SIMI rode on religion, when politics was the call

By Mohammed Anas Last week’s alleged fake encounter of eight suspected Student of Islamic Movement of India activists in Bhopal has cast a pall of gloom among Indian Muslims, especially the youths who have made their angst and despair sound as loudly as possible via formal and social media. However, a sound appraisal of the activities of SIMI during its active years and its socio-political implications must assist the community to position its stand vis a vis such religious outfits. Research materials on SIMI available online (including a research paper of a credible think tank like Indian Institute for Defence Studies and Analysis) list it as a militant organisation linked to terror outfits based in Pakistan and Bangladesh. Most of such write-ups quote accounts of security agencies to substantiate such a branding. And almost every article of worth written on SIMI says that not a single charge of treason and terrorism has been proved against the outfit in Indian courts. Moreover, those more aware of the history of the organisation make the distinction between two factions of the outfit since 2000 onwards — one militantly radical, the other moderately radical. Most of the SIMI activists arrested, jailed, acquitted and killed in encounters belong to the former faction. SIMI, as accounts have it, was founded in Aligarh on 25 April 1977 by Ahmadullah Siddiqi and others, mostly students of Aligarh Muslim University and sympathisers or active members of Jamaat e Islami Hind. Nationally, it was a period of social and political uprisings in India. Emergency was just lifted by then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on 21 March 1977. University campuses were in ferment. Like all social groups, Muslims too were aspiring for their specific political space in non-Congress alternative politics. Many of Jamaat leaders were in fact jailed during Emergency and had started showing genuine interest in electoral democracy of the country, as opposed to their previous inhibition to enter active politics. Against such a political backdrop, SIMI, then only known as Student Islamic Movement, started as a student activity group to foment religious awakening among Muslim students and youths. To make it an organisation of youth and students only, the outfit made it mandatory for its members to voluntarily retire as they turned 30. The outfit organised seminars, lectures on themes related with Islam and happenings in the Muslim world. Strangely, it stayed away from guiding, let alone actively participating, Muslim students in political developments of the day. Nevertheless, its cadre base and area of influence kept on swelling. On the other hand, all socio-political groups like fragments of the Janata Party such as Janata Dal, Bharatiya Janata Party, Bahujan Samaj Party and parties of the Communist leanings made slow strides and some of them are now leading regional and national parties, which frequently hold reign of power in states and in the Centre. Yadavs, Other Backward Castes and Dalits all have their own successful political forms. Only Muslims lagged behind, and as their disillusionment with Congress completed by the end of ’80s, they turned into vote banks of the new emergent non-Congress secular dispensations. SIMI, which was supposed to guide Muslim students in purely Islamic ethos and concerns in the light of guidance from its mother organisation Jamaat e Islami, turned aggressively radical as it sought inspiration from success of Gen Zia ul Haq’s coup in Pakistan and Islamic Revolution of Iran. Later, it even parted ways from Jamaat as it opposed then PLO leader Yasser Arafat’s India visit because of Arafat’s perceived pliant approach towards Israel. While SIMI was aggressively espousing Muslim causes like Palestine, it didn’t find fertile politics of ’80s worthy enough to navigate the community. Rather, as Hindu right wing forces spruced up their campaign around Ayodhya issue, SIMI only saw it as an opportunity to galvanise Muslim youth on emotional appeal. And when finally the Babri Masjid was demolished on 6 December 1992, it became an annual commemorative event for SIMI to whip up Muslim emotions. As SIMI turned overtly emotional and aggressively radical, some of its prominent cadres like its founder Ahmadullah Siddiqi, Dr Rashid Shaz, SQR Illyas, distanced from the organisation. All of them now lead normal active life in different fields. SQR Ilyas, father of JNU’s Umar Khalid, also runs a political party called Welfare Party of India. It was post-1992 period, when SIMI is said to have come under radar of security agencies. Security officials started questioning its cadres. Its libraries and conferences were regularly monitored by sleuths. And when a Quran burning event organised by Vishwa Hindu Parishad led to communal clashes in Kanpur in 2001 and some of SIMI activists were reported to have taken part in it, the outfit was banned. Many of its cadres were arrested. Later, it became a routine that SIMI activists were all across India were picked up on terror charges, which remain to be proved in courts. Now, the organisation exists in dossiers of security agencies as a terror outfit and hits the news when some its cadres are arrested, jailed or killed in encounter. Its activities are not witnessed anywhere. It is also noteworthy that all of the arrested SIMI cadres come from low key social strata. Never a SIMI activist with somewhat well-to-do family background has been arrested. Many of the arrested can’t even afford expenses of their litigation and are aided by some Muslim organisations. SIMI cadres, as has not been proven in Indian courts, are not terrorists but they definitely were extremists and misguide for Indian Muslim youth. They kept them busy in religious radicalism at a time when they had to mobilise politically to claim their share in power to uplift the community on various parameters of empowerment. Luckily, a ray of hope also comes from youth who were once part of this outfit. Muslim Youth for India, an organisation run by former SIMI cadres, is campaigning to guide Muslims on religious moderation and coax them to embark on social and political leadership of India. Let’s hope these young men make news in future.