[Reader-list] Islamism, modernity & Indian Mujahideen - PRAVEEN SWAMI

Wed Mar 24 18:50:22 IST 2010

As cited by Pawan as an excerpt of the Hindu article by Praveen Swami.
Some similar strands could be also seen in variations of other
religions as well. I do not doubt Swami's research. I would appreciate
if you take this as my contribution to this discussion which was being
highlighted by Pawan as an example about what Swami describes as a
propaganda of the so-called Indian Mujaheddin.

"So I poured out my wrath upon them for the blood that they had shed
in the land, for the idols with which they had defiled it." -- Ezekiel
36:18

"the bhakta is not to case either adoring or hateful glances on the
idols of other gods; nor should be visit places of their worship
(Sankaradeva, Bhag, p-2)  -- Bhakti Saint, Shankardeva
however, the Guru himself also says "No hostility however, is to be
exhibited by him towards the adherents of other creeds while engaging
himself in the worship of Visnu, who alone is considered as being
Suddha-sattava, of pureexixtence (narayanakalah santa bhajani by
anasuyavah, Bhag, p. 1.2.26)"

-regards
Anupam

On 3/24/10, anupam chakravartty <c.anupam at gmail.com> wrote:
> aditya,
>
> im enlightened. i suffer from this enlightenment every morning. so
> much enlightenment everywhere. it is like an overdose.
>
> thanks for reacting anyway
> anupam
>
> On 3/24/10, Aditya Raj Kaul <kauladityaraj at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Is posting an investigative piece on the list which exposes extremists, a
>> crime ?
>>
>> Its not about advertising. Its about reality, perspective and games being
>> played in dark. Games which kill people in the name of religion.
>>
>> Be enlightened.
>>
>> Cheers
>>
>> On Wed, Mar 24, 2010 at 6:27 PM, anupam chakravartty
>> <c.anupam at gmail.com>wrote:
>>
>>> Pawan,
>>>
>>> I must praise you for being a chalta pheerta advertisement for
>>> extremism. you have successfully advertised all forms of extremism on
>>> this list. good going.
>>>
>>> anupam
>>>
>>> On 3/24/10, Pawan Durani <pawan.durani at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> > "“Haven't you still realised that the falsehood of your 33 crore dirty
>>> > mud idols and the blasphemy of your deaf, dumb, mute and naked idols
>>> > of Ram, Krishna and Hanuman”, the venomous Indian Mujahideen manifesto
>>> > released to media as bombs went off across Ahmedabad read, “are not at
>>> > all going to save your necks, Insha-Allah, from being slaughtered by
>>> > our hands.”
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > Islamism, modernity & Indian Mujahideen - PRAVEEN SWAMI
>>> >
>>> > http://beta.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/article267670.ece?homepage=true
>>> >
>>> > Many believe the jihadist movement in India to be driven by religious
>>> > fanaticism. There is little doubt that the idiom of the Indian
>>> > Mujahideen drew on Islam, or at least a certain reading of Islam. The
>>> > manifestos the organisation released after its operations sought
>>> > religious legitimacy for the jihadist project.
>>> >
>>> > Days before 21 improvised explosive devices ripped through Ahmedabad
>>> > on July 26, 2008, a young cleric from Azamgarh arrived to offer
>>> > religious instruction to the Indian Mujahideen's bombers.
>>> >
>>> > Sheikh Abul Bashar hoped, Gujarat Police investigators say, to deepen
>>> > the bombers' theological understanding of the war they were engaged
>>> > in. He came armed with Salamat-e-Kayamat, an evangelical video replete
>>> > with scriptural prophecies of the triumph of Islam before the day of
>>> > judgment. He also acquired a copy of Faruk Camp, a paean to Taliban
>>> > rule in Afghanistan, from Usman Aggarbattiwala, a young commerce
>>> > graduate from Vadodara's Maharaja Sayaji University who allegedly
>>> > programmed the integrated circuits used as timers for a separate set
>>> > of bombs planted in Surat.
>>> >
>>> > Bored by the religious polemic, though, Bashar's students turned
>>> > instead to Anurag Kashyap's movie Black Friday — a riveting account of
>>> > just how a group of hard-drinking, womanising gangsters carried out
>>> > the 1993 serial bombings in Mumbai to avenge the anti-Muslim riots
>>> > that that tore apart the city after the demolition of the Babri
>>> > Masjid.
>>> >
>>> > It seems improbable that the earnest cleric approved of these
>>> > decidedly irreligious role-models — and the Indian Mujahideen's
>>> > aesthetic choices — may point us in the direction of important
>>> > insights into the jihadist movement in India.
>>> >
>>> > Many believe the jihadist movement in India to be driven by religious
>>> > fanaticism. There is little doubt that the idiom of the Indian
>>> > Mujahideen drew on Islam, or at least a certain reading of Islam. The
>>> > manifestos the organisation released after its operations sought
>>> > religious legitimacy for the jihadist project. They also point to
>>> > specific secular political problems facing India's Muslims,
>>> > specifically communal violence. Bashar's Black Friday story helps
>>> > debunk notions that the jihadist movement in India is spearheaded by
>>> > madrasa-educated fanatics indoctrinated in something called “extreme
>>> > Islam.” Both SIMI, and the Jamaat-e-Islami from which it was born,
>>> > would rail against watching films; Indian Mujahideen terrorists
>>> > revelled in them. Many seminaries are still struggling with modernity;
>>> > India's jihadists are natives of the new world.
>>> >
>>> > Azamgarh and the Indian Mujahideen: Early last month, police in Uttar
>>> > Pradesh arrested Salman Ahmad, one of a string of alleged jihadists
>>> > associated with the Lashkar-e-Taiba's so-called “Karachi Project”: an
>>> > enterprise run by Karachi-based fugitive Indian jihadists Riyaz Ismail
>>> > Shahbandri, his brother Iqbal Shahbandri, and Abdul Subhan Qureshi to
>>> > execute a renewed wave of bombings across the country. Police say
>>> > Ahmad, who was arrested after the Research and Analysis Wing
>>> > intercepted phone calls he made from Nepal to Pakistan, had received
>>> > training at a Lashkar camp in Karachi before being tasked to set up a
>>> > safe-house in Kathmandu for routing new recruits to the Lashkar. Just
>>> > 15, his lawyers claim, when he was alleged to have participated in the
>>> > 2008 bombings in New Delhi, Ahmad studied at a government-run high
>>> > school and had enrolled for a computer-applications course at a
>>> > Lucknow college.
>>> >
>>> > Ahmad's profile closely resembles that of many Azamgarh jihadists —
>>> > which, along with Mumbai, Ahmedabad and Bhatkal, near Mangalore,
>>> > served as a core recruitment base for the Lashkar-e-Taiba — linked
>>> > jihadist cells which are today collectively referred to as the Indian
>>> > Mujahideen.
>>> >
>>> > Data obtained by The Hindu for 10 individuals alleged to be key
>>> > members of the Azamgarh jihadist cell show that just two individuals —
>>> > Bashar himself and Mohammad Arif Badruddin — had spent any length of
>>> > time in madrasas. Many likely received some religious education in
>>> > their spare time, in common with many small-town children of all
>>> > faiths, but their aspirations appear to have been decidedly
>>> > middle-class. Zeeshan Ahmad, one of the suspects involved in the 2008
>>> > shootout with the Delhi Police at Batla House, was pursuing a business
>>> > administration degree. His flat-mate, Mohammad Saif, a history
>>> > graduate, also hoped to secure an MBA. Mohammad Zakir Sheikh was
>>> > studying for a Master's degree in Psychology in Azamgarh. Sadiq Israr
>>> > Sheikh, who spent two years in an Azamgarh madrasa as a child, was
>>> > enrolled in a computer-educaiton course.
>>> >
>>> > Bashar's story casts some light on just how the jihadist cells in
>>> > Azamgarh in fact formed. In the wake of the demolition of the Babri
>>> > Masjid, the Jamaat-e-Islami came under intense pressure from
>>> > hardliners calling for militant action. The party, deeply entwined in
>>> > mainstream politics and suspicious of a confrontation with the Indian
>>> > state, resisted. Maulana Abdul Aleem Islahi — a prominent
>>> > Hyderabad-based cleric who had graduated from Azamgarh's well-known
>>> > Madrasat-ul-Islah — earned the party's wrath by authoring an
>>> > inflammatory tract challenging its line. Expelled from the
>>> > Jamaat-e-Islami, Maulana Islahi became an ideological mentor to many
>>> > young radicals who played a key role in the jihadist movement in India
>>> > — among them, fugitive Indian Mujahideen commander Abdul Subhan
>>> > Qureshi.
>>> >
>>> > In the summer of 2005, Maulana Islahi offered Bashar a job at the
>>> > Jamaiat Sheikh ul-Maududi, a seminary named for the founder of the
>>> > Jamaat-e-Islami. The cleric and Bashar's father had been friends and
>>> > political allies in the Jamaat; their relationship evidently survived
>>> > his expulsion.
>>> >
>>> > Later, though, Bashar was increasingly drawn to the jihadist project
>>> > advocated by Maulana Islahi's son, Salim. He left his job, began
>>> > addressing gatherings of the pro-jihadist organisations like the
>>> > Darsgah Jihad-o-Shahadat and Tehreek Tahaffuz-e-Sha'aire Islam, and
>>> > edited the Islamist magazine Nishaan-e-Rah, which drew its name from
>>> > the seminal ideologue Syed Qutb's key work, Milestones. Salim Islahi
>>> > introduced Bashar to Sadiq Israr Sheikh, a Mumbai-based SIMI radical
>>> > with Azamgarh roots who had studied at a madrasa there for some years
>>> > as a child. Sheikh, who was linked through SIMI to the Indian
>>> > Mujahideen's fugitive commanders Qureshi and Shahbandri, in turn
>>> > recruited jihadists in Azamgarh — key among them Atif Amin, who was
>>> > killed in the 2008 shootout.
>>> >
>>> > The “Islamist Class”: Clearly, a complex matrix of factors — among
>>> > them, personal friendship, kinship networks and ideology — helped
>>> > build the Indian Mujahideen's networks. Madrasas or traditional
>>> > Islamist affiliations were not among them. Bashar, for example, did
>>> > not draw on students of the Madrasa Sheikh ul-Maududi for recruits.
>>> > Nor did he seek out students at the Azamgarh seminary where he and his
>>> > employer were educated, the Madrasat-ul-Islah.
>>> >
>>> > Part of the reason for this may be that the jihadist movement, of
>>> > which SIMI was the most visible face, stood in opposition to both the
>>> > traditional clerics and organised Islamist politics. In his rich
>>> > anthropological study Islamism and Democracy in India, the scholar
>>> > Irfan Ahmad explored the frictions between the Jamaat-e-Islami
>>> > establishment and SIMI at the Jamaat-e-Islami-run Jamiat-ul-Falah
>>> > seminary in Azamgarh. Founded by the Jamaat-e-Islami to capitalise on
>>> > the new political space that opened up after the Emergency, SIMI soon
>>> > embarrassed the party's elders by its support for jihadists.
>>> >
>>> > SIMI mounted polemical attacks on the Jamaat-e-Islami scholar Maulana
>>> > Mohammad Rahmani, and sought to take control of the Jamiat-ul-Falah's
>>> > old-students' association. In 1999, a time when it had become
>>> > increasingly vocal in its calls for jihad and support for
>>> > organisations like the Taliban, SIMI members provoked a showdown with
>>> > authorities at the Jamiat-ul-Falah. The Jamaat-e-Islami's official
>>> > students' wing, the Students Islamic Organisation, responded by
>>> > founding a parallel student body, the Tanzeem Tulba-e-Qadim, which
>>> > charged SIMI with propagating “katta [gun] culture”, saying that its
>>> > calls for jihad were “lethal for Islam, Muslims and the country.”
>>> > Notably, SIMI was proscribed by authorities at the Jamiat-ul-Falah
>>> > well before the Government of India finally acted against the jihadist
>>> > organisation in the wake of the Al Qaeda's attacks on the United
>>> > States on September 11, 2001. During the police crackdown that
>>> > followed the SIO refused to join in protests against SIMI leaders from
>>> > the Jamiat-ul-Falah.
>>> >
>>> > Dr. Ahmad points to the existence of what he describes as a distinct
>>> > “Islamist class”. Unlike at some other seminaries, students living at
>>> > Falah did not come from among the ranks of the poor. Fees, including
>>> > food and incidental costs, ranged around Rs. 900 a month. Of 5,365
>>> > students, 4,300 came from cities. But class, he noted was “not just
>>> > based on monthly income and an urban location but, more crucial, the
>>> > specific cultural capital.” Just as cultural capital of the
>>> > Jamaat-e-Islami led its leadership to make specific political choices
>>> > to the crisis with which the Muslim community has been confronted, so,
>>> > too, did the jihadists linked to the institutions and organisations
>>> > that broke with the structured Islamist movement. Both sides drew on
>>> > Islam to legitimise their position — but their choices were shaped by
>>> > the challenges of politics in a modern, plural society.
>>> >
>>> > “Haven't you still realised that the falsehood of your 33 crore dirty
>>> > mud idols and the blasphemy of your deaf, dumb, mute and naked idols
>>> > of Ram, Krishna and Hanuman”, the venomous Indian Mujahideen manifesto
>>> > released to media as bombs went off across Ahmedabad read, “are not at
>>> > all going to save your necks, Insha-Allah, from being slaughtered by
>>> > our hands.”
>>> >
>>> > Below, though, were five demands, each entirely secular in character:
>>> > demands for restitution against police outrages, the punishment of the
>>> > perpetrators of communal violence, and the legal defence of terrorism
>>> > suspects.
>>> >
>>> > Fighting the jihadists must obviously involve better policing and
>>> > intelligence. But it also needs political interventions built around
>>> > rights and justice — not the appeasement of religious neoconservatives
>>> > and clerics, as successive Indian governments have seemed to believe.
>>> > _________________________________________
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>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Aditya Raj Kaul
>>
>> Cell -  +91-9873297834
>> Blog: http://activistsdiary.blogspot.com/
>>
>> For a man who no longer has a homeland, writing becomes a place to live.
>> _________________________________________
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>