Counterpoint: Time to nip radicalisation moves in the bud
By Vivekanand Jha*
It is time to nip radicalisation moves in the bud.
What would one call the apprehending of certain incriminating documents of Popular Front of India(PFI), a banned organisation, from some of its activists, and the raids conducted by the National Investigative Agency at its different offices?
Going by such documents, they do smack of a diabolical agenda: to convert India into an Islamic nation by 2047! But can this be something to be discussed as the brainchild of certain fringe elements with the extremist vision of Islamic fundamentalism guiding their course of action? In fact, this has been the pet agenda of such fundamentalists to nurture the ambition to convert India into an Islamic nation as early as 2047 when India will be celebrating its centenary celebration of independence.
Significantly, the blueprints of the vision of PFI, retrieved by the NIA from its different offices across the nation, unambiguously lend heft to the sick belief of this fringe group that India could be expediently converted into an Islamic nation.
Interestingly, the documents retrieved, also show Pakistan’s connection with this radicalised group which was founded to attain the dream of converting India into an Islamic nation. Ironically, what appears a paradox purportedly causes a deep sense of utter scepticism: a nation on the brink of economic bankruptcy; which has been desperately begging for generous funds from Islamic nations and the International Monetary Fund, has been simultaneously fomenting troubles in its neighbouring country, beggars the belief that whether sanity has been eluding Pakistan as ever.
Unequivocally, what appears absolutely incompatible is the fact that, notwithstanding the fragility of Pakistan, where the citizens of that country are desperately crying for a slice of bread; where the power outages engulf the nation in prolonged darkness; where even the flour is sold at an exorbitant price of over rupees 300 per kg, far beyond the capacity of its hoi-polloi, has been mischievously coming up with all these sinister plans to fomenting terrorism within India by fostering such groups as PFI to usher in the change of the nature of secular democracy into that of an Islamic republic.
SIMI (The Student of Islamic Movement of India) the earlier avatar of PFI, which purportedly traced its existence in the wake of the Babri Masjid demolition, had engaged in a series of bomb blasts across India. However, in the wake of its banning, the members took another platform of PFI to give a tangible shape to their eternal dream: to convert India into an Islamic nation. The two bomb blasts –first in 1993 in Mumbai (then Bombay) and the other vicious terrorist attacks from across the border in 2008–vindicate Pakistan’s evil design on India. 1993 witnessed the fleeing of Dawood Ibrahim, the main brain behind the Bombay bomb blast. Apparently, the bomb blast in 1993, witnessed Chhota Rajan, another criminal who was associated with Dawood, part ways with him: the latter refused to be part of any such conspiracy which resulted in destroying his motherland.
Rogue Islamic terrorism has not only inflicted India, but it is inflicting Europe. In fact, one still remembers the bombings in Brussels, Belgium in 2016. The radicalised Muslim perpetrators of the communal violence in Leicester in the United Kingdom, in the year 2022, where the Hindu temples were also attacked and their gods and goddesses were desecrated, are still at large as the law failed to book the fundamentalists who ran smoke the system with impunity. Ironically, instead of calling their bluffs, there has been systematic propaganda to designate the rightist fundamentalist for begetting violence there.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in course of his speech during the vote of thanks to the President in Parliament recently, made a few significant points: how the bomb blasts were a regular phenomenon in India before his government took over, and how such terrorist menace was obliterated from India.
This indeed is an unimpeachable fact. The funny spectacle of a pusillanimous exhibition of candlelight matches taken out in the event of terrorist attacks, became history once the Modi government took control in 2014.
Yet Islamic radicalisation is a genuine problem today, especially in the context of recent events like issuing fatwa against Nupur Sharma, the killings of Kanhaiyalal and other innocent people, and the raising of such frightening slogans like ‘Sar tan se juda‘.
Hence, it is high time that the people wake up to the threats posed by radical groups such as PFI and the security agencies nip their radicalisation efforts in the bud.
*Author, academician and public intellectual. The views expressed are personal.
