Sunday Times 2
Why did Daeish target Sri Lanka?
The landslide victory of Narendra Modi at the Lok Sabha elections has resulted in the creation of an Indian politician with political power as no other Indian politician had since Independence — not even Jawaharlal Nehru — is the consensus of Indian political analysts.
Newly sworn-in Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi gestures after taking the oath of office as India's Prime Minister at the President house in New Delhi on Thursday. AFP.
Modi’s sophisticated election strategy involved the focus of the campaign being on his macho image and his talents– real and imaginary — combined with Hindutva ideology and all that appealed to the Hindu majority. The high pressure campaign conducted by Modi resulted in the people’s only option being Modi not even his party, the BJP. To some it was the ‘Modi Magic’.
Those not so enamoured say ‘Modi Magic’ was plain and simple: Hindutva.
Hindutva is the rope that the young tea boy at a railway station in Gujarat climbed right up to the highest echelons of Indian politics. On joining the RSS (Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh), he rose in the ranks of the Hindu fundamentalist organisation to become a Gujrat politician, Chief Minister of Gujarat, Prime Minister in 2014 and being re-elected prime minister last month winning a stunning 303 of the 540 seats in the Lok Sabha.
Strongman Modi emerges much stronger than what he was as prime minister for the previous five years. His critics and opponents now worry whether he will succumb to the temptations of power, particularly in his second term, like most strongmen do.
‘Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely’ is now an accepted axiom in politics. Worse, absolute power makes politicians go crazy. They find constitutional limitations bothersome, past traditions and conventions irksome, and turn hostile to the time-honoured institutions that provide checks and balances protecting the rights of the people. They reach a stage where truth does not matter anymore. Facts against them become ‘fake news’.
Modi will be facing innumerable challenges which the country of such magnitude and diversity has been confronted with in its 72 years after Independence. But in his second term as prime minister, he is facing a new challenge from beyond India’s boundaries: ISIS also called Daeish (in Arabic). Although known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Also known as the Islamic States of Iraq and Syria), American and Western fire power together with their allies in the Middle East have driven Daesh out of the large swathes of land and cities they had seized in lightning sweeps.
Deprived of their traditional lands, Daeish may be eyeing South and South East Asia as its next ‘Caliphate’ because this region though it is not their traditional home ground, has the largest gathering of Muslims in the world .
Pakistan is the second largest Muslim country with 11 percent of the world’s Muslim population numbering 204 million, while India is the third biggest with 10.9 percent numbering 189 million. Indonesia is the world’s largest Muslim country with 12.7 per cent of the world population numbering 227 million. Bangladesh has 148 million Muslims. Malaysia has 19 million Muslims while Thailand has three million of them.
Sri Lanka has a population around 2 million Muslims (9.7 percent of the total population of 21 million of all religions).
These statistics raise the obvious question: Why did Daesh target Sri Lanka with a relatively small Muslim population?
One reason may be that security in Pakistan, Bangladesh and India against ISIS infiltration is so tight that Sri Lanka could have been considered as an easier bridgehead to the Indian sub-continent. The other reason could be that Sri Lanka after a bitter 30-year-old war was relaxing and also there were a few fanatical extremists willing to carry out the carnage.
In this context, the observation made by a well-known former Indian diplomat on the strategic location of this island with regard to India’s security is relevant. Shivshankar Menon, former Indian High Commissioner in Colombo, Foreign Secretary and Security Adviser to the Indian government, in one of his recent books, refers to India’s despatch of its troops to Sri Lanka in 1986. In an interview with Indian Journalist Siddarthan Vardarajan, on his comments on Sri Lanka, he says that viewing the problem at that time, strategically, Sri Lanka was seen as an ‘unsinkable aircraft carrier 14 miles off the Indian coast’.
Whether ISIS Caliph Abu Bakr al-Bagdadi, now sans his caliphate in the Middle East, saw SriLanka as a launching pad into the Indian sub-continent — as the Indian diplomat envisaged — is a matter for speculation. But recent outbreaks of violence by Islamic extremists in other Asian countries have been reported — though not on the horrendous scale as in Sri Lanka — from Indonesia, immediately after the election victory of President Joko Widodo and even in Southern Thailand last week.
Preventing Islamic terrorists trained by Pakistani terrorist groups — as Modi alleges– infiltrating India’s Northern borders has been a tremendous security challenge for Narendra Modi, although it undeniably contributes to his Hindutva ideology gaining credibility among the vast majority of the Hindu masses. It, no doubt, made the Modi magic work at the election, except in the Southern states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu. But his refusing to have a dialogue with Pakistan, meet prime minister Imran Khan, and the shabby treatment accorded to Indian Muslims add on to the anti-Modi Muslim constituency that has hitherto not been moved by fanatics. Modi has to beware of the prospect of Indian Muslims — who have hitherto shunned Islamic extremism — reacting adversely to their treatment.
India’s relations with South Asian countries in the Modi reign will become increasingly more complicated as its regional rival China attempts to make its presence felt. It deprives India of any possible hegemonic attempts to impose its will as a regional power. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi quite clearly declared South Asia to be sphere of Indian influence when she alleged that powers beyond the region were attempting to play games in Sri Lanka. No power outside the region could have relations with countries within the region if India considers it inimical to her interests, she declared unilaterally.
Geopolitics within the region has turned topsy turvy within the past four decades, with India which had strongly opposed the United States in the eighties now having close diplomatic, economic and defence relations. India is being considered a countervailing force to China’s influence in the Pacific and Indian Ocean regions.
How Narendra Modi, who is said to be blessed with ‘Chakravarti powers’ at the commencement of his second term, will perform is being watched with anxiety not only by Indians but others in South Asia as well.