Even while we Indians fret about the rise of jihadi terrorism inside the country and in the neighbourhood, with both Pakistan and Bangladesh providing willing recruits, the reality is quite the opposite: even with a restive Muslim population of over 172 million, and despite the Islamist radicalisation of West Asia, Africa and enclaves of Europe, India probably produces the lowest number of jihadis in the world.

The contrast with Europe, which has now become the epicentre of Islamist terrorism, with Brussels being the latest victim yesterday (22 March), is stunning.



Belgium, with a population of 11 million, lesser than Mumbai or Delhi, produces 40 jihadis per million population – fighters who went to fight in West Asia’s two major wars, according to the International Centre for the Study Of Radicalisation and Political Violence (ICSR).

A report in The Guardian says that “more than 250 Belgians have left the country to fight alongside jihadis in Syria and Iraq; about 75 have died in combat and 125 have returned.”



ICSR data show that even the “peaceful” Nordics – Denmark and Sweden – were high up in the per capita Islamist fighters count. They sent 27 and 19 fighters per million population, followed by France with 18, Austria with 17 and Holland with 14.5 (see here).



In contrast, Pakistan, which is often seen as the fountainhead of global jihadism, managed to send less than three warriors per million. India is nowhere on the map of global jihad.



Are we missing something here? Why, despite having a Muslim population of 172 million, nearly as much as in Pakistan (182 million), does India produce so few jihadis, and why does even Pakistan fare so well when compared to European jihadism?



Similarly, why does Saudi Arabia, which is actually no different from ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) in terms of ideological brutality, produce jihadists by the barrel, including the best known among them, the late Osama bin Laden? ICSR, in a January 2015 report, noted that between 1,500-2,500 Islamists from Saudi Arabia were fighting various jihadist wars in Iraq and Syria.



The answer has to lie in the national culture. If both Europe and West Asia are generating a higher number of jihadis per capita despite following two different majority religions (Christianity and Islam), we have to look for what is common to them, not what divides. And we have to look for what differentiates the Indian sub-continent from Europe and West Asia.



The answer must lie in the cultural differences of Abrahamic religions and Indic ones, especially Hinduism. Secularists don’t like mentioning the “H” word for anything good, but this is an important part of the explanation of why India produces so few jihadis, and Europe so many.

