In the last two parts of this series, we have tried decoding the staunch and erroneous belief that has been carefully and deliberately been implanted in the subconscious of an ingenious and gullible Hindu populous. This manipulation has certain intent, to gain political, social, and economical mileage to further the extremist ideology of Hindu supremacy. In this part, we will try to scrupulously decode why using Muslims as a synonym for terrorism is unreasonable and an insult for every devout Muslim across the world.
This article is the Part-IlI of our series Decoding The Communal Fallacies Between The Two Identities.
So, the next most prevalent concern in the mind of the credulous Hindu is the relationship between Muslims and terrorism. The belief that killing innocents, is the way of the jihad for Muslims and their blind faith in Islam hinders their tolerance of other religious perceptions. The idea that terrorism originates because of bigot Islamic teaching, is also the foremost reason behind the misgivings between the two communities.
To understand the relationship between terrorism and Islam, it is necessary, that we need to know about the history of the origination of ‘Terrorism Culture,’ and then it would be more convenient to judge if the belief has any merit to it.
Although the history of terrorism dates back to the 1st century A.D, the first English use of the term ‘terrorism’ began during the ‘French Revolution’s reign of terror‘ in the 18th century, The term terrorism gained mainstream recognition in the 1970s during the two prominent armed conflicts of the time, firstly, in the Northern Ireland where the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) adopted an offensive campaign to meet their demands for liberation of Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom and acceding to the republic of Ireland. IRA was designated as a terrorist organization by the United Kingdom and an illegal organization in the Republic of Ireland, both of whose authority it rejected. Up until the ceasefire declared by the group in 1997, the conflict had resulted in approximately 1700 deaths.
During the same period, a second Conflict surrounding Palestine played a significant role in transforming acts of terrorism as a global phenomenon. A series of armed attacks and aircraft hijackings, including on non-Israeli targets by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) attempting to divert global attention over Israel’s aggressive annexation policies of Palestine. These incidents of hijackings garnered the international spotlight, bringing about a paradigm shift in the strategies of homeland securities at a global level. Subsequently, as a consequence of these events, the mainstream media’s widespread coverage began shaping a generalized narrative across the globe about the association of terrorism with Muslims.
The proliferation of this notion began taking shape during the Soviet-Afghan War that was fought from 1979-1989 between the Soviet Union, an ally of the Afghanistan Communist Party, and the Afghan rebels a.k.a. Mujahideens (spiritual Muslim warrior). This conflict was also a result of political strife that erupted after the ‘Saur Revolution’, a 1978 coup wherein Afghanistan’s communist party took power, initiating a series of radical modernization and land reforms throughout the country. These reforms were deeply unpopular among the more traditional rural population and established power structures.
Subsequently, the UN General Assembly protested the Soviet intervention by passing a resolution where 104 nations voted against the Soviets and only 18 voted in favor of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan wherein, India was among those nations which supported the intervention. This was also the peak of the Cold war between the USSR and the USA. Therefore, Afghan insurgents began to receive massive amounts of support through aid, finance, and military training in neighboring Pakistan with significant help from the United States and the United Kingdom. Thus a proxy war began between the Soviets and the Americans.
When the war ended, approximately 2,50,000 mujahideen survived, a generation of youth, groomed to wage war was left with nothing to look forward to, other than conflicts. As a result, various terror outfits like Taliban, al-Qaeda, Lashkar-e -Taiba, etc came into existence, eventually carrying out major terror attacks across the globe for the sake of protection of Islam from infidels.
At the very same time, the relationship between Kashmir territory and Indian state was also in turmoil, and Pakistan utilized this opportunity to its full advantage, by instigating a sentiment of religious encroachment quoting India’s support for the Soviets and being against the welfare of Muslims. The Kashmiri youth already inspired by the armed revolution of Mujahideen fell prey to this propaganda, and with the assurance of aid and training from the Pakistani Secret service- ISI, an era of militancy ensued across the Indian subcontinent. The Pakistani agenda was driven by the intention to create unrest in India and secure financial aid worth billions of dollars from international agencies to counter-terrorism.
Once an extremist method of resistance has mutated into the business of war where those who bear the scars of the past for upholding their traditions, are unwilling to accept the evitable changes of modernization. Underneath the shroud of this religious extremism propagandas by all conservative terror outfits, thrive in a multi-billion dollar Afghan drug market aka the ‘Golden Crescent‘ that could only be controlled by striking fear in the hearts of people. In a bid to maintain control over the Golden Crescent, adrift youths are lured to fight an illusionary holy war against infidels while they use constant violent attacks to divert the attention of authorities from the drug trade that flourishes covertly.
In 2018, the total opium poppy cultivation area in Afghanistan was estimated between 2,42,000 to 2,83,000 hectares, according to a United Nations report, the second-highest measurement since it started monitoring the crop in 1994. Extremist groups also use the drug money to keep the conflict eternal because this is the only way of life they know, and without conflict their existence is meaningless.
The true picture of terrorism is not what we see on the surface, there are multiple dimensions to this phenomenon- anguish, money, cultural orthodox, foreign relations, capitalism, et cetera. Simply, associating terrorism with Muslims is a fallacy which has been enlarged by political institution across the globe so as to exploit the fears of ordinary people and for allocating greater budget every year as unaccountable military spending. Perpetual war is the only way to keep the most profitable business of the planet sustainable and probably Muslims have to sustain the role of antagonist to heroize the Capitalist Protagonist. This very same narrative has been a key in downgrading the devout Muslims in India as well.