How Hizb ut Tahrir can become a destabilising factor in Indian subcontinent

The rise and resurgence of Hizb ut Tahrir (HuT) in and around India is evident in a sequence of events in the last half a dozen months. India’s National Investigation Agency (NIA) filed a chargesheet a couple of days ago against Abdul Rehman and Mujibur Rehman, linked to the HuT, for planning and executing terrorist acts in the state of Tamil Nadu and other locations of the country. The Ministry of Home Affairs banned the HuT in October this year under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, while analysing six cases of terror modules linked to the HuT investigated by the NIA.

The NIA had earlier arrested a key member of the outfit, Faizul Rahman, who is believed to be the HuT’s Emir (chief) in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry. Just a few weeks later, at the “Anti-Terrorism Conference-2024”, there was a grave concern among the top security agencies of the country over the rise and activities of the HuT in India. Earlier, the US, China, Russia, and Pakistan had banned and declared the HuT a terror outfit threatening world peace and security. Similarly, the UK, Germany, Egypt, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and several Central Asian and Arabian nations had earlier declared the HuT as a proscribed terrorist organisation.

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It is essential to note that the HuT was established in Bayt ul-Maqdis (Syria) nearly seven decades ago in 1953 by Sheikh Sheikh Taqi Al-Din Al-Nabhani, a Palestinian radical activist and Shariat judge in the Jerusalem appeals court. He was the main ideologist and the permanent leader of the HuT till 1979, besides being a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. Among other founders of HuT were Haled Hasan, leader of the Palestinian organisation Fatah, and Asaad Tahmimi, the spiritual leader of Islamic Jihad.

The HuT holds an extremist position, protects Islamic terrorists, and makes a fervent appeal to all Muslims of the world “to rise” on a sacred jihad against “faithless people”. Every single leaflet, brochure, book, and literature distributed by the HuT and Internet sites maintained by this organisation contains an idea and necessity of jihad. Through jihad, the HuT intends to transform all states from Dar al-Kufr (the country of unbelief) into Dar al-Islam (the country of Islam).

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In the early 1990s, the HuT aimed at establishing a theocratic single Islamic Caliphate incorporating all five Central Asian republics, along with the Muslim-dominated regions of Russia, China, and the northern Caucasus, which consequently spread to the Indian subcontinent in the later period. The HuT has projected its goals in three stages: The first stage is recruiting and indoctrinating new members. The second stage would be the interaction stage, wherein an Islamic perspective is provided for all social problems. It offers Islamic prescriptions for all the maladies of the current turbulent times, which attract the attention of the young, impressionable, and less educated population. The third stage is the final one, where HuT takes over power to establish an Islamic Caliphate based on Shariat law.

The HuT relies on underground meetings rather than public speeches. The HuT members send messages faster than the government can suppress or discredit them. The HuT also disseminates its ideas through leaflets, books, and magazines, which usually contain its religious ideology, passages and verses from the Quran, descriptions of current events in the world, and discussions of issues, such as the Palestinian conflict, as a veritable means to mobilise local support. For example, the voice of the HuT became prominent last year following Hamas’ attack against Israel on October 7, 2023, and Israel’s ensuing onslaught in Gaza. The HuT followers organised a rally in the UK in support of Palestine, where a supporter even chanted Jihad against infidels.

A few months later, the real intent and radical and extremist face of the HuT was exposed in Bangladesh in July this year during the protest movement against the then Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina. Notably, Sheikh Hasina banned the HuT fifteen years ago in 2009. However, the HuT has continued its underground activities and has become a potent radical force that can destabilise the region. With one of its founders in Bangladesh, Nasimul Gani, becoming the home secretary of the country, and another prominent cadre, Mahfuz Alam, becoming a key adviser to Bangladesh’s chief adviser, Mohammad Yunus, the HuT is going to gain enough ground in India’s immediate neighbourhood in coming times.

It has been evident that the HuT has been spewing venom against India for the last six years or so. The HuT allegedly orchestrated a protest outside the Indian High Commission in London against the abrogation of Article 370 in August 2019. Further, a year later, in December 2020, the Madurai police registered a case against Mohammed Iqbal, who was allegedly in touch with the HuT operatives (along with ISIS) through digital media. The case originated from a Facebook post by Mohammed Iqbal that attempted to stoke communal tension in India. The operatives and cadres of the HuT are believed to be inspired by Zakir Naik’s tele speeches, a fugitive and banned Islamist currently hiding in Malaysia.

This imminent rise of the HuT shows that it will continue its radicalisation process on a grand scale in the nooks and crannies of the Indian subcontinent. As found by the NIA from the arrested duo, Abdul and Mujibur, the HuT is accused of recruiting “students into secret HuT classes”, organising “religious sessions”, and preparing anti-India “short films” on social media, besides holding an exhibition that showcased the “military strength of Islamic nations, with the intent of inciting a violent overthrow of the Indian government through jihad”.

Since Bangladesh has become the breeding ground of religious extremism and terror activities in the last few years, with radical organisations, such as the HuT, Jamaat-e-Islami, and Tablighi Jamaat, holding the fort in this country, India could be the easiest and softest target of these inimical forces. It is high time that the Indian government assess the perilous security situation created by these radical anti-India forces and accordingly spruce up its intelligence and security mechanism to fend off any threat from them.

Mahesh Ranjan Debata teaches at the Center for Inner Asian Studies, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.