Who’s us, who’s them?

United States, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan got into a huddle. America had to get the Soviets out of Afghanistan. But the Saudis and the Pakistanis were in the game for two distinct reasons. First, communism was anathema to the Saudis plus they were fulfilling their alliance obligations by funding the war against the Soviets. Secondly, the emergence of the Ayatollahs in Teheran was a challenge to Saudi leadership. Wahabi Islam in Afghanistan would work as a bulwark against Iranian Shiaism.

Wahabisation of Afghanistan was an opening for Zia-ul Haq to double distil Islam in his own country to disengage it from the widespread Sufi traditions across the subcontinent. This brand of Islam would plague the Indian state by proselytising the Sufi syncretism of Kashmir, generating militancy inspired by this Wahabi importation.

The muscular growth of Nizam-e-Mustafa in Pakistan would provide a fillip to its Hindu opposite number on the other side of the border. It reflects on the fragility of Hindu-Muslim equations in India which place the initiative in Pakistani hands. Nizam-e-Mustafa in Pakistan coincided with the changing sociology in areas like Kerala and Hyderabad on account of remittances from the Gulf. The relative prosperity of the Muslim was noticed. Meanwhile, the Meenakshipuram conversions and the rise of Sikh militancy were manipulated to induce in the Hindu a sense of being besieged. These factors created conditions in which the projection of the minorities as the ‘other’ would come in handy. It did, when the Hindu caste pyramid was jolted by Mandalisation. The Ayodhya agitation was the Hindu response.

The internal social upheaval and the political dynamics in India was therefore increasingly leaving the minorities vulnerable. The global trend since the 1991 Gulf War right up to September 11, 2001 has consistently aggravated the growing spectre of Muslims as terrorist. In this, the global TV networks have played a crucial role.

The Gulf War was a watershed in the history of electronic media. It was the first war televised live. The global audiences were divided into two distinct parts. While one half saw it as the celebration of western technology, the other half saw it as defeat and suffering of Muslim society. Then something else happened to the TV watchers in the Muslim world. In the coverage of the Bosnian war the sleight of hand of the western media was obvious. It consistently spoke of two ethnic quantities — Serbs and Croats and a religious group, the Bosnian Muslim. A three-way war between Serbian Orthodox, Croat Catholic and Bosnian Muslims was projected as a conflict between Muslims and the rest.

Western silence on Bosnia and the worst brutalities since World War II inflicted, in this case, on Bosnian Muslims, and all on live TV, had serious repercussions on Muslim societies. In societies where there was no institutionalised channel for the expression of this anger, the streets seethed with rage. This rage is pressure-cooked in Arab societies against the backdrop of Jenin and Jerusalem. Just imagine the impact September 11 and the US-led war against terrorism would have on global audiences, divided in their perception of Islamic militancy and its causes since 1973, but much more so since the televised brutalities of the Gulf war, the Balkans war, Kosovo, Palestine, interspersed with Chechnya.

It pains us that the world currently being mobilised to fight terrorism paid no attention to our 12 years of exposure to Kashmir militancy stoked by Pakistan. But now that we are in the process of being mobilised in the war against terrorism we have to be careful of two things: First, take a hard look at what the US has achieved. Yes, the Taliban have been defeated in Afghanistan. But not a single Al Qaeda cell has been busted in the US itself. The US is in convulsions fearing more terrorist threats.

We must be very careful in making a clear divide between Pakistani-stoked mischief in Kashmir and the 140-million Indian Muslims who at the moment are feeling alienated on account of Gujarat and persistent war clouds. They have to be mobilised at this hour of war with Pakistan, not painted into the picture of terrorism by the broad brush in the hands of inept politicians.