The Other Jihad: Islam's War on the Hindus

January 3, 2008
Comment by Jerry Gordon

from Act for America

Westerners know comparatively little about the contemporary and historical waves of Jihad that have ravaged the Indian subcontinent over a millenia down to the 21st Century. William Warner, director of the Center for the Study of Political Islam in a pamphlet, "An Ethical Basis for War Against Political Islam" identifies one of the major 'Tears of Islam" , the more than 80 millions estimated Buddhists and Hindus slaughtered in earlier waves of Islamic conquest of this important South Asia region. Janet Levy in this American Thinker review of "The Art of War on Terror: Triumphing over Political Islam and the Axis of Jihad" By Moorthy Muthuswamy, gives us the contemporary toll of Jihad committed in the wake of the Division of British India or the Raj in 1948-tens of millions of Hindus slaughtered, raped and displaced in West Pakistan and former East Pakistan in 1971 (For graphic eyewitness accounts of the Jihad In Bengladesh that precipitated the secession of the state from Pakistan-read the volume "Leaving Islam: Apostates Speak Out," by Ibn Warraq) . Where India opted for a secular democratic form of government, Pakistan devolved into an Islamic republic that eschewed the stable democracy of its neighbor, India. There has been continual turmoil Islamist Pakistan. Witness the recent assassination of opposition Pakistani politician Benazir Bhutto and concerns about whether Jihadists will take over the country and seize its nuclear weapons stockpiles. She notes that when Bangladesh was created in 1972, it opted, like Pakistan to an Islamic Republic in 1977. India, itself with a sizable Muslim minority has witnessed periodic outbursts of sectarian Muslim Jihadism with attendant slaughter of majority Hindus in major clashes.

Levy notes these policy recommendation of the author regarding 'containment of Political Islam':

The United States is hampered by its belief in Islam as a conventional faith and not a political ideology, Muthuswamy writes. This belief mistakenly frames the situation as a freedom-of-religion issue, he says. The author feels that America is weakened by its strong religious outlook and needs to refocus its priorities on scientific and technological development. "Information-based societies," such as China and India, have an advantage over theologically-based ones, Muthuswamy says. He adds that religion restricts effective functioning in the modern world and needs to be supplanted by common sense and science.

In a final "Policy Response" section of his book, Muthuswamy suggests a multi-pronged plan of action for America. He advocates the potential weakening of political Islam through the discrediting of its theological foundation and manufactured Muslim grievances. He recommends a change in focus away from individual terrorist groups and the axis of evil to the axis of jihad, even to the point of formally charging Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Iran with crimes against humanity. Muthuswamy further contends that the strengthening of India, as well as a coalition between India and Israel, could act as a counterforce to political Islam and the axis of jihad. Recognizing the physical threat of the global jihad, he acknowledges the necessity of developing a comprehensive allied nuclear retaliatory strategy to fight jihadist nations.
by Janet Levy, The American Thinker, January 3, 2008

The Art of War on Terror: Triumphing over Political Islam and the Axis of Jihad
By Moorthy MuthuswamyPaperback, 2007236 pp., $21.95.

Pakistan and its nuclear arsenal catastrophically may fall into the hands of jihadists. But the South Asian version of jihad is a less familiar but no less fearsome variant of the war directed at the Great Satan America, and the Little Satan, Israel.

At one billion people, Hindus, the majority of whom live in the Indian sub-continent, constitute the third largest religion in the world after two billion Christians and 1.5 billion Muslims. Yet, their numbers have not spared Hindus from ongoing, systematic Muslim attacks in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Indeed, the jihad against India's non-Muslims has accelerated within the last few decades. The Indian government and international human rights organizations have done little to address human rights violations and have stood idle despite constant attacks on Hindus. Meanwhile, the media rarely mentions the desecration of Hindu religious sites and the constant intimidation of Hindus. While special concessions have been granted for Muslims in India, the governments of Pakistan and Bangladesh have long supported a policy, based on Islamic law, of religious discrimination against non-believers. Hindus in Pakistan and Bangladesh are unable to obtain positions of power, have great difficulty procuring business loans, are subjected to spurious blasphemy claims for defaming the prophet Mohammed and are specifically identified as non-Muslims on their passports.

In his recent book, The Art of War on Terror: Triumphing over Political Islam and the Axis of Jihad, Moorthy Muthuswamy explores this little-known and vastly under-reported Muslim campaign against Hindus. Muthuswamy addresses the methodology and ideological basis of political Islam, illuminates the 60-year history of jihad in India, specifies the roles played by the countries he identifies as being part of the "axis of jihad," and sets forth potential solutions to the jihadist threat.

The roots of this jihad on the Indian sub-continent began in 1947, when the British departed South Asia and granted independence to the sovereign states of India and Pakistan. India chose to establish a secular democracy and a legal system based on English Common and Statutory Law. Pakistan, however, was founded under the leadership of the Muslim League, later renamed the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, and based its governance on Islamic law. At the time, the Hindu minority in West Pakistan constituted 29% of the new nation's population and 23% of the population of West Pakistan. But, by the start of the India-Pakistan War of 1971, some 2.5 million Hindu citizens of Pakistan had been massacred. Soon thereafter, when East Pakistan was established as the People's Republic of Bangladesh, 10 million Hindu refugees fled to India. (Continue Reading this Article)