In the wake of U.S. Vice President JD Vance’s recent visit to India and discussions surrounding amendments to India’s Waqf law, a faction of online voices has erupted with bizarre accusations, claiming the mass killing of 27 civilians in Pahalgam was a meticulously orchestrated operation by the Modi government. However, a deeper historical dive into the roots of extremism in South Asia reveals a far more complex—and often overlooked—reality.
Pakistan remains the only country in the modern world where no head of state has successfully completed a five-year term. In 1978, military ruler General Zia-ul-Haq seized power in Pakistan, ushering in the era known as “Ziabad.” During the same period, his ideological twin across the border, Major General Ziaur Rahman, had taken over Bangladesh through a military coup. Both leaders were not Indian puppets, as is often claimed, but rather subservient to U.S. strategic interests. General Zia-ul-Haq spearheaded the Islamization of Pakistan and empowered its nuclear ambitions. Under U.S. patronage, he laid the foundation for the Taliban inside Pakistan.
Major General Ziaur Rahman, mirroring his Pakistani counterpart, began sending Bangladeshi recruits to Afghanistan in 1979 to support the U.S. against Soviet influence. Thus, both Pakistan and Bangladesh became breeding grounds for jihadist groups under the orchestration of these two leaders. These were not Indian creations—they were American constructs.
Following Ziaur Rahman’s assassination, Zia-ul-Haq continued to funnel fighters from both countries into Afghanistan. With direct U.S. involvement, these efforts eventually gave rise to Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. In this regard, Pakistan’s Zia-ul-Haq laid the extremist foundation, and Bangladesh’s Ziaur Rahman institutionalized it locally. After Zia-ul-Haq’s death in a plane crash, extremism in Pakistan intensified, with radicalized Bangladeshis returning from training camps across the border.
The roots of global jihad, however, reach even further back. In 1703, Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab’s doctrine of Wahhabism took shape. With the covert backing of British intelligence (MI6), Wahhabism was designed to fragment Muslim unity and destabilize the Ottoman Empire. From this ideological framework, Indian subcontinent figures like Syed Ahmad Barelvi and Titumir adopted similar radical views to disturb regional harmony. Later, in 1941, British patronage birthed another extremist strand: Maududism, which gave rise to Jamaat-e-Islami—a group that staunchly opposed both Pakistan’s and Bangladesh’s independence.
Jamaat-e-Islami, banned multiple times in both Pakistan and Bangladesh, has been the ideological and operational nucleus for more than 20 international extremist organizations. Bangladesh’s own 40 jihadist groups trace their lineage directly to Jamaat. Ironically, the right to political participation for Jamaat-e-Islami was reinstated in 1979 not by India or Prime Minister Modi, but by Ziaur Rahman, whom history increasingly views as a patron of regional militancy.
The modern resurgence of terror in South Asia is not rooted in Indian politics. It is anchored in U.S. Cold War strategies, Pakistani military ambitions, and ideological frameworks that stretch back centuries. When the U.S.-Pakistan alliance soured, China stepped into the vacuum, investing over $65 billion into Pakistan—an astronomical sum not even matched in resource-rich Myanmar. This overinvestment isn’t just economic; it’s geopolitical. China now uses Pakistani soil and jihadist factions like Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed to pressure India via cross-border instability.
Today, Pahalgam—once likened to Switzerland for its beauty—is a valley of tears. The massacre of 27 innocent lives is not a Modi conspiracy, but the outcome of decades of regional radicalization rooted in Pakistani and international geopolitics. The ideology that fuels such carnage stems from a long line of actors—from Wahhab to Zia to Maududi—not from New Delhi.
The haunting reality came alive when a weeping woman watched her husband executed after merely stating his name and religion. Twenty-seven lives were extinguished in a single day: twelve more hang by a thread. This was not political theatre—it was a human tragedy. And if being non-Muslim is now a crime punishable by death, the world must ask: Who truly lit the match that set South Asia ablaze?
Aminul Hoque
Former Diplomat and Security Analyst