Another Crusade in the Making?

There is an inherent danger on writing on a subject like Islam when you do not know much about its history. But, as somebody whose land and times are directly influenced by Islam, I still must attempt.

As we see Islam today, everywhere it is in conflict with the others – with non-Muslims with whom the Muslims come into contact. An in-depth study of the Islamic history may explain why this happens, but even without doing so, two major reasons can be assumed.

One, an inherent trait of intolerance that is present in all Semitic religions must have found its way into Islam in the times of the Prophet himself. From the very beginning, it has been perceived as a duty of the Muslim to proselytize and bring the others into its fold – even if that necessitated the use of force.

Two, something that happened later, and happened over and again. In the first half of its history, Islam witnessed at least two golden phases, when science and free thinking flourished. But over time, an urge to go back to the ‘roots’ overtook it – urge to go back to its original, pristine form as is perceived to be revealed to the Prophet. Since Muhammad was declared as the last prophet, all later-day evolutions were considered as deviations and corrupt practices and so were to be rejected.

There are also tolerant streams in Islam, spread from Turkey to Indonesia. We see them in the forms of the Sufis, the Pirs and Fakirs. Interestingly, their influence is more in countries in the periphery and away from the centre (the Arab world -- the birth place of Islam). Unfortunately, the voive of the followers of these softer, accommodating versions is muted and they do not determine the future intercourse of Islam with the rest of the world. Also, though the Shias too do not show much inclination towards tolerance and modern democratic practices, they actively do not go into conflict with the rest of the world. But again, they are a minority.

The majority is the Sunnis, and the strident voice we hear all around is that of the fundamentalist. Not only voice, but the clamour of arms. This stream is gaining in strength ieach passing day. There is no place for pluralism or modern democracy in this version of Islam. I am sure this not to be the real path revealed to the Prophet by the All-compassionate and All-merciful Allah – it cannot be. But, unfortunately, that is how things have taken shape over the ages. The voices of compassion and tolerance are throttled. He who thinks differently cannot speak out of fear. Brainwashing is so absolute that the vast majority in the Muslim world believes 9/11 was a conspiracy by the Jews and similarly 26/11 by the Indians. The duty and goal of Muslims have been defined in very clear terms, and that is, to subdue/convert the non-Muslim world outside its folds (and also the minority sects in Islam) into the Islamic faith and to bring the whole world under Islamic rule.

Sounds incredible? Too fantastic? But there are hordes of people, the soldiers of Jihad, who, from their childhood, have been so indoctrinated in such a belief that they totally believe in the possibility, in the inevitability, in the imminence of this happening.

Ironically, the technological advances of the modern times have helped them. These have produced sophisticated weapons that have come in very handy in the hands of these regressive thinker-soldiers.

If we do a bit of crystal-gazing, the future looks very bleak. The Americans, with their myopic views, have treated the war on terror as a war on the US, and are more than happy in the fact that another attack on their own citizen, on their own soil, so far have either not taken place, or been thwarted. In their complacency, or out of fatigue of fighting a clueless war, they are going to desert Afghanistan soon. Taliban is going to come back in Afghanistan and there mentors/brethren to grow stronger in Pakistan, with all the hidden support they enjoy.

The problem with some vocations like prostitution, militancy, etc, is that you cannot come out of them. You are not accustomed to another form of living and even if you are offered another way, you soon reject that and come back to the old way of life. So, the disincentive to do so must be very strong and extremely punitive. That, unfortunately, is not happening in the present world politics.

In case the fundamentalists seize power back in the Af-Pak region, and partly in Iraq, will they sit back peacefully and restrict themselves to activities within their own countries? Hardly so. This will not satisfy their hunger for Jihad. They will start hatching plots of more attacks against the Western/Hindu/Jew/Christian world outside. Their will be more 9/11’s and 26/11’s. This can be said for certain. That will be the second wave of global terrorism.

If by that time, by a stroke of chance, the US gets a leader more courageous, more farsighted, and less oratorical than Obama, we may see a more focused fight against this menace. Even otherwise, fight the world must, for mere survival. Initially the steps will be tottering, the fights small, localized, half-hearted and indecisive. But a time will come when there must be a very decisive fight, to wipe out this evil of fundamentalism.

I can foresee a protracted, world-war like situation, and if I live another thirty years, maybe some of it I’ll see with my own eyes.

Development vs Insurgency

(Blog on the make …more will be added and what has already been written will be edited ...)

This is a debate as ancient as the other famous one: egg or chicken -- which comes first. The recent Maoist violence has again brought into fore the debate, from the jungles to the media rooms.

I have followed some of the debates. There are two contradictory lines of arguments:

One says, development ruins the tribal way of life. It does not benefit the indigenous tribal people, they do not want it. When we forcibly develop their land (in our perceived way), we antagonize them and force them to the path of insurgency.

The other says that it is actually the lack of development that is what frustrates the indigenous people and fuels insurgency. So develop the area fast which in turn will dowse the insurgent flames.

Let us take up the first argument first. I have seen the tribals of the North East of India. The youth there, and this I have seen even 20-30 years back, do not intend to be in their loincloths like their grandfathers did. In fact they do not wear even the desi jeans; nothing short of designer American jeans will satisfy them. For that matter, not only the NE tribes, ask any youth of any tribal region and you will be surprised to find that contrary to what the activist would make us believe, the tribal youth do hunger for the good life that modern civilisation brings (particularly the western way of life) – perhaps hunger more for it than a youth from the plains (who is more likely to be entrapped in traditions) would do. I am not saying this in a sneering manner… rather I find this yearning quite appreciable. Is not it why people became civilised in the first place? Deliverance from danger and hunger to safety and comfort, from diseases to health, from constant struggle for existence to leisure and luxury – is not this the motivation behind all kinds of human civilisation?

Nothing remains constant if we look at the annals of history -- civilisations rise and decline, races intermingle and new races are born… even faiths do not remain stationary. Today’s thriving race becomes tomorrow’s extinct one (example, the mighty Romans) and vice versa. There is nothing sacrosanct in a people’s present identity that should not change and must be preserved at its pristine quality. To attempt to do so will be actually a disservice to the tribal community for whose so-called benefit such an endevour will be made. Will the Medha Patkars and Arundhati Roys ever understand this?

But a politician is a different species altogether. Outwardly they may toe the line of not violating the tribal way of life. Keeping people backward actually suits them in a perverted sense. But at the same time, they understand the need to fulfill some of the aspirations of the people, and the easy way out to achieve this is to throw asunder some money. Don’t develop, don’t create job opportunities, just give money to grab and spend. This way they create a corrupt system of patronage to some which is perhaps the worst thing that can happen to a people. When I say politicians, I not only mean the ruling class, but also the radicals who supposedly fight for these people. Take the case of Maoists/ULFA/NSCN. Have to ever touched Madhu Koda or people like him? They would rather impose a ‘tax’ from each lorry, from each business transaction, even a fixed cut from the salaries of people. They are part of the vested interest. They use their force to perpetuate the tyranny of the politics of backwardness.

I have always strongly believed in the essence of the second theory that says tribal people also aspire for and need development like anyone else. But I have disagreement with the simplistic solution that just bringing in huge investment would solve all problems. First, in most cases the indigenous people neither have the skills nor the drive to take up the job of development upon their own shoulders. In my experience in many of such regions they are bone lazy (one reason for their remaining backward) and hardly fit for any work above the menial ones (there too the migrant workforce work much harder and are more productive). But the greatest hurdle is, in most of the places, the culture of anarchy –insurgency, the local vs outsider tussle, extortion, indiscipline. Surely an entrepreneur cannot be expected to tackle such situations? This is the duty of the administration first to establish the rule of law there… to come down upon the trouble-makers with an iron feast.

More another day…

Cairo Talks -- Our PM Buckles again

I cannot forget what Michael Corleone once told Tom Hagen, the family lawyer and Consigliere, when the latter offered to take charge of the affairs during a war-like situation. Michael said something like this: Tom, you are a peace-time consigliere: you are not meant for wars.

Whenever I look at the way our PM Dr Manmohan acts vis-a-vis Pakistan, I am struck by the similarities with the above situation. Here we have a man at the helm of our affairs who would have made a good Finance Minister, but not the Prime Minister, especially with adverseries like Pakistan and China and 'allies' like the US who have designs of their own on us. The country badly needs somebody with more spine.

But the country obviously is in love with the doctor... so who am I to wail?

Sri Lanka -- the right and the wrong

Hats off to the Sri Lankan government. A small country is showing the world how to correctly deal with terrorists. After years of dilly-dallying and endless (and fruitless) soft-touch intervention by the Norwegians, somebody has finally dared to catch the bull by its horns, just as our own Brinda and KPS Gill, the then Chief Minister and Police Chief of Punjab, once did to quell the rampaging insurgency in the state. To me, President Rajapakse is doing even better – he is taking care to keep the civilian losses to the minimum, and also he understands the importance of explaining to the Tamils that the war is not against them but against their real tormentors -- the LTTE. Now, even some Sri Lankan origin Tamil human rights activists are able to come to the fore and let the world know that the vast majority of Tamils of Sri Lanka have always been actually longing for a long time to come out of the clutches of the LTTE. These Tamil HR activists were earler scared to come to the open or their voices were simply not heard. I am sure we will soon come to hear more tales of horror of how the LTTE had been using the entrenched Tamils as shields once the rest of their area is liberated by the SL army.

Hope the SL Government brings the whole thing to its logical end and does not develop cold feet at the last moment, and by this I mean catching Prabhakaran and his cohorts and punishing them. It is always important to root out the leaders. Hope the government ignores all sorts of international pressure (from people who remain strangely silent at human rights violations by the terrorists) and also the numerous mass petitions that are being generated in India urging to stall the assault, and instead proceed determinedly to finish the agenda.

It is indeed shocking that the SL cricket team has been attacked in Pakistan today, and we can expect Pakistan to even try to put the blame for it, at least initially, on SL’s current domestic strife. (The next day's input: Pakistan has begun blaming India instead. . . should have occured to me that they were going to do this.) It also proves, albeit with the benefit of hindsight, that visiting Pakistan when other teams including that from India already refused to do so, was an extremely unwise decision . . . was probably done to show solidarity between small neighbours of a big brother . . . it also shows that one sometimes has to pay a heavy price for such political one-upmanship.

Terrorism in the Indian context -- I

Fatalism

Responding to my anxiety over the well-being of my near and dear ones in Bangalore in the wake of the multiple blasts, my wise colleague assured me: “Don’t worry . . . nothing is going to happen to them, unless of course it is written in their destiny. If it is so, unfortunately, then no amount of taking precautions will stop it from happening”. I had to very strongly resist my urge to ask him why then he goes to a doctor when sick – isn’t it useless to gulp down those pills when everything is in the hands of destiny, after all?

It goes without saying that we need to shed this fatalistic attitude completely. Safety and security is our birthright, and also being vigilant citizens is among our most fundamental duties towards our country. I must admit that fatalism has its plus points too, in a morbid way. In terrorism-stricken situations, India behaves like a mammoth that refuses to respond to pin-pricks, which is surely not what the terrorists desire. They want India to suffer visibly, to moan, to try to get up and fight back, and in the process suffer even more. Not much pleasure stabbing a corpse! To make India stir, they need to hurt it in a grand scale… and this is what they are up to now.

Having said that, what a citizen has every right to demand is answers to why even a single life has been lost, why a single family has been destroyed. Is it not the responsibility of the state to provide safety and security to all its citizens, irrespective of religion or ethnicity?

The Policymakers

Our policymakers – the lawmakers and the bureaucrats -- they either cannot think of a comprehensive policy because they personally live a well-protected life (do they know how it feels to live everyday in terror, as scores of Indians have to do?) and therefore cannot comprehend the situation, or do not really want to act pro-actively (to turn the table on the terrorists, to hunt them in their own dens and not to wait till they hunt us), as this will affect their oh-so-important vote banks. Our PM famously spent sleepless nights worrying for doctor Haneef who was arrested in Australia (a country where you can expect a fair trial), but was he so forthcoming with his anguish at the plight of Indians working in Afghanistan or even in the Indian states of J&K (the Hindus) or the North-East (the Bengali and the non-locals)? At least I do not remember him (or for that matter anybody else) doing that. The so-called nationalist opposition party, the BJP, seems unable to rise above municipality-level politics – they have even invented a conspiracy in the recent attacks, hatched by their political opponents, to divert attention from the cash-for-vote scam in the Parliament!

Hopeless situation -- needless to say!

The Intellectuals

Come to the most deplorable part – the role played by our bleeding-heart intellectuals. It seems their hearts bleed truly only for the terrorists (never heard of organizations like SAHAMAT shedding tears for the victims of terrorism); it is the human rights of the perpetrators what they are only bothered about. Many so-called human rights groups are actually frontal organizations of the terrorists.. we hear of the MASS (Manab Adhikar Sangram Samiti) of Assam. I also cannot forget that a leftist Bengali intellectual once acted as an independent election observer on behalf of the Hurriyat Conference of J&K a few years ago, knowing fully well whose interests they represent. I can remember those times when huge rallies marched through Srinagar streets and letters dictating leave-the-valley-or-die were slid under the doors of the Kashmiri Hindus by the mob … did any human rights-wallah’s heart bleed then? Again, did it do so when Hindus were dragged from buses and gunned down in Punjab? Or when Assamese youth mobbed Guwahati’s city buses to hunt out the Bengali passengers and then play football with them (the method used to sort out was simple -- passengers were told to count from 1 to 10 in Assamese – the accent was always a clear giveaway to who were non-Assamese, particularly Bengalis).

(More on another day…)