What India can do to counter religious extremism
Among the many threats the world is facing today, the menace of radicalisation of youth because of sustained propaganda blitz, chiefly by abuse of social media by the Islamic State (IS), remains the most perilous. There have been repeated attempts to woo the young and India has been no exception.
However, thanks to vigil and close monitoring by the Indian intelligence and security agencies, the damage has been relatively marginal here.
Given the vast size and population of the country, there has been a steady pattern in the arrests of those lured into the IS trap and threats have been reduced to a minimum.
In contrast, let's take the example of Maldives - a country with a population of about 3,00,000 but surprisingly, according to the last available statistics, as many as 300 people from there have gone to Syria to fight alongside the jihadis. Prior to that, they were severely indoctrinated.
Bangladesh just completed one year of the deadly terror attack of July 1, 2016, inspired by the IS, and the perpetrators were established to have been thoroughly radicalised.
Amid these developments within India and its neighbourhood, the Rajasthan Anti-Terror Squad (ATS) summoned (on July 4) one Haroon Rashid belonging to Chennai for IS links, exposing the complicity of other IS affiliates Iqbal and Jamal Ahmad. These IS cadres were involved in funding terror activities. Importantly, they all stood radicalised due to IS cyber warfare.
To meet the challenges of ongoing radicalisation of Muslim youth, other than the government’s specialised agencies, there are some committed Muslim organisations which are constantly on the alert as part of their de-radicalisation campaign. It's important to emphasise that such indoctrination programmes are spearheaded by the Wahhabi school of thought.
As part of the modus operandi, propaganda literature is under active circulation, publicising Wahhabism and Salafism, and targeting the Muslim youth through social media, Twitter accounts and Facebook.
Initially, those involved in such allurements speak about the peaceful tenets of Islam but gradually convert readers towards an extremist ideology.
Intelligence sources claim at least 50 or more Twitter handles are active right now and are on a radicalisation spree, misleading innocent minds.
For example, Radio Saut-ul-Islam, deemed to be emanating from Srinagar, is hyper active in driving the youth towards radicalisation through propaganda. Kashmir is already in a disturbed state and such propaganda adds to the hate campaign.
Similarly, the Twitter handle @PeaceMoin is engaged round the clock in courting vulnerable youth towards extremism.
Also, the platforms passionate writers’ forum, active from Ahmedabad, and Global Peace and Research Foundation from Belgaum, Karnataka, keep forwarding the venomous propaganda of hatemongers and villains to vitiate the atmosphere.
In the aftermath of a ban imposed on televangelist Zakir Naik, several radicalised institutions, under different pseudonyms, have mushroomed as part of a thought out strategy. They collaborate with many Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia, and contribute to the spread of Wahhabism and IS ideology.
To address these threats, it would appear imperative to completely ban the cyber content uploaded by different foreign countries, including blocking websites, Twitter handles and Facebook accounts. Instead, state-sponsored favourable cyber content merits space.
This is possible largely due to professional acumen readily available with Indian agencies aimed at extricating the misled Indian youth. Also, Sufism must be propagated more vigorously to dilute the extreme form of Islam. This move will help counter hostile propaganda.
Knowledgable sources, in the meantime, suggest instituting a central madarsa board, preferably appointing a Sunni (Sufi Barelvi) as its chairman. This should help improving madrasa quality of education, currently not considered to be aimed at neutralising radical Islam.
Muslim Students Organisation (MSO) is one entity on the horizon with about a million youth on its rolls. Many of them are of different scholarly streams. MSO, as shared by some academics, is highly committed with data from Kashmir to Kerala, Rajasthan to Manipur and Tripura, virtually covering the whole country. Also, it has access to dargah khanquahas which are full of valuable information, including addresses, profiles, emails and other relevant coordinates.
Such media content will not only promote harmony but will also, through references in the Quran and Hadith, help counter radicalism.
Significantly, the technical team of MSO may work on social media, including Facebook and Twitter, supported by graphics.
This looks doable, because unless we take the MSO or other similar organisations like it on board to neutralise the massive cyber propaganda, the government alone will find it difficult to contain the problem due to social and cultural constraints.
Security analysts reckon that radicalisation continues to be the number one problem leading to a segment of Muslim youth gravitating towards the IS ideology. This is also the time to take pro-government outfits into confidence and operationally utilising them to our advantage in the larger interest of peace and harmony.