Uneasy July

The terrorist attempt at Scotland Glasgow airport was yet another example of the level of thinking and planning in the murky world of ‘jihadi’ terrorism. Among areas coming under the scanner of terrorist violence during July were: Yemen, Chile, Athens (Greece), Syria and North Africa. As if that were not enough, a ‘terror school’ in a mosque was unearthed in Italy. Blast was reported in a parlour in China. Germany is believed to be the next target of the terrorists. The UK police was reported to have been penetrated by Al Queda. According to a government study, there are about 300 “ideological sleeper cells” of radical Muslim youth in Sydney (Australia) itself. Iraq, of course, is still sizzling. Incidence of suicide bombing has become almost routine and figures of dead are mounting. Pakistan continued to be in the throes of unprecedented trouble, especially after the State forces had struck Lal Masjid. The DDoS attack on Estonian government services in May, 2007, is now being considered as the first case of international “cyber war”, with lessons to be learnt by many for devising suitable countermeasures.

The Maoists in India seemed to be gaining heights, with effective economic blockade having been enforced in certain areas of Jharkhand and farmers being warned and ‘suitably dealt with’ for indulging in farming against their diktats. The ULFA and other secessionist forces are wantonly killing Hindi-speaking people in the northeastern states. Continued & repeated terrorist acts have virtually forced the government to accept and deliberate on the concept of ‘federal crime’, a much-argued step-forward by the law-enforcing agencies.

A footnote: New finger print techniques could reveal diet, sex and race and cell-phones may let you know the location of ‘friends’. Interesting? And, what about the threat from ‘bot-herders’?

D. C. Nath, IPS (Retd.)
Former Special Director, IB (MHA), Govt. of India,
Executive President & CEO,
International Institute of Security and Safety Management,
New Delhi, India.

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We also share two pieces of commentary that might interest you :

Bleeding Wounds - Insurgents thrive on Lack of Governance

One sixth of India’s population lives in the shadow of insurgencies. Some of these insurgencies, particularly in Jammu and Kashmir and the north-eastern states, date back to 1947. The Maoist insurgencies came later. Today, they are influential in the tribal pockets. The Indian state’s response to this state of affairs has been reactive; it perceives the problem as a breakdown of law and order – which it is, of course – and not the failure of the political process. That a lack of governance is often responsible for this sort of violence is rarely acknowledged.

There is hardly any evidence that the government has a clear-cut policy of doctrine towards internal conflicts. The strategy is to press security forces into action after an incident. Thereafter, initiatives meant to address social and economic deprivation are carried out through security agencies. A case can be made that bureaucrats and politicians are, in the first place, responsible for pilfering funds and turning people against the government. Although there is some truth in it, it is impossible to take on ideology-driven extremists without involving the political apparatus. Maoists and separatist groups may locate their politics in the failure of the government to deliver development, but they are largely driven by a hostility to the democratic system as enshrined in the Constitution.

The fallout of the security-driven approach to extremist violence is the emasculation of democratic space. Extremists are game for this situation because it clears the ground for their intrusion. In the failure of democratic platforms and political agents in tribal pockets of the country, it is easy for them to impose their agenda. However, the Indian state can’t go with an approach that seeks to settle issues outside the democratic system. The legitimacy of the Indian state is deprived from the Constitution and the rights it guarantees to every citizen. The government should not undermine its own value system by trying to beat the extremists at their own game. In other words, state violence alone is no answer to Maoist violence.

The Indian state has followed an ambiguous policy towards the tribal population. On the one hand, the government wanted to be sensitive to their way of life. On the other, it wanted to develop these regions – and their inhabitants’ livelihoods – by activities which would often intrude on their tribal way of life and even affect the environment negatively. This approach seems to have fuelled disquiet and unrest among the people. Maoists, like religious missionaries before them, have no hesitation about seducing the tribal people with their faith. A democratic state has limitations in taking that path. A way must be found for the state to extend its umbrella over marginalized people while taking into account their genuine social and cultural concerns. It’s a hard conundrum. But normal political space must be found for tribals to engage with the state in a developmental dialogue before Maoists usurp the entire process with their false promises.

The Times of India – July 3, 2007.

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Jihadi’s World: An assessment

The siege that was at Islamabad’s Lal Masjid and the recent thwarted terrorist attacks in London involving an Iraqi-born doctor are the latest symptoms of what ails the Muslim world. The clerics of Lal Masjid encouraged their students to impose their brand of Islam through vigilance actions. Over the last several months, young students of institutions attached to Lal Masjid, Jamia Fareedia and Jamia Hafsa forcibly took over a public library and kidnapped women they accused of prostitution. They forced video shops to close down their businesses and dispensed instant justice at an unofficial court. Maulana Abdul Aziz and Abdul Rashid Ghazi constantly exhorted their flock to Taliban-like vigilantism and terrorism, which they described as jihad. Sheikh Omar Bakri Muhammad and Abu Hamza al-Masri of London and Abubakar Basheer of Indonesia are other examples of radical clergy that urges Muslims to wage war against the west and use terrorism to somehow restore the past glory of Muslims. The rhetoric of the radicals attributes the Muslims’ decline to the power of the West and recommends random violence as a means of levelling the global playing field. Their argument seems to be that since Muslims cannot beat the West on terms of modernity, they should seek to eliminate modernity and revert to their glorious past by emulating the lifestyle of Islam’s pioneers. Instead of recognizing the need to modernize the Muslim world, jihadists claim they can Islamise the modern world through furious speeches and violence. Many ordinary Muslims, such as the Lal Masjid students and the Iraqi-born British doctor and his partners who plotted the recent foiled attacks in London, accept the flawed logic of the radical clerics and adopt terrorism as their line of attack in what they believe is a millennial struggle between Islam and un-Islam. Musharraf’s government is not alone in allowing this radical menace to lurk as part of a grand design to convince the international community that the authoritarian ruler alone can keep the lid on a perilous pressure cooker. Other governments in the Muslim world have engaged in similar patterns of behaviour, alternately nourishing and fighting extremism with little regard for the long-term consequences. Radical Islamists claim that “Islam is in danger”.

Husain Haqqani
The Indian Express – July 11, 2007

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