Jack-in-the-box-Jamaat-ul-Dawa
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Like a Jack-in-the-box, the Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD), banned after last year's Mumbai bombings, is reported to have sprung right back. Reports speak of the organization, operating now under a new name, setting up camps for displaced persons and offering them other assistance. As always, this is being offered in an organized, disciplined manner. We had of course witnessed the same phenomena after the October 2005 earthquake, when banned 'jihadi' organizations had re-emerged – quite obviously with their infrastructure totally intact. It is difficult to suggest that the relief work being undertaken by the JuD be stopped at this point. So intense is the misery of displaced persons that any activity that can bring them succour needs to be accepted for the moment. But the authorities need to remember that through the kind of work it is doing now, organizations such as the JuD are able to lay stronger roots which will in the future be more difficult to dig out. There must also be some assessment of quite how bans on specific groups are to be imposed and why it has proved so difficult, indeed almost impossible, to do so effectively so far.
The fact is that the JuD and other organizations like it have been able to combine charitable services with campaigns to recruit people towards militancy. As such they present an immense danger to our country and its safety. The work they do is also a factor in the support these groups draw, sometimes even from minority communities. We need to tackle them sensibly but determinedly. The re-emergence of the JuD after all goes only to further challenge the writ of a state that urgently needs to demonstrate that it is in command over national affairs and capable of enforcing its will when the need to do so arises.
Like a Jack-in-the-box, the Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD), banned after last year's Mumbai bombings, is reported to have sprung right back. Reports speak of the organization, operating now under a new name, setting up camps for displaced persons and offering them other assistance. As always, this is being offered in an organized, disciplined manner. We had of course witnessed the same phenomena after the October 2005 earthquake, when banned 'jihadi' organizations had re-emerged – quite obviously with their infrastructure totally intact. It is difficult to suggest that the relief work being undertaken by the JuD be stopped at this point. So intense is the misery of displaced persons that any activity that can bring them succour needs to be accepted for the moment. But the authorities need to remember that through the kind of work it is doing now, organizations such as the JuD are able to lay stronger roots which will in the future be more difficult to dig out. There must also be some assessment of quite how bans on specific groups are to be imposed and why it has proved so difficult, indeed almost impossible, to do so effectively so far.
The fact is that the JuD and other organizations like it have been able to combine charitable services with campaigns to recruit people towards militancy. As such they present an immense danger to our country and its safety. The work they do is also a factor in the support these groups draw, sometimes even from minority communities. We need to tackle them sensibly but determinedly. The re-emergence of the JuD after all goes only to further challenge the writ of a state that urgently needs to demonstrate that it is in command over national affairs and capable of enforcing its will when the need to do so arises.
Labels: IDPs, Jamaat-ul-Dawa, Refugees, Swat, Taliban, Terrorism
posted @ 11:49 AM,
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