INDIA - THE THREAT FROM WITHIN. INTROSPECTING THE DEOBAND MADRASSAS.

On 22nd February 2009, I read this curious article in Indian Express: The eldest son of fiery Dukhtaran-e-Millat (Daughters of Faith) leader Asiya Andrabi, Qasim was selected for the Kashmir under-16 team for the Vijay Merchant trophy this season. But while the rest of his teammates were celebrating their victory over Haryana in a group match, Muhammad was ordered back home immediately, and told that he couldn’t play for the “country his parents were fighting against”. His father Muhammad Qasim Fuktoo, a militant commander who subsequently set up a religious organisation called Muslim Deeni Mahaz (Muslim Religious Front), has been in prison since 1994 and is currently lodged in the Srinagar Central Jail. “How can I let him play for India? My son will never serve a country that is our enemy. It is just impossible,” she says, adding that she has other plans for him.

Andrabi wants to send Muhammad to Uttar Pradesh for higher studies at Jamiat-ul-Fallah (JuF) - a religious seminary. “I want him to get both science and religious education. I don’t want him to waste his life on cricket,” she says.

BuA : What do we get from the above? The mother is willing to send the son to JuF in UP and not anywhere else. Since she is so Anti-India, she believes that JuF will at the very least, not infuse a love of / for India into her child.



Delving deeper, I came to realize that JuF is a Deobandi seminary in Azamgarh. Deoband and Azamgarh – now why do they keep on appearing like bad coins in matters that deal with internal security (Indian Mujahideen, Abu Salem, Dawood Ibrahim etc) ?

In an article : “Azamgarh – where guns have replaced roses” : the article states: “AZAMGARH, A district from eastern UP, has been in the spotlight in the recent times for all the wrong reasons, especially with terror and violence-related events and has earned the notoriety of being a nursery of terror in India. Azamgarh happens to be home to a good number of activists of the banned Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) and its Indian Mujahideen outfit. It is a harsh reality that almost all the suspects for the recent attacks in Delhi, Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Varanasi and Hyderabad have a close nexus with Azamgarh.

Once known for Hindu-Muslim brotherhood and its high intellectual quotient, Azamgarh has slowly and gradually metamorphosed into a land of fundamentalists and owns the tag of being terror’s breeding ground. This extreme fundamentalism has thus provided a very fertile land for SIMI and other such outfits to flourish and torment the nation.
A large number of young, uneducated and unemployed Muslim youth, having no clear-cut future prospects, have fallen prey to the world of terrorism and the place has become a fertile ground for breeding terror. The likes of notorious don Abu Salem, Abu Bashir, Atif, etc, hailing from Azamgarh, have been able to misguide and motivate the youth from the region to take up career in drugs and terrorism.

Azamgarh is known for wrong reasons because of people like HAJI MASTAN, ABU SALEM and DAWOOD IBRAHIM who are related to this place.

In today’s Azamgarh, it seems that the youth has been misguided and the new breed of terrorists like Abu Bashir, Atif, Sajid, Saif have become a threat to the culture of this region and country. Where has the soothing and inspiring poetry of Kaifi Azmi gone? Why have the works of Sankrityayan and Upadhyaya been overshadowed by guns and bombs? Are we ever going to get more Azmis and Sankrityayans from this region or are we in for more Salems, Dawoods and Bashirs?

BuA: Hold that thought. Does is make sense to you the rationale why the fiercely anti – India leader of Dukhtaran e Millat feels at ease sending her son to a Deobandi madrassa in Azamgarh?



DEOBANDI TEACHING AT VARIANCE WITH QURAN:

Moving on – let’s look at this excellent & a must read article – “Sending a wrong message” written by Arif Mohammad Khan (Former Union Minister). In it he writes that Deoband teachings are at variance with what is written in Quran.

1A. Quran upholds the sanctity of life in most uncompromising terms and says: “If anyone slew a person be it for murder or for spreading mischief in the land it would be as if he slew the whole people: and if anyone saved a life it would be as if he saved the life of the whole people.”

1B. On the other hand, look at what the Deoband syllabus says: “The destruction of the sword is incurred by infidels, although they be not the first aggressors, as appears from various passages in the sacred writings which are generally received to this effect.”

2A. On the subject of the duty of a Muslim to invite others to the fold of faith, the Quran says: “Invite (all) to the way of the Lord with wisdom and beautiful preaching; and argue with them in ways that are best and most gracious: for your Lord knows best who have strayed from His Path and who receive guidance.”

The Quran clearly places limitations on the responsibility of man in this matter. “Not upon you is their guidance but Allah guides whom He wills.” Further, the Quran totally rejects the use of any force and says: “If it had been the Lord’s will they would all have believed all who are on earth! Will you then compel mankind against their will to believe?”

2B. But Deoband appears to approve the use of force to spread religion. Its syllabus states: “When the Muslims enter the enemy’s country and besiege the cities or strongholds of the infidels, it is necessary to invite them to embrace the faith, because Ibn Abbas relates of the Prophet that he never destroyed any without previously inviting them to embrace the faith. If, therefore, they embrace the faith, it is unnecessary to war with them, because that which was the design of the war is then obtained without war. The Prophet, moreover, has said we are directed to make war upon men only until such time as they shall confess, “There is no God but one God.”

Arif Mohammad Khan goes on to write : “The Deoband’s syllabus on jihad is clearly in conflict with the Quran, the book that is believed by Muslims to be the divine word. It is based on the Hedaya, a 12th century compilation of Muslim law, not on the statute books of any Muslim country today, although in India its provisions regarding personal law are still referred to!”

This syllabus is not confined to Deoband, the seminary that was established in 1866, but is prescribed in more than 5,000 of its affiliates across the country and thousands of madrassas in Pakistan run by former students of the Deoband.”

BuA: Hold that thought. There are thousands of madrassas in Pakistan which are run by former students of Deoband and are run along Deobandi lines. This Deoband school of thought originated in Deoband, UP.

QUERY TO DEOBAND - NO REPLIES YET (THE SILENCE OF THE DEOBAND LAMBS)

Dr Arif Md Khan in his blog and article THE SILENCE OF DEOBAND LAMBS writes: I decided to seek enlightenment from Deoband through their DARUL IFTA (Department responsible for issuing FATWAS and responding to queries) and sent a query on their website on 22nd March 2008.

In the query among other things I gave following specific references of Hedaya :

"The destruction of the sword is incurred by infidels, although they be not the first aggressors, as appears from various passages in the sacred writings which are generally received to this effect." (Vol II P41)

"When the Muslims enter the enemy's country and besiege the cities or strongholds of the infidels, it is necessary to invite them to embrace the faith, because Ibn 'Abbas relates of the Prophet that he never destroyed any without previously inviting them to embrace the faith. If, therefore, they embrace the faith, it is unnecessary to war with them, because that which was the design of the war is then obtained without war. The Prophet, moreover, has said we are directed to make war upon men only until such time as they shall confess, "There is no God but one God." (P43)

After giving few more references I requested them to guide as how to dispel the misgivings of those who suffer not from any religious prejudice and acknowledge that Islam is a religion of peace but feel genuinely concerned about the syllabus taught in Deoband.

The Darul Ifta was kind to send me a Fatwa ID Number and assurance that the query will be answered but so far have REFRAINED FROM GIVING ANY REPLY."

Sohail Abbas, a leading Pakistani psychologist, in his recently published study based on personal interviews of 517 mujahideen arrested in Afghanistan and later lodged in two Pakistani jails, asserts that “the figures on rural/urban jihadis become even more interesting as all the jihadis, barring just a few, belonged to the DEOBANDI school of thought”.

BuA: Hold that thought again. Most of the Pakistani terrorists belonged to the Deobandi school.

MASOOD AZHAR & DEOBAND:

Following his release from jail by the Govt. of India in December, 1999, Masood Azhar went to the Binori mosque in Karachi and announced the formation of the JEM (Jaish e Mohammad). JeM instigated some of the fiercest terrorist movement inside Kashmir. Incidentally Binori mosque is one of the most staunch adherers of Deobandi school.

In Economic Times, an article reports that The Administrative Reform Commission’s (ARC) report on terrorism, which draws linkages between Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Maulana Masood Azhar and Deoband Dar-ul-Uloom, has left the Congress (the ruling political party in India) red faced and deeply embarrassed. It was, after all, prepared by AICC (Congress party, India) media department chairman Veerappa Moily, who also doubles up as the head of the Administrative Reforms Commission.

The ARC, in its Eighth Report on terrorism, presented in June last, attributes the spurt in terror attacks to the rise in religious fundamentalism. “There have been several terrorist incidents in India which were motivated by religious fundamentalism. Some of these activities overlap with political ambitions – like separatist elements in Jammu & Kashmir,” the report noted. “Thereafter, in January, 1994, Mohammed Masood Azhar Alvi arrived in India with the task of working out the reconciliation of the cadre of Harkat Mujahideen and Harkat-ul Jihad Islami whose parent organisations had merged to form the Harkat-ul-Ansar. His organisation’s main objective was to liberate Kashmir from Indian rule and to establish Islamic rule in Kashmir. He also interacted extensively with the leading figures of the DEOBAND Ulema,” it goes on to add.

BuA: Does the decision of Asiya Andrabi to send her son to Jamiat ul Falah, a Deobandi seminary in Azamgarh, now start making sense?

If one traverses the terrorist landscape of Pakistan, the stamp of Deoband is hard to miss. From Haqqani network to Mullah Omar to Harkat ul Mujahideen to the Taliban – the Deoband teaching and madrassas have been one COMMON & BINDING factor. In fact government and military sources in Kabul told The Observer that many bombers came from the Haqqanis' madrassas [religious schools based on Deobandi school] around Miram Shah, others from the system of Deobandi madrassas around Quetta.

DEOBAND & UNITED NATIONS:

This connection of DEOBAND ulemas to the TALIBAN in NWFP has brought out in the open by a Pakistani in United Nations recently.

Indian Express reports: Pakistan’s permanent representative in UN General Assembly, Abdullah Hussain Haroon, had said: “I have come up with a very good suggestion. The clerics of DEOBAND, who wield a great influence in the NWFP of Pakistan and Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), should come to Pakistan and issue a fatwa against suicide bombings and the killings of Muslims in Pakistan as well as in India.”

DEOBAND AND TERRORISM IN JAMMU & KASHMIR:

Maulana Taukir Raza Khan, a prominent leader of the Barelvi Sunni sect, said: “It has been proved beyond doubt that those involved in acts of terror, particularly in Jammu and Kashmir, are the Muslims who follow the Deobandi school of thought.”

“We strongly object to the use of word ‘Jehad’ by separatists waging a war against the state in Jammu and Kashmir. It is also true that only the Deobandis are involved in the so called Jehad,” he added.

Maulana Syed Hashim, another venerated leader of Barelvi Sunni Muslims and a Sajjadanashin of Kachaucha Dargah in Ambedkar Nagar district, said: “Only the Wahabis or the Deobandis and the clerics of this sect are involved in acts of Terror in India.” The Centre should keep a close watch on the disciplines imparted in Deobandi madarsas and their syllabus should be prepared under the watchful eyes of the government, he added.

BuA: Administrative Reforms Committee, Maulana Syed Hashim and Maulana Taukir Raza Khan have laid bare to the Deobandi designs on India. Most of the terrorists caught come from Deobandi school. What conclusions can one draw from here?

What is DEOBANDI ISLAM?

Global Security describes it: Deoband is a town a hundred miles north of Delhi where a madrasa (religious school) was established there in 1867. The so-called 'Deobandi Tradition' itself is much older than the eponymous Dar-Ul-Ulum at Deoband. The Deoband madrasa brought together Muslims who were hostile to British rule and committed to a literal and austere interpretation of Islam.

The tack of Darul Uloom Deoband is in accordance with the Ahlus-Sunnah wal-Jama'ah, Hanafiate practical method (Mazhab) and the disposition (Mashrab) of its holy founders, Hazrat Maulana Mohammad Qasim Nanautavi (Allah's mercy be on him!) and Hazrat Maulana Rasheed Ahmed Gangohi (may his secret be sanctified).

3 IMPORTANT POINT TO NOTE:

The Deobandi interpretation holds that a Muslim's first loyalty is to his religion and only then to the country of which he is a citizen or a resident;

secondly, that Muslims recognise only the religious frontiers of their Ummah and not the national frontiers;

thirdly, that they have a sacred right and obligation to go to any country to wage jihad to protect the Muslims of that country.

BuA: The Deobandi diktat: “loyalty to religion and not to country and the obligation to wage jihad in any country to protect the Muslims of that country” places it firmly and squarely as India’s enemy. Any Deobandi student coming out of a seminary in India will not side with India if India has to fight Pakistan or any Islamic country. He will rather wage jihad in India and against India’s interests. And isn’t that what has been happening till now as we look at within India and see terror strikes carried out by SIMI, Indian Mujahideen and other mishmash of terror groups from Pakistan in Kashmir and India – all owing their allegiance to Deobandi school.

The fundamentalist Deoband Dar-ul-Uloom brand of Islam inspired the Taliban movement. As Taliban nests in SWAT, India is worried that they will come to Kashmir and India and swoop down in Afghanistan. But India will do nothing to the mother ship – the Deobandi seminaries in India.

When Pakistan’s ISI chief says: “our aim is to weaken India from within and we can do it” – it is at least not lost on me, as to who his friends will be within India to sabotage it from within.

GUJRAT BLASTS, DEOBAND & AZAMGARH:



Mufti Abu Bashir has shown no remorse for those killed in the July serial blasts in Ahmedabad, believes the bombings in Lucknow, Varanasi, Faizabad and Jaipur were for “a just Islamic cause” and, as per police claims, has admitted to planning and execution of both the Ahmedabad and Jaipur blasts.


AHMEDABAD BLASTS

They are already calling him the new face of home-grown terror, the second most infamous resident of Azamgarh’s Sarai Mir village after gangster Abu Salem. Bashir studied in Madarsatul Islah and later in Deoband in Saharanpur.

What will be the next move of Deoband in India?

A Muslim writer in a provocative article has argued that an emerging alliance of Muslims, Christians, Dalits and Naxalites will shape the electoral fortune in 200 parliamentary seats – to the detriment of national parties. The implications of India being confronted by a pincer offensive of terrorism and sectarian blackmail are ominous. (MUSLIMS + NAXAL ??)

And true to this – the Deobandi sect are set to float a new political party ahead of the Lok Sabha polls in India due in a few months time.

Indian express reports: Those who played a pivotal role in proposing the front are perfume king Maulana Badruddin Ajmal and Azamgarh (AGAIN AZAMGARH!)-based Ulema council led by Maulana Amir Rasadi Nadvi, which had last month taken a trainload of protestors to New Delhi. Beside Ulema council, National Loktantrik Party led by Mohammed Arshad Khan, Parcham Party and few other Muslim outfits are also associated with the move. Maulana Ajmal is the founder of the Asom United Democratic Front (AUDF), whose party had won 13 seats in the 2005 Assembly polls. Ajmal has already announced their plan of setting up a pan-Indian Muslim party, with units in Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Jharkhand. He has also indicated that the AUDF will contest 20 seats in UP, 10 in Maharastra and nine in Assam.

The Meerut rally is being organised by Shahid Akhlaque, who was elected to Lok Sabha in 2004 on a BSP ticket, but later defected to Samajwadi Party (SP). It was only after he was refused a ticket from SP for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls that Akhlaque floated the Secular Ekta Party. The rally in Lucknow will be organised by the Ulema council.

The same day, the ulema council will be organising a protest demonstration against the alleged prosecution of the Muslim youth of Azamgarh, particularly of Sanjarpur town, after the Batala House encounter in Delhi. “Maulan Badruddin Ajmal has confirmed his participation in the Lucknow rally,” said Maulana Rasadi Nadvi, Convenor of the Ulema council.

“It will be a formidable organisation of the Muslims in the forthcoming elections as it will have the backing of all prominent Islamic institutions and organisations of the country, including Dar-ul-Uloom, Deoband, Jamaat-ul-Ulema Hind, Jamat-e-Islami Hind and Nadwa tul Ulema,” said Shahid Akhlaque.

BuA: Nothing wrong in Muslims forming an organization. After all in some spheres they are backward and need the help of people for their plight as has been highlighted by Sachar Committee Report. The ruling Congress party tried its KHAM (Kshatriya / Harijan / Adivasi / Muslim) to herd individuals as cattle into boxes to buy votes (and not for any social upliftment – but all political parties are guilty on this front) from and this puts paid to their carefully crafted Muslim vote bank.

However, when this help comes in the form of an organization or a political party headed by Deoband, I have reasons to worry. Clearly as has been highlighted before, Deoband’s curriculum and its ethos are not in consonance with a harmonious living. The way Taliban has harshly interpreted Islam, their intolerance even being questioned in Pakistan civil society, they will clearly cause divide and unrest in India. Any organization preaching : “When the Muslims enter the enemy’s country and besiege the cities or strongholds of the infidels, it is necessary to invite them to embrace the faith, because Ibn Abbas relates of the Prophet that he never destroyed any without previously inviting them to embrace the faith. If, therefore, they embrace the faith, it is unnecessary to war with them, because that which was the design of the war is then obtained without war.” After all, India itself could be the land of the “enemy”.

Imagine if a party led by Deoband manage to get majority seats in India? After all, we let the Muslims from Bangladesh in for vote bank (by Congress in Assam and CPIM in Bengal). How long will they vote for others – hence the time to float an all India party and put both Congress and CPIM in their place? What will happen in India if such a party cobbles together a majority – due to a break up of Hindu and the so called “secular vote”?

Keeping this in mind the Vishwa Hindu Parishad has sent a letter to 13 prominent Muslim organisations in India with a curious request — that they declare, in a fatwa, India to be a "friend" of Islam, or a Dar-ul-Aman, therefore making jihad against India and Indians invalid.

The Dharm Raksha Manch, a congregation of Hindu leaders, also asked the Muslim leadership to declare that Hindus were not "kafirs" and therefore should not be targets of jihad. The letter has been sent to the All India Milli Council, Dar-ul-Uloom Deoband, Tablighi Jamaat, Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind and All India Organisation of Imams of Mosques among others.

The letter asks the ulema to "issue a fatwa declaring that India was not Dar-ul-Harb", i.e. a country against which Muslims must launch a religious war, rather "India was Dar-ul-Aman, a land of peace where all Muslims can practise and propagate their religion uninterrupted".

Certainly, the Laskhar-e-Taiba, in its writing and speeches by Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, has declared on numerous occasions that its goal was to reclaim the Islamic lands of India — apart from Kashmir, this would include Hyderabad, Junagadh etc. This was the inspiration behind the name Deccan Mujahideen, a front for LeT. India, according to many Islamist leaders, is a legitimate jihadi target.

In their vitriolic emails, the Indian Mujahideen, which claimed responsibility for the Delhi and Ahmedabad blasts, had also used the reference of scriptures to justify attacks against Indians.

"We are expecting the said organisations to respond to this appeal in a positive manner. We firmly believe that till the time Islamic leaders do not condemn religion inspired violence, terrorism in this country will not come to an end," Singhal said. "If Islam is a religion of peace, as they propagate, then we expect them to issue a fatwa clearing these views," he added.

Deoband on its part held an Anti-Terror conference on 25th Feb 2008. While it said all the right things, the terror campaign continued unabated across the sub-continent and culminated into 26/11 attacks in Mumbai. Looks like the message of Deoband ulemas reached the English daily readers and secular polity and not the terrorists coming out of Deobandi madrassas and certainly not to the ulemas aligned to them in Pakistan.

It has been asked before by others. Why is the DEOBAND not issuing a direct Fatwa against most active terrorist Organizations of South Asia Like Hizbul Mujahideen,Lashkar-e-Jhangvi,Lashkar-e-Taiba ,Sipah sahaba, Do the Darul Uloom Deoband want us to belive that these are engaged in Just Violence or These Outfits are not terrorist Outfits?

If Deoband is against terrorism then why are its books banned in Pakistan? And the question is whether these books are available in India or are they banned here too? The list of banned Deobandi books in Pakistan are:

Seraat-i-Mustaqeem written by Syed Ahmed Shaheed (Deoband), published by Islami Academy, Lahore. Taqviat-ul-Wmaan written by Syed Ahmed Shaheed (Deoband) published by Al-Maktab Al Shifa Sheesh Mahal Road, Lahore. Shia Aur Hazrat Ali written by Maulana Kaleemullah Rabbani (Deoband) published by Haq Nawaz Shaheed Library, Sargodha. Ikhtilaf-i-Ummat aur Siraat-i-Mustaqeem written by Maulana Mohammad Yousuf Ludhianvi (Deoband) published by Maktab Ludhanvia. Miraj-i-Sahabiat Bajawab Miyar Sahabit written by Maulana Mehar Mohammad (Deoband) published by Tahaffuze Namoos-i-Sahaba, Pakistan. Tohfa Imamia written by Hafiz Mehar Mohammad Mianwali (Deoband) published by Maktab Usmania Bin Hafiz Jee Mianwali. Allama Ziaur Rehman Farooqi Shaheed Hayat-o-Khidmat written by Sanaullah Saad Shuja Abadi (Deoband) published by Maktaba Bukhari Liayari Town, Karachi.

Given the scale of Deobandi influence in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, one would expect BJP - the Hindutva party to champion the case against such a divisive influence of Deoband. Is this the case?

BJP - the Hindutva champion states WE SHOULD BE PROUD OF DEOBAND!


BJP FLAG

In cases where national integration is involved, INDIA has never seen bi-partisan support. In a shockingly cynical approach the BJP sought to turn the tables on Congress over the administrative reforms committee report which, according to the saffron party, ‘blacklisted’ Darul Uloom Deoband and demanded an apology from the grand old party in this regard.

BJP national general secretary Vinay Katiyar said there was no question of banning the Islamic seminary and said, "We should be proud that we have Deoband like Islamic centre, which gives religious direction to the rest of the world."

Quoting from the second administrative reforms report submitted by senior Congress leader Virappa Moily, he alleged, "On page 27 and 28, this report has blacklisted the Darul Uloom and accused the seminary of having contacts with terrorists and Pakistani leaders involved in anti-India activities."

BuA: Wonder what the BJP lovers in this forum have to say on this?

Hoodbhoy writes in Saudi – isation of Paksitan: Many village mosques are now giant madrassas that propagate hard-line Deobandi beliefs through oversized loudspeakers. They are bitterly opposed to Barelvis, Shias and other sects, who they do not regard as Muslims. The Punjabis, who were far more liberal towards women than the Pukhtuns, are now beginning to take a line resembling that of the Taliban. Hanafi law has begun to prevail over tradition and civil law, as is evident from the recent decisions of the Lahore High Court.
In Pakistan’s lower-middle and middle classes lurks a grim and humourless Saudi-inspired revivalist movement that frowns on any and every expression of joy and pleasure.

Left unchallenged, this education will produce a generation incapable of co-existing with anyone except strictly their own kind. The mindset it creates may eventually lead to Pakistan’s demise as a nation state.”

BuA: Hold that thought enunciated by Hoodbhoy. He directly accuses Deoband for producing “students = talibs” from its madrassas that are incapable of co-existing with anyone except strictly with their own kind. Hoodbhoy then directly places the onus of Pakistan’s demise as a nation state on Deoband. But then this is what Deoband wants in the first place – for them as stated before in this article – “that Muslims recognise only the religious frontiers of their Ummah and not the national frontiers.” Hence what are the chances of Deobandi students giving respect to the borders of India? As it is we are seeing cases of beheadings in West Bengal being carried out by illegal Muslim immigrants from Bangladesh – this will slowly become the norm as the political landscape changes in India and Deobandi politics and ethos seeps in.

WEST BENGAL, INDIA

News 1: Deccan Herald – Hindu man beheaded for marrying a Muslim girl

News 2: Hindustan Times – Hindu man set on fire for marrying a Muslim girl

Please note that is happening in a Hindu majority country where supposedly Hindus comprise 80% of the population !!

No wonder the anti-India Dukhtaran-e-Millat (Daughters of Faith) leader Asiya Andrabi places so much faith on a Deobandi institution and in Azamgarh.

In an earlier article titled 900% growth of Muslim population, I wrote:

Let us look at India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Even though Bangladesh was part of Pakistan in 1947, for reasons of statistics, I am taking it as a separate country. I will show the population that was there in 1947 and expected population of these countries in 2050. All figures taken from World Bank.

PAKISTAN: Population in 1947 = 30 million. Expected Population in 2050 = 300 million. A 900% growth over 103 years.

BANGLADESH: Population in 1947 = 32 million. Expected Population in 2050 = 280 million. A 775% growth over 103 years.

INDIA: Population in 1947 = 345 million. Expected Population in 2050 = 1630 million. A mere 373% growth over 103 years.

Both Pakistan and Bangladesh have overwhelmingly Islamic population, hence growth is wholly attributed to them.

In case of India, there is a difference of Islamic population growth rate and the Hindu population growth rate. Muslims in India accounted for 9.9% of India’s total population in 1951, 10.8% in 1971, 11.3% in 1981, 12.1% in 1991. (CENSUS FIGURES - ACTUAL FIGURE HIGHER).

Let us look at the scientific data, and try to figure out when India’s muslims become 25% of India’s total population. Will come to why this 25% is important.

Total Indian Population in 1991 = 816 million.

Indian Muslim Population in 1991 = 101 million (12.1% of total).

% Increase in Total Population since 1981 = 23.8
%
Increase in Muslim Population since 1981 = 32.8
%.

We now make a few rough, order-of-magnitude calculations of the numbers involved and their actual consequences. Using t for time, with origin at 1991, T for total Indian population and M for the population of Indian Muslims, the relevant exponential equations are:

T(t)=T(0)exp(0.24t), with T(0)=816mil
M(t)=M(0)exp(0.24t), with M(0)=101mil

Our first calculation is based on the admittedly ad-hoc assumption that India can't support a population more than double the present one. The time for population to double is obtained by solving T(t)=2T(0), and we get t=2.89. Since we are measuring time in decades, this is about 30 years. Now we find that M(2.89)=262mil, while the total will double to 1632mil, and so the Muslim fraction will be only about 16%.

Now let us look at what it would take for the Muslim fraction to reach 25%. The relevant equation is:

M(0)exp(0.33t)=0.25T(0)exp(0.24t)

Solving for t, we get t=7.81, which is about 80 years i.e. 2070.

It is reliably argued (IN BOARDROOMS) that when the Muslim population of India will reach 25% of the total population, there will be another partition of India.

Back to the present article and the bottom line: As Deoband tries to get into the political mainstream of India - imagine India being led by a Deobandi constituted political party?

The enemy has more often come by guile and not force. Many a door has been opened not by threat of violence but by the lucre of “greed”. And politicians falling prey to the lucre of “vote bank politics” are firmly and squarely anti-national elements.

After all BJP supports the Deoband - why do we need to worry?

====================================

Jamiat Ulema i Islam (JUI) is Pakistan's main organization in the Deobandi school. Out of JUI came two terror organizations: the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP) and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), which is widely considered to be the armed wing of the Sipah-e-Sahaba, despite official SSP denials.

DEOBAND CALLED JINNAH - KAFIR E AZAM

They were against the partition of India and called Jinnah Kafir-e-Azam.

====================================

TALIBANISED PAKISTAN - WHY INDIA MUST ACT SOONER THAN LATER.

Let us look at the fluid dynamics of terror structure within Pakistan. On a micro –level, since situation and ground realities are changing every moment, what is true today, can be wrong tomorrow. However, on a macro level – certain truths are cast in stone.



Pakistan's Domestic Terrorists: Pakistan's domestic-based terrorist organizations fall into a number of categories.

In the first category are the Sunni (predominately Deobandi-Wahhabi) and the Shi'a groups whose initial purpose was to eliminate one another. The principal Sunni group within this area is the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (Corp of the Prophet's Companions, SSP), which has been renamed Millet-e-Islami, while within the Shi'a community; Sipahe Muhammad Pakistan (The Army of Muhammad, SMP) is the major group. These groups have been responsible for the deaths of thousands of people through various acts of terror. In this category are also the two terrorist organizations for stoking insurgency in Kashmir – the Laskhar e Taiba (under the umbrella of Jamaat Ut Dawa, now renamed Tehreek-e-Hurmat-e-Rasool) and Jaish e Mohammad. Both LeT and JeM are creations of ISI to carry out warfare with Indian state, and the top members of both these outfits are not Kashmiris but ISI backed Pakistani Punjabis.



The second type of domestic terror group is the Pakistani Taliban. This group was initially fragmented (it was based on different ethnic groups and allocated in different areas along the Pakistan-Afghan border). Their members were graduates of Pakistani militant madaris who fought as mujahidin in the Afghan jihad. A prime example of such a group is the Tehreek-e-Nifaze-Shariat-e-Muhammadi (Movement for the Enforcement of Islamic Law, TNSM), formed in 1989 by Sufi Muhammad following his return from the Afghan campaign. The group's purpose was the enforcement of Shari'a (Islamic law) in the Malakand district and Bajaur (in 1970, the Pakistani government revised the laws of the province, reducing the supremacy of the Shari'a).

Note: Sufi Muhammad’s spectacularly unsuccessful effort to assist the Taliban by taking 10,000 Swat youths to Afghanistan in 2001 and the decimation of this force, however, made him into a spent force. He courted arrest because he would otherwise have been lynched by the grieving parents whose children he led into Afghanistan. Also important to note is that Maulana Masood Azhar on his release by Indian government in Kandahar, got refuge by TNSM.

The third type of terror group is much more heterogeneous and difficult to define because it is made up of tribal nationalists or ethno-nationalists. This group is not uniform or united and is located along the Pakistan-Afghan border. These are motivated by a desire to maintain the status quo and defend their tribal identity and a strict tribal code (Pashtunwalli). These groups vary from province to province--there is a major difference for example between Baluch and Waziri groups--and they largely reject any form of outside influence. The most visible example of this type of group is that led by Maulvi Nazir, an Islamist (a former associate of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar who is aligned with Maulana Fazlur Rahman) from the Kakakhel tribe, which is a sub-clan of the Ahmedzai Waziris (located in South Waziristan). Nazir's agenda centers on the removal of the Uzbeks from the region. Nazir and many others see the Uzbeks as foreigners, though the Uzbeks had lived in the region for many years and purchased homes and land in the region.

Note: Hafiz Gul Bahadur, who is the Taliban chief in North Waziristan, had signed a peace accord with the government on Feb 17, 2008 and was considered a pro-government militant commander as he ceased attacks on security forces and government installations.



When Baitullah Mehsud’s (Tehreek e Taliban Pakistan) TTP became a serious threat to the government, the government tried to unite other militant groups against Baitullah Mehsud, thus, bringing together Hafiz Gul Bahadur and Maulvi Nazeer.

Maulvi Nazeer, who is the chief of Ahmadzai Wazir Taliban militants in South Waziristan, was until now considered a pro-government militant commander as he had led an armed campaign against the Uzbek nationals, evicting them from his soil after bloody clashes.

He later lost some of his senior commanders in attacks by unknown people, but he blamed his rival Uzbeks for it.

Nazeer also accused Baitullah Mehsud and his men of sheltering the Uzbeks on their soil but Baitullah always denied the charges. (Note: Uzbeks would largely be drawn from Dostum’s camp in Afghanistan who was with the Northern Alliance and they have not forgiven the Afghan Taliban for the atrocities they have committed on their soldiers.)

Pakistan's Foreign Terrorists

The second type of terrorist group located or that operates in Pakistan is foreign terrorist organizations. These organizations fall into two main categories.

First are the Islamist terror groups that are Afghani in nature but operate along the porous Afghan-Pakistan border. The Afghan Taliban groups emerged in the mid-1990s and despite setbacks following the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan, they have reemerged as a powerful force in Afghanistan. Within this category, one can identify such individuals as Jalaluddin Haqqani, a former mujahidin and a close aide of Mullah Omar. He is currently the head of the "Haqqani network." Haqqani is an Afghan but he and his "network" are located near Miramshah, North Waziristan. Another notable example is Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, founder and leader of Hezb-e Islami Afghanistan (The Islamic Party of Afghanistan, HIA), who for years relied on the support of the Pakistani Inter-Service Intelligence Bureau (ISI). These groups claim to be fighting for the establishment of an Islamic state. In other words, they have not given up on the Taliban dream.

Note: We will call the Afghan Taliban group as H2O (Hekmatyar + Haqqani + Omar). They fight only the US / Nato forces in Afghanistan and do not attack Pakistan forces. (Closest assets of ISI). Maulana Masood Azhar is being shielded by the Haqqani network – the same network that blew up the Indian embassy (under orders from ISI) in Kabul.

The second type of foreign terrorist organization is al-Qa'ida, which is composed of Muslims subscribing to the al-Qa'ida ideology. There seems to be a rise in the growing appeal of al-Qa'ida, as evidenced in the increasing number of Chechens, Uzbeks, and other Central Asian Muslims in the country (from less than 1,000 in 2001 to about 5,000 in late 2008).

TTP:

The decision by President Musharraf in 2001 to support the US-led ‘global war or terror' which saw him dispatching 80,000 regular troops to Waziristan has compelled the insurgents to improve their relations and eventually led to the establishment of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (Taliban Movement of Pakistan, TTP) in December 2007. The TTP is an amalgamation of 27 different Taliban groups that came together to provide a stronger and more effective challenge to the Pakistani military which is operating in the tribal belt. The movement is led by Baitullah Mehsud, a young man (he is in his thirties) who rose to prominence following the death of Nek Muhammad, a commander of a pro-Taliban group in South Waziristan. It is important to note that Mehsud is not a religious scholar but a committed jihadist who follows the Taliban (there are reports that he has pledged himself to Mullah Omar – which are contradicted from time to time). As the Taliban unites, there is increasing evidence of greater cooperation between al-Qa'ida and the indigenous Taliban groups (Pakistani and Afghani) with both al-Qa'ida and the Taliban taking the view that only through cooperation could they achieve their agenda.

Hence: The closest assets of ISI are : Lashkar e Taiba, Jaish e Mohammad, the Afghan Mujahideen network of H2O. With others they have close relations – TNSM, Lashkar e Jhangvi and few tribal militants. With Al Qaeda, ISI has a hands off approach (their closest co-operation brought about 9/11). Details of ISI and Al Qaeda links for 9/11 can be seen at : BEFORE THE NEXT 9/11 PAY THE SENATORS OFF.

Read another earlier article: TALIBAN & ISI - A PERSPECTIVE

Against the Pakistan government are: TTP of Baitullah Mehsud, Baloch rebels and a few smattering or smaller elements.



The TTP (Baitullah Mehsid) has accused some militant leaders in the tribal areas and some leaders of the Lashkar-e-Tayiba (LeT), the Harkat-ul Mujahideen and the Hizbul Mujahideen of trying to stop youngsters from fight against Pakistani forces. The Taliban have declared all these pro-Pakistan militants as their enemies.

(Note: For India, this ties in very well with its objectives in the region too. However, it will be a fallacy to think, that TTP is a friend of India. Far from it, actually. However both the short term objectives of TTP & India are the same. That is the limited point I wanted to make at this point).

It is learnt that the names of Maulvi Nazir from South Wazirastan, Hafiz Gul Bahadur from North Wazirastan, Lashkar founder Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, Maulana Farooq Kashmiri and Syed Salahudin of the Hizbul Mujahideen have been included on the Taliban hit-list. The Taliban have threatened some Hizbul Mujahideen leaders in Swat and Dir to leave the area soon.

Another Taliban leader in the Mehmand agency, Maulvi Omar Khalid, has threatened Lashkar militants to leave the tribal agency, because they were only interested in fighting foreign troops in Afghanistan or against India. According to Khalid, this meant they do not want an Islamic government in Pakistan.

However, in a dramatic development on 20th Feb’09, three prominent Pakistani militant commanders — Baitullah Mehsud, Hafiz Gul Bahadur and Maulvi Nazeer have set aside their differences and promised to jointly fight their enemy (WHO IS THIS COMMON ENEMY??) in future.

A senior militant commander of Maulvi Nazeer group told this correspondent on condition of anonymity that all the three militant commanders, in a meeting held somewhere in the South Waziristan Agency, resolved all their differences and promised to live peacefully with each other in future.

“I am extremely excited today. It’s an Eid for us. I even danced and fired shots in the air as we succeeded in removing misunderstandings created by the Pakistan government,” remarked the Taliban commander while talking to The News from Wana by telephone.

He said senior Pakistani and Afghan Taliban commanders had played a role in resolving differences among the three militant commanders. He said a 14-member Shura was formed after their final meeting that would comprise banned Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) chief Baitullah Mehsud, Hafiz Gul Bahadur, Taliban commander in North Waziristan and Maulvi Nazeer, militant commander in South Waziristan. Ten other people had been drawn from Baitullah Mehsud’s tribe, Gul Bahadur’s Utmanzai Wazir tribe and Maulvi Nazeer’s Ahmadzai Wazir tribe. The Taliban commander said in an earlier meeting it was suggested to nominate Maulvi Nazeer as the new head of the organisation. However, Maulvi Nazeer expressed his unwillingness to head the organisation and left the matter to the next meeting of the Shura.

The commander said all the three militant groups pardoned each other for the previous killings of their people and material losses.

When asked whether Gul Bahadur and Maulvi Nazeer would become a part of the TTP, the commander said it would be decided in the next meeting.



With TNSM being a pro-Pakistan organization, its peace overtures with TTP has been strewn together based on family relationship. Maulana Fazlullah (FM Mullah) of TTP is the son-in-law of Maulana Sufi Mohammad, founder of the Tehreek-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM). However, TTP is a far stronger and bigger organization than TNSM, hence the peace deal between TNSM & TTP will be tenuous at best and will be prone to multiple break-downs due to inherent conflicts and views.

Najmuddin Shaikh, former Foreign Secretary of Pakistan in his article in DAILY TIMES stated: One cannot see Fazlullah — a.k.a. Maulana Radio — and his new patron (or partner) Baitullah Mehsud accepting Sufi Muhammad’s leadership even if the latter’s 300-vehicle convoy is welcomed in Mingora by crowds of war-weary Swatis. Fazlullah, and more importantly Mehsud, have a vision that goes well beyond the narrow confines of Malakand Division or even the tribal areas, and will not accept any restrictions on their ability to use Swati territory for operations elsewhere.



So why did the ANP leaders in Peshawar enter into this agreement?



(BuA note: Awami National Party or ANP is a strongly secular party belonging to Frontier Gandhi, and they were voted into power by an overwhelming majority. Yet, they find themselves today, at muzzlepoint of Taliban while Pakistan Army looks askance, probably in collusion rather than in fear There are lingering doubts about two aspects: a) why is the Pakistani Army not silencing the primitive mobile FM radio of Fazlullah and b) how come Pakistan Army allowed a rag tag army of Taliban numbering 3000 to take control of SWAT - which has a population of 1.5 million - of which 1/3 were displaced due to the recent fighting.).

Najmuddin continues: "That there was nostalgia for the swift justice that was available in the days of the Wali of Swat was clear, but it was also clear that the Swatis did not want extremism, and the induction of the Nizam-e Adl under the auspices of the likes of Fazlullah could mean nothing else. Sufi Muhammad has already declared that there is no place for elections in Islam and that he is opposed to democracy.

The ANP did this perhaps because it saw that the army and law enforcement agencies were not going to be able to quell the insurgency. The army would plead that no insurgency could be vanquished without the cooperation of the locals; yet the locals prepared to fight the insurgents felt that they could not get government support.

There is now a argument that the purpose of the agreement (TNSM & TTP) was to drive a wedge between the Swat insurgency and the Tehreek-e Taliban Pakistan of Baitullah Mehsud. This is based on the pious but implausible belief that the TNSM wants nothing more than the imposition of Sharia in Swat while it is the TTP that has other ambitions.
Both arguments are fallacious. The time bought is time bought for the insurgents. Sufi Muhammad, as shown by his unsuccessful foray into Afghanistan, shares the TTP’s ambition to re-establish Taliban rule in Afghanistan. He may not, but Fazlullah certainly wants, like Mehsud, the rest of Pakistan Islamised."

Taliban has already burned down over 200 girls schools in SWAT. Imagine if this were to be replicated across Pakistan.




Hence killing an innocent girl of eight if found loitering outside of her home is considered "normal" yet getting 72 virgins after killing innocents is considered a "welcome gift" on reaching heaven - such is the warped teachings in Madrassas.

A report by the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding has highlighted the use of young men from the two Waziristan agencies as suicide bombers: ‘Analysing the 2007 database of 26 cases of suicide attacks in Pakistan (out of a total of 61) where [the] Special Investigative Unit of Pakistan’s FIA recovered crucial evidence, [the FIA] concluded: ‘More than 80 per cent of suicide bombers belong to [the] Mehsud tribe (residing in South and North Waziristan) and were aged 15 to 20.’

Hamid Mir writes: “The Taliban have become a threat for the Pakistan army like the Mukti Bahini in then East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) in 1971.

A furious Taliban leadership has decided to send their fighters to Islamabad as a reaction to the army operations in the Swat valley on the troubled border with Afghanistan. The Taliban have already started painting walls in Islamabad with its threats, compelling the administration in the capital to erase these messages quickly.”

A Pakistani commentator writes : “Pakistan’s independence moment was based on the promise that once liberated it will run on Sharia law but after its independence, elites went back on their promise and from day one they tried to make it a secular country against the wishes of its people. Punjab, Sindh & Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK), being traditionally secular societies, embraced secularisation whole heartedly but Pakhtunkhwa (NWFP), Balochistan & Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) on the border with Afghanistan are traditionally religious societies and religion plays a vital role in their day to day life. Stripping them of their way of life was always going to be a problem and as we saw in Iran, if the secularisation is forced on the people, revolution is the ultimate result. Pakistan is certainly not there yet but the path on which this country has started to move certainly leads to a complete change in guard and a revolution may be the ultimate result of the present upheaval.

How would any such event effect the relationship between different parts of the federation, can this country be run on the basis of one country two systems is a vital question of our age.

Is it possible that Punjab, Sindh and Azad Kashmir have democratically elected governments and governments in Pakhtunkhwa (NWFP), Balochistan & FATA are appointed by the Sunni Imams of the respected provinces given that Sufi Muhammad despises democracy and wants autocratic rule in Malakand Agency.

As a federation, Pakistan will have to alter its constitution radically to allow for Sharia law in some federal units and secular law in others.”

The Changing face of Pakistan.


A RARER SIGHT IN PAKISTAN.


A MORE COMMON SIGHT IN PAKISTAN THESE DAYS.

The growth of Islamization cannot be looked in isolation, not can one put forward the notion that ISI pushed Islamization through terror networks for its “adventurous” agenda. Pakistani society has itself changed and the secular fabric of the polity is getting changed rapidly.

A survey conducted in June 2008 by the US think-tank Terror Free Tomorrow in collaboration with the New America Foundation and the Pakistan Institute for Public Opinion indicated that Pakistanis were more amenable to not only negotiate with the Taliban (with the Pakistani Taliban the figure was 58 percent, while with the Afghan Taliban it was 48 percent), but also with al-Qa'ida (50 percent).

Pervez Hoodbhoy writes: “Extremism is breeding at a ferocious rate in public and private schools within Pakistan’s towns and cities. Left unchallenged, this education will produce a generation incapable of co-existing with anyone except strictly their own kind. The mindset it creates may eventually lead to Pakistan’s demise as a nation state.

Prayers in government departments were deemed compulsory, floggings were carried out publicly, punishments were meted out to those who did not fast in Ramadan, selection for academic posts in universities required that the candidate demonstrate a knowledge of Islamic teachings and jihad was declared essential for every Muslim. Today, government intervention is no longer needed because of a spontaneous groundswell of Islamic zeal. The notion of an Islamic state – still in an amorphous and diffused form – is more popular now than ever before as people look desperately for miracles to rescue a failing state.

In Pakistan’s lower-middle and middle classes lurks a grim and humourless Saudi-inspired revivalist movement that frowns on any and every expression of joy and pleasure.

Ironically, the same army – whose men were recruited under the banner of jihad, and which saw itself as the fighting arm of Islam – today stands accused of betrayal and is almost daily targeted by Islamist suicide bombers.

Pakistan’s self-inflicted suffering comes from an education system that, like Saudi Arabia’s system, provides an ideological foundation for violence and future jihadists.”

After 1970, participatory democracy based on universal adult franchise released pent-up frustrations of a society that veered between regional separatism and the Islamic project. Zia’s ideological engineering sharpened a pre-existing divide between two wildly contradictory impulses and made democratic governance episodic. Pakistan’s inability to secure any worthwhile consensus over its democracy added to this emotional schism.

Aware of the fissiparous tendencies that could debilitate the country, Zia initiated a unique measure. Based on his understanding that the military was the only vibrant institution left in Pakistan and convinced that the country’s destiny lay in forging an Islamic State that would be the envy of the Muslim world, he undertook the project to Islamize the military and infuse Pakistani identity with an even greater dose of faith.

Gen. Zia's son, Ijaz ul-Haq, Pakistan’s Minister for Religious Affairs, was among the staunchest followers of Red Mosque brigade and their Taliban counterparts.

Vikram Sood, ex-head of RAW, in his recent article : Time to Detoxify as well as discipline Pakistan, writes: “Pakistan is in deep trouble. As has been said before, the trouble this time is worse than in 1971. This time there is no fall back position because in 1971 there was a West Pakistan to come home to. The retreat from the Swat Valley by the Pakistani state is a sign of the troubled times and was perhaps pre-ordained. In intelligence parlance it is called ‘blowback’ – the unintended consequences of unacknowledged actions in other peoples countries.’

Pakistan has shown progress only in one category. The Washington-based Fund for Peace now lists Pakistan at 9 in the list of failing/failed states, up from 10 two years ago. Thus we have a delinquent state that is also a failing state as our neighbour and that too a neighbour where hatred for India has been a habit. The sooner we accept this unfortunate reality the better it will be or easier, one hopes, to formulate serious long term responses and immediate pre-emption. Today, Pakistan is a metaphor for “ground zero of terrorism” or “epicentre of terrorism.”

Many Pakistani leaders have been spreading the theory that India is about to reverse the partition and gobble up Pakistan. They flatter themselves. It is also a self-serving argument that encourages the retention of a huge self-aggrandising Army and feeds a feudal system. No right minded Indian would ever dream of taking over that desolate piece of territory whose sole harvest now is jihadi terrorists and hatred towards others.

Pakistan is looking more and more like a failed joint venture of the Anglo-Americans ( who spent most of the second half of the last century investing more and more in keeping this country afloat. The Pakistani melt down looks increasingly like the Lehman Brothers collapse and this country too must go into international receivership with stern conditionalities of sustained good behaviour which, above all, must make India safe from future depredations – sub-conventional, conventional and nuclear – by that country and Kashmir is not on the table.”



David Sanger in his new book "The Inheritance" sensationally claims: "The NSA intercepted messages indicating that ISI officers were helping the Taliban in planning a big bombing attack in Afghanistan although the target was unclear. After some days, the Kandahar Jail was attacked by the Taliban and hundreds of Taliban were freed. NSA was already picking up interceptions, as the units of Pakistan army were getting ready to hit a school in the tribal areas. Someone was giving advance warning of what was coming. The book said they must have dialed 1-800-HAQQANI, said one person who was familiar with the intercepted conversation. The account of the warning sent to the school was almost comical. “It was something like that “Hey, we are going to hit your place in a few days, so if anyone important is there, you might want to tell them to scream”. The book also establishes that the Americans were in full knowledge of the facts on the ground and they started attacking territories inside Pakistan as they thought the Pakistan army and intelligence agencies were no more interested in fighting the Taliban.The book said, the US intelligence agencies knew very well that Musharraf was playing a double game with them as on the one hand he was assuring the Americans that only he could fight against the Taliban and on the other, he was backing the militancy and the militants. “Musharraf’s record of duplicity was well known.

BuA analysis:

1. While TTP is aligned against the state of Pakistan, if Pakistan were to fall to TTP, then the danger to India will have grown manifold. Imagine a Islamized society being led by a Taliban government who has nuclear weapons.

2. ISI uses terror tactics against India after weighing the military consequences, it will keep India boiling, but will ensure that the heat is not great for India to boil over. With Taliban in control, military logic will be thrown out of the window – it is pure and simple mission Jehad

3. A senior ISI officer, giving a rare interview to The Economist, says he still regrets that a “strike division”, trained to punch into India, had been posted to the north-west frontier: “Never in my lifetime will we ever have peace with India.” I agree with him. Hence Pakistan, in its current form which espouses militant Islam has to be neutered. If that means we help fissiparous regional actors achieve their aims, so be it.

4. Pakistan is also engaged in economic terrorism against India. The printing of fake currency and its entry into the economic system to weaken India is now taking epic proportions. It is time we ensure that these printing presses are rendered “useless”.

5. Mumbai carnage showed the true face of ISI menace to the “ostriches” in India. Lashkar and ISI came together with Pakistan Army. And if anybody still had doubt, both Baitullah Mehsud as well as Al Qaeda stated that they will fight together with Pakistan Army, if India attacked Pakistan.

6. Whether Pakistani society is liberal or not is no longer relevant. The guns and power are in the hands of the Army and the ISI and they have been Talibanised. Hamid Gul, typifies this relationship and India is their mortal enemy. And they will stop at nothing, but a break up of India.

7. The threats by Al Qaeda and TTP actually show the “helplessness and desperation” of Pakistan. The time to strike Pakistan should be sooner rather than later - at a time deemed favourable to us.

Al Qaeda: India should know that it will have to pay a heavy price if it attacks Pakistan," Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, believed to be al-Qaida's military commander in Afghanistan and ranked behind No 2 Ayman al-Zawahiri. The Mujahideen will sunder your armies into the ground, like they did to the Russians in Afghanistan. They will target your economic centres and raze them to the ground."

Baitullah Mehsud announced full support to the army against archrival India if it makes any aggression against the country. “Thousands of our well-armed Mujahideen are ready to fight alongside the (Pakistan) army if any war is imposed on Pakistan. Baitullah Mahsud said, hundreds of would-be bombers were given Martyrdom jackets and explosives-laden vehicles for protection of the border in case of any aggression by the Indian forces. “Our Mujahideen would be in the vanguard if fighting broke out. Our fighters will fall on the enemy like thunder."

ISI declared Baitullah Mehsud a true patriot. Since the world is watching the ISI could not say, it considers Al Qaeda as True Patriots too!

8. Al Qaeda needs the foot soldiers of LeT and other Taliban soldiers if its mission for global jehad is to be a success. The US has decapacitated most of its networks, hence Al Qaeda requires help from LeT and other Taliban factions. One of the more effective fighting unit is known as the Lashkar al Zil, or Shadow Army. This paramilitary force is well trained and equipped, and has successfully defeated the Pakistani Army in multiple engagements. Inside Pakistan, the Shadow Army has been active in successful Taliban campaigns in North and South Waziristan, Bajaur, Peshawar, Khyber, and Swat.

9. When Pakistan did not have the nukes, India lost a golden opportunity to attack Pakistan and render it into a defanged state for ever. However, due to our cowardice, and US complicity, we could not attack. India would have far less to lose that if it were to attack today. If we do not neuter Pakistan today, and albeit get a bloody nose in the bargain, the consequences of inaction will be incalculable on our future generation. Because in future, Pakistan will have nuclear weapons in far greater numbers thanks to Chinese built reactors and a Chinese Navy guarding Pakistan from Gwadar port, making India’s blockade of Karachi port impossible. If one million Indians were to be killed today, in a future conflict, 10 million more will be killed and the state of India will not recover from the blow. Hence, Step 1: Take out the Pakistani nukes.

10. We need to take stock when ulemas from Deoband, India are found teaching the terrorists in SWAT and other regions of Pakistan. Sohail Abbas, a leading Pakistani psychologist, in his recently published study based on personal interviews of 517 mujahideen arrested in Afghanistan and later lodged in two Pakistani jails, asserts that “the figures on rural/urban jihadis become even more interesting as all the jihadis, barring just a few, belonged to the Deobandi school of thought”. Something is not quite right with the DEOBAND ....

11. The Americans knew of the Pakistani nuclear program and its proliferation yet kept quiet because of other exigencies. In fact American role is pretty dubious lately. Expect no "major" help from them.



While TTP may be aligned against the state of Pakistan, it may not be aligned against ISI. Afghan and Pakistan-based Taliban forces have integrated elements of their forces into Lashkar al Zil, "especially the Tehrik-e-Taliban and Haqqani Network," a senior US military intelligence official said. "It is considered a status symbol" for groups to be a part of the Lashkar al Zil.

Now Haqqani network is as close as one can get to ISI.The mujahideen shura (Shura Ittehad al-Mujahideen) council was formed (Feb 21st 2009) due to the personal efforts of Sirajuddin Haqqani. His network is the most resourceful and strongest component of the Taliban-led Afghan resistance, and has long-standing links to Pakistan. Other members of the council include pro-Pakistan militants such as Moulvi Nazeer and Hafiz Gul Bahadur and, importantly, Pakistan Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud, who has fought against Pakistani troops in the tribal areas.

The shura decided that the leaders would combine forces for a joint struggle against coalition forces in Afghanistan AND END ALL HOSTILITIES AGAINST PAKISTAN.

Meanwhile, the government has sent the first installment of a compensation package for militants in Swat worth 480 million rupees (US$6 million). It will be used to pay the families of those killed and injured by security forces and those who lost property.

BuA Analysis of this coming together: Should the newly formed Shura hold - we need to see that it was brokered by the best ISI asset - the Haqqani network. By putting Haqqani network on one side and TNSM on the other, ISI wants to refocus the attention of the TTP away from Pakistan Army. In fact the Shura decided to fight the Coalition forces in Afghanistan and NOT against the Pakistan Army. If this happens, Pakistan Army will be freed from worries on its western front. Which means its ACTIONS STATIONS INDIA & AFGHANISTAN. I do not think India is ready for the"new kind of" assault. Time to stop being reactive - India should go and TO TAKE THE FIGHT to the terrorists - and this does not mean "an all out war".

PAKISTAN - A NATION?

Any which way, one looks at it, Pakistan is fast deteriorating as a nation state. A nation needs an identity and a story that defines its members as a single people sharing a past. Pakistan has had one breakup already and even now it lacks a story of why it is a nation.

Since it is spewing terror, I see Pakistan a fit candidate to be called a TERRORISTAN. ISI is bringing together the fighting factions of Taliban together.

Why is ISI bring them all together?

All the Taliban (Talibs = students who came out from Pakistani madrassas) were connected to ISI by an umbilical cord. A few children (TTP etc) went astray as the parent started bombing on them (very reluctantly due to intense US pressure).

Now the parent (ISI) is telling the children (all factions of Taliban) why it had to do the "bad deeds" under intense pressure from US (the ultimate satan and the worst enemy of Islam. But if ISI did not listen to US then, Pakistan itself would have been bombed. Now things have changed - US is facing resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan, its supply lines are cut off (which will lead to its defeat) and US is bankrupt too. Hence this is a good time to come together and I (ISI) give you SWAT to play around. Re-organize for the final assault).

What has been the three major aims of ISI - Pakistan’s military strategists have always felt that it needed the “strategic depth” that Afghanistan affords and Kashmir for its “waters”. Interesting to note that Pakistan has NO acceptable borders either with Afghanistan or with India.

Hence, every government in Islamabad, whether military or civilian, has desperately tried to reach a bilateral agreement with successive regimes in Kabul to convert the Durand Line into an international border, but without success.

What is strategic depth? Simply put, this doctrine first articulated by army chief Gen Mirza Alam Beg – calls for a dispersal of Pakistan’s military assets in Afghanistan beyond the Durand Line and well beyond the offensive capabilities of the Indian military – which would afford protection to Pakistan’s military hardware.

Pakistan’s military had three main objectives: 1) Obfuscate Durand Line, 2) Keep pliant & Pakistan friendly government at Kabul and 3) asymmetric warfare against India (specially in Kashmir). All 3 objectives gave birth to the Taliban movement under the patronage of ISI. Afghan refugees, poor and desperate, were enrolled in religious madrassas in Pakistan which gave them shelter and free food. These Sunni Deobandi madrassas were funded by Saudi Arabia, USA and Pakistan. Here these Afghan refugees rote learnt the Quran in a language they did not understand – Arabic. The teachers (clerics, aligned to ISI) gave their hardline twisted logic and indoctrinated these students for jihad. (NOTE: DEOBAND SCHOOL FROM INDIA PLAYED THE MOST IMPORTANT PART - KEEP THIS FACT IN MIND).These students, bereft of own thinking, formed the core of the Taliban movement. Much like puppets on a string - ISI playing the strings.

With Taliban coming together and the few errant ones (TTP et al) promising not to attack Pakistan Army - the core 3 objectives get a fillip. And ISI once again, takes full control of the "strings".

The way Pakistan Army stood by while Taliban took control of SWAT reeked of collusion.

The Taliban, Afghan or Pakistan, or the Pak Army will not give up their links to Al Qaeda or global jihadi groups, because they can't. Jihadis don't magically transform into 'secular' or 'political' or 'nationalist' activists because America decreess they can only attack Indians and Afghan Shias, Uzbeks and Tajiks, jihadis still remain Al Qaeda fellow travellers deriving funding from Sunni Wahabis, and ideological justification from whatever Islamist mishmash the Pak govt allows its school system and religious madrassas to propagate.

Offering to give up links with Al Qaeda does not translate into actually doing so, because those offering know that the West cannot enforce any agreement on them to give up links to Al Qaeda.


ISI - TALIBAN TANGO CONTINUES ....

And for Indian strategic thinkers - the red line has been crossed !

While my analysis points first to Talibanisation of Afghanistan and then larger attacks into India, some of the influential Pakistani commentators think that after Afghanistan, the target is Pakistan itself - i.e. Islamization of Pakistan.

Kamran Shafi writing in DAWN under the heading : No, a thousand times No writes: " The government of the Frontier, Pakhtunkhwa, call it what you will; and the Government of Pakistan, including their agencies both covert and overt, have cravenly given in to the murderous thugs who have brought so much pain and misery to Swat; who have made its once pristine rivers run red with innocent blood. They have given the mullah the proverbial inch; as said in this same space last week, just wait until he demands a thousand miles, and more.

The Taliban commanders who have united under one banner are Hafiz Gul Bahadur of North Waziristan; Maulvi Nazir of Wana, and our old friend Baitullah Mehsud of South Waziristan. According to news from Miranshah the three have declared President Barack Obama, Hamid Karzai and Asif Zardari ‘infidels’. An aside: if this is not a wake-up call, Mr President, what will be, for you to make up with the other big political party, the PML-N, and face the country’s enemies, which includes the establishment (Establishment in Pakistan = ISI) , together?

It has the brass to say that it needs “modern equipment” which would not only “enhance the efficiency of the armed forces [read Pakistan Army!], but also help reduce collateral damage”. What absolute poppycock is this, sirs? Just WHAT modern equipment are you asking for? More artillery pieces and helicopter gunships that were your favourite weapons while you were making feeble attempts to ‘fight’ the Taliban? No artillery gun or helicopter gunship that will reduce collateral damage has yet been invented.

This deal should never have been made. It is the thin end of the wedge. Punjab is already under attack: Mianwali has had two police posts blown up and that poor Polish geologist who was then duly beheaded, was taken from Attock. We will rue the day.

P.S. The same crowds would have come out on to Swat’s roads had the Frontier government moved itself and all its minions to Saidu Sharif to govern from there. What good now to distribute 30,000 rifles among the villagers?! Poppycock again."


Ashley J Tellis, Senior Associate with the Carnegie Endowment of International Peace, a prominent think-tank told the US Senate : India “unfortunately” had become the “sponge” that was protecting America and the western liberal world from the hate unleashed by Lashkar-e-Toiba which had emerged as second only to the Al-Qaeda in being a threat to global security.

Far from semantics, this is no laughing matter indeed and we should not fail to see where this is all headed. And yes, with due apologies to Ashley Tellis, I am no sponge either !

SWAT - HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE, CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER TO INDIA

Times of India one day writes : US frets over Pak’s deal with Taliban and the very next day writes: US winks at Pak-Taliban deal.

My earlier article which had the Pakistani view also showed differing viewpoints. Hence, this filler article before the Indian perspective. (It might be boring to many, but for the strategically minded, you have to know the history before strategizing).

A historical perspective of SWAT. I am writing this exclusively from this erudite article “SWAT - A CRITICAL ANALYSIS” written by Dr Sultan-i-Rome, (Asst. Professor of History, Jahanzeb College, Saidu Sharif, SWAT, Pakistan). Those of you who have the time and inclination, please read this exceptional article to truly understand the going ons in SWAT.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Dr. SULTAN i ROME

Sultan-i-Rome has a Ph.D. in history from the Department of History, University of Peshawar. His doctoral dissertation was on Swat State. He joined the Department of Higher Education (Colleges), Government of North-West Frontier Province, as Lecturer in History in 1988, and is presently Assistant Professor. Sultan-i-Rome is life member of: Pakistan Historical Society, Council of Social Sciences Pakistan (COSS), and Pukhtu Adabi Board. He is also member of Environmental Protection Society (EPS), based at Swat, and remained its Councillor (Member of the Board of Governors) for the years 1999-2002. He remained Member of the Review Committee Manuscripts for Islamic History (for Classes IX-X & XI-XII), in 1995, NWFP Text Book Board, Peshawar. He has participated in various seminars, conferences and workshops, and published several articles.

Oxford University Press (OUP), has published his book:

Swat State, 1915-1969: From Genesis to Merger: An Analysis of Political, Administrative, Socio-Political, and Economic Development.



Amazon link to the book: Click here.

Synopsis:

Why the armed struggle in SWAT?

The presence of foreign forces in Afghanistan, the government's operations in Waziristan and other parts of FATA (Federally Administered Tribal Areas), the Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) operation in Islamabad (especially the manner in which it was carried out), and the government’s failure to spiritedly enforce and implement Islamic laws in the courts — as demanded by the TNSM and promised by successive governments — are the other key reasons why the Pakistani Taliban’s influence has spread from Waziristan to Swat; and resulted in the current armed struggle and upheaval.

Who are TNSM?


I HAVE ARRIVED IN SWAT

In 1989, a movement was started in Dir District and an organization headed by Sufi Muhammad, called the Tanzim Nifaz-e- Shariat-e-Muhammadi (TNSM), meaning ‘Movement for the Enforcement of Islamic Law’, was formed. The motto of the organization was to compel the Pakistani authorities to enforce Islamic laws in the judicial arena and make the judiciary conform to the Islamic system in Malakand Division. The organization gradually extended the movement to Swat as well. The prolonged legal procedures (after the merger of Swat State), undue delay, heightened expenditure, bribery, misuse of riwaj and further deterioration under the PATA (Provincially Administered) Regulations had already aggrieved most people of Swat. The judgment of the Peshawar High Court and then Supreme Court of Pakistan (declaring PATA Regulations ultra virus to the constitution) aggrieved the executive circle in Malakand Division, for it meant a dilution of their unbounded power. The executive were of the opinion that it was not possible to enforce Islamic law in the Malakand Division alone, and thus, the government would have to introduce other regulations of the nature of the defunct PATA Regulations, under whichthey would once again wield immense power. Therefore, they allowed a free run to the TNSM and approved and supported its activities tacitly. All this resulted in an increased momentum for the TNSM movement in SWAT. The logo of the organization (TNSM) even bears the words ‘ya shariat ya shahadat’ (either Shariat or martyrdom).

It is worth noting that the demand for the enforcement of Islamic laws in Swat is not a new development. In 1949, Sirajuddin Khan (son of Sherzada Khan of Mingawara, brother of Muzafarul Mulk alias Kaki Khan—sitting member, national assembly— and uncle of Wajid Ali Khan—sitting provincial minister for forests) in a memorandum, asked the ruler of Swat state to enforce Islamic laws in the state, arguing that this would solve the problems of the people and ameliorate their distress. And in June 1971, after the merger of the state, Dani Gul (a resident of Mingawara), advocated the enforcement of Islamic laws in Swat; terming it the only solution to the problems of Swat and arguing that it was in consonance with the people’s temperament/mood.

As the promulgation of the ‘Provincially Administered Tribal Areas (PATA, Nifaz-e-Nizam- e-Sharia) Regulation, 1994,’ and the purported changes it brought about did not satisfy the TNSM, the organization started ‘Jeel Bharao Tahrik’ in June 1995. Consequent upon the resentment and the struggle, a new regulation titled ‘Shari- Nizam-e-Adl Regulation, 1999,’ was promulgated, but it also failed to bring about any practical change; and the issue continued to fester. And all this while Sufi Muhammad and his organization were busy in the struggle for the enforcement of Islamic laws and change in the judicial System.

AMERICAN INVASION:

America invaded Afghanistan in 2001. He (Sufi Muhammad), along with tens of thousands of his supporters crossed into Afghanistan in November 2001, to fight on the Taliban’s side, against the Americans and their allies, despite the Taliban having asked him not to come. After having lost a large number of his supporters and being unable to counter US bombardment, he, along with his son-in- law Fazlullah, made their way back to Pakistan, where they were caught and subsequently incarcerated.

BIRTH OF FAZLULLAH & BAITULLAH MEHSUD:

Sufi Muhammad remained in jail; but Fazlullah was released after seventeen months. After his release, he started preaching a purity campaign on an FM radio channel. Since his father-in-law was in prison, he was supported by TNSM sympathisers and with the assistance of the radio channel he quickly became popular.

The policy and course adopted by Fazlullah however, became a source of dissension within the rank and file of the TNSM. Though the TNSM disavowed his policy and officially severed connections with him, his power and popularity continued to increase. And in 2007, the breakaway faction, led by Fazlullah, became part of the newly-established Tahrik Taliban Pakistan (TTP), headed by Baitullah Masud, which is an alliance or umbrella organization of different groups. The Fazlullah-led group is more influential than the TNSM-led group, headed by Sufi Muhammad, for the former are militarily well trained and possess greater zeal and commitment.


WHAT GREATER ZEAL WILL LEAD TO


MUSA KHAN - KILLED IN SWAT BY THE TALIBAN OR WAS IT ???

A gang of Taliban kidnapped journalist (Of GEO TV) Musa Khankhel on Wednesday and then rigged him with bullets and beheaded his dead corpse. The building of the press club in Wana was blown up the same day Musa Khan was murdered. Truth is no longer welcome in SWAT and anyone reporting on going ons in SWAT will be killed. Greater zeal, indeed ! (BuA: I have another theory. Geo TV got on the nerve of Pak Army & ISI by relentlessly going after the 26/11 perpetrators and proving that Ajmal Kasav was from Pakistan, the hideouts of the militants were shown in Karachi and other places - reason enough to scare off Geo TV from further meddling into the affairs of ISI / Pak Army).

HISTORY:

SWAT has been the cradle of a great civilization (Gandhara) and has also been periodically invaded by formidable armies.



Swat, which was the religious centre for Buddhists at one time, had ‘some 1400’ Buddhist sangharamas (monasteries), with ‘some 18,000 priests in them.’ And it was here that a third school of Buddhism called Vajrayana or the Tantric Buddhism developed and flourished; due to which it turned into a sacred place ‘for the Tibetans, as a birthplace of Padmasambahava.


TALIBAN IN SWAT NOT BE OUTDONE BY THEIR AFGHAN COUNTERPARTS' CRIME WITH BAMIYAN BUDDHA STATUES

For most of its known history, Swat has remained independent or at least semi- independent. It was occupied by the Yusufzai Afghans in the sixteenth century, who emerged the dominant segment in society.

They, however, did not establish a government or state and lived in the tribal welter, divided into two opposite blocks called dalay (singular dala). During 1879 - 1881, the neighbouring Khan of Dir occupied the right-bank Swat and in 1895, the British brought the left-bank lower Swat under their protectorate and loose control with the formation of the Agency of Dir and Swat, to which Chitral was added in 1897.Incensed at the repressive policy of the Dir ruler and the high handedness of his tax collectors, the people of the Shamizi, Sebujni and Nikpi Khel cantons of the right-bank Swat at last struck common cause under the patronage of a religious figure Wali Ahmad alias Sandakai Baba, in the beginning of 1915. After various encounters, they defeated and expelled the Dir forces, formed a five-member council to manage the affairs of the liberated area and at last installed Sayyad Abdul Jabbar Shah, on 24 April 1915, as their king. Abdul Jabbar Shah, however, was asked to relinquish power and leave Swat in September 1917. It must be noted however, that Abdul Jabbar Shah’s domain did not encompass the entire Swat.

At the removal of Abdul Jabbar Shah, Miangul Abdul Wadud (the grandson of Akhund Abdul Ghafur alias Saidu Baba) was installed as the new king of Swat. Abdul Wadud alias Bacha Sahib was dynamic and energetic and expanded and consolidated the state during his reign. The drive, initiatives and policies of the new king made Swat a model of peace in the Pukhtun tribal areas; and an incredible sense of peace and respect for the authority of the state prevailed in an overwhelmingly illiterate tribal society. Under the term of an illiterate, but enlightened person, Swat became ‘a unique State’; and a model of peace, tranquility and progress in the Pukhtun tribal society.


In December 1949, Abdul Wadud abdicated his throne in favour of his son and heir apparent, Miangul Abdul Haq Jahanzeb. Miangul Jahanzeb alias Wali Sahib’s efforts gave an impetus to developmental work with priority to the education, communication and health sectors. Moreover, he endeavoured to westernize the state and society. While the Swat state survived despite the opposition from within and outside; several factors, finally culminated in the announcement made on 28 July 1969, regarding state merger by the then Chief Martial Law Administrator and President of Pakistan, General Yahya Khan; and the ruler was formally divested of his powers on 15 August 1969.

After bringing an end to the state, the former State (which was ruled by the Wali on behalf of the government of Pakistan as administrator for the said area) and Kalam areas were made a district (headed by a commissioner).

CONSTITUTIONAL ISSUES:

Before the partition of India and the emergence of Pakistan on 15 August 1947, the subcontinent was primarily divided into two entities: British India and princely/Indian states.

There was a third category called the ‘tribal area’. The Government of India Act, 1935, defined ‘tribal area’ as ‘the areas along the Frontier of India or in Baluchistan which are not part of British India or of Burma or of any Indian State or of any Foreign States.’

All the three had a different status and were governed by different laws. British India was directly ruled by the British, under the laws framed by them. The princely states were ruled by their rulers according to their own laws and systems, but almost all of them had entered into treaties with the British government, on certain terms. The tribal area was neither subservient to the laws in vogue in British India nor was it ruled under the same administrative apparatus; but was internally independent and had treaty relations with the British; and was under loose British control.

Recognizing that under the Indian Independence Act, 1947, the princely states (Swat being one of them) and the tribal area would become independent, especially once the treaties entered into with the British government would lapse on 15 August 1947; the governments of Pakistan and Swat determined their future relations in the form of the Instrument of Accession.

Under the Instrument of Accession (signed by the Swati ruler on 3 November and Governor-General of Pakistan on 24 November 1947), the ruler of Swat, while retaining his own sovereignty over the state, surrendered his authority in respect of matters concerning defence, external affairs and communications of the state, to the dominion of Pakistan. With this Agreement, Swat gained admission into the Federation of Pakistan and also a mention in clause (a) of sub-section 5 of the Government of India Act, 1935. It therefore, constituted a part of Pakistan and was known as a ‘Federated State’.

Like the other Federated States, with the solitary exception of Dir, Swat executed the Supplementary Instrument of Accession under which the Wali surrendered further authority to the Federal Legislature of Pakistan, and empowered it to enact laws for his state in the same manner in which it could make laws for other parts of Pakistan, in the Federal and Concurrent fields (Lists I and III, VII schedule of the Government of India Act, 1935); and to exercise executive authority in the State in respect of matters in the said fields.

Swat retained its status of a ‘Special Area’ under article 218 of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, 1956. Under article 104, it was clarified that ‘....no Act of Parliament or of the Provincial Legislature shall apply to a Special Area or to any part thereof unless the Governor with the previous approval of the President so directs....’ The article further provided details on how laws shall be made for the Special Areas or a part thereof, and also stated that the special status of a Special Area or part thereof could be revoked by the president at any time, but only after ascertaining the views of the people of the concerned area.

The Constitution of the Republic of Pakistan, 1962, declared the Frontier States, ‘Tribal Areas’, and Article 223, declared that no central or provincial law would apply to a Tribal Area or any part of it unless the president and the governor (with the approval of the president), so directed.

Though Swat’s status as a state was brought to an end in 1969, the special status of the area remained intact.

And section (6), of article 261, granted the president the same power as was previously given in section 4 of article 104 of the Constitution of 1956 and section (3) of article 223 of the Constitution of 1962, but with the difference that the president shall ascertain the views of the people of the area concerned, for doing away with its tribal status, ‘as represented in jirga.’

The aforesaid, envisaged in Articles 260 and 261 of the Interim Constitution of 1972 —were retained under Articles 246 and 247 of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, 1973.

Therefore, no law made or act passed by the central and provincial legislatures applies to the area, unless specially extended under the special and specific extra procedures. And the special status of the area as a tribal area can only be changed with the consent of the people, represented in a tribal jarga.

PATA Regulations were challenged under the context that they were in opposition of Articles 8 and 25 of the Constitution of Islamic Republic of Pakistan 1973 and hence the PATA regulations were declared null and void (Div Bench of High Court on 24th Nov, 1990). This paved the way for TNSM demands for the enforcement of Islamic laws and make the judicial system an Islamic one.

Hence, constitutionally and legally the imposition of Shariat in SWAT has historical context and “good in law”. (The part where it says after ascertaining the views of the local people will always be a victim of interpretation).


ROLE of POLICE:

The police contributed significantly to the creation of the present situation. The indifferent and repressive behaviour of the police towards the people, bribery, torture, and their collaboration with and assistance to criminals, embittered and alienated most people. Instead of providing peace, security and assistance to the people, the police became a source of trouble for them.



Blatant police corruption, which included collecting the bhata (sum received as bribery for allowing unlawful activities) even for day to day affairs was an open secret and became the cause for much resentment.

INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES:

Foreign and Pakistani intelligence agencies have also played an important role. The Pakistani and American intelligence agencies have supported militant organizations in the area for their own ends. These agencies organized and trained jihadi organizations (forerunners of the Taliban) for armed jihad (qital) to counter the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.



The Pakistani intelligence agencies did the same (in the name of jihad) in Kashmir. The Taliban — an offshoot and conglomeration of the jihadi organizations that fought the USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, also called the Soviet Union) in Afghanistan and India in Kashmir — are not only well equipped, but also well trained.

Many believe that the Taliban was the creation of Pakistan’s intelligence agencies and army. Not only have they benefited from its struggle in Kashmir and Afghanistan in the past, but also regard the Taliban as useful for the future.

Syed Saleen Shahzad in his article: The Taliban get their first wish - states: "The dynamics of the region have changed once again. Nizam-i-Adal Regulation 2009, which proclaims the enforcement of sharia law in Malakand division, is indeed a written document of Pakistan's defeat in the American-inspired war in NWFP"

Interesting he also points out: "Many Muslims believe that ancient Khorasan - which covers parts of modern-day Afghanistan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Iran, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan - is the promised land from where they will secure the first victory in the end-of-time battle in which the final round, according to their beliefs, will be fought in Bilad-i-Sham (Palestine-Lebanon-Syria).

The geographical borders of Bilad-i-Sham-Khorasan extend from Samarkand in Uzbekistan to the small Malakand division in the northern fringe of Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) that includes the militant-dominated Swat Valley."

Another thought provoking and brilliant article from Pakistan - written by Pervez Hoodbhoy:" The Saudi - isation of Pakistan." Hoodbhoy writes: "The common belief in Pakistan is that Islamic radicalism is a problem only in FATA, and that madrassas are the only institutions serving as jihad factories. This is a serious misconception. Extremism is breeding at a ferocious rate in public and private schools within Pakistan’s towns and cities. Left unchallenged, this education will produce a generation incapable of co-existing with anyone except strictly their own kind. The mindset it creates may eventually lead to Pakistan’s demise as a nation state."

BuA statement:INDIA - CLEAR & PRESENT DANGER:

(Back of Dr Rome's report & citations) Interestingly, in the backdrop of the Mumbai attacks of 26 December 2008 and the Indian threats to Pakistan, the Pakistan army spokesman has termed Baitullah Mahsud and Fazlullah their brothers (see Tanweer Qaisar Shahid, ‘Musla’, Roznama Express Peshawar (Urdu daily: Peshawar), 20 December 2008). And in a special interview, Muhammad Alam alias Binaurai—an important figure and commandern of the Tahrik Taliban Swat—has said that if the government is honest in restoring law and order it shall enforce Islamic law practically; all members of Tahrik Taliban will become well-wishers of the government and fully cooperate. He asked the government to immediately practically enforce Islamic law in Swat and use the power of all the Taliban against India and America (see Roznama Azadi Swat (Urdu daily: Mingawara, Swat), 18 December 2008).

As stated in previous post: The ISI Directorate chief Lieutenant-General Shuja Pasha hailed jihadist leaders Baitullah Mehsud and Mullah Fazlullah, whose depredations have claimed the lives of thousands of Pakistanis, as true patriots for offering to fight India.