As per a report of The Telegraph, the local traders’ association in Dharchula cancelled the registrations of 91 shops after a Muslim youth, who used to work at a barber shop, eloped with two girls to his home state of Uttar Pradesh. Referring to this incident, the memorandum states that only the person accused of the crime can be held responsible by the authorities, but under the guise of the incident, the whole community is being targeted.

Through the memorandum, the delegation also accused the local administration and state police of maintaining a mute stance while this “anti-Constitutional” exercise is being carried out in the state.

The full memorandum can be read here:

प्रति, महामहिम राज्यपाल महोदय,

उत्तराखंड शासन, देहरादून. द्वारा : श्रीमान जिलाधिकारी महोदय, पिथौरागढ़. 

महामहिम, पिथौरागढ़ जिले के सीमांत नगर- धारचुला में इन दिनों एक ऐसा अभियान चलाया जा रहा है, वो अपनी प्रवृत्ति में सांप्रदायिक घृणा से भरा हुआ और संविधान विरोधी है. महामहिम, धारचुला के व्यापार मंडल ने बाहरी बता कर उनकी दुकानें खोलने पर रोक लगा दी है, उन्हें दुकानें खाली करने को कह दिया गया है और व्यापार संघ में उनका पंजीकरण निरस्त कर दिया गया. इस अभियान के पूरे स्वरूप से स्पष्ट है कि इसके पीछे सांप्रदायिक ध्रुवीकरण की जहरीली राजनीति काम कर रही है. देश के किसी भी हिस्से में व्यापार- व्यवसाय करने की आज़ादी भारत का संविधान अपने हर नागरिक को देता है. कोई अपराध करे तो उसे सजा दिलाने का काम पुलिस और न्यायालय का है. जिस घटना की आड़ लेकर यह उन्मादी अभियान चलाया जा रहा है, उसमें पुलिस विधि सम्मत कार्यवाही कर चुका है. उसके बावजूद उन्मादी अभियान चलाना दर्शता है कि इसके पीछे मंतव्य कुछ और है. महामहिम, यह बेहद अफसोस की बात है कि एक सीमांत शहर में यह सांप्रदायिक कवायद लंबे अरसे से चल रही है और स्थानीय प्रशासन व पुलिस मूकदर्शक बने हुए हैं.लोकसभा चुनाव की आदर्श आचार संहिता लागू होने के बावजूद प्रशासन और पुलिस का इस मामले में चुप्पी साधे रहना गंभीर चिंता का विषय है. महामहिम, आप से निवेदन है कि तत्काल इस प्रकरण में हस्तक्षेप करते हुए अपने अधीनस्थों को निर्देशित करें कि धारचुला में बाहर बता कर बेदखल किये जा रहे व्यापारियों का उत्पीड़न रोका जाए और उन्हें संपूर्ण सुरक्षा प्रदान की जाए.

सधन्यवाद,

सहयोगाकांक्षी गोविंद कफलिया, जिला सचिव, भाकपा (माले), पिथौरागढ़. भगवान रावत पिथौरागढ़ जन मंच हेमंत खाती भाकपा (माले)

Selective targeting:

As per the Telegraph report, Mahesh Gabrayal, general secretary of the Dharchula Vyapar Mandal, has justified the aforementioned action based on the allegation of “them” luring their daughters. In the report, Gabrayal was quoted as saying, “The registrations of 91 shops were cancelled after consulting the local administration and their owners were asked to leave the area. Many of them have been luring our daughters.”

Gabrayal further provided that after the eloping incident took place, the association identified the shopkeepers that were doing their business illegally, and cancelled their registration. As per the report, Gabrayal said “A barber from Bareilly enticed two minor girls and took them away last month. Thereafter, we identified 91 shopkeepers who were doing business here illegally. They didn’t register with the Vyapar Mandal, which is mandatory in Uttarakhand.” Gabrayal further provided that the association had also decided to cancel the registration of all the traders who came here from other states before 2000.

It has been provided that all the 91 shopkeepers whose registration has been cancelled are from western Uttar Pradesh and belong to the Muslim community. It has been reported that the shopkeepers have been told by the association to immediately leave the area in view of the marches being organised by the “agitated residents” against the “illegal shops” on a daily basis.

“A total of 175 businessmen from the town have been identified so far. They all belong to western Uttar Pradesh. Local youths will be able to start businesses and earn a livelihood if we remove the outsiders from here,” Gabrayal stated, as per the Telegraph report.

Riyaz Ahmad, one of the shopkeepers whose registration has been cancelled, spoke to the Telegraph and deemed such selective targeting to be wrong. As per the report, Ahmad said that “Such an atrocity against traders from one particular community is wrong. All of them cannot be punished for the crime of one person. We don’t support the barber with whom the girls eloped. We have closed our shops but request the government to discuss the matter with the association and resolve it.”

It is also essential to note that a delegation of the affected traders also met with the administrative officials of Pithoragarh district, under which Dharchula falls, and urged them to intervene and ensure that the targeted Muslims are allowed to continue with their business.

With the regards to the same, Manjit Singh, sub-divisional magistrate of Dharchula, has assured that the issues raised by the delegation of shopkeepers will be discussed with the association. As per the report, Singh said that “We appeal to the people to maintain peace. The shopkeepers have raised some issues and we will discuss them with the leaders of their association soon.”

One a peaceful state, now a centre of communal disharmony:

The incident of selective targeting of the Muslim community in the state of Uttarakhand is not the first incident of communal disharmony reported from the state. While the aforementioned Dharchula, Pithoragarh incident is the most recent such incident, there is a consistent pattern of connivance with small groups terrorising Muslims as well as a state administration that targets Muslim properties. One must not forget the targeting and exodus of Muslims from the state of Uttarakhand in June last year, again under the guise of ‘love jihad’ being committed by Muslims. Even then, in Purola, the supposed conspiracy of ‘love jihad’ was given communal fire and was used as the pretext to terrorise Muslim shopkeepers and traders.

For a detailed coverage of the forced Muslim exodus from Purola, Uttarakhand, kindly refer here, here, here and here.

Communal tensions in Haldwani, Uttarakhand had flared up in the month February of 2024. On February 8, the Municipal office, accompanied by police presence, had demolished a Mosque and Madrasa in the Banbhoolpura area. As the demolition was takin place, incidents of stone pelted were reported. Communal violence of a major scale was the result. As per a fact-finding report, while official figures suggested that seven lives were lost in the violence, local residents from Banbhoolpura area feared that the toll would be as high as 18-20.

A detailed report on the violence can be read here.

Many allege that the aforementioned communal polarisation and targeting in Pithoragarh to be a political plank to polarise Hindu voters in the Almora parliamentary constituency, under which Pithoragarh falls. Notably, Uttarakhand chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami represents the adjoining Champawat seat in the Assembly. These recent incidents make Uttarakhand fit to be included in a case study of how a previously peaceful state – one that has essentially never seen violence or repression of this scale – can see consistently biased actions by a state administration and ruling party targeting its minority citizens.

Related:

Conspiracy or Coincidence? Mosques defaced in March after spate of hate speeches provoking the crime weeks before

Bodoland University’s cultural event reportedly displays Muslims as criminals escorted by police, student groups demand apology  

Haldwani Violence: Cautioning police against overreach CPI-M delegation demands independent inquiry

The post Uttarakhand: Registration of 91 Muslim shopkeepers cancelled; protest memorandum submitted by delegation of Jan Manch & CPI (ML) to DM, Pithoragarh, highlights selective targeting appeared first on SabrangIndia.

In a Muslim exclusive WhatsApp group of my extended family, kinship and village neighbourhood, a young man proposed to boycott the Republic Day 2024. The reason he put forward was, the current dispensation has victimised and marginalised the Muslims in various many ways. The young man proposing this boycott has obtained his diploma from a centrally funded Polytechnic affiliated to the Muslim minority university (Jamia Millia Islami, JMI, New Delhi). The JMI, being a centrally funded public university, offers considerably subsidised and economical fee structure. He also got a job in the union government, soon after he obtained the diploma. Subsequently, he quit this job as he found employment in Saudi Arabia.

His “fantastic proposal” of boycotting 2024 Republic Day celebrations is then confronted with an argument that the core support-base of, and organisations affiliated with the current dispensation, anyway subscribe to a kind of ideology that considers Republican Constitutional values an impediment to actualizing their majoritarian goals. Though, they are in ascendance and the forces resisting them appear to be weaker, are not the southern states still beyond them? Meaning that a majority of Hindus are still against Hindu majoritarianism. True, the share of Muslim communities in the structures and processes of power, in education and trade and employment are pathetically dissatisfactory. This has been the situation for decades however, much before this regime acquired its dominance. This also holds true more for northern India. The difference between north and south is due to a variety of factors, external as well as internal, he is told.

With these arguments, he was further reminded of the social composition of the structures and processes of power in the country he works in. He informed also that in that country where Islam was born, only a specific clan can be the ruler, through inheritance, not through any mechanism of popular will, nor through any form of democracy—consociational[1] or consensus democracy–ensuring maximum participation and representation from across the sects, regions, and ethnicities of the country he works in. He is counselled, a consociational democracy differs from consensus democracy (e.g. in Switzerland), in that consociational democracy represents a consensus of representatives with minority veto, while consensus democracy requires consensus across the electorate.

Thereafter this young man, rather cunningly feigns ignorance about such state of affairs of exclusion, discrimination and disenfranchisement in the Islamic country that he now works in. Also, in terms of his sectarian affiliations, he is supposed to be sympathetic to the Salafi ideology. He raises the issue of the egregious act of the demolition (1992) of Babri Masjid with no punishment meted out to those who have been pronounced criminals by the Supreme Court. Some of these criminals are shamelessly being rewarded with votes and are successful elected representatives.

He is then reminded of an episode of the demolition of a historic mosque in Mecca.

… [in 2005], King Fahd, obsessed with building palaces, could look down on the Kaaba from the bedroom of his new residence in Mecca. The palace was located on the eastern side and overshadowed the whole of the Sacred Mosque… [T]he historic Bilal Mosque, dating back to the time of the Prophet Muhammad, adjacent to the palace, was demolished. The development took care to ensure that the king had a full view of the worshippers in the compound of the Haram; hence no minarets were built facing the palace…. [Ziauddin Sardar (2014), Meccah: The Sacred City, p. 338].

This young man was then asked if the ruling aristocracies and civil society (if any exist) of the KSA, UAE and other such countries ever bothered about the kind of discriminations and marginalisation India’s Muslims have been subjected to in India; he was asked if these Arab countries allowed civic protests against Zionist and other persecutions across the globe; did Indian Muslims ever stage a protest demonstration in front of their Embassies in India for their silence on Zionist persecution of Palestinians?

He was also asked to ponder why KSA provides fund only for theological seminaries in India, and not institutes for modern education, whereas under the provisions of the Articles 29, 30 of the Indian Constitution, our Indian state provides fund for our schools and colleges of modern education established and administered by us across the country. These arrangements do feel threatened by the current dispensation but from among the Hindu majority itself, resistance against such threats continue. These forces of resistance need more of solidarity, rather than the opium of alienation and even radicalization of India’s Muslims, from certain “Islamic” countries.

This young man was then reminded that he should be a grateful participant in Indian democracy that grants him and us minority rights; a Constitution and democracy which has equipped him with a diploma to earn his livelihood and to attain socio-economic mobility. He was counselled to work towards strengthening the India’s secular democracy, resisting majoritarianism rather than harbouring only a sense of victimhood above all else. He was also reminded of the fact that in some ways, Muslim conservatism, their own communalism and separatist mind-set, and a disproportionate or exaggerated sense of victimhood are the additional factors contributing to greater ascendance of majoritarianism, particularly since the mid-1980s. He found himself silenced because he was disarmed with this barrage and litany of arguments. In other words, he goes silent not because he is convinced with the counter-arguments. His grudge and reluctance persists. He refuses to be convinced.

One of the greatest failures, and wilful one, has been in letting off the perpetrators and plotters of intermittent communal violence. India’s criminal justice system has been awful on this count. The collective grievance of India’s Muslims has more to do with this aspect than to any other aspect of exclusion, discrimination and victimisation.

There are debates between sections of the liberal-secular population and those who ascribe to majoritarianism. The debate always veers around the agent provocateurs of such communal strife, Who cast the first stone? A concise reply to such a polarised debate is: whosoever may have been the plotters and perpetrators (including the security forces who wilfully fail to prevent and control such violence; often acting as complicit with rioters, and also fail to produce evidence of investigations before the law courts) must be punished. Wilful failure to punish them is explained by only one factor–the majoritarian character of the state, and also of society, which doesn’t have even have post facto remorse for and outrage against such identity-based bloodshed and pogroms.

However, how do most Muslims look at the Great Calcutta Killings of August 1946 and of Noakhali in subsequent months, carried out under the Muslim League administration led by H S Suhrawardy, and Sheikh Mujibur Rehman (1920-1975) was in the forefront?

How do the Muslim elites of the subcontinent look at the politics of the partitions (1947 and 1971)?

Do they look at this aspect of the history and politics of violence?

Do they realize that a large section of the Muslim elites (mostly of western Uttar Pradesh) demanded Partition and they got a separate state of Pakistan, hence, those actors (and subscribers of that ideology) and collaborators of the Raj have to share the greater blame of the violence and brutalities?

This certainly doesn’t mean that one is putting blame on one party and absolving the other. One has invested a lot into reading partition literature, both historical and fictional works. India could have been divided only in the British presence; it was divided because of competitive communalism. This has been a repeated theme in my extensive academic work and writings. Still, certain questions pertaining to a selectivity in the Muslim politics of narrative needs to be raised more urgently than ever before!

Does this Muslim elite realise that the very same ideological forces and classes of Pakistan denied power to Sheikh Mujibur Rehman in 1970, despite the mandate?

Do they feel about the kind of brutalities, violence, plunder, etc., they perpetuated in 1971 against their Bengali citizens on the eastern flank of their Islamic Republic of Pakistan? In May 2014, a film, directed by Mrityunjay Devvrat was released, “The Children of War”, also known as “The Bastard Child”, played by Raima Sen, Farooq Shaikh, Rucha Inamdar, among others, depicting the brutalities of 1971?

How many Muslims of the subcontinent really bother to inform themselves about, and remember this movie, in other words, the human brutality against humans, their own co-religionists? Subsequently, on 15 August 1975, even Sheikh Mujibur Rehman with all the members of his family present in his house were done to death.

So far as the erasure and perpetuation of the narratives of histories are concerned, who decides and determines the politics of narrative-making? Has there been an honest and comprehensive introspection about all such issues, besides seeking justice based on caste (Biradri) and gender? Joya Chatterji, in her latest book, Shadows at Noon identifies amnesia and strategic forgetting as “one crucial aspect of nation-building project”. She adds, with each wave of nation-making the fate of internal minorities have become more precarious, across the subcontinent. Despite this, on April 4, 1979 when “judicial” hanging of Zulfiqar Bhutoo happened, his massacre of Bengali Muslims in 1971 was forgotten by sections of India’s Muslims. A popular Bollywood song of the film Muqaddar Ka Sikandar (1978) was parodied with emotions, “O Bhutto re …. Terey bina bhi kya jeena”. That summer, this was hummed by the Muslim boys running around India’s mango orchards, more so when our half yearly exams of the primary schools were over, and we had ample time for leisure. In our homes, among the elders, Bhutto’s misdeeds, in 1970-1971, were chosen to be forgotten. Subsequently, General Ziaul Haq resorted to prodding the Islamic extremists, which would kind of cover up his misdeeds against Bhutto.

That most of us loved Pakistani cricket more than Indian cricket, and we loved the football of the Calcutta’s Mohammedan Sporting Club more than we loved the Mohan Bagan and East Bengal, is yet another open secret. Such “secrets” or narratives within the community do tell something about the community’s socio-political attitudes and worldviews.

Each election, a lot of India’s Muslim youth raise issues of Muslim representation in legislature. Wherever, Muslims have 20% or more share of population they claim it almost as a matter of entitlement that the seat must get Muslim representation. There is nothing wrong with such aspirations. But why do they choose to forget that in an era of more rabid majoritarianism and majoritarian electoral consolidation menacingly aided by capital and media, even a 45% of the demographic share of a religious minority will be insufficient to ensure their victory? Why do they fail to understand that communalism cannot be fought with communalism? And that, if the battle is on communal lines, majority will always be a winner; more so when majoritarianism is a frenzy! This has been put more aptly in a novel, Guerrillas (1975), by V S Naipaul (1932-2018): “When everybody wants to fight there is nothing to fight for. Everybody wants to fight his own little war. Everybody is Guerrillas. …Those who have won will win every war”.

This helplessness of the minorities becomes greater in a first-past-the-post system. A greater section of the Muslim elites, during the popular phase of the national movement, fought more for separate electorates, and less for minority rights in a consociational democracy.  Even during the Constituent Assembly Debates (CAD, 1946-1949), this issue was hardly brought about. We need to remind ourselves that during the course of the CAD, the bargaining capacity of the Muslims and Liberal Hindus didn’t remain as strong after July 1947 as it was before that. It got considerably diminished after that, which is yet another major factor why minority rights are on shaky grounds in India (Pratinav Anil’s recent book, Another India: The Making of the World’s Largest Muslim Minority, 1947–77, demonstrates this more clearly). One of my insightful mentors reminds me, “If there could be an arrangement where, polling of at least 51% of votes cast (through first or second choice), this would be more conducive to social justice and an attenuation of vote banks. This is something even much admired B. R. Ambedkar lost sight of. He, having secured reserved seats, took the path of least resistance and forgot to put up demands such as this, in the CAD/Constitution”. The Justice M. N. Venkatachaliah Commission (set up in 2000 AD), to review the working of the Constitution, had made the following recommendation:

“The [Review] Commission while recognising the beneficial potential of the system of runoff contest electing the representative winning on the basis of 50% plus one vote polled, as against the first-past-the-post system, for a more representative democracy, recommends that the Government and the Election Commission of India should examine this issue of prescribing a minimum of 50% plus one vote for election in all its aspects … The review commission also said this did not need a major Constitutional amendment but ‘necessary correctives’ could be achieved by ordinary legislation, by modifying existing laws or rules or by executive action”.

After 1986, the Muslim conservatives and bigots made Indian Secularism even more shaky to the extent that this is one of the reasons (major or minor) why we have reached a situation now when, as put by Joya Chatterji’s book, Shadows at Noon (p. 203), “Hindutva’s moral code may not yet have become part of the constitution, but it is a part of India’s everyday life”.

 The moot question still remains un-addressed, as to how have the common Muslims been fed with (or upon) the opium of victimhood? For an answer to this, we need to look into Gopal Krishna’s review (IESHR, Sage, 1973) of Peter Hardy’s two books (1971-1972), The Muslims of British India, and the other booklet, Partners in Freedom and the True Muslims: The Political thought of Some Muslim Scholars in British India 1912-1947). The reviewer, Gopal Krishna, deserves to be quoted at length as he asks us to re-examine and,

“to question and subject to careful investigation several ill-established assertions  of a rather general character originating mostly with the work of  W. W. Hunter [Indian Musalmans, 1871], such as, “Muslims were oppressed by the British after the Mutiny [of 1857]”; “Muslims were educationally comparatively  backward”; “Muslims lost lands to Hindus in Bengal as a result  of British policy”; “Muslims did not get a fair share in the administration”; along with other similar ones, for it is as much on these  as on the notion of the divinely-assigned mission of Muslims in India, and the fear of a threat to Islam from revived Hinduism,  that the separatist movement was nurtured by the Muslim elite. A mythology of relative deprivation and communal excellence provided the foundation of this movement, which by stages came to claim Muslims to be a separate nationality and to demand a homeland for them. In his study, The Muslims of British India, Dr. Hardy has performed an important service by examining the available evidence on several of these propositions. He writes, “For the Muslim elite in northern India, British conquest meant the destruction of a way of life more than the destruction of a livelihood and education” (p. 34). “In judicial employ, except in the highest posts, i.e. judgeships and collectorships, Muslims held their own, in Bengal until the middle of the  nineteenth century, in the region of modern Uttar Pradesh for a  generation thereafter” (p. 36). With regard to the effect of the resumption proceedings on Muslims in Bengal, Dr. Hardy writes, “Muslims did suffer, but whether they suffered disproportionately  to Hindus remains a matter of opinion, not knowledge” (p. 40), and he quotes the Education Commission Report of 1882 to say  that ‘the result of even the harshest resumption case, was, not the dispossession of the holder but the assessment of revenue on his  holding, and even that in no case at more than half the prevailing rate’ (p. 41).”.

With these revelations or exposes, we need to ask, who, quite misleadingly, popularised the narratives of Muslim victimhood? And another question one needs to ask is, in post-independence period, has there been any big mass movement of India’s Muslims for education, employment, trading facilities (loans, and other administrative enabling)? The biggest of pan India mass movements of Muslims have been for subjugation of Muslim women by opposing reforms in Muslim Personal Laws, the reforms which Pakistan, Bangladesh and most Arab countries have undertaken much earlier. This was in 1972-1973, and in 1985-1986 (India Today, January 31, 1986). The first wave of Muslim protests resulted into the formation of All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) in 1973, even though the amendment in the relevant laws had to do more with the Hindus. The second one resulted into self-confessedly trading off of the Babri Masjid to be given away to the Saffronites, and in its exchange, legislating a law [Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986] against the Supreme Court verdict of April 23, 1985 in favour of Shah Bano (1916-1992). The confession is made in the Urdu memoir (Kaarwaan-e-Zindagi, 1988, vol. 3, chapter 4) of the then chief of AIMPLB, Abul Hasan Ali Miyan Nadvi (1914-1999), yet, the confession continues to be ignored. The self-confession doesn’t shock or surprise most of the Muslims of India.

For the sake of clarity, in this context, let a few things be said here:

In the 1980s, the AIMPLB brand of forces among Indian Muslims made their own contribution to, were fodder to in a sense, rising majoritarianism. On January 15, 1986, in a session of the Momin Conference at the Siri Fort Auditorium in Delhi, the then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi announced his intention to amend the law to nullify the Supreme Court’s April 1985 verdict in favour of Shah Bano. A legislative bill was introduced in March and it became the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act in May 1986. In January 1986, as said, there were strident Muslim protests against the progressive verdict, which had granted Shah Bano (1916-1992), a Muslim woman, alimony after her divorce. [For the separatist politics of Jinnah in the 1930s, around the theologically non sustainable provisions of the Shariat, and the afterlife of that politics, see these three books: Saumya Saxena, Divorce and Democracy, 2022; Julia Stephens, Governing Islam, 2019; Rina Verma Williams, Postcolonial Politics and Personal Laws, 2006].

The approach of the conservative Muslims became pretty clear from the Urdu memoir, Karwan-e-Zindagi, published in 1988 by Maulana Abul Hasan Ali Miyan Nadvi (1914-1999). In volume 3, chapter 4, page 134, Nadvi clearly narrates that it is he who had persuaded Gandhi not to accept the proposition that many Islamic countries have already reformed their personal laws. Nadvi’s narration is triumphant; he rejoices in the successful accomplishment of his effort to stymie a similar reform in India. He says his persuasion had a particular psychological impact on Rajiv Gandhi and that his “arrow precisely hit the target— woh teer apney nishaaney par baitha”. On page 157 comes Nadvi’s candid “confession”: “Our mobilisation for protecting the Shariat in 1986 resulted into complicating the issue of Babri Masjid and vitiated the atmosphere in a big way— is ne fiza mein ishte’aal wa izteraab paida karney mein bahut bara hissa liya,” he writes.

For further substantiation, one must read Ali Miyan Nadvi’s memoir, Nicholas Nugent’s book, Rajiv Gandhi: Son of a Dynasty (BBC Books, 1990, p.187), reveals:

“…a decision had been taken by the Congress High Command in the early 1986 to ‘play the Hindu card’ in the same way that the Muslim Women’s bill had been an attempt to ‘play the Muslim card’… Ayodhya was supposed to be a package deal… a tit for tat for the Muslim women’s bill… Rajiv played a key role in carrying out the Hindu side of the package deal by such actions as arranging that pictures of Hindus worshipping at the newly unlocked shrine be shown on television.”

The lock (Babri Mosque) was opened within an hour of the judgment being delivered by the district court of Faizabad on February 1, 1986. As said earlier, the deal between the Prime Minister, the Muslim clergy and the Momin Conference’s Ziaur Rahman Ansari (Union Minister of State for Environment in the Rajiv Gandhi led government, who died in 1992) had already been struck in January 1986. There is a reference to this in his biography, Wings of Destiny, 2018, written by his son Fasihur Rahman.

A nagging question yet remains: who wanted to open the locks, and why?  Was it because, in some the bye-elections, the Congress had experienced Muslim opposition? The above revealing accounts of Ali Miyan and Ziaur Rehman Ansari and substantiated by Nicholas Nugent should have created some resentment in a majority of Muslims. They have now. There is, instead, a hypocritical silence, rather than an outrage against the deal struck by the Muslim leaders with the Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.  [There is a need to bring out a comprehensive biographical account on the life and times of Shah Bano].

This reveals to us that India’s Muslims didn’t launch any mass movement of minority rights, neither in the colonial period nor after Independence. In the colonial period, in the name of and beginning with securing minority rights, the Muslim League, eventually claimed the Muslims to be nation which eventually required a state too (Jinnah himself didn’t recognise Pakistan’s minorities to be a nation and therefore  they deserving state). Gyan Prakash, the author of Emergency Chronicles, in his interview with Manik Sharma, Firstpost, December 4, 2018), said:

[Muslim] Minorities received equal rights in the Indian Constitution as a result of the nationalist struggle against the British, not due to a specific struggle for minority civil rights. Perhaps only the Dalit movement can claim a history as a civil rights movement. The Muslims never quite developed a civil rights movement, and became torn between the Muslim League’s demand for Pakistan and the Congress Party’s nationalist politics. When the BJP seized the mantle of nationalism and gave it a Hindu majoritarian twist, the Muslims were left with no historical struggles and memories of a civil rights movement to summon. Today, unless a movement develops to combine minority rights with a civil rights struggle, the Muslims will remain vulnerable to the swings of electoral politics.

As someone like me who has been teaching postgraduate courses in modern and contemporary Indian history close to the last two and a half decades, it is a matter of deep concern and question, that, my students (majority of them Muslims) do know that the majoritarian forces are appropriating the likes of Sardar Patel (1875-1950). Neither do any of my students know the fact that the anti-Muslim image of Sardar Patel has been rebutted by Rafiq Zakaria (1920-2005) way back in 1996, Sardar Patel and Indian Muslims. This kind of ignorance among the Muslim literati persists despite the fact that its Urdu rendering is also available. Let’s not forget the fact that Zakaria was also someone who has left behind a legacy of a chain of educational institutions. Yet, his academic interventions are so inadequately known to the Muslim literati.

Some of my intellectually accomplished friends in academia are able to find instances of anti-Muslim thoughts and practices even of a leader like Jawaharlal Nehru. Fair enough. But the question is, do they take time out to find instances of Muslim aspirations to establish Islamic State/Hukumat-e-Ilahiya/Nizam-e-Mustafa? Also, the Indian Secularism, as against the western secularism, as well as against the Pakistani experiences, even the Islamist forces such as the Jamaat-e-Islami-e-Hind, have got enough space in India to publish their periodicals, books, to run their madrasas and even their politics. In fact, Muslims speaking against Muslim conservatism and Muslim communalism, are often quite unpopular within their own community.

I am often also intrigued by the Muslim politics of narrative-building, in which victimhood of Muslims is their staple food. It intrigues me, why someone like, Hamid Dalwai (1932-1977), the “Angry Young Secularist” [called so by Dilip Chitre (1938-2009), as well as by, Mehrunnisa (1930-2017), Dalwai’s wife; see Hamid Dalwai, Muslim Politics in India, ed &tr. Dilip Chitre 2023 reprint] an intellectual-activist and novelist must remain much maligned and much derided by most of the Muslims? Compare such instances with those who keep articulating victimhood narratives. Such publicists are so very popular among the Muslims. These state of affairs need to be re-assessed, called into question.

I have followed certain Facebook posts and columns: someone questioning the authenticity of Hadis and doing much radical re-interpretation of certain Quranic verses is not chastised as much as he is condemned if he writes something which exposes Muslim communalism and bigotry and writes more towards de-opiating the Qaum for their obsession with victimhood narratives and questioning their power theology and those who critique their disproportionate obsession with identity politics. They would either deny Muslims being reactionaries, or would argue that minority communalism is of no consequence or if they are eventually persuaded to concede, they would suggest this is not the right time to raise such issues.  Unfortunately many Liberal-Left also endorse such a cunning argument. This s where the Liberal-Left lose their credibility and their fight for secular progressivism becomes weak and the Hindutva forces get fodder to grow. The Hindutva constituency and support-base has been consistently increasing as they say that the India’s Muslim minority are not as weak as they are made out to be by the Liberal-Left. They argue that:

The Muslims rose against the British only after they lost the Mughal power in 1857; most of them joined the national movement in 1920, only to save the institution of Khilafat (Caliphate) in Turkey, through their Pan Islamism; they got Pakistan in 1947; they subverted the Supreme Court and forced the Parliament to legislate against its verdict in 1986. They have got around five dozens of Muslim states and their Pan Islamic solidarity renders India’s Hindus a vulnerable minority, despite being a majority in their own homeland, India, etc. Lala Lajpat Rai had expressed his apprehensions around this with C R Das and Madan Mohan Malaviya (Intezar Husain, Ajmal-e-Azam, 1999). More and more Hindus look upon Indian Secularism as a favour to the Muslims and their regressivism and less as a modernising project of rationalist-progressive foundations of nationalism. This is what Mushirul Haq (1933-1990) said in his essay, “Secularism? No, Secular State? Well-Yes”, included in Haq’s 1972 book, Islam in Secular India. Haq asserted that most Muslims and their Ulema “seem to believe that the state must remain secular but the Muslims must be saved from secularism”.

Haq further argues that the tiny sections among India’s Muslims who have conviction in secularism are referred to by the Muslims with contempt. The book is rendered into Urdu.  I keep adding in this essay about the availability of the Urdu renderings of certain writings. It is to indicate that one must not plead ignorance on the part of the Urdu speaking Muslims as a factor. Rather, one must admit that it is not about ignorance, it is rather about the fact that this is the way narratives of Muslim politics are made and circulated within the community.

Consider another example. Allama Iqbal, the poet, is almost like an “unofficial prophet” for the Muslims of the Indo-Pak subcontinent. Iqbal’s views on politics of nationalism are something which makes India’s Muslims’ cohabitation with the fellow Hindu countrymen quite difficult. His debate with Nehru in the 1930s, resulted into expose’ of Iqbal’s “civility-deficit”.

This civility-deficit persisted in Iqbal’s rebuttal against Husain Ahmad Madani’s “Muttahidah Qaumiyat” (1938) as well, when he called Husain Madani to be “mischievous” (and even almost a kafir?). Iqbal wrote [Ehsan, Urdu daily, Lahore, March 9, 1938], “in the mind of Maulana Husain Ahmad and others who think like him, the conception of nationalism in a way has the same place which the rejection of the Finality of the Holy Prophet has in the minds of Qadianis” (Shamloo, ed, 1944, p. 219; rendered into Urdu as well; available on Rekhta. Shamloo, the pseudonym was of Lateef Ahmad Sharvani). This was just weeks before Iqbal passed away [on April 21, 1938]. Iqbal [replying to Nehru’s essay, “Orthodox of all Religions, Unite!” (Modern Review, vol. 58, Issue 5, 1935)] Confessed to his exclusionary-separatist nationalism:

“It becomes a problem for Muslims only in countries where they happen to be in a minority, and nationalism demands their complete self-effacement. In majority countries Islam accommodates nationalism; for their Islam and nationalism are practically identical; in minority countries it is justified in seeking self-determination as a cultural unit”. (Shamloo, ed., Speeches and Statements of Iqbal, 1944, p. 130).

Iqbal even went to the extent of accusing Nehru to having “no acquaintance with Islam or its religious history during the nineteenth century”. Nehru, however, didn’t counter-accuse Iqbal of “no great acquaintance of Hinduism”. Iqbal keeps addressing Nehru as “the Pandit”. I am still looking for Iqbal’s essay (or poetry) in sympathy with the pre-Islamic Spain. No luck, as yet!

While presiding over the Muslim League’s annual session in Allahabad (December 29, 1930), he said, “Ï lead no party. I follow no leader”. In other words while delivering a political address of and for a political party he claimed for himself no to be a politician. And prior to arguing with Nehru (1935), Iqbal had written as many as nine letters to E J Thompson (Oxford University) in 1933-34. These were exchanges on political questions. A comprehensive analysis of Iqbal’s political writings and many self-contradictions therein, reveals him more as a separatist and less as someone who advocated inter-faith cooperation and mutual co-existence in economy, administration and mutual co-existence (S. Hasan Ahmad, The Idea of Pakistan and Iqbal: A Disclaimer. KBL, Patna, 2003/1979).

In other words, Muslim thinkers of the Indian subcontinent have all along been on the path of avoidance, unconcerned with understanding Hindu culture the way they should. The Sangh Parivar in our era has been approaching “power through culture” and the new, educationally and economically “arrived” Hindu articulates majoritarian victimhood accordingly, argues Sugata Srinivasa Raju, in his recent book, Strange Burdens: The Politics and Predicaments of Rahul Gandhi. Sugata Raju adds, “In India after Gandhi, Nehruvian Secularists appear to have mistaken cultural memory for religious memory” (p. 139). The same can be said about the Muslim thinkers of India. Most of them have failed to make sense of the Hindu culture and therefore they have failed to negotiate with them for more creatively meaningful living in harmony. They have looked upon the Hindu cultures more as victors and rulers and less as someone with a shared heritage and ancestry of the era prior to the Muslim rulers.

Such a corrective (of Muslims reclaiming their past prior to Muslim rulers) has begun to come out only recently, now.

For instance, a young Pakistani historian of the Columbia University, Manan Ahmed Asif, in his book, The Loss of Hindustan: The Invention of India (2020) and in his previous volume, A Book of Conquest: The Chachnama and Muslim Origins in South Asia (2017) has approached the historical past from this perspective. For harmonious and dignified living, such exercises of reclaiming this shared ancestry need to be made into a popular narrative across the subcontinent. India’s Muslims as much as the majoritarian Hindus of India need to be told that it is religious frenzy that has ruined Pakistan. This has been demonstrated in a recent book, Pakistan: Origins, Identity and Future by the nuclear Physicist and public intellectual, Pervez Hoodbhoy. This book examines longstanding complex themes and issues – such as religious fundamentalism, identity formation, democracy, and military rule – as well as their impact on the future of the state of Pakistan. We, Indians, need to learn from the self-destructive mistakes of our neighbours and others.

By way of conclusion, what comes out of the foregoing discussion that the India’s Muslims need to take themselves out of the three banes, viz, Victimhood Syndrome, Power Theology, and obsession with Identity Politics?

Conversely put, more and more Muslims have to make their own contribution to invest in secularising India. They must realise –and work to actualize-that communalism is no antidote to communalism, and in competitive communalism, majoritarianism would always be victorious; minority communalism will be an eternal loser.

Are Muslims prepared to realize and introspect about this in order to take up the challenge of the rising majoritarianism?

Are the Liberal-Left forces prepared to tell the Muslims that their conservatism and communalism can no longer be tolerated with silence and by hiding behind an oft-repeated weak argument that “this is not the right time to ask the beleaguered religious minorities to ask for internal reforms”? There has always been less favourable time to ask the minorities for internal reforms and all the time this has consistently been contributing to further strengthening majoritarianism.

India’s Muslims must join the ongoing battles of reclaiming rationality and pluralist co-existence to fight out bigotry and fanaticism.

It is already too late. Yet, it is never too late.

(The author is a professor of History at Aligarh Muslim University)

[1] relating to or denoting a political system formed by the cooperation of different social groups on the basis of shared power, “consociational democracy”

Related:

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Majoritarian agenda & Indian Muslims 

Mohan Bhagwat and Indian Muslims

The post Three Banes of India’s Muslims: Victimhood Syndrome, Power Theology, Obsession with Identity Politics appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The puritanical Barelvi ulema, who call themselves ‘Reformist Sufis’ have denounced the mystically-inclined custodians of the Ajmer Dargah calling them Badmazhab (heretics) and Gumrah (misguided) and Rawafiz (hardcore Shias). More bluntly, in the recently concluded annual Urs-e-Aala Hazrat in Bareilly, they have asked Sunni Muslims to boycott visitations of the Ajmer Sharif Dargah. jagran.com/uttar-pradesh/bareilly-city-sunni-barelvi-ulma-announce-in-aala-hazrat-urs-muslims-do-not-go-to-ajmer-18612771.html

In sharp rebuttal, the custodians of the Sufi shrine also known as ‘Khuddam’ (those in service) have disassociated themselves with the ‘fatwa factories’ running in name of Sufism.   

In his press statement, Ajmer Sharif’s Gaddinashin Khadim Syed Sarwar Chishti said, in a stern counter-attack, that Barelwiyat (the Barelwi creed) is not Sufism and that it is another offshoot of religious extremism. “Their job is just to pass Fatwas against one another”, Chishti said as reported in Amar Ujala on November 8. amarujala.com/uttar-pradesh/bareilly/ajmer-sharif-khadim-syed-sarwar-chishti-big-statement-on-urs-e-razavi-forum-announcement

Chishti argues that Sufism is service to people who celebrate their faiths and maintain communal harmony. Khwaja Gharib Nawaz’s humane compassion for and reconciliation with all (Sulh-e-Kul) is the glaring example. “But their (Barelwi Ulema’s) stances do not stand for the teachings of the Sufi saint”, he avers. 

In fact, on the occasion of the Urs-e-Ala Hazrat, Sayed Amin Mian, the chairperson of Khanakah-e-Barkatia in Marahra, accused the Ajmer Sufi custodians of making objectionable remarks against Aala Hazrat. Thus, he instructed his followers not to visit Ajmer Sharif. This statement made headlines in the local Urdu and Hindi newspapers, and the next day, the Barelwi ulema backed out and declined to accept that they had issued any instructions against visitation of the Ajmer Dargah.

This feud apart, what deserves attention and serious deliberation is the claims that the Barelwi movement in India has actually purged Sufism of its universal appeal and egalitarian values. No wonder that the Barelwi muftis have disparaged almost all contemporary Sufi-minded scholars for their pluralistic ethos and peaceful ideas.

For instance, Pakistani-origin Sufi scholar Dr. Tahir ul Qadri is seen as “Badmazhab” (follower of erroneous path) for his interfaith activism in Canada and other European countries where he frequently lectures. India’s chief Barelvi Muftis and Qazis including Allama Ziaul Mustafa (the chief Qazi of Barelwis in India) declared him an apostate during his lecture in a South African Muslim congregation. Consequently, the ulema of Barelwi faction in India and Pakistan issued several Fatwas of Takfeer (apostasy) against him on the grounds of his inter-religious dialogue endeavours like participating in Christmas celebrations and holding Sufi Music congregations (Mahfil-e-Sima’a).

Such retrogressive pronouncements or Fatwas from the Barelwi ulema were not on rise in India until they re-ideologised themselves in blasphemy laws emanating from Pakistan. Sultan Shahin, the founder-editor of this progressive forum, New Age Islam, rightly points it out:

“The fact remains that Mumtaz Quadri, the murderer of Governor Salman Taseer came from a non-Wahhabi Barelvi sect and was incited into his act and promised heaven in lieu of this murder by a Barelvi Mullah Hanif Qureshi. A shrine has now been built in the outskirts of Islamabad to worship him. Barelvis are considered Sufism-oriented and have been the main victims of Salafi-Wahhabi attacks on Sufi shrines. The half a million people who thronged the murderer Mumtaz Qadri’s funeral and the tens of thousands who are visiting his so-called shrine, however, are largely from Barelvi sect. They consider Governor Salman Taseer to be a blasphemer and his murderer an Aashiq-e-Rasool, i.e., someone who loves the Prophet (pbuh)…. The fact is Salman Taseer had merely called for the repeal of this black Blasphemy law.”

Mr. Shahin also asked a pertinent question in one of his earlier editorials at NewAgeIslam.com:
“Sectarian unity is certainly an admirable goal. The intention behind it, however, is also very important. Wahhabi, Deobandi and Barelvi sects, who call each other Kafir (infidel), are seeking to unite for some months now.  But towards what end?”
If this ‘unity’ of Ummah stands only for enforcement of discriminatory blasphemy laws in Muslim countries, it is indeed matter of grave concern. Isn’t it surprising enough that Khadim Razavi, Barelwi leader of the Tahrik-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) spoke in unison with the ‘father of Taliban’ Maulvi Sami-ul-Haque. The last sermon that he made to his followers before he was stabbed to death in Rawalpindi, called for a ‘painful death’ to Asia Bibi and all blasphemers. Along with Khadim Razavi, he also mobilized the protesters in Islamabad against Asia’s acquittal. He had intended to join them but he could not, as reported in New York Times.
(Source: nytimes.com/reuters/2018/11/02/world/asia/02reuters-pakistan-cleric-taliban.html)

At the same time in India, the Barelvi-controlled institutions mourned the landmark judgment of Pakistan’s Supreme Court acquitting an accused ‘blasphemer’.

Much earlier in 2011, the Mumbai-based Barelwi outfit Raza Academy strongly protested in support of Malik Mumtaz Qadri, the body-guard who assassinated Salman Taseer. It echoed in India the vociferous support of Barelwi youths’ organization in Pakistan “Shabab-e-Islami” which first protested against the imprisonment of Mumtaz Qadri. They loudly claimed to be “Ahle Sunnat”, another term that Barelvi followers choose to use in the subcontinent. In fact, the Barelwi clergy were first to disparage the governor of Pakistan’s Punjab province for advocating reforms in Islam’s blasphemy laws. Now they are calling Imran Khan a ‘Shaitan’ for supporting the judgment of Asia Bibi’s acquittal.

Notably, Raza Academy had got issued a fatwa against AR Rahman for composing music, which is un-Islamic in their view, for Majid Majidi’s biopic, Muhammad: The Messenger of God. Office bearers of Raza Academy publicly asked everyone associated with the film to recite the Kalima and profess Islam again. They purported to state that the entire film crew had turned apostate and hence was obliged to reiterate their faith in Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) again. Even a stern fatwa was issued by Mumbai’s Barelwi Qazi, Mufti Mahmood Akhtar Qadri, the then Imam at Haji Ali Dargah.

Contrary to that, the custodians at Ajmer Sharif Dargah as well as in various other Sufi shrines denounced this fatwa against AR Rahman Khan. They rather hailed the Indian legendry for composing music in ‘good faith’ and called him a ‘true believer’. Thereafter, Rahman wrote this statement: “I follow the middle path and am part traditionalist and part rationalist. I live in the Western and Eastern worlds and try to love all people for what they are, without judging them”.

More to the point, the Barelwi ulema abhor the cultural practices such as the first Islamic month’s commemoration of Muharram known as Tazia, women’s entry to shrines, celebration of Basant and Diwali which occur at a few Dargahs, Sufi music known as sim’a and Sufi whirling in imitation of the dervishes called Raqs. All this is at odds with the worldview of liberal and forward-looking Sufi custodians.

One of the world-renowned custodians (Gaddinashins) of Ajmer Sharif Dargah, Syed Salman Chishty who also runs Chishty Foundation based on the pluralistic principle of “Love towards all, Malice towards none” propounded by Khawaja Moinuddin Chishty (r.a). told this writer:
“As part of the larger humane cause through the platform of Chishty Foundation, we intend to promote the blessed Sufi teachings of Khawaja Gharib Nawaz, Sufi art of Calligraphy, Sufi Poetry, Sufi music and concepts of intertwined Spirituality and Music which is a deeper connection between the Higher state of awareness of the Divine presence through Sama and Qawwali–the Chishti Sufis’ food for the Soul. However, this concept is yet to have a full vision and realization for the essence of complete Sufi understanding and teachings.”

Chishty further says that it’s a universal message for the entire humanity that we love and respect Ashraf-ul-Makhluqat (the best of creations i.e. Human beings) regardless of their faith and creed. They are all equally the best creations of the One Almighty Creator, Allah (s.w.t)
Notably, the Chishty Foundation which asserts the blessed message of Khwaja Gharib Nawaz to serve the Humanity (Khidmat-e-Khalq) is all set to celebrate the 11th International Sufi Rang Festival 2018 as its eleventh edition towards realizing the blessed vision of the Chishti Sufi lineage. “In today’s troubled times, we believe that the message of the great Sufi saints is the not just a way of communication, but rather it is an essential soft power for the solution of the 21st century’s crises, a roadmap towards the Path of Love and Brotherhood among the whole Humanity”, Chishty concluded.

Regular Columnist with Newageislam.com, Ghulam Rasool Dehlvi is a classical Islamic scholar and English-Arabic-Urdu writer. He has graduated from a leading Islamic seminary of India, acquired Diploma in Qur’anic sciences and Certificate in Uloom ul Hadith from Al-Azhar Institute of Islamic Studies. Presently, he is pursuing his PhD in Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi

Courtesy: New Age Islam
 

The post Sectarian slugfest: From Shia-Sunni, Barelvi-Deoband, its now Barelvi ulema vs Ajmer Dargah’s Sufis 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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In our national capital, corridors of power, are nowadays echoing, once again with an unending discussion, regarding Haj Subsidy. Few people know what exactly Haj Subsidy is; or what are its pros and cons? But, every Tom, Dick and Harry, without comprehending the whole issue is seen and heard, busy in offering variant opinions. Various TV channels are always there to pick up non-issues, particularly related to Muslims. Even our sober and sincere English Press has joined the debate, again without any fundamental knowledge of the issue or having made any effort to know the background of the problem. In fact, the so-called Haj Subsidy is a non-issue—a problem, created out of nothing.

First of all, let’s endeavour to realise, what Haj Subsidy is; in the common sense of the very word, a subsidy is a fiscal aid or at best a compensatory amount to make some fee or price, affordable, for the consumers. In this case, the Government of India subsidises the price of the air ticket for Haj pilgrims, taking a flight to Saudi Arabia, by Air India. A petty amount of Rs. Ten thousand or so, is sanctioned by the government for every pilgrim, flying for Haj. But, in practice, this amount is not directly paid to the travellers, but transferred to Air India. Truly speaking, this monetary assistance is meant at reducing the burden of Air India and not of the pilgrims, which is commonly believed.

This system was first adopted by former Prime Minister Mrs. Indira Gandhi to encourage Haj pilgrims to travel by air, abandoning the popular practice of journeying by sea route. The government, rightly felt, the air travel was safer and faster in comparison to sea journey. Ultimately, in 1995, the option of a ship journey was dropped altogether. So, all pilgrims began to take a flight to the holy shrines. In those days, there was a difference of ten or twelve thousand rupees, between the prices of the ticket of a ship and a plane. Hence, a provision of the same amount of compensation for the pilgrims, was made, in order to encourage them.

One thing to be noted is that Air India is the only option for the Haj pilgrims, to take a flight to Saudi Arabia, for performing the annual pilgrimage, through various Haj Committees. It should, once again be stressed that such a monetary help, doled out by the government goes to the coffers of the official air carrier and not to the pockets of the pilgrims, as the popular impression may be. The BJP Government, led by Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee had limited the provision of Haj subsidy to poor pilgrims only. But, once Congress returned to power in 2004, the new government lifted the restriction, and subsidy, as earlier, was made equally available to all pilgrims.

Today, as a fashion, every body is opposing the so-called Haj subsidy, in his or her chosen way, and again without knowing or trying to know the basic facts. On one hand, the so-called liberal groups view that a secular government can not provide financial assistance to a particular religious practice and on the other, the rightist (read fascist) groups loudly protest that such schemes are aimed at appeasing minorities (read Muslims). As far as BJP is concerned, it has always been staunchly opposed to the subsidy, though, it would readily demand and support all sorts of facilities, to be bestowed upon to Hindu, Buddhist, Jain and even Sikh pilgrims, at the expense of the exchequer. For instance, the government is spending crores of rupees, for facilitating various religious rites, like yatras, fairs and festivals. Here one can put up the pointed question; whether Muslims have no right on the treasury for taking any benefit.?

But, this is not the real issue. The truth is that Muslims have never asked for any sort of subsidy, for their annual pilgrimage of holy shrines and nor any Muslim leader did ever raise a demand, in this regard. On the other side, various Muslim leaders have regularly been opposing it. For instance, Syed Shahabuddin, the veteran politician, always spoke against Haj subsidy, inside and outside Parliament. Presently, Member of Parliament, Asaduddin Owaisi is openly opposed to the continuance of Haj subsidy. Further, We do not think, any of the Muslim leader—across party lines—or any eminent Islamic cleric would prefer to lend support to the so-called Haj subsidy.

Ironically, common Muslims and even the annual Haj pilgrims themselves are not well aware of the existence of any subsidy, for their pilgrimage. Moreover, a paltry sum—in the name of subsidy—does not mean much for any one, who takes up the holy journey, spending around one-two lakh rupees. Let’s remember, Haj is a sort of worship, compulsory for only those Muslims, who can afford it—wealthwise and healthwise—and that too once, in a life time only. Needless to say that a person, being capable of taking up such an expensive tour, would hardly mind to secure or save a little amount, in question.

In our view, the so-called Haj subsidy is a pretention, in disguise, to support Air India, to compensate its (non-existing) loss. The fact is that Air India charges a higher price from Haj pilgrims, in comparison to normal passengers. In our view, the best solution is that the government should float global tenders, for all flights of the Haj pilgrims. In that case a price competition would automatically reduce the fair and the pilgrims would also have a varied choice to select their flier. Resultantly, the new system would end the monopoly of Air India and the tickets may be available, at a lower price and then no subsidy would at all, be required. Thus, the curse of subsidy would eliminate in one go, freeing Muslims of a psychological pressure and then the opposing slogan mongers would also virtually be silenced.

This year the Saudi Government has resumed the previous quota of Indian Haj pilgrims to the earlier number of 1,70,000 pilgrims, as the holy shrine of Kaabah has been expanded suitably, to absorb a higher number of pilgrims. Notably, the Saudi Government had reduced the quota of all pilgrims, from the world over, including Indians, due to the construction and expansion work, being carried out in Mecca. Now, the operation has been accomplished, hence the restoration of the usual number of pilgrims. There is a rumour in the air now, that the government would have to spend an amount of Rs. 35,000/- per pilgrim, as the number of pilgrims have grown this year, so the treasury would have to bear a huge burden to the tune of Rs 500 crore. We do not know what the real statistics are. Meanwhile, the Government has declared that, this year, there would be no cut in Haj subsidy.

In view of a five year old Supreme Court judgement, the Government of India has constituted a Committee to look into the matter of Haj subsidy. The Apex Court in 2012, in its judgement, had verdicted that the Haj subsidy, should gradually be put to an end, within ten years. Most probably, the appointed committee would recommend an immediate curtailment of the practice. And all Muslims would certainly welcome it, as they, en masse have never been in favour of any of such pitiful schemes. As per Islamic tenets, a Muslim—who can afford it—has to bear all the expenses of Haj, from his or her own pocket. Neither government nor any other agency should share the expenses. Obviously, any Muslim, who is unable to bear the expenses, is not bound to perform Haj.

Before concluding this discussion, I would like to take liberty to recall a painful, but significant episode, when I had the privilege to remove the lid from the pandora’s box. There was a syndicated embezzlement, in the huge amounts of Haj subsidy, which brought the booty to mischievous players, on one hand and deprived the genuine receivers of their share, on the other: This game was played, with a nexus between Central Haj Committee functionaries and private tour operators. For the dubious exercise, they had invented a unique method. It was not commonly known that many of the pilgrims, going for the holy pilgrimage, who preferred to go through private operators, were provided seats in Air India planes and the amount of subsidy was also claimed, against their tickets. Eventually, this money was usurped by racketeers, never to reach the deserving passengers.

I had the honour of unveiling an evil conspiracy and exposing the real culprits. Actually, during my stint at Doordarshan, in 1997, I was deputed on the Haj duty, as a Haj officer. When, I reached Jeddah and performed at the Indian consulate there, then through my work, while perusing the correspondence, between the Indian External Affairs Ministry and the Indian Consulate at Jeddah and between them and the Central Haj Committee, I was shocked to learn about the above-said highly placed embezzlement. I, very promptly prepared a report, revealing the whole dubious conspiracy and presented it to the counsel for Haj, Mr. Zikrur Rahman, who advised me to take the report back, as he feared for my well-being and even life. He told me in so many words that all the players, in the game were very powerful and sourceful, they could harm me to any extent. But, I remained adamant and approached the Counsel General, Mr. Afzal Amanullah, he appreciated my crusade, against the sinful act and assured me of all support and backing from his end. However, I preferred to hold the report, for the time being and decided to bring it to light in India, after my return only.

Later, during my stay there, I experienced another nightmare, which still haunts me. The pilgrimage of Haj had begun and unfortunately, the same year, there was a dreadful fire in Mina, in which more than 500 Haj pilgrims, including a great number from India, were burnt to death. I witnessed that none from among the Haj Committee officials and members of the good-will delegation from India, bothered about either the victims or their relatives, back home, who kept desperately inquiring about the dead pilgrims. And no body was even caring for those injured, in the accident. In those days, communication was not as easy, as it is today—the cell phones were yet to come on scene. So, everybody was in distress. But, no noble soul came forward to offer any help of any sort, to them. This apathetic attitude astonished me a lot. I could not sit idle and wrote a lengthy article on the whole event and despatched it to daily, Inquilab, Mumbai—where I had regularly been writing a column, since 1990. Late Mr. Haroon Rashed, the (then) editor, chose to publish that write-up, as a front-page story, in two instalments. It created a storm. Naturally, I had stirred up the hornet’s nest.

The Haj Committee promptly raised the demand, before the Indian Ministry of External Affairs, to immediately call me back. Within three days, orders were issued and my deputation was cut short, under the immense pressure of Haj Committee of India. As a result, I had to take a flight back to New Delhi. The Haj Committee people did not stop there, they managed to pressurise Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, to take stern action, against me. Their charge was that being a government functionary, I had violated rules by reporting a matter to a private newspaper. Evidently, it was a ploy to nail me down, as I had unveiled their misdeeds. Nevertheless, the top officials at Doordarshan, chose not to take action against me. In stead they thumped at my back, for a brave act and adored me a lot. On their advice, I submitted a note, in my defence that, in fact, I had written a letter to one of my friends, in India, which somehow reached the newspaper and got published. They, of course counselled me to be cautious enough, in future.

Now, I could not write anything in this regard. But, with the help of some of my journalist friends, I managed to get various reports, exposing the above mentioned embezzlement by Haj Committee functionaries, published in English and Hindi newspapers, with different by-lines. With the publication of the reports, in various Delhi papers, the Ministry of External Affairs got moved and took effective steps to check the corrupt practices, but no action was taken against any one, responsible for it.

I am pleased of being the first one to raise voice, against an ongoing malpractice and exposing a high profile racket. I am proud of pelting the first stone, at the Satan.

[Translated from Urdu by Muzaffar Husain Syed]

Dr. Muzaffar Husain Syed
E-mail: syedmh92@yahoo.com • syedmh92@gmail.com
 

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Representation Image

It was 1978 or 79. I was 9 or10 years old. We used to stay on ground floor in a 4 floors building. Pakistan Cricket Team was in India. India won a match (or was it the series? Don't really remember). It was Diwali season. We had crackers at home (precisely the Lakshmi bombs. Aah!!! this I remember) As soon as we won, and this I remember completely, I came out in my garden and burst the bombs. I heard my friend, who stayed on the 2nd floor (he is no more. God Bless his soul) calling me out.
 

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Manan Vatsyayana/AFP

Four months before the Uttar Pradesh election results sent Muslims in India reeling in shock, former Rajya Sabha MP Mohammed Adeeb delivered a speech in Lucknow, which, in hindsight, might be called prescient.

“If Muslims don’t wish to have the status of slaves, if they don’t want India to become a Hindu rashtra, they will have to keep away from electoral politics for a while and, instead, concentrate on education,” Adeeb told an audience comprising mostly members of
the Aligarh Muslim University’s Old Boys Association.

It isn’t that Adeeb wanted Muslims to keep away from voting. His aim was to have Muslim intellectuals rethink the idea of contesting elections, of disabusing them of the notion that it is they who decide which party comes to power in Uttar Pradesh.

Adeeb’s suggestion, that is contrary to popular wisdom, had his audience gasping. This prompted him to explain his suggestion in greater detail.

“We Muslims chose in 1947 not to live in the Muslim rashtra of Pakistan,” he said. “It is now the turn of Hindus to decide whether they want India to become a Hindu rashtra or remain secular. Muslims should understand that their very presence in the electoral fray leads to a communal polarisation. Why?”

Not one to mince words, Adeeb answered his question himself.

“A segment of Hindus hates the very sight of Muslims,” he said. “Their icon is Narendra Modi. But 75% of Hindus are secular. Let them fight out over the kind of India they want. Muslim candidates have become a red rag to even secular Hindus who rally behind the Bharatiya Janata Party, turning every election into a Hindu-Muslim one.”
 

Later in the day, Adeeb met Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad, who was in Lucknow. To Adeeb, Azad asked, “Why did you deliver such a speech?”

It was now Azad’s turn to get a mouthful from Adeeb. He recalled asking Azad: “What kind of secularism is that which relies on 20% of Muslim votes? The Bahujan Samaj Party gets a percentage of it, as do the Samajwadi Party and the Congress.”

At this, Azad invited Adeeb, who was elected to the Rajya Sabha from Uttar Pradesh, to join the Congress. Adeeb rebuffed the offer saying, “First get the secular Hindus together before asking me to join.”
 

Spectre of a Hindu rashtra

A day after the Uttar Pradesh election results sent a shockwave through the Muslim community, Adeeb was brimming with anger. He said, “Syed Ahmed Bukhari [the so-called Shahi Imam of Delhi’s Jama Masjid] came to me with a question: ‘Why aren’t political parties courting me for Muslim votes?’ I advised him to remain quiet, to not interfere in politics.” Nevertheless, Bukhari went on to announce that Muslims should vote the Bahujan Samaj Party.

“Look at the results,” Adeeb said angrily. “But for Jatavs, Yadavs, and a segment of Jats, most Hindus voted [for] the Bharatiya Janata Party.” His anger soon segued into grief and he began to sob, “I am an old man. I don’t want to die in a Hindu rashtra.”

Though Adeeb has been nudging Muslims to rethink their political role through articles in Urdu newspapers, the churn among them has only just begun. It is undeniably in response to the anxiety and fear gripping them at the BJP’s thumping victory in this politically crucial state.

After all, Uttar Pradesh is the site where the Hindutva pet projects of cow-vigilantism, love jihad, and ghar wapsi have been executed with utmost ferocity. All these come in the backdrop of the grisly 2013 riots of Muzaffarnagar, which further widened the Hindu-Muslim divide inherited from the Ram Janmabhoomi movement of the 1990s and even earlier, from Partition. Between these two cataclysmic events, separated by 45 years, Uttar Pradesh witnessed manifold riots, each shackling the future to the blood-soaked past.

I spoke to around 15 Muslims, not all quoted here, each of whom introspected deeply. So forbidding does the future appear to them that none even alluded to the steep decline in the number of Muslim MLAs, down from the high of 69 elected in 2012 to just 24 in the new Uttar Pradesh Assembly.
 

They, in their own ways, echoed Adeeb, saying that the decline in representation of Muslims was preferable to having the Sangh Parivar rule over them with the spectre of Hindutva looming.

“Muslims need to become like the Parsis or, better still, behave the way the Chinese Indians do in Kolkata,” said poet Munawwar Rana. “They focus on dentistry or [their] shoe business, go out to vote on polling day and return to work.”

He continued: “And Muslims?” They hold meetings at night, cook deghs (huge vessels) of biryani, and work themselves into a frenzy. “They think the burden of secularism rests on their shoulders,” said Rana. “Educate your people and make them self-reliant.”
Readers would think Adeeb, Rana and others are poor losers, not generous enough to credit the BJP’s overwhelming victory in Uttar Pradesh to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s development programme. In that case readers should listen to Sudhir Panwar, the Samajwadi Party candidate from Thana Bhawan in West Uttar Pradesh, who wrote for Scroll.in last week on the communal polarisation he experienced during his campaign.

In Thana Bhawan, there were four principal candidates – Suresh Rana, accused in the Muzaffarnagar riots, stood on the BJP ticket; Javed Rao on the Rashtriya Lok Dal’s; Abdul Rao Waris on the Bahujan Samaj Party’s, and Panwar on the Samajwadi Party’s. It was thought that the anger of Jats against the BJP would prevent voting on religious lines in an area where the Muslim-Hindu divide runs deep.

This perhaps prompted Rana to play the Hindu card, and the Muslims who were more inclined to the Rashtriya Lok Dal switched their votes to the Bahujan Samaj Party, believing that its Dalit votes would enhance the party’s heft to snatch Thana Bhawan.
 

Communal polarisation

Sample how different villages voted along communal lines.

In the Rajput-dominated Hiranwada, the Bahujan Samaj Party bagged 14 votes, the Rashtriya Lok Dal not a single vote, the Samajwadi Party seven, and the Bharatiya Janata Party a whopping 790.

In Bhandoda, a village where the Brahmins are landowners and also dominate its demography, followed by Dalits, the Bahujan Samaj Party secured 156 votes, the Rashtriya Lok Dal zero, the Samajwadi Party nine, and the Bharatiya Janata Party 570.

In the Muslim-dominated Jalalabad, the Bahujan Samaj Party received 453 votes, the Rashtriya Lok Dal 15, the Samajwadi Party 6 and the Bharatiya Janata Party 23.

In Pindora, where Jats are 35% and Muslims around 30% of the population, the Bahujan Samaj Party polled 33 votes, the Rashtriya Lok Dal 482, the Samajwadi Party 33, and the Bharatiya Janata Party 278, most of which is said to have come from the lower economically backward castes.

In Devipura, where the Kashyaps are numerous, the Bahujan Samaj Party got 86 votes, the Rashtriya Lok Dal 42, the Samajwadi Party 1 and the Bharatiya Janata Party 433.

In Oudri village, where the Jatavs are in the majority, the Bahujan Samaj Party bagged 343 votes, the Rashtriya Lok Dal 15, the Samajwadi Party 12, and the Bharatiya Janata Party 22.

This voting pattern was replicated in village after village. Broadly, the Jat votes split between the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Rashtriya Lok Dal, the Muslim votes consolidated behind the Bahujan Samaj Party, with the Samajwadi Party getting a slim share in it, the Jatavs stood solidly behind the Bahujan Samaj Party, and all others simply crossed over to the Bharatiya Janata Party. The BJP’s Suresh Rana won the election from Thana Bhawan.

“Can you call this election?” asked Panwar rhetorically. “It is Hindu-Muslim war through the EVM [Electronic Voting Machine].” Panwar went on to echo Adeeb: “I feel extremely sad when I say that Muslims will have to keep away from contesting elections. This seems to be the only way of ensuring that elections don’t turn into a Hindu-Muslim one.”

The Bahujan Samaj Party’s Waris differed. “Is it even practical?” he asked. “But yes, Muslims should keep a low profile.”
 

Hindu anger against Muslims

For sure, Muslims feel that the binary of secularism-communalism has put them in a bind. Lawyer Mohd Shoaib, who heads the Muslim Rihai Manch, pointed to the irony of it. “For 70 years, we Muslims have fought against communalism,” he said. “But it has, nevertheless, grown by 70 times.”

Indeed, those with historical perspective think Uttar Pradesh of 2017 mirrors the political ambience that existed there between 1938 and 1946 – a seemingly unbridgeable Hindu-Muslim divide, a horrifyingly communalised public discourse, and a contest for power based on mobilisation along religious lines.

Among them is Mohammad Sajjad, professor of history at Aligarh Muslim University. “The 69 MLAs in the last Assembly was bound to, and did, raise eyebrows,” he said.

But what irks Hindus even more is that Muslims constitute nearly one-third of all members in panchayats and local urban bodies. “It is they who have become a sore point with Hindus,” said Sajjad. “When they see Muslim panchayat members become examples of the rags-to-riches story, the majority community feels aggrieved. It is not that Hindu panchayat members are less corrupt. But every third panchayat member being Muslim has given credibility to the narrative that Muslims are being favoured.”

The Hindu angst against Muslim empowerment is also on account of both the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Samajwadi Party being popularly perceived to be indifferent to the aspirations of certain subaltern social groups. For instance, it is this indifference that has led to non-Jatav Dalits and most backward castes, clubbed under the Other Backward Classes for reservations, to leave the Bahujan Samaj Party, as non-Yadav middle castes have left the Samajwadi Party. They did so in response to Mayawati turning hers into primarily the party of Jatavs, and the Samajwadi Party pursuing the Yadavisation of the administration.

“These aspirational Hindu groups are angry with the SP [Samajwadi Party] and the BSP [Bahujan Samaj Party],” said Sajjad. “Their anger against them also turned into anger against Muslims.” This is because it is popularly felt that the support of Muslims to the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Samajwadi Party brings them to power, turning these parties callously indifferent to the aspirations of other groups.

It is to neutralise the efficacy of Muslim votes, and also to teach their parties of choice a lesson, that these aspirational groups have flocked to the BJP. “This is why the very presence of Muslims in the political arena has become problematic for Hindus,” Sajjad said.

So then, should Muslims take Adeeb’s cue and retreat from the political arena or at least keep a low profile?

Sajjad replied, “Go ahead and vote the party of your choice. But after that, play the role of a citizen. If people don’t get electricity, protest with others. You can’t be forgiving of those for whom you voted only because they can keep the BJP out of power. This is what angers aspirational Hindu social groups.”
 

Indeed, it does seem a travesty of justice and democracy that Muslims should rally behind the Samajwadi Party in Muzaffarnagar after the riots there. Or that they voted for the Bahujan Samaj Party in Thana Bhawan in such large numbers even though Mayawati didn’t even care to visit the Muslim families who suffered unduly during the riots.
 

Introspection and self-criticism

Like Sajjad’s, most narratives of Muslims have a strong element of self-criticism. Almost all vented their ire against Muslim clerics. Did they have to direct Muslims which party they should vote for? Didn’t they know their recklessness would trigger a Hindu polarisation?

Unable to fathom their irresponsible behaviour, some plump for conspiracy theories. It therefore doesn’t come as a surprise to hear Obaidullah Nasir, editor of the Urdu newspaper Avadhnama, say, “They take money from the Bharatiya Janata Party to create confusion among Muslims. I got abused for writing this. But how else can you explain their decision to go public with their instructions to Muslims?”

Poet Ameer Imam, who teaches in a college in the Muslim-dominated Sambhal constituency, said, “Muslims will have to tell the maulanas that their services are required in mosques, not in politics. When Muslims applaud their rabble rousers, can they complain against those in the BJP?”

To this, add another question: When Mayawati spoke of Dalit-Muslim unity, didn’t Muslims think it would invite a Hindu backlash?
 

Most will assume, as I did too, that Muslims fear the communal cauldron that Uttar Pradesh has become will be kept on the boil. But this is not what worries them. Not because they think the Bharatiya Janata Party in power will change its stripes, but because they fear Muslims will feel so cowered that they will recoil, and live in submission. “Our agony arises from being reduced to second-class citizens, of becoming politically irrelevant,” said journalist Asif Burney.

True, members of the Muslim community are doing a reality-check and are willing to emerge from the fantasy world in which they thought that they decided which party won an election. The Uttar Pradesh results have rudely awakened them to the reality of being a minority, of gradually being reduced to political insignificance, and their status as an equal citizen – at least in their imagination – challenged and on the way to being undermined.

But this does not mean they wish to enter yet another world of fantasy, which journalist and Union minister MJ Akbar held out to them in the piece he penned for the Times of India on March 12. Akbar wrote,
 

“…[T]his election was not about religion; it was about India, and the elimination of its inherited curse, poverty. It was about good governance.”
 

One of those whom I spoke to laughed uproariously on hearing me repeat Akbar’s lines. So you can say that with them believing their future is darkled, Muslims at least haven’t lost their humour.

Ajaz Ashraf is a journalist in Delhi. His novel, The Hour Before Dawn, has as its backdrop the demolition of the Babri Masjid. It is available in bookstores.

This article was first published on Scroll.in

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“The delegation congratulated the Prime Minister on the steps taken by the Union Government for inclusive growth, socio-economic and educational empowerment of all sections of the society including Minorities,” said the press release issued by the Prime Minister’s Office.
 

“The delegation was appreciative of the Saudi Government’s decision to increase the number of Haj pilgrims from India, and thanked the Prime Minister for having successfully pursued the same,” the release said.

The members of the delegation included Imam Umer Ahmed Ilyasi (Chief Imam of India, All India Organisation of Imams of Mosques); Lt Gen (Retd) Zameeruddin Shah (Vice-Chancellor Aligarh Muslim University); MY Eqbal (Former Judge, Supreme Court of India); Talat Ahmed (Vice Chancellor, Jamia Millia Islamia), and Shahid Siddiqui (Urdu journalist). Union Minister of State for Minority Affairs (Independent Charge) and Parliamentary Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi and Union Minister of State for External Affairs M.J. Akbar were also present on the occasion.

“The delegation, in one voice, supported wholeheartedly the campaign launched by the Prime Minister against corruption and black money. The delegation agreed that the fight against corruption will benefit the poor people including the Minorities the most. The delegation congratulated the Prime Minister for his efforts to strengthen relations with the countries across the world and said that today every Indian in every corner of the world is instilled with a sense of pride,” the release from the PMO said.

Members of the delegation also praised the Prime Minister for his efforts towards Swachh Bharat, the press release added.

“The Prime Minister said that youth in India has successfully resisted radicalization, which has affected several parts of the world today. He said that the credit for this must go to the long, shared heritage of our people; and added that it is now our collective responsibility to take this heritage forward. The Prime Minister said that the culture, traditions and social fabric of India will never allow the nefarious designs of the terrorists, or their sponsors, to succeed. The Prime Minister stressed on the importance of education and skill development, which is the key to gainful employment, and upliftment from poverty,” said the release.

Courtesy: twocircles.net

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There has been a bit of a buzz about the Supreme Court judgement in the case of Mohammed Zubair and Aftab Ahmad, servicemen in the Indian Air Force who were discharged from service for sporting beards.

Three things need to be clarified:

First, they sported the beards in breach of Air Force Regulations.

Second, there’s no wholesale bar on Muslims having a beard for religious reasons even under the Regulations.

Third, they were unable to substantiate the claim that the beards were being sported for religious reasons.

The apex court confirmed the judgement of both the Single Judge and the Division Bench of the High Court, which had agreed with the Air Force. However, many of the headlines that came up after the Supreme Court judgement on Thursday appear to have been read as suggesting that the Supreme Court had somehow outlawed Muslim servicemen from wearing beards.

Going by social media reaction, this seems to have resulted in either rage-clicks from those who thought it was a bad thing or gloat-clicks from those who thought it was a good thing.

Prosaic judgement
The actual judgement is far more prosaic.

Zubair, for instance, had been asked by his superior officers to shave off his beard as it was not in compliance with Regulation 425 which governs facial hair among Air Force personnel. He challenged this direction in court and lost. Subsequently, when he didn’t comply, he was discharged from service in accordance with the relevant rules.

Interestingly, this case didn’t decide the validity of his discharge from the Air Force since, oddly he doesn’t seem to have challenged it.

The Court has concerned itself therefore only with the issue of whether he could be lawfully directed by the Air Force to remove his beard in accordance with Regulation 425. In specific, paragraph (b) of Regulation 425 which allows personnel to maintain beards for religious reasons, subject to certain requirements. The Air Force had come out with certain policies implementing this rule and Zubair was found to be in contravention of this rule. He didn’t challenge this rule or any of the policies implementing it as being illegal or unconstitutional.

The Supreme Court’s reasoning is careful. In these days when judges have had the reckless tendency to veer off into tangents in judgements, spouting their own views on matters unrelated, Justice DY Chandrachud sticks to the straight and narrow, laying down the law with clarity and thought.
At times, the recitation of the history of the regulation of beards in the Air Force, the way servicemen may apply to keep one, and the relevant regulations have a Catch-22-like dark humour about them. It seems somewhat odd that in the age of biometric identity, the primary reason given for regulating facial hair seems to be the need to easily recognise and establish the identity of the serviceman, apart from the the need to maintain “uniformity of personal appearance” in the forces.

What not to read into it
Too much should not be read into the wider impact of this judgement. Servicemen do not enjoy all the protections of Part III of the Constitution to the same extent as everyone else. Article 33 of the Constitution states that the rights they enjoy are only those that are granted by law made by Parliament and not those granted by the Constitution. In some cases, servicepersons enjoy the same rights as everyone else (such as the right to approach the constitutional courts for rights violations), but their rights, while in service are restricted.

Justice DY Chandrachud’s sedate and sober judgement stands in stark contrast to Justice Katju’s brimstone and bluster in the context of another similar issue involving the maintenance of beards, this time in educational institutions. Even keeping in mind that Justice Chandrachud wrote a detailed judgement and Katju just said things in court, it’s a reminder that moderation is sometimes undervalued in a judge.

The issue of public displays of religious symbols and religious practice is a thorny issue that doesn’t always have cut and dried answers. It is a matter of trying to balance the individual’s right to practice religion in the ways they deem fit, with larger concerns such as public security, health and morality. The balancing act is difficult and it is bound to cause some resentment. Should firecrackers be banned or merely regulated on health grounds? Likewise, jallikattu? And what about slaughter of animals for ritual purposes?

In recent times, these issues have gained a perverse competitive communal edge. “If ‘they’ can be allowed to do their thing, why can’t ‘we’?” It is stoked for obvious political gain on all sides. It is also the wrong approach to resolving these issues. Whether firecrackers should be banned as a public health measure has nothing to do with whether some other practice is allowed or banned for another reason. It’s hard enough weighing the competing interests of religion and public health, without competitive communalism being brought into the mix.

The court’s task in Zubair’s and Aftab’s cases was rather straightforward – were they permitted to keep a beard under the regulations or not? The regulations themselves were not challenged as violating the constitution. As such, this judgement, while correct in its reasoning and ultimate finding, is unlikely to help answer larger questions on religion in the public space, and how to regulate it.

Alok Prasanna Kumar is an advocate based in Bengaluru and was a Senior Resident Fellow of the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy. Views expressed here are purely personal and not a reflection of any other organisation’s views.

Courtesy: Scroll.in

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पीएम नरेंद्र मोदी ने भाजपा के कोझिकोड सम्मेलन में जब भारतीय जनसंघ के अध्यक्ष रहे दीनदयाल के लेख का हवाला देकर मुसलमानों को अपनाने और उनके परिष्कार की अपील की तो यह समझना जरूरी है कि संघ और भाजपा के इस विचार पुरुष के इस मत के मायने क्या थे। दीनदयाल के जिस विचार का मोदी ने हवाला दिया है उसका सीधा मतलब यह निकलता है कि मुस्लिमों को हिंदू बनाओ। पाकिस्तान को खत्म कर दो और एक अखंड हिंदू भारत की स्थापना में लग जाओ।

दीनदयाल के लिए हिंदू राष्ट्रवाद ही भारतीय राष्ट्रवाद है। भारतीय संस्कृति का मतलब सिर्फ हिंदू संस्कृति है। मुस्लिम या तो हिंदू बन जाएं या भारत छोड़ दें।

उन मीडिया घरानों को शर्म आनी चाहिए जिन्होंने मोदी के इस बयान की तह में जाने की बजाय तथ्यों  तोड़-मरोड़ कर बनाई गई सुर्खियां पेश की। उन्होंने यह प्रचार करना शुरू कर दिया कि मुस्लिमों को अपनाने की अपील कर मोदी ने यह दिखा दिया कि बीजेपी एक राष्ट्रीय पार्टी के रूप में तेजी से परिपक्व होती जा रही है।

“अखंड भारत के मार्ग में सबसे बड़ी बाधा मुसलिम संप्रदाय की पृथकतावादी एवं अराष्ट्रीय मनोवृत्ति रही है। पाकिस्तान की सृष्टि उस मनोवृत्ति की विजय है। अखंड भारत के संबंध में शंकाशील यह मानकर चलते हैं कि मुसलमान अपनी नीति में परिवर्तन नहीं करेगा। यदि उनकी धारणा सत्य है तो फिर भारत में चार करोड़ मुसलमानों को बनाए रखना राष्ट्रहित के लिए बड़ा संकट होगा। क्या कोई कांग्रेसी यह कहेगा कि मुसलमानों को भारत से खदेड़ दिया जाए? यदि नहीं तो उन्हें भारतीय जीवन के साथ समरस करना होगा। यदि भौगोलिक दृष्टि से खंडित भारत में यह अनुभूति संभव है तो शेष भू-भाग को मिलते देर नहीं लगेगी।…

“किंतु मुसलमानों को भारतीय बनाने के अलावा हमें अपनी तीस साल पुरानी नीति बदलनी पड़ेगी। कांग्रेस ने हिंदू मुसलिम एक्य के प्रयत्न गलत आधार पर किए।…

“यदि हम एकता चाहते हैं तो भारतीय राष्ट्रीयता जो हिंदू राष्ट्रीयता है तथा भारतीय संस्कृति जो हिंदू संस्कृति है उसका दर्शन करें।.. – – दीनदयाल उपाध्याय
(पांचजन्य, अगस्त 24, 1953)

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