Growing radicalization

Dr Ajay Chrungoo
If the terrorist acts and the number of active terrorists have decreased then has there been decrease in radicalization of  the society?
Radical Islamist organizations in Jammu and Kashmir have been on the fore front of the relentless campaign of indoctrination of the people.  Radicalization has yielded recruits for terrorist regimes operating on the ground. This has been true of the entire region extending from Jammu and Kashmir right up to Afghanistan. In fact radicalization has been a reliable measure of the potential of militarization of the social milieu in this region.
Decrease in terrorism leads to decrease in coercion. In the normal course, the decrease in coercion should lead to widening of liberal space and manifestation of the liberal behavior in the society and erosion of the regimentalised attitude.
Despite a decrease in the militancy in Jammu and Kashmir we have been witnessing fast growing Pan – Islamic radicalization in Kashmir valley and Muslim Majority areas of Jammu and a regimentalised behavior. Pan -Islamic organizations spreading Deobamdi-Wahabi brands of Islam have grown and expanded exponentially during last one decade and the local brands of Islam are giving way to them.
The burning of famous Dastgir Sahib Shrine in Srinagar saw subdued public reaction. People in the valley chose to lie low and calibrated the public outpourings when some more shrines were burnt after the inferno in Dastgir Sahib. In earlier times this would have been unimaginable. People still remember the volcanic eruption of the public protests and unrest after the relic belonging to Prophet Mohammad was stolen from Dargah on the banks of Dal Lake. Many ascribe this change in public response to spread of radical Islam in the valley. Deobandi- Wahabi brands of Islam consider shrines and tombs as expressions of idol worship and seek to rid the Muslim societies of this religious evil.
Pan -Islamic organizations like Ahl-e Hadis, Jamat-i-islami, and Allah-Walles are spreading their tentacles through intense preaching, building of net work of mosques, control of educational institutions and seminaries and expanding their influence in the Universities and colleges. Youth are being targeted in a big way by these organizations. The content analyses of the posts on the social media used by the Muslim youth in Jammu and Kashmir are an ample testimony of this radicalization. Eating beef was not popular in Kashmir amongst the Muslims. Cow slaughter has become order of the day because many under the impact of radicalization believe it to be a religious duty. The morning prayers in schools, the slogans and wall writings in the class rooms across the length and breadth of Kashmir valley exhibit an intense religious bias. Secular education has become almost extinct in the educational institutions. Morning prayers in most of the educational institutions are followed by tableegh or sermons of Islamic preaching. Dress of Youth particularly the females shows the effect of this radicalization.
Erosion of Itiqadi or shrine worshipping brand of Islam has not been the only expression of growing Islamic radicalization. Shia Muslim processions during the days of Moharram cannot take place now and the authorities invariably ban them. Last five years have seen frequent Shia- Sunni strife. This has been a standard feature of Islamic radicalization in Islamic societies all over the Muslim world including Pakistan and Afghanistan. Pan- Islamic views about politics and world affairs dominates the public discourse. Impact of Islamic radicalization is brazenly manifest in almost all spheres of cultural activities in the society.
The growing radicalization signifies the widening of the recruiting ground for terrorism and internal subversion and over ground support structures of militancy and secessionism. The numbers of active terrorists quoted by the state government and the police are still in a range which is more than alarming. Imagine if somebody in USA or Europe from the security or intelligence establishment confirms that a dozen of active terrorists are present inside their territories. The alert levels will go beyond red zone. More than 100 active terrorists present on the ground is not just an insignificant element but a major asymmetrical military threat from inside which can unravel and unhinge the entire internal order established in the state after a protracted battle and a huge cost of life and resources. And widening ambit of radicalization within the Muslim social milieu in the state means a fertile ground which can breed new crops of terrorists.
Measuring Terrorism- Emasculating commonsense
Relying primarily on the number of active terrorists operating on the ground at a given time and the number of terrorist acts during a particular period of time in comparison to corresponding previous period is a flawed measurement process deployed to assess whether we are winning the war against terrorism in the state or not. Measurement techniques about terrorism deployed by many international experts have relied on ‘groups, events and behavior ‘of terrorist organizations. Their events focused approach has relied on types, targets and regions of terrorist activity. And yet they found these measurement techniques, which are far more comprehensive and of wider range than the assessment framework on which the state and the central governments have chosen to depend upon to devise policy and political responses, not adequate enough to predict the prognosis of terrorism with certainty.
Edward F. Mickolus, who has critically analyzed the Global War On Terrorism,  while appreciating the broad based measurement approach as already described still feels that it is difficult to establish a baseline of ‘normal terrorist activity’ and hence characterization of increasing or decreasing activity may provide a skewed conclusion. Mickolus observes that terrorist groups may need time for planning operations, and these down periods provide false reading if one is counting the number of events in a specific time period and comparing it against another.
Basing the internal security assessments on a very limited range of indicators like number of terrorists active at a particular time and the number of terrorist acts during a particular period of time has grave limitations and inflicts only assessment delusions. Security experts have recognized this in recent times with increased sensitivity and emphasis.
Ups and downs in terrorist incidents mean little or almost nothing in the new terrorism which the world is facing. The nature of terrorist acts and the intact capability of the terrorist regimes operating on the ground to enact the act reveals more than the number of violent incidents. The capture of a village at Shallbatta in Keran sector just along the LOC by fidayeen coming not from across but from the hinterland had the potential of creating a bigger standoff and crystallizing a security crisis of unimaginable dimensions. The 9/11 attacks on twin towers in New York created an earthquake in the existing international order and a security crisis of unimaginable dimensions. The number of terrorist incidents in the international arena before 9/11 was far less than the peak it had attained earlier.
The number of terrorists active at a particular time is a more unreliable indicator because it is speculative and depends upon the ground intelligence which is always not comprehensive enough to be sure. Terrorist regimes don’t keep attendance registers.
Just a few months back the state administration had been maintaining that the number of terrorists active in the state has been around 400. And now it has proclaimed that the number has come down to around just above hundred. Did the security forces liquidate around 300 terrorists during this period? If the news paper reports about terrorist causalities during this period are to be believed then the number of terrorists eliminated is far less than what the figures of the state government reveal. Did active terrorists sneak back into POK or Pakistan or disperse outside Jammu and Kashmir in rest of India? Or did they actually surrender to the state police?
And  if we take the number of around a hundred active terrorists operating on the ground, as claimed by the State police, in geographically as small an area as Kashmir province of Jammu and Kashmir, as a gospel truth, even then the situation on the ground remains grave and grim. Imagine if the Homeland Security department of USA confirms the existence of just 10 active terrorists on its soil how the national alert levels will go up.
The State police census claims that out of 104 active terrorists operating on the ground, 59 belong to Lashkar-e-Toiba, 30 to Hizbul Mujahideen and 15 belong to Jaish-e-Mohammad. This means that the militancy in the State has been taken over by Pan Islamic organizations with Lashkar-e-Toiba leading from the front. Even in these formations there is a mixed presence of foreign and local terrorists. The local terrorists captured or killed in recent times have been found to be from better socio-economic background and also educated. The significant presence of foreign terrorists in the terrorist regimes operating on the ground has been portrayed by the leadership of NC and PDP as a sort of an indicator of improvement. For them it proves the dwindling support of locals for terrorism. Persistent presence of foreign terrorists in leading roles in the terrorist operations however is a more potent indicator of a wider social support for pan Islamic operations on the ground. For a single foreign terrorist to successfully operate on the ground in Jammu and Kashmir a far more broad based support structure in the society is required.
Just a week before the State police leaked out its confidential census of the active terrorists across Kashmir ‘thousands participated in the funeral prayers’ of the two terrorists killed in Shupian in South Kashmir. Both the militants belonged to Hizbul Mujahedeen and were locals. “To mourn the death of the two, reports said, all the shops, business establishments, private offices and educational institutions remained closed in Shupian town and its peripheries … whereas transport remained off the roads.” And only a day after the State police census of active terrorists came to light, an undeclared curfew was imposed in Lalpora in Kupwara district when angry ‘protestors …stormed the local police station and torched its two bunkers amid demands by them that the bodies of the seven militants killed during a gun fight in Dardpora forests of the district yesterday be handed over to them.’ These protests took place after seven Lashkar-e-Toiba terrorists were killed in Kupwara.
These incidents of spontaneous public support for Pan-Islamist Jihadis are a frequent occurrence in Kashmir. When seen in the light the expanding reach of Pan-Islamist over ground organizations like Jamat-I-Islami, Ahl-i-Hadis and Allah Wale, we are actually witnessing the exponential growth of the infrastructure which can unleash new waves of Jihadi war. The State Government on 19 February, 2014 revealed that “as many as 1733 cases involving 9166 persons have been registered since 2009 in different districts of the Kashmir division. These persons were booked on the charges of rioting, stone throwing and waging war against the state in Srinagar, Anantnag, Baramulla, Shopian, Bandipora, Pulwama, Ganderbal, Kulgam and Kupwara towns.” What better illustration of what is happening in the entire length of breadth of Kashmir province. Increased radicalization, increased secessionist public mobilizations and terrorist activities which continue to be a major security asymmetry capable of unhinging the public order in no time is what the state of affairs in Jammu and Kashmir is. The environment and the infrastructure which can unleash new and bloody destabilization have grown to dangerous levels.
Sections of Congress party along with the entire rank and file of National Conference have been demanding the removal of AFPSA in the state for quite some time. The claim of waning terrorism in the State helps making the demand politically plausible. But more crucially the claim creates a delusion of normalcy which can prove to be fatal at a time when Jihadi regimes operating in the region including Jammu and Kashmir are claiming victory against the second superpower USA after the defeat of Soviet Union.
Why have the governments at the helms in the State and the Centre allowed a naïve understanding of the internal security situation in Jammu and Kashmir to take control of the public discourse and influence its responses? Why is it that a large section of opinion makers in India indulge in manufacturing illusions about Jammu and Kashmir? Locking security responses in a public discourse which is  naïve and superficial is what the subversive machinations seek. We are witnessing emasculation of commonsense.   We are also seeing enforcing of strategic stupidity.
(The author is Chairman Panun Kashmir)
(The views expressed by the author are personal)

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