PrintJanuary 3, 2008
The Other Jihad: Islam's War on the Hindus
The Art of War on Terror: Triumphing over Political Islam and the Axis of JihadBy Moorthy MuthuswamyPaperback, 2007236 pp., $21.95.
Pakistan and its nuclear arsenal catastrophically may fall into the hands of jihadists. But the South Asian version of jihad is a less familiar but no less fearsome variant of the war directed at the Great Satan America, and the Little Satan, Israel.
At one billion people, Hindus, the majority of whom live in the Indian sub-continent, constitute the third largest religion in the world after two billion Christians and 1.5 billion Muslims. Yet, their numbers have not spared Hindus from ongoing, systematic Muslim attacks in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
Indeed, the jihad against India's non-Muslims has accelerated within the last few decades. The Indian government and international human rights organizations have done little to address human rights violations and have stood idle despite constant attacks on Hindus. Meanwhile, the media rarely mentions the desecration of Hindu religious sites and the constant intimidation of Hindus. While special concessions have been granted for Muslims in India, the governments of Pakistan and Bangladesh have long supported a policy, based on Islamic law, of religious discrimination against non-believers. Hindus in Pakistan and Bangladesh are unable to obtain positions of power, have great difficulty procuring business loans, are subjected to spurious blasphemy claims for defaming the prophet Mohammed and are specifically identified as non-Muslims on their passports.
In his recent book, The Art of War on Terror: Triumphing over Political Islam and the Axis of Jihad, Moorthy Muthuswamy explores this little-known and vastly under-reported Muslim campaign against Hindus. Muthuswamy addresses the methodology and ideological basis of political Islam, illuminates the 60-year history of jihad in India, specifies the roles played by the countries he identifies as being part of the "axis of jihad," and sets forth potential solutions to the jihadist threat.
The roots of this jihad on the Indian sub-continent began in 1947, when the British departed South Asia and granted independence to the sovereign states of India and Pakistan. India chose to establish a secular democracy and a legal system based on English Common and Statutory Law. Pakistan, however, was founded under the leadership of the Muslim League, later renamed the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, and based its governance on Islamic law. At the time, the Hindu minority in West Pakistan constituted 29% of the new nation's population and 23% of the population of West Pakistan. But, by the start of the India-Pakistan War of 1971, some 2.5 million Hindu citizens of Pakistan had been massacred. Soon thereafter, when East Pakistan was established as the People's Republic of Bangladesh, 10 million Hindu refugees fled to India.
In the summary of a 1971 report to a U.S. Senate judiciary committee investigating the problem of refugees and settlement in South Asia, U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy wrote of the situation,
"Field reports to the U.S. Government, countless eye-witness journalistic accounts, reports of International agencies such as World Bank and additional information available to the subcommittee document the reign of terror which grips East Bengal (East Pakistan). Hardest hit have been members of the Hindu community who have been robbed of their lands and shops, systematically slaughtered, and in some places, painted with yellow patches marked ‘H.' All of this has been officially sanctioned, ordered and implemented under martial law from Islamabad."[1]
On April 23, 1977, Bangladesh amended its constitution, renounced secularism and dedicated itself to Islamic solidarity. In 1988, Islam became the state religion and sharia the law of the land. Meanwhile, an insurgency by Muslims of almost 20 years duration in the Indian Kashmir Valley is part of an ongoing attempt to Islamicize the region and expand Pakistan by incorporating the valley. Toward that end, Muslims have expelled 350,000 Kashmiri Hindus and have murdered, raped and kidnapped them.
In his book, Muthuswamy explains how Islamic religious beliefs and systems function to fuel and, even demand, constant efforts to annihilate all non-Muslim populations. The mosques and madrassas form the power base and central pillar of Islamic life, regulating, influencing and shaping daily Islamic existence. Total control is achieved by blocking progress and wealth creation and enforcing the dictates of the Islamic trilogy: the Koran, Hadith and the Sira. Muslim clerics renounce modern education and exclusively endorse Koranic study and the "noble" pursuit of jihad. The result is a populace kept ignorant, unworldly, impoverished and easily indoctrinated. This engenders dependence on religious leadership and Islamic organizations for subsistence services. It also makes Muslims susceptible to manipulation and fosters feelings of victimization and resentment, which are skillfully directed toward non-believers.
Islamic doctrine also plays a central role in the promulgation and advancement of a comprehensive political ideology that requires religious war and establishes the objective of achieving a worldwide Islamic caliphate under Islamic law, Muthuswamy writes. This ideology is based on the Islamic trilogy, scripture that is immutable and contains the word of Allah (Koran), the biography of Mohammed (Sira) and the rules governing life or the traditions of Mohammed (Hadith). The concept of the Golden Rule, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," a prominent belief in most religions, is absent in Islam, as is the notion of a "human being." The Muslim world is simply divided into "believers" and "non-believers." The closest parallel to the Golden Rule is a prohibition against cheating, lying or killing other Muslims. However, such behavior is permissible against non-believers because it is accepted as necessary to conquer the Dar-al-Harb, the infidel world of war, in pursuit of the Dar-al-Islam, the world of Islam.
Muthuswamy cites research on the Koran, conducted by the Center for Political Islam, which illustrates the Islamic focus on conformist behavior and beliefs. According to the Center's analysis of the Koran, the Sira, and the Hadith, only 17% of the Islamic trilogy deals with the words of Allah. The remaining 83% refers to the words and deeds of Mohammed. Of all of the references to "hell" in the trilogy, 6% are for moral failings, while 94% are for the transgression of disagreeing with Mohammed. Statistical analysis of the trilogy revealed that 97% of references to "jihad" relate to war and a mere 3% to the concept of "inner struggle." [2]
It is instructive that in India, a non-white, non-Christian developing nation with a secular democracy, no moderate or reformed Islam exists. In India, the self-inflicted problems of Moslem society are projected onto non-Muslim "oppressors" in the very same way that Arab Palestinians focus their efforts on jihad rather than economic development and education and blame Israel for their own failures. Thus, for the last six decades, India's history has been characterized by the ethnic cleansing of non-Muslims, frequent terrorist attacks, special concessions to Muslims and a tolerated bias against Hindus.
Muslims in India wield considerable power as they exploit their self-imposed, victim status and demand special privileges under threats of uncontrollable violence. In South India, Muslims have extracted set asides in education and employment, based on a government study that found they didn't meet job and education expectations. Legislation to help fight escalating terrorism, the Prevention of Terrorism Act of 2002, was rescinded in 2006 following pressure by Muslims who deemed it anti-Muslim. Recently, in Kashmir, the Indian constitution and Indian law was withdrawn and sharia law established as the law of the land. Muslims typically claim they are victims while, at the same time victimizing Indian non-Muslims with terrorist acts. Such claims by Indian Muslims are similar to charges of apartheid against Israel for its erecting of a security fence and checkpoints to prevent Islamic suicide bombers from infiltrating the country. Muslims achieve political power by attaining majority status demographically; demanding special compensation, laws and conditions; and driving out non-Muslims.
The long-festering situation in India argues powerfully for the case that no possibility of coexistence with Islam exists and containment is not viable. Muslim conquest is scripturally driven and Islam's frontiers have been extended by gradually overtaking the land of non-believers and ethnically cleansing their territory. Unbeliever genocide has gradually swept through Pakistan, Bangladesh and parts of India. Muslim population growth is 1.5 times that of non-Muslims and physical threats and political correctness conspire to further the Muslim takeover.
Little hope exists for the reformation of Islam in the same way that religious reform is traditionally carried out: by religious institutions accompanied with the lessening influence of clergy. Currently, Islam is becoming more regressive, sharia courts and Wahhabism are spreading, and no tradition of tolerance for other religions has been established. No moderate or alternative versions of the religion are being offered because such alternative mosques would be threatened and would suffer from a lack of funding. The Islamic focus on indoctrination, high population growth, fomenting of insurgencies, and infiltration is part of the global jihad, a full-on religious war against infidel nations and an attempted land conquest.
Muthuswamy advances the notion that America's focus on the axis of evil has been misguided and that the United States must turn its attention instead to the axis of jihad: Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Iran. He writes that both Saudi Arabia and Pakistan formally recognized the Taliban government. Saudi oil money has funded the growth of fanaticism worldwide and the Saudis have infectiously spread Wahhabism through mosques and madrassas across the globe and franchised the training of radical imams. The Saudis have also funded the worldwide terrorist group, Jamaat-e-Islami, the majority party in Pakistan and a major political force in Bangladesh. Both Saudi Arabia and Iran have financed terrorist training camps, and Riyadh has helped set up terror bases for jihad in India and aided the Islamic siege of Turkey. Money from Saudi Arabia and Iran funds mosques, schools, and social and jihad networks in Muslim communities, including powerful terrorist proxies such as Al Qaeda, Hezbollah and the Taliban.
The United States is hampered by its belief in Islam as a conventional faith and not a political ideology, Muthuswamy writes. This belief mistakenly frames the situation as a freedom-of-religion issue, he says. The author feels that America is weakened by its strong religious outlook and needs to refocus its priorities on scientific and technological development. "Information-based societies," such as China and India, have an advantage over theologically-based ones, Muthuswamy says. He adds that religion restricts effective functioning in the modern world and needs to be supplanted by common sense and science.
In a final "Policy Response" section of his book, Muthuswamy suggests a multi-pronged plan of action for America. He advocates the potential weakening of political Islam through the discrediting of its theological foundation and manufactured Muslim grievances. He recommends a change in focus away from individual terrorist groups and the axis of evil to the axis of jihad, even to the point of formally charging Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Iran with crimes against humanity. Muthuswamy further contends that the strengthening of India, as well as a coalition between India and Israel, could act as a counterforce to political Islam and the axis of jihad. Recognizing the physical threat of the global jihad, he acknowledges the necessity of developing a comprehensive allied nuclear retaliatory strategy to fight jihadist nations.
[1] "Crisis of South Asia" report by Senator Edward Kennedy to the Subcommittee investigating the Problem of Refugees and Their Settlement, Submitted to U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, November 1, 1971, U.S. Govt. Press, pp.66.
[2] William Warner, "The Study of Political Islam," FrontPage Magazine, February 5, 2007, .
