Traces of extremism in South Asia

Lessons of history

My investigative report on the findings of the Joint Investigation Team (JIT), which recently visited India to probe the Pathankot airbase attack, raised quite an unexpected storm.

The response on the article was entirely from India while Pakistani readers found no meat in it. Within hours the article was on the web, India news channels started contacting my editor, news editor and me with requests for an interview.

My colleagues thought I had become a celebrity overnight. I had to keep off the air, as per policy, not to become a tool to ignite more friction between the two neighbours already at each-other’s throat.

My reluctance however triggered a hate campaign against me on social media from people I have never even met. Most who abused me wrote messages in Hindi – a language I never knew and even had to translate into English to help understand the reason for their anguish.

Some hurled abuses while others believed I had sold out my soul.

But this hate did not break my faith in objective journalism. Perhaps I am not the only one who had to face such a situation. Many of my fellow colleagues have faced such hate from bigots who believe in shooting the messenger. But such hate only breeds more hatred.

The people of South Asia are no strangers to extremism. The world knows well the extremist forces of the Muslim ‎world. While the extremists among Hindu the population is a well disguised phenomenon and needs to be looked into

The all prompted me to probe why people from across the border, who don’t even know me, are so eager to abuse me. Finally, I decided to delve into history and find out when this hate had started to divide Indians on the basis of religion, caste and creed.

Since South Asia has the biggest population of ‎Hindu and Muslim groups, let’s analyse how both these groups were radicalised over the past few centuries.

The people of South Asia are no strangers to extremism. The world knows well the extremist forces of the Muslim ‎world. While the extremists among Hindu the population is a well disguised phenomenon and needs to be looked into.

One can find the first trace of extremist views on ethnic and religious lines in the 19th century, when divisions on religious and ethnic basis started to take place and Arya Samaj was formed.

By the year 1883, Arya Samaj started to grow mainly in Punjab. Early leaders of the Samaj were Pandit Lekh Ram and Lala Munshi Ram (known as Swami Shraddhanand after his Sanyas). Samaj sowed the seeds of divisions and hatred among Muslims and Hindus.

It also produced the first divisions between Hindus and Sikhs as the activities of Arya Samaj were encountered by Sikhs in Punjab and rival Sikhs formed the Singh Sabha, the forerunner of the Akali Dal.

Most authors claim that the activities of Samaj led to increased antagonism between Muslims and Hindus and these divisions triggered massive killings between the two religious groups.

Later, Shraddhanand led the Shuddhi movement that worked towards forcing Muslims converted from Hinduism back into the fold. Pandit Lekh Ram was the architect of forced conversions of Muslims into Hinduism. The Hindu Mahasaba, another extremist offshoot,‎ also supported Shuddhi and Sanghtan movements.

The recent wave of extremist attacks across India has exposed the degree of hatred Hindu fanatics are hurling at their fellow Muslims, Christians and other minority groups

However, the Samaj split into two in Punjab after 1893 on the question of eating meat. The group that refrained from meat was called the Mahatma Group and the one favouring consumption of meat as the Cultured Party.

Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) founded in 1925 by Keshav Baliram Hedgewar, a doctor in the city of Nagpur, British India, brought more bloodshed on sectarian lines. RSS basically is a militant wing of Hindu extremist forces.

During World War-II, RSS leaders openly admired Adolf Hitler. Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar, who became the supreme leader of the RSS after Hedgewar, drew inspiration from Adolf Hitler’s ideology of race purity. RSS leaders were supportive of the Jewish State of Israel, including Savarkar himself, who supported Israel during its formation. Golwalkar admired Jews for maintaining their “religion, culture and language”. All this reflects the extremist and terrorist foundations of the RSS.

The leaning of RSS founding fathers towards extremist and racist forces of Nazi and Zionist regimes reflects their own racist and extremist agenda and vicious plans to annihilate fellow minority groups.

While RSS spread hate against other religious minorities in the subcontinent, its leaders did not take part in freedom movement against British rule.

According to Martha Nussbaum, the RSS regarded itself as a social movement and stayed away from the Indian independence movement. It also rejected Mahatama Gandhi’s willingness to cooperate with the Muslims.

After founding the organisation, KB Hedgewar started the tradition of keeping the RSS away from the Indian Independence movement. Any political activity that could be construed as being anti-British was carefully avoided.

According to the RSS biographer CP Bhishikar, Hedgewar only talked about Hindu organisations avoiding any direct comment on the British government. The “Independence Day” announced by the Indian National Congress for 26 January 1930 was celebrated by the RSS only that year and subsequently avoided. The Tricolor of the Indian national movement was shunned.

Golwalkar even lamented the anti-British nationalism, calling it a “reactionary view” that had disastrous effects upon the entire course of the freedom struggle. It is believed that Golwalkar did not want to give the British any excuse to ban RSS.

MS Golwalkar later openly admitted to the fact that the RSS did not participate in the Quit India Movement launched by the Muslim League and Congress to protest against British rulers. However, such a dubious attitude during the independence movement led to the Sangh being viewed with distrust and anger, both by the general Indian public as well as certain members of the organisation itself.

Following Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination in 1948 by a former member of the RSS, Nathuram Godse, many prominent leaders of the RSS were arrested and RSS as an organisation was banned on 4 February 1948.

The RSS also did not recognise the Tricolor as the National Flag of India. The RSS mouthpiece Organiser, in its issue dated 17 July, 1947, demanded in an editorial titled “National Flag” that the Bhagwa Dhwaj (Saffron Flag) be adopted as the National Flag of India. After the Tricolor was adopted as the National Flag of India by the Constituent Assembly of India on 22 July, 1947, the RSS mouthpiece Organiser viciously attacked the Tricolor and denigrated its being chosen as the National Flag of India.

On the contrary, Muslims of India mostly launched movements against the British rule hands in hands with liberal Hindu freedom loving activists. In the 1920s, the Muslim League launched the Khilafat Movement to protest the division of the Uthmaniya rule. Under Quit India Movement, Muslims had migrated to Afghanistan in protest against British rulers.

Tehreek-e-Mujahideen was perhaps the only militant movement launched by Syed Ahmed Shaheed and Shah Ismail Shaheed to fight the rule of Maharaja Ranjeet Singh. This was the only movement Muslims launched against Sikhs. But no movement was launched to divide Muslims and Hindus.

Militancy among Muslims of India could never take root. However, Pakistanis attracted extremist beliefs under a CIA cultivated plan in early 1970s. The CIA, in a bid to curtail the USSR, influenced Pakistan’s military establishment to help scuttle the Russian plans to reach warm waters.

This plan was finally implemented under General Zia-ul-Haq’s rule when the USSR invaded Afghanistan and Afghan mujahideen launched their freedom struggle against Russian forces.

Hence, the CIA’s covert and overt support also pushed Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries to extend support to the Afghan fighters. Pakistan provided human resource as thousands of youth were imparted religious and military training ‎and sent to fight the Russians.

Pakistan made a strategic blunder after USSR pulled its forces back. The mujahideen returned but also radicalised the society across Pakistan. Unchecked Saudi funds triggered ‎a new sectarian war inside Pakistan as Iran and Saudi Arabia used Pakistani territory for their proxy battle.

With a peep into history, the torrent of hateful messages from across the border is no more surprising for me. I know India, like Pakistan, has witnessed a new wave of extremism over the years.

This hate against liberal forces ‎by Hindu extremists is nothing new. Indian extremists have crossed all limits under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a prominent Hindu extremist who, when Chief Minister of Gujarat, had been held responsible for the massacre of around 1,000 Muslims.

The recent wave of extremist attacks across India has exposed the degree of hatred Hindu fanatics are hurling at their fellow Muslims, Christians and other minority groups.

But Indians are not the only victims of extremism. Same views have been the order in Pakistan for decades where radical groups have been declaring their fellow countrymen ‘infidels’. Things have started to improve, however, especially after the launch of Operation Zarb-e-Azb.

The lesson history teaches us that haters die early while love relishes life after death. People of Pakistan and India need to learn living in peaceful coexistence. Otherwise, this part of the world, which is one of its most beautiful and strategic trade routes, will turn into man-made hell and future generations of both nations will rot till judgment day.