Aryn Baker writes in Time:
The roots of Muslim rage run deep in India, nourished by a long-held sense of injustice over what many Indian Muslims believe is institutionalized discrimination against the country’s largest minority group. The disparities between Muslims, which make up 13.4% of the population, and India’s Hindu population, which hovers around 80%, are striking. There are exceptions, of course, but generally speaking Muslim Indians have shorter life spans, worse health, lower literacy levels, and lower-paying jobs. Add to that toxic brew the lingering resentment over 2002′s anti-Muslim riots in the state of Gujarat. The riots, instigated by Hindu nationalists, killed some 2000 people, most of them Muslim. To this day, few of the perpetrators have been convicted.
And:
Kashmir, a Muslim-dominated state whose fate had been left undecided in the chaos that led up to partition, remains a suppurating wound in India’s Muslim psyche. As the cause of three wars between India and Pakistan — one of which nearly went nuclear in 1999 — Kashmir has become a symbol of profound injustice to Indian Muslims who believe that their government cares little for Kashmir’s claim of independence, which is based upon a 1948 U.N. resolution promising a plebiscite to determine the Kashmiri people’s future. That frustration has spilled into the rest of India in the form of several devastating terrorist attacks that have made Indian Muslims both perpetrators and victims.
Like much of the analysis of the Mumbai attacks I’ve read in the past couple of days, this ignores the role of outside influence on the radicalisation of Indian Muslims.
A sense of injustice doesn’t automatically lead to terrorism, and social grievances by themselves don’t breed militancy; otherwise we’d all be in trouble. Communal violence has rocked India almost every year since 1947, yet the country’s descent into terrorist bloodshed is relatively recent. The 2002 Gujarat riots are rightly emphasised in almost every news story as one of the causes of “Muslim rage”, but for the wrong reason. It’s not that the mayhem, although horrific, was historically bad; it’s because it occurred at a crucial juncture. Kashmir had been burning for more than a decade; al-Qaeda had scored its biggest victory with 9/11; and in Pakistan, ISI was riding roughshod over moderates while funding every jihadist outfit they deemed useful as a proxy.
Kashmir’s role in the radicalisation of Indian Muslims is significant, and there is no doubt that abuses by the Indian security forces added insult to injury. But the valley never would’ve been swallowed by a full-blown insurgency had it not been for ISI’s fundamentalist gunmen. I traveled the area frequently in the 80s and early 90s, and the transformation was as rapid as it was tragic. Muzaffarabad was a beehive of jihadist activity; on the Indian side, battles raged and the Indian forces, lacking a coherent COIN plan, resorted to treating every civilian as an enemy. In the end, Pakistan’s strategy of provocation was a resounding success. If the plebiscite had been held in 1989, I’d say most Kashmiris would’ve opted for staying with India; by 1991, most wanted independence; today, my guess is at least a notable section of the population would prefer accession to Pakistan.
India certainly isn’t immune to homegrown fanaticism, be it Hindu or Muslim. But to blame the country for what happened in Mumbai by pointing to the discrimination and resentment of its Muslims trivialises a problem that goes far beyond India’s borders. Without Pakistan’s involvement in Kashmir, there would be no Indian Mujahedin, and SIMI would’ve remained a nuisance. No reasonable person blamed the U.S. for 9/11, even if one could see its policies in the Middle East as a root cause. We should extend the same courtesy to India.
(For an Indian perspective, see terrorism expert Wilson John’s conclusions.)
I agree with your analysis, India can not, should not be blamed for the terrorists attacks against its people.
For once, when we hear the Islamic faithfull whine and moan about the injustices of the Crusades, how refreshing it would be to hear apologies from their Islamic religious leaders about 270 million plus kafr’s that have died at the hands of Islam throughout the centuries.
Hindu fundamentalism has its cruel side as history has shown, but the Hindu nation has been greatly pillaged by Islamic imperialism over the centuries and if the history between the two were put in the scales, the Hindus would be found to have received far more in the way of brutality, victimization and humiliation than the other way around.
When it comes to Islam, one learns all about the offences committed the other, but never about the atrocities meted out by Islam to the non-Muslim and the history of dhimmitude, antisemitism and slavery.
One other thought, regardless of what the US has done or hasn’t done in the world, it has little bearing on the Islamofascists agenda.
Yes — and yet, I would prefer not turning this into a counter-jihadist tirade.
Why the condenscending label? What I wrote is a factual accounting of the historical record, please enlighten me on why you would call it a tirade, anything I missed?
Not to nitpick, but I think we could do without the rage rhetoric: “whine and moan”, “Islamic imperialism”, “history of dhimmitude, antisemitism and slavery”, “Islamofascists”…
For what it’s worth, I don’t think these atrocities should be used as a platform for denouncing a whole religion.
Anyway, no disdain was intended.
Well Jari, it is indeed nit picking, but I’m not offended by it, so lets move on.
I do have proof though of what I say is true, besides, I got it straight from the head honcho of Islamism himself, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, Sec-Gen of the OIC, while he was in town a few weeks ago.
Ihsanoglu did indeed “whine and complain” about western attitudes that he described as “Islamophobia” while co-opting every western historical achievement he could manage to lay claim on in the time alloted to him.
As for Islamic imperialsim, it’s a fact of history.
Islamic antisemtism is a historical fact as well, why you would consider my mentioning of it to be…rhetorical, is beyond me. Do you call the worry over the Hamas’ , Neo-National Socialism and the KKK’s antisemitism …rhetorical as well? Please fill me in on that, really, I’m genuinely interested in how you think.
As for denouncing a whole region, what is one to think of the Islamic world where no one Muslim of prestige and credibility in the ME, denounces the antisemitism that permeates the Koran and the Hadiths, let alone state governing bodies? Why are you so eager (at least you appear as such, I might be wrong on that score) to close the eyes to the substandard/horrid thinking in the region?
I would assume that if people are taken at face value for what they say, and equally important, for what they don’t say, it pretty much sums up their thinking. Why should these people be given a free pass for believing and promoting some of the most vile antisemitic notions to date, just because of where they happen to live?
Please Jari, answer me on that one. I have had it up to here with double talk.
Kenneth