THE VOICE OF WORDS

By Pratap Bhanu Mehta The most corrosive crisis a society faces is often not manifested as a dramatic political episode. It rather reveals itself in periodic outbreaks of senseless violence or grim reminders of a society losing its moral compass. Just the random perusal of news for a couple of days, rioting in Agra, violence in Dohna, inhumane torture of a petty offender in Bhagalpur, road rage, a child dead because of petty street clashes, increasing crime, the sordid goings-on in a Delhi school, were all reminders of just how fragile social order can be. Given the dramatic character of political violence in India — terrorism, Naxalism, communalism — should we really worry about outbursts of violence that traffic accidents occasion? And in each instance don’t we have a ready structural explanation for violence, a master narrative that explains it all? When the state has no outlet for legitimate grievances, violence will erupt. The surprise is not that we often have senseless violence without an object; the surprise is that we don’t have more of it. After the now already forgotten Nithari, can any news of an insidious sickness creeping on Indian society really surprise us? But we focus on side issues: the morality of sting operations, the failures of the state, but side-step the fundamental question: why is India becoming a society with a reputation of preying on its own children in the most appalling ways one can imagine? There is an unspoken dread enveloping urban India: a new freedom producing new vulnerability, a new sophistication accompanied by a loss of innocence, a new sense of aspiration accompanied by a greater sense of danger. Different types of violence have their own psychology and sociology. But there is a thread that connects seemingly disparate forms of violence that lurk under the surface of our existence. The first is our attitudes to them. The minute we encounter such violence a kind of containment strategy sets in. We control the meaning of these events, by explaining them in terms of some master narrative: the omissions of the state, the inherited inequalities of society or the depravations of tradition. There is some truth to these attributions. But the ease and frequency with which these are invoked suggests not so much a diagnosis but an avoidance strategy. We oscillate between thinking that this is a violence that always happens elsewhere on the one hand, and it is over-determined and inevitable on the other. Either way this violence becomes something that does not demand our intervention. The second thing this violence draws our attention to is just how attenuated our conceptions of social order have become. Societies are complex entities, held together not so much by a state but by an amalgam of attributes: mores, traditions, sensibilities, sympathies, taboos, reciprocities, even an aesthetic. In a society that is rapidly changing, these are all coming under immense stress. Violent crime is a topic of great discussion. But the sum total of public discourse on this focuses on three lines of inquiry: lament for an age when the lower classes were supposedly more obedient than violent, poor law enforcement by the state, or a generalised explosion of greed. Indian cities have had, by comparative standards, relatively lower rates of crime. The reasons for this are not entirely clear. Was it the spatial layout of Indian cities? Was it the relatively intact authority of the family? Was it the relative lack of conspicuous consumption? Was it a certain civic culture that gave cities a distinctive hue? Or was it a form of living that made our outlook on life less edgy? In libidinal matters we are, across small towns, becoming a society moving from a society premised on secrecy, repression and control to a society where knowledge, publicity and individual experimentation are going to increase. But will this new age of freedom and access, of knowledge and individuality simply produce a culture of selfishness, crudeness and fatuity or a culture of integrity, sophistication and discrimination? The pathologies of social convention cannot be a defence of the pathologies of freedom. If the traditional moral anchors for relationships are not tenable, what will be the new foundations for those relationships? Will these changes combine with a cult of instrumentalism to always make Eros a dangerous and poisoned chalice? It is fatuous to assume that the state can be rationalised and made powerful enough to protect us from the depredations that large-scale social transformation might bring. The reason these acts of violence are significant is that they are early warnings of many things: of the increasing alienation of urban existence, of the fact that without stronger moral barriers the line between pathology and liberation can be very thin, of unchanelled rage that does not quite know how to articulate itself, and that creates the possibility of violence waiting to be mobilised. A little bit more pressure, an economic downturn or even greater increases in inequality, could snap the fragile sense of self that makes cities hold on. We rightly take solace in the fact that India has been resilient, in the face of terrorist violence, material deprivation. But this faith in resilience is also a form of avoidance: it prevents us from asking what the great transformation of our times means for social relationships and a sense of the self. The focus on the state and economy is crucial. But they seldom on their own determine what the security or character of life and self is going to be like in any society. Despite the explosion of aspirations, and feverish activity, will we escape the charge that Muktibodh levelled against urbanising India decades ago: that it was a font of meaninglessness, disguised by divertissements? It would be premature to engage in pessimism. But the striking absence of self-reflection on emerging pathologies in society should worry us. Broken states can be fixed through collective action, economies can be energised through policy, but sick societies are harder to cure.

By M H AHSAN

About a fortnight before two blasts rocked Hyderabad on August 25, 2007, Lashkar-e-Tayeba (LeT) chief Hafiz Saeed told a gathering at Lahore that he has started a movement to occupy Muslim populated regions in India.

He said Pakistan must reclaim Muslim areas like J&K, Hyderabad, Junagarh, Munabao and West Bengal which, he said, was forcibly occupied by India in 1947. Saeed even released a new map of Pakistan incorporating these areas. A week before Saeed spoke, an al Qaeda video footage warned India of renewed terrorist attacks.

These two statements are not mere jihadi rhetoric, but a clear indication of how terrorists, now increasingly grouping under the overarching umbrella of al Qaeda across the world, are stepping up operations against India. The objective is not merely to create terror or create communal disturbances but generate a stronger support for the Islamist agenda of establishing a pan-Islamic arc of influence in Asia. 

There are quite a few other dots which need to be connected to see this bigger picture. The first dot is the growing alliance between jihadi groups operating from Pakistan and Bangladesh with ideologically extreme groups in India as investigations  into recent terrorist attacks and the chain of arrests and seizures in different parts of India, particularly rural Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, have revealed.

This development signals a new phase of terrorism within India where international terrorist groups like LeT and Harkat-ul Jihadi-e-Islami (HuJI)-and through them al Qaeda-are likely to exert influence over a small and diffused group of individuals to take up arms against the State in the name of religion.

These groups are small and work fairly independently of their patron groups by networking among themselves, tapping into each other’s resources and outsourcing logistics to criminal syndicates. These factors help such groups, rooted in local communities as sleeper cells or agents to escape police scrutiny.

What has changed over the years is the profile of terror recruits-the second dot-who are no longer the bearded, madrassa-type jihadis. A considerable number of them are well educated-doctors and engineers, and adept in exploiting latest communication technologies.

This means these groups which can tap into the world wide web of terror which has not only become a virtual university of jihad but also an overarching umbrella of faith, bringing all the faithful together on a single cyber platform dominated by al Qaeda and its ideology. 

There are other equally significant changes in the objectives of these groups which form the third crucial dot. The year long-series of bomb blasts and attacks in Delhi, Varanasi, Ayodhya, Bangalore and Mumbai beginning October 2005 were carried out with the objectives of creating communal violence in Delhi and communally-volatile Uttar Pradesh and target economic centres like Mumbai and Bangalore. The overall agenda was to create a climate of fear at a time when India was being seen as an emerging economic power. 

Add the fourth dot-the Islamist agenda of driving the Indian Muslims towards the al Qaeda ideology by targeting Muslims as witnessed in attacks in Hyderabad (twice), Malegaon  and the Samjhauta Express in Haryana.

There is a widespread suspicion among the Muslim community that at least the Malegaon and Samjhauta Express bombing were carried out by Hindu extremist organisations. Since these cases remain unsolved, the terror attacks in Hyderabad have only fuelled such suspicions.

The fifth dot is Hyderabad’s history as the launching pad of jihad. The first set of jihadis, post-Babri Masjid demolition, had set up their operational centre at Hyderabad under the banner of the Indian Muslim Mohammedi Mujahideen (IMMM), an Indian branch of the Muslim Defence Force, an fundamentalist outfit, founded in Saudi Arabia by Abu Hamsa alias Abdul Bari Hamsa of Hyderabad.

The outfit was led by Azam Ghauri, who along with Abdul Karim Tunda and Dr Jalees Ansari, carried out a series of train blasts in north India to take revenge for the demolition of Babri Majid. All three were the first operatives of LeT in India.

The sixth dot is the changes that took place in the jihadi groups after 9/11. Under intense pressure from the US, many of these groups, operating from Pakistan, were either shut down or cut to size, or forced to change their operational plans. Many of these groups changed their operational bases and began outsourcing their activities to smaller groups which were not under the global scanner.

One such group is Harkat-ul-Jihad-e-Islami (HuJI) and its various clones which operate from Bangladesh. These groups are now working together, in small, diffused groups to target India. The Hyderabad attack is only a part of this renewed attempt to further the Islamist agenda of a Muslim conclave in Asia.

By M H AHSAN 

Intelligence agencies are frantically trying to unravel their new nightmare, which goes by the name of Harkat-ul-Jihad-e-Islami

In 1998 when intelligence agencies started combing the heights of Kargil after Indian troops had reclaimed it they found several documents and letters written in Bengali. At that time the significance of their find did not sink in. 

But now, over the last two years, not only is the significance sinking in with telling effect, the hierarchy of terror outfits is also getting clearer. There are two versions of Harkat-ul-Jihad-e-Islami (HuJI) - the Pakistani version, on which the agencies have always trained their spotlight on, and the Bangladeshi one, which has emerged out of the shadows with devastating force.

“HuJI has been successful in India due to local participation,” say a senior official of Research and Analysis Wing (RAW).

Born during the Afghan Mujahideen operations, HuJI was never expected to be a threat to India. Taking a leaf out of BPOs

Ever since President Pervez Musharraf joined the US War on Terror after the 9/11 attacks, the Pakistani intelligence establishment has been under immense pressure to clean up their act. The emergence of HuJI-Bangladesh can be traced back to this pressure. Most of the actual operations being carried out by HuJI-Pakistan were siphoned off to HuJI-Bangladesh.

The transfer of operations was followed by funds.

“It was as if Pakistan had taken a leaf out of Indian BPOs. The cost of carrying out an operation from Bangladesh was significantly cheaper,” an intelligence officer told HNN. “Everything from raw materials - ammonium nitrate, triggers and RDX - to personnel (read jihadis) was cheaper.” 

But the change of base also meant a change in focus. The Pakistani intelligence establishment reduced its focus on Jammu and Kashmir. While everyone from the international community to the Indian Army rejoiced in the declining militant activity in the state, the new targets became India’s financial and economic heart - Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bangalore and Chennai.

“The Pakistani intelligence establishment has changed its strategy. It now realises that the only way to hobble India is to hit it where it hurts most - economy,” says a top intelligence official.

Local muscle is deadly
HuJI has probably the largest number of non-Kashmiri supporters from within India. HuJI’s stunning attacks have been mounted by local recruits. “HuJI changed dynamics of terrorism. They minimised the role of foreigners, recruited locals, trained them in terror tactics,” an official says.

Investigators believe among HuJI’s most significant recruits is Shahid Bilal- key suspect behind the recent Hyderabad blasts. Bilal is suspected to be involved in all three attacks in Hyderabad - suicide attack on headquarters of STF in 2005, attack on Mecca Masjid and last week’s blasts.

Cog in global terror network
A key man behind HuJI-Bangladesh was Mufti Abdul Hannan, an Afghan veteran who had education in Uttar Pradesh’s Deoband, one of the world’s largest Islamic schools imparting training in the ultra-conservative Wahabi beliefs. 

“Today HuJI seems to have internalised and successfully executed the strategy of global jihad networks of Europe, Iraq and other areas. They are making bombs out of chemicals commonly available,” says an official. “This has significantly brought down the risk of an operation.” 

The greatest success of HuJI comes from the fact that they have able to create their India cells-where the brain and the foot soldiers are all mostly Indians. “It is their success, and our biggest challenge,” says an official who has spent a long period in Kashmir through the 1990s.

By M H Ahsan

For nations, it matters what happens to them; but the course of their history is often determined less by what happened and more by how they reacted. What is happening to India on the terrorist front is bad, but what is worse is the way we are reacting to it. The worst reaction of a government to such a serious national challenge would be to underplay it, divert the discourse from core issues to the peripherals. Asserting that all is well and nothing needs to be changed, emphasising maintenance of social harmony as the core concern, complimenting people for bravely suffering losses and returning to normal lives, talking about human rights and protection of minorities — these are all laudable objectives. No one disputes them, but they do not address the core issues.

In the face of a threat as serious as this, the national focus should be on: how serious is the threat; its long and short-term implications; our capacities to counter the threat, both in policy formulation and policy execution; and how to address the deficiencies. This would involve considering ways to leverage civil society, media, the scientific community, religious leaders to the best national advantage; ways to neutralise the fast-growing domestic base of terrorism, including availability of hardware and human resource, collaborative linkages of the terrorists with organised crime, gun runners, drug syndicates, hawala operators, subversive radical groups, and how to break the nexus. Debate on the adequacy of the country’s laws, judicial administration, security systems and doctrines, etc, in the light of assessed threats is also important.

The right discourse should also centre on our policy options vis-à-vis countries and groups involved in terrorist incidents in India. This is not happening, and that’s the tragedy. It is not happening because a basic requirement is missing: a political culture that can subordinate electoral and other political considerations to the nation’s supreme sovereign interests. This requires the political will and ability to carry the whole country together. If the nation fails to do so, it may face many Hyderabads, and worse. That Hyderabad is on the terrorist radar has been well known for quite some time. Here are a few illustrative events that could have served as alerts to undertake surgical operations, covert and overt, to sanitise the city, whatever the cost.

On April 1, 2007, an ISI agent, Maqsood Ahmed, was arrested while recruiting youths for sabotage and espionage activities. Neither was he thoroughly interrogated nor was follow-up action taken. On May 20, 2007, Mohamed Sayeed was arrested by the West Bengal police from Jharkhand’s Jantara district. He gave copious details of his links with terrorist modules in Hyderabad. On May 25, 2007, Shoaib Faqruddin Jagirdar, muttawali (custodian) of a local dargah, was arrested for sending RDX and youths from Jalna in Maharashtra to Hyderabad for terrorist actions. He was reportedly released under political pressure.

On June 15, 2007, Mohamed Abdul Sattar, an ISI agent, confessed he had received armed training in Pakistan along with Shahid who was responsible for the May 18 Hyderabad blasts. On August 12, 2007, the Aurangabad police seized 29 kg of ammonium nitrate explosive, abandoned by a man who came from Secunderabad (near Hyderabad). If we have to win the battle against terror, political considerations, communal pressures, administrative and police lethargy, and a weak legal-judicial regime will have to be negated. Let us not sugarcoat our response, like announcing that India and Pakistan as victims of terrorism are in the same league, lest we sent ambiguous signals to India’s enemies. It is a myth that terrorists strike anywhere, any time and against any target. Had that been so, they would have caused havoc not just in India.

Terrorists strike where their intentions and capabilities meet the opportunities. The success of counter-terrorism lies in degrading their capabilities, forcing them to change their intentions and denying them opportunities to strike. We appear to be failing on all three counts. Their extended capabilities are obvious by their spreading the arc of violence to cover almost the entire country. The fact that masterminds and critical perpetrators of all the recent terrorist depredations remain by and large unidentified is a matter of concern. This brings the deterrence threshold down. There is no change in the intentions of those within and outside the country who seek to bleed India, appeasement within and peace parleys outside notwithstanding.

We have also not been able to deny them the opportunities. All these infirmities can be corrected only through an integrated strategic and tactical action plan aimed at empowering and enabling security agencies, strengthening our legal-judicial response regime, upgrading intelligence, and complementing our defensive regime with defensive offence capabilities. Besides the government and its security agencies, civil society has a seminal role in this. The nation has not been able to produce a powerful ideological movement within the Muslim community to counter the radicals and deprive them of religious legitimacy within the community.

The last few years have witnessed alarming growth of Salafism and Wahabism at the cost of the indigenous variant of Islam, which is more tolerant and accommodative. Funding to such organisations from outside the country also has to be stopped, if need be, by further strengthening our laws on the subject and their implementation. India’s neighbourhood, particularly Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan, must be understood. Fundamentalist forces have acquired strengths, resources and capabilities to survive and strike on their own strength. They have global collaborative linkages, sustainable channels of funding, access to modern technology and an unending stream of jihadis keen to kill and die.

The global growth of Islamic radicalism, proximity of jihadi epicentres close to Indian borders and the tilting of some sections of Muslims within the country pose real problems. The imported variety of terrorism whose planning, infrastructure and resources are of foreign origin will continue to haunt us for quite some time. The current phase of terrorism has a marked Bangladeshi dimension, closely linked to illegal immigration. Most of the recent cases are linked to Harkat-ul-Jihad-e Islami, which operates from Bangladesh, where it has an extensive network. Al-Qaeda’s linkages with HUJI are old and intimate with total ideological convergence. Al-Qaeda is out-sourcing terror through franchised groups, who enjoy local advantages and can raise their own resources and operate as stand-alone entities. A special action plan needs to be formulated to contain HUJI’s entrenchment.

All this will happen if we bring the discourse on the right track and set priorities right. We need to do a quick VED analysis focusing on the vitals, keeping a watch on the essentials and leaving the desirables till the vitals have been achieved and essentials addressed. For those who govern, let political interests, at best, fall in the category of desirables.