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| Afghanistan/South Asia |
| Radical Islam growing in South India |
| 2005-05-22 |
| EFL As the Kerala government investigates links between local militant groups and the ISI, Anil Nair reports on a hard Islamic identity that is beginning to take root in the state. And is inspiring religious violence that spills across Kerala's borders SIX years ago the Kerala police appears to have had hard evidence of its homegrown extemists, with links to the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence. The police, of course, failed to act on it. The matter was kept under wraps. The secret of Muslim extremism coming to light only after the violence in Marad, in the summer of 2003. Following the Kerala home department's revelations about the alleged ISI hand in the Kozhikode-based National Democratic Front (NDF), M.K. Narayanan, the national security adviser, has himself ordered a new probe. Make no mistake, Kerala is no Kashmir. The state's connection with pan-Islamic militancy is less about impressionable youth being handed the latest automatic rifles, and making a voyage from Karachi to Ponani by speedboat. It is more a combustible mix of personal resentment and perceived political traditions of faith. Understanding this is crucial if the state is to formulate a viable and longterm response to religious extremism. The real turning point where Kerala's Muslim militancy is concerned was 2003. On May 3 that year, the state witnessed one of its worst incidents of communal violence at Marad. The toll, nine killed, was low. But what made the attack on Hindu fishermen in Kozhikode significant was its absolute onesidedness and meticulous planning. Later that month, then Mumbai police commissioner R.S. Sharma, following the busting of a Lashkar-e-Toiba module in Thane, revealed details of a terrorist plan for a series of bomb blasts in Kerala. Around the same time, Indian Army troops mopping up militant bunkers in Kashmir's Pir Panjal ranges during Operation Sarp Vinash stumbled on an abandoned satellite phone. Calls had been made from it just hours earlier, to Islamabad, Dubai and, of all places, Malappuram. Cumulatively, these incidents seemed to be alarming. But RAW chief P.K. Hormis Tharakan, till very recently Kerala's director-general of police, still doesn't want to rush to conclusions. ''From a security aspect, nothing, of course, can be ruled out,'' he says, ''but Kerala doesn't have a terrorist problem per se. There have been serious communal confrontations in the past and we are keeping our eyes peeled for that kind of trouble. The only arms caches that have been found are pipe bombs and swordsticks. Communal harmony even in that — the Hindus make the swordsticks and the Muslims use it!'' MALAPPURAM'S peculiar demography provides perfect cover for groups that seek it. It is one of only two Muslim-majority districts in India, outside Jammu and Kashmir (the other being Murshidabad in West Bengal). Since the early 1990s, fundamentalists appear to have had a concerted plan to win over the community. Kerala Nadvathul Mujahedeen's leader Ahmed Kutty paints a grim picture: ''The method of the extremists to take control of a mosque is always the same. It begins with a small cell of adepts praying with the others and trying to rally them. If there is not much headway, relentless arguing and verbal abuse follow. The majority then either falls silent or goes to another place.'' Where cajoling fails, there's direct action. The murder of Chekannur Maulvi, a reformist Islamic scholar, a decade ago still evokes memories in Malappuram. The frequent acts of cultural policing — like the burning of cinemas and attacks on Muslim women trying to marry outside their religion —are only some instances of fundamentalist violence at fellow Muslims. There have been reports of such incidents as recently as earlier this year. Slowly the process of indoctrination acquires momentum. To some Muslims, alienated by the moral vertigo of contemporary society, an austere interpretation of Islam has an appeal. One of them even justifies the drug trade in these terms. ''Let me be clear, I personally don't support such activities,'' says advocate Abdul Gafoor, an active supporter of the Indian Union Muslim League, ''but in theory and from a historical perspective, it is a kind of colonial revenge. Heroin, for example, is produced in the third world and consumed in the West. Call it reverse imperialism.'' It is a wierd logic. To Ahmed Kutty, another resident of Malappuram, ''Such logic stems from defensiveness, from the belief that we reside in the Dar-ul-Harb or House of War. The Koran demands that we live in Dar ash-Shahada or House of Witness, in which believers and unbelievers compete in doing good works to prove the truth.'' Naushad is one Malayali who is in the vanguard of such an Islam. He is an ansar of SIMI (Students' Islamic Movement of India), whose proclaimed aim is ''the liberation of India through Islamic inquilab''. As a full-time underground worker, he says he models himself on the small but elite cadre of believers who helped the Prophet recapture Mecca. He holds a mildewed Koran, its spine cracked with age. Multicoloured ribbons allow him to turn chunks of pages at one go and jump from one favorite verse to the other: a green ribbon opens to Sura 3:28 ''Let not the Believers take for friends or helpers unbelievers rather than believers; if any do that, in nothing will there be help from Allah''; a yellow one is on Sura 30: 1-4: ''In a land close by; but they (even) after (this) defeat of theirs, will soon be victorious.'' Naushad has been unusually candid throughout, displaying warmth and humour. Yet once in a while, he catches himself and draws back. His lips purse, sentences become monosyllables and you lose him. Like now, when he replies: ''I have developed an inability to mourn ... Faith means forgoing everything for the future.'' Somehow in that disturbing future, Kerala is losing the certitudes of its past. |
| Posted by:Paul Moloney |
| #2 Oops. [/mini rant] Need a new syntax checker. |
| Posted by: .com 2005-05-22 17:19 |
| #1 Radical? Pfeh. Wotta crock to add that word. Grrrr... [mini rant] There's No Other Kind Of Islam. They don't refer to the point of intersection between Islamic-controlled regions and non-Islamic-controlled regions as the bloody edge for nothing. Rubbing up against Islam is guaranteed to generate violence - from the Islamic side. It's all they do and it's all they know. No fine points required - the evidence is blindingly obvious. I'm not pretending to be prescient or anything, but I have been fortunate enough to have the blinders removed - a jolting experience, I assure you. Moderate Islam. Uh huh. Right. The physical proximity of your precious ass and Islam in practice determines whether you still buy the "moderate" Islam myth. Wherever it is not being practiced one might say it is "moderate"... but that's only until the jihadis arrive, cow the "moderates", and take over the indoctrination process. Islam is an ideology of hate and domination. Period. Fuck Islam. All of 'em. It operates much like planetary volcanism. Quiescent today, erupting tomorrow. Explode the myth, once and for all. Sheesh. Can I add Q.E.D. here without causing a ruckus? ;-) [mini rant] |
| Posted by: .com 2005-05-22 17:18 |