ABSTRACT
In the summer of 1985, inflamed by the wave of communal violence that had ripped apart the industrial town of Bhiwandi, activists of the Jamaat Ahle-eHadith ultra-right Gorba faction had gathered to discuss the need for Muslim reprisal. An obscure West Bengal-based cleric named Abu Masood announced the birth of what would become the Indian wing of the Lashkar-eTayyeba, the Tanzim Islahul Muslimeen (TIM), or the Organisation for the Improvement of Muslims. Most of the TIM’s membership consisted of young Mominpura (Mumbai) residents who felt upset at the perceived discrimination against Muslims in Mumbai. On 6 December 1992, the day the Babri Masjid was demolished, the TIM thought that the time had come to act.1 In 1993, a surgeon-turned-TIM bomb maker Jalees Ansari organised a series of 43 bombings in Mumbai and Hyderabad and seven separate explosions in inter-city trains. While most of the explosions were small, it was a demonstration of the group’s formidable discipline and skills. Central Bureau of Investigations (CBI) agents caught up with Ansari just 13 days before he had been ordered to set off a second series of reprisal bombings, this time scheduled for India’s Republic Day in 1994. Against this background, this chapter provides a detailed, in-the-woods
view of the flowering of the seed sown in Mominpora: of the Islamist terror groups made up, in the main, of Indian nationals that have emerged outside Jammu and Kashmir. The chapter explores the relationship of this “Tempered Jihad” – one calibrated to advance Islamist political objectives without leading India and Pakistan to war and argues that their growth is founded on domestic political process on both sides of the border. Given the demonstrated ability of the new groups to execute terrorist strikes of considerable scale, the impact of “Tempered Jihad” on Indian political life has been considerable – and, bearing in mind its close relationship with Pakistan, could have consequences of significance for regional stability.
