by Michael
Faulkner – December 07, 2008
The jihadi attacks launched in Mumbai against five star hotels,
hospitals, railway stations and a Jewish centre, resulting in hundreds of dead
and wounded, have, not surprisingly, been described as India’s 9/11. It seems
almost as though al Qaeda and its various offshoots, having greeted the Bush
administration in 2001 with the attack on the twin towers which prompted the
“war on terror” , had decided to mark his departure with a comparable atrocity
to remind him that despite Afghanistan, Iraq, Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, they were still very much alive.
The
attacks were launched simultaneously on the Taj Mahal and Oberoi Trident luxury
hotels, the Café Leopold, the CST railway station and the Chabad Lubavitch centre. The siege at the Taj hotel lasted for three days. It is clear from the
targets that the jihadis had singled out places where
wealthy tourists and foreign visitors gathered. Their aim, according to one
report, was to kill as many people as possible. At the time of writing (30th November) the death toll stands at around 200, of whom apparently 14 were
foreigners. Thus, the great majority of victims were Indians. Apparently those
who attacked the railway station opened fire indiscriminately into the crowds
congregated there. If this was intended to be an assault on wealthy foreigners
its perpetrators lacked sufficient discrimination.
But to
describe the attack of November 26th as India’s 9/11 is not really
appropriate. 9/11 was the first Islamist attack on the U.S. The Mumbai atrocity
is only the latest in a long line of such assaults in India. It is worth
recalling some of them because they were either under-reported at the time, or
they have been forgotten. In 1993, in response to a Hindu nationalist attack on
the Adodyha Mosque, Islamist terrorists in Mumbai
detonated 15 bombs simultaneously, killing 283 people and maiming 3000 others.
The perpetrators of this event were given sanctuary in the Gulf States. In 2001
terrorists attacked the Indian parliament and in 2006 Mumbai’s railway line was
bombed, killing 200 people and injuring more than 700. This year alone, more
than 400 people have been killed by jihadi bombers.
Although many of these atrocities have been perpetrated by Indian Islamist
groups, often in retaliation for comparable acts against Muslims carried out by
Hindu nationalist fanatics, the finger is frequently pointed at Pakistan.
According to the latest evidence, still to be confirmed, the group responsible
for the Mumbai atrocity entered India from Pakistan. If this information proves
to be correct, the consequences could be very serious. The history of
India-Pakistan relations has not been a happy one. The bitter conflict between
the two states goes back to their origins in the partition of India in 1947.
It is of
some interest to recall that in the history of British imperialism there have
been three notable cases where national independence has resulted in partition
rather than a unified state: Ireland, India and Palestine. In each case the
post-colonial history has been blighted to the present day by bitter ethnic
and/or religious conflict, resulting in much bloodshed. The partition of India
was a tragedy which could have been avoided. Following decades of struggle for
independence from Britain, it was the great hope of Gandhi, Nehru and the
majority of the Indian National Congress that India would gain its freedom as a
secular, united, federal state in which the Hindu majority and the Muslim
minority would be able to co-exist to the mutual advantage of all. This was
rejected by Jinnah and the Muslim League, leading to the Muslim demand for
partition and the establishment of a theocratic state. Jinna was an opportunistic, egotistical politician of no strong Muslim belief. Britain
acquiesced in his demand. With partition came one of the twentieth century’s
first and most terrible cases of ethnic cleansing. It is worth remembering that
for most of its existence Pakistan has been run as a reactionary, pro-Western
Islamic state, often under various forms of military dictatorship. India, for
all its faults and against all the odds, has remained the world’s largest
parliamentary democracy.
Kashmir
There are
several factors feeding into the Islamist hatred of India. Foremost among them
is the open sore of Kashmir. India was partitioned against the wishes of most
of the Congress Party leaders. Had there been no partition, Hindu-Muslim
relations in Kashmir could have been managed. As in many other similar cases,
the majority (Muslim) population of Kashmir favoured association with their
co-religionists – in this case Pakistan. Nehru was a secular Kashmiri and
he was determined to hold on to the state. Pakistan has, since partition,
supported Kashmiri separatists. The Pakistani intelligence service (ISI) has
sent terrorist groups over the border on bombing and assassination missions.
The Indian army has reacted with extreme brutality and the conflict has
produced a state of permanent emergency in which it has been estimated that
70,000 people have lost their lives. The Pakistani army has more troops
patrolling its border with Kashmir than it does on the Afghan border. For south
Asian Muslims, Kashmir has the same significance as Palestine for Middle
Eastern Muslims. So, Kashmir is perhaps the main motive driving the jihadis who have wreaked such bloody havoc in Mumbai. But
there are others.
It seems
that the jihadis are associated with an organization
called Lashkar-e-Taiba. Its leader, Hafiz Mohammad Sayeed, is based in Lahore, and although the group is
proscribed in Pakistan, he apparently operates openly. According to a report in The Observer he said that ‘Christians, Jews and Hindus are enemies of Islam.’ He didn’t mention
atheists, but no doubt he regards them as agents of Satan. He further
proclaimed that his organization aimed to ‘unfurl the green flag of Islam in
Washington, Tel Aviv and New Delhi.’ So, although followers of Lashkar-e-Taiba and similar organizations, are undoubtedly and
understandably very angry about the treatment of Muslims in India and Kashmir,
the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan and the plight of the Palestinians, they
are also fired by a religious fanaticism indistinguishable from the most
extreme racism. This is what enables them to kill with holy fervour –
Christians, Hindus, Jews – anyone perceived to be an enemy of Islam.
2009. Still a ‘War on Terror’?
By the
time you read this the situation may have changed in ways impossible at the
moment to predict. Should it be confirmed, as seems likely, that the terrorists
came from Pakistan, the Indian government will insist that the Zardari government takes immediate action to apprehend the
leaders of Lashkar and break up the organization. Zardari may be either unwilling or unable to do this.
Indeed, he recently allowed Sayeed to purchase a
bulletproof Land Cruiser. The jihadis seem to operate
with impunity in Pakistan. The ISI is riddled with pro-Taliban elements and the
situation on the Pakistan-Afghan border is extremely volatile. Further U.S. air
strikes inside Pakistan will lead to greater instability, possibly to the
collapse of the pro-US government.
The
recent improvement in relations between India and Pakistan is in jeopardy. Zardari, who is a political novice with little talent, cannot
afford to ignore India’s demands to get tough on the jihadis - a demand also pressed on him by the United States. If he tries to do so it
will confirm the opinion of many that, like his predecessor, Musharraf, he is a U.S. puppet. If he fails to move
effectively against them, he will risk a complete breakdown in relations with
India, and possibly worse. Should there be further terrorist attacks on Indian
soil another war between the two countries cannot be ruled out. And, with the
blessing of the U.S. and Britain, both of them are nuclear powers.
Where
does all this leave Bush’s ‘War on Terror’? As was evident from the start, the
wars against Afghanistan and Iraq, supposedly wars to defeat terrorism, have
actually promoted it. The fanatical fundamentalism that fires the Islamist jihadis, does not depend solely on Western interventionist wars against Muslim countries
to sustain it. But, contrary to the ludicrous claims of Blair and Bush that the
invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq played no part in radicalising young Muslims,
all the evidence is that they were very important factors. There can be little
doubt that if the Western powers were to withdraw completely from these
countries, it would go a long way to reduce the threat of further terrorist
acts. Likewise, if there were a just settlement to the conflicts in the Middle
East and Kashmir that recognised the legitimate claims to national
self-determination of Palestinians and Kashmiris, it
would drastically reduce the recruiting base for the jihadis and undermine their credibility amongst those sections of Muslim youth now most
susceptible to their propaganda. This could also bring a real and lasting
improvement in Indian-Pakistan relations.
In 2009,
with a new president in the Whitehouse, such a course may be possible. However,
should the U.S. and the U.K., facing the worst
economic crisis since the 1930s, attempt to stay in Iraq and intensify their
doomed efforts in Afghanistan, the prospects for the second decade of the 21st century will not look promising. 