Its threat will continue and even increase due to external support from the State of Pakistan as well as from the Islamic fundamentalist organisations of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia. The old Communist international has been replaced by an Islamic International, consisting of various Islamic fundamentalist organisations with roots in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Their objective vis-à-vis India: To "liberate" the Muslims of not only Kashmir, but also the rest of India from "Hindu control". They talk of two more independent homelands for the Muslims of the sub-continent--one in North India and the other in the South.

The need for a coherent policy to counter Pakistan's covert war.

While the present Government talks of a proactive strategy, it doesn't seem to be clear in its mind about the components of this strategy. Amongst the components should be: a determination not to let Pakistan come out of its economic morass till it stops its covert war; a readiness to hurt the Pakistani State and society at a place of our choice in terrain favourable to us. In Kashmir, the terrain is not favourable to us except in the Jammu sector. To really hurt Pakistan, we have to direct our proactive strategy at its Punjab and Sindh, and particularly at Karachi. While India has a credible nuclear deterrent, it does not have a credible covert warfare deterrent, whereas Pakistan has developed its covert warfare capability over a period of nearly 20 years, with American assistance in the 1980s.

Pakistan-based Islamic fundamentalist organisations have been increasingly turning their attention to South India. After Tamil Nadu and Kerala, they are now focussing on Andhra Pradesh. There has never been a convincing analysis of why Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) has been flirting with the LTTE, despite the latter's anti-Muslim activities in Sri Lanka's Eastern Province. One possibility, not yet proved, but suggested by foreign counter-terrorism experts in the past is that in return for the ISI's assistance, the LTTE, through its supporters in Tamil Nadu, has been training the cadres of the Al Ummah and other jihadi organisations of South India and providing them with material assistance.

We need a separate strategy to deal with threats from the foreign-based Islamic jihadi organisations. Such a strategy should tackle prevention of illegal migrations of Muslims from Bangladesh and Pakistan, identification and deportation of past illegal migrants, the flow of foreign funds for mosques and madrasas, the scrutiny of the credentials of foreign Muslim students who are admitted to educational institutions in India etc. In the past, even counter-terrorism experts of Islamic countries such as Algeria and Egypt had expressed surprise over the ease with which students black-listed in their countries because of their association with extremist organizations managed to get admission to educational institutions in India.

rest of the article is at http://www.saag.org/notes/note70.html

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