ISIS attack threat to India real

It will be foolish to ignore this threat. It will be even more foolish for Indians to try to counter the ISIS threat by raising Pakistan as a political bogey at home in order to malign and threaten the country’s Muslim minority as a whole, or by Pakistan-baiting and preventing India-Pakistan cricket and cultural exchange

The present generation of Indians would have only heard from their elders or read about Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, the Sarhad Gandhi and his Khudai Khidmatgars, who were selfless, non-violent workers donning red shirts.

Last week, a university named after him – they call Badshah Khan Bacha Khan – in his home town Charsadda in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the former North West Frontier Province, was attacked by another set of people who do raise “Allah-o-Akbar,” not to invoke God, but as a war cry.

Just the opposite of what Bacha Khan stood for, they wear, not redshirts but vests with explosives and target, not the government, not the army or police, but schoolchildren. The shrieks of dying students, who were about to witness a Mushaira, cries of their parents, condemnation of the society as a whole and by the world community, only seem to steel their resolve.

Why they target school children and students is inexplicable. But this is a repeat of the Army Public School in Peshawar on December 16, 2014, when 144, mostly school children, were killed. The same people had attacked Malala Yusufzai earlier and have been burning down schools across the province.

Security experts fear that schools will continue to be targeted. According to the Global Terrorism Database (GTD) at the University of Maryland, the USA, Pakistan as a country has the highest number of people killed, 450 in school attacks since 1970. It also has the highest number of attacks, 850 on places of learning in the last 46 years.

How Badshah Khan would have reacted had he been around is not difficult to imagine. His family members who led the National Awami Party, later renamed Awami National Party, have been politically marginalised after Islamist militants killed a hundred of their workers during the 2013 elections. The beneficiaries of that campaign were Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s Muslim League, the Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf of cricketer-turned politician Imran Khan and the Islamist parties.

So, it is not difficult to see why Nawaz was foot-dragging, calling all-party meeting and advocating talks with the militant groups, and why Imran Khan remained their best supporter – General Musharraf once called him “Taliban Khan.” This stance ended only when the Army under Gen Raheel Sharif took the initiative, first with the launch of Zarb-e-Azb in June 2014, and then going all-out after the school attackers in Peshawar.

Last month, as Pakistan marked 18 months of Zarb-e-Azb and the first anniversary of the Peshawar school attack, the military claimed "phenomenal successes" in the war and said it has killed around 3,500 insurgents since launching the operation. “Only some pockets” remained to be cleared. How wrong their claims were is shown by the January 20 attack.

Asfandyar Wali, who is a grandson of Bacha Khan, said it was condemnable that despite the military campaign and the National Action Plan (NAP) chalked by the Army and the Nawaz Sharif government, little came about in terms of curbing terrorism.

The province is governed by Imran Khan’s PTI. It would be interesting to note the misleading rhetoric of the party’s provincial spokesperson Shaukaut Yousafzai. He thundered, for domestic consumption: “terrorists are breathing their last and wanted to pull something in their last days.” And then, expectedly, he alleged “international terrorism” which is an euphemism for India’s alleged involvement in Pakistan’s tribal areas.

"This is international terrorism. This province is a target of terrorism. We are making full efforts to combat terrorism and it has dropped. The backs of terrorists have been broken and they are breathing their last. This stunt is an attempt to breathe life into their cause."

Pakistan is fed on various ‘conspiracy’ theories of which India is one of them. Even polio vaccination is supposed to be a ‘conspiracy’ to emasculate Pakistani children. The government was most upset when last week US President Barack Obama named Pakistan and Afghanistan as counties where instability and terrorism are bound to sustain for a long time.

When Bacha Khan University was attacked, Nawaz was in Switzerland, attending the World Economic Forum and Chief Minister Pervez Khattak was in England. Nawaz and his Army Chief were in Saudi Arabia and Iran last week to bring about reconciliation between the two. It is luxury of diplomacy when the house is frequently on fire.

In such grim situations, individual heroism and sacrifices shine. Chemistry teacher Syed Hamid Husain opened fire at the attackers and tried to protect his students. He allowed them time to flee and was eventually killed. He has been rightly hailed as a “martyr” and a “gentleman.”

Does anybody ask why a teacher has to carry a gun to school? Pakistan is at last paying a price for the export of terrorism and is imploding – but will blame all and sundry. Since militants escape to Afghanistan, this comes as a handy excuse. Who will remind Pakistan that this is the culmination of long years of promoting ‘jihad,’ at America’s behest, with Saudi Arabian money and with the manufacture of fighters in madrassahs all along the border with Afghanistan?

The Generals, the politicians and the mullahs alike fattened themselves and only now shout about being “victims of terrorism”. ‘Victim’ Pakistan is, now that the forces it has nurtured and unleashed on others are striking back at their mentors. They are biting the hand of the Army’s ISI that fed them.

The ISI still nurtures its “strategic assets” that it can use against India and Afghanistan. Afghanistan’s security chief has said that 70 per cent of the Pakistani militants who fled to escape Zarb-e-Azb have joined the ISIS, either directly or by switching from Al Qaida.

Even without this claim, ISIS has reached Afghanistan-Pakistan and is thus, at India’s doorsteps – even inside. Indian intelligence agencies have alerts about attempt to target VVIPs and large gatherings like the Kumbh Mela. Modules and sleepers have been found in Maharashtra, Telangana (Hyderabad in particular), Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and even relatively remote Uttarakhand.

It will be foolish to ignore this threat. It will be even more foolish for Indians to try to counter the ISIS threat by raising Pakistan as a political bogey at home in order to malign and threaten the country’s Muslim minority as a whole, or by Pakistan-baiting and preventing India-Pakistan cricket and cultural exchange.

Also, the government should not mouth homilies like Home Minister Rajnath Singh recently did, about culture and ethos preventing Indian Muslims from joining the ISIS. The ethos is fine, and so is the sentiment behind what he said. But the Internet that purveys ISIS propaganda globally is all-pervading and more lethal. No Indian had joined Al Qaida, but some have joined ISIS. That changes both internal and external threat perceptions.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has resolved to talk to Pakistan and led the nation into a Chakravyuha by visiting Lahore. It is definitely a good move, but the road is full of pitfalls. India will have to play its cards most carefully. The only way he can lead us out of that Chakravyuha, victoriously, is to first ensure that rather than engineer the secular versus communal confrontation, evolve a strategy that makes the country internally strong and united in its objectives. Modi should do some “mann ki baat” on this.