Never did I make such a good use of a Sunday. A very hectic, long travel to Darbhanga (with an anxiety to get back to Aligaṛh to engage in classes), then a talk, diluting academic and jargonised contents into lucid Hindustani for a certain kind of audience.
 
There were other concerns/apprehensions too.
 
The talk was on “Emerging Trends in Bihar Politics.”
 
A gist of what I spoke there:
 

Diagnosis:

 
How Did we Reach the 2014 situation?
 
Mandal and Kamandal or caste or majoritarian politics since the decline of the Congress facilitated the political rise of the deprived groups-OBCs.
 
Mandal politics has by now, however, run its course, in a way, as it degenerated/reduced into a cult of the leader, the family and the core caste.
 
On the governance front, the less said the better. Cause of social justice and psychological upliftment (Swar diya, bhale swarg nahin diya) is settled and over.
 
Now the aspiration across all castes is for a better future and hence the “acche din” found such resonance with the demagogue.
 
The coming of another regime during 2005-13 and its delivery on development has established that there has to be a right mix of ‘caste politics + development’ to curry favour with the masses beyond the upper OBCs. This paradigm was also deepening the benefits of quotas amongst the “mahadalits” and “ati pichras” who were sidelined by the more privileged caste groups within the reserved categories- OBCs.
 
And there was, within these categories, a simmering resentment against their respective elites; anti-Yadav OBCs, anti-Jatav Dalits by other OBCs against Yadav led formations in UP and Bihar and anti Jatav sentiment against Jatav led BSP.
 
BJP taps on these underlying and unaddressed resentments of castes by co-opting as many leaders from these splinter castes or striking alliances with such smaller parties.
 
The Mandal or Dalit leadership is not accommodating enough to fulfil such aspirations.
 
However, the return of BJP led govt in UP (2017) and Nitish’s ditch to rejoin NDA in Bihar has thrown back to old savarna hegemony. Now, BJP is the powerful hegemon in Bihar since July 2017.
 
This throws up a challenge as well as opportunity.
 

Way Out:

 
Launching Mandal-2 and Fighting Muslim Conservatism/regression on gender and caste.
 
There is a churning taking place and Mandal-2 and fighting against Muslim conservatism as this conservatism breeds communalism, it feeds the majority communalism and also weakens our secular battles.
 
The deepened social justice can be revived by an equitable distribution of positions in party and government to widest possible demography.
 
A brand of “pichhra politics” that is less about one caste or one family; which is for the “Bahujan not ek jan.”
 
There has to be a degree of idealism too; that political office is not for money-making; that it has room for men and women of enterprise and merit too.
 

Today’s politics is youth-driven

 
Their population is largest among the demography. These are aspirational youth. They are trying to make their mark on their own and they identify with leaders who are seen to be working hard for expanding their career or parties. A 24/7 politician is needed.
 

Muslims

 
Muslims constitute a demography which has a presence nation-wide with a sizeable population.
 
Their identity and role have always been a matter of contest. In the 1950s, they were content with voting Congress in exchange of semblance of security. The riots, which increased in frequency after Nehru and went largely unpunished, were meant as a control mechanism. To keep the community in a state of fear rather than demand their fair share in fruits of development. Sachar Committee is the document of this monumental neglect.
 
The regional and caste-based parties have relatively been more accommodative of Muslim communities in terms of allocation of seats and resources of the state. But the Muslim leaders and the community have failed in articulating its demands.
 
They have been doing in mainly identity-related themes – Protection of Personal Laws or Urdu or Haj-related issues.
 
Muslim leaders have misplaced and wrong priorities. They think their religious-cultural worries are supreme. Fact is, they can protect their identity only if they are educated and economically empowered.
 
So, their identity concerns made them take to the streets in 1986 on Personal Laws and made the then Govt nullify the SC judgement in Shah Bano. Babri Masjid was thrown open to balance the favour shown to Muslims. They committed the same blunder by responding to the Deen Bachao Rally on April 15, 2018.
 
Another SC judgement on Triple Talaq in 2017. All India Muslim Personal Law Board was a party. It made its arguments and lost. It should have endorsed the judgement and run an awareness campaign. It did neither. TTQ continues unabated. Govt comes up with a bill to criminalise it and then the theatre is enacted under Deen Bachao banner. The Bill has not just passed but has the force of law through ordinance.  Govt wins both ways- it plays the champion of Muslim women and does not submit to street protests. This also queers the pitch for secular parties- if they come out openly against the bill, they will be labelled as appeasers, if they align they lose out amongst Muslims.
 
The correct stand is to let the judgement be honoured. And let those suffer who refuse to heed it. As for misuse, leave it to time and courts to provide safeguards.
 
So no street politics which are deemed as anti-women.
 
They must learn that regressive attitudes on caste and gender issues will deepen communalism which will ruin them. They should rather organise on civic issues- bijli, sadak and paani, shiksha swaasthya.
 
They should Demand delivery on these, from their representatives; strike up cross-community alliances.
 
Try to be a citizen at all times. And a voter with loyalties only at election time.
 
“Riots” are politically manufactured.
 
How to avoid getting provoked and giving up on provocation.
 
And to stand by victims of violence (caste, communal or gender-related to one’s own and others.)
 
The Muslim leadership has failed lynching and riot victims. No mobilisation of legal aid or permanent relief whereas they do spend a lot of money in various elections to win and lose.
 
Their misplaced priorities are reflected in their attitudes towards the criminals within their own ranks.
 
They also need to fight out criminals among their own ranks/mohallas who are increasingly rising higher and stronger to represent the Muslims, just as in other social groups.
 
In the recent communal violence of Bihar, besides the menacingly well organised, state-backed, “everyday communalism” of the virulent Hindutva of 21st century, there were some local Muslim tough men cum political aspirants, who resorted to polarisation, in certain instances.
 
They need to be exposed and marginalised, if not reformed. The society has to become brave enough to come out to fight out such evils.
 
Finally, I also shared my apprehension and a forewarning that a covert, BJP-backed third front might be launched to dupe and mislead some voters. This third front might comprise of the Deen Bachao thugs.
 

The post Opinion: Muslims need to weed out communal forces from within appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The term “West” and “Feminism” have both assumed negative connotations in the Muslim world, thanks to the zealous efforts of Islamic revivalist movements like Jamaat e Islami, Ikhwan ul Muslimoon and Tablighi Jamaat. The Islamic Revivalists like Maulana Abul Ala Mawdudi wrote books and treatises like Purdah, Islam and West. So is the case with Syed Qutb who penned down books and pamphlets like What I saw in America. Women associated with revivalist movements like Maryam Jameelah who converted from Judaism to Islam and settled permanently in Pakistan was vociferous in her attacks on West and Feminism as can be witnessed in her books like Islam and West, Women between Islam and West. The antagonism between Islam and West has been reinforced with these types of diatribes. Very few efforts have been made to bridge this artificial divide. Both the West and Feminism have been demonized in the Muslim world in such a manner that they appear synonymous to everything vice.

The theologians have been blaming every calamity confronting the Muslim world to the West. Blaming the West is the favourite pastime of most Muslim clergy and theologians. Most of them have been rabble rousing against the West since last several centuries.

It is true that colonization of the Muslim world did gave birth to the anti-west sentiment among the Muslims, particularly in the clergy whose authority was undermined during the colonial process. Also, the colonization rendered Muslims under siege so they were vehemently opposed to the West. What is West? If we study the Muslim literature produced during the colonial era, two issues emerge as having been engaged critically by Muslims. One is the West and the other is the question of Women! Critical understanding of Muslim world and Muslim men has been missing from the discourse!

The theologians, scholars and Islamic revivalists all of them have written tomes about West, demeaning, denigrating and demonizing it. This is not to say that Western civilization is flawless. In reality certain aspects of the West’s value system cannot be acceptable to the Eastern or Muslim civilization. But that should not render us blind to the positive contribution of Western civilization in building the contemporary era.

When one engages with the literature of Islam and West critically a serious flaw is revealed. Many scholars compare the Islamic ideals with the West pointing to incidents like rapes, extra marital affairs, violence against women happening in the West as if these vices are absent in the Muslim world. Also, the criticism is aimed in such a manner that renders the West bereft of any values and ideals. The point is to drive home the fact that Muslims have ideals, but the West is just surviving on animal instincts. The “animal existence” of Western people is ridiculed vehemently basing the arguments on secondary sources or brief visits in which the clergy and theologians claim to have understood, analysed and rejected the West. Maulana Mawdudi’s writings offer ample proof of these shortcomings and flaws while criticising West. 

The biggest criticism against West is that it is inherently antagonistic and holds a deep animosity against Muslims and Islam. Islamophobia is a reality but to paint the entire West as Islamophobic will be gross injustice. The best academic works on Islam and Muslims is produced in the Western institutions and there are millions of Muslims residing in the West.

Linked to “Westoxification,” to paraphrase Ali Shariti, is the question of Women. The West is accused of destroying the morals, values and image of what constitutes as an “Ideal Woman”. The Islamic literature reveals an unseemly obsession with women’s bodies. There are scores of works titled as “Ideal Woman” available in the bookshops but I have yet to come across a title as “Ideal Man” or “Ideal Muslim Man”. Men are supposed to be legislators and can bend laws as per their whims whereas women as conformists have to abide by male centric and patriarchal laws. Feminism as a movement is being tagged as an extension of Westoxification in the Muslim world. Feminism is held to be antagonistic to being an ideal woman because feminists are destroyers of homes and families. The family as an institution is deeply patriarchal in the Muslim world and any challenge or change to its status quo is deemed as a threat to the basic unit of Muslim society that is far from what an ideal woman is supposed to behave like. The ideal Muslim wife is subservient to her husband and cares for the children, sacrificing all the way through as patriarchy demands. Thus, feminism is held antagonistic to ideal patriarchal motherhood in the Muslim world. It is this notion of feminism that Imran Khan describes as the destroyer of motherhood.

The deep-rooted prejudices against West and Feminism have been embedded over the last century deeply in the Muslim mind and it will certainly take decades to de-condition the same. But this point needs to be emphasized that not everything Western civilisation and the ideals of Feminism uphold need be accepted in toto. West and Feminism are dynamic and static concepts. They are not the same today as our older generation of Islamic revivalists understood them during colonization.

As Muslims we need to overcome this approach of either complete acceptance or total rejection. In every situation, there are certain grey areas and it is reading between the lines that help us negotiate with changing times. The new age demands a fresh engagement with the text as the context has changed. To end, it must be acknowledged that it was feminism that waged the battle for equal wages for women, paid maternity leaves, equal working hours and punishment for sexual crimes. So, lets us hope the Muslim clerics and popular leaders like Mr. Imran Khan begin to realise the virtues of the West and movements like Feminism.

M.H.A.Sikander is Writer-Activist based in Srinagar, Kashmir 

Courtesy: New Age Islam
 

The post Why are Muslim Leaders and Clerics So Afraid of Feminism and Critical of the West? appeared first on SabrangIndia.

But first things first. One of the measures of the political power of any community is its ability to represent itself. Minorities (women, Muslims, Dalits, tribals) have always been represented by others and have always possessed a subordinated consciousness. Over the years, some minorities have been successful in challenging these representations by launching powerful counter-narratives. The debate between Mander and Guha is a stark reminder that the Muslim minority has yet to come to a position of self-representation. It still needs others to represent its agonies, its fears and its failures. This is not to suggest that Muslims should be written about only others but just to serve as a reminder that the community is yet to find a voice of its own. 

The sense of alienation among Muslims has been sensitively captured by Mander. However, a direct linkage of this alienation to the politics of RSS BJP is too simplistic to say the least. In large measures, this is also the result of political practices by the Left Liberal forces. Take for example the Shah Bano case. The government of the day decided to appease the conservative Mullahs and bypass a Supreme Court judgment. This was bound to have a reaction from the majority community. Today, when right wing Hindu forces argue that no law in the country can stop them from building a Ram temple at Ayodhya, let us not forget that similar statements of superiority of faith were made by leading Muslim politicians during the Shah Bano affair. If Muslims had the audacity to claim in Parliament that Sharia was above the Constitution without the fear of being condemned, who can stop Hindus from making similar statements? Contrary to what Mander seems to suggest, Muslims must be wary of their own leadership for they have made the community vulnerable to Hindutva baiting.

And it is not just the Congress of yesteryears which succumbed to an obscurantist Muslim leadership. The left has not been far behind. One just has to remember how Taslima Nasreen was hounded out from West Bengal when the left was in power. After ruling for more than two decades, the left failed to develop a liberal Muslim leadership which believed in freedom of expression. This begs the question whether they were interested in developing such a leadership within Muslims in the first place. Muslim pauperization in West Bengal was unparalleled and yet we hardly saw any criticism of the West Bengal government on this front. To make matters worse, the left front government was put across as a viable model of progressive secularism. For the ordinary Muslim on the street, there is hardly anything to choose between dying in communal violence and dying daily of hunger and despair. Having systematically divested the Muslims of any share in political power, the left in Bengal fell back to appeasing the Mullahs in the hope that this will keep the community within their fold. How different is this from the strategic Mullah appeasement practiced by the Congress?

One can go even further. It is not just political parties but also civil society actors who have a different way of thinking when it comes to Muslims. Consider the Right to Education (RTE) Act, in itself a revolutionary idea of extending substantial rights to children of this country. But then madrasas where made exempt from the provisions of the RTE. This created a unique situation which continues to persist even today: that whereas Hindu children now have modern education as a fundamental right, the same is denied to Lakhs of Muslim children studying in madrasas. There was not even a whimper of protest from civil society actors, including, I might add, from Mander himself. This exemption was again granted for fear of alienating the Mullahs who control these madrasas. There is a distinct way of looking at Muslims in this country. The common sense is that Muslims are controlled by Mullahs who are considered as leaders of the community. This common sense is not just limited to the RSS BJP but also present in other so called secular parties including the left. And in many ways, left liberalism as it has been practiced in this country, has been complicit in producing this common sense about Muslims. The Muslim always gets identified primarily through her religious identity.

A liberal and enlightened leadership is important for any community, more so for the Indian Muslims. Guha is absolutely right that without such a leadership, the community will continue to be dictated by the Mullahs and used by different political parties for their own electoral ends. However, it is equally true that for liberalism to take root in any community, the state has to play a supportive role. From Ram Mohan Roy to the reformists movements in North, colonial and the post-colonial state extended support to the nascent currents of liberalism within the Hindu community. Without the enlightened state under a liberal Nehru and Ambedkar, reform of Hindu law would not have been possible. In fact, during the Hindu code bill debate, the state itself became the reformer of Hinduism. However, the Nehruvian state did not extend its reformist zeal to the Muslim community. Instead, we had a new theory: that reformist voices should come from within the Muslim community. For seventy odd years, both the liberals and left have steadfastly stuck to this position. The problem with this formulation is pretty obvious: that the structures of power within the Muslim community inhibit any possibility of reform. Both the political and the religious hegemons within the Muslim community actively work to subvert any process of reform as their authority flows from the maintenance of status quo.

But then perhaps the Muslim leadership cannot be blamed entirely. They have probably learnt their lessons: that the needs of the Muslim community only get fulfilled when demands are couched in religious rather than secular terms. Thus Muslims are more likely to get Urdu medium schools rather than English ones because through a series of strategic politics, Urdu has become an important religious marker of the community. Similarly, demands for modernising madrasas are more likely to get approval rather than a demand to by-pass the madrasa system by establishing good quality schools in Muslim areas. Muslim leadership is only complicit to the extent that it willingly plays along a pre-fixed agenda of the Indian state. The fine print of Muslim condition today cannot be read without any reference to the nature of the Indian state. 

Arshad Alam is a columnist with NewAgeIslam.com

Courtesy: New Age Islam

The post The Left-Liberals, Muslim Leadership and the State, Sadly: A Reply to Harsh Mander and Ramchandra Guha appeared first on SabrangIndia.