D Suba Chandran
There is an international focus on the phenomenon of foreign fighters
today; thanks to the unprecedented attraction that the Islamic State in
Syria and Iraq possess, there are foreign fighters expanding the size of
the Islamic State from Central Asia, Europe and the Arab World. Though
there have been reports of youths from South and Southeast Asia joining
the Islamic State, the numbers are insignificant, when compared to the
above three regions.
The issue of foreign fighters in Syria and Iraq raises another important
question in South Asia – what about the foreign fighters from South
Asia, fighting within the region? An interesting statistics in this
regional phenomenon would reveal, of all the groups, it is mostly the
Punjabi and Pashtun fighters, who have been known for fighting in other
regions, primarily outside their area of domicile. There may be other
fighters/groups in South Asia as well fighting in distant land; but the
available literature indicates that there are more Pashtun and Punjabi
fighters waging war elsewhere.
What makes the youths from Punjab and Khyber Paktunkwa (KPK) to travel a
long distance to faraway places such as J&K and Afghanistan to wage
jihad or fight someone else’s war? While for the pashtun fighters from
KPK and the FATA belt, crossing the Durand Line may be relatively
easier, what made them to cross the Line of Control (LoC) between India
and Pakistan and fight in the Kashmir Valley in the late 1940s? What
made the Afghans (primarily the Pashtuns) from West of the Durand Line
to cross Pakistan and enter into J&K in the early 1990s? What
enthused the Punjabi fighters of the Jaish-e-Mohammad,
Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, Lashkar-e-Toiba to cross both the borders into India
and Afghanistan? An equally interesting question should be, why not the
Sindhis and Balochis from Pakistan do not join the jihad elsewhere? What
prevents the fighters from Sindh and Balochistan to remain territorial,
and what enthuses the fighters from Punjab and KPK to fight someone
else’s War?
Any answer cannot strictly from the security field; it has to be an
explanation based on sociological, anthropological and demographic
studies. This commentary could only be a partial explanation, if not an
insufficient one.
The Afghans (Pashtuns to be precise in this context), historically have
been buoyed with a sense of jihad, much before the Mughals came into
South Asia. From the days of Mahmud of Ghazni in tenth century and
Mahmud of Ghuri later, jihad was used as a strategy for the multiple
Afghan raids against the then Rajput kingdoms of North India. The passes
of Khyber and Bolan acted more as a gateway, rather than a hindrance.
This eastward raids of the Afghan Pashtuns continued till the British
era; the multiple Angla-Afghan Wars and the names inscribed in the India
Gate in New Delhi will reveal the nature and extent of the interactions
across, what came to be later defined as the Durand Line.
The only other major intervention by the Pashtuns to fight someone
else’s war or liberate another land came immediately after the partition
of India and took place in J&K. There is enough literature today on
the nature of this “tribal” raid in 1947 and the extent of support from
Pakistan’s regular security forces.
The last of pashtun raids during the previous century on east of the
Indus river, took place in the early 1990s, when there was a major
ingress of the Afghan Pashtuns into India, primarily in the Kashmir
Valley. The reasons for the Pashtuns from across the Durand Line to
enter J&K in the 1990s certainly were different from the earlier
attempts in 1940s and also almost ten centuries ago under the leadership
of the Mahmuds of Ghazni and Ghur.
While it is easier to explain how and when, there cannot be an universal
explanation for the “why” question. If the wealth of temples (real and
exaggerated) in North India and the clever use of “jihad” phrase by the
then raiders in the tenth and eleventh centuries played a role, the
Pashtun ingress into J&K 1990s, was a well planned and calculated
move by the State in Pakistan, especially its ISI. More than an inherent
fervour of jihad, it was manipulation of the rulers or State
institutions for a secular purpose – that had been the reason until now –
from Mahmud of Ghazni in the tenth century to the ISI until recently.
Second, thanks to the Afghan Jihad of the 1980s, there were so many
battle hardened fighters, buoyed by a “jihadi” spirit, though used more
for a political purpose – overthrowing Russian troops from Afghanistan.
In many ways, the Afghan Jihad of the 1980s totally transformed the
jihadi fervour and sowed the seeds of multiple destructions in South
Asia. While the US is fighting the monsters it created in the 1980s –
from New York to Kobani, South Asia has become a playground.
Punjab would not have sucked into this whirlwind, had it not been the
Afghan jihad, and the short-sightedness of the CIA and the ISI.
Unfortunately for Punjab, during the 1980s, Zia ul Haq did create a
favourable environment within Pakistan for the growth of sectarian
sentiments; his initiatives to “Islamize” to gain legitimacy actually
resulted in sectarian groups springing into action.
It is interesting to note in this context, what was sociologically
abhorred – the tribal Sardar edifice in Balochistan and the feudal
system in Sindh - played a role in keeping the society from radicalized.
The local Mullah was a part of the feudal hierarchy in Sindh, while in
Balochistan, the Sardars were expected to pray for the serfs as well.
Besides the nationalist insurgencies in Sindh and Balochistan during
this period did not provide the space for any radical onslaught. Quetta
and Karachi – two major urban centers of Balochistan and Sindh became
radicalised at a later stage. Even in this case, the manipulation of
intelligence agencies was substantial, as they attempted to use a
radical course to undermine the political narrative led by the MQM and
the Balochi nationalists.
Back to Punjab, it is safe to conclude the rise of jihadis was a post
Zia and post Afghan Jihad phenomenon. Had it not been the Islamization
process of Zia and the Iran-Pakistan Cold War along the Shia-Sunni
sectarian lines, the Punjabi fighters would not have become a phenomenon
today. Two developments took place simultaneously within Punjab during
the 1980s. The violent eruption of sectarian violence and the emergence
of sectarian organizations such as the Sipah-e-Sahaba and the
Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, and the birth of the Lashkar-e-Toiba. Whether the
State in Pakistan had a direct role in its birth or not, it did play a
substantial role in pushing them outside Punjab to fight elsewhere. The
sectarian militants of Punjab belonging to the SSP and LeJ also became a
part of the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen and later the Jaish-e-Mohammad.
A follow up explanation could be the relationship between the groups and
the Establishment. Neither the Sindhi nor the Balochi groups
trusted/trust the Pakistani Establishment and vice-versa. On the
contrary Punjab and KPK became a primary recruitment ground for the
Establishment to exploit the groups and individuals to achieve its own
goals in Afghanistan and India. The successful abuse of jihad as a
strategy against the Soviet troops by the ISI gave an opportunity for
the latter to try a similar strategy against India. J&K became an
easy target, for there was a cause, and also a geographic proximity.
Like Turkey’s proximity to Syria and Iraq, the control of Mirpur and
Muzaffarabad provided an easy access for the Punjabi fighters to pour
and get pushed into J&K.
If the State has its own reasons to push the fighters elsewhere, what
makes the latter to go elsewhere and fight? Why would a Punjabi fighter
cross the LoC into Kashmir Valley or the Durand Line into Afghanistan,
to wage a war in another land, where the language, climate, culture and
food habits are different?
There are more questions than answers. The above could only be a partial
or even an insufficient explanation. We need to find the answers for
above questions; or perhaps, we first need to ask the right questions on
this issue.
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