Daily Times

The jihadi element had been deeply embedded in the psyche of Indian Muslims, particularly those from the minority provinces who were more afraid of the brute Hindu majority than of the British rule. The Indian National Congress is not known to have ever launched a concerted movement against the British until the civil disobedience and Khilafat Movement (1920-1924) under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi.

Hindus, by and large, were the most loyal subjects of the British.

Muslims in the 18th to 19th centuries raised the flag of jihad under Shah Waliullah (1703-1762). He invited Afghan King Ahmed Shah Abdali in 1748 to invade India and rescue the Muslims from the Marhattas.

In the 19th century (1829), Sayyid Ahmad Barelvi and his colleague Shah Ismail embarked on a jihad against the Sikh rule in Muslim Punjab and the North-West Frontier. Travelling all the way to their destination, they were betrayed by the Pathans, fell in action and were buried in Balakot.

The uprising of 1857, popularly known as Ghadar, was the third in the series of anti-British wars waged by the Muslims. The mainspring of the 1857 episode too was Islamic jihad. As the mutineers rode roughshod from Meerut to Delhi, their war cry was “deen, deen” (religion, religion). Gathering under the ramparts of the Qila-e-Mu’alla (Grand Fort) they called the aged King Bahadur Shah Zafar and begged him to assume their supreme command.

Between 1857 and the first quarter of the 20th century, except for the Khilafat Movement (1922-1924), Muslim Indian remained practically in a state of limbo. Then came Mohammad Ali Jinnah in the mid-1930s to reignite the dead flame of liberation.

Within a space of barely five years (1935-1940) came the Lahore Resolution to lay down the foundation of Pakistan. From 1940 to 1947, there was an uphill struggle for the achievement of Pakistan. The Pakistan Movement was no less than an undeclared and undefined jihad, both against the British and the Hindu majority. Through its crucial closing stages was heard loud and clear the chant of “Pakistan ka matlab kiya? La illha illallah”. Thus the implementation of the Kalama-e-Tayyaba became the rallying slogan of the Pakistan Movement. Off to a start as a political (secular) movement, the Pakistan Movement acquired all the trappings of a jihad without a sword.

Less than two months after the emergence of Pakistan erupted the Kashmir war in the aftermath of the accession of the overwhelmingly Muslim state to India by its Hindu Raja Hari Singh.

The Hindu Raja’s fraudulent accession to India infuriated the fundamentalist frontier Pathan tribesmen and they drove off to Kashmir with whatever they had — Lee Enfield bolt action rifles, daggers, kitchen knives and what have you. They were the mujahideen, the Islamic warriors, to give the undeclared Kashmir war the label of jihad.

Now, what is jihadism? It is commitment to wage a just war in the name of Allah to rid the world of injustice and tyranny. The world, in this context, could be a country or a people, regardless of their size and numbers. As for the military, mainly the Pakistan Army — a thoroughly professional (secular/colonial) war-tested fighting force — it too went on to adopt the Islamic, jihadi symbols in sync with the revival of the jihadi spirit animating the Pakistan Movement and reinforced by the Kashmir war.

The numeral 786, standing for Bismillah i Rahman i Rahim (In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful), was adopted as the universal number for all GHQ vehicles in addition to the individual number of each vehicle. The pre-independence crusaders’ triangular formation crest with straight swords was replaced by a rounded shield and curved Arab crossed scimitars on a green base complete with the Islamic crescent and stars. The only weekly periodical of the army was named Mujahid — the holy warrior.

The four companies at the Pakistan Military Academy (PMA) were named after celebrated Muslim warriors/mujahideen — Tariq, Khalid, Qasim and Salahuddin. The commander of the Azad Kashmir forces, Brigadier Mohammad Akbar Khan, DSO, an army regular, adopted the codename of Tariq after the conqueror of Spain, Tariq ibn Ziyad.

In the middle of 1949, the Azad Kashmir Regular Forces (AKRF) celebrated the first anniversary of its raising in Hajira on the Pakistani side of the CFL. Federal Minister for Kashmir Affairs, Nawab Mushtaq Ahmed Gurmani, attended the function along with a retinue of high ranking officers and a battery of pressmen. Dressed in a copious mazri (grey cotton) shirt shalwar suit, topped with a Jinnah cap, Gurmani might well have been the self-image of a traditional mujahid.

A retired subedar major with a powerful voice constantly recited Iqbal’s verse adulating the mujahid holy warrior — waging a jihad in Kashmir in the path of Allah.

The minister, in spite of his great bulk, carried himself with a great deal of agility and was greeted vociferously with the “zindabad” slogan. “Kashmir banega Pakistan” was yet another slogan that resonated in the parade ground.

In the same year, I happened to accompany the Minister of State for Defence, Dr Mahmood Hussain, on a day-long tour of Hajira on our side of Kashmir. GOC, 7 Golden Arrow Division, Major NAM Raza escorted the minister. We spent an exciting day that included a boat crossing over to the Indian side of the ceasefire line. Major General Misri Chand, an old friend of General Raza, welcomed us warmly and embraced Raza, an old comrade. High tea that included kulfis, was served as the two generals compared their notes of the good old days. Dr Mahmood Hussain was introduced as a senior Karachi-based editor.

We rowed back over to our side of the CFL to continue our journey back home. We broke our journey at the headquarters of a frontier force battalion under the command of a young Lieutenant Colonel, Siddiq Raja. After the ritual cup of tea, he briefed the party about the role of his battalion.

He got unstoppably carried away as he spoke. Addressing the minister, he asked, “Sir, for how long shall we go on having these Britishers in our high command? Do we not have Tariq, Khalid, Qasim and Salahuddin in our own ranks?”

He spoke for a good quarter of an hour or so cursing his British superiors until the GOC intervened: “That will be all, Raja. We are getting late.”

Back in Rawalpindi, I wrote my story opening it with the colonel’s speech. I filed it for my paper, The Civil and Military Gazette (C and MG) the same evening. The story appeared the next day under a double column.

Gracey read the story and was furious. He summoned Director ISPR Colonel Shahbaz Khan forthwith. He told him to get in touch with the C and MG editor F W Bustin and tell him the damage it had done to the army high command. After second thoughts, however, no further action was taken.

As Gracey handed the army command over to Ayub (January 17, 1951), he warned him against the presence of “Young Turks” in the senior ranks. Within less than a couple of months of Ayub’s assumption of the army command, the Rawalpindi conspiracy was unearthed. It was led by no less a person than the chief of the general staff, the maverick Major General Mohammad Akbar, DSO — leader of the Kashmir war group, disgruntled by the snap ceasefire. The conspiracy, purely secular in content, had nothing to do with the Islamic sentiment at the command level.

(To be continued)

The writer is a retired brigadier of the Pakistan Army