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India: The Islamization of the Northeast
April 20, 2007 21 08 GMT

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Summary

India's insurgent-ridden northeastern region has long given foreign powers a gamut of exploitable secessionist movements to use to prevent India from emerging as a major global player. Though India has grown accustomed to the ongoing volatility in its northeastern corridor, growing Islamization in the region -- spurred by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency and instability in neighboring Bangladesh -- will give New Delhi a good reason to pay closer attention to its porous northeastern border.




Analysis

Northeastern India is a region wracked by secessionist violence, where wide networks of drug smuggling, extortion and arms trafficking run rampant. India has traditionally dealt with the myriad secessionist movements through force, fearing that any concessions made to one group would only exacerbate the others' secessionist tendencies and further undermine the country's territorial integrity.

The balkanization of the region and the constant drain on Indian resources required to deal with these rebel movements was all part of the United Kingdom's blueprint for the Indian subcontinent to prevent its former colony from developing a strong national identity and emerging as a major Asiatic power. Up until the partition in 1947, the British played a major role in encouraging tribal, ethnic, religious and linguistic identities, and in isolating various tribal groups from the mainland and the plains areas in Assam for the British East India Co. to secure its commercial enterprise.


Pakistan did not hesitate to jump in where the British left off in the post-partition period, and has since used its Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency to fund, train and arm these rebel groups in order to keep India's hands tied. The largest and most powerful of the northeast secessionist movements is the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA). Once a student movement with populist aims to redistribute the state's oil wealth, ULFA has gradually changed into what appears to be a moneymaking machine with a strong willingness to do the ISI's bidding. ULFA runs an impressive extortion racket in the northeast, where Assam's tea plantation owners and corporate leaders are regularly targeted.

The group maintains that its armed campaign will not let up until the Indian government engages it in unconditional peace talks. Yet, when New Delhi makes such an offer, ULFA usually responds with a bombing, as was the case in the April 9 bomb attack near Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's motorcade in the Assamese capital of Guwahati. ULFA's leadership understands that New Delhi is not about to reward the armed movement with political concessions, and does not wish to disturb the financial networks it has running throughout the region. Moreover, to preserve their militant proxy, the group's handlers in both Pakistan's and Bangladesh's intelligence services have told ULFA not to hold peace talks with the Indian government.

Pakistan's ISI, in cooperation with Bangladesh's Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI), appears to be investing a considerable amount of resources in solidifying India's militant corridor. There are growing indications that these two agencies are working clandestinely in Bangladesh to bring all the northeast-based insurgent outfits and jihadist elements under one umbrella. The ISI has facilitated cooperation between ULFA and other northeastern militant outfits with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in Sri Lanka, Islamist militant groups in Kashmir, Islamist groups in Bangladesh and a growing number of al Qaeda-linked jihadist groups operating in the region.

Religion, ethnicity and ideology lose relevance within this militant network, as each group has a common interest in furthering their militant and financial capabilities by working together. For example, Tigers cadres organize training camps in the northeast and use their maritime contacts to assist ULFA in transporting arms and narcotics up to Cambodia in ULFA-owned shrimp trawlers that operate out of Bangladesh's Chittagong port. The Tigers have also been known to train Maoist rebels in Nepal and India at camps in the jungles of India's eastern state of Bihar.

ULFA's growing links with Bangladeshi Islamists and jihadist elements in the area are increasingly coming to light. The April 9 attack timed with Singh's visit to Assam marked the group's first-ever suicide bombing, a tactic that was pioneered by the Tigers (a non-Islamist, majority Hindu group) and has been frequently employed by Islamist militants. Prior to the attack, ULFA chairman Arabinda Rajkhowa warned that New Delhi's offer for unconditional peace talks was not acceptable, and that that ULFA cadres "have reached such a stage they would strap bombs on their chest and attack." ULFA's adoption of suicide bombing looks to be the result of the group's increased Islamization caused by collusion with Islamist outfits in the region. The bomber in the April 9 suicide attack was Ainul Ali, a Muslim. Indian security sources revealed that ULFA did not have many Muslim cadres in its fold in the past, but the increasing flow of Bangladeshi refugees across the border has given the group more -- and more capable -- members willing to sacrifice their lives for the group's cause with nudging from the ISI.

Collaboration between ULFA and the Islamist militants will expand further, as political conditions in Bangladesh appear to be indirectly contributing to the empowerment of Islamists there. Using the Pakistani military regime as an example, Bangladeshi army chief Lt. Gen. Moeen U. Ahmed is reasserting the army's role in Bangladeshi politics -- which have long suffered from a bitter political feud between the family dynasties represented by the Awami League, led by Sheikh Hasina, and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, led by Begum Khaleda Zia. With both party leaders driven into exile, a political vacuum has started to take root in the country, and Bangladesh's Islamist parties are anxiously waiting to fill it.

India will be taking note of these political developments in Dhaka, though there is not much New Delhi can or wants to do to intervene. As a result, New Delhi is facing a bleak situation in which the ISI's maneuvers and Bangladesh's political troubles are sure to further constrain India's ability to dig itself out of the militant trap Pakistan has set.

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Ray sir, what's your view about this?

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Hasta la Victoria siempre!

Ray

The Baptist Mission will be a good bulwark to Islam!

The sad part is that our Bishop, Samuel Raj, is too corrupt to wake up to the issue!

So, I leave it to the Americans!

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"Some have learnt many Tricks of sly Evasion, Instead of Truth they use Equivocation, And eke it out with mental Reservation, Which is to good Men an Abomination."

I don't have to attend every argument I'm invited to.

HAKUNA MATATA

Tronic

It would've been better that India had a Christian invasion rather then an Islamic one...

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Nabha Sparasham Deeptam
-Touch The Sky With Glory

Akshay

I am getting seriously tired of this finger pointing at ISI all the time. Its not as if they arn't doing it. If only ISI could have its way, it would've broken India piece by piece. But, so do many others want to. Are we so damn fragile that we cannot even protect ourselves against an Intelligence agency(with budget worth peanuts) of a pathetic state which cannot feed its own people unless ration arrives from US?

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If at first you don't succeed, call it v1.0!

Tronic

easier said then done bro... ISI is strong, not because of their budget but because of their policies which use religion, ethnicity or any other divide as a tool of war. And as Ray sir once said, "you can kill people, but not an idea." ISI is strong because it exploits all these divides and uses it in its favour.

Akshay

It really is absurd to even think that a nation of 1 billion with a near trillion dollar economy is being held hostage by few arm-chair generals in Rawalpindi. How much money would it need to eliminate ISI network in Bangladesh? I seriously doubt if there is any strong people to people connection between Bangladesh & North-east. They do share more commonalities with Burma. In the absence of any strong bonding how do you suppose ISI would succeed in its plan. OK!!! I understand they are making an attempt but that is something they've been trying for last 60 years. If a much stronger China hasn't been successful in grabbing Sikkim & Tawang how do you suppose a puny Bangladesh & Pakistan would succeed? An idea would only spread if the head speaks. Cut the head & the idea dies along with the head.

Jay

Ill just pick what I know better.
ISI and LTTE?? thats the last thing the LTTE would want, co-operation with ISI, arch enemy of India. More over LTTE has publicly warned against Pakistani participation in the conflict by supplying arms to Lankan govt.
Pure wishful thinking...

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A grain of wheat eclipsed the sun of Adam !!

Jay

Hardly the case. So far most of their success is coz of the lax security on our part, not becoz they are strong and we are weak.

Archer

Look at South America and the North East itself, and you'll reconsider!

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Karmani Vyapurutham Dhanuhu

My bow is stretched for its task

Archer

LTTE has cooperated with the ISI in the past, on an adhoc basis. If tomorrow, the ISI comes to LTTE with the proposal, that Pak will stop its support to the Sri Lankan Govt if the LTTE shares resources with the ISI against India, do you think the LTTE wont give it serious thought?
Everyone looks for their own interests and the LTTE and India's interests dont converge!

Jay

I'm not sure Ive heard anything of that sort. But, I do know that there is a section of Indian intelligence who are dead against LTTE. AFAIK, politically and historically was always against ISI and my thots are based on that. Can you point to any open source material that says otherwise?

Akshay

Co-operating with ISI could see LTTE losing its popular support in Tamil Nadu.

joey

Are you sure you want that or thats not happening?

Tripura insurgency funding, to marxist connections rings any bell?


What My personal take is, These ISI et al can be stopped with genuine good policies from government cracking down like lion feeds on blood, Indian Muslims/Christians naturalised ones, are normally far more Indian than many pseudo-indians like Arundhuti Roy, you need to make sure foreign groups dont pollute their mind thats all.

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Tronic

Well, whoever is afraid of a Christian terrorist...? And besides on a serious note, atleast Christians as a whole tend to shun these terrorists! They have little support from urban Christians and at same time atleast the "Christian brotherhood" is solely humanitarian; well, for the most part.

667medic

LTTE have learnt a bitter lesson after the Rajiv Gandhi assasination fiasco.

Even recently, the LTTE agents who were apprehended by the Indian Navy were all well armed and could have either opposed the boarding of their boats or could have even consumed cyanide but they were under strict orders not to oppose any Indian personnel. This shows the enormous lengths to which the LTTE goes to not inflame Indian sentiments.

BTW the Sinhalese are setting up a Moslem Batallion to take on the LTTE.........

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