Ram
Puniyani
The
current times are very disturbing as so many innocent lives are being lost and
social resources being destroyed due to the dastardly phenomenon of terror. To
cap it all, this phenomenon has been linked to religion in the popular
perception. Just during last two weeks (July 2016) we witnessed with horror the
massacre of 49 people at the Pulse club in Orlando, US. This deadly
incident had two interpretations, one that it is an act of Jihadi terror and
two it was prompted by a man gripped by homophobia. One of the commentators
pointed out, “It turns out that he may have been motivated by both homophobia
and Islamic radicalism…Terrorism or homophobia? The answer is yes. Both.”
In
another incident 119 people were killed in Baghdad blast by Islamic State. In
Bangla Desh on 1st July 28 people were killed. Those who lost their
lives were identified as foreigners. There are some reports that the terrorists
belonged to Jamaat Ul Mujahideen and were not affiliated with Islamic State.
One commentator points out that ISIS and the Al
Qaeda are currently engaged in a fierce competition across our sub-continent
aiming to outdo each other in spreading their terror tentacles. But the
malignant growth of Islamist extremism in Bangladesh can be easily traced back to the
Jamaat-e-Islami (JEB) and its militant student wing, Islami Chhatra Shibir.
What connects these diverse destructive phenomena? At the
surface it seems these are the manifestations of Islamic terrorism, as the
phrase has become popular since 2001 after the 9/11 tragedy. If we go slightly
deeper we can discern some clear strands of very different underlying
pathologies operating in each of these. The one in Orlando has a lot to do with
the prevalent gun culture in US. and this has woken up the law makers to the
prevalent norms of possession of the gun. While this may be most horrific of
such cases, similar one’s at lesser intensity has been occurring in US off and
on unrelated to the Islamic terrorism so to say. In case of Baghdad mostly it
is the one related to the Islamic State.
As far as the case of Bangla Desh terror is concerned this
seems to be a continuation of the terrorism which has roots in the
fundamentalist streaks in Bangla Desh politics. Such terror acts have been
stalking Bangla Desh since quite some time, manifested in the murders of progressive-secular
liberal bloggers and Hindus. This has indigenous origin to which the present
regime had turned a blind eye and violence came to the fore in this dastardly
way due to the failure of the state and society to curb the rising
fundamentalist trends in politics. Currently in many countries of South Asia
the militancy has origins in fundamentalism-communalism as seen prominently in
Pakistan, Bangla Desh and India among others.
In Pakistan fundamentalist doctrine was given the official
status during Zia Ul Haq’s regime. To get the cover for his dictatorial
ambitions he resorted to alliance with feudal forces and Mullahs and brought in
the doctrines of Maulana Maududi (Deoband Islam). This is what is referred to
as Islamization of Pakistan. The focus of this was to push back the civic
social norms around the Sharia as interpreted by Maududi; the focus was to
bring in feudal conservative values, suppression of women and of civil
liberties. In India the politics in the name of religion manifested more in the
form of communalism, communal violence, where the religious minorities have
been the victim. The extreme form of this ideology manifested in organizations
upholding Hindutva ideology which have been alleged to be responsible for the
acts of terror in Malegaon, Makka Masjid (Hyderabad), Ajmer and Samjhauta Express. The communal-fundamentalist
ideology is an attempt to restore pre-modern, feudal values of birth based
hierarchy of caste/class and gender in the garb of Sharia law or glorious
traditions of the past, presented as religion.
Terrorism related to Al Qaeda-Islamic state variety has its
roots in the politics of oil control in which the policies of United State has
played a major role. It is the policy of US which funded the Madrassas based in
Pakistan and brought in the Maulana Wahab’s version of Islam. Here the major
focus is killing the infidel (kafir) as a part of jihad. In this variety the
central focus is on violence against those differing with these dominant
groups. It had a reason; as they wanted to fight communism, Soviet occupation
of Afghanistan and so the killing of infidel. If we see the case of Pakistan
one can see the Islamization of Pakistan during Zia’s regime getting a
continuum through the Al Qaeda variety taking over later, and Al Qaeda in turn
laid the ideological foundations of Islamic State. Hillary Clinton clarified
the US role very succinctly. There is adequate reference to show that US has been
supporting the terrorist groups in more ways than one.
So two strands of terrorist actions are creating havoc in
contemporary times. One has the motive of restoring the pre-modern values as
seen in the case of Pakistan (inspired by Maulana Maududi), Bangla Desh
(similar variety), India (Hindutva) and in Mynmar and Srilanka as well. The
latter have used particular interpretation of Buddhism. The other has its
support system derived from the global politics of oil control. The tragedy is
that both these varieties draw their foundation and legitimacy in the name of
religion, particularly Islam. Religion has many streams, like Islam has Sufi as
well as Wahabi tendencies and Hinduism has Bhakti and Brahmanism. US picked up
Wahabi version for political goals in West Asia, Zia had picked up Maududi for
strengthening dictatorship, Hindu Nationalism-Hindutva has picked up
Neo-Brahmanism, for its own political agenda. Various streams of religion do
prevail as such but become dominant only when propped up by political forces
who can use that cover to enhance their political goals. Recognizing this may
be a major step in combating terrorism, and make it clear that it is political
agenda masquerading as religion.
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