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What is the
Kashmir conflict all about?
Ajai
Sahni
For years now, the
Institute for Conflict Management has built the case that the
conflict in Kashmir is not about Kashmir; that it reflects, rather,
an irreducible conflict between the ideology of religious exclusion
and hatred that underlies the creation, existence, politics and
strategic perspectives of Pakistan, and India's secular, pluralistic
democracy; and that it has, at its heart, objectives that go far
beyond the apparent territorial dispute over Kashmir, and that are
intrinsically linked to the current 'global jehad' by a wide
and interconnected network of Islamist terrorists.
The dramatic succession of incidents, arrests and seizures over an
extended geographical area across India in the seven days past,
virtually encapsulate the broad underlying dynamic that fuels the
Islamist extremist jehad in South Asia, and its roots in the
ideological and political pathology that lies at the core of the
Pakistani state.
The week began with by far the worst of these incidents on August
25, in Mumbai, India's financial capital, where two coordinated bomb
blasts killed 52 persons and injured another 148 in the vicinity of
the historical landmark, the Gateway of India and at the crowded
Zaveri Bazaar. While definitive identification of the perpetrators
is still to come, forensic patterns and recent history - at least
five similar explosions have occurred in different parts of the city
since December 2002 - point the finger at cadres of Pakistan-based
terrorist groups, particularly the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT),
and their local affiliates, the proscribed Students Islamic Movement
of India (SIMI)
and the Kashmir-based militant Islamist women's organization, the
Dukhtaran-e-Millat (DeM).
Hours after the blasts, more than 100 detonators were found inside a
railway tunnel at Ghatandevi near Igatpuri, approximately 60
kilometers from Nashik in Maharashtra, just an hour before an
express train carrying a large number of pilgrims was to pass.
On August 27, while the Inter-State Council was meeting at Srinagar,
with several Chief Ministers and Union Cabinet Ministers in
attendance, and presided over by Prime Minister Atal Behari
Vajpayee, two terrorists entered Hotel Greenway - under three
kilometers away from the venue of the Council - and engaged in an
exchange of fire with the security forces (SFs) for approximately 12
hours. The encounter ended during the early hours of August 28, with
five persons - including the terrorists - dead and an unspecified
number injured. National Conference leader Javed Shah, a former
militant and legislator, was among those killed. Al-Mansooran, a
front organization of the LeT, claimed responsibility for the
incident.
On August 30, acting on a tip-off, the Border Security Force (BSF),
engaged with two terrorists - including, crucially, Shahnawaz Khan @
'Ghazi Baba', the operational chief of the Pakistan based Jaish-e-Mohammad
(JeM) in
the Noorbagh locality of Srinagar. Three persons - including a BSF
soldier and the two terrorists, were killed, though the JeM has
claimed that Ghazi Baba was not among the dead. The operation is
extraordinary in its significance, and could mark the unraveling of
an India-wide terrorist network directly controlled by Ghazi Baba,
who was one of the key accused in the attack on India's Parliament
at Delhi on December 13, 2001; the attack on the Jammu and Kashmir
Legislative Assembly on October 1, 2001; the Akshardham Temple
attack in Gujarat on September 24, 2002; the hijacking of IC 814 on
December 24, 1999; the 1998 massacre of 25 Kashmiri Pandits
(descendants of Hindu priests) at Wandhama in Anantnag, Kashmir; the
abduction of six Western tourists, one of whom was beheaded, and
another four of whom are yet to be traced and believed dead (one
American tourists managed to escape), by the Al Faran in July 1995;
and a succession of high profile fidayeen (suicide squad)
attacks on security force establishment in Jammu & Kashmir.
On August 30, again, two terrorists - a Pakistani and a Delhi
resident - of the JeM were killed in an encounter at the
Indraprastha Millennium Park in Delhi. The encounter occurred after
the Police had intercepted a truck containing a large quantity of
explosives, arms and ammunition, including Under Barrel Grenade
Launchers, from a truck, and arrested three terrorists. On
interrogation, the arrested terrorists had disclosed that the
weapons and explosives were intended to engineer major incidents in
the capital, and that they were to be received by the terrorists at
the Millennium Park. In another incident on the same day, the police
found 148 sticks of gelatin explosives at the New Delhi railway
station in an unclaimed bag.
In follow-up operations after the Delhi arrests and encounter,
further arrests of two JeM terrorists took place in Bulandshahr in
the State of Uttar Pradesh on August 31. 23 electronic detonators
and three remote control devices were also recovered in this
incident.
Despite the geographical spread of these various incidents, and the
firepower expended or recovered, this is barely the tip of the
iceberg of Pakistan sponsored Islamist terrorism in India. In the
wake of the Mumbai blasts, a great deal of poorly informed
'analysis', both in the Indian and the international media, sought
to link the incidents to proximate triggering events - including,
among others, the Gujarat riots last year, and the disclosure of a
report by the Archaeological Survey of India, on the very morning of
the twin explosions in Mumbai, which claimed that a 10th Century
Temple lay under the foundations of the disputed Babri Masjid
(mosque) site in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh. These analyses fail to
comprehend the sheer enormity of the Islamist extremist enterprise
in South Asia, the continuity of motives that underlie a long
succession of incidents, and the complexity and number of cells and
networks that have been established across the country to secure a
sustained and subversive strategic agenda. For one thing, for each
terrorist conspiracy that manifests itself in a successful
operation, there are literally scores that are discovered and
pre-empted. In just the past four and a half years, since mid-1998,
over 250 Pakistan-backed Islamist terrorist cells have been
discovered and disrupted across the length and breadth of India
outside Jammu & Kashmir. Hundreds of arrests occur, and
literally thousands of kilograms of explosives and numberless
weapons are seized each year. In private conversations, General
Hamid Gul, the former Director General of Pakistan's Inter Services
Intelligence (ISI), is reported to have recently boasted that this
Agency had established at least another 300 operational cells across
India, that these had been charged with the responsibility of
recruitment and mobilization of local cadres, and that these could
be activated on command.
Even a surface acquaintance with the motivating ideologies of the
groups involved in the Islamist extremist enterprise in South Asia
exposes the essential logic and dynamic of their operations. Hafiz
Mohammad Saeed, the head of the LeT, for instance, writes that
jehad is imperative until "the way of life prescribed by Allah
dominates and overwhelms the whole world… Fighting is also
obligatory until the disbelieving powers and states are subdued and
they pay jizya (capitulation tax) with willing submission."
Similarly, the Harkat-ul-Mujahidin's Fazl-ur-Rahman declares,
"Delhi, Calcutta, Mumbai and Washington are the real targets of
militants. Muslims should cooperate with militants for dominance of
Islam in the world." SIMI's manifesto rejects democracy, but
resolves to exploit its processes to "expose the nature of the
system, democracy, socialism, secularism, nationalism, etc., and ask
the people to boycott the election and march for the Islamic
revolution." Significantly, despite the fact that SIMI draws its
cadres from within India, its concerns are not integrally linked to
local Muslim grievances. Of the nine major demonstrations organized
by SIMI, and listed on its now-defunct website, only two related to
communal violence in India. The last on the list was organized to
protest the Saudi Arab Government's 1996 decision "to allow American
troops to enter Hijaz (Saudi Arabia) in direct violation of the
instruction of Prophet Mohammad." SIMI has integral and demonstrable
links both to the ISI and a number of Pakistan-based terrorist
groups, and substantially derives its inspiration from Osama bin
Laden - who it iconizes as an outstanding example of a 'true
mujahid' (holy warrior) and a 'champion and true savior of
Islam.'
With their abiding ideological underpinnings, it must be clear that
these groups are not swayed by local events, though they exploit
local grievances to extend the resource pool of potential recruits.
Groups like the LeT, JeM and SIMI will, consequently, continue to
target India as long as they retain their capacities to strike, and
as long as they continue to receive the enormous material and
logistics support from, and safe-havens in, Pakistan.
While the dramatic incidents of the past week do focus attention on
the enormity of the conspiracy that is being executed in South Asia,
they tend to detract from the equally important 'bleeding war' that
is integral to its realization. In Jammu & Kashmir alone, each month
and on the average, well over 200 persons are killed in the ongoing
campaign of cross-border terrorism, even as Pakistan engages in, and
secures legitimacy from, the pretence of participation in a 'peace
process' with India. Unless a far greater measure of realism and
consistency attends the world's perceptions and assessments of the
Islamist extremist enterprise, and Pakistan's unrelenting and
central role in its advancement, the footprint of terror will
continue to enlarge itself, not only in South Asia, but across the
world.
By arrangement with Institute for Conflict Management, New Delhi |
