RELIGIOUS RADICALIZATION IN SOUTH ASIA
Radicalization
Definitions
A continuous process in which an individual or group of individuals start to acquire extreme ethnic and religious ideals and aspirations which in turn reject or undermine the status quo or reject and undermine the new ideas and expressions of the freedom of choice.”
The process whereby people adopt extremist belief systems, including the willingness to use, encourage or facilitate violence with the aim of promoting an ideology, political project or cause as a means of social transformation.
The term radicalization is used to refer to the process of developing extremist ideologies and beliefs[1] .
The Dutch Security Service (AIVD) defines radicalization as "Growing readiness to pursue and/or support, if necessary by undemocratic means, far-reaching changes in society that conflict with, or pose a threat to, the democratic order."
The Danish Intelligence Service (PET) focuses on "violent radicalization," defining it as "A process by which a person to an increasing extent accepts the use of undemocratic or violent means, including terrorism, in an attempt to reach a specific political/ideological objective."
The U.K.'s Home Office, in its CONTEST counterterrorism strategy, refers to radicalization simply as "The process by which people come to support terrorism and violent extremism and, in some cases, then to join terrorist groups
Radicalism as a support to transformation and restructuring of political and social institutions, has historically, been associated with leftist and rightist political parties - at times even with centrist and liberal ideologies that involves the wish to do away with traditional and procedural restrictions which support the status quo. As an ideology, radicalism challenges the legitimacy of established norms and policies but it does not in itself, lead to violence.[2]
Radicalization is usually associated with extreme violent actions of individuals. Extremism is generally considered be the major consequence of radicalization. "Extremism can be used to refer to political ideologies that oppose a society's core values and principles. In the context of liberal democracies, this could be applied to any ideology that advocates racial or religious supremacy and/or opposes the core principles of democracy and universal human rights. The term can also be used to describe the methods through which political actors attempt to realize their aims, that is, by using means that 'show disregard for the life, liberty, and human rights of others.[3]
Understanding radicalization
Though radicalization has been studied by various theorists and policy makers and been subjected to scientific studies yet a universal definition that is operational in every time and space, could not be developed because the vagueness of the causes and impacts of radicalization itself. However, many theorists have developed definitions while centering radicalization on two major foci:
Radicalization has been referred mostly to the development process of ‘ideologies and beliefs of extremists which mostly are related with violent and fierce actions. Even though, some theorists have inclination towards terrorism as an effect of radicalization, the reality entails that radicalization not always lead to violent actions and do not necessarily engage in terrorism. In any given society there will always exist a certain number of radicals. However, radicalism does not necessarily go against the law nor is it necessarily violent. Radicalism sometimes can even gain significant traction either by capitalizing on widespread sympathy or by being able to draw a significant number of people to join the radical ranks.[4]
Such radicalization does not stresses upon any violent action for attaining any stated goals. It usually has emphasis on the active pursuit or approval of far reaching alterations or variations in society, which may or may not construct any threat to democracy and may not react violently to achieve their objectives. Moreover, nonviolent radicals may play an extremely positive role in their communities as well as in a larger political context. Most progress in democratic societies has been the result of some form of radicalization. Martin Luther King, Gandhi, and even Nelson Mandela were all considered radicals in their day.[5] ?
Here the emphasis is to widely accept or put on active pursuit on using coercion, force, violence, or fury to attain any stated objectives or goals. Some authors and experts refer now to violent radicalization as a path that inherently involves concrete violent behavior while others qualify the mere acceptance of certain ideas, which condone or justify violence as an indicator of violent radicalization. According to the definition provided by the European Commission in its 2005 Communication 'Terrorist Recruitment: addressing the factors contributing to violent radicalization', “violent radicalization” involves embracing opinions, views, and ideas, which could lead to acts of terrorism[6] .
Many religious, ethnic, and cultural population aggregates exhibit polarizing tendencies and radicalization processes on a worldwide scale. A very acute sense of marginalization and humiliation exists within this global mood, which is also characterized by widespread feelings of inequity and injustice, particularly within several Muslim communities worldwide as well as among immigrant communities with a Muslim background established in European countries. Western observers frequently underestimate these views and sentiments. However, today's religious and political radicalization?should not be confused. The former is inextricably linked to identity dynamics, whilst the latter is fueled by the previously described sentiments of unfairness, whether actual or perceived. As a result, these manifestations of radicalization processes are the product of quite distinct individual and social dynamics.[7]
Incubators of radicalization
There is some indication that radicalism is occurring within jails, both in the UK and more broadly in portions of the United States, and certain prison prisoners appear to be prone to radicalization. However, further study is needed to determine whether the radicalization process in prisoners is the same as those in the outside, as well as the magnitude of radicalization within jails.
2. The World Wide Web
While much has been said and hinted about the internet's role in radicalizing young people, there is no real proof that it plays a dominant role. More likely, it serves a facilitating and enabling function, such as sustaining network ties and reinforcing ideological themes that its audiences have already internalized. Face-to-face human interaction appears to be still important for recruitment and the group dynamics that might promote radicalization, at least radicalization to violence.[8]
Radicalization and religious extremism in south Asia
Almost half of the world’s Muslim population of approximately 1.3 billion is in Asia. Of the 10 countries in the world housing the largest national Muslim populations, seven (Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, Turkey, Iran, and China, in that order) are located in this region; and the first four of them (Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and India) hold as much as 40% of the Muslim world total. South Asian Muslims form the single largest Muslim population in the world [Pakistan (population 160 million, 97% Muslim) Bangladesh (population 142 million, 83% Muslim) India has 138 million Muslims]. In addition, this is bound to accelerate in the next decade or so.
At the outset, it is necessary to mention that Islam is not a monolithic religion. Its adherents in South Asia and different parts of the world, and within each community, practice their core beliefs in diverse ways and there is considerable cultural, social, and national heterogeneity among Muslims. However, notwithstanding the differences in ritual and even religious belief or practice, Muslims have a strong sense of belonging to one community – the Ummah. Several reasons are commonly identified for the rise of political and radical Islam throughout the Muslim world. Anti-American sentiment among Muslims is often attributed to virtually unconditional U.S. support for Israel as well as American backing for hated repressive regimes, especially in the Middle East. The Middle East factors into Asian Muslim politics but there are other, local, reasons for radicalization of Asian Muslim communities. The Afghan and Kashmir wars have created large cadres of Jihadis in Pakistan who have, until recently, been trained and supported by the state. After President Pervez Musharraf’s decision to align Pakistan with the United States, not all Jihadis are willing to accept the state’s U-turn and are carrying on their Jihad in pursuit of their beliefs. Unresolved conflicts in southern Philippines and Indonesia feed radicalism in Southeast Asia in a manner similar to the role of the Kashmir issue in South Asia. However, in each case, the absence of ideological alternatives and the declining performance of the state in caring for its citizens is a major factor, which then can be exploited by well-funded and organized radical groups.
In South Asia, a series of global events – the conflict over Kashmir, the first Gulf War, the crisis in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Taliban in Afghanistan, the Palestinian conflict and the War on Iraq - have all contributed towards creating a global Muslim identity. Indeed, like the 9/11, hijackers were influenced by contemporary socio-political and economic realities. Muslims in South Asia have been affected by events in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Palestine, Kashmir, Chechnya, and tend to discern them from an Islamic identity. Within such an understanding, a perception that the Orient and Occident are necessarily opposed to each other and are irreconcilable is at the heart of Islamist radicalism. Indeed, there is in a certain sense an oversimplification and generalization that pervades contemporary Muslim understanding of the global world.
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Factors of religious extremism
Amidst the globalization process, poor economic conditions along with socio-cultural isolation have led to many among the Muslim youth being outside the spheres of civil society. It is primarily these sections that attempt to return to a more literal interpretation of Islam in the search for empowerment. In addition, Islamist extremist groups lay great emphasis in influencing such susceptible minds and regrettably, have had much success within South Asia and in the immediate neighborhood. A vital facet of these groups is their strong emphasis on ideology with the members being motivated by divine command. The willingness of many youths to volunteer and carry out suicide attacks is a demonstration of the extent of radicalization.[9]
The rise of religious extremism in South Asia and the Middle East is also linked to, among others, four over-bearing factors: the absence in much of the Muslim world of democratic, accountable governments, and, indirectly related to this, disputes over contested territory; the failure of governments in some Islamic countries to address problems arising from rapid social, demographic, and economic changes in the last century; financial, logistical, and moral support provided by external actors; and the breakdown within Islam itself of Ijtihad – the established tradition whereby religious clerics independently interpret the Koran in order to apply Koranic law to diverse and changing circumstances.
It is true that the average Muslim youth in countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, and among the Muslim population in India and elsewhere in South Asia has become increasingly politicized by radical Islam. The patterns, however, are remarkably dissimilar. While the Indian Muslim empathizes with the issues that affect the Ummah, he or she has stayed away from participating in the global Jihad currently being articulated by Osama bin Laden and local affiliates across the world. Indeed, within India, not a single non-Kashmiri Muslim has been arrested or killed since the dramatic escalation of the terrorist campaign in Jammu and Kashmir in 1990. India’s success in contesting the movements of extremist Islamism is based largely on the tolerant, pluralistic Islam that has been embraced by the overwhelming majority of Muslims, and the relationship of stable accommodation with other Faiths that Islam has entered into within the context of a democratic, open, and secular constitutional polity. It is useful to note that India is the rare exception in a world of intolerance, where every Faith that has been encountered has been embraced, and has evolved a compromise with other belief systems,
Islamic identity is undergoing politicization across the globe and most certainly in Pakistan. However, the moot question is what drives and sustains radical Islam in Pakistan? Alternatively, how entrenched is radical Islam in Pakistan? President Pervez Musharraf had himself warned during a televised address to the nation on January 12, 2002 that the greatest danger facing Pakistan came not from outside, but from Pakistan’s own homegrown Islamist radicals – “a danger,” he said, “that is eating us from within.”
Role of madrassas
With active Government support in the past, and no regulation even now, a conservative hardline Islamist thinking dominates the Madrassas of Pakistan, transforming them into a breeding ground for terrorists. Many of these Madrassas are directly engaged in terrorist training as well. The Taliban originated in the Madrassas of Pakistan. The Darul Uloom Haqqania near Peshawar in the North West Frontier Province, patronized by Maulana Samiul Haq, who heads a faction of the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam, has allegedly served as a training ground for terrorists now in Jammu and Kashmir and Central Asia, and those belonging to the Taliban militia. The Maulana and his 3,000 students proudly call it “the University of Jihad.” Its alumni included at least eight senior Taliban leaders, and reportedly, Mullah Omar used to send a personal message to every graduating class until his regime’s collapse.[10]
? The exact number of Madrassas is not known. President Pervez Musharraf has put their number at 10,000 – by all independent accounts an understated figure. Herald in its November 2001 edition says: “According to the Interior Ministry, there are some 20,000 madrassas in the country with nearly 3 million students.” In 1947, West Pakistan had only 245 seminaries and by 1988, they increased to 2,861. Between 1988 and 2000, this increase comes out to be 136%. According to Jessica Stern, there are an estimated 40,000 to 50,000 Madrassas in Pakistan.
? Most prospective students start when very young. Many students come from impoverished families, unable to feed and educate them. In addition to educating them in the extremist Islamist ideology, these schools house, feed and clothe them and, perhaps most significant, isolate them from the outside world and any views not offered by their instructors, who are never challenged or questioned. Students and their families, of course, generally consider admission to the schools a blessing, a chance to escape from a mind-numbing life of extreme poverty, and graduation usually is a source of pride as well as a guarantee of lifelong employment.
Islamic and Islamist ideology
Some have attempted to articulate a distinction between Islam and Islamism, explaining that Islam is a religion that conventionally, at least in modern practice does not overtly encourage hatred of non-Muslims and neither mandates nor justifies killing of civilian non-combatants, but that Islamism (or some other variant on this ideological term), refers not to a religion, but to a totalitarian political ideology driven by a strong anti-Western and anti-democratic sentiment whose goal is "conquest of the world by all means." The argument is that militant leaders, particularly since the late 1980s, have been able to use Islam (the religion) very effectively as a platform or vehicle to transport and deliver this extremist ideology. As evidence of this distinction, they point to the fact that most adherents of the religion do not subscribe to the violent ideology (and certainly do not behave violently), and that many proponents of the militant ideology are not particularly "religious" or pious.
Terrorist groups may also be described as consisting of diverse mixtures. Thus, some groups may have a larger proportion of leaders and followers from the socially well-adapted segments of society. Other groups may start out with only a few of these as leaders and a larger proportion of marginalized and rather apolitical followers, some of whom may gradually become more politicized. These different types of individuals will usually perform different and complementary roles within a group. Thus, the concept of static profiles appears incapable of explaining the considerable variety of individual actors involved. Instead it is possible to identify several positions which individuals may, to various extents, move towards or away from within processes of radicalisation or de-radicalisation, although some of their individual traits and qualities may tie them more firmly to certain positions than to others.
One particular type of radicalisation process characterizes ideological activists who play leading roles in terrorist cells. They are often charismatic persons motivated by idealism and a strong sense of justice. Jihadism or other varieties of political violence are embraced through an intellectual process where the need to take action gradually becomes a political or religious duty. These individuals are often resourceful, educated, well integrated and are sometimes even considered as role models in their communities. One particular variety are experienced Jihadi veterans whose participation in armed struggle at some of the war theatres for Jihad such as Afghanistan, Chechnya, Kashmir or Bosnia earns them a certain heroic image as well as combat experience. They may also serve as linkages to the global jihadist movement. It is worth noting that combat experience, whether from an individual standpoint or that of the family/peer group of the former combatant, has been an important factor in the radicalisation paths of ethno-nationalist activists or the first-generation of right-wing terrorists after the Second World War. Another variety tends to embrace violent forms of militancy through a combination of loyalty to the leader and political activism.
Although often intelligent, skillful and socially well adapted, individuals of this variety may also be impressionable and easily manipulated by other respected group members. For some youths the experience of belonging to a group and being accepted by peers or leaders is of primary value, sometimes overruling most other considerations. The kind of group they end up in and the cause they end up supporting is often a matter of chance. These 13 followers may neither hold any particularly extremist worldviews nor exhibit any pronounced political attitudes, at least not initially. Moreover, their backgrounds are not characterized by socio-economic problems, unemployment or dropping out of school.
Conclusion
Religious radicalization has been a pivotal cause of the religious extremism and terrorism based on Islamist ideology. Pakistan, India and Afghanistan are being majorly affected by religious extremism resulted from religious radicalization. Pakistan has been fighting against terrorists of its own soil produced by radicalization of young minds by many religious elites. Pakistan Tehreek-e-Taliban is a major example of terrorist group originated from radicalizing the religious youngsters. Such pious youngsters were radicalized by saying that Pakistan is a wider supporter of United States of America and being the supporter apostate and infidel America, the government of Pakistan has to be toppled down in order to make a caliphate system as working political system in Pakistan. Jihad against Pakistan was justified through manipulated religious teachings, created, and narrated for power struggle. Similarly, tehreek-e-labaik Pakistan has also become a headache for the government and people of Pakistan because of their violent and fierce actions in the name of Islam and Holy Prophet SAW. Recent events have shown how TLP is becoming a new threat for Pakistan, which might become more security threat to Pakistan on years to come. Similarly, the rise of RSS being the Hindu-oriented extremist organization has threatened he existence of minority i.e. Muslims and Sikhs, in India.
To counter, religious extremism in south Asia like in Pakistan and India, the policy makers has to have a deep understanding of its causes. Religious radicalization, being at the foremost cause of the religious extremism, has to be eradicated. Counter strategies such as a revision of religious curriculum, registration of madrassas, stoppage of foreign funding to madrassas, controlled borders and separation of politics from religion can pave a way out of this chaos.
References
[1] Randy Borum, “ Radicalization into violent extremism I: A review of social science theories”, (Journal of strategic security, volume 4, 2011), pg, 03
[2] Fernando Reinares, “Radicalization Processes Leading to Acts of Terrorism”, (European Commission's Expert Group on Violent Radicalization May 2008), pg. 06
[3] Opcit., Randy Borum, Pg. 04
[4] Centre for the Prevention of Radicalization Leading to Violence (CPRLV), “Radicalization”, pg., 01 https://info-radical.org/en/definition-2/#
[5] Ibid, pg. 02
[6] Fernando Reinares, “Radicalization Processes Leading to Acts of Terrorism”, (European Commission's Expert Group on Violent Radicalization May 2008), pg. 08
[7] Ibid, pg. 09
[8] Kris Christman, “ preventing religious radicalization and violent extremism”, (Youth Justice Board, 2006), pg. 30
[9] Kanchan Lakshman,“ISLAMIST RADICALIZATION AND DEVELOPMENTAL AID IN SOUTH ASIA”, (Danish Institute for International Studies, 2006), pg 18, url : https://www.jstor.com/stable/resrep13390
[10] Ibid., pg. 23