Islamism and Intelligence in South Asia

ISBN: 9780755600717 出版年：2018 页码：290 Prem Mahadevan Bloomsbury Publishing

State sponsorship of terrorism is a complex and important topic in today's international affairs - and especially pertinent in the regional politics of the Middle East and South Asia, where Pakistan hflashpoint of Islamist politics and terrorism. In Islamism and Intelligence in South Asia, Prem Mahadevan demonstrates how over several decades, radical Islamists, sometimes with the tacit support of parts of the military establishment, have weakened democratic governance in Pakistan and acquired progressively larger influence over policy-making. Mahadevan traces this histoanti-colonial Deobandi movement, which wthe post-partition political atmosphere and a rediscovery of the thinking of Ibn Taymiyyah, and partially ennobled the idea of `jihad' in South Asia as a righteous war against foreign oppression. Using Pakistani media and academic sources for traw data, and reinforcing this with scholarly analysis from Western commentators, tPakistan's trajectory towards a `soft' Islamic revolution. Envisioned by the country's intelligence community as a solution to chronic governance failures, these narratives called for a re-orientation away from South Asia and towards the Middle East. In the process, Pakistan has become a sanctuary for Arab jihadist groups, such as Al-Qaeda, who had no previous ethnic or linguistic connection with South Asia. Most alarmingly, official discourse on terrorism hsilenced by the military-intelligence complex. The result is a slow drift towards extremism and possible legitimation of internationally proscribed terrorist organizations in Pakistan's electoral politics.