PFI Gone; Battle Against Islamo-Fascism Goes On

Every year the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, New Delhi publishes a report—‘Armed Conflicts in South Asia’. The report for the year 2011 contains a disturbing account:

After the insurgency broke out in Kashmir, a leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami (Kashmir), Anantnag was meeting a senior police officer at the latter's house. It was in March or April 1991. He told him about his visit to various parts of India. He told about his Kerala visit also. The police officer being from Kerala assumed it was to Malabar. But he was surprised to know that it was Quilon.

What was he doing there?

He was networking with an Islamic ‘charity’ organisation. This ‘charity’ in turn was run by Abdul Nazar Mahdani.

One should also note that the Kashmir J-e-I and Mahdani meeting took place almost a year-and-a-half before the dome-demolition at Sri Ram Janmabhoomi at Ayodhya.

Mahdani created a radical Islamist outfit - Islamic Seva Sangh (ISS). He would later emerge as the prime accused in Coimbatore bomb blast (1998).

While Mahdani was initially arrested in the case, he was released as the case against him got progressively weakened and political pressure to release him increased—cutting across all non-BJP parties. Although, his organisation, which always under state and central agencies radar, was banned.

Then two things happened.

• Mahdani launched a political party - People's Democratic Party (PDP). It alternatively brought the support of both Left parties and Congress Party.

In Tamil Nadu there was the Al-Ummah, a Jihadist organisation which specialised in both bomb blasts and targeted killings. Around 2005 this too started fading and in its place emerged another organisation with a secular name ‘Manitha Neethi Pasarai’ (Human Justice Camp, MNP).

Similarly in Karnataka, which was becoming a hotbed of Islamist terror activities (attack in Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore), an organisation called ‘Karnataka Forum for Dignity’ came up.

November of 2006 saw all these organisations fuse to become the Popular Front of India (PFI).

In its notorious existence between 2006 and 2022, the PFI became the complete Islamist-fascist movement.

Using vote-bank politics, communal networking, political narrative and terror, the organisation used every fault-line in Hindu society to weaken it further.

One can consider both Jamaat e Islami (J-e-I) and Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) as the parents of PFI. The J-e-I offered the ideological backing. SIMI, emerging largely from J-e-I, provided the vast networking within and outside India.

Almost from the PFI's inception, state Intelligence Bureaus (IB) and central agencies had been giving adverse reports, warning the respective state governments and the central government of the dangers PFI posed to national integrity and social harmony.

An IB report submitted in the year 2012 revealed a crucial facet of PFI.

The promotion of every conflict-oriented ideology within Indian society is the consistent hallmark of all Islamist movements. This stresses the continuity of PFI with SIMI and SIMI with J-e-Islami.

A 'Muslim Party', Maududi says, 'will not be content with the establishment of Islam in just one area alone.'

Readers will note that Maududi, the foundational god-father of all the Islamist movements, including PFI and J-e-I, saw Islam from its very start as a political programme through history. The reader will also note how Maududi uses the terms 'Muslim party' and 'Islamic state' interchangeably.

The aim here is the establishment of a global theocratic state of Islam. And as per this worldview, all the problems that every society has can be attributed to the deficiency of Islam in that society. This is what makes the J-e-I philosophy sync with the radical left. This also aids its alliances with identity-politics elements.

That, in turn, allows the Islamist fundamentalist organisations to align itself—through rhetoric of social justice, socialism, anti-casteism etc.,—with the so-called progressive parties.

Such a project has been ongoing in India for decades. For example, as early as 1983, SIMI organised a mass contact programme in Kerala and called it the 'Anti-Capitalism Week.'

Meanwhile, anti-Hindu perversion in political parties is at an all time high today. Hate speeches masquerading as social justice are indulged in for instant validation. This has created a fertile ground for Maududian radical Islamist organizations - from J-e-I to SIMI to PFI.

The pseudo-social-justice and pseudo-Dalit platforms, which are actually anti-India and anti-Hindu platforms, are another great force-multiplier for Maududian Islamist organizations.

In Tamil Nadu on the other hand, the evangelical, Dravidianist and Islamist forces have succeeded in creating a pseudo-Dalit narrative whose only conception of social justice is spewing venom on Hinduism.

The visible manifestation of the operations these forces is Thirumavalavan of VCK. When Madani was active, VCK virulently supported him and even presented him awards. Now, Thirumavalavan stands in support of PFI and aligned organisations.

That said, the PFI is now gone. But the dangerous environment that will breed and nurture more such organisations still persists.

It seems that the Maududian Islamist watch tower had already anticipated the ban. So, in June 2022, they launched a new organisation. This too has a deceptively secular name: Solidarity.

Swarajya made the following observation in an article on this organisation:

One can be sure that the Central Government and intelligence agencies are already cognisant of this newly formed 'youth organisation'.

With Indian Government banning PFI, Indian society should start working on banishing Maududian fascism from Indian politics.