Follow-Up

SIMI was founded with a mission to revive Islam in India.

But what really went wrong for the largest students organisation of Muslims?


The Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) has become a big question mark for the community. What went wrong for the largest students organisation of Muslims? How can a students organisation get involved in terrorism? Was it a trap laid by the foreign agencies?


SIMI was founded on April 25, 1977 at the Aligarh Muslim University, Uttar Pradesh with a mission to revive Islam in India. The group’s three core ideological concepts were: Ummah, Caliphate and Jihad. But SIMI’s alleged involvement with terrorism and its pro-Taliban stance in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, anti-U.S. demonstrations in the Indian states of Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat and Rajasthan and the glorification of Osama bin Laden as the “ultimate jihadi” prompted the Indian government to impose a ban on it in September 2001.


During its peak days, SIMI is believed to have 400 full-time cadres called “Ansars” and some 20,000 ordinary members known as “Ikhwans.” Every thing was fine and above board till SIMI was under the influence of Jamaat-i-Islami-Hind.


The first major strategic error committed by the SIMI’s then leadership was the decision of not to be a student’s wing of Jamaat-i-Islami-Hind. Instead they opted for full independence. The SIMI leadership had given in writing to the Jamaat-i-Islami-Hind that it can decide the detail modalities about SIMI becoming the students wing of Jamaat-i-Islami-Hind. But at the last moment, the SIMI leadership in their Vijaywada meeting in 1981 decided to go all-alone.


Jamaat-i-Islami-Hind felt betrayed as it was because of its initiative, SIMI had come into existence. For four years it had promoted and nurtured SIMI as its own students wing. Hence Jamaat-i-Islami-Hind had no option, but to wash its hands off SIMI and form its own student’s wing, under the name of Students Islamic Organization (SIO) in 1982.


The decision of the Jamaat-i-Islami-Hind to form SIO was a big blow to SIMI as it gradually lost support from the Jamaat circle. It is practically impossible for any independent student organisation to function, that too with an age limit of 30 years for its members. SIMI badly needed logistic and financial resources and also an ideological base.


Another blow suffered by SIMI was that its initial leadership used its credibility to build their own careers. That left a huge vacuum within the SIMI. The immaturity of SIMI reflected in its core programmes. It launched offensives campaign such as anti-family planning campaign, celebrated 26th January as black day, burnt the model of the Supreme Court, and many such initiatives which caught the attention of foreign agencies active in India.


Unfortunately for SIMI, the period between 1982 and 1992 was the most volatile period in India, where in the neighbour-hood 35,000 Mujahideen from 43 Muslim countries were fighting the battle in Afghanistan against Soviet occupation.


By 1986, the American Intelligence Agency, CIA chief, Willaim Casey had stepped up the war against Soviet Union by persuading the US Congress to extend CIA support to a long- standing Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), (Pakistan intelligence service), initiative to recruit radical Muslims from around the world to come to Pakistan and fight with the Afghan Mujaheddin.


The ISI had encouraged this since 1982. Pakistan had given standing instructions to all its embassies abroad to give visas, with no questions asked, to anyone wanting to come and fight the Mujaheddin. ISI and Pakistan’s Jamaat-e-Islami set up reception committees to welcome, house and train the arriving militants and then encouraged them to join the Mujaheddin groups, usually the Hizb-e-Islami. This setting was perfect for an independent organisation like SIMI to fall for the trap.


ISI and Pakistan’s Jamaat-e-Islami were interested in recruiting fighters from India as it was also sponsoring the Kashmir and Sikh separatists. They had already established K-2 deal (convergence of the Kashmir and Khalistan issues).


The innocent SIMI cadres were not aware of the activities of their top leadership. Infact, majority of SIMI cadres were peace loving. Unfortunately the leadership and a small section of SIMI cadres did fall for the trap and were sent to a camp run by the Jamaat-e-Islami (JEI) of Pakistan in the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP).


In April 1989, Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan had been completed. ISI focus shifted to Kashmir. An All-India Conference on the theme of iqdam (initiative) was organised in 1991. The conference was supposed to be the launching pad for the aggressive recruitment by the ISI.


Fortunately the Mumbai unit of SIMI sensed something fishy, and it soon discovered the trap laid by ISI and Jamaat-e-Islami, Pakistan. Just couple of days before the conference, the Mumbai unit announced its split with SIMI, publicly. They announced their split through an ad which carried their names in the city’s Urdu press on June 26, 1991.


Even Jamaat-e-Islami Hind’s Ameer, Mr Sirajul Hassan cancelled his speech in the Iqdam-e-Ummat conference because of its dubious agenda.


Later, the key SIMI activists and former leaders including Saquib Nachhan involved in the ISI trap were arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment. A section of SIMI continued its ideological affinity with other countries’ students organis-ations, which was revealed by SIMI’s financial secretary Salim Sajid following his arrest in June 2002. Sajid’s interrogation exposed SIMI’s covert connections with Saudi Arabia’s Jamayyatul Ansar (JA) and Bangladesh’s Islamic Chhatra Shivir, the student wing of Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh.


After SIMI published its controversial Babri Masjid poster: ‘Waiting for (Mehmud) Ghaznavi,’ the Intelligence Agencies began crackdown on SIMI as they found this slogan divisive.


But one thing is clear that majority of SIMI cadres are not involved in violent and terror acts. If the politicians, community leaders and the police do not tackle the issue with utmost care and transparency, it may further alienate the Muslim youth and make them vulnerable for further exploitation.