There can be no higher law in journalism than, to tell the truth, and to shame the devil.
___ Walter Lippman

A lot of ink, an infinite number of film reels, and a frantic churn of news stories bristling with violent tones have fixated the Muslims as a stereotyped homogeneity. There is a cottage industry of authors who keep the midnight oil burning to ensure that the flashlights on bad Muslims keep beaming. These are churned out by a well-oiled Islamophobia machine with financial backers, think-tanks, and misinformation experts who are constantly manipulating the already flawed image of what a Muslim is, of what Islam is. 

The majority of Muslims are moderate, peaceful people who have been affected by terrorism and violence more than non-Muslims. But the media is not interested in this positive angle. It has constructed its stereotype of a Muslim as a terrorist and uses selective stories to reinforce this stereotype.

There is a strong voice of moderates from within Muslim ranks that can be properly channelised by the media to give a rounded assessment of Islamic issues. It is equally true that the media has tried to hype acts of Islamic impropriety by indulging in hyperbole.

Sadly, journalism is still failing to perform its fundamental role by simply rehashing tired old narratives of “radical Islam” or a “fight within Islam.” The truth is much more convoluted than that and the entire world has a direct role in creating the dangerous reality that so many Muslims have to live with every single day.

The media shows remarkable consistency in employing an arsenal of semantic games, key phrases, convenient omissions, and moral relativism to portray such violence as a product of Islam. As Jim Morrison observes, “Whoever controls the media, controls the mind.”

Several times headlines are sensational or distorted, and reporting is often deeply racist. This impacts directly the lives of Muslims. Some of the stories that are thus emerging are painful and disturbing. 

It is much easier for the media to reduce the complex debate on various issues confronting modern Muslims to a series of clichés, slogans and sound bites, rather than examining root causes. Because instant and credible information have to be given, it becomes necessary to resort to guesswork, rumours and suppositions to fill in the voids, and none of them will ever be rectified. They will stay on in readers’ memory.

News value also depends on the “social weight” of the message, i.e. the extent to which the media user thinks the message concerns him or her personally. To increase the “social weight” of messages, the reporter is inclined to present the deviant behaviour of Muslims in such a way that it appears to have many consequences for every single person in society.

This could explain why the media makes eager and uncritical use of negative statements about the groups concerned when these are expressed by politicians and other important persons in society.

The negative news presentation about Muslims in the media is also indubitably caused by the fact that reporters generally lack the specific knowledge, which is needed to cover the groups concerned. All of us from the most powerful columnists to the tiniest bloggers, need to be careful about what we put out into the cloud. Words matter most in journalism. Our keyboards have become so powerful now, that our slightest action of irresponsibility can blow us up into a crisis. Many mainstream journalists have struggled to find consistent language to use when covering events linked to violence involving Muslim issues. There are a variety of reasons and the problem cannot be resolved overnight. All these require proper training and mentoring. We need seasoned mentors for journalists covering such sensitive issues.  

The use of the term “Jihadists” is complicated by the fact that the spiritual term “jihad” has been redefined in many ways by thinkers within different streams of religion. There are also journalists and experts who focus on parts of Islam that can be viewed, together, as a political “ideology” as opposed to part of a system that is both theological and there are those who won’t hesitate to provide an ideological hue to so many moral ideas.

It’s difficult to write about divisions inside Islam, without having some understanding of who is who, and what is what. If the goal is to separate the beliefs and actions of “moderate” or “mainstream” Muslims from those of the radicals–clearly a task that journalists should attempt–then you need to have some language to use in public media for people on both sides of these conflicts.

Religion is often portrayed simply as a social or political construct, although for millions of people, religion is a daily practice and the very real framework of understanding that connects human lives to a spiritual reality. Their faith is the prism through which they view the world, and their religious communities are their central environments. It is difficult to overstate the importance of faith in the lives of so many.

Most people around the world would prefer to live in peace than in conflict. Yet, often the only religious voices on the front page are those speaking messages of hatred or violence, especially in stories about conflict or social tension.  

M Scanlon’s now-classic essay, “The Difficulty of Tolerance,” offers materials for an attractive and  affirmative answer.“Tolerance is valuable for its own sake because of the attitude it allows us to bear towards our fellow citizens, an attitude of fraternity and solidarity that is deeper than the intractable disagreements that divide us. Tolerance makes it possible to view all our fellow citizens as equally entitled to participate in defining and determining the shape of society.”

Intolerant individuals, Scanlon argues, don’t view their fellow citizens as so equally entitled. Intolerant individuals think they have a special status as compared to others and do not view others as full members of society.

In an ideal world, journalism is a profession of incredible integrity and journalists are among the most dexterous and skilled people in the world. We have all benefited from the work of persistent journalists who put life, limb, family and even sanity on the line in their pursuit of truth. There is no sane, decent, and democratic polity possible without journalists who challenge power, relentlessly pursue and disseminate the truth and always find the next story to tell.

The press once seemed to have a conscience, thanks to history’s painful social conflicts and questions of war and peace. The world, however, has changed, and many of us may be in the time warp of old values. Like all institutions, the media has also suffered in terms of its reputation.

From terrorists to dictators, provocative literature to fabricated threats, Muslim identity is marred by almost every imaginable negative stereotype and menacing trope. Amidst these, the images of good Muslims, in every medium, are few and far between. 

Good storylines of Muslim characters are woefully few.  Often, there is a consistent stream of sloppy reporting, bias, or wilful sensationalism about Muslims. The way stories are deformed to fit a formula about Muslims–and the difficulties in uprooting these fictions once they’ve been laid out  – can be seen all across the media. Corrections and retractions by the media are extremely rare and do not find any prominent space. The clarification is published in inn a vague corner and a very weak font is used. The information hardly gets the attention of any reader and the original news becomes permanently etched in public memory. Several countries have Press Councils for adjudicating such issues but most of them are government nominees who do not have the freedom they need to tame such errant media.

It is much easier for the media to limit the complex debate on various issues confronting Muslims to a series of clichés, slogans and sound bites, rather than examining root causes. It is easier still to champion the most extreme and prejudiced critics of Islam while ignoring the voices of mainstream Muslim scholars, academics and activists. There is a strong voice of moderates from within the Muslim ranks that could be channelised properly by the media to give a rounded assessment of Islamic issues. This could help in shaping a proper perspective on the whole issue.

Sadly, journalism is still failing to perform its fundamental role by simply rehashing tired old narratives of “radical Islam” or a “fight within Islam.” The truth is much more convoluted than that and the entire world has a direct role in creating the dangerous reality that so many Muslims have to live with every single day.

The media shows remarkable consistency in employing an arsenal of semantic games, key phrases, convenient omissions, and moral relativism to portray such violence as a product of Islam. As Jim Morrison observes, “Whoever controls the media, controls the mind.”

Several times headlines are sensational or distorted and reporting is often deeply racist. This impacts directly the lives of Muslims. Some of the stories that are thus emerging are painful and disturbing.  Much coverage of Muslims in the news outlets has a negative slant. We’ve seen how some papers get their news about Muslims wrong and how often they reuse the same stereotypes. True, like many others, Muslims also have a share of negative elements.  But the story has to be fair and reflective and shouldn’t generalise about all Muslims and feed into a broader far-right narrative.  As CP Scott, the founder-editor of The Guardian emphasised, “Comment is free but facts are sacred.”

Religion has been simply reduced to a social or political construct, although for millions of people, it is a daily practice and the very framework for understanding that connects their lives to a spiritual reality. Their faith is the prism through which they view the world, and their religious communities are their central environments.

The reality is that religious leaders and dialogue practitioners may not be equipped to properly understand and analyse news sources or reach out meaningfully to the media. They may not be aware of the process of the newsroom agenda setting and may not recognise that journalists do not usually set the news agenda. Religious leaders and dialogue practitioners could benefit from training on how to represent themselves better to the press and online.

They should not allow their messages of peace and reconciliation or the fact they represent the majority of people of faith, to be overshadowed by media-savvy religious voices that deal in conflict and hatred. There is the possibility that in the heat of debate objectivity gets diluted.

Faith leaders and journalists must both appreciate and understand each other’s constraints.

For their part, Muslim leaders can play a very meaningful role in sensitizing the media to the various complexities that Islamic issues have. Broader dialogue can help in a nuanced understanding of the whole issue.

Islamic organizations need to be professional in their public relations, something that few of them are. They need to have staff that can properly interact with non-Muslim media organizations and presents them with a proper and convincing Muslim perspective on a range of issues. The intention should be to interact cordially with the “mainstream” media and thereby help articulate Muslim voices to counter anti-Muslim stereotypes and disinformation. There is a desperate need for Muslim media groups to be research-oriented. They, along with other Muslim community organizations, could commission projects on various social issues relating to the community and articles generated out of such research projects can be sent to various newspapers. Muslim community organizations must seriously consider establishing research centres that specialise in social science research, something that is woefully lacking today. This research can then be made more publicly accessible through the mass media.

What is therefore needed to cool the flames of hatred is to bring faith leaders and the media onto a common platform that would provide constructive interactions thereby injecting objectivity into the media’s assessment of Islam and Muslims.

To quote Iqbal:

Haq Se Agar Gharz Hai To Zaiba Hai Kya Ye Baat

Islam Ka Muhasiba, Yourap Se Darguzar!

(And if your goal is truth, is this the right road, Europe’s faults all glossed, and all Islam’s held to so strict an audit?)

-Sir Muhammad Iqbal

*The writer is a scholar with PhDs in English and Economics

Related:

Hashtags of Hate flood social media as Islamophobia grows

We Indian Muslims need no sermons from the Al-Qaeda

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Muslims continue to suffer economic deprivation. Their situation is so dire that, for them, economic reforms need precedence over all other amelioration policies. In fact, improvement in social and educational conditions as also the much-talked-about gender reforms can automatically follow as a byproduct of economic redemption.

On almost every measure of success – the number of Muslims in the IAS, the police and the Army; the number of Muslim-owned companies in the top 500 Indian firms; the percentage of Muslim CEOs or even, national newspaper editors – they lag far behind their statistical entitlements. And then there are millions of Muslims who live in abject poverty.

The backwardness of Muslims is depriving the country of one-fifth of its valuable talent. Economic problems cannot be solved with civil rights remedies but they could be relieved with public and private action that encourages economic redevelopment. The Government has been aggressively pursuing the agenda of reforms in the personal laws of Muslims alleging genuine concern for Muslim women.

The economic agenda is more urgent for the community than most of the reforms which the Government is contemplating. The whole chorus of gender reforms gives an impression that the civil code is the prime urgency and that it is a magic bullet for its multiple problems. Most Muslims see these social reforms as a subterfuge for deflecting attention from the most pressing discriminations that the community is facing on the economic front.The mood among India’s Muslims is despondent and they see their position being undermined steadily by the new nationalism that has gripped the country. By passing the triple talaq bill, the Modi government has dared to effect changes in the Muslim personal law. 

Most Muslims see social reforms as subterfuge for deflecting attention from discrimination the community faces on economic front

“India is not a country of the Hindus only. It is a country of the Muslims, the Christians and the Parsees too. The country can gain strength and develop itself only when the people of India live in mutual goodwill and harmony.”

“It is tremendous (he wrote); it is obvious; it lies on the surface and anybody can see it… It is fascinating to find how the Bengalis, the Canarese, the Malayalis, the Sindhis, the Punjabis, the Pathans, the Kashmiris, the Rajputs, and the great central block comprising of Hindustani-speaking people, have retained their particular characteristics for hundreds of years, have still more or less the same virtues and failings of which old traditions of record tell us, and yet have been throughout these ages distinctively Indian, with the same national heritage and the same set of moral and mental qualities.”

“Some kind of a thread of unity has occupied the mind of India since the dawn of civilization. That unity was not conceived as something imposed from outside, a standardization of externals or even of beliefs. It was something deeper and, within its fold, the widest tolerance of beliefs and customs was practiced and every variant acknowledged and even encouraged.”

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It was precisely  on the ninth day of Dhu al-Hijjah (12th and last month of the Islamic year -6 March 632) in the tenth year of hijrah (migration from Mecca to Medina)  that  the Prophet addressed 1,44,000 pilgrims.  The sermon, though seemingly addressed to a Muslim gathering, had a universal message. It    consists of summarized exhortations based on some core teachings of the Qur’an and sunnah (Prophetic practices).

It captures the ethos of Islam and provides a great lens to view the religion through. Some of his advices have become the fundamental touchstones of the Islamic faith.

Muslims use the occasion a propitious time to rededicate themselves to the universal human values such as sacredness of life and property, equality, justice, peace, forgiveness, non-violence, women’s rights, the pillars of Islam and more. Upon these lofty principles, the religion of Islam was built. The Prophet died after unifying Arabia and his lifelong declared love of learning protected and contributed to classical knowledge and continued the tradition of Persian scholarship during the dark ages of Christendom.

For centuries, the Prophet inspired the Muslim world to thrive economically, culturally, scientifically and artistically. More than 1,400 years on, the   divine providence of his philosophy, among myriad other socio-economic and political factors continue to anchor Muslim civilization.
We still have so much to learn from this 1,400-plus-year-old cry and we are so much in need of this message of Prophet Muhammad to soothe and heal our broken times where we continue to struggle with almost identical issues in our global human community.

The content of the message was powerful and intense and was redolent with Islam’s lofty values such as    individual liberty, respect for the rule of law, social responsibility, mutual respect, and tolerance of those of different faiths and   are inherently Islamic. The teachings of the Qur’an are unambiguous on being inclusive, and treating others with equality and   justice.

The Prophet began by stating that he did not know whether he would meet the pilgrims again ‘in this place after this year’. After praising God and declaring the basic creed, ‘There is no deity but Allah and Muhammad is His Messenger’, he went on to speak on various themes. He then reminded them of the sacred character of the place and month, as well as of that of their lives, their honour, and their belongings.

He explained that the period of ignorance had come to an end, and so had its practices, its rivalries, and its conflicts based on power and profit. Henceforth, all Muslims were united by faith, fraternity and love, which were to transform them into witnesses of Islam’s message. They must under no circumstances accept being ‘either oppressors or oppressed’. They were to learn of the equality of all people in front of God and the desired humility because, he said: “You all descend from Adam and Adam was created from dirt. The most noble in the sight of God is the most pious. No Arab is superior to a non-Arab, except by their intimate consciousness of God [piety].”

He reiterated the need for tolerance to people of all denominations: An Arab has no superiority over a non-Arab, nor a non-Arab has any superiority over an Arab; also a white has no superiority over a black, nor a black has any superiority over white except by piety and good action.
The Prophet reminded all Muslims to treat their wives gently and added: “Be intimately conscious of God as regards women, and strive to be good to them.” He then added, as if to show the way and its conditions to all the faithful present and all those who were to follow his teachings through the ages: “I have left among you what will, if you keep to it firmly, preserve you from error: clear guidance, the Book of God and His Prophet’s tradition.” After each teaching that he reminded them of, the Prophet added: ‘Have I conveyed the Message? O God, be my witness!” At the end of the sermon, the pilgrims answered: “We bear witness that you have faithfully conveyed the message, that you have fulfilled your mission, and that you have given your community good advice.”

Concluding the sermon, the Prophet said, “You will be questioned about me (on the Day of Judgment). What answer will you give?” They replied, “We will bear witness that you conveyed to us what you were entrusted with….” The Prophet then pointed towards the people and said, thrice: “O Lord bear witness!” O God, be my witness! …. And let whoever is present convey this message to whoever is absent.”

A few hours later,   near the summit of Arafat, the final revelation came down: “…This day have I perfected your religion for you, completed My Grace upon you, and have chosen Islam for you as your religion…” (Quran 5:3).

The last cycle of prophethood was drawing to its close, and the Messenger was to return to the place of his election, his home beyond this life, in proximity to the One.

Here is his sermon

“O People, listen well to my words, for I do not know whether, after this year, I shall ever be among you again. Therefore, listen to what I am saying to you very carefully and take these words to those who could not be present here today.

“O People, just as you regard this month, this day, this city as Sacred, so regard the life and property of every Muslim as a sacred trust. Return the goods entrusted to you to their rightful owners. Treat others justly so that no one would be unjust to you. Remember that you will indeed meet your LORD, and that HE will indeed reckon your deeds. God has forbidden you to take usury (riba), therefore all riba obligations shall henceforth be waived. Your capital, however, is yours to keep. You will neither inflict nor suffer inequity. God has judged that there shall be no riba and that all the riba due to `Abbas ibn `Abd al Muttalib shall henceforth be waived.

“Every right arising out of homicide and blood-killing in pre-Islamic days is henceforth waived and the first such right that I waive is that arising from the murder of Rabi`ah ibn al Harith ibn `Abd al Muttalib.

“O people, the Unbelievers indulge in tampering with the calendar in order to make permissible that which God forbade, and to forbid that which God has made permissible. With God the months are 12 in number. Four of them are sacred, three of these are successive and one occurs singly between the months of Jumada and Sha`ban. Beware of the devil, for the safety of your religion. He has lost all hope that he will ever be able to lead you astray in big things, so beware of following him in small things.

“O People, it is true that you have certain rights over your women, but they also have rights over you. Remember that you have taken them as your wives only under God’s trust and with His permission. If they abide by your right then to them belongs the right to be fed and clothed in kindness. Treat your women well and be kind to them, for they are your partners and committed helpers. It is your right and they do not make friends with anyone of whom you do not approve, as well as never to be unchaste.

“O People, listen to me in earnest, worship God (The One Creator of the Universe), perform your five daily prayers (salah), fast during the month of Ramadan, and give your financial obligation (zakah) of your wealth. Perform hajj if you can afford to.

“All mankind is from Adam and Eve. An Arab has no superiority over a non-Arab nor a non-Arab has any superiority over an Arab; also a white has no superiority over a black nor a black has any superiority over white except by piety and good action. Learn that every Muslim is a brother to every Muslim and that the Muslims constitute one brotherhood. Nothing shall be legitimate to a Muslim which belongs to a fellow Muslim unless it was given freely and willingly. Do not, therefore, do injustice to yourselves.

“Remember, one day you will appear before God (The Creator) and you will answer for your deeds. So beware, do not stray from the path of righteousness after I am gone.

“O People, no prophet or messenger will come after me and no new faith will be born. Reason well, therefore, O People, and understand words, which I convey to you. I am leaving you with the Book of God (the Quran) and my sunnah (the sayings and   practices as evidenced in the   behavioural mode of the Prophet). If you follow them you will never go astray.

“All those who listen to me shall pass on my words to others and those to others again; and may the last ones understand my words better than those who listen to me directly. Be my witness O God, that I have conveyed your message to your people.”

(Reference: See Al-Bukhari, Hadith 1623, 1626, 6361) Sahih of Imam Muslim also refers to this sermon in Hadith number 98. Imam al-Tirmidhi has mentioned this sermon in Hadith nos. 1628, 2046, 2085. Imam Ahmed bin Hanbal has given us the longest and perhaps the most complete version of this sermon in his Masnud, Hadith no. 19774.)

Courtesy: Counterview.org

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Great poets like Faiz are warriors and serve as the sentinels of the collective conscience of their times. Countries have frontiers but the war against slavery and exploitation has no frontier. Faiz understood that a society without meaningful poetry is a society on the last legs of its wretched existence. It is a society bereft of dreams and thus, a society bereft of hope. Faiz’s verses wee redolent with  prison terms, privation, exile, protest, resistance.

Faiz espoused the cause of freedom and ranks with poets like Pablo Neruda, Nazim Hikmet, and Louis Aragon. His poetry, rich with the classical hue of Ghalib and Iqbal, acquired a characteristic tone and he excelled in the nazm and ghazal, the two major forms of Urdu poetry, blazing a trail of love and revolution.

At the hands of an artistic rebel like Faiz, even surrealism became a weapon in the advance of the proletariat. Faiz was traditional in the sense that he was inspired by the Sufi tradition of dissent and was progressive in the sense that he was an avowed Marxist.

Faiz became one of Pakistan’s most prominent and beloved poets of all time, next only to the legendary Iqbal. He realised at an early age that it was the content and not the form which was basic in the art of poetry. He firmly believed that originality had little to do with formal experimentation and was primarily a matter of a profound understanding of human existence in its totality and wholeness.

Faiz’s literary studies laid the foundation for him to construct a modern Urdu verse that took on larger social and political issues of his times while still retaining the polished style and diction of the ghazal. He consciously wrote poetry that reflected the concerns of the masses: Oppression, injustice, exploitation, poverty, the suffering of ordinary people and women.

Those who attempted to put labels on him didn’t understand the essence of his poetry. Or maybe labels were used to cover up their superficial understanding of these issues. Faiz’s lament at India’s independence is characteristic of his passion for freedom for the masses and not just for the country from colonialism:

“this is not the morning we’d fought for,
In whose eager quest, all comrades
Had set out, hoping that somewhere
In the wilderness of the sky
Would emerge the ultimate destination of stars…”

Faiz’s work is replete with religious symbolism but his understanding of religion was more in line with Sufi thought and not the obscurantist interpretations advanced by religious scholars. References to the beloved (which in Sufi is always the Creator) are most vital. He once said, “The true subject of poetry is the loss of the beloved.” His philosophy was one of inclusivity, collectiveness, love for all beings, and no anger or aggression. He didn’t resent even those who imprisoned him, maligned him and wanted him dead or silent. All of these are reflections of Sufi beliefs.

As a Marxist, Faiz rejected the notion of “art for art’s sake”. Referring to the poet Keats’s famous lines that beauty is love and love is beauty and a beautiful object is an eternal source of joy, Faiz says that, notwithstanding what Keats may have felt, beauty can only be eternal when it is creative, when it inspires the onlooker’s enthusiasm, thought and action with promoting more beauty. Faiz’s poetry reflected a syncretic spirit, both across place and time. He navigated the space between Hindus and Muslims with grace and his poetry resonated with the same poignancy in both cultures. The best English translations of his poetry have come from India.

Faiz’s poetry hybridised several styles and devices straddling centuries of literary history’ fusing classical forms like the 14th-century with   the free verse that the British had been importing into the subcontinent since the Raj took hold of it a century earlier. He was greatly influenced by W.H. Auden and it is likely that Auden’s poetry stimulated Faiz to use the modern British literary form.

Faiz’s work reverberated with the pathos of contemporary times which were both turbulent and significant markers of historical changes. His verses challenged both structures of power and the failure of governments to poetry itself—a revolutionary one. Most importantly, Faiz adopted and adapted the forms, themes, and images of Urdu poetry to galvanise the masses against the oppressive colonial regimes. In the words of Dylan Thomas his was this fervent belief :

“Do not go gentle into the good night/
Rage rage against the dying of the light’. 
This rebellious spirit is patent in his every verse:
“Speak, your lips are free.
Speak, it is your own tongue.
Speak, it is your own body.
Speak, your life is still yours.
See how in the blacksmith’s shop
The flame burns wild, the iron glows red;
The locks open their jaws, And every chain begins to break.”
Later came poetic gems like,
Shaam ke pech o kham sitaron se
Zeena zeena utar rahi hai raat
“From the winding stars in sky
Stair by stair descends the night”

Aside from being a poet, Faiz was a journalist, songwriter, and activist. He is the voice of conscience of the suffering humanity of our times. A voice which is a song as well as a challenge, which has a burning faith and cries out against the agony of its era, a constant endeavour and the thunder of the revolution, as well as the sweet recital of love and beauty. This had particularly affected the colonial economy of India. Thus, according to Faiz:

“My heart repents neither this love nor the other,
My heart is spotted with every kind of sorrow,
Except the mark of repentance.”
 
If Faiz had become a legend during his lifetime, it was because he was a versatile genius—a political thinker who was committed to Marxism in his early years, a distinguished poet, a liberal humanist and, above all someone who never compromised his integrity with the Pakistani rulers of his time. Faiz was, truly speaking, a citizen of the world who did not recognise any barriers between religions, languages, and countries. Being an irrepressible social and political activist, he spent many years in prison, and also as an exile in Lebanon and England. It is no wonder that prison emerges as an expanded metaphor in several of his poems.

Faiz made the transformation of the individual human being and his passage through the infinite variety of situations and moods   the subject of his poetry. He was concerned, above all, with the experience of the individual human soul in the long and arduous journey of revolutionary struggle. And yet love remained the leitmotif of his poetry.

Faiz is one of the great lyricists who has sung of nothing with greater passion than love which, he believed, was the primary engine for human progress. Faiz’s acceptance speech when he was awarded the Lenin Peace Prize, which appears as a brief preface to his collection Dast-i-tah-i-Sang (Hand under the Rock), is a great piece of humanist literature:

“Human ingenuity, science and industry have made it possible to provide each one of us everything we need to be comfortable … However, this is only possible if the foundations of human society are based not on greed, exploitation and ownership but on justice, equality, freedom and the welfare of everyone….”

Courtesy: Counter View

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Shashi  Narole serves a customer as Minakshi Wankhede and Zaibun watch

Like any other day, there was a crowd of unruly people queuing outside and creating a commotion. I was busy doing my daily tasks when I was interrupted by my assistant who said that a group of women was waiting to meet me. I peered   through the glass and, without giving a thought, I gestured them in.

Though dressed in discoloured flimsy saris, the women appeared relaxed and confident as they walked in nonchalantly. I beckoned them to sit. Without beating about the bush, their leader struck an immediate chord. She boldly announced they had come to take a loan to set up a small business. Although it was the early office hour, and not the right time for too much discussion, I decided to hear them out. I lobbed a few soft questions at them. They answered them confidently.

Finally, I fired some fast ones, “How will you repay the money? It is not a government dole. Every pie has to be returned.  Do you have any collateral to offer as security?” Their expression became taut, with an uneasy smile playing on their faces. The women turned to each other-groping for answers.  One of them firmed   up and interjected: “We can offer the strongest security which our neighbours would confidently vouch for.” What was it? “Honesty”, she replied with a pride and twinkle in her eyes.

The content of their pitch was that if I trusted them and gave them a chance, won’t let me down. These women represented the aspiring generation of lower- income communities that was trying its luck with innovative development opportunities that were being aggressively promoted, both by the government and the banking sector. The chirpiest in the group was the demure and petite Veena Raut, who later assumed the stewardship of the group. Young and university-educated, she was the unlikely face of the future of these women most of whom were poorly educated.

It had become clear to our generation of development practitioners that one crucial piece of economic empowerment of women was access to financial services. This was also the time when, if you asked somebody about the most promising innovation for women’s well-being, the answer would invariably be ‘microcredit’.

Microcredit had emerged as a powerful tool for harnessing the entrepreneurial impulses of the impoverished — particularly women. It was based on the extension of small loans (microloans) to a group of people-more particularly women -who typically lacked collateral, steady employment and verifiable credit history; yet they could ensure hundred percent repayments by using peer pressure.

Group loans to women were highly popular, and we had received good results in rural areas. They had already given us a hint of their potential. However, the urban groups were not as socially cohesive as their rural counterparts. The credit and repayment culture in a village is strong as a default of a loan results in a reputational slur. There is no such culture in urban areas where majority of low income residents do not have permanent habitations, and most of the population in this segment is a floating one.

But the idea had excited me a great deal, and I was thus keen to try it with women in Warora. I happened to represent State Bank of India in the first batch of bankers who were associated with India’s home-grown model of microcredit that was launched around the turn of the nineties. It was popularly called ‘Self Hep Group-Bank Linkage.’

Women’s participation in the financial system can have significant benefits in terms of economic growth, greater equality and societal well-being. When women are empowered as economic actors, the benefits touch everyone.   Access and usage of financial services are levers for increasing women’s participation in the economy. They enhance their self-confidence and place financial decision-making power in their hands resulting in large development payoffs.

In short, financial inclusion enables women to smooth consumption, ensure security, increase saving and investment rates, lower financial risks and facilitate new livelihood and income opportunities for the family.  It enhances the financial resilience of low-income women.

Although I was a little apprehensive, I decided to follow my instincts and decided to take a chance to do business with urban slums. I visited these women in their homes and was impressed by their determination and solidarity. Their cautious approach could be mistaken as a lack of confidence, but with time, I understood them better.

I still remember the first meeting. The room was partially illuminated by a fluorescent light covered with years of accumulated dirt The portraits of divinities jostled for space on a worn-out shelf with fading photographs of parents and  grandparents on reverential display, all stained by ash scattered from the incense burned daily.

The meeting started with a traditional group song, in husky melodious expression with a staccato rhythm. Though my Marathi was rusty and the women’s dialect was different from what I was used to, I could discern the theme of the song: unity, self-help, trust and the poor banding together to help each other.

It was very touching and an apt beginning for the group meeting. One of the verses of the song went like this: “Nothing is stronger, or more embedded in the marrow of our bones than the need to save for a rainy day. It is not written in words, it is written in our hearts”.

After a few meetings, in which I addressed all their queries, the group was formally launched. It was christened Priyadarshini Mahila Udyog, with Veena as its head.

With the help of the district administration, I secured a grant for a two-week Entrepreneurship Development Programme (EDP) for basic training in finance and cash flow  and development of relevant and managerial skills; business planning; technical training related to the production of goods;asset-management;book-keeping and inventory management; preparation of business plans for loans; and storage and warehousing. This incubation helped them refine their overall confidence and interaction skills.

I decided to devote each Sunday for a month, to help the group establish its business. From this moment onwards, it was about creating a brand and standing out from the rest. The group decided to not focus on one single product but create a range of products under a single brand. The capital which the loan afforded was enough to purchase adequate machines.

The nearest industrial township was in Nagpur from where we got the gadgets and machines designed. We would travel to Nagpur by jeep in the morning and return to Warora in the evening. A few visits helped crystallise our plans.

We decided to purchase scaled-down versions of the equipment used for manufacturing food items for school children. One of the industrial units supplied a modified popcorn   manufacturing machine suitable for local needs. It could be operated on petroleum gas. To spread the word about their brand, a local printer agreed to supply polythene packets in bulk with the group’s logo branded on them.

Original founder members Zaibun, Minakshi and Shashi

A candle manufacturer had just one standard mould. He later helped them acquire several moulds from Mumbai, for fancy candles which won the unit a strong brand in the district. The Municipal Council of Warora solved the marketing issue with bulk orders for chalk sticks, candles and broomsticks. The local grocers offered to serve as retail outlets for the unit.

The Hindustan Petroleum Corporation provided priority connection for LPG, and the Municipal Council provided a shop in its commercial complex at a fair discount. The State Electricity Board provided a priority electric connection.

Veena later graduated to become an assistant in the government’s development administration and is now a Village Officer heading the administration of a large village in Yavatmal district.

The group has since been shepherded by Minakshi Wankhede, who also doubles as a home guard with the local police authorities. Her association with the local police has boosted the business in various ways. Minakshi’s leadership augured well for the group. She lacked Veena’s capabilities, but the consolidation of business took place during her leadership.

The group managed it finances skillfully and judiciously, practicing austerity and frugality. As the capital increased, it became capable to diversify its services. It acquired machines for manufacturing vermicelli and camphor balls and in their spare time, the women would engage in tailoring works. The entire group was anchored in passion and each member continually inspired others to do more.

Soon, a flood of accolades followed, with Priyadarshini Mahila Udyog even being felicitated by the prime minister.

The group also bid and won the tender for supplying mid-day meals to school children. Earlier these contracts were being influenced by local political leaders, but repeated complaints of insipid food and unhealthy cooking conditions forced those involved in it to take a step back. The women-led group seized this opportunity and it now supplies mid-day meals to over 1,000 children, ensuring dignified employment for a dozen women at the same time.

Cooking begins at 9 am in the industrial kitchen, which is a tarp hung on four posts, jabbed into an empty patch. An all-female crew prepares giant vats of savoury rice and lentil porridge. Workers cook several kilograms of rice, curry and vegetables in giant steel pots. They stir curry with paddles the size of oars. Amidst the sounds of clanging metal, I often found the women hard at work.

During one of my visits to the schools where these ladies served the meals, the teachers complimented me for the excellent quality of food. Earlier, they had to throw away half the supply on account of its insipid taste, I was told. Now, there were no leftovers. Children also brought tiffins to take some food to their homes. When they ate nutritious food, their attendance also improved.

With its exponentially rising graph of success, it was just a matter of time before they were recognized. A flood of accolades followed, with the group even being felicitated by the prime minister.

The latest success is the sanction of an outlet of the Public Distribution System (PDS), the government programme that provides subsidised food grains to the poor. The honesty of the group members is reflected in the happiness of consumers; they get the full eligible ration on time and at fair rates. This has helped customers of other PDS outlets too. As in all spheres, benchmarking improves ethical practices.
Fast forward to 2018

Twenty years has been a long period for women from varying religious, linguistic and caste hues to remain under a common umbrella. Life for them has changed in other ways too. They recall those days when they were rag-pickers and made a scant living by segregating and selling papers, plastics, metal and other scraps. They suffered scorn for being in a contemptible profession, but even in today’s better times, they face displeasure, the reason now is more modern–economic envy.

The younger members left the town after getting married, while some retired. Of the original group, only three members remain–Minakshi Wankhede, Shashi Narole and Zaibun Shaikh. Though age has mellowed them, the youthful glint is palpable. Their resilience is quite visible. ”We have poured our entire energy into this enterprise “, muses Minakshi. The results have been rewarding. These women now have improved dwellings; their children lead better and healthier lives, and they have investments in the form of bank deposits and plots of land.

I have marveled at the group’s incredible journey from stultifying poverty to community-wide respect which has great lessons for me, as for the larger society. The best part is that they are described   as “hard-working, rigorous, ambitious and respectful women.”  Stories like these of resolute perseverance grit, determination and dignity to escape the enduring grasp of poverty are what inspire and motivate us in our role as development agents.

By tenaciously plotting the contours through up cycles and down along the economic ladder and negotiating rigid social norms, the women have shaped a heroic trajectory and gained greater voice and visibility in their communities. They serve as a prime example of how economic security can be so transformative for women and their children.

That picture of my first encounter with these women is one sliver of my memory that remains green and verdant till day. It refuses to fade. It is experiences like these that keep renewing our trust in poor but honest and heroic women. Two words sum up their epic saga: resolve and resilience.

Women are a low-revenue segment on account of their preference for small-ticket, low-cost products. But they prove to be loyal and profitable clients when treated with respect and served with appropriately-designed products.

They may be more risk-aware than men and take longer to make decisions but they make firm decisions, and when they do, they tend to be more trustworthy and reliable customers than men. Financial service providers need to ensure fees are not prohibitive and design tools to make their engagement with financial service providers friendlier, safe, affordable and convenient.

What sparks change for people living in poverty?  It can be   or use of a mobile phone in a remote village. Most often, it is a personal vision, grounded in hope and courage. Whatever the spark, these agents of change are candle lights for their community.

Putting the right supporting structures in place can make the ecosystem for female entrepreneurs more congenial fostering a culture of equality.  The poor need to be given a chance to fulfill their own potential .If we can inspire people around the world to think differently about what it makes to be poor then we will have made a real impact. Entrepreneurship is a powerful path to reducing poverty and creating financial independence which is modern society’s strongest currency.

The founder of the Grameen Bank of Bangladesh and recipient of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize, Muhammad Yunus believes that the most powerful way to eradicate poverty is to unleash the untapped entrepreneurial capacity of the impoverished.

“Poverty is not created by poor people,” he says. “It’s created by the system we built. Poor people are like a bonsai tree. You take the best seed from the tallest tree in the forest, but if you put it in a flower pot to grow, it grows only a meter high. There’s nothing wrong with the seed. The problem is the size of the pot. Society doesn’t give poor people the space to grow as tall as everybody else. ”

Courtesy: Counter View
 

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The discrimination in the workplace is phenomenal. Muslims constitute between 12 and 14 percent of our population, but on almost every measure of success — number of Muslims in the IAS, the police, and the army; the number of Muslim-owned companies in the top 500 Indian firms; the percentage of Muslim CEOs or even, national newspaper editors — they lag far behind their statistical entitlements. And then there are millions of common Muslims who live in abject poverty and abysmal living conditions. These can have long term adverse effect for the community which in turn will have overall impact in the larger national economy. It can also engineer inter generational economic stress.

By keeping Muslims backward India is depriving itself of one fifth of its valuable talents. The economic problems are not likely to be solved with civil rights remedies, but they could be relieved with public and private action that encourages economic redevelopment.

The government has been aggressively pursuing the agenda of reforms in the personal laws of Muslims claiming that it has genuine concern for Muslim women. Economic backwardness is a much harder and bitter reality for Muslims and the State can’t turn its eyes off it particularly when it is training so many telescopes on the community’s social condition. It will amount to questioning the purity of the nationalism of Muslims, the same way the upper castes have questioned the purity of spiritualism of the so called backward castes.

The economic agenda is more urgent for the community than most of the reforms which the government is contemplating because they involve a miniscule section of their population. The whole chorus of gender reforms gives an impression that the civil code is the prime urgency of the community and that it is a magic bullet for its multiple problems. But this is far from realty. In fact, Most Muslims see these gender reforms as a subterfuge for deflecting attention from the most pressing discriminations that the community is facing on the economic front.

For example, almost half of Muslim women are illiterate. Why do we ignore the fact that among all religious communities, Muslims are the only one to have an illiteracy rate higher than the national rate? Muslim women’s lack of access to basic health facilities, which is their fundamental right, never gets media attention. 

In the literacy graph also, Muslims feature at the lowest among other religious communities. The Jain community has 94.9 percent literacy rate, Christians have 84.5 percent, Sikhs 75.5 percent, Hindus 73.3 percent and Muslims stand at 68.5 percent. The literacy rate among Muslims is lower than the national average of 74.04 percent. The data also reveals that a meager 2.76 percent Muslims are educated till graduation level or above.

Despite almost trebling in the decade ending 2010 – from 5.2% to 13.8% – the rate of Muslim enrollment in higher education trailed the national figure of 23.6% and that of other backward classes (22.1%) and scheduled castes (18.5%). Scheduled tribes lagged Muslims by 0.5%.In proportion to their population, Muslims were worse-off than scheduled castes and scheduled tribes. Muslims comprise 14% of India’s population but account for 4.4% of students enrolled in higher education, according to the 2014-15 All India Survey on Higher Education.

The conditions for India’s Muslims have continued to worsen; and this is the prime reason for the social and economic degeneration of their community. According to a report compiled by The Economist “No serious official effort has been made to assess the lot of India’s Muslims since the publication in 2006 of a study ordered by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Called the Sachar report, it broadly showed Muslims to be stuck at the bottom of almost every economic or social heap. Though heavily urban, Muslims had a particularly low share of public (or any formal) jobs, school and university places, and seats in politics. They earned less than other groups, were more excluded from banks and other finance, spent fewer years in school and had lower literacy rates. Pitifully few entered the army or the police force.”

Though heavily urban, Muslims had a particularly low share of public (or any formal) jobs, school and university posts, and positions in politics. They hold only 4.9 percent of government jobs and only 3.2 percent of the jobs in the country’s security agencies. They earned less than other groups, were more excluded from the financial world, spent fewer years in school and had lower literacy rates. Few entered the army or the police force. Pitifully Muslims account for 40 per cent of India’s prison population.

The inequality between Hindu majority and Muslim minority continues to widen further. A study by the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) called Employment and Unemployment Situation Among Major Religious Groups in India, has found the average monthly per capita expenditure (MPCE) of a Hindu household in 2009-10 was Rs1,123 while that for a Muslim household was only Rs980.

According to a World Bank report in 2013, nearly 34 percent of all Muslims in urban India were below the poverty line compared to 19 per cent of Hindus. Between 1983 and 2009-10, the poverty rate for urban Hindus declined by 52 percent, but the rate of decline for urban Muslims was only at 39 percent.

The government owes an obligation to act. It makes both good economics and politics, if a fraction of its new economic gain can be used to correct the negative trajectory of Muslim reality in India. The relative economic condition of Muslims has suffered significantly compared to everyone else, in spite of spectacular growth in the country’s economy. Poor Muslims are much poorer than poor Hindus and can easily be bracketed with the lowest Hindu castes and Dalits. Muslims are stuck at the bottom of almost every economic or social heap.

The government owes an obligation to act. It makes both good economics and politics, if a fraction of its new economic gain can be used to correct the negative trajectory of Muslim reality in India. The relative economic condition of Muslims has suffered significantly compared to everyone else, in spite of spectacular growth in the country’s economy. Poor Muslims are much poorer than poor Hindus and can easily be bracketed with the lowest Hindu castes and Dalits. Muslims are stuck at the bottom of almost every economic or social heap.

The marginalization of Muslims in India has been well documented. In the mid-2000s, the Indian government commissioned two studies. The Sachar Committee Report of 2006 and the Misra Commission Report of 2007 highlighted a higher prevalence of discrimination towards Muslims and socio-economic deprivation among them as compared to other religious groups.

Almost none of the recommendations have been implemented nor did Muslims expect them to be even under a Congress-led government that uses Muslims as vote banks. The Sachar report states that Muslims have not “shared equally in the benefits” of India’s economic growth and are “seriously lagging behind in terms of most of the human development indicators.”According to it, Muslims are not just poorer but also less educated: 25% of 6- to 14-year-olds have either never gone to school or dropped out their literacy rate is 59% (compared to 65% nationally) and they are only 4% of students at top universities. They also hold only 5% of government jobs.

Muslims have traditionally been craftsmen and Hindus traders. Most craft skills have been overtaken by mechanization which has rendered skills of most Muslim craftsmen as obsolete. These people have lost their traditional livelihood. On the contrary Hindu traders and businessmen have prospered from the country’s booming economic growth.

The Post Sachar Evaluation Committee headed by Prof. Amitabh Kundu, in its report of 2014, highlighted the fact that the state of Muslim education is a matter of great concern. The Graduation Attainment Rates (GARs) and Mean Years of Schooling (MYS) amongst Muslims are very low, and Dropout Rates are very high the Committee stated.

These can have long term adverse effect for the community which in turn will have overall impact in the larger national economy. It can also engineer inter generational economic stress.

It is nothing short of an admission of our collective failure as a nation, when after 70 years of independence, constitutional safeguards and several welfare measures, a report of the Steering Committee, Planning Commission), Government of India titled ‘Empowerment of Minorities’ states that:

“For effective implementation of any welfare policy, the alienation and disempowerment among Muslims needs to acknowledged and challenged. A sense of persecution and general insecurity and fear of state institutions adds to non-participation and non-productivity.”

The recent report prepared by the Maulana Azad Education Foundation (MAEF) that works under the Ministry of Minority Affairs has painted a grim picture of them in the education sector. According to the 2011 census data, the report says that the literacy rate among Muslims was 68.53 percent while the national average was 72.98 percent.

Only 7 percent of young people in the country who had reached the age of 20 had a degree or a diploma and this was 4 percent in the case of Muslims. The committee said that Muslims were the “educationally most disadvantaged community” and the main reasons were financial backwardness along with the dearth of educational isntitutib.Since the constitution and the courts have ruled out religion to be any sort of criteria for assessing backwardness, minority groups were not identified as “backward” for the purpose of special safeguards for the disadvantaged. There are three main reasons advanced: (i) it was not compatible with secularism; (ii) since Muslims don’t have a caste system it was difficult to use the benchmark of social backwardness for providing them special relief; and (iii) it would be antithetical to the principles of national unity.
In India, reservations have been formulated on the principles of social justice enshrined in the constitution. The Indian Constitution provides for reservation for historically marginalized communities, now known as backward castes. But the Constitution does not define any of the categories, identified for the benefit of reservation. One of the most important bases for reservation is the interpretation of the word ‘class’.

Experts argue that social backwardness is a fluid and evolving category, with caste as just one of the markers of discrimination. Gender, culture, economic conditions, educational backwardness, official policies other factors can influence social conditions, and could be the cause of deprivation and social backwardness. Moreover, the notion of social backwardness itself could undergo change as the political economy transforms from a caste-mediated, closed system to a more open-ended, globally integrated and market-determined system marked by high mobility and urbanization. We are seeing this transformation at a much more exponential pace than our constitution makers may have visualized.

In one of its recent and well known judgment, the Supreme Court has made an important point about positive discrimination in India. Justices Ranjan Gogoi and Rohinton F. Nariman of the Supreme Court said:
“An affirmative action policy that keeps in mind only historical injustice would certainly result in under protection of the most deserving backward class of citizens, which is constitutionally mandated. It is the identification of these new emerging groups that must engage the attention of the state.”

Backwardness is condition which is an outcome of several independent circumstances, which may be social, educational, economic, cultural, or even political. We must actively consider evolving new benchmarks for assessing it, reducing reliance on caste-based definition of backwardness. This alone can enable newer groups to get benefit of affirmative action through social reengineering or else the tool of affirmative action will breed new injustices .Muslims can become eligible for at least some forms of positive discrimination among new “backward” groups.
India has 3,743 “backward” castes and sub castes making up about half the population. So the potential for caste warfare is endless. The result, British journalist Edward Luce wrote in his book In Spite of the Gods, is “the most extensive system of patronage in the democratic world.” With such a rich gravy train, it’s no wonder the competition turns lethal. The pervasive discrimination of Muslims in India must compel us to re-examine facile assumptions about social backwardness stemming from historically over-simplified categories.

The animus of Indian Hindus against Muslims is based on hard statistics. In 1950 (shortly after independence), West Pakistan (now Pakistan) had 85.5% Muslims, whereas by 2010, the percentage had gone up to 96.5%. In 1950, East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) had 85% Muslim population, whereas in 2010 it had gone up to 89.6%. Contrast that with India, a non-Muslim country, where the Muslim population between these two dates went up from 10% to 13.5%. In most Middle Eastern Muslim countries, the Muslim population is 98% to 99%, with all non-Muslims having been driven out or eliminated.

The founder of Banaras Hindu University Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya also symbolized the multiculturism of India. Malaviya declared:
“India is not a country of the Hindus only. It is a country of the Muslims, the Christians and the Parsees too. The country can gain strength and develop itself only when the people of India live in mutual goodwill and harmony.”

In a larger landscape of increasing communalization, where Muslims continue to face social discrimination and exclusion in education, housing, employment and development schemes, the government should economically and socially empower the community so that it comes out with its own appropriate solutions for overall social reforms.

All political parties at the helm of the government have resorted to” strategic secularism” to secure a so-called Muslim vote bank – an approach that has stoked resentment among the country’s Hindu majority while doing little to improve Muslims’ wellbeing.India’s Muslims will be hit particularly hard, with further social and political marginalization undermining their economic prospects. Given the size of India’s Muslim population, this is bound to drag down overall economic development.

Writing in the quiet seclusion of a British prison in 1944 (his ninth term of imprisonment for revolting against the British India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru contemplated “the diversity and unity of India:
“It is tremendous (he wrote); it is obvious; it lies on the surface and anybody can see it….. It is fascinating to find how the Bengalis, the Canarese, the Malayalis, the Sindhis, the Punjabis, the Pathans, the Kashmiris, the Rajputs, and the great central block comprising of Hindustani – speaking people, have retained their particular characteristics for hundreds of years, have still more or less the same virtues and failings of which old traditions of record tell us, and yet have been throughout these ages distinctively Indian, with the same national heritage and the same set of moral and mental qualities.”

Nehru added almost lyrically in his great book, the ‘Discovery of India’ the following sentiment:
“Some kind of a thread of unity has occupied the mind of India since the dawn of civilization. That unity was not conceived as something imposed from outside, a standardization of externals or even of beliefs. It was something deeper and, within its fold, the widest tolerance of beliefs and customs was practiced and every variant acknowledged and even encouraged.”

It’s silly to try to consign the great multiplicity of our lives to one single identity, even one as resplendent as the Indian tradition.

At the end of the cold war, Francis Fukuyama’s thesis was that the liberal idea, rather than liberal practice, had become universal. He believed that no ideology is in a position to challenge liberal democracy. Yet, as Fukuyama contends, even as we desire peaceful lives, we as individuals are mostly restless and passionate beings. For Fukuyama, our primordial instincts for struggle are such that even if the world were full of liberal democracies people would struggle for the sake of struggle, out of boredom with peace.

It is time that instead of a constant search for a new struggle and restlessness with peace we strive for a stable and model democracy-where the colours in the painter’s palette find full expression.

Courtesy: New Age Islam
 

The post Muslim Anxieties and India’s Future appeared first on SabrangIndia.

An educated, secular and liberal Indian Muslim  is in a bind; he is torn between finding the right balance between loyalty to his faith and adherence to the new tests of patriotism being imposed by certain intolerant groups. The high voltage saffronisation wave that is demonising Muslims has broken the resistance of even strong neutral and secular groups who are now inclined to go with the official tide. The centuries old secular souls is slowly being ruptured. India has suddenly become deaf to its minorities who are shuddering with muteness at the growing intolerance of saffron hordes. Mocking and ridiculing of Muslims is now rife in public spaces.

India’s once cherished and internationally lauded secular values have been drowned in the sea of primitive majoritarian politics which is driven more by uncontrollable rage than by sensible reason. Not just Hindutva foot soldiers but democratic institutions and spaces are being used to suppress religious freedom. We are fast seeing a potential breakdown of what was a flourishing multicultural society. Muslims are made to routinely confront a culture of fear which sees everything Muslim as pure evil.

I can feel the disdain emanating from   officers   when they look at my passport and find I havea Muslim name. Other friends — much richer and better known than most of us — will tell you how difficult it is to rent a house if you are a Muslim.A sense of despair runs through the entire Muslim community and they are passing through the most horrific phase post Partition.

Continuing inebriation on account of political popularity has emboldened the intolerant elements in the ruling party, who are now openly imposing their own moral benchmarks with regard to diet, dress, faith and patriotism totally overlooking the cultural sentiments of others. This rhetoric is injecting anti-Muslim sentiments in a climate when Muslims are already feeling alienated and marginalised. The political and social environment has never been so hostile. An ordinary Muslim is being hissed and snarled with vileness by all and sundry in full glare of the law.

A number of questions keep agitating a Muslim’s mind. If am a patriotic and  secular Indian then

• Why do people stare at me when I wear my skull cap or Hijab?
• Why does my name force people to doubt my love for my nation?
• Why do I hear comments like “You will be supporting Pakistan during a match”?
• Why do I not get a good apartment on rent in a posh locality?
• Why do people call me staunch if I pray fives time in a day?
• Why am I called an orthodox Muslim if I follow my religion to the best of my capacities?
• Why are the boys of my community under constant surveillance?
• Why am I not an Indian as much as you are?

The majority   Indian Muslims not only have to worry about worsening communal relations and police brutality, but also face high unemployment and widespread poverty.

They live in urban ghettos or squalid villages and suffer from ignorance, ridicule, humiliation and  The profound sense of pain caused by calculated and senseless ridicule of their religious practices only serves to alienate them from the national mainstream.

India must not forget that it has an entire generation of young Muslims who are born into a turbulent era, and whose mindset and identity is being nurtured in an environment where they apprehend being suspected as ‘disloyal others’. Some of them are highly talented and are in the vanguard of the nation’s new development revolution.

The negative profiling of Muslims can cause alienation among the Muslim community; and as a result of this alienation, there will be enough space for fissiparous tendencies leading to long term fissures. Studies have shown that one of the factors underpinning radicalisation is a sense of loss of belonging and identity.

An analysis of 198 countries by the Pew Research Centre finds India is the fourth-worst country in the world for religious intolerance and violence. Only three countries — Syria, Nigeria and Iraq — are before India in this name-and-shame list, and even Pakistan fares much better than India on this front, being in the tenth position.

Muslims have been forced to think deeply about their role in present day political climate in India. It isn’t so much a battle of what it means to be a Muslim in India. It’s a greater battle between broader India, of how tolerant and open-minded it will be about minorities, about Indian values of democracy and secularism, about recognising how true they want to be to the Indian values of openness and freedom for all.

Of late, the Indian secular fabric is increasingly becoming fragile. Many on either side don’t believe in either tolerance or moderation and are determined to follow the age old adage ‘paying them in their own coin’ too literally. The official machinery which had earlier been by and large very subtle in it communal agenda is now baring its fangs brazenly.

Religion is often portrayed simply as a social or political construct, although for millions of people, religion is a daily practice, and the very real framework of an understanding that connects human lives to a spiritual reality. For the laity, faith is the prism through which they view the world, and their religious communities are their central environments. For them it is a benign force, shorn of the political sentiments which are manipulated into an ideological construct by ideological groups for their election algorithms.

It is difficult to overstate the importance of faith in the lives of people for whom it is a creed of peace and love. It is evident that most people would prefer to live in peace than in conflict. At their very core, all religions espouse peace, tolerance and compassion. Yet, often the only religious voices on the front pages are those speaking messages of hatred or violence, especially in stories about conflict or social tensions. One of the best ways of breaking down barriers between faiths is building relationships and getting to know each other. It’s not just a platitude but it actually is a verse from the Q’uran where the Lord says, ‘He made us different so we can get to know each other.’

Taking that verse to heart and getting to know other people and coming together on issues that are common to all of us can synergise a new spirit of bonhomie. We’re all concerned with education and poverty, growing inflation, surging unemployment and taxes, where we can find common ground and work towards a better world and better future for all of us.

There is much in common among people irrespective of the faith they profess. It is this which needs to be explored. We need to be able to see the other and say ‘we understand you are different, but we also understand the difference’.

There is ample scope for reconciliation if only we are willing to avail of the myriad opportunities staring at us. Despite the many superficial differences, all our deeper and more permanent values are similar. The respect for knowledge, justice, truth, compassion towards the less privileged commitment for healthy family life, and the striving to improve our world and make it a better place for everyone are commonalities to people of all faiths. A more sobering reflection can help us smoothen the ridges that keep straining our relationships.

The majority must realise that the minorities face a severe emotional complex. An ordinary Muslim carries a lot of weight on his shoulders; having a lot of responsibility. Having responsibility to his own community and responsibility to his fellow Indians to not only convey the right impression of Islam but embody the principles of nationalism deemed correct by the majority. You have to be an exemplary, upright and righteous individual; people are going to look at you and judge other Muslims based on your conduct. I have to be on my guard all the time because I know people are looking and they generally are going to associate any actions I do as representative of my religion.

We’re all ambassadors of whatever we are. You’re an ambassador to your faith and society as you live your lives. It is not what you profess or preach that matters; it is finally your actions that define you and your thoughts. Your public perception is built over a period of time and is shaped by the uniformity in your speech and behaviour.

A dichotomous behaviour is bound to erode your credibility and your loyalty to your faith can very well be misperceived as disloyalty to national values. The cardinal values that underpin your faith and your patriotism are normally shared by each other: ethical conduct and pluralist character.

It is worth quoting Dr S Radhakrishnan, the philosopher president of India, ‘What counts is not creed but conduct. By their fruits ye shall know them and not by their beliefs. Religion is not correct belief but righteous living. The Hindu view that every method of spiritual growth, every path to the Truth is worthy of reverence has much to commend itself (The Hindu View of Life, 1962).’

There’s always a certain level of bias initially when people meet you. I think that the main challenge is having those conversations and getting people to a level where they stop seeing you just as a Muslim, but a fellow Indian and person of faith. It is equally true that in recent times the highly volatile and hostile environment has made the situation very complicated. Proffering advices is easier said than done.

Being Muslim and being Indian are compatible and go hand-in-hand. You don’t need to compromise your faith to prove your patriotism; real patriotism is demonstrated through the timeless values of Indian civilisation — fairness, justice, tolerance and pluralism.

I am reminded of the writings of the great author Amin Maalouf  on Identity. In re-reading them, I realize I had forgotten how relevant his thinking is for the times in which we live. Written in 1998, Maalouf says:

“[In] the age of globalization and of the ever-accelerating intermingling of elements in which we are all caught up, a new concept of identity is needed, and needed urgently. We cannot be satisfied with forcing billions of bewildered human beings to choose between excessive assertion of their identity and the loss of their identity altogether, between fundamentalism and disintegration. But that is the logical consequence of the prevailing attitude on the subject.

If our contemporaries are not encouraged to accept their multiple affiliations and allegiances; if they cannot reconcile their needs for identity with an open and unprejudiced tolerance of other cultures; if they feel as if they need to choose between the denial of self and the denial of the other – then we shall be bringing into being legions of the lost and hordes of bloodthirsty madmen.”

“For it is the way we look at other people that imprisons them within their own narrowest allegiances. And it is also the way we look at them that may set them free.”

Muslims are faced in a dilemma of dichotomous loyalties and the best inspiration for them in these trying times is of Maulana Azad who was the president of Indian National Congress during the negotiation of independence and was a key ally of Gandhi and Nehru.

‘I am a Musalman and am proud of that fact. Islam’s splendid traditions of 1,300 years are my inheritance. I am unwilling to lose even the smallest part of this inheritance. The teaching and history of Islam, its arts and letters and civilisation, are my wealth and my fortune. It is my duty to protect them.

‘As a Musalman I have a special interest in Islamic religion and culture, and I cannot tolerate any interference with them. But in addition to these sentiments, I have others also which the realities and conditions of my life have forced upon me. The spirit of Islam does not come in the way of these sentiments; it guides and helps me forward.

‘I am proud of being an Indian. I am part of the indivisible unity that is Indian nationality. I am indispensable to this noble edifice, and without me this splendid structure of India is incomplete. I am an essential element which has gone to build India. I can never surrender this claim.

‘It was India’s historic destiny that many human races and cultures and religions should flow to her, finding a home in her hospitable soil, and that many a caravan should find rest here. Even before the dawn of history, these caravans trekked into India and wave after wave of newcomers followed. This vast and fertile land gave welcome to all, and took them to her bosom. One of the last of these caravans, following the footsteps of its predecessors, was that of the followers of Islam.

‘They came here and settled here for good.’

India has been a flag bearer of pluralism and has always held the candle of tolerance, mutual respect and peaceful coexistence. Muslims have time again responded to the challenges of the nation and facts and history attest to their role in building this great nation. Alienating one fifth of this population will not help the country and will be against the spirit of its centuries’ old ethos.

(Moin Qazi is the author of ‘Village Diary of a Heretic Banker.’ He has spent more than three decades in the development sector)

Courtesy: https://countercurrents.org/
 

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“Of course, “says the Muslim. “We’ve got plenty! Let me get you one from my library.”

A week later, the non Muslim returns.

“Thanks so much,” she says. “Fascinating. But I wonder, could you give me a copy of the other Qur’an?”

“Um, you’re holding it,” says the Muslim.

“Yeah, I read this,” replies the non Muslim. “But I need a copy of the Qur’an that’s followed by Muslims.”

The joke is right.  All this talk about discriminating oppression women is not what the Qur’an says!”

In recent years, on account of   the global socio-political climate, the phrase ‘Muslim woman’ might conjure an image of stubborn stereotypes: supposedly powerless and oppressed, behind walls and veils, demure, voiceless and silent figures, discriminated and bereft of even basic rights. This picture keeps reinforcing itself, largely because this is how the Western media caricatures women in Islam.

Contrary to the Eurocentric viewpoint, Muslim women are not a blank slate. When they are given the opportunity, Muslim women are integrating, participating in civic, economic and social life while raising children who are productive members of society. Muslim women across South Asia are slowly getting empowered to stand up to patriarchal practices that undermine their dignity. They believe that rights have been accorded to them in foundational Islamic texts but that cultural interpretations of these same texts disallow what is rightfully theirs. They do not call this a feminist struggle but describe it as reclamation of their faith.

 What prevailed in the early centuries of Islam was a radically different version of Islamic tradition. Its luminaries included women like Ummal-Darda, a seventh-century jurist and scholar who taught jurisprudence in the mosques of Damascus and Jerusalem.

Her students were men, women, and even the caliph. The fourteenth- century Syrian scholar Fatimah al- Bataihiyyah, who taught both men and women in the Prophet’s mosque in Medina, drawing students from as far away as Fez.

Al-Muhaddithat:

The Women Scholars in Islam, a seminal work by Sheikh Mohammad Akram Nadwi, stands as a riposte to the notion, peddled from Jakarta l to Morocco, that Islamic knowledge is men’s work and always has been. “I do not know of another religious tradition in which women were so central, so present, and so active in its formative history,” Akram wrote.

Women scholars taught judges and imams, issued Fatwas, and travelled to distant cities. Some made lecture tours across the Middle East.

Qur’an’s message of equality resonated in the teaching that women and men have been created from a single self and is each other’s guides who have the mutual obligation to enjoin what is right and to forbid what is wrong.

A lot of inspirational women, who were strong, vocal, and fighting for their rights, none of them felt that their faith was at odds with their conviction that they, as women, should be equal citizens.

Muslim women’s activism around education and equal opportunities are often underpinned by their emancipatory readings of foundational Islamic texts. They are now also challenging patriarchy   around unequal power hierarchies in society and the objectification of women’s bodies in some sections of the media .In this regard they stand with their sisters of all hues and stripes.

Part of the dilemma of women’s positions in Muslim society stems not so much from the principles of Islam itself but from extremely conservative interpretations of Islam or from the practice of traditional customs considered to be “Islamic”. A new breed of Islamist femininists is emerging that is making a strong pitch for “real” Islam, not tradition. Women are studying the Quran and Islamic law in order to challenge conservative male-dominated interpretations rejects tradition and demand application of true Islamic norms. Muslim women are boldly challenging traditions in many parts of the Muslim world provoking a split between Islamic modernists and traditionalists on their place in society.

The debate over women’s rights within Islam is not a new one. For centuries, Islamic scholars, thinkers, and activists have been pondering this question of women’s rights, and reaching very different answers. In today’s increasingly global world, however, the stakes are higher than ever—for everyone. In Islam, a woman is seen as an individual in her own right, an independent entity, and not as a shadow or adjunct to her husband or any other male. Muslim women are entitled to education, work, business ownership, and inheritance the same way as men are.

Although traditionally excluded from the public male domain, Muslim women have been privately involved in study and oral transmission of Islamic source texts (Qur’an and Hadith). In modern times, they have entered into both secular and religious forms of education with enthusiasm. Central to Islamic belief is the importance and high value placed on education. From the true Islamic point of view, education should be freely and equally available to women as much as men.

 A closer look at and evaluation of the roles Muslim women have played in many fields including literature, law, art, Islamic studies, the humanities, social sciences and administration — reveals that women, past and present, have achieved and made a rich contribution to the intellectual and cultural life in the Islamic world, despite the ways in which they have been caught in the problematic intersections of thought and patriarchal politics. From the first centuries of Islam, women were respected – and held authority – as religious scholars, teachers and leaders, for example as narrators and teachers of Hadith.

The modern Muslim woman draws her inspiration from the example of Sukayna, the brilliant, beautiful great-granddaughter of the Prophet Muhammad who was married several times and, at least in one of her marriages, stipulated in writing that her husband was forbidden to disagree with her about anything.

Islamic feminists insist that Islam, at its core, is progressive for women and supports equal opportunities for men and women alike. Deeply religious, profoundly determined and modern in every way, they are challenging not only the unjust restrictions placed on them by their own societies, but also the tired stereotypes and empty generalizations placed on them by the West. Some of the leading proponents are actually men—distinguished scholars who contend that Islam was radically egalitarian for its time and remains so in many of its texts.

Women are chipping away at those customs that they consider oppressive. To the reactionaries who accuse them of  deviating from Islam, Islamic feminists argue there is a difference between Islamic jurisprudence—a man-made legal scaffolding developed for the specific conditions of medieval Muslim life—and the divine law itself, which is eternal,  immutable and calls for justice. It’s not the Quran they question, but how particular and skewed interpretations of it have solidified into truth.

Islam may not always be the sole factor in the repression of women. Local, social, political, economic   and educational forces as well as the prevalence of pre-Islamic customs must also be taken into consideration.  In some societies they are a pervasive influence. But in many cases    proper application of the Sharia, Islamic law, remains a major obstacle to the evolution of the position of women.

Women are now elbowing their way into political and civil society, and universities. Despite present cultural and political obstacles, they are finding opportunities to rise up — and to bring their societies up with them. They recognize   the key is to do so from within the Islamic realm.

 Across the Muslim world, Islamic feminists are combing through centuries of Islamic jurisprudence to cull out and highlight the more progressive aspects of their religion. They are seeking accommodation between a modern role for women and the Islamic values that more than a billion people in the world follow.

Western women should be respectful of other paths to social change. it is ridiculous to parameterize  social norms for universal contexts .The western feminists cannot appropriate to themselves the wisdom or competence to hand out certificates on the correctness or otherwise of female social norms. The dominant western feminism has now become somewhat synonymous with a strong sense of individualism. It has also contributed to creating a sense of rivalry between men and women, which has a bearing upon child development and is not conducive to a healthy family or society.

Few Muslim women outside the urban areas may want to behave like western women. The high rate of divorce and sexual disease are common consequences of the reckless drive to equate the sexes and ‘free’ sexual relationships. Comparison may mean little outside the cultural context but it is important to point out that, until 100 years ago, western women had virtually no rights in law or practice.

It  is for women  of the respective societies ,and not even their men, to   best evolve norms suited and appropriate to their cultural and social values . First, there are multiple causes of discrimination against women, and religion is but one. Second, it is futile to focus on misery elsewhere as an escape from the realities of our own lives. Third gender relations influence and determine women’s options in all societies. And fourth, the issue of power remains crucial for understanding gender inequality in any society.

Few Muslim women   may want to behave like western women. The high rate of divorce and sexual disease are common consequences of the reckless drive to equate the sexes and ‘free’ sexual relationships. Muslim women believe that rights have been accorded to them in foundational Islamic texts but that cultural interpretations of these texts disallow what is rightfully theirs. They do not call this a feminist struggle but describe it as reclamation of their faith.

Comparison may mean little outside the cultural context but it is important to point out that, until 100 years ago, western women had virtually no rights in law or practice. Over 1,000 years before the first European suffragette, Islam gave far-reaching rights and a defined status to women. It smacks of shallowness of western female scholarship that they are not aware of the richness of Islamic discourse on women .Islam anticipates the demands of western feminists by more than 1,000 years. A stay-at-home wife can specify that she expects to receive a regular stipend, which is not that far from the goals of the Wages for Housework campaign of the 1970s.

Western thinkers and practitioners must reconsider their assumptions about the role of Islam in women’s rights and approach this topic with a more nuanced lens. They must understand the necessity of recognizing and consciously accepting the broad cultural differences between western and non-western conceptions of autonomy as well as respecting social standards that reflect non-western values.

For empowering women, men have to be properly sensitized so that women are allowed both time and freedom and opportunity to chart out a path of social and economic independence. Treating women with the inherent dignity that they were created with, ensuring that   they are given equitable opportunities to succeed is necessary to uphold the Qur’an’s vision,

It is clear that Muslim women’s empowerment, like many things, cannot be imposed on a country or a culture from the outside. Men and women within these conservative communities must first find their own reasons and their own justifications to allow women a fuller role in society. Increasingly, they are finding those reasons within Islam.  . Like men, women deserve to be free. Empowering women should be as much a man’s responsibility, as it is a woman’s aspiration. As Rumi says in the Masnawi, “This woman, who is your beloved, is in fact a ray of His light. She is not a mere creature. She is like a creator”.

 In today’s increasingly global world, the stakes are higher than ever—for everyone. Societies that limit women’s educational and employment opportunities and their political voice get stuck in a downward spiral. They are poorer, more fragile, have higher levels of corruption, and are more prone to extremism.  

To those opposed to reformist ideals, let us remind them of Iqbal’s assertion: “[t]he teaching of the Qur’an that life is a process of progressive creation necessitates that each generation, guided but unhampered by the work of its predecessors, should be permitted to solve its own problems.”  

Moin Qazi is the author of the bestselling book, Village Diary of a Heretic Banker. He has worked in the development finance sector for almost four decades .

URL: http://www.newageislam.com/islam,-women-and-feminism/moin-qazi,-new-age-islam/men-deny-women-equality,-not-the-qur’an/d/111957

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