How seriously should we take the latest threat from the jihadi outfit, al Qaeda, to set up shop in India? In our view, very, very seriously — never mind the stunning silence of the usual secularist suspects. For, the jihadi cauldron is simmering here while it is beginning to boil over in the killing fields of Syria and Iran. Given that only on Friday the Andhra Government claimed that it stopped at least four Hyderabad Muslim youths from joining the Islamic State, preventing them from boarding the flight to West Asia at the last moment, should underline the growing appeal of the new-age barbarics to a section of our people. Misguided or not, there is no denying that the Islamic State holds a special attraction for a section of the Muslim youths.
The recent killing of a youth from Maharashtra while fighting alongside the IS jihadis somewhere in West Asia too underlines the grim reality that the IS has its takers among Indian Muslims. However regrettable might be the failure of the Muslim community leaders, elders and others, the bent secularists tend to hold only the Indian State guilty for their wanting to embrace the path of jihad. This, of course, fails to take into account that for the most time a self-avowedly secular dispensation had been in place at the centre and in the states. Therefore, the sooner one learns to ignore the set-piece wails of the professional secularists, the better it will be for safeguarding national security and integrity. The politics of grievance which tends to rationalise even the most egregious words and actions of the jihadi elements among us only encourages anti-national forces. Paying heed to these secularist warriors is at most times inimical to national security. Having said this, the latest threat by al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri to start a branch in India, called Qaedat al-Jihad, must be accorded utmost attention.
There is a sizeable section of Muslim youths globally, which seems to have bought into the unreal promise of a pure Caliphate and the guarantee of heaven in after-life only to those who swear by the Quran. The fact that a number of British youths have been drawn towards the IS, with quite a few fighting in the Iraq-Syria theatre of savagery, bears testimony to the strong appeal of jihadi propaganda. The social media has been most cleverly exploited by the jihadi merchants to draw the impressionable youths to become foot soldiers in their unholy mission. Such is the pull of the promise of a pure Islamic State that even in countries like the US and Canada, the authorities have had to guard against some of their citizens signing up with the barbaric jihadis.
Though the dictionary defines a jihadi as someone who crusades for the truth and nothing but the truth, the IS is engaged in a destabilising campaign in West Asia at the behest of a ragtag leadership which thinks nothing of laying waste peaceful villages and towns and sexually exploiting their young women and children. Murderous inhumanity is on display in the name of religion. Unfortunately, the leadership of Indian Muslims, such as it is, has behaved most cravenly in the face of threats by al-Qaeda and other jihadi outfits to lure our young men for their evil and ambitious campaign. It is significant that no Muslim leader of note has deemed it fit to condemn the Zawahiri call to Indian Muslims.
Of course, the security establishment is expected to take the threat very seriously and intensify efforts to detect and detain those hobnobbing with the IS on our soil. When it comes to safeguarding the integrity and security of the country, no quarter should be given to extraneous concerns about alienation of a section of our people or their disenchantment with the present ruling dispensation. No grievance, in our considered view, justifies anyone making common cause with the Islamic fundamentalists waging war to establish a Caliphate, which eventually, aims at forcibly including India in its embrace.
That India has the third largest Muslim population in the world is no reason for India to be dragged into the medieval embrace of a jihadi force which aims to move the clock back to the primitive age. Jihadis have no religion bar their own ambition to replace the current Sheikhs and potentates with themselves. Religion is a mere excuse for personal aggrandisement. Unfortunately, divisions within Islam and among various Sheikhdoms have helped fund and arm these jihadis. But, as it always happens, the devil they created to devour their enemies now threatens to devour them. However, given that the actions of mad men cannot be predicted, India has every reason to prepare itself for the worst.
