“To think that we can understand Islam through current headlines and the conflicting opinions of political pundits is sheer illusion. But the misrepresentations embedded in many scholarly tomes from prestigious institutions create even more problems.” — Richard Martin Oxman
Some citizens in Europe and the United States have engaged in ugly debates about whether or not they ought to welcome refugees from places like Syria, while their political leaders wearily contemplate the possibility of getting further involved in yet another war in the Middle East, and continue to contribute to abominations they’ve already set into gear.

Ayad Akhtar, a well-known Pakistani-American writer, has given us a Pulitzer-winning drama (Disgraced) that — supposedly — addresses Islamophobia and questions of Muslim-American identity, but does not (in my humble teenage opinion). Does not do an adequate job of that, I should say.

There is a need, I believe, for some new dramatic fare which will dare to address issues that are not being acknowledged. And I do hope someone will heed that call soon. For the potential for spot on theatrical productions to help the general public to self-educate is enormous.
Shakespeare  made widespread suspicion of Islam one of the implicit concerns of Othello, and he conflated race and religion way too much in that oft-produced classic. But for Elizabethan playwrights, including Christopher Marlowe (whose Tamburlaine includes a burning of the Koran!), the relationship between Islam and Christianity was of mostly theoretical interest, since England was far removed from the Muslim-dominated portions of the world.

For other countries, such as Spain, however, there was more of an immediate threat since cultural memories of the Reconquista (and subsequent expulsion of Jews and Muslims) lingered. The Spanish and Portuguese battled with Muslim rulers over the possession of territories in North Africa for a very long time. And these conflicts obviously lent themselves to drama, with perhaps the best-known example being Pedro Calderon de la Barca’s The Constant Prince.

Today, the play largely owes its prominence to the legacy of Jerzy Grotowski’s production in the 1960s, which served a showcase for his ideas about “Poor Theatre.” However, it’s also a grueling examination of religious conviction, in which the title character Ferdinand allows himself to be starved and worked to death by his Muslim captors, rather than allow himself to be exchanged for a city held by the Christian Portuguese. Although Calderon was writing in a deeply Catholic society, and would himself become a priest later in life, the play doesn’t depict Muslims in a uniformly negative light. Ferdinand’s sometime jailer Muley was captured by Ferdinand in a previous battle and treated well, which throws him into a conundrum over where his loyalties should lie. In the end, Ferdinand dies, but Muley’s kindness to him leads to a happy ending in which he is allowed to marry the princess whom he loves as a reward for his goodness.

Perhaps it’s inevitable that one of the most positive views of the relations between the Muslim and Christian worlds in the Western dramatic canon was written during the Enlightenment. In addition to creating the role of the modern dramaturg, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing was also one of the most well-known Germany playwrights of the eighteenth century. His Nathan the Wise, which is set during the Crusades, offers an optimistic outlook on our ability to reach out across religious divides. The action of the play begins when the title character returns from a journey to discover that his house has burned down. Luckily, his adopted and much-beloved daughter Recha has been saved from the flames by a Templar, a Christian warrior-monk who is being held captive (albeit very loosely) by the sultan Saladin. It turns out that all of the main characters are somehow related: Recha and the Templar are actually long-lost siblings, and Saladin is their uncle. However far-fetched this might seem, it fits the play’s overall function as a parable about the close ties between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Lessing underscores these ties in a scene in which Nathan, asked by Saladin which of the three faiths is the true one, tells a story about a father who loved his three sons so equally that he made indistinguishable copies of a precious family heirloom for each of them.

Of course, this brief rundown of plays dealing with relations between Muslim cultures and the West only tells one side of the story. Akhtar’s recent popularity is an encouraging development, but it’s striking how little attention other work from Muslim Americans has received.

As the current federal administration in the my country continues to raise worries about how Muslims are treated in the United States, it would be worthwhile to examine the work of playwrights such as Heather Raffo and Rohina Malik, whose one-woman shows 9 Parts of Desire and Unveiled examine the lives of Muslim women both here and abroad; and plays like Yussef El Guindi’s Ten Acrobats in an Amazing Leap of Faith, which looks at Arab-American life in the years since 9/11. By bringing newer works such as these into dialogue with the older plays described in this piece, we can hopefully begin to change the conversation.

That said, nothing that’s been written that I know about (or that my well-read mentors at Flannery O’Connor Academy are aware of) deals nearly well enough with the major issue facing Muslims today.

And on that note, I ask for a proper play about Muslims to be written. One that will decently address their collective crises. The dire challenges they face.

Flannery O’Connor Academy is mainly a home schooling setup for teens devoted to the kind of Liberal Arts education which makes the honoring of life effortless. This author and all the students and mentors can be reached at aptosnews@gmail.com. Authors of its articles choose to be anonymous.

Courtesy: https://countercurrents.org
 

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Photo credit: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Candidate Trump was never particularly specific on the policy details of how the Muslim ban would work. But with President-elect Trump set to take office in January, and his pledge to implement the ban on day one now about to be put to the test, the question looms: Will he be able to do it, and if so, how?

I put that to several experts on US immigration law. Their answer was unanimous: Trump would be able to implement his ban. In fact, he would be able to do it easily. Congress has already granted wide power to the president to alter immigration rules, so he will not need congressional approval. If the ban is designed properly, it is virtually guaranteed to survive court challenges from liberal advocacy groups determined to derail it.

The consequences of implementing such a ban, the experts warned, could be very bad. America’s reputation in the world, its economy, and even its struggle with militant groups like ISIS would all suffer. The ban would be a slap in the face to America’s basic commitment to the equal treatment of all people, regardless of their faith or background, and to welcoming in the downtrodden. In the aftermath of Tuesday’s upset, many Muslim Americans are openly wondering whether they will be safe in Trump’s America.

Read the  full report on vox.com here.
 

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कनाडा के 70000 लोगों ने ऑनलाइन याचिका पर हस्ताक्षर कर इस्लाम के प्रति पैदा किए जाने वाले डर के खिलाफ विरोध जताया था। इसके बाद ही कनाडा की संसद में इस संबंध में प्रस्ताव पारित हुआ। ऑनलाइन याचिका में पूरी दुनिया में इस्लाम के प्रति भय पैदा करने की कोशिशों की निंदा की गई थी।

‘डेली सबा’ के मुताबिक इस ऑनलाइन याचिका पर हस्ताक्षर की शुरुआत 8 जून, 2016 को शुरू हुई थी और 6 अक्टूबर, 2016 तो यह अभियान पूरा हो गया था।

याचिका में लिखा गया था-
इस पर हस्ताक्षर करने वाले हम नागरिक और कनाडा  के निवासी हाउस ऑफ कॉमन्स से अपील करते हैं कि हमारे साथ ये वे भी इस तथ्य को मानें कि व्यक्तिगत इस्लामी अतिवाद को इस्लाम की पहचान से नहीं जोड़ा जाना चाहिए। किसी एक शख्स के अतिवादी हो जाने का मतलब यह नहीं है कि पूरा इस्लाम ही अतिवाद का समर्थक है। हम इस्लाम से डर पैदा करने वाले किसी भी माहौल का विरोध करते हैं। 

अफसोस इस बात का है कि मीडिया में प्रस्ताव को कवरेज नहीं मिला। इससे साबित होता है कि मीडिया में कनाडा के मुस्लिम समुदाय के प्रति सहानुभूति और एकता की भावना नहीं है। ऐसे कदमों से प्रस्ताव का मकसद नाकाम हो जाता है।

दरअसल कनाडा की मुख्यधारा के मीडिया ने इस्लाम फोबिया के खिलाफ संसद में पारित इस प्रस्ताव का बिल्कुल कवरेज नहीं दिया। इसकी एक वजह तो यह है कि कनाडा अपनी संसद में इस्लाम के डर के खिलाफ पारित प्रस्ताव का प्रचार नहीं कर रहा है। इस्लाम फोबिया की वजह से कनाडा में मुस्लिम समुदाय के अधिकारों को मान्यता नहीं दी जा रही है और उन्हें लगातार हाशिये पर धकेला जा रहा है। मुख्यधारा के मीडिया में संसद में पारित प्रस्ताव का कवरेज न होना दुर्भाग्यपूर्ण है और इससे इस्लाम के डर के खिलाफ चलाए जा रहे अभियान के नाकाम होने का खतरा पैदा हो गया है।  

अगर मीडिया लोगों के पास इस्लाम फोबिया के खिलाफ उठाए गए कदम के बारे में सूचना ही न पहुंचाए या उसे इस बारे में जागरुक न करे तो फिर संसद में इसके खिलाफ लाए गए प्रस्ताव को स्वीकार करने का मकसद ही क्या रह जाता है।

 
दीना इगुस्ती इंडोनेशियाई मूल की अमेरिकी मुस्लिम हैं। वह क्वींस, न्यूयॉर्क में रहती हैं। पहली पीढ़ी की अमेरिकी संतान होने के नाते अक्सर उन्हें अपनी मुस्लिम पहचान को लेकर जूझना पड़ता है। वह कविताएं लिखती हैं। उनकी कविताओं में पहचान का स्वर मुखर है। 

The post कनाडा की संसद में इस्लाम फोबिया खिलाफ प्रस्ताव पर मीडिया में चुप्पी क्यों? appeared first on SabrangIndia.

On the morning of June 12, as details emerged from a shooting at an Orlando nightclub, Muslim Americans across the country likely reacted with horror, while secretly hoping that the shooter wouldn’t turn out to be one of them. Many had gone through the same roller coaster of emotions after the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings and the San Bernardino shootings.

Muslim Americans have become accustomed to this pattern whenever there’s an attack with a Muslim perpetrator. Media outlets will debate whether or not Islam justifies violence, while sounding alarm bells about the extent of homegrown radicalism. At the same time, politicians and pundits trumpet policies restricting the civil liberties of Muslim immigrants and citizens.

As a media psychology researcher, I’ve studied how media representations of Muslims fuel anti-Muslim hostility and policies in America. Because so few Americans personally know Muslims, media depictions of them as terrorists are especially potent, leading many to believe that all Muslims are terrorists.

The power of media

Even in coverage unrelated to terrorist attacks, Muslims get a bad rap.

Content analyses of Muslim representations in cable news, television and movies, and newspapers reveal that Muslims in American media are overwhelmingly represented as violent, terrorists, barbaric and intolerant.

At the same time, there are almost no positive portrayals of Muslims in American media.

According to social psychologists, contact with “outgroups” – social groups that we don’t identify with – can reduce prejudices. But when direct, positive contact is limited or nonexistent, studies have shown media representations of outgroups have an even greater influence on our attitudes toward members of those groups.

Since Muslims make up only one percent of the U.S. population, most Americans don’t interact with them on a daily basis. This means that what they see on the news will largely influence how they perceive Muslim Americans.

A few bad apples speak for the group

In a recent set of studies, we discovered just how influential negative news depictions of Muslims can be.

For example, we conducted an experimental study in which participants were randomly assigned to watch a negative, neutral, or positive depictions of Muslims in the news.

Next, participants completed questions assessing their perceptions of all Muslims and support for policies harming Muslims.

The front page of the New York Post on December 3, 2015, a day after the San Bernardino terrorist attack. New York Post

Participants in the negative condition were exposed to a news story discussing the 2007 attempted terror attack on Fort Dix, which was perpetuated by six Muslim men. Compared to those in the other video conditions, these participants were significantly more likely to perceive all Muslims as aggressive and violent.

In addition, we were surprised to discover how easily they were willing to impose civil restrictions on Muslim Americans, whether it was making them go through separate security lines at airports, restricting their voting rights, or allowing the government to track them.

These participants were also more likely to support military action against Muslim countries – even if civilians would be put at risk – while they also sought to reduce the influence of Islam.

It’s important to note that many of the policies supported by participants in our study bear a strong resemblance to those proposed by American presidential candidates during the 2016 election cycle.

Indeed, many political candidates have called for increased surveillance of the Muslim American community, potentially closing down mosques, requiring Muslim Americans to register within a database or carry special identification identifying their faith, and banning immigrants from Muslim countries.

The fact that many of these proposals are unconstitutional does not alleviate the anxieties and fears of Muslim Americans. Many are aware that similar actions were once taken against Japanese Americans after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Reversing the trend

On an optimistic note, my research has also shown that media representations of Muslims in a positive light – in addition to direct contact with Muslims – can produce the opposite effect.

In the same study mentioned earlier, Americans who were exposed to a news clip portraying Muslim Americans volunteering at a food shelter during the holiday season were less likely to report anti-Muslim attitudes. They were also less likely to support policies that harm Muslims domestically and internationally.

In another study (still in press), we divided American college students into two groups: those who said they had direct contact with Muslims, and those who used the media to find out information about Muslims. Students who reported having direct contact with Muslims were less likely to have anti-Muslim attitudes or support anti-Muslim policies than those who relied on media alone for their information.

These findings highlight the power of face-to-face contact with outgroups, along with more balanced media coverage.

It’s important to recognize that this research does not in any way suggest that media should not report on attacks by Muslims. Instead, this work highlights the importance of fair media representations of the Muslim-American community.

After all, there’s plenty of positive news events involving Muslim Americans to report on.

There’s the Respond With Love campaign, a project initiated by a Muslim nonprofit to support the victims of the Emanuel AME Church shooting in Charleston, South Carolina. Ibtihaj Muhammad qualified for the Olympics as the first U.S athlete to compete wearing a hijab. (She also trained while fasting during Ramadan.) During the Clean Water for Flint campaign, Muslim Americans delivered water bottles to residents of the Michigan city. And at the first ever Muslim Funny Fest, Muslim comedians used humor to tackle issues like Islamophobia.

These stories, unfortunately, don’t get nearly the same amount of coverage as a terrorist attack. Until they do, media coverage of terrorist attacks perpetuated by Muslims will continue to fuel anti-Muslim attitudes and support for policies harming Muslims.

This story was first published on The Conversation.

The post Why Bad News for One Muslim American is Bad News for All Muslims appeared first on SabrangIndia.

 
During its first tenure, a minority NDA I government, also dominated by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had first tried its experiment with influencing the manner in which Value Education was taught, the way learning in the Social Sciences, especially History, would unfold. Under the previous HRD minister, Murli Manohar Joshi, the first experiments in a narrow and exclusivist rendering of our past had been attempted. Allies in the then NDA I government, including Chandrababu Naidu had protested. Then as now it was the ideological fountaindead of the regime, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) that guided these policy moves.
With a far more aggressive NDA II, backed by a 282-seat BJP minority, the present Modi regime is furthering an agenda already attempted during NDA's first stint. This article written at the time in Communalism Combat, therefore assumes relevance today.

Young backs burdened  with heavy texts. Tomes  of homework and pressures of examination that make a mockery of  the meaning of words  like knowledge and learning. Rigid rows in classrooms that are structured to take the bounce out of her step and the shine out of her eyes.The day our daughter joined formal school, her brush strokes that were quite special earlier, mysteriously ceased. It was as if something somewhere had clamped her down, destroyed the desire to splash colour and form onto canvas.

Which of us in our sane minds would ever really question any initiative that seeks to redeem the approach and content of education and learning, re–vitalise our schools as an institution, re–emphasise the curriculum’s commitment to diversity and pluralism of values and actually seek to make this happen through drastically re–fashioned texts and other materials? Especially if aspects of the proposed changes emphasise the child and her world, stress creativity and openness, encourages a process that risks allowing serious challenges to be posed to the rigid and selfish norms set by the adult world.
It is a need crying out loud to be heard.

Large parts of the NCERT’s National Curriculum Framework on School Education, released formally by the Vedic physicist, proud swayamsevak of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and Union minister for human resources development, Murli Manohar Joshi, contain broad homilies on a value–based, child–centric creative curriculum, in which teacher training and orientation has been emphasised, as also diversity and non–sectarian contents within the curriculum. 

However, the policy contains enough space to legitimise unscientific, irrational half–truths and to establish the undisputed hegemony of Sanskrit and Hindi. It celebrates the inculcation of “patriotism and nationalism” through an emphasis on teaching of values based on “our own philosophical and cultural tradition”. 

Without a scientific and a rich sense of history and vibrant knowledge of social studies, how will the much–needed education in values be achieved? According to the makers of the policy, by reducing, not enhancing, our sense and knowledge of history (!) By reducing “substantially the content and scope of the history and social studies syllabus”, while introducing “education about religions” and value education through religious values. 

Before examining the policy document in detail, a few lines are necessary to tackle the hard–sell of the policy document by the minister himself, even as his cohorts in the HRD ministry make confusing and contradictory declarations of intent.

The document itself has welcome emphasis on a creative and child–centric, culture–specific curriculum, even though other aspects are downright problematic. But accompanying it’s release have been the confident declarations of intent by the faithful swayamsevak Joshi, in two separate musings to the The Pioneer this month. 

The first was in an interview with the editor of the paper for Doordarshan. During his interview, Joshi surprised us all by declaring his firm commitment to tolerance and pluralism. Through another exchange with the same paper, published in The Pioneer on January 14, 2001, Joshi actually exhorted all state governments not to include texts in schools which failed to encourage religious tolerance. To quote, presiding over the general body of the NCERT while the policy was being discussed, Joshi said, “The state governments should see to it that any reference that belittles any religion is not included in school textbooks”.

A case of the devil quoting the scriptures? A sworn soldier of the Hindu Rashtra ideology singing hymns on tolerance, pluralism and against hatred. Why? 
The answer lies only weeks away. The state education ministers’ conference scheduled for January 29, 2001 at which this policy document needs to be approved. Joshi’s statements are cleverly aimed at obfuscating his own ideological position, to avoid, at any cost, a repeat of the humiliation he had to suffer in November 1998. 

Two years ago, the same minister had made a brazen attempt to make sharp policy shifts in the national curriculum policy. The proposed innovations included compulsory rendition of Vande Matram and Saraswati Vandana in schools, thrusting Sanskrit as a compulsory subject nationally. Several state education ministers simply stormed out of the meeting in protest. 

 
The critical question now is whether 28 state education ministers, representing divergent political, ideological and regional positions will call the bluff of Joshi and his clan on January 29. Or will they swallow the document without reading it, choosing to be misled by the reassuring noises on pluralism and tolerance and against hatred being made by the minister.

To avoid a repeat of the humiliation he earlier suffered, Joshi’s recent statements have been addressed to an ideologically sympathetic publication (The Pioneer) and a senior scribe who has let him off lightly without probing whether he says what he means or only means what he says! 

On January 30, 1993, the date of Gandhi’s assassination and weeks after the demolition of the Babri Masjid on December 6, 1992 (at which incident he was physically present), Joshi, in an interview to the Observer of Business and Politics had said, “There is an increasing realisation in this country that all religious dispensations should accept Hinduism as a geo–cultural concept and not just as a way of worship
or a purely ritualistic religion. The basic question now is of Hindutva”. 

The first poser to Joshi. Does this statement reflect your notion of pluralism and tolerance or have your views undergone a drastic change? Several more posers could be added, especially after his heart–warming declarations on pluralism and tolerance and against hatred and bias. 

For example:
Does the RSS worldview, that has nurtured you ideologically and politically and to which you still belong, support notions of tolerance, pluralism and abjure hatred and violence?

Or, with your apparent shift to reason and dialogue, Mr Joshi, have you parted ways with the RSS, an organisation who’s leading spokespersons continue to speak the language of the bully, threatening violence from a position of hegemony and superiority?

Where do you, Mr Joshi, stand on the content and quality of Gujarat state social studies text-books (Std V to X), which far from speaking the language of pluralism, reflect the same hegemonic crudity. They equate the Indian with the ‘caste Hindu’. There are appalling assumptions and statements on issues of caste (“The Varna system was the most glorious gift to mankind”, “Muslims, Christians and Parsees are foreigners”, etc; see CC October 1999) in these texts. 

What would you, Mr. Joshi, have to say about compulsory Sanskrit teaching being introduced in Gujarat? About compelling Sanskrit teachers from all schools in the state to attend residential camps conducted by the Deendayal Institute (An integral part of the sangh parivar)?

More specifically, what would you and your friends have to say, Mr. Joshi, about the history that is taught in thousands of RSS affiliated schools spread over the length and breadth of the country. For example:

• “Arabs were barbarians who advanced to convert other people to their religion. Wherever they went, they had a sword in one hand and the Quran in the other. Houses of prayer were destroyed. Mercy and justice were unknown to them… Innumerable Hindus were forcibly made  Musalmans on the point of the sword. The struggle for freedom became a religious war. We never allowed foreign rulers to settle down but we could not reconvert our separated brethren to Hinduism.” (Gaurav Gatha, published by RSS Shishu Mandirs for Std IV).
• “Lakhs of foreigners came during these thousands of years… but they all suffered humiliating defeat. There were some whom we digested. When we were disunited, we failed to recognise who were our own and who were foreigners, then we were not able to digest them. We were not able even to digest those who for some compulsion had separated from us. Mughals, Pathans and Christians are today some of these people”. (Itihaas Ga Raha Hai, for Class 5 in Shishu Mandir schools).
• “Islam spread in India solely by way of the sword. The Muslims came to India with the sword in one hand and the Quran in the other. Numberless Hindus were forcibly converted to Islam on the point of the sword. This struggle for freedom became a religious war, Numerous sacrifices were made in the name of religion. We went on winning one battle after another. We did not let the foreign rulers settle down to rule, but we were not able to reconvert the separated brothers to Hinduism’ (Itihaas Gaa Raha Hai).

Does Mr Joshi describe these RSS texts as conveying the message of tolerance? Is there no generation of hatred here?

• “The Kshatriyas, followers of the Vedic religion, were feeling frustrated. The ruler of Magadha was a Buddhist. So he did not come forward to fight. But then was the country enslaved. Did the enemy become victorious in the birthplace of Bhagwan Rama? No, no”. (Gaurav Gatha p. 31).
• “With the finds of bones of horses, their toys and yajna altars, scholars are beginning to believe that the people of the Harappa and Vedic civilisation were the same”. (High School Itihaas Bhaag 1, p. 43, history textbook for secondary schools, Government of U. P. revised in 1992 to suit the communal interpretations of Indian history. This book deals with the history of India from pre–historic times to 1526.) 
• Aryan culture is the nucleus of Indian culture, and the Aryans were an indigenous race. But about the Aryans who were the builders of Bharatiya Sanskriti in Bharat and creators of the Vedas, this view is gaining strength among the scholars in the country that India itself was the original home of the Aryans.” (P. 48, Itihaas Bhaag 1). 
• Is this pluralism or hegemony, Mr Joshi?
• “Ashoka advocated ahimsa. Every kind of violence came to be considered a crime. Even hunting, sacrifices in yajnas and use of arms began to be considered bad. It had a bad effect on the army. Cowardice slowly spread throughout the kingdom. The state bore the burden of providing food to the Buddhist monks. Therefore people began to become monks. Victory through arms began to be viewed as bad, Soldiers guarding the borders became demoralised”. (Gaurav Gatha p. 30).

Is this not a deprecation of non-violence that suggests restraint and dialogue?

Joshi and all his faithful appointees to key posts in the HRD ministry have been, and are, proud members of the RSS, an organisation that controls the single largest education enterprise in the country. Through the Vidya Bharati Akhil Bharatiya Shiksha Sansthan, the RSS runs anywhere between 14,000–20,000 Saraswati Mandirs and Shishu Mandirs all over the country. 

Of these, it is reported that as many as 5,000 are recognised by and affiliated to either the CBSE or state education boards, most of them in states with BJP governments in power! However, there are also hundreds of RSS schools using textbooks with a completely motivated and vicious syllabus functioning in states with so-called ‘secular’ political dispensations.

In stark and revealing contrast to the hold that the RSS has over education, the Central Board for Secondary Education (CBSE) itself has a total of 5,391 schools affiliated to it (805 Kendriya Vidyalayas, 1,400 government schools, 2,817 independent schools and 369 Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas). 

The RSS–affiliated Vidya Bharati organisation has an overwhelming 18 lakh pupils under its tutelage, annually, and employs 80,000 teachers across all states, except for Mizoram. It also controls 60 colleges of graduate and postgraduate studies and 25 other institutions of higher learning. 

If the example of Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh are anything to go by, the assumption of political power by the BJP has made it possible for this party to use its political clout to promote its worldview of India’s past, present and future, on who and what constitute Indians and Indianness and what constitutes Indian culture.

The changes made in the textbooks used in the state–run schools in Gujarat, UP and even other states are stark, worrying, reflections of this trend. We also know that the VHP, has been busy setting up it’s own brand of schools, encouraged by the political patronage of the BJP. It is the same outfit that has proudly led the demolition of the Babri Masjid and violent campaigns on the life and property of Indian citizens. Today, it endorses the outrageous idea of disenfranchisement of Indian religious minorities. 

We also have some idea of the notions of history, past and present, transmitted by these outfits and their leaders, including Murli Manohar Joshi, through the spoken word and in writing – pamphlets, books and school textbooks perpetuating the RSS worldview that incidentally challenges and violates the Indian Constitution. These text–books are in circulation and use in a staggeringly large number of schools, influencing no doubt the outlook of a significant section of its 18,000,000 students annually. 

The 1993 report of a high–powered NCERT Committee that investigated both RSS schools and madrassas “identified textbooks brought out by the Saraswati Shishu Mandir Prakashan and the Markazi Maktaba Islami as representative of historical distortions”. These text–books continue to be used by these outfits as if an acquiescent government is in power.
If push came to shove, there would be a few last questions for Mr Joshi.

Why, as a BJP minister, controlling the HRD ministry, have you, Mr Joshi, not used your persuasion powers and commitment to pluralism and tolerance to de–recognise and revise such poorly authored texts whose concern seems as much to be with the perpetuation of irrationality and a non–questioning mind as with the subjugation and humiliation of sections of our population through hate generation and the perpetuation of derogatory images? 

The 1993 report of a high-powered NCERT Committee that investigated both RSS schools and madrassas “identified textbooks brought out by the Saraswati Shishu Mandir Prakashan and the Markazi Maktaba Islami as representative of historical distortions”.
 
This is not simply an academic argument for quality, reason, balance and free enquiry. It is to show the link between hate thoughts lodged in the minds of the young through text–books and hate speech by exponents of a worldview that espouses intolerance and violence that results in blood–letting on the streets as we have all been witness to.

What goes into textbooks taught in schools run by outfits like the RSS and VHP finds repeated reflection in the sense of perverted history that drives the public declarations of people like Joshi and Advani at a more benign level and those like Sudarshan and Seshadri, Thackeray, Singhal and Vinay Katiyar at the crude level. These perversions become an important vehicle to raise passions that spill into violence. Or is it the other way around?

For example:

Ø “This is yet another epic war — between Hindus and anti–Hindus, a veritable Mahabharat in which sometimes Abhimanyu will fall, sometimes Ghatotkacha, or it may be Jayadratha’s turn yet another day. (KS Sudarshan, newly appointed RSS chief in the Organiser, April 2000)

Ø “Christianity is not a religion, it is a devious conspiracy to serve colonial interests. You dream of building a church in every village and taking a Bible to every house. The Bajrang Dal activists will destroy your dream completely.” (Ashok Singhal, VHP working president, addressing a BD camp at Vrindavan aimed at setting up a special people’s security force (Prateyak Suraksha Samiti), in the Frontline).

Ø “Muslims can never be trusted. They are like snakes, you can never know when they can turn around and bite you”. (Bal Thackeray, SS chief lashing out at top film stars, Khans and Mohammed Azharuddin in The Asian Age, June 2000)

Ø ‘There can never be harmony or peace until the Koran is drastically revised.” (Vinay Katiyar, chief of Bajrang Dal, Lucknow, July 1999)

Ø “I reiterate my commitment towards the construction of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya and the day a BJP government is installed at Delhi, we will remove all hurdles for temple construction”. (LK Advani, The Asian Age, July 4, 1997). 

Is the lip service being paid to pluralism, tolerance and against hatred a mere waiting game until an absolute power can be realised by the BJP? Is it too farfetched, then, to suspect a sinister plan to erode public discourse as much as educational curricula with untested, historically problematic notions of past events? 

A case of the devil quoting the scriptures? A sworn soldier of the Hindu Rashtra ideology singing hymns on tolerance, pluralism and against hatred. Why? 

It is within this wider scenario that the New Curriculum framework must be situated. A policy document that emphasises education about religion, stresses value education as that which obtains exclusively from religious frameworks, drastically reduces the quantum of social studies/sciences and history syllabi and accords a disproportionate and compulsory place to Sanskrit.

The critical question now is whether 28 state education ministers, representing divergent political, ideological and regional positions will call the bluff of Joshi and his clan on January 29. Or will they swallow the document without reading it, choosing to be misled by the reassuring noises on pluralism and tolerance and against hatred being made by the minister.
In November 1999, we were told that: 

Ø “The content of education from the primary level to the higher education stage should be “Indianised, nationalised and spiritualised”; 

Ø “Courses  at all levels, including vocational training courses, should  incorporate the essentials of Indian culture”;

Ø “Sanskrit should be made obligatory for students between classes III and X”. 

Ø “Moral and spiritual education” should be introduced that would inculcate “desirable social and national values.” 

Today the new and finalised policy document on education says: 

Ø There should be an emphasis on “Education about religions”  (p vii) and “values with an emphasis on religious values”. The “Inherent values of all religions to be taught at all stages of school education”;

Ø “A profound sense of patriotism and nationalism tempered with the spirit of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam (being one of the world/earth family) must be infused into the students”;

Ø There should be an emphasis on our “own philosophical cultural and sociological tradition” and “an indigenous Indian curriculum that would celebrate the ideas of the country’s thinkers such as Sri Aurobindo,
Vivekananda, Dayananda Saraswati, Mahatma Phule, Gandhi, Tagore, Zakir Hussain, Krishnamurti and Gijubhai Badeka.” (Ambedkar and Periyar are given the go–by, as are so many others!)

Ø There is a clear–cut promotion of Sanskrit (2.8.3) and Hindi (2.8.4) and their compulsory inclusion within the syllabus all over the country at the primary stage. Clear pointers to attempted cultural hegemony as also to the backward looking vision that guides this sectarian worldview.

Ø “Sanskrit has a special claim on the national system of education because it
l Has consistently been used in India for thousands of years and is still inextricably linked with the life, rituals, ceremonies and festivals of vast Indian masses; (it was just such an emphasis on Sanskrit hegemony that had been angrily resisted by representatives of so many states in India, especially the South, in 1999);

l Contains a great store of knowledge and wisdom that needs to be revived, reformulated and enriched with whatever is the best in modern disciplines of knowledge;

l Has the universal appeal all over the country;

l Has very close structural, lexical, and semantic relationship with Hindi and most other regional languages of India which makes the learning of these languages easier and better; and

l Has been internationally accepted as the most scientifically structured language and is increasingly being acknowledged as the best suited language for computer use”.

For all these reasons, the new policy states that it is important to provide for and encourage the study of Sanskrit: “It may be introduced as part of a composite course of Hindi and the regional languages as mother tongue at a suitable point of the primary or upper primary stage…Open school courses for Sanskrit may also be designed for learners at all levels”.

The New Curriculum Framework accords Hindi a special place, too, on grounds that “the Indian Constitution has given it the place of the Official Language of the Union…it is necessary that courses in Hindi are suitable for opening up channels of integral communication in all parts of India.”

Incidentally, even as Joshi appears before us through the pages of The Pioneer in a liberal and tolerant garb, the forked tongues within the wider ideological family cannot be so easily silenced. The formal release of the NCERT’s National Curriculum Framework on School Education in December 2000 has been adequately caricatured by the secretary of the HRD ministry, MK Kaw. In his article in the official NCERT journal on Value Education, titled ‘Education in Human Values, released at the Jawaharlal Nehru stadium barely a week after the policy document, on December 20, 2000, Kaw tells us that, “The greatest damage to our intellectual freedom has been caused by traditional religions especially by those which have a single holy book from which they derive their authority!” 

There is more. Sister bodies under the control of the HRD ministry that include the Indian Council for Social Science Research (ICSSR), the Indian Council for Historical Research (ICHR) and even the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), in varying degrees and through different actions, have had their representatives once again publicly declare their allegiance to the parent organisation to which Joshi, Vajpayee and Advani belong – the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. 

In the same month (December 2000), the director of the ICHR made a declaration that embarrassed even the body he heads. He stated that since the Babri Masjid had been an unused structure and had no religious significance, the site should be handed over to the Hindus on the premise that as “the location of Rama’s birthplace cannot be changed, the temple cannot be moved.” 

The same ICHR has also been embroiled in a serious controversy for withdrawing mid–way through publication a volume, Towards Freedom, authored by two renowned historians, Sumit Sarkar and KN Panikkar, eighteen months earlier. 

The reasons are not far to seek. Among other things, the book offered incontrovertible evidence (including British intelligence records) to show that the RSS was not merely a non-participant in the Indian freedom struggle; it actually collaborated with the colonial powers! 

The director general of the CSIR, RA Mashelkar was felicitated by the RSS’ Rashtriya Suraksha Mahashivir last month. This created some public discomfort for the ministry because it was more evidence (if any were needed) of the growing influence of swayamsevak Joshi’s influence over the orientation of the CSIR. 

A girl from a Dalit neighbourhood, still bitterly experiencing the daily humiliations and segregation based on caste that legitimises a cruel concept like sprush-asprush (pure and impure) and “so impure as to be untouchable. A tribal boy who plays his drums and knows his icons and idols but would like to see them reflected in the social studies syllabus. A Muslim boy who has witnessed brute violence and lost his father to hatred. A Muslim girl who is compelled to drop out of education at eleven years of age because puberty is around the corner and she sits in a mixed classroom.

These few examples reflect events of the past month or so. To enumerate all the actions of this ministry of the NDA government since it took charge in 1998, the list would spill into several pages.

The state ministers of education need to keep these myriad factors in mind when they respond to the new curriculum policy document. What, in a nutshell, will the new NCERT text books, written in pursuance of this new worldview, contain? 

There is good reason to fear that such an approach, approved by the national education policy, will legitimise and stress on religious education over scientific and historical inquiry. It will, in fact, serve to legitimise the content of texts circulated by such backward looking outfits like the RSS and Markazi Maktaba Islami, as they will now not even be required to meet the criterion of neutrality, scientific temper and frank inquiry. 

What notions of values would be contained, what understandings of faiths, what extrapolations to the ideal of patriotism, nationalism and national unity would we find within the new textbooks, then? 

We have been mute witness to the Hate and Bully projects in public life in the past few decades, projects that have misused religion and religious labels to perpetuate threats and strong arm tactics against sections of our own population. All these actions have amounted to contempt for the law of the land. A law based on the Indian Constitution that above all enshrines a rich and pragmatic concept of equality to all, that makes matters of faith answerable to broader, deeper and more universal concepts of the individual and basic rights of the citizen. The rights of an individual Indian citizen to dissent, to free speech, to life and equality et al are inalienable. It cannot be taken away by group rights, religious rights, community and caste rights.

The brazen attempt to replace history and social studies within the curricular framework with religion-based values is also aimed at the destruction of a sense of historical search and belonging, a journey that is the source of empowerment to sections that may be grossly disempowered and disadvantaged today. Why this overpowering desire to wipe out or snatch away a sense of history from the vast majority of our people?

To gain control over the mind of a large section of the people you need a clean slate, uncluttered by contradictory facts and emotion, a situation that enables you to brainwash through unreason, with ease. Such a clean slate is vital for control over the fortunes, aspirations and dreams of large sections of the population who are then made to believe what they are told by the controlling few — that there exist no inequities, no schisms, no oppressions.

How will they deal with questions of genuine inquiry, issues of the history of science and technology, the paths that ideas, innovations, faiths and convictions took and travelled? Will they be able to release historical knowledge and inquiry from the shackles of identity, caste and class control? Or would history and its transmission get mired with and influenced even more than it is now by a narrow political worldview? 

A girl from a Dalit neighbourhood, still bitterly experiencing the daily humiliations and segregation based on caste that legitimises a cruel concept like sprush-asprush (pure and impure) and “so impure as to be untouchable. A tribal boy who plays his drums and knows his icons and idols but would like to see them reflected in the social studies syllabus. A Muslim boy who has witnessed brute violence and lost his father to hatred. A Muslim girl who is compelled to drop out of education at eleven years of age because puberty is around the corner and she sits in a mixed classroom. 

These are the multi-hued emotions of our children, our present and our future. To enthuse them into learning processes, these processes must find a resonance within each of them.

How will our textbooks tackle the questions of internal shades and hues and conflict? How will they address the issues dividing populations within India and South Asia? How will the books look at the issue of motivated, pre–mediated history writing and generation that stifles the critical and questioning mind? 

Uninformed and non–creative interpretations of events and periods in history writing have deteriorated, in past decades, into outright hate–writing inculcating prejudices, limiting our knowledge and understanding of the past. Instead of surging forward towards unshackling knowledge from myriad pre–conceptions by deepening our knowledge of the subject, the current political dispensation appears determined to confine learning to religion–based values, not free inquiry. The resultant situation can then be used to unleash half–truths, suspicions and finally hatred and divisions.

The suppression of history and historical inquiry, then, has a dual purpose. Wiping the slate clean creates a tailor–made situation, fertile ground for nasty manipulations, for colourfully woven tales of woes that are made to pass as history with no concessions to historical veracity and genuine inquiry. 

We are now catapulted into an explosive every day scenario of emotion–driven, non–scientific visions of the past. These half–baked, explosive notions are not based on knowledge or history, but are made to pass as such. They are manipulations and distortions that freely allow for hate-filled half–truths to fill the curriculum and resonate in the public sphere.

We have then entered the realm of darkness, of suspicion, of constructs of hitherto non–existent states of historical trauma and wrong–doing; states of being that easily raise passions, that can even wield trishuls and swords. Such states of being have in recent times broken real historical ground with distortions that have justified crimes of crude passion leading to the destruction of lives and homes, property and places of worship. All justified by abusing history.

Hysterical and narrow notions of patriotism in this era of darkness can also be used to justify nuclear war and the creation of weapons for mass destruction. Shameful acts like female foeticide, infanticide and caste and community driven incidents of sexual violence can all be traced back to the misdeeds of ‘foreign marauders’ of over nine hundred years ago. In this era of darkness, we loose forever the ability to search deep within ourselves for solutions to shameful facts of continuing discrimination, of violent humiliations, because all of this would mean pinning the blame, even accepting responsibility. 

The finger of blame would then be turned firmly on us and us alone. 

Archived from Communalism Combat, January 2001. Year 8, No. 65, Cover Story

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Propaganda is the wheel by which the government steers the bus of a nation; typically driving it into war or off the cliff of humanity. It is amazing to see how many people who are otherwise rational human beings will blindly follow the herd on the matter of how subhuman a perceived national enemy is.

The western media wonderfully paints Islam as a death cult bent on world domination. Over and over again the American populace is shown footage of the atrocities committed by fanatics or of Arab men burning American flags. The problem, of course, is that this isn’t remotely representative of the Islamic population of the world. Are there Muslims who employ terrorism? Of course. Are there Christians who employ terrorism? Of course. There are even Buddhists who employ terrorism.

Some general facts about Islam might help break the noose of wartime propaganda that rests around America’s neck. Below are a list of statements this journalist has seen in the last week on social media, followed by the data to put that statement in perspective.

“All [or most] Muslims are terrorists.”
There are 1.6 billion Muslims in the world. The much-discussed ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) organization, which has been described as the “richest terrorist group in the world” can only field between 7,000 and 15,000 troops in its battle to create a fundamentalist homeland. Even taking the highest estimate of their troop strength means that fewer than 1 out of every 106,000 Muslims from all over the world are actually willing to take up arms and fight for the fundamentalist dream. The Iraqi army, however, can field 250,000 soldiers to fight against that fundamentalist vision. That figure does not include irregular forces allied to the Iraqi army. The premise that all Muslims are terrorists falls flat by a mere study of the numbers. It isn’t a majority of Muslims. It isn’t even 1% of Muslims.

“Muslims want Sharia law.”
While many Muslims believe in Sharia law, what is considered Sharia law is not universal. In Lebanon, which has been considered a hotbed of Islamic terrorism ever since the bombing of the US Embassy in Beirut, 38% of Muslims don’t even believe it is the Word of God. Among those that do believe it to be the direct Word of God, only 29% believe in making it the legal system for the country, and a majority of Lebanese Muslims don’t believe Sharia law should apply to non-Muslims.  Even among those that believe whole-heartedly in Sharia law, they don’t necessarily believe in some of the more violent aspects. The crime of adultery is punishable by stoning under some forms of Sharia law. Some quick and simple math shows that in Lebanon, less than 3% of Muslims believe that punishment should be applied to the population at large. Meanwhile in America’s heartland, a political candidate has advocated or silently endorsed the idea of stoning homosexuals.  The vast majority of Muslims believe that Sharia law should be used to settle family or property disputes among Muslims.

Some countries have higher rates of belief in using Sharia law, and some have lower. Lebanon was chosen because it falls in the middle as far as averages go.

“They beat their women.”
First, the very phase “their women” suggests that the individual might fall close to the more radical elements of Islam in regards to the belief that women are property. Yes, some Muslim men beat “their women.” In the United States 25% of women will be beaten by “their men” in their lifetime. This is not an Islamic issue, this is an issue rising from the idea that women are property and somehow belong to the men. If this is justification for war, the United States might consider invading Belfast, where 60 cases of domestic violence are reported daily.

“They are stuck in the Stone Age, and they want to stay there.”
This statement marginalizes the thousands of Muslim men and women who sit in prison for attempting to change their government and those that died in the attempt. Political prisoners throughout the Arab world sit rotting away for attempting to bring about change in their nations. They are Muslims. Four Saudi Princesses are currently being starved to death by the King for speaking out in favor of women’s rights. Countless journalists and bloggers sit behind bars for questioning their governments. The US government continually props up these brutal dictatorships with multi-million dollar arms deals and keeps the power in the hands of those that don’t want change.

“Muhammad was a pedophile and his wife was only 6 (or 7).”
Most historians agree that Aisha and Muhammad were married after she reached puberty. They place her age, on average, around 13 years old at the time of marriage, though she may have been betrothed to him much earlier. Americans need to keep in mind that while they might not have heard of Islam prior to September 11th, Muhammad lived in the early 600s A.D. It might surprise them to learn that marriage at such an early age was extremely common not only in the Arab world, but the Western world as well. King John of England married a 12-year-old around 1198. Romeo’s love, Juliet, was only 13. No subset of people is more hated in the West than pedophiles. An attempt to cast the founder of the perceived enemy as a pedophile would certainly benefit the war effort.

“Muslims take child brides and rape children.”
Does it occur in the Muslim world? Sure. It occurs in the United States as well, typically deep in America’s heartland. The Catholic Church is well-known for its abuse of the youth. Again this is a worldwide issue, not an Islamic one. There is not a single Middle Eastern country listed among the top 20 nations with a high prevalence of child brides.

Conclusion:
Most of the information that is spread via social media is simply not accurate. It only serves to plant the idea in the American psyche that somehow the United States must save the Muslims from themselves. The goal of this propaganda is to make Americans believe that Muslims are somehow lesser people. After all, it’s easier to condemn people to die in air strikes if they aren’t really human. Before clicking the share or retweet button on an inflammatory article, try to determine if the information being presented is an accurate portrayal of the Muslim world, or if you are simply furthering the government’s march towards war.

The Islamic world is not without its problems. The struggle for equal rights for women and homosexuals continues to meet roadblock after roadblock on the streets of Amman, Damascus, Riyadh, and Tehran; however, if the United States seeks to use this as justification for intervention, maybe it should invade Mississippi or Arkansas.

(Courtesy: http://theantimedia.org/)
 

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