ON SEPTEMBER 3RD Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda's chief, released a video message in which he promised to "raise the flag of jihad" across South Asia. Many analysts responded with little more than a shrug. The extremist group looks increasingly desperate. Since Osama bin Laden was killed in 2011, al-Qaeda’s impact has been limited. It is overshadowed by the brutal Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, which draws volunteer fighters from a wide range of countries and has said that Afghanistan and Pakistan will be brought under its yoke too. Yet the biggest reason for scepticism about al-Qaeda’s threat is that neither it, nor the IS, are likely to get support from more than a tiny handful of Muslims in India.
India’s Muslims are numerous, but moderate. Though barely 15% of the total, at some 180m they roughly number the same as Pakistan’s entire population. Many are disaffected. In the only Muslim-majority state, Kashmir, residents are embittered by years of heavy-handed rule by Indian security forces, and protests frequently erupt. Occasional terrorist attacks take place in Indian cities, blamed on a home-grown group, the Indian Mujahideen. In February 2013 a bomb attack in Hyderabad killed 16. But these attacks have been growing less frequent and less deadly, possibly because support from Pakistan has waned. Bursts of deadly religious violence, when Muslims and Hindus clash, also take place, most notably last year near a northern town, Muzaffarnagar, when at least 40 people were killed. India’s Muslims generally have reasons for some gloom: they endure lower levels of education, income, political representation or government jobs than the majority Hindus. And yet India’s Muslims, almost across the board, have remained moderate, tolerant, quick to condemn religious violence and ready to engage members of other religions. The contrast with the sectarian bloodletting, growing radicalism and deepening conservatism in Pakistan next door, for example, is striking.