Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel was the only top Congress leader who learnt the lessons of partition and tried to give nationalist orientation to the policies of free India. It was informally accepted that no Muslim would be given sensitive posts of chief of staff of the thre wings of the armed forces and Home and Foreign secretary of the government of India.

As vice chairman of the "Study Team " on Defence, appointed by the government of India in 1967, I had the opportunity to interact with the heads of Defence related problems, on the basis of their experience of wars with Pakistan in 1947-48 and 1965. At last time,the border of Gujarat and Rajasthan with Pakistan came under the purview of the Southern Command with its head quarter at Pune. I wanted to know about the experience of the armed forces about the conduct of Muslims living on the border areas.The commanding officers were reluctant to answer but when I insisted on getting a candid answer, I was told: that, exception apart, they could hardly trust a Muslim.With the growing communalization of national policies in favor of Muslims, under the name of secularism in the recent years, things have become worse. The frequent reports of infiltration of Jehadis into the armed forces and Defence related establishments, including those connected with research, have therefore not come as a surprise to me.

Jihadis have a world view and clear objective of establishing the sway of Islam and imposition of Islamic laws and values, opposition democratic and humanistic values, which uphold freedom of thought, religion and guarantee peaceful co existence.

Talk about Reactionary Islam and Reformist Islam is an exercise in self deception. Islam is bound to and guided by letter and spirit of Koran which does not permit any kind of reform. The movement for modernization and reforms of Islam started by Kemal Pasha is now in retreat in Turkey itself. Fundamentalist and Reactionary Islam is gaining ground all over the world.

Policy makers of India driven by Vote Bank policies have been ignoring hard realities.Their policies favour Jihadis. This has encouraged Islamic separatists and fundamentalists to gain ground and widen their bases in India. The rapid growth of Madarsas and so called minority institutions particularly Aligarh Muslim University and Jamia Milia Islamia at Delhi are playing a dangerous role in this respect. Their products are more reactionary in their outlook.

As things are, the world is moving towards a third world war which is bound to become a war between communists and Islamists on the one side and humanists and humanitic values on the other. India with its long tradition of freedom of thought and democratic worship coupled with the fact that over 95% of Indian Muslims are progeny of converts to Islam and are near blood relation of Hindus could have given a Humanistic orientation to Islam and moderate and reformist look to Indian Muslims. That has not been done. Rising generation of Indian Muslims is therfore becoming more prone to Islamic fanaticism than ever before. That is why local support base of Jihadi terrorists is expanding. 

Unless effective steps are taken to check this, it may go out of hand.War with Pakistan is inevitable, and any kind of softness towards Islamic and Jihadis would be disastrous.