act was widely used against religious minorities.19

In 1951 the East Bengal Evacuees (Administration of Immovable

Property) Act, 1951 was passed. According to the government, this

act was necessary due to the massive exodus of Hindus in the aftermath of the partition and the communal violence that accompanied

it. Under the act the government, through the Evacuee Property

Management committee, could take the charge of property of an

evacuee person either on the basis of application from such person or

on its own motion. The committee had the authority to grant lease or

to let out such properties as it deemed necessary. The act also

restrained the authority of the Civil Court or High Court to call in

question any order passed or any action taken under this act. It has

been alleged that in many instances, properties of Hindus still living in

East Bengal were also requisitioned as evacuee property. The Hindu

elites and zamindars (landlords) were mostly affected by this act.

Following the Hindu-Muslim riot in 1964, the East Pakistan

Disturbed Persons Rehabilitation Ordinance was passed in 1964. The

validity of the ordinance was extended from time to time until 1968.

The ordinance was supposed to bring about speedy rehabilitation to

persons affected by the communal violence. It also introduced restrictions on the transfer of any immovable property of a minority community without prior approval of a competent authority. Most common people did not have easy access to these competent authorities,

which created many problems for minority communities, especially

the Hindus. In essence, between 1964 and 1968 Hindus were deprived

of their ownership of property right, as the two basic components of

ownership—the right to ensure the title of their property and the

right to transfer—were void during that period.20

The Defense of Pakistan Ordinance (Ord. XXIII of 1965) was

promulgated following the outbreak of the India-Pakistan war in

September 1965. It authorized the government to take special measures to ensure the security, public safety, interest and defense of the

state. An emergency was also proclaimed. Under the provisions of

emergency powers and the Defense of Pakistan Ordinance, the government framed the Defense of Pakistan Rules (DPR) under which

RELIGION, POLITICS AND SECURITY: THE CASE OF BANGLADESH 479

19. Barkat and Shafiquzzaman, Political Economy, 24.

20. Ibid., 29–31.
the government made an executive order on September 9, 1965 named

the Enemy Property (Custody and Registration) Order II of 1965. The

Enemy Property Act consisted of the following major parts:

1. India was declared as an enemy country.

2. All interests of the enemy (i.e., the nationals/citizens of India,

those residing in the territory occupied/captured/controlled by

India) in firms and companies, as well as in the lands and buildings

situated in Pakistan, were to be taken over by the custodian of

Enemy Property for control or management.

3. The benefits arising out of trade, business, or lands and buildings

were not to go to the enemy, so as to not affect the security of the

state of Pakistan or impair its defense in any manner.21

Though the war came to an end in September 1965, the above law

had a distinct communal bias and was kept in operation through various proclamations. In a circular issued it was specified that Muslims

residing in India, including Indian citizens, would be excluded from

the category of “enemy.” (Though the act had explicitly stated that all

citizens of India would be regarded as an enemy.) The circular also

pointed out that the properties of such Muslim owners would be

handed over to them or their legal heirs upon demand. But for a

member of the minority community, once the property is enlisted as

“enemy,” his or her ownership right would be lapsed forever. It was

not only a clear case of discrimination, but also an explicit demonstration of the lack of confidence and trust of the state in its Hindu population. Paradoxically, the Bangladesh government retained the same

act. On 26 March 1972, the Bangladesh government enforced the

Bangladesh Vesting of Property and Assets Order (Order 29 of

1972). By this order, the properties left behind by Pakistanis (nonBengalis, Biharis who left for Pakistan) and the erstwhile enemy properties were combined into a single category; thus all the properties of

the “enemy” remained with the Bangladesh government under the

banner of Vested Property.

480 AMENA A. MOHSIN

21. Ibid., 31–35.
The above law was a clear violation of the spirit of the Bangladesh

liberation war. Secularism was adopted as one of the state principles,

yet the state retained this communal act. More importantly, the act

was also out of context and time as Bangladesh itself was liberated

with India’s active assistance, and the two countries were signatories

to a Treaty of Peace and Friendship. Under the terms of the act, one

had to assume that Bangladesh was in a state of war with India.

A parliamentary sub-committee was set up under the Ministry of

Land to recommend the repeal of the Vested Property. The sub-committee formulated a draft bill to this effect. This bill, however, had

several loopholes. For example, it recommended that properties that

were not legally vested in the ownership of the government—as well

as those that had been declared as enemy or vested property after 16

February 1969—not be considered as vested property under the proposed law. In fact, most Hindu property had been declared as vested

property after this period. The proposed bill further stipulated that

nothing contained in the proposed law would affect the proprietorship status of the vested property if it had been taken over by the

government, a government institution, any other institution or individual, or if it had been sold or handed over permanently by the government by court directive. These cases could not even be questioned

in court. This paper argues that these provisions negate and defeat

the spirit and objectives of the repeal of the Vested Property Act. The

law also states that the original owners must produce land documents

to the tribunal within 180 days of the promulgation of the law, or the

land would be taken over as government property. The 180-day time

period is considered to be insufficient by members of the community.

Besides, it also provides that in the absence of the original owner, the

property would be passed on to the successor according to Hindu

inheritance laws. In such an instance the provision would be discriminatory toward women, as the present Hindu law deprives women of

any right to inheritance.

The Vested Property Act was repealed by the previous regime in

April 2001 as the Vested Property Return Bill 2001. This bill deals

only with those vested lands that are now under the government’s

control or possession. Claimants must prove their “unbroken and

permanent citizenship” to qualify for ownership of vested property.

Tribunals would be set up in all sixty-four districts of Bangladesh,

where valid owners would be asked to place their claims within ninety

RELIGION, POLITICS AND SECURITY: THE CASE OF BANGLADESH 481
days. The tribunals would have to settle the cases within 180 days. As

per the bill, property not claimed by anyone in the tribunals, or claims

that could not be validated, would go to the government for sale or

lease. Property earlier released from the Vested Property list or for

which a decree was obtained from higher court, or permanently

leased out by the government to any authorized person or agency, or

acquired for public interest, would not be included in the new Vested

Property list.22 It thus appears that the anomalies existing in the bill

proposed earlier have not been rectified. Most members of the Hindu

community, however, feel the repeal is insignificant because land

alienation and land-grabbing of the Hindu community still continues

through coercion since the state system is biased toward the majority

community. Hindus also allege they face discrimination in business,

employment and education sectors. There is a deep conviction among

members of the community that preference in the above sectors

would invariably be given to Muslim members.23

Security Rupture and Inter-communal Relations

THE HINDU COMMUNITY of Bangladesh feels insecure both politically

and economically. Their insecurity and vulnerability were evident following the Babri Masjid (mosque) incident in India. For the first time

since the independence of Bangladesh in 1971, an anti-Hindu riot

took place on a national scale—first in 1990 then in 1992. In

December 1992, reprisals took the form of attacking temples (and the

premises and properties surrounding them) as well as puja mandaps

(worship altars) all over the country. Sultana Nahar24 provides a

detailed account of the attacks that took place in Dhaka, Savar,

Manikganj, Mymensingh, Narsingdi, Gopalganj, Faridpur, Gazipur,

Narayanganj, Rajbari, Sherpur, Kishoreganj, Madaripur, Chittagong,

Coxesbazaar, Teknaf, Sylhet, Habiganj, Comilla, Laxmipur, Feni,

Chandpur, Noakhali, Brahmanbaria, Sunamganj, Moulvi Bazaar,

Habiganj, Bhola, Pirojpur, Satkhira, Barisal, Jhalkathi, Patuakhali,

Khulna, Magura, Barguna, Sirajganj, Pabna, Kushtia, Natore,

482 AMENA A. MOHSIN

22. Daily Star (Dhaka), 10 April 2001.

23. For details, see Sultana Nahar, A Comparative Study of Communalism in Bangladesh

and India (Dhaka: Dhaka Prokashon, 1994).

24. Ibid., 260–73.
Thakurgaon, Rangpur, Bogra, Nogaon, and Dinajpur. This long list

suggests the riots were national in scale and not sporadic or isolated

incidents. It has been alleged that the acts were politically instigated.

The Ershad regime, facing pressure from the opposition coalitions for

a free and fair election under a caretaker government, found it politically expedient to divert attention by letting “communal forces” take

the upper hand and by trying to patch up things after most of the

damage was done. This seriously undermined the confidence of the

Hindu community in the state apparatus. Their physical security was

at stake, and 

The physical security of the minorities is almost always

closely linked to the vulnerability of the minority women,

since they become easy targets of sexual harassment of the

dominant community. It is little wonder therefore that any

member of the minority community will first think of sending their sisters and daughters to safety.25

The out-migration process has a direct fallout on Bangladesh-India

relations. It provides fuel to the anti-Muslim propaganda of the

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which further communalizes the political environment in India. The repercussion on Muslims in India has

an adverse impact on the Hindu population in Bangladesh. This further endangers their physical security, as evidenced by the Babri

Masjid incident.

The Vested Property Act had been one of the main sources of economic insecurity and has had an adverse impact on the Hindu population. Due to the joint ownership property concept, many Hindus

have been dispossessed of their property; Hindus regarded it as a

“Black” law that not only marginalized them economically but also

turned them into second-class citizens. The law was considered a

major cause of Hindu out-migration. “The estimated size of such

out-migration during 1964–1991 was 5.3 million, or 538 persons each

day, since 1964, with as high as 703 persons per day during

1964–1971.”26

RELIGION, POLITICS AND SECURITY: THE CASE OF BANGLADESH 483

25. Guhathakurta, “Politics in South Asia,” forthcoming.

26. Ibid., 3.
It had been alleged that due to the above act, the minority community was discouraged from acquiring new land and was compelled to

sell off property at cheap prices. The procedure of declaring minority-owned land as enemy or abandoned property was also carried out

through fraudulent practices. Government documents substantiate

these allegations.27 According to one estimate, one million acres of

land belonging to the minority community (of the country’s total of

twenty-one million acres of arable land) have been subjected to transfer from minority owners to the dominant sections of society.28 The

repeal of the act, as suggested earlier, did not bring much respite for

the Hindu community, since land-grabbing continues through coercion. Furthermore, the violence of the October 2001 elections (discussed below) has eroded Hindu confidence in the state apparatus as

a provider of security.

Minorities, especially Hindus, became victims of majoritarian violence during the October 2001 parliamentary elections. Democracy—

a laudable ideal and principle—has in effect turned into an instrument

of oppression of minorities. Based on the principle of majority rule,

politics has turned into a game of numbers. Individuals and communities, instead of being viewed as human beings, are viewed as “vote

banks” by the political parties. Political parties and their supporters

inflicted violence and coercion upon individuals in a bid to either

“win over” the vote banks or to stop them from exercising their voting rights. The institution of majoritarian democracy also does not

allow a minority voice in the national parliament. There is hardly any

scope for meaningful representation of minorities in the parliament.

The Bangladesh parliament is a three-hundred-member body.

Previously, thirty seats were reserved for women nominated by the

elected members. This reservation, however, expired in April 2001.

In the last parliament (June 1996 to June 2001) there were only eight

members from the Hindu community and three from the Chakma

community. Of the eleven elected members, ten were from the then

ruling party, the Awami League (one independent candidate joined the

Treasury Bench after his election), and one was from the BNP. The

484 AMENA A. MOHSIN

27. Khan Md. Lutfor Rahman, “Minorities of Bangladesh and Their Alienation:

Causes and Implication,” Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bangladesh 41, no. 2 (December

1996): 305.

28. Guhathakurta, “Politics in South Asia,” forthcoming.
Awami League nominated three minority women to the reserved

seats. Two of these women were Hindu and one was Rakahine. In the

October 1, 2001 elections, seven minority candidates were elected,

five of whom are from the Hindu community, with three from the

Awami League and two from the BNP. Two Hill people, one from the

Chakma and the other from Marma community, were elected from

the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT), one of whom is from the Awami

League and the other from the BNP.

It has been suggested earlier that majoritarian democracy has

turned politics into a game of numbers. Human beings and communities have been turned into vote banks and constituencies. This

dehumanizing of politics took an extremely ugly form in the October

1, 2001 elections in Bangladesh. Minorities, especially the Hindu community, were targeted. The reasons for this violence are not limited to

communal factors; rather, the main factors behind such actions are

purely political and structural. Hindus are regarded as vote banks of

the Awami League, so they were targeted by supporters of the BNP

and its alliance partners. In some instances, Awami League supporters

had also attacked, thinking the local Hindus did not vote for them as

had been expected. In some instances, terrorists took advantage of

the situation and indulged in extortion and looting.29

The violence started fifteen days prior to the October 1 elections

and continued till about October 27, which ruined the Durga Puja,

the most important religious festival of the Hindu community in

Bengal. From the scanning of ten dailies (Prothom Alo, Jonokontho,

Jugantor, Sangbad, Banglabazar, Inqilab, Dinkal, Daily Star, Ittefaq and

Bhorer Kagoj), about 330 reports of violence against the Hindu community were reported between 15 September and 27 October. The

violence included rape, killing, physical torture, plunder, damage of

property, bomb throwing, arson, and extortion.

The predicament of Hindus in Bangladesh is most regretful, for

they also had to bear the major brunt during the liberation war.

Pakistani authorities tried to communalize the war; it was termed an

Indian/Hindu conspiracy to destroy the unity of a Muslim nation.

Hindus and members of the Awami League were prime targets of

Pakistani authorities. Consequently, about 90 percent of Hindu

RELIGION, POLITICS AND SECURITY: THE CASE OF BANGLADESH 485

29. Star (weekend magazine, Dhaka), 26 October 2001, 16.
households were affected.30 Most of them had to flee to India. In

August 1971 the communal composition of the refugees figured 6.71

lakhs and 5.41 lakh Hindus.31

Community Responses

MINORITY COMMUNITIES, especially Hindus, were alarmed at the

Islamization of the constitution and other consequent changes. The

shift from Bengali to Bangladeshi nationalism, with its emphasis on

Islam and the use of the India factor in national politics, created a

sense of insecurity among the latter. Minority communities perceived

the passage of the Eighth Amendment to the constitution, which

declared Islam as the state religion, as a severe blow. In the aftermath

of this the first organized protest of the Hindu community took

place. The minorities of Bangladesh organized themselves under the

banner of Hindu, Boudha, Christian Oikya Parishad. Though the movement started as a protest against the Eighth Amendment, it gradually

demanded the abolition of all discriminatory practices and laws (e.g.,

the Vested Property Act).

The print media played an important role in publicizing the violations of human rights of minorities in the October 2001 elections.

Such publicity began appearing in the newspapers about fifteen days

prior to the elections and continued till the end of October. This

helped in creating a general awareness about the violations, both at

the national and international level. Some of the non-governmental

organizations (NGOs) and civil society organizations sent investigation teams into the affected areas. A joint team consisted of members

from Ain ‘O Shalish Kendra, Sammolito Samajik Andolon, Nijera

Kori, Bangladesh Nari Progoti Shongho, Nari Uddyog, Bangladesh

Mohila Parishad, Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust, and the

Society for Environment and Development. Several organizations of

the investigation team—Ain ‘O Shalish Kendra, Nijera Kori,

Bangladesh Mohila Parishad and Sammolito Samajik Andolon—

attended a press conference held on October 17. Through the press

486 AMENA A. MOHSIN

30. Ibid.

31. Imtiaz Ahmed, “Refugees and Security: The Experience of Bangladesh,” in S.

D. Muni and Lok Raj Baral, eds., Refugees and Regional Security in South Asia (Colombo:

Konark Publishers, 1996), 128.
conference these organizations appealed to government, political

parties and civil society members to take measures to rehabilitate

persons affected by human rights violations. Suggested measures

included the immediate release, proper compensation and rehabilitation of those who had been arrested by the police and the

Bangladesh Rifles (a paramilitary force) while attempting to flee the

country due to violence. The organizations also suggested that the

government immediately publish any reports acknowledging the

violence, and that legal measures be taken against the perpetrators.

Furthermore, long-term measures should be adopted to win the

confidence of the minority community and to provide them with a

sense of security. Finally, the organizations observed that the tendency to target and victimize the minority community for no valid

reason during different political situations should be immediately

stopped and resisted.32

Another investigation team sent by Shocheton Nagorik Samaj

held a press conference on 21 October. Sammolita Samajik

Andolon and Bangladesh Mohila Parishad also undertook rehabilitation programs in the affected areas. Students of different universities, under the banner of Shocheton Chatra Samaj, organized a

hunger strike to protest the violence on minorities in the Central

Shaheed Minar.33

Ain ‘O Shalish Kendra also made a writ petition at the High

Court on 21 November to stop this situation. It argued that the

government and the inspector general of the police had failed to

provide security to the Hindu community and thereby failed to

guarantee the citizens rights provided in the Articles 27, 28, 31, 32,

35 and 42 of the Bangladesh Constitution. The High Court

directed the home secretary and the inspector general to submit

their report regarding the measures they had taken by 15 January

2002.34

RELIGION, POLITICS AND SECURITY: THE CASE OF BANGLADESH 487

32. Press Conference, “Nirbachonottor Shohingshota ‘O Shonkhaloghuder Opor

Akromon Shoho Shamprotik Poristhiti ‘O Bhobisshot Koronio Proshonge”

(Violence in elections, attack on the minorities, the communal situation and future

options), Sangbad Shommelon, October 17, 2001. Organized by Ain ‘O Shalish

Kendra, Nijera Kori, Bangladesh Mohila Parishad, and Sammolita Samajik Andolon.

33. Prothom Alo (Dhaka), 15 October 2001.

34. Urmi Rahman, “Shonkhaloghu Nirjatoner Biruddhe Ain ‘O Shalish Kendra

Mamla” (The legal case of Ain ‘O Shalish Kendra against attacks on the minorities),

Bulletin, Ain ‘O Shalish Kendra, (Dhaka: December 2001), 10.
Conclusion

THIS PAPER DEMONSTRATES that seeds of violence against the minority community are inherent within the processes and structures of the

modern state system, which has led to the dehumanization of humans

and politics. Humans have been boxed into identities that either privilege or marginalize them through discriminatory laws and principles.

In the name of politics, the system of majoritarian democracy has

threatened individual autonomy and turned human beings into vote

banks and vote constituencies. Lack of accountability and transparency of the state machinery only makes the situation worse.

In other words, the state has failed to provide human security to its

minority communities. The repeal of the Vested Property Act has

done little to assuage the grievances of the minority community, since

the principles and ideology of the state privilege the dominant community. To escape this vortex of violence, the structures of state and

society have to be democratized in the true sense of the word. The

Bangladesh state must recognize the plurality of its culture and people. This paper has argued that the political elite whips up religious

fanaticism for its own vested interests. This, I am positing here, is not

done out of love for religion.

These issues need to be brought to the fore through community

movements, seminars, dialogues, workshops, and change in academic

curricula. Undoubtedly, in civil society the media has the most

important role to play in this respect. A politically and humanely conscious citizenry can provide the best safeguard for its own security by

compelling the government to democratize itself and make itself

people-oriented.

488 AMENA A. MOHSIN
489

If we begin our discussion by assuming that security denotes

more than just the absence of conflict, more than just political stability, more than military might, and more than negotiating with, or

staving off separatist demands, we just might manage to shift the

focus of the concept somewhat. The shift may prove profitable, for

it will allow us to turn our attention to the ways in which ordinary

human beings can live their rather ordinary but nevertheless valuable

lives, in some degree of freedom from the shackles of pervasive

uncertainty and shuddering fear. This is of course not an original turn

in thinking on security, for the expanded and expansive concept of

human security, which has made its appearance on the agenda of

international relations in the last two decades,1 is concerned with precisely the everyday lives of people. It is preoccupied with the way individuals can live out their lives the best they can, without being constantly threatened by physical suffering, material deprivation, and

affronts to human dignity.

21

NEERA CHANDHOKE

Security in Times of Hindutva?

1. This followed the publication of Barry Buzan’s seminal work on People, States, and

Fear: The National Security Problem in International Relations (Chapel Hill: University of

North Carolina Press, 1983). For a critique of Buzan, see Bill McSweeney, Security,

Identity, and Interests (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).
And this it seems to me is of the utmost import for two reasons.

One, the life of every individual has to be free of fear or trepidation

as a matter of his or her right. This is the foremost obligation that any

state owes its people. In fact, the very legitimacy of state power is

premised on this assumption—that the state will protect its people

from any kind of threat, whether material or physical. If this reason

can be considered as falling within the domain of normative and prescriptive thinking on the state, the second reason is pragmatic. Unless

people are guaranteed a life emancipated from any sort of intimidation or turmoil, any given society will be troubled with apprehension,

discontent, and unrest, all of which can translate easily into armed

conflict. In India this is more than apparent in the many struggles that

dot the political landscape. From the militancy in Kashmir that casts

a constant shadow over India-Pakistan relations, to the Naxalite

movement, the insurgency in the Northeast, and the battle against big

development projects such as the Narmada Bachao Andolan, the

country is rocked by both conflict and insecurity.

If one aspect of security is negative—security as the absence of

conflict—the second aspect of security is positive and normative: the

creation of conditions for individual flourishing. The two facets of

security are both interdependent and co-terminus inasmuch as when

the citizens of a state live lives that are relatively free of fear or terror,

the possibility of conflict that can wreck states—consider the case of

Sri Lanka for instance—is rendered less, not more. Conversely, when

the political biography of a state is relatively free of conflict, it can

turn its attention to the basic needs of its people and provide them

security in vital fields of human existence. It can, in other words, see

to matters of material distribution and deepening of democracy

through political participation. Correspondingly, when states lapse in

these primary tasks we see the onset of insecurity, dread and panic.

And no one can deny that the kind of individual and collective insecurity that follows from (a) physical intimidation and (b) flawed policies of redistribution, re-settlement, and social justice, is both ubiquitous and deep-rooted. It has to be redressed through the adoption of

just and protective measures and by the provision of primary needs

such as shelter, food, income, education, health, clean drinking water,

and a sound environment, as a matter of urgency. Any state that avows

democratic credentials cannot be unaware of this, for a democratic

490 NEERA CHANDHOKE
state’s first obligation is toward the well-being of the people, who are,

after all, the source of its power.

There is, however, another kind of insecurity experienced by large

masses of people across the world that has proved to be more

intractable. In India as in many other countries, physical, social, and

economic insecurity has been supervened onto a second and perhaps

basic form of insecurity—the insecurity of belonging to a group that

possesses a religion or a culture or a language, which is not that of the

majority. To put it differently, today members of religious groups in

an India that happens to be marked by the ascendancy of Hindutva,

suffer multiple injustices, multiple deprivation, and multiple insecurity,

simply because they happen to belong to a minority. This is more than

evident in the aftermath of the Gujarat carnage. But we find it in

other parts of the subcontinent of South Asia as well—Sri Lanka,

Pakistan, and Bangladesh—as much as we find it in Rwanda, Burundi,

Bosnia and Kosovo. Groups that speak languages other than English

are rendered insecure when state governments in the United States

legislate “English only” policies. The indigenous people and the

Quebecois in Canada are insecure because they are overwhelmed by

the majority culture. And the Asians in Britain, as much as Islamic

groups in France, and the Turkish people in Germany, are insecure

because of racial discrimination that pervades civil society.

Such multiple injustices are unbearable if dominant groups in civil

society terrorize religious minorities. But they are even more unbearable when they bear the imprimatur of the state. There can be no

greater insecurity than when states that are supposed to deliver security practice discrimination against their own citizens simply because

they happen to be in a minority.2 The irony is that it is precisely these

states that make a fetish out of security. The Indian State in the recent

past for instance, has sidelined any attempt to hold it responsible for

atrocities against the minorities in Gujarat in the first half of 2002,

by launching a veritable diatribe against “international terrorism” in

SECURITY IN TIMES OF HINDUTVA? 491

2. Whereas the concept of minority generally refers to numbers (or the lack of

them), it in the main refers to (a) groups that possess a well-defined religion or culture they wish to preserve; (b) the fact that this is viewed as unacceptable to the

majority, which demands conformity; and (c) the fact that the symbolic representations of this religion or culture are inadequately reflected in the public sphere of the

country. This definition of minority and majority is relational. Both concepts are of

course political constructs, for numerical superiority or inferiority does not by itself

constitute what is euphemistically termed the majority/minority problem.
general and Pakistan in particular. Resultantly, what preoccupies the

security expert in the country today is political stability, national

integrity, and the defense of the state through military and nuclear

might.

In the process, the idea that the foremost task of the state is to provide security for the ordinary human being is completely marginalized. Security in sum becomes identified with the state, legitimizing

thereof the adoption of repressive legislation. Even as peremptory

measures become the index of a predominantly insecure polity, we

witness the onset of a peculiar paradox: the state that is supposed to provide security becomes itself the source of insecurity.3 India is not alone in this.

The same insecurity stalks non-Urdu speakers in Pakistan as much as

it stalks the Tamil population in Sri Lanka. (Of course, this does not

exonerate the Indian state from its acts of omission and commission

when it comes to minorities.)

It is precisely this generic paradox, which has come to be the concern of recent international relations theory that now speaks of

“human security.” And this is welcome, for at last we find an enmeshing of dominant strains of international relations theory and the eternal concerns of political philosophy. International relations theory

has finally moved away from its state-centric paradigm and become

normative in its orientation.

However, at this very point let me insert a word of warning. Despite

the fact that the shift from state to human security is a desirable development in international relations, the very proliferation of works on

human security causes some unease. It causes unease simply because

the concept of security has now been widened to such an extent that

it may risk implosion through overuse. This of course seems to be the

general fate of concepts that attract the imagination of political practitioners and scholars—take the case of “governance” or “civil society.” But the employment of a concept that has come to be privileged

in contexts that call for another concept altogether may do our pet

concept no good.

For instance, consider that what has been normally thought of in

political theory as a right to food, income, and well being, is now being

492 NEERA CHANDHOKE

3. “If the state,” asks Buzan, “becomes a major source of threat to its citizens, does

it not thereby undermine the prime justification for its existence?” Buzan, People,

States, and Fear, 21.
conceptualized as security of food, income, and well-being. Certainly

nothing prevents us from conceptualizing rights to and security of as

synonymous; let me suggest, however, that there is a major conceptual difference between the two. Though rights and security can be

legitimately regarded as companion concepts, they are not synonymous,

they cannot be used interchangeably, nor can they be collapsed into

each other. We need to focus on the conceptual distinction simply

because it may help us to focalize the human condition.

Security, let me suggest, cannot be collapsed into rights because is a

property that is attached to a specific state of affairs—that of confidence,

assurance, and freedom from fear. And people are free from fear

when a state respects their fundamental rights. To put it differently, I

am secure if I know that my rights to life, liberty, and dignity are recognized and respected by the state, which in turn protects me both

from its own coercive institutions and from armed groups in civil

society as a matter of my right. Security, in short, is supervened upon respect

for human rights.

Let me elaborate on this. Firstly, every human being has a set of

fundamental rights simply because she is human. At this point in history, we do not need to draw upon any profound philosophical argument to convince ourselves or others that human beings have rights

by virtue of being human.4 The idea has gained wide currency today

simply because the morality of the proposition—human beings have

rights by virtue of being human—is self-evident. Therefore, those

who believe that human beings do not have rights are responsible for

proving their case; the onus of justifying this particular proposition

rests on them.

Secondly, the assertion of a right places a corresponding obligation

on the state to guarantee whatever human beings have rights to—life,

freedom, justice, equality, and satisfaction of material needs. When

the state does so, and when we are reasonably confident that the

police will not come knocking at our door at midnight and arrest us

SECURITY IN TIMES OF HINDUTVA? 493

4. I am thinking of Thomas Hobbes’s exploration into a hypothetical state of

nature to establish the inviolability of individual rights, or Kant’s insistence that

human beings have to be treated as ends in themselves. Today human rights do not

need to be justified; they are the assumptions with which we begin our investigation

into the human condition. Human rights are simply there as components of a good

society along with democracy, freedom, justice, and equality, all of which human

beings have rights to.
without any justification, we are secure in the possession and exercise

of our rights. Note that the state does not make us secure in the possession of our rights as a matter of benevolence. It does so because

rights have been asserted, and when rights are asserted they compel

obligation. Security is therefore is both supervened upon and is a co-relate of

rights. Individuals have rights, and states deliver security when they

respect these rights.

I argue in this essay that minorities are insecure in India, because

the consolidation of religious radicalism or the rise of Hindutva has

systematically violated their fundamental rights. Hindutva has had

serious spin-offs. It has (a) compromised the democratic credentials

of the country, (b) violated the rights of citizens, (c) delegitimized the

state and created suspicion about its intentions, and (d) fragmented

the national vision. The excesses of Hindutva have produced collective fear and neurosis instead of self-confident citizens. All of us who

live and work in the country are today enmeshed in the hermeneutics

of suspicion and cobwebs of malevolence. Nobody in contemporary

India is secure—neither the majority fearing a backlash from the

forces of “international terrorism,” nor the minority trembling under

the onslaught of perverse and demeaning stereotypes and systematic

pogroms that the state is complicit with. And this causes some sadness. For at one point in history, Indians could argue with a justifiable

amount of pride that India had led the world in the democratic experiment of multiculturalism and minority rights. We preen no longer.

Security and the Fundamentals of Human Rights

I HAVE SUGGESTED that instead of treating security as synonymous

with rights, we conceptualize security as a co-relate of and supervened upon rights. If this suggestion is acceptable, then arguably the

concept of security is supervened onto three kinds of rights. Firstly,

security is a co-relate of political and civil rights. Individuals are

secure when their right to freedom and their right to participation in

the political life of the country are made secure through codification

of political and civil rights. Secondly, security is a co-relate of social

and economic rights. Individuals are secure when their basic needs of

shelter, food, education, health, and income are satisfied by the state,

when they are not left destitute and impoverished, and when they are

not stripped of dignity because they have to beg for what is rightfully

494 NEERA CHANDHOKE
theirs. Thirdly, security is a co-relate of the right to one’s community

and culture.

The third set of rights—the right to community and culture—is a

comparative newcomer in the political terrain of rights talk. It has

emerged as a response to two distinct developments in the global

arena, one of which is political, and the second of which is cognitive.

Politically, the issue of the right to culture emerged in direct response

to the exigencies of building nation states in multi-ethnic and multicultural societies. By the end of the twentieth century it was clear that

the nation state happens to be one of history’s most serious mistakes.

For almost everywhere the bid to construct a hyphen between the state

and the nation has led to majoritarianism on the one hand, and the

marginalization and often the oppression of minorities on the other.

Recollect, for instance, that majorities in Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and

India have pre-empted the state in the name of numerical superiority and the majority religion and language. They have tried to hammer minorities into conformity with what is euphemistically termed

the national culture—one language, one religion, or one ethnicity. In

Pakistan and Sri Lanka minorities have witnessed the first kind of

discrimination in matters of language. In other countries minorities

have been physically targeted and sought to be exterminated, as in

the recent riots in the state of Gujarat. In effect, most of the countries in the region of South Asia are marked by intractable, vicious,

and perhaps un-resolvable conflicts between the majority and the

minority.

The enormity of the problem can be gauged when we look at the

findings of a research project at the University of Maryland termed

“Minorities at Risk.” The findings indicate that 222 minorities in the

world suffer from discrimination and oppression. Out of this number, seventeen (7 percent of the total number) are located in the four

largest countries of South Asia. The findings of the research project

further indicated that fifty of the 233 minorities identified were

involved in serious ethno-political conflicts in the years 1993–94.

Seven out of these fifty cases happen to be located in the region of

South Asia.5 Further, it is more than obvious that it is precisely those

people who live in areas marked by violent conflict who are deprived

SECURITY IN TIMES OF HINDUTVA? 495

5. See Ted Robert Gurr, Minorities at Risk (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Institute of Peace

Press, 1993), 94.
of civil, political, social and economic rights.6 Consequently, minorities experience massive and overlapping insecurity, as denial of cultural rights, or targeting of minority cultures, leads to a denial of

political, civil, social, and economic rights. What is more worrying is

that the fundamental right to life of members of the minority community is at stake. It is of immediate urgency that scholars and practitioners of politics turn their attention to the protection of the rights

of minorities, particularly their right to their religion, language, and

culture. It is only then that minorities can be secure.

Secondly, the idea that people have the right to their culture and

community has been catapulted onto the scene of political theory by

a major shift in the way we conceptualize the individual. Recollect that

since the onset of modernity, individualism was to consolidate itself

as a dominant analytical, rhetorical, and political apparatus, available

both for understanding society as well as dealing with it. The idea that

individuals are owners of their bodies and souls, of their labor and

thoughts, of their ideas and acts, follows from the assumption that

they are governed by the dictates of self-determining rationality. For

the maxims that modern philosophers gave to us were two: nosce te

ipsum—“know yourself,” and sapre aude—“use your own judgement.”

To know ourselves is to coherently narrate our specific histories, our

plans and projects, our aspirations and our faults, in abstraction from

others. Because we are the source of cognition and values, we do not

have to look outside the archives we have fashioned for ourselves to

interpret and evaluate. “I know my soul hath power to know all

things,” wrote Sir John Davies in a supreme tribute to self-fashioning

individuality. We are the authors of our own narratives; we are equally

the judges of these narratives.

Imaginings of this self, who is unique inasmuch as it is unknown in

previous history, shaped poetry, art, literature as much as it shaped politics in the West. From there the idea of individualism was transplanted

to the colonized world. Consequently, for the modern theorist, society

496 NEERA CHANDHOKE

6. The ability of the state to engage in redistribution is in effect paralysed. It is not

surprising that in the period from 1990 to 1995, fifty-seven countries that had experienced violence and conflict were ranked low in the human development index.

Fourteen of these countries were ranked high, and thirty-four were ranked medium.

The causal link between material deprivation, conflict, and further deprivation cannot be easily ignored. See D. Smith, The State of War and Peace Atlas (London: Penguin,

1997), 48.
is nothing more than an aggregate of individuals pursuing their

unique and individual plots and plans. This also means that individuals are distinctive and separable from each other. Each individual plots

her own life plan; each individual undergoes experiences that are specific to her alone. Each of us does so, because only we have access to

our distinctive states of consciousness. Consequently, we are divided

from each other by our specific experiences and states of consciousness—“No matter how empathetic I am, only you have your pains; no

matter how much I worry about you or advise you or accompany you,

only you can live your life.”7

By the 1980s however, this idea had run out of steam. For scholars

had realized under the influence of the communitarian school8 that

individualism was both epistemologically as well as ontologically

flawed. The idea of the disembedded individual was exposed as a convenient fiction,9 for in the real world individuals cannot but be bearers of a specific history and tradition. Individuals are in other words

embedded in specific cultures, religion, and languages. Moreover, any

picture of the individual choosing out of thin air her values and her

ways of life cannot be persuasive, for this individual will have no way of

knowing what is valuable and what is not. The resources that shape personal understanding are not conjured out of nowhere or anywhere.

Only our culture can allow us to appraise phenomena as valuable and

valueless, worthwhile and worthless, moral, immoral and amoral. In

this sense, culture gives us the wherewithal to think with.

It follows that if individuals are deprived of their culture, if this culture is attacked, or disparaged, or dismissed as non-valuable, individuals lose their identity, their sense of the self, and their dignity.

Deprive individuals of access to their culture and we deprive them of

SECURITY IN TIMES OF HINDUTVA? 497

7. Brian Fay, Contemporary Philosophy of Social Science: A Multicultural Approach

(Oxford: Blackwell, 1996), 30.

8. See Avaishai Margalit and Moshe Halbertal, “Liberalism and the Right to

Culture,” in Social Research 61, no. 3 (Fall 1994): 491–510; Charles Taylor, Sources of the

Self (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989); Alisdair MacIntyre, “The Spectre

of Communitarianism,” review article in Radical Philosophy 70 (March 1995): 34–35;

Michael Sandel, Liberalism and the Limits of Justice (Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press, 1982).

9. I use “convenient,” for modern theory was to emancipate itself from earlier

notions of status based on one’s birth in society. For this purpose, Thomas Hobbes,

arguably the first theorist of modern political theory, was to construct the individual

in the image of the monad, his individual was simply disembedded in any language

or a culture or a tradition.
self-hood; deprive them of access to their meaning systems and we

have so many diminished individuals on our hands.

Whereas the idea that individuals should have access to their culture

as a matter of right is a universal maxim, the argument itself has been

harnessed to the protection of minorities in multicultural societies.

For multiculturalism by no means rules out the fact that any given

society will be composed of majorities and minorities.10 It is a given

that in such societies the majority will have no problem in securing its

right to culture, but minorities will be vulnerable. They are at risk in

two ways: first, if a minority culture is subjected to neglect, howsoever

benign that neglect may be, it is possible that it will atrophy or die out.

And members of the group suffer because they no longer have access

to their systems of meaning, Secondly, as experiences of the last half

of the twentieth century have told us, it is precisely members of

minority cultures that are both physically and emotionally targeted by

majoritarian groups as in contemporary India.

In a society like India, where the political community contains a

number of cultural or religious or language communities, minorities

are especially insecure in two ways. One, their beliefs and practices

have been subjected to debased archetypes, which are in turn fashioned by majority prejudices. And as suggested above, if cultures are

debased and insulted, individuals lose both their confidence and

self-respect. Secondly, their very basic right to life is rendered vulnerable when practices in a communal mode dominate civil society

and the state. If on the one hand minorities are pressured to conform to the majority culture and their culture11 is denigrated and

dismissed as of no value, on the other hand their very distinctiveness renders them vulnerable to attacks by the so-called cultural

nationalists.12 Obviously, deep and pervasive insecurity stalks minorities in India, and this is a matter for anxiety. For the credibility of any

498 NEERA CHANDHOKE

10. This does not diminish the personal autonomy of the individual, for no

Communitarian would subordinate the individual to community. See Neera

Chandhoke, Beyond Secularism: The Rights of Religious Minorities (Delhi: Oxford

University Press, 1982).

11. I am aware of the difference between culture and religion; however, for the purpose of this argument I collapse religion into the generic concept of culture.

12. I make the routine distinction between civic nationalism, which is based on citizenship rights for all, and cultural nationalism, where a majority seeks to dominate

all interstices of the nation and renders it exclusive and narrow.
democratic state rests upon the way it treats its minorities.

Democracy is after all not only about majority rule, it is about the

rights of each and every citizen, about her equality, freedom, justice,

and rights. If the rights of a section of its people—even if they are

in a minority—are compromised or violated, if the people are

denied justice, equality, and freedom, the claims of the state to

democracy are compromised.

The History of Minority Rights in India

WRITING IN THE AFTERMATH of the attacks on Christian missionaries

by the sangh parivar, Malini Parthasarthy asked the following insightful question: “As the gruesome and searing images of Christian missionaries being burnt alive and churches being set on fire etch themselves on our collective consciousness, with their irrefutable

connection to the earlier patterns of brutal destruction directed at the

Muslim community, can we as citizens of this democratic republic

dodge the hard question as to how did we get here?”13 This very question crops up repeatedly to worry our minds, for it was not always so

in India.

The rights of minorities to their religion and culture had been

expressly recognized by the leadership of the freedom movement

ever since the 1920s. Even as the mass base of the freedom movement expanded, and even as Mahatma Gandhi tried to fashion a coalition out of groups that had little social interaction with each other,

the need to assuage the fears of minorities that they would be

swamped in a majoritarian India was recognized. One reason for the

recognition of minority rights was thus pragmatic: it rested on the

basic need to forge a mass freedom struggle. Accordingly, the 1928

Motilal Nehru Constitutional Draft recognized the right of minorities

to their culture.14 But this does not mean the recognition of minority

rights was not underlined by normative considerations—the recognition that cultures and religions are important to their adherents. For

instance Jawaharlal Nehru, writing a note on minorities in Young India

on 15 May 1930, was to state that

SECURITY IN TIMES OF HINDUTVA? 499

13. Malini Parthasarthy, “Fascism on the Rampage,” The Hindu, 26 January 1999.

14. In large part, minority rights in the 1928 draft were posited as an alternative to

the demand for separate electorates.
The history of India and of many of the countries of

Europe has demonstrated that there can be no stable equilibrium in any country so long as an attempt is made to crush a

minority or force it to conform to the ways of the majority.

There is no surer method of rousing the resentment of the

minority and keeping it apart from the rest of the nation than

to make it feel that it has not got the freedom to stick to its

own ways.... It matters little whether logic is on its side or

whether its own particular brand of culture is worthwhile or

not. The mere fact of losing it makes it dear. Therefore we in

India must make it clear to all that our policy is based on

granting this freedom to the minorities and that under no circumstance will any coercion or repression of them be tolerated ... we can also lay down as our deliberate policy that

there shall be no unfair treatment of any minority. Indeed we

should go further and state that it will be the business of the

state to give favored treatment to minority and backward

communities.15

In a parallel vein, the Karachi Charter on Fundamental Rights of

1931 acknowledged the right of minorities to their religion and the

freedom to profess and practice any religion. It further laid down that

the state should be neutral in regard to all religions (Clause 2 and 9 of

Article 1). A fresh addition to the list of minority rights in the charter was the right of minorities to cultural autonomy and equal access

to educational facilities (Clause 3). During the second session of the

Round Table Conference, a memorandum on the “Congress Scheme

for a Communal Settlement,” authored by Mahatma Gandhi, was presented before the Minorities Committee on 28 October 1931.16 The

scheme provided for the protection of culture, language, script, education, profession, and practice of religion and religious endowment.

It also provided for the protection of personal laws, as well as for a

proportionate share in the legislature for all communities through

joint electorates, protection of minority interests in the central and

500 NEERA CHANDHOKE

15. Jawaharlal Nehru, “Note on Minorities,” in Jawaharlal Nehru Selected Works, vol.

4, ed. S. Gopal (New Delhi: Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Fund), 259–60.

16. Iqbal A. Ansari, ed., Readings on Minorities Documents and Perspectives, vol. 2 (Delhi:

Institute of Objective Studies, 1996), 145–50.
provincial cabinets, and a fair share for the minorities in the public

services.17 Subsequently, the report of the Sapru Committee, which

was set up by the non-party conference in November 1944, represented a major attempt to examine the minority question. It recommended full religious tolerance, non-interference in religious beliefs,

practices and institutions, and protection of the language and cultures

of all communities. The Sapru Committee also recommended political representation. However, this particular recommendation created

so much controversy that the report could not be adopted.18

Subsequently, when the members of the Constituent Assembly

deliberated over the need for minority rights, they could not agree that

minorities should have special political rights. The reluctance makes

sense when we remember that the Constituent Assembly met in the

shadow of the partition of the country on religious lines. However,

most members agreed that the historical pledge to honor the protection of cultural rights should be respected. This agreement formed

the substance of Article 29 and 30 of the constitution. These two

articles, popularly represented as “minority rights,”19 have to be read

along with Articles 25–30 to comprehend the fullness of the right to

religion granted by the Indian Constitution.

Given the charged political situation of the time—Partition, the

civil war that overwhelmed northern India, the communalized

SECURITY IN TIMES OF HINDUTVA? 501

17. This would be mediated by considerations of merit.

18. The Sapru Committee recommended that 10 percent of the seats in the Union

legislature be reserved for special interests. The remainder of the seats would be distributed among the religious communities. These communities would also be represented in the Union Executive. In the interests of national unity it was proposed that

Muslims be persuaded to opt for joint electorates with reserved seats. The committee recommended that the reservation of seats for religious minorities in the Central

Assembly be at par with those of the Hindus, despite the great disparity in popular

strength.

19. Article 29 (1) of the fundamental rights chapter lays down that “any section of

the citizens residing in the territory of India or any part thereof having a distinct language script or culture of its own shall have the right to conserve the same.” This constitutional provision has two dimensions. One, it recognizes that different groups have

different cultures; that these linguistic and religious cultures are valuable for their

members; that members of minority cultures can face disadvantages in a majoritarian

society; and that, therefore, these members need to be given explicit rights to their own

culture. Secondly, the right to culture is an individual right, i.e., individuals are granted

the right to their culture. No provision is made for those cases where the culture itself

may be under threat of dissolution, or where it may be subjected to calls for assimilation. Despite this drawback, this article along with Article 30, which guarantees that all

religious and linguistic minorities are given the right to establish and administer educational institutions of their choice, constitute cultural and educational rights.
atmosphere, the felt need to prevent another such earthshaking political event, and the need to build a strong nation where considerations

of religion would be marginalized—the recognition that minority cultures should be protected against majoritarianism can be considered a

landmark provision in the constitution. Justice Venkatarama Ayyar J.

was to acknowledge as much when he delivered the advisory opinion

of the Supreme Court in the Kerala Education Bill.

It is well known that during the Middle Ages, the accepted

notion was that Sovereigns were entitled to impose their own

religion on their subjects, and those who did not conform to

it could be dealt with as traitors. It was this notion that was

responsible during the 16th and 17th centuries for numerous

wars between nations and for civil wars in the Continent of

Europe, and it was only latterly that it came to be recognized

that freedom of religion is not incompatible with good citizenship and loyalty to the State, and that all progressive societies should respect the religious beliefs of their minorities. It

is this concept that is embodied in Articles 25, 26, 29 and 30

of the constitution.20

Matters are different today, for we live in the days of Hindutva. And

Hindutva has insistently and deliberately unravelled all the threads

that were fashioned to knit multi-linguistic and multi-religious India

together, pitted community against community, and destroyed spaces

where people belonging to different religious persuasions had learned

to live together. If the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) meeting

after the Gujarat massacre could state brazenly that minorities have to

gain the good will of the majority if they want to live in the country,

the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) has gone a step further and stated

that minorities should be condemned to living in refugee camps as

they do in strife-torn Gujarat. What is more problematic is that members of the Hindutva brigade can terrorize minorities, deny them their

rights, exterminate them, and the state and the central governments

acquiesce by their silence. Contrast this with the commitment made

by India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharal Nehru. “It is perhaps not

very easy even to find a good word in Hindi for ‘secular,’” he said on

502 NEERA CHANDHOKE

20. In re Kerala Education Bill. A.I.R 1958. Supreme Court 1956, 990.
one occasion. “Some people think that it means something opposed

to religion. That obviously is not correct. What it means is that it is a

state that honours all faiths equally and gives them equal opportunities; that, as a state, it does not allow itself to be attached to one faith

or religion, which then becomes the state religion.”21

The Excesses of Hindutva

“THE COURSE OF AFRICAN HISTORY,” writes Achille Mbembe, “is said

to be determined by the combined action of a diabolical couple

formed by an enemy—or tormentor—and a victim. In this closed

universe, in which ‘making history’ consists of annihilating one’s enemies, politics is conceived of as a sacrificial process, and history, in the

end, in seen as participating in a great economy of sorcery.”22

Mbembe could well have written these words for the Hindutva project. How and why did this happen? This is the tormenting question

that most of us have asked ourselves since the late 1980s.

There are various reasons that we can employ to explain the success

of the politics of Hindutva in our civil society. Here I just highlight

some of them. For one, the country has passed through troubling

times in the last half of the twentieth century. The challenge to the

territorial integrity of India in Kashmir, the Northeast, and earlier in

the Punjab, has created a climate of intolerance toward any kind of

cultural difference in the country. Secondly, the rise of regional parties with specific agendas and the articulation of demands for regional

autonomy have further highlighted the fragility of the national consensus. Thirdly, India’s position in the world has noticeably receded.

As Indians are seeing other countries of Asia—and increasingly

China—outstrip their own economy, as Indian society is mired in

caste and religious wars, as the state has to devote more and more of

its energy to these cases as well as to cases where people demand

self-determination, as integration into the world market underscores

India’s underdevelopment and powerlessness in the global arena, the

response of India’s middle classes has taken the form of aggressive

intolerance. Fourthly, the weakening of the Nehruvian secular,

SECURITY IN TIMES OF HINDUTVA? 503

21. Jawaharal Nehru, Jawaharal Nehru: An Anthology, ed. Sarvepalli Gopal (Delhi:

Oxford University Press, 1980), 330.

22. Achille Mbembe, “African Modes of Self-Writing,” trans. Steven Randall in

Public Culture 14, no. 1 (2002): 252.
socialist, and democratic vision, the collapse of the Congress system,

the presence of deep-rooted poverty, deprivation, and frustration,

and the lack of a foresighted leadership that could tap collective aspirations and longings have had expected consequences.

By the late 1980s, a gigantic vacuum pervaded the political space—

an impoverished political vision, little political wisdom, and bankrupted statesmanship. This vacuum was filled in by the return of the

religious idiom, banished from the scene by the secular commitment

of the first-generation leadership in the country from the 1950s

onward. The scene for the revival of religion in politics had already

been set by the Congress leadership itself, by Prime Minister Indira

Gandhi and the later Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, who responded to

general dis-spiritedness and exhaustion by the visible employment of

the Hindu card. In 1989, Rajiv Gandhi, beginning his electoral campaign from Ayodhya, stated that the objective of the government was

to build a Ram Rajya or kingdom of Rama, signifying truth and wisdom. He thus neatly appropriated a theme that had already been

brought to the forefront of public attention by the sangh parivar. The

1980s, in effect, saw the final dissolution of the secular spirit that had

been carefully drafted and institutionalized by the first generation of

leaders in India, and its replacement by the idioms, the grammar, the

symbolism and oratory of religious identification. This was the precise moment in which narratives of Hindutva carefully forged by the

sangh parivar erupted to occupy imaginations and harness the political passions of a disheartened people.

Hindutva can be read in many terms, but mainly it is an ideology.

Yet it is an ideology like no other, because it has relentlessly and insistently tapped the intangible and the incorporeal properties of the collective psyche of the Hindus in some deep and unfathomable way. It

has excavated memories of “Hindu” loss, of betrayal, and of humiliation,23 which had perhaps been buried under layers of other memories, and catapulted them into the open. To put it differently, the

Hindutva agenda has been constructed along one main pivot: what

psychiatrists call the “recovered memory syndrome.” But not any

504 NEERA CHANDHOKE

23. Of course not all Hindus feel this way, and many have protested and challenged the narrative. What counts is that the narrative has proved powerful because

increasing numbers of the majority community subscribe to notions of historical

victimhood.
memory, let me hasten to add, will do—the entire narrative of memory has been forged out of remembrance of victimhood. Narrative

after narrative coming to us from the parivar, was to speak of the historical mortification of the majority community and of its current

helplessness.24

Consider, for instance, the narrative that did the rounds at the time

of Ayodhya. Arguably, the power of the narrative lay in the tale it told,

somewhat ironically, of the victimization of the majority community:

“Yes, for too long I have suffered affronts in silence. My numbers

have dwindled. As a result, my adored motherland has been torn

asunder. I have been deprived of my age-old rights over my own

hearths and homes. Afghanistan, NWFP, Sindh, Baluchistan, half of

Punjab, half of Bengal, and a third of Kashmir—all these have been

usurped from me ... My temples have been desecrated, destroyed.

Their sacred stones are being trampled under the aggressor’s feet. My

gods are crying.”25

The phrase, “My gods are crying” referred obviously to Mathura

and Varanasi, where it was alleged that Mughal rulers had destroyed

temples and built mosques over the sites. But it referred more to

Ayodhya, which by the mid-eighties has become the leit motif of the

Ramjanambhoomi/Babri Masjid movement launched by the affiliate

organizations of the sangh parivar.26 What is interesting is the way in

which the narrative of Ayodhya was to constitute the site of the

Babri mosque as double-coded memory. On the one hand, the site

served to evoke memories of violation, destruction, desecration, and

SECURITY IN TIMES OF HINDUTVA? 505

24. For instance, Prajna Pravah, the intellectual forum of the RSS in a letter to the

prime minister on 23 June 2000, complained about the Christian churches. Defending

the Vishwa Hindu Parishad against the charge of spreading hate literature against the

minorities, the letter said: “VHP booklets and pamphlets increasingly prove how the

activities of Christian fundamentalists are aimed at destabilizing the Hindu society

and the state.” Considering that the Christian community constitutes a little more

than 2 percent of the population, the allegation may prove laughable, if it did not

possess serious consequences.

25. “Angry Hindu! Yes Why Not?” Organiser, 14 February 1988. This was later published as a pamphlet and distributed by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad during the

Ramjanambhoomi agitation.

26. The sangh parivar, or the extended family of the groups, consists of a complex

of organizations with overlapping memberships bound together by a commitment to

Hindu nationalism. It consists of the RSS, which is the root of the family, the VHP,

the Bajrang Dal, the Durga Vahini, and sundry other groups that come up periodically to support the parivar. The parliamentary wing of the parivar is the Bharatiya

Janata Party (BJP), which has controlled the central government since 1999.
illegitimate occupation of sacred sites by Mughal rulers. It signified

the chagrin of the Hindus even as they had had watched helplessly as

their temples had been destroyed and their Gods rendered homeless

by the “invader” in the past. On the other hand, as the site of the proposed Ramjanambhoomi temple, Ayodhya became the referral of the

proposed Hindu rashtra or nation. It simply represented a space where

a mortified and outraged people would redeem history, erase memories of shame, recover agency, and forge a future for the Hindus and

by the Hindus. The narrative of Ayodhya, in other words, was a narrative that aspired to power in the near future; it was a narrative that

was to prepare the ground in civil society for the control of the state

by the forces of Hindutva.

The attempt to control the future to repaint the past, and to repaint

the past to control the future was manifest, even as the Ayodhya narrative rapidly and dextrously juxtaposed two narratives: narratives of

shame and victimhood, and narratives of intent to reclaim history.

And for this very purpose, the Ramjanambhoomi narrative proclaimed a closure onto other memories of Ayodhya.27 For though the

sangh parivar was to capitalize upon the Babri mosque/Ayodhya as

memorializing humiliation, it is equally true that other narratives of

and on Ayodhya existed in popular memory, through anecdotes, stories, and mythologies. Let us for a moment glance at these memories

and see thereby how the site had been constructed in other memories

and in other narratives.

Ayodhya, historians tell us, became a major center of spiritualism

for Vaishnavites in the seventeenth century when it was first mentioned as a place of pilgrimage in the treatises on sacred places or the

tirthashastras.28 The tale of Shri Rama had become popular in the fifteenth century through the story of the Ramayana narrated by

Tulsidas. By the sixteenth century, the Ramayana became a part of the

collective psyche and rural folklore through myth and legend, storytelling and enactment of Tulsidas’s Ram Charitra Manas by the Vaishnav

Ramanandi sects or Bairagis. Historians also tell us that the Bairagis

fought a long and protracted battle with the Shaivites for the control

of holy places in Ayodhya. The moot point is that for pilgrims,

506 NEERA CHANDHOKE

27. I have dealt with this at length in The Conceits of Civil Society (Delhi: Oxford

University Press, 2003).

28. See Sushil Srivastava, The Disputed Mosque: A Historical Inquiry (Delhi: Vistaar,

1991).
Ayodhya came to be on par with Benaras and Hardwar as a holy place

fairly late in the day, though the latter two were certainly more popular as destinations for people in the twilight of their lives.

Now historians have invested a great deal of intellectual and political energy in debating whether Shri Ram was born at the precise place

at which the Babri Masjid stood. Much ink has equally been spilt over

the issue of whether the Mughal Emperor Babur’s lieutenants had in

fact razed the temple to the ground and built the masjid over it.

Several valuable insights into the production of historical narratives

have been generated in these polemics. However, apart from the fact

that scientific evidence on both sides is inconclusive, we will have to

acknowledge that matters of faith are seldom proved or disproved by

such evidence. Whether Shri Ram was born in Ayodhya or not, or

whether there was or was not a temple prior to the mosque, is of little consequence when it comes to belief.

But it is equally true that popular belief held that it was not only the

Babri Masjid, but the whole of Ayodhya that had been seen by the

tirthashastras, or even by the pilgrims as the Ramjanamsthan or the birthplace of the God. Or that two other sites in Ayodhya—the platform

or the Ramchabutra outside the Babri Masjid, and another temple—

were also popularly thought of as the birthplace of Lord Ram. It is

equally true that if some narratives told us that Babur had sacked the

Ram mandir and built the masjid, other narratives spoke of innumerable instances of Hindu-Muslim amity. Avadh was known for its rich

multireligious culture and Ayodhya has historically been a holy site not

only for Hinduism, but Buddhism, Jainism, and Islam as well. Temples

in the town were open to all, all festivals were celebrated by all the

inhabitants, several well-known mazaars were visited both by Hindus

and Muslims believing in the same peer or saint, and Hindus participated in the urs at the mazaar of Syed Salaar Masud with great devotion.29 Only the festival of Muharram was patronized by the Nawabs

of Avadh.30 And who can forget the scene in Satyajit Rays’ memorable

film Shatranj ke Khilari when on the eve of the British invasion of

Avadh in the mid-nineteenth century, the Muslim Nawab Wajid Ali

Shah takes on the role of Krishna and dances with the Gopis.

SECURITY IN TIMES OF HINDUTVA? 507

29. See Ashis Nandy, Shikha Trivedi, Shail Mayaram, and Achyut Yagnik, Creating a

Nationality: The Ramjanambhoomi Movement and Fear of the Self (Delhi: Oxford University

Press, 1995).

30. Srivastava, Disputed Mosque, 20.
There is more. As the four authors of Creating a Nationality point out,

Muslim craftsmen had traditionally fashioned the thrones and the

crowns for the Gods in the temples. Muslims wove flowers into garlands that were offered at the temples, and a Muslim looked after at

least one temple in the town. The temple of Hanumangarhi was built

with the help of a land grant from Nawab Safdar Jang (1739–54) to the

mahant of Nirvani Akhada- Abhayramdas. The Khaki Akhada was built

on the basis of another land grant by Nawab Shuja ud Daulah. The

authors cite Peter Van der Veer’s work to show that Ayodhya became

an important pilgrimage center as a consequence of the patronage of

the Courts of the Nawabs. Other stories told of how Ayodhya was

gifted by Babur to Acharyas of the Vaishnav sect. It was popularly

believed that one Muslim philanthropist donated everything he owned

to a temple and lived forewith on donations of the temple.31 In fact,

temples in Ayodhya were open to all. All these beliefs had also formed

the stuff of collective memory, which had held popular sway for years.

Consequences of Memory Recovery

BUT MEMORY-BASED NARRATIVES of the sangh parivar carried their

own dynamics, exclusions, and inclusions. The teleological limits of

the narrative form emerge clearly here; the purpose of the narrative

simply predetermines the kind of explanation that is offered. This is

perhaps intrinsic to memory-based narratives, for memory itself is

plural, contingent, and unstable. All of us know that different recollections of the same time, day or year can hardly be packaged neatly

into little boxes, tied with different colored ribbons, and put away in

the compartments of memory. Multiple, complex, overlapping, and

conflicting, memories of the past slide beneath, over, and into each

other like the proverbial shades of a kaleidoscope. It becomes simply

impossible to differentiate or disentangle one recollection from

another. Composed of multiple and often contradictory recollections

that not only merge into each other but constitute each other, memory is notoriously too rickety a foundation on which we can build the

present or the future.

This really means that memory has to be mediated, in Fredric

Jameson’s words, through “prior textualization” in order to acquire

508 NEERA CHANDHOKE

31. Nandy et al., Creating a Nationality, 2.
basic coherence.32 In effect, it is only when we narrativize memory that

the past becomes both accessible as well as comprehensible to us.33

Perhaps the past cannot be accessed in any other way, for as Munslow

suggests, it “exists and will exist as knowledge transmitted to us according to the basic principles of narrative form.”34 I am by no means suggesting that the progress from experience to memory to narrative is

sequential; it is simultaneous, for human beings are essentially storytelling animals. We tell stories to ourselves and to others, and we hear

stories from others, simply to make our worlds comprehensible.

And the desire to make our individual and collective worlds legible constitutes perhaps the first and the primal need of human beings. For unless

the world is intelligible to our senses, our perceptions and our cognition,

we would stumble through life exactly as we would stumble through a

dark room, claustrophobically groping our way among unfamiliar objects

we cannot give a name to, because we have no memory of them. But

most of us yearn to make our lives coherent; we therefore, perhaps

unthinkingly, but inexorably, plot not only our experiences, but also memories of those experiences into a narrative. We thereby become, as

Ricoeur suggests, the readers as well as the writers of our own lives.35

SECURITY IN TIMES OF HINDUTVA? 509

32. Fredric Jameson, The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act

(London: Methuen, 1981), 35.

33. Roland Barthes suggests there is a narrative structure in almost everything we

are involved in. Narrative is simply there, like life itself, for Barthes. It is present in

“every age, in every place, in every society; it begins with the very history of mankind,

and there nowhere is nor has been a people without narrative.” We find narrative, he

argues, in myths, legend, fable, tale, novella, epic, history, tragedy, drama, comedy,

mime, painting, stained glass windows, cinema, comics, news items, and conversation.

See Roland Barthes, “Introduction to the Structural Analysis of Narratives,” in Susan

Sontag, ed., A Barthes Reader (London: Jonathan Cape, 1982), 251.

34. Alan Munslow, Deconstructing History (London: Routledge, 1997), 4. This is not

to suggest that the past is not constituted by objective referrals. After all, no narrative

can tell us that India was not colonized. The point is that colonialism is accessible to

us through and in narrative.

35. Paul Ricouer, in his three-volume study of Time and Narrative, tells us that the making of narrative is a basic human desire. Drawing upon Aristotle, Ricouer suggests that

the narrative is mimetic, i.e., the activity of imitating or representing something. In the

process, it fulfils an aesthetic need for form and structure in subjective experience. “I,”

argues Ricouer, “am calling narrative exactly what Aristotle calls muthos, the organization of the event.” Employing the term “plot” or “emplotting” for what to Aristotle is

muthos, Ricouer suggests that through the order it imposes in the form of emplotment,

the narrative offers a response to the contradictions inherent in human experience of

time—what he calls “discordant concordance”—even as it brings order out of chaos.

Therefore, narrative indicates possibilities for future action in this world. Indeed, to be

able to give a narrative is to visualize a future. See Paul Ricoeur, Time and Narrative, vols.

I and II, trans. Kathleen McLaughlin and David Pellauer (1983, 1984); vol. III, trans.

Kathleen Blamey and David Pellauer (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985).
But the narrative form is not only about telling a story linearly, it is

about making causal connections between things that may otherwise

seem random, contingent, and independent of each other in time and

space. Narratives of memory are not about summoning up a long forgotten or a hazy past, or about a “technique of recall”; they are about

making causal connections between things. As a complex exercise in

connection and thereby interpretation, the narrative—never wholly

real but neither wholly imagined—will always be more than a sum of

events that the narrator recounts to us. Certainly, narratives perform

what Aristotle calls a mimetic function since their referral will be historical or empirical. But there is more, for by bringing together events,

agents, purposes, causes and consequences, as well as memories of all

this, narratives integrate them into a complete and intelligible story. In

the process, narratives act as power mechanisms to tame plural memories of an unruly past.

All of us are in a way storytellers, but arguably there is something

special about professional storytellers, something that distinguishes

their narratives from the everyday stories we tell ourselves and others:

their skill at telling a story, their ability to persuade, their rhetorical

deftness perhaps. Therefore, it is not surprising that they become, as

Ben Okri says in “The Joys of Storytelling,” the repositories of the

people’s wisdom and follies. They become the living memory of a

people. “Often, conscripted by Kings, they became the memory of a

people’s origins and carried with them the long line of ancestors and

lineages.”36 Storytellers, suggests Okri, are the true magicians. Going

down deep into the “seeds of time, into the unconscious, into the

unchartered fears,” they have to see clearly and make things more real

to us than our most ordinary or our most frightening experiences do.

If they can see things and make them more real than our own experiences, then arguably storytellers—whether they are professional historians, novelists, dramatists, playwrights, painters, musicians, or

neighborhood natak mandalis37 that stage the epic Ramayana every

October—who recount tales about our origins wield great power over

us. They wield power because they give us a sense of our own moorings. And by doing so they influence imaginings and fantasies, desires,

510 NEERA CHANDHOKE

36. Ben Okri, A Way of Being Free (London: Phoenix, 1997), 37.

37. Amateur drama groups.
dreams, ideas, identities—in short, they affect the fate of the very

society of which they tell tales. Without them, we would be searching

desperately for some toehold in the damp, mouldy, slippery, and

treacherous quagmire of our everyday life.

Narrators however, do not only wield power because they tell us of

the past; they wield power because their narrative invites the audience

to imagine that “this” or “that” occurred in this and not that way. As

argued above, narratives by making causal connections simply mediate between the experience/occurrence and the audience. But that

would mean that the narrator invariably employs his or her own criteria of judging what is relevant and what is not, what is to be included

and what left out. In other words, the narrator pounds otherwise

untidy and overlapping events and memories into shape according to

his or her understanding of what is significant. Consequently, as narrators sift through events/memories, selecting those he or she considers consequential, and relegating the inconsequential to the margins

of consciousness, we realize that the narrative form is not only about

mapping order but that it is also about power.

This happens in personal lives, it happens in historical and political

life, and it happens when narratives about histories and politics are

forged. That is why the past is never written once and for all and then

written off. It is constantly being taken out of the closet, dusted,

repainted, its dullness glossed over, and its contors reshaped in accordance with the ideological predisposition of the narrator. Narratives

are simply in the business of privileging one meaning over another.

Therefore, narratives create an entirely new field of cognition, and entirely new

story out of memories of the past. Even as narrators make causal connections between various events and allot significance to some, we realize that narratives possess an inescapable cognitive dimension.38 Even

as the narrative “fixes” otherwise capricious, uncertain, discordant,

and antagonistic memories of events into a semblance of order, it

proclaims a closure onto plural memories, which left to themselves,

would naturally be unstable.39

SECURITY IN TIMES OF HINDUTVA? 511

38. Narrative, etymologically, is after all derived from “gnarus,” or knowing the world.

39. It is not surprising that following Lyotards attack on “Grand Narratives,” many

postmodern critics chastise the narrative form for its exclusions and marginalizations,

and for its neglect of the contingent and the “unrepresentable.” More importantly,

the narrative is critiqued for its evasions and erasures of the way any event can

occupy a multiplicity of locations at the same moment in time.
And in the process, other explanations and interpretations are sidelined and marginalized. For instance, historian Srivastava tells us the

idea that Babur had built a mosque over the temple was unknown

until the nineteenth century. In that period the “Babri” Mosque was

known as Jami Masjid or Sita Rasoi Masjid. In mid-century the Bairagi

sect of Hanuman Garhi came to disseminate the view that Lord Rama

was born at the site of the mosque, and that he subsequently moved

his capital to Saketa. Ayodhya subsequently vanished into the mists of

time. But the Ramjanamsthan remained, to be discovered by the King

Vikramaditya via a miracle. He subsequently built a glorious temple

there, which was later demolished by Mir Baqi, a lieutenant of Babar.

The entire idea that a Ram temple pre-existed the Babri Masjid, suggests Srivastava, was a product of nineteenth-century British

Orientalism, which tended to interpret every Hindu-Muslim clash as

a religious one.

Srivastava tells us that Montgomery Martin, a British official

charged with collecting information on Eastern India in 1838,

observed: “the destruction [of the Hindu temples] is very generally

attributed by the Hindus to the furious zeal of Aurangzeb, to whom

is also imputed the overthrow of the temple at Benaras and Mathura.

What may have been the case in the two latter, I shall not now take

upon myself to say, but with respect to Ayodhya the tradition seems

unfounded.” Matters were different twelve years hence. By 1850 P.

Carnegie, a British officer of the Bengal civil service, was to write

thus: “The Janamsthan was in Ramkot and marked the birthplace of

Rama. It seems that in AD 528, Babur visited Ayodhya and under his

orders this ancient temple was destroyed and on its site was built what

came to be known as Babur’s mosque.” The British may have invented

this myth, argues Srivastava, in order to legitimize their annexation of

the province of Avadh.40

This is another story, and for the purpose of this argument we can

note that a number of narratives can be constructed out of

Ayodhya—narratives of toleration, narratives of inter-religious faith,

512 NEERA CHANDHOKE

40. Srivastava, Disputed Mosque, 26–27. For related arguments see the collection of

articles in S. Gopal, ed., Anatomy of a Confrontation: The Babri Masjid-Ramjanambhoomi

Issue (Delhi: Viking, 1991). For an account of archaeological findings after the demolition, see D. Mandal, Ayodhya: Archaeology after Demolition: Tracts for the Times

(Hyderabad: Orient Longmans, 1993), 5.
narratives of how people belonging to diverse religious persuasions

had managed to carve out regions of belonging. This narrative could

have equally told of the tyranny of colonial constructions in the

Saidian vein, which served to categorize and divide colonial subjects.

The narrative of the sangh parivar, however, deliberately marginalized

all this. By focalizing the victimhood of the Hindu community, the

narrative set in motion a gigantic process of mass mobilization that

was to culminate in the demolition of the mosque. This narrative was

to leave a trail of communal tension and rioting, bloodshed and

destroyed wrecks of communities that had learned to live together. It

was also to build the base for the BJP to come into power in the late

1990s at the central government. From that time onward we have

seen that both the Indian state and civil society feed upon each other

to legitimize Hindutva. The complicity of the state in the project of

targeting minorities was more than evident in the attempts to defend

the chief minister of Gujarat and the refusal to dismiss him in the

wake of the Gujarat riots.

Conclusion

ALL THIS HAS HAD somewhat deleterious consequences for civil society in India. For if narratives of victimhood possess one property, it

is that of complete narcissism; they simply happen to be completely

self-referential. Narcissism means that they see only themselves and

their own unique suffering in the mirror of history. Even as it injects

rampant emotionalism in public life, narcissism climaxes in what

Nietzsche was to call ressentiment. The role that ressentiment has come

to play in the modern marketplace of Indian politics is beyond belief.

It has become the self-justifying ideology of the victim who reasons

that he or she is entitled to vengeance simply because he or she has

been victimized in history even if historical facts prove otherwise.

Expectedly, even as the majority group tries to monopolize the

symbols and the vocabularies of suffering, as it eagerly rushes to

claim the status of victim, and as narratives of victimhood dominate

civil society, politics in the sphere has become completely self-centered. But there is more: ressentiment articulates, sharpens, and ultimately translates perhaps unacknowledged prejudice into communal

actions, by constructing the subject as the historical victimizer. Unravel

the story told by the Hindutva brigade and we will see immediately

SECURITY IN TIMES OF HINDUTVA? 513
how the targeted community is depicted as a proximate and corporeal

threat to the identity, to the dignity, and to the traditions of the members of community that is host to this construction. That all this leads

to the politics of what has been termed the “new tribalism”—the politics of violence, vendetta, and attrition—is predictable.

The narrative of victimhood itself, promising as it does clear and

determinate solutions—that of cultural nationalism—caught the

imagination of a people starved of political visions and passions. The

power of the narrative stems from its ability to intimate multiple messages which, spinning out from each other, created fields of cognition

and regions of recognition. As both an exercise in displacement of

other narratives, as well as an exercise in synthesis, the narrative has

proved powerful for it has given a new kind of referential power: the

power to redescribe reality, the power to restructure the semantic

field. In the process, it created both fear and insecurity in the minds

of the people of the country, an insecurity so deep-rooted that at this

time in history the idea of building a country where minorities will

feel secure is a remote dream. It is insecurity, not security, that stalks

every Indian today.

514 NEERA CHANDHOKE
515

MUMTAZ AHMAD

Dr. Ahmad is a Professor in the Department of Political Science at

Hampton University in Virginia. He has published numerous books

and papers concerning Islam and political science. In 1981, Dr.

Ahmad was a Research Fellow at the Brookings Institute in

Washington, D.C. where he worked within the Foreign Policy Studies

program. Dr. Ahmad has done consultant work for the following

organizations: the Brookings Institute, the Middle East Institute,

Center for Strategic and International Studies, the State Department,

International Middle East Alliance, the Orkand Corporation, the Asia

Society, the American Institute of Islamic Affairs, American

Enterprise Institute for Public Policy, International Institute of

Islamic Thought, Council for the World’s Religions, Center for

Contemporary Arab Studies, and many others. Dr. Ahmad has

focused his academic interest in politics and socio-economic change

in the third world; comparative politics of South Asia and the Middle

East; political economy of development; and the role of the military,

bureaucracy and religio-political groups in political development of

South/Southeast Asia and the Middle East. He has also studied

Islamic political thought and institutions, religion and politics in the

Muslim world, and comparative politics of contemporary Islamic

CONTRIBUTORS
revivalism/movements. In the course of Dr. Ahmad’s studies he has

written the following books: Public Policy: Theories, Concepts, Models (BIIT,

2001); State, Politics and Islam (Indianapolis, 1986); The Unfinished

Revolution: Local Government and Development in Pakistan (Karachi, 1975);

and The Kashmir Dispute: A Study in Diplomacy (Lahore, 1970). Dr. Ahmad

has also published more than one hundred other papers and articles

pertaining to Islam and political science. Dr. Ahmad received his M.A.

in political science from the University of Karachi in Pakistan. He went

on to obtain another M.A. from the American University of Beirut in

Development Administration. In 1981, he completed his doctoral work

at the University of Chicago, also in political science.

MARTIJN VAN BEEK

Dr. van Beek is the Associate Professor of the Department of

Ethnography and Social Anthropology at the University of Aarhus.

He has many areas of research, but his interest focuses primarily on

questions of peace, social justice, and human rights, as well as the politics of identity and nationalism. He seeks to go beyond the concept

of identity to understand the causes of “identity politics,” including

“ethnic conflict.” His regional area of work is the greater Himalayan

region, which includes Ladakh, Tibet, Nepal, and India. Dr. van Beek

conducts many research projects and long-term studies in addition to

his position as professor. His primary research project involves the

understanding of the proliferation of ethnic conflicts in the context

of political and socio-economic change and focuses on the movement for regional autonomy in the trans-Himalayan region of Ladakh

in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. The goal of the project is

to understand the idea of tribes and peoples forming the stable units

of human existence.

SUBIR BHAUMIK

Mr. Bhaumik has been BBC’s East India Correspondent with twentytwo years of experience in journalism spent mostly covering the troubled region of Northeast India and the adjoining countries of Burma,

Bangladesh, Bhutan, and Nepal. He worked for the Press Trust of

India, Sunday Magazine of Calcutta, Reuters, and Time magazine. Mr.

Bhaumik is the author of Insurgent Crossfire, a book published in 1996

that covers the paths of South Asia’s Proxy Wars. He writes regularly

516 CONTRIBUTORS
for leading academic journals in India and the West on Northeast

India, Burma, Bangladesh, and the Himalayan region.

NEERA CHANDHOKE

Dr. Chandhoke is currently Professor and Head of the Department

of Political Science, University of Delhi. Her teaching and research

interests are political theory, comparative politics, and the politics of

developing societies. She was awarded the Jawaharlal Nehru

Fellowship (1996–98). She was also a fellow at the Centre for

Contemporary Studies, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library from

1989 to 1992, and a University Grants Commission fellow from 1980

to 1981. In addition to her post in the department of political science

she is the Joint Director of the Developing Countries Research

Centre, University of Delhi. She is a member of the editorial boards

of Democratization (University of Warwick), Journal of Development

Studies (Institute of Development Studies, Sussex), Indian Social Science

Review (Indian Council of Social Science Research, Delhi), and Indian

Journal of Political Science (Indian Political Science Association). Her

published works include Beyond Secularism: The Rights of Religious

Minorities (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999) and State and Civil

Society: Explorations in Political Theory (Delhi: Sage, 1995). She has published a number of papers in academic journals and also writes regularly for a national daily, The Hindu, published from Chennai. Dr.

Chandhoke has pursued a B.A. Hons, M.A., and Ph.D. at the

University of Delhi.

SAMIR KUMAR DAS

Dr. Das is a Reader in Political Science at the University of Calcutta,

West Bengal (India) and also the Secretary of Calcutta Research

Group—a body of young and socially committed researchers who

specialize in such issues as migration, refugees and peace in eastern

and northeastern India. His areas of specialization include social and

political theory and ethnic politics in Northeast India, especially

Assam. Apart from publishing a number of papers in some of the

leading research journals and edited volumes of the country as well as

abroad, his books ULFA (United Liberation Front of Assam): A Political

Analysis (1994) and Regionalism in Power: The Case of Asom Gana

Parishad 1985–1990 (1998) remain two path-breaking analyses on

CONTRIBUTORS 517
contemporary society and politics of northeastern India. Presently his

research focuses on such issues as state making, cross-border migration and displacement, peace, democracy and human rights and their

implications for the security of the region.

HUSAIN HAQQANI

Mr. Haqqani is a leading journalist, diplomat, and former advisor to

Pakistani prime ministers. He is a syndicated columnist for the Indian

Express and The Nation and serves as chairman of Communications

Research Strategies, a Pakistani consulting company. Mr. Haqqani’s

journalism career includes work as East Asian correspondent for

Arabia—The Islamic World Review and Pakistan and Afghanistan correspondent for the Far Eastern Economic Review. He contributes to

numerous international publications, including the Wall Street Journal,

New York Times, Boston Globe, and Arab News. He regularly comments

on Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Islamic politics and extremism on BBC,

CNN, NBC, and ABC. He has a distinguished career in government

and served as an advisor to Pakistani prime ministers Ghulam

Mustafa Jatoi, Nawaz Sharif, and Benazir Bhutto. From 1992 to 1993

he was Pakistan’s ambassador to Sri Lanka. Mr. Haqqani speaks Urdu,

Punjabi, English, and Arabic. He received his B.A. and M.A. from the

University of Karachi.

TAJ I. HASHMI

Dr. Hashmi is currently a Research Associate at York Centre for Asian

Research, York University, Toronto, Canada. He was previously a

Professor of History and Ethnography and Dean of Independent

University in Bangladesh from 1999 to 2001 and Professor of History

at the National University of Singapore from 1989 to 1998. Dr.

Hashmi’s teaching and research interests include Islamic reforms and

resurgence in South and Southeast Asia; imperialism and nationalism

in the Middle East, South and Southeast Asia; peasants in South Asian

history; culture, governance and underdevelopment in the AsiaPacific; women, Islam and development in South Asia; and Middle

East and the Asia-Pacific since World War I. He has written many

research articles and publications, some of which include Women and

Islam in Bangladesh: Beyond Subjection and Tyranny (New York: Macmillan

518 CONTRIBUTORS
and St. Martin’s, 2000); Islam, Muslims and the Modern State (New York:

Macmillan and St. Martin’s, 1994); Pakistan as a Peasant Utopia

(Boulder: Westview, 1992); and Colonial Bengal (Calcutta: Papyrus,

1985). Dr. Hashmi has an M.A. in Islamic History and a Ph.D. in

Modern South Asian History from the University of Western

Australia.

SUROOSH IRFANI

Mr. Irfani, a Pakistani writer and scholar, is currently the Co-director

of the Graduate Program in Cultural Studies of the National College

of Arts in Lahore, Pakistan. He has written many books and academic

journal articles, some of which include “Afghanistan: Looking to the

Future,” Iran’s Islamic Revolution: Popular Liberation, or Religious

Dictatorship, and Fifty Years of the Kashmir Dispute (based on the proceedings of the International Seminar held at Muzaffarabad, Azad

Jammu and Kashmir, August 24-25, 1997). He writes extensively for

the Pakistan News Service. Mr. Irfani is a Convenor of the JUST

chapter in Pakistan.

RODNEY W. JONES

Dr. Jones is the President of Policy Architects International in

Virginia. He is a specialist on strategic policy, nuclear arms control,

regional security, and conventional arms issues, including South Asia

and the Middle East. He was a Senior Fellow and Director of

Nuclear Policy Studies at the Center for Strategic and International

Studies of Georgetown University from 1980 to 1985. Dr. Jones later

served in the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency from

1986 to 1994, participating in the INF and START Treaty

Negotiations and, as a member and working group chair of the U.S.

JCIC delegation in Geneva, on the implementation of START I.

Currently, he manages Policy Architects International, a consulting

firm in Reston, Virginia, and has worked since leaving government

on nuclear policy projects at the Carnegie Endowment for

International Peace, the Keystone Center, and the U.S. Defense

Threat Reduction Agency. He received his Ph.D. from Columbia

University in 1970 and was Associate Professor there in Political

Science from 1978 to 1980.

CONTRIBUTORS 519
CHARLES H. KENNEDY

Professor Kennedy has been in the Department of Political Science

at Wake Forest University in Winston Salem, North Carolina, since

1985, receiving his Ph.D. from Duke University in 1979. Professor

Kennedy has written about South Asian comparative political and

governmental systems since 1975 and has traveled extensively in

Pakistan, Bangladesh, and India. Professor Kennedy has served on

the Executive Committee of the American Institute of Pakistan

Studies since 1982 and was the institute’s director for twelve years. He

has written or edited fourteen books that deal with South Asia. His

most recent include Pakistan: 2000 and Government and Politics in South

Asia. Professor Kennedy spent the summer of 2001 in Bangladesh

and Pakistan studying both countries’ local government structures

and current political developments. During his career he has been the

recipient of three Senior Fullbright research awards. He is also a

member of the Kashmir Study Group.

RADHA KUMAR

Dr. Kumar is currently a Senior Fellow for Peace and Conflict Studies

in New York. Her expertise includes ethnic conflict and civil society

in South Asia and the Balkans. Dr. Kumar was a Weaver Fellow for

the Rockerfeller Foundation in New York from 1996 to 1997 and the

Executive Director of Helsinki’s Citizen’s Assembly in Parague from

1992 to 1994. In addition to her previous positions, Dr. Kumar was a

Research Fellow of the World Institute of Economics Research in

Helsinki from 1989 to 1991, as well as a Research Fellow for the

Institute of Development Studies at Sussex University in 1988. She

has received the U.S. Committee, Index on Censorship honor. Dr.

Kumar is the author of several publications, some of which include

“The Troubled History of Partition,” “Untying the Kashmir Knot,”

and “A Roadmap for Afghanistan.” Dr. Kumar received her M.A. and

B.A. from Cambridge University and her Ph.D. and M.Phil from

Jawaharlal Nehru University.

BERTIL LINTNER

Mr. Lintner is a Senior Writer for the Far Eastern Economic Review and

writes also for the Swedish Daily Newspaper Svenska Dagbladet and

Jane’s Intelligence Review in the UK. He is a recognized expert on ethnic

520 CONTRIBUTORS
minorities in Southeast and South Asia. Mr. Lintner wrote several

books on organized crime and the illegal arms and narcotics trade in

East Asia. Burma in Revolt: Opium and Insurgency Since 1948 (Boulder:

Westview, 1994) is the latest of five books on Burma and tells the

story of the ethnic and communist insurgency in Burma and the

intertwined Golden Triangle opium trade. See his website at

http://www.asiapacificms.com.

MOHAN MALIK

Dr. Malik came to the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies in

February 2001 from Deakin University in Australia where he was

Director of the postgraduate Defense Studies Program. He is a

trained Sinologist and has broad research interests in Asian geopolitics focusing on major power relationships, China’s bilateral relations with its Asian neighbors, nuclear arms control, and the nature

of future conflicts in the Asia-Pacific. Dr. Malik is the author of

The Gulf War: Australia’s Role and Asian-Pacific Responses (Strategic

and Defense Studies Centre/ANU Press, 1992), and editor of the

three volumes on Asian Defense Policies (Deakin University Press,

1994), The Future Battlefield (Deakin University Press and

Directorate of Army Research and Analysis, 1997), and Australia’s

Security in the 21st Century (Allen and Unwin, 1999). He has contributed numerous chapters to books and published more than

ninety articles on Asian-Pacific security issues in refereed journals

such as Asian Survey, Arms Control, Asia-Pacific Defence Reporter,

Australian Journal of International Affairs, China Quarterly, China Report,

Comparative Strategy, Contemporary Security Policy, Contemporary Southeast

Asia, Current Affairs Bulletin, Defense and Foreign Affairs, Issues and

Studies, Jane’s Sentinel, Jane’s Intelligence Review, Journal of Northeast

Asian Studies, Korean Journal of Defense Analysis, Orbis, Pacifica Review,

Strategic Digest, Strategic Policy and The World Today. Dr. Malik is a

member of the Australian Foreign Minister’s National Consultative

Committee on Peace & Disarmament (NCCPD), Australian

Committee on Security and Cooperation in the Asia-Pacific (AUSCSCAP), and London-based International Institute for Strategic

Studies (IISS). Dr. Malik has also done consultancy work for the

Australian Department of Defense (Army), and the UK-based

Jane’s Information Group.

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AMENA AKHTAR MOHSIN

Dr. Mohsin is the Professor of the Department of International

Relations at the University of Dhaka. Her areas of interest include

minority, gender, and civil-military issues. She has published numerous articles on the above issues in various national and international

journals and books. Dr. Mohsin graduated from the University of

Dhaka and received her degree in International Relations. She

received her M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Hawaii and

Cambridge University, respectively.

RAVI NAIR

Mr. Nair is the Executive Director of the South Asia Human Rights

Documentation Centre (SAHRDC) based in Dew Delhi, India. He

also serves on the executive committee of the Geneva-based

International Service for Human Rights. He is a member of the

International Advisory Committee of Robert F. Kennedy Memorial

Human Rights Award, Washington, D.C., and the coordinator of the

Asia Pacific Human Rights Network, a coalition of human rights

NGOs across the Asia-Pacific region. Mr. Nair is a recipient of the

M.A. Thomas National Human Rights Award for 1997 and was the

Ida Beam Distinguished Lecturer at the University of Iowa in 2000.

Mr. Nair serves as an international consultant to the Technical

Advisory Services program of the Office of the United Nations High

Commissioner for Human Rights. In this role, he has addressed audiences and held workshops throughout the world. SAHRDC seeks to

investigate, document and disseminate information about human

rights treaties and conventions, human rights education, refugees,

media freedom, prison reforms, political imprisonment, torture, summary executions, disappearances and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. SAHRDC has Special Consultative Status with the

Economic and Social Council of the United Nations. SAHRDC has

researched and published a think paper in conjunction with WCAR,

addressing the issue of the need for uniform measures of the race

and poverty intersect, entitled, “Accounting for Racism: Towards the

Global Collection of Statistics on Racial Discrimination.”

SURINDER SINGH OBEROI

Mr. Oberoi is a freelance journalist and holds a record of breaking

some of the most important stories in Kashmir whether it was siege

522 CONTRIBUTORS
of the mosque or the kidnapping of the foreign trekkers or the Kargil

War. From 1991 to 2001 he was the Kashmir Bureau Chief for Agence

France-Presse. He has also worked for the leading Indian Magazine,

India Today. He has helped many Western reporters and South Asia

experts understand and cover Kashmir, and has often been quoted in

Western journals. His stories have appeared in several Western and

Indian newspapers including the New York Times, Washington Quarterly,

Chicago Tribune, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, etc. He was thrice kidnapped by militants and several times beaten up by security troops

while covering the incidents in the troubled valley. While he was working as a correspondent for 1st German Television South Asia Studio

(ARD), he was kidnapped along with his TV crew and relatives of the

foreign hostages and later released after negotiations. One-minute

footage of the episode is still with ARD Television. In addition to his

fieldwork, he has been the beneficiary of two fellowships in the

United States, one at the Henry L. Stimson Center, the other at the

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

RASUL B. RAIS

Dr. Rais is the Professor of Political Science and the Director of the

Area Study Centre of Quaid-I-Azam University in Islamabad. Dr.

Rais has written many academic books, including War Without Winners:

Afghanistan’s Uncertain Transition after the Cold War (Oxford University

Press, 1996). He also edited State, Society, and Democratic Change in

Pakistan (Oxford University Press, 1997). He has written widely in

professional journals on political and security issues relating to

Pakistan, Afghanistan, and South Asia. Dr. Rais has a Ph.D. in

Political Science from the University of California, Santa Barbara.

YOGINDER SIKAND

Dr. Sikand studied economics at St. Stephens’ College, Delhi, and

then worked with various NGOs for two years. Dr. Sikand is presently

a post-doctoral fellow at the International Institute for the Study of

Islam in the Modern World, Leiden, the Netherlands, and is working

on a project on “Muslim Perspectives on Inter-faith Relations in

Contemporary India.” He writes regularly for various journals and

newspapers on issues related to Indian Muslims. Dr. Sikand received

his M.Phil. in Sociology at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New

Delhi, and his Ph.D. at the Royal Holloway, University of London.

CONTRIBUTORS 523
ARUN SWAMY

Dr. Swamy is currently a Fellow in the programs on Nation-Building

and Governance, and Regional Security Order at the East-West

Center in Honolulu, Hawaii. His research interests include democratization and democratic consolidation, parties and political institutions, ethnic conflict and nation-building, poverty alleviation and

social welfare policy, and South Asian security issues. He specializes in

the study of how domestic political competition affects the ability to

address challenges of nation-building and economic development.

Dr. Swamy is the author/co-author of several articles and policy

papers on ethnic conflict, party competition in South Asia and South

Asian security issues. He co-authored with John Gershman, “Internal

Conflicts over National Identity and Political Legitimacy.” Dr. Swamy

has many other publications, some of which include “Parties, Political

Identities and the Absence of Mass Political Violence in South India”

in Amrita Basu and Atul Kohli, eds., Community Conflicts and the State in

India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998); “India in 2001: A

Year of Living Dangerously” Asian Survey 42, no. 1 (January/February

2002); and “India-Pakistan: Washington Better Hurry Up and

Mediate,” International Herald Tribune, December 26, 2001.

MOHAMMAD WASEEM

Dr. Waseem is the Professor and Chairman of the International

Relations Department at Quaid-I-Azam University in Islamabad,

Pakistan. He has had many fellowships, some of which include the

Senior Associate Member of the Pakistan Chair at St. Anthony’s

College in Oxford from 1995 to 1999, a Fulbright Fellowship at

Columbia University from 1991 to 1992, and the Fellowship of

Indian Historical Research Council in New Delhi in spring 1991. Dr.

Waseem has written many books, some of which include Electoral

Reform in Pakistan, ed., (Islamabad, 2002); Strengthening Democracy in

Pakistan, jointly with S.J. Burki (Islamabad, 2002); and Politics and the

State in Pakistan (Progressive: Lahore, 1989). Dr. Waseem received a

Ph.D. in Politics from the School of Oriental and African Studies at

London University in 1983, as well as an M.A. in Politics and History

from the Institute of Commonwealth Studies at London University in

1974.

524 CONTRIBUTORS
ROBERT G. WIRSING

Dr. Wirsing is a Professor in the Asia-Pacific Center for Security

Studies (APCSS). His primary research interests focus on the contemporary politics, international relations, and defense and security issues

of South Asia. Prior to his current position at APCSS, he was a

Professor of International Studies and a member of the Department

of Government and International Studies at the University of South

Carolina. He has held visiting appointments in the School of

International Studies at the United States Army JFK Special Warfare

Center, Fort Bragg, the Department of Politics at the University of

Karachi in Pakistan, the Department of Politics at the MS University

of Baroda in Gujarat, India, and the Department of International

Relations at Quaid-I-Azam University in Islamabad, Pakistan. Over

the last thirty-five years, Dr. Wirsing has been an honored speaker at

numerous Indian and Pakistani organizations, including the Indian

International Centre, the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses,

the Centre for Study of Developing Societies, the United Services

Institutions, the Pakistan Air College, the Pakistan Naval Staff

College, the Pakistan National Defence College, the Pakistan Joint

Staff Services College, the Pakistan Foreign Affairs Training Institute,

and the Institute of Strategic Studies. He holds a Ph.D. in

International Studies from the Graduate School of International

Studies at the University of Denver.

CONTRIBUTORS 525