President of Patriots Forum, D.C. Nath was superannuated in January, 1995, as the Special Director, Intelligence Bureau, D.C. Nath (IPS-1960) was associated with the International Institute of Security and Safety Management (IISSM), headquartered in New Delhi, for over 14 years, first as the Executive President & CEO and then as the President & Director General, between February, 1997 and March, 2011. The author of a highly acclaimed book, Intelligence Imperatives for India, Mr. Nath earned high plaudits from all around for two of his very significant presentations on: “Revisiting the Future of India” (2005, London) and “Lessons from India for the War On Terrorism” (2007, USA). He is the only one in the field, combining the experiences of a police officer with specialization in intelligence and strategic analysis and an industrial security expert par excellence. More Bio on D. C. Nath…
News Research & Analysis Files-
When Madrasa Challenges State << News analysis file 1
OPINION>>>>
February 16, 2015
Dear Friends,
Subject: Madrassas And Terrorism—Inextricably Connected
Let us straightaway get into the basics. Khaled Ahmed, the well-known columnist, and currently the consulting editor in “Newsweek Pakistan, and is generally heard with respect. He has written,” The Nawaz Sharif says madrassas are sacrosanct and will not be investigated, but a growing body of facts says madrassa are involved in terrorism through the training of killers and apostatizing (takfir) of the Shia community. The relevant write-up, “When Madrassa Challenges State”, appearing in “The Indian Express” of February 14, 2015, is attached and worth reading more than once.
Many eminent scholars hold the clear view that the madrassas today play a dual role. Many of these institutes have literally become “terrorist-producing centres” and are also imparting training to suicide-bombers. The Burdwan incident of October 2, 2014, has proved this to the hilt.
Giving some figures, Khalid writes “There are more than 25,000 officially accepted madrasas in Pakistan — they may be double that number — not all of them registered with the government. According to one source, Balochistan alone has 10,000 madrasas! The big killers that Pakistan wants to catch and hang belonged to these madrasas at one time or another.”
Khaled Ahmed further asserts, “Many terrorist organisations now banned by Pakistan were born in madrasas. Jaish-e-Muhammad was founded by a graduate of madrasa Jamia Banuria of Karachi, Maulana Masood Azhar, the same man who was caught in India but was “exchanged” for a hijacked Indian airliner.”
His projection is clear:
“Nobody ever thought that madrasas in Pakistan would become powerful enough to challenge the state itself. In 2015, they have become the most powerful civil society element capable of challenging the state to self-correction. The ideology of Pakistan has finally wrenched the “monopoly of violence” from the state and established the clergy as the arbiter of state behaviour. Lawyers, military personnel, doctors, teachers serving in the state sector, journalists and the unemployed, supplement the power of the seminarian boys, who form the frontline against the state without knowing it.”
So, he observes, “Pakistan’s plan to tackle terrorism will fail if it refuses to bring madrassas under the scanner. “The state today is too weak to enforce the Action Plan against terrorism. Like the Middle East, it is no longer able to undo the textbook biases drilled into the common man’s mind. Education is heavily tilted in favour of irrational conduct. Spending on education — the Islamic world neglects education, from Pakistan to Algeria — is of no use unless the state ideology is changed.”
Well, Friends, what the author has said about Pakistan is, in many respects, applicable pretty much to India also, as has already been proved in the Burdwan case. Our learned readers/viewers will, in this context, recall the Muslim leaders/Imams in India have all along refused to accept governments’ aid for modernisation of the madrassas on the spacious ground that the proposed government aid would mean or lead to interference into the internal affairs of the madrassas. It would not call for much intelligence to infer what could be the real reason for such secrecy in the affairs of the madrassas.
Even at the cost of incurring the displeasure of the Muslim leaders, the government of India will do well what Khaled Ahmed has said about Pakistan. What in this case is good for Pakistan is good for India also. It is a good advice “to bring the madrassas under the scanner”. From what we have so far seen as the fall-out of the emergence of the ISIS on the Indian Muslims, more “Burdawans” are awaiting to be unearthed in other parts of India, especially in the Southern States of Kerala, Tamilnadu and the just-formed State of Telengana (Owaisi brothers leading the way).
Vandemataram,
Your sevak,
D.C. Nath
(Former Spl. Director, IB)
(President, Patriots’ Forum)
Source: Patriot Forum
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