It was mind numbing to watch those visuals. A man armed with an axe, attacking another from behind, chopping him up and putting his body on fire. To top it all, it was all filmed by a fourteen-year-old. The fact that the camera did not shake in this teenager’s hand is perhaps a pointer to the larger dystopia in which we are entering. The boy’s firm hold of the camera is a signifier of the death of the generation of innocence. The act of killing was done for the camera. It was a performance. Afrazul was to be killed for the consumption of those images and the underlying message behind it which makes Afrazul incidental to the plot. Any Muslim would have easily replaced him. But a labourer from Bengal, a poor Muslim was an easy target as he would not have deep roots within the city or the locality. Nationalism, after all, picks up the most vulnerable to make statements of valour and bravery.

There were systematic attempts to portray the act as the vile expression of a demented mind. Who would do such a thing, we were asked. However, the ‘disturbed mind’ theory is a diversionary tactic as it later turned out that Shambhulal Raigar did not exhibit any such behaviour in the past. Then there were attempts not to see this as another example of Muslim lynching. Humanity died, proclaimed many a headline conveniently forgetting that the human who was killed had a name and a religion. Convenience also plays a part in glossing over the fact that Muslims have been lynched with rather agonizing yet monotonous regularity, particularly in the state of Rajasthan where the Chief Minister has at one time been a liberal herself.

 What also got lost in the din was the more ominous fact that those accused of similar crimes in the same state today walk free. Impunity is a culture which is promoted by state complicity. In this case, it is absolutely clear that the motive and purpose behind the public act of murder was to send across a message. Two different sets of constituencies were being addressed here: the fanatic Hindus who despite their proclaimed vegetarianism bay for the blood of Muslims and secondly to the Muslims who were being told to ‘behave’ themselves.

For a person who lost his livelihood due to demonetization, the fury he unleashed on Afrazul that day was not without a method. Making prior and post videos of the incident and then circulating it widely points to a deeper problem. And that means that Afrazul was minor to the whole scheme; the point was to paint an entire community as guilty of engaging in love-jihad and therefore the proposed punishment was not just for Afrazul but for the entire community. In a way, the entire community has been marked out by the Hindu fanatics as deserving of such a fate when they cross a line. It matters little whether Afrazul was engaged in some kind of love jihad or not, what matters is the perception that has been created among a section of Hindus against the Muslim community. Fuelled by absolute hatred coupled with fantastic ideas with no material basis at all, this discourse about Muslims has many takers. One can only see the many voices which have emerged to save the accused to get to the sense that something within our society is deeply rotten.

Shambhulal Raigar did this horrible enactment on the 6th of December and this symbolism cannot just be a coincidence. We all know that the mosque got demolished on 6th December and that is celebrated as Shaurya divas (victory day) by Hindu nationalists. What fitting tribute to the memory of that victory than to kill a Muslim? Of course, the similarity does not end there. Like the Babri mosque which stood in a forlorn state, Afrazul was also alone in the city, cut out from his roots and community network. What is also worth mentioning is that 6th of December is also the day of empowerment for millions of Indian Dalits. Nationalist Hinduism has always tried to appropriate the Dalits within the broader Hindu fold. We saw this in the case of Babri demolition, in Gujarat and now in Rajasthan. For the average Dalit, this gives them the opportunity of acceptance within the Hindu social order.

Those who talk about Dalit Muslim identity always gloss over the fact that there has been a slow Hinduisation of various Dalit castes. On the other hand, it is also true that Muslims, by and large, including low caste Muslims have shunned the Dalits because of their deep-rooted prejudice and casteist attitudes. In the absence of a dialogic relationship between Muslims and Dalits, the nationalist Hindus have worked hard to bring the Dalits into their fold and infuse them with nationalist ideas. Generally, no one should have a problem with nationalism. However, the peculiar variety of our kind of nationalism has only translated into being synonymous with anti-Muslim ideas and practices. The average Dalit today is as rabid anti-Muslim as one would expect anyone under the influence of Hindu nationalist ideology.

What is most distressing was the attempt on part of the media to portray it as the handiwork of some abnormal mind. There was hardly any talk in terms of how an ideology which manufactures hates against Muslims can be responsible for this. There was no discussion on how this was a targeted killing of a Muslim. And there was no discussion on how this kind of killing would go on until the killers or potential killers are assured of immunity. There are credible reports that some Hindu nationalists are collecting money to be donated to Shambhulal’s family and there are others who are readying themselves for legal support. What it tells us that the virus of hate runs deep within a section of Hindu society and that they largely see this as a justified act of revenge.

There has been an outpouring of grief on the social media and elsewhere for Afrazul. However, they are nowhere close to what we witnessed in other cases. It is sad but true that we live in times when Muslim lives matter less than other lives. Those who organised protests against the lynching of Afrazul were also not convinced that this has to be talked about as a specific hate crime against Muslim identity. As if to appear politically correct, they insert another line in their campaign—all lives matter. This meant that the protest was not specifically about Muslims being lynched but also about others meeting the same fate.

Let me add a caveat here. I am not saying that one should not protest against all kinds of lynching and other forms of oppression. But in a context where Muslim lives have become precarious for the precise reason of being Muslim; then the protest against Afrazul’s killing should have made this statement boldly. In trying a balancing act, these protests have only reduced the depraved ideological gravity of this targeted killing. It was also a little rich that some of these protests were organised by those who had defended the killings of Muslims in Nandigram and Singur. If Hindu nationalism has to resurrect itself on dismembered bodies of Muslims, then it is Muslims themselves who should be at the forefront of protesting against this barbaric dystopia for it is the Muslim alone who can feel the pain of being Muslim in India today.  

Arshad Alam is a www.NewAgeIslam.com columnist

Republished with permission from New Age Islam.
 

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The recently held Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind Conference in Ajmer gave a call for Dalit Muslim unity. Laudable in its objectives because of the marginal positions of both these communities, it is but natural that they should come together to fight the perceived oppressions against them from the right wing parties, particularly the BJP which is understood as the party of Brahmanical dominance.

Given the fact that in a few months, there will be elections in Uttar Pradesh where both these sections can play a decisive role, the call assumed greater political significance. After all, Dalits have been out of power in Uttar Pradesh and Muslims have never been so marginal in terms of political representation in Uttar Pradesh.

Moreover, the Samajwadi Party (SP), the ruling party and the party of choice for Muslims ever since it came to power, has failed to protect the life and liberty of Muslims, especially in the last three years. With incidents like Muzzaffarnagar and the rhetoric of Kairana Hindu exodus, it was a natural thing for Muslims to look for a party other than the SP. They perhaps rightly think that it is only the BSP which has the potential to defeat the BJP electorally. 

From the Sachar Committee Report onwards, all analyses of the Muslim situation, particularly in the context of Uttar Pradesh, point towards the convergence of Muslim situation and the Dalit situation. In terms of representation as well as in terms of threat to identity, Muslims and Dalits today seem to be on the same scale of vulnerability. It would not be out of place to suggest that in terms of representation and other social indicators like education, Dalits seem to be catching up and in cases becoming better than the Muslims.

The Muslims, through years of faulty political choices, have lagged behind and are today in a situation where it would not be wrong to group them together with the Dalits. But more importantly, the threat to identity has assumed alarming proportions. Dalits and Muslims have been the victims of targeted attacks on the basis of their identity. While in some cases, it has been an assault from the right wing Hindu forces, in other cases, they have been attacked due to a perceived sense of upward mobility among them which is resented by the dominant middle castes.

It shouldn’t be surprising therefore if both these blocks come together under the umbrella of the BSP. The Jamiat Conference is merely articulating what seems to be the felt need within the Muslim community. The alliance will be formidable but will it also be sustaining and stable?

Historically Muslims have voted with the SP, the ruling party of Uttar Pradesh. In fact when Mayawati was voted out of power, it was the Muslim vote which shifted from the BSP to the SP. How then are we to believe that the alliance will stand the test of times? And what lies behind the ambivalence of the Muslim community to rally behind Mayawati?

Although all indicators suggest that Muslims are at the lowest rung of the ladder in Uttar Pradesh, the perception amongst Muslims continues to be that they are culturally the dominant community in Uttar Pradesh.

The answer perhaps lies in the self-perception of Muslims of Uttar Pradesh. Although all indicators suggest that Muslims are at the lowest rung of the ladder in Uttar Pradesh, the perception amongst Muslims continues to be that they are culturally the dominant community in Uttar Pradesh. There is an abject refusal to come to terms with the present situation and Muslims remain mired in the fantastic past in which they think themselves as large landlords, as the ones who brought civilisation to this part of India.

An average Muslim here is as caste conscious as an average upper caste Hindu. The problem is that even Muslims who belong to lower castes consider themselves to be firmly entrenched with the Ashraf culture of upper caste Muslims in Uttar Pradesh. The lower caste Muslim artisan or businessman who has seen economic upward mobility desires to be accepted within the upper caste Muslim subculture and for that reason denies his lower caste identity.

This denial is very important to understand why any lower caste Muslim mobilisation has not been successful within Uttar Pradesh. Because this denial leads them to consciously abrogate any ties which they have to other lower castes. Islam becomes the lone signifier in such a situation and secular identities like caste and region recede in the background. It is because of this that there is hardly any public proclamation of the acceptance of caste within Uttar Pradesh Muslim politics.

Thus in all probability, this alliance is going to be a political alliance of convenience. It would have been much better if this alliance would also become a social alliance between Dalits and Muslims. But for that to happen, Muslims have to engage with the entrenched caste practices and ideas within their own community. It is all very well to say that Islam does not recognise caste, but anyone who is familiar with Muslim society would say that Muslims are as casteist as the Hindu society.

Only through a thorough interrogation which is internal to the community, can one visualise a true Dalit-Muslim unity. It is heartening to note that the Jamiat has had the voice to articulate such a unity. A good start to show that they are serious about the issue would be to raise the issue of discrimination faced by the Muslim Dalits at the hand of upper caste Muslims.

(Arshad Alam is a NewAgeIslam.com columnist)

(This article was first published on New Age Islam).

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The latest controversy over the Law Commission questionnaire eliciting responses over the viability of a uniform civil code has raised many questions. But at the outset, it should be made clear that there is nothing wrong in the commission asking for opinions from the general public about something which is important not just for Muslims but for a host of other communities in India. Those who are seeing a sinister design behind the questionnaire are plainly wrong. The questionnaire also elicits opinions about reforms in other communities, not just in the Muslim community. Those who are reducing it as a Muslim issue must answer the charge of communalising and trivialising an otherwise serious issue.

The responses from various political parties have been along expected lines. The so called parties of social justice have been quick in condemning the law commission outright and declaring it as an infringement on the rights of minorities, particularly Muslims.

There is some merit in the argument that the law commission questionnaire dovetails neatly with the upcoming UP elections. It can also be safely argued that the BJP’s desire in fostering a debate on uniform civil code is not about any genuine attempt to have a dialogue on the merits of the proposed legislation but is more driven with a desire to paint the Muslims as the other: as a community which is perpetually inclined to block reform within its ranks and choose to be socially conservative and regressive. The ironical problem however is that amidst all this debate, it is the BJP which is coming out as a supporter and champion of gender justice.

The position of AIMPLB is only furthering the agenda of the BJP. If the BJP wants to portray the Muslims as the regressive minority, the AIMPLB is more than willing to act like one.

The position of AIMPLB is only furthering the agenda of the BJP. If the BJP wants to portray the Muslims as the regressive minority, the AIMPLB is more than willing to act like one. By not engaging with the questionnaire of the law commission, it does not realise that it is sending a wrong message to other communities that Muslims remain committed to be wedded to the norms of a bygone era and refuse to come out of it. Granted that BJP might be willing to polarise society for electoral purposes, granted that it has a hidden agenda; but the fact remains that it the party of ruling dispensation and that Muslims need to engage with the government. The wholesale refusal of the AIMPLB to junk the questionnaire shows them in a particularly bad light.

On a more theoretical plane, one needs to rethink the relationship within the individual and the community in so far as the Muslim community is concerned. The received wisdom that group rights are inalienable to the Muslim community needs to be rethought. What we are confronting today is that the defined religious rights of the community are coming in the way dissenting opinions not just from specific individuals but also from within minority groups within the larger Indian Muslim community. Democracy and justice demands that these voices need to be heard and their demands be taken seriously. There cannot be a situation where in the name of rights of minorities, right of dissent should be taken away from smaller groups and individuals. Given the nature of Muslim religious organizations, this situation is hardly going to change: the power asymmetry within the Muslim community will only end up silencing the critics of the existing religious authority.

Therefore the role of the state becomes important here. Without the state support, one cannot conceive that Muslim women’s group challenging the patriarchal Islam of AIMPLB will ever succeed. Those questioning the motive of these women's organisations must understand that historically, all voices of reform have succeeded because the state has stood solidly behind such demands. If the Muslim women’s bodies today seek the support of the state, there is nothing wrong with it. Moreover, to be fair, their campaign was first targeted at the Muslim religious establishment. It was only after the refusal of the custodians of Islam in India, that these women rights activists decided to move court and they are absolutely well within their right to do so.

It is agonizing to see that the Muslim religious establishment is not even ready to grant very basic changes within the existing personal law. All that the Muslim women’s groups are demanding is the abolition of triple talaq. This in itself is a very conservative demand. In no way, this demand is questioning the unilateral right of divorce granted to Muslim men by Islam.

All that they are arguing is that instead of one sitting, talaq should be pronounced in three sittings as is the Quranic norm. By no measure does this demand question the basic asymmetry of power in Islam between men and women. And yet for the AIMPLB, this demand becomes akin to questioning the very basics of Islam. But perhaps the problem is different. And it has to do with the non-Islamic nature of Indian courts. And yet they have no problem in seeking relief from the same courts to protect their conservative interests. Such hypocrisy has been the distinct nature of Indian Muslim leadership for quite some decades now. And that’s why it suits them not to talk about reforms and the issues raised by women’s groups but to talk about a uniform civil code so as to deflect attention from real issues. It would be advisable for women’s groups and all concerned that they stay focussed on their demand for the abrogation of triple talaq and not fall for a pseudo debate on the viability of a uniform civil code.

This article was first published on New Age Islam.

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It is rather rich of Zakir Naik to write an Open Letter to the government about his perceived sense of persecution at the hands of Indian authorities.

As I have written in previously, every person including Zakir Naik should be probed within the due process of law. To create conditions in which he is forced to live outside India without a clinching evidence is hardly excusable. That he is followed by thousands of Muslims who have not become terrorists is proof enough that there is a complex set of causative factors behind every act of terror. A complex phenomenon such as terrorism should not be simplified as the result of the teaching and sermons of some individual.

Zakir Naik’s letter however goes further. It accuses the government of the day of selectively targeting Muslims. Zakir Naik becomes the victim within this narrative by becoming one of the 170 million of India’s Muslims.
The problem starts right here. A majority of Muslims here are poor and uneducated and mostly do not have a voice. On comparison, Zakir Naik owns a million-dollar enterprise and has a powerful lobby fighting for his defence. How then can he compare himself with the average Indian Muslim?

Moreover, Zakir Naik speaks openly against the religious practice of the majority of Indian Muslims. He has accused them of being open to polytheism and not following the correct tenets of Islam. How then does he become one of them? Clearly his ideas about Islam is much at variance with that of the majority of Indian Muslims. And that’s precisely the reason why he cannot represent the majority of Indian Muslims. For almost all major schools of Islam in India, barring Salafi-Wahhabi-Ahl-e-Hadeesi, Zakir Naik represents something other than Islam; in fact, the majority even refuse to certify him as a religious scholar.

It sounds patently hypocritical when Zakir Naik talks about ‘murder of democracy’ and violation of ‘fundamental rights’. Of course, all this is peppered by the undertone of ‘justice’ which he argues has been denied in his case. Talking in terms of democracy and rights would almost make Zakir Naik a believer in these secular ideas. However, all his own speeches and conduct have belied this.

A person who sings praises for the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, accepts their hospitality and prize is now talking about democracy and human rights. Why didn’t he remember them when the Saudis gave him millions to promote their ideology of Islamism?

A person who sings praises for the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, accepts their hospitality and prize is now talking about democracy and human rights. Why didn’t he remember them when the Saudis gave him millions to promote their ideology of Islamism? As a champion of democracy, why did he accept Saudi money when it is well documented that there are flagrant violations of all kinds of rights in that kingdom. What kind of democracy is he talking about when his mentor hangs and stones people for petty crimes in full public view?

There cannot be any doubt that Zakir Naik is talking about democracy and rights without even believing an iota in these concepts. After all, didn’t his Islamist predecessors argue that democracy was a system of men and what they wanted was to bring the system of God? Has Zakir Naik all of a sudden turned secular when confronted with man-made laws?

In the same letter, Zakir Naik argues that he is promoting peace and harmony in society through developing an understanding of Islam. Again, he probably knows that this is not the case. Through his erroneous understanding of the text, he has created newer religious schisms within the Muslim society so much so that there was a fatwa against him. If he cannot create harmony even within Muslim society, then heaven only knows how he is going to create peace and harmony within the Indian society. His sermons actually have the opposite effect: of promoting enmity between different religious groups in society.

If one is hell bent on arguing that Islam is the best religion in the world and that polytheism of the Hindus is a backward and deplorable religious worldview, then how does this promote peace and tolerance? If he continues to justify that Islam alone is the saviour of world, then how does this promote peace and mutual respect? Calling such sermons of a third rate pedant as dialogue militates against the very idea of a dialogical plural world. Zakir Naik is not interested in dialogue: he is a fascist demagogue who wants the entire world to convert to his point of view.

His hypocrisy on democracy begins to unravel the minute he takes recourse to the Quran. There are many passages within the text to cite in terms of pluralism and tolerance. But to quote the verse which tells Muslims to be patient and wait for their eventual victory over the polytheists is perhaps too much. This is not a man who is a believer in the virtues of secular laws like democracy. This is a man who wants to unfurl the Islamic flag everywhere, demean and trounce all other religious traditions. The recourse to democracy and the language of rights are only a means to an end: that of establishing the supremacy of Islam.

(Arshad Alam is a NewAgeIslam.com columnist).

This article was first published on NewAgeIslam.

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