To put into context the nexus that could pose a threat to Pakistan, it may be useful to go back a decade. When Bharatiya Janata Party Chief, Mr. L. K. Advani visited Washington D.C. in January 1992, he addressed a gathering of local Indians where he was glowingly introduced by the then Deputy Chief of the Indian Embassy, Lalit Man Singh.
The gathering was notable for being ‘turbanless’, meaning that no Sikh was in attendance, further underlining the growing reassertion of Hindu nationalism.
Advani, in fluent English, made abundantly clear that foremost on the agenda of his party would be the fostering of goodwill with Israel. The suave Advani, a lawyer/journalist, is a Sindhi Hindu and an ex-old boy from St. Patrick’s School, Karachi.
To thunderous applause, Advani advocated the weaponization of India’s nuclear program and a crackdown on the Kashmir resistance. He said all in India (which he meant to include all Muslims) should assimilate with the Hindu personality of India and accept its attendant gods, Ram et al. The demolition of the Babri Masjid in December 1992, to be supplanted by a Ram Janabhoomi temple, was one indicator of India’s future direction.
In January 1993, the Carnegie Endowment, based in Washington, DC, released a report on US policy and South Asia, which listed ‘Islamic fundamentalism’ as a common threat to India, Israel and the West.
An article in the Asian Survey journal at Berkeley documented the extent and scope of the Indo-Israeli nexus. It revealed that, during both the 1965 and 1971 Indo-Pak Wars, Israel provided significant military aid to India. Reportedly, Benjamin Netanyahu, as an upcoming politician in 1992, had noted Israel’s expertise in dealing with ‘terrorism’ and publicly indicated that it would be happy to share its expertise with India. In both India and Israel, there is a popular reservoir of ill will towards Islam and a similar threat perception. They are not against Islam, they say, but only against those who exploit Islam for political purposes. In his address before a joint session of US Congress in July 1996, then Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu said that Israel has no quarrel with Islam but only with those who are militant and fanatic in espousal of their faith.
Markers continue to crop up which indirectly validate the two-nation theory underpinning Muslim nationhood - the very genesis of Pakistan.
Full marks to M.A. Jinnah for seeing the crystal ball well ahead of his time and in carrying the banner of Muslim nationhood to the shores of Pakistan.
The fate of Muslims in India and in held-Kashmir provides corroborative testimony to the Quaid’s vision and wisdom. Sikhs in India today bemoan the lack of an equivalent visionary in their midst. Arab elites during the drive in the 30’s and 40’s to create a Jewish state lacked a Jinnah who could have forecast and forestalled British duplicity and Arab quislings.
During the early 90’s, Bosnian Muslim elites, busy on polishing their liberal, secular, democratic, pluralistic, and European credentials before the West, could not prevent Holocaust-II from unfolding. A better grip on the nascent power and appeal of Muslim nationhood and knowing their own bloodline and paternity (already well-identified by the Serbs and Croats) might have enabled them to anticipate the moves and ruses of the other side.
Today, Israel and India have few illusions about the potential power of Muslim nationhood and the pitfalls it may represent to their interests.
As always, it is the lack of self-belief and of the strength readily available within, which represents the greatest threat to the international Muslim community.
