Pakistan was created on the basis of group nationalism and not religion

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Roots of extremism lie in India:

The Pioneer :: Home : >> Roots of extremism lie in India

Roots of extremism lie in India
March 24, 2011 12:42:41 PM

Prafull Goradia

While the Government turns a blind eye to divisive forces, the Muslim League, AMU and Darul Uloom Deoband continue to sow seeds of religious extremism in India

The Indian Union Muslim League, led by Janab Panakkad Syed Mohammadali Shihab Thangal and Minister of State for Foreign Affairs E Ahamed, has called for India snapping ties with Israel for launching military offensive on Hamas-infested Gaza strip.

Hamas is a proxy of oil-rich Iran, which would like the nuclear installations of Israel to be destroyed. Hamas had been previously launching missiles towards these facilities and thus, Israeli’s attack is in self-defence.

It was inexplicable charity of then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and his followers to permit the Muslim League, known for its extreme communal ideology and eventually led to the Partition in 1947, to continue to function in India. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has done better than Nehru by making the League a coalition partner and its only MP Foreign Minister. Uncannily, it is not the only communal and divisive force in India. The Aligarh Muslim University is another cradle of communalism and divisive ideology. Its teachers’ association has condemned what its secretary Qazi Ehsan Ali has described as Israeli savagery. Their resolution has reiterated that the Palestinians have every right to respectable life. As if Indians and Israelis have no such right.

Neither the Muslim League nor the AMU condemned the 26/11 Mumbai attacks. Each one of the targets and victims was either a guest or an Indian citizen. The Muslim League has not asked for snapping ties with Pakistan.

At the UN council meet Mr Ahamed not only excluded the fact that Nariman House was attacked but he also didn’t condole the deaths of Jews in the 26/11 Mumbai attacks. Whatever Mr Ahamed’s intentions were, the popular perception is that in his eyes killing of Jews was legitimate and, being such a small number in India, the incident would not matter. Was Mr Ahamed influenced by his sympathy for Hamas which has been fighting a war against Israel? He had at one stage expressed his anger over the assassination of Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin.

Pakistan’s permanent envoy to the UN, Mr Abdullah Hussain Haroon, has openly blamed the clerics of Darul Uloom at Deoband for being the fountains of extremist mischief in the subcontinent. Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Maulana Masood Azhar is also of Indian origin. What Mr Haroon meant was that the seed of terrorism was in India which had also brought problems for Pakistan. If we introspect objectively we would know that much of the Islamist ideology is being inspired by institutions in India.

The prototype of the AMU was Anglo-Oriental College founded in 1877 by Sir Syed Ahmad Khan. The university was a hot-bed of separatist ideology providing a large number of 35 Muslim eminences who called on the Viceroy in 1906 at Shimla for reservations for the community in employment as well as the introduction of separate electorates which would ensure for Muslims parity in numbers with the majority Hindus. This visit to Shimla was followed up by the establishment of the Muslim League in December 1906 under the presidentship of the Nawab of Decca.

Darul Uloom, which began as a maktab or school, was chosen by its founder Maulana Muhammad Qasim as Deoband was away from British strongholds. There prevailed a persecution mania amongst the Muslims as a result of the mutiny of 1857. The environment appeared harsh to them with several ulema like Haji Imdad-Allah going away to Mecca for good. The course of study was strictly Islamic; no English or modern science was taught. The inspiration was obviously anti-British and continues to be anti-ruler to this day. The ulema of Deoband pride themselves on being ahl al-sunna wa’l jama a. In other words, they are utterly faithful to the practices of Prophet Mohammad who lived and preached 14 centuries ago.

The first graduate of the Darul Uloom in 1877 was Mahmood ul-Hasan who founded Samaratul Tarbiyat, a quasi-military body whose volunteers known as fidayeens were taught to prepare themselves for armed jihad. This then was the Gangotri of Taliban. The Darul Uloom at Deoband continues to propagate strict pro-tawhid, pro-ulema, anti-innovation, anti-polytheist, fundamentalist revivalism first initiated in Syria by Ibn Taymiyya, in Arabia by Al-Wahhab and in India by Shah Waliullah.

In contrast, AMU was founded in order to educate and prepare pro-British Muslims. Remember, Sir Syed’s policy was to befriend the British and thus counter the Hindu majority. After Partition, the same tradition has continued; an illustration being the founding of SIMI at the University in 1974. Yet, the Indian Government pays for the whole institution.

All in all, this situation proves that Mr Abdullah Hasan Haroon is right when he alleges that the ideological root of extremism lies in India and not in Pakistan.

 

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Islamic Extremism in India:

International Institute for Strategic Studies Islamic extremism in India

Islamic extremism
These events had wide implications. In apparent revenge for the Babri mosque’s demolition, Mumbai mafia don Dawood Ibrahim planned bombings in Mumbai on 12 March 1993 that killed 257 people. Aided by criminal networks, terror organisations in Pakistan and Bangladesh – including Lashkar-e-Tayiba (LeT), the Jaysh-e-Mohammad and the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami – began recruiting Indian Muslim extremists to help carry out terror attacks in India, for the first time outside the state of Jammu & Kashmir. On 11 July 2006, bombs on trains in Mumbai killed 187 people. The attack was blamed on the Pakistan-based LeT, but some radicalised Indian Muslim supporters provided significant help.

Meanwhile, divisions grew between India’s Muslims. Owing partly to being descendants of converts from Hinduism and partly to local mystical Sufi traditions, two-thirds of India’s predominantly Sunni Muslims follow the local Barelvi liberal school of thought; the others chiefly follow the conservative Deobandi school. Barelvi mosques seek to prevent stricter interpretations and practices of Islam, but this became increasingly difficult with the encroachment of fundamentalist Wahhabist ideology, helped by external funding. In February 2001, a government report expressed concern that establishing new madrassas (religious schools) with Saudi and Gulf funding would cause ‘systematic indoctrination’, even though less than 4% of Muslim children attended madrassas.

Muslims’ grievances were exacerbated by their low socio-economic status; the official Sachar Committee report of 2006 said this was only just above that of dalits (formerly known as ‘untouchables&#8217 and tribal people. Muslims only account for 3% of the Indian Administrative Service, 1.8% of the Indian Foreign Service and 4% of the Indian police.

Several Indian Muslim organisations have conducted jihadi terror campaigns:
Al-Umma, formed in the southern state of Kerala, has carried out terror acts in southern India. Leader Syed Ahmed Basha was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2007. The organisation was banned and is now believed defunct.
The long-standing Deendar Anjuman (‘religious association&#8217 Sufi sect became radicalised after the Babri mosque demolition. After a bombing campaign in 2000 (see table) it was banned.
The Students’ Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) was established in Uttar Pradesh. Becoming increasingly radicalised, it has repeatedly been banned over the past eight years. Its chief, Safdar Nagori, a 39-year-old mechanical- engineer-cum-journalist, was arrested in 2008. SIMI has had alleged links with the LeT. Before being banned, it was reported to have 400 full-time cadres and 20,000 members below the age of 30.
The Indian Mujahideen (IM) is the most active, claiming responsibility for several deadly bombings since 2006. After five near-simultaneous blasts at courts in Uttar Pradesh in November 2007, it sent an email to television stations protesting ‘violence against Muslims’, mentioning the destruction of the Babri mosque and the Gujarat riots. Following attacks in Jaipur in May 2008, it sent an email with a video of a bicycle used in a bombing. The message expressed anger against ‘infidel’ Hindus, said the group aimed to destroy India’s economic and social structure, and threatened Britons and Americans with suicide attacks.

IM operatives were thought to have provided logistical and operational support to the LeT in the 2006 Mumbai train bombings. Two IM members already in custody, Faheem Ansari and Sabauddin Ahmed, have also been charged with carrying out recon-naissance for, and providing maps to, the LeT for the November 2008 Mumbai attacks. IM members are typically young, educated, technologically savvy and ideologically driven. Most have no police record. The reported leader is 36-year-old Abdul Subhan Usman Qureshi, a soft-ware engineer. Co-founder Mohammed Sadiq Israr Ahmed Sheikh, a mechanic, was arrested in September 2008.
‘IM operatives were thought to have helped the LeT in the 2006 Mumbai train bombings and last year’s Mumbai attacks. Members are typically young, educated, technologically savvy and ideologically driven’
Although Indian Muslims appear disinclined to support pan-Islamic jihadist ideology, al-Qaeda appears to be paying greater attention to India in its public statements. In February 2009, a senior al-Qaeda commander based in Afghanistan, Mustapha Abu al-Yazid, threatened India with ‘Mumbai-style’ terrorism if ever it attacked Pakistan. Although al-Qaeda has not carried out a direct terror attack in India, for some time there has been a close relationship between al-Qaeda and Kashmiri jihadist groups, most notably LeT, which has moved progressively away from a focus on Kashmir towards a more universal, al-Qaeda-style agenda. There is disquiet over al-Qaeda’s potential recruitment of Indian Muslims. There is also official concern about the radicalisation of Indian Muslims working or living abroad, including the large expatriate community in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The spread of violent Islamic extremism from Pakistan is also a significant worry for India.

Several terror attacks abroad have involved Indians. Kafeel Ahmed, an engineer from Bangalore, died attempting to car-bomb Glasgow Airport in June 2007. Roshan Jamal Khan, a Mumbai businessman, was arrested in Barcelona in January 2008 and charged with being a member of a terror group and possessing explosives. His trial is expected soon. In 2006, Dhiren Barot, an Indian-born Briton who converted from Hinduism to Islam, was convicted in the UK of conspiracy to commit murder and sentenced to 30 years in prison. Haroon Rashid Aswat, a Briton of Indian origin, was a confidant of radical Finsbury Park mosque cleric Abu Hamza, and is in jail awaiting extradition to the United States for trial.

 

[Peaceful Civilian]

Ulema hind opposed partition of india.

 

[Zhukov]

Whoever is taking up arms and killing in the name of his Believes right instead of arguments is the wrong side be it left or right. Case Closed

 

[El Sidd]

By Yasser Latif Hamdani
(writing in Daily Times)

Pakistan, as a state, has always been conscious of its Muslim identity but till 1977, at least, this Muslim identity was not at odds with modernity, democracy and human rights. The 1956 and 1962 constitutions significantly did not have a state religion. The 1973 constitution made that concession but, in the pre-Zia form, it was still arguably a liberal Islamic constitution. Bhutto’s compromises notwithstanding, it was General Ziaul Haq who laid the foundations for a rabidly fundamentalist society by confusing Pakistanis about their history. A generation of Pakistanis grew up believing, quite inaccurately, that Pakistan was achieved so that Muslims could establish an Islamic theocracy and be governed by shariah law.

It is not uncommon to hear the argument that Pakistan must be an Islamic theocracy because Pakistan was founded on religion, not nationalism. Indeed, this fallacious argument has been accepted by the courts in the Zia era and beyond. It is also argued that if not for the establishment of an Islamic theocracy, why did the Muslims of the subcontinent opt for a separate country? While these assertions require proper rebuttals, they also betray infirmity on the part of those making them.

First of all, undeniably, Pakistan was created on the basis of group nationalism and not religion. Group nationalism can contain many elements including common religious beliefs and common historical experience. If Pakistan were to be founded on religion, there would be no need to articulate the Two Nation Theory, especially in terms of culture, history, customs and language. Ostensibly, it would have been enough to say that we wanted to create an Islamic state but, strangely enough, that was never claimed by the Muslim League. In fact, one Muslim Leaguer who made a claim of this kind was expelled from the League by Jinnah himself. The one occasion that the idea of the League being committed to the establishment of an Islamic state was presented as a resolution, Jinnah vetoed it, calling it a “censure on every Leaguer”. As a politician, Jinnah of course attempted to speak in a language that was comprehensible to his constituency. Hence he spoke of the Islamic principles of equality, fraternity and justice and claimed that democracy was ingrained in Islamic theory and practice. Yet, as a statesman, he ensured that references to Islam were kept out of resolutions and constitutional documents. So long as he was alive, the first president of the constituent assembly did not allow a single move to Islamise the then largest Muslim country in the world.

It is for this reason that Maulana Maududi summed up his opposition to Pakistan by saying that the “objective of the Muslim League is to create an infidel government of Muslims”. Yet today his party, the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), is in the forefront of the claim that Pakistan was created in the name of Islam. The underlying concern for those working to establish Pakistan was the economic and political future of Muslims, who they feared would be marginalised in a united India. Today, thanks to the religious right-wing of Pakistan, our economic and political future looks bleak anyway.

MJ Akbar, an Indian author, recently said that for there to be a peaceful and prosperous Pakistan, the children of Jinnah must defeat the children of Maududi. For this to happen we need to revisit social studies, Pakistan studies, history and Islamiat curricula first and foremost. A concerted effort has to be made to better explain the historical events leading up to Pakistan but for that to happen, the state must drop its excess ideological baggage and instead opt for ideas that are universally acceptable as the basis for nation building.

Indeed, that is the battle line that has now been drawn. Here one may add that the current wave of fundamentalism and extremism is, in any event, unsustainable over a longer period of time. The world is in the throes of a grand global information revolution. In an integrated world where information travels in seconds and not minutes, to continue to espouse retrogressive notions of religiosity is tantamount to shooting yourself in the foot.

The recent assassinations of Salmaan Taseer and Shahbaz Bhatti are indicative of an increasingly frustrated mentality that is acting out in desperation. No bullet, no army and no state can stop an idea whose time has come. The question before us Pakistanis is whether we want to delay the process and make it painful for us as a nation or if we want to reform sooner rather than later and make the process painless.

Historically, those who have delayed the process of reform have always ended up at the other extreme end. France took 100 years to rescind the concordat that Napoleon had entered into making Catholicism the official faith of France. When it did though, it espoused a militant version of secularism, which bordered on persecuting religion. It was Sultan Abdul Hamid’s decision to undo the constitutional reforms of the 19th century, which led to the Young Turks Revolution and later the Turkish Revolution, which founded the modern Republic of Turkey. Pakistan, much like Turkey, is the sick man of South Asia today. Let this be a fair warning.

At Ideological Crossroads

Mr. Hamdani has religious reasons to disown the ideology of Pakistan.

Although I would like to appreciate the effort being put in specially in this regard to take out the foundation document of the country all the while security agencies are promoting the mantra of wonderful foreign funded politics in the country.