UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY. Homegrown Islamic Terrorism: A Case Study of India. Nidhi Panwar A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES

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1 UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY Homegrown Islamic Terrorism: A Case Study of India by Nidhi Panwar A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS GRADUATE PROGRAM IN POLITICAL SCIENCE CALGARY, ALBERTA AUGUST, 2017 Nidhi Panwar 2017

2 Abstract This study investigates explanations behind the rise of Homegrown Islamic Terrorism (HIT) in India. It questions the externalizing discourse of the security literature and locates reasons for HIT in domestic political events, guided by a Critical Terrorism Studies approach. To explore the emergence of HIT, this study focuses on a parallel trend in Indian politics- the rise of right-wing Hindu nationalism or the Hindutva movement and its targeting of the Muslim minority. The research question guiding this study is: How can the emergence of homegrown Islamic terrorism in India be explained as a consequence of political Hindutva? Using the methodology of process-tracing, this study establishes a positive relationship between Hindutva and HIT, operationalized through a mechanism of communal politics and Hindu-Muslim riots. Keywords: Homegrown Islamic Terrorism; Case Study; Hindutva; Communalism; Hindu Muslim Riots; Critical Terrorism Studies ii

3 Preface This thesis is original, unpublished, independent work by the author, N. Panwar. The interviews reported in Chapters 1-4 were covered by Ethics Certificate number REB , issued by the University of Calgary Conjoint Faculties Research Ethics Board for the project Communalism and Homegrown Terrorism in India on March 7, iii

4 Acknowledgements I am grateful to several individuals and organizations whose support has been crucial in the completion of this project over the last two years. My supervisor, Dr. Gavin Cameron, has been an invaluable resource in providing prompt and thorough feedback relating to all academic matters. I am also thankful to other faculty members, namely, Dr. Regina Cochrane, Dr. Maureen Hiebert, Dr. Robert Huebert, Dr. Joshua Goldstein and Dr. Jim Keeley who took the time to enquire about my research interests and allowed me to integrate my thesis topic with course assignments. A special thanks to Judi Powell and Ella Wensel for critical reminders before deadlines and help with all administrative matters. I would also like to acknowledge the Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute and Mitacs Globalink for funding field-work related to this project. On the same note, I am grateful to Dr. Ashok Acharya at the Department of Political Science, University of Delhi and Dr. Abdul Nafey at the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University for serving as host supervisors and instrumental contacts during my time in India. I am indebted to my family and friends who took an active interest in my studies and well-being. I enjoyed and continue to enjoy endless conversations with Dr. Mariana Moto, a colleague who I am also proud to call a friend. I am lucky to be blessed with two sets of incredibly supportive parents- my mother, for being the picture of unflinching resolve and patience; my mother-in-law, for the compassionate heart-to-hearts; my father-in-law for keeping up with my writing updates and; my father, Dr. Brijender Panwar for reading my chapters and suggesting valuable improvements. Finally, I owe a special thanks to my partner, Dr. Inderjeet Sahota, who has been a source of constant encouragement and support, always ready to celebrate every small milestone or achievement. iv

5 Table of Contents Abstract... ii Preface... iii Acknowledgements... iv Table of Contents...v List of Figures and Illustrations... vii List of Acronyms... viii Chapter 1: Introduction Terrorism in India...5 North-East...5 Punjab...7 Kashmir...8 The Naxalite Movement...9 Pakistan-sponsored Islamic Terrorism Hindutva Homegrown Islamic Terrorism (HIT)...13 The Tanzim Islahul Muslimeen...14 The Asif Reza Commando Brigade...15 The Student Islamic Movement of India...16 The Indian Mujahideen...19 Areas of Operations...19 Ideology Literature Review...21 The Conventional View and the Expert Community...22 Government Assessments Theoretical Approach Methodological Approach...31 Chapter 2: Background and Context Communalism: Identity Construction Communalism: Identity Mobilization Identity Assertion: Hindu-Muslim Riots Decline of Muslim minority Islamic in Islamic Terrorism...54 Diversity of Islam: Early Islamic Schools of Thought and the Caste-System Conclusion...59 Chapter 3: Tracing the Process from Hindutva to HIT...61 Why the CPOs Matter?...62 Process-Tracing from Hindutva to HIT Bhiwandi-Bombay Riots Formation of the Tanzim Islahul Muslimeen (TIM) Ramjanmabhoomi Movement and the Babri Mosque Demolition...75 v

6 3.4 Bombay Riots ( ) and Bombay Bombings (1993) SIMI's Radicalization Gujarat Pogroms Formation of the IM...91 Conclusion...95 Chapter 4: Conclusion Was Hindutva a necessary condition for HIT? Hoop Test Contributions to Knowledge Implications Challenges, Limitations, and Weaknesses Appendix A: Attacks of the Indian Mujahideen Appendix B: Letter of Initial Contact Appendix C: BJP and INC Vote Share Appendix D: Locations of Main Riots between Hindus and Muslims References Notes vi

7 List of Figures and Illustrations Figure 1: Conflict Map of India... 1 Figure 2: Process Tracing Exercise Linking Hindutva and HIT vii

8 List of Acronyms AMU ARCB BJP CTS DM HIT HM HuJI HuM IB IM ISI JeI JeIH JeIP JeM J&K JKLF LeT MHA NIA RAW Aligarh Muslim University Asif Reza Commando Brigade Bharatiya Janata Party Critical Terrorism Studies Deccan Mujahideen Homegrown Islamic Terrorism Hizbul Mujahideen Harkat-ul-Jihad-i-Islami Harkat-ul-Mujahideen Intelligence Bureau Indian Mujahideen Inter-Services Intelligence Jamaat-e-Islami Jamaat-e-Islami Hind Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan Jaish-e-Mohammed Jammu and Kashmir Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front Lashkar-e-Taiba Ministry of Home Affairs National Investigation Agency Research and Analysis Wing viii

9 RSS SAD SATP SIO SIMI TIM VHP Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh Shiromani Akali Dal South Asia Terrorism Portal Students Islamic Organization Students Islamic Movement of India Tanzim Islahul Muslimeen Vishwa Hindu Parishad ix

10 1 Figure 1: Conflict Map of India Source: South Asia Terrorism Portal

11 2 Chapter 1: Introduction Terrorism, in some form or another, has been an insidious menace to peace and security in India. From ethnic and secessionist movements in Punjab, Kashmir, and the North-Eastern states to militant groups using religion, India has been witness to violent movements that have used terrorism as a political instrument since independence in Since the early 1990s, however, a new trend of religiously motivated terrorist activities involving bombings in urban areas with the primary aim of targeting civilians has been taking place in the major cities. The novel aspect of these attacks is a rising local or homegrown component infused with a religious Islamic rhetoric. The focus of this study is this new phenomenon of homegrown Islamic terrorism (HIT). Beginning with a series of blasts in 13 sites across Bombay (now Mumbai) that killed 257 people and injured 713 in 1993, the last two decades have seen an increasing frequency of acts of terrorism being perpetrated in the Indian hinterland (Kumar, 2014). While several Pakistan-based militant organizations such as the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and the Jaish-e- Mohammad (JeM) have been implicated in these attacks, Indian Muslims have formed militant organizations of their own. The Tanzim Islahul Muslimeen (Organization for the Improvement of Muslims, TIM), formed in 1985 is among the earliest examples of Islamic militancy in the Indian jihadist movement (Tankel, 2014). The gradual radicalization of a section of the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) in the 1990s and the establishment of the Indian Mujahideen (IM) in 2002, form more recent additions to the homegrown movement. Undoubtedly, the creation and persistence of an Islamic homegrown terrorist movement is a grave threat to India s stability and security. The IM and its affiliates in the SIMI have assumed responsibility for more than 30 attacks in Indian cities. They have claimed over 1,000 lives since their first attack in January 2002 when IM members killed four policemen and injured

12 3 another 18 at the American Center in Kolkata (Subrahmanian, 2013). Thereafter, the group has been responsible for terrorist attacks in various Indian cities, the deadliest taking place in Mumbai in July 2006 when train bombings killed 209 people and injured over 700 (Subrahmanian, 2013, 2). With approximately 170 million Muslims, India is home to the second largest Muslim population in the world (Census of India, 2011). Despite this sizeable population, Indian Muslims have historically been under-represented in Islamic militant or terrorist organizations at the international level (North, 2012). Given the fact that India has produced almost no global jihadis (Haykel, 2017), the rise and establishment of homegrown Islamic terror outfits such as the IM, is all the more perplexing. What has led Indian Muslims to form violent terrorist groups and target innocent civilians? What are the intentions, motivations, and perhaps perceived grievances of those attracted to the contemporary indigenous terrorist movement in India? Is there a connection between the rise of homegrown terrorism and the societal order or domestic politics that can inform our understanding of the former? A preliminary assessment would indicate that the indigenous jihadist movement is motivated primarily by domestic issues rather than a Pakistan, pan-islamic or al-qaeda inspired appeal for global Jihad. Yet, the Indian security discourse on terrorism (discussed in greater detail below) has related it as external, Pakistan sponsored or cross-border terrorism. It is fundamentally seen as asocial and inspired by outside factors and any causes or relations to the society it targets are considered secondary (Eckert, 2012). With ample evidence of the establishment of homegrown terrorist groups within India, this view needs to be revaluated with a focus on domestic politics.

13 4 To explore the emergence of HIT, this study focuses on a parallel trend in Indian politicsthe rise of right-wing Hindu nationalism or the Hindutva (loosely translated to being Hindu ) movement and its targeting of the Muslim minority. Since the early 1980s, a new and belligerent form of Hindu nationalism has gained political and cultural influence in the country which defines itself in opposition to the Muslim Other. Certain Hindutva forces have intensified communal politics and used Hindu-Muslim riots as events to mobilize force against Muslims. Given the historical volatility of the Muslim community in India and the hostility the Hindutva movement poses towards Muslims (discussed in Chapter 2), this study explores homegrown Islamic terrorism through the prism of these political themes. The research question guiding this study is: How can the emergence of homegrown Islamic terrorism in India be explained as a consequence of political Hindutva? Framing the question as such implies that HIT can be explained by Hindutva. This underlying assumption has been accepted because asking how this relationship evolves effectively also answers the question of whether such cause and effect relationship exists. In accomplishing these objectives, the study is organized in four chapters. The current chapter outlines a general description of terrorism in India before discussing the Hindutva movement and HIT more specifically. It also presents a literature review and discusses the theoretical and methodological approaches that have guided the research design. Chapter 2 provides a background on the political themes relevant to this case that help place the subject in context. This chapter includes a discussion of the distinctiveness of the Muslim community in India followed by an examination of the contextual phenomena of communalism and Hindu- Muslim riots. This descriptive chapter "sets the stage" for a deeper process-tracing analysis performed in the third chapter. Chapter 3 forms the analytical core of the study. It traces the

14 5 simultaneous evolution of the Hindutva movement and HIT through three sets of interrelated events using the methodology of process-tracing. Finally, Chapter 4 is dedicated to the task of summarizing the key lessons, limitations and future avenues of research. The next section presents a broad overview of terrorism in India and discusses HIT in greater detail. This is followed by a literature review and a brief description of the conventional approach of the expert community. The shortcomings of the conventional view are then outlined with a consideration of the theoretical framework employed by this study and the specific methodology used. Finally, the strengths and limitations of these approaches are discussed. 1.1 Terrorism in India Before focusing on HIT, this section presents a brief overview of terrorism in India. The cases below are manifestations of a diverse country emerging out of centuries of colonial rule and navigating its way through a modern state system. In the process, various groups negotiate with the search for ethnic identity, a desire for religious purity and the ambitions of nationhood. Terrorism in independent India can broadly be classified into three categories: ethnic (North- East, Punjab and Kashmir), ideological (Naxalism), and religious (Islamic). North-East The first instance of ethnic terrorism occurred in the North-East (region comprising seven states located in north-eastern India) in 1952 with the uprising of the Naga people against their forced inclusion into the Indian union. Under the leadership of Angami Zapu Phizo, the leader of the Naga National Council, an armed independence struggle was launched and supported by the 15,000 strong armed guerrillas forming the Naga Federal Army (Upadhyay, 2009, 38). The more radical Naga leadership has continued to strive for independence for the Nagas up to current times.

15 6 The Naga conflict has spilled into the neighbouring state of Manipur which struggles with its own ethnic and tribal disturbances where the People's Liberation Army of Manipur, People's Revolutionary Party of Kangleipak and the Kangleipak Communist Party have championed a separate independent Manipur (Nepram, 2001; Centre for Development and Peace Studies). Insurgency in Assam and Tripura emerged from the issue of the influx of Bangladeshi immigrants and the demographic alteration between the indigenous tribes and Bengali Hindu refugees from East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) (Upadhyay, 2006). Assam has additionally witnessed armed separatist movements under the United Liberation Front of Assam which demands sovereign status for Assam. Assam has also seen the demand for an autonomous Bodoland for the Bodos, a major tribe in the state (Upadhyay, 2009, 43). The various conflicts have spilled over into the neighbouring states of Mizoram, Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh where they are amalgamated into inter-tribal rivalry, acrimony against outsiders and the emergence of multiple militant outfits constituted along exclusive identity lines (Upadhyay, 2009, 45). The region has also been plagued by narco-terrorism in recent times. Armed struggles are funded by extensive drug-trafficking and illegal arms trade facilitated by the region s porous borders with China, Bangladesh, Bhutan, and Burma (Singh & Nunes, 2013; Sharma, 2015). A long-drawn guerrilla war against the Indian state by various tribal and ethnic groups and infighting among the many factions led to the declaration of many parts of the North-East as disturbed areas. The imposition of the Armed Forces (Special Power) Act, 1958 brought massive deployment of the army in North-East India where the many of the conflicts continue to persist today (Upadhyay, 2009, 38; Singh & Nunes, 2013, 75).

16 7 Punjab Terrorism in Punjab evolved from cultural and economic demands of the Sikhs. In the early 1950s, the Sikhs, a minority within post-partition Punjab developed support for Punjabi to be recognized as the official language and medium of instruction in all government schools under the Punjabi Suba movement (Sathyamurthy, 1986). When this demand was rejected in 1956, the primary political party of the Sikhs, the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), demanded reorganization of the state on linguistic lines. In 1966, post-partition Indian Punjab was further trifurcated under the Punjab Reorganization Bill (Kumar, 2005). Sikhs now became a majority in what remained of Punjab comprising 63.7% of the population while Hindus formed a 35% minority (Wallace, 1985). Further demands were articulated under the Anandpur Sahib Resolution of 1973 whereby the SAD asked for transfer of Chandigarh (union territory and shared state capital of Punjab and Haryana) to Punjab, an increased quota for Sikhs in the armed forces and decentralized federalism allowing more autonomy to state governments, among other demands (Kumar, 2005). These grievances were moulded in the rhetoric of identity politics and championed by the radical leader Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale who began advocating for a separate Sikh state, Khalistan. By early 1980s, the Khalistan movement evolved into a full-fledged and violent call for separatism resulting in Hindu-Sikh riots in Punjab and anti-state terrorist activities by Khalistani militants. The Punjab crisis culminated in Operation Blue Star, a military and paramilitary attack on the holiest shrine of the Sikhs, the Golden Temple in Amritsar, where Bhrindranwale and other armed separatist leaders had taken refuge (Sathyamurthy, 1986). In October 1984, five months after the desecration of the Golden Temple, the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards in response to Operation Blue Star.

17 8 Since then, widespread support for Khalistan has largely extinguished but fringe elements from the Sikh diaspora continue to support the cause (Dyke, 2009; Razavy, 2006). Kashmir On July 31st, 1988, bombs exploded outside Srinagar s (capital of the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir) central telegraph office and at the Srinagar Club. The militant group Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) assumed responsibility for the attack (Bose, 2003, 95). JKLF was initially formed as a militant group of young Kashmiris. Their stated objective was to unite Indian and Pakistani Kashmir to achieve an independent Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) state restored to its pre-1947 borders. These young militants would cross into Azad Kashmir (a narrow strip of eastern J&K territory under Pakistani administration) where they received training and weapons, some with the support of the Pakistani military (Tremblay, 1997). In the group launched a guerilla revolt against in the Indian government and received unexpected mass support from the people of the Kashmir Valley (Ganguly & Swami, 2011). Over the next few years, Srinagar was engulfed in violent outbreaks, assassinations, kidnappings and mass protests leading to a complete breakdown of law and order and an effective paralysis of the state s administrative and governmental machinery. A small guerilla movement against the Indian state had succeeded in mobilizing a large section of the population in Kashmir Valley to raise their voices against Indian rule. In response, the Government of India stationed close to half a million paramilitary and other troops to control the insurgency in the state (Behera, 2002). As per official Indian estimates, 40,000 civilians, militants and Indian security personnel died in J&K between 1989 and The Hurriyat Conference (a coalition of pro-independence and pro-pakistani groups) claims this figure to be 80,000 (Bose, 2003, 4). In later stages, the movement in Kashmir became religious in nature but the initial uprising was

18 9 primarily ethnic calling for a united and secular Kashmir based on the idea of Kashmiriyat (being Kashmiri). The Naxalite Movement The Naxalite movement in India is centered on the adivasis, India s tribal peoples who constitute 8.5 per cent of the country s population. India s extreme-left Maoists, known as Naxalites, represent the grievances of the adivasis and have waged an insurgency against the state for several decades resulting in thousands of deaths (Prasanna, 2016). The movement has its roots in the Naxalbari area of northern West Bengal, bordering Nepal and Bangladesh. In May 1967, a violent confrontation broke out over landownership between armed peasants, who were mainly tribal, and local landlords (Roy, 2013). The event sparked off a Naxal revolution interpreted as a guerrilla struggle conceived in terms of the Maoist model rather than an economistic one, and to which the rural peasantry, as opposed to the urban proletariat, was key (Roy, 2013, 29). The following decades saw a campaign of rural propaganda urging peasants to undertake total annihilation of village landlords. In the 1970s, the movement displayed characteristics of urban terrorism as small guerilla units killed public employees, businessmen, moneylenders, and slum landlords, together identified as class enemies (Roy, 2013, 31). In subsequent years, the movement spread to central and eastern India forming the country s red belt or red corridor and comprising of Naxalite-dominated territory (Prasanna, 2016). The red terror, brutally repressed by the state apparatus with the aid of preventative detention and anti-terrorist legislation, counter-insurgency measures and police and paramilitary forces, continues to form one of India s primary internal security issues (Roy, 2013).

19 10 Pakistan-sponsored Islamic Terrorism Islamic extremism in Pakistan was initially fueled by President Zia-ul-Haq`s political compulsions, close alliance with Saudi Arabia and the gradual import of Wahhabi Islam (Humphrey, 2012). Subsequently, vast resources injected into the country to train Afghan mujahedeen against the Soviets, were targeted towards India following the uprising in Kashmir in the late 1980s (Fredholm, 2011). Several militant organizations, aided by the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and with the primary aim of uniting Kashmir under Pakistani rule, mobilized pro-pakistan support across the border in Indian Kashmir on the basis of a religious and pan- Islamic appeal. Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) meaning the army of the pure is the militant wing of a Pakistani Punjabi religious organisation, Markaz Dawa-ul-Irshad based in Lahore in Pakistani Punjab. LeT s membership is made up of Punjabi militants who are recruited from schools run by the Markaz. Besides seeking liberation of Kashmir from India and its subsequent unification with Pakistan, its objective is also to impose a strict Islamic code in Kashmir. LeT receives funding from backers in Pakistan and is currently the leading militant organisation operating in Kashmir (Evans, 2000). Harkat-ul-Ansar, also known as Harkat-ul-Mujahadeen (HuA/HuM) formed in 1993 and is involved in conflicts in Kashmir, Chechnya, Afghanistan and Tajikistan. Linked to the Pakistani religious organisation, the Jamaat-e-Ulema-e-Islam, it derives its ideology from the Deobandi- Wahhabi faith and consists of members from Afghanistan, Pakistan and the wider Muslim world including some Kashmiri members (Fredholm, 2011). Driven by the desire to wage Jihad against India, the aim of Pakistani militant groups include calls for the unification of Kashmir with Pakistan, liberating majority-muslim areas in India such

20 11 as Gujarat and Hyderabad and re-establishing Islamic rule over the entire Indian union (Clarke, 2010). Initially inspired from across the border in Pakistan, the religious doctrine of these groups found resonance in the later stages of the uprising in Kashmir: Kashmiris [came to] to interpret geopolitical events from religious perspectives and use the Quran s discourse on violence to ameliorate the violated Shariat on governance in Kashmir. After suffering this plight for over 40 years, in 1987, some Kashmiri Muslims took to guns because they were denied basic rights and freedom. (Venkatraman, 2007, 234) As the conflict in Kashmir came to exude religious fervour, Muslims in mainland India sought channels to express the collective grievances of the Muslim community. The rise of an assertive Hinduism which directly targeted Muslims led to the radicalization of groups bent on defending the honour of their community. As argued in this study, explanations of HIT should include an examination of domestic factors, especially the rise of Hindutva. Before the emergence of HIT is discussed in greater detail, it is essential to outline the salient features of the Hindutva movement. The section below provides a brief introduction to the ideology of Hindutva and its main characteristics as a political and cultural movement. 1.2 Hindutva In simple terms, the Hindutva movement is a form of religious nationalism based on the supremacy of an indigenous Hindu civilization which is partly fashioned by its propagators. Literally meaning Hinduness or being Hindu, it is a force that attempts to homogenize Hinduism into a uniform and coherent religion. It is conceived in opposition to foreign religions and promotes hostility towards Muslims, Christians and at times, the Dalits.

21 12 The genesis of Hindutva as an ideology dates to India s nationalist struggle against colonial rule. Amid hardening of identities and political demands from the sub-continent s Muslim population, high-caste Hindus sought to create an identity to justify Hindu supremacy. The founding text that outlined this effort was V.D. Savarkar s (1969) Hindutva: Who is a Hindu? Savarkar defines a Hindu as one who is born of Hindu parents and whose pitribhoomi (fatherland) and punyabhoomi (holyland) are both in India (Savarkar, 1969). Indian Muslims and Christians, according to Savarkar s definition can never be as patriotic and genuinely nationalist as Hindus since a part of their religious loyalties will always lie outside India. i However, as per Savarkar s inclusion of racial commonness in defining who is a Hindu, Muslims and Christians can be reintegrated into Hindu society since they were essentially Hindus who later converted to other religions (Jaffrelot, 2007). In its more contemporary forms, Hindutva in India is an organized affair. It is a phenomenon that seeks to mould everything from national security, gender, science and economics to secularism and identities in diaspora (Reddy, 2011). At the center of its organizational structure is the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (National Volunteer Corps, RSS), around which its political wing the Bharatiya Janata Party (Indian People s Party, BJP), its world council the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council, VHP), and hundreds of other religious, cultural and political organizations are arranged at the local, national and international level into a family, known as the Sangh Parivar (Family of the Coalition) (Reddy, 2011). With the rise of Hindutva, a systematic, organized and targeted program has been undertaken to use sporadic communal incidents as the starting point for the violent persecution of Muslim citizens. Hansen (2001) documents the phenomenon in Bombay where the Shiv Sena actively participated in instigating riots of 1981 and 1984/85 and selectively targeted the city s Muslims.

22 13 Brass (1997, 2003, 2006) has studied riots in several cities over a period of 35 years and notes the existence of an institutionalized riot system which disproportionately affects Muslims. Similarly, Gayer & Jaffrelot s (2012) study has collected evidence of Hindutva sponsored riots in various Indian cities leading to the displacement of entire Muslim neighborhoods and their move to newly formed slums/ghettoes in the outskirts of the cities. Drawing from the works above, this study asserts that given the blatantly prejudiced position of the Hindutva movement against Muslims and with the rise of its political and cultural power in contemporary India, HIT needs to be examined in relation to this trend. While specific Hindutva events, as they relate to HIT will be discussed in detail in Chapter 3, this section has provided a brief background of the Hindutva concept. The discussion now turns to the phenomenon of HIT which this study examines in relation to Hindtuva. The section below traces the emergence of the Indian jihadist movement. It outlines the primary groups involved, with a special emphasis on the Indian Mujahideen which represents the peak of the movement. 1.3 Homegrown Islamic Terrorism (HIT) Come, O Muslim Youth! Make your preparations with whatever you have. Join our ranks and help us the ranks of Indian Mujahideen to strengthen the Jihad against the Hindus. Get ready with all the weapons you have. Plan and organize your moves. Select your targets. Target these evil politicians and leaders of BJP, RSS, VHP and Bajrang Dal, who provoke the masses against you. Target and kill the wicked police force who were watching the fun of your bloodshed and who handed you to the rioting sinful culprits. The Rise of Jihad, Revenge of Gujarat released by Indian Mujahideen (South Asia Terrorism Portal, 2008) ii

23 14 In a fourteen-page manifesto, released minutes before the Ahmedabad bombings in July 2008 that killed 38 people and injured another 100, the Indian Mujahideen laid out its agenda combining holy Quranic references calling for jihad with profane language addressed to the enemies. Claiming that the 2008 Jaipur attacks and the imminent Gujarat serial blasts were planned and executed by Indians only, the manifesto emphasizes the belongingness to this very soil of India (South Asia Terrorism Portal, 2008). The Indian Mujahideen represents the epitome of a simmering homegrown Islamic terrorist movement. Why was this group formed and what is on its agenda? The Indian homegrown jihadi movement can be traced to a loose network of organizations or groups that eventually culminated in the formation of the Indian Mujahideen, the most potent and lethal reincarnation of a homegrown terrorist outfit. The overall phenomenon evolved from three overlapping currents. The first was the formation of the Tanzim Islahul Muslimeen (Organization for the Improvement of Muslims, TIM), a militant group that sought to protect Muslims during communal events and later transformed into a terrorist organization receiving considerable help from Pakistan. The second was the formation of the Asif Reza Commando Brigade (ARCB), drawn from crime syndicates and mafia gangs. The final flux was provided by the radicalized members of the Student Islamic Movement of India (SIMI). An intersection of these three interrelated elements solidified the trend towards violence and terrorism. Each of these phases are briefly described below. The Tanzim Islahul Muslimeen The 1984 Bhiwandi riots showed a pattern of systematic operations by the Shiv Sena to kill Muslims, loot and burn their homes and business. The riots, which spread to Bombay and neighboring Thane also showed signs of complicity of local police and inaction by state

24 15 authorities (Hansen, 2000). The experience of these riots convinced some of the need for a militant organization to protect the Muslim community. To this end, Jalees Ansari, a disenchanted physician, Azam Ghauri, a former Maoist and Abdul Karim, the owner of a dyeing business formed the TIM or the Organization for the Improvement of Muslims in 1985 in Mumbai s Mominpura slum (Singh, 2014). Ansari, Ghauri and Karim linked with Azam Cheema of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba who was sent to India on a recruitment drive after the uprising in Kashmir (Tankel, 2014). After the demolition of the Bari mosque in December 1992, the three TIM founders crafted grand plans, began conducting coordinated attacks and developed a network of operatives across India (Tankel, 2014; Kumar, 2015; Swami, 2008). On the first anniversary of Babri mosque s demolition, TIM executed a series of 50 bombings in several Indian cities (Tankel, 2014). Since most explosions were small and some failed, the total number of fatalities was limited to two. However, the sheer planning required to coordinate such a large number of blasts made TIM a dangerous outfit. Thereafter, Ansari was arrested in 1994 and both Ghauri and Karim fled abroad where they continued to spearhead recruitment and fundraising to continue jihadi operations in India. The three individuals were instrumental in laying down the foundation of what would eventually become the Indian Mujahideen. The Asif Reza Commando Brigade The second current was formed from a nexus of organized crime and Islamic militancy. Indian gangsters Aftab Ansari and Asif Reza were imprisoned in Tihar jail with British- born Pakistani Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh where the latter convinced the two of waging an Islamic jihad in India (Sageman, 2008). Sheikh was rescued when the HuM hijacked Indian Airlines flight 814 en route from Kathmandu to New Delhi in December Hijackers demanded that

25 16 three militants, including Sheikh, be released in exchange for the passengers held hostage (Sageman, 2008; Singh, 2014). Sheikh successfully returned to Pakistan and upon the release of Ansari and Asif Reza, provided resources to the latter who collaborated with Asif's brother Amir to begin a recruitment drive across India (Singh, 2014). In 2001, Asif Reza was killed by the Gujarat police. Following this, Amir Reza established the ARCB to avenge the killing of his brother. With the help of their contacts with criminal syndicates in India and the Persian Gulf, Ansari and the Reza brothers operated an extortion and abduction network in India and kidnapped Partho Burman, a Kolkata based businessman for a handsome ransom amount (Subrahmanian et al., 2013). ARCB was short-lived as some of its members, along with others from the Student Islamic Movement of India, merged with the newly formed IM in The Student Islamic Movement of India The ideological foundation of contemporary Islamic radicalization in South Asia can be traced back to the Jamaat-e-Islami (discussed in Chapter 2). The Student Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) was formed as a student wing of the Jamaat-e-Islami Hind in 1977 (Fair, 2010). As the JeIH, gradually integrated into the Indian context, its increasing assimilation was not looked upon kindly by all SIMI members. A schism between the moderates and the extremists began to develop within the JeIH with SIMI actively championing a hardline and extremist position (Sikand, 2003). A succession of events led to further divisions in the outlook of the parent organization and its student wing. In 1979, less than two years after SIMI was formed, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, Iran witnessed an Islamic revolution and closer to home, the military dictator Zia-ul-Haq began enforcing Islamization of Pakistani society (Sikand, 2003). SIMI mobilized in response to all these events, protesting the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan,

26 17 welcoming the Iranian revolution and Zia s Islamization policies. Its rhetoric became increasingly acerbic and belligerent arguing that Islam alone was the solution to the problems of not just the Muslims of India but of all Indians as such and, indeed, of the whole world (Sikand, 2003, 339). This growing radicalization led to its separation in 1982 from the JeIH which then floated a separate student Organization, the Students Islamic Organization (SIO). Although some SIMI activists held radical beliefs, this in itself did not translate to the call for jihad, violence and eventually terrorism until the rise of an aggressive and militant Hindutva movement. In the late 1980s, the Hindu right-wing organizations- RSS, VHP and BJP mobilized around the Ramjanmabhoomi (birthplace of Ram) movement which called for the building of a Hindu temple in Ayodhya dedicated to Lord Ram where an ancient mosque stood. The BJP leader L.K. Advani organized a chariot journey from the Somnath temple in Konark to Ayodhya in the north collecting bricks for the temple on the way. The journey instigated a trail of riots not only through the towns and villages that Advani and his supporters marched through but also in other parts of the country (Bacchetta, 2000). Communal riots disproportionately affected Muslims and the worst riots were seen in the province of Uttar Pradesh where the march was to supposedly end (Ahmad, 2009). On December 6 th, 1992, the mosque was demolished by Hindutva supporters and the following months saw some of the worst rioting since the Partition in 1947 (Bacchetta, 2000). It is in this context of blatant disregard of the secular principles enshrined in the constitution, the targeting of the Muslim minority and an inefficacy of the Indian state in preventing the Hindu mob from demolishing the mosque that SIMI s stance turned hostile and militant. It was clear that the state had failed to deliver on its promise of secularism and could not protect Muslims in communal events. Given the circumstances, some Muslim factions chose

27 18 to take matters in their hand and respond to militant Hindutva in the language of violence, molded in the rhetoric of a defensive jihad. In the 1990s, SIMI grew as an organization and spread to other parts of the country (Ahmad, 2009). Members such as Sadiq Israr Sheikh, who later became a founding member of the IM, were recruited into SIMI in the 1990s when it provided a sense of purpose to young Muslims frustrated by the communal situation (Singh, 2014). Mass mobilization continued until May 2001 when eight SIMI members were arrested in the town of Nagpur for allegedly plotting to bomb the headquarters of the militant Hindu RSS (Sikand, 2003). Validated by 9/11 and the ensuing war on terror, the Indian government banned SIMI under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967 and arrested scores of SIMI leaders and activists (Sikand, 2003). Before the ban, SIMI claimed some four hundred full-time workers known as ansars (helpers), 20,000 sympathizers known as ikhwans (brothers), and the Shahin force for enlisting children between the ages of seven and eleven (Fair, 2010, 107). Although some SIMI members turned hostile, SIMI as an organization did not endorse terrorism. Instead, it became instrumental in providing the manpower for jihadi operations of other militant groups. Some of those spared by the large-scale arrests regrouped and morphed into the Indian Mujahideen (Behera, 2013). The three founding members of the IM- Riyaz Shahbandri Bhatkal, his brother Iqbal Shahbandri Bhatkal and Sadique Israr Sheikh were all members of SIMI who became radicalized in the late 1990s (Singh, 2014). Sadique Sheikh's introduction to Asif Reza and through him to Aftab Ansari eventually pushed these SIMI members' path towards violence (Singh, 2014).

28 19 The Indian Mujahideen The first IM coordinated attack was facilitated by Amir Reza and Ansari of the ARCB who enlisted Sadique Sheikh to attack the American Centre in Kolkata killing 6 policemen and injuring 18 other people (Singh, 2014). In the next few years, Sadique Sheikh and the Bhatkal brothers began a recruitment drive in Azamgarh in the north and in Maharashtra in the southwest (Subrahmanian et al., 2013). IM s development further intensified in 2004 and early 2005 when Riyaz Shahbandri/Bhatkal assembled Indian jihadists in his hometown of Bhatkal (Gupta, 2011). The following year with the blasts in Varanasi, IM had officially turned into an operational terrorist group (Subrahmanian et al., 2013). Appendix A outlines all attacks undertaken by IM since Areas of Operations The IM network operates from three geographical modules. The first is based in the district of Azamgarh in the northern province of Uttar Pradesh. Azamgarh has a significant Muslim population and is home to the Jami atul Falah, a madrasa that has supplied student activists to both the SIMI and the SIO, especially at the Aligarh Muslim University, a prestigious Muslim university in the town of Aligarh, located southeast of Delhi (Ahmad, 2009). Sadique Sheikh is the leader of this module which also includes Atif Amin, Arif Badar and Mohammad Shahnawaz. The second module is active in the south-western region of Maharashtra (Mumbai, Pune and Nasik) and Karnataka (Mangalore and Bangalore) and is operated by the Shahbandri/Bhatkal brothers who grew up in Mangalore (Subrahmanian et al., 2013). In this region, Mumbai has witnessed several communal riots and supplied many recruits. Bangalore, as the new IT hub and home to many international corporations has been the site of several attacks. The third module is active in South India (Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Tamil Nadu). Hyderabad

29 20 in Andhra Pradesh has particularly been a hub for Islamist groups linked to SIMI and IM and is also the base of the Darsgah Jihad-o-Shahadat (Institute for Holy War and Martyrdom), which recruited for SIMI in southern India (Subrahmanian et al., 2013). Ideology In order to understand the establishment and consistent presence of the IM, it is vital to assess the motivations and raison d etre of these organizations. Ideologically, the IM champions the establishment of the Khilafat (Caliphate) and the need to wage a jihad to restore Islam s former glory (Fair, 2010). As such, it rejects Hinduism, secularism, democracy and nationalism in India. The IM ideology draws from the Wahhabi philosophy of the Deobandi and the Al-e- Hadith schools, which practice a rigid, puritanical version of Islam (Singh, 2014). A noteworthy feature with regards to the IM s ideology and motivation lies in the communication that the group maintains with Indian news outlets by releasing manifestos. These messages, sent as s to news channels describe the group s position on controversial issues such as the 1992 destruction of the ancient Babri mosque, the 2002 pogroms and other incidents involving Muslims as and when they occur (Fair, 2010). The notable feature in the public announcements of the IM is the explicit reference to domestic issues affecting Indian Muslims such as access to public- and private-sector jobs, development, educational opportunities, the rising tide of Hindu nationalism, and anti-muslim violence, among other issues (Fair, 2010, 112). Thus, a narrative of the evolution of the homegrown movement, from the establishment of the TIM to the IM has produced the major milestones and shifting dynamics of the movement in the above section. Having outlined both Hindutva and HIT, the chapter now turns to review the literature about HIT and considerations of Hindutva in its explanation.

30 Literature Review While several authors briefly acknowledge the rise of homegrown Islamic terrorism, there are only a handful of scholarly studies that explore the topic in detail. Yoginder Sikand (2002, 2003, 2004, 2006) has written extensively on SIMI. He relates the radical and violent turn of the organization to ideologized understanding of Islam, as well as the impact of external events and perceptions of threat to Islam and the Muslim community (Sikand, 2003). Christina Fair s (2010) work assesses the organization, ideology and membership of the SIMI and the Indian Mujahideen (IM). This work is crucial in providing information on the background of the two groups but Fair s study remains more descriptive than analytical. Sandy Gordon s (2009) study is among the few linking terrorism to the rise of the Hindu Right. Gordon s is a longitudinal study tracing the historical evolution of secularism and Hindu nationalism since the Indian independence and how they have affected Indian Muslims. He concludes that in response to these internal dynamics accompanied by regional trends since the war on terror, a small minority of Indian Muslims outside Kashmir has increasingly tended to react in terms of violent, secret, politically inspired action that meets all the definitional hallmarks of terrorism (Gordon, 2009, 12). Stephen Tankel (2014, 2) has explored the evolution of the Indian Jihadist movement in two studies where he describes the IM as "an internal security issue with an external dimension." Indian Mujahideen: Computational Analysis and Public Policy, by Subrahmanian et. Al (2013) presents an innovative computational approach that attempts to study the behaviour and strategy of the IM in order to advance counter-terrorism measures. Praveen Swami (2008) has written extensively on the issue in the journal in Contemporary South Asia, the publication Frontline and some national dailies. Finally, Rajender Singh (2014) in Indian Mujahideen and Indigenous

31 22 Jihadism presents an in-depth analysis of the IM, outlining the socio-economic deprivation of the Muslim community, the homegrown units that evolved into IM, the organizational hierarchy and network module as well as the ideology, motivation, recruitment, and training of IM members. The Conventional View and the Expert Community Most other works on homegrown terrorism come from non-scholarly sources such as press reports or reports by terrorism analysts associated with strategic think tanks or ex-army or intelligence officers who together form an expert community which influences public opinion and policy making. Shishir Gupta s (2011), Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within is a nonacademic work based on the author s independent research. While Gupta s account is rich in descriptive details, derived from police records and investigation reports, it fails to tackle the fundamental question of why IM leaders risked their education and high-paying jobs to enter the dangerous territory of terrorism. Additionally, like other works from journalists, the research is based on classified reports or unrevealed sources that are not publicly available and as such, are difficult to validate. Three other studies on SIMI and IM have been completed by ex-army officers. Indian Mujahideen: Home Grow Jihad Threat by Capt. C.P. Tandon (2014), Indian Mujahideen: The Secret Jihad in South Asia by Brig. Krishankant S.M. (2015) and SIMI and Indian Mujahideen: Terror Approach by Brig. S.P. Lohia. These non-scholarly works derive from the officers personal knowledge and expertise in their respective professional capacities. They treat the IM and the SIMI as proxies of Pakistan s war in India and divorce all domestic links that could explain why hundreds of Indian Muslims have joined these organizations. A primary shortcoming of these works is the lack of complete bibliographical data as citations and references from other works are not extensively acknowledged.

32 23 Several think-tanks are populated by terrorism analysts and security experts who publish via the organization s online channels. Primary among these are Animesh Roul from the Society for the Study of Peace and Conflict, Ajai Sahni from the Institute of Conflict Management and B. Raman from the South Asia Analysis Group. These experts publish regular reviews and trend assessments based primarily on news reports. While they offer valuable updates on current affairs, their utility is limited since they do not engage with the historical evolution of HIT and fail to present a deeper analysis of why HIT groups were formed in the first place. Their assessments proceed from treating HIT as a given fact and thus do not problematize the concept itself. Taken together, the discourse espoused by this expert community, described as the conventional approach in this study, treats terrorism in India as an external issue, sponsored by Pakistan and the ISI with minimal domestic linkages or agency. Government Assessments The Ministry of Home Affairs (responsible for internal security) is the primary political resource for information on terrorism in India. It designs policy based on the intelligence provided by the Research and Analysis Wing, the Intelligence Bureau, the National Security Council and the National Investigation Agency. Access to government resources on the topic is extremely hard to obtain for reasons of security. However, MHA makes its annual reports publicly available on its website. These documents have traditionally identified four security concerns in India, namely cross-border terrorism in Jammu & Kashmir, insurgency in the North- Eastern states, Naxalism or left-wing militancy in certain states and Pakistan-Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) activities in India. More recently, since 2011, these reports have also included a brief reference to terrorism in the hinterland of the Country.

33 24 The analysis of MHA s reports reveals that it falls firmly within the confines of the conventional discourse owing to its emphasis on equating internal security with external threats. The overwhelming majority of the discussion on internal security deals with conditions in Jammu and Kashmir (blamed largely on Pakistan and ISI), militancy in the North-East (also blamed on issues related to the neighboring countries of Bangladesh, Bhutan and Myanmar) and Naxalism (inspired by foreign Maoist ideology). Terrorism in the hinterland, when discussed at all is given a scant and cursory consideration. While the reports identify terrorism in the hinterland, none of them include any discussion of the groups involved or the government s response to them. The issue is covered as a passing reference, usually in the span of one paragraph comprised of statistics of deaths relative to previous years in all reports. The majority of the section on internal security discusses the conventional four security concerns in detail, including government policy in these areas, the profile of terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir (greatly implicating Pakistan and ISI), militancy in the North-East and counter measures to deal with cross-border terrorism or militancy. References to Student Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) are made in some reports but these references occur under religious fundamentalist organizations outlawed in the section on Other Concerns rather than under internal security. Indian Mujahideen makes an appearance for the first time in 2010, despite being behind a number of urban attacks since The report mentions the declaration of Indian Mujahideen as a terrorist organization in 2010 as the sole reference to the IM. No details of its leadership, organization, motivations, or operations are included. Terrorism, then continues to be an example of a threat producing insecurity in India but strictly with links to elements across the border. This analysis of MHA reports thus helps establish the externalization of threat hypothesis.

34 25 An analysis of the political rhetoric and government assessments of terrorism similarly points to a tendency of externalizing the terrorist threat. Official statements by political leaders following terrorist attacks usually and immediately blame enemies of the nation (Indian Express, 2006). An excerpt from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh s (2006) speech following the 2006 railways attacks in Mumbai that killed about 200 people and injured another 700 over a series of seven blasts in Mumbai s local trains, is indicative of this general phenomenon. He declared in his speech: We are also certain that these terror modules are instigated, inspired and supported by elements across the border without which they cannot act with such devastating effect. They clearly want to destroy our growing economic strength, to destroy our unity and to provoke communal incidents. While recognizing that terror modules exist in India, the agency for the atrocity is overwhelmingly ascribed to forces outside the borders of India in provoking communal incidents that would not otherwise occur. Statements such as these are all the more perplexing given that at the time of Dr. Singh s speech, the Mumbai police did not have any evidence or prime suspects linking the incident to internal terror modules or elements across the border (Svensson, 2009, 32). Yet, the political reflex is to promptly externalize the threat and blame foreign elements. This narrative script is repeated after all external challenges to the unity and peace of India. The rationalization is that external actors perpetrate acts of terror intentionally to instigate a communal response. This logic releases Indian authorities of responsibility for domestic factors, such as, why are communal relations so vulnerable and prone to violence in the first place? If domestic terror modules are present, then why is the blame disproportionately external? The official language, represented by the Prime Minister s response above, takes

35 26 communal relations as given but does not consider how these relations evolved and continue to function. It is terrorism that is regarded as a threat and not the inability of the state to foster cordial communal relations. Additionally, the accuracy of government assessments regarding the threat of terrorism and security requirements is questionable. Ajit Kumar (personal communication, August 12, 2016) from the Institute of Conflict Management discussed some challenges of the security infrastructure in India: The National Security Council [NSC] is the apex body of the three-tiered structure of the national security management system in India. The other two tiers are the Strategic Policy Group, and the National Security Advisory Board. The Council informs the government. MHA [Ministry of Home Affairs] collects data and provides it to the government. Different agencies report different figures. The National Crime Record Bureau has long maintained that the police to population ratio has not been more than 1 to and the Bureau of Police Research and Development says the ratio is 1 to 186. Even a small change in these numbers signify very large recruitment needs. Increasing this by 40 would mean that we are very behind. Lakhs [millions] of police personnel are needed. The Home Ministry has no idea because agencies provide different numbers. In the case of cross-border terrorism or cease-fire violations, agencies say different things. The government needs to stick to one data. There is a lot of misinformation. As Kumar s description above indicates, government policy and decision-making relies on contradictory data. Agencies offer conflicting assessments of indicators so it is difficult to ascertain basic conclusions about where the threats originate from or what the magnitude of cross-border terrorism is. Yet the opinions espoused by the expert community unanimously externalize the terror threat and pay little heed to both homegrown terrorism and domestic factors contributing to the recruitment of Indian Muslims in Jihadist outfits.

36 27 The themes discussed above form the conventional or mainstream approach to terrorism in India. This approach is the set of theories, ideologies and perspectives employed by state agencies, the intelligence community, politicians, bureaucrats, defense personnel and to a limit extent, the mainstream media. Homegrown terrorism occupies a contradictory position in conventional assessments of terrorism in India. Strategic thinking in India, from the perspective of the state, has traditionally challenged the legitimacy of the many independence or secessionist movements as threats to the unity and integration of the country which must be defeated. The state response to all cases discussed above has been a ruthless enforcement of law and order through large deployments of armed forces and the imposition of anti-terror laws. The geographic concentration of such threats has enabled swift and contained action against an identified enemy. HIT, however, represents a dispersed, decentralized and often anonymous threat, permeating across all major cities and public places in the major cities. The responses to terrorist incidents in urban areas focus on costly technological measures to improve the security and surveillance of public spaces that depend on the availability of vast resources and wealth. While on the one hand, traditional and strategic responses have been ineffective in countering this new phenomenon, the discourse surrounding it has often denied its very existence, claiming that Indian Muslims who have joined outfits such as the ARCB, TIM, SIMI and IM are agents of Pakistan. The primary contribution of this study is that it challenges the conventional narrative and brings a consideration of domestic power relations between the two dominant religious communities into assessments of HIT. As the following section argues, the theoretical model of Critical Terrorism Studies (CTS) offers a fitting framework for such an analysis.

37 Theoretical Approach CTS has evolved as an offshoot of Critical Security Studies which in turn was established by the influence of Critical Theory in the field of Security Studies. The basic tenets of Critical Theory entail a challenge to the status quo by examining alternate forms of explanation, a refusal to accept given and absolute claims about the world at large and an emphasis on the emancipatory nature of thought (Solomon, 2015). When applied to Terrorism Studies, CTS is committed to the pursuit of critical knowledge about the strategy of terrorism, the label terrorist, and the phenomenon of terror in human affairs (Booth, 2008, 78). The traditional security studies research on terrorism has approached the issue through a problem solving theory where the problem is terrorism and the problem solver is the state (Jackson, 2007). According to the CTS view, the state and terrorism cannot be taken as given or objective features of world politics. This approach focuses on the social construction of the state and its interests, identity, threats, and security while questioning the effects of portraying particular groups of people as terrorists (Stump & Dixit, 2011). It recognizes that the state can be a perpetrator of violence and as such, could be questioned as the primary referent object (Stump & Dixit, 2013). To summarize, the formative parameters of CTS can be outlined as follows: a skepticism towards the politics of labelling certain groups as terrorists or certain activities as terrorism; expanding the focus of research to include topics such as the use of terrorism by states and ethical-normative considerations of counter-terrorism; an acute sensitivity towards the suspect communities from which terrorists often emerge and the populations that bear the brunt of counter-terrorism policies; and a commitment to a broadly defined notion of emancipation.

38 29 (Jackson, 2008). Homegrown terrorism in India is analyzed with consideration to each of these aspects of the CTS approach. When applied to the themes in this study, the CTS approach is suspicious of the conclusions of the expert community derived from erroneous and misinformed data. In this way, it embodies the lessons of Critical Theory by challenging the status quo as it explains HIT not through a statist or strategic lens but through alternative domestic and societal factors. The blame-game of the conventional view would have us believe that Indians are passive, misled, and brainwashed recipients of indoctrination provided by extremist groups based in Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nepal, transnational Islamism or Pakistan s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) (Barnard-Wills & Moore, 2010). Heeding to the advice of CTS theorists and unpacking the homogeneous and stagnant categories of the state and terrorism reveals an entirely new landscape of analyzing societal relations between the two dominant religious communities and the cleavages between them. The theoretical model of CTS is particularly suitable in highlighting the vulnerability of the state and its institutions to Hindu nationalism. Mushrif (2014) has shown the susceptibility of intelligence organizations such as the Intelligence Bureau falling prey to the dominant political interests. In this case, the state becomes synonymous with protecting the interests of the Hindu majority population while the Muslim minority is treated with suspicion and as a perpetrator of terrorism rather than a victim of violence and injustice itself. The CTS view helps expose the repressive aspects of the state against a suspect community under the guise of counterterrorism. Wrongful arrests, fabrication of evidence and torture of alleged terrorists who are arrested en masse from Muslim neighborhoods after terrorist incidents begs the question, security for who? (Sethi, 2014). Several reports by the Jamia Teachers

39 30 Solidarity Association (2009, 2012, 2013) have studied fake encounters, terror trials that ended in acquittals after years of imprisonment and torture of Muslim youth and the detaining, arrest and incarceration of individuals on charges of terrorism simply because they were usual suspects, i.e. Muslim youth. It can be argued that the greatest threat to Muslim citizens of India are Indian police and security forces rather than an enemy beyond state borders. A study by Paul Brass (2006) shows that police forces deployed to impose curfews in times of riots are prejudiced against Muslim citizens who bear harm rather than protection from state forces. The alternative view speaks to emancipatory aspect by outlining the disadvantaged and silenced narratives of the Muslim population that are hidden in the mainstream discourse on terrorism. The CTS approach is critical of the label terrorist given to certain groups or individuals. By analyzing and understanding the background and motivations of individuals deemed terrorists, it situates them in a wider context, not solely as devious actors intent on harming for the sake of it but as people whose specific experiences and circumstances shaped their decision to employ terrorism for political means. As will be seen in Chapter 3, the establishment of TIM in 1985 emerges from direct experiences of the individuals involved. By drawing attention to experiences of Hindu-Muslim riots where Muslims are specifically targeted and disproportionately affected, it provides an understanding of reasons that are widely quoted as motivations of HIT groups. Employing the CTS approach sensitizes research to the historical, temporal, regional and postcolonial contexts that all together have played a part in shaping prevailing structures of knowledge. The history of Islam in India, the influence of Sufism on the various Islamic schools of thought, colonialism, the Partition and subsequent circumstances of Muslims who chose to stay in India have a powerful impression on contemporary events today. They dictate the rhetoric employed by agents of Hindutva as well as HIT. For instance, Muslim neighborhoods, often

40 31 considered unsafe by Hindu residents of the same city, are commonly referred to as mini Pakistan, as a symbolic reminder of the community s betrayal and as the source of threat and terrorism (Gayer & Jaffrelot, 2012). Analyzing Indian terrorist groups with this context in mind offers a starkly different understanding of the causes of terrorism, one informed by a historical evolution of regional political events, inter-societal relations and community-specific grievances. CTS encourages geographic diversity and non-western ways of knowing by trying to understand how local actors make sense of security. Employing a non-western orientation in understanding homegrown terrorism in India allows for an examination of the phenomenon as being independent of the global threat of Islamic terrorism. It shows that there was a history of inter-communal violence and terrorism in India long before any concrete international Al-Qaeda influence as the first act of urban terrorism in India occurred in It also challenges the view that treats terrorism in India as a part of an international jihad and situates it closer to domestic factors, i.e. the rise of Hindu nationalism and its sponsored events. For the purpose of this study, the CTS approach provides an alternative ontological outlook that questions the underlying assumptions of the traditional strategic narrative and its externalizing tendencies. Dissecting the unit of the state on religious, communal, or societal orientations shows inherent power relations and the historical evolution of these relations. Attempting to find solutions to homegrown terrorism should then attempt to locate answers within this aspect of terrorism. 1.6 Methodological Approach Since this research identifies the uniqueness of local context in the study of terrorism, the use of an in-depth single case study evolves as the most fitting choice of methodological design. The case study approach can be defined as the detailed examination of an aspect of a historical

41 32 episode to develop or test historical explanations that may be generalizable to other events (George & Bennet, 2005, 2). The historical episode of interest to this study is the phenomenon of homegrown Islamic terrorism and the historical explanations the study tests is the rise of Hindu nationalism. The causality is established through a process-tracing exercise in examining three sets of interrelated events that play a leading role in linking the two variables (Chapter 3). These events and the variables under examination are posited against two background phenomenacommunalism and Hindu-Muslim riots (Chapter 2). The case-study approach offers several advantages that are particularly well-suited to this research design. It allows the researcher to match background understandings of concepts with fine-grained evidence from case (Mahoney, 2007). The reflexive process of formulation and reformulation leads to refinement of concepts and allows for a high degree of conceptual validity (George & Bennet, 2005, 13). A concept such as terrorism for instance can be difficult to describe and measure. According to Sartori s (1970) rules of concept formation and his ladder of abstraction, a concept like terrorism is marked by a high degree of generality or abstraction but covers a large range of cases (Della Porta & Keating, 2008). However, moving down the ladder, a narrow range of cases promotes more concrete development of concepts. By selecting a within-case analysis, the arbitrary nature of a broad category (terrorism) can be eschewed in favour of specificity of context and greater clarity within a given historical episode (homegrown Islamic terrorism in India). Additionally, the case-study approach is sensitive to the importance of contextual factors. It is particularly suited to the study of a complex phenomenon which is deeply affected by the social and political context to the extent that boundaries between the phenomenon and context are not clearly evident (Mahoney, 2007; Yin, 2003, p. 13). Homegrown Islamic terrorism in

42 33 India did not emerge in a vacuum. It has specific bearings with the political, sociological, and cultural realities on the ground. Being self-consciously aware of the context allows the researcher to gather multiple perspectives from a range of sources and thus identify the contextual causal factors, new variables and theories affecting the outcome under analysis. Additionally, the case study method allows for the identification and development of new variables or hypothesis that the researcher may not have considered at the outset but that become apparent during the course of detailed study of a phenomenon or field-work. Single case studies are compatible with process-tracing methods which allow for theory testing to be applied to a wide range of alternative hypothesis and capture varied causal relations. An authoritative discussion of process tracing has been provided by George and Bennet (2005) in Case Studies and Theory Development in Social Science (Chapter 10). This text develops the tools used to identify the intervening causal process the causal chain and causal mechanism between an independent variable (or variables) and the outcome of the dependent variable (George & Bennet, 2005, 206). The process-tracing exercise forces the researcher to take multiple features of the case into account and consider the alternative paths through which the outcome could have occurred. This research explores homegrown terrorism in India as a phenomenon that has evolved longitudinally alongside parallel trends in Indian politics. Observing the formation of indigenous terror outfits as a development over time, it employs a process tracing method whereby the establishment of the IM is taken as the starting point. Analysis then involves working backwards to trace the key points or "critical junctions" that explain the phenomenon. In exploring this causal relationship, the study relies on several primary and secondary sources. Five in-depth and open-ended interviews with terrorism experts, security analysts and

43 34 social activists were conducted between June and August A pool of potential interviewees was created based on names that prominently appeared in literature on terrorism in India during initial research. Interviewees were then contacted by (Appendix B) with an outline of the research, and the researcher's academic background and contact information. Those who responded were then contacted by phone to set up an in-person interview ranging from minutes. Oral consent was obtained in four cases at the beginning of the recorded interview. One interviewee did not approve to be recorded but consented to using written notes. The research also relies on newspaper archives of the Indian Express and the Times of India. Both newspapers are prominent English-language dailies that have reported national events widely. These print publications have a reputation for practicing objective journalism and producing high quality content. Other primary sources include Annual Reports of the Ministry of Home Affairs available online, reports following communal riots (Mishra Report, Shrikrishna Commission Report), the Sachar Report, reports by the Jamia Teachers' Solidarity Association and Human Rights Watch. Finally, the research has built on extensive secondary sources such as academic and non-academic books and journal articles. The following chapter moves the introduction deeper as it delves into a historical background of political mobilization based on religion among both Hindu and Muslim communities. It presents a brief history of Islam in India and emphasizes the unique trajectory that the Muslim civilization followed due to the influence of Sufism. This history was partially interrupted by forces of colonialism as Hindu and Muslim identities crystalized amid policies of divide and rule. The demand for Partition and the fate of Muslims who chose to remain in India in turn affected Hindutva mobilizations in post-partition politics. In order to understand the process that led to the establishment of HIT groups in India, it is important to be cognizant of the the

44 historical and socio-political factors that have shaped the motivations and rhetoric of groups that fall under the umbrella of HIT. This is the task to be accomplished in Chapter 2. 35

45 36 Chapter 2: Background and Context A phenomenon such as the rise of Homegrown Islamic Terrorism (HIT henceforth) in India did not emerge in a vacuum. What led hundreds of Muslim youth to choose the path of violence, planting bombs in busy urban areas targeting innocent people? Certainly, the decision to propagate systematic and planned terror by a relatively large number of people over a considerable period was not undertaken suddenly and randomly. This study argues that HIT was the result of a process whereby ordinary individuals transformed into agents of violence rooted in the ideology of jihad. To understand this process, especially the domestic orientation of HIT in India, it is important to discern the historical and socio-political factors that have shaped the motivations and rhetoric of groups that fall under the umbrella of HIT. When HIT groups disclose their agenda (South Asia Terrorism Portal, 2008), the qualms, grievances and demands emerge from a specific context, the contemporary being shaped by the historical. An explanation that proceeds without due reference to this context, is doomed to offer incomplete assessments of what the phenomenon is, where it comes from, and which factors drive it. This chapter presents a broad overview of the historical and contextual factors that are important to outline before a specific analysis of HIT can be performed. In proposing contemporary understandings of HIT, this chapter focuses on the two background phenomenon of communalism and Hindu-Muslim riots that represent the plane upon which the process-tracing exercise is conducted in Chapter 3. These two innate themes of Indian politics have evolved from historical processes of identity construction, reinforcement and ultimately, assertion through violence. The first three sections trace the processes of identity construction and mobilization examined in relation to communalism. It is argued that colonial discourse and administration fostered identity consciousness. Selective avenues for native representation generated new areas

46 37 of political contestation based on religious orientations. As communal mobilization on religious issues deepened, demands for partition of the subcontinent on religious grounds gained momentum. The fissiparous tendencies of communal politics subsided in the decades following the Partition but did not disappear. In the wake of cultural permeation of the Sangh Parivar on the one hand and electoral rise of the BJP on the other, communal reawakening acquired a mammoth dimension in the Ayodhya campaign of the late 1980s and led to widespread violence. The chapter then engages with historical aspects of Islam in India and the state of its Muslim community. The sections in this part discuss the gradual decline of the Muslim population as the horrors of Partition in 1947 changed the demographic and political reality of Muslims in ways that left them vulnerable in independent India. Years of discrimination and prejudice led to Muslims forming a backward community with poor socio-economic indicators on most parameters. Hindutva s idioms of Muslims as the perpetual Other and a constant threat to be intimidated, or worse eliminated, found violent manifestations in events of communal riots. The establishment of HIT groups has been in response to incidents of communal violence that have disproportionately affected Muslims. References to injustices meted out to Muslims during riots and Hindutva s alienating attacks are widespread in the manifestos released by the Indian Mujahideen (2008). As such, an exploration of this history is crucial in informing explanations of HIT. Additionally, as discussed in the literature review in Chapter 1, the security literature on HIT has failed to offer a nuanced understanding of HIT by paying scant attention to domestic politics while also exhibiting limited understanding of Islam in India or the history of the Muslim community in general. Most studies in the security literature present Islam as a homogeneous

47 38 and static category, failing to acknowledge the rich diversity in Islamic thought. The outcome, invariably, tends to portray Islam as a source of threat and Muslims as suspect. In order to sensitize the study of HIT with these aspects, this chapter unpacks the category of Islamic terrorism. It presents a brief description of the arrival of Islam in India in the seventh century, the spread of Sufism and the Central Asian Muslim dynasties that ruled India, the establishment of several Islamic schools of thought and the formation of different sects within the Muslim population that interpreted the holy texts of Islam in diverse ways. This historical description is presented to propose that Muslims in India form a disadvantaged sociological group rather than a primarily religious one. Although religion is the main identifier, this distinction, it is argued, is essential to note since framing the problem as a religious issue entails solutions that have vastly different repercussions than when approaching the problem as a sociological one. 2.1 Communalism: Identity Construction The principle of nationalism derived from a nation-state understanding of the term, received a relatively late introduction in India (Fazal, 2015). Throughout colonial history, nationalism or nation-ness was a Western attribute denied to the colonial subjects of India (Pandey, 2006). The nationalism of the anti-colonial struggle, on the other hand, attempted to channel passions into an amalgamated Indian-ness represented by the concept of "unity in diversity" (Fazal, 2015). In consolidating a unified national identity composed of various ethnic, linguistic, religious, tribal and caste divisions, the uncontroversial term "community entered common verbiage to acknowledge distinctiveness (Robinson & Upadhyay, 2012). The direct or indirect politicization of these diverse identity groups during the colonial period created a communal sense of belongingness and resulted in divergent visions of nationhood conceived in

48 39 terms of religious differences. The persistence and continued mobilization on communal lines has shaped the evolution of Indian politics and remains a dominant theme even today. The concept of "communalism," can said to have been constructed first by the discourse of colonialism and later reinstated by indigenous communalized groups or organizations. Colonial discourse is the set of theories, inferences or assertions that are formulated about the natives to justify the project of colonialism and domination (Pathan, 2009). This is primarily achieved by the creation of "knowledge" about the colonial subject which relies not on objective facts but on pre-conceived norms and judgements (Pathan, 2009; Said, 1978). For instance, a homogenous religious identity was not the predominant feature of pre-colonial Indian society. Before the colonial period, Indian society exhibited various connotations of identity like kinship and territorial groups, linguistic affiliations, temple communities, village belongingness, royal retinues, occupational reference groups and sectarian networks, to name a few, with certain forms being more prominent in certain region or era than others (Dirks, 1992). Religion was one category among many others. Although religious tension and strife existed, their magnitude was largely localized (Thapar, 1990). During the colonial period, however, religion as an identity signifier, came to assume greater importance in colonial writings as well as administration. As a result, Hindu-Muslim relations underwent significant restructuring as new forms of contestation emerged. The trend of treating religion as the sociological key was initiated by uncritical understandings of Indian society by early Orientalists. Colonial scholars of Indian history and religion such as William Jones and James Mill produced elaborate Orientalist projects for European curiosities relying on Brahman (Hindu upper/priestly caste) informants since priests

49 40 were the literate elites capable of interpreting religious texts (King, 1999). Commenting on casteist interpretations of religion, for instance, Dirks (1992, 60) writes: To read and organize social difference and deference- pervasive features of Indian society-solely in terms of caste thus required a striking disregard for ethnographic specificity, as well as a systematic denial of the political mechanisms that selected different kinds of social units as most significant at different times. Brahmanic texts, both Vedic origin stories and the much later dharma texts of Hinduism's Puranic period, provided transregional and metahistorical modes of understanding Indian society that clearly appealed to British colonial interests and attitudes. Although specific to the colonial treatment of caste, the above note also highlights the centrality of religious interpretations more broadly in colonial narratives. These accounts disproportionately relied on priestly understanding of Indian society marked by an elevation of specific interpretations of texts so as to highlight the role and importance of religion as a mechanism of social organization. Relatedly, Gloria Goodwin Raheja (1996, 494) has shown how colonial domination controlled the flow of discourse about the colonized society and about its relation to the colonizing power. Drawing on land revenue documents, census reports, official glossaries, manuals for the Indian Army and reference works compiled for the use of colonial officers from 1870 to 1918, Raheja describes a double moment in the construction of colonial accounts of religion and caste (Raheja, 1996, 494). The first is the appropriation of the speech of the colonized by decontextualizing oral folklore, proverbial speech, myths and traditions from its original and intended context and the second is the manner in which these discursive forms are then re-contextualized in administrative reports and records utilized for effective control (Raheja, 1996). Depicting society in this way allowed the colonizers to selectively describe the narrative

50 41 about religion that fit their illusionary ideology and then create the reality they wished to see, not necessarily the one that actually existed. As a result of these understandings, flowing from the constructed knowledge about Indian society, colonial administration came to be structured on religious lines. From the decennial census introduced in 1871 (Omvedt, 2010) to land revenue policy (Raheja, 1996), religious differences became the primary identifier to understand Indian society. Colonial anthropologists and members of the Indian Civil Service paid specific attention to religious communities as "separate 'things' to be counted and classified" (Fuller, 2016, 465). In a study of census tables and reports of British India, Bhagat (2013) notes that religion was classified as Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, Jain, Sikh, Parsi, Jewish, and Animist. In addition to labeling, religion was also used to "cross-classify various attributes of social structure such as education, occupation and caste, tribe or race in numerous tables" (Bhagat, 2013, 437). Efforts were made to define a Hindu and a Muslim in relation or opposition to each other. For instance, a Hindu was defined as "a native of India who is not of European, Armenian, Moghul, Persian or other foreign descent" or "Hindu means a non-musalman native of India" implying that Hindus were the true natives while Muslims were foreign (Bhagat, 2013, 437). The census thus organized previously fluid and "fuzzy" identities into neat and homogeneous religious categories based on arbitrary demarcations often incorrectly identified by British administrators (Bhagat, 2013, 436). Simultaneously, through the policy of divide and rule, religious divisions were used to portray an image of enmity and social stratification to justify continued colonial domination. In 1905, the colonial administration partitioned Bengal into Muslim-dominated East Bengal and Hindu-dominated West Bengal (Avari, 2013). Attempts at further communalizing the two

51 42 communities continued. In 1909, the Indian Councils Act (also known as Morley Minto Reforms) made provisions to grant electorates based on religion and introduced "Muslim communal representation, which meant that the size of India s Muslim minority and conversely the Hindu majority had clear political consequences for the first time" (Fuller, 2015, 464). The 1919 Montagu-Chelmsford reforms introduced the "diarchy" iii system which expanded the franchise and thus the scale of communal representation (Fuller, 2015). The 1935 Government of India Act further politicized religious communalism as electorates were enlarged again and separate categories for Muslims were retained. These policies had the consequence of highlighting statistics on religion as representation in political institutions came to rely on religious figures and their relative strength to one another (Bhagat, 2013). The concept of communalism, or belongingness to specific religious communities in opposition to one another, was then born. The exercise in categorization of communities by religion, their own consciousness of their majority vs minority status and competition in electoral bodies based on the numerical significance resulted in politicizing religion. Religious distinctions were sharpened and fostered political exclusiveness whereby the Muslim community sought safeguards to protect their minority status in an otherwise Hindu majority polity. The colonial period was thus instrumental in organizing society by religion and directly or indirectly promoting religion-based mobilization that culminated in the demand for Pakistan. 2.2 Communalism: Identity Mobilization Communalism then came to denote competition and domination between the various religious groups, the starkest divisions being between the larger communities of Hindus and Muslims. With the development of the anti-colonial nationalist struggle, diverging visions of nation-ness began to emerge among Hindu and Muslim communities as they elaborated upon

52 43 their respective ideas of religion-based nationalism. Hindu nationalism and Muslim separatism became two currents that operated in opposition to the third strand of tolerant and secular nationalism represented by Jawaharlal Nehru (Varshney, 2003). In the early 1920s, V.D. Savarkar, an anti-british revolutionary codified the Hindu nationalist ideology in Hindutva: Who is a Hindu? Savarkar s writing of the Hindutva manifesto occurred alongside the Khilafat movement iv and is demonstrative of his deeply held prejudice against Muslims whose loyalties, he argued, reside primarily with Mecca and Istanbul (Savarkar, 1969; Jaffrelot, 2007). The pan-islamism of the Khilafat movement united Muslims into a common front while Hindus, according to Savarkar, were divided on the basis of caste and sect. Savarkars ideology found material expression in the establishment of the Rashtriya Swayamseva Sangh (RSS) in 1925 by Keshav Baliram Hedgewar. The RSS was structured as a grassroots movement composed of many local branches in towns and villages where young men received ideological and martial training every morning (Jaffrelot, 2007). Concurrently, a Hindu revivalist movement called Arya Samaj ( The Society of Aryans ) was taking shape in northern India with an emphasis on cow protection and shuddhi (purification), a proselytizing movement to convert Christians and Muslims back to Hinduism (Bhatt, 2001, 20; Adcock, 2014). Additionally, several Hindu nationalist leaders popularized prejudiced writings and propaganda against Muslims. Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Aurobindo Ghose, among others, shared blatant anti-muslim sentiments in their celebration of Hindu victories against Muslim invaders (Bhatt, 2001). A Hindu nationalist movement with visions of making India a Hindu nation was thus taking shape. Simultaneously, a separatist movement for the creation of Pakistan emerged among Muslim sections. Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, a prominent Muslim educationist and reformer

53 44 established the Mohammedan Anglo-Oriental College (which became the Aligarh Muslim University in 1920) (Khurshid, 2015). v The All India Muslims League was formed in 1906 to safeguard Muslim interests in response to the partition of Bengal in 1905 that saw widespread violence (Adnan, 2006). Muhammad Shah, also known as Aga Khan III, as the first President of the All India Muslim League, promoted separate political rights and interests of Indian Muslims (Bhatt, 2001; Purohit, 2011). The call was taken further by Muhammed Ali Jinnah who in his historic Muslim League address on March 23, 1940 endorsed the two-nation theory whereby he claimed that the Hindus and Muslims belong to two different civilizations which are based mainly on conflicting ideas and conceptions (Jinnah quoted in Adnan, 2006). It was during the Hindu and Muslim nationalist movements of the 1920s and 1930s that the term communal transformed from a neutral representation of religious communities to representing Hindu-Muslim tension. This period was marked by immense political turmoil and religious polarization. As Hindu and Muslim groups were formed in opposition to one another alongside an anti-colonial movement, communalism came to describe a "problem of antagonism between Hindus and Muslims and the politics built up to protect their allegedly separate interest" (Pandey, 2006, 10). This period was also marked by an increased intensity of Hindu-Muslim riots, which although occurred in earlier periods, became far more frequent and were witnessed in almost all provinces (Krishna, 2005). British India, upon independence was partitioned into Hindu majority India and Muslim majority Pakistan. The months preceding the Partition were rocked by communal frenzy with mass killings occurring in Calcutta in August 1946 which then spread to Punjab and other parts of north India by March 1947 vi (Pandey, 2001). During the period of , an estimated 200,000 people were murdered and 13 million forced to migrate from their homes (Wilkinson,

54 , 13). This mass migration across the newly formed borders and widespread violence among Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs in the days immediately following the partition left a grievous mark on the collective psyche of these communities in India, one from which recovery has been painstakingly difficult, if not impossible. Hindutva mobilization continued in post-partition India, albeit with limited success until the 1980s. Upon independence, a faction of RSS Hindutva proponents formed the Bharatiya Jana Sangh in 1951 (forerunner to the Bharatiya Janata Party, BJP) to compete in the political realm. vii During the 1960s and 1970s, the Jana Sangh registered poor electoral success and experienced unstable coalitions with other minority parties in opposition to the Indian National Congress (Graham, 1990; Adeney & Zavos, 2005). A section of the Jana Sangh launched the moderate Bharatiya Janata Party in 1980 to appeal to a wider section of the population (Jaffrelot, 2007). In the 1984 general elections, the BJP won only two seats in the lower house of parliament (Bhatt, 2001). However, in 1986, L.K. Advani replaced the more moderate Atal Bihari Vajpayee as BJP s President and began a collaboration with the RSS and VHP in the Ayodhya campaign of the late 1980s which brought the BJP considerable electoral gains making it the second largest party in the 1989 elections with 86 seats (Bhatt, 2001). Two trends underlie this cultural expansion of Hindutva and the political expansion of the BJP. First, the RSS aggressively launched several political and non-political front organizations to permeate Indian society and polity in the decade of the 1980s and 1990s. viii This rapidly growing family of organizations that together form the Sangh Parivar with RSS as the parent organization displayed a new and increasingly vociferous discourse, often cultivated by the VHP, of Hinduism under threat or under siege in India as a result of the activities, real or perceived, of Muslim and Christian minorities and of secessionist or regionalist movements

55 46 (Bhatt, 2001, 170). Secondly, the Sangh propagated and participated in a constellation of political events aimed at consolidating a united Hindu vote bank by cultivating and drawing on an aggressive anti-muslim sentiment (Bhatt, 2001). The period from 1980 to early1990s was marked by several flashpoint events that were utilized by the RSS and the BJP to mobilize on Hindutva lines. The Meenakshipuram conversions of 1981, ix the Khalistan movement x in Punjab, the Shah Bano case xi of the mid-1980s and the controversy over the Babri mosque in Ayodhya xii sparked a Hindu sense of vulnerability and became rallying points for Hindutva s rhetoric (Reddy, 2011). These events opened the debate on power relations between the Hindu majority and the country s minorities once again. The political circumstances of the 1980s combined with emotive responses of Hindutva followers to the above-mentioned events created a tide of popular support which the leaders of the Sangh exploited to the fullest. The additional strategy of using violent communal outbursts in the form of riots helped Hindutva solidify its grasp in the political arena. Communalism thus evolved from an awareness of distinct religious identities to representing violent antagonism towards the Other. 2.3 Identity Assertion: Hindu-Muslim Riots Once polity came to be organized on religious lines, political parties and leaders made opportunistic use of communal events to mobilize the masses. Communal riots between Hindus and Muslims i.e. riots where religious issues are involved and where participants are selfdefined by their membership of a sect are the most prominent examples of religious violence in India (Copland, 2010, 123). A dataset compiled by Wilkinson and Varshney reports 2,000 riots between the years which led to approximately 10,000 deaths and 30,000 injuries

56 47 (Wilkinson, 2004). This phenomenon provides the second crucial context in understanding the contours of religious violence, Hindutva s attacks on Muslims and the birth of HIT. The first recorded instances of Hindu-Muslim confrontations date back to the eighteenth century. xiii These hostilities can be traced to the decline of the Mughal empire and the rise of various reformist/revivalist Hindu religious movements (Kausar, 2006; Upadhyay & Robinson, 2010). Riots occurred sporadically and their impact was largely localized. For instance, in the 1871 riots in Bareily, typical of those times, the disturbances reached neighboring Faridpur but did not extended to other cities or regions (Copland, 2010). This trend changed after colonial policies favouring religious primacy and gradual formation and mobilization of Indian religious organizations. As discussed above, Hindu-Muslim communalism evolved alongside the national movement for independence against British rule. Political mobilization also occurred as a result of limited democratization and options for representation offered on the basis of communal electorates in the Government of India Act of 1919 (Jaffrelot, 2005). A new political class sensitized to religious issues such as cow protection, religious conversions and the vulnerability among Hindus inspired by pan-islamism reflected in the Khilafat movement came to the forefront and contributed to the escalation of communal tension between the Hindu and Muslim communities (Jaffrelot, 2005). The decades of 1920s and 1930s thus saw an increased frequency and intensity of communal conflicts. Months before the Partition, Hindu-Muslim conflicts acquired proportions of civil wars in which people were killed by the thousands (Akbar, 2003, 9). The severity of riots in the 1920s and 1930s as communal mobilization took place was partially eased by the Partition (Copland, 2010). The decades following the partition saw a sharp decline in Hindu-Muslim riots (Wilkinson, 2005). The loss of Muslim leadership and resources

57 48 to Pakistan, Nehru s vigilant secularism (Jaffrelot, 2005, 288) and a ban on the activities of Hindu militants following Gandhi s assassination in 1948 xiv kept inter-communal violence in control (Upadhyay & Robinson, 2010). An agenda of poverty alleviation and infrastructure development dominated national politics (Wilkinson, 2005; Copland, 2010). As Wilkinson (2005, 1) notes, there seems to have been no sense in the early 1970s that the integrity of the nation was under serious threat from religious polarization and violence. Since the early 1980s, however, a qualitative change occurred as religious issues once again came to the forefront, followed by increasing rates of communal violence. Annual figures for communal incidents more than doubled from 205 in 1975 to 525 in 1985 (Copland, 2010). Since the mid-1980s, a steady rise in violence has been recorded with figures for fatalities peaking in post-ayodhya riots xv (Varshney, 2003). In 1990, a quarter of India s 450 districts were designated hypersensitive by the Ministry of Home Affairs (Copland, 2010). The destruction of the Babri mosque by Hindu nationalist kar sevaks (volunteers) on 6 December 1992 sparked off several weeks of Hindu-Muslim riots and anti-muslim pogroms throughout the country in the worst communal violence since Partition (Wilkinson, 2005, 3). These disturbances achieved a scale that surpassed all previous instances of communal violence (Jaffrelot, 2005). Hindutva mobilization throughout the 1980s and the Ayodhya campaign in particular, progressed on the basis of an anti-muslim agenda where the battle was represented between Ram as the virtuous Hindu God and Babur (the founder of the Mughal dynasty who also built the Babri mosque) as the evil Muslim invader (Varshney, 2003). As Teesta Setalvad, a civil rights activist who covered the Bombay riots as a senior correspondent and contributed to the state-led inquiry of the Shrikrishna Commission (personal communication, August 10, 2016) noted:

58 49 Destroying the mosque to build a temple was not for religious purposes, it was about demonizing a minority, creating a hate campaign against the minority and creating a division which we have never seen before. It was a legitimization of hatred. This entire discourse is based on the Hindutva allegation that the Muslims are always violent and the provocateur. Whatever we do is in self-defence of the Muslim threat. While reasons for this ascendance in communal violence are discussed in Chapter 3, a discussion of how the riots have affected Muslims in India is relevant here. The primary feature of communal riots, as they have evolved alongside Hindutva s strategy of using violence for political gains, is their blatant anti-muslim orientation. Muslims tend to be the predominant victims and aggregated statistics show that they are disproportionally affected in terms of loss of life and property (Wilkinson, 2005; Shrikrishna 1998). In the riots that occurred in the 1980s, the riots in Bombay and the 2002 Gujarat pogroms, the overwhelming number of those who died or were injured tended to be Muslims (Graff & Galonnier, 2015; Shrikrishna, 1998; Eckert, 2012). Additionally, the riots cost the city of Bombay alone an estimated Rs. 9,000 crores ($3.6 billion) and industries in which Muslims account for a disproportionately large share of the work force, such as leather, jewelry, bakeries, and textiles, were particularly hard hit (Wilkinson, 2004, 15). Communal riots, therefore, not only disproportionately threaten the lives of Muslim citizens of India, they also periodically destroy avenues of economic growth for this section of the population. State-complicity in anti-muslim operations tends to be another persistent theme in instances of communal violence. In a study relating to the imposition of curfew in towns and cities where violence has taken place or is likely, Brass (2006, 329) notes their discriminatory execution:

59 50 It has been repeatedly observed in different cities that Hindus move freely in their localities, provide sweets and other refreshments to the Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) jawans (youths), and even point out to them Muslim houses from which the alleged firing of rifles or other explosions have come. In contrast, in Muslim areas any person who shows his or her face may be shot at sight, and there have been numerous reports of police breaking down the doors and entering Muslim houses, allegedly in search of arms or in response to gunfire, and shooting the occupants. Similarly, in the violence in Gujarat in 2002, local political networks involving party leaders and various types of rioters from local criminals, Hindu-nationalist activists, neighbourhood leaders to police officials actively participated in the instigation and perpetration of communal violence (Berenschot, 2009). According to Berenschot (2009, 414), throughout Gujarat, local as well as state-level politicians played a pivotal role, as they were not only seen leading violent mobs, but they were also involved in mobilizing rioters, restraining the police, and arranging the distribution of weapons (Berenschot, 2009, 414). The police had orders to not intervene while the Hindu militants attacked Muslim neighbourhoods in various parts of the state of Gujarat (Eckert, 2012). The entire incident led to the death of about 2000 Muslims and the displacement of another 150,000 from their homes (Eckert, 2012). Given this context, while communal riots have brought significant political gains to Hindutva and its political wing, the BJP, the phenomenon is not devoid of severe costs. Largescale violence targeted at a particular community alienates its members, and is successful in encouraging some, at least, to join militant organizations such as the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) and the Gujarat Revenge Group (Wilkinson, 2005, 7). As is

60 51 established more firmly in Chapter 3, communalism, more broadly and Hindu-Muslim riots, specifically, have a crucial role in the establishment of HIT groups. Combined with the anti-muslim rhetoric of the Hindutva mobilization and state complicity in anti-muslim operations, is the declining socio-economic conditions of Muslims in India. The following section traces the trajectory of the significant number of Muslims who chose to stay in India despite the Partition in The minority has faced considerable socioeconomic challenges and continues to be treated with prejudice by Hindutva forces as well as state authorities. 2.4 Decline of Muslim minority In a climate of vulnerability where Muslims constituted the largest minority in a majority Hindu country, Indian Muslims who chose to stay became the lost children of the Partition (Gayer & Jaffrelot, 2012, 2). In the decades to come, they were stigmatized as being responsible for the dissection of the country, perpetually suspect in their loyalty to India and widely discriminated against (Pandya, 2010; Shani, 2010). Taken together as a minority community, the Muslim population suffered from political and economic marginalization, which also extended to the security realm. The socio-economic deprivation and ghettoization of Muslims in segregated areas of Indian cities lacking basic infrastructure is widespread. Their underrepresentation in the upper echelons of government, administration, judiciary, academia, and even private sector professional capacities has meant that Muslims form a backward community (Gayer & Jaffrelot, 2012; Ministry of Minority Affairs, 2006). The publication of the Social, Economic and Educational Status of the Muslim Community in India: A Report, also known as the Sachar Report (2006, 237) conveyed the dismal socio-economic status of Muslims in India:

61 52 Our analysis shows that while there is considerable variation in the conditions of Muslims across states, the Community exhibits deficits and deprivation in practically all dimensions of development. In addition to the 'development deficit', the perception among Muslims that they are discriminated against and excluded is widespread, which exacerbates the problem. The report further noted that despite Muslims forming 14% of the total population, their share in the Indian Administrative Service, Indian Police Service and general police forces was 3%, 4% and 7.63% respectively. The literacy rate among Muslims was 59.1%, compared to the national average of 64.8%. The report highlighted that Muslims had lower and inadequate access to credit and banking facilities and also faced poor infrastructure in communities where they tended to be the majority: About one third of small villages with high concentration of Muslims do not have any educational institutions. About 40% of large villages with a substantial Muslim concentration do not have any medical facilities (Mnistry of Minority Affairs, 2006, 143). The Sachar Report presented a shocking state of socio-economic indicators that showed a clear trend towards marginalization of Muslims in all sectors. The systematic marginalization and social discrimination of Muslims in India in turn impacts communal relations and self-perception of Muslim citizens. The ghettoization or cornering of Muslim communities into shrinking spaces with little to no potential for interaction and exchange with other socio-religious communities has gradually led to a process of othering by the majority communities. The Hindutva movement mobilizes popular appeal through discourses of othering minority communities, especially Muslims. The movement coined terms such as anti-national and Muslim appeasement to label the Muslim community as treacherous and convey an illusion of state-guarantees to pacify the community for political reasons (Khurshid, 2015).

62 53 The feeling of alienation and prejudice among Muslims is also prevalent in security related concerns. Muslims fear for their safety and security in communal events since the government, the media and the police efforts are targeted towards the protection of other groups and widespread suspicion of Muslims. The Sachar Report noted specific identity related concerns whereby Muslims carry the burden of being labeled anti-national or terrorists and are constantly looked upon with a great degree of suspicion not only by certain sections of society but also by public institutions and governance structures (Ministry of Minority Affairs, 2006, 11). As Ted Svensson (2009, 37) has described, the simulacrum and icon of the Muslim as a potential threat, as a human sleeper cell, are entrenched in a wider framework sanctioning anti-muslim sentiments and rhetoric. In such a scenario, Muslims in India are threatened by the very security structure established to protect them as citizens. Meanwhile, political representation of Muslims is severely restricted. The percentage of Muslim Members of Parliament has historically remained much lower than their share of the population (Gayer & Jaffrelot, 2012). Political mobilization among Muslims, notably the formation of Muslim political parties, has not occurred on religious lines owing to the fear of inciting communal violence. Additionally, Muslims do not benefit from territorial concentration to garner strength in numbers (Gayer & Jaffrelot, 2012; Shani, 2007). Thus, Indian Muslims, otherwise pluralistic in caste, sect, occupational groupings, and rural-urban divide, have simply become a disadvantaged minority who happen to be all called Muslims The discussion above has highlighted characteristics of the Muslim community in India as a disadvantaged sociological group. The chapter now turns to a discussion of religious connotations of HIT with a focus on the diverse history of Islam in India. The section below dissects Islamic in Islamic terrorism to challenge the treatment of Muslims in India as a

63 54 homogenous religious category. It is argued that our understanding of the Muslim community in India, particularly as it relates to the rise of HIT, can be improved by treating Muslims as a sociological rather than religious entity. This distinction matters in relation to how the problem is framed/defined and the resulting solutions that flow from such an understanding. Since the security discourse and the counterterror policies that emanate from it treat Indian Muslims as a religious category, the solutions proposed include reforming the religious aspects, such as through deradicalization programs and an emphasis on moderating madrassas (when the Sachar Report showed that less than 4% of Muslim children receive madrasa education) or reforming the controversial Muslim Personal Law. Treating the issue as a sociological problem, on the other hand, would instead require granting minority rights or safeguards, eliminating societal prejudice, providing better access to infrastructure and development tools, and implementing recommendations of the Sachar Report. 2.5 Islamic in Islamic Terrorism Much of the recent debate regarding Muslims and Islam in Indian security discourse has proceeded from a reductionist viewpoint that treats Islam and Indian Muslims as a homogenous entity, often portrayed as a source of threat (Khurshid, 2015). The Muslim question, i.e. the assumed difficulty of integrating Muslims in a Hindu majority India, has plagued those who profess a singular vision of Indian nationhood based on religion alone (Shani, 2010). What is lost in such simplistic assumptions of Islam as a fixed religion and Muslim communities as hotbeds of terrorism is the long and rich political history of Islam in India and the considerable diversity that this section of the population possesses. Islam came to India as early as seventh century with Arab and Persian sailors and traders (Avari, 2013). By AD 712, parts of Sindh and Punjab in the north-west were under Arab

64 55 expansion (Thapar, 2002). The Delhi sultanate was established by Afghan and Turk Sultans of Central Asia in 13 th century AD and Muslim power in India continued and consolidated under the Mughal dynasty established in 16 th century (Thapar, 2002). Islamic rule left a lasting imprint on the religion, culture, architecture, music, language, literature, dress, cuisine, and many other aspects of everyday life in the sub-continent. A syncretic process of acculturalization followed for many centuries whereby local traditions mixed in ways that added to the diverse mosaic of the subcontinent s inhabitants (Gayer & Jaffrelot, 2012). xvi Diversity of Islam: Early Islamic Schools of Thought and the Caste-System Islam in India has been influenced by the spiritual Sufi tradition. Sufism is a distinctively Islamic way of seeking communion with Allah, of achieving an intensely personal liaison with the Divine based on realizing God's attributes within one (Parveen, 2014, 39). It relies on ascetical speculation, poetic discourse, and mystic imagery (Lawrence, 1982, 28-29). Its focus on mysticism and its isolationist orientation propels its followers to abandon worldly pleasures and the pursuit of power, politics, administration, and public affairs (Heck, 2006; Parveen, 2014). The spread of Sufism in India was enabled by its eclectic outlook. Sufi preachers and missionaries, from the twelfth to the fourteenth centuries, invoked indigenous traditions, themes, and imageries, utilized folk literature, promoted cultural dialog and mingling of indigenous traditions to entice masses to adopt Islamic precepts (Aquil, 2009; Parveen, 2014). The Sufi tradition in turn has influenced the four main schools of thought of Islam in India. These are- Deoband, Ahl-i-Hadith, Barelvi and Jamaat-e-Islami. Each of these schools established Islamic seminaries, or madrasas, perpetuating their respective school of thought (Singh, 2012). The Deoband school emerged after the 1857 Sepoy Mutiny against British rule and is rooted in the Dar al- ulum seminary at Deoband in Uttar Pradesh in northern India (Singh,

65 ). Although the seminary is rooted in orthodoxy and conservatism, it has also shown the willingness to engage with a progressive and moderate vision for the Muslim community (Neyazi, 2014). The Deobandi school and ulema (Muslim scholars), for instance, are among the most outspoken critics of terrorism in India and in May 2008 issued a fatwa declaring terrorism as un-islamic (Neyazi, 2014). The Ahl-i-Hadith (People of Tradition) was a scholarly Islamic movement influenced by the Wahhabi tradition that emerged in northern India in the mid- 19 th century (Sikand, 2007). The Ahl-i-Hadith is the most fundamentalist school of thought in India owing to its emphasis on direct use of Islamic sources such as the Quran and the Sunnah and puritan interpretation of these texts. The school attempted to purify Islam in India by denigrating Sufi traditions such as visiting shrines of holy men and attempted to divorce any associations of Islam with Hinduism (Preckel, 2013). The Ahl-i-Hadith school came in confrontation with the Deobandi and Barelvi schools because of its strict interpretation of Islam and the belief that the latter had strayed from the path of the pious predecessors (Sikand, 2007, 96; Preckel, 2013). The Barelvi tradition traces its roots to the Indian town of Bareilly. Barelvis consider themselves to be orthodox Sunnis, or "Ahl-e-Sunnat wal Jamaat" (Followers of the Traditions of the Prophet and Congregation) who adhere to true Islam as it was originally practiced by the Prophet and his companions as well as by various saints (wali) throughout history (Khan, 2011, 54). However, Barelvis retained several aspects of Sufism such as the cult of the saints, prayers at tombs of local saints and martyrs and celebrations of traditional festivals and rituals and as such, represented the syncretic trend (Rai, 2013; Suthren & Zavos, 2013). While the other three schools arose in response to colonialism as Muslims of the subcontinent asserted their cultural and religious identities, the Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI) was a

66 57 relatively modern movement. It was founded in 1941 by Syed Abul Ala Maududi ( ), with the goal of establishing hukumat-e-ilahiya, an Islamic state or Allah s kingdom (Ahmad, 2009). With the partition of British India in 1947, the JeI split into Jamaat-e-Islami Hind (JeIH) and Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan (JeIP). Maududi chose to migrate to Pakistan where the JeIP participated actively as a political party to establish the Islamic state (Sikand, 2003). In earlier years, the JeIH refrained from political participation in India considering democracy and secularism as antagonistic to Islamic principles. By the mid-1960s, however, the JeI went through a process of moderation and eventually accepted Indian democracy and secularism (Sikand, 2003; Ahmad, 2009). Perhaps the most overt example of interaction between Islam and Hinduism is the persistence of the caste system, even among Muslims of the subcontinent. According to the Muslim variant of the caste system, the Ashraf ( nobles )- descending from people originating from Muslim areas (Afghanistan, Iran, the Middle East, Central Asia) or from converts hailing from Hindu upper castes (generally of Kshatriya- warrior status)- represent the elite groups whereas the Ajlaf ( commoners ) are mostly descendants of converts from Hindu lower castes (Gayer & Jaffrelot, 2012). A third category of Arzal ( despicable ) also exists which includes the Hindu Dalits (former untouchables ) who converted to Islam (Gayer & Jaffrelot, 2012; Ahmad, 2009). Disaggregating the Muslim community into its various sects and castes, not to mention class and rural-urban distinctions, challenges the notion of a singular Muslim identity. An overview of Sufism and the various schools of thought points to the heterogeneity of the Muslim community. Co-existence of Islam with Hindu traditions for centuries is also indicative of a tolerant and accommodating form of both religious groups that not only survived but also thrived

67 58 alongside each other. Additionally, by illuminating this diverse and tolerant character of Islam in India, this argument disproves the idea that Islam as a religion, at the theological level is inherently violent or aggressive. While some sects such as the Ahl-i-Hadith practice a more conservative form of Islam, their followers number less than million and as such, the majority of the population and the Muslim ulema does not support extreme or radical interpretations (Ahle Hadiths, 2011).xvii It is perhaps for this reason that India has not produced global jihadists (Haykel, 2017). The relevance of this discussion to the subject under study is that the label of Islamic terrorism in the conventional security discourse is falsely applied to represent Muslims as a religious community. It is argued that Muslims in India should be identified not on the basis of a homogenous religious identity but because they form a distinct community owing to the unique circumstances of the subcontinents political history. Islamic, Islamist or Islamic-inspired are prefixes that are attached to terrorism to describe the contemporary trend of religion-based acts of terrorism derived from certain readings of the Quran, the Ahadith, the Sunnah and political interpretation of jihadist ideology (Venkatraman, 2007). xviii By employing the term Islamic terrorism, this study does in no way imply that the religion or its holy texts are conducive to or provide justification for terrorism. As discussed above, if anything, the case of Muslims in India serves to refute the idea that Islam is intolerant, prone to radicalism and opposed to ideals of democracy and secularism. Islamic is used as a signifier for an identity group at a sociological level- the Indian Muslims who, as the discussion outlines below, happen to have religion in common (Khurshid, 2015).

68 Conclusion To conclude, this descriptive chapter has established the background and the context necessary for a deeper process-tracing evaluation to occur in Chapter 3. It has described the two phenomena of communalism and Hindu-Muslim riots that provide an essential frame through which to view and understand the establishment of HIT. An understanding of communalism through the processes of identity formation and mobilization showed how religious demarcations were created by colonial discourse and administration. These divides deepened in the quest for nationhood and the period of the 1920s and 1930s was marked by immense political turmoil and the polarization of Hindu and Muslim groups. Religious mobilization continued after independence as politics came to embody a communal agenda that deepened identity divides and ultimately religious violence became an additional instrument to polarize the populace. Secondly, this chapter has advanced a novel understanding of the Muslim community in the Indian context and has argued that they be perceived from a socio-political rather than a religious lens. This understanding divorces a major role of religion or pan-islamism and forces consideration on the historical and local contexts of Islamic terrorism in India. Once viewed as a distinct and disadvantaged group, one is compelled to rethink motivations for HIT and look at domestic factors. Years of discrimination and prejudice led to Muslims forming a backward community with poor socio-economic indicators on most parameters. Hindutva s idioms of Muslims as the perpetual Other and a constant threat to be intimidated, or worse eliminated, found violent manifestations in events of communal riots. The establishment of HIT groups has often been in response to incidents of communal violence that have disproportionately affected Muslims. References to injustices meted out to Muslims during riots and Hindutva s alienating

69 60 attacks are widespread in the manifestos released by the Indian Mujahideen. These links are further explored in the process-tracing analysis in Chapter 3.

70 61 Chapter 3: Tracing the Process from Hindutva to HIT The previous chapter introduced the broad themes, contextual phenomena of communal and Hindu-Muslim riots and a historical understanding of the Islamic community in India. With that background in mind, this chapter builds on the relationship between variables using a process-tracing approach to advance a causal explanation of HIT. This exercise involves the identification and description of arguments that establish the hypothesized causal mechanisms at work (Bennet & Elman, 2007). The analytical framework developed to meet that objective focuses on three sets of related events as snapshots influencing the causal chain. Figure 2: Process Tracing Exercise Linking Hindutva and HIT These snapshot events are comparable to causal-process observations (CPOs), as described by Collier, Brady, and Seawright (2010). A CPO is an insight or piece of data that provides information about context or mechanism an insight that is essential to causal assessment and is an indispensable alternative and/or supplement to correlation-based causal

71 62 inference (Collier, Brady & Seawright, 2010, 252). In the present case, the Bhinwadi riots of 1984, the Babri mosque demolition and ensuing riots of 1992/1993 and the 2002 Gujarat pogrom are represented as three key observations/events that are linked together in a causal chain to produce the outcome of HIT. The value on these CPOs, used in conjunction with broader generalizations relevant to the case under analysis, i.e. the contextual factors of communalism and Hindu-Muslim riots, explain the outcome (HIT) in a process-tracing exercise (Mahoney, 2012, 571). Why the CPOs Matter? What is it about these three CPOs that makes them indispensable to the causal chain? After all, India has witnessed thousands of incidents of communal violence since the eighteenth century. Hindu-Muslim riots were especially acute in the 1920s and the 1930s and levels of violence peaked in the months immediately before and after the Partition. Why did HIT emerge after the late 1980s and not in the 1930s or 1940s? What of the hundreds of riots that occurred between ? How can one establish that the causal chain is formed by the three CPOs identified and not alternative causes? In other words, a justification for the decision to employ these events as opposed to other potential CPOs is required. The argument made here is that the three CPOs identified for analysis acquired a value based on certain characteristics that distinguish them from earlier riots on the one hand and other smaller riots in the later period, on the other. The three characteristics are as follows: 1. the unprecedented scale of violence; 2. systematic and organized execution and; 3. democratic/political competition.

72 63 From an in-depth knowledge of the case and a thorough historical investigation, these criteria were found to establish the severity or potential of an event (communal riots) to generate a response (HIT). The CPOs identified are distinct in the number of fatalities as large-scale vicious attacks. They also demonstrate a level of anti-muslim mobilization and planning that differs from other episodes. Finally, these events are used as opportunistic maneuvers in a climate of political competition whereby religious identity is used to polarize the electorate and win the Hindu vote bank. These characteristics serve as a filter in identifying the key points which, combined with a history of communal politics and rioting, creates a mechanism through which the establishment of HIT groups becomes apparent. For instance, riots in the 1700s and the 1800s are not the CPOs that operate in the causal chain since these were essentially localized affairs centered on festivals or the issue of cow slaughter and rarely spread to other towns or regions (Krishna, 2005; Copland, 2010). They neither reached an appreciable scale nor were motivated by political parties competing in a democracy. Despite retaining a level of organization, they soon fizzled out. As Krishna (2005, 150) notes, communal disturbances were not a regular feature of life in India in the nineteenth century. Similarly, considering the violence in the decades of the 1920s and the 1930s that drew from Muslim separatism and Hindu revivalist movements, the scale of fatalities and injuries (figures discussed in Chapter 2) was severe and there is evidence of strategic planning from both sides as militant Arya Samaj movements among Hindus and Tanzeem and Tabligh movements (to unify Muslims) were established (Krishna, 2005). However, the groups engaged in violence and rioting were not political parties competing in a democracy (representation under colonial

73 64 rule was selective and granted under communal electorates) and the motivation was not electoral gains but separate nationhood. The solution, thus came in the form of the Partition and the establishment of Pakistan which temporarily eased the communal situation. Thus, these events have not been considered in the causal chain. Between 1947 and 1984, India witnessed some riots but these were not major events to impact the causal chain since they do not pass the framework established above. Why? The decades immediately after independence were largely devoid of communal violence as the Partition solved the most pressing communal aspirations of religious nationalisms. On average, there were less than 100 riots a year between 1954 and 1964 (Jaffrelot, 2005). Hindu communalists remained on the margins as the process of nation-building unfolded under the leadership of the secular Indian National Congress (Varshney, 2002). The movement received a grave setback when Gandhi, the father of the fledgling nation was assassinated by an RSS worker in January of 1948 (Fazal, 2014). Nehru s defense of secularism and minority rights offered some confidence to the Muslims and other religious minorities who remained in India. It was during this period that several leading Muslim intellectuals and leaders such as Maulana Azad and Rafi Ahmed Kidwai and ulema also openly defended secular principles emphasizing ijtihad (interpretation) rather than Shariat (established law) that should provide the leading force to Muslims in India (Fazal, 2014; Graff & Galonnier, 2013; Ahmad, 2009). Additionally, the political sphere remained dominated by the secular-left leaders of the Indian National Congress who were engrossed in nation-building efforts focused on issues of economic development, industrialization and literacy (Corbridge & Harriss, 2000; Brass, 1997). Political competition from the communalists within the Congress party and the Hindu nationalist Jana Sangh and its various coalition avatars was minimal (Graham, 1990).

74 65 Despite the general decline in communal hostilities after the Partition, there were some serious riots. Jabalpur in 1961 (45 deaths), Meerut in 1961 (17 deaths), Rourkela in 1964 (53 deaths), Ranchi in 1967 (184 deaths), Ahmedabad in 1969 (660 deaths), Bhiwandi in 1970 (164 deaths), Sambhal in 1978 (25 deaths) and Jamshedpur in 1979 (108 deaths) witnessed violent outbreaks (Graff & Galonnier, 2013). The scale of violence (represented by the relative figures of fatalities), although serious, is not comparable to the thousands of fatalities in post-1984 riots (1969 Ahmedabad riots representing a larger number of fatalities is discussed below). The riots before 1984, thus do not meet one or more of the three filters identified and as such have not been included in the causal mechanism. An analysis of the literature surrounding the Ahmedabad riots reveals that the RSS had gained a stronghold in the eastern parts of the city and in December 1968, the RSS chief MS Golwalkar organized a massive three-day rally which was followed by provocative speeches by the Jana Sangh leader Balraj Madhok (Jaffrelot, 2012; Graff & Galonnier, 2013; Varshney, 2002). However, the riots had little to no political impulse since the Congress was the dominant party in State Assembly elections in Gujarat in the 1960s and the Hindu nationalists polled less than two per cent of the popular vote (Varsheny, 2002). In other words, there was no major political competition as Hindu nationalists did not register as a significant force to divide the electorate on communal lines. Ahmedabad, in this case, can be considered as an outlier case where the relatively larger scale of violence and anti-muslim mobilization was motivated by socio-economic rather than political reasons. xix Additionally, the temporal breaks between the three CPOs is also an issue to be noted and explained. The first event in 1984 is representative of the marked rise of Hindu nationalism and a

75 66 Muslim response in the form of the establishment of the TIM. The destruction of the Babri mosque occurred eight years after Bhiwandi and the pogroms in Gujarat, another ten years later. The first period between the two snapshots ( ) saw a persistent build-up of Hindutva communalism which culminated in the violence of the second CPO, i.e. the destruction of the Babri masjid and ensuring country-wide riots. The Shah Bano affair and the debate on the Muslim Personal Law, VHP s initiation of the Ramjanmabhoomi movement and BJP s adoption of the cause in its political canvassing were related to several instances of communal violence at a smaller scale (discussed below). However, the watershed moment came when the mosque was demolished as the riots that followed were among the largest in terms of fatalities, demonstrated systematic planning and were driven by electoral compulsions. Hindu-Muslim violence declined from the peak of 1993 (Varshney, 2002) until the Gujarat pogroms of 2002 when the scale of violence reached meteoric proportions once again. One explanation for the drop in levels of communal violence in the 1990s is the gradual moderation of the BJP as it sought a larger share of the national vote. The aggressive Hindutva stance brought electoral gains to the BJP, increasing its percentage of national vote to 11.4 per cent in 1989 and 20 percent in 1991 (Varshney, 2002, see Appendix C). However, the party soon came to realize that it could not eclipse the Congress without a broad-based alliance with other parties, most of which did not subscribe to the ideology of Hindu nationalism (Varshney, 2002, 72). In the 1998 elections, BJP campaigned on the agenda of development and anticorruption under the slogan India Shining rather than building the Ram temple or implementing a Uniform Civil Code, as in previous elections (Engineer, 2004).

76 67 Despite relatively lower levels of violence, the period was not devoid of communal strife. As reported by Engineer, (2004, 887) in 1999, 52 riots took place in which 43 people were killed and 248 injured. In 2000, 24 riots occurred in which 91 people were killed and 165 injured. In 2001, 27 riots erupted in which 56 were killed and 158 injured. In 2002, 28 communal riots were recorded, including Gujarat. These riots before Gujarat were considerably smaller in scale relative to the violence in Gujarat and as such, have been eliminated from analysis in this study. A final critical point in the selection of the CPOs merits attention. Among the thousands of instances of communal hostilities, only three have been assigned a value for analysis in the process-tracing exercise, as proposed in this study. However, this specific focus is preceded by a detailed discussion of the historical context, which as described in Chapter 2, is crucial in understanding contemporary events as they relate to the causal chain. This approach is akin to what Mahoney (1999, 1175) has described as the ordinal-narrative analysis whereby rich historical investigation is used to identify the specific scoring of variables across cases. However, as Mahoney also notes, the ordinal-narrative approach does not always eliminate alternative explanations as explanatory factors that partially covary with an outcome cannot necessarily be rejected. Following this, while the three CPOs can be identified based on some characteristics that help filter events of lesser significance, the impact of other explanatory events on the overall causation cannot be entirely taken away and as such, they continue to bear some level of importance in the causal process. This challenge can be conceptually overcome by referring to what Mahoney (2008, 419) has later described as SINUS causes expanded as sufficient but unnecessary part of a factor that

77 68 is insufficient but necessary for an outcome. The argument made in identifying the CPOs is that if they were counterfactually taken away, the outcome of HIT would not happen (the principle behind Hoop Tests discussed in Chapter 4). As such, the CPOs form necessary causes in the process-tracing chain. However, these causes work in a historical context and in combination with the several other factors that together produce the outcome. Without a history of communal politics, the unique demographic features of religious populations in India, the socio-economic conditions of the Muslim minority, a trajectory of riots before and after independence and the several smaller riots that dot the periods between the CPOs, an explanation of HIT would remain wanting. At the same time, it is also extremely challenging, if not outright impossible to include and test every single sufficient but unnecessary cause in the analysis. As such, characterizing these other factors as SINUS causes (Communalism and Hindu-Muslim riots), helps resolve some limitations of the ordinal-narrative approach. The chapter now turns to the execution of the process-tracing method. The sections bellow provide a temporal sequence of events in rich description, demonstrating an action and counter-action pattern. This pattern is advanced as evidence linking the causal chain which in its entirety explains the given outcome of HIT. The focused causal chain operates in the wider context of communalism and a history of Hindu-Muslim riots that dictates how the riots are organized, executed, and explained. Process-Tracing from Hindutva to HIT The study of events begins with the 1984 Bhiwandi-Bombay riots. The decision to employ this event as the starting point is significant for two reasons. First, these riots signify a marked shift from previous instances of Hindu-Muslim riots since they involved a high degree of systematic planning and organization by riot specialists belonging to the Hindutva groups xx

78 69 (Brass, 2003). The growth of militant Hindu organizations and their specific targeting of Muslims during these riots is in turn related to the second significant aspect which is the establishment of the first HIT outfit, the TIM, immediately after the riots. The second significant event crucial to establishing the link between Hindutva and HIT is the demolition of the Babri mosque in 1992 and the Bombay riots that followed. It is this event, in earnest, that marks the critical juncture, establishing the path towards HIT. Lastly, the Gujarat pogroms of 2002 offer the final explanation for the establishment of the IM. Taken together in a sequence, these events create an atmosphere where the rise of HIT appears to flow from an assertive Hindutva Bhiwandi-Bombay Riots Bhiwandi is a city located 20 km to the north-east of Bombay and is historically known for its textile industry (Dalvi, 2016). The city is also home to a large concentration of immigrant Muslims from northern India who are employed as expert weavers. Bhiwandi experienced serious communal riots in 1970, 1984 and 1992 (Dalvi, 2016). The 1970 riots occurred after a Hindu mob participating in the Shiv Jayanti procession xxi on May 7th chanted inflammatory slogans as they were passing by the Friday prayer mosque (D Monte, 1970). Although these riots demonstrate a degree of planning and disproportionate targeting of Muslims, xxii the propaganda campaign, rhetoric and communal mobilization were relatively restricted in scale, compared to events in the 1980s and the number of fatalities, while considerable, were not significantly higher compared to other riots during this period. In contrast, the 1984 riots occurred as a result of deliberate provocation in a climate of heightened communal tensions, a deepening of Hindutva ideology, and the systematic organization of anti-muslim sentiments. In Maharashtra, like in the rest of India, several militant Hindu organizations and political parties, such as the Shiv Sena (army of Shiv; now the most

79 70 prominent political party in Maharashtra and a coalition partner of the BJP), Maratha MahaSangh (the Maratha Grand Coalition) and the Hindu Ekta Andolan (United Hindu Revolution) began to sprout that drew on the heroic image of the warrior Maratha king Chattrapati Shivaji as a protector of Hindus (Hansen, 2001). The months preceding the riots also saw a targeted and institutionalized hate campaign against Muslims. Hindus in Bhiwandi and neighboring villages were organized in November 1983 to oppose the establishment of a slaughterhouse. Slogans were chanted that made out Muslims to be anti-national or that Muslims should be driven to Pakistan (Rodrigues, 1986, 1050). Local BJP and Shiv Sena leaders such as Dr. S.P. Vyas and Vikram Savarkar addressed a gathering of a largely Hindu audience with the intent of provoking them against the neighbourhood s Muslims (Engineer, 1984). In April 1984, Bal Thackeray, the leader of the Shiv Sena assembled a united Hindu front called the Hindu Maha Sangh (Hindu Grand Coalition), composed of several Hindutva organizations (Graff & Galonnier, 2013). On April 21 st, at a meeting of the Hindu Maha Sangh, Thackeray delivered a speech describing Muslims as a growing cancer in India which required an operation (Engineer, 1984, 1135) and pressed on Hindus to take weapons in your hands and remove this cancer from its very roots (Hansen, 2001, 76). Shiv Sena is also alleged to have displayed boards saying Koran chodo ya Hindustan Chodo (leave the Quran or else leave India) (Engineer, 1984, 1135). The next few weeks saw demonstrations and counter-demonstrations inciting communal animosity and created an atmosphere where riots came to be anticipated (Graff & Galonnier, 2013). The immediate provocation came when a saffron flag was hoisted atop a mosque on May 17 th, 1984 (Hansen, 2001). As the news broke out, there were immediate instances of stonethrowing and fighting in several places in the city. Among the most horrific incidents of violence

80 71 was the burning alive of 27 Muslims who had taken refuge in the farm of a rich Muslim businessman by a mob of about one thousand people (Graff & Galonnier, 2013). In total, 500 deaths occurred in Bhiwandi (400 Muslim, 100 Hindus) and 104 (all Muslims) in neighboring Thane and Bombay (Graff & Galonnier, 2013). The organized nature of the violence is demonstrated by the role of the Shiv Sena, which transformed the incident from a localized incident to a multi-city and multi-day riot (Hansen, 2001). According to Hansen (2001, 77), during the first night of the confrontation hundreds of Shiv Sena activists from Bombay were transported on trucks to Bhiwandi, and so began the systematic looting and burning of Muslim houses, shops and factories. Shiv Sena also employed local goons to attack Muslims in Shivaji Nagar near Bombay (Gayer & Jaffrelot, 2012). As Hansen s (2001, 77) study notes further abundant newspaper reports, as well as interviews with individuals who had either witnessed or participated in the riots, confirm a pattern to the uprisings: active and systematic involvement of Shiv Sena, passive or active complicity by the local police forces, and a conspicuous lack of determined action by the state government. Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray continued to make provocative statements but the police took no action and no judicial inquiry was conducted into the riots (Engineer, 1984). On May 25th, police aggression was documented at a slum colony called Cheeta Camp in Bombay where 8 Muslims were shot dead without provocation (Patel & Gothaskar, 1985; Menon, 2012). Amid the rise of the Shiv Sena and its role in the organized targeting of Muslims in Bhiwandi and slums in the outskirts of Bombay and Thane, was an electoral incentive. Masquerading under the pretense of a spontaneous outbreak, the riots were in fact deliberately transformed to a 10-day violent mayhem by Shiv Sena to embolden its image as saviors of Hindu honour against Muslim aggression (Hansen, 2001). The 1984 riots were instrumental in ensuring

81 72 Shiv Sena s triumphant victory in the municipal elections in Bombay the following year (Punwani, 2012). Shiv Sena also used the same tactic in Nasik and Aurangabad, two other cities in Maharashtra where it won the municipal elections in 1986 following riots xxiii (Wilkinson, 2004; Rahman, 1986). The Bhiwandi riots therefore meet all three criteria laid out in the analytical framework. The scale of the violence was higher relative to other incidents of rioting. There was a clear element of planning and organized targeting of Muslims by the Shiv Sena, primarily for electoral purposes. The following section notes a specific reaction to these riots, the formation of the TIM. 3.2 Formation of the Tanzim Islahul Muslimeen (TIM) Among those affected by the Bhiwandi-Bombay riots was Syed Abdul Karim, alias, Tunda. Karim was a resident of Pilkhiwa in Uttar Pradesh and had moved to Bombay to set up a fabric dyeing business (Indian Express, 2013). At a 1985 meeting of the Ahl-i-Hadith s Gorba faction in Mominpura slum near Bombay, Karim established the Tanzim Islahul Muslimeen alongside a doctor, Jalees Ansari, and Azam Ghauri to defend Muslims during communal riots (Tankel, 2014). TIM was formed to counter the growing communal posturings of extremist groups like the RSS and Shiv Sena" (John, 2006). In its initial years, the TIM was involved in forming self-defense militias composed of young Muslim men parading and practicing combat with the laathi (cane). However, in a few years, Karim and Ansari were experimenting with petty bombings resulting in Karim losing his left arm in one such bomb-making experiment (Tankel, 2014; Singh, 2014). This radicalization of TIM and escalation of its violent scope can be addressed using the bibliographical evidence available about Ansari. Ansari, the son of a laborer from Uttar Pradesh had graduated from the Maratha College at Nagpara, completed medical studies at the Sion Medical College and was employed at the

82 73 Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation as a Junior Medical Officer (Swami, 2006). The following except documents the transformation of Ansari s experience: Despite his success, Ansari felt embittered by what he perceived as pervasive religious intolerance. Students and staff at the Maratha College, Ansari was to tell interrogators, often insulted Muslims at large. Later, he came to believe that Hindu colleagues did not treat their Muslim patients with care. Although Ansari claimed to have been a "secular-minded person." the massacre of Muslims during the Bhiwandi riots of 1984 transformed him completely. The demolition of the Babri Masjid and the riots that followed made him finally snap. Led by Ghauri and Tunda, Ansari helped set off a series of 43 explosions in Mumbai and Hyderabad and seven separate explosions on trains on December 6, 1993, the first anniversary of the Babri Masjid's demolition. (Swami, 2006). The formation of the TIM thus bears direct relation to the violence in Bhiwandi and Bombay in Witness to the organized campaign of Hindutva groups wreaking havoc against the Muslim villages and neighborhoods in Bhiwandi, Thane and Bombay, angry Muslim youth protested and converged in meetings to discuss and prevent such atrocities from being committed in future. The TIM was one such endeavor. It was instrumental in bringing together the three key figures- Karim, Ansari and Ghauri who together were responsible for terrorist operations much larger in scale and impact. xxiv The link between the Bhiwandi-Bombay riots of 1984 and the establishment of the TIM points to two conclusions. First, contrary to the conventional narrative of Indian security discourse (discussed in Chapter 1), this HIT group was formed not because of impetus from Pakistan and its affiliated agencies but due to local and contextual factors inherent to communal riots in India and the Shiv-Sena-BJP politics in the state of Maharashtra. Abdul Karim Tunda and

83 74 Jalees Ansari were both affected by the 1984 Bhiwandi riots. Ansari has gone as far as to claim that he acted to avenge his experiences of communal hatred and bigotry (Swami, 2003). That the conventional narrative continues to deny the role of powerful domestic factors that motivated individuals such as Ansari and Karim to form terror outfits is a serious shortcoming of this view. Official policy, based on this denial, can then be seen to be ineffective in countering the terror threat and is in dire need of reexamination. Secondly, it is also important to note that the TIM did not draw from religion but from the lived experiences of the Muslim community in instances of riots. The Ahl-i-Hadith is an orthodox Muslim school of thought that has existed since the mid-19th century. Yet, its role in the formation of TIM did not extend beyond providing a meeting space for individuals affected by the riots. The primary motivation for the three individuals to assemble there was to design a response to Hindutva violence. Arguably, Ansari, Karim and Ghouri converged due to shared experiences of communal riots and happened to have religion in common. This is noteworthy in considering the Islamic community in India in sociological rather than religious terms. In such an understanding, the term Islamic terrorism can denote an entirely different phenomenon, arising out of communal politics and the failure of the state in protecting its minorities rather than due to an innate belligerence of Islam. The label "terrorist" also changes from an external enemy to one who is a part of and was shaped by the common fabric of the Indian nation. While the Bhiwandi riots are relevant in the discussion of HIT as they helped establish the TIM, this particular event alone did not have the complete potential to cause HIT as it evolved. The most significant event in this causal change was the demolition of the Babri mosque in December 1992 and the Bombay riots of December 1992-January According to Bennet & Checkel (2014, 31-32), a reasonable place to start the process tracing exercise is at a

84 75 critical juncture at which an institution or practice was contingent or open to alternative paths, and actors or exogenous events determined which path it would take. The Babri incident can accurately be described as the critical junction without which groups such as the TIM may have eventually fizzled out. If TIM at first was a small unit engaged in martial training in community grounds, the events leading up to the demolition of the ancient Babri mosque provided the fuel that brought many recruits to the TIM, swelling its ranks and making its future designs much grander. 3.3 Ramjanmabhoomi Movement and the Babri Mosque Demolition The city of Ayodhya in northern India is believed to be the birthplace of the revered Hindu God Ram as depicted in the epic Ramayana. Ayodhya is also home to a historical mosque, the Babri masjid (mosque) erected in 16 th century by the Mughal emperor Babar. According to some Hindu nationalists, the Babri masjid is an illegal construction since historically, the site housed a temple dedicated to Ram (Bacchetta, 2010). xxv A conflict first surfaced in 1853 when Hindu ascetics claimed that the mosque was built on Ram s birthplace itself but was resolved on the basis of a compromise whereby Hindu devotees were allowed to use the platform immediately outside the mosque for worship (Jaffrelot, 2007). The issue resurfaced when an idol of Ram was found inside the mosque in December 1949, inspiring some Hindu devotees to proclaim the incident as a miracle (Jaffrelot, 2007; Corbridge & Harriss, 2006). Since the issue sparked a controversy, the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru ordered the gates of the mosque to be sealed in 1950 (Jaffrelot, 2007). The issue was then briefly revived by the Vishva Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council, VHP) in 1984 and later escalated to a full-blown mass mobilization campaign by the BJP before the 1989 and 1991 elections to construct a Ram temple where the mosque stood.

85 76 Why is the Ramjanmabhoomi xxvi (birthplace of Ram) issue so prominent in the rise of the BJP? The eventual amplification of this dispute evolved from a series of coincidental failures of the Congress regime in the mid-1980s. Rajiv Gandhi, with control of both houses of the parliament in 1986, was successful in passing the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, in line with Muslim Personal Law, against the earlier Supreme Court ruling based on the secular civil code in the Shah Bano case (discussed in Chapter 2). In the climate of heightened Hindu communal consciousness, this was seen as overt appeasement of Muslims by the Congress party to build on a minority vote bank (Bhatt, 2001; Brass, 1997). To then balance concessions to Hindu communalists, Rajiv Gandhi ordered the gates to Babri masjid to be opened to Hindu worshippers after 35 years, thus reopening the Pandora s box (Corbridge & Harriss, 2006). The 1980s marked a series of political setbacks and organizational decline of the Congress party, thus creating a political vacuum which well-organized opposition parties such as the BJP took advantage of (Varshney, 2003; Brass, 1997). During the mid-1980s, the BJP underwent a gradual transformation in its mandate and leadership. From , Atal Bihari Vajpayee presided over the BJP with a moderate strategy with an effort to distance BJP s associations with the RSS since this was seen as the reason behind its predecessor Jana Sangh s failure (Bhatt, 2001). When BJP only registered two seats in the 1984 Lok Sabha (lower House) elections, Vajpayee s centrist tendencies were replaced by L.K. Advani s right-wing stance as the latter became party President in 1986, around the same time the Shah Bano controversy and the unlocking of Babri gates took place (Bhatt, 2001). Advani built a combined RSS-VHP-BJP force and reconfigured politics on a religious base.

86 77 The VHP had already begun a gradual campaign of Hindu unity against the Muslim Other by raising the controversial conversion of Hindu Dalits to Islam in the Meenakshipuram conversions of It soon introduced great public rituals, part religious procession, part pilgrimage starting with the Ekmatayajna (the All-India Sacrifice for Unity ) in 1983, the Janmabhoomi Yatra (Birthplace pilgrimage/journey) in 1984, the Ramshilapuja ( Bricks for Ram prayers) in 1989 and the Rath Yatra in 1990 (Chariot journey) (Corbridge & Harriss, 188). These extremely large and well-organized campaigns, pan-indian in scale apart from being responsible for generating a new wave of Hindu revivalism, [were] also at the forefront of a campaign to demolish some 3,000 mosques in India, which it claimed were built on the sites of Hindu temples (Shakoor, 1993, 43). Aside from demanding the building of a Ram temple at the Babri masjid in Ayodhya, the VHP had also launched campaigns for the liberation of Krishna s [another Hindu God] birthplace in Mathura and for the liberation of the Kashi Vishwanath temple complex in Varanasi (Bhatt, 2001, 170). The Ayodhya temple-mosque dispute is representative of hundreds of disputed religious lands and constructions that plague cordial Hindu-Muslim relations. However, the Ayodhya issue came to embody a unique significance during these religious sites of worship reclamation campaigns. The narrative built by the Sangh parivar advocated that the Ram temple at Ayodhya alone stood for the disputed sites of worship throughout the country where Hindus lay claim to indigenous structures corrupted/polluted by the invading Muslim armies. As Corbridge and Harriss (2006, 189) summarize: At the heart of the imaginative geography of Hindu nationalism is the city of Ayodhya in eastern Uttar Pradesh. The destruction of the Babri Masjid can be seen, in part, as the culmination of a long campaign by Hindu nationalists to define- or imagine- Hindudom (Akhand Bharat) as the

87 78 territory of a race of Hindus which stretches from the Indus to the Seas. Ayodhya stands at the centre of the west-east axis of this sacred territory. More importantly, Ayodhya is the capital city of Rama, an incarnation of Vishnu which has been made to appear martial by the ideologues of the Sangh Parivar, and by centering its political campaigns on the site of the Babri Masjid- Ramjanmabhoomi the VHP summoned up an avenging and masculine Hinduism. The forces of Hindutva would reclaim Bharat [ancient India] from the two imperialisms - Muslim and Britishwhich were cankers in the body of Hindudom and which had turned the country away from its true and natural course. The temple-mosque dispute also coincided with the immensely popular televised screening of the epic Ramayana on the state-owned television network, the Doordarshan from 1987 to 1989 xxvii (Rajagopal, 1994). According to Rajagopal, (1994, ), many commentators, including supporters and critics both, of the Sangh parivar, have noted the enormous impact of the Ramayana serial in preparing the ground for the Janmabhoomi issue. This was arguably a key symbolic backdrop against which the Ram Janmabhoomi movement can be seen to have taken off. The religious symbolism, language and imagery reached millions of viewers in urban and rural India where viewed in the privacy of the home, the notion of a great Hindu culture as libidinal collectivity came to exist in the intimate spaces of people s lives, and over the lengthy period of broadcast, these images became familiar, domesticated and comfortable (Rajagopal, 1994, 1662). The BJP capitalized on the religious symbolism of the Ramayana to build momentum around the temple-construction campaign. It used the Babri mosque issue as a unifying factor and kept the issue alive (Shakoor, 1993, 49). The events began with the VHP supported program of Ram Shila Pujan (Ram Brick Worshipping) initiated earlier in 1989 to contribute towards the

88 79 temple-construction efforts. This unique initiative, appropriated from mythological fables of the Ramayana, encouraged devoted Hindus to donate bricks bearing Ram s name which were then "sanctified" by priests in religious ceremonies and paraded through the various town and cities throughout the country xxviii (Jaffrelot, 2007). Meanwhile, Advani initiated a modern day rath yatra (chariot journey/pilgrimage procession) from Somnath [an important temple/pilgrimage town in Gujarat] in the west to Ayodhya in the north. Likening himself to Ram, the BJP President L.K. Advani began a 10,000- km journey intended to mobilize support among all Hindus for the construction of a Ram temple (Islam, 2007). Parallels were made between Ram s quest for himself and his birthplace in the epic after years of exile to Advani s launching of the rath yatra to liberate Ram s birthplace site in Ayodhya which was occupied by the Babri mosque (Rajagopal, 1994; Thakur, 1993). The journey began on September 12, 1990 alongside a wave of communal violence as the kar sevaks (religious volunteers) of the RSS and other Hindutva organizations began their march chanting provocative slogans. The violence started in Gujarat where on October 30 and 31, 34 persons were killed, several cities were put under curfew and the army had to be called in Ahmedabad (Engineer, 1993). Riots erupted in Uttar Pradesh and Delhi and continued throughout November also spreading to Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh (Engineer, 1993). However, before the entourage could reach its intended destination, Advani was arrested in Bihar in late October and the mosque was narrowly saved from assailants intent on performing kar seva (religious service) xxix (Jaffrelot, 2007). The Babri mosque-ram temple agenda was effectively utilized by the Hindutva organizations to mobilize Indian Hindus en masse and contributed significantly to the ascendance of the BJP from a fringe political party to a mainstream force to be reckoned with.

89 80 As a result of the Ram Janmabhoomi (birthplace) movement, the BJP saw considerable electoral success in the 1989 elections gaining 89 seats (compared to 2 in 1984 elections) and becoming the third largest party in the country (Jaffrelot, 2007; Wilkinson, 2005). The party doubled its vote share to almost a quarter of the total vote cast, made inroads into southern India, and formed government in four states in the North (Chhibber & Misra, 1993, 665). Additionally, the 1989 election results indicated a "close correlation between the routes of the Ram Shila Puja, the subsequent communal violence in September-October 1989, and at least 47 out of the 89 seats won by the BJP in the states of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh (Wilkinson, 2005, 317), The Sangh's (family of Hindutva organizations) tactic of using communal processions to polarize the voting population, incite anti-muslim mobilization and use these occasions as shows of strength for electoral purposes reached the greatest magnitude under the Ayodhya Campaign (Wilkinson, 2005). Fresh elections in 1991 brought further gains to the BJP which now became the second largest party with 119 seats in the lower house (Wilkinson, 2005). The BJP also won a majority in the state legislative assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh in With this reinforced position, the temple issue was raised again when in October 1992, the VHP announced a second phase of kar seva to be performed again on December 6, 1992 xxx (Corbridge & Harriss, 2006). Things moved quickly and by December 6 th, 1992, two hundred thousand activists assembled around the temple-mosque complex some of whom proceeded to climb the sacred structure, razing it to the ground with pick hammers, axes, shovels, pipes, sticks or even their bare hands (Bacchetta, 2010; Corbridge & Harriss, 2006). By the evening of December 6 th, the Babri mosque was reduced to a pile of rubble leaving the entire country in a state of shock.

90 81 The kar sevaks installed the idols of Ram on the debris of the demolished mosque and proceeded further to attack the Muslim neighborhoods in the city of Ayodhya, setting their homes on fire (Kausar, 2006). The city was brought under curfew, the Chief Minister was dismissed and President s Rule was imposed in the entire state of Uttar Pradesh (Kausar, 2006). The news of the demolition, however, on reaching other parts of the country spurred violent confrontations and riots, the worst incidents being reported from Bombay. 3.4 Bombay Riots ( ) and Bombay Bombings (1993) For five days in December 1992 (6 th -10 th ) and fifteen days in January 1993 (6 th -20 th ), Bombay was seized by communal frenzy with reports of stabbings and arson from different parts of the city (Shrikrishna, 1998). When news of the mosque s demolition reached Bombay, some Hindutva activists and Shiv Sena supporters organized celebration rallies which aggravated Muslim sentiments sparking spontaneous protests. Like previous riots in Bombay and surrounding areas, the Shiv Sena played an active role in attacks on Muslims which were carried out with military precision, with lists of establishments and voters lists in hand (Shrikrishna, 1998, 1.11). According to the Shrikrishna Commission, which was charged with the task of conducting investigations into the causes of the Bombay riots, from 8th January 1993, at least there is no doubt that the Shiv Sena and Shiv Sainiks [soldiers of Shiv] took the lead in organizing attacks on Muslims and their properties under the guidance of several leaders of the Shiv Sena from the level of Shakha Pramukh [branch head] to the Shiv Sena Pramukh [Head of Shiv Sena] Bal Thackeray who, like a veteran General, commanded his loyal Shiv Sainiks to organize attacks against Muslims (Shrikrishna, 1998, 1.27). The report noted 900 deaths (575 Muslims, 275 Hindus, 45 unknowns and 5 others) and 2,036 injured (1105 Muslims, 893 Hindus,

91 82 and 38 others (Shrikrishan Commission Report, 1.24). Additionally, it was estimated that 60,000 people lost their homes and an additional 150,000 became refugees in their own city (Parikh, 2005, 87). As the illusion of calm set in following the worst period of rioting, the city was to be reminded again that the struggle was far from over. On March 12, 1993, a series of nine bomb explosions rocked the city, claiming 400 lives and marking the first of its kind incident of urban bombings (Parikh, 2005). The Shrikrishna Commission was urged to expand its mandate and investigate whether there was a correlation between the riots and the bombings. The following excerpt, quoted at length due to its prominence to this study, establishes this link: As a result of the demolition of Babri Masjid and the riots which took place in Bombay during December 1992 and January 1993, there was communal cleavage in Bombay. The Muslims felt a feeling of insecurity, tension, and anger on account of their suffering during the two riot periods and they were inclined to blame the State Government and police for their misery. The Muslims perhaps felt that the Government and police, instead protecting their interests, had actually acted against their interests by joining hands with communal elements which took a lead in the riots. A large number of Muslim youths came to entertain this firm belief. This body of angry young men was exploited by anti-national elements, who were desirous of de stabilizing the situation in this country. Certain anti national elements aided and abetted by ISI of Pakistan recruited some of the angry young men by brainwashing them that they should take revenge for the humiliation and misery heaped upon them. A grand conspiracy was hatched at the instance of the notorious smuggler, Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar, operating from Dubai, to recruit and train young Muslims to vent their anger and wreak revenge by exploding bombs near vital installations and also in Hindu dominated areas so as to engineer a fresh bout of communal riots.

92 83 One common link between the riots of December 1992 and January 1993 and bomb blasts of 12th March 1993 appear to be that the former appear to have been a causative factor for the latter. There does appear to be a cause and effect relationship between the two riots and the serial bomb blasts...tiger Memon, the key figure in the serial bomb blasts case and his family had suffered extensively during the riots and therefore can be said to have had deep rooted motive for revenge. It would appear that one of his trusted accomplices, Javed Dawood Tailor alias Javed Chikna, had also suffered a bullet injury during the riots and therefore he also had a motive for revenge. Apart from these two specific cases, there was a large amorphous body of angry frustrated and desperate Muslims keen to seek revenge for the perceived injustice done to and atrocities perpetrated on them or to others of their community and it is this sense of revenge which spawned the conspiracy of the serial blasts. This body of angry frustrated and desperate Muslims provided the material upon which the anti national and criminal elements succeeded in building up their conspiracy for the serial bomb blasts. (Shrikrishna Report, Volume 1, Chapters VI-VIII) The report establishes a direct link between the Babri demolition, communal riots in Bombay and the Bombay bomb blasts. The Bombay blasts were orchestrated by the criminal syndicate of Dawood Ibrahim s D-Company and included several Indian recruits who served as foot soldiers of the entire operation with some external aid (Singh, 2014). A parallel current of radicalization was at work with the Jamaat-e-Hind s ex-student wing, the Student Islamic Movement of India. 3.5 SIMI's Radicalization The Ramjanmabhoomi movement and BJP s propaganda campaign evoked a response from Muslim groups in India who campaigned to protect the ancient and sacred site. The All India Babri Masjid Action Committee (AIBMAC) lobbied the central and state governments to gain assurances that the mosque s protection would be guaranteed by the state s security

93 84 apparatus (Ahmad, 2009). AIBMAC leaders such as Member of Parliament Syed Shahnuddin took the lead in organizing Muslim protests throughout BJP s campaign (Thakur, 1993). BJP's electoral gains and its politics of hatred posed a threatening image for the Muslims. The entire Ayodhya campaign was replete with abusive rhetoric which included humiliating slogans shouted openly and written on walls. xxxi Tensions were especially rife in Aligarh, home to the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) where students of the Student Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) were particularly active. SIMI activists at AMU campus were staunch supporters of restoring the Babri mosque to Muslims and observed February 1st, 1991 as Babri mosque day (Ahmad, 2009). In meetings organized in November 1991 at AMU's campus, SIMI supporters had emphatically pointed out the injustices meted out to Indian Muslims. SIMI's candidate for the AMU Student elections, Hafiz Sikandar Rana, was a passionate orator who in speech after speech urged the audience of young Muslims to defend the mosque (Ahmad, 2009). The call to jihad was made using poetry, performance and passionate speech-making in the context of the events in Ayodhya. Rana spoke with such raw passion that students were often reduced to tears upon hearing his descriptions of Muslims' state in communal riots and his radical and poetic Urdu couplets. As recounted by one AMU student: Through his narration, Rana would recreate the gory scenes in which police and Hindutva activists killed Muslims in riots. He would describe the cries and the pleading voices of Muslims, especially those of children and women crying for help. He offered a heart-wrenching description of how 'our young sisters and mothers were raped, dishonoured, and then cut into pieces.' In his speech, the riots of Bhagalpur became metaphors of what it meant to be a Muslim. (Ahmad, 2009, 172)

94 85 Unsurprisingly, Rana won that year's student election by a notable margin. Outside of AMU, SIMI's mood was the same in other parts of the country as it began to profess a more radical position that won it support among a small number Muslims in India who saw themselves as increasingly beleaguered, victims of both Hindu majoritarianism and the Indian state that was seen as representing Hindu interests (Sikand, 2003, 340). As BJP gained a stronger share of the national vote in the 1991 elections, becoming the second-largest party, Muslim agitations also gained momentum. In December 1991, SIMI held an all-india conference titled "iqdam-e-ummat [Action for Muslims]" where it redefined its agenda and urged all Muslims to wage jihad to defend themselves against Hindutva (Ahmad, 2009). This is significant since any reference to jihad did not feature in SIMI's agenda prior to Before the Ayodhya issue, SIMI primarily focused on educational awareness and an inculcation of Islamic values among students while political issues remained in the periphery (Sikand, 2002; Ahmad, 2009). According to Ahmad (2009), mobilizations around the Babri issue reflected a structural shift in SIMI's rhetoric and perspective which became more militant. The national conference marked a change in the organization where the call for jihad, the theme of killing, sacrifice and martyrdom became more prominent in its agenda. On December 6 th, the news of the kar seva spread throughout the country and video footage was telecast nationally, showing videos and photographs of kar sevaks dancing on the dome of the mosque from previous kar seva and the live demolition taking place in Ayodhya. The large contingent of police and paramilitary forces were seen as idly whiling away their time and hardly raising a finger to protect the mosque being attacked. The reality that Indian Muslims were confronted with now was indeed bleak. As the Babri plot unfolded, several SIMI members

95 86 joined the ranks of SIMI radicals who were crying for revenge (Gupta, 2014, 24). Some SIMI members had also developed links with Islamist militants fighting in Kashmir (Sikand, 2003). The following years continued this move towards radicalism as SIMI adopted an even more hard-liner position. The 1993 February/March issue of its newsletter Islamic Movement was referred to as the martyrdom number where the term martyrdom was used in a double sense: first, the Muslims killed during riots and the demolition of the Babri mosque both symbolized martyrdom; and second, it was meant to exhort Muslims to embrace martyrdom by combatting the combined injustice and violence of Hindutva and the police (Ahmad, 2009, 175). When BJP formed the very first national government in 1996, SIMI launched a nationwide campaign, nationalism or khilafat? for the revival of the caliphate (Ahmad, 2009, 179). In 1998, as BJP once again formed a coalition government, it initiated a campaign called polytheism versus the Babri mosque keeping the Babri issue alive (Ahmad, 2009, 179). While SIMI leadership continued to mobilize using these campaigns, some SIMI recruits had already resorted to violence. In May 2001, eight SIMI members were arrested in the town of Nagpur for allegedly plotting to bomb the headquarters of the militant Hindu RSS and posters hailing Osama bin Laden and the Taliban regime as the true defenders of Islam began appearing in some towns until Indian authorities used the pretext of 9/11 to ban SIMI under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act 1967 and purged its leadership (Sikand, 2003). SIMI's radicalization must be seen as a direct response to events in Ayodhya and the general context of rising Hindutva assertiveness. The event marked a significant watershed in Hindu-Muslim relations in the country and pushed a small section of the Muslim population, such as some radical members of the SIMI, to prepare for a violent battle against the Indian state and the Hindu population (Sikand, 2003). Analogous to the response after the Bhiwandi riots that

96 87 led to the formation of the TIM, SIMI s radicalization in this case was not a result of religious compulsions but a direct reflection of the political dynamics of the country and the blatant prejudice with which the state treated its Muslim citizens (Ahmad, 2009). That the Babri demolition and accompanying riots bear a close relation with the rise of HIT in India was corroborated by Teesta Setalvad, xxxii a civil rights activist (personal communication, August 10, 2016): When it comes to Islamic terror, you did not have till December 6 th, 1992 a homegrown element, ever, even though Kashmir was there and despite the fact that the North-East was there. It was only because of a complete let-down by the Indian state on December 6 th, 1992 that for the first time it created a realization [among Muslims] that they are not a part of this continuing experimentation in Hindutva fascism and they realized that secular India could not protect them. It s interesting that there is violence happening all over the world and the fact that there was Kashmir, even before that, the rest of the Indian Muslims never thought of responding with violence or a medium of terrorism. There was not much in terms of livelihood opportunities for them. Sachar Committee report and Garam Hava [acclaimed film portraying the misfortunes of a Muslim family after the partition] tells you how post-partition the institutions have failed Indian Muslims. If events in 1992/1993 shook the Muslim population in India and led to the radicalization of SIMI, the 2002 Gujarat pogroms solidified the sense of betrayal. The last of the events under analysis, it is also the most shocking in its actualization due to the immense cruelty of perpetrators aided by an institutionalized Hindutva machinery at work. 3.6 Gujarat Pogroms On February 27th, 2002, 58 Hindu pilgrims returning from Ayodhya on the Sabarmati Express died in a fire which affected two cars of the train near the Muslim majority town of

97 88 Godhra in Gujarat xxxiii (Ghassem-Fachandi, 2010). Before an official investigation could be conducted, the BJP-led government immediately blamed Muslim groups (Shamdasani, 2009). For the next 72 hours, absolute mayhem erupted in the city as Hindu militants took to the streets to kill, rape, plunder and burn Muslim localities. The attacks were coordinated by some politicians of the BJP and activists from the RSS and VHP while the police were ordered to not xxxiv intervene by the BJP leaders (Eckert, 2012). The entire incident led to the death of about 2,000 Muslims and the displacement of another 200,000 from their homes (Eckert, 2012; Berenschot, 2009). The attacks were also accompanied by the destruction and desecration of Islamic sites of worship throughout the state (Ghassem-Fachandi, 2010). Shabnam Hashmi (personal communication, August 17, 2016), a social activist and human rights campaigner, who worked in Gujarat in the immediate aftermath of the Godhra incident pointed to the planned nature of the attacks: 2002 was absolutely planned to the last detail I had traveled to 10 districts when Gujarat was still burning and had gone there around 8th or 9th of March. Gujarat burned for almost 3 months. In these 10 districts, the people with whom I spoke, almost everywhere, said that the tridents and the swords came to our village, town or city at least 20 days or 1 month in advance. Before Godhra happened, before the train caught fire, they had already come and were stored in various temples. Gas cylinders had already arrived. I have been to villages in Women used to cook on cow dung cakes but even in those villages, the houses, mosques and dargahs [Islamic Shrine]- they were blown up using gas cylinders. Otherwise gas cylinders are not available but gas cylinders and petrol bombs were used. So if we buy Mr. Modi s theory that people reacted after 27th February then what were all these things doing there in advance. Everything was arranged. Only the leaders knew that once they get the signal, the mayhem was to start. Everywhere,

98 89 wherever you went and even now if you talk to the victims, you will hear stories of thousands of people coming in and attacking in trucks. This cannot be organized in one day. From Hashmi s testament and the targeted manner in which the attacks against Muslims were carried out, it is clear that the pogrom was pre-planned. However, whether the train burning was a spark that set off the pre-arranged attacks or whether the train burning itself was planned is less clear as conflicting accounts exist about what transpired in Godhra that day. According to Spodek (2010, 349), the pilgrims harassed Muslim kiosk owners on the Godhra station platform and the Muslims responded with their own attack on the train. Later, a forensic science study revealed that the fire could only have been caused from inside the cabin (Shani, 2007, 170). While the relationship of the Godhra incident to the overall pogroms is unclear, the brutal execution of violence against Muslims has undoubtedly been established (Setalvad, 2005; Shani, 2007). Particularly vicious were cases of sexualized attacks on Muslim women. As Hashmi described in vivid detail: I have myself seen photographs of at least 7-8 women with their stomachs split, with their unborn babies clinging to their mother s wombs and their charred bodies. I can understand that there was some maniac who did this to Kausar Bano [a Muslim woman who was raped and killed in a brutal manner] but when you see this done to many other women, you understand that it s a pattern. People were trained to do what they did. I have heard stories with similar patterns from many villages. That women were taken out from their homes, huddled together, every bit of cloth was removed from their bodies, then they were made to run, mobs following them and they were made to dance and after that gang rapes from people, in many cases also sodomy and breasts being cut off before putting petrol on and burning them. The survivors to whom I spoke to, every woman spoke of another 5-6 cases.

99 90 Narendra Modi, then Chief Minister of Gujarat, was criticized for condemning the Godhra train burning but not the murderous activities of the Hindu mobs. Drawing parallels between the Godhra massacre and 9/11 from six months ago, Modi proclaimed that the black deed of Godhra illustrated how collective terrorism could take an organized form (Ghassem- Fachandi, 2010, 157). In an often-quoted statement, the leader declared that every action has an equal and opposite reaction, implying the justification of violence against Muslims for those dead in the train burning (The Times of India, 2002). The role of the state government in allowing violence to unfold and its response to the events is notable as an example of state complicity in using the discourse of terrorism as a tool to implement political agenda. While the initial charges for the burning of the train (later found to be an accident) were filed under criminal law, there is evidence to indicate that six months after the incident in November, the BJP government in Gujarat was able to weave a rhetoric to include a conspiracy angle whereby the fire was shown to be a premeditated attack in order to have the charges classified under the more severe Prevention of Terrorist Act (POTA) (Eckert, 2012, ). Subsequently, under POTA, 131 Muslims were charged while the Hindu rioters involved in the violence and pogroms were charged under the criminal category of Indian Penal Code instead (Human Rights Watch, 2002). Commenting on the repressive and undemocratic character of anti-terror laws in India, Manisha Sethi (personal communication, August 25, 2016) noted: Earlier there was TADA [Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act], POTA [Prevention of Terrorism Act] and now you have UAPA [Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act]. In some states, you have MCOCA [Maharashtra Control of Organized Crime Act] and Gujarat is trying to have GujCOCA. Despite the fact that UAPA does not allow the admission of

100 91 confessions, the fact is that it rests on something very subjective. It allows too much subjective opinion of investigator to come into play. If you were striking at the integrity and sovereignty of the country in any way... writing songs or creating art etc. becomes an unlawful activity. The expansive way in which terrorism in defined- it could be arson, could be killing etc. all of these already have IPC [Indian Penal Code] laws but there is an element of where you apply an antiterror law. The question is, the officers are faced with two options- IPC and UAPA. It is up to them to apply different laws with different people. It is not rocket science to figure out who they will apply UAPA to and who they will put IPC on. In a recurrent pattern, violence incited by Hindu militant groups is justified as irrational mob reaction, epileptic seizures and volcanic eruptions in a pathological manner while violence committed by Muslim groups is labelled terrorism. (Eckert, 2012, 340). In this climate of prejudice by state organs and the banning of SIMI, some SIMI members moved towards an even more extreme path and established the Indian Mujahideen. 3.7 Formation of the IM In 2001, SIMI held a large public convention attended by about 25,000 members where "SIMI activists were called to jihad and later mobilized demonstrations in support of Osama bin Laden" (Fair, 2010, 106). In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, SIMI was banned under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) of 1967, due to alleged working relations with al Qaeda, the Taliban, and other Islamist terrorist groups" (Fair, 2010, 107). SIMI's charge under the UAPA surprised some members who were infuriated by their organization s ban, which they felt reflected the government s double standard on terrorism, which cracked down on Muslims while allowing Hindu extremists to operate openly and perpetrate violence (Subrahmanian et al., 2013; Sikand, 2006, 344; Tankel, 2014). The ban created a rift in the

101 92 organization among some members who, while extreme, were not prepared to take up arms and hardliners looking to launch a terrorist campaign (Tankel, 2014, 5). It is important to note that officially, SIMI did not organize or execute its own terror attacks. As discussed in previous sections, it organized campaigns around Islamic issues and gradually came to represent a more fundamentalist agenda. However, since some of its members were radicalized, it became a feeder for the burgeoning Indian jihadist movement (Tankel, 2014, 22). Among those who followed a more militant path were two brothers from a town called Bhatkal in the southern state of Karnataka- Iqbal Shabandri and Riyaz Shahbandri (also known as the Bhatkal brothers) who were introduced to SIMI in 2001 (Swami, 2013). At one of the SIMI meetings, they connected with two other individuals from the Cheeta Camp in Mumbai (the slum that witnessed intense police brutality in the Bombay-Bhiwandi riots of 1984)- Sadiq Israr Sheikh and Abdul Subhan Qureshi (Singh, 2014). The four individuals felt that SIMI wasn t doing enough in the path towards jihad and advocated for a violent strategy towards jihad (Swami, 2013). SIMI s ban was followed by a state-led crackdown on its resources and arrest of its leaders which forced many others to go underground (Singh, 2014). Five months after SIMI's ban in September 2001, news of the violence in Gujarat shocked the country in February To the millions of Muslims, events in Gujarat were reminiscent of the Babri demolition a decade earlier when the state at best failed to intervene and at worst provided assistance to well-organized Hindu extremists who carried out attacks on Muslims (Subrahmanian et al, 2013). The viciousness of the attacks combined with complete apathy from state authorities emboldened the radical elements in SIMI and contributed to the growing extremism (Singh, 2014). Some belonging to the now banned SIMI, established front organizations, intensified their recruiting and networking efforts, raised funds and distributed

102 93 literature in an attempt to gain support (Subrahmanian et al., 2013). IM coalesced around one such group which was intent on avenging the pogroms in Gujarat (Subrahmanian et al., 2013). While radical fringe members of SIMI were already on the path to terrorism, the pogroms in Gujarat certainly injected a renewed vitality in their efforts and provided access to a pool of angry and radicalized Muslim youth. The importance of the Gujarat pogroms of 2002 to some Muslim youth establishing the IM is of utmost importance. Several terror attacks in the 2000s are linked to individuals who first-hand witnessed the carnage in Gujarat. Swami (2004) discusses the case of Ashrat Shafiq Ansari who was behind the August 2004 Zaveri Bazaar attacks in Mumbai that killed 51 and injured another 162. Ansari was working in Surat during the 2002 pogroms where he saw the worst of Hindu fundamentalism first-hand (Swami, 2004). Similarly, Feroze Ghaswala, another IM recruit "told the police he volunteered for joining jihad training after witnessing the mass burial of 40 Gujarat riot victims" (Swami, 2013). Additionally, in a charge sheet filed by the National Investigation Agency on July 17, 2013, the Agency went on record to declare that the IM was formed as a result of the mobilization among Muslim youth in the wake of the 2002 Gujarat pogroms (Sharma, 2013). References to the pogroms were also made in IM manifestoes sent to media outlets before attacks. In 2007, IM claimed responsibility for the explosions that took place in Varanasi on December 7, leading to 13 deaths. The attacks, which came in the wake of the judgements delivered in respect of the Mumbai serial blasts of March 1993 were preceded by a message to some television channels a day before the attacks, in which IM proclaimed: The Supreme Court, the high courts, the lower courts and all the Commissions have utterly failed to play an impartial role regarding Muslim issues. Narendra Modi who presided

103 94 over the 2002 massacres of Muslims in Gujarat is given a clean chit whereas the victims still run from pillar to post for justice. Even the 92 Mumbai culprits roam freely and enjoy Government security. All the anti-muslim pre-planned riots, arson, rapes, losses of lives and properties are still awaiting justice. The list is endless! (Quoted in Raman, 2011). IM also justified its attacks by "characterizing the terrorism campaign as the 'rise of jihad' and the 'revenge of Gujarat" (Fair, 2010, 112). Here, read the Indian Mujahideen s July 2008 manifesto, released shortly before bombs went off in Ahmedabad, we begin the answer to your tyranny and oppression, raising the illustrious banner of jihad. You have provoked the Mujahideen to massacre you and your five-and-a-half crore multitude of pathetic infidels who tortured us in the post-godhra riots asking, where is your Allah? Here He Is (IM Manifesto, 2008; Swami, 2013). Communal violence thus features prominently in IM accounts released as reflections of its intentions. An analysis of the background of SIMI and the IM demonstrates a direct or indirect experience with communal violence, especially as many of those recruited into IM refer to Gujarat as serving a motivation for these individuals joining the group. With the establishment of the IM and the agenda of violence and terror it unleashed in India, the HIT movement in India had come a full circle. No indigenous HIT groups existed in Yet, within two decades, the rise of Hindu nationalism and its one-sided assaults on a minority, which it alienated for political gains, had reconfigured communal riots into orchestrated affairs aimed at using Muslim lives to win elections. Simultaneously, some older Muslim organizations began a process of radicalization while new militant outfits were formed to match the bellicosity of chauvinistic Hindutva. Claiming that Hindutva has directly caused HIT is simplistic and ineffective. However, as the CPOs and reactions to them indicate, paying attention to the how the forces of Hindutva operate and manifest through communal politics and

104 95 how these forces have provided the ideological push that has transformed the political and cultural landscape of the country to especially target Muslims in highly elaborate, systematic and lethal attacks, can make this association appear closer than it may first seem. As the founding or radicalization of HIT groups is discussed in the context of post-riots or post-pogroms, the motivations and intentions of at least some labeled terrorists come to the fore. Conclusion In conclusion, this chapter has identified a temporal sequence of events and has explained them through narrative prose focusing on three actions, or the CPOs, followed by three reactions. The criteria for selecting these events as opposed to others that could have influenced the causal chain is discussed and justified. The process-tracing exercise has then sought to establish a correlation between Hindutva politics and the rise of HIT in response, as seen through a process of communal riot instigation, brutal targeting of Muslim population and prejudiced state response in securing the safety of its Muslim citizens. Each episode of the radicalization of Muslim groups evolves from a communal incident demonstrating heinous atrocities against this population. The primary lessons from this chapter is that contrary to the conventional doctrine, the motivating factors are predominantly domestic, drawing directly from an organized attack propagated by militant Hindu organizations and supported by political parties. By presenting these three moments of snapshots, this chapter has traced the political and cultural articulation of the Hindutva ideology and its contemporary realities in relation to the rise of HIT. The following chapter defends this trajectory of the causal chain by testing the theory proposed to establish validity and eliminate alterative causal explanations. It also discusses the main lessons learned from this exercise and identifies areas for further research on the topic.

105 96

106 97 Chapter 4: Conclusion In conducting this research, the primary purpose of investigation was to uncover explanations for the rise of HIT in India. In other words, the research proceeded from the generic question, What Xs caused Y in case Z? (Mahoney, 2015, 201). A review of the existing literature and initial assessments identified a pattern in the theories that are commonly advanced in assessments of security by the government and the expert community. These theories have relied on the assumption that Xs (causes or explanations) of HIT are to be found externally, emanating from the hostile neighbouring state of Pakistan which is using HIT to operate a proxy war against India. The first chapter unveiled the challenges and deficiencies associated with such a view. The argument that provided the impetus for this study is that given the dangers associated with the rise of HIT in India, a consideration of domestic factors must also be taken into account. When building knowledge about the case, the concurrent rise of Hindu nationalism in the 1980s and its effect on homegrown terrorism came to surface. The hypothesis that was then formed was Is there a relationship between the rise of Hindutva and the establishment of HIT groups? Identifying this possible X that may have caused the outcome Y was the first stage of theory construction (Mahoney, 2015). However, proposing a theory involving a straightforward connection where Hindutva directly leads to HIT was simplistic and unfeasible. Hindutva is a religious, cultural and political movement which has gradually evolved over a period of time. Similarly, HIT as a phenomenon also developed in gradual phases and interlinked networks. These fluid and slow-moving concepts further presented challenges of operationalization. What about Hindutva could cause some Indian Muslims to form terrorist groups and how can a relationship between the two concepts be materialized? What was the role of other possible Xs?

107 98 A deeper understanding of the content of Hindutva, its history, ideology, formative assertions, and future visions provided the first foundation of the relationship. Similarly, a historical analysis of Hindu-Muslim relations, violence during the Partition, self-perception of Indian Muslims as a minority population and the decline of their socio-economic status offered a second base of understanding. The main lesson that emerged from this thorough engagement with the two concepts and the historical and contextual factors of the case was that the relationship evolved as a process involving several other influencing factors derived from communal politics and religious violence. In other words, instead of the causal process where X leads to Y, the story was more accurately reflected as X triggering A, B, C etc. which yielded Y (Pierson, 2003). Historically, the gradual growth of communal consciousness influenced experiences of Partition and post-independence understandings of identity. These were then used as starting points for contemporary mobilizations of the Hindutva movement which provided incentives to use violence against the Other to secure political victories. Chapter 2 explored these historical developments, interlinked in a mechanism through which the relationship is articulated. The theory was elaborated and operationalized using the tool of process tracing in Chapter 3. This chapter provided historical explanations composed of a sequence of events or causal chains in which factors located at different points in time contribute to an outcome (Mahoney, 2015, 202). The main causal chain between Hindutva and HIT was constructed using the three causal process observations linked together in a mechanism supported by communalism and Hindu-Muslim riots, which, as was argued achieved a more intense scale since the 1980s. The task in this chapter is to conclude the research by returning to the research question posed at the start and asking whether Hindutva was a cause of HIT. Having presented and

108 99 discussed the evidence in previous chapters, it will assess whether the causal chain as proposed in Chapter 3 is a plausible explanation of HIT using the Hoop Test (Mahoney, 2012, 2015). The following sections will discuss the contributions to knowledge and implications of the findings or lessons from this research. Finally, the chapter will also discuss some challenges of the study and identify future avenues of research on the topic. 4.1 Was Hindutva a necessary condition for HIT? One way of establishing whether Hindutva was a cause of HIT is to ask whether the former forms a necessary condition for the outcome. The role of conceptualizing causes in terms of necessary conditions is discussed by Mahoney (2015, 203): The idea that causality might be conceptualized in terms of necessity is well established in the philosophical and social science literature. This necessary condition conceptualization captures the intuition that a cause is something that, when counterfactually taken away while holding all else constant, yields a different outcome. For Hindutva to be regarded a necessary condition in the causal chain leading to HIT, the outcome of HIT would not occur in the absence of this phenomenon. The question, in other words, is that if all aspects of Indian politics remained unchanged and Hindu nationalism, hypothetically, failed to gain the stronghold that it did in the 1980s, would HIT still occur? The research in this study points to a negative in response to that question. As the previous chapter discussed, HIT did not emerge in the eighteenth century when the first communal riots were recorded. It did not emerge in the 1920s and 1930s when political mobilizations in the context of the Independence were taking place. It did not emerge in post-independence India when the nation was being guided by principles of secularism and economic development. In the 1980s, however, an assertive form of Hindu nationalism emerged and was manifested in riots marked by

109 100 large scale violence and targeting of Muslims driven by political opportunisms. These factors are widely referred to as motivations in testimonies of individuals who formed the TIM, in SIMI s rhetoric expressed by its student leaders and its publication, the Islamic Movement, and in IM manifestos. The evidence pointing to Hindutva s role in motivating some disaffected Muslims to forming HIT groups in response is strong. Based on this reasoning, it can be inferred that Hindutva formed a necessary condition for the causal chain to evolve through the mechanism of riots leading to HIT. This assertion can be further verified by using the Hoop Test. 4.2 Hoop Test One way of testing the strength of the hypothesis is to subject it to a hoop test by confirming whether the hypothesis jumps through the hoop to warrant consideration (Mahoney, 2012, 574). A hoop test proposes that a given piece of evidence from within a case should be present for a hypothesis to be true (Mahoney, 2015, 207). In order to perform a hoop test with a hypothesis of X Y, the first step is to establish whether both X and Y actually occurred, if X occurred before Y and if it was physically or theoretically even possible for X to affect Y (Mahoney, 2015). A yes to these answers provides a preliminary passing of the hoop test and signals a scope for further investigation of the mechanism linking X and Y. The researcher then examines the intervening steps, plausible chain of events, or a mechanism M that operates between X and Y (Mahoney, 2015, 209). This study has provided ample evidence of the occurrence of both HIT and Hindutva in the previous three chapters. It has also been established that Hindu nationalism or Hindutva has existed as a communal movement since the 1920s when the ideology was first outlined by V.D. Savarkar in Hindutva: Who is a Hindu and the RSS was formed in Thereafter, as Chapters 2 and 3 have discussed, Hindu nationalism underwent a political and cultural resurgence in the

110 101 early 1980s. HIT emerged in 1985 with Ghouri, Ansari and Karim forming the TIM. From these timelines, it is clear that X occurred before Y. Finally, Hindutva s rhetoric is overtly anti-muslim and it has executed targeted and planned violence against Muslims in riots. As discussed in Chapter 3, both Karim and Ansari were victims of 1984 Bhiwandi riots and were motivated to form TIM in response to actions of the Shiv Sena and other Hindutva organizations in Maharashtra. Similarly, SIMI as an organization radicalized in response to the Babri mosque demolition and some of its extremist members went on to form the Indian Mujahideen after the Gujarat pogroms. Organized riots and Hindutva sponsored events, therefore, have clearly influenced HIT. This conclusion signals successful passing of the preliminary hoop test. Having established that Hindutva has influenced HIT, the next logical question is to ask how? The stages involved in answering this question lead to the identification of the intervening steps and the discovery of the chain of events or the mechanism that connects Hindutva to HIT. Hindutva, by itself, is an all-encompassing broad phenomenon. How exactly has it influenced HIT? According to Mahoney (2015, 209), if one cannot identify such a chain via inductive process tracing, then one might reject the hypothesis as failing a hoop test. In investigating the intervening mechanism, a particular manifestation of Hindutva politics was found to possess the greatest impact in the establishment of HIT groups and driving recruitments into themexperiences of riots. The literature on all HIT groups makes several references to riots and the three riots discussed as CPOs in this study were key events that provoked a response at least among some Muslim individuals who were affected. These riots also possessed a certain value, based on characteristics that differentiate them from other riots, i.e. their immense scale of violence, one-sided attack on Muslims and political motivations. Hindu-Muslim riots, embodying these characteristics thus provide the mechanism through which the militant ideology

111 102 of Hindutva is operationalized and planned violence is unleashed upon a community, some members of which are then motivated to respond with violence. The sequential nature of these events points to a causal link where X affects Y through a mechanism of historical and persistent communalism and violence in Hindu-Muslim riots. Based on these inferences, derived from the process-tracing method in the previous chapter, it is reasonable to conclude that the hypothesis passes the Hoop Test and lends positive evidence in favour of the theory proposed. If the theory that HIT can be explained by Hindutva has some merit then it is useful in an understanding of the phenomenon of HIT in India and has contributed to the existing knowledge on the topic. These contributions are discussed in the next section. 4.3 Contributions to Knowledge The primary contribution of this study is a reassessment of HIT in India. First, this reassessment has been completed with a focus on domestic factors, causes or explanations, an emphasis which has not been widely employed in the general HIT literature. While studies make brief references to the rise of a new right-wing Hindu nationalism, its antagonism to Muslims or socio-economic explanations (Tankel, 2014; Fair, 2010; Swami, 2008, Subrahmanian et. al, 2013), none have oriented their approach with an exclusively domestic focus or performed an indepth exploration of the relationship between Hindutva and HIT. As the previous chapter has shown, the motivation of all HIT groups has stemmed from distinctly local experiences. It is reasonable, then, to examine local political trends and seek answers there. In considering domestic explanations, the study is also novel in that it combines analysis of HIT with the rich data available on communal riots in India. The study of Hindu-Muslim riots forms a burgeoning field of inquiry in social science research on India. In recent years, Ashutosh

112 103 Varshney, Steven Wilkinson, Paul Brass, Ali Ashgar Engineer and Rowena Robinson have produced several accounts ranging from nationwide large-n studies to village and town level single case studies. A deep engagement with these works have allowed the researcher to gain a new perspective on riots, otherwise mentioned in passing in the security literature on HIT. Understanding agency in riots, the profit or power-seeking motivations of the various actors involved and issues of faith and community were instrumental in informing questions of why riots happen, who benefits and how they are experienced by the groups involved. These insights served an important function in framing the arguments proposed in the causal chain. Additionally, by incorporating an analysis of riots, this study draws on perspectives from diverse sub-disciplines bridging International Relations, Comparative Politics and South Asian Studies. Second, this reassessment has employed a historical narrative approach. Most studies on HIT proceed from the current standpoint where HIT is taken as an ontological fact or a given. Details are then provided about the operations of the terrorist groups, the attacks, casualties, regions of activity and the individuals involved. These descriptions do not problematize the occurrence of HIT itself. The present study was motivated by the questions of why and how some Indian Muslims have formed jihadi networks. In answering these questions, the approach has been to start with the past, from processes of identity formation and mobilization that were set in motion almost a century ago. HIT did not just randomly emerge one day. It can be understood as arising from certain political events and processes that happened within a historical context which directly influenced decisions and how the events unfolded (Steinmo, 2008). An awareness and appreciation of the historical context has lead to a more nuanced and informed understanding of communal politics and its role in shaping HIT.

113 104 Third, this study has challenged conventional considerations of terrorism to propose a new approach drawn from Critical Terrorism Studies. It is skeptical of official assessments provided by government agencies, think-tanks and security experts which holds the authority in framing the terrorism problem (Gunning, 2007, 367). It highlights the extent to which the state or the status quo have targeted citizens belonging to a religious minority and have thus contributed to the very security threats they claim to be fighting against (Gunning, 2007). It draws attention to the political agenda of a Hindu nationalist government or power in using the word terrorism to refer to some groups or events but not others. It has approached the topic from a society-centric rather than a state-centric view. In analyzing HIT in India on the basis of above-mentioned parameters, this study has advanced a novel interpretation of the issue. The following section discusses the implications of these lessons. 4.4 Implications The novel aspects of HIT research discussed above have some important consequences for understandings of HIT in India. In seeking policy-oriented solutions to the problem of HIT, counterterrorism strategy is concerned with Pakistan and external threats to India (Narain & Rajakumar, 2016; Jamwal, 2003). As the reports from the Ministry of Home Affairs illustrated, homegrown terrorism does not merit wide attention as an internal security issue and policy implications are centred on inter-state relations with Pakistan or vague technological solutions such as "acquisition of modern security gadgets," "fencing and floodlighting of borders" and "strengthening security at airports and railway stations." Ironically, while homegrown terrorism is not acknowledged in official assessments, the vast majority of those arrested under anti-terror laws such as TADA, POTA or UAPA have been Indian Muslims (Eckert, 2012). This study

114 105 challenges the externalizing discourse and contradictory, unjust and potentially dangerous policy solutions arising from current understandings of HIT. When the discussion is moved to internal factors, the nature of counterterrorism may require significant alterations. Viewing terrorists as enemies of the state as opposed to individuals who undertake a political decision based on their experiences and circumstances can yield vastly different results in terms of solutions. The former dehumanizes and would dictate that terrorists are to be exterminated by force while the latter considers structural reasons and group grievances with an attempt to find solutions to the negative experiences and circumstances. For instance, over 10 years after the publication of the Sachar report, none of its recommendations to improve socio-economic backwardness of India s Muslim citizens have been implemented (Khurshid, 2015). Law and order situation ensuring the safety and security of Muslims during riots remains poor (Ramakumar, 2017; Brass, 2006). If domestic factors are responsible for some youth taking up arms and calling for violence then assumptions made when designing counterterrorism policies or anti-terror laws also need to be corrected and oriented towards domestic solutions such as equal development opportunities and tough action on religious discrimination. Government s official counterterror policy relies on expert knowledge. However, most expert bodies are veiled in secrecy and cannot be made accountable for their advice (Toivanen, 2010, 277). India s intelligence agency, the Intelligence Bureau (IB), for instance, has remained out of the purview of the Constitution, having no accountability to Parliament or any other democratic institution, with the result that it has virtually remained immune to the democratic checks and balances (Mushrif, 2014, 169). Additionally, there is no verification or cross-check of its intelligence reports and its analyses of law and order and security scenarios

115 106 (Mushrif, 2014, 169). Similarly, as discussed in Chapter 1, government agencies report contradictory statistics and there is a general lack of robust research into questions of security. At the same time, however, crucial decisions affecting over a billion citizens are made on vague data and dubious information. An important implication of this study is to be critical of the underlying assumptions of the expert regime and to question the practices that emanate from government accounts and assessments by experts. Similarly, in academic accounts, the dominance of problem-solving theory entails an unattached and desensitized assessment of terrorism as an external issue. However, as is argued in this study, divorcing the study of HIT from inter-state rivalry questions the treatment of terrorism as Pakistan's proxy war or as a foreign concept exported to India. This study has proceeded from a focus on Hindutva as a domestic phenomenon and explored its relation to HIT through a study of communal politics and data on riots. Deviating from a strictly strategic understanding of terrorism as a security issue can lead to new and rich forms of analysis, especially when performed using a multi-disciplinary approach that allows for the inclusion of intra-state factors. 4.5 Challenges, Limitations, and Weaknesses Considering the threat that HIT groups pose to security in India, academic studies on the subject have been surprisingly scarce. The handful of studies consulted to gain an understanding of HIT form a small pool of information to draw from. Only Yogender Sikand and more recently, Irfan Ahmad, have conducted in-depth studies on SIMI, based on extensive fieldresearch and interviews with key SIMI leaders. Additionally, access to police and interrogation records, data from government agencies and interviews with security officials were especially

116 107 challenging for reasons of security. xxxv A longer time in the field and better access to primary records would rectify these challenges for a future study. Another shortcoming of this research could be its disregard of external factors. While it is clear that Indian Muslims have formed homegrown terrorist organizations displaying a distinct Indian agenda, it is also important to note that a clear demarcation of the internal vs external dimension does not exist. For instance, it is highly unlikely that attacks as elaborate, wellplanned and adeptly executed such as those that occurred in Mumbai in 2008 were carried out without an internal link. The 12 militants behind the attacks tactically split into five groups and took local transportation to approach the five sites that were attacked (Barnard-Wills & Moore, 2010). The Chatrapati Shivaji train terminus, Oberoi Hotel, Café Leopold and the Taj Mahal Hotel are all sites of local significance and national cultural landmarks known to be crowded places. The initial demands of the terrorists focused on the withdrawal of Indian forces from Jammu and Kashmir and the release of all Mujahedeen under Indian custody (Barnard-Wills & Moore, 2010). These demands, while garnering international resonance primarily focused on local issues (as opposed to the establishment of an Islamic Caliphate, for instance). On the other hand, it is unreasonable to assume that TIM/SIMI/IM are able to operate an extensive network without external financial, moral or material aid. There is evidence of the involvement of Pakistani nationals and organizations in the recruitment and training of Indian jihadis (Clarke, 2010). The November 2007 attacks in the three northern cities of Varanasi, Faizabad and Lucknow were described by the IM as Islamic raids against lawyers who had allegedly assaulted Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorist suspects (Roul, 2009). While the IM itself denies any links to Pakistan, ISI or Bangladesh, there are reports of the IM leadership fleeing to Pakistan or Bangladesh in response to counter-terror crackdowns (Raoul, 2009). As such, the

117 108 Indian state s claims about cross-border terrorism are not wholly without merit. There is certainly some external influence in the two organizations but considering the context of their origin, the background of their leaders and the local grievances voiced by them, there is no doubt that the IM and the SIMI also represent a homegrown variation of Islamic terrorism in India. The argument advanced here is that the Indian state and its apparatus concerns with Pakistan and external factors has been at the expense of a consideration of internal aspects which, to an extent, are resolvable through careful planning and policy restricting the power of Hindutva organizations with proven links to riot instigation. While the scope of this study is restricted to a consideration of domestic factors, a potential future research could explore the interaction of the external and internal dimensions of terrorism in India and attempt to measure the degree to which one affects the other. A third limitation of this study is its restricted utility in making general claims about HIT in other cases. This is a critique, more generally, of single case studies or within case analysis. While the lessons from the present study are probably inapplicable to other cases of HIT, it is important to reiterate that the limited scope of the study was intentional in the development of the theory. The objective of the research was to specifically focus on a single case to capture heterogenous causal relations and not to overgeneralize from the case (George & Bennet, 2005). The unique historical and contextual factors that form the backbone of this study cannot extend to other cases. However, case-intensive knowledge and the multiple CPOs identified in this case hold strong explanatory powers in evaluating the hypothesis in this particular case. A future study could build on the weaknesses and challenges identified here to perform a more in-depth analysis of HIT. Better access to primary data and a critical approach towards the conventional government and scholarly understandings of HIT can disclose the inherent

118 109 contradictions and limitations of this view. A study of how the Indian state conceptualizes security and how this translates to the state's counterterrorism efforts being directed towards Indian Muslims who effectively form a "suspect community" would be particularly interesting. Access to police records and statements by alleged terrorists can be helpful in understanding motivations for why some individuals join HIT groups. A future study could also compare experiences of HIT in India with attention to domestic factors with other cases of HIT and internal contexts. In conclusion, this study is a modest effort in understanding some reasons behind why individuals have been convinced to stage terror attacks targeting innocent lives. While HIT has been confined to a very small section of the Muslim population and by no means represents a threat equivalent to other forms of terrorism prevalent in India (such as Naxalism and the secessionist movement in Kashmir), the dispersed nature of the 170 million Muslims throughout the country and the potential for radicalization after an entire community is selectively targeted by Hindutva establishments remains high. Ostracizing a sizeable minority and allowing atrocities to continue with state benefaction represent a grave threat to the internal security of India. Despite the seriousness of the issue, the literature on HIT in India is intellectually impoverished with considerable gaps in knowledge. There is dire need for research in this area in order to cultivate academic understandings of why and under what conditions homegrown terrorism takes root and what can be done to prevent it.

119 110 Appendix A: Attacks of the Indian Mujahideen Place Date Fatalities Injured Group American Centre, Kolkata January 22, ARCB/IM Dasashwadmedha Ghat, Varanasi February 23, IM Shramjeevi Express Bombing, UP July 28, IM Diwali Serial Blasts, Delhi October 29, IM Varanasi Serial Blasts March 7, IM Mumbai Train Blasts July 11, IM/LeT Gorakhpur Blasts May 22, IM Hyderabad Twin Bombings August 25, IM Coordinated Bombings of the November 23, IM Varanasi, Faizabad and Lucknow courthouses Jaipur serial blasts May 13, IM/ LeT Bangalore Blasts July 25, IM Ahmedabad serial blasts July 26, IM Delhi Serial Blasts September 13, IM German Bakery Attack, Pune February 13, IM Chinnaswamy Cricket Stadium, April 17, IM/LeT Bangalore Sheetla Ghat, Varanasi December 7, IM Delhi High Court (failed) May, IM Delhi High Court September, IM suspected Mumbai Blasts July 13, IM suspected Pune Serial Blasts (failed) August 1, IM suspected Hyderabad Downtown Blasts March, IM suspected BJP Office Blasts, Bangalore April 17, IM Mahabodhi Temple, Bodh Gaya July 7, IM Patna Bomb Blasts October 27, IM Source: Compiled from various academic and non-academic sources

120 111 Appendix B: Letter of Initial Contact Dear, My name is Nidhi Panwar and I am a graduate student in the department of Political Science at the University of Calgary in Alberta, Canada. As part of my Master s thesis study tentatively titled Communalism and Homegrown Terrorism in India, I am writing to seek a research interview with you, in your capacity as an expert on in commenting on issues related to homegrown terrorism and Hindu nationalism in India. The research I am conducting relates to the general theme of homegrown Islamic terrorism in India. I am interested in studying the rise of homegrown Islamic terrorism in India in the context of communalism, Hindu-Muslim riots and the rise of the Hindu nationalist movement in India. The issues I wish to explore address identity politics, the status of the Muslim minority in the country and debates around security and terrorism taking place in India. The interview will be conducted in an unstructured format addressing the topics mentioned above. I will be in India from June 15th, 2016 to September 15th, 2016 and hope to find a mutually convenient time to set up an interview with you. I will be recording the interview on a digital recorder for my records and will be obtaining explicit oral consent before starting. Please note that this study has been approved by the University of Calgary Conjoint Faculties Research Ethics Board. Should you wish to withdraw from the study, your data will be immediately and effectively destroyed. If you have any concerns about the way you ve been treated as a participant, please contact the Research Ethics Analyst, Research Services Office, University of Calgary at (403) / ; cfreb@ucalgary.ca I appreciate your time and consideration in this regard and look forward to hearing from you. Regards, Nidhi Panwar MA Candidate Department of Political Science, SS 717 University of Calgary 2500 University Drive N.W., Calgary, AB, Canada, T2N 1N4 Nidhi.panwar@ucalgary.ca

121 112 Appendix C: BJP and INC Vote Share Source: Varshney, 2002

122 113 Appendix D: Locations of Main Riots between Hindus and Muslims Source: Graff & Galonnier, 2015