US embassy cable - 05NEWDELHI9127

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 06 NEW DELHI 009127 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/30/2015 
TAGS: KISL, PGOV, KDEM, PINR, PTER, SCUL, IN 
SUBJECT: INDIA'S DEMOCRACY AND ECONOMY MINIMIZE EXTREMIST 
RECRUITMENT OF JUVENILES (C-CT5-00623) 
 
REF: STATE 211901 
 
NEW DELHI 00009127  001.2 OF 006 
 
 
Classified By: POLCOUNS Geoffrey R. Pyatt for Reasons 1.4 (B, D) 
 
1.  (C) India's over 150 million Muslim population is largely 
unattracted to extremism.  India's growing economy, vibrant 
democracy, and inclusive culture, encourage Muslims to seek 
success and social mobility in the mainstream and reduces 
alienation.  With Indian Muslim youth increasingly 
comfortable in the mainstream, the pool of potential recruits 
is shrinking, while Muslim families and communities provide 
little sanction or support to extremist appeals.  This cable 
is in response to Reftel requesting information on methods 
used by extremist groups to recruit and train youths under 
the age of 18.  Post notes that India is home to a wide 
variety of extremist groups, including religious extremists 
(Hindu, Muslim and Sikh), ethnic separatists, and extremists 
from the political left (Naxalites) and right (primarily 
Hindu fascists), all of whom recruit children.  However, 
reftel requests information only on Islamic extremist groups 
such as Al-Qa'ida, Ansar al-Sunnah, the Abu Sayyaf Group 
(ASG), the Taliban and Kashmiri militants, and we will 
confine our analysis to such groups. 
 
The Muslim Minority 
------------------- 
 
2.  (C) According to India's 1991 National Census, the Muslim 
population constitutes just under 15 percent of the country's 
total.  It grew by 33 percent between 1981-2001, while the 
general population increased by 24 percent.  Islam is India's 
largest minority religion.  In many towns and cities, 
particularly in Northern India, one third or more of the 
population is Muslim.  The largest concentrations of Muslims 
live in the states of Bihar (12 million), West Bengal (16 
million), and Uttar Pradesh (24 million).  The overwhelming 
majority (92 percent) are Sunnis, the remainder being Shias. 
India's Muslim population is estimated to be as large as 150 
million (the second largest in the world after Indonesia), 
and suffers from higher rates of poverty than most other 
groups in India, and can be the victims of discrimination and 
prejudice.  Despite this, the vast majority remain committed 
to the Indian state and seek to participate in mainstream 
political and economic life.  Only a small number of young 
Muslims have concluded that mainstream politics will never 
address their grievances and have gravitated toward 
pan-Islamic and pro-Pakistan organizations, which sometimes 
engage in acts of violence.  India's vibrant democracy, 
inclusive culture and growing economy have made it easier for 
Muslim youth to find a place in the mainstream, reduced the 
pool of potential recruits, and the space in which Islamic 
extremist organizations can operate. 
 
A Vibrant Democracy 
------------------- 
 
3.  (C) Although there are a wide variety of Islamic 
religious, political and social organizations, most Muslims 
join or support secular groups without a specific Islamic 
identity.  The ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA), 
spearheaded by Congress, projects itself as the secular 
alternative to the opposition National Democratic Alliance 
(NDA), dominated by the Hindu-nationalist BJP.  Muslims 
generally join secular parties as the best way to ensure that 
the BJP does not attain political power, although the BJP 
 
NEW DELHI 00009127  002.2 OF 006 
 
 
does have Muslim members as well.  No exclusively Muslim 
organization has succeeded in mobilizing more than a small 
portion of the Muslim faithful.  Muslim organizations that 
support terrorism against the Indian state and non-Muslim 
Indians are very small and lack influence or popular 
following outside of Kashmir.  India's vibrant democracy has 
ensured that the large Muslim community has a voice in 
politics and recent elections have demonstrated that Muslim 
voters are courted actively by political parties.  With a 
Muslim President (Abdul Kalam) occupying the highest 
political position in the country, Muslims have been 
encouraged to seek political power in electoral and 
parliamentary politics, all but eliminating the appeal of 
violent extremism. 
 
Growing Economy 
--------------- 
 
4.  (C) India's secular education system increasingly 
integrates Muslim students into the mainstream and has 
spawned a growing and prosperous Muslim middle class. 
Muslims, like Indians generally, rely on education and 
English language competence to provide access to increased 
job opportunities.  In the past, extremist groups focused on 
Indian universities as potential recruiting grounds, but the 
economic upturn has transformed this dynamic.  Most Muslims 
approaching graduation from University will be prepared to 
enter the job market and are not interested in extremism. 
This cuts down the time when Muslim students are vulnerable 
to extremist recruitment and compels extremist organizations 
to target younger students.  Economic growth has spawned 
dramatic social change and Muslim extremists must find 
potential recruits who have not yet participated in or 
benefited from the economic boom, consumer capitalism and the 
attractions of the media.  These groups are likely to reject 
any recruit who has already been enticed away from Islamic 
separatism into secular values. 
 
And an Inclusive Culture 
------------------------ 
 
5.  (C) In order for Islamic extremism to be attractive to 
Indian Muslim youth, they would have to feel alienated from 
the mainstream culture.  While Muslims are often victimized 
and discriminated against, traditional barriers to cultural 
integration are breaking down.  Young and dynamic Muslims are 
popular culture heroes in sports (Sania Mirza) and Bollywood 
(Sharrukh Khan and many others).  The message for young 
Muslims is that they are Indians first and Muslims second, 
and that they can fully participate in Indian society and 
culture and win the adulation and respect of other Indians, 
regardless of religion. 
 
Kashmir - The Exception 
----------------------- 
 
6.  (C) Jammu and Kashmir, India's only Muslim majority 
state, is characterized by a different kind of political 
Islam.  Kashmiri Muslims, like many of their counterparts 
throughout South Asia, have been historically heavily 
influenced by Sufi Islam, but because of their majority 
status and geographic isolation in a remote princely state, 
never saw themselves as part of the Islamic mainstream in 
pre-partition India.  Kashmiri Muslims have worked actively 
to maintain a separate identity and have resisted 
 
NEW DELHI 00009127  003.2 OF 006 
 
 
integration.  This has been compounded by the turbulence and 
terrorism that have engulfed the state since 1989.  The 
Kashmiri sense of separateness permeates the programs and 
manifestos of Kashmir's Islamic groups, and Kashmiri Muslims 
have not embraced Indian Muslims' aspirations for national 
integration.  Moreover, many Kashmiri Muslims have parted 
company with their Indian Muslim counterparts and embraced 
Wahhabi Islam during the insurgency.  While Indian Muslims 
feel compelled to express support for their co-religionists 
in Kashmir, they tend to look upon Kashmiris with suspicion 
and try to keep the Kashmiri cause at arm's length. 
 
The Extremists 
-------------- 
 
7.  (C) Separatism and religious extremism have little appeal 
to Indian Muslims, and the overwhelming majority espouse 
moderate doctrines.  While the conservative Sunni political 
organization the Jamaat Islami (JI) and the Deobandi sect 
espouse Islamic chauvinism, and some of their members express 
admiration for Osama bin Ladin, their leaders usually do not 
express such views in public, and there is little to indicate 
that they have provided anything more than rhetorical support 
to terrorists.  Attacks by Hindu extremists on innocent 
Muslims and periodic bouts of bloody communal rioting, have 
led a small number of Muslims to cross the line from 
sympathizing with violence to engaging in terrorism.  Some 
Kashmiri terrorist groups argue that only attacks outside of 
Kashmir will shake the Indian state and convince the GOI to 
withdraw.  Members of these two small slivers of the Muslim 
community provide recruits for groups prone to acts of 
violence and terrorism, many of which are supported from 
outside India.  The numbers are small, especially outside of 
Kashmir, but they remain capable of periodic bombings and 
other acts of violence. 
 
8.  (C) Indian Islamic groups that are extreme in their views 
and activities include 
 
Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) 
Jamiat-ul-Mujahideen 
Marqazi-Jamiyat-e-Ahal-e-Hadith (MJAH) 
Muslim United Liberation Front of Assam (MULFA) 
Muslim Security Council of Assam (MSCA) 
Muslim Volunteer Force (MVF) 
Muslim Liberation Army (MLA) 
Muslim Security Force (MSF) 
Islamic Sevak Sangh (ISS) 
United Muslim Liberation Front of Assam (UMLFA) 
 
9.  (C) In addition, the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) and the 
Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM) are Pakistan-based groups which 
recruit Indian Muslims.  Hizbul Mujahideen is a Kashmiri 
terrorist group which works closely with the Pakistan-based 
organizations.  The MJAH is a nationwide organization for 
Muslims who subscribe to Wahhabi Islam.  Since the 
overwhelming majority of Indian Sunnis belong to the more 
liberal Barelvi and Deobandi schools, the Wahhabi sect has 
relatively few adherents, and only a small segment of Indian 
Wahabis endorse the MJAH and its views.  The group is very 
small and press accounts have periodically linked it to 
bombings, most recently in Mumbai.  SIMI was originally 
founded to provide spiritual guidance to Muslim university 
students, but drifted into extremist politics and terrorism, 
and was subsequently banned by the GOI in 2001.  Individual 
 
NEW DELHI 00009127  004.2 OF 006 
 
 
SIMI members are periodically arrested and prosecuted, but 
the group is largely dormant.  LeT and JeM have cells in 
India which have committed terrorist attacks, primarily in J 
& K, but elsewhere as well.  The GOI has stated that the LeT 
is the principal suspect in the recent deadly bombings in 
Delhi, which killed over 70 persons.  Most Indians, both 
Muslim and non-Muslim, view members of these groups as 
subversive agents of a hostile power, Pakistan. 
 
Answers to Specific Questions 
----------------------------- 
 
10.  (C) Question A -- Recruitment 
 
As explained above, there are two distinct threads of Islamic 
extremism in India, which can overlap, but are largely 
separate; Kashmiri groups, which are both Islamic and ethnic, 
and non-Kashmiri groups, which emphasize a primarily 
religious identity while Kashmiri groups have recruited boys 
under the age of 18, other extremist groups have concentrated 
on University students, who are often above the age of 18. 
Kashmir has been embroiled in terrorism for decades, exposing 
children to violence at an early age.  Decades of conflict, a 
high casualty rate, and war-weariness has shrunk the pool of 
recruits for Kashmiri terrorist groups and they have turned 
to younger boys. 
 
11.  (C)   Most experts believe that terrorism in Kashmiri is 
now largely a non-Kashmiri affair.  A study by a private 
think tank on recruitment into Indian terrorist organizations 
verified that Kashmiri terrorist groups are the only Islamic 
groups specifically to recruit juveniles.  The report claims 
that children have participated in terrorist attacks in 
Kashmir since the early 1990s, when there were documented 
cases of juveniles throwing grenades at security force 
pickets.  Inspector-General of Police K. Rajendra said in 
October 2003 that perhaps only a handful of children have 
been involved in actual incidents, that in 2002 the Kashmir 
police knew of the recruitment of approximately 100 child 
recruitments, and that the number increased to approximately 
500 in 2003.  According to the study, the terrorist groups 
have evolved a specific method of juvenile recruitment.  A 
'scout' or 'overground worker' surveys an area and identifies 
boys from poor families within the target age group. On a 
given day, the terrorists abduct the identified targets at 
gun-point and take them to a hideout.  The groups target 
schools, as exemplified in July 2003, when a LeT recruiter 
walked into the playground of the National High School at the 
small Bandipora village of Vijhar in the Baramulla district. 
Security forces subsequently rescued a group of six children 
from the LeT 'scout.'  Some of the rescued children had 
repeatedly failed school examinations and others had dropped 
out to take unpaid apprenticeships in dead-end jobs.  Police 
assert that families are coerced to 'donate' a younger son to 
the 'jihad' and that refusal to comply could result in the 
death of the entire family.  Since 2003, the border has 
become less porous, the appeal of joining terrorist groups 
has diminished, and there are fewer media accounts of child 
abductions and rescues. 
 
12.  (C) Some prominent instances demonstrating patterns of 
child recruitment include: 
 
--On 6 August 2001, security forces intercepted three 
terrorists forcibly taking 12 young boys at gunpoint to 
 
NEW DELHI 00009127  005.2 OF 006 
 
 
Pakistan for training and induction into their ranks. As the 
young boys ran towards the security forces for safety, the 
terrorists fired on them killing one boy and injuring 
another, the security forces rescued the remainder. 
 
--In July-August 2001, security forces rescued 39 young boys 
in the age group of 14-18, being taken at gun point to 
Pakistan for training. 
 
--In 2003, an estimated 500 teenagers were recruited into 
various terrorist outfits in J&K. The child recruits received 
rudimentary arms training, but primarily worked as cooks, 
cleaners, porters and guides for terrorists 
 
13.  (C)  Outside of Kashmir, Islamic organizations in Indian 
universities have some success recruiting Muslim students, 
many from rural backgrounds and away from home for the first 
time.  Those who stay with such groups can become 
increasingly isolated from the mainstream and are attractive 
recruits for Islamic extremists.  Our contacts tell us, 
however, that most Muslim students lose interest in such 
groups as they become more comfortable in their new 
environments.  The Indian media has published colorful 
stories implying that Madrassas are recruiting centers for 
Islamic terrorism and that many are funded by Pakistan's ISI. 
 The accounts are mostly anecdotal, however, and there has 
been little or no hard evidence linking Indian Madrassas to 
terrorist recruitment.  Madrassas originally started at the 
secondary level and were confined to boys, with most Muslim 
children attending public primary schools in their own 
villages.  The Deobandi sect is establishing a series of 
primary schools for North Indian boys and girls.  Their goal 
is to provide madrassa education for children from age five 
through university level.  There is some concern that this 
move could isolate children from the mainstream and make them 
more prone to extremism or susceptible to recruitment into 
terrorist groups. 
 
question B -- Characteristics of Recruits 
 
14.  (C) Muslim contacts tell us that young recruits in 
Kashmir are those who have been brutalized by violence, lost 
loved ones, or have personally experienced repression by the 
Indian security forces.  Many are bent on revenge.  As in 
most war-torn areas, children brutalized by their environment 
can begin to see violence as a normal career path and can 
divorce it from any ideological justification.  Non-Kashmiri 
recruits are said to be primarily from blue collar or poor 
families with limited education and from a rural or urban 
slum background.  They can find higher education to be a 
painful process and have trouble adjusting to a radically 
different environment, and can embrace radical Islam as a 
coping mechanism, as the Islamic groups welcome them and 
provide them with a warm and familiar environment.  In 
Gujarat and Western India, particularly in Mumbai, many 
Muslims were traumatized by anti-Muslim rioting following the 
destruction of Babri Mosque in 1992, and the Godhra train 
violence of 2002.  We speculate that their principal 
motivation is revenge for senseless and painful attacks 
inflicted on them, their families, and their communities by 
Hindu extremists. 
 
question C -- Juveniles and the Advancement of Terrorist Goals 
 
15.  (C) Kashmiri groups, facing a limited manpower pool and 
 
NEW DELHI 00009127  006 OF 006 
 
 
heavily outnumbered by the Indian security forces, have seen 
a harsh attrition as their members are killed, imprisoned, or 
fall away.  Like terrorist groups in other countries facing a 
similar dilemma (the LTTE in Sri Lanka for example), they 
have recruited younger and younger members.  In addition, 
Kashmiri adults have largely tired of violence and extremism 
and are less receptive to terrorist recruitment.  In such an 
environment, children are more pliable and less resistant. 
They can also provide a lifetime of service, in a conflict 
that seems to go on without end.  Other Islamic extremist 
groups have a similar dilemma, in that Islamic extremism is 
not popular in India and most adults are not interested. 
This forces extremists to pitch to young and naive audiences 
who may be more amenable. 
 
question D -- Rehabilitation Methods 
 
16.  (C) Since there is relatively little recruitment of 
juveniles into extremist groups, especially outside of 
Kashmir, there is no GOI program aimed specifically at 
rehabilitating them.  We know of no instances where child 
terrorists have been captured.  In those instances where 
abducted children are rescued, the security forces return 
them to their parents. 
 
question E -- Reasons why Extremists May Refrain from 
Juvenile Recruitment 
 
17.  (C) Kashmir has had the most experience with recruitment 
of juveniles into extremist groups.  Enthusiasm there for the 
separatist/terrorist cause has largely waned, and the 
organizations there are concerned that they could become 
totally isolated and liable to be crushed by the security 
services if their popular support dries up.  Cost benefit 
analysis would convince most such groups that the cost of 
losing support from the local community is too high for the 
small benefit provided by youthful recruits.  Outside 
Kashmir, Muslims are facing the same pressures for social 
mobility as non-Muslims.  Most Indian children are under 
pressure to get into school, stay in school, and perform well 
there, in order to obtain higher education and access to 
well-paid jobs.  Attempts by extremist groups to recruit 
children from Muslim homes are likely to run into a wall of 
opposition from parents who would see involvement in 
extremism as counterproductive and a threat to future success 
of their children.  This means that extremism is most 
attractive to children from families that are so poor that 
opportunities for education and advancement are all but 
non-existent.  As the Indian economy continues to boom, the 
percentage of Muslim families who feel there is no hope for 
their children's' future is growing smaller, as is the pool 
of potential recruits. 
MULFORD