Tripuraneni Hanuman Chowdary Roots of Terrorism

1. As never before, the United States, especially its intellectual classes, are having to inquire into the roots of terrorism waged by Muslims in the name of Islam. The destruction of the World Trade Center by using the United States' airplanes themselves as missiles by the Islamic terrorists, inspired and directed by Al Qaeda led by Osama Bin Laden, has triggered this unprecedented inquiry into Islamic terrorism. There have been terrorism and terrorist depredations earlier also against US citizens and properties, but they were all not on the mainland of the US but elsewhere, in the Middle East, in Africa, in Latin America and Europe.

3. Terrorism practised by anarchists and communists has been well known to the world. But that is inspired and rooted in political belief and faith and ideas like communism. There were enough studies of communism, its methods and its war plans in different countries at the party level and then at the state level as for example that of the former USSR. What is common between the jihadi Islamism and communism is non-reverence for life, hatred of the non-believer and sanction of violence for the realization of their aims. Communism and Islamism each believes that it and it alone is right and true; that the believers are enjoined to propagate and convert and conquer the rest of the world to its own belief and faith. Both have been engaged in conversion and conquest.

4. Soon after the death of Prophet Mohammed, successive Caliphs embarked upon conquests. Countries on the north African coast from the Red Sea to the Atlantic and of Central Asia were all conquered and all the peoples were converted to Islam. The only exception was India where there was a bitter struggle for more than 700 years between the Islamic invaders and the native kings. India is the only country where, though under the hegemony and rule of Islamic invaders, not more than 20% could be converted. Non-converting were not only the nobles, educated and rich and strong, but even the so-called untouchables; they remained faithful to their own religion, their own language, culture, faith and beliefs and modes of worship and life. The roots of Hindu thought, belief, culture and life must be so strong and renovating, that many Hindus preferred death and suffering and discrimination to conversion to the religion of the conquerors.

5. Marxism and Communism triumphed in Russia in 1917 and by the end of the Second World War, the Russian communist empire extended, by conquest and or subversion of local democracies, to eastern Europe and the whole of Central Asia and the Baltic States. In an independent but not related manner, the mainland of North Asia also went under communist rule. The violence by way of terrorism as well as by executions, undertaken by the Communist states and their military, consumed over 20 million lives in the Soviet territories and 25 million in communist China. The victims were called "enemies of the people" and eliminated summarily. Such numbers exceeded the deaths in actual wars, in which these countries were involved. The Communist International - Comintern - was a transnational, which directed the local Communist parties in different countries to subserve the interests of imperial communist Russia. It was dissolved during the Second World War, when the USSR had to become an ally of the democracies, USA and UK. It was, after the war, reinvented in the form of Cominform, to once again inspire and direct communist parties in other countries. Inspired by and instructed in Marxism as ideology, and supplied with money and ammunition by the USSR or by China, or their surrogates, there were violent movements of communists in several countries spread across the globe. The threat posed by the USSR and its satellite and associate states induced the democracies to found the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1949 to contain communist expansion in Europe. When Great Britain led by the Labour Party became the founding member of the NATO, answering criticism of the Labour's left wingers, their leader, Aneurin Bevan, silenced them by saying: NATO will contain communism in Europe, not militarily vanquish and eliminate it. In a few decades, when enough eduacted scientists, engineers, economists and sociologists are produced in the USSR, the USSR would be dissolved and communism discarded by the people themselves. And this is exactly what happened during 1989 - 91. Thereafter, the former Communist parties all over Europe have reformed themselves to acceptably participate in multi-party elections in a democratic milieu. The communist parties in Asia, which were reared by the Comintern and Cominform, are unable to reform, are very much in the Stalinist dogma, and their influence is declining. The steeper the decline, the greater the sectarianism, and hence is the phenomenon of several communist parties in India. For example, those who have not given up violence and terrorism are under-ground, and those who are tired of it are above ground, falsely proclaiming belief in multi-party elections and democracy. They also act as providers of legal aid and exploiters of the freedoms and liberties and legalities that democracies grant, to see that the least harm is done to the terrorism-practising and war-waging under-ground communists.

6. The deep study and understanding of communism and the operational methods of communist parties enabled the democracies to wage a determined war against the evil empire of communism, leading to the latter's collapse. If the evil of Islamist jihadism and terrorism that it has unleashed worldwide is to be vanquished, the same extensive study and true understanding of the roots of violence and terrorism of the Islamist jihadis must be made. Democracies could not have waged a successful war against the evil communist empire, if they believed that communism is good and peaceful but communists and their parties only were bad. The communists and their parties practised terrorism and violence and subversion and insurgency, because their ideology glorified them and used them as instruments. Is there anything like that in Islam is what scholars must make a deep study of. Undoubtedly, just as there were various sects in Communism, for example, Stalinists, Titoists, Maoists, Trotskyists, there are several sects in Islam also, and many more groups spread across the world based in lands like Palestine, Pakistan, Syria, Afghanistan, Sudan, Libya, Indonesia, Philippines, the Balkans etc. almost all of them funded by sources in the oil-rich Kingdoms and Shaikhdoms. Telecommunications, computers, the Internet and such devices of technology have made the terrorists into a globally-knit and world-wide operating outfits, as never before.

7. Just as Das Capital and the Communist Manifesto are the "Bible" i.e. the source book for communism, and just as the writings of Lenin and Stalin prescribed the practices that communists had to adopt, the holy Quran is the source book of Islam. The Hadiths, i.e. the practices and sayings of the Prophet, illustrate how the Quran has to be practised in real life and to be lived by Muslims. Therefore, scholars, who want to find where the roots of terrorism of the Islamic jihadis are, must study these. So should the history of the battles and wars waged by the Islamic conquerors and what they practised on the defeated people. This is what exactly the scholars in the democratic countries have done regarding what the communist rulers and parties have done in the States they gained control of. It is by a profound understanding of the practices of the communist rulers like Stalin and Mao and their surrogates in the satellite states, that the leaders of democracy were able to conclude that Communism was an evil and that it should be contained so that it could reform itself or it implodes because of its own inadequacies, especially in relation to the rest of the world.

8. It is remarkable that no founder of a world faith like Christianity or Buddhism or Zoroastrianism ever wielded any weapons and led soldiers in battles even when they were tormented by their adversaries. In fact, Jesus Christ submitted himself to be crucified. Prophet Mohammed is unique in the sense that he had to take to weapons and create and lead armies to defend himself and his faithfuls from their tormentors as well as to subdue and get others to his faith. It is on record that he himself has lead so many battles. It therefore appears that either in defense of the faith or for its propagation and to gain dominion over others, violence and wars are legitimate in Islam. It is noteworthy that the elimination of a person who was held to be slandering the prophet was also sanctioned by or had the approval of him. Some scholars have pointed out a number of Ayats in the Holy Quran, which when interpreted in a fundamentalist way incite discord and jihad against non-believers. Reference to these can be found in, among other scholarly works, "The Calcutta Quran Petition", published by the Voice of India, New Delhi. A satirist, Asma, daughter of Marwan, mother of five sons, who taunted the people of Medinah with obeying a stranger (prophet Mohammed) was assassinated at dead of night in fulfilment of a wish that the Prophet be delivered of the satirist (page 277, Mohammed and the Rise of Islam, by D S Margoliouth).

11. In the period from 1922 to 1947, when independence movement in India was being participated in by more and more ordinary Hindus and imperial Britain was getting forced to concede more and more of representative democratic government, Muslim separatism from Hindus was becoming stronger on two counts. Long ago, Sir Syed Ahamad had said that democracy would mean rule of the majority i.e. of Hindus over the minority Muslims and therefore it was not acceptable. Secondly, Muslims, with a few exceptions, did not participate in various civil disobedience movements launched by the Indian National Congress against British government for wresting freedom. It may be remembered that the Khilafat movement for the restoration of the Caliph and Sultan of Turkey was launched by the Muslim leaders, Maulana Mohammed Ali and Shaukat Ali, and it was later on joined by the Indian National Congress, and the participation of the latter was, as Gandhi hoped, with the expectation that Muslims would, therefore, later on join the Hindus to jointly fight for India's independence from Great Britain. The Khilafat movement was a failure, but it kindled the separatism and the Islamic consciousness as totally separate from and opposed to the Hindu majority. The result was, as independence was nearer in sight, there was increasing number of communal riots i.e. Muslim-Hindu riots to force the division of India to create the Islamic state of Pakistan for India's Muslims. Dr. Ambedkar, in his scholarly work, "Pakistan or Partition of India", has surveyed the extent and cause of these riots. There were several enquiries before 1947 and later on into the cause of riots, but not one enquiry was made public. The terrorism, the vandalism, the forced conversions and the massacres perpetrated by Moplas, i.e. the Muslims of Kerala, immediately after the failure of the Khilafat movement, brought out a glimpse of the violence and terrorism that could flow by invoking the faith. Gandhiji, when asked to comment upon the Moplah atrocities on Hindus, said, "They (Muslims) are a brave god-fearing people who were fighting for what they consider as religion, and in a manner which they considered religious". In reference to other communal riots, Gandhiji said that Hindus are, in general, cowards and Muslims are, by nature, bullies.

12. The separatism, and insurgency in support of it, by the Muslim populations in Philippines, in China, Russia, Cyprus, India, Serbia, Macedonia and the very well-known jihadi terrorism including suicide-bombing, hijacking by Palestinians and their Islamist backers, the destruction of WTC (World Trade Center) and other properties and maiming and killing in places as in Kenya, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Argentina, Germany etc. must be studied, just as communism, the communist parties and the terror that they unleashed were studied, to understand the evil in jihadi terrorism. The mantra, that a particular religion is for peace and that its misguided practitioners only are evil-doers, will not help. It is true that if there is an open, truthful and unbiased discovery of facts and a non-hurting exercise to own them up, Muslim intellectuals could come out for such Islam which will indeed be peaceful and respect religious pluralism and would in practice give freedom for others to practice other religions, and not exercise compulsion in matters of religion and accepts reciprocal respect to every other religion. Just as Cominform and Comintem were transnational organizations of communism, the Organization of Islamic countries is a transnational organization of Islamists. Things like the Islamic Declaration of Human Rights as distinct from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the periodic conferences of OIC and its resolutions in the name of Islam concerning the rest, the state sponsorship of terrorism by some of the Islamic states, funding of institutions apparently for education but in fact for the production of jihadi terrorists, cannot but recall the communist networks themselves. While communism is a political jihad, Islamism is a religious jihad. A number of Muslim intellectuals in several countries are very sincerely engaged in dis-abusing the Islamic jihadies of their belief that Islam sanctions terrorism, suicide-bombing etc. They will have to be appreciated, encouraged and all those who stand for the preservation and promotion of cultural pluralism must find out the facts, get them acknowledged and then work together for true reconciliation and for the right interpretation of every religion, if necessary, by reforming them for peaceful coexistence. Mere tolerance is not sufficient. It will be like truce to be broken up whenever one party thinks it is stronger. Reciprocal reverence and respect is what must be ensured. It can not be that only one religion must be free to propagate and thrive and practice unhindered in countries where it is a minority, and where it is a religion of majority, followers of other religions would not be allowed to profess, practise and propagate their religion. True and sincere respect in a reciprocal measure is what should be accepted and encouraged and for all this, a multi-faith study of roots of terrorism and violence among cultural, religious and political groups must be undertaken.

The Roots of Terrorism