Silk Letter Movement Can Not Be Compared with Jihadist Movements of India

By New Age Islam Staff Writer 31 October 2023 Silk Letter Movement Was Commemorated by Indian Government by Releasing a Postage Stamp In 2013. Main Points: 1. Silk Letter Movement was a freedom movement launched by Deoband school. 2. Its leaders were Ubaidullah Sindhi, Maulana Mahmudul Hasan and Abdul Haque among others. 3. The movement died with the seizure of the silk letter. 4. It was the second movement by the ulema of Deoband after the defeat in Shamli. 5. SIMI and PFI cannot be clubbed with Reshmi Rumal movement. ----- Photo Courtesy Wikipedia ----- Praveen Swami recounts the history of Reshmi Rumal or Silk Letter Movement which was launched by the leaders of Deoband school, Mohammad Mian Mansoor Ansari, Ubaidullah Sindhi and Mahmood Hasan in 1913. But after giving a detailed account of the movement, he finds ideological links of SIMI and the PFI with the Silk Letter Movement. In reality, there is no link, ideological or political whatsoever between the Silk Letter Movement and SIMI or PFI or for that matter ISIS and Al Qaida. The maulanas of Deoband were nationalists and planned to overthrow the British government with the help of the Emirate of Afghanistan, Ottoman Empire and German Empire. The leaders of the movement have been recognised by the government of India as freedom fighters. The former President of India even unveiled a postage stamp commemorating the sacrifices of the leaders of Deoband for the Independence of India in 2013. In 1857, the first generation of the Deoband school had the battle of Shamli against the East India Company under the leadership of Imdadullah Mohajir Makki and defeated East India Company. This battle was a part of the Revolt of 1857. They had established the first government of free India. The head of the state of Shamli was Maulana Qasim Nanotawi while Maulana Rasheed Ahmad Gangohi was appointed its Qazi. But the East India company reclaimed the territory with the failure of the revolt led by Bahadur Shah Zafar. But Mr Praveen Swami writes: "Even if the silk letter movement was extinguished by blood, the millenarian impulses that powered it didn't go away. Following the savage anti-Muslim communal pogroms that took place under Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's watch in 1980s, a new generation of young Islamist radicals was drawn to SIMI. The rapid growth of the organisation represented a breakdown of faith among young Muslims in India's democratic promise and the ability of state institutions to protect them". The author seems to be adopting a selective approach. SIMI came to existence in the 80s but PFI came to existence in the 21st century when Indira Gandhi was not the prime minister. Silk Letter Movement ended in 1920 and Indian freedom movement gained momentum even after that. It means that the fire of nationalism and patriotism that was ignited by the Silk Letter Movement or by the victory of 'Mujahideen' in Shamli, no matter how short-lived, charged the overall atmosphere and Indians nurtured the belief that the British government was not invincible. Therefore, the Maulanas of Deoband did not inspire and influence the radical Islamists of SIMI or ISIS or PFI but Maulana Abul Kalam Azad who formed a similar revolutionary group called Hezbollah but this time the leaders of Deoband did not join the group because they did not accept Abul Kalam Azad Amirul Hind (the leader of the Indians). The leaders of Reshmi Rumal inspired and influenced Khilafat Tehreek which won the support of both Hindus and Muslims but this time, the ulema of Bareilly did not join the movement on the ground that Hindus had also been roped in. The birth of SIMI, PFI or other radical Islamist organisations has its roots in the global extremist ideas and organisations like the Muslim Brotherhood, Al Qaida, Taliban and other sectarian ideology among the Muslims. The organisations followed a supremacist interpretation of Islam and exploited the frustration of Muslims under social and political circumstances. Mr Praveen Swami observes that the communal pogroms in the country resulted in the loss of faith of the Muslims in the democratic institutions of India. But that is half-truth. Al the Muslims did not join the SIMI or the PFI. Therefore, it cannot be said that the entire Muslim population of India lost faith in India's democratic system. Some disgruntled and frustrated youth radicalised by the extremist ideology of foreign Islamic scholars joined these organisations in the false hope of establishing a shariah rule in India where they will not be subjected to oppression and injustice. That's why new organisations like PFI emerge and gain popularity among the youth. The problem with the Muslims of India is that they believe in politics of alienation and isolation, not in the politics of assimilation. In the recently concluded Moon Mission, many Muslim scientists contributed to its success. Maulana Abul Kalam Azad's contribution to the shaping up of the country's education system putting special emphasis on science and technology is immense though he was a religious person. The leaders of the Silk Letter Movement made contacts with the Ottoman Caliphate, Emirate of Afghanistan and even with the German Empire o garner global support for their ambitious plan. They were not narrow minded though they were religious persons. Today's Muslim scholars cannot see outside their sect or school of thought. They form religious organisations without any vision only to radicalise people and teach them o slit the throats of those who do not subscribe to their ideology. SIMI did not achieve anything other than putting a stigma on the foreheads of hundreds of Muslim youths. PFI also jeopardised the youth. They did not contribute to the educational and economic progress of the community. ------ Gaza’s Islamist Wave Can Fuel Jihadism in India—Don’t Forget The ‘Silk Letter Movement’ By Praveen Swami 29 October, 2023 Elegantly written on yellow silk, sewn into the waistcoat of a new convert to Islam, Shaikh Abdul Haq, the words were to be carried across the Khyber Pass, and set India on fire. From his desk in Kabul, the cleric Ubaidullah Sindhi had laid out his plans for a war against English rule in India, involving a revolt by the tribes of Pakistan’s northwest, backed by the emirate of Afghanistan and the rulers of the Hejaz, as well as the guns of imperial Germany and Turkey. A rocket fired by Palestinian militants into Israel, in Gaza City | Reuters ------ Like so many insurrectionary fantasies, this one was “crazy in the extreme,” one colonial civil servant noted, even “pathetic.” For reasons that have never become entirely clear, Haq handed the letters over to Khan Bahadur Rab Nawaz Khan, a one-time major in the British Indian Army, whose sons had left their studies to join the would-be insurrectionaries in Afghanistan. Khan’s third son was a police officer, though, and the family remained loyal to the Empire. The district commissioner in Multan, to whom Khan handed over the letters, deemed them “childish rot.” The Lieutenant-Governor of Punjab, Michael O’Dwyer, was less sure and handed the documents over to the Punjab Police’s Criminal Investigation Department. The translators opened the doors to one of the most incredible stories of the freedom movement. For Indian security services examining the fallout from the murderous Israel-Hamas war, the story of the so-called Silk Letter Movement should be a cautionary tale. The Islamic State and its Tehreek-e-Taliban allies are resurgent across Pakistan’s northwest. Local communal hatreds, of the kinds that drew some Indians into the Islamic State, have often been kindled by wider geopolitical events: The triumph of the Taliban gave birth to jihadist movements like the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), and 9/11 fired the minds of a new generation of jihadists. A hundred years ago, imperial intelligence services worked adroitly with stations in the Hejaz, Kabul and Istanbul to extinguish the threat. There are real questions, though, over whether modern Indian intelligence services have the skill and sophistication that’s needed. The Dawn of Danger Like so many stories about complex political struggles, the Silk Letter Movement doesn’t have a neat beginning. Every story has to have a beginning, though, and this one could start with the teenage Buta Singh Uppal, who converted to Islam in his teens. Later, as he studied at the Dar-ul-Uloom seminary in Uttar Pradesh’s Deoband, Ubaidullah attached himself to Mahmud Hassan, the institution’s first student and mentor to generations of anti-colonial clerics. Historian Shehroze Ahmed Sheikh has noted in an unpublished journal that, from at least 1912, the iconography of Turkish power being martyred at the hands of predatory European powers had embedded itself in religious processions in India. The globalised Muslim identity, which emerged as a consequence of imperialism, was considered a potent threat. Like his ideological predecessor, Syed Ahmad, Ubaidullah turned to the Afghanistan-Pakistan borderlands as base for revolution. The insurrection against Sikh power led by Syed Ahmad had been crushed in 1842, historian Ayesha Jalal has recorded. Learning from that bitter defeat, Ubaidullah sought to create a disciplined army with the support of Afghanistan’s emir, Habibullah Khan. From Peshawar, Chief Commissioner George Roos-Keppel informed his government that some 15 students—most from the prestigious Government College in Lahore—had joined Ubaidullah in Kabul. The group was joined by Mahendra Pratap, third son of the ruling family of Hathras in UP, graduate of the Aligarh Muslim University, and self-appointed revolutionary envoy to Emperor Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany and Sultan Mehmed Rishad of Turkey. Mohamed Barakatullah Bhopali, after whom the Barkatullah University in Bhopal is named, was appointed prime minister of the Indian state-in-exile, while Pratap was president and Ubaidullah home minister. The Empire Strikes Back Through sub-inspector Muhammad Sheikh of the Mumbai CID, colonial authorities succeeded in mounting undercover surveillance of the operations of the cell in Hejaz by 1916. The sub-inspector searched the baggage of the cleric Mahmud Hassan as he carried Ubaidullah’s message to Hejaz. The sub-inspector found nothing—and the cleric made no anti-British speeches—but, as per historian Saul Kelly, the British deported them from Suez to Malta, where they were held until after the end of the war in 1919. King Hussein bin Ali, the notionally independent ruler of the Hejaz, stonewalled efforts by the British to crush the anti-India movement, rejecting a proposal to allow Mumbai Police inspector Hamid Said to stay in Mecca and surveil pilgrims, traders, visitors and political emissaries. Together with his colonial superiors, Kelly has recorded, Hassan continued to regularly intercept Silk Letter missives. The authorities also stepped up surveillance of the Anjuman-i Khuddam-i Kaaba, or the Society of the Guardians of the Kaaba, through military officer Khan Bahadur Mubarak Ali. The organisation, set up in 1912, was funnelling funds to Turkey through the First World War, colonial spies came to believe. Eventually, the course of the First World War shattered the Silk Letter revolutionaries’ hopes. The Hejaz rulers decided to sit out the conflict. Turkey, faced with successive defeats, was barely in a position to protect itself, let alone provide assurances to arm Afghanistan. King Amanullah Khan, who took power in 1919, saw no reason to confront England’s might. Thousands of Indian Muslims who sought to migrate from the Land of the Infidels to join the anti-English jihad Afghanistan, scholar Dietrich Rietz records, were set on by tribespeople and left to die on the wastes of the Khyber Pass. Ignoring Dangers Even if the Silk Letter movement was extinguished by blood, the millenarian impulses that powered it didn’t go away. Following the savage anti-Muslim communal pogroms that took place under Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s watch in the 1980s, a new generation of young Islamist radicals was drawn to SIMI. The rapid growth of the organisation represented a breakdown of faith among young Muslims in India’s democratic promise and the ability of State institutions to protect them. Since the demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1993, SIMI’s language became increasingly pro-jihadist. The organisation’s jihadist ambitions were also powered by the triumph of the Taliban in Kabul, which brushed aside its opponents to form the First Emirate in 1996. At SIMI’s Kanpur convention in 1999, seven-year-old Gulrez Siddiqui was held up before an estimated 20,000 cheering members: “Islam ka ghazi, butshikan, mera sher, Osama bin Laden [warrior of Islam, destroyer of idols/My lion, Osama bin Laden],” the child intoned. SIMI called for a caliphate, claiming democracy had failed India’s Muslims, and even appealed to God to send an avatar of the temple-pillaging 11th-century conqueror Mahmud of Ghazni. Large numbers of former SIMI members would later form the Indian Mujahideen terrorist group with the support of the Lashkar-e-Taiba, seeking to avenge the post-2002 riots in Gujarat. The Indian Mujahideen was eventually crushed by police, but fresh jihadist networks formed—again inspired by global events. Ever since 2016, members of the now-banned Popular Front of India (PFI) joined the flow of foreign fighters for the Islamic State. Kerala resident Shajeer Mangalassery Abdulla, accused by the National Investigation Agency of recruiting for the Islamic State in Afghanistan, was a supporter of the PFI’s political wing, the Social Democratic Party of India. Safwan Pookatail, a graphic designer with the PFI house journal Thejas, is alleged to be among Shajeer’s recruits, along with Manseed Bin Mohamed, who researched Hindutva for the now-banned group. Elements of these networks also joined al-Qaeda, as well as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Even though politicians often promise to annihilate terrorist threats, the ideas that power them are remarkably hard to kill—especially in the absence of deep political action to transform the conditions that empower them. Every past wave of Indian jihadist mobilisation, inspired by events thousands of kilometres away, was ignored until bombings began at home. This time, India’s intelligence and police services ought to see the distant rising of the bloody tide—and prepare for it to wash up on shores near home. ----- Praveen Swami is contributing editor at ThePrint. Views are personal. (Edited by Zoya Bhatti) Source: Gaza’s Islamist Wave Can Fuel Jihadism in India—Don’t Forget The ‘Silk Letter Movement’ URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-politics/silk-letter-movement-jihadist-movements-india/d/131015 New Age Islam, Islam Online, Islamic Website, African Muslim News, Arab World News, South Asia News, Indian Muslim News, World Muslim News, Women in Islam, Islamic Feminism, Arab Women, Women In Arab, Islamophobia in America, Muslim Women in West, Islam Women and Feminism