In a previous opinion, I discussed how the stars have aligned for India to take decisive action directed at Islamist radicalism. Here, I focus on specific yet far-reaching steps to permanently defang the Islamists.
Does India deserve to be considered a major power if it cannot slay the demon? To be clear, this threat is existential – meaning, if not taken down now, it will retard economic growth first and, over time, plunge the country into violent chaos, just like Pakistan.
Let us identify the dominant power centres behind decades of radicalisation. The first is the Darul Uloom Islamic seminary situated in Deoband. It has, by far, graduated most clerics who command thousands of Indian mosques.
That these clerics have spread radicalism and violent extremism — including in Kashmir — should not be a surprise. After all, Darul Uloom’s academic curriculum consists of the following passage: “The destruction of the sword is incurred by infidels, although they are not the first aggressors.”
Typically, Deobandi clerics have prevented Muslims from embracing modern education and encouraged Muslim women to have more children. Moreover, these clerics are the visionaries behind the violent outfits Darul Khada, the SIMI (Student Islamic Movement of India) before, and now, the PFI (Popular Front of India).
The second is Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind – an influential council of senior clerics. Jamiat is at the forefront of defending or overturning Muslims accused or convicted of terrorist activities. Yet its leader, Mehmood Madani, made the following proclamation in 2016: “Death penalty or life sentences should be given to those who hurt a person’s religious values or disrespect a religious leader.”
Due to the opposition from clerics with immense street power, moderating the minority is nearly impossible. With the minority highly susceptible to radicalisation, by some accounts, India is poised to plunge into mayhem.
Indian National Security Advisor’s recent appeal to religious leaders that “You have bigger responsibilities to shoulder” vis-à-vis radicalism betrays the lack of a plan to change the status quo.
Out-of-the-box solutions are needed.
Could it be that the religion of Islam, through its holy books, is not behind violent extremism, but clerical narratives or ideologies are? If so, this threat can be tackled.
As discussed in my recent research, when the Muslim community in Kosovo was part of the communist Yugoslavia, its people hardly knew what Jihad was and was moderate. The reason is simple: the clerics there emphasised moderation.
The implication is that India can justifiably claim that it is not attacking Islam when taking steps to neutralise radical agendas, the sponsoring clerics, and their supporters.
Albert Einstein purportedly said, “insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” Indeed, Islamists have mastered the art of exploiting Indian democracy to advance their nefarious agendas. To think that under democracy, India can somehow turn the tables on radicals is insanity. In contrast, the steps outlined below are designed to turn the enemy’s strengths into fatal weaknesses.
First, the state must take emergency, legal steps to take away radical clerics’ ability to assemble and launch violent mobs from thousands of mosques. Subsequently, given the magnitude of the threat, the government must work on drafting (mostly) men and women to the tune of fifteen crores to operate in local areas through the newly-formed Religious Freedom Force (RFF), assisted by the Indian army. After all, the Hindu majority has the most at stake, given the reality of the 1947 partition and its marginalisation in every Muslim-majority region of South Asia.
Second, radical Islam’s noted power centres should be dismantled to prevent a regroup and this must be done with the extensive deployment of law enforcement agencies. No action is suggested against minorities living amongst the majority community. However, because clerics likely command mosques in such communities, there is little choice but to shut the ones down that have a track record of preaching radicalism. Such steps have been taken extensively in the west, specifically, in Europe. France, for example, shut down a mosque because the radical Imam of the mosque was defending Jihad. The reason cited by the authorities was that the Imam was inciting hatred and violence. Such steps should be replicated in India.
The third step is bringing religious freedom to the thousands of minority ghettos in danger of becoming a swamp that generates jihadists. Most Hindus and Sikhs who lived in Pakistan at the time of the partition had to flee to India, while many were forced to convert or put to death. As a result, Pakistan is nearly devoid of Hindus and Sikhs. This genocidal context suggests that there is little choice except to ensure that these ghettos become multi-cultural and symbols of Hindus being visibly present in these areas so as to ensure that the Muslims in these areas don’t feel like Sharia is the order of the day in those ghettos. Spearheaded by the local men belonging to RFF, the process needs to finish quickly, as any drawn-out endeavour will likely fail.
Arguably, these actions are not directed at Islam but only at a violent ideology’s sponsors and backers who oppress in the name of religion and wage a no-holds-barred war on non-Muslims. Not least, the propaganda that singles out clerics for duping their flock by falsely promoting Sharia as “God’s law” is needed to drive a wedge between the two.
Muthuswamy is a US-based physicist and a scholar of radicalism.
