Bibhu Prasad Routray
IPCS Commentary No. 3814, 13 February 2013
On 6 April 2000 , Prafulla Kumar Mahanta, then
Chief Minister of Assam
presented a statement detailing the activities of the Pakistani Inter Services
Intelligence (ISI) in the state legislative assembly. Its document titled, ISI
Activities in Assam ,
was the first ever attempt by the Assam
government to compile the strategy by Islamic militant outfits in Assam .
Although the alarmist prediction of the document has largely been unfounded in
subsequent years, it has served as a key reference material to periodically
blow a mostly dormant threat out of proportion.
In a
nutshell, the document termed the growth of Islamist militancy as an ISI-initiative
and went on to elaborate a six-point strategy of the Pakistani agency to
provide support to local militant outfits; create new militant outfits along
ethnic and communal lines; supply explosives and sophisticated arms to various
terrorist groups; indulge in sabotage; promote fundamentalism and militancy
among local Muslim youth; and promote communal tensions between Hindus and
Muslims.
A
glance through some of the statements made by different ministers and police
officials in Assam
since the year 2000, provides a conflicting scenario regarding the potency of
ISI-promoted Islamist militancy in the state. For example, on 10 August 2004 , the then Assam Home
Minister Rockybul Hussain stated that his government did not have any direct
evidence of ISI activities in the state. Interestingly, on the same day, Mr. Hussain
filed another reply acknowledging the activities of various ISI-backed
fundamentalist organisations in Assam .
In
the next two years, the Assam Police department sought to shift the blame from
the ISI to the Bangladesh-based Jamatul Mujahideen. Speaking at an annual
conference of Director Generals of Police (DGPs) and regional heads of various
security agencies in Guwahati in November 2006, the then Assam DGP DN Dutt
claimed that the "Afghanistan-trained rebel-led Jamatul Mujahideen" is
not only controlling Islamic militant outfits in Bangladesh, but is also reaching
out to other non-Islamist groups across the Northeast. In the same conference, the
intelligence chief of Assam
police, Khagen Sarma, indicated that "around 200 youths trained in Bangladesh
by the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HuM) and the JM have been arrested from different
parts of Assam
since 2001”.
In
July 2009, Rockybul Hussain , Assam Assam ,
with the former being more active. In August 2012, the Ministry of Home Affairs
(MHA) in New Delhi , joining the
chorus, identified 14 Islamic radical organisations who it stated were trying
to ferment trouble in Assam .
Truth
and facts on the ground, amid such incongruous claims, remain a casualty. The
fact remains that the Islamist militancy in Assam ,
in its entirety, has remained at best a fringe movement, failing to both
attract cadres and also to upgrade the quality of arms in its possession. Attacks
involving the outfits were few and far between, failing to parallel the tactics
of both mainstream outfits such as the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) and
also the peripheral groupings of the Dimasas and Karbis. Throughout its
existence, the activities of the Islamist militants remained confined to a
couple of lower Assam
districts, along the international border with Bangladesh .
The
arrests of cadres, mostly in situations which did not involve any armed
encounters, thus, represented a persistent weakness in the movement and a lack
in the commitment of foot soldiers, rather than any counter-insurgency
successes for the state. As a senior serving Assam
police official told the author in 2005, "It was very much possible to
convince an Islamist cadre to surrender through half an hour's persuasion". More
importantly, the formation of political parties seeking to espouse the cause of
the Muslims led to the swift closure of the narrow window for radical
mobilisation, which could have contributed to the growth of these Islamists. The
installation of the Awami League (AL) government in Bangladesh
in 2008 and its initiation of a range of steps to bring the activities of the
North-eastern militants to a close, effectively sealed the fate of the
Islamists in its entirety.
It
may be useful to locate the source of such alarmist projections in the attempts
made by various agencies - both state and central - to bring the North-eastern
Islamists under the broader global jihadi umbrella, and subsequently under the
American radar, especially in a post-9/11 era. The state governments in the
Northeast, the media, as well as select commentators, are willing players in
the game for selfish motives. The sheer inconsistency in the assessment on
Islamist militancy bears testimony to this.
The
issue of Islamist militancy did not find a mention in the address of the Assam
Governor in the two-day Conference of Governors convened by President Pranab
Mukherjee in New Delhi on 11-12 February
2013. JB Patnaik chose to only highlight the growing influence of the anti-talk
faction of the ULFA and the Maoist insurgency. However, as the trend
demonstrates, this does not signify in any way, the end of doom-laden
assertions on Islamist militancy in Assam .
No comments:
Post a Comment