Subcontinent is now terror hotbed
ISI is in a position to manipulate Al Qaeda for Indian Subcontinent, and has already raised radicalised youth in Kerala.
Over the last decade, the threat scenario in South Asia has particularly been impacted by three developments—the rise of faith-based extremism in the PakistanAfghanistan belt, unbridled patronage extended by the Pakistan army- ISI combine to Islamic militants of all hues, and the shadow of China- Pakistan military alliance on the region. For India, they presage a distinct likelihood of a stepped up targeting of this country by Islamic terrorists, an aggravation of domestic conflict caused by Pakistani proxies and fanatics on communal lines, and an aggressive attitude of China under Xi Jinping, reflected in its activities on the SinoIndian border. Fortunately, some factors are weighing in positively for India—the firm convergence of the democratic world in general against violence in the name of Islam, a deepening bond between India and Donald Trump’s United States in the matter of jointly handling global conflicts, and the geopolitical ascendancy of India as a regional power at a time when the predatory designs of China in the Indo-Pacific are causing concern to all stakeholders there.
The situation calls for a recheck on the long term strategy of India in matters of defence and security and a retuning of our foreign policy to strengthen the same. An assessment of what lies ahead in the Pakistan- Afghan region, what approach the Trump administration would adopt towards the Muslim world in the long run and how would the Sino-Pakistan axis affect India’s other neighbours, will be pivotal to this review. Equally relevant would be an evaluation of India’s vulnerability to internal destabilisation because of the cumulative effect of manoeuvrings of Pakistan agencies, anti-India activities of some elements opposed to the Narendra Modi regime and the doings of pro-Pakistan groups influenced by radical indoctrination.
The environment in the Pakistan-Afghanistan belt is deteriorating because of the spread of faith-based extremism. The Pakistan army is being soft towards Islamic radicals affiliated to the Al Qaeda-Taliban combine and is fostering militants of LeT, JeM and HuM who solely target India. It is also giving leeway to Sunnis—also called Barelvis—as was seen in the episode of anti-blasphemy protests by the Tehreek Labbaik Ya Rasool Allah Pakistan at Islamabad.
Incidentally, Barelvis get their name from the 19th century madrasa called Manzare-Islam started at Bareilly by a cleric named Ahmad Raza Khan, who propounded that Muslim Nabis and Walis also deserved respect and adoration. Barelvis thus follow the Sufi tradition of Muslims visiting the graves of their “saints” for seeking the fulfilment of human wishes. To cope with the “revivalist” influence of Deobandis representing the Wahhabi thought and the Salafis constituting the Saudi-funded Lashkare-Tayyaba, Sufism is driven to competitively demonstrating its commitment to the two fundamentals of faith in Islam—“Unity of God” and the finality of the message of God given to Prophet Muhammad. Any hopes of return of Ijtihad or independent reasoning have clearly receded, as both Al Qaeda and LeT push the community towards Islam of the period of the Pious Caliphs.
The Pakistan-Afghanistan region is where this rapid shift is taking place and it is India, and no other country in the short term, which is going to bear the adverse consequences of this transformation because of its “cause and effect” relationship with the happenings on our own soil. What makes this serious is the fact that the army in Pakistan is on the same page as the militants across the Islamic spectrum in that country.
An external parameter presently working for India is the fact that President Donald Trump, unlike his predecessor, has little tolerance for Islamic militancy anywhere and has administered a clear warning to the Muslim and Arab countries led by Saudi Arabia to put it down firmly. Trump’s decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel is in line with this disposition. The Americans, however, continue to focus only on radical forces like the Al Qaeda-Taliban combine, its affiliates like the Haqqani Network in Afghanistan and of course the ISIS. What is disquieting from India’s point of view is that in Pakistan the hard-liners of LeT, who follow the Hanbali line of Saudi Arabia, and who had come to the forefront in the victorious campaign of jihad against the Soviet army in Afghanistan, have achieved a newfound dominance.
As a result, even the indig- enous Jamaat- e-Islami in Kashmir—which is of Hanafi persuasion—finds its militant fronts HuM and Dukhtarane-Millat, taking orders directly from Hafiz Saeed. This visible deepening of extremism in Pakistan, and its impact on Kashmir, is a development of great concern for India. And since Saudi Arabia heading the OIC is presently trying to look totally aligned with the US in confronting Islamic radicals, Pakistan—enjoying the full trust of the Saudis—is in a position to use OIC as a protective shield for keeping up its own proxy war against India with the help of LeT, JeM and HuM. The Pakistan ISI is now also in a position to manipulate the radical organisation, Al Qaeda for Indian Subcontinent (AQIS), based in Pakistan, against India. It has already raised many radicalised youth in Kerala and elsewhere through the Islamic Research Foundation of Zakir Abdul Karim Naik, a Salafi preacher enjoying a big following in Pakistan. Pakistan’s deep state, thus, has all the wherewithal to continue churning out militants against India in the months to come.
The Sino-Pakistan axis, meanwhile, is in a collaborative play against India as the issues of CPEC, Doklam and the exercise of veto against the listing of Masood Azhar as an international terrorist, amply proved. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has successfully used forums like SAARC, BRICS and ASEAN to build a united voice in the democratic world against the Chinese roguishness in the maritime region. India’s main challenge, however, is to counter the aggressiveness of China on the border. India’s defence forces are rightly keeping in their calculus a possible “jointness” that China and Pakistan might resort to in their anti-India operations.
The external threat to India is compounded by our domestic scene, where many in the Opposition were unwilling to keep national security above politics. The issue of terrorism was getting enmeshed in the communal divide, and the determined bid of Pakistan to influence India’s Muslim minority was creating further complications. Assam, West Bengal and Kerala are witnessing Islamic militancy of extremist groups, and illegal migration from Bangladesh and infiltration through the IndiaNepal border are adding to the vulnerability of many of our states. The attempts of Pakistan’s ISI to revive militancy in Punjab with the help of Babbar Khalsa and other Khalistan protagonists given shelter by it in Pakistan, too deserve mention. At present, the prime threats to India’s national security revolve round Pakistan. The challenge for India is to give a befitting reply to Pakistan, while keeping the world opinion in our favour. D.C. Pathak is a former Director Intelligence Bureau Dylan Farrow has moved the American conversation on silence and impunity for sexual abuse. In an opinion piece for the Los Angeles Times, she describes how her stepfather, film director Woody Allen, groomed and raped her when she was seven years old.
She says, “this is not a ‘he said, child said’ situation.” This happened. Farrow wonders why Hollywood stars, like Blake Lively, who spoke out against Harvey Weinstein and child sex abuse, continue to work with and thereby protect Woody Allen. She details how Kate Winslet, Greta Gerwig and others benefit financially and professionally by staying silent about Allen’s rape and diminishing the credibility of a child-rape survivor and her mother, Mia Farrow.
Men, overwhelmingly white men in positions of power, who rape children continue to be protected in the United States. As Farrow notes the #SilenceBreakers #MeToo revolution against impunity for abuse has been selective. Children and child rape are being ignored. In Epidemic: America’s Trade in Child Rape, my newly-released book, I document the context that allows predators like Woody Allen to get away with these crimes against children.
We are sustaining crisis-level numbers of seemingly normal, often powerful and successful, men involved in America’s illegal child sex abuse industry. It does not matter if the perpetrator is on the demandside, with an incessant appetite for brutal child rape to achieve sexual gratification, or the supply-side of raping children, often their own or those of friends and relatives, and trading this abuse online. Both supply and demand of child pornography, which almost always intertwine, have reached epidemic proportions and too few are talking about it.
The rape and torture of thousands of children in America is shared every day in videos, photos and livestreams. Men, and some women, are raping children, including infants and toddlers, and distributing evidence of the crime on the internet in epidemic numbers. These offences against our children are flourishing, in part, because we refuse to move beyond our collective denial that this criminality, often called child pornography, has reached catastrophic levels in America.
The problem of child sex abuse and its cover-up is real. A generation of American children are being destroyed. If you think this happens to someone else’s children and your children are safe, you are mistaken. Your children might be enduring sexual abuse right now while you remain dangerously ignorant. America’s appetite for child pornography puts all our children at risk. Your children and mine.
This is America’s wake-up call about a subject few want to acknowledge. We have become a country that protects, in many ways for many years, child rapists like Woody Allen. Not only has Woody Allen avoided jail for his crimes, he further abused Mia Farrow, Dylan’s mother, by dragging her through a destructive legal battle attempting to gain custody of her daughter; the child he was raping.
This is common practice for child predators. Patricia Mitchell, of Patricia’s Children, explains how United States family courts have become criminal enterprises in her recent Huffington Post articles. Family courts are known secure-supply lines for paedophiles to obtain control over, and unfettered access to, children. They are trafficking children.
Dylan Farrow said, “I told the truth to the authorities then, and I have been telling it, unaltered, for more than 20 years.”
My daughter, like Dylan Farrow, told the truth. I have told the truth. Medical professionals told the truth. My daughter, confirmed for rape at two years old by her father, and I have also been ignored. My daughter was placed in the sole custody of her father. I wrote Epidemic: America’s Trade in Child Rape for my daughter and all child survivors like Dylan Farrow.
So, children would be believed. So, America would stop protecting men who rape children. Men like Woody Allen. And so many more. Why is the #MeToo #SilenceBreakers movement ignoring child rape survivors?
Don’t children count too? Dr Lori Handrahan has been a humanitarian and academic for over twenty-years. Her Ph.D. is from The London School of Economics. She may be contacted on her website: www.LoriHandrahan.com