A vivid portrait of terror

IIPM Review MBA 2012

The caliphates’s soldiers

The caliphates’s soldiers

By Wilson John

Amaryllis

Edition: Clothbound

Pages: 324

Price: Rs 595

isbn: 9789381506011

Terrorism in India has in part sprung, among other things, out of a strategy to pressurise New Delhi to cede control of all Kashmir. It is of a piece with the often touted proclamations of terrorist elements regarding the establishment of a worldwide ‘caliphate’ founded on Shari’a law. In pursuit of this long-term plan, anti-India terror outfits have now present, both actively and through sleeper cells, in different parts of the world. Peace, as various scholars of Islamic studies stress, has been the bedrock of Islam everywhere. Which God would like to see His own creation being killed just because a few others have taken it to be their right to coerce the world to follow their beliefs? But utterances like ‘due to the blessings of jihad’ and ‘it is the blood of martyrs which will spread light in every dark corner of this earth’ have often been aired after an explosion or killing. Lashkar-e-Tayyeba, or LeT, is found to be an incessant force behind many of the recent gory terrorist strikes in India and elsewhere.

Every now and then, we count the dead. Intelligence agencies release sketches of the perpetrators and shadowy websites make unauthenticated claims.

There is no international meeting and bilateral and multilateral declaration which does not include terrorism in its script. This book lucidly and in a clear and logical way unravels every strand of not just a grand plan of establishing a global ‘Caliphate’ but also traces the very path of the proclaimed war against the kaffir.

The book brings out the clear dominance of Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, LeT amir (chief). LeT’s policy-making body consists of amir, naib amir (deputy chief), finance chief and others. It has a very well laid out command structure at the field level, where it has a Chief Commander, Divisional Commander, District Commander, Battalion Commander and lower functionaries on an army pattern. The strict indoctrination as brought out in the book has made the command and control very smooth. The book enunciates how LeT has been able to network with several extremist organisations.

Another important aspect is the use of catchy and rousing one-liners like “this Jihad has been commanded by Allah, no one can stop it”. If one mixes it with high quality oration, it is not difficult to arouse the impressionable to follow ill-directed orders. This allows Hafiz Saeed to run his fiefdom.

The book makes one wonder whether to call LeT an independent organisation or to see it as part of Pakistan’s plan to hamper India’s development by spreading mayhem. The myth of LeT being an independent terror outfit busy planning and executing activities on its own is dispelled on bringing together the analysis of various experts on the involvement of senior officials of the Pakistan government in abetting the subversive activities. One such conspicuous link is exposed in facilitation which came from the level of a Pakistan Army Officer who later went on to become Pakistan’s High Commissioner to Sri Lanka.

One chapter, ‘A Long War Against India’, traces the genesis of what is termed as the reformist Islamic movements in India around the 17th century. It brings out an important aspect of the kind of anarchy that has been spread around the globe. The author writes: “In the late 1980s when the Pakistan Army-ISI was toasting the success of their jihad (with the CIA) in Afghanistan, Kashmir was witnessing considerable political upheaval. A fratricidal combat where people were being isolated and divided on communal lines was on. Here was an opportune moment for Pakistan’s anti-India planners who diverted the Mujahids of Afghanistan to Kashmir as it coincided well with the withdrawal of the erstwhile Soviet forces.”

The shaping of the mind is being done in a planned and subtle manner so that the effects linger. The whole set-up has a madrasa (seminary), hospitals, a market, a large residential area for ‘scholars’ and faculty members, and agricultural tracts. It is said to own a large number of Islamic institutions, secondary schools, ambulance services, mobile clinics, blood banks and seminaries across Pakistan. All this information has been collected and packed into the book. To read the mind of Hafiz Saeed and understand his deep hatred for India, the book spells out his background and the way in which his ancestors took refuge in Pakistan.

This book delves deep into the carefully nuanced strategy of indoctrination and training of young recruits for jihad in a way that will help every analyst and student of the history of terrorism. What the book establishes in the ultimate analysis is that LeT stands apart: its activities are clearly distinguishable from those that are promoted by other terrorist groups.

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