When Indira Gandhi imposed Emergency in 1975, she banned the Jamat-e-Islami Hind and the RSS to maintain communal balance. Jamat leaders and activists were jailed across the country. Many Jamat activists were poor; many the sole breadwinner. The Jamat had a considerable presence in Aligarh Muslim University. It also had a small but active student wing, whose activities were confined to the university campus. On hearing of the plight of Jamat members, the student wing decided to help them secretly. It was this decision that could really be seen as the beginning of what would later be formalised as the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI). I heard about SIMI when I was a student at Jameatul Falah, Belaria Ganj, Azamgarh, a prominent religious seminary. The madrassa was unique in the emphasis it placed on or commentary on the Holy Quran. Its students were encouraged to master classical Arabic, especially that of the pre-Islamic period. This pursuit was considered essential in order to fully grasp the literary excellence and intellectual depth of the Holy Quran. Familiarity with word roots was thought invaluable to explain concepts. A good example is the word 'Allah', the name of God in Islam. Most Muslims define Allah to mean the 'being' they worship. But Jameatul Falah insisted on its students knowing the word root, which is and means to move to someone with love and affection. Therefore, Allah can be both subject and object. He is the one who reaches out with unbounded compassion. He is the 'being' to whom men go with love and supplication. So too the word, which is derived from a root that means 'to take a thirsty man or animal to the source of water in a desert'. Islamic, therefore, is the law that guides mankind to the right path in the wilderness that is the world. This was how Falah helped us understand and apply Islam to life. It was at this point that SIMI's message reached us, the young at a Muslim religious school. It helped that SIMI's torchbearers were men who had helped the needy during the dark days of the Emergency. SIMI's message appealed to me and many others. I was at the Aligarh conference where SIMI was founded. There were about 250 delegates from across India. Among the foreign delegates was Anwar Ibrahim, then president of a Malaysian students' organisation known by its acronym, Abim. Today, Ibrahim, Malaysia's former deputy prime minster, is the main opposition leader. In SIMI's early phase, we were a group of enthusiastic, sincere, honest people, prepared to sacrifice all we had, and much that we did not. We were required to be model students and exemplary enough to draw others into our way of life. There was no coercion. Our way was to impress others by good moral character and academic excellence. Every SIMI member was required to maintain a self-appraisal diary. It was meant to help character-building. One of the diary's unique features was the encouragement it offered to spending in the way of Allah . But that was then. My formal association with SIMI ended when I left to study in England in 1985. Nevertheless, I continued to monitor its progress. It is safe to say it has changed. In the early days, SIMI had a near-perfect system of internal democracy, which ensured exhaustive discussion before decisions were made. This meant moderate views ultimately prevailed over the extreme. So too SIMI's early adherence to the ideas of Sayyid Abul Aala Maududi, a scholar-activist who fought for democracy. Maudidi did not believe in violent change. He had a 'hearts-and-minds' approach. Under Maudidi's influence, the Jamat ul-Islami remained a cadre-based organisation with limited mass appeal. But when Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini brought about the Islamic Revolution, SIMI began to ask if it needed to continue its peaceful evangelism or approach the masses directly. At the time, the consensus was it remain committed to Maududi's ideology and methodology and yet strive to approach the masses directly. Soon after, SIMI began a phase of public-protest with processions on issues of the day. This annoyed the Jamat leadership. It became a major issue in the early and mid-1980s. Jamat demanded that SIMI become its official students' wing. But SIMI resolved to remain independent, after long deliberations in Vijaywada in 1982. And yet, it wanted to remain closely associated with the Jamat. The Jamat was not keen and reacted by setting up its own youth wing, the Students Islamic Organisation (SIO). Despite the separation, the Jamat leadership remained in close touch with SIMI, providing it intellectual and religious training and leadership. But this arrangement broke down in the 1990s. Jamat leaders stopped attending SIMI events. Thus ended the sobering influence exercised by the Jamat on SIMI. It paved the way for SIMI's gradual radicalisation.
After the Babri Masjid demolition, SIMI was confronted with an ideological and methodological dilemma. It became more of a radical national party that tried to take an interest in issues relating to Muslims across India rather than the student segment in one fragment of the north. And yet, the important reality was that SIMI's radicalism still remained verbal. It spoke of but did not start or sustain an armed struggle. All through the 1990s, the SIMI leadership seemed divided between radicals and moderates. Take it from this insider that as late as 2001, when SIMI was banned, moderates were in the majority. But, even this small radicalism on SIMI's part made its retired leaders and members unhappy. In the mid-1990s, they decided they needed to exercise their influence to keep SIMI moderate. Their efforts went a long way towards strengthening the moderate element but failed to contain the tiny group of radicals. The extremism of this tiny group remained ideological. The Congress government, it would appear, ignored SIMI's radicalism as a fringe nuisance. While it is not clear if this was part of a well-thought-out plan or an ad-hoc, knee-jerk measure, it prevented SIMI's drift towards violence. When the BJP came to power in the late 1990s, it began to take note of SIMI's radicalism. Between 1999 and 2001, cases were filed against SIMI leaders for delivering inflammatory speeches and disturbing communal harmony. Some of these were patently false charges. The BJP government proscribed SIMI in September 2001 under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and put its activists behind bars. Almost everyone arrested were out of jail soon enough. Some were out on bail, others acquitted. Many of the trials bordered on mockery. This must have swelled the ranks of SIMI radicals. In jail, many were brutally tortured. I have seen signs of torture on their bodies. It must be noted that before the ban, no SIMI activist was ever charged with violence or terrorism. It was only after the ban that cases began to be slapped against them. It should also be noted that moderates ceased their association with SIMI after it was banned. The radicals went underground. They are the ones now alleged to be engaged in terrorist activities. The ban on SIMI only served to accelerate its drift towards extremism. A banned and underground SIMI is dangerous. The possibility of it going the way of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida is real. Had SIMI been allowed to operate overground, extremists may have been contained or neutralised. But with general elections around the corner, our political class cannot be expected to rise above "ban politics". And yet, democratic freedom may be a better leveller than the politics of proscription.
After the Babri Masjid demolition, SIMI was confronted with an ideological and methodological dilemma. It became more of a radical national party that tried to take an interest in issues relating to Muslims across India rather than the student segment in one fragment of the north. And yet, the important reality was that SIMI's radicalism still remained verbal. It spoke of but did not start or sustain an armed struggle. All through the 1990s, the SIMI leadership seemed divided between radicals and moderates. Take it from this insider that as late as 2001, when SIMI was banned, moderates were in the majority. But, even this small radicalism on SIMI's part made its retired leaders and members unhappy. In the mid-1990s, they decided they needed to exercise their influence to keep SIMI moderate. Their efforts went a long way towards strengthening the moderate element but failed to contain the tiny group of radicals. The extremism of this tiny group remained ideological. The Congress government, it would appear, ignored SIMI's radicalism as a fringe nuisance. While it is not clear if this was part of a well-thought-out plan or an ad-hoc, knee-jerk measure, it prevented SIMI's drift towards violence. When the BJP came to power in the late 1990s, it began to take note of SIMI's radicalism. Between 1999 and 2001, cases were filed against SIMI leaders for delivering inflammatory speeches and disturbing communal harmony. Some of these were patently false charges. The BJP government proscribed SIMI in September 2001 under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and put its activists behind bars. Almost everyone arrested were out of jail soon enough. Some were out on bail, others acquitted. Many of the trials bordered on mockery. This must have swelled the ranks of SIMI radicals. In jail, many were brutally tortured. I have seen signs of torture on their bodies. It must be noted that before the ban, no SIMI activist was ever charged with violence or terrorism. It was only after the ban that cases began to be slapped against them. It should also be noted that moderates ceased their association with SIMI after it was banned. The radicals went underground. They are the ones now alleged to be engaged in terrorist activities. The ban on SIMI only served to accelerate its drift towards extremism. A banned and underground SIMI is dangerous. The possibility of it going the way of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida is real. Had SIMI been allowed to operate overground, extremists may have been contained or neutralised. But with general elections around the corner, our political class cannot be expected to rise above "ban politics". And yet, democratic freedom may be a better leveller than the politics of proscription.
(This article published in TIMES OF INDIA on 28 Sep 2008, 0443 hrs IST)
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