20 - 26 December 2001
Issue No.565
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 20 - 26 December 2001 Issue No.565 |
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Who listens to Bukhari?
A suicide attack on India's parliament building has brought the "war on terror" to the heart of the subcontinent. Meanwhile, India's 140-million Muslims are refusing to be drawn in, reports Mukul Devichand
Last Thursday five heavily armed men, clean- shaven and clad in commando fatigues, opened fire at the entrance to India's imposing Lok Sabha parliament chamber in New Delhi. In the 45- minute gun battle that followed, 13 people -- six policemen, a bystander and the attackers themselves -- were killed.
Emotional response: an angry Sikh politician protests outside the Pakistani High Commission in New Delhi. Many groups in India are claiming that Pakistan should be branded as a "terrorist state" after a gun attack on India's parliament by militants groups, allegedly backed by Islamabad. (photo: AP)
Within hours, enraged Indian leaders responded to the attack by declaring that they would extend the international "war on terror" to the subcontinent if need be. New Delhi's investigations into the attack pointed the finger at two Kashmiri separatist groups -- Lashkar-e Toiba and Jaish-e Mohammed -- which, Indian police claimed on Sunday, are connected to Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency. Delhi police rapidly arrested several people, including an Arabic lecturer from Delhi University.
The groups, which fight for the Kashmir valley's separation from India and call on all Indian Muslims to rise up against the Indian state, are also linked to the Al-Qa'eda network, according to Indian news reports. Lashkar-e Toiba is led by Maulana Masood Azhar, who was freed from an Indian jail in December 1999, in return for the release of hostages from an Indian Airlines flight that was hijacked and taken to Kandahar in Afghanistan.
Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's government swiftly blamed Islamabad for supporting the terrorist groups. "The attack will cost the terrorists, their organisations and those nations supporting these organisations dearly," the PM ominously threatened, referring indirectly to Pakistan. Indian Home Minister LK Advani delivered another chilling ultimatum to Islamabad on Sunday. "This time, the terrorists and their mentors across the border had the temerity to try and wipe out the entire political leadership of India," he said, claiming that Pakistan "is unable to reconcile itself with a secular, democratic and self-confident India." He then intimated that action against terrorist headquarters in Pakistan- occupied areas would not be ruled out.
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf responded by condemning the attack, and his government offered to assist India in investigations. But he remained defiant about Indian threats. "I would like to warn against any action by the Indian government against Pakistan," he bluntly stated on Pakistani television.
Much will now depend on the extent to which the US is prepared to mediate between the two nuclear powers. So far, US officials have asserted India's right to self-defence, but urged restraint. Meanwhile, India's 140-million Muslims -- the world's second largest Muslim population after Indonesia, despite being a minority in this predominantly Hindu country -- once again face the prospect of being caught in the crossfire between Pakistani-sponsored Islamist groups and a belligerent Indian government.
"The same Islamic movement which wages jihad against Israel and the US is now affecting India," according to B Raman of the South Asia Analysis Group (SAAG), one of India's leading foreign affairs think-tanks based in Tamilnadu. He told Al-Ahram Weekly that Lashkar-e Toiba and Jaish-e Mohammed, together with a third group, Deharkat Al-Mujahideen, currently operate all over India. "They are very active in Kashmir, which is their primary area of operation. But they are spreading their operations to Delhi and the southern city of Hyderabad," he said. "They claim to want to 'liberate' Indian Muslims and establish two more Muslim states, one in northern India and one in the south." The groups were trained by Al-Qa'eda in Afghanistan, he said. "They want to oust the elected Indian government and fly the flag of a Taliban-style Islamic republic over the mosques and forts of Delhi."
Calls for Muslims to join in underground pan- Islamic movements have become common in India since 11 September's attacks on America and the subsequent US-led war in Afghanistan. With a few exceptions, however, they seem to have fallen on deaf ears.
"After 11 September, there were some sporadic incidents of rioting in small towns after pictures of Osama Bin Laden were found," according to Mushirul Hasan, a leading liberal Indian Muslim columnist in the Indian Express. He told the Weekly: "By and large, civil society here is not split along religious lines. Most people condemn the groups which attacked the Lok Sabha last week, and there is no particular sympathy for Kashmiri separatism from Muslims. There are no Muslim or Hindu views on this -- I personally view Kashmir as an integral part of the Indian state."
According to SAAG's Raman, the militant groups have resorted to intimidation to persuade people to follow their cause. "Even in Kashmir, Muslims are opposed to these organisations. They have been trying to intimidate the Muslim community all over India." Raman insists that the Islamist groups have their roots in Pakistan, not amongst Indian Muslims. "Pakistan's ISI is directly implicated in this," he told the Weekly.
Despite the many strands of opinion amongst the Muslim minority in the world's most populous democracy, many have complained in recent months that the Indian media sees them as monolithic and fundamentalist. The debate came to a head after a momentous TV appearance in October by Syed Ahmed Bukhari, Shahi Imam of the Jamia Masjid -- India's largest mosque which towers over a predominantly Muslim quarter of criss-crossing alleyways and cobbled streets in old Delhi.
Bukhari, who recently succeeded his father as Shahi Imam, used one of his Friday sermons in the old city -- famously large gatherings in the shade of the enormous red mosque with white domes -- to call on Indian Muslims to "come out and fight a jihad in support of Bin Laden and the Taliban." The widely-reported remarks drew criticism from moderates like Mushirul Hasan, who wrote and published a letter urging Bukhari to "replace the call for jihad from the pulpit with the sweet sound of the Azano (call to Prayer) from the minaret."
Shabana Azmi, a famous actress and singer who is now a Member of Parliament, also criticised Bukhari. Azmi remarked on a TV show that although most Muslims did not support the war in Afghanistan, the Shahi Imam did not speak for the majority of Indian Muslims in supporting the Taliban. When asked what he thought of her comments, Bukhari -- who was a guest on the same show -- calmly looked her in the eye and replied "I don't react to what dancing and singing prostitutes say."
"What he thinks is irrelevant. Imam Bukhari does not affect Indian politics," insisted Mushirul Hasan in his comments to the Weekly. "He has no big following here, even in the area around old Delhi." Raman agrees that the media wrongly use Bukhari as a spokesman of the Muslim community. "The educated Muslims of Delhi and Bombay have never liked Bukhari," he told the Weekly, "and outside the big cities, people do not even know who he is. Everyone was shocked at the way he attacked Shabana Azmi."
Azmi's spat with the Shahi Imam, and the debate about the direction of Islam in India earned praise for India's democracy from abroad. On 23 November, Thomas L Friedman, the New York Times' columnist, asserted, in his column, that the democratic basis of Indian society was what kept Indian Muslims from fundamentalism. The world should learn a lesson from Indian Muslims, he wrote. "Where Islam is imbedded in a pluralistic, democratic society, it thrives like any other religion. Two of India's presidents have been Muslims; a Muslim woman sits on India's supreme court." Friedman then offered a prescription for the Muslim world. "It's democracy, stupid! Those who argue we needn't press for democracy in Arab-Muslim states, and can rely on repressive regimes, have it all wrong." Prominent Indian Muslims -- such as MJ Akbar, editor of The Asian Age -- thanked Friedman for the pat on the back, but he was lambasted by letters written to the European press -- specifically, Britain's Guardian -- which claimed his analysis was too simplistic.
Thursday's attack on parliament will affect minority politics in India in other ways, too. Ever since 11 September, Vajpayee's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) -- which heads India's ruling coalition -- has been trying to pass legislation that will allow increased powers to arrest suspected terrorists and journalists. The Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance (POTO) has become a political football, with the opposition Congress Party claiming that it will lead to the suppression of civil liberties and the rights of minorities -- such as the Muslims. "Most of the Bill's provisions are operating already, but Thursday's attack still look place," said Mushiril Hasan. "I don't support it. The only way to really prevent this kind of terrorism is to open a dialogue with Pakistan."
Raman, however, offers a different assessment of POTO. "It is an unremarkable bill which passes similar legislation to that being passed in the UK and USA," he told the Weekly. "It is necessary to fight terrorism. Unfortunately, it has been politicised in the run-up to the Uttar Pradesh elections." Uttar Pradesh (UP) is India's most populous state, and upcoming state elections in March will be seen as a litmus test for the political future of the country.
Uttar Pradesh is also home to Ayodhya, the site of India's worst Hindu-Muslim tension in the last decade. On 6 December 1992, 200,00 Hindu nationalists stormed the city's Babri Masjid, a mosque which they claimed was built on the site of an ancient Hindu temple. This was a popular act with many Hindus in the impoverished state and helped sweep the BJP to power. In recent months, the embers of communal tension have flared up again. The extreme nationalist Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) has tried to march on famous Islamic landmarks such as Delhi's Qutb Minar, and claims it will invade the Babri Masjid again in March this year -- conveniently, just in time for the UP ballot.
Raman, however, is not concerned by the development. "India is a democracy and the BJP know they cannot alienate themselves from the huge Muslim electorate. They have distanced themselves from the VHP this time round," he said.
Mashirul Hasan is more worried. The VHP may well see themselves as being better off after the Lashkar-e-Toiba's attack on the Lok Sabha last Thursday, he pointed out, if it creates Hindu- Muslim tension. Both parties aim at splitting Hindus and Muslims and threatening India's democratic process. "The polarisation of Hindu against Muslim has not taken place yet, although the VHP would like that very much," Hasan told the Weekly. "But I don't believe the polarisation will ever happen."
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