Indian Press On Love Jihad, Mumbai Attack And AIMIM: New Age Islam's Selection, 26 November 2020
By New Age Islam Edit
Desk
26 November 2020
• Love
Jihad: Loving For Religion
By S Gurumurthy
• What AIMIM Needs To Know To Repeat Its Bihar
Success In West Bengal
By Adil Hossain
• TV Channels Spent The Week Teaching Viewers
How To Wear A Mask And What ‘Love-Jihad’ Is
By Shailaja Bajpai
• Uncertainties In Afghanistan
By G Parthasarathy
-----
Love Jihad: Loving For Religion
By S Gurumurthy
26th
November 2020
Amit
Bandre
-----
Robert
Epstein, a Harvard psychologist who has researched marriages, contrasts the
love marriages of Americans for whom “romantic love is a precondition for
marriage” with the arranged marriages of Indians for whom “marriage comes
first, love comes next”. The traditional arranged marriage and modern love
marriage contrast is common in contemporary India. But a new contrast of love
marriage vs Love Jihad, which started a decade ago in Kerala, is now pan-Indian
and even going global.
Initially
dismissed as a Hindutva bogey, it has become a trans-Hindu, trans-party issue.
Some dispute the very existence of Love Jihad. But Love Jihad, if it exists,
mixes the most powerful individual human urge, love, at one end, and the
equally powerful human collective emotion, religion, at the other. The
consequences of the dangerous mix, which tears apart families and polarises
communities, can be deadly and explosive. Whether high-risk Love Jihad exists,
and if it does, how different it is from normal love marriage of Muslim men
with non-Muslim women, are critical for secular India.
Love
marriage vs Love Jihad
Love
marriage is rooted in a man and woman loving each other. Love Jihad, say its
detractors, is rooted in Muslim men loving non-Muslim women more for their
religion. Love Jihad is not love marriage, they bemoan, as loyalty to religion
is the dominant idea, if not the central one, of Love Jihad. A universal love
marriage can be between any man and woman, within the same faith or outside
faiths. But Islamic Love Jihad is only between Muslim men and non-Muslim women.
The result:
It has become an issue between Muslims and others, including Christians and
Buddhists. Some say Love Jihad is Islamophobic. But the religionists affected
by it insist it is not. Directed by the Supreme Court, the National
Investigation Agency (NIA) probed 94 cases of love marriages between Muslim men
and non-Muslim women and suspected 23 of being instances of Love Jihad.
It is no more
easy to dismiss the issue of Love Jihad. But what is Love Jihad? Love is easily
understood. Jihad associated with love is not, given its link with Islamic war.
The truth is that Jihad includes war but it is not limited to it. Jihad means
any effort to promote Islam. Can love (marriage) be integral to promoting
Islam? Neutral and Islamic sources say ‘yes, it can be and is’.
Loving for
religion
Studies,
including Islamic ones, show how love marriage has played, and continues to
play, a significant part in expanding Islam. In a paper titled “Demographic
Islamization: Non-Muslims in Muslim Countries”, Philippe Fargues explains how
Islamic nations have been Islamising through love and marriage. Fargues
concludes: “Love was now playing the same role in the continuing process of
Islamization that coercion played in the remote past.” (In Paul H. Nitze School
of Advanced International Studies [SAIS] Review, Johns Hopkins University).
In his
seminal paper titled “How Islam Spread Throughout the World”, Hassam Munir
counters the view that Islam spread only through the sword. Munir’s paper
appears on the site of Yaqeen Institute, whose philosophy and agenda are
designed to counter Islamophobia and its negative impact on the community.
Munir says that domestically and internationally, inter-religious marriage was
one of the four methods by which Islam spread. Munir writes: “Intermarriage
between Muslims and non-Muslims has been historically important for the spread
of Islam in many contexts. This is an area of research that only recently has
begun to receive attention, as most converts to Islam via this process were
women.”
Munir lists
the countries to which Islam spread through love. Conversion through
intermarriage was important to establishing the early Muslim community in
Spain; the early modern Ottoman Empire also offers many examples of
intermarriage involving conversion; in British-ruled India, several Dalit women
converted to Islam as part of intermarriage with Muslims, writes Munir. He adds
that “intermarriage has continued to play an important role in conversion to
Islam in more recent times” and gives examples.
Philippe
Fargues’ view that, in contemporary times, love has substituted coercion in
spreading Islam is affirmed by Munir. In tune with Fargues, Munir gives
historical testimonies to show how marriage was the foundation of conversion of
not just individuals but countries to Islam. Aligning with both, Christian C
Sahner, in his book titled Christian Martyrs under Islam: Religious violence
and the making of the Muslim World (Princeton University Press), says, “Islam
spread through the Christian world via the bedroom.” The love of Muslim men for
non-Muslim women seems loaded with religious drive. Undeniably, intermarriage
of Muslim men with non-Muslim women has been integral to the religious
agenda—a.k.a. Jihad—to spread Islam.
One-Way
traffic
To make it
worse, marriage between Muslims and non-Muslims seems one-way traffic, as Islam
bans Muslim women marrying non-Muslims and confines them within the religion. Evidence
suggests the ban is followed in practice. A study by the Pew Research Center,
US, shows that while a high degree of Muslims accept their sons marrying
non-Muslims, the reverse—their daughters marrying non-Muslims—is least
preferred or not preferred at all.
The
situation in India seems no different. In 2012, the Congress chief minister of
Kerala, Oommen Chandy, said that during 2009-12, 2,667 young women of other
faiths were converted to Islam, against which the number of young Muslim women
converted to other faiths was just 81 (India Today, 4.9.2012). The number of
non-Muslim women married into Islam is 33 times more than Muslim women married
outside Islam.
Kerala’s
‘Love Jihad’ goes global
Given the
background of Islamic history, the term “Love Jihad” coined in Kerala in 2009
does not appear inappropriate to the cases of loving and marrying for religion
that came out in the state. The idiom gained recognition when the Kerala High
Court asked the police to investigate the intermarriages of Muslims with
non-Muslim women. Initial attempts to dismiss Love Jihad as just a campaign of
Hindutva groups received a setback when the Christian Association for Social
Action alleged Love Jihad against Christian women.
The Union
of Catholic Asian News (13.10.2009) headlined the report on loving for religion
in Kerala as “India: Church, state concerned about ‘Love Jihad’”. The Karnataka
government too began viewing Love Jihad as serious. In 2010, the Kerala Chief
Minister V S Achuthanandan, belonging to the CPM, said the Popular Front of
India had plans to Islamise Kerala in 20 years using “money and marriages”
(Times of India, 26.7.2020), again mainstreaming the debate. Oommen Chandy’s
data (2012) on intermarriage of Muslims with other communities also rekindled
the Love Jihad debate in Kerala.
Christians,
Congress and the CPM have varyingly emphasised the issue. In 2017, the Kerala
High Court directed the DGP Kerala to investigate the cases of Love Jihad.
Later, the NIA reported on the existence of Love Jihad cases. In 2019, the
Kerala Minority Commission Vice-Chairman wrote to the Union Home Minister Amit
Shah on the organised conversion of Christian women not just into Islam, but
into terrorism, adding “love jihad is on”.
In 2020,
the Syro-Malabar Church expressed concern over rising Love Jihad cases. The
idiom coined in Kerala has since gone global. Buddhists in Burma and Thailand
say that Love Jihad is a tool for Islamisation and mixed marriages, which are
means of conversion, are a danger to the very survival of Buddhism. (Buddhist
Islamophobia: Actors, Tropes, Contexts)
Outdated
idea
A solution
for this volcanic issue calls for a paradigm shift in thinking. The world is
changing course to the detriment of the founding ideas of the 20th century. The
perceived death of organised religions is now an outdated wish. The new reality
is that religion is emerging as a powerful actor. The contemporary liberals may
recall what Max Weber, their icon, had said in 1918. He had theorised that
science, which would erode away religion and superstition and demystify the
world enchanted by both, would not be able to answer all questions of values
and morality. He foresaw the inadequacy in science and religion leading to a
fundamental impasse in the modern world.
Even though
Weber had thought that any return to old-style religion was an inferior
solution, a full hundred years after him, what he feared seems to be coming
true. The world is stunningly religious. The religious population is projected
to grow by 2.3 billion in 2050, and the unaffiliated by just 0.1 billion! While
1 in 5 were irreligious in the 1970s, it will be around 1 in 7 in 2050—showing
a decline in the percentage of irreligious people.
Citing
this, the World Economic Forum says: “Reports of the death of organised religion
have been exaggerated. According to recent research, the growth of religious
populations worldwide is projected to be 23 times larger than the growth of the
irreligious between 2010 and 2050.” Samuel Huntington’s thesis of clash of
civilisations and Harvard University Pluralism Project 1995, to cite two
important developments, are founded on the rebounding of religion.
In a world
where religiosity is rising and Weberianism is diminishing, the contemporary
liberal ideas seem outdated and incapable of handling dangerous issues like
loving for religion. A different idea more appropriate than contemporary
liberalism, a product of rising irreligiosity in the past, is to be found. The
emerging situation calls for an honest, open and bold debate. Will the distorted
Indian secularism allow it is the moot question.
------
S Gurumurthy is Editor, Thuglak, and
commentator on economic and political affairs
https://www.newindianexpress.com/opinions/2020/nov/26/love-jihad-loving-for-religion-2228125.html
-----
What AIMIM Needs to Know to Repeat Its Bihar
Success in West Bengal
By Adil Hossain
26 November
2020
AIMIM
chief Asaduddin Owaisi during an election rally in Hyderabad in the wake of
upcoming Hyderabad Municipal Corporation elections on Tuesday, November 24. Photo:
Facebook/ Asaduddin Owaisi - The Imperator.
-----
Almost a
year ago Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi’s All India
Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen (AIMIM) won the first seat in the so-called Hindi
belt by winning the Kishanganj by-election in Bihar. I remember that the
arrival of Owaisi in the Seemanchal region of Bihar had generated huge interest
among the locals of Chakulia, Kishanganj’s nearest assembly constituency that
falls in West Bengal.
Kishanganj
is the nearest city for this part of Bengal and thus very important for the
local political economy. In tea stalls and sweet shops, people enthusiastically
discussed if AIMIM leaders would cross the state border to try their luck in
Uttar Dinajpur, a Bengal district with 48% Muslim population.
Since the
2014 Lok Sabha elections, Owaisi found huge popularity among a section of
Muslims who widely shared his fierce Urdu speeches, given in the parliament and
elsewhere, attacking Hindutva of the BJP and soft-Hindutva of the Congress.
During the by-election campaign, his passionate speech against the Citizenship
Amendment Act (CAA) and proposed National Register of Citizens (NRC) in
Kishanganj resonated with many in the region which shares an international
border with Bangladesh.
Last year I
attended an anti-CAA rally at Chakulia on November 16, 2019, jointly organised
by local Left Front MLA Ali Imran Ramz (Victor) and Kolkata-based economist
Prasenjit Bose’s Joint Forum Against NRC. While former JNU Students Union
leader Kanhaiya Kumar was speaking on the dais, a local Muslim youth sitting
next to me commented, “I heard Owaisi sahab at Kishanganj. Kanhaiya is great
but no one can speak on the problems of Muslim quam like him.”
Kishanganj,
with its sizeable Muslim population, had seen the appearance of outspoken Muslim
leaders from outside even earlier. Former Indian diplomat Syed Sahabuddin and
president of All India Muslim Majlis-e-Mushawarat (a motley group of Muslim
organisations) contested and won this seat in 1985 Lok Sabha elections on a
Janata Dal ticket. He lost his place to former Union minister M.J. Akbar in the
1989 elections, only to snatch it back in 1991, which he celebrated with a
helicopter ride to Kishanganj from Patna.
The issue
of language
After
AIMIM’s remarkable success in Kishanganj district in the recently-held Bihar
election, where they won four of the six assembly seats, they have earned not
only national fame but also certain confidence that has led Owaisi to declare
that his party would fight next year Bengal assembly polls.
He
particularly mentioned four districts of West Bengal with high Muslim
population as his target: Malda, Murshidabad, Uttar and Dakshin Dinajpur. Among
all of them, Uttar Dinajpur is not only closest to Kishanganj and Araria, where
AIMIM’s gains are concentrated but also it shares a peculiar history and
demography with Seemanchal region.
Asaduddin
Owaisi, Bihar
AIMIM’s
Asaduddin Owaisi at a rally in Bihar’s Kishanganj. Photo:
Asaduddinowaisi/Facebook
The issue
of language in Uttar Dinajpur is vital to AIMIM’s prospects. Muslims are mainly
divided between Surjapuri and Shershahbadia community just like in Kishanganj.
Though Surjapuri people speak in Surjapuri dialect (also known as deshi
bhasha), many among them see Urdu as their language and associate it with class
mobility. Shershahbadia community, whom local Surjapuris view as outsiders from
Malda and Murshidabad district, speak in badia dialect and learn Bengali in
schools.
Sultan
Modi's Slave Dynasty is No Better than the Family Dynasties in Other Parties
For Owaisi,
his popularity on account of his impressive Urdu speeches could act as his
strength here unlike in other parts of Bengal. Before coming to Bihar, he
expanded his base in the Urdu speaking parts of Maharashtra where Deccan
identity played a significant role in rewarding him with few MLAs and one MP.
In West
Bengal, Urdu speakers are mainly spread in parts of Kolkata, Asansol
subdivision in Burdwan and Islampur subdivision of Uttar Dinajpur. As per the
West Bengal Official Language (Amendment) Act, 2012, in Islampur subdivision,
in which Chakulia, Chopra, Islampur, Goalpokher, Karandighi assembly
constituencies fall, Urdu has been given official status because a section of
local Muslim population campaigned for it.
The
appointment of an Urdu teacher in Daribhit High School near Islampur caused
massive unrest among the local Bengali speaking refugee population in September
2018 and led to police firing resulting in two dead and three injured. Calling
deceased local youths as language
martyrs, and to counter its Hindi belt party tag, West Bengal BJP chief Dilip
Ghosh this year declared September 20 as the West Bengal Mother Language Day.
The complex
history of Uttar Dinajpur and Kishanganj
When
partition happened in 1947, Radcliffe Line divided this region in a way that
territorial link between North Bengal and South Bengal was snapped with
erstwhile Purnea district sandwiched between both of them. Later State
Reorganisation Commission approved the remapping of state boundaries in a way
where parts of Kishanganj and Katihar subdivision was added to former West
Dinajpur district to restore the link. Later West Dinajpur was further divided
in 1992 into North and Dakshin Dinajpur.
This part
of India has always flirted with many political experiments in the past. On the
account of partition in 1946, Dinajpur and parts of Purnea were the epicentres
of historic Tebhaga movement to demand two-third of the produce for
sharecroppers. At that time local Muslim farmers formed the backbone of Kishan
Sabha, the peasant front of the Communist Party of India. The history of
peasant revolution did not end just there. In late 1960s northern part of West
Dinajpur had become the heart of Naxalbari movement. The armed uprising was
crushed by the then West Bengal government, but nonetheless, communist parties
established their stronghold in this region. The local hero of Tebhaga
movement, a poor Muslim labourer called Bacha Munshi whom Jyoti Basu
respectfully called ‘Bachada’, later fought assembly elections on a Communist
Party of India(Marxist) ticket and became MLA from Chopra constituency.
The most
senior politician of this region is a septuagenarian figure Abdul Karim
Chowdhury. He has been a record 10 times MLA and a former West Bengal minister
in the Mamata Banerjee government. He is an old Congressman who has won both
Chopra and Islampur constituencies since the early 1970s, after being sidelined
by former Raiganj MP and senior minister at the Centre, Priyaranjan Dasmunshi,
joined TMC. After winning in 2001 assembly elections from Islampur
constituency, he became the first TMC MLA from north Bengal.
Abdul Karim
Chowdhary
TMC MLA
Abdul Karim Chowdhary. Photo: Facebook
He holds
the seat even today, however, local newspapers are regularly publishing news on
his rift with TMC district president Kanhaiyalal Agarwal, a local Marwari
businessman. Agarwal, who is a former Congress MLA from the same Islampur seat,
joined TMC to contest Lok Sabha elections from Raiganj in 2019 but lost to
BJP’s Debasree Chowdhury, who is currently serving as Union minister of state
for women and child development in the Modi government.
Congress
leader Dasmunshi and his wife Deepa Dasmunshi mentored several Muslim youths in
this region during their time as MPs who went on to become MLAs in several
constituencies of Uttar Dinajpur. However, most of them later joined TMC as
Congress lost its influence in the region with 2014 Lok Sabha debacle and Mamata
Banerjee actively wooed them to expand her party in the district. Prominent
among them is Hamidul Rahman and Golam Rabbani who are now the sitting MLAs
from Chopra and Goalpokher respectively. The latter is also the minister of
state of labour in the current Mamata government.
Apart from
political patronage, family links have remained an important factor that
dominated the local politics in several constituencies. So, in the case of
Golam Rabbani, his father was an old Congressman and elected panchayat
official. In Chakulia (before delimitation part of Goalpokher) constituency,
Ramzan Ali was a local strongman from All India Forward Bloc (AIFB), a Left
front ally, who had won the seat from 1977 to 1991. After he was killed in 1994
in MLA hostel in Kolkata by his wife Talat Sultana, AIFB gave the ticket to
Ramzan Ali’s brother Hafiz Alam Sairani who later on became relief minister in
Buddhadeb Bhattacharya’s government. Sairani later lost the seat to Congress
leader Deepa Dasmunshi in 2006 assembly election.
However,
when Deepa Dasmunshi decided to contest Raiganj Lok Sabha poll after her
husband fell ill, in 2009 by-election AIFB fielded Ali Imran Ramz who won the
seat. He is still the MLA from Chakulia and a strong Left contender for the
upcoming elections. Recently there was news that Prashant Kishor team
apparently tried to poach him for TMC, but members of that team denied such
news and alleged Ali Imran Ramz himself approached them.
In
Karandighi, a constituency with 53% Muslim population, has not had a Muslim MLA
since Haji Sajjad Hussain who won the seat from 1971 to 1991. His brother
Sheikh Sharafat Hussain was the MLA of Goalpokher in 1971–77. Both were
Congressmen and enjoyed considerable support from local Rajbongshi population
who form an important voting bloc. In recent years, be it AIFB, Congress or
TMC, all preferred Rajbongshi candidate in this seat. Currently, Manodeb Sinha
of TMC is the MLA in this constituency.
Who will be
the Akhtarul Iman of Uttar Dinajpur?
Most
political analysts agree that the key figure in the rise of AIMIM in Seemanchal
is Akhtarul Iman. He won from the Amour constituency (next to Karandighi) with
a huge margin in the latest Bihar assembly polls. Before joining AIMIM in 2015,
he had already earned considerable political experience as Rashtriya Janata Dal
(RJD) MLA from Kochadhaman and 2014 Lok Sabha candidate from Janta Dal
(United).
Akhtarul
Iman
Bihar AIMIM
chief Akhtarul Iman. Photo: Facebook/Akhtarul Iman Fans ID.
The morning
after the Bihar election results, I was sitting at a tea stall in Chakulia
where a local Muslim cleric who runs a stationery shop made a valid point. He
said, “It is just not enough to be famous to win elections. Akhtarul Iman Sahab
organised at the grassroots for years to gift Owaisi Sahab with all these
seats.”
To break
the entrenched politics of patronage and family lineage, AIMIM needs to find
its Akhtarul Iman of Uttar Dinajpur to convert the fame and curiosity of people
regarding Barrister Asaduddin Owaisi into votes to enter Bengal state assembly
from this region.
-----
Dr. Adil Hossain is a freelance journalist
based in Uttar Dinajpur, West Bengal, and holds a DPhil in International
Development from the University of Oxford.
https://thewire.in/politics/what-aimim-needs-to-know-to-repeat-its-bihar-success-in-west-bengal
-----
TV Channels Spent The Week Teaching Viewers How
To Wear A Mask And What ‘Love-Jihad’ Is
By Shailaja Bajpai
26
November, 2020
Love,”
observed News 24 anchor Sandeep Chaudhary, “is no longer allowed to remain
love…there is an atmosphere of hatred being created around it…” he sighed,
regretfully.
That’s
because love is no longer just a four-letter word — it has been hyphenated with
‘jihad’ and the term has gained such currency that even those TV anchors and
reporters who questioned the need for the Uttar Pradesh government’s ordinance
against unlawful or forced conversions, found themselves repeatedly saying
“love-jihad” in all their references to the ordinance.
Anchoring
‘love-jihad’
As was
expected, anchors on NDTV India, NDTV 24×7 and India Today, like Rajdeep
Sardesai, were distinctly uncomfortable with the UP government’s move, saying
that it promoted a sense of hatred. However, several Hindi news channels were
delighted.
In fact,
some anchors, insisted that ‘love-jihad’ had nothing to do with a particular
community at all despite being called “love-jihad”. “How have you decided that
it’s for Muslims?” demanded an aggressive Zee Hindustan anchor Laxmi of panelist
Jamin Shaukat Ali.
When
Shaukat Ali, who was falsely described as a ‘for love-jihad’ panelist, called
the ordinance “sexist and misogynist”, and argued that young women ought be
allowed to choose whom they want to marry, irrespective of religion, the two
anchors Laxmi and Sweta pounced on her, angrily: don’t you know that men are
using “love jihad” to “fool women” into conversion, they asked. According to
them, the ordinance was pro-women — “Was it not necessary for a girl’s
security?” Lakshmi asked lawyer Pragya Bhushan who promptly agreed.
Such was
their enthusiasm for the ordinance that Sweta announced Zee would do everything
in its power to promote similar ordinances in every state.
Ministers
of the UP government fanned out across channels to applaud Chief Minister Yogi
Adityanath for being a champion of women and to blandly refute the charge that
there is anything communal about the move: “Actually, this ordinance is
protecting the right of religion,” declared Sidharth Nath Singh, UP cabinet
minister, without batting an eyelid (India Today).
Onto
someone else who displayed commendable sangfroid. Believe it or not, it’s Arnab
Goswami. Haven’t you noticed? The Republic TV anchor appears to have returned
from his stint in jail a chastened man. On his 9pm debate, he’s been presenting
such a calm exterior — it’s as if he’s pressed the ‘mute’ button on his sound
and fury.
Arnab did
not regulate the debate
On his
Tuesday night show, Arnab was almost courteous: “I don’t think it is too much
to ask you to listen to him?” he requested — yes, requested — a panellist. He
also permitted others to speak, did not interrupt or editorialise every other
second, so much so that the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Gaurav Bhatia was heard
begging, “Arnab, please come in…Arnab, please regulate the debate”.
He’s not
the only one to have had a change of heart, however momentary. This week has
seen most of the news channels in Hindi and English do what they haven’t since
late March — give the coronavirus day-long coverage and a prime spot on the
nightly debates. For two reasons: the alarming rise in cases in several states
and the promise of an early vaccine.
Between
corona and China
Channels
such as News 24, India Today, CNN News18 visited markets in Delhi and Mumbai
where no one other than their reporters was wearing masks. “I am eating”,
explained one passerby; “I forgot”, said another, sheepishly. “I am absolutely
serious… you have to take this virus seriously,” commented anchor Zakka Jacob
(CNN News18) while Zee News thought it was serious enough for its anchors to
teach viewers how to wear a mask and which ones to buy.
Channel
after channel described the various vaccines that will soon be available,
especially to India and Professor Adrian Hill of Oxford University made the rounds
of NDTV 24×7 and India Today after the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine trials showed
a 70 per cent efficacy.
However,
some channels are incorrigible. Times Now laid its hands on another damning
document that exposed ‘Congress Cash Corruption’ and ran with it — a whopping
Rs 106 crore of unaccounted money reportedly sneaked into 24, Akbar Road, the
Congress headquarters.
Meanwhile,
News Nation, Zee Hindustan and News18 India continued their longstanding love
affair with Pakistan and China. And not to worry: Zee Hindustan is winning the
war for us without a single bullet being fired: almost every other day there is
footage on the channel of (Indian) fighter aircraft criss-crossing the sky,
strafing the (Chinese) targets beneath, which then explodes in balloons of
smoke.
News Nation
led down a deep tunnel to an Indian underground war centre in Ladakh that would
strike “terror” in the hearts of Chinese soldiers—although why the channel
would reveal this to the ‘enemy’ is anybody’s guess. NewsX and News 24 along with
News18 India were more interested in the ‘revolt’ in Gilgit-Baltistan against
Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan after the recent ‘fixed’ elections. Visuals
show such violent protests you’d think war has been declared.
Speaking of
Imran Khan, there was an absolutely delightful skit on him, ‘Fakir-e-Azam’
(India TV) with an actor who mimicked him to perfection — sadly, this was
tucked away in the middle of a Monday afternoon when no one in their right
minds should be watching TV news.
https://theprint.in/opinion/telescope/tv-channels-spent-the-week-teaching-viewers-how-to-wear-a-mask-and-what-love-jihad-is/551935/
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Uncertainties in Afghanistan
By G Parthasarathy
Nov 26,
2020
As the US
prepares to reduce its forces and withdraw from Afghanistan, one has to look
back at the circumstances that led to its military intervention. The Al-Qaeda,
largely based in Afghanistan, was responsible for the attacks on New York and
Washington on September 11, 2001. The US responded with a massive aerial
bombardment and invasion of Taliban-ruled Afghanistan within a month. Taliban
leader Mullah Omar, who played host to Osama bin Laden and his followers, fled
to Pakistan. That conflict has now lasted for over 19 years. An estimated 1.11
lakh Afghans and 4,092 Americans have died in the conflict. Estimates about the
costs incurred by the US vary from $778 billion to $1 trillion. Pakistan was
strangely described as a ‘major US ally’ and rewarded liberally with economic
and military assistance. This assistance was used by the Pakistan’s army and
air force against its own Pashtun people in tribal areas, including North
Waziristan, near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.
The ISI is
encouraging the Taliban to resort to ‘salami slicing’ by taking control of more
and more territory.
In his
memoirs, A Promised Land, former President Barack Obama describes the situation
prevailing during his visit to Afghanistan in 2012. He was informed by a highly
reputed former CIA official that the Pakistan military/ISI not only ‘tolerated
the presence of the Taliban leadership in Quetta, near the Pakistan-Afghanistan
border, but it was quietly assisting the Taliban, as a means of keeping the
Afghan Government weak, and hedging against Pakistan’s arch rival, India.’
Obama adds: ‘The US Government had long tolerated such behaviour from a
purported ally, of supporting it with billions of dollars in military and
economic aid, despite its complicity with violent extremists, and its record,
as a significant and irresponsible proliferator of nuclear weapons. This says
something about the pretzel-like logic of US foreign policy.’ Despite his
knowledge of such Pakistani duplicity, Obama sounded defensive, while speaking
to Pakistan’s President Asif Zardari, to formally inform him about the US
action to eliminate Osama bin Laden. There, however, appears to have been no
expression of outrage by Obama to Zardari, for Pakistan providing safe haven to
a terror mastermind in a cantonment which houses the Pakistan Defence Academy,
and is located near its capital, Islamabad!
Pakistan is
now in a strange position. Its Punjabi majority faces continuing resentment in
Balochistan, where attempts to quell resistance and uprisings have been
unsuccessful. But, over the past decades, there has been growing disquiet in
the Pashtun-dominated Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, despite Pashtuns being well
represented in the Pakistan army. In 2014, the Tehriq-e-Taliban Pakistan
conducted a terrorist attack on Army Public School, Peshawar, killing 149
people. The then army chief, Gen Raheel Sharif, responded with a massive attack
backed by aerial bombings across North Waziristan.
Reporting
from the scenes of the attack, Al Jazeera noted that about one million people
were forced out of their homes by the offensive, described by Pakistan as a ‘final
push’ to eradicate the presence of the Al-Qaeda, the Taliban and the Islamic
Movement of Uzbekistan that had plagued North Waziristan for 14 years. Locals
have little hope of returning home anytime soon. Thousands of homes and
businesses had been levelled by air strikes and bulldozers, aid from the
federal government was being cut, and security forces were asking residents to
sign an agreement, taking collective responsibility for any militant presence
in their areas, before they return home.
In neighbouring
South Waziristan, Pakistani troops had carried out a large-scale ground
offensive in 2009, displacing thousands, many of whom have not returned home.
These developments have left refugees from the ruthless operation in North
Waziristan sceptical of official promises of a swift end to their suffering.
The ISI also facilitates cross-border attacks by its proteges in the Haqqani
Taliban Network on Afghan forces. The Pashtuns are now making common cause to
redress their grievances through the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement, dedicated to
waging a peaceful struggle for their democratic rights, reminiscent of the
struggle of their legendary freedom fighter, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan.
The Taliban
now control vast tracts of territory in Afghanistan, where they repeatedly
attack even the capital, Kabul. With outgoing President Trump determined to
drastically reduce the presence of the Afghan army from 4,500 to 2500 troops,
the Taliban are not interested in a ceasefire that the Americans are
desperately seeking. The Afghan government is a house divided, with Ghani’s
erstwhile deputy, Abdullah Abdullah, nominated to negotiate with the Taliban in
Doha, after visiting Pakistan and India. Pakistan’s policy continues to be
based on duplicity. While making out that the ISI can influence the Taliban to
exercise restraint in Afghanistan, the ISI is actually encouraging the Taliban
to resort to ‘salami slicing’ by taking control of more and more territory
across Afghanistan, much like China attempts on its borders with India. The US
will have to be persuaded to resort to more extensive use of air power to deal
with the Taliban.
It needs to
be remembered that the Taliban are intensely disliked by a large number of
Pashtuns in Afghanistan, who loathe their medieval extremism and their ISI
masters. The non-Pashtun majority of Afghanistan comprising Tajiks, Hazaras,
Uzbeks, Turkmen, Baloch and others, who constitute 58% of Afghanistan’s
population, had fought the Taliban under the banner of the Northern Alliance,
before the Americans stepped in. The US would have to be persuaded to deal with
the challenges posed by the Taliban-Pakistan army nexus by uniting all ethnic
groups in Afghanistan. Apart from the Afghan Government, there are leaders like
former President Hamid Karzai and Abdullah Abdullah, who can act as the
‘bridge’ to challenge the Taliban-Pakistan nexus.
A majority
of Pashtuns strongly feel that the Durand Line was unjustly imposed on them as
their border during British colonial rule in India. A Pashtun friend had told
me that Afghanistan’s traditional borders were not along the Durand Line, but
along the banks of the Indus at Attock!
https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/comment/uncertainties-in-afghanistan-175856
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