It is still early for judgments in examining the confused bloody terrorist attack on Mumbai [Bombay] commuters. But indications are the eight blasts were carefully coordinated. Even targets, businessmen in the first class compartments, were carefully selected: The explosions had timing devices on RDX or plastic. [There may or may not be – it seems unlikely despite considerable media speculation – coordination with a simultaneous grenade attack on tourists in the disputed state of Kashmir. Unlikely since the Bombay bombings must have taken extended time to organize and grenade attacks in Kashmir are a weekly occurrence despite New Delhi’s half million security force.]
There was an initial curious silence in claiming responsibility. And in the end, there may be so much spin on any Indian government announcements the true nature of the attackers may well be camouflaged by a heavy dose of the normal Indian verbosity. But there was early speculation two organizations are involved: One is Lashkar-e-Taiba, operating in Kashmir with probable roots in Pakistan-held Kashmir. But the other outfit, the Students Islamic Movement of India [SIMI], has much more deadly portent. If early speculation about collaboration between the two organizations in the attacks were true, it is very bad news for India – and the world.
SIMI is a network including at its heart Indian Moslem educated activists. It began, at least, as a students’ organization, founded in 1977 at Aligarh, India’s most prestigious and politically influential Moslem university in Uttar Pradesh state, historically home to Indian Islamic intellectuals [and incidentally the family of Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf and the Nehru family which presided over the Indian government through much of the independence period and whose scion, Sonia Gandhi, is head of Congress now]..
Its current underground is said to liaise with other Moslem extremist groups in the Persian Gulf and fundraising organizations in the U.S. The Indian government banned the organization in 2002 but cells are believed to encadre other Indian and overseas radical Islamic organizations. There may even be ties to Osama Bin Laden’s Al Qaida.
Indian authorities have played down consistently the role of Indian Moslems in terrorism – even including the dramatic suicide bombing attack on the Indian parliament in 2001 which almost led to another war with Pakistan. The reality is India’s huge Moslem population – probably approaching 150 million, more than Pakistan’s population – has the strongest ties of blood and culture to both Pakistan and Bangladesh [the former East Pakistan].
Although more than 10 times Pakistan’s size, virtually every Indian policy – certainly those in the international field – are always linked to attitudes toward Pakistan, with whom the Indians have fought three and a half wars since the subcontinent was partitioned in 1947 with the end of British rule. [So much for the idiotic mantra of the Clinton State Department picked up by the Bush Administration insisting U.S. policy could treat each country individually.]
Conventional wisdom long held Pakistan’s creation and transfer of millions of Moslems left the remaining Indian Moslem community bereft of politics, certainly separatist and Islamic activism. That has seemed to be true. Despite their poverty and educational backwardness, Indian Moslems have taken a considerable if lesser proportionate role in post-Partition India. A.J. P. Kalam, a south Indian Moslem, is not only chief of state, but a prominent missile scientist and a chief mover in the controversial push to weaponize longstanding Indian nuclear research. Moslems are prominent in commerce [the largest information technology firm is headed by a Moslem NRI, non-resident-Indian], the arts [a disproportionate role in Bollywood, for example, the Bombay-based Indian Hindi-language film industry], and in regional politics where they tend to bloc voting. Furthermore, the politicians, particularly the Indian Congress Party heading the present coalition government, has tried to “buy off” Moslems by catering to community peculiarities such as enforcing Islamic family law even though the Indian constitution called for amalgamating the communal codes
But a series of bombings in Bombay in late 2002 and early 2003, were laid at the door of SIMI by Indian authorities. The bombings were seen as retaliation for a pogrom against Moslems in Bombay’s neighboring Gujarat state where the then ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, with its roots in Hindu revivalism, refused to intervene against its own local party leaders who a judicial inquiry later implicated. In the arrests made after those bombings were Moslem professionals, quite different from peasant warriors in Kashmir. It indicated a pattern of alienation and radical metamorphosis all too reminiscent of Islamic terrorists apprehended in Western Europe and implicated in the attacks of 9/11 and in the London and Madrid bombings.
If, as early reports indicate, the Bombay bombings are not – as Indian spokesmen are almost certain to charge – linked directly to Pakistan, and is a manifestation of growing home-grown terrorism, India faces a grim new threat. And it is not one ultra-high tech weaponry [such as the early July double failure of tests of an intercontinental ballistics missile and an intelligence satellite] can allay.
Sol W. Sanders, (solsanders@cox.net),
is an Asian specialist with more than 25 years in the region, and a former correspondent
for Business Week, U.S. News & World Report and United Press International.
He writes weekly for World Tribune.com and East-Asia-Intel.com.
