In the Fathiyah-I-‘Ibriyah it is said that Mir Jumla [150] demanded:

i)               The cession of all the country up to Garhgaon [151]

ii)              The payment of 500 elephants and 300,000 tolas of gold and silver

iii)            A daughter of the king for the imperial harem

iv)             An annual tribute of fifty elephants

-As retold by Sir Edward Gait in his History of Assam

 

Islamic militancy is not a new phenomenon. Indeed, in some sense, the “clash of civilizations,” [152] with which modern academic discourse seems to identify Islamic militancy, began when the Seljuk Turks overran the Christian empire of Byzantium. Islamic militants today view their agendas in Palestine, Kosovo, Kashmir, and elsewhere as a progression of the “holy war,” [153] which was heralded by the conquest of Jerusalem in 638 AD. Therefore, although there is some debate about whether clash-of-civilization theorists are confusing civilization with religion, [154] the proposition that the “Green Menace” of Islamic fundamentalism has replaced the “Red Menace” of communism is not in any doubt. And the “clash” itself—as has been prophesized—is between the Muslim world and the West. [155]

Militants under the green ensign, however, have not been able to unify established Islamic states—with the brief exception of Afghanistan under the Taliban—with their fundamentalist cause. Acting as freelancers in the name of Islam, such militants have sought to establish a confederacy of the faithful in several Islamic countries and communities with the hope that every Dar-ul-Harb [156] will soon be replaced with Dar-ul-Amaan. [157] But their advocated universal goals have had limited success even within their own parish—leading them thereby to turn to methodologies that do not need a mass following in order to achieve their objectives. Such militants have surfaced when the vulnerabilities of erudition and systemic error have allowed themselves to play accompaniment to ominous design. This convergence of factors is precisely the reason why 9/11 occurred. After all, even in its broadest notion, the most important Islamic militant action in recent times was in the end the handiwork of only a few. To that end, the menacing caliber of a few surviving elements—who are able to escape a counter-militant dragnet—must not be under-estimated.

Militancy fuelled by religious fanaticism is not bound by geographical boundaries. The combative manifestation of Islam has today assumed a global dimension, with foci of operation distributing itself into worldwide cellular formations. Unfortunately, this has been so despite its inability to grow as a mass movement. Such proliferations have gained in momentum particularly after Operation Enduring Freedom, when as a result of the US-led invasion of Afghanistan, important elements of the al-Qaeda-Taliban hierarchy were spirited away into the maze of the global night. It is in the face of such questions that allegations of al-Qaeda entry into Bangladesh convey credibility.

Where, after all, are Mullah Omar, bin Laden, and al-Zawahiri? What, after all, are the reasons—if not the truth—which led two western journalists to report not only the secret entry of al-Qaeda into Bangladesh, but also of the systematic subversion of secular forces in that country? Are all the reports that have emanated from the general area of Bangladesh and North East India about the presence of al-Qaeda (and on the strength of which much of this Occasional Paper has been written) fake, fictitious, and false? What about the bombing in Bali? Is it inconceivable that the terror trail from Afghanistan that led to countries such as Indonesia had transit points in Chittagong and Rajshahi? Why are petrified citizenry in Bangladesh’s Ukhia secretly corresponding with western reporters about disturbing alien presence in their midst? Al-Qaeda and the Taliban live, if not in the caves of Tora Bora, then in cities, towns, and villages of South and South East Asia.

In 1971 Bangladesh was a moderate Islamic state. Although the United States had not midwifed its umbilical severance from Pakistan (indeed, to the contrary the United States had even opposed it!), the environs that are washed by the Bay of Bengal soon came to be nurtured as the prima donna of Old Glory. Bangladesh could do no wrong, not even with its political upheavals and dictatorships—the latter ending the first time around in assassination and the second time in overthrow and incarceration. The United States was ready to do business with anyone in Dhaka who curtsied. Resident diplomats in Baridhara and diplomats in residence in Foggy Bottom fell over one another to protect what they thought was one of the few surviving moderate Islamic states. Talk of the al-Qaeda landings, the burning of the US flag, the assembling of a nuclear device—all were met with guarded derision. The United States desperately needed a foil to counter its newest enemy in militant Islam, and Bangladesh was erroneously thought to be the perfect weapon. What the United States has not realized is what this epilogue began by stating: Islamic militant action in recent times has been the handiwork of a few. And Bangladesh with its ever-changing delta has more than enough warrens and marshes to successfully house such a few.

So, how is the road from Kandahar to Chittagong being paved? If it is not from the wake of the M.V. Mecca, the ship that reportedly ferried al-Qaeda operatives, it was certainly by the reaffirmation of ties between Bangladesh and Pakistan. In a well-publicized visit to Bangladesh in July 2002 (well after Operation Enduring Freedom was underway), Pervez Musharraf expressed regret at the Pakistani army action in 1971 that had left countless Bangladeshis dead and dishonored. Indeed, if Alex Perry is to be believed, the M.V. Mecca had preceded Musharraf’s penitent pilgrimage—the Time magazine story “Deadly Cargo” broke three months after the Pakistani dictator’s visit to what were once the eastern seclusions of Rawalpindi.

How about the ISI? Has its pro-terrorism doctrine in any manner diminished after 9/11 and the replacement of Mahmood Ahmed by Ehsan-ul-Haq? Anti-India operations carried out in North East India and originating from within Bangladesh by the Pakistani intelligence agency do not signify this. The much-publicized Musharraf speech of 12 January 2002 in which he condemned terrorism “under any pretext” has not yielded any tangible results. Indeed, if anything, with the temporary closure of the Afghan bureau of the ISI, it is the defined goal of Brig. Mohammad Yousaf, [158] to create “several Afghanistans” in India, which seems to be making headway. North East India, with its large illegal migrant population and proximity to Bangladesh, makes it an ideal staging ground for the subterfuge.

On the radar screen of global terrorism, North East India is but a faint blip. Many a theoretician of practice and practitioner of theory whom this author met during the course of his research in the United States admitted that they were hearing of the region for the first time. [159] Indeed, the topic of research that occupied the author was even derided—how can a region that is so insignificant manifest itself as a future threat to the United States? But the truth of the matter is that North East India is an important geo-political region that has live boundaries with Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, and Myanmar. There are more armed insurrections in the region—which have tested the Indian military might—than there are in the rest of the entire South Asian region. Anecdotal history has even testified to early US interest in the region by way of the CIA’s “Operation Brahmaputra,” which purportedly sought to sever the region from the rest of India. However, the misfortune of the time is such that the “enchanted frontiers” to which many an American missionary carried literacy, modern medicine and Christianity during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, is being consigned to the flames of anonymity.

Despite its relative insularity, North East India, too, felt the shocks of the fall of the Twin Towers. Indeed, even as the civilized world reeled from the effects of 9/11 and the global war on terror, militant organizations in the region were changing their agendas. Movements such as the ULFA grew more cautious about attacks on innocent people and were to a considerable extent (at least until the end of 2002) quieted by not only US censure of terror but the peace overtures of the LTTE and the NSCN as well. However, this was short-lived. What had started with a bang was ending in a whimper. It soon became clear that the US-led grand alliance against terror was going to be a selective affair. Therefore, even as the question from the US Ambassador to India, Robert D. Blackwill, [160] of whether the ULFA can reach US targets in New Delhi and Calcutta conveyed an important point, the general US disregard for the Indian Deputy Prime Minister’s remark that “the epicenter of global terrorism has shifted to Pakistan after the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan” was indication that natural selection egged on US policy in South Asia. As a result, militant movements in North East India restarted their agendas with a vengeance. Mortar shells flew into air bases, oil installations, and crowded streets of Assam, and the weapons and the training responsible for the attacks—as has been seen—all pointed to Bangladesh. The ULFA had not only changed ideologies but were less cautious about international censure. What occasioned this? After all, the ULFA was known to have punished cadres who had targeted innocent non-combatants in the past. Is it that the leaders of the ULFA—completely in the control of the ISI—have lost all free agency? Are they consequently ordering operations that would not normally meet the organization’s ethical norm? What, moreover, is the significance of the ISI instruction to the HuM that the latter “would have to later on work together with the ULFA?” Has an unholy alliance already been engineered between the MFOs and the ULFA?

Reports have not yet indicated a serious nexus between the ULFA and the MFOs. But for the sole exception of the MULTA, few MFOs are even operating in a manner that can be termed as militancy. Indeed, almost ninety percent of the MFOs are silent, not by the absence of activity but by the presence of non-activity. There exist sixteen well-organized MFOs, complete with distinct objectives, training, and parish, yet only a couple of them are in battle mode.

Is there an Islamic militant movement in North East India? An intricate assembly of organizational structure, training camps, ideology, and weaponry definitely indicate that there is. The fact that the MFOs are coming under the ambit of umbrella organizations such as the BIM, which has professed al-Qaeda linkages by way of the convening HUJI-B, also indicates their links with international Islamic militancy. The prognosis at this point, therefore, is that the “Green Menace” is steadily replacing the “Red Menace” in the region; much of the latter was characterized by the ethnic militant movements with an avowed Marxist-Leninist ideology. Furthermore, if for some reason the MFOs are not openly arraying themselves against the Indian state at the present moment, it is not tantamount to any lesser militant objective on their part. Indeed, it seems that the MFOs are being readied for future action—the establishment of terror modules and sleepers that are to be activated at a future time underlines this fact. At any rate, the absence of proof of cannot be considered proof of absence.

Is the game plan, therefore, to steadily expand the Islamic fundamentalist confederacy into North East India, and thereby take the crucial step in the creation of a greater Bangladesh? After all, the situation is ripe for such a picking. The only militant organization that would have stood in its way—the ULFA—has now been compromised. The demographic march of the loyalist forces—characterized by the illegal migrants—is preparing not only to demand what a former Governor of Assam had sagely termed “a merger with Bangladesh,” but also to effect changes in the social formation in the region, as has been seen in the case of the sema-miyas. The popular objection that the indigenous people of the region will not allow it is far too facetious at this point to be even considered. Not only are the endangered people in the region—led primarily by the Assamese—disunited over the issue, but they are actually providing sustenance to the illegal migrant who is the source of the threat. In Assam, the movement of 1979-85 of the AASU had helped to crystallize the issue, but once again it was the hypocrisy of middle Assam that threw away the advantage. Today, the illegal migrant constituent is bolder in his claims to the land—he enjoys voting rights and political patronage—and his earlier cautious demeanor about his illegal status has metamorphosed into outright defiance. As the author was once witness to in 1998, an illegal migrant elder in a small hamlet in Assam’s Sonitpur district said, “Yes, we are from Bangladesh, we are not going back, do what you will.” Today, almost every calling from grocery-selling to masonry, from rickshaw-pulling to domestic help, has been taken over by the illegal migrant. This aspect has been compounded by the ambivalence with which successive governments in North East India have perceived the issue. Indeed, the recent controversy regarding the IM (DT) Act and its repeal has brought to the fore the dramatis personae of the tragedy and their narrow objectives to remain in power. Centrist parties [161] are aligning with the Left to oppose the Right in its battle to right the wrong. In the democracy that is India, debate will ensue about the correctness of one action over another—in Parliament, in living rooms, and in the weary streets. Meanwhile, it will be the hostile alien that will have won, in his agenda of furthering not only Islamic militancy in the region, but terror sans frontiers as well.